Out of Darkness – part 3

St Fillan’s Cave

Pansies had been planted in hanging baskets and the Christian cross was wrought in the ironwork along with a saint’s name written in Gaelic. Bishop fidgeted in the folds of his jacket, found a length of parcel string and tugged it. He drew out a long rusting skeleton key and rattled around in the lock, opening the gate with a squeal.

He flicked a switch inside the door and told Spencer to mind the slippery steps. When they stepped inside Spencer could no longer hear the wind or the sea crashing against the jagged rocks beyond the harbour. The cave sounded like a seashell clamped to the ear.

‘Where is it?’ Spencer hissed. He held a revolver at waist height, taking no chances in the damp gloom of the cave.

‘You know why he wanted the job done, don’t you?’ Bishop said. ‘He was tying us to him. We’d lose our lives the moment we did that job. He’d have owned us.’

‘I’ve been running for seven years!’ Spencer pointed the revolver at Bishop’s head. His finger was damp on the trigger.

‘You got your life back,’ Bishop said.

‘Yeah, I spend my days stacking grow-bags.’

Bishop nodded at the revolver. ‘They all know you’re here.’

The lights dipped and buzzed. The ceiling glistened silver with damp and cobwebs.

‘Made some friends, have you?’

‘I’ve helped people. We’re a community.’

‘Where is it?’ Spencer said.

‘I’ve told you: it’s all around you. Money is life-changing in the right hands.’

Spencer lowered the revolver, pointing at Bishop’s heart.

‘You know I wound up here starving, eating scraps from the bin and one of the skippers made me a fry-up. I never forgot that, so I take care of our saint.’

Spencer spat into the dust.

‘Haven’t you realised it’s all gone? It doesn’t matter what you do to me.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘They don’t accept charity. When Paula and Bob’s lad needed treatment they got the fund going with two grand left on their doorstep. Tucked away, it was, under a loose tile.’

Spencer rubbed his forehead.

‘Where do you think the two grand came from?’

A vein throbbed in Spencer’s neck.

‘Peter Mac needed kit for his boat. Peter gave me that job on the trawler. I had the kit delivered, left on the quayside so he’d find it first thing.’

Blood roared in Spencer’s ears. He twisted his neck, clunking the vertebrae into place.

‘I had to change my name because of you. I had to start a new life.’

Bishop stepped back into the darkness, raising his palms.

‘Our saint was carried across the sea by a terrible storm. He could have washed up anywhere, but he didn’t.’

Spencer blinked, adjusting his eyes to the gloom. The switch clicked and the cave was in darkness. He stumbled back, soles sounding like a striking match on the cave floor.

‘It was God’s will you see. He was frightened and tired and he sought shelter in this cave and prayed to God for guidance. After eleven days he stepped from the darkness into the light.’

Spencer felt for the wall of the cave.

‘I came here lost and frightened,’ Bishop said. ‘I spent eleven days in the cave praying. I drank rainwater and sought forgiveness.’

Spencer edged along the wall, feeling the cold touch of iron against his elbow. He tugged the gate, but it had been shut behind him. He sensed movement in the gloom. A giant chain had been wrapped around the bars, clamped in place with a padlock. His first thought was to shoot the lock, but his hands grabbed at his wrists and cotton was pressed to his mouth. Spencer’s eyes stung and his grip on the bars weakened. He slumped to the floor of the cave, cheek pressed against the cool stone and tongue lolling in the dust.

When Spencer woke he was groggy. Shards of light prickled at the edge of his vision. A shaft of sunlight poked from high above the pan-tiled roofs of the harbour. Spencer shivered, wrapping his jacket tight about him. He shouted for help until his throat was hoarse. He patted his jacket, but his watch and his phone had been taken.

He slumped against the bars, head in his hands. The shaft of sunlight caught a white fleck on the cave wall. Spencer crouched to stare at it. Words Spencer had seen before were written in chalk on the wall:

Out of darkness cometh light

 

Out of Darkness – part 2

Fife beach

Three hours later Spencer pulled up outside a minimart selling crabbing nets and buckets and spades. The sky was gunmetal and a stiff wind had the trees and hedgerows bowing as if in prayer. There were floats and snorkels for sale, but they should have been handing out medals for paddling. A copper bell jangled when Spencer pushed through the door. A Sikh in a faded tracksuit top was leaning on the counter, elbows hemmed in with starred special offers, scanning the Daily Record. He looked Spencer up and down. Mr Blue Sky was playing on a tinny transistor.

