Darkmans

‘Beede,’ he said, rolling the name around in his mouth like a boiled toffee. Then he clutched at his stomach (as if the memory had just jabbed him there), leaned sharply forward and took a quick, rasping gulp of air –

Oh God –

Oh God

Just to be…to be…to be…

He stared around him, quite amazed –

Where?

‘Of course,’ Beede smiled back, clearly relieved by this sudden show of progress (tastes and smells, he found, were often the key), ‘of course you remember…’

He placed a reassuring hand on to the German’s broad shoulder. ‘Now – deep breath, deep breath – are you ready? Shall we get the hell out of here?’

Kelly Broad was sitting on a high wall, chewing ferociously on a piece of celery. She was passably pretty and alarmingly thin with artificially tinted burgundy hair –

Because I’m worth it

Her face was hard (but with an enviable bone-structure), her ‘look’ was urban – hooded top (hood worn up), combat mini-skirt and a pair of modern, slightly scuffed, silver trainers (the kind astronauts wore – devoutly – whenever they went jogging above the atmosphere). No socks (not even the ones you could buy which made it look like you weren’t wearing any – the half-socks you got at JD Sports or Marks & Spencer).

Her legs were bare and white and goose-bumping prodigiously. But she didn’t feel the cold. She had bad circulation, weak bones (fractured both her wrists when she was nine in a bouncy-castle misadventure. Earned herself a tidy £3,000 in compensation, and the whole family got to spend three weeks in Newquay; her gran lived there), a penchant for laxatives and an Eating Disorder –

Might as well bring that straight up, eh?

Un,

Deux,

Trois…

Bleeeaa-urghhh!

Although her eating habits (if you wanted to get pedantic about it – and Kelly did, because she was) were ridiculously orderly (the Weight Watchers’ manual was her bible; she drew up a special weekly menu and stuck to it religiously, counted every calorie, took tiny mouthfuls, ate with tiny cutlery – just like Liz Hurley), so it wasn’t actually a problem, as such; more of a…a preference, really. She simply preferred her food fat-free. It was a Life-Style decision (the kind of thing they were always banging on about in magazines and on the telly), and so all perfectly legitimate (especially when your own mother was too big to cram herself into an average-size car-seat – used the disability section on the bus – belly arrived home seven seconds before her arse – hadn’t seen her toes since 1983 – Feet? They had their own fucking passports down there).

Kelly came from a bad family.

No. No. That was just too easy. They weren’t bad as such (no, not bad) so much as…as known…as familiar…as…as –

Notorious

That was it

And only locally. Only in Ashford –

Well…

– and maybe in Canterbury. And Gillingham (where her older sister Linda supported The Gills – I mean really supported them – with a fist-guard, business cards, a retractable-blade). And in parts of Folkestone. And Woodchurch. And some of those smaller places which didn’t really matter (except to the people living there).

In the local vicinity, basically. It wasn’t national or anything (no special reports on Crimewatch UK – aside from a small, pointless item on Network South East – November 2001. And that didn’t really count. It was probably just a quiet day – a craft fair had been rained off in Sheppey or something – and they had to fill up the time somehow, didn’t they? Yeah. So the Broads copped it again – Uncle Harvey; Dad’s oldest brother; the world’s shonkiest builder –

Blah blah).

Notorious.

Like the Notorious B.I.G. The rapper. That fat American dude who got shot –

Bang

– dead. And then they made a documentary about him. And she’d watched it. And they’d said that he was actually a really nice guy (underneath. But fat. Very fat. That was partly what he was famous for. That’s essentially what the BIG stood for). And his mamma loved him (which had to count for something). And when he died they made a tribute song for him. With Sting. And Puff Da – Di – Daddy.

Notorious.

Isn’t that what Ashford people –

Gossips

Wankers

– liked to call the Broads? Wasn’t that the word they preferred?

Kelly sniffed.

Did it have to be a negative?

Notorious?

As in train robber?

As in sex offender?

She pinched some pearlescent pink lipstick from the corners of her mouth.

I mean, wasn’t Mother Theresa notorious? A notorious saint? (Remember that thing Kane told her – about Mother Theresa not being a saint at all. About how Catholics always wanted to keep the poor people poor by making them have lots of kiddies. ‘Contraception murders love.’ That’s what he said she’d said –

Her mantra

Didn’t sound very saintly, huh?

– but he was laughing as he’d said it. Maybe he was just taking the fucking mick. Like always. The fucker.)

Hang on…who was that…that Russian geezer they’d called a prophet who actually had sex with just about everybody? And Boney M wrote a song called Ra-Ra-Rasputin all about his various pranks and everything?

Wasn’t he notorious (didn’t they mention it somewhere in the lyric?)? And when they shot him dead, didn’t he keep on getting up again? Like Freddie Kruger? Didn’t he just keep on rising? Like Jesus or something?

Don’t remember Mother Theresa pullin’ any stunts like that –

An’ if she did the papers would’ve been full of it, ’cuz Kane says The Pope owns the media –