Chapter Ten

There was a pub Mark knew on the other side of the hill, and securing his camp as much as possible, he decided to walk there. It might be the last chance he would get, and a lot of early memories were in that place. He took the Smith and Wesson in an inside pocket. It seemed more suitable to the terrain than the automatic. That was a city piece. Clouds raced overhead, fat and black-edged, the sun cutting through them in shafts of pale light. As a kid, in weather like this, he always thought they were guiding him. Searchlights to show him the best tracks through the forest. His forest. His sun.

Mark wished he had the eyes of a hawk, or an insect that could see behind itself. Stellachi wouldn’t be the first one looking for him. He’d be the final solution man, coming only if and when needed.

The bar was almost empty. It had a valley equivalent of the elderly man in the Cardiff toilet. Old, worn, slumped over a pint that had long gone flat. There was also a middle-aged couple with London accents. Visitors, maybe even tourists. It amazed Mark that any came here, but they did, in dribs and drabs, now that the valley had been cleansed. Perhaps they were here to look at the churchyard next to the pub. It was unusual. With its crazily listing headstones clinging to twisting turf, it seemed to surf the hilly ground it was built on, its dead moved around by the mine workings underneath. Many of the graves were broken up now, some with black holes that dared you to look in. Mark had loved it there when he was a kid.

He ordered a pint from a kid barman, much too young to be stuck in this place.

‘Out for a walk, are you?’ the boy asked brightly.

‘Something like that.’

‘Dried up nice, hasn’t it?’

‘Yip.’

The kid wanted to talk. The English were leaving and Mark was a better bet than the old man, but Mark cut off the chat and sat in the corner. He’d always sat in the corner. The place hadn’t changed much, if at all. Old-fashioned wallpaper was so faded it was hard to tell the original colour, and it was stained dark brown by generations of smoke. He’d drunk here a lot in his late teens, walking over from the estate, usually on his own, sometimes with any girl who’d dared to go out with him.

This might be his last drink and it was tinged by bitter memories, old and new, but Mark was glad he was here. It was a small comfort. There was another message on the mobile but he didn’t read it. Let it wait. There was nothing he could say to Julie at the moment and he had plenty of time now. Carl would have got her away, that part had to be a success, it might be his only one.

Two thirds into the glass he read the text. Mark, I’m worried stupid. Where are u? Get in touch   now.

He finished the pint, got another, and answered. I’m all right. Stay with Carl at all times.

Mark drank the strong local brew and was feeling a little tipsy. He ate the only hot food on offer, a micro-waved meat pie that tasted of hot plastic. It would have revolted Lena, and almost had that effect on him. Mark felt the clash of old and new ways, but he ate it anyway. Hot food would be hard to come by now, unless he risked a fire, another thing he’d loved back then. Hunched over them in all weathers, acting out whatever fantasy was uppermost in his head at the time, always thinking of the better times that lay ahead. Sometimes Daniels was with him, sniffing and whining about the cold, anxious to be home, even if home was an even colder place.

The old geezer hobbled out, and Mark was alone in the pub. He heard a car start up, as old and as wheezy as its owner. Playing out time, Mark thought, waiting. Suddenly the thought of going out at thirty didn’t seem so bad.

The kid made a fuss of wiping tables, not sure whether to approach Mark too closely. He was bored, and finally dared to engage Mark again.

‘You local? Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.’

‘I’ve been here. Not for years though.’

‘Oh. I’m not here for long. Going to college next week.’

He wanted Mark to ask where but had to supply the answer himself.

‘Only Cardiff, I’m sharing a house down there, with the boys from school.’

Mark finished the last of his pint, and licked away the slight moustache from his lips.

‘You pull a good pint,’ he said, ‘for someone going to college.’

He let the kid puzzle that one out and left, walking out into the September afternoon. For him, this time of year had meant nights drawing in and more cover for his stealing. Not many of his generation had managed to get off the estate, not of their own free will anyway. Maybe it was different now. He hoped so. Even if it wasn’t, Mark realised he’d rather be hunted on the mountainside than trapped back there.

