Lets Drink To The Dead Read online

  She strips off again, stuffing the old clothes into a carrier bag and shoving them into the bottom drawer. Then into the bathroom. Coal dust on her face and hands. She washes, thorough but fast, scrubs under her nails to get the dirt out. God, she wants a bath or a shower but she daren’t. Her brother – they could be bringing her brother back at any moment. Christ, he should be back by now; where is he? She needs to call the ambulance now, but she can’t without him there. Where is he?

  MR FITTON’S VAN grumbles through Kempforth, heading home. Alan’s home. Mr Fitton grumbling to himself in the driver’s seat, a low constant burble. Yolly’s sat beside him.

  Yolly. Alan knows he owes his life to Yolly. Mr Fitton wanted to kill him then and there once the Shrike had gone, butcher him like a pig. It was Yolly who wheedled and cajoled him. “You heard what he said, Mr Fitton. Let Mr Walsh get rid of him if he wants him got rid of. If you do it, it’s murder and you’ll go to prison for it if they catch you.”

  Mr Fitton’s little black pig eyes had darted to and fro in the dark of the cellar. Johnny, Mark and Sam had all knelt there, silent and ignored. They weren’t relevant now; their fate had been decided. Cattle at the market, picked for the slaughterhouse. Their trapped, weeping eyes had darted to meet Alan’s, envying him his luck. Begging him to help them. But they were the Shrike’s now. They were good as dead.

  “Alright,” said Mr Fitton. “We’ll tek him back. Let Walsh make his mind up what to do with him. Let’s not soil our hands.”

  As if they weren’t killers already, selling kids to the Shrike.

  “But first,” Mr Fitton stepped forward, unbuckling his belt, “we’re going to have some fun. Go get the van.”

  And he pushed Alan face-down on the floor.

  Yolly gentled Alan afterwards, stroking his hair, cuddling him. Kissing his cheeks. Didn’t try anything on. He didn’t look at the other kids, though. The ones he could do nothing for. He’d whispered kind words to Alan until Mr Fitton banged on the door and shouted him to come on, time’s up.

  And now they were in the van, him and Yolly and Mr Fitton, and Johnny Mark and Sam are back in the cellar under the old abandoned mill, waiting alone. Just left there alone in the dark. What if someone finds them? Ah, but they won’t; they never do. Daddy Adrian has the Policeman on his side. They’ve never seen his face; only Daddy Adrian knows who he is. He always wears a mask when he comes for the children. But they know he’s a copper, and he protects Daddy Adrian and the rest.

  “Here we are,” says Mr Fitton, and turns down Shackleton Street.

  VERA’S PSYCHED HERSELF up to make herself cry and has finally dialled 999 when she sees the headlights flare in the near-dark at the top of Shackleton Street. She peeps through a gap in the curtains and sees they’re big and widely-spaced, sees it’s the butcher’s van. Fitton’s. Fuck, not now.

  “Which service?”

  Get it done, lass. “Ambulance.”

  She’s sobbing and she’s shaking as the van slows to a halt a few yards from their door, idling, engine grumbling. Any minute... any minute now...

  They tell her the ambulance is on its way as she sees the van door open and close and a big lumbering bulk slide out to sway on the road. Fitton rolls up the short path to the door. She lets the curtain fall back into place, gabbles something into the phone and hangs up. Oh Christ what did she say? Did she say something wrong, did she hang up the phone too soon? Will they suspect that–

  Fitton bangs on the door. She yelps. Then takes breaths. Long, slow. Now be wise, Vera; now be calm. For your sake and for Alan’s. Walsh is dead, he’ll never hurt Alan again, but they’re not out of the woods by a long chalk yet.

  Fitton bangs again on the door, harder. Brutal. Like a boxer. Always like he’s attacking something. Maybe he was a victim once, like them. Prey. Maybe that’s the rage he carries. And maybe not. She doesn’t care. Whatever he was, he’s this now.

  She goes to the door and opens it a crack. Fitton tries to push through; it catches on the chain. “Where’s Adrian?”

  Walsh. Daddy Adrian, Alan calls him. “Hang on,” she says, and shuts the door. How long will the ambulance take? There’s not much time; can’t be. She takes off the chain, opens it and steps back smartish as Fitton barges through, ugly brutal hog-faced barrel of a man that he is. “Where is he?”

