Dying Fall (24 page)

‘I see,' Paniatowski said, in a deadpan voice.

‘Is that all you've got to say?' Rutter demanded. ‘I thought you'd be delighted.'

Delighted? Paniatowski repeated silently to herself. At what?

It hadn't been easy for her to learn to accept the inevitable. But how much harder it would be to be given some hope of attaining what she most wanted in the world, and yet still know – deep down inside herself – that that hope would never be fulfilled.

‘You don't have to make a decision right away,' Rutter told her. ‘Take a day or two to think it over.'

‘A day or two?' Paniatowski repeated, in disbelief. ‘What's the rush?'

Rutter smiled. ‘You know me,' he said. ‘Once I've made up my mind about something, I like to set the wheels in motion as quickly as possible.'

N
ight had fallen, and the gang had congregated outside the chip shop. Bazza had been given a hero's welcome – as befitted a man who had been
abroad
– and for well over an hour the rest of them listened, as Bazza talked about clear blue skies, pubs right on the beach and – most importantly – birds with big knockers who wore hardly anything at all.

Yet even though he spoke with great enthusiasm about the whole experience, it seemed to Beresford that – underneath it all – he was not happy
in himself
.

And perhaps that was because he didn't actually know who
himself
was, any more.

Beresford had come to the chip shop armed with a plan – or maybe, he admitted to himself, it was not so much a plan as a line of approach – but it was another hour before he could get Bazza far enough away from the rest of the gang to be able to put it into effect.

And even then, he hesitated.

‘Tread very carefully,' Woodend had warned him, and he'd promised he would.

What he was about to do was not
careful
at all. It was fraught with dangers and pitfalls, and if it went wrong, he would get a stomping which could cripple him for life. But he still wanted to please his boss – wanted to prove that the faith Woodend had put in him had been justified – and sitting on a wall with Bazza, both of them with legs dangling down, he decided that if he didn't force himself to do it now, he would never find the courage to do it at all.

He took a deep breath. ‘Where'd you get the money from to go to Spain, Bazza?' he asked.

Bazza grinned. ‘That would be tellin'.'

Beresford looked troubled. ‘It's none of my business what you get up – or who you get up to it with,' he said.

‘Too right,' Bazza agreed.

‘But I'm startin' to think of you as a good mate, Bazza, even if you are a bit … a bit …' He hesitated for a second, then finished off weakly with, ‘… well, you know.'

‘No,' Bazza said, slightly menacingly. ‘I don't know.'

Still time to back out, Beresford told himself. Still time to smooth over the cracks.

‘It's
because
you're a mate that I want to warn that you shouldn't believe everythin' that people have written on the bog walls in the bus station,' he ploughed on.

Bazza started to relax a little, and grinned again. ‘You mean all that stuff about which girls will give you a shag an' which girls won't?'

‘No,' Beresford said. ‘I mean the other stuff. The stuff that says homos can't catch VD.'

One second they were sitting a good three feet apart, the next Bazza had pulled Beresford off the wall, and had him by the throat.

‘Are you sayin' I'm a poof?' he demanded.

The rest of the gang had noticed what was going on and started to move towards them.

‘Stay out of this,' Bazza called to them. ‘I can handle it.' He tightened his grip on Beresford's throat and moved his head closer, so that their faces were almost touching. ‘Are you sayin' I'm a poof?' he repeated, in a hoarse whisper.

‘Not me, no,' Beresford gasped. ‘I didn't start the rumours that have been goin' round since you went away.'

‘What rumours?'

‘That you've got a rich boyfriend. That's he's the one who took you on holiday.'

‘Who said it?' Bazza screamed. ‘What's their names?'

‘Don't know,' Beresford gasped. ‘It's on the wall in the bus-station bogs, like all the other stuff.'

Bazza relaxed his grip a little. ‘You'd better not be makin' this up,' he said. ‘If I go down to the bus station myself, it'd better be there on the bog wall for me to see.'

‘It's there,' Beresford promised.

