When Evil Wins (3 page)

It was then he sunk to his knees with a guttural “Noooooo”, screaming from his mouth.

Zosia had hanged herself. Her swinging body was limp as it dangled at the end of a rope attached to a hook on one of the beams which crossed the room’s ceiling above the flat’s entrance.

***

That was twenty years ago. Andrzej Malik never involved himself in anything apart from his work ever again. Zosia had been the only woman for him; the woman who had made his life.

Once he’d completed his papers and he’d been accepted Andrzej took his son from Poland to the UK hoping to start anew.

In the UK he had been lucky and had been able to build up a plumbing business, mostly through word of mouth.

Over time, and when Janus was old enough, his son became a regular fixture as part of the new father and son team.

Never a day went past without Andrzej feeling that his late wife was near to him. But he would not allow himself to think too deeply about this. The thought of her being somewhere near, but not with him, was a burden almost too much to live with.

During these periods Andrzej pushed all thoughts of his late wife to the back of his mind, and focused harder on building a worthwhile legacy for his son.

Late Friday afternoon, Regent Scaffolding arrived in Hartingdon Road to complete their last job for the day. Jack, a burly man in his mid-fifties and Regent Scaffolding’s site supervisor, rang Andrzej Malik.

“Mr Malik, before we start I just want to check we’re putting this up in the right place. It's the side of the 'ouse with the soil pipe isn't it?”

“Yes, Jack. You are late aren't you?”

“Been a bit busy, Mr Malik, and what with the new boy to train. Anyways,” Jack continued quickly, not wanting to give Andrzej Malik a chance to start his usual rant about timing and the like, “the diary says Friday afternoon, Mr Malik.”

“I know that,” Andrzej Malik said.

“Well it's Friday afternoon,” Jack reiterated.

“Thanks, Jack,” Andrzej Malik sighed. “The side with the soil pipe, yes.”

“Okay, just checkin'.” With that final confirmation Jack hung up the phone.

Two hours later Regent Scaffolding had finished assembling the structure on the side of the house and not before time, it was dark now.

Jack wouldn't have allowed his crew to go on any later; putting up scaffolding at that time of night was a fool’s game.

As they were loading their tools on to the truck a light fine rain began to fall.

“Thank goodness we finished now,” Jack said to another member of the crew, “I thought they said it was going to be a clear night tonight.”

“Think you're right, Jack,” came the reply, “fawt they said it was going to be frost or summin'.”

“Come on, Tom,” Jack said turning to the new boy, “you up for a beer with the lads?”

Tom grinned and nodded enthusiastically, all thought of collecting the crew’s spare toolbox instantly leaving his head.

“Up for a beer lads?” Jack called to the rest of the crew.

With a resounding “yeah” the scaffolding crew and Tom got into the truck and drove off to their regular watering hole.

***

The rain cleared and the night's temperature plummeted, freezing the drizzle on to the metal piping of the scaffold.

As the evening wore on the temperature fell still further and gradually the illuminations of Southend's night clubs lit up, signalling the start of party time.

Soon crowds of party goers started to descend on the town's night clubs relishing the idea of lager, lads, a late night and ladettes, not forgetting the sounds and vodka shotz.

Party time ebbed to a close and people began to trickle from the clubs. Two of the party goers, Jason and Darren, staggered from one of the clubs and crossed Lucy Road, into the car park opposite, not really sure which direction they were going in.

“That was mad wern't it?” Jason enthused.

“Real mad,” Darren agreed. “You got anything?”

“Nah, man,” after a slight pause Jason added, “well just a bit, it's gotta last me the weekend. I don't get paid 'til Monday.”

“What is it?” Darren asked.

“Just a bit of skunk, man,” he said.

“Go on man, light up a ting,” Darren cajoled.

They'd cleared the car park and were walking in the direction of the now closed Woodgrange pub, across a grassy patch of land. “Go on man, I'll score something later — tomorrow,” Darren carried on.

“You ain't got no money either, Darren,” Jason said.

“Don't worry about that man, I'll think of something.”

“Okay,” Jason caved in. They both leant against a wall out of the glare of the street lights. Jason started rolling the joint.

“You got plenty there, man,” Darren observed.

“It only looks a lot in the dark,” Jason's booze skewed logic helped him retort as he finished rolling the spliff.

He lit up and took a huge drag, holding the smoke down. He exhaled slowly as he felt the surface of his brain begin to fizzle, the fizzling slowly seeping deeper into his head. This stuff was strong. He passed the joint to Darren. The booze from their night out was helping too.

