Darkmans - Nicola Barker

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abruptly stopped for a second time. Isidore found himself hard-up against the horse’s rump. He took a quick step back. They were standing at the near-end of the fly-over. Cars and lorries were roaring past. Isidore frowned, glanced behind him, saw a small gap in the traffic and took his chance. He speedily overtook the horse.

      Beede was staring down over the embankment to his left and frowning. He seemed deeply preoccupied. A large field lay ahead of them – a semi-circular meadow, full of bleached grass, young trees (huddled inside their protective, plastic sheaths) and a muddle of bushes. They were almost at the point where the road they were taking divided into three separate parts: one section charging boldly onwards, the other two curving sharply off and around to form the different sides (the valves, the ventricles) of a divided heart (or – in the pursuit of absolute anatomical accuracy – the two segregated cheeks of a pair of buttocks). Snuggled into the hinterland of that voluptuous curving were two good-sized plots. The one on their particular side currently contained a thin sprinkling of mixed livestock.

      But Beede wasn’t interested in the meadow (nor even in the animals). He was staring past it, towards the Brenzett roundabout which lay a short distance beyond.

      Isidore silently followed the line of Beede’s gaze.

      ‘Oh shit,’ he whispered.

      It was his car – definitely his car. It was parked in the middle of the roundabout with the driver’s door left wide open (a total hazard to all other traffic). A police car was pulling up behind it (no siren, but with its blue light rotating). Dory blinked (he didn’t generally respond well to anything that flashed).

      ‘Superb timing,’ Beede said dryly. ‘But don’t worry…’ (he was extraordinarily composed)…‘tell them the car was stolen while you were on the job, that you’ve just been phoned and informed that it’s been dumped here. You can imply that the kids in question might’ve released the horse,’ he glanced up at the filly, ‘as part of the prank.’

      Dory’s eyes made sudden contact with Beede’s – for a split second, perhaps even less.

      ‘Quick thinking,’ he murmured (instantly breaking his gaze), his clipped voice tinged with something corrosive –

      

       Fastidiousness?

       Suspicion?

       Disgust?

      ‘Naval training,’ Beede demurred, with a casual shrug.

      Dory half-smiled then jogged on, across the fly-over and a few yards beyond. Here he turned sharply, preparing to swing himself, lithely, over the crash barrier (this was a short cut), but before he did, he paused, glanced back towards Beede and shouted, ‘You won’t tell her, will you?’

      Beede didn’t respond at first.

      ‘Elen,’ Dory yelled. ‘You won’t tell?’

      Beede shook his head, automatically. ‘Of course not,’ he shouted back.

      ‘Hurry.’ He waved him on.

      Dory sprang over the barrier, scissored his way between the saplings and then hurdled a second (wood and wire) fence, before clambering and lurching down the field’s muddy embankment. At approximately the half-way point, his trousers started slipping; the fabric locked just above his knees, and he tumbled. It was a dramatic fall – a jester’s fall – with all the additional frills and embellishments.

      Beede closed his eyes (in an effort to repress a sharp bark of laughter –

      

      Where did that urge come from?)

      – then he turned his face away, waited patiently for a slight lull in the traffic, and moved implacably onward.

       FOUR

      An entry-phone engineer was taking what Kane could only (in all detachment and impartiality) call ‘an obscene amount of interest’ in Kelly’s thigh area. She was collapsed on Kane’s front step, both her legs stretched out stiffly in front of her, drinking from a flask of coffee and eating a Mars Bar (pulling back her lips as she bit down on it, almost in horror – like a donkey taking a Polo Mint from a suspicious-seeming stranger). He was crouched over her and gently massaging her upper knee as Kane drew closer.

      Kane was not happy. His rage had two, distinct constituents. The first: simply that she was there (he was tired. He had dumped her. She was a pest). The second, that she was flirting. And this other man (his rival; a young man, looked Italian) had his filthy hands pretty much everywhere.

      Kelly didn’t notice Kane until he was almost upon them. When she did, she let out a small squawk and dropped the chocolate bar on to her lap (as though Kane was the caustic battle-axe in charge of her slimming club). The Italian glanced up (blankly, momentarily) then returned his full attention to her thigh (it was an appealing thigh. Even Kane knew that).

      ‘How cosy…’ Kane murmured, affably (brandishing his finely wrought shield of charm before him).

      ‘Oh Fuck.’ Kelly seemed mortified, almost frightened. ‘This ain’t…it’s just…I fell off the wall and I…’

      Kane was so unimpressed by the calibre of her excuse that he didn’t even bother to let her finish it. ‘Fell off the wall? How awful for you.’ He smiled, falsely.

      She grimaced. ‘I was waitin’ on Beede. I had a special package for him. The gate was locked…’

      Kane seemed quite riveted by this story. ‘The gate was locked, you say? That gate?’ He pointed behind him, towards the open gate. ‘How strange…And you were waiting for Beede? The Beede? Daniel Beede?’ ‘It fuckin’ was,’ she almost squealed, ‘I swear…’

      ‘Hmmn. A special package…’ Kane mused.

      Kelly looked down, then around her, in a sudden panic. ‘Oh shit. Where is the fuckin’ thing?’

      Kane rolled his eyes. Kelly didn’t even notice. She was still looking around for the brown envelope, visibly alarmed by its absence. ‘I had a package. Some black girl gave it me. Cross my heart…’

      Kane reached out his foot and gently poked the crouching Italian with it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said sweetly. ‘May I interrupt you for a moment…?’

      The Italian turned, sharply (still crouching) and raised the flat of his hand. ‘No,’ he said (in his threadbare English), ‘get loss.’

      He wasn’t Italian. He had a heavy accent (mid-European, maybe an Arab, maybe Romanian). He was crazy-looking, like a sallow Frankie Dettori on some kind of growth hormone. Kane carefully reconsidered booting him for a second time. He was smallish, and thin, but the veins stood out on his fists like worm-casts.

      Kelly struggled to get up.

      ‘Oh bollocks,’ she was muttering, ‘I lost Beede’s package. I’m in so much fuckin’ shit…’

      ‘What the hell are you doing?!’ the Romanian bellowed (and in his indigenous tongue, so it was just a stream of crazy babble to the both of them), then, ‘You,’ he continued, more haltingly (giving Kelly a firm glare), ‘jus’ stay! Okay?’

      Kelly fell down again, shocked.

      ‘Wow.’ Kane took a small step back, as if the Romanian was a complex work of modernist art, best appreciated at a distance of several paces. ‘This guy’s a real gem, Kell. How on earth’d you hook up with him?’

      ‘I already told you,’ Kelly snapped, ‘I was waitin’ on Beede…’

      ‘Enough.’ Kane

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