CHAPTER TWO

 

The High Street was already buzzing with Saturday morning shoppers, and it was a pig to find a spot to park. The last thing I needed was to draw attention to the fact that I’d even been in the area, and a parking ticket would certainly have done that. Even worse if the car had been clamped or towed away. A bit of a walk wouldn’t do me any harm anyway. Not that I’m within a million miles of being a lardy bloater, of course, even though Carla’s always on at me about shedding some weight. A pound or two off the waistline maybe, but not exactly a candidate for a three-times-a-week trip to the local gym. Sod that for a lark.

I deliberately walked straight past the shop without so much as a sideways glance and stopped in front of the next one. The plan was to pretend to be checking out the contents of the window display while I listened for any undue noise. But then I realised I was staring at a window that had been completely blanked out and remembered it was one of those sex shops – private shops, they call them nowadays – so I carried on to the hairdresser’s next door. Not much to see here either except for a bunch of women getting their weekend hairdos done. Better not hang around here too long or one of them might clock me for a peeping tom with a shampoo and blow-dry fetish and call the cops.

I couldn’t hear what I’d been listening out for from this distance, so I doubled back to the shop I’d ignored and took the key out of my pocket. A proper key. Still no noise out of the ordinary, so I shoved the key into the lock and turned it. Except it wouldn’t. Turn, that is. I tried the handle, and the door swung open with the slightest of creaks. Christ almighty, the bloody idiots hadn’t even bothered to lock it.

Once upon a time, the shop had been a gents’ outfitters, but it had gone bust months ago. Presumably, the modern world hadn’t any need for gents’ outfitters any more, or maybe there just weren’t enough gents left to be outfitted. Either way, I’d taken out a short lease on the place a few weeks ago in the name of a bogus company I’d set up specifically for the purpose. Not that I ever had any plans to run it as a shop, of course. God, no. I had something else in mind altogether, and this was going to make me a whole lot richer than flogging a bunch of ties and the occasional suit.

The light was dim inside the shop, partly because I’d had the door and window completely obscured with sheets of newspaper – from the copies of The Times I hadn’t binned – and partly because the air was so thick with dust, you could have grown spuds in it.

Better get out of these togs sharpish or Carla will go into meltdown if she has to take another suit to the dry cleaner’s.

I ducked down behind the counter that butted up at right-angles to the window and pulled out a bulging carrier bag. I was just about to take off the suit jacket and lay it on the counter top when I spotted the half-inch layer of dust that had settled on it. I scanned the rest of the shop for somewhere I could temporarily deposit the jacket, but apart from a few shelves bolted to the wall and also covered with dust, there was nothing. Not so much as a hanging rail with a bunch of coat hangers that must have been here when the gents’ outfitters was still up and running. Bailiffs must have cleared pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down – and probably quite a lot of the stuff that was, apart from the counter.

I considered my options for a couple of seconds. Not even for that long because there was only one. If I didn’t want the suit to end up making me look like a nuclear fallout survivor, I’d just have to put the overalls on over the top and hope to Christ I didn’t roast down there. So, out they came from the carrier bag – grease monkey green rather than Guantanamo orange – and I had them on and buttoned up to the neck in a flash. Well, not quite a flash exactly, on account of twice nearly falling flat on my arse when each shoe got snagged up in a trouser leg.

Making for the far corner of the shop, I noticed several pairs of footprints in the carpet of dust, leading in both directions between the front door and where I was heading. Buggers must have been in and out a fair few times since I left them here last night. They’d better not have been sat swilling ale in some club or other instead of getting on with the job in hand. The sound I’d been listening for earlier was clearly audible now and getting louder with every step I took, so they obviously hadn’t finished yet.

The swirling dust was getting even thicker too, most of it coming from the top of the metal spiral staircase that led down into the basement. These things are lethal at the best of times, never mind when you can hardly see a hand in front of your face, so I grabbed the handrail tight and took the steps one at a very steady time. At the bottom, I pushed through the heavy blankets we’d hung up the night before to muffle as much of the noise as possible, but they hadn’t created enough of a seal to stop some of the dust escaping.

