Darkmans (83 page)

He peered around the interior of The Commissar. He opened the dash –

Registration documents

– then felt inside all the side pouches and under the seats.

Kane snorted with frustration, clambered out of the car and went to look in the boot. He opened it up –

Please
 –

Not a…

– but the boot was empty, except for a plastic bag crammed full of rubbish, its handles neatly tied together.

Kane stared at the bag. He lifted it out. He looked around for a trashcan. There was an old metal bin in the far corner of the farmyard, its lid weighed down with a rock. He carried the bag over there. He removed the rock and then the lid. The bin was empty. He prepared to toss the bag into it, but then something suddenly struck him and he thought better of it. He carried the bag back over to the car, climbed inside, untied the knot, opened it up and slowly sifted through the contents.

Inside the bag there were sweet wrappers, biscuit wrappers, orange peel, a couple of scrunched-up old newspapers, five empty cigar boxes, a clutch of receipts (for newspapers, sweets, cigars), several empty coffee cups, about twenty used scratchcards –

What?

Kane shook his head, disapprovingly.

Approximately half-way down he struck gold –

Yes!

A lighter – an old
bic.
He grabbed it and struck it –

Nothing

He struck it again and a tiny flame emerged. He pushed his smoke between his lips and struck it for a third time –

Nothing

– then a fourth. This time it sparked and he shoved his cigarette into it, puffing maniacally –

Yes…

Yes…

No

Balls!

Kane tossed the lighter aside and recommenced his search. He winced as his hand made unwitting contact with a couple of old apple cores, then delved in still deeper –

Crisp packet

Crisp packet

Peanuts

Peanut

Crisp packet

– pulling out what he took to be a card of matches –

Yes!

– only to realise that it was actually two further scratchcards folded up together. He hissed under his breath, then noticed – with some surprise – that one of these two £5 cards hadn’t even been scratched yet. He snorted, threw them back into the bag and felt around some more until his hands discovered –

Wonder of wonders!

– another lighter. He yanked it out so enthusiastically that he tipped the bag over –

Fuck!

– and almost half of its contents fell on to his lap –

Urgh!

He struck the lighter –

Nothing

He struck it again –

Yes!

– and shoved his cigarette – inhaling frantically – into the puny flame. The cigarette took –

Thank God

Kane closed his eyes and savoured it for a moment, then opened them up, crammed all the rubbish back into the bag, retied the handles, leapt out of the car, ran over to the dustbin and tossed it in. He replaced the lid. He replaced the rock –

There

– then returned to the car.

He sat in his seat, frowning, thinking, puffing on his cigarette. Every so often he inspected his hands –

Surgeon’s hands?

Eh?!

Fuck off!

When the cigarette was almost done he stubbed it out and grabbed his phone. He switched it on –

174
messages

He quickly turned it off again. He cast the phone aside. He leaned over and picked up Beede’s brown envelope. He opened it. He pulled out the batch of photocopied papers. He stared at them, frowning. He turned to a random page and squinted at the badly reproduced script. His frown deepened. He turned to another page, then another, then another.

Kane closed his eyes, leaned forward and rested his forehead on the steering wheel, then he pulled himself together, tossed the papers on to the passenger seat, started up the engine and performed a careful three-point turn. He drove out of Peta’s smallholding, back on to Barnfield, on to Ox Lane, on to Silver Hill and the Ashford Road. As he drove, a police car, an ambulance and two fire engines overtook him. Then the traffic slowed down. Then it stopped.

Kelly was sitting at a bus-stop on a virtually grid-locked Malcolm Sargent Road, gazing poignantly at her phone.

‘Enjoyin’ the view, Kell?’ a cheery voice enquired from a short distance behind her.

She didn’t even look over.

‘Fuck off,’ she snapped, ‘for the
thousandth
bloomin’ time, just
Fuck. Right. Off.’

‘Well that ain’t a very Christian way to react,’ Garry exclaimed, shocked.

‘Huh?’

Kelly’s head spun around.

The jovial builder was removing a Missing Dog poster from a nearby lamp-post.

