He noticed how the pub these days was far emptier than it used to be. No one had much spare cash to spend, and anyhow you could pick up cheaper booze from the supermarket than down here at the local. Only a few hardened regulars refused to change their habits. Billy knew a few of them by name. Older blokes, generally, two or three of them slumped at either end of the bar, as if they’d been washed there like so much human flotsam by some kind of sad old river. They didn’t speak much, not even to one another. They stood, they drank their beer, their faces long and sober as they drained their glasses and passed them on to the lass behind the bar to refill them. It was a dead, quiet place, the ghost of something that once was.
Fucking morons, thought Billy. Night after night propping up the bar in some grotty washed-up little pub. What a pisser of a life. He downed his half lager, thought about ordering another, but a quick count of the coins in his pocket changed his mind.
The ancient clock mockingly chimed 10pm.
His loose change remained in the palm of his hand, the Queen’s head laughing at him. Reminding him he was skint. Reminding him that those two flashy bastards never came back. Six days and not a word from them. He began to wish he’d simply struck a deal there and then, got something out of them, even the price of a few more lagers, rather than trying to play the big shot. He came out of it with nothing. He’d played the wrong hand. Story of his fucking miserable life. Why was it every hand he played, or every hand he’d ever been dealt, turned out shit?
Pillock, he thought, feeling doubly sorry for himself and rechecking the change to see if it had somehow magically increased to the price of another lager. No amount of counting made it stretch that far so he slid off the stool, steadied himself, and decided he’d head on home.
The air was warm, the sky desperately holding onto the light of day as if it were afraid of the coming night. Billy felt a twisting of hunger so he ambled along to the local chippy, the smell of the fried fish, potatoes, salt and vinegar clawing at his stomach. But it was only as he stood in the tiny queue to get served did he remember he hadn’t enough money and turned away mouthing expletives to a God he didn’t believe in for putting him this shithole of a situation. Now he couldn’t even afford a bag of chips. It was a basic human right, he thought, to have enough to be able to afford a bag of chips!
He shuffled sullenly towards home, his head fogged by alcohol, which, in his opinion, wasn’t fogged enough. Ideally he’d wanted to afford enough to blot out his entire miserable existence for one night at least.
He passed a row of parked cars, their paintwork shining like the backs of so many beetles under the insipid sodium glow of the street lamps. Night finally smothered the last of daylight and Billy Crudd thought long and hard about whether to go and sign on the dole in the morning. He had an appointment to see some kind of employment adviser and he hated those young, jumped-up, self-righteous little shites, who, but for the grace of the God he didn’t believe in, didn’t know how fortunate they were to be on the other side of that fucking desk.
His concentration was such that he didn’t hear the sound of the car door opening, the light tap of shoes on the pavement behind him. He wasn’t aware of much apart from his own murky despondency till a bag was thrust over his head, followed by a punch in his side to knock the air from his lungs and stifle any scream of alarm. He doubled up in pain and shock, unable to resist the hands that dragged him backwards, forcing his head down and pushing him into the back seat of a car.
By the time he’d regained his breath the car door had slammed shut and the vehicle was pulling sharply away, causing him to tumble uncertainly to his knees. He reached up, clutched at the makeshift cloth hood, giving out a high-pitched scream. It didn’t last long; he was punched in the stomach, his hands grabbed and hauled away from the hood. Billy groaned, spluttered, coughed; he felt the heat of his spittle soaking into the hood.
‘Take all my money, take whatever you want!’ Billy burst tearfully. ‘What do you want?’ His hand went to the hood again. ‘I can’t breathe!’
‘Leave it alone, Billy, or I’ll lay another one into you. Sit still, there’s a good man.’
The voice was all too familiar. It was Isaiah.
‘Shit, you could have just asked!’ he said. ‘You Bible-thumping moron!’
The comment was answered with another unforgiving punch. This time Billy did not argue; he sat there silently as the car threw him from side to side as it sped through the streets.
‘For your sake, Billy, I hope you’re not pissing up our backs!’
‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’ he pleaded. He was glad they couldn’t see his tears, but he guessed his terribly cut up voice gave them away.
The car took a sharp right and Billy was flung against Isaiah. The man’s arm was hard with muscle, like a lump of beef from the freezer. Isaiah pushed him away. ‘Stop snivelling, Billy,’ he said. ‘Go easy on the pedal, Gabriel,’ he said, ‘I’d like this one to arrive in one piece.’
