Dead Pretty (17 page)

Julie was sobbing now, her body wracked. She punched the bed with little fists, then punched Carl's chest in a rapid staccato attack which he barely felt. She punched herself out, then she let him hold her, crushing her in his arms like he had with his children. His two were grown and doing well now, but Carl could identify with what Julie was feeling. Desperate for Mark to be okay, and hating him for getting himself into something like this. For getting them all into it.

‘Come on, love. Get washed and dressed. I'll help you pack. We want to be out of here asap.'

Carl checked outside. All was quiet, though he wasn't sure what he was looking for anyway. Two large wops, Mark said, in a gold Lexus, that was all he had to go on. There was a framed photograph of Mark and Lena on Julie's mantelpiece. Mark had given it to Julie the one time he'd brought the girl down. Carl picked it up. She was a looker all right. Had been. He saw that they were in Paris. Mark must have thought he was quids in then, working in London, exotic girlfriend. Now he was hiding out on a hillside somewhere, with rain pissing down. All he could do was make sure Julie was all right, and would stay all right.

Julie put down the phone.

‘Told Ann the secretary it was the menopause,' she said. ‘I'm bloody old enough, even if it hasn't happened yet. Mark will probably gimme a heart attack before then. ‘Julie looked out of the window. ‘Look at the bloody weather. Knowing Mark, he'll already be up there by now. He swore he'd never go back.'

‘No one could have expected anything like this to happen,' Carl said.

‘I could. I know him. He shouldn't have been doing work like that, or taken up with a girl like her. It's always gotta be different with him, but he's always ends up on the outside   in deep shit.'

‘Come on, love. Best get going.'

Carl paced around the flat while Julie got ready. His knee hurt, it usually did at this time of the year, then other parts joined it when winter set in. His body was a map of his time in the army. He put Julie's stuff in the boot of the Mercedes, checked around again, then brought her from the flat.

‘That's not him,' the big man said.

‘No, not unless he's aged twenty years,' Angelo answered.

The black Mercedes eased out of the side road, its engine practically noiseless.

‘Don't get too close now,' Angelo said. ‘Don't want to alarm this man, whoever he is.'

‘Why should we? Why should they know anything?'

‘They know. Richards has been here. They are running. We are chasing.'

Chapter Ten

There was a pub Mark knew on the other side of the hill, and securing his camp as much as possible, he decided to walk there. It might be the last chance he would get, and a lot of early memories were in that place. He took the Smith and Wesson in an inside pocket. It seemed more suitable to the terrain than the automatic. That was a city piece. Clouds raced overhead, fat and black-edged, the sun cutting through them in shafts of pale light. As a kid, in weather like this, he always thought they were guiding him. Searchlights to show him the best tracks through the forest. His forest. His sun.

Mark wished he had the eyes of a hawk, or an insect that could see behind itself. Stellachi wouldn't be the first one looking for him. He'd be the final solution man, coming only if and when needed.

The bar was almost empty. It had a valley equivalent of the elderly man in the Cardiff toilet. Old, worn, slumped over a pint that had long gone flat. There was also a middle-aged couple with London accents. Visitors, maybe even tourists. It amazed Mark that any came here, but they did, in dribs and drabs, now that the valley had been cleansed. Perhaps they were here to look at the churchyard next to the pub. It was unusual. With its crazily listing headstones clinging to twisting turf, it seemed to surf the hilly ground it was built on, its dead moved around by the mine workings underneath. Many of the graves were broken up now, some with black holes that dared you to look in. Mark had loved it there when he was a kid.

He ordered a pint from a kid barman, much too young to be stuck in this place.

‘Out for a walk, are you?' the boy asked brightly.

‘Something like that.'

‘Dried up nice, hasn't it?'

‘Yip.'

The kid wanted to talk. The English were leaving and Mark was a better bet than the old man, but Mark cut off the chat and sat in the corner. He'd always sat in the corner. The place hadn't changed much, if at all. Old-fashioned wallpaper was so faded it was hard to tell the original colour, and it was stained dark brown by generations of smoke. He'd drunk here a lot in his late teens, walking over from the estate, usually on his own, sometimes with any girl who'd dared to go out with him.

This might be his last drink and it was tinged by bitter memories, old and new, but Mark was glad he was here. It was a small comfort. There was another message on the mobile but he didn't read it. Let it wait. There was nothing he could say to Julie at the moment and he had plenty of time now. Carl would have got her away, that part had to be a success, it might be his only one.

Two thirds into the glass he read the text.
Mark, I'm worried stupid. Where are u? Get in touch   now.

He finished the pint, got another, and answered.
I'm all right. Stay with Carl at all times.