Kelly almost fell from her seat. ‘We was just comin’ ta find ya, Gaz,’ she tried to struggle up (but couldn’t quite manage it), ‘then the damn scooter ran out of juice an’ we got stuck here. Gaffar’s meant ta be pushin’ it to the nearest garage, but I reckon he must’ve done a
bunk
or somethin’. He’s been gone over an hour…’

‘Everythin’s totally grid-locked,’ Garry explained. ‘I was meant to be headin’ over to Cedar Wood but I couldn’t get through, so I nipped round here instead…’ he shrugged, ‘an’
now
look at it – bumper to bloody bumper.’

‘You’ve changed your coat,’ Kelly observed, surprised.

‘Uh…yeah.’

Garry’s cheeks flushed.

‘That sports jacket looks good on ya,’ Kelly mused, ‘I always said you scrubbed up all right…’

‘I just got my dog back, as it happens,’ Garry interrupted, keen to change the subject.

‘Did ya?’

‘Nan’s over the moon,’ he grinned.

‘Aw,’
Kelly cooed, ‘I always
loved
your old nanna…’

She paused. ‘I always wished she was
my
nanna…’ she paused again. ‘Although you can keep the dog, mate. That dog is fuckin’
rank…’

Garry looked hurt.

Kelly quickly turned away. ‘These two arseholes in a car was really givin’ me some gyp earlier,’ she muttered (as if hoping to justify her inexcusable brashness). ‘I tried to turn the other cheek an’ all that, but I ain’t too good at it yet…’ she grimaced. ‘In truth, Gaz, I don’t know if I’m really cut out for all this Christian palaver.’

‘Well I suppose Christians’ve always had a history of persecution, Kell,’ Garry volunteered helpfully.

‘Ya reckon?’

‘Sure. Didn’t you ever see
Gladiator?’

‘
Yeah.’
Kelly nodded, ‘I had the hots for Joaquin Phoenix.’

‘Well Russell Crowe was actually the Christian in that.’

‘Russell Crowe was?’

‘Absolutely.’

Kelly gave this some consideration. ‘So what about you, Gaz?’

‘What about me?’

‘Are you a Christian?’

‘Uh…’ Gaz shrugged, ‘I ain’t much of a church-goer, Kell, but I like to think I’m a Christian man – by nature – if that amounts to anythin’…’ he paused. ‘You know, Love thy neighbour…Do unto others
etcetera
…’

They stared at each other.

‘If you don’t mind my sayin’,’ Garry confided, ‘you’re lookin’ a little the worse for wear.’

‘Paul died,’ Kelly murmured poignantly, ‘I’ve just been sittin’ here, all on my tod, tryin’a get it straight in my head, like.’

Garry came to sit down next to her. ‘I was real sorry when I found out, Kell,’ he murmured, lacing his hands together and staring off, morosely, into the traffic. ‘I had a lot of time for that boy. I mean Jase an’ Linda could happily go
hang,’
he shrugged, ‘but you an’ Paul, well, that was an entirely different matter…’

‘I weren’t there for him, Gaz,’ Kelly lowered her head, ashamed, ‘none of us were.’

‘
Oi!
’ Garry gently reprimanded her. ‘You did what you could, Kell. You had your own shit to deal with, remember?’

Kelly didn’t respond.

He reached out and placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. ‘Paul always took everythin’ so much to heart,’ he murmured. ‘He was such a sensitive little bugger. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer – not by any means – but he weren’t stupid, neither. He just felt things more deeply than your average bloke, an’ the only way he thought he could cope was to blank it all out…’

Kelly nodded. A single tear dropped on to her lap.

They were quiet for a while.

‘So who told ya?’ Kelly finally asked. ‘About Paul, I mean?’

‘One of the nurses rang.’

Kelly frowned. She pulled away slightly. Garry dropped his arm, circumspectly.

‘
Which
nurses?’

‘From the hospital in Readin’,’ he elucidated. ‘They were a terrific bunch. Nothin’ was too much trouble for that lot…’

‘So you went up to visit?’ Kelly demanded.

‘Sure. Every few weeks,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve got an old school pal in Chertsey so it weren’t no big deal.’

Kelly stared up at him, intently. ‘You’re solid gold, you are, Gaz,’ she announced.

Garry looked away, embarrassed. Kelly sniffed and then dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand.

‘Maybe you should come an’ sit in the Dodge for a while,’ Garry suggested. ‘The heatin’ ain’t up to much but it’s cold as a witch’s tit out here.’

