Dead Pretty (16 page)

Mark was close to his old stamping ground now. He got off at the last stop, went across the street to the nearest store and bought a small amount of extra supplies, then he shouldered his load and started to walk. There were quite a few people about, and one man gave him a long stare from the other side of the road. He might have been someone from the estate but Mark didn't recognise him. His one friend was long dead, and he'd blanked everyone else out in the last ten years.

Despite his time in the city he was still good a good walker. Long, even strides that soaked up distance quickly. He was on the hillside in minutes. He'd almost forgotten how close it was, the way open country took over so quickly here, the built-up areas nestled on the valley floor, terracing hanging onto the lower slopes, as if gnawing at nature, then throwing it back out. In all his years of ducking and diving on the hillside he'd met very few people, and those he did were always old, out with their dogs. No one his age. Legs for the young had gone out of fashion.

Mark was on the edge of forestry now, regulation conifers planted twenty years ago. They were well grown and offered plenty of cover, and he knew from the old days they would be quite dry at their heart. Like a natural tent. The valley was showing its two faces at once. On the far hillside sunlight picked out the trees and bracken already starting to brown, on his side the wind drove fine rain into his face.

Mark had kept to the hill road so far, but now cut across country. Another twenty minutes' walk and he could see his old estate. You could hardly miss it, it was a modern day hill fort, rows of housing trying to blend in with the contours of the hilltop. Multiple roofs caught the light and flashed him a salute but there was something missing. It took him a while to realise that some of the houses were gone, rows of them had been removed. They must have tried to sort the place out, Mark thought, cut out the bad bits, like rot from an apple. The old Richards house was still there, and Mark wasn't sure if he was glad or sorry.

He'd camp near here, close by old nightmares, and let them merge with the new. They'd find out about this place if they didn't know already. Stellachi might be piecing it all together right now, but Mark knew nothing about him, or Romania for that matter. What he did know was that their backgrounds would be similar, at least in terms of the shit doled out to them. He'd robbed a teacher's house once, a history guy, and had taken some of his books home to keep. A first. Lots of pictures of the old days in the valley and one about famous generals. He was into war then, and even tried to read some of the words, something he'd avoided in school. He read about the way different leaders kept photographs of their opponents, trying to see into their minds, guess their moves. He hadn't got it at the time but did now. Keeping that one Italian image of Stellachi clear in his thoughts would keep his own mind focused. Mark had hate on his side, killing Agani didn't take it away, it just stirred the pot. Stellachi was the enemy general and Angelo and the big man his foot soldiers, cannon fodder that Stellachi might use to draw him out.

Mark looked around for a likely spot to camp, just far enough inside the forestry for cover, but not so his field of vision would be obscured. As he entered the forest everything came back to him. The smell first. He'd loved September, the heady smells of decay as the land prepared for the cold, the crisp air of darkening evenings ready to welcome him to a new season of crime. Large chunks of his early life had been lived here, away from the stone-clad pain that lay below. Mark's childhood memories were laced with it. He'd built up an intimate knowledge of each changing month, becoming a homespun weatherman, botanist and birdman. He could name very few birds, but he knew them all and how they went about things. When his life boiled down on the estate, here all had been calm, life had an order it kept to and he'd felt he was part of it. There were no people.

The smoke of garden fires was drifting up the hillside from the terraces. Thoughts of Lena mixed with this earliest of all childhood smells. If he lived through this Mark wondered if he would always look back with such clarity as he did now. His light mood when he turned the key in the flat door that last time, eager to see her, more so than usual. Thinking he had a future at last, that his feelings which had twisted all ways in his life, had a focus now. It had always been just him, lying to himself that this was the best course, all that he needed. Letting his early life rule him, keeping him hopeless, lost and arrogant in his despair. Lena gave him a new life, or he thought she had. Then it was gone. Mark's eyes welled up for the third time since Friday. It would be the last time, he determined, until all this was over.