‘You got any hot food?’ Spencer said.

If you wanted information you usually had to pay for it. The shopkeeper lifted the lid on a glass cabinet of pies in foil trays. They were the type you used to see in comics, with a thick wall of crust and a steaming hole in the middle. Spencer nodded pointing to a steak and kidney he’d no intention of eating.

‘Seems quiet,’ he said.

‘You’re not a reporter, are you?’

Spencer snorted. ‘I’ve told lies, but I don’t make a living from it.’

Spencer walked the narrow aisles, chucking digestives, chocolate and milkshakes into his basket.

‘Is Harry still around?’ Spencer said.

‘Harry who?’

‘Harry Bishop,’ Spencer said, doubting Bishop still went by his old name.

The shopkeeper stared at him. Spencer paid him, hurrying out into the night. He probed the pastry with a fingertip. It was cold and lay in folds over the steaming gravy. He left it on a wall and watched the gulls swoop in. He followed the road down to the harbour, the steep slope lengthening his stride and forcing him to a slow jog. He sat on the harbour wall, clocking the surroundings he’d witnessed on the TV. The cottages were painted pastel shades. Lobster pots were stacked on the flagstones. A gleaming Mercedes was parked tight against the front of the fish restaurant.

Spencer was licking a cigarette paper, tapping the last of the tobacco from his tin, when he heard laughter. He ducked into an alley as Bishop turned the corner, waving a hand. Bishop was whistling ‘Dixie’ without a care in the world when Spencer stepped out, legs astride, blocking the alley. Bishop had a carrier bag with the minimart on it. He didn’t look surprised to see Spencer. He waggled a mobile phone between his fingers.

‘Jot called and told me someone had been asking,’ he said.

Jot meaning the manager of the minimart.

‘We need to talk,’ Spencer said.

Bishop shrugged. ‘So talk.’

Rain slanted in from the sea soaking lines of overalls pegged out to dry.

‘It’s always like this,’ Bishop said.

He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of a hand. His palms were cracked, rimed with dirt like the folds of an ancient map. Spencer toenails dug into his soles.

‘OK, let’s not piss about. Where’s the money, Harry?’

Bishop fiddled with his beard. ‘I knew you’d come, you know.’

‘Where’s the money?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t give up. How long’s it been?’

Bishop told Spencer to follow him. Spencer stayed a few strides back, cautious as they climbed between fishermen’s cottages on a steep, winding alley. Rainwater rushed in gullies each side of the path.

‘We can talk in here,’ Bishop said, pointing to a cleft in the rock. It was surrounded by cottages and yards piled high with rusting machine parts and fishing nets. A cast iron gate guarded the entrance.

‘You live in a cave?’

Spencer gnawed at his cheek, nipping a fold of skin and tasting coppery blood. Men with serious money in the bank didn’t wear battered coats and live in damp caves.

‘I’m the custodian,’ Bishop said.

Out of Darkness – a short story – part 1

Out of Darkness 

seawall

His head was obscured by a black felt hat, but Spencer would know that walk anywhere. Seven years had passed and he’d all but given up hope when Bishop strolled across the cobbles.

Spencer’s life changed on a grey, wet Monday that had promised little more than a stolen early finish. He was at work at a garden centre called Brambles, providing intensive care for wilting delphiniums. The weekends were busiest, when the coffin-dodgers came out for a jam scone and a pot of Earl Grey, but Mondays were deadly quiet. So when Dennis the duty manager slunk off early Spencer shrugged on his raincoat. Sometimes he just had to get out, to escape the bloody trellises and the hanging baskets, the incessant panpipe music.

He’d no money for the pub but had a couple of cans of Kestrel chilling in the fridge. He slumped in his chair and popped one, while kicking off his shoes. His white sports socks were lined with peat at the laces, his big toes poking through the perished cotton. He lit a roll-up, drew the smoke deep into his lungs and punched on the TV. The remote was bust, so Spencer had a length of dowelling rod he jabbed at the buttons on the set. A news reporter was pointing at a harbour. His bouffant hair was caught in the wind like chimney smoke in a child’s drawing.