At least, it had been there three hours earlier, when he'd just finished writing it, he thought.

Bazza's hold loosened even more, so that his fingers were hardly pressing on Beresford's neck at all.

‘You read it, an' you believed it,' he said, and now there was more sorrow than anger in his voice.

‘Of course I didn't believe it,' Beresford assured him. ‘Not at first, anyway. But then the more I thought about it, the harder it was to think of any other way you
could
have got the money.'

Bazza stepped back. ‘If I tell you how I got it, you'll have to promise not to tell anybody else, not even the lads in the gang,' he said.

‘I promise,' Beresford agreed.

‘Most of the fellers who run things in this town care more about Pakis, gyppos an' tramps than they do about their fellow Englishmen,' Bazza said. ‘But there's one important man who thinks differently – who wants to purge the town of the scum, an' give it back to the ordinary decent white people.'

‘Purge' was not a word that Bazza would normally use, but Beresford could think of one ‘important' man who used it regularly.

‘You're talkin' about Councillor Scranton,' Beresford said.

‘I'm explainin' how I got the money for my holiday, not namin' names,' Bazza said.

‘So it was this “important” man who gave you the money?'

‘That's right. An' he didn't give it to me because he was havin' me up the bum, he did it because I'm helpin' him to purge this town.'

‘It … it was
you
that set that tramp on fire, wasn't it?' Beresford said, feigning amazement.

‘An' how would you feel about it if it was?' Bazza asked.

‘I'd … I'd … I'd think you were a bloody hero.'

‘Honestly?'

‘Honestly. I mean to say, I've beaten up a few Pakis in my time, but I don't know if I'd have the balls to actually kill anybody. An' what a brilliant way to do it – burnin' the tramps alive. Was that your idea? Or was it his?'

‘It was—' Bazza said, stopping himself just time.

‘It was …?' Beresford prompted.

‘If I said whether it was my idea or his idea, that'd definitely be admittin' I'd done it, wouldn't it?'

‘You've already
as good as
said you did.'

‘But I've not said nothin' that would stand up in court,' Bazza said craftily.

It wasn't working, Beresford thought. He still didn't have enough to take to Woodend. He was going to have to push Bazza even harder.

He grinned, and said, ‘You had me goin' there for a minute.'

‘What do you mean?' Bazza asked.

‘I really thought you'd done it.'

‘I … I …' Bazza said helplessly.

‘I should have known you were only havin' a laugh.'

‘I wasn't. I was dead serious,' Bazza said – sounding like a hurt child.

‘But serious about
what
?' Beresford wondered. ‘Listen, do you remember when I told you that I'd beaten up that Paki in the pub in Accrington?' he asked.

‘Yes?'

‘An' you said it was easy enough to
talk about
havin' beaten up Pakis, but that wasn't the same as actually
doin
'
it
?'

‘What's your point?'

‘So I beat up the next Paki who came along, didn't I? Just to show you that I wasn't just full of piss an' wind!'

Bazza licked his lips. ‘Look, you showed me, an' I admire you for it,' he said. ‘But this is different.'

‘Is it? How?'

‘You, you're your own boss. But I'm not. I'm workin' for the Movement. I'm the Avenger!'

The Avenger! What pride he took in saying those two words, Beresford thought. It was pathetic, and for a moment he almost felt sorry for Bazza – and then he reminded himself of what the hard mod had done to the tramp.

‘You understand what I'm sayin'?' Bazza asked, with a pleading edge to his voice. ‘I want to tell you all about it, but I can't.'

‘Then I suppose I'll just have to take your word for it,' Beresford said dubiously.

‘Maybe … maybe if I ask him, the Boss will let me tell you more,' Bazza said desperately.

‘Why would he?'

‘Because I've got one more job to do, then I'll be retirin'.'

‘So?'

‘So somebody else has to take over from me – an' that somebody could be you.'

‘Just give me the chance! Do that, an' I promise that I won't let you down,' Beresford said.