They started walking again following the wall as it seemed the best way to go.

“What you going to do?” Jason asked.

“Do about what?” Darren smirked, the effect of the skunk manipulating his general perspective.

“Do about scoring man,” Jason said.

“Oh yeah!” Darren replied, as his now faulty memory recalled his statement of a few moments ago.

“Well?” Jason said, attempting to be demanding.

They had now wandered up to the far end of Hartington Road. Darren looked around and saw the scaffolding on the side of the house.

“I know this builder geezer who is always on the lookout for scaffolding and stuff,” Darren said.

“Where you going to get scaffolding from?” Jason asked, half curious.

Darren pointed to the scaffold assembled up the side of the house at the end of the road they were now standing at.

“You serious?”
 
Jason said.

“Yeah, man. It's easy. Just take some stuff from the top, no one will notice. Look, roll one more and I'll show you.”

Jason got out his pouch and started rolling once more, finishing it quickly; rolling spliffs was something he could do in his sleep. They took it in turns to finish the joint and the muscles in their legs quivered slightly.

“Okay, man,” Darren said, and after a long moment of mutual silence between the two pot-heads, he added, “I'll show you.”

Turning slowly towards the house Darren felt as if his head was somehow catching up with where his mind was now facing.

They managed to get over the wall that separated the end of Hartington Road from the main thoroughfare.

“How d'you know no one's home?” Jason asked.

“There’re no lights on,” Darren replied.

“Oh yeah,” Jason agreed.

They were both completely stoned and any old logic would do however flawed it was. They jumped over the second wall at the end of the cul-de-sac and walked unsteadily through the front gate of the house with the scaffolding, and along the path that ran down its side.

Darren stumbled over the tool box which had been left earlier that day. Jason laughed as his friend fell into, and bounced out of, the sturdy short hedge lining the pathway.

Darren looked at the box. “Look man, here's the tools I need,” he said.

“What tools?”

“The tools to get the pipes,” Darren clarified.

“Oh,” Jason responded, not that bothered, as he had started listening to the music that was now playing in his head.

Darren bent over, just about keeping himself from toppling forward on to the path, and opened the box's lid, all the equipment was there. He picked up a spanner and a ratchet from the box.

“What you going to do now?” Jason said, noticing that Darren had a few things in his hands.

“I'm going t' climb this ting and loosen some bolts, then you're going t' take the pipes and boards and put them on the ground.”

Darren started his attempted climb of the scaffolding. Initially he couldn't get a grip, the spanner and ratchet in his hands stopping him. He tried holding both of the tools in his right hand but that didn't help at all. He swapped the tools to his left hand. Again there was no way to get a grip on the scaffold to lift himself up.

Darren held the tools out in front of him puzzling over what to do. Then he laughed stuffing them into his jacket pockets. Slowly he made his way up the icy scaffolding.

Once he had reached the penultimate platform before the top he looked down at Jason. “See. It's easy, man,” he called out, and as soon as he had uttered the words the planks he was standing on shifted suddenly. The structure slipped a fraction. Darren grabbed hold of one of the uprights and fortunately the platform stopped moving.

“Okay. Are you ready?” Darren called to his mate on the ground, totally oblivious to what had just nearly happened.

“Yeah. Ready when you are,” Jason called back.

Darren removed the tools from his pocket and started to undo the bolts which held the upper most walkway in place.

He pulled and tugged at the poles but nothing shifted. Darren moved along the wooden boards trying the same thing again and again on different joints holding the piping fast. Still he could not shift any of the metal tubes from their fixings.

After Darren had tried the whole tier above him, and with no luck whatsoever, he decided he'd had enough. This was not going to be the way to make some easy money.

Edging his way slowly back along the platform he made one final attempt at freeing the scaffold's tubing. The fixings seemed to unscrew easily enough but nothing was going to give him what he was after.

Giving up he started to make his way down. Once on the bottom level he jumped to the ground, throwing the tools he had found into the nearby hedge.

“Hey Jay,” Darren said, “think I'm going t' have t' find another way to get you the money. You skinning up another?”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed, “Let’s get out of here first, though.”

They walked from the base of the scaffolding out of the property's front gate and made their way back over the wall of the cul-de-sac.

“You git,” said Jason, when they were on the main road. “You said you'd find a way to score.”

“Jay, don't worry. I'll get enough money to score for this weekend.”