It was May, but everyone was buttoned up in scarves, despite the sunshine. Typical bloody British seaside, Spencer thought. He’d suffered daytrips as a kid, queuing for burgers and candy floss in the rain or slipping two pence pieces into the shuffling shelf that never spilled the jackpot. The reporter was pointing to a strip of pebbly beach where a swan had been washed up. The caption read: Fife, Scotland, unconfirmed reports of bird flu  

He was prodding the buttons and missing, in search of sport, when a familiar figure on the screen made him freeze. Spencer leapt from the chair, cranking the volume up. The set crackled and Mrs Pool next door started thumping the wall.

An unkempt figure in a wide-brimmed hat trailed a battered raincoat across the cobbles. Spencer couldn’t see beyond the straggly beard, the creased raincoat or the greasy hat. He held a white sandwich board. ‘Out of darkness’ was daubed in black paint. At a glance he was your typical lunatic street preacher, but there was no doubting it was Bishop.

‘I knew you were out there,’ Spencer said.

He glugged back the lager till it fizzed in his nostrils.

 

The job had been three months in planning, though Spencer would never admit it had taken him that long to work up to it. He’d never killed anyone. He guessed it was like losing your virginity: you could bluff and bullshit the ignorant, but those who’d taken a life saw the lie in your eyes.

They’d taken five grand upfront with a further twenty to follow. They met Mr Jervis at Stafford services, a little past nine on a bitter January night. Hoar frost sparkled in the fields and Spencer’s breath rose in plumes. He nursed a machine coffee, speckled with tasteless chocolate, while Bishop paced the corridor, fiddling in his pockets, rattling change. Mr Jervis didn’t eat or drink, but twisted and folded a serviette tracing sharp lines with a manicured thumbnail. He told them that Blake would have to be killed. He would require a photograph. Did he not trust them to finish the job, Bishop asked. Mr Jervis said no, he wanted the photo so a death mask could be made of Blake. Bishop asked for a reason to do it. Because we’re getting paid, Spencer snapped. Mr Jervis scratched the corner of his mouth. The hairs on his fingers were thick and wiry as steel wool.

‘Do you need a reason?’ he said.

Bishop was tearing sachets of sugar, piling the crystals with the heel of his hand.

‘Would it make you feel better about killing him if I told you he likes little boys?’

Bishop frowned. ‘Does he?’

‘If you like,’ Mr Jervis said.

Spencer kicked Bishop’s filthy tennis shoes under the table. No more questions, he mouthed. Mr Jervis slid a photo across the table. Blake was leaning on a doorframe smoking, squinting up at the sun. A slab of fat hung over his trousers, each shirt button straining over a low-strung belt.

‘Plenty to aim at,’ Bishop said, grinning.

Spencer hated him and his threadbare show of confidence.

He had no idea why Bishop had chosen Fife. He’d checked Bishop’s friends and his family, his known contacts, the blokes he’d done time with. He’d chased leads in London and Spain, kipping on mate’s sofas, but always running from Mr Jervis’s people. Nothing led to Bishop until now.

He pulled into a tight space, blinking away the ghosts of taillights and broken white lines. The services were empty. Eggs and sausage patties were warming on hot plates. A cleaner in a brown check tabard was mopping S’s across the floor. Spencer ordered coffee and a bacon roll and took a seat in the corner, ignoring a sign that said, ‘Area Closed.’ He took out a map of Scotland and smoothed it flat on the table, weighing it down with his mug and cutlery. Golf and fishing Spencer thought, staring at Fife. He doubted Bishop had any idea about either. Bishop had always preferred a claw hammer to a four iron.

 

The End of the Road – part 2

Porth Dafarch

Clem tossed the case, winding me. I opened it while he lit up. I wiped my palm on my thigh and reached inside. There was no money, just an envelope.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know anything about-’

Clem was pointing a gun at me. I took a step back as he climbed out of the grave. I raised my hands.

‘It’s Franks, isn’t it?’ he said.

My heart pounded. There was a roaring in my ears.

‘I didn’t do this,’ I said.

Clem waved the gun at me. ‘Read it.’

‘Who’s Franks?’ I said.