This day seemed never ending. Despite being out in the open, his open, Mark hadn’t felt like this since he had been banged up in Portland, in that young offenders place. When he’d looked out on the Dorset shoreline from his multi-bunked dorm, saw the windblown freshness of the coast outside, ached for it, and cursed himself for a fool. Like he was cursing himself now.

As Mark walked a little unsteadily along the track that fringed the mountain road, he saw the main arteries of the valley floor start to choke up. It was that time of day. Cars chased each other home up and down the valley, most of them coming up from Cardiff and the coast. Some already had their lights on, forming a flashing, linked chain he could sweep from his vantage point. He wondered if the Lexus was one of them.

He’d picked a good spot for his camp. Nothing could come at him without making a lot of noise. The undergrowth at the edge of the forestry was a mess of old stumps, and tangled, decaying wood and front-on from the edge of the trees he could see a hundred yards each way, and anything driving up the mountain road could be heard a mile off.

Mark found a log to sit on and thought again about a fire, just for this night. It would be dangerous, but he felt the need. All the old feelings were coming back. He’d never felt a kinship with people, but he did with this place. If he lost out and they buried him here, he’d be feeding it, nourishing it, becoming a permanent part of it, like the people buried in the lop-sided graveyard. Mark liked this idea, he liked it more than he was afraid of death.

Mark built the fire further into the forest and banked it all around with logs. Its glow would only be visible for a very short distance, even in the dark. The light was going and by the time the wood had caught it was well into dusk. Mark realised he didn’t have a torch, so got his stuff together quickly. He opened one of the tins and spooned beans into his mouth. At least the rain had kept off, for he doubted if his makeshift shelter would be too waterproof. He’d be stinking in a few days, a larger version of Kelly. They were two peasants who’d ended up in the big city. Maybe Kelly would achieve a kind of fame amongst his own. His drinking buddies might talk about him for a while, and his star would rise with one brief glimmer. Mark raised an imaginary glass to Kelly now, but it didn’t take the guilt away.

He sat close to the fire, on the stump of a tree. The evening had some nip to it. Maybe a hard winter was on the way, but it wouldn’t concern him. Mark could not allow himself to see beyond the next few days. There was plenty of dead wood to keep a good flame, and it was summer-dry. It sparked and spat at him as sap bubbled from the ends of logs. Mark was entranced by the red flames, he always had been. When Julie had taken up with someone worse than usual, he’d get away like this, and, if it wasn’t pissing down, he’d start a fire and sit out all night. There was a kind of comfort in it. He’d feel cleansed, and in control, and would allow small pieces of self belief to crawl into his thoughts as he watched the fire battle against the frost. When he got home, the new man was usually gone.

Mark took the Smith and Wesson from his jacket and examined it in the firelight. He knew its power now, the way it turned life in an instant, and hated it, but he was still glad it was in his hands. Its snub-nosed barrel glowed in the flames, and it felt right in his grasp. It was easy to think the gun was becoming part of him.

Mark hadn’t expected Carl to tell Julie the truth. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that he would. As he lay back and watched the sky turn black, he relaxed with the idea. Carl had done right. Maybe Julie would tell him about Shane now and everything would be out in the open. That would test Carl, shake him even further, but if the man was still around tonight, he always would be.

Mark watched the first stars appear. There was not much man-made light here to lessen them, just a hint of orange glow from life below. One of his earliest memories was of his mother telling him that stars were fairies lighting up the sky, as she tucked him up in bed and went back downstairs to whoever. There was also a new moon starting, just a small slice of yellow coming up over the far hillside, but enough to cast the lower slopes in the palest of light. He saw the outline of the valley he knew so well, its contours only hinted at now, but filled in by his memory.