‘Nah. I’m fine,’ Kelly insisted, ‘I don’t wanna hold you up.’

‘You
ain’t
holdin’ me up,’ Garry grinned, exasperated. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m stuck in a 10-mile fuckin’
traffic
jam, you silly mare.’

Kelly shot him a sharp look, then immediately relented, and held out her hand. ‘Just like old times, eh?’ she muttered as he pulled her up.

They staggered over to the Dodge together. It took several minutes to manoeuvre her inside.

Once she was settled, Garry turned on the engine and switched the heating up.

Kelly cleared her throat. ‘There’s somethin’ I gotta tell ya,’ she confided, ‘now I’ve turned over a new leaf an’ all that…’

‘Oh yeah?’

Garry was trying to hunt down a spare blanket in the back.

‘Remember that bloody nose I got?’

‘Yup.’

‘Well it weren’t actually
blood,
as it happens. It was half a tin of tomato soup.’

Garry stopped his search, shocked. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Straight up. I was just a stupid, little skank, Gaz. I only did it to try’n grab your attention. ‘

‘But why, Kell?’ Garry asked, saddened. ‘You already had my attention, so far as I can recall.’

‘I guess I just wanted more of it,’ Kelly shrugged.

Garry slowly sat back down again. ‘Well I truly regret givin’ that kid a sound thrashin’ now,’ he murmured.

Kelly’s eyes widened.
‘No way!’

Garry maintained his aggrieved air for a couple of seconds longer, then chortled, delightedly, at her shocked expression.

‘Oh come
on.
That’s hardly my style, Kell!’ he snorted.

‘You runty
bastard,’
she punched him on the shoulder.

Her phone suddenly bleeped.

‘Text,’ she said, grabbing hold of it. She accessed her menu, delighted.

‘This weren’t even
workin’
five minutes ago…’

Garry rubbed his arm where she’d hit him. ‘You pack a mean punch,’ he said, ‘for such a skinny scrap.’

‘It’s from Kane,’ Kelly mused, still inspecting her phone, ‘an’ it says…’ she frowned, ‘it says
2 Corinthians 12.9.’

She glanced up, confused. ‘So what the hell’s
that
s’posed ta mean?’ Garry glanced over at her phone. ‘I dunno. It’s a Biblical quote, I guess…’

‘Where’s my Bible, Gaz?’ Kelly demanded.

‘It’s in the glove compartment…’

Garry pointed. Kelly leaned forward, with difficulty, to try and pull it open, but the lock was jammed, and she couldn’t get sufficient purchase to wrench it loose.

‘It won’t…’

Garry leaned across Kelly’s lap and yanked it open himself, but as he leaned, the pencil behind his ear slipped out and fell down between her knees.

‘Your pencil, Gaz,’ she muttered.

‘Oh.’ Garry straightened up, gazing down at her bare thighs, startled.

‘Ouch,’
Kelly squeaked, wriggling. ‘It’s fallen in between…’

She tried to retrieve it.

‘Ouch,’
she repeated, ‘it’s pokin’ into my…’

She placed her hands either side of her legs and lifted her bottom into the air. The pencil dropped down on to the seat below.

‘Would you mind just…?’ Kelly asked.

Garry tentatively slipped his hand underneath her and grabbed for the pencil, but before he could remove it, Kelly had sat back down again.

‘
Hmmn.
Lovely warm knuckles,’ she mused.

Garry rapidly yanked his hand out, horrified.

‘Well I bet that’s about as much excitement as your pencil’s seen in a while,’ she sniggered.

Garry didn’t respond, he just leaned over and grabbed her Bible from the glove compartment.

‘There you go…’

He handed it to her with an abrupt nod.

She took the Bible from him and quickly flipped it open. The pages automatically parted at the place where she’d stored her AIDS orphans article from
Maire Claire.

‘Bloody
hell,’
she suddenly gasped.

‘What?’

‘Just take a look at
that…’

She held up the book to him.

Garry frowned.

‘I tore this article from a magazine, right?’ she explained. ‘An’ I just shoved it into the Bible to keep it safe, yeah? Then Kane texts me with this quote – God only knows why – and guess where it turns out I’d stuck the article?’

‘Where?’ Garry asked (already guessing the answer).

