Eoin Miller 01 - Faithless Street (5 page)

“But you stayed?”

“Gotta stick by my
dad. He can’t do it all himself.”

He turned to walk
back into the camp and I followed.

“You know Tom
Bennett, right?”

He didn’t answer, so
I stayed at his side, matching him step for step, a dog with a bone. At the
door to his fathers caravan he hesitated and turned to me, “Yes.”

“You used to be
close, too, right?”

He nodded. “Used to
let me go round his and watch the football on his big TV, hang out with his
mates like I was an adult, you know? But I think I was just there as a token,
like, to show how cool and open minded he was.”

“He promised to take
you to a match?”

“He used to have a
season ticket at Chelsea, drive down to every home game. He said he’d take me,
if my mum said it was okay, but they fell out.”

I snapped a
connection.

Of all the things
over here that could have been vandalized, they had targeted Mrs Shannon’s
allotment. I don’t believe in coincidences anymore than the tooth fairy. I kept
that to myself though.

“Is that why you
torched the car?”

“He couldn’t afford
the payments on that thing anyway, like the season tickets.”

He pulled the door
shut behind him.

My phone buzzed in my
pocket, and I pulled it out to see Becker was calling me. I thought about
ignoring it, but remembered he was doing background checks.

“Michael Shannon has
quite a record,” he said. “Was arrested for GBH in 1995, and for arson in 2000.
Charges were dropped both times. Broke a coppers jaw during the first
evictions. Be careful.”

I hung up and turned
back to the caravan. Shannon was stood in the doorway, staring at me.

“Come in,” he said.

***

Shannon settled down into the same sofa as before and
waited for me to sit opposite. Then he leaned forward so that we could talk
quietly.

“I admit it, I did
it, take me in.”

“No you didn’t. Tell
me, your son-”

“Sean’s a good kid.”

“-No doubt. But did
he know about your wife and Bennett?”

If that hurt him, he
was well past showing it.

“I think everyone
knew apart from me. Funny, eh?” He licked his bottom lip for a moment, said,
“It was only a couple times.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She’d wanted to move
away for years. Only stayed because of me, because I feel I owe it to my dad to
stay here and stand up for him, you know? But after what she- well- after
that
, it was like she became this
object. Just another thing for them to insult and throw around. I couldn’t
blame her in the end, she’s better off away from here.”

“But Sean stayed with
you.”

“Do you have any
kids?”

My throat dried up
and I must have flinched, because he saw something in my face. I mumbled that I
didn’t have any.

“Don’t,” he said.
“All we do is fuck them up.”

Silence settled over
the room. Shannon looked around, at all his belongings and pictures, then his
eyes settled on the pile of children’s toys. He stayed that way for a long
time, then put his hands out towards me.

“I told you, I did
it, take me in.”

I stayed put. There
was something else eating at me, something that I was trying to reach out and
touch.

“Sean said something
about Bennett and money, does that mean anything to you?”

He shrugged, “This
all started when Tom was getting stressed over his business. All those mortgage
and credit card guys, they’re all struggling right now, right?”

Sirens cut through
the air, and the sound of shouting, louder and farther away than the last time.

Something was
happening.

***

Shannon and I ran in
the direction of the noises.

The fence.

As we cleared the
last row of caravans we could see the crowd gathered by the hole, it looked
like the whole camp had turned out. I pushed through the crowd and saw Bennett,
flanked by three other drunken beer bellied house owners, arguing with Sean and
a group of the camp’s teenagers. The adults of the camp were closing in, and
Becker was between them, arms outstretched in either direction, trying to keep
everyone apart.

The sirens were
coming from the other side of the fence. The wrong side.

“I told you,” Becker
shouted over at me, “This thing was stoked.”

The volume was
getting louder, and the crowds closing in. More home owners were coming through
the gap, teenagers with sticks, adults both trying to calm people down and rile
people up. The couple of uniformed cops from earlier came through, holding onto
people, doing a pathetic job of holding them back.

