Borstal Slags (31 page)

‘Do you reckon he’s got kids?’ Sam asked.

‘The Guv?’ Annie balked. She thought about it. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But I don’t think he reproduces like us humans do.’

‘Oh? And how do us humans do it, then? I’m only a young ’un. I’d love to learn.’

Annie drew closer. ‘We’d better see about fitting in you in for some lessons, then.’

‘Evening classes?’

‘Night school.’

As Sam took Annie’s face in his hands and moved in to kiss her, there came the sudden clattering of a mop and bucket, and the high-pitched howl of a dodgy hearing aid. It was Deaf Aid Doreen, the night cleaner.

‘Oi, you two, you can’t ’ump in ’ere, I need to do under the desks.’

Annie laughed and drew away from Sam.

‘Come home with me,’ Sam said.

‘I need to sleep. So do you.’

‘We can talk. I can – I can tell you about—’

She rested her finger against his lips: ‘Another night.’

She got her coat and handbag, then looked slyly across at him. ‘Looks like you’ll just have to wait for the start of term for them lessons.’

‘Any chance of some private tuition?’

‘We’ll see.’ She smiled at him – a warm but teasing smile – and walked a seductive tightrope towards the door, wiggling her hips and glancing alluringly back over her shoulder like Betty Grable. ‘See you in the morning –
Boss
.’

And, with that, she was gone.

Doreen nudged Sam in the ribs with the end of her mop. ‘Bit of a goer, is she?’

‘I haven’t had the chance to find out yet,’ sighed Sam.

‘Eh? You what, luv?’ She fiddled with her hearing aid, making it whistle.

‘I’ve got to be going – early start in the morning,’ Sam intoned back at her, and he left her to her mopping.

Back at his desk, Sam put a few things away, got his jacket – then paused. From his jacket pocket he pulled out the gold-plated fob watch and its slender chain.

Everything’s coming to a head,
he thought, letting the chain play across his fingers.
Soon – very soon – I will tell Annie everything: about me, about her, about where we are; about the violent past that she cannot remember; the father who was murdered; and that monster Clive Gould. And, together, we’ll face that monster. Because he’s close now. He’s right around the corner. He’s breathing down our necks – and this watch in my hands is the link between me and him. Somehow, it is the bridge that brings us together.

He shoved the watch into his pocket and shrugged on his jacket.

That girl from the test card was wrong when she said the universe is too big for any one of us to matter more than a grain of sand. Me and Annie, we can be happy together, despite everything. I know we can – and that’s all that matters. I will be with her, she will be with me, and the whole damned universe can go to hell.

As Deaf Aid Doreen lumbered about, working clumsily with the mop, her broad backside bumped against the Xerox machine, awakening it and setting it off making copies. Sam called to her, but Doreen heard not a word. She lugged her bucket away in search of fresh water.

Sam crossed over to the copier to stop it. It was churning out page after page of blank copier paper. He pressed various buttons, shook it, thwacked it, but the machine didn’t respond, just kept sweeping its light and spewing out another blank sheet – or were they blank?

Frowning, Sam picked up one of the sheets. It stank of chemicals – and of something else, something like burnt charcoal. There, just visible on the surface of the paper, was the hazy suggestion of a face. He turned the sheet towards the light and peered closer, making out narrow eyes, a broad chin, a cruel mouth behind which sat a chaotic jumble of large, uneven teeth.

At once, he felt his skin tighten. The hairs tingled on the back of his neck.

The face, faint as it was, was unmistakable.

Sam grabbed the power cable of the copier and wrenched it from the wall. The machine fell silent. When he looked back down at the sheet of paper in his hands, it was blank. Totally blank. The face of the Devil in the Dark was gone.

‘But not for long,’ Sam said.

To be concluded in

It was Sunday morning. Manchester was still and silent. And DI Sam Tyler was staring death in the face.

My God! It’s him …

His blood had frozen in his veins.