‘Pushed between the
very
page…’

‘Uh…The very
next
page,’ Garry corrected her, inspecting it.

‘The very
next
page…’ Kelly echoed (still equally impressed). She removed the article and silently entrusted it to Garry’s care, then slowly ran her finger down the verses.

‘Here it is,’ she said, finally, ‘2 Corinthians, Chapter twelve, Verse nine…’

She cleared her throat:
‘And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’

She frowned, then read it out again,
‘And he said unto me…’

Garry held the article loosely in his hand as he listened to her. His eye rested on it, idly, as she read. But it wasn’t actually the AIDS orphans article he was staring at. It was the article on the flip-side of the page, an article about a charity dedicated to bringing solar power to Africa.

Most poor, African households (the article said) were dependent on Calor Gas for their day-to-day power needs, and this was not only ruinously expensive (thereby increasing the cycle of poverty) but environmentally unsound. The only rational way to approach energy provision in the third world (the article continued) was to exploit their greatest natural resource: the sun. By fitting solar panels to people’s homes, not only could all their energy needs be fulfilled (and virtually free of charge), but the environmental impact would be all but negligible…

‘A bit complicated,
huh?’
Kelly scowled.

‘I think what it means,’ Garry reasoned, ‘is that you don’t necessarily have to be some kind of a saint to be a good Christian. It’s sayin’ that you can sometimes learn more when you’re weak – or when you fail – because the experience of failin’ at somethin’ is what makes you into a better person…’

‘Wow.’

Kelly gazed over at him, full of admiration. ‘You always did have an amazin’ way of puttin’ things…’ she murmured.

Garry shrugged. Kelly continued to stare at him, her cheeks slightly flushed. ‘An’ I’m really sorry about before,’ she added.

‘About what?’

‘About sittin’ on your hand back then. An’ about punchin’ your arm. An’ about callin’ you a runt. I was just –
you
know – havin’ a bit of fun.’

Garry cleared his throat, nervously. ‘Don’t stress yourself out about it.’

Kelly continued to stare at him. ‘I’ll tell you somethin’ for nothin’, Gaz,’ she said, finally.

‘What?’ he peered at her, long-ways.

‘If it turns out that all this crazy stuff that’s been happenin’ to me lately was just so much pie in the sky, yeah? – just a shower of shit – then I won’t actually care. Because at the end of the day I’ll just be really chuffed – really
stoked
– that I’ve bumped into you again.’

‘But I never went anywhere, Kell,’ Garry maintained.

‘I know that,’ Kelly smiled.

Garry looked down at the article, but he didn’t focus in on it. ‘I’m thirty-two years old,’ he eventually murmured.

‘So what?’ Kelly scoffed. ‘I don’t give a flyin’ fig what age you are.’

Garry folded the article in half and tried to pass it back to her.

‘An’ I certainly hope,’ she observed, haughtily lifting her small chin, ‘that you’ll afford me the same courtesy.’

‘Yeah, well…’

Garry didn’t sound too sure on this point.

Kelly finally took the article from him, placed it back into her Bible and slapped the Bible shut.

‘Pals?’ she asked, offering him her outstretched palm.

‘So d’you reckon that heating’s workin’ yet?’ Garry suddenly enquired, leaning over to peer – with an almost bewildering intensity – into the nearest air vent.

After sitting – completely stationary – for fifteen or so minutes, Kane had been unable to resist snatching up the set of photocopied sheets again. He was especially taken by the anecdote about the fleas (‘You should have taken every flea by the neck, and then they would gape, and then you should have cast a little of the powder into every flea’s mouth, and lo you would have killed them’). It was the same anecdote – he was certain – that the young boy Fleet had told him. But where the boy might’ve actually
heard
it (when the document in his hands was almost 400 years old and only readily avaliable from the British Library) was anybody’s guess.

There was other stuff, too. Stuff he’d come across himself, stuff he’d experienced first hand – the chapter in which John Scogin was banished – for persistently tormenting the queen – and strictly commanded never to set foot on British soil again (and he’d promptly responded – with typical hubris – by journeying to France, filling his shoes with French soil, then returning, in triumph, and smartly
informing the enraged king that he wasn’t actually contravening the rules of his exile – the soil that he stood on was
French
after all).