Clem smiled, picking at his teeth. He waved me into the coffin. He shoved me, kneeing me in the back. I stumbled in jarring my knee on the lid. I’d dropped the envelope, so he scooped it up and tossed it into the coffin. I opened it, fumbling.

‘Read it Franks. Read the letter.’

I read the words aloud.

There’s always a debt to be paid. Did you not think we’d find you?

‘I’m not Franks,’ I said. ‘Look, if this is one of Crawford’s wind-ups-’

My guts tightened. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking-’

He squeezed the trigger and shot me in the chest. There was a searing heat. He stood over me as I lay gasping, blood bubbling in my throat. He grinned and fired a shot into my head.

********

When I was dead Clem sat at my graveside smoking. He flicked the butts at my corpse and pulled a note from his pocket. He squinted at it taking time to understand. He climbed down to tug at my shirt. The sleeve was drenched in blood. Clem tore it free with his sheath knife and poured water from a flask, sluicing the blood away. On my bicep there was a mole. There should have been a tattoo that said Sharon, but there wasn’t, because I wasn’t Gerald Franks.

Clem dusted the soil from his hands and lit another cigarette. He buried me, stamping down the peat and throwing what he couldn’t flatten into the nettles. He tossed the gravel on top, levelling it with his boots. Finally he sat against my grave, lit up, and got to wondering who he’d killed.

The End of the Road – part 1

The End of the Road

Chapel door

The road was hemmed in by thick dry-stone walls tangled in ivy. Half-bricks and smashed tiles were embedded in the rutted track. Clem belched and I tried not to breathe. The heater was stuck on, blowing scorched dust through the vents.

‘You don’t know where we’re going.’

Rain was threatening. We hadn’t much daylight.

‘Not a bloody clue.’

I dug my nails into the steering wheel. Clem was sucking Coke through a straw, poking and rattling the ice cubes in the paper cup.

‘You finished?’ I said.

We’d driven another half hour in silence when I spotted the turning. I couldn’t say the name. I had to check the letters against the ones I’d scribbled on the fag packet. Clem stared out wild-eyed. He was looking at the crooked hawthorns.

‘They’re all facing one way.’

‘It’s the wind,’ I said.

Clem shook his head. ‘They’re praying.’

I scanned the fields for the chapel. We passed standing stones and a burnt-out car. Someone had left a slashed mattress at the roadside. I had to change down into first as bricks and fist-sized pebbles bumped the tyres and wrestling the steering.

‘You’re lost.’

Clem wound down the window and hawked.  ‘I haven’t come this far for sightseeing.’

We crawled on, the engine choking in first. There was a dog-leg between banks of gorse. It was so narrow you could reach out and touch the stones.

‘You’ve got us lost.’ Clem spat. He got out and slammed the door, shaking the van. I climbed onto the dry-stone wall. There, beyond the gorse and the sheep, was the little stone chapel.

*******

Ezekiel Thomas Roberts, d. June 14, 1887

Clem started hopping from tomb to tomb. I started by the gate and took a line at a time, ignoring the modern-looking shiny marble for the weathered stones. The wind had scorched the names and dates from the ones facing west.

‘Whose idea was this?’

‘The man who’s paying you,’ I said.

In the corner of the churchyard I saw a lone grave beyond a patch of nettles.

‘It’s here. Bring your spade.’

Clem bounded over, crunching through gravel and dead flowers. Clem began to scrape away the gravel. I took out the tarpaulin and stretched it out on the grass. Clem shovelled gravel onto it. Soon he’d scraped away to a layer of peat. Clem lit another cigarette as the light began to fade. Clem took the last drag of his cigarette and cut into the earth, stamping the spade deep with his heel. I kept watch on the lane.

‘Nice work,’ I said.

Clem was three feet deep. He gave me a withering look. I took a wander to check the farm. The few cottages back along the lane were in darkness. The shadows fell longer from the yew and the hawthorn. I don’t mind saying I quickened my step.

Clem greeted me with a sneer, muttering something about finding a pub. He wiped the sweat from his brow and smeared peat across his cheek. He lit a cigarette, watching me all the time. I glanced at my watch. He jigged his feet, scuffing the wood beneath, doing a little stamp on the coffin. I fetched the tool bag and dropped it onto the coffin lid.