I felt Shannon tense
up behind me at the sight of Bennett.

“Arrest him,” Bennett
pointed over my shoulder, following his call with a string of expletives,
“Gyppo scum.”

The people behind me
surged forward to get at Bennett, and I got knocked from my feet. Someone
pulled me out of the way of all the rushing feet, and I turned to see the old
man who’d spit in my face earlier. I smiled at him and climbed to my feet,
turning back to the crowd. More officers were coming through the fence, and I
could hear sirens coming through the camp now, I could just about see a way out
of this.

I pushed back through
the crowd, to find Becker stood between the travelers and Bennett, keeping them
apart by the width of his frame. I pushed in beside of him and started pushing
Bennett back, trying to clear some space. Shannon stepped in beside me and
started pushing his crowd back, helping to keep the peace.

I turned and got into
Bennett’s face, talking quiet enough that only he and Becker could hear me,
“Half done, you said?”

“What?”

“Your extension was
half done. Your business is in the shit and you’re working six days a week just
to cover the mortgage. How much did you need the insurance payout?”

Becker turned to face
us, looking from me to Bennett with his mouth open.

I continued pushing
Bennett back, towards the line of officers that was now forming, where I could
get him arrested safe from the mob.

I could see behind
Bennett’s eyes he was debating whether or not to put up an argument, but that
was enough to tell me I was right. He came out fighting from a different angle.

“What? You’re going
to arrest
me?
It’s them who started
it, him and his fucking wife-”

I heard an animal yell
and was pushed out of the way. I hit the floor and rolled as, again, the crowd
followed through. Things got crazy for a couple of minutes, jostling, screaming
and clawing, until the uniforms managed to wade in and split the crowd in two
like parting the red sea.

Three officers were
pinning Sean to the ground, a bloody knife being wrestled from his right hand
as he kicked and shouted.

Becker was kneeling
over Bennett, his hand pressed down onto his neck, blood covering them both.
Two uniforms were knelt beside him, calling for medical aid. As Sean’s hands
were twisted up into the handcuffs, I saw his father staring deep into me.

Traitor.

***

The house was dark
when I got home.

I’d stayed at the
hospital long enough to see Sean Shannon’s assault charge turn into murder. The
paperwork could wait for tomorrow, as could all the shit I was going to catch
over it.

I shut the front door
and leaned against it for a while in the darkness, then went through into the
living room and settled onto the sofa.

Laura came in,
wearing her dressing gown. She sat beside me and rubbed my hand. “Becker called
to tell me. Want to talk about it?”

I turned to look at
her, shook my head.

She ran her hand over
my suit, “You’ve got blood on you.”

“Yeah.”

She leaned in and
kissed me on the cheek, then again on the lips, “Come to bed.”

I nodded, said, “I
will, in a minute. Just need to chill out first.”

She got up and walked
to the doorway, then turned back for a second and offered a sad smile, “I got
my period today.”

I nodded, trying to
gauge what she was feeling. She smiled again and went to bed. I sat in the
darkness long enough for her to fall asleep.

Tony was watching his hand move. No
kidding, he’d been doing it for twenty minutes. Ever since Fuller had arrived.
Word was he’d been drinking the punch, which Bobby Buddha had said was safe.
Bobby’s a cunt like that. The only time Tony paused was to cock his head to one
side to say, hey, “what’s that noise?” But nobody was listening to him.

Adele Wright had been taken home an hour
before, she’d been found in the kitchen, pale white with a bloody needle in her
hands and cling film tied around her forearm. Nobody had ever seen the cling
film thing before, what was it, a celebrity diet? Someone, maybe it was Toast,
bundled her into a car and drove her home, and Bobby handed out a few more
drinks to get the party going again.

Most people were crowded into the front
room, the one Alex had turned into a games room. A crate of lager and a stolen
air hockey table made for the best games room in the street. Alex said, “I’ll
always have the coolest flat in the street, even if I have to move.” It was one
of those parties.

