It took a moment for Razor to accept that Kev, sitting within touching range and with a rift valley grin splitting his face, was real. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Getting a cup of tea before my train,’ said Kev. ‘How about you?’
‘Coffee.’
‘I thought you’d lost all your money.’
‘Other than a little loose change, I had’, said Razor. ‘After buying this, I have precisely six pennies left.’
‘Six pennies may form a basis from which to remake your fortune,’ said Kev, ‘but it won’t be easy.’
‘I have no intention of remaking my fortune,’ said Razor.
‘How will you live?’
‘By my wits.’
‘Then I fear you won’t last long, mate.’
‘I’ll be fine. I have money in the bank if I get desperate, but I won’t.’
Kev gave him a long, hard stare. ‘You worry me, and I fear you’ll do something foolish… or do I mean reckless?’
‘Don’t waste your time on me. I’m grateful, really, for everything you and Miranda have done—please tell her next time you see her. However, from now on I’d appreciate being left alone.’
‘So you can throw your life away?’
‘How would you know my intentions?’
‘Well, mate, it’s clear you keep putting yourself into dangerous situations. At first, I suspected you were an arrogant prat who believed himself immune to injury or death, but Miranda reckons you are actively trying to get yourself killed.’
‘It’s none of your business,’ said Razor, wishing he could get away, but unwilling to leave his drink.
‘Sorry, but I’ve made it my business.’
‘Please leave me alone.’
‘It’s because of your wife, isn’t it? You blame yourself for her death and can’t live with the guilt. Am I right?’
Razor took a sip of coffee. It was still too hot to gulp. ‘Get lost,’ he suggested.
Kev nodded towards the counter and the girl carried over a mug of tea and two slices of cake. ‘Thanks, Kylie.’
‘You’re welcome, as always,’ she said, giving a smile and a wink as she turned away.
‘You’re still here,’ Razor observed as Kev picked up his tea.
‘I am, because I want my drink and I thought we might chat. Have a piece of cake.’
‘I’d rather be alone. You can’t understand what it feels like to lose someone you love. People say it gets easier, but it doesn’t.’
Kev nodded. ‘I do understand. Everyone thinks they can master grief until it strikes them.’ He pushed the plate of cake towards Razor.
Razor sighed, lacking the energy to stay angry. He picked up a slice and took a nibble. It was dry, with an artificial taste—probably an attempt at an almond cake. When he’d finished it, his coffee was cool enough for cautious sipping.
‘Help yourself to the other one as well,’ said Kev.
‘I’m alright,’ Razor lied, ‘You can have it.’
‘I know I can, but I’m offering it to you, since your need would appear to be greater than mine.’
‘Then I thank you,’ said Razor. This one was carrot cake, bland and too sweet, but better than the first. When he’d finished, he washed it down with the remains of his coffee and made as if to get up.
‘Linger here with a fool,’ said Kev. ‘I have a question.’
‘What?’
‘Can you think of a reason why one of your neighbours should try to enter your house? That is the question.’
Razor shrugged. ‘No. Who was it?’
‘I don’t know, but he didn’t look like an average burglar.’
‘What makes you think he’s a neighbour?’
‘I’ve seen him around your village. He’s tall, smartly dressed, well-groomed and I’d guess in his early thirties. He drives a flashy car and lives, I think, in that big hall place.’
‘Sounds like Alex,’ said Razor with a laugh. ‘He’s no burglar. He comes round from time to time to check on me.’
‘In that case, why did he run as soon as he saw someone was home?’
‘I don’t know… I think I worried him last time we met, though it was all a misunderstanding. He’s a friend… well, sort of.’
‘Sort of?’
‘He used to work with Flit. I’d only met him once or twice before the accident, but since then he’s been very helpful. Sometimes, he comes round to check I’ve got food and suchlike, and I’ve even caught him cleaning when I’ve come back from walks.’
‘But there was precious little in your fridge, mate, and your house, and I apologise for saying this, is a tip—and I know a tip when I see one.’
Razor shrugged. ‘The mess is probably my fault—I’ve never done much about the house. Alex does come round to see me and sometimes makes me drinks and sandwiches and things. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever shown much gratitude. Perhaps I should have, but, well, he’s not someone I’d choose to be friends with. Still, I’m sure he means well, and he is the only one who’s bothered with me since…’ He swallowed and closed his eyes. ‘… Flit died.’
‘I see,’ said Kev, frowning, ‘but I’m worried.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘You know the feeling you get when you think something wicked this way comes? Well, I got it.’
Razor laughed. ‘He’s harmless.’
‘Then why was he trying to get into your house? And why does he have a key?’
‘Because I gave him one.’ Razor thought for a moment. ‘Actually, I don’t remember doing that—he must have picked up a spare so he could look in on me. I never minded too much.’
‘Don’t you have any family to take care of you?’
