Ventriloquists (16 page)

Why was Tommy driving towards Luton? This was the question uppermost on Yasser’s mind: posing it aloud had not helped one bit. ‘Maybe he’s going to see
you
,’ Shyleen had told him. Huffily Yasser had informed her not to make jokes, and she’d replied that she wasn’t joking.

Maybe he was. Maybe Tommy the Brazilian was
en route
to Bury Park, with one thing on his mind: to use that drum of petrol in an act of arson, once and for all. On Yasser’s car? On Yasser’s
house
? Where else could he be going but Luton? He’d already passed the turnings off for everywhere else…

‘He’s going to the motorway,’ Shyleen seemed to promise.

‘He’s going to the airport,’ Yasser hoped.

As it would turn out, Tommy was leading them to neither destination, although for the moment, with the right-hand indicator blinking as the truck pulled up to the Tesco roundabout, the second possibility still appeared valid. The airport was in this direction.

‘There are no flights after ten,’ said Shyleen. ‘We signed the petition.’

‘It might’ve landed already. He’s picking someone up.’ Yasser fidgeted in the passenger seat. ‘You’ll have to pull back a bit – there’s not enough traffic.’

Indeed, the bypass road was hardly being used. If Tommy hadn’t noticed them so far, now might be a good time for him to start. There were only so many headlights, surely, that he could ignore.

Neither Yasser nor Shyleen said much when Tommy led them onto the ring road, away from the train station (a third option that neither of them had taken seriously). The airport remained plausible as a destination: both of the pursuers, by this point, had all but taken for granted that this was where they were headed, when Tommy turned left and used the bus lane to move closer to the High Street, the shopping centre, the church, or –

‘The University?’ Yasser wondered aloud.

‘Yeah, one of those midnight lectures they’re so famous for.’

The ludicrousness was not lost on Yasser either… but this
was
the way they were going, and beyond the University’s main building, what was there?

‘Hang back a bit,’ said Yasser. ‘I think he’s onto us – he’s taking us in a circle.’

‘What circle, Yass?’ Shyleen answered. ‘He could’ve done that around Dunstable.’

‘He wasn’t
sure
around Dunstable.’

‘We’ve come this far,’ Shyleen added in a defiant tone. ‘I’m not going home without an
answer.
’

Yasser half-sighed and half-chuckled. ‘Had a feeling you were gonna say that,’ he told her.

Surprising the cousins, Tommy pulled into a small parking area outside an eight-storey block of flats that displayed the University’s logo. It was student accommodation.

‘About that midnight lecture,’ Yasser said quietly.

Shyleen did not pull into the parking area. On the off-chance that they had been lucky so far, she did not wish to stretch that streak of good fortune until it twanged. She parked by the kerb and killed the engine.

‘What’s he want with
students?
’ Yasser wondered.

‘Here.’ Shyleen handed him the keyring. ‘Keep the engine running, and if
I’m
running when you see me next, get us the fuck out of here.’

‘You’re winding me up, Shy,’ Yasser told her with a shake of the head but little conviction. ‘You’re not going in there on your own.’

‘What, a student dorm? You think they’re killing goats in a pentagon of chicken feathers?’ She opened her door. ‘There’s no time to argue, I need to see where he’s going – and he’s never met me before.’

‘I don’t know, Shy…’

‘Neither do I, but what could happen? He asks me if I was following him, I say no… I
live
here for all he’s aware.’

And she was gone. Yasser’s vision followed her plump backside across the car park and towards a doorway crowned with a sign reading B Block. The door was still closing slowly and Shyleen caught it: Tommy had gained entrance to the building by buzzing up – he held no key but he did know someone inside.

Suddenly Yasser was alone; it felt strange. He walked around the front of Shyleen’s car and got into the driver’s seat; he inserted the ignition key and turned the stereo that they’d soon turned off at the start of the chase back on again. The volume was too high for stationary listening, but as a genre selection modish R&B would do. Lowering the volume, Yasser settled down to wait for Shyleen’s reappearance, his eyesight locked on the B Block front door. When he checked his mobile he found that he had missed no calls – so far he and Shyleen had not been classed as missing or out too late. He wasn’t sure if this made him feel better or worse. He decided on worse.