‘Let’s get on, eh?’

Clem got to his knees, unscrewed and cracked the lid. He lifted it and soil slid into the darkness.

‘That better be packed with cash,’ Clem said.

A small, battered leather case like a school satchel sat in the bottom of the coffin.

‘Did you know about this?’

I shook my head slowly. Clem took the case and began to unfasten the buckle.

‘No,’ I said, holding out a hand, ‘Mr Crawford wants me to do that.’

‘Suit yourself.’

The Debt He Carried

The Debt He Carried 

The Debt he Paid

The following story was published by Notes from the Underground.

No one knew Archie’s real name. No one knew when he’d washed up: his words, not mine. He told me once the Underground was like a spin cycle that spat you out. People like Archie tottered into the Tube seeking warmth and upholstery. Sooner or later they got chucked out and staggered the handful of yards to abandoned shop doorways or empty stairwells. He gave a different alias for each arrest. He preferred 60s film stars and singers. We’d had Archie Bennett, Archie Martin and Archie Curtis. I don’t know why he bothered. For the dozen or so years Archie roamed the streets we all knew him well enough.

I slumped against the railings. I was finishing a run of eight nights and a late turn football duty. I had a hangover head I couldn’t shake. Trouble was, I couldn’t sleep; never could sleep on nights. I couldn’t escape the rumble of traffic, the shouts of school kids and slamming of doors. Worst of all nights got to my guts. I couldn’t eat right. Cornflakes and cold milk sloshed in my belly at teatime and pie and mash sank like ballast at breakfast. I read somewhere nights took years off your life.

Fish brought me a coffee. Fish was a probationer called Peter Salmon. He had a pencil-neck and persistent shaving rash. Fish had ambitions in firearms, but I doubted he’d tough it out. He’d no presence and his biceps were like knots in cotton. Fish’s biggest issue – and a serious one for a copper – was he couldn’t stand death. When there was a body Fish was happiest fetching the coffees. His eyelid trembled when duties were doled out. You got to spot the little signs. I’d give him time, but not much. I wouldn’t be doing him a favour in hiding him.

‘You OK, Skip?’ Fish said.

Now Fish was worried about me. I fixed another hand on my coffee to steady it. My left was shaking, sending ripples across the surface. Fish probably thought I had the DTs. I nodded.

‘Just fine,’ I said.

My mouth tasted sour and metallic, like the cheap brown sauce they gave you in the canteen. I blew the surface, letting the steam warm my face. It was a bitterly cold February morning, but a blinding winter sun was shining from the pavements, windscreens and office blocks. Sour sweat and scorched dust drifted up from the Underground.

‘Have they taken him away yet?’

Fish frowned, puzzled. I stared till he got my meaning. He gripped the railing at the pedestrian crossing and craned his neck to see where Archie lay, among the crushed crisp boxes and greasy, scrunched up burger wrappers.

‘Go and see,’ I said.

Fish had bought a pair of black military-style boots. His skinny legs and heavy-soled boots made him look like a golf club. Fish took a step closer, still holding the rail, like a man afraid of heights skirting a cliff edge.

Archie was slumped in the doorway of a clothes shop. His legs were splayed out and one boot was off. Archie’s big toe poked from a grimy red football sock. His nicotine-stained hands were palm down on his thighs. He was propped against a nest of broken boxes, chip trays and windblown pizza leaflets to spare his shoulders the hard contours of the shop door. He’d frozen to death, clutching a Styrofoam cup of milky coffee turned to a disc of ice. A night’s shelter, or even a blanket, would have kept him alive. In the shop window was a rack of £2,000 winter coats.

Archie must’ve arrived about the same time as me. He’d stumbled off a sleeper at King’s Cross or Euston, blind-drunk and shaking his fist and scowling. Perhaps I’d stepped off the same train on my first day. I remembered making my way through a dripping, bald London square to be measured for my uniform. Archie brought what he stood in: a crumpled nylon shirt, filthy grey slacks and a golf sweater unravelling at the cuffs. I was issued eight shirts, four pairs of trousers and a tunic I never wore, except for court. My tie was clip-on, so no one could throttle me. I spent my evenings bulling a shine to my toecaps with cotton wool and water. Archie went in search of drink and redemption. We both started new lives that day.