  Vera shuts the door behind him. “Kitchen.”

  “Adrian.” Fitton’s already marching forward. Vera walks slowly after him, cat-footed. In the pocket of her jeans there is a knife. She puts her hand on it, ready. “Adria–”

  Fitton’s voice stops dead as he goes through the kitchen door. Vera stops behind him. Far enough away to have some warning if he comes at her. She slips the knife free, holds it against the back of her thigh.

  “He’s dead,” she says. Fitton turns to look at her, his eyes black slits. “And I’ve got his stuff. His porn. All his filthy magazines.” She puts her free hand in the other pocket, draws a torn, much-folded page, flicks it at him. It falls at his feet. He doesn’t pick it up. “Look at it.”

  Fitton crouches. His trousers creak and for a moment she thinks they’ll split, but they don’t. Good thing too; she’d not be able to keep from laughing, and that might be all it takes to touch things off. Fitton’s eyes don’t waver from hers as his fingers grub about on the worn carpet, or when he stands with the folded scrap of glossy paper in his hands. He doesn’t look away from her until it’s unfolded. Only then. His face goes still, pale, then red.

  “Good likeness,” she says. “No doubting that it’s you, or what you’re doing.” Fitton’s thick fat sausagey fingers clench and unclench at his sides. The page falls to the floor. His eyes are back on hers and do not waver. She might have to use the knife. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she says. “I’ve hid the stash. Safe. Owt happens to me and it’ll be found. And then everyone’ll know you bastards for what you are.”

  Fitton studies her. His thick lips twist. “Bollocks.” She grips the knife tighter. “You’ve not had time.”

  “Really? You wanna bet? He’s been dead a while. Anyone asks me, I only just found him. Been upstairs. Playing me cassettes. Not been feeling great. On the blob, you know?” Fitton looks ill at the mention. “But really? I’ve had bags of time, Mr Fitton. Enough that you’ll not find it here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “My brother. Where is he?”

  “In the van.”

  “Get out there and send him in. After that there’s only one thing I want off you, and you give me it and I’ll tell you where I put his stuff.”

  Fitton moves towards her, and despite the knife she moves back. But he’s only going for the door. “I’ll send him in,” he says. “What’s t’other thing you want?”

  “Money.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not like that. One payment. A one-off. I don’t want anything more of yours than I can help. Just enough to get out of here and never have to look at your face or this shithole town again.”

  Fitton’s face tightens. “I could make you tell me. I’ve got your brother.”

  “Hurt him and I’ll have the law on you and take my chances. Just be sensible, Mr Fitton. Do this and we go our way, you go yours. You carry on doing what you do and that’s us done.”

  Fitton looks at her. Sweat trickles down her back. How much time now? “Alright,” he says at last. “But you try to fuck me over–”

  “I won’t.”

  “And even if I’m in the clink I’ll find a way to get you. Wherever you are.”

  Those eyes, like a fish on a slab. Like the shark she saw on the telly that time. “Fair enough,” she says.

  Fitton nods once, then goes out, the door banging behind him then swinging wide. Muffled noises; the van door opens and slams. Alan stumbles up over the pavement and in through the door. As Vera goes to get him the van roars away leaving only a whiff of diesel fumes, as she hears the blare of the ambulance siren at last, getting louder as it nears Shackl
eton Street.

  WHAT TIME IS it now? Alan in his narrow bed, looking up at the ceiling and trying to believe.

  Sis said Daddy Adrian’s dead. Well, he is dead, isn’t he? Alan’s seen the body. It didn’t look like Daddy Adrian, not anymore. But she says he’s dead. And she says she’s fixing things so he won’t be hurt again, the way Daddy Adrian hurt him, and Mr Fitton, Father Joseph, the Policeman and the rest. Alan looks up at the bare bulb and tries to believe that. Men have trooped into this room, all of Daddy Adrian’s friends, and they’ve hurt him. They’ve done things to him. But Sis says they won’t anymore. Sis says they’re going away.