All my old friends are coming out, Mark thought. The moon and the stars and the black night. He’d got to read his patch of sky well in his thieving years. He couldn’t name anything apart from The Plough but he knew which stars winked white, yellow or red, and where the brightest ones lay in the map above his head. He’d missed this in the city. Everything was over-lit there, as if they wanted to banish night altogether.

Mark let the fire die down, had a leisurely piss at the edge of the trees, making something scuttle away in the darkness, then pushed his way into his narrow shelter. He used his jacket for a pillow but kept the rest of his clothes on. Despite the weather it was still dank on the ground, and the smell of crumbling wood was all around him. He wasn’t the only animal that had watered the ground here either, he smelt the heavy mustiness of a fox that had been past recently. It might be watching the dying fire now, intrigued by this interloper and wondering if food was around. Mark needed to sleep but Lena competed with it, and he saw Julie at bay, until all images faded.

Carl’s place reminded Julie of her old estate house, a good view from the window, if you looked far enough away, but crap nearby. It was about the same age too. Sixties stuff that had fallen apart all too easily.

‘I bought it off the council when I come out of the army,’ Carl said. ‘Not much to look at, is it, but it’s quiet enough round here. Most of the kids live on the other side. Haven’t spent much time here anyway, since the missus left. I had to buy her out.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

Carl wrapped himself around Julie’s shoulders, as she stood in his living room, scanning the road outside.

‘If you stand on the roof you can see the sea,’ Carl murmured.

‘Carl, what the hell am I going to do?’

‘What are we going to do, you mean.’

‘Mark’s on his own out there.’

‘I’d say he’s more than capable.’

‘Don’t give me that man-talk rubbish, I bin hearing it all my life, and it usually ends up as an excuse for something stupid, or dangerous. Oh, he’s hard all right, whatever that means, but not for stuff like this. He’s not a killer, for Godsake, people shooting each other, girls getting cut up. We’re ordinary people, Carl.’

Carl thought he was going to have another pummelling but Julie let him hold her. She sobbed without making any noise, her body shaking in his arms.

‘Mark had a good idea,’ Carl said,’ about going to Ireland. We could drive over in the morning on the ferry. There’ll be plenty of space this time of year. We could lose ourselves over on that west coast for a while. No one would ever look there, Jool.’

‘Aye, but what about him, though? It’s Mark they want, not us. He’ll be on his own.’

‘Jool, he’s on his own now, girl. We can’t help him. Going to the police won’t stop this   even if they did believe us, which I very much doubt.’

‘I dunno. I just dunno.’

‘Look, it’s the best way to help him. He’ll have one less thing to worry about. If he can keep away from these guys long enough perhaps that will end it.’

Julie turned to face him. ‘Do you really think that, Carl?’

‘Course I do. They won’t be hunting for him for ever. Maybe he can skip the country then. A boy like him will always find work.’

Lying wasn’t Carl’s style, but it seemed to calm Julie.

‘Have you got any food here?’ she murmured. ‘We might as well eat something.’

‘Aye, in the fridge.’

‘These people are poor,’ Angelo said.

They were parked a few hundred yards from Carl’s house. The big man had followed well, never too close, but always keeping them in sight. A skill that had taken years to perfect.

‘This is poor?’ the big man answered, sweeping a hand around the estate.

‘For here, yes.’

‘We could have done with some of this poverty back home.’

‘Tony said the mother was on her own. This man complicates things.’

‘Not much.’

‘We must finish this cleanly. If the police here get involved in any way, Amsterdam will not be pleased.’

‘When are they ever? We are still ruled, just like back home.’

Angelo slapped the big man’s shoulder.

‘Look at your clothes, the rings on your fingers, this car you drive. This is not like back home!’

Angelo took an untipped cigarette from a gold case and handed it to his friend.

‘That was Agani’s, wasn’t it?’ the big man asked.

‘Twenty-two carat, made in Istanbul.’

‘Turks! Not worth pissing on.’

