Bad Traffic (26 page)

When Black Fort got up, with his usual brisk efficiency, at ten, Wei Wei pretended to be asleep, and huddled under the duvet. He kissed her goodbye – how could he still be so
tender
? – and she waited for the door to slam.

It was the work of a few minutes in an internet café to find out where South Creake was, book a bus ticket to the nearest city, King’s Lynn, check the timetable of local buses and to print out a map of the village and surroundings.

She called her father.

‘Did you finish the accounts?’

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘It’s about my course.’

‘What about your course?’

‘I wasn’t… I wasn’t telling the truth.’

She wanted to say, I’ve made a bit of a mess of things, I dropped out, now I’m this hood’s moll, which isn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, and I think he’s cheating on me.

‘My… marks have gone down a bit. Fifty percent.’

‘That’s not so bad. How has the weather been?’

‘It’s warmer – the sun is shining.’

She gathered her forces to try again to surmount the
formidable
barrier of habit.

‘Dad?’

‘What is it?’

‘I feel bad.’

A silence stretched. She wished she could see his face.

‘You stick in there. A few bad marks is nothing. The important thing is to keep your head down and work hard. Don’t let anything stop you.’

He was slurring his words, and she could hear laughter and conversation in the background. Perhaps it was not a good time.

‘I’m just… I’m having a bad day today.’

She was floundering in unfamiliar territory and 1 it was distressing him as well.

‘Application is not easy. You have to be strong. You have to be determined.’

‘I’m not sure what I should do. Maybe I should just let things go on the way they are or try to change them.’

‘Always try to make things better. Always push for improvement.’

He sounded like the Party Commissar off some crappy old film, spouting slogans. Her patience left her, she didn’t want to be thrashing around in this murk, causing discomfort.

She said, ‘For breakfast I had a chicken sandwich.’

‘How was that?’

‘Too dry. I miss steamed buns.’

‘I’m sure bread is very good for you.’

‘I’ll say goodbye. Thank you for… I’ll say goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

She pressed ‘end call’. She felt stupid – all she had done was worry him. It was an embarrassing incident that would never be mentioned. She resolved, next time they talked, to be relentlessly upbeat.

She squeezed her eyes closed so that when she opened them the last few minutes would have gone away. It struck her that one of her father’s characteristic gestures – the hand drawn over the screwed-up face – had the same purpose. She opened her eyes and, yes, it was gone. She was elsewhere.

She’d get there just after four and catch them in the act. She composed a mental diorama – the wronged girlfriend at the centre, her anger magnificent, the contrite boyfriend wilting before her. The other woman – cheap slut, painted hussy – was banished to the shadowy edge. Like the women on the television, she would point and say, ‘You are out of order!’ It was such an exciting image that her face flushed.

As the local bus wound through rural Norfolk, Wei Wei reflected that all this fresh air and nature would be
invigorating
in other circumstances. She had not realised that
England
could manage such bucolic charm. South Creake was so twee it made her want to laugh. She could imagine the cottage where Black Fort’s lover lived, with ivy climbing the walls and flowers in baskets hanging from the porch.

According to her googlemap, she had to walk past the duck pond, turn left and there would find a turnoff that led up Bloodgate Hill. But she couldn’t find the turnoff, so she asked at the only shop, a studio selling artistic
weather
vanes. The sculptor said he’d ask his cleaning lady, who told her that the track didn’t lead anywhere since they’d built the new road, that Bloodgate Hill was windswept and no use to anyone but birdwatchers, and finally that the
overgrown
track was just past the duck pond.

Heading up the hill, the landscape changed into one more fitting her mood. Here were thick woods and empty fields and no sign of human habitation. It was all, she guessed, because of the wind whipping in from the coast, not so far away. Trees rustled and shook, and those atop the hill were bent and stunted by the pressure of that ceaseless agitation. She recalibrated her mental picture – the other woman was a gypsy, living in a cabin in a wood.

Perhaps there had been a mistake. Really, there was
nothing
here. It was almost four. A voice told her to go home, be reasonable, get sensible. She ignored it, searched the
hedgerows for gaps, and found wheel ruts either side of a tummocky ridge. The track ran along a hedge, then curled and was swallowed by a wood.

In the hedge she found a rotted plank. She tugged it out, breaking the grasp of knotty tendrils and exposing worms and woodlice to the light. Two words had been burned onto it with a soldering iron, now just readable: ‘HOPE FARM’. She tossed it aside. Right then.

The track fell into the shade of tall trees and unkempt hedges. It led to a dilapidated farmyard. Wilderness seemed to be taking possession of the place. Weeds grew through cracks in the paving of the yard and rusted machinery lay half subsumed in tangles of foliage. Birds flitted about the gaping roof of a barn, and their cheeping, and the rustle of leaves in the wind, was the only sound.