The friends wandered around aimlessly eventually deciding the seafront would be a good place to go to finish Jason's stash.

It was Saturday morning and Andrzej Malik turned his van into Hartington Road. He had started that much earlier so he could make sure everything would be completed by the end of the day. It was also bloody cold. Andrzej Malik consoled himself with the fact that it would have been much colder in Poland if he’d been out on a job there at this time of year.

Andrzej mentally cursed his son for not being available. He could really have done with the help and as Janus was not here he was certain that he would need the whole day to complete the job.

He didn't think that Janus turning up some time around one p.m. would really help at all; he would have finished all the heavy shifting the job required by then.

Andrzej unloaded his toolbox from the van; he’d kept this particular toolbox since winning his first contract in the UK, it was a totem for him. He dumped the toolbox next to one of the vertical poles of the scaffold.

Returning to his van he took a ladder from its roof, then carrying it through the gate to his client’s property, he positioned it against the first tier of the wooden and metal structure Regent Scaffolding had installed for him.

Finally he collected a long rope from the back of the van and tied it to the lid of his toolbox; there was no way that he would be climbing the ladder with a toolbox in hand. He'd learnt from previous experience that this attitude was one for the suicidal, two hands were always better than one when climbing.

Andrzej climbed the ladder to the first level of the platform, reeling out the rope as he did so. The scaffolding moved a fraction as he climbed, but this had happened on previous occasions and it didn't mean that much, this type of structure had to settle.

He reached out for one of the poles to rest for a moment thinking that this job should have been his son’s. Touching the galvanized steel briefly he realised how cold it had been the previous night and reaching into his pockets Andrzej retrieved his gloves and put them on.

He made his way further up the scaffolding, using the short ladders between each lift. Once at the top he took a closer look at the soil pipe, it was severely eroded, as he had suspected when he’d assessed the job the day before.

Cast iron wasn't the right material for this job and no doubt this pipe was the original one that had been installed when the house had been built. The maintenance the outside had received was almost non-existent. It was no wonder things like the soil pipe needed to be replaced.

Andrzej threaded the rope around the outside of the ledgers which made up the top tier's guard rail, ready to haul his toolbox to the top.

Making sure his feet had a good grip on the boards he started to heave, lifting his tools from the ground. It was only when the toolbox was half way between himself and the ground that the previous evening's freezing temperatures and the work of the two pot-heads acted in unison forcing a sudden collapse of the scaffolding.

The metal guard rail that Andrzej had been using as a pivot slipped down under the weight of the box, pushing one of the main uprights away from the rest of the scaffolding; its movement was eased by the lubricating ice and the lack of torque in the bolts, which held together the spigots and clips of the scaffold.

Andrzej let go of the rope but the inertia of the collapse paid no heed to the relief in the extra weight. The ledgers supporting the boards slid down the poles, their braces having been loosened; the platform that Andrzej stood on becoming an icy slope.

Before he could do anything to stop himself he slipped backwards smashing the back of his head against the wall of the house, his feet shooting out from beneath him.

As his lower back slid off the front of the short platform he reached up, attempting to grasp the horizontal tube that had made up the guard rail; his gloved hands made a tentative grip on the pole but the weather had done its worst and the ice on the tubing afforded him no hold whatsoever.

He fell from the scaffolding feet first, the top half of his body being flipped forward as the lower half of his back lost contact with the wooden planks of the upper lift. He plummeted, face first, into the hedge that lined the side of the house below him with the bush's older and tougher branches piercing one of his arms and entering his right lung between the bones of his rib cage.

The shrub’s sturdy resistance rolled him from its top and he landed on his back with a heavy thud, the metal of one of the scaffold's thick, sharp cornered, metal base plates tore through his jacket, cutting deeply into the bone of his shoulder blade.

Though almost unconscious he was still aware of the sounds of clanging metal as other pipes of the scaffold fell to the ground around him.

He opened his eyes afraid to move, not sure of the damage that had been done to his body by the fall. And as he did so, he glimpsed a large piece of piping falling through the air, spear like. The tube hit him, end first, pushing through his abdomen wall, taking out his left kidney as its weight propelled it into the ground beneath him.

Now unconscious he was oblivious to the final damage the galvanized steel tube inflicted upon his torso.

As it toppled over, to lie on the ground next to him, the end of the scaffold tube flicked upwards; his kidney and other parts of his innards were left dripping and exposed from the small circle at the end of the oversized pastry cutter as it eventually came to rest.