‘Their cigarettes are. Black Sobranie. Agani knew about fine things. Calm down, put some music on.’

The big man clumsily inserted a CD into the player. A strident Albanian band played, lots of tight strings and lamenting voices. Both men sucked on their smokes and tapped large fingers on knees. A woman passing with a pram paused and glanced at them.

‘Turn it down,’ Angelo said.

Lights came on in Carl’s house. Angelo could see him pass across a window. As with most of his life, Angelo was unsure what was going to happen next. They knew where this Richards had lived, about his crimes, and the baby brother he had probably killed. Tony had been good for stories. Maybe Richards had told the mother where he was going now, maybe he’d told them about Lena and Agani, maybe not, but Angelo could not afford to take any chances. It would not be enough to kill Richards if others knew.

‘Are we going to kill them?’ the big man asked.

‘Be quiet, I’m thinking.’

Angelo did not like thinking. It never got any easier. Far better to let others like Agani do it, but Agani was gone, and Stellachi was not here, not yet. These two people would not be so easy to get rid of as that Kelly. He went through options in his mind. It could be an accident, maybe a fire, or a car crash, or the man could kill this Julie and then kill himself. Maybe they could just disappear. Yes, that would be best.

Angelo pushed the seat back, and inhaled the opulence of the car along with his smoke. He ran his hands along its leather seats and noted the brushed chrome fittings. He closed his eyes and let the music take him. It was from the hills of his birth, they used to play it in the small café in the village. He’d grubbed in the dirt outside with the big man and others long dead. The big man was the big boy then, always ready to protect him, hurting other boys with increasing pleasure. He’d never changed.

Two kids were watching the car from the opposite pavement. One stuck up a solitary finger to Angelo. Angelo smiled and made a gun shape with his hand and pointed it at the boys. They smiled back, then got scared and ran off into an adjoining lane. Angelo had the real thing in the inside pocket of his jacket. He nudged the big man.

‘Put your cigarette out. It’s almost down to your fingers. Come on, we’ll leave the car here. I’ve decided what to do.’

They were both getting old but the big man was still eager. He plodded behind Angelo towards the house, smiling and flexing his fists. Age had not dulled his malice one bit.

‘Are these eggs all right?’ Julie asked. ‘they look a bit old.’

Carl was surprised she could think about eating. He thought she’d be in bits about this.

‘It will have to be egg and chips then,’ Julie said, ‘you’re not exactly stocked up.’

‘Fine. Look, what do you think about this Ireland idea?’

‘We’d be abandoning him. Maybe Mark should be with us. Stick together, like.’

‘What, you want to be a cowboy too?’

‘Don’ be stupid, Carl.’

‘Sorry. No, he’d never have it, Jool. I’d never have it. Like I said before, he needs to know you’re safe.’

‘He’ll be up there by now. On them hills. He used to know them like the back of his hand.’

‘Probably still does. That’s a big advantage.’

‘This is all so bloody unreal. Mark used to always go an about films when he was a kid, video mad, he was. Sometimes I thought he got them mixed up with real life. And I feel like that now. That we’re all in a bloody horror show. Talking about Mark shooting it out with thugs, trying to stay alive. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Maybe. But it’s real all right. Come to Ireland with me, Jool. You can keep in touch with him on your mobile.’

Julie put the food on two plates but pushed hers away.

‘I can’t eat mine. Don’ really see the point.’

‘What’s the good in thinking like that?’

‘Whatever happens it’s a nightmare. After Shane went I didn’t think life could get any worse. And it didn’t. It calmed down, became something that never changed, always grey, but I got used to that. Until you come along.’

‘Was Shane Mark’s father? Look, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’

‘His father? Hardly.’ Julie stared at Carl and made her decision. ‘Shane was Mark’s baby brother. I was stupid then, and got pregnant with some waster off the estate. He wasn’t interested and neither was I after I got to know him. He left me with a little boy   Shane. Nothing like that sod, thank God, nothing like Mark either. He was lovely, Carl. Blond hair, blue eyes, Christ knows where he come from. A little scamp, mind. He adored Mark, hung around him all the time. I thought Mark would bugger off when Shane was born but he didn’t. It was hard for us at first, but we pulled together. What do they say now? Bonded.’

