CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Doncaster
A dog was barking. Barking then silent. Barking. Silent. Barking. Sean tried to turn over but his head was pinned to the hard ground. His tongue was thick, stuck to the roof of his mouth. He opened his eyes and a bright light burnt into his retina. He closed them again and the light lingered, an orange glow the other side of his eyelids. The barking had stopped but there was another sound, like an animal choking, gasping for air and exhaling in a shuddering grunt. It came again, choke, gasp, grunt. Sean tried to reach out around him to feel what was there but he couldn’t move his arms, they were trapped inside some kind of bag, a bag that rustled and slipped. This is my sleeping bag, he thought, and this is morning.
He turned his head slowly, weighed down by a dull pain, and forced one eye open. An army of beer cans stretched in front of him across the carpet, some still upright, others fallen in battle. Beyond the troops lay the enemy, snoring on the settee. Last night they had got very, very drunk. Sean was still drunk but he guessed Terry Starkey was in a worse state. He remembered trying to pace himself, keeping each can going longer until he was downing one for every two of Starkey’s. He focused on the empty cans and tried to do the maths, but the pain intensified between his eyes and he let them close again. Snatches of their conversation jerked back into play. Starkey talking about his brother’s death, how it had messed him up. Something about how that girl had to pay the price for what she’d done to his family; he knew where to find her now. He remembered Terry grabbing the front of his T-shirt and twisting it up under his chin.
‘I like you,’ he’d said. ‘You’re Jack’s lad and I’m going to trust you. But you fuck me over, Sean Denton, and I will kill you.’
Sean remembered his dad appearing in the doorway and mumbling something about the noise and how he was trying to get to sleep and Starkey letting go and laughing that loud, hard laugh, like it was all a game and they were mates, weren’t they? It was getting late when Terry Starkey asked the question Sean had been dreading.
‘So what were you inside for?’
‘Drink-driving. Caused a bit of criminal damage.’ It might have been true. He knew plenty who did it and got away with it.
‘Your old man thinks you did time for drug dealing!’ Starkey laughed and Sean brushed it aside, mumbling something about how his dad got mixed up on account of his liver disease.
‘Old bugger says the first thing that comes into his head!’
‘You must never drink and drive.’
Now Sean was remembering when Terry said that, and how he’d been wondering whether he should make something up about his prison life, but he didn’t need to because Terry started on some story about his car, the BMW, which wasn’t his at all. Sean tried to recollect what he’d said. It was something about being nobody’s chauffeur, so he reckoned the car was his now. Sean couldn’t follow why he thought this.
‘Could get a fucking house off him if I wanted it.’ Terry had grovelled in his pockets and pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some papers. ‘Got any blow, mate? I could kill for a bit of blow.’
Sean shook his head.
‘Good job I know his number!’ he tapped his head with the phone. ‘I can memorise numbers, me!’
He prodded the screen and put the phone to his ear. ‘Yo, man! It’s me. Yeah, me … No, you never said … Don’t fucking put the phone down on me … Shit.’ He dialled again and listened for a moment. ‘OK, have it your own way, I’ll leave a message. This is my message. I want some gear, can you sort that? Some nice bud, you can get it off my boy, Gary. Get a fucking taxi to the snooker hall and pick it up and bring it to me at number 9, Eagle Mount One, Chasebridge, you got that? You better have got that, because I fucking own you man. I own you … What the …? Fucking ran out of time, fucking thing’s beeping at me. Still, I think he got it.’
Now it was morning and Sean realised the delivery had never arrived. Which was just as well. He remembered going to the toilet and gulping handfuls of water from the tap. When he came back, Starkey had slumped on the settee, fast asleep. He took the cigarette out of Starkey’s hand and took off his shoes, tucking his feet up on to the settee gently, so as not to wake him.
With the light drilling directly into his brain, Sean tried to focus on what else had happened, what else had been said, and whether he’d remembered the gist of the evening. He’d had an idea. Had he followed it through? Yes, it was coming back to him; he’d used one of Terry’s trips to the toilet to find the recording function on his own phone and he’d recorded some of what Terry had been saying. He lay back and covered his eyes with his arm. That was better, darker. The snoring from the settee was steady and rhythmic. Soon Sean’s own breathing fell into the same pattern and he let sleep overtake him again.
The next time he woke it was because someone was speaking. It sounded like they were saying ‘worry folk’ but then it became clearer and Sean recognised his dad’s voice and he was saying ‘what the fuck.’ Then his dad kicked his leg through the sleeping bag.
‘’Ere you little bastard, what the fuck have you done to my living room?’
He didn’t feel drunk any more. He sat up and looked into the angry face of Jack Denton, spittle gathering between the gaps in his teeth and his hands balled into fists. He felt the old fear from his childhood and the urge to run. He was on his feet before he knew it. Something slid down inside the sleeping bag and hit the floor with a muffled clunk through the padding. He knew it was his phone and that it was important. As he bent down to retrieve it, he took his eye off his dad and missed the foot that was heading for a sharp kick to his kidneys. Sean staggered, tripped on the sleeping bag and fell, scattering the beer cans and their remaining contents across the carpet. He landed with his face next to the settee. Looking up, he saw it was empty. Terry Starkey had gone.
The room stank of beer and something sharper, which he hadn’t noticed last night. As he sat up, more carefully this time, he saw it in his father’s hand: a small bottle of Bell’s whisky, half empty, lid off. His father put it to his lips, his eyes shining, and swallowed a mouthful.
‘Good lad, that Terry, knows how to show his gratitude for my hospitality, not like you, you little shite. I thought you’d come to help me out. What you up to? Police work is it? Not in my fucking flat. He warned me you were up to summat. Taking pictures. I saw you. Where is it?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘Your phone, what you’ve been taking pictures on. He wants it. He’ll pay me good for it too.’
Sean sat still. He needed to grab his jeans and T-shirt, find his shoes, and get past his dad. Jack took another swig from the bottle. Sean spotted one shoe behind the door and the other under the settee. The smell of whisky was the smell of his childhood and it made him want to retch. He reached for the shoe and Jack stiffened at the movement.
‘You’re not going anywhere until you give us that phone.’
‘It’s round here somewhere. You’re welcome to it. There’s nothing on it.’
Jack grinned at him. ‘You lied to me, didn’t you? Saying you’d come to tidy up. You’re just a frigging snitch.’ He gulped from the bottle again. There was only a couple of inches left in the bottom now. ‘We sort things out our own way round here.’
‘You shouldn’t be drinking, Dad. What happened to the Twelve Steps?’
‘They made me blind,’ he shouted, thumping the door frame with his fist. ‘See this?’
Jack Denton held his hand up in front of his face. ‘See this hand? This arm? Twisted out of shape, broken by a dirty pig.’
Sean knew the story off by heart. The strike, the picket line, the police, the dogs. The broken wrist and fingers that wouldn’t heal. The stiffening, the tingling and the numbness and the way the hand closed into a permanent fist. The way the alcohol took away the pain so it didn’t matter when the fist hit out at brick or glass or plaster, or flesh and bone. The last drop of whisky disappeared into Jack Denton’s mouth and the bottle hung by his side, empty. He blinked as its contents hit the back of his throat. Sean drew his knees up and tucked his feet under him. He pushed himself to standing and gathered the sleeping bag in front of him. The bottle in his father’s left hand swung up and back towards the door frame, where it shattered against the splintering wood.