Back of Town Blues

by D.G. Compton

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

Alec Duncan, King of Swing, it says on the billboard outside Tony's. a black man playing a white piano; just what you need to tart up a dodgy Liverpool nightspot. Forty quid a session, plus tips - about all a black Scots ex-copper with nimble fingers and a record of violence on the job can hope for. But now, with Trevor Bladon, his girlfriend's killer, safely banged up for the rest of his natural, it's time for Alex to put it all behind him. Get on with his life. But first he needs to go and sort out a couple of things with Trevor in his cell. He's not sure exactly why, but he goes anyway. And it's not a good idea - he ends up prime suspect in another murder . . .

Release date: November 14, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 204

Sample

Night. The sound of water lapping. Light shines down from a street lamp in a steep cone on to a wide paved walk, and at the light’s edge a woman leans on a heavy black wrought-iron rail, staring out into the darkness. Behind her, on the far side of the walk, trees in full leaf are outlined faintly against a cloudless, moonlit sky, bright with stars.

The woman stands so exactly at the edge of the cone of light that, while her legs and body are brightly lit, her head and the top of her shoulders are in shadow. Her hands, also in shadow, rest on the rail in front of her, one of them holding a plastic Safeway carrier bag, apparently empty. Her ankles are bare beneath shin-length flowered tights, and she has grubby white trainers on her feet. Her weight is on one foot, the other is lifted and hooked behind it. She wears a dark woollen jumper down to her thighs, with an Aztec-patterned knitted waistcoat hanging open over it, and a shabby fringed felt shoulder bag.

Her hands fidget on the rail. They are chapped, their knuckles are swollen, and her thick ankles are webbed with veins. Her style of dressing may be that of a youngish woman but these details suggest that she probably adopted it a good few years back, twenty or thirty, and has not thought about it since. Her life, these details suggest, has been poor; badly organized; not easy.

The rail on which she is leaning guards a ten-foot drop, a wall marked with greasy tide marks, down to a narrow shingle beach. Little choppy waves break on it softly. The street lamp is the last in a long line of identical lamps, a mile of them or more, curving away to her right beneath a skyline of dark city roofs and tower blocks. To her left the paved waterfront walk ends in blackness: trees, dimly seen, and a rusty footbridge across swampland.

The woman has been looking out across the grey moonlit water, at far distant cranes and warehouses silhouetted against the night sky. Clearly this expanse of water is part of a wide estuary or coastal inlet, heavily industrialized. Now the woman’s attention is distracted by lights moving slowly by on the water: the ship itself is invisible but its lights, masthead and starboard, and living quarters aft, are bright. She watches them until they are gone, then looks away, down at her wristwatch, and lifts her arm up sideways to see her watch more clearly in the light from the street lamp. When she sees what the time is she shows no reaction, no surprise, no impatience, just returns her hand to the rail and her gaze to the opposite shore.

This movement, her leaning sideways to peer at the watch, brought her face into the light from the street lamp. Its harsh white glare did her face no favours: black eye sockets above wide flat cheeks, an over-lipsticked mouth, a curiously childlike nose that cast a small, chubby shadow, pale hair in thin permed curls. She is wearing little daisy earrings. Once perhaps, forty pounds lighter, she was fluffy and pretty. Now, through neglect, and hard work, and the passage of years, she is fluffy and pretty no longer.

Up between the trees behind the woman, a flight of paved steps joins the waterfront to a gravelled turn-around at the end of an unlit road leading back along the coast, towards the city’s tower blocks. The road, and the wide newly mowed grass verges on either side of it, are deserted. Nothing moves. Faint traffic noises, intermittent, as of individual vehicles, passing rapidly, can be heard from a main thoroughfare somewhere. The hour is clearly late. This is an improbable place for a rendezvous, and the woman an improbable lover or conspirator, yet she is here, and alone, and apparently waiting, so she must surely have in mind some manner of private encounter.

She straightens her back, eases it wearily, walks slowly to the other side of the cone of light, and leans again on the rail. Having moved, she is once more still, accepting without surprise or impatience the lateness of the hour. Only her hands are unrestful, fidgeting as before with the Safeway plastic carrier bag. Something weighs it down very slightly. It looked empty at first sight but now it seems not to be.