Black Fort’s flashy car was parked beside a dirty white van, before a tumbledown cottage. Certainly he was here, but this did not seem right at all. It occurred to her, for the first time, that she had got entirely the wrong idea. What girl would accept such a home? Only the wildest kind of wench.
Perhaps
the desolation added a frisson to their coupling.

She picked her way across the yard and peered in at a window, with hands shading her face, but she could see nothing beyond the drawn curtains. She heard a girlish moan of pleasure and froze. Indignation swelled, and her frustrations gathered, preparing for tumultuous outlet. Her heartbeat quickened and she was aware of blood thudding in her temples.

She tried the front door and it opened into a dingy
corridor
. Her senses were keen and she was quivering. Though impatient for the release of confrontation, she slowed and stepped carefully. She did not want to be heard, she wanted masochistically to catch them in the most explicit of acts.
She did not yet know what she would say, but was
confident
that the right words would come, at the right volume. Perhaps no words would be needed. From behind a closed door another groan came, and now the torment could be borne no longer. She wanted to break things. She shoved a door and stepped into a room.

Six or seven surprised faces turned to her. A lot of big men idled in a small space. Caterpillar and Six Days smoked on the sofa. A pall of smoke hung at head height. On top of a television with a shattered screen sat a laptop. Its display showed a busy profusion of flesh and straining faces.

A strangled sound came from Wei Wei’s throat and she closed her mouth with an audible pop. An ashtray fell to the floor and a beer can clinked as it rolled. Everyone was now standing up.

A fat white man said, ‘What the fuck?’ The porn on the laptop continued, and a girl moaned, ‘Oh, baby, that’s so good.’ Foaming beer dribbled off the table.

Black Fort grabbed her shoulders, span her round and rushed her out into the yard.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I thought you had a girl here.’

‘You looked through my stuff? What am I going to do with you? Get out of here.’

He raised his hand and she thought this is it, he’s going to hit me, but all he did was gesture up the track.

She saw herself with his eyes, and she was pathetic. She sat, feeling tears well.

‘Look at you. You’re a mess.’

Yes, she was a mess. She’d been a mess for a long time and there was something wrong with her. She was worthless, he should have hit her, it was what she deserved.

‘I’m so lonely.’

‘Come on. Get up.’

It was embarrassing that she could think of nothing to do but cry, but she could not stop. Men came to the door, looked at her, then went back inside.

‘Let’s get you out of here.’

Black Fort helped her to her feet, and with a hand on her elbow steered her away. Her eyes were blurred, and the scene before her was a green mass. She noticed the way that sunlight coming between the leaves dappled the track. The sobbing fit was winding down in a trickle of sniffs and heaves. She stumbled and leaned against him, and the feel of his firm hands supporting her was great reassurance.

She said again, ‘I thought you had a girl.’

‘It’s just you, babe. Mind your feet.’

She dried her eyes with her sleeves. She was relieved and ashamed and there was a surge of self-pity. Her mind-state of only a few minutes ago seemed bizarre – how could she have worked herself up like that?

‘I just… I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m lost. I should have stayed at college. I feel like it’s all a mess.’

‘Hey, you’re fine. You’re doing well. You’re having an
adventure
, aren’t you? You’re finding yourself. That’s what you said you wanted, remember? This is you, finding yourself.’

‘Can we have a talk?’

‘Huh? Yeah sure. I’ll come and visit soon. I promise.’

‘Really promise?’

‘Really.’

‘Okay.’ She sniffed and wiped her face. ‘What’s
happening
at four?’

‘Business.’

‘Is it that?’

A truck was rumbling down the track in low gear. Dust swirled behind it.

Black Fort said, ‘Go on, get out. I’ll call.’

He steered her onto the verge, out of the way, and she felt his eyes on her as she walked away. The haste with which she had been dismissed was disquieting. She turned to see his face again, hoping for an encouraging smile, but he was jogging back to the farmyard.

The men were coming out of the cottage. She ducked behind a tree to watch him join them. She did not like them. They were thuggish and frightening, and to see him among them, being matey and relaxed, was to see another side to him. Did he belong there, or with her? Perhaps, in a sense, there were rivals here, after all. She wanted to call him away. He was so much better than them. He had capabilities – for humour, for passion – that they surely did not.

The truck passed her. Now she found her relief tainted with indignation. So the other woman had been a ridiculous fantasy brought on by too much thinking and unhappiness, but the fact remained that he had lied to her. There was that whole matter with the uncle, and Rotterdam. Really, she did not like the way she had been sent so quickly away. There were still things that needed to be discussed. She was not in the wrong, he was not exonerated. She was going to demand some candour. She had half a mind to walk right back to the farm and start on him now.

She heard oaths, and looked up. The truck was parked in the yard and the men were gathered round the open back doors of the container. It was a curious scene, and she stepped closer and peered around a tree.

