They were talking about the dreadful murder of a local girl. That’s all.
And yet, and yet…
Sean retreated, wondering why his suspicions were so high. Could it just be guilt that was driving him to such extreme behaviour? Was he so desperate to atone for his mistake in London that he would follow any lead, no matter how tenuous? If that was the case, he reasoned, trudging back to the car, then he would destroy himself within weeks, or find himself up before the magistrates on a charge of harassment. In the driving seat, Sean was able to relax, away from the panicky reaches of land, and relish the fresh snap of cold air that had locked itself inside with him. He watched the house for a little longer, hopeful that he would witness them dragging a body outside, but nothing so theatrical occurred. Wondering how he might quash the compulsion to act on behalf of a dead woman– the first girl he had kissed–and suspecting that this visit to Warrington had been ill-thought-out, he started the engine and trundled the car down to the main road.
Seconds later, accelerating back towards town, an oncoming car passed him. In the mirror, Sean watched as it turned into the driveway he had just vacated. Pulling over to the side of the road, Sean’s eyes found themselves in the mirror. They were wide and worrisome. Whatever doubts he had had were spirited away as his lungs begged for him to release the hold on his breath.
One of the men he had seen at the funeral. Tough, barrel-shaped bruiser with tufty white hair.
CHAPTER FIVE: GIRL
EARLY MORNING, HIS run took him on a rough circle past the school on Lodge Lane, down to Sankey Valley Park, under Seven Arches and on to the dual carriageway that snaked west, beyond the cooling towers of Fiddler’s Ferry power station and onwards to Liverpool via Widnes and Runcorn.
Sean headed east, back towards town, barely registering the growl of traffic or the slap of his feet on the wet pavement. The night before, he had returned to the farmhouse and hung around as night gathered and the temperature plummeted. Towards midnight, Barrel-chest and the driver Sean had followed left in the white van. Sean took after them, certain he was solidifying from the cold, his hands and feet sluggish on the controls of the car, his mouth a blue-grey slit that flashed itself to him in the rear-view mirror as streetlamps swung by.
They had pulled up outside a disused ironmonger’s shop. The shredded awning bore the name BOUGHEY’S. He watched the barrel-chested man get out of the van and wave to the driver. Words followed him through the door: “See you tomorrow, Salty.”
So. He had a name. He had an address. He did not yet have a reason. He had reason for few things. Bitterly, Sean had turned the car back towards Ripley Street, quelling the urge to follow the white van on another journey. White van, he felt, played penny whistle to Salty’s big fat tuba.
Now, Sean pulled the hood of his track suit over his head and jogged backstreets, angling towards that ironmonger’s once more. He was almost distracted by some of the memories that leapt up at him; every corner rounded was another half-turn on an unseen winch hauling him back through time.
Here, in the maze of ginnels that was the Wellfield Road estate, were the paths that he had haunted at fifteen with his best friend Glenn and their girlfriends, Sarah and Julie. A concrete cylinder – a pathetic, token toy for the local kids – partially submerged in a square surrounded by fences and front porches, had been a respite in the winter, when walking the frozen streets was too painful. It was still there, along with the soot stains from candles and the scratched names, overlapping across the years to form a tangle of self-affirmation. Sarah’s old house was boarded up now, its highest windows cracked and starred. They had spent innocent evenings in the kitchen, drinking tea and listening to the radio while her mother made strategic checks on them, designed to spoil any moves he made on her.
Sean pushed himself along the canal bank that backed onto the estate, wondering where she was now. What happened to all those people with whom he had been to school? Were they as detached as him, dislocated, wheeling around for something solid on which to latch? Or, as he suspected, had they sussed it all out? If they were happy, well, good luck to them.
The hunched cluster of buildings that housed the ironmonger’s emerged from the bushes and trees lining the bank to his right. Sean arrowed up the bank and silently vaulted the fencing, dropping into a slush of remarkable litter. Among the drifts of dead food cartons and drinks cans there were bruised tailors’ dummies, shattered television sets and small forests of cat furniture wrapped in corduroy and sisal. Sean picked his way through the mess, counting houses until he hit the ironmonger’s. A high wall and a pair of tough wooden gates blocked off his view to the rear of the building, all of it topped off with coils of razor wire. A peek through the slats awarded him a view of a thick sheaf of tall weeds and a rusting bath leaning against a skip. All of the windows were frosted and blackness piled against them from within.
Sean tried the gates. They shifted under the sawing action of his arm but did not give. He had instead seen how he might climb over without harming himself when he heard a brief, human bark of panic somewhere behind him.
He clung to the gate, head twisted, frozen as he searched the cavernous ruin of what must once have been a car park. Heavy trees with discoloured leaves lurched into one another, creating a knit of confusion he could barely see into. The tarmac they grew out of was as warped as the sway and twist of their branches.
Very clearly, he heard: “Keep fucking still, bitch, or I’ll cut you.”
The words rushed out of the dark. Sean stood quietly for a moment, eyes closed, letting the sounds come into him. His heart was a cold, measured echo, somewhere too deep inside him. He was not afraid.
“Suck it, bitch,” he heard. “Oh no? Okay, then. Mac, cut her tit off.”
Sean moved.
He pelted into the clotted darkness, freeing his sweatshirt from the waistband of his track suit bottoms so that he could get at his knife. A woman was mewling under the thrash of bushes. “Stop it… please… stop it.”
There were two men crouched over her, their black jackets shining dully as they dipped in and out of the protection of a weeping willow. One of them had his trousers around his ankles. Sean veered towards him, his steps disguised by the din of their violence. Lashing out a foot, he caught the first man across the top of his thigh; he went down heavily, a yell cutting off the sobs of the woman pinned beneath them. Before the other could bring himself upright, Sean flashed his arm out and cut him across the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed from between his fingers as he dropped to his knees.
“Come on,” he said, reaching down to the girl. Her skirt was piled up around her hips and her blouse was torn open. She drew the two halves of it together as she surfaced from the gloom, her eyes like silver bubbles moving through dark water. Wet soil was caked onto half of her head; blood formed a thin lather over the other. She resembled some grim harlequin. She took his hand and he pulled her towards him, and asked if she was badly injured.