Don’t run. Stand your ground.

His heart was hammering in his chest.

This is it. This is the showdown. Don’t run – be a man – it’s time to finish this thing here and now!

The silent confrontation between him and death had been as sudden as it was unexpected. He had been walking through the city on a typically dead Sunday morning. Manchester was lying in, its curtains still drawn, its head under the covers, refusing to budge. Here in 1973, Sunday trading was still just a promise – or a threat – that lay in the future. Apart from a few corner shops and wayside cafés, all the shutters were down. Hardly a car moved in the streets. An elderly man walked his elderly dog. A solitary council worker gathered up discarded cans of Tennent’s and stinking chip papers. And, through this, Sam had made his way, lost in his own thoughts.

As he hurried past the Roxy cinema, a sudden movement caught his eye. He glanced up – and at once he gasped and stumbled to a halt. Stepping out silently from the dark façade of the cinema came a shadowy figure, blank-faced and featureless. It positioned itself in Sam’s way, standing motionless in front of a gaudy poster for
Westworld
, which remained visible through its hazy, insubstantial body. Grotesquely, Yul Brynner’s face – falling away like a mask to reveal robot mechanics underneath – could be seen where the shadow’s own face should have been.

Sam knew at once what – or rather
who
– that phantom was. He knew the aura of horror that hung about it, had experienced before the unreasoning terror that surrounded this dreadful apparition.

Running a dry tongue over dry lips, Sam said as calmly as he could, ‘So. Looks like you’ve found me, Mr Gould.’

There was no sign of response. Yul Brynner glared back at him through the blank mask of the Devil in the Dark.

Sam tried to pluck up the courage to take a challenging step towards this thing of darkness. But his feet would not obey him. He remained rooted to the spot. Acting tougher than he felt, he said, ‘How are we going to do this? Do we fight? Or do you just zap me with a death ray? Whatever it is, let’s do. Right now. Let’s finish this.’

Brave words. But he felt anything but brave. A bead of sweat rolled down his face.

The shadow shifted its position, and now, through its hazy form, Sam could see the
Westworld
poster’s tagline, perfectly readable through Gould’s chest:

‘Don’t just stand there,’ Sam said, lifting his head and refusing to be cowed. ‘You want Annie? Forget it. You’re not getting her. She’s with
me
now, you filthy, bullying, murdering bastard. You’re never going to lay so much as finger on her ever again. You and her are history, done with. But you and
me
, Mr Gould, we have business to finish.’ He raised his fists. They felt puny and weak, like the fists of a child. ‘So let’s get on with it.’

Clive Gould, the Devil in the Dark, remained still and silent, an insubstantial shadow, a dark, hazy stain upon the air. But Sam could still recall the broad-nosed, snaggle-toothed face of Clive Gould as he had seen it for himself that awful night he had witnessed the murder of Annie’s father, PC Tony Cartwright. In dreams and waking visions, the Test Card Girl had shown him more of Gould’s cruelty, the sickening treatment Annie had suffered in life from this brute, the beatings, the assaults, the psychological torture. And, although he had not seen it for himself (thank God), he knew that it was at Gould’s hands that Annie had died. She had died, just as Sam had died, and Gene Hunt and all the rest of them, and wound up here in this strange simulacrum of 1973 that lay somewhere between Life and the Life Beyond.

And at some point Clive Gould died too,
Sam thought.
But, unlike Annie, he shouldn’t have come here. His place was elsewhere. But that hasn’t stopped him. He’s forcing his way into 1973, strengthening his presence here, becoming more and more real. At first, he was a dream, a glimpse of something awful in the dark recesses of my mind. Then I saw him personified in the monstrous body tattoos of bare-knuckle boxer Patsy O’Riordan. Then, in Friar’s Brook borstal, I saw his face, and I saw how he murdered Annie’s father.

And now – right now – I’m seeing him again. A shadow – a ghost.