I don’t know how Archie washed up on my beat, but suppose he had to go somewhere. Back then the councils were handing out free Tube passes. In the winter the old boys would sit on the Circle Line and go round and round getting a warm beneath the frosted streets of Marylebone and St Pancras. Even in midwinter their stench could clear a carriage. They’d stagger and shuffle from seat to seat in greasy greatcoats, with curling tongues flapping from their workmen’s boots. The Tube’s a great leveller. There’s no first class down there and the suits daren’t complain. Instead they mutter and hide behind an FT or feign sleep.

As coppers we’re in the business of arresting folk. You cut your teeth on vagrants because no one’s going to question a drunk and disorderly charge. Especially if the man’s soaked in piss and wearing most of his dinner.

One of my first jobs was a vagrant guzzling lager and fighting himself. This was first thing so there were just office workers worrying on mortgages and down payments on French villas. The District line train had pulled into a siding. It had Wimbledon on the front. Steam rose from nearby houses. People gawked from the platforms, prodding each other.

The driver saw me, waved and opened the doors. A waft of piss and bin juice hit me. The tramp, a giant called Mac with a copper bush of a beard, was squinting at me. Uniform has a galvanising effect on tramps and mental health patients. Maybe the last time they saw it they had the shit kicked out of them. It’s hard to forget a uniform if there’s six of them pinning your face to the floor and squeezing your lungs paper thin. Mac growled and raised a black can. I don’t remember the name. It was a cheap cider, always something to with weather: lightning or storm or tempest. Mac must’ve been six-four. Even when he stooped he towered over me. I fiddled with my radio, sure I’d need backup. As my fingers fumbled with the brooch mike I saw Mac unbutton his trousers. His limp, grubby cock hung from his button fly and he’d turned out his pockets.

‘Do you like ma’ elephant,’ he said.

I tried to breathe through my mouth.

‘I want him arrested,’ a man in pinstripes said.

The man had pinkish skin and his neck flushed. He’d spent twenty minutes trying to pluck up the courage to challenge Mac. No need. There was a young cop to get beaten up for him. Mac turned to face the fire extinguisher. His shoulders slackened. It took me a moment to realise what he was doing. A foaming stream of amber piss rolled across the wooden decking.

‘You’re going to let him do that, are you?’ pinstripe said.

I should’ve radioed. It’s funny how you know that; know you’re doing something wrong and you’re going to regret it, but you can’t seem to stop. Maybe I was seduced by the thought it’d be one hell of a first arrest. I crept behind Mac, hands trembling. I slowed my breathing and snapped on a cuff, glad they were sprung ready. As Mac turned I caught him off balance and nudged him into the side of the carriage.

‘Huh?’

Mac belched sour, clammy breath.

‘Take it off,’ he grunted.

I reached for his right wrist. He jerked back and swung a fist the size of a ham cracking me on the jaw. Light bulbs exploded in my face. My helmet toppled and rolled along the decking. My knees buckled and I staggered back into someone’s lap. A newspaper scrunched under me. There were screams and people were pushing and shoving. I felt along my belt. Someone screamed and that was when I saw the knife.

Life slows when you see a knife. Suddenly all you can see is that blade. It’s barely moving, but there’s a shine of steel and a faint circling motion.  It draws you like a mackerel to bait. The flash of blade trails light like stardust. I swallowed. I daren’t take my eyes from him. I felt for my truncheon. I touched polished wood with my fingertip. The blade flashed and a searing pain cut me.

*****

I woke up in cool, fresh linen with a gash on my wrist.

‘Lucky boy,’ the nurse said.

‘I don’t feel lucky.’

She brought me water, tilting it gently into my mouth. The glass was sandpaper scorched where it’d been through the dishwasher.

‘There’s a man next door isn’t so good. He’s the guy who saved you,’ she said.

It almost sounded accusing.

‘They’re operating on him.’

‘Is he going to be alright?’

She shushed me and told me to rest. I was so tired my eye balls rolled and I sank into the pillow. I learnt no more until Pete Loach turned up with a dog-eared Western and a black-speckled banana. Pete was the night turn skipper.

‘It’s a page-turner,’ he said.

The book was called Shootout at Death Creek. The front cover showed a scattered pack of cards and a glinting revolver. Pete rubbed his bristly chin.