It was right that he was here, where it all began for him. If they came for him, it was the best place to succeed, or go down. If it was the latter, they'd probably bury him up here somewhere, and that was right too.

Mark realised he was close to the spot where he used to hide some of the loot from the houses. It had been safer here than in his own house. He'd let it build up until the man came up from Cardiff in his fancy car. Then the money he received would go under the floorboards of his bedroom, where it stayed most of the winter, like some hibernating animal, growing all the time. He'd been the richest kid on the estate.

Mark walked a little further into the trees. His footfall was muffled by layers of old leaves and pine needles. He was treading on a soft and lifeless carpet. Mark remembered there were the remains of a farmhouse close by, long since abandoned to the forestry. He found it. Its walls were still a few feet high, but part of nature now, moss and lichen covered, so that they seemed to be growing from the earth. A stone plant. He put his sack at the right angle of two walls, and stretched the waterproof sheet over a few sticks to make a narrow, makeshift shelter, room enough to slide in his sleeping bag and not much else. He cut down some of the last green bracken and pushed it inside to soften the ground. His hideout was quite well camouflaged, and would be hard to spot, unless someone entered the trees at this precise spot.

Mark was ten metres inside the forestry, it was a good vantage point. He swept the valley with the binoculars, and all the old haunts jumped out at him. He noted the scattering of new buildings, small developments that had sprung up where the old industries used to be. The valley looked cleaner, but less lively.

It was still only midday, yet it felt like much later. Mark turned his mobile on. He'd always hated them, much to Lena's amusement. He hated the way they wrested control from the user, the way he was at the beck and call of voices and messages, wherever he was. He hated the way people couldn't live without them, when they always had before, and most of all, he hated the fact that he was one of those people. The agency had insisted he had one. Lena too.

There was a message. Julie on the voice mail. He listened to her message, expecting anything. It was the voice he'd grown up with: tense, a little shrill, panic and anger shaping it in equal doses.

Mark, Carl's told me everything. I can hardly believe it, even with you. I knew something was up as soon as I saw you, I bloody knew it. But nothing like this.

I wanna go to the police but Carl says no. My head's going round. Can't think. Carl's made me phone in sick. I'm going down his place. Phone me. Please, Mark, please.

Well done, Carl, for getting her away. Top man. Mark was surprised he'd told her though, maybe Carl wasn't any good at lying. He texted Julie. It wouldn't be a good idea to talk to her. Angelo could wait.

Mam, try not to get in a state. You're in safe hands with Carl. He's sound, like I said. No problems with me, either. I'm OK, and I plan to stay OK. Sorry for this mess.

It was pathetic, and wouldn't reassure her for more than a few seconds, but it was the best he could do for now. At least he didn't say
it's not my fault.

Mark leaned against a tree trunk and let the sun strike his face. It had warmed to modest autumn heat now, hot enough to soothe. He'd got to first base with his plan, he was here, and as ready as he'd ever be. Even Angelo and his friends would have to work hard to find him and they'd have to spend a lot of time. Maybe they'd think he wasn't worth it, and give up. Maybe pigs could fly to the moon.

He must have dozed for twenty minutes, and woke with his face burning. At first he didn't know where he was, he almost expected to find Daniels next to him, out of it on a flagon of cheap cider. The phone was still on. He rubbed his eyes, stepped back into the shadows, and read Angelo's text. It reminded him of his spelling at school, and the class they put him in.

We are cumin. We now where you are. Why don we meet? Finish this like men.

Ah, you mean you only have a rough idea, pal, Mark thought, and when Julie isn't where you expect her to be you'll be well fucked. He didn't answer it, but he might later.