Fuller wasn’t really there to listen to
Alex, or to watch Tony’s hand move. He was there for Lee Owen. Owen had turned
up at the start of the evening and set up camp in the bathroom, calling it his
office. Then, except for some thoughtless idiots who needed to piss, he spent
the night selling to everyone who walked in. Tens and twenties, black bulls and
stingers. He promised it was the good shit, that your belly would melt after
taking it, and nobody came back to complain. Bobby Buddha backed him up, said,
look what the bull did to the punch. Fuller was usually the guy who turned up
and sold at these parties, but he was low key, he’d sell a few bags out of his
coat pocket then party. Owen’s business style just messed things up, attracted
attention. Fuller stepped into the bathroom and shut the door before saying,
“Hey, what the fuck?”

Owen looked around the room, making a
show of it, then, “I dow see your name anywhere?”

“So that’s how you’re going to be?”

Owen shrugged, “No choice.”

“Oh, aliens controlling your brain
again?”

Owen softened, handed Fuller a bag and
said, here, on the house. Then he opened up a little more, “I’m in a corner
here, I owe Claire Gaines seven grand.”

“Seven grand?”

“And If I dow have it by the end of the
week, she’s gonna rip my dick off, she says.”

“Seven grand?”

“Did you hear the part about my dick?”

“Yeah but I’m ignoring that, it’s a mental
image I don’t want. Shit, seven grand? Why’d you borrow that?”

“I didn’t.
 
Remember the thing I used to run at college? You give me a
fiver at the weekend and I’ll bring you back 30 from the bookies?”

“Sure, I used to like that.”

“Way it worked, there was this guy I
followed, good tipster. I’d win 50, keep twenty and give you thirty.”

“Sure.”

“Well I been working on that, only then
it was, you give me 100 and I’ll bring you 400, like, or you give me 500 and-”
He shrugged, “I’ve been pretty good at it.”

“So what happed?”

“Gaines came to me, said she wanted to
raise some money quick, wanted to invest in something without her family
knowing, to prove she was better than her sister or something.”

“She has a sister?”

“Yeah, older. Anyway, she gave me a
grand, said she wanted to see four back, I said that was cool. I been following
this tipster on twitter, see? And he’s better than the old guy, never fails. So
I laid all the money out, but not one of the fucking bets came in.”

“So that covers one grand.”

“No, see, she said I’d guaranteed her
four, so she expected that back. Then she said, if I was making her four then I
was making myself at least two, so she added that in because she says I must’ve
ripped her off, and that if I don’t stump up she’ll do some ripping off of her
own.”

Fuller laughed, “Oh shit, you’re in it.
Look, you sell, Ill go chill with Alex.” Then he left Owen to it in the
bathroom, saying under his breath, “It’s just one of those parties.”

The kind where they played MC Hammer
remixes all night to sound hip and ironic, but really just ended up enjoying
the music and dancing.

Fuller nodded at Tony on his way past,
before he got to the games room. Tony looked spaced, he wasn’t going to
respond, but then he grabbed Fuller by the arm and said, “Serious, what’s that
noise?”

Fuller cocked his head and listed,
humoring the space cadet, but then he heard it. Radio squawk, chatter through
static. For the first time he noticed the strobing blue light coming in above
he front door, through the pane of frosted glass.

Cops.

Looks like Adele Wright may have been a
little more trouble than everyone thought. Fuller handed Owen’s free sample to
Tony, then emptied his stash out of his pockets and into the coats that were
hung up in the hallway. He zipped up his coat and quietly let himself out the
front door, nodding to all the officers that were lined up outside, ready to
bust in. They stared at him for a second, caught off guard, then rugby tackled
him to the ground while the rest of them ran on into the house shouting,
“police.” From inside, Fuller could hear the cops banging on the bathroom door,
and heard the toilet flushing.

Lee Owen was going to have to find
another way to come up with seven grand.