Silent Voices Read online

  Best walked over towards the infamous Barn and Marty followed. He threw some quick air punches, snapping them back just for show. He rolled his head on his neck and shrugged his shoulders. He made his face neutral; he wanted to give nothing beneath the surface away, he had to protect what was inside, behind the mask he always wore.

  Humpty Dumpty, he thought. Humpty fucking Dumpty...

  Fear surged through his body, starting in his belly and spreading out along his limbs. He bit down on the terror, swallowing it back down, consuming it and taking raw power from it. This was what he had cultivated, when he would condition his body as a teenager. All those small cuts, the burning cigarettes, and all the times he had held his forearm to the flame of the gas cooker in the kitchen. It was all done to summon this fear: the fear of Humpty Dumpty and the beatings his father had dished out in the name of discipline.

  “Humpty Dumpty,” he whispered, tasting the words, the regurgitated fear, the horror that had dogged him for twenty years and taken on the form of a nursery rhyme because that was the only way he could think of to deal with the cold, dark feelings that gnawed away at his insides.

  He remembered the trees up along the edge of Beacon Green, and the small, fat thing that sat in the branches of his memory, gibbering and giggling and spitting as he watched it swinging its legs and slapping its egg-like torso. The thing that was never too far from his dreams, the creature that could simply not have existed... but it had; the monster was fact, not fiction.

  Humpty Dumpty was real. He had seen it, twenty years ago, hours before he and his friends had followed the figure they’d christened Captain Clickety into the Needle and lost a slice of their summer, their lives, their fucking childhood.

  Best spoke to a lot of people as they made their way to the Barn, but Marty ignored them all. The designer suits and the dresses, the leering, sweaty faces and the wet mouths that bayed for blood. They were worse than animals, these people; all they wanted was to see someone get hurt, anyone. It didn’t even matter who got trashed, or how much money was lost in the process. As long as they got a glimpse of bloodshed, and heard the sound of bones cracking, they were happy. They would go home and they’d fuck each other senseless, thinking of the blood-stained combatants they’d seen, pretending that they were tough enough to get inside the ring and trade fists with a brutal stranger. Telling each other that they understood what it meant to be a man.

  Marty knew that he was a stand-in, nothing but a rich couple’s role-play: they barely even saw him as a real person, just an extension of the video games they played and the action films they watched as they snorted cocaine off the lid of a DVD case. He hated these people; he wanted to break them all into little pieces and piss on the remains. But instead, he’d be their show pony and take their money, and go back to the flat to patch up his injuries ready for the next time.

  He knew his place, and they knew theirs. This was how the world worked: there were those who paid and those who played, and then there were those – like Erik Best – who facilitated the action. In many ways, this last role was the worst of all, because there was little honour in manipulating the pieces on the board. At least the actual players got their hands dirty, whether it was from the ink of printed money or the blood of the defeated.

  Marty had once been present when Best had accepted a delivery of business cards. Small, neat font, good quality ivory card; they must have cost a lot of money.

  The words stamped on the front had said: Erik Best — Facilitator.

  Erik Best knew his place, too.

  They entered the Barn, walking in through the open double doors. Everyone crowded in alongside them or behind them, being careful not to jostle in case they prompted some early violence. Marty smiled.

  There must have been thirty or forty people present, but the noise was kept to a level that would not be heard from the road. Marty wasn’t sure about the logistics of these bouts or how Best managed to organise them and keep the authorities away, but they were usually low-key affairs with the details and guest list kept secret until the last possible minute. It took a lot of money to buy your way in, and once you were there it still didn’t mean you were guaranteed a return visit. Everything was at the whim of the organiser. Best kept a tight rein on things, and he enjoyed keeping people guessing. Nobody would ever take him for granted.

  A crude ring had been set up at the centre of the barn, enclosing an area of approximately six metres square – near enough to regulation boxing ring size to suggest that somebody had at least taken the preparations seriously. There was straw scattered on the floor, long stakes had been driven into the ground at each corner, and sagging lengths of old climbing rope lashed it all together. Marty remembered this set-up from last time: it was surprisingly sturdy, and the stakes had held even when he’d thrown his last opponent against one of them, almost snapping his spine. There were lighting rigs strung across the ceiling, but the halogen bulbs were not quite powerful enough to dispel all the shadows. The interior of the Barn had a dusty atmosphere, as was fitting.

  “Can you smell it?” Best turned to face him, raising his strange blond eyebrows. “Can you smell all that fucking middle-class cash?” His smile was wolfish, and his skin was moist with sweat. He looked... Marty struggled for the right word, and then settled on hungry. Erik Best looked ravenous.

  Across the other side of the Barn, surrounded by four or five men dressed in gaudy sports casuals, there stood a tall, broad-shouldered man with cropped white hair and ugly tribal tattoos across his upper chest and shoulders. He was staring at Marty. His face was long and pale and his eyes were narrow; the muscles in his jaw were so tense that it looked like they might burst through the skin at any moment, like parasites escaping their host.

  “That’s him,” said Best, nodding in the direction of the other fighter.

  “I know,” said Marty. “Not very pretty, is he?”

  “He looks tough.” Best glanced at Marty, as if judging his response.

  “It’s the ones who don’t look tough you have to worry about. You know that. Blokes like this one, they’re all image, all gym-bought muscles, cheap tattoos and a whole lot of front. Just look at you: a short-arse with a pot belly, and yet you’re the most fearsome bastard I ever met.” He smiled, letting Best know that he was at least half-joking. Nobody else could get away with talking to Erik Best like this. Marty knew that he was afforded certain privileges because he made the man a lot of money...