  If he keeps secrets. Sis says he has to keep secrets. Well, he’s used to that. He’s kept them for years. He’s done alright, so far. He was with Mr Fitton and Yolly because he wants to be a butcher one day and Mr Fitton lets him help out a bit, for a few quid, cash in hand. There was a policeman, came round. Didn’t look much older than Yolly.

  Is everything really going to be alright?

  Alan wants to believe it, but he can’t.

  He tried to tell Vera. Tried to tell her about the farmhouse off Dunwich Lane. About Johnny, Mark and Sam. About the Shrike. But she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know. She doesn’t know about the Shrike, doesn’t know how bad he is. But then he hasn’t told her. Because she said, Do you want to get out of here? Then sod every bugger else. It’s just you and me, sweetheart. We can’t trust any fucker round here. And I’m not having you going in a care home. We get out. You and me.

  And that shut him up, because Daddy Adrian told him allabout the care homes they have for kids like him. Full of people make me and my mates look like the Roly Polys, Daddy Adrian said, shark’s teeth gleaming in a smile. And so Alan’s said nothing. And so eight o’clock will have come and gone, both here and at the old farmhouse off Dunwich Lane. And he knows what that means, knew it before, when there was a time he could’ve spoken and he didn’t. Alan knows.

  There are things Alan doesn’t want to think about, and that’s one of them. Another is Yolly, or rather how when Yolly kissed and cuddled him hefelt his own body respond, his dick stiffen. No, not like him. He won’t become like Yolly. He won’t.

  Alan wants to believe it’ll be all alright. But he can’t. Not least because something’s changed in the room.

  Normally Shackleton Street’s a noisy place. You can hear them shouting and screaming next door; hear the drunks roll home on the street outside. But all of a sudden that’s gone. It’s dead silent. He turns on his side but he can’t even hear the thump of the blood in his ears. He breathes deep, in and out, but he can’t hear that either.

  Panic growing slow and clammy in him; he doesn’t know yet what it is he has to be afraid of, but he fears it.

  And then he rolls onto his back again and he sees the man at the end of his bed.

  The breath clogs silent in his throat. Cold light flickers. The man wears a black, thigh-length coat. His head is pale and bulbous-looking, with only a thin feathering of hair around the ears reaching round the back. His eyes are pale and vast behind thick pebble lenses, and there’s red smeared round his pale, pursed mouth. His jaws lump as he chews. His hands are pale and soft-looking. Child’s hands. They hold something long and white. A bone, a big one. From someone’s arm or leg, maybe? A bone. It has chunks of meat hanging from it, and Alan knows he’s looking at the Shrike.

  The Shrike swallows. His red mouth opens. He’s speaking but there’s no sound. But Alan... Alan doesn’t hear the words so much as see them. They seem to hang in the air, glowing red against the dark.

  Do not look at me.

  Alan would cry out, but there’s no hearing in this place. He claps his hands over his eyes instead. He tries to sob, but there’s no sound. It isn’t coming back. The world will never know song or laughter again, not that it’s known much of either in his limited experience. Slowly, slowly, he peels his hands away from his eyes. Maybe the Shrike will still be there, waiting for him. Maybe there’s no escape for those like him, ever. Maybe he never really left that cellar and he’s dreamt everything since.

  When he looks, the Shrike is gone. But the room’s still choked with that unnatural silence, and he’s not alone.

  Three small, naked boys stand at the foot of his bed, their backs turned to him. One has fair hair, one has brown, the third has black. He knows them, of course; knows who they have to be.

  Johnny, Mark and Sam. He’d name them all if he could, but he has no voice. But they’ve heard him nonetheless, it seems; as he watches, the boys turn slowly to face him.

  They face him and he almost screams, not that it would make much difference here. They have no eyes. Only holes where their eyes should be.

  Alan wants to clap his hands back to his face, to turn, to run away. Their lips move, the three of them, in perfect unison.

  Look at us.

  Look at us, Alan.

  And so he does.

  We are the dead. We are the dead.

  He can’t speak. What would he say, even if he could? They’re right, of course. They’re dead, were good as dead as soon as Yolly and Mr Fitton delivered them to the farmhouse on Dunwich Lane.

  But you could have stopped it, they say, and he knows it’s true. He could have told. The police–

  But the Policeman. Daddy Adrian had the Policeman to protect him.