‘Did Shane pass away?’

‘Maybe. Passed away from us, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He disappeared. From the garden out the back.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘No, no one did. I’d left him with Mark and had gone shopping. It was a beautiful day, so Mark had him out the back. He answered the phone and when he came back out Shane was gone. Don’ you remember about it? It was in all the papers for days, telly, everything. They were around the estate like a cloud of flies.’

‘No, I don’t. When was it?’

‘Bout twelve years ago, now.’

‘I was still in the army then. Away somewhere, probably.’

‘There was never no trace of him, Carl. Never. Everyone thought Mark had done something. They always thought he was nuts on the estate anyway. Used to call him Psycho Eyes.’

‘What about you?’

‘I wasn’t sure for a while. It was just the way Shane went. They never found nothing, no clothing, no trace of Shane at all. But I know now Mark didn’t harm him, that’s the one thing I am sure of. Every other thought has gone through my mind though, it’s always there, some days worse than others.’

‘Jesus,’ Carl whispered, as he pushed his own food away. ‘I had no idea. No one deserves that.’

It was getting harder for Julie to talk.

‘Some of the women up there thought we were in it together. Oh, they give me a social worker, all that stuff. She was all right, too, but all she could offer was words in the end. She said kids had disappeared like that before but it was very rare. No one saw nothing, that was the thing. They were a nosy bunch around me at the best of times but everyone was deaf, dumb and blind that day. We’ll never know what happened now. Sometimes I think he might be alive somewhere, with a new life. Maybe living with rich people. Sometimes I think other things.’

Julie was crying freely now. Carl took her to the sofa and held her. A few weeks ago he’d thought he’d met someone for a bit of fun. Someone like him, who’d been around the block a few times and wanted no complications. He’d need to think about this. It put a new slant on Mark. For a black moment Carl wondered if Mark might have turned it all around, that he’d killed Lena and that Agani fella, because she was having it off with him. No, it wouldn’t do to go there. He’d have no future with Julie if he did. Future! What the fuck was he thinking off? This was a mess. He’d been better off in the Falklands. At least there you knew who was shooting at you.

Carl kept Julie in his arms for a while, hoping she’d drop off to sleep. He felt her tiny fists pull at his shirt like a baby, as she cried softly and mumbled the occasional word. He was almost falling asleep himself when he heard someone moving around outside.

*

Mark was cold when he woke up. Cold and damp. It had rained in the night. Soft stuff, but enough to gather on his sheet and drip into his bracken shelter. Lying on his back he listened to a dawn chorus of crows, and the nerve locked into their harsh, raw-throated, communal call. They were in the trees at the edge of the forest, gearing up for their day. He’d never liked them, or any other noisy birds. Crows, jays, magpies, gulls, they were all a waste of space. He preferred birds that went quietly about their business, like the hawk that moved above him now. Moving effortlessly, wings trying to catch the weak sun that had struggled out, looking for any nocturnal straggler that was late getting home. The crows saw it and made off with loud warning cries. They made a living down below, and had allied themselves to mankind long ago.

Mark got up and stretched the stiffness out of his neck and the lumps from his back. He was glad it had turned fine again, it would give him a chance to dry out. Sitting on his already shapeless rucksack Mark surveyed his new kingdom. Most foliage around him was browning up and dying, some stuff still grew, but in the last flush of growth. As a kid he’d noticed how thick and green grass was at this time of the year, now it was slicked with dew and shining at the verge of the hill road, lush in the first light. He liked this sense of life turning. It matched his own.