And now the hectoring tone had quite vanished from his voice, and had been replaced by one of pure admiration.

Bazza smiled. ‘I know you won't. The rest of the lads are my mates, an' I'd do anythin' for them. But you – you're somethin' special. I knew that the first time I saw you.'

‘So when are you goin' to do this last job before you retire?' Beresford asked. ‘Tonight?'

‘No, not tonight,' Bazza said.

‘Then when?'

‘When the time is right. When I'm
told
to do it.'

In the distance, the town hall clock struck ten.

‘What say we go an' have a beer – just you an' me?' Bazza suggested.

‘Can't,' Beresford told him. ‘I'm meetin' somebody.'

‘A bird?'

‘A feller.'

‘Why are you meetin'
a feller
?'

‘Because we've got a little breakin' an' enterin' that needs doin'.'

‘Better go an' do it then, hadn't you?' Bazza said, trying not to sound too impressed.

The gang had moved on from the chip shop, and ended up in the Corporation Park, but there was nothing much happening there.

Bazza was almost tempted to go home, except there was nothing there for him, either. Besides, it didn't seem right to quietly crawl into his bed while Col was out doing something as exciting as breaking and entering.

‘Anybody got a fag?' he asked.

The rest of the gang shook their heads. It was the day before payday, and if they'd had a couple of bob between them, it would have been a miracle.

Bazza reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pound note. He held it up against the light – well aware that everyone's eyes were fixed hungrily on it, then said, ‘Well, I've got the money for fags, but I don't feel like walkin' all the way to the pub for them. So what
are
we goin' to do?'

‘I'll go,' Scuddie said, hardly able to restrain himself from grabbing at the money. ‘I don't mind a bit of a walk.'

‘Will your mum
let you
buy cigarettes?' asked Bazza, who had still not quite forgotten – nor quite forgiven – Scuddie's suggestion that he might himself be under a curfew.

Scuddie shrugged. ‘Do you want me to go, or not?'

‘You might as well, I suppose,' Bazza said lazily. He held out the note. ‘Get three packets, so there'll be enough for everybody. An' make sure you get the right change – 'cos I'll count it.'

‘An' you're sure Barry Thornley's not just spinnin' you a line?' Woodend asked, reaching across the table for his fresh pint of best bitter. ‘You're sure he's not just lyin' about his involvement in the murder, to make you think he's tougher than he is?'

‘I'm sure,' Beresford said. ‘When I asked him whose idea it was to set the tramps on fire, he didn't have to think about it for a second. The answer was on the tip of his tongue.'

‘Maybe he'd worked out in advance that you'd ask that question, and had it prepared.'

‘Bazza doesn't plan in advance,' Beresford said firmly. ‘He didn't even
plan
to tell me that he was involved – I tricked him into it.'

‘How did you do that?'

‘By accusing him of being a homo.'

Woodend looked concerned. ‘That was a bloody big risk to run, wasn't it?'

‘I was confident I could handle it,' Beresford said airily, although he still remembered the feel of Bazza's hands clamped tightly around his throat.

‘What would happen if we pulled him in?' Woodend asked. ‘Would he crack?'

‘He might, if we charged him and then told him we'd go easier on him if he gave up his boss.'

‘But we haven't got
enough
on him to charge him,' Woodend said.

‘Then we'll get nothing out of him at all.'

‘So all we'd be doin' is alertin' the feller who's pulled his strings that we've found his weak link. What a bloody mess!'

‘That's what it is,' Beresford agreed.

‘An' you're sure he's plannin' to commit another murder?'

‘I'm sure
he's
sure.'

‘Right then, we've not much choice but just to watch an' wait,' Woodend said. ‘Or rather, we've no choice but to have
you
watchin' an' waitin'. I want you out there with Bazza every night. I want you stickin' to him like a second skin. But I don't want you takin' any more big chances like you did tonight. If you think there's any danger they're startin' to become suspicious of you, get the hell out of there as quick as you can.'

‘But that would leave Bazza free to do whatever he wanted,' Beresford protested.