Sam frowned, tilted his head, thought to himself.

‘You’re not saying very much, Mr Gould. What’s the matter? Don’t you want to kill me here and now? Or is it – is it that you
want
to, but you’re not strong enough yet?’

The shadow stirred at last. It seemed to push back its shoulders as if about to attack. But Sam sensed it was all for show.

‘I’m right,’ said Sam, and he felt emboldened. ‘You’re not strong enough to beat me yet. You’re just trying to psyche me out before the showdown. You sad, pathetic bully. Well
you
might not be ready for this fight, but
me
…’

Sam lunged forward, hurling a blow at Gould, putting all the weight of his body behind it. He lost his balance and staggered forward, righting himself at once and throwing up his left arm to deflect a counterattack. But no attack came. The street outside the cinema was empty. Sam stared at Yul Brynner, and Yul Brynner stared back, but of Clive Gould there was no sign.

‘Run if you want to!’ Sam shouted into the empty street. ‘
I’m
not running any more! I’m done with running. I’m coming for
you
, Gould! I’ll find you, and I’ll beat you, and I’ll send you back to the hell you came from!’

His blood was up, he was ready for battle – but his enemy had quit the field. Sam brought his breathing under control and unclenched his fists. He wiped the sleeve of his leather jacket across his glistening forehead. His knees were shaking.

Despite the fear that Gould’s ghostlike appearance had instilled in him, Sam felt a strange surge of hope and defiance rising up from deep within him. Gould was getting stronger, but he still didn’t have what it took for the final duel. He would delay the final confrontation until he was more powerful – unless Sam could track him down before then and finish him once and for all.

And I can do it! If I can draw him into a fight before he’s ready for it, if I can provoke him into attacking me too soon. I
can
do it! I can
win
!

The sense that things were drawing at last to an endgame between these two mortal enemies renewed Sam’s energies, even revived his spirits. Victory – or at the very least, the
possibility
of victory – was at hand. The chance was coming for Sam to dispel Gould for ever. He had no choice – he
had
to win this fight. The price of failure was too high. And, when he at last defeated Gould, his and Annie’s future together would be wide open, like a shining plain beneath a golden sun, just as Nelson had shown him in the Railway Arms.

‘I’m not here to carry your burden for you,’
Nelson had told him.
‘That’s for you and you alone … Be strong! It’s the future that matters, Sam. Your future. Yours and Annie’s. Because you two have a future, if you can reach it. You can be happy together. It’s possible. It’s all very possible.’

Possible – but not guaranteed.

‘“Possible” is the best odds I’m going to get,’ Sam told himself. ‘Perhaps I can improve those odds with a little help. But who can I turn to?’

At that moment, he stopped, glancing across at a grimy, gone-to-seed, urban church out of which slow, wheezing music could just be heard. The organist was limbering up before the service. It took a few moments for Sam to place the tune. He hunted through his memory like a man rifling through a cluttered attic – and then, quite suddenly, he found what he was after.

‘“Rock of Ages”,’ he muttered to himself. And from somewhere at the back of his brain, words emerged to join with the tune:

‘Something something dum-dee-dum, rock of ages, cleft for me.’

Like photographs in an album, old hymns had a potency that no amount of rationalism and scepticism could entirely stifle. Deep emotions were stirred – part nostalgia, partly unease, part regret, part hope. Sam thought of his life, and of his death, and of Clive Gould emerging from the darkness, and of Nelson, breaking cover to reveal that he was far more than just a grinning barman in a fag-stained pub – and he though of Annie, whose memory, as always, stirred his heart and gave his strange, precarious existence all the focus and meaning he could ask for.

Despite everything – the threats, the danger, the approaching horror of the Devil in the Dark – Sam felt
happy
. He knew it wouldn’t last, but, as long as it did, he let the feeling warm him, like a man in the wilderness holding his palms over a campfire.