It is impossible to tell exactly when the sound of the approaching car becomes audible. The silence here, the rustling water and the night city all around, rings in the ears. The woman does not help: she gives no sign when she begins to hear the car. Almost no sign – perhaps, in the darkness under her brows, her eyelids close. Certainly they are closed by the time the sound of the car has become unmistakable, and they stay closed as the car’s headlights scan the road behind her, as the car itself comes into sight, a rusty mustard-yellow Nissan, at the top of the steps. It stops there and the driver opens the door, revealing himself in the interior light. Thirtyish, with meagre hair and scraped, ungenerous features, he wears a light-coloured duffel coat, narrow jeans, and expensive black tasselled loafers over white socks. He gets out of the car and trots down the steps very quickly and neatly, a foot to each step, leaving the car’s engine running, its radio playing, its headlights on, its door open.

The woman takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, visibly gathers her life force together. She turns from the water as the man approaches.

‘I’d given you up.’

‘I know.’ He joins her in the light from the street lamp. ‘Couldn’t get away. Then the soddin’ motor wouldn’t start.’

‘You said midnight.’

‘I told you, lady.’ His cheek twitches. It might be a wink. ‘Couldn’t get away.’

She turns back to the water. Her accent is Liverpool, his from somewhere nearer London. She fusses resentfully with the strap of the fringed bag on her shoulder.

‘I’ve been here since midnight.’

‘Go down on me soddin’ knees, shall I?’

‘Business is business. I don’t like being messed around. I was daft once. I’m not any more. Have you brung it?’

His cheek twitches again. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘If there’s money for you in it, I do.’ She looks him up and down. ‘You said bullets. When we talked, you said bullets. So where are they?’

He pats his duffel coat pocket. ‘Old dependable, that’s me.’ The cheek twitch is clearly habitual. A tic. He does a nervy little sideways shuffle. ‘Didn’t your Trev tell you?’

‘Thing is, Mr Drew, my Trev’s not around so much these days.’ There is a beat of silence between them. A point made. ‘So show us what you got.’

He bounces back. ‘Thing is, Mrs B, bloke like me, first of all I like to see the readies.’

A small protective movement away from him suggests that the money is in the plastic carrier bag. It suggests also that Mrs B is more afraid of Mr Drew than she pretends.

She folds her arms. ‘Hundred and ten.’

‘Hundred and fifty.’

‘That’s what you said.’

‘That’s what I meant.’

‘It’s too much. I can’t raise it.’

He does not believe her and she does not expect him to. This is ritual.

‘Of course you can raise it. Don’t mess me around. That paper paid you thousands.’

She looks away, frowns, hitches her shoulder bag, not answering. This is different: he has raised a bitter memory.

‘That paper—’ She stops, thinks better of it, bows her head.

He gives himself a little hug. ‘Thousands,’ he says again. ‘Thousands …’

He walks to the lamp post, two steps and a chassé, and swings from it on one arm, watching her. In his car, up on the road, music is still playing. The beat is clear, but no tune, just a faint tinny background jangle.

His cheek twitches. ‘Not that anybody’s blamin’ you. They’d of done the same in your place. Anyone would.’ He swings further, a complete circle round the lamp post, still watching her. She ignores him and he clears his throat to attract her attention. ‘Thing is, lady, I don’t think you got much option. Sad but true. You want the shooter, I got the shooter. Sad but true.’

She lifts her head. ‘Nine thousand, if you really want to know. Nine thousand pounds. Hardly a fortune. And then all the bloody reporter woman does is—’

‘It’s the middle of the night, lady. Tomorrow we go somewhere nice and I buy you a cup of coffee and you tell me your troubles. Tonight we—’

He is boring her now and she stops him. ‘You said bullets.’

‘Thrown in. Two clips. Ammunition. Not bullets, Mrs B. Ammunition … Bullets is naff.’

‘I can see why they bloody call you Dancer.’

