Nowhere To Hide

Hanlon turned the ignition again, but he’d flooded the engine and the starter turned ineffectually. In the dark outside, the figure had reached the car. Hanlon made another attempt to start the car, trying to remember what to do about a flooded ignition. Then, suddenly, the engine burst into life. As he struggled to put the car into first gear, his mind and actions refusing to coordinate, the car door beside him was pulled open. He jammed the gear stick into what he thought was first, banged his foot hard down on the accelerator and let out the clutch.

The engine coughed and died.

The figure outside said: ‘Need a few more lessons, mate. Don’t take off in third.’

Hanlon looked across at Mo, baffled now. Mo had his head in his hands, his body hunched as if anticipating a blow.

‘Fucking cowboys,’ the figure said. ‘Shouldn’t be let out on your own. Give us all a bad name.’

Hanlon raised his head and stared through the windscreen at the car parked ahead of their own. Not a police car. Not a police car after all. Just a plain dark saloon with one of those magnetic blue beacons that doctors and plainclothes cops use to get through the traffic.

He looked up at the figure standing next to him. Black suit. A baseball cap. Dark glasses. No one he’d be able to recognise in daylight. Beside him, Hanlon could hear Mo breathing rapidly, murmuring something, a voice on the edge of losing it.

‘Nice of you two to do the heavy lifting, though,’ the figure said. He leaned forward and peered into the back seat. There was a gun in his hand, Hanlon noticed, feeling oddly calm now. ‘Bringing these two charming ladies over. I’m sure we’ll use them wisely.’

He straightened up, juggling the gun gently in his hand. Then he looked back down at Hanlon. ‘Sorry about this, son,’ he said, gently. ‘Nothing personal.’

Hanlon stared back, surprised by the softness of the man’s tone. He suddenly had the sense that it was all going to be all right. The man would simply take the women and leave. Okay, he and Mo would lose the payment because they’d fucked up. But he could live with that. He could fucking live.

But the man had already taken a step back and Hanlon knew that, really, nothing would be all right again. He watched as the man crouched slightly, then raised the gun and pointed it past Hanlon into the car.

Hanlon was screaming before the gun was fired. Before he felt the rush of air and heard the explosion. Before he sensed the impact and the sudden jerk from Mo’s body beside him. Before the windows and seats and his own face were showered in Mo’s blood and bone and grey matter.

He was still screaming as he tried ineffectually to free himself from his seat belt, throwing himself sideways in a vain attempt to drag himself from the nightmarish, blood-drenched interior of the car.

And he stopped screaming only when the man outside raised the gun and fired for a second time.

Ken had left his car in one of these back streets, but for the moment he couldn’t quite remember where. Earlier, it had seemed the obvious place, just around the corner from the club, handy for when he came out. But now he’d walked round the block twice and he still couldn’t work it out.

Maybe someone had stolen it. Always possible in an area like this. Not likely, though. Not the kind of car to attract thieves. Too new to be easy pickings, but not so modern or sexy that anyone would be particularly drawn to it. Not one for the boy-racers, or for the professionals who blagged prestige cars to order. A nondescript runabout for the middle-aged. Just the way Kev liked it.

Story of his life, in fact. Keep your head down. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Get to know the right people. Word of mouth. Enough people knew who he was, but not too many. If he wanted some gear, he knew who to go to. If he had some gear to shift, people came to him. Otherwise, he drifted out of sight, unnoticed. An inconspicuous link in the chain.

He didn’t feel particularly inconspicuous tonight, though. He’d made a mistake, lost a bit of control. He wasn’t a good drinker. A cheap drunk, Kev, they always said. A few pints and he’s anybody’s. That wasn’t quite true. Kev was always his own man, no matter what he’d drunk. But on a night like this that just meant there was no one to look out for him.

Shit. He stumbled on a loose paving slab and clutched at a shop front to steady himself. He didn’t really believe the car had been stolen. In any case he was in no state to drive. But he’d wanted to reassure himself that it was still safely there. Now all he could do was hope that his memory would improve once he’d sobered up.