A man called, ‘Hello? Hello? Oi. Get up!’ and reached in to shake a limp arm.

Another said, ‘Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.’

Black Fort said, ‘This is a mess.’

‘Some might be alright. We should get them down. Get a mirror – see if they’re still breathing.’

Though all she could see of the men was the backs of their heads, their shock and consternation was obvious. Six Days was kicking the ground. Blue had his hands over his face.

‘Look at their tongues,’ said Kevin. ‘Look at their bleeding fingers. They tried to claw their way out.’

Black Fort tugged at something, and it tumbled out of the container, hitting the ground with a dull crack.

He said, ‘Fuck.’

In dismay the men retreated from the object, stepping slowly backwards as if being repelled by an invisible force, and now Wei Wei had a clear view. She blinked watery eyes and the scene sharpened into awful clarity.

An expression of bug-eyed terror was frozen on the waxy face of the man on the ground. A second body flopped over the edge of the container, arms dangling. Many more were strewn behind, limp and in awkward attitudes, like rag dolls. A woman lay with her skirt in disarray, exposing pale thighs. She clutched a child to her chest, and his T-shirt had ridden up over his head, and his skinny torso was arched in a way that looked subtly unnatural.

Wei Wei put one hand over her mouth, and with the other reached out to steady herself on the tree trunk. She couldn’t stop looking but the meaning of what she was seeing was slow to penetrate. Perhaps, after all, one of the figures would get up and this obscenity would be refuted. She wanted to go and pull the child’s T-shirt down and tidy the woman’s skirt. She willed one of the men to go and do it, but they were still retreating.

Someone shouted, ‘That girl. She saw.’

Many eyes considered her. She shrank back. A man stepped forwards. She turned and sprinted away.

Wei Wei ran blindly. She stumbled when she came onto the road and put her hand down, and the rasp of tarmac on her palm brought her to her senses. She looked back and could see no pursuit, only a bland view of trees trembling in the wind. She heard nothing over the din of her own blood and breath. Remembering that harsh voice, she forced herself on.

She ran all the way to the village. When she came to the pond she bent with her hand on a ‘Ducks Crossing’ sign, chest juddering as she gasped. Exertion had kept the
images
at bay, but they flooded back now – a limp hand with cracked fingernails, a dead head on concrete, lips stretched back from pale gums. She blinked them away. The village continued nestling snugly, being cute and clueless. The only movement in the landscape was a bus trundling along a lane. A harsh scream at her feet made her jerk in shock.

It was only a duck. It looked at her with beady eyes, then screeched again. More were approaching, geese too, and they took up the refrain, calling her stupid, calling her mad, telling her about the corpses up the road. She shouted at them to stop, then threw up into the rushes. Ducks hurried to investigate the spatters of vomit.

She dropped to her hands and knees and her fingers sank in cold mud. Those poor people. She imagined being curled up in total darkness with panic prickling as the air grows thinner. A feeling like your lungs being pinched, and that grip growing harder, and you bang on the metal walls for help, suck hard but no air comes, your mouth wide open
with chest heaving and still no air, scratch at the metal and the sound echoes, rasping, your eyes bulging, lungs
burning
and still nothing to breathe. Get me out get me out get me out.

An instinct to hide joined a sense that she must
punish
herself. She crawled into the reed bed, the stiff stems crackling as she pushed them aside. Her hands splashed in murky water. Ducks waddled towards her, quacking away, patient, monstrous. This was ridiculous. Cruelly her
distress
had been robbed of dignity. It occurred to her to get out of the reeds, but she did not want views, she did not want to see the quaint village – the sight would be as mean as the ducks.

She was so alone. Everything had gone wrong. She couldn’t be here any more. She had to be home. An image rose of her stolid and reassuring father, a man who knew what to do in a crisis. She fumbled out her mobile and called him with trembling fingers. The ducks mocked her as the phone rang and rang at its own unhurried, infuriating pace. Her
breathing
had still not settled and she cried out between gasps, ‘
Baba bang wo
… Daddy help me, please, help me. Pick up please, help me, pick up, daddy help me.’

Her quacking, she felt, was only adding to the general uproar. She was a duck, too, a stupid creature, lost far from shore.

‘Daddy, help me, help me. Help.’

Her hand was wrenched back. She dropped the phone and it splashed into the water. Black Fort picked it up. He took the battery out and put it in his pocket. He held tissues out towards her.

‘Look at you, you’re filthy. We’ve got to clean you up.’

She hurried away, thrashing through the reeds, and he waded after her.

‘Hey babe, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Come on.’

His soft voice, so reasonable and persuasive, was
comfortingly
familiar. But something awful had happened and she wasn’t sure if she really knew him any more.

‘Babe, this isn’t helping.’

She stumbled onto the village green. The bus was approaching. She waved at it.