‘A sister in Texas. Kate and I don’t communicate much. Maybe a card at Christmas.’
‘Friends?’
‘I thought so, but I haven’t seen any of them since the funeral. Mind you, I’d have probably told them where to go if any had turned up.’
‘But maybe you really wanted to see them? Maybe their neglect is what makes you so sad.’
‘Losing Flit makes me sad.’ Razor scowled, wondering why he was wasting time talking to this irritating little guy, and fearing to say something he shouldn’t.
He became aware of a growing commotion on the platform. A woman screamed.
Kev leapt to his feet, but Razor, already up, shoved him out the way and sprinted to the rescue. A shouting crowd had formed on the platform around a young woman holding a baby in a pouch. ‘Darren!’ she shrieked, staring past the end of the platform.
A small boy in a red anorak was running along the tracks, looking back with a cheeky grin.
‘The train now arriving at Platform Four is the delayed three twenty-three from London Paddington,’ announced the station tannoy.
The train came into view, a long way off as yet, but on the same track as the kid. Although people gasped, yelled and pointed, only Razor did anything. He pushed through, leapt onto the tracks and ran towards the kid, as fast as a hare. The train, despite slowing for the station was too fast, even though its brakes were screeching and its horn was blaring. The gormless child, oblivious, stopped running and waved.
Razor went hell for leather, racing faster than ever before, though he doubted he’d make it in time. The train loomed larger. At the last millisecond, Razor launched himself into a desperate dive. His outstretched hands made contact, the kid screamed, and a blast of noise and hot metallic air swirled around them.
Infuriatingly still alive, Razor sprawled on the gravel, too puffed and winded to do much more than gasp for air. The train came to a standstill. The kid, face down on the track, screamed for his mum. Razor struggled to his feet, taking the kid’s raucous yelling as a sign of nothing much being wrong.
Still fighting for breath, he tottered down the track away from the station and flung himself into the undergrowth at the side. As he crawled away, he peeped back. Two railway workers were running towards the child who’d sat up and was howling. Razor cursed the misfortune that had kept him alive again, but was happy to have got away before anyone could thank him or ask questions. Furthermore, he’d given Kev the slip.
He pushed through rank grass and dead weed stalks, heading towards the top of the embankment where he crouched beneath a leggy gorse bush and looked back. A railway man was handing the boy up to his frantic, tearful mother, and the useless crowd was cheering and whooping. Razor turned away, creeping down a steep slope towards a small road.
On the way, his feet slipped. He slid and bounced, gaining momentum until the slope levelled off, when he cannoned into the steel perimeter fence. It was one way of getting down, though not the most painless. After a muted groan and deep breaths, he pulled himself to his feet and looked up at the razor-sharp edges of the spikes topping the fence. They would deter anybody except the terminally insane.
The evening shadows were deepening as he stomped through the brittle undergrowth, heading away from the station and hoping to chance on a way out. He tripped and stumbled once or twice and was then ambushed by the abandoned wreckage of a bike. Swearing and sore of shin, he hobbled past on his second attempt. There was no sound of anyone following, which was for the best, though it felt ridiculous to be running like a hunted criminal after doing something he considered a true act of heroism.
Amazed and proud of his own courage, he couldn’t stop a grin developing, and he might even have started humming had he not noticed the light of a small fire casting weird flickering shadows against the walls of a rail bridge through the gloom ahead. Razor approached with caution, watching as an old man hobbled from under one of the arches, chucked a log onto the blaze and slouched against the brickwork.
‘Good evening,’ said Razor, wood smoke curling around him.
‘What do you want?’ asked the old man, his voice cracked and hoarse.
‘Nothing, I’m just passing through,’ said Razor, raising his hands in a gesture of peace and harmlessness.
‘Who are you?’ asked the man. His snaggly beard and face looked sooty, but his eyes were round and white. He took a pull from a gin bottle and shuddered.
‘Just a peaceful passer-by out for a walk,’ said Razor, slowing to dawdle pace.
‘Leave me alone and take your black-cloaked demon with you!’ shouted the man as he stared over Razor’s shoulder.
Razor shivered and glanced behind, but there was nothing but smoke.
‘Take it away,’ the old man screamed, waving his arms as if swatting flies. ‘I know you, and I’ve seen what it does.’
‘You don’t know me,’ said Razor.
‘I do. I saw you and that thing by the Wharves. Take it away!’
The penny dropped. ‘You’re the homeless guy,’ said Razor.
‘Well I wouldn’t be lying under this bloody bridge if I wasn’t homeless, would I? And I wouldn’t be here if you and that thing of yours hadn’t brought all the cops into town. Leave me in peace. Please.’
‘I will,’ said Razor, ‘but you’d better lay off the booze. You’re seeing things.’
‘That’s what the cops said,’ the man roared, ‘but I don’t drink alcohol.’