He turned round, trying to get his bearings. Where was he, exactly? He didn’t know Stockport well. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come along this evening. A gentleman’s club, Harvey had said. The audience hadn’t seemed to contain many gentlemen, and the women on stage hadn’t been Kev’s idea of ladies. Expensive bloody drinks, as well, especially when the big man, whoever he was, had moved them on to rounds of shorts. Harvey had told him he’d meet some useful people there. Maybe he had, but in the morning he’d have no bloody idea who they were.

He tottered his way towards the next street corner, looking for some recognisable landmark. There was a knot of street lights at the far end of the street. Probably the A6, the characterless trunk-road that sliced through the town on its way to Manchester. Once he reached that, he’d find a minicab office. This was going to cost him a bloody fortune. A taxi back home, and then another cab back in the morning. Why had he let Harvey talk him into this?

It never paid to stray outside your own territory. He should know that by now. Up in the city, he knew what was what. Who to talk to, who to avoid. Tonight, he’d talked to a few people, suggested a few deals, but he hadn’t known what they thought. He hadn’t even been able to work out who were the real players. Not the mouthy ones, for sure. There’d been a few of those, making the right noises, but that counted for nothing. It was the ones in the background who mattered, the ones who watched you, made their judgements, and said nothing. It was only later that you’d find out whether they were happy or not.

What the fuck had happened to Harvey anyway? He’d been there earlier, had done the introductions, settled Kev in with a crowd who looked mostly like chancers. Then at some point he’d buggered off. Probably found himself some woman. Someone not too choosy.

Shit. This was the last time. Harvey always made out he was doing you a bloody favour, and nine times out of ten you ended up out of pocket.

He stopped again. The lights he’d thought marked the A6 had turned out to be at the corner of some other junction entirely. It was vaguely familiar, but only vaguely. Somewhere he’d driven through maybe. Certainly nowhere he’d ever been on foot. There was a closed down pub opposite, the back end of some industrial buildings. Not the kind of place you’d find a minicab.

He turned, peering through the pale darkness down each of the streets in turn. There wasn’t even anyone around to ask, this time of night. The only sign of life was a car pulling slowly out of a side street further down the road. Judging from the speed, the driver was nearly as pissed as he was. Kev had been half-thinking about trying to flag the car down, ask for directions, even try to cadge a life to the nearest minicab office. But who would pull up for a drunk at this time of the night?

Well, maybe someone who was in the same condition. To Kev’s mild surprise, the car drew up next to him, the electric window slowly descending. If you’re after directions, pal, Kev thought, you’ve come to the wrong fucking bloke.

Kev was on the passenger side of the car and could see only the shape of the driver through the open window. Baseball cap, he noticed irrelevantly. Dark glasses. Who the fuck wears dark glasses to drive at night?

From inside, a flat voice, devoid of intonation, said: ‘Kevin Sheerin.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

Kev suddenly felt uneasy. He glanced both ways along the street, but there was no sign of anyone. Just the stationary car in front of him. A dark saloon. Cavalier or Mondeo or somesuch.

‘Who’s asking?’ he said finally. The wrong response, he realised straight away. No one was asking, but he’d already given all the answer that was needed. The car window was already closing. ‘What the fuck–?’

But that question needed no answer either. Kev, sensing what was coming, had already started to run, but his drunken feet betrayed him and he stumbled on the edge of the pavement, tumbling awkwardly into the road. He rolled over, head scraping against the rough tarmac, trying to drag himself out of the way. He could already taste blood in his mouth.

It was too late. The headlights, full beam, were blinding his eyes. The engine, unexpectedly loud, the only thing he could hear. The moment seemed to last forever, and he told himself that he’d been wrong, that it wasn’t going to happen after all. Then he was at the kerbside, trying to drag himself upright, and the car slammed hard into his crouching body.

For an instant, he felt nothing and he thought that, somehow, miraculously, he’d escaped unscathed. Then he tried to pull himself upright and immediately the pain hit him, agonising, unbearable, a shockwave through his legs and back. He fell forwards again, hitting his head on the curb, scarcely conscious now, thinking; shit, my back–

He had no time to think anything more. The car had reversed a few yards, and now jerked forwards again, the front wing smashing into his legs. He lay motionless as the car rode bumpily over his prone body and disappeared into the night, leaving his mangled, bloody corpse crumpled in the gutter.