  Daddy Adrian is dead. And only he knew who the Policeman was. The Policeman won’t risk himself to save Mr Fitton or Father Joseph. You could have saved us.

  Daddy Adrian always said Alan would get put in a children’s home if he told, full of worse than him–

  We were your friends, the dead boys say. We looked up to you. We trusted. We trusted you as we trusted Daddy Adrian and Mr Fitton and Father Joseph. And you betrayed us.

  No. No, he wasn’t like them. He’d only wanted the pain to stop. He’d only ever wanted to get out.

  Oh, you’ll get out alright, Alan. You’ve bought your freedom with our blood. But there’s a price. There is always a price.

  Alan knows this. He’s been paying all his life, and he doesn’t even know what for. What price now, for this?

  The Sight, Alan. We give you the Sight.

  The sight? What sight?

  The sight of us, Alan. The Sight of the dead. You’ll make a living from it. Telling pretty lies about the afterlife. But we’ll always be with you to remind you of the price. And one day we’ll call you home. A day of reckoning, Alan, when you’ll finally atone. But not yet. Not for years yet. We give you those years, Alan. Remember it. You owe them to us.

  The shadows beyond the foot of the bed are deep and thick. The three boys glide back into them and are gone. Sound returns, and he realises he’s sobbing, loud.

  “Alan?” He starts, scared, but it’s only a normal voice, a girl’s; Vera’s. The door opens. The landing light spills into the room. “Alan, are you OK?”

  “Nightmare,” he says. He’s lying to her, but perhaps he can lie to himself as well, convince himself that what just happened didn’t.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” She comes to his bedside and sits on the edge, squeezing his hand. “Today was the last time, baby. They’ll never be able to do it to you again. I swear to god that they won’t. D’you believe me?”

  At last Alan nods, but he can’t stop crying. Can’t stop. For Johnny and Mark and Sam. For him. Even for Yolly who was once a boy like him. He will not become like Yolly, he won’t.

  “Sweetheart.” Vera bites her lip, takes a deep breath. “Alan, do you want me to...?”

  Will it help? It can’t hurt. It’s made the hurt go away before, just for a little while; much of what little tenderness, pleasure and joy his young life has known has come from it. And it proves, too. Proves he’s not like Yolly, not into boys. He likes girls, girls, girls. And so he nods.

  Vera nods back. She’s wearing a nightie with nothing on underneath. She peels it off over her head, drops it on the floor and slides under the covers with him.


  As she unbuttons his pyjamas, she knows it’s wrong; she’s known that for a while now, maybe has done ever since she first offered this comfort to him. But it was all she had, as he is all she has. And in places like this, you take whatever comfort you can find.

  “MR FITTON?”

  A pause filled with hoarse breath. “Yes.”

  “It’s Vera Latimer, Mr Fitton.” She always kept her dad’s name; even when Mum took Walsh’s she wouldn’t. Outside it’s raining; it’s the hour before dawn and two nights have passed since Walsh died. “Have you got it?”

  “Yes. Have you got what I want?”

  “Yes.” She glances over at Alan, sat pale and shadow-eyed in the corner. Their three suitcases beside him. Ready to go.

  “So?”

  “Meet me at the station. Half an hour. Come alone.”

  “If–”

  “Alone, Mr Fitton.”

  Click. She breathes out. Her hands are shaking.

  EVEN IN THE early morning, there’s comings and goings at Kempforth Station. Vera’s been there with Alan for ten minutes before Fitton heifers in through the doors. His black eyes flick to Alan, who flinches back. “Little shit,” says Fitton.

  “Leave him,” says Vera.

  “Well?”

  “Money first.”

  Fitton glances round, then palms an envelope. “Show me,” says Vera. She keeps a hand on the knife.

  Fitton opens the envelope, flicks through a sheaf of fivers inside. It’s enough for train fare to Manchester and for food and lodgings, for a while at least. And after that? She’ll think of something; sell herself, if she has to. But Alan won’t. She’ll see to that. She’ll starve first. She gave him her word and she’ll keep it.

  “Alright. Give me.” She takes the envelope, stuffs it in her pocket.

  “Well?” Fitton demands again.

  She holds up the front door key; she’ll not need it again. “Back at our house. My room. In the wardrobe.”