Reluctantly, Mark turned his phone on. He had several voicemails. They would be pleas from Julie. She would have had a night to think over things. She’d want him to turn himself in. He’d blown it. Angelo and the big man should have gone the same way as Agani. Then maybe he’d be running all over the world, but never coming back to Wales. Never bringing trouble home. He’d reverted to type, bolting for the burrow, like all hunted animals. He put the phone to his ear.

It was Angelo’s voice. Mark, your mother wants to talk to you.

Mark froze. Julie’s voice was distorted. It had the scalding quality he’d last heard when Shane disappeared, like she was shouting from the bottom of a pit, with all hope shaken out of it.

Mark, listen to me, for Christsake. They come in here. They hurt Carl. He’s bad. Get away Mark, don’ meet with them …

The phone went dead, but there was another message.

Your mother is upset. We understand. We want to see you, Mark. We’ll bring your mother. You say where. Your mother will be our guide. Our helper. We need to hear from you by ten in the morning. It would be best that you phone.

Mark sat down heavily. The time on his phone said eight thirty and Angelo had phoned at two in the morning. He should have checked it again in the night, he’d woken up often enough. This was worse than his worst nightmare. He had to think. If they came up here with Julie, they’d never let them leave alive. She knew too much now.

Mark got the guns out of the rucksack, and checked them. They had his mother, and Carl was probably already dead. They’d killed a man who had nothing to do with this, whose only crime was to walk in on the world of the Richards family.

Mark moved around for a few minutes, trying to get the circulation coursing through his stiff body. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself, and he jumped whenever he heard a noise. The hawk was still gliding around but Mark didn’t look so kindly on it now. He was jealous of the bird’s freedom, and its control over its short, uncomplicated life. He phoned Julie’s number. It rang ten times before Angelo answered.

‘Ah, Mark, it is you. So you are well?’

Mark wanted to scream and shout down the phone but no words came.

‘Do you want to speak to your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mark! Are you there? They just appeared. Carl’s unconscious. Oh God, I can’ handle this.’

Angelo was saying something to her.

‘Mark, they want to meet. Want me to take them up to the valley.’

‘All right.’

They wanted an empty space and no people, then it would be a bullet in each of their brains and maybe a trip in the boot of their car to Dungeness. It would be too much fuss to bury two bodies. Carl might already be in the boot. The Lexus was big enough for three. At least he had some time, if they were still down on the coast, but Mark couldn’t even be sure of that.

‘Pick a place, my friend. Your mother will guide us.’

‘The churchyard by the pub. She’ll know which one, she’ll know where.’

‘At ten then,’ Angelo said. ‘Don’t disappoint. And Mark, please, no tricks. For your mother’s sake.’

The phone went dead. Maybe the church wasn’t the best spot, he did think of the shrine near the estate, a stone statue on the hillside that had marked his early life, but that would have been crazy, even by his standards. Within minutes the whole estate would have turned out, then the police force. It would have been the Richards’ finale, a very public one. No, the church was practically unused now, the people in its ground long dead and unvisited.

The light was a soft yellow, haze rising from the valley floor as the sun gathered strength. Cars on the road again. Maybe this would be the last warm day of the year. His anyway.

Mark forced himself to eat, trying to think of a plan that wasn’t pathetic. Trying to think of any plan. Events had been one step ahead of him throughout all of this. He hadn’t expected Kelly to get killed, he hadn’t expected to kill Agani, and he hadn’t expected Angelo to get to Julie and Carl. Carl must be dead, they’d never leave him otherwise.

Mark checked the guns again, making sure he knew how to use the automatic. It was easy enough, there was nothing hard about guns. Point, press and shoot. One long steady pull on the trigger and it would shoot its load. Nine slugs that could go anywhere because he had no idea what his aim was like. Agani had been close, can’t-miss material.

He packed both guns back in the sack. He packed everything, in fact, like some old warrior going on the final journey, taking his essentials into the next world, but there was no time to think about what came after death, if anything. It was ten minutes to the churchyard, so Mark would have an hour before they came, an hour to come up with something.