He stops swinging, steps away from the pole, and reaches inside his duffel coat. ‘Ex-copper. Biggish, but you won’t be carrying it around.’ The automatic pistol he produces from his duffel coat looks huge. ‘No holster, but you won’t need one. Not around the flat. Hard to come by, holsters. All them straps and buckles.’ He offers her the gun. ‘Like I said, ex-copper. Lovely job – the latest lightweight carbon fibre. Only the best for the filth, these days. I don’t reckon he parted with it easy.’

She hesitates, then opens her carrier bag and brings out two bundles of banknotes, one still tied together with a bank’s blue paper strip. In view of all her haggling she handles the money surprisingly casually.

The sight of it brightens his eyes and sets off a barrage of twitches.

‘You got a good deal here, lady. You won’t regret it. Don’t care who they are on the estate, the fuckers’ll leave your place alone with this.’ He cocks the automatic, points it out into the darkness, and pulls the trigger. ‘Pow …’ The firing pin clicks on an empty chamber. He lowers the barrel. ‘Peace of mind, Mrs B. Cheap at the price.’

She hangs the carrier bag over one wrist and gives him the money. He gives her the gun. She takes it in both hands, finds it is lighter than she expected. She swings it round, pointing at things, then holds it out to him again.

‘Show me what to do.’

The banknotes have disappeared, uncounted, into his coat. Its side pocket yields two ammunition clips. He takes the gun back from her, slides one clip up into its butt, slaps it home.

‘Ten shots,’ he says. ‘Do a lot of damage, ten shots will. And they won’t never jam, I loaded them myself. And this here’s the safety catch.’ He shows her. ‘Pushed forward like this, forward against the stop, it’s ready. Pulled back here, lying down, it’s safe. Think you’ve got that?’

‘Not like for a woman.’

‘You what?’

‘For a woman, lying down’s dangerous.’ She does not smile and he sees that no joke is intended.

‘You’ve got it. And the clip’s retained with this … So that’s it, then.’ He gives her the gun again, and the spare ammunition clip, which she drops into her carrier bag. ‘Always happy to do business with a lady. Any other little thing, you know where to find us.’

She is examining the gun, using both hands as she pushes the safety catch back and forth with her thumbs, her head bent over it. She does not answer him and after a few seconds he sees that he has been dismissed. Even so, something is bothering him. Possibly he has only just been struck by the incongruity between this dull old woman in her dull, once-trendy clothes, and the formidable police issue carbon fibre automatic she is holding.

‘Sure that’s everything?’ He’s clearly reluctant to leave her. ‘A gun like that kicks. You’ll be surprised … And what about reloading? Reloading’s a doddle. No problem. No problem at all. The spring there that holds the clip – all you does is—’

‘I won’t be reloading.’ She does not raise her head. ‘Ten bullets is a lot. Ten bullets is plenty. Why should I be reloading?’

‘No reason.’ He shrugs. ‘I just thought … I mean, well, the day may come, you know. I mean, you can never tell, lady – stranger things have happened…’ He tails off and does one of his little dancing shuffles. ‘I just thought…’

But she does not respond and he gives up, shrugs, walks away, fastening the toggles on his duffel coat as he goes. At the edge of the pool of light she stops him.

‘Dancer Drew?’

He turns to face her. ‘That’s me. Dancer by name and dancer by nature …’

She waits a moment. Then, ‘You killed him.’

‘I never.’ The denial is automatic. ‘Killed who?’

‘My son. Trevor. My son.’

‘Come on, missis. He’s not dead.’

‘He’s worse.’

There are three paces between them. She lifts the gun in both her hands, just to be sure, and points it at his chest and fires. She fires three times, quickly, her hands and arms jerking, her face screwed up against the noise. The bullets all hit him, hit his upper body, and he staggers.

He stares at her, amazed. ‘You’re crazy. You fucking bitch, you’re—’

The noise has been so loud that she is almost certainly temporarily deafened and does not hear him. In any case, she takes a step forward and fires again. This fourth impact flings him back and he falls on the paving stones. She waits for a moment, her face still screwed up, then relaxes it, lowers the gun, now in her right hand only, and walks stiffly away to the rail. Standing very straight, she looks out across the water. Then her back weakens, seems to break, and she falls forward against the wrought-iron rail, shuddering. Moonlight picks out the small ripples breaking on the beach below her.