‘No more of that Bruce Lee stuff,’ he said.

I frowned.

‘You were lucky kid. Never take on a knife. It’s not worth the risk.’ Pete shook his head. ‘You OK?’

I nodded. Pete inspected his thumbnail.

‘The other bloke isn’t.’

Pete told me the guy down the corridor was getting his guts sewn up. The guy was a hard case – would have to be to take on Mac.

Mac sliced my wrist and shoulder and when I fell he stepped in. He broke the giant’s ribs and nose and knocked him cold, but not before the blade lashed out and opened him. Blood had pooled in the grooves of the decking. Mac lay squealing, while the man hugged himself, holding his guts together.

***********

I crossed to the doorway and stared at the hollow in the crumpled boxes where Archie had died. Archie survived that op. He got stronger and within weeks he was off walking the streets, sleeping rough, refusing kindness. I never learned why he walked out on his old life, but the debt he carried paid for my life.

Clocks – a short story about work

Clocks govern our working lives…

Mark shot out an arm and thumped at the snooze button. The alarm flipped and knocked a glass of tap water, sending it sloshing over the bedside cabinet. The radio crackled. A car bomb had gone off in Iraq. Next of kin had been informed. Mark groaned and slapped the alarm into silence. 6:31 AM blinked in mint green on black. He slid beneath the duvet, wriggling into a cool stretch of cotton and drifted to sleep.

Weak winter sun poked through a break in the curtains. Mark yawned and stretched. His tongue was furred with last night’s curry. He shuddered at the thought of the film of grease on the sink and the bloated, soapy grains of rice in the plughole. He reached for the glass and saw it was empty. It had spilt onto his book. The pages were warped like a clam shell. 8:22 AM blinked at him.

He tumbled from the bed, heart pounding, half tangled in duvet. Yesterday’s boxers and trousers were crumpled by the door where he stepped out of them. His shirt hung from the banister. He took the stairs in twos and zapped leftover coffee in the microwave, while he fumbled with cuffs and tie. He pushed his arms into his sleeves, door keys clamped between his teeth. Somehow seventeen minutes later he was on the train.

For the first time in weeks the train was on time. Even the conductor was surprised and put on a special announcement which was greeted by ironic claps and cheers from the suits. Mark nibbled at his lip. He couldn’t blame a signal failure or leaves on the line because Lorraine would check.

He nodded to Kelvin on reception and straightened his tie in the lift, scratching a sandpaper chin with his fingertips. There was a dried blob of toothpaste on his lapel. He spat and picked at it with a fingernail, spreading the ghost of white, so his lapel looked as though it had been spattered by pigeon shit.

The lift bonged and Mark hurried along the corridor. He peered through the porthole window and was cheered by the sight of Lorraine’s empty seat, kicked adrift from her desk. He marched across the office muttering good mornings to Mike and Therese. He whipped off his jacket, dropped into his seat and fired up his PC. Come on, come on, he wanted to scream at it. The jacket was on the back of the chair. All he needed now was a steaming mug of coffee and the Home Page and….

‘Good afternoon, Mister Sheridan.’

Mark’s toenails bit into his inner-soles.

‘It’s nice of you to join us.’

Mark’s PC was still loading. His screen flickered uselessly. Lorraine nodded at the clock on the wall.

‘What time does it say?’ she said.

Mark shuffled in his seat.

‘I’ll help you. The little hand is pointing…’

‘A quarter past ten,’ Mark said.

‘Yes, you’ve got an interesting idea of flexi-time, haven’t you?’

Mark didn’t answer.

‘Well?’ Lorraine said.

‘Stuff at home,’ he muttered.

Lorraine looked him up and down. She took in the shadow of toothpaste, three days’ stubble and the crumpled shirt.

‘I can see that.’

Mark’s faults were laid bare, open for discussion by all – the breakdown of his relationship, his spreading waistline, his controversial coupling of brown shoes with a black suit. Of course, when he was the object it was deemed to be light-hearted banter. But you wouldn’t dare say a word about Lorraine; no one did.

‘You need to shape up,’ she said.

He thought about saying ‘You can talk’ and she saw that, he was certain.