‘Camael hates it when people are late,’ said Gabriel.
‘Camael?’ sniffed Billy.
He was punched again and lay doubled up on the seat. He could smell warm leather through the thin cotton bag and resisted the urge to puke up the lager he’d drunk. That would really piss them off, he thought, not even allowing the tiniest moan of fear as he choked back the first signs of vomit.
Billy found it difficult to estimate how long they’d been travelling. It felt like an age, and his escalating anxiety stretched out the minutes into achingly long periods of time. He’d lost all sense of direction long ago, the dark of the hood adding to the feeling that he was being dragged into another world entirely. A world he decided he did not want to enter. He wanted to go home like he’d never wanted it before.
The car came to a halt, the cutting of the engine plunging the car’s interior into sepulchral silence. Billy’s galloping fears began upped their tempo to a full-blown stampede. When Isaiah grabbed his arm he jumped back as if struck with a poker hot from the fire.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ he blubbered.
‘You got your wish, Billy,’ he replied, hauling him out of the car. Billy caught his head on the doorway and yelped. ‘For Christ’s sake, Billy, shut the fuck up!’ he snarled. ‘Next time, be careful what you wish for.’
Billy could smell old brick, concrete, damp grass, and he stumbled over uneven ground as he was led away. He heard the sound of some kind of door being lifted, like the shutters over a shop window. It rattled noisily, squeaking with rust. He was bundled inside, standing there in silence whilst the shutters came down at his back with a final loud crash of metal. Or it appeared loud to him, his senses honed to blade sharpness by fear. Billy cringed as the hood was whipped off his head. It didn’t make much difference to what he could see; the place was almost pitch-black.
Isaiah flicked on a torch. They were in what Billy took to be an old, disused warehouse, pieces of long-defunct and rusted machinery sitting around like pathetic creatures from another age; plaster hanging from the walls; an old Pirelli calendar torn into flaps, still pinned above what looked like a filing cabinet. Ahead was a flight of stairs up which Gabriel was already climbing. He glanced back at them impatiently.
Isaiah gave Billy a prod in the back. ‘Go ahead, follow the man.’
Rubbing his bruised side, Billy went up the stairs.’ Where are we?’ he asked. Gabriel was holding open a door at the top of the stairs.
‘Don’t talk wet, Billy,’ he said. ‘In here, now.’
They entered a large empty room, some kind of warehouse, lined on each side with windows, mostly broken. They threw patches of faint light onto a floor littered with broken bricks and other debris, onto a line of cast iron pillars that supported, half-glimpsed in the gloom, a spider’s web of iron girders. At the far end of the room was a single chair, the figure of a man sat in it.
Billy hesitated but was urged on by Isaiah’s balled fist. His feet crunched on powdered masonry, splashed in an oily-black puddle of water. The smell of decay, of a dying building, was overwhelming, stirring up a sickening soup of dread. It was eerily quiet; the faint, distant sound of a siren hurtling through the streets doing its best to puncture the silence but it was short-lived. Billy could hear Gabriel’s rhythmic breathing at his back. The sound of his own blood pumping crazily in his ears.
‘That’s far enough,’ said Gabriel’s disembodied voice.
Billy stopped. He waiting for someone to say something, but no one was taking the initiative and the tension grew hard enough to beat Billy’s legs to jelly as easily as Isaiah’s fist.
‘Some church!’ said Billy, alarmed at his own bravado. ‘And not very Christian, is what I think…’ He pawed his side. It hurt like crazy and he knew he’d pay for it in the morning. He turned to Gabriel. ‘Well, is someone going to say something or not?’
‘You are William Krodde?’ said the figure in the chair. The voice was calm, almost gentle, but Billy instinctively didn’t like it, not one bit. It caused his insides to do a polka.
He tried not to let his feelings show. ‘My name is Billy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to be the guy Camael.’ He saw the figure, still largely hidden in shadow, visibly stiffen at the mention of his name. ‘That’s right, ain’t it?’ he asked of Isaiah. ‘That’s what you said. Camael.’
‘My brother tells me you have important information for me, Billy,’ said the man. That same creeping sensation skittered across Billy’s fevered mind like some kind of spider darting for cover.
‘Maybe I do,’ he said, his voice croaking a little. He stood erect. ‘Depends.’
