Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) (6 page)

I rode fast across town, sticking in an extra loop round the South Road. There was no sign of her in my mirrors.
 

Once back at my place I took the Scrambler up the back lane, gunning it through into the yard. I flicked the engine off, furling the tarpaulin over the saddle and tank, leaving the engine clear to cool off as it ticked and pinged to itself. There was no sign of old Tommy in the flat downstairs, no sounds from the road. Maybe I’d lost her. Or she hadn’t really been following me.
 

I gave the bike once last look. This was the worst night I’d had in two months. Only the second time the Scrambler hadn’t won anything.
 

As I bounded up the stairs to the flat I heard an engine race up the road. When I went to the living room window I saw the blue and white R6 outside, the engine pulsing away, a whirr from the cooling fan. Her on the saddle.

I waited there for a minute, to see what she did. When she did nothing I went down to her.
 

She switched off when she saw me, slipping her lid onto her arm and leaning back on the saddle. ‘Nice part of town.’ She held her hand out again, like she had at the race. ‘I’m Becky.’

I ignored the hand, looking at the bike rather than her, keeping my eyes off the jacket that was open a little at the front, enough to show some cleavage; those bike leathers, tight on her body. ‘What you after?’

Becky smiled. ‘Just fancied a chat.’ She grinned at me, all friendly.

‘I don’t like being followed.’

She rocked the bike from side to side as the fuel sloshed around in the tank, her eyes off, across town away from me. ‘You’re quite a racer.’

‘Not tonight I wasn’t —’

‘I’ve heard you’re the star of the race scene.’

‘Really?’ I laughed at this.
 

‘I thought you might show me the town. As a newcomer…’

‘Not at the moment.’

We stood there without talking. A gurgle came from the R6’s radiator. Becky put her hands on her hips holding the bike upright with her legs, those slim legs. ‘Listen, Trent, I want to be straight with you. It’s about the tank, I know that you’re part of the Round Up scene —’

‘I think you should go.’

‘I only want to talk to you about what happened.’

I tapped the fairing on the bike, this rare plastic. ‘These parts must be hard to get hold of.’ I pulled at the fairing and twisted, letting go with a ping. Maybe I wouldn’t really break it, maybe I would. ‘Be a shame if anything happened to it.’

Becky frowned. ‘I’m not after trouble —’

‘Then keep out of my way.’ I turned and walked off. She’d slipped up mentioning Round Up. I'd have gone along with all kinds of stories from a woman with her looks but not now. Not after her admitting she was interested in my day job, especially after The Incident. She was messing me around.
 

Back in the room I stood at the window as she manoeuvred the bike outside. She accelerated hard up the road, the whistle of the engine drowned out by the roar from the exhaust.

I made a joint, lit it but didn’t smoke it. It was only when it had burned down to the roach that I moved, throwing it out of the window and going down into the yard. The Scrambler’s engine had cooled to a dull warmth. I knelt and put his hands on its tarnished alloy fins. Even without the race wins I could pull enough cash together to leave town. Things were starting to unravel. Maybe I it was best to leave before everything fell apart.
 

I slid the tarpaulin off the bike and sat on the saddle drumming my fingers on the fuel tank. I’d thought this was odd timing, someone new turning up. Now I knew it was dodgy. Someone fast, asking the wrong questions, following me. Not only that, but giving me those looks, like I was a piece of meat on a slab. I got a bad feeling from her.

After covering the bike I went back into the house, standing at the window until the lights went off in other houses and there was only moonlight. When the road was a black strip devoid of features. I pulled the curtains and went to my bedroom, lying on the bed. Eyes open in the darkness.
 

T
HE
NEXT
DAY
WAS
a team day, like we always had once a fortnight. This was when several of us worked together to make a show of force, supposedly to showcase Round Up's tough-but-fair approach. It was always tough, that was for sure. I was with my usual team, Nico, Gregg and Will.
 

We’d gone to the far end of the South Estate, where there'd been quite a few burglaries. Fights and one rape. Story was that they were all done by one gang. All working together. For some reason the theft of a crate of whisky seemed to be the worst thing they’d done. We found several lads hanging about in a derelict shop and they became the prime suspects. After taking them outside, trying to reason with them, find out what they knew, it all started to get out of hand.

Nico held a lad against the alley wall, Gregg and Will flanking him, arms crossed on their overalls as Nico shoved his pin-striped elbow further into the lad’s neck.

‘Where the fuck are they?’ said Nico. ‘Where are the bottles?’

The lad shook his head, a tiny movement, his eyes bloodshot as they bulged.
 

Nico pushed harder, his red face up close. ‘Where?’

The lad made a gurgling sound and Gregg laughed, his beard shaking and his belly bouncing up and down.

I was behind the three of them, a cosh in his hand, the one they given to me as we’d approached the alley. I rotated it, felt the hard rubber. This was just some street-kid, a lost nobody. Not worth anything, not this.
 

Nico waved his free hand at Will who joined him.

Will pulled a knife out of his overalls, wiping the blade on his filthy trouser leg. ‘Time for a little whittling.’ He lifted the blade up. ‘Whittle, whittle.’

Gregg laughed and the lad made some sound from the back of his throat.

Will sliced his jacket open and ripped his shirt. He ran the blade over his bare chest and up to his neck.
 

The lad shook his head as Will cut into his skin, a tiny nick that gave out a spurt of blood. Gregg and Will laughed, Nico smiling.

That was enough. He was just a kid and they weren’t after information. This was sport for these three. I’d put up with all this to begin with, believed the stories about a network of troublemakers and how they needed to interrogate all the kids they picked up, build up a picture of what was going on. But it was a pile of crap. There was no network and no picture to build up. Just a load of dysfunctional kids, fallout from the lack of schools. So many having fathers away at sea, mothers with no money.

