Conrad Williams - Decay Inevitable

Elisabeth saw the tension in him and took his hand before he was able to act upon it. Sadie watched them, wide-eyed, her pie half-eaten and growing cold in her fingers.

“What do we do now?” he asked, weakly. Continuing their journey seemed pointless on the heels of this discovery.

“We go on,” Sadie said.

Elisabeth nodded. “How else are you going to clear your name? You have to go to Sloe Heath. Whatever it has in store for you.”

Will slumped by the foot of the tree. He couldn’t understand how he had dragged Elisabeth so far when it felt as if he no longer owned any bones, any muscles.

“We have to get going soon,” Sadie continued. “People are waking up.”

Will stayed where he was. Cat wasn’t waking up. And he doubted that he would ever wake up again. You had to go to sleep first, in order to wake up. He believed his sleeping days were over for good.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: NEW BLOOD

VERNON PICKED HIM up outside the newspaper shop on Lovely Lane. It was a cold morning. Mist saddled the railway bridge. Blocks of ochre light hung in the air where the hospital should have stood. The Shogun was the only traffic he had seen since leaving his room ten minutes earlier; he hadn’t wanted to reveal his address to Vernon.

It was as hot in the four-by-four as it was chilly in the street. A freshener hung from the rear-view mirror, filling the cab with the cloying smell of apricots. On the back seat lay Vernon’s leather coat. Peeking from beneath it was the polished tip of a baseball bat.

Vernon drove expertly through Bewsey and Dallam, flicking through the gears with fluid familiarity, never taking his eyes off the road. In his seat he leapt in and out of view as they passed beneath the orange sodium lights. Dallam recreation park was wadded with ghosts. The railway track that rose behind it was a wet, trembling line scored through the dawn sky.

“You had breakfast?” Vernon grunted.

“Yeah. Muesli.”

“Muesli. Like it. You don’t bow to convention, do you?”

“I wasn’t aware that a conventional breakfast existed.”

Vernon chuckled. He took the Shogun around the traffic island on the Winwick Road at fifty. Long Lane sucked them towards the dark streets of Orford. “Last guy helped me out was an egg and bacon man. All the time, not just for breakfast. Kev, his name was. He only ever ate egg and bacon and your usual trimmings. Thought cabbage was something you pushed around in a wheelchair.”

“Where are we going?”

“Sad case out in Grasmere Avenue. One of those little rabbit hutches with front doors filled with empty egg cartons. Tasteful, you know. Do you like Level 42?”

It was seven o’clock. Lights were going on in kitchens. Vernon swerved the Jeep around an electric milk float that bumbled into the road.

He continued: “Lynne and Gareth Morgan. They’ve got a son, Greg, who is blind. Severe learning disability, apparently. No shit, wouldn’t you?” He looked at Sean and Sean duly laughed. “Got another son, Billy. Billy the breadwinner. Dealer. Small-time. Bit of blow. Pills.

“Eighteen months ago, Lynne and Gareth had jobs. He was a taxi driver and she cleaned. They bought a car, a dishwasher, and a plasma TV on the never-never. Then they both lost their jobs. They owe fifteen grand. Hence me.”

He steered the jeep into Blackwood Crescent, killed the lights, and decelerated to a crawl.

“And the killer. The law centre they depended on for advice lost its funding and closed down. Lynne got another job but she was fired a couple days later. Fell asleep with her mop in her hand. That’s sloppy. That’s just not trying hard enough.”

“What are you going to do to them?” Sean asked, casually.

“I’m going to fuck them over with that bat and scream at them until the skin roasts off their fucking faces. That’s what I’m going to do. Whether they’ve got some money for me or not.”

“What am I here for? Moral support?”

Vernon laughed out loud. “You’re here to look out for the filth. And keep me covered. Not the man I used to be. People run, I can’t always catch them. You can though. You be my legs.”

Vernon braked sharply across the road from a series of flats with tiny windows. His eyes were fast upon them. To Sean, it seemed that Vernon was almost meditating, drinking in the shabby detail of the brickwork, the peeling paint on the window-frames, the gaps in the slates.

“Pass me my jacket please, Sean,” he said. His voice was level and business-like. “And wrap your mitts around that fucking bat.”

They walked across the road. Vernon pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and relieved Sean of the weapon.

Vernon said, “Round the back, son. Give us two whistles when you’re in position, then when you hear me bash the door in, close on the back door. Slippery as shitty eels, these bastards. Don’t let anyone out.”

Sean gave his signal when he had found the corresponding rear gate. The alleyway was filled with sagging sofas and bin bags. He gritted his teeth against the unpleasantness that must be about to ensue. As much as his instinct told him to back off, he knew he must not fail in this task, if he was to get close to Vernon and understand what lay behind the door of the house in the country and what, if any, link to Naomi these men had.

The sound of the door impacting was swiftly followed by the bark of a dog that ended almost as quickly with a shout and a series of pathetic whines. Vernon was quick. But evidently not quick enough. Sean watched a rear window swing open and a leg clamber out. The yelling inside the house diminished until it was Vernon’s voice that was dominant. Sean couldn’t tell what he was saying. The hooded figure hopped down off the kitchen extension and Sean said: “Hey.”

The kid took off without checking to see who had hailed him. Sean kept pace easily, even though this area was more familiar to his quarry. He thought he heard Vernon’s Shogun roar into life, but then they had rounded a corner and there was wind in his ears, and the grey, hooded figure was sprinting across a small square.

At a row of pebble-dashed garages, the kid jinked right and pounded over a narrow field. Progress for the both of them was hampered by hard furrows of soil. Ahead lay a thin wood. Around the wood sprawled building sites in various stages of development: new, cheap housing estates. The houses looked as though they had just been bombed.

Sean knew he must catch the kid before he reached the leading edge of trees or he would be lost, either to the undergrowth or the many hiding places available in the infant estate. He pushed himself to go faster over the awkward terrain, trying to measure his pace so that he could use the ridges to propel himself. He tried to imagine that the fleeing figure was responsible for something more than a missed payment. Maybe he was. He might be guilty of kicking cats or bullying kids on his estate. He might steal money from his grandmother’s purse. It helped.

Sean caught up with him as he attempted to climb through the windowless frame of a partially finished wall, grabbing hold of the loose cloth of his top. The kid was trying to shrug his way out of the garment. Sean hooked his hand underneath his quarry’s arm and drove the limb up his back. In this way the kid was forced to the floor, swearing and screaming that he should be let loose.

Now Sean did hear the Shogun’s engine. He lifted his head and saw the four-by-four jouncing across the rutted field towards them.

“What does he want from you?” Sean asked quickly.

“You fucking what? You fucking know exactly–”

“ How much? ” Sean cut in, plying the arm with a little pressure. The kid’s face, now free of his hood, turned pale. He sucked in breath. Sean smelled weed on him, and chocolate. He sported a feeble moustache that seemed to be glued above lips that were too wet and pink to belong to a human being, especially as the rest of his skin was so white. His eye sockets were almost round and the lids made no appearance unless he was blinking, which he was doing now. A lot. He screwed his face up with incomprehension.