Mark drank the strong local brew and was feeling a little tipsy. He ate the only hot food on offer, a micro-waved meat pie that tasted of hot plastic. It would have revolted Lena, and almost had that effect on him. Mark felt the clash of old and new ways, but he ate it anyway. Hot food would be hard to come by now, unless he risked a fire, another thing he'd loved back then. Hunched over them in all weathers, acting out whatever fantasy was uppermost in his head at the time, always thinking of the better times that lay ahead. Sometimes Daniels was with him, sniffing and whining about the cold, anxious to be home, even if home was an even colder place.

The old geezer hobbled out, and Mark was alone in the pub. He heard a car start up, as old and as wheezy as its owner. Playing out time, Mark thought, waiting. Suddenly the thought of going out at thirty didn't seem so bad.

The kid made a fuss of wiping tables, not sure whether to approach Mark too closely. He was bored, and finally dared to engage Mark again.

‘You local? Don't think I've seen you in here before.'

‘I've been here. Not for years though.'

‘Oh. I'm not here for long. Going to college next week.'

He wanted Mark to ask where but had to supply the answer himself.

‘Only Cardiff, I'm sharing a house down there, with the boys from school.'

Mark finished the last of his pint, and licked away the slight moustache from his lips.

‘You pull a good pint,' he said, ‘for someone going to college.'

He let the kid puzzle that one out and left, walking out into the September afternoon. For him, this time of year had meant nights drawing in and more cover for his stealing. Not many of his generation had managed to get off the estate, not of their own free will anyway. Maybe it was different now. He hoped so. Even if it wasn't, Mark realised he'd rather be hunted on the mountainside than trapped back there.

This day seemed never ending. Despite being out in the open,
his
open, Mark hadn't felt like this since he had been banged up in Portland, in that young offenders place. When he'd looked out on the Dorset shoreline from his multi-bunked dorm, saw the windblown freshness of the coast outside, ached for it, and cursed himself for a fool. Like he was cursing himself now.

As Mark walked a little unsteadily along the track that fringed the mountain road, he saw the main arteries of the valley floor start to choke up. It was that time of day. Cars chased each other home up and down the valley, most of them coming up from Cardiff and the coast. Some already had their lights on, forming a flashing, linked chain he could sweep from his vantage point. He wondered if the Lexus was one of them.

He'd picked a good spot for his camp. Nothing could come at him without making a lot of noise. The undergrowth at the edge of the forestry was a mess of old stumps, and tangled, decaying wood and front-on from the edge of the trees he could see a hundred yards each way, and anything driving up the mountain road could be heard a mile off.

Mark found a log to sit on and thought again about a fire, just for this night. It would be dangerous, but he felt the need. All the old feelings were coming back. He'd never felt a kinship with people, but he did with this place. If he lost out and they buried him here, he'd be feeding it, nourishing it, becoming a permanent part of it, like the people buried in the lop-sided graveyard. Mark liked this idea, he liked it more than he was afraid of death.

Mark built the fire further into the forest and banked it all around with logs. Its glow would only be visible for a very short distance, even in the dark. The light was going and by the time the wood had caught it was well into dusk. Mark realised he didn't have a torch, so got his stuff together quickly. He opened one of the tins and spooned beans into his mouth. At least the rain had kept off, for he doubted if his makeshift shelter would be too waterproof. He'd be stinking in a few days, a larger version of Kelly. They were two peasants who'd ended up in the big city. Maybe Kelly would achieve a kind of fame amongst his own. His drinking buddies might talk about him for a while, and his star would rise with one brief glimmer. Mark raised an imaginary glass to Kelly now, but it didn't take the guilt away.

He sat close to the fire, on the stump of a tree. The evening had some nip to it. Maybe a hard winter was on the way, but it wouldn't concern him. Mark could not allow himself to see beyond the next few days. There was plenty of dead wood to keep a good flame, and it was summer-dry. It sparked and spat at him as sap bubbled from the ends of logs. Mark was entranced by the red flames, he always had been. When Julie had taken up with someone worse than usual, he'd get away like this, and, if it wasn't pissing down, he'd start a fire and sit out all night. There was a kind of comfort in it. He'd feel cleansed, and in control, and would allow small pieces of self belief to crawl into his thoughts as he watched the fire battle against the frost. When he got home, the new man was usually gone.

Mark took the Smith and Wesson from his jacket and examined it in the firelight. He knew its power now, the way it turned life in an instant, and hated it, but he was still glad it was in his hands. Its snub-nosed barrel glowed in the flames, and it felt right in his grasp. It was easy to think the gun was becoming part of him.

Mark hadn't expected Carl to tell Julie the truth. It hadn't even crossed his mind that he would. As he lay back and watched the sky turn black, he relaxed with the idea. Carl had done right. Maybe Julie would tell him about Shane now and everything would be out in the open. That would test Carl, shake him even further, but if the man was still around tonight, he always would be.