Dancer Drew moves and groans. He moves again, heaves himself on his elbows into the light. At the rail Mrs B is easing her neck, rotating her head to uncramp the muscles. His progress into the light catches her attention. She winces at the sight of him, and looks away. He is moving less, but still groaning. Wearily shaking her head, Mrs B reaches into her shoulder bag and brings out a wad of paper tissue on which she wipes her eyes. She drops the tissue over the rail, down on to the muddy beach. Eventually she walks back to where Dancer is lying. Against his pale duffel coat the fresh red blood from four exit wounds is brownish-grey in the light from the street lamp. He sees her and lies very still, no longer groaning. She points the gun in her right hand down at him, its muzzle now no more than two feet from the side of his head, and looks away, up past the lamp at the sky. Her left arm is held out to the side almost horizontally, one finger raised, as if asking for silence. She fires again, just once.

After this shot a lot of time seems to pass. Only her eyes move, flicking sideways and sideways, until at last she can force them to be still.

She looks down.

Having seen that Dancer Drew is dead, that this fifth bullet has spread his blood and brains and bone splinters across the brightly lit paving stones, she steps carefully forward over his body, avoiding the blood and brains and splinters, and walks away, out of the light from the street lamp, and keeps on walking. She doesn’t look back. She seems hardly to see where she is going, yet she walks away purposefully, out into the moonlit darkness. Behind her, on the paving stones, Dancer Drew lies quietly, without pain. At the top of the flight of steps, the door to his car hangs open, the radio plays, the engine runs, and the lights still shine.

She walks away across the rusty footbridge. A short distance along the rough path on the other side she pauses, unhooks the plastic carrier bag from her wrist, and drops the gun into it. It chinks against the loaded ammunition clip already there. She walks on along the path, the light of the street lamp left behind and the moon bright enough to see by. She is very tired now but she walks steadily, the path winding away from the water, uphill between tussocks of long grass and scrubby bushes. These merge into the beginnings of a narrow lane, three wooden posts stopping cars from getting too close to the water. Beyond them a fence looms out of the darkness on her left, and then double gates across a tarmac drive. She comes to houses, quite classy, not her style at all, set back from the road behind rockeries and banks of flowering shrubs, their blank windows catching the moonlight. She goes on past them. The lane curves, and at a junction between high stone garden walls she turns left.

The lane opens out into parking spaces and pathways between areas of worn grass around the bases of small square tower blocks. A sign announces Riverview Heights: Liverpool Housing Action Trust. Many of the cars in the parking spaces are derelict, vandalized, burnt out, and the pathways are littered with cans and wrappers. Broken tricycles and plastic toys lie about on the grass, the moonlight leaching out the stridency of their colours.

Mrs B pauses as two small dark figures appear at the corner of a row of lock-up garages. Whispering together, and laughing softly, and shushing each other, they jump up on to a low boundary wall and run along it, balancing theatrically, arms outstretched. One flings himself off, down on to the grass, and the other follows him and they roll about together, still laughing. Mrs B walks on past them and they stop their tussling to watch her.

She goes up a path to a tower block entrance. The heavy door stands open, off its hinges, its coded electronic lock system smashed, its video surveillance camera stolen. Curiously, the exterior light here has survived, and illuminates the step and the nearest downstairs windows. Mrs B goes inside. The two children scramble to their feet and run off, chasing each other. A few moments later, on the other side of the block, there is movement in one of the ground floor flats. A door opens out on to a small oblong balcony that, like all the other ground floor balconies, has had its protective steel grid ripped away, and for a while Mrs B stands just inside the unlit room, looking out. Faintly, in another block, raised voices are heard and a series of crashes, probably the sound of breaking furniture. Mrs B steps back from her balcony door, and slowly closes it.

Earlier that night, around eleven o’clock, Alec Duncan was taking a break between sets. There’d been nobody on the tiny dance floor when he quit, the applause had been scattered and there wasn’t exactly a queue of punters waiting to buy him drinks. Life wasn’t all bad, though: so far there hadn. . .