*

Why did things turn upside down whenever Mark was involved? It was the first thing Julie asked herself. She prayed he hadn't done anything to that Lena; he'd never been violent to girls before. Carl had been unsettled all night. He couldn't keep still, and got up for a smoke several times. Maybe Mark had upset him. Her son usually had that effect on people, sometimes without even trying, but the two men had seemed to get on. She'd been so happy to see him, standing tall and healthy in the doorway, even if he did look really tired. She was proud too. Glad to show her fit son off to Carl, two big, capable men together. Big, capable, they were new words to her, runt and waster were the old ones. Men who flitted from nest to nest, pouring all their money down their throats and sometimes into their arms. The good old days.

It was almost seven in the morning when Carl came back into the bedroom.

‘You all right, love?' Julie murmured. ‘You're awful restless. Mark hasn't said nothing, has he?'

‘No. Well, yes, in a way.'

‘I bloody knew it. You've had a row, haven't you? What's happened?'

‘Nothing. No, it's all right between us.'

‘What's the problem then?'

Carl had been thinking of something to say for the last ten hours, ridiculous things that would never wash with Julie, but was the truth any less ridiculous? Mark had breezed in and brought a horror film with him. If it was true. That had also crossed Carl's mind. Maybe Mark was some kind of freak who lived in a fantasy world. His mother hadn't said much about the past, but enough for him to know that things had been difficult, very difficult. No, Carl believed what Mark had said. He'd learnt enough about men in the army to be sure of that. A part of him wanted to get out now. After a divorce that had spluttered and sparked in his head for the last three years he didn't need this. He could tell himself it wasn't his business. Tell Julie to phone the police and clear off, but that wasn't his style, and she was worth more than that. Even after a short time Carl was sure of this. They had connected. Julie was rough around the edges all right but there was something real about her he liked. He hadn't trusted his ex for years, but this one he felt he could, and, if he was honest, what Mark had told him had been as exciting as it was shocking. He felt a bit like he had when he'd fixed his pack before walking over the Falklands hillsides. The metal of his rifle so cold in his hand it almost took the skin off, wind and rain whipping down off the heights to batter his unit. Frightened, but every sense on full alert, stretched and alive, making him feel so necessary, and that everything in his life was coming together for this moment. That was more than twenty years ago. He was still quite fit, but far from young.

‘I'm waiting,' Julie said.

‘I want you to phone in sick today. I want you to come down to my place for a while.'

‘Jesus, he
has
done something, hasn't he?'

‘Well, it's complicated.'

‘Aye, it always is.'

Carl sat on the edge of the bed and reached out for Julie. She was sitting up now, wide awake and she knocked his hand away.

‘Tell me, Carl, for God's sake.'

Carl did tell her. It was an instant decision. Anything other than the truth would have been impossible, and he knew he would have to tell her sometime. Better now, than in the wake of Mark's death. He was interrupted every other sentence by Julie's disbelief, anger, then fear. Fear turned to resignation as tears blocked her words. Carl felt so sorry for her. She was small anyway, but now Julie seemed to diminish further. She hugged the bedsheets like a child and moaned to herself.

‘This can't be happening to me,' she murmured, ‘not again.'

‘What?'

‘We must have done something awful bad to be punished like this,' Julie said, her voice cracked now. ‘I thought Shane was it, I thought we'd reached the bottom then, but we haven't.'

‘Shane?'

‘I don' want to talk about it. Something long ago.'

Carl knew better than to push this. Shane was obviously a guy from her past, Maybe Mark's father.

‘We'll be all right, Jool,' Carl said. ‘You'll be safe with me.'

‘Will I? And what about Mark? What chance does he have? I'm gonna phone him on his mobile. Tell him to turn himself in. You should have done that yourself. It's the only way he can keep alive.'

‘I did think of it, but Mark isn't built that way. And I think he was trying to protect you, Jool, not just from those bastards, but from the media, all that shit. The police don't know anything yet, and Mark wants to keep it that way.'

‘So wha's he going to bloody do? Shoot it out on the hillside, like kids playing fucking cowboys?'

Just about right, Carl thought to himself. Men
are
kids. Especially when at their most destructive. And life is always a game, he'd learnt that much, though Mark's games didn't take place in any playground.