The Evil And The Pure (12 page)

Gawl lay in bed for an hour, studying the torn wallpaper and cracked ceiling, scratching his testicles, thinking about what to do with the afternoon.
He crawled to the bathroom at four, nose crinkling when the stench hit him. He opened the tiny window to let out the worst of the fumes, then squatted over the toilet.

He w
ashed out his mouth with rusty water, splashed a couple of handfuls over his head, trying to recall the night before, vague memories of a fight, being sick in a lift, getting gloriously drunk in a local pub with a late lock-in, stumbling home, singing and swearing, a kebab and chips to round off the night.

Slightly refres
hed, Gawl wandered back to bed, sour, unsettled, wishing it was night, trying to think what he could do to fill the next five hours.

Eight o’clock. Bored out of his brain. Enough! He pulled on his jeans and a damp t-shirt – lacking a washing machine, he washed them in cold water in the bath and hung them over the broken radiators to slowly dry – grabbed his denim jacket and stormed out, pacing down the landing to the lift, pausing when he got there, recalling the drop in Hampstead the night before, stomach growling at the memory. He thought about taking the stairs but his legs were wobbly. Hit the button for the lift, slumped against the rear panels when he entered, deep breaths, out quickly once he reached the ground, brightening as he left the tower block behind, lungs filling with the street air, licking his teeth and gums, hungry, heading for a café on the Walworth Road, toast, beans, chips and a burger, fine greasy food, gorging himself, three cups of black coffee, the waiter ignoring his unhealthy scent, accustomed to Gawl’s binges — the Scot stumbled in unshaven and stinking of cider and urine, four, maybe five nights a week.

From the café Gawl continued up the Walworth Road, past rows of shoddy small stores and grim off-licences. Left on
to East Street, birthplace of Charlie Chaplin, home to a bustling street market most days of the week. Gawl sometimes bought crabsticks at a stall near the top of the street. A pub stood near to where that operated from, a favoured haunt for some of the local gangsters. Gawl had been coming here a lot, sniffing for an opening, buying rounds, ingratiating himself with the regulars.

The p
ub was a third full. A woman in her late forties stood by the bar, dressed like a teenager, smoking a long thin cigarette, hands trembling. Gawl made a quick assessment — an alkie, not a hooker, but needed money bad, would fuck for spare change or a bottle of scotch/vodka/whatever. He’d seen her here before, usually near the end of the week when she’d drunk all her dole money and was desperate. Must have got through it quicker than usual this week. Her name was something like Alice or Annie. Probably riddled with disease. Gawl circled the alkie (here for business, not women) and chose a spot at the bar with a good view of the pub. Drank alone for an hour until a familiar face walked in, Little Zippy, small and wiry but a tough fucker. Knife-man for Johnny Baggs. Baggs a far cry from Dave Bushinsky, but any fucking port in a storm.

“Zippy,
” Gawl said, smiling grotesquely. “What’re ye drinking?”

Little Z
ippy studied Gawl distastefully, repulsed by the ugly low-life Scottish scum. But – looking quickly round the bar – there was nobody else who’d stand him a drink. He forced a thin smile, took off his jacket and draped it across a chair. “Gawl,” he nodded.

“Heineken?” Gawl asked,
careful to always note what people drank.

“Cheers.” Sharing a drink with the Scot, chatting dully, Gawl asking what he was up to, what the buzz on the streets was, if Johnny Baggs was going well. Little Zippy grunted noncommittally, mind wandering while Gawl blabbered.

Ten to eleven, bar half full, as full as it was going to get tonight. Johnny Baggs strolled in, a dishevelled bodyguard with him. Two young bits of skirt by the bar pushed away the men who’d been pestering them, making eyes at Johnny, hot shit around here, good for a new coat or dress, maybe a necklace or a small diamond if he really liked you. Johnny sidled up to them. He was pushing sixty, fat, bald, hands covered in warts. The girls cooed over him, kissed his cheeks, whispered in his ears, Johnny loving it. Gawl watched enviously.
If only.

Little Zippy
grunted a farewell at Gawl and went to talk with Johnny. One of the girls rubbed his head with her tits. Little Zippy shoved her away, no sense of humour, sensitive about his height. If a man mocked him that openly, Little Zippy would gut him. Different rules for women. You had to be more tolerant or you could go a long time without getting laid.