‘Depends?’ echoed Camael.
‘Cut the lip, Billy,’ warned Gabriel, coming close.
He held up a gloved finger, a small gesture that saw Gabriel back off quickly. ‘Yes, I am Camael,’ he said.
He rose from the chair. He was surprisingly tall, very slim, and Billy was reminded of a large insect uncurling its limbs. He was dressed in black, head to toe, and it was probably this, combined with the strange light from the windows that gave his long face a deathly, waxen appearance. He wore round glasses, heavily tinted, not unlike the ones Billy associated with John Lennon. His hair was long and straight, touching his shoulders, as black as his clothing. He stared towards a shattered window, seemingly forgetting all about Billy, as if he were totally alone and immersed in private thoughts.
‘Where is the woman, Beth Heaney?’ he said at length.
‘I’m not saying till we’ve cut a deal,’ he returned.
Camael’s lips spread into a thin smile. ‘Cut a deal? Really, Billy, you must stop watching all those movies.’
‘Yeah, well, all the same, what I know won’t come cheap.’
‘So what exactly is it you know, Billy?’
‘Put it this way, I know where she hangs out. I could take you straight there. I also know she’s up to something. She’s flogging gold and stuff.’ He saw Camael turn from the window to face him. ‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? She’s part of some racket.’
‘You are very astute, Billy. You must be congratulated on your sharp and incisive mind. Where is she?’
‘I want two thousand pounds,’ he spluttered.
Camael’s brows rose. ‘As much as that? For a simple address?’
‘I reckon she’s worth far more than that to you. But I’m not greedy.’
‘Most kind of you, Billy,’ he said. ‘We’d find her eventually, of course, with or without your help.’
‘So why am I here?’ He folded his arms, his confidence beginning to peek out of the dark corner it had scuttled away to hide in. ‘Nah, you can’t risk her leaving Manchester. You need to find her and find her quick, is what I think. I can make that happen tonight, but you have to make my two thousand happen.’
Camael took a step towards the window. He wiped his finger down one of the panes; it came away dirty. ‘I don’t have to do anything. But I am a generous man. You shall have the money after you have taken us to her.’
‘No deal,’ he said defiantly.
Camael put his hands behind his back and came slowly over to Billy, his eyes on the ground. When he lifted his head, Billy saw his own frightened reflection in the dark spectacles.
‘Billy,’ he said again in that same composed and measured tone. ‘Please do not argue with me. You could be dead in less than thirty seconds and I guarantee no one will ever find your miserable little body. Do you really want that?’
He shook his head, looking agitatedly at Gabriel and Isaiah who now book-ended him. ‘Sure. As you like,’ said Billy. ‘We can settle up afterwards.’
Camael turned his back on him. ‘Describe her to me first, Billy.’
He did as he was told, Camael never once turning around, listening intently, occasionally nodding as if in agreement. ‘Were you in love with her, Billy?’ he asked unexpectedly.
He thought about it. ‘I fancied her,’ he admitted. Yet in truth his feelings did go deeper, the more he thought about it; thought about her. ‘You might call it love,’ he said at length.
‘She has that effect on people,’ he said. ‘She is evil. She plays with men’s minds. It is her strength. And yet you would exchange this love for a handful of silver?’
He ignored the question. ‘What are you going to do with her when you find her? I don’t want to be involved in something — something serious.’
Camael’s head cocked on one side. ‘It’s far too late for that, Billy,’ he said. ‘Far too late. I want you to take my brothers here to the place where she lives, right now, tonight.’
‘Right now?’
‘Do I hear an echo, Billy?’
‘But I’ll get my money, right? We have a deal?’
‘You will get paid,’ he said. ‘Isaiah, take him to the car.’
Billy opened up his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He allowed himself to be led dumbly away. When they were alone Camael spoke to Gabriel: ‘You have everything prepared?’
‘I do.’
‘The blessed Articles of Faith anointed and ready?’
‘It is all as it should be, as it is decreed.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘It has been a long search. But this will be a special night,’ said Camael. ‘And this Billy?’
‘All is in hand,’ said Gabriel.
‘You are a good servant,’ said Camael. ‘You will be blessed and receive your just and holy reward, in due course.’
‘I know it,’ said Gabriel. ‘It will be as you promised.’
He bent to one knee before Camael, who stepped forward and made a sign on Gabriel’s bowed forehead.