8.

The distance between Shyleen’s parked car and the entrance to B Block was not great – a matter of fifteen metres, tops – but it was sufficient, at night-time, for Yasser to have been unaware that Tommy had made a sartorial effort to dress up for his evening out. While he might not have hit the town booted and suited, or with a tux and tie, he had at least donned a better class of smart-casual dress than Yasser had yet to see him in; and because Yasser had not said anything along these lines, Shyleen had formed a mental wardrobe for Tommy that did not match the clothes worn by the man leaking cologne in the Student Hall entrance foyer. Additionally, in the darkness of the car park, Shyleen had been unable to fix the man’s physical dimensions either. The man in the foyer, his back to her approach as he waited for the lift, was shorter but broader than she had made him from Yasser’s story, and Shyleen wondered if this was a different man altogether. If the real mark had slipped into the lift in the few seconds that Shyleen had needed to cross the car park, he might have reached any of the six or eight storeys by now; those seconds could have spelt the end of it, and this guy in grey slacks and a navy blue jacket, with his permafrost-hued hair slicked back and with a bucket of aftershave seeping in and out of his pores, could have come from any of the rooms on the ground floor.

Shyleen came to a halt a few metres behind him. Smiling over his shoulder in a reptile fashion (she conjectured), the man offered her a good evening, then went back to perusing the strip of lights above the lift’s doors. He didn’t give a toss who she was. In Shyleen’s mind this meant that he didn’t live here. Having lived all her life in the Bury Park terraces, the knowledge of one’s neighbours was in the blood; strangers wore extremely different clothes.

The doors opened and two male students – a black boy in a wheelchair and a white boy in a perm – came out. With a slight bow and a theatrical flourish, Tommy indicated that Shyleen was free to proceed him into the soup-smelling box. Standing by the buttons, Tommy asked Shyleen, ‘Where to?’

‘The eighth.’

Tommy pressed 3 and then 8.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying,’ said Shyleen, ‘but we’ve had a burglary – we’ve all promised to question any visitors.’

‘Oh?’

‘If you don’t mind, of course.’

Tommy faced her. ‘I’m a thief, is that it?’ he asked, a smirk decorating his features.

‘We’ve promised to question any visitors,’ Shyleen repeated. She hoped that she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.

‘Well go on then. Question away.’

Shyleen took a breath. ‘Do you mind telling me who you’re here to see?’ she said.

‘The name’s Flowers. Joseph Flowers – Joe to his friends. A little
game
going, see?’

‘A game?’

‘Texas Hold’em… Poker. Is that okay with the welcoming committee and the sentry box?’

Shyleen shrugged. ‘Sure. What room does he have?’

‘Shouldn’t I be asking
you
that?’

‘Why?’

‘Because
you’re
a visitor too.’

Shyleen stiffened. ‘What makes you say that?’

Tommy smirked. ‘You’d never pass for male in a thousand years,’ he told her. ‘Block B is a male-only establishment. So perhaps you might say where
you’re
going. For reasons of security, like.’

‘To see my boyfriend.’

‘The name being?’

‘Wafiq,’ Shyleen plucked from the air.

‘Oh Wafiq. Like Yasser’s uncle.’

‘…Who’s Yasser?’

‘Never mind, Miss.’ The doors opened at the third floor. Tommy took a step out onto the corridor, the smile he wore both victorious and oleaginous. ‘Don’t play poker yourself.’

‘I won’t.’

‘No poker face, see, Miss. There’s no such thing as a male-only block on this campus. That’s just me chatten the bollocks. And if you’re going to follow people from their home to a hand of cards – this is just a tip – have the good sense not to park
outside their fucking camp
… Tell the boy I’m disappointed, and so will Maggie be, I’d guess. We’d asked for a pro.’

The lift doors closed.

9.

‘He’s in there gambling. He’s playing poker.’

Yasser nodded.

‘And he knows it’s you in the car.’

Yasser flinched.