He said, ‘I’m sorry you freaked out. Let’s sort this out. What do you think is going to happen? Come on. You’re my girl. You’re angry, you’re confused – at least give me a chance to explain. Let me take you home. Come on.’

The bus stopped and the door opened. He stood by the war memorial, hands open, palm uppermost. She backed away.

‘You’re my girl. I’m your man. Talk to me.’

She crossed the road towards the bus.

‘Where are you going to go in that? You don’t even know where it’s headed.’

He pointed at his car, parked by the pond.

‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’ There was no hint of
pleading
or desperation in his voice or on his face. His tones had a numbing effect. He sounded so fair and practical. Was she just being silly again? The last time she had jumped to
conclusions
, she had made a dumb mistake.

The bus driver scowled at her. ‘I can’t sit around all day.’

Black Fort, strolling across the road towards her, called, ‘You look a state. And look at me. I’m covered in shit. Let’s clean up together. I got more tissues in the car. At least let me take you home.’

The bus driver said, ‘How about you have your tiff on your own time?’

Black Fort said to her, ‘Give me the chance to explain. Just a chance.’ He held out a hand.

‘You getting on, or not?’ said the driver. His passengers looked at her with annoyance.

What did she think she was going to do – just head off into nowhere, on her own? She didn’t have anywhere to go and she didn’t have anyone else. He slid a match into his mouth. The familiar gesture served more than his words to sway her.

‘Come on, babe.’

She grasped his hand and he squeezed gently. The bus door closed with a whoosh of compressed air and the bus lumbered off. She took his tissues and began to wipe her face as he led her away.

‘Who were you calling?’

‘My father.’

‘Yeah, that would really help – get the Chinese police involved.’ He pointed at her chin. ‘You’ve missed a bit. Actually, you’ve missed a lot. Look at my shoes. They might be ruined. Have you got wet? I’ve got soggy feet.’

The ducks were waddling after her again. He shooed them away. ‘They just want to get fed. I owe them a favour, though maybe I wouldn’t have found you if it wasn’t for their racket. I’ll throw them some breadcrumbs tomorrow. You really scared me, you know. I thought you’d lost it.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘We’ll talk about it when we’re cleaner, okay?’

He opened the car door for her, and climbed into the
driver’s
seat. She took the bottle of water out of the side door and rinsed it round her mouth to wash out the taste of vomit.

‘You silly thing. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’

He shook his head, as if at an errant child, then punched her in the face. Her head snapped against the side
windscreen
. Dazed, she tasted coppery blood in her mouth. Watery sick dribbled down her chin. She blinked and groaned, ‘What?’

He slid behind her and got an arm around her neck and pulled her back. A man came out of the ditch and opened her door. He
grabbed her arm and rolled up her sleeve. A hypodermic needle glimmered. Her eyes widened. The arm was pinned.

‘Don’t fight it,’ hissed Black Fort.

His arm around her neck was choking her. Her feet lashed in the footwell. She felt a jab on the inside of her elbow, and she gasped and shuddered as a wave of numbness crashed over her and she filled up with white noise. Her heavy head drooped.

She was swimming in a drowsy dreamland. The vehicle was moving and she seemed to be flowing with it. Lights blossomed and swirled. Now he was talking on a mobile. The words seemed to drift towards her from a great distance.

‘I’ve got the girl. Kevin, stop panicking – it’s fine. Get the container in the barn but leave it on the flatbed. I’ll straighten it with the snakeheads. They won’t kick up a fuss, this shit happens all the time. Nobody is calling anything off.
Everything
is fine.’

It was all coming to her as if she were a mildly interested observer of herself. She knew she should be feeling
something
, but she didn’t feel anything. Her body was made of hot jelly. It occurred to her that she had been probably been given heroin and she was pleased to have worked that out. The numbness was coming in waves, higher and higher, she would soon be subsumed. He kept barking into the phone.

‘No, no, Kevin, you listen. We need an earth mover. And twenty bags of lime. From different suppliers, no big orders. Yes, a digger. No paperwork and you pay cash, see if you can blag it off a mate of a mate, have a story set, I don’t know, you’re putting in a patio or something. We rip up the ground behind the house, it won’t take a couple of hours, chuck them in, lime it, done. It’s a morning. In a couple of weeks, we concrete it over. No drama Kevin, it’s fine. Tell the others, and don’t let anyone leave.’

A wave took her and she knew she was not going to stay awake for the next one. She groaned.

He turned to her and started talking. She knew that he was talking to her because his eyes were looking at her. They were large eyes and a shade too pale. She had always liked that.

‘You know something that could put me away for life. Fifteen, twenty counts of manslaughter. I can’t have you holding that over me. Sorry, babe.’

He talked on, but she could no longer make out what he was saying. A comfortable stillness settled, then her senses dimmed to nothing.