Gawl watched Johnny Baggs, his bodygu
ard, Little Zippy and the girls. He felt isolated, powerless. Finished his pint and ordered another, not tasting the cider, thinking about the future, getting old, rotting in the flat, an easy target. Little Zippy wouldn’t wind up like that — he hadn’t much, but he had an apartment, friends who’d watch out for him, a boss who’d toss a hooker or old slapper like Alice/Annie to him every now and again if he could still get it up.

Gaw
l checked his t-shirt and jeans — untidy, wrinkled, but no major stains. He swept his ginger/grey hair back with his right hand, smiled, picked up his pint and stepped across to where Johnny Baggs was entertaining the girls with a crude joke. He waited for the punchline, laughed lightly, then interrupted with a polite, “Good evening, Mr Baggs. May I treat you and yer friends t’ a round?”

Johnny Baggs studied Gawl coolly, searching his memory for a name
, then linking it to recent rumours — Gawl McCaskey, trouble-maker, woman-beater, double-crosser. Rumours, maybe true, maybe bullshit, but reason to be cautious. “Cheers,” he nodded, “but we’re fine. Can I buy you one?”

Gawl’s smile spread pitifully. “No thanks, Mr Baggs
. Are ye sure I can’t get one for ye?” Johnny shook his head. Gawl gulped, feeling like he was four foot tall. He always went to pieces around men more powerful than him, men he needed, men who invariably rejected him flat. He tried thinking of something to say, to make Johnny Baggs laugh. Came up blank. “Good result for Millwall last week,” he wheezed. Johnny was a season ticket holder.

“Fucking great result,” Johnny
smiled. “We’re going up this year, no doubt about it, we’ll finish champions.”

“You’re not talking football, are you?” one of the girls pouted. “I can’t stand football.”

“Then we’d better talk about something else,” Johnny laughed, winking at Gawl. “See you later, yeah?”

Gawl
sighed, defeated. “Later.” He nodded at Little Zippy and the girls, turned and left. Listened closely for sniggering but there wasn’t any. They hadn’t taken enough notice of him to make fun of him.

Gawl retreated to a corner of the bar, downed his pint quickly, ordered another and a shot of bourbon, angry, hating himself, wishing he had the nerve to take
down that fucker Baggs and show him what sort of a man he really was. Why did he shrink this way? In a fight he was a force of fucking nature, fearless. But set him talking with Johnny Baggs, Weasel Coyle, Jimmy Burns or anyone of influence and he became a pathetic wreck.

His fingers tightened
and his eyes darkened. Another shot, down in one, quick breaths, needing to bust out of here. He thought of starting a fight but that would ruin any chance he had of getting in good with Johnny Baggs. Looking round the bar, tense and twitchy, eyes strafing the regulars, the drunks, the gangsters, the girls, settling on…

Alice/Annie. Still alone, mo
oching over a half-pint, making it last, waiting for a knight in shining armour to sweep her away. Gawl grinned darkly, put his drink down, strolled over, stepped up beside her and ordered two pints, not asking if she wanted one. He shoved it at her and turned so he was sideways to her.

Alice/
Annie stared at the pint, then at Gawl. “Thanks,” she whispered, picking it up and drinking deeply.

“Finish it quick,” Gawl grunted. “We’ll stop at the off
ie on our way back.”

“You’re taking a lot for granted,” Alice/Annie sniffed, acting the high-and-m
ighty. “What makes you think I’d leave here with a… a foul-smelling fuck like you?”

Gawl laughed, not offended, on solid turf with this level of scum. He leant in close
and said, “If ye suck me off, I’ll toss in a tenner on top of the drinks.”

Alice/Annie almost threw her
pint at him but her fingers wouldn’t obey. They clutched the glass tight, as if it was the holy grail. Gawl saw her loathing and her desperation and he laughed again. Put a hand on her arse and squeezed. She saw that he was a violent man, in a violent mood, and knew she’d suffer if she left with him, maybe a light beating, maybe worse. She gazed around the bar, but there was nobody else she could rely on and she needed to be drunk, she’d been shaking all day, couldn’t face the night sober.