Steve woke too early, like every night since they brought him here. It was the silence, he thought. The silence and the darkness. He’d never be comfortable in this place. He was a city boy, used to the traffic-drone that never died away, the wasteful small hours glare of the street lights and office blocks.

He rolled over, pulling the cheap duvet around his body, burrowing in search of further sleep. But the moment had passed. He was awake, mind already racing through the same thoughts, the same anxieties. Feeling a sudden claustrophobia, he threw back the covers and sat up in the pitch black. The room faced east, across the open valley, and the curtains were as cheap and flimsy as the duvet. But there was no sign of dawn, no promise of the rising sun.

He fumbled around the unfamiliar bedside table until he found a switch for the lamp. The sudden glare was blinding but, after a moment, reassuring. The bedroom was as bland and anonymous as ever. Off-white walls, forgettable chain store pictures, inoffensive flat-pack furniture. There’d been a half-hearted attempt to make it homely, but that only highlighted its bleakness, confirmed beyond doubt that no one would ever stay in this place by choice.

It was cold too, he thought, as he reached for his dressing gown. The central heating hadn’t yet come on, and he could taste the damp in the air. He crossed to the window and peered out. A clear night, the sky moonless but full of stars, less dark than he had imagined. In the faint light, he could make out the valley, the faint gleam of the Goyt in the distance. Miles from anywhere. The end of the line, past all civilisation.

He pulled the dressing gown more tightly around him, and stepped out on to the landing. This was his routine. Waking in the middle of the bloody night, making himself a black coffee, sitting and waiting for the sun to rise on another empty day.

The unease struck him halfway down the stairs. Nothing he could put his finger on, just a sudden sense of something wrong. He hesitated momentarily, then forced himself to continue down. Of course something was wrong. Everything was fucking wrong. He didn’t even know why he’d done it. It wasn’t the money – he knew there would be little enough of that, now they didn’t need him any more. It wasn’t the supposed guarantees. He’d few illusions about what those would be worth when the excrement hit the extractor. It wasn’t even that he was doing the right thing. He’d just managed to get himself wedged firmly up shit creek and then discovered that there never had been any paddle.

He pushed his way into the tiny kitchen and went wearily through the familiar ritual – filling the kettle, spooning coffee into the cup, adding two sugars. While the kettle boiled, he stared out of the kitchen window, across the postage stamp of an unkempt garden, towards the Peaks. The eastern sky was lighter now, a pale glow over the bleak moorland.

He stirred the coffee and paused for a moment longer, sipping the hot sweet liquid, gazing vacantly at the darkness. The sense of unease had remained, a thought lurking at the edge of his mind. Something more focused than the usual ever-present anxiety. Some idea that had struck him and receded before he could catch it.

He picked up the coffee and forced himself back into his routine. He would go into the living room, sit on the chilly plastic sofa, switch on the television and watch the silent moving figures, with no interest in turning up the volume. Waiting for yet another bloody morning.

He pushed open the sitting room door, and his mind finally grasped the thought that had been troubling him. The door. He’d closed the sitting room door before going to bed. Another part of his routine, some unquestioned wisdom retained from childhood. Close the downstairs doors in case of fire. Waste of bloody time in a place like this, he’d reasoned. Whole place would be up like a tinderbox before you could draw a breath. But he still closed the doors.

Halfway down the stairs he’d registered, without even knowing what he’d seen, that the living room door was ajar.

He thought of stepping back, but knew it was already too late. In that moment another, more tangible sensation struck him. The acrid scent of cigarette smoke, instantly recognisable in this ascetic, smoke-free official house.

He thrust the door wide and stepped inside. The small table lamp was burning in the corner of the room, The man was sprawled across the tacky sofa, toying lazily with a revolver.

‘Up early, Steve,’ he commented. He was a large man in a black tracksuit, wearing dark glasses, with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His face was neatly shaven and boyish, but there was nothing soft about him. ‘Guilty conscience?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ Steve said. ‘You?’