I stepped forward. ‘Looks like he doesn’t know anything.’

‘Ha,’ said Gregg.

Will ran the blade across the lad’s skin. Then he sliced into the him again making him cry and close his eyes.
 

‘There’s no point in this,’ I said. ‘We’re wasting time on him.’

Will glanced back at me, his pale blue eyes shaded by his lank hair. ‘There’s plenty of point.’

‘All right,’ said Nico. ‘Let’s take him in. Trent, knock him out.’
 

I didn’t move, the cosh limp in my hand. I knew the routine, the way Round Up worked — cosh the victim, drag him off and tie him. Torture him. Send him out onto the street cut and scarred. This wasn’t about fixing stuff, making the town a better place, it was about Nico, Will and Gregg getting their kicks.
 

‘Knock him out!’ Nico turned to me. ‘Hit him!’
 

I remained still, turning the cosh round and round, a loose grip between thumb and forefinger.

‘Look,’ said Nico. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ He kept his hand on the lad’s throat but turned to me. He smelled of whisky and sweat.

‘He’s just young,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t know anything.’

‘Ah, just a little bairn, lost his mammy and daddy?’

‘Come on, there are more serious —’

‘Oh yeah?’ Nico snatched the cosh off me, passing it to Gregg who laughed, swinging it around.
 

As Gregg raised it above him I grabbed hold of his arm, a firm grip on his overalls’ sleeve. ‘Leave him be.’

He shifted his arm, pulled and moved around. ‘Hey.’

‘Trent,’ said Nico. ‘Let the boys have their fun.’

They stared at me and I let go of Gregg. The lad was still pinned in place by Nico’s hand. ‘Cut him,’ he said.

Will slashed, cutting him across his face. Gregg roared with laughter and Nico smiled.
 

As Will raised his arm I barged into him, pushing him and Nico aside and knocking the blade flying. The knife landed on the ground.

I turned to the lad. ‘Go.’

He frowned, dabbing at the blood on his face.

‘Go!’

He ran off along the alley, past us and away.

Gregg lumbered off after him but Nico grabbed his overalls and stopped him. ‘Leave him.’

Gregg sighed. ‘But we were going to slice him, round him up —’

‘I know.’

Will stared at me then went over to retrieve the blade.

Nico shook his head. ‘You’re getting soft Trent, real soft.’

‘Sometimes I think you’re no better than the kids on the street,’ I said.

‘We won’t win this by being soft.’
 

‘We already lost it.’ I turned to go off but Nico took my arm.

‘I’m disappointed, Trent. Very disappointed. I had plans for you. Plans. I picked up. You could have been teamed up with anyone out of Round Up but you got to go with us. The top row.’ For a moment he gazed at the decrepit buildings around us. Then he grinned. ‘Maybe you can redeem yourself. I still have that babysitting…’

I shook his hand off him. ‘Look Nico —’

‘Trent, Trent. This is much more up your street. No kids. You just need to stay alert…Keep an eye on things.’ As he straightened his suit he set off down the alley, the other two following him, giving me glances, looks that showed they didn’t see me as part of their gang, which suited me just fine. Nico shouted from ahead. ‘Come on, Trent, follow, follow. I’ll show what we’re up against.’ He laughed. ‘This will really test your mettle.’

I hung back for a moment then joined them at the main road. I had to watch my step. Play along a little.

We piled into Nico’s Mercedes, one of his personal fleet. As he drove across town they chatted about betting and women. Who they’d rounded up recently.
 

We went to Round Up Central, the old multi-storey car park on the South Side of town. The fella guarding the entrance waved to Nico and pulled open the heavy gate.
Long before I’d arrived in Faeston Nico and the rest of them had gone to a lot of effort salvaging stuff from an abandoned prison across the border. They’d hauled doors and gates all the way here and had a gang spend weeks adapting the car park. Turning it into the town’s prison.
 

We bounced up the potholed ramp and parked on level one, where all Nico’s other vehicles were: the Jaguar and Range Rover. Spoils from his confiscations.
 

‘
Follow me,
’
he said. Gregg and Will wandered off upstairs, to the main offices but Nico led me downstairs, to the section I’d thought unused. We went through a dim passageway, lit by bulkhead lights, the air cold, dry. There was a heavy door at the end. He had to flick through his bunch of keys before he rattled the lock open. Partway along the passage there was another door in the wall. ‘Not many people allowed through here, Trent.’
 

‘Yeah?’

He slid his dark glasses up, fumbled with the keys to unlock the door. ‘This is just for the initiated. The cognoscenti, you know? Get what I’m saying. You’re a lucky man.’

‘Real lucky.’ I followed him as the door swung open. I didn’t feel very lucky.

Nico grinned. ‘Here we go.’

It was a large space, high-ceilinged, covering much of the ground floor. It was all concrete like the rest of the building, but made more stark with the spotlights set up along the sides. It was plain apart from the door we’d come through and a heavy steel shutter at the far end. Several men stood around writing on pads whilst another drew on a large sheet of paper. In the middle was the tank parked an angle on one of the town's low loaders.

Close up the vehicle was massive, a dark lump that gave off heat even though we were underground, making some low sound, not like an engine more something flowing, water under a stone bridge. It was painted a dull green marked with scorch marks. There were no wheels just two sets of caterpillar tracks. On the top of it there was a squat turret supporting a gun barrel of a calibre you could fit a small child in.

Nico walked around it and I followed. ‘It’s something else, eh?’

‘I saw it the other night.’

‘But close up, close up it’s really something!’

‘I suppose.’ Nico kicked the low loader. ‘Nearly bust this. Some weight. And the cranes struggled.’