It was getting on for three in the morning when Karen left. Baldock watched her go in her metallic blue Mini. She had K100 on the back plate, beating him to BB1. He stayed on the front porch for a while, smoking a last cigarette and enjoying the soft rain on his face. He looked out on the night world of the village, silent, and slicked by the rain, lit by the hard orange street lights. The old man was right, it seemed like it was never truly dark any more, unless you got far up on the hillside.
Baldock used to walk the hillsides a lot at night, before his father needed so much care. He liked the stillness and the peace. He was a night owl who liked to walk around with just the moon and stars for company, and prided himself on knowing every inch of his land, day or night. He wondered if TJ was up there now. Shivering and scared like a wild animal on the run, unable to go back to his feisty mother, unable to go anywhere. His body crying out for its next fix. Tomorrow Baldock would go looking. It wouldn’t take long to find TJ, now he’d been flushed out.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. Baldock’s father had been fed and taken to the bathroom. He could manage in there on his own but Baldock had to stay close. The DSS had given them a wheelchair, but the old man hated it.
‘I’m not being seen in that thing,’ he’d shouted, when Baldock first showed it to him. ‘Like some old woman in a chariot.’
Baldock had managed to get him out in it once, feeling as self-conscious as a young father pushing a pram. The old man had grunted his way around the village, giving instructions like the tank driver he’d once been, a teenager in the war he rarely talked about.
Baldock began his work-out routine. Karen had spurred him into action. He had a makeshift gym in the shed at the back of the house where he pumped iron, did fifty press-ups each morning, and punished his body for an hour most days. He didn’t feel right if he missed a session but Karen was right. It was getting harder to stop muscle going soft. Baldock needed to work that girl out of his system, at least for a while.
As he raised the weights above his head he thought of TJ. He wouldn’t have gone far. Baldock planned to go looking in the late afternoon, a time when the old man was most settled. He’d take the field glasses with him and would soon spot the kid skulking about up on the hillside, working his way closer to his mother again. TJ would know how dangerous that was, but wouldn’t be able to help it. He was a homing pigeon, like so many here.
Baldock finished with the press-ups. He always did. This morning he worked particularly hard, feeling the blood rushing to his brain, the strain on his arms, the wooden floor coming towards him, then going away again. He had confidence in his strength, his fitness, that had never failed him. As he showered, Baldock was aware of his body, its still taut lines and rippling muscles. He was six foot and one inch tall and fourteen stone in weight. Not too big, not too small. Perfect. He’d read somewhere that your body is a temple, and he had to admit he worshipped his.
Less than a mile away, lying under a hedge at the side of a field, TJ was having a very different experience. He’d been there all night. It had been mild but not mild enough for him, and it had rained off and on throughout the night. He was damp, crumpled, hungry, and most of all, strung out. He craved a fix. Almost enough to give himself up to Baldock, take what was coming, then get what he needed. That mainline to heaven, that place where all his troubles would go away for a while. Where he’d glide through comfortable layers and not worry about anything, until he came down. Then the world would come crashing back, in all its awful glory. And it had always been awful, for TJ. His earliest memories were of his mother being beaten, by a succession of daddies. It had been better when they were on their own, but then there’d been the penny-pinching and scraping, TJ watching the other kids in school who seemed to have everything.
When TJ started working for Baldock things began to change. Bits of money were coming in, he could help his mother more. Help himself. Then he began to see how much money was flowing to Baldock, which made his own few quid look so small. When he met that girl temptation began to fight against fear and gradually temptation won. It seemed so easy at first, an extra twenty for himself here and there. Then thirty, forty, until it became blatant. He knew he’d be caught out but couldn’t stop. Now it was over and he’d have to pay. TJ was afraid but also understanding. He’d gone against the hand that had fed him and that was wrong. Almost as bad as grassing someone up. If Baldock didn’t do anything Tony and the other runners would. It would be Baldock though, especially after last night. TJ couldn’t believe Julie had done that. Stupid cow. His mother had made things worse.
TJ rolled over on the lumpy ground and managed to find a crushed packet of fags in his pocket but no lighter. It must have dropped out somewhere when he ran. Bastard! He muttered this to himself over and over. But at least the sun was coming out. He sat with his knees hunched up, facing the sun, letting it dry his clothes. He was resigned to being caught by Baldock, but knew he would also try to run when it came to it. It was instinct.
It was mid-afternoon. Baldock had about six hours of daylight and dusk left. He expected to find TJ before it got dark. This was the way he wanted to time it, so that any punishment might be carried out as darkness came on. The old man had been good today, and had kept his moaning to a minimum. It was one of his father’s mellow days, and they were getting few and far between.
‘I’ll be popping out in a while, Dad,’ Baldock said, standing by his father’s bedroom window.
‘What for?’
‘Just a bit of business.’
‘Aye, monkey business. You’re paid to stay here with me.’
‘You’ll be alright for a few hours.’
‘Well, I’ll have to be, won’t I?’
‘You’ve had your food, been to the bog. You want anything else before I go?’
‘Nah, you get off on your business.’
Baldock went into his own bedroom to prepare himself. It was a sparse room, a bed and not much furniture. Even as a kid Baldock hadn’t been much interested in music, even less so in books, although his father always had his head in one. Books about the ‘old days’. The old man would utter this phrase like it was some sort of magic spell, some never-never land that was so much better than now. If Baldock could have had a pound for every time his father said ‘we didn’t have much in those days but we were happy’ there would have been no need to start his empire.
Baldock dressed in his mountain combat gear. Green camouflage jacket, matching trousers and Doc Martin high lace-up boots. He had a powerful pair of binoculars he’d taken instead of money once from one of the boys. It had probably been knocked off in a burglary. He’d had time to examine his head now, using two mirrors. It was just a graze, and was already drying up. Just as well Julie hadn’t used something more solid.
Baldock was ready to go when the old man shouted for him.
‘What?’
Baldock went back up to him.
‘I can’t find my lighter for my roll-ups.’
‘You shouldn’t be smoking, anyway.’
‘Don’t start that again. If I’d known I’d live this long maybe I would have looked after myself a bit more, but it’s too bloody late now.’
‘Here it is. Under one of your pillows.’
Baldock put the lighter in the bedside cabinet alongside the bed.
‘Now don’t lose it again. Look, you got your panic button. You should be wearing it around your neck. Press it and my mobile will ring, and for God’s sake, Dad, don’t press it by accident – it’ll also ring the emergency services. For a moment Baldock imagined police going through the house, some wide-eyed young pig coming across his stash.
‘Alright, alright. I’m not senile, not yet.’
Baldock smiled.
‘You’ll never be that, Dad.’
The old man looked his son up and down.
‘Christ, you look like a German soldier.’
‘It’s comfortable gear. Be back soon.’