Mark watched the first stars appear. There was not much man-made light here to lessen them, just a hint of orange glow from life below. One of his earliest memories was of his mother telling him that stars were fairies lighting up the sky, as she tucked him up in bed and went back downstairs to whoever. There was also a new moon starting, just a small slice of yellow coming up over the far hillside, but enough to cast the lower slopes in the palest of light. He saw the outline of the valley he knew so well, its contours only hinted at now, but filled in by his memory.

All my old friends are coming out, Mark thought. The moon and the stars and the black night. He'd got to read his patch of sky well in his thieving years. He couldn't name anything apart from The Plough but he knew which stars winked white, yellow or red, and where the brightest ones lay in the map above his head. He'd missed this in the city. Everything was over-lit there, as if they wanted to banish night altogether.

Mark let the fire die down, had a leisurely piss at the edge of the trees, making something scuttle away in the darkness, then pushed his way into his narrow shelter. He used his jacket for a pillow but kept the rest of his clothes on. Despite the weather it was still dank on the ground, and the smell of crumbling wood was all around him. He wasn't the only animal that had watered the ground here either, he smelt the heavy mustiness of a fox that had been past recently. It might be watching the dying fire now, intrigued by this interloper and wondering if food was around. Mark needed to sleep but Lena competed with it, and he saw Julie at bay, until all images faded.

Carl's place reminded Julie of her old estate house, a good view from the window, if you looked far enough away, but crap nearby. It was about the same age too. Sixties stuff that had fallen apart all too easily.

‘I bought it off the council when I come out of the army,' Carl said. ‘Not much to look at, is it, but it's quiet enough round here. Most of the kids live on the other side. Haven't spent much time here anyway, since the missus left. I had to buy her out.'

‘You shouldn't have bothered.'

Carl wrapped himself around Julie's shoulders, as she stood in his living room, scanning the road outside.

‘If you stand on the roof you can see the sea,' Carl murmured.

‘Carl, what the hell am I going to do?'

‘What are
we
going to do, you mean.'

‘Mark's on his own out there.'

‘I'd say he's more than capable.'

‘Don't give me that man-talk rubbish, I bin hearing it all my life, and it usually ends up as an excuse for something stupid, or dangerous. Oh, he's hard all right, whatever that means, but not for stuff like this. He's not a killer, for Godsake, people shooting each other, girls getting cut up. We're ordinary people, Carl.'

Carl thought he was going to have another pummelling but Julie let him hold her. She sobbed without making any noise, her body shaking in his arms.

‘Mark had a good idea,' Carl said,' about going to Ireland. We could drive over in the morning on the ferry. There'll be plenty of space this time of year. We could lose ourselves over on that west coast for a while. No one would ever look there, Jool.'

‘Aye, but what about him, though? It's Mark they want, not us. He'll be on his own.'

‘Jool, he's on his own now, girl. We can't help him. Going to the police won't stop this   even if they did believe us, which I very much doubt.'

‘I dunno. I just dunno.'

‘Look, it's the best way to help him. He'll have one less thing to worry about. If he can keep away from these guys long enough perhaps that will end it.'

Julie turned to face him. ‘Do you really think that, Carl?'

‘Course I do. They won't be hunting for him for ever. Maybe he can skip the country then. A boy like him will always find work.'

Lying wasn't Carl's style, but it seemed to calm Julie.

‘Have you got any food here?' she murmured. ‘We might as well eat something.'

‘Aye, in the fridge.'

‘These people are poor,' Angelo said.

They were parked a few hundred yards from Carl's house. The big man had followed well, never too close, but always keeping them in sight. A skill that had taken years to perfect.

‘This is poor?' the big man answered, sweeping a hand around the estate.

‘For here, yes.'

‘We could have done with some of this poverty back home.'

‘Tony said the mother was on her own. This man complicates things.'

‘Not much.'

‘We must finish this cleanly. If the police here get involved in any way, Amsterdam will not be pleased.'

‘When are they ever? We are still ruled, just like back home.'

Angelo slapped the big man's shoulder.

‘Look at your clothes, the rings on your fingers, this car you drive. This is not like back home!'

Angelo took an untipped cigarette from a gold case and handed it to his friend.

‘That was Agani's, wasn't it?' the big man asked.

‘Twenty-two carat, made in Istanbul.'

‘Turks! Not worth pissing on.'

‘Their cigarettes are. Black Sobranie. Agani knew about fine things. Calm down, put some music on.'

The big man clumsily inserted a CD into the player. A strident Albanian band played, lots of tight strings and lamenting voices. Both men sucked on their smokes and tapped large fingers on knees. A woman passing with a pram paused and glanced at them.