“We’ll have another one here,” she said firmly, looking Gawl straight in the eye. For a moment he thought he’d miscalculated, that she was stronger than she appeared. But then her gaze dropped. “After that
I’ll come with you. And I’ll want twenty to suck you, not ten.”

Gawl laughed, ordered
another round and rubbed his groin against her thigh, letting her feel his stiffness, fingers tightening on her arse, a rough promise of things to come. Alice/Annie made up her mind to get so drunk that she wouldn’t feel the pain, wouldn’t feel anything, wouldn’t even be there really.

NINE

Big Sandy
was, to his surprise, growing fond of Shula Schimmel. It had been years since he’d spent much time around a teenager. He’d forgotten what the world was like from their viewpoint, the excitement of it, the wonder, the incredible highs and woeful lows which only those caught between childhood and adulthood experienced so heartfully. Escorting Shula around, watching her gyrate in nightclubs, sharing a table with her and her friends in restaurants or cafés (she wouldn’t let him sit at a table of his own, said he looked lonely), taking her shopping… It made him part of her teenage world, even if only vicariously.

It was a world Big Sandy barely kn
ew. His daughter was a few years younger than Shula, but it had been a long time since she’d been part of his life — he had missed all but her youngest years. As for himself, he’d had to grow up quickly and secure a place for himself in adult society before he hit his teens.

His mother
had been murdered when Big Sandy was eleven years old, slain in her bed by her lover, Davey Connors, a cruel man who regularly beat her and Sandy for most of the short but bitter month he lived with them. Sandy found her body when he returned from a pool hall one night, where he was already running errands for local gangsters. Walked in clutching a bag of sweet and sour chicken, Mum’s favourite, eager to please, knowing she was having a tough time with her new man, not sure why she didn’t kick the monster out, but sure she’d see sense eventually and get rid of him.

He called out, “Mum,
I’m home. I brought Chinese.” No answer. He took the bag to the kitchen, unpacked the boxes, took the lids off, set plates on the table, left the food steaming in the boxes, went looking for his mother. Found her in her bedroom, choked to death. Nobody ever found out why he did it — Connors vanished into the night. Friends of Sandy’s mother searched for him for many months, keen to do unto him as he’d done to Nancy Mooney (although his mother never married, she’d given Big Sandy his father’s surname), but they never found him and eventually abandoned the search.

Not Big Sandy. He’d been
looking for Davey Connors all his life, always studying faces on the street, on the Tube, in pubs, the killer’s features seared into the cells of his brain. Big Sandy would know him the second he saw him, no matter how much time might have changed him. Know him and kill him.

Big Sandy often thought of Nancy
. He imagined her behind him every time he killed, perhaps the reason he took the deaths so hard, knowing she wouldn’t approve. He dreamt of her often, and in his dreams she pleaded with him to stop killing, put his wicked ways behind him, embrace God while there was time to repent. But stopping wasn’t an option. He had to continue, engulfed by evil, living in the darkness. Not only because that was all he’d ever known and all that his childhood had prepared him for, but because somewhere in that cesspit lurked the man who’d murdered his mother. Big Sandy believed he’d find him if he explored the darkness long enough, surrendering to it, even though he knew the cost — the sorrow of God, the denial of heaven, the eternal damnation of hell.

Big Sandy had discussed this often recently with the new priest in the church of his mother, the Church of
Sacred Martyrs. He hadn’t attended mass since her death, but he’d spent many long, quiet hours in the church, silent, not praying, seeing himself as God saw him, sometimes apologising, sometimes welling up with bitter tears. The priests would try talking with him, wishing he’d take them into his confidence, eager to ease his suffering. Big Sandy resisted, maintaining a lonely silence — until Fr Sebastian.

Big Sandy had seen the priest’s true
colours from the start, a weak man who intimately knew the contours of the vile, whose experience of wickedness wasn’t limited to what he read in the bible or heard in the confessional. This was a man who wouldn’t be distressed by anything he was told, a sad sinner who wouldn’t dare judge another lest he be judged himself, a damned man with whom Big Sandy could talk openly, freely, exploratively.