‘Really?’ said Razor with a glance at the bottle.
‘It’s water—no one’s going to bring me a mug of cocoa out here are they? You’re just stereotyping me because of my appearance and that’s not right. I have a medical condition, you know.’
‘Sorry,’ said Razor. ‘But you are the guy who was sleeping in the shop doorway the other night, aren’t you?’
‘So what?’
‘Did you see what happened?’ asked Razor, though he wasn’t hopeful—the evidence suggesting the old man was not all there.
‘I was trying to sleep. That was my spot until you and your thing messed it up.’
‘I did nothing—I was the one who got attacked.’
‘I don’t know about that, but your demon was there. Don’t set it on me, please. I’m trying to be helpful.’ The man’s gaze fixed on a point behind Razor’s right ear.
‘I won’t,’ said Razor, humouring the old fool. ‘As long as you continue to be cooperative.’
‘I will be.’
‘Good. Tell me what you saw that night.’
‘Like I told the cops, a bloke went down an alley and another bloke—you—followed him in. There was a scuffle, your demon swooped in and there was screaming. Then you came out with the demon.’
Razor sighed.
‘Where did you get it?’ asked the old man
‘The demon? There’s no such thing.’
‘Everyone says that, but I know what I see… I’ve done what you asked, now, please, take it away.’
‘What does it look like?’
The man frowned. ‘Like a demon, of course, and it’s black as night. Go away!’
Since the poor old chap was becoming even more agitated, Razor thought he’d best leave him to his madness. ‘Thank you for all your help, sir. I’m going now… that is we’re going. Come along, be a good demon and stop bothering the nice gentleman.’
A rough path pounded into the mud made his route easier, and a few minutes’ walk took him to a break in the fence, just wide enough to squeeze through into a narrow backstreet, a rift between tumbledown red-brick buildings. When something moved in the shadows, visions of black-clad demons filled Razor’s mind, along with some half-remembered line about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but it turned out to be nothing scarier than a foraging rat.
Razor followed the backstreet until it joined a broader road, lined with derelict buildings and desperate-looking shops—either triumphs of wishful thinking or symbols of continuing failure. He continued, turning into another street of similar bleakness and then into another, before reaching a concrete multistorey car park. He was searching for a name or any other clue about his location when he heard a yell from above. It was followed by more shouts and a burst of harsh laughter.
Razor took it as a call to arms. After a deep breath, he jogged up the ramp as it twisted into semi-darkness in the bowels of the foetid-smelling car park. Several young men were standing around a large guy with cropped blond hair. His back was to Razor and he held a wodge of bank notes in one hand. Assuming a mugging was in progress, Razor prepared to charge to the rescue, but the big guy said something that made the others laugh and pushed the cash into his pocket. Razor hung back in the shadows, keeping an eye on things, convinced something was wrong. The big guy glanced at his mobile, said he’d got to go, turned around and walked towards a gleaming black car.
Razor gasped and stared—it was the man who’d thrown him off Bindover Bridge.
The car started and sped down the ramp. Instinct made Razor squeeze against the wall. The car missed him by inches.
A few seconds later, the rest of the mob ran towards him, though they didn’t appear to notice until a lanky guy with matted hair ran into him and went down in a tangle of arms and legs. The others stopped and stared. Their eyes were dark, like sharks’ and their mouths snarled and swore. To Razor’s untutored eye, they appeared high on something. It had not had a mellowing effect. The fallen one lay groaning.
‘The bastard’s done Baz,’ said one, whose head was as smooth and white as a hard-boiled egg.
‘Sorry,’ said Razor. ‘But he ran into me.’
‘You were inadequately lit, and your flagrant disregard for safety has caused an injury to our companion,’ Egghead continued. ‘He’s, therefore, entitled to compensation. In addition, the rest of us will seek financial reparation for the trauma of witnessing the incident.’
‘You what?’ asked Razor, baffled by the unexpected legalese.
A huge, flabby youth with a flat nose and rotten teeth translated. ‘Give us your money.’
As the youth stepped forward and shoved him in the chest, making him crash into the wall behind, Razor smiled—perhaps his luck was changing at last. ‘This is all I’ve got,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and showing them his remaining six pennies.
They did not appear impressed. He’d not expected they would be.
‘Shake him down,’ said Egghead.
Razor reacted first and flung the coins into the flabby one’s face, making him shy away and yelp. Seeing an opportunity, Razor darted forward, swinging a fist that connected with the young man’s jaw, felling him like a rotten tree.
‘Now he’s done Deano,’ said Egghead. ‘It behoves us to seek revenge for our fallen companions in arms.’
‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Let’s do him!’