‘It’s time to go home, Yass. The Pikey’s winning or losing, but he’s not doing anything wrong. We might as well call it a night. Besides, I’m hungry and I’ve work in the morning.’

Yasser did not need to tell her how much she’d changed her tune. He was busy trying to plan what to say to Maggie the next time he saw her.

‘This is all going tits up,’ he said.

‘Drive me home, James,’ Shyleen answered in her poshest voice. She ran her fingers through her hair; a second later she expressed disgust at the harvest that they’d gathered. ‘My hair’s falling out already,’ she said. ‘I haven’t even started my treatment!’

Yasser drove Shyleen back to his parents’ house and let her in. Shyleen and her parents left ten minutes later (Shyleen declined the offer of a fifth cup of tea), and Yasser announced that he was turning in for the night. In his room he sulked and brooded; he lay on top of the duvet, with flies buzzing in his brain. He had not undressed. He tried to talk himself out of going back to the camp, to talk to Maggie; the urge to drive, however, was upon him, despite the hour. Tommy the Brazilian would be tied up with his poker game for hours: so Yasser decided. This was his overwhelming impression of card showdowns: that they lasted for ages. Maggie would be asleep, or at least in bed. Would her father be present? Why wouldn’t he be? It was where he lived, after all…

Yasser sighed and sat up. He could hear his father snoring in the next room. Clutching his car keys, he crept across the landing and down the stairs. He unlocked the front door, and the air outside was cold and smelt of diesel.

10.

Yasser may have paid visits to the camp in the course of his investigation, but they had made him no friend of the dog called Excalibur. As Yasser walked the driveway, having left the car in the lane outside, he fantasised that he’d be able to creep along without awakening the hound that slept chained to its master’s caravan near the entrance. He was wrong. His assumption was loudly incorrect. Yasser could not help kicking up gravel – he’d banked on this much as inevitable – but he’d imagined it preferable to the noise of his engine waking up the camp’s residents at this hour. Excalibur, however, had but one important task to perform: to protect the camp; and Yasser had scarcely set foot on the travellers’ land before its highpitched barking began to shred the fabric of the night. Yasser flinched – and ran.

He ran as fast as he could towards Maggie’s home. Behind him, straining against its shackles, the dog all but throttled itself as it yapped and snapped out at the invisible intruders: Yasser had already sprinted past.

Some of the caravans and trailers had lights on within. But were they switched on now, or had they been illuminated
before
the dog’s protestations?

No way of knowing.

Yasser ran until he felt distanced and nauseous. Up ahead was Maggie’s caravan, with the blue painted moon on the side the same size as the pollution-pastelled mauve one overhead, to the rear of the camp. Yasser ran. Two moons drawing him on: a duel of orbits. No shouts. No bellows from behind…
Piece of piss… make it…

And this was when the bullet hit him on the left side of his forehead.

Yasser was knocked to the right. Although his momentum carried him for a few more strides, the blow to his temple had been considerable and his knees and thighs weakened. Stumbling like a drunk, Yasser tried to yell Maggie’s name; he collapsed to his knees. Not only could he sense blood pooling down the left side of his face, he could smell it too; the aroma was stronger than that of paint, chip fat and diesel, which perfumed the camp customarily, Yasser had long since discovered.

The stars that he saw were not in the oxblood sky; they were in Yasser’s head, leaking out for him to see. The word
concussion
echoed around his skull on a sound like bird wings flapping. The problem was, right at this moment Yasser did not know what concussion meant – not the word and not the condition. He was aware that he’d been shot, but he was too busy reeling from the pain to be aware of anything else. The fact that he had heard no gun report – no bang – seemed irrelevant: he’d been shot in the head and he would die on these filthy wankers’ soil; this was all that he was sure of.

He fell forward.
Yet…
he tried to think;
and yet…
His hands splayed out before him, to soften contact with the road. And
yet
: he
had
heard something. Not a gun… Yasser fell onto his front, the palms of his hands scraped and scratched on the road’s surface. A sound of something metal as it had hit the tarmac… Something dropped. Something
thrown?