My eyes had already begun to sting like crazy, and the air was almost unbreathable down here, so I whipped out my handkerchief and clamped it over my nose and mouth. I squinted through the haze and my streaming tears to see Alan sitting on the floor with his back against the wall nearest me and Scratch on his knees, drilling into the wall on the opposite side of the basement.

‘Bloody hell, you two,’ I shouted. ‘What if I’d been the cops? You hadn’t even locked the sodding door.’

But even Alan, who was only six feet away, didn’t hear me over the din of Scratch’s massive drill.

I yelled a second time and then went over to Alan and tapped him on the shoulder. Dozy sod nearly jumped out of his skin, and as his head spun round, his left hand flew up to his neck and he let out what sounded like a yelp of pain.

‘What’s up?’ I said.

He pulled down the paper breathing mask to expose the only part of his face that wasn’t encrusted with a thick film of cement dust. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out a single word.

‘Knock it off a minute,’ I yelled at Scratch’s back.

Nothing doing, so I picked up a small piece of rubble and chucked it at him. Got him right between the shoulder blades, but whether it was the vibration from the drill or not, he didn’t even flinch. Another piece of rubble – a lot bigger than before – and this time he lowered the drill and turned to face me.

He pulled down his own mask, and you didn’t have to be much of a lipreader to make out the “fuck d’you do that for?” part of what he said.

I gestured to him to switch off the drill, and moments later, the sound of silence filled the basement with an almost eerie calm.

I looked back down at Alan. ‘So what is it?’

‘Done my bloody neck in, haven’t I?’ he said with an extra wince and giving his neck a bit of a rub, presumably to emphasise the point.

‘Again?’ I said. ‘You’re always doing your neck in.’

‘Bloody martyr to it, I am.’

Scratch snorted. ‘Martyr to being a lazy little bastard, more like.’

It was a remark that didn’t make much sense, but the gist was clear enough. And it was true. Alan would swing the lead any chance he got whenever any manual labour was involved. He was about the same age as me and probably a fair bit fitter. A couple of inches on the short side and built like a weightlifter. No great coincidence, of course, because that’s what he used to do in his younger days. Claimed that’s where his neck problems first started and why he had to give it up. But bad neck or not, there was work to be done.

I gave Alan a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, which sent up a fresh cloud of dust from his overalls, and went over to check on the progress.

‘What’s the story then?’ I said, stooping to get a good look at the hole for myself.

Scratch cleared his throat like he was trying to dislodge something the size of the piece of rubble I’d thrown at him. ‘Another half hour or so should do it, I reckon.’

The hole in the wall was roughly circular, a couple of feet in diameter and about the same deep.

‘It’ll have to be bigger than that if you’re gonna get through there,’ I said.

‘Off you go then, Max,’ said Scratch, and he laid the drill down and pushed himself upright.

Now, I’m about average height for a bloke, but Scratch has got a good head and shoulders on me and a physique that’s totally in proportion to his height. The man is bloody enormous, and what with the shaved head – a vain attempt to disguise the rapidly advancing baldness – and a busted nose, looks like a right thug that you really wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. But that’s where you’d be wrong because Scratch wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not unless provoked. And if that happened, you – or the fly – would be in serious trouble. Come to think of it, though, the fly would probably be OK since it’s unlikely that Scratch would risk being within swatting distance of it in case he was allergic. For a guy of his impressive stature, it had always struck me as weird that he should have so many allergies. Whatever it was, if you could touch it, smell it or swallow it, it was odds on that Scratch would come out in a rash. Hence the nickname. Apparently, however, he didn’t have too much of a problem with cement dust.

‘Any spare masks?’ I said.

Scratch shook his head and took off his own. ‘You’ll have to use mine.’

It was already thick with caked-on dust and probably well past its usefulness, but I guessed it was better than a handkerchief, so I slipped it on and picked up the drill. Christ, it weighed a ton, and the vibration when I started in on the hole made my brain rattle. This was the first time I’d used the thing on account of having to get off home soon after we’d got everything set up the night before. Both being single, Alan and Scratch didn’t have a Carla waiting to give them an earful about being late for their tea, but I’d promised them I’d do my share when I came back today.

Mind you, what did Scratch reckon? Another half hour or so? Jesus, I doubted I’d last more than five minutes.