Lorraine was a closet drinker, the kind who smuggled her empties to the tip at nightfall rather than facing the clink-clink shame of bin collection. She was propped up by face-paint, instant coffee and fading dreams of promotion. Her skin was heavily rouged, like uncooked liver. She was an ageing perfume saleswoman in a doomed department store.

Lorraine snorted and shuffled back to her desk. Minutes passed and his screen came to life. There were 47 emails waiting for him. He crumpled his gum into a scrap of paper and flicked it into the bin. It dinged the side of the bin, ringing out. Lorraine’s pen froze in mid-air, like a conductor’s baton.

‘I’m still waiting….’

Mark counted to ten in his head.

‘Complete this sentence: I was late for work this morning, again, because…..’

‘I told you,’ he said, ‘I had things to sort…..problems.’

Lorraine stared at him, unblinking. Her eyes were the colour of liquorice.

‘When it’s my time you’re wasting it becomes my problem.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mark managed. He glanced sideways, grinding his teeth. It was a paltry concession to his pride.

‘Is it Heather?’ She mouthed the words, but loud enough for all to hear.

Mark’s neck flushed. Private lives were currency for Lorraine. She thrived on marital affairs, cancer tests and crippling debts. Open up to her and she left you alone. If only he could tell her Heather had walked out his life would be easier. But he couldn’t bear them sharing his secrets and he couldn’t bear the sympathy cakes and offers of a hug. Knowing this only made it worse.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with that.’

Mark glanced up and stared at the clock face as if he was back at school, watching the interminable crawl of the minute hand.

‘You’ve been late three times this week. It doesn’t lie.’

‘It’s fast,’ Mark said.

The words spilled from him before he could stop them. Lorraine sighed and lifted her phone handset. Her painted nails danced over the digits in a blur. She hit the speaker button and the Speaking Clock confirmed the time.

‘Satisfied?’ she said.

He began to work through his emails. There was a complaint from Ed Salmon about typos in a brochure and a request for him to archive material from IT.

This is your second reminder…..

IT was immune from courtesy. They don’t do please and thank you.

‘Anyway, it wouldn’t matter if the clock was wrong,’ Lorraine said.

Mark span round. Lorraine was filing her nails. She held the file like a cellist’s bow. Lorraine set the nail file down and rummaged about in her bag.

‘So it doesn’t matter – that’s what you’re saying?’

Lorraine fished a pot from the depths of her bag, unscrewed the lid and dabbed gloss onto her lips. ‘My point is you’re not doing your time.’

‘Not doing my time?’ Mark couldn’t resist a smirk.

‘You know what I mean. Don’t try getting clever.’

Mark sighed under his breath. ‘That wouldn’t get me anywhere here, would it?’

‘You’re not clocking up enough hours. Christ alone knows what you owe this firm.’

Mark’s temples throbbed. He stared at the screen, shutting her out.

‘I wouldn’t mind but everyone else puts a shift in…’

Mark bit his lip. He tasted copper.

‘You seem to come and go when you please.’

‘WHAT?’

Therese stood perfectly still, mid-way across the office. Terry Holt from Accounts was heading for the sanctuary of the photocopier.

‘Don’t shout at me, young man!’

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘Do you hear me?’

He stretched his fingers and stared at his wedding ring, twirling it.

‘I said do you hear me!’

Mark stood up. ‘I hear you. I hear you all bloody day.’

‘You heard that. You heard him, didn’t you?’ Lorraine snapped.

Therese and Catherine were staring at their screens.

Mark turned his screen off. He put on his jacket and picked up his bag.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Lorraine glared at him from behind her desk, hands clamped to her hips.

‘You walk out of here, don’t you bother coming back…’

Mark raised a finger and pointed at the clock.

‘It’s ten thirty nine am, precisely. And I’ve got more important things to do.’

He waved and said goodbye, without looking back.

‘Lots more important things to do,’ he said to no one.

Outside it was chilly, but Mark bought an ice cream from Mister Whippy and sat by the canal. An icy gust swirled brittle leaves along the towpath. He knew they were up on the eighth floor, watching him from the kitchen window. Their shadows moved, breaking the glare of winter sun on the glass. Mark thought about giving them a wave, but he didn’t. He was enjoying his new-found freedom too much for that. Raspberry sauce dripped from his cornet. He no longer cared if it spilled on his suit.