Razor drew himself into what he hoped was a fighting stance, hoping to provoke them. ‘Come on then, if you think there are enough of you. Prepare to die… horribly.’ Although his voice came out stronger than he’d hoped, his heart raced. He expected battle and hopefully death—his assailants looked the sort he imagined carried knives. Whatever happened, he wished they’d be quick about it, but they hung back, apparently put off by his bogus bravado. He almost pitied them—there was something in their blank expressions and dead eyes that reminded him of the hopelessness of derelict buildings.
And then they attacked, fists and feet breaking through his defences, and though he landed many a punch, knowing there was no way he could win felt good. When a lump-hammer fist slammed into his belly, he doubled up, a knee caught him on the chin and he went down, gasping, clutching his guts and helpless. It was only a matter of time before they finished him and, despite the pain, he smiled, hoping for the coup de grâce.
It didn’t come. Hearing a revving engine, tyres screeching and his assailants panicked yelling, he opened his eyes. A misshapen, rusty little car was juddering up the ramp towards them, emitting smoke like a dragon. Razor’s assailants fled or scrambled over the wall in their panic to get away.
The car stopped next to him. The door opened. Someone emerged. Hands dragged him up and pushed him onto the back seat. Doors slammed, the car reversed down the ramp, performed a handbrake turn at the bottom and drove away.
Razor lay still, fighting for breath, and whispering curses to the guardian angel who had saved him—it wasn’t fair. A few minutes later, he sat up, still clutching his stomach and trying not to moan so much.
‘What ails you to complain and groan so?’
‘Bloody hell, Kev!’ said Razor. ‘Why do you keep popping up like that?’
‘It looked like you needed rescue, my Lord.’
‘And why the hell do you talk like that?’
‘For my amusement,’ said Kev. ‘Seriously though, you looked in big trouble.’
‘I can take care of myself.’
‘It didn’t look like it from where I was. Anyone would think you wanted to get hurt… or worse.’
‘I’ve told you before that it’s none of your business. Please leave me alone. I mean it.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Yes you can.’
Kev shook his head. ‘No, you’re a friend.’
‘You don’t know me,’ said Razor, touched despite himself. He fought to regain control. ‘Stop the car and let me out. It is my right to live or die as I choose.’
Kev drove on.
‘Stop.’
‘Not yet.’
‘When?’
‘When you’re home.’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ Razor heard echoes of the petulant teenager he’d once been.
‘Nevertheless, that’s where we’re going.’
‘Stop the bloody car. Now!’
Kev turned on the radio, filling the air with classical music.
‘Okay, I’m getting out, whether you stop or not.’
‘Go on then.’
‘I will… Thank you for being a friend. Goodbye.’
Razor tried the door handle. Nothing happened. ‘Let me out.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Turn off the child locks.’
‘There aren’t any, mate. The doors are somewhat temperamental, like the rest of the car.’
Razor considered clambering into the front and forcing Kev to stop, but that might cause a crash, and he had no wish to hurt the innocent. ‘Damn you! Why are you doing this?’
‘Because life is important and not for throwing away on a whim.’
‘I thought the same once, but you’re wrong. Life is meaningless. It can be taken away just like that. It’s not worth the hassle.’
‘It’s always worth it,’ said Kev. ‘It’s all we’ve got.’
‘I don’t care. Let me out.’
‘I will…’
‘About time.’
‘… when I’m ready. We should talk first.’
‘Talking won’t bring her back.’
‘Of course not, mate, but I don’t want to talk about that. It’s about your house…’
‘You can have it. It’s got too many bad memories.’
‘And plenty of good ones, I expect, but I don’t want it… I’ve got enough.’
Razor sighed. ‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want to know about that mate of yours that keeps showing up. Miranda thinks there’s something odd about his behaviour and I agree.’
‘Alex? He’s not really a mate, and I’ve already told you about him.’
‘Yeah, but you haven’t explained what he wants.’
‘I expect he wants to make sure I’m alright,’ said Razor. ‘Why can’t people just leave me alone?’
Kev ignored the question. ‘Why would he do that if he’s not your mate? And why would he try to get into your house when he knew you weren’t there?’
‘How the hell would I know?’
‘We think he’s looking for something,’ Kev continued. ‘Do you own anything of value?’
‘I expect some stuff is worth a bit, but I don’t think there’s anything amazing and, anyway, Alex is already wealthy. To be fair to the man, he’s done incredibly well in the last couple of years. Flit said she didn’t know how he did it.’
Kev shrugged. ‘That doesn’t change my opinion. He wants something and thinks it is in your house.’
‘Don’t be so daft,’ said Razor. ‘He has his faults, but he’s no burglar, whatever you think you saw.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Kev, although he didn’t sound convinced.
Razor was not convinced either. Old worries, long since buried, had resurrected themselves. He hadn’t much liked Alex from the moment Flit had first introduced him at a work social. There had been a time when he’d feared they were having an affair, but if they had, it had cooled in the months before her death.