  Best laughed softly, shook his head. “You’re a cunt, Rivers. But that’s why I like you.” He slapped Marty on the right bicep – hard, with enough force to let him know that he was being favoured.

  “Humpty Dumpy,” said Marty, looking back at his opponent. The other man was having his shoulders massaged by a short, fat man in a comically dated Kappa tracksuit. His curly black hair was soaking wet, as if he’d been caught out in the rain.

  “One of these days,” said Best, moving away, “you’re going to have to tell me what the fuck that means, marra.”

  Marty did not smile. He couldn’t. He was entering the zone, the place where all bets were off and no prisoners were taken. He smelled phantom blood in the air and his head was filled with the distant sounds of battle: cries and screams and gunfire, women wailing in a litany of loss as their menfolk were slain in the streets. Towers falling. Planes crashing. Cities burning. He felt connected to an ancient source of warfare, a rich seam of death and destruction that raged constantly beneath the surface of the world. This, he knew, was the real face of humanity. Some people – those like him and the man across the Barn – were either born or created to fight. The difference was fractional; whether by design or birthright, they were warriors. The only thing that mattered now was who would walk away as the victor and who would remain there in the makeshift ring, face to the floor, bleeding into the dirt and the hay and suffering the ignobility of defeat.

  “Okay, everyone, we all know why we’re here.” Best’s raised voice silenced the gathered o
nlookers. He was that kind of man, one with a high level of natural charisma. Glasses and bottles clinked, somebody coughed, whispers hung in the air, but his voice rose above it all. “Give us a few minutes to have a chat with the fighters, and then we’ll start the bout. Keep drinking, keep betting, and don’t give me any fucking reason to not invite you back here.” He grinned, but his eyes shone with barely repressed fury.

  Marty followed Best across the room, towards the spot where the Polish kid was standing with his cronies. They were silent; all eyes were upon him as he stepped across the dim space. The Polish kid started to shadow box, but his gaze remained fixed on Marty. His technique wasn’t bad, but Marty’s was a lot better.

  Marty nodded his head once and bared his teeth in a feral grin. The kid stopped his performance, realising that it was not having the desired effect.

  “Okay,” said Best once they had all gathered together. “You all know the rules, and as I’ve said before, if anyone tries anything funny, they’re fucked. I have men who will pile in at a given signal and crack your skulls if you even look like you’re messing about. I want a clean fight... but not too clean. Got that?”

  Marty nodded.

  “Yes,” said the fat, curly-haired man in the Kappa, his English clipped but perfectly clear. “We know rules. We play by rules. It is the same everywhere. My man will win this, whatever rules may be.”

  The Polish fighter smiled. Marty noticed for the first time that his front two teeth were missing from the upper row. He probably wore dentures, and had taken them out for the fight. Rather than make him look tougher, it showed a potential weakness.

  “Right then, retreat to your corners and get ready. Let’s get this thing going and make some money.” Best watched as the men walked around the ring and took up their positions at their allocated corners. The Polish fighter climbed in through the ropes, followed by the fat man, clearly his trainer and corner man. The others just stood there and practised looking shifty, like extras in a cheesy gangster flick.

  “Where’s Jock?” Marty scanned the barn, looking for Best’s usual corner man.

  “He’s here... somewhere. Probably drinking my fucking whisky.”

  A small, lean man in a flat cap appeared at ringside, raising a hand in welcome.

  Marty walked to his side of the ring and shook the man’s hand. “Jock. How’s it going?”

  “Nae bad,” said the wiry Scotsman. “You feeling fit?”

  Marty nodded. “Fit as a butcher’s dog.”

  “Good.” Jock lifted the middle rope and stepped aside to allow Marty to climb through the gap. “You should take this kid easy. He’s big, but he’s slow as fuck and he telegraphs them big punches about half an hour afore they arrive.”

  Marty started moving, keeping his feet light. He’d been training for this bout for about a month, with early morning runs, sparring sessions at a friend’s gym in Byker, and some work with heavy weights. He was lucky in that he was naturally athletic, and his early boxing training had taught him his ring craft. Most of his opponents in these bouts were either Irish gypsies with no style and plenty of energy, or men like this one – immigrants who were fighting to feed their families, because they had no other saleable skills to offer this flattened economy.

  Everybody feared the gypsies, but Marty was more cautious of the fighters who had more at stake than a campsite reputation. A man who fights for his children, for his wife, is a man who will not go down easily, and even when he does go down the odds are that he won’t stay there for long unless he is put out cold.

  A fight like this one was like a fight against himself: battling his own inner demons, but each with a different face and a different style than the last. Some of them were experienced martial artists; a few of them might even be champions of some obscure brand of cage fighting back in their own country. But they were all tough as steel, hard as iron nails. They never quit until they had no choice.

  He looked at the small, exclusive crowd on the other side of the ropes, scanning their faces for anything other than a shallower version of the kind of hunger he’d seen breaking though Erik Best’s features. But all he saw were shining eyes, open mouths, and a never-ending demand to be entertained.

  Marty would entertain them. Hell, yes. He’d show them something they’d never forget.

  He’d show them Humpty fucking Dumpty.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS NIGHT in the Concrete Grove. Clouds scudded overhead, clustering around the pyramidal tip of the Needle. Shapes moved within those clouds – birds or shadows, or perhaps something else, something more sinister. The sounds of the estate combined to create a song of sorrow: barking dogs, a distant car or house or shop alarm, an occasional raised voice, the tinny beat of somebody’s stereo left to play dance music into the wee hours...

  Brendan looked up from the book he was reading, feeling as if he were being watched. He experienced the sensation whenever he was alone, had grown up with it hounding his days and blighting his nights. He never felt safe, even when he was by himself – especially when he was by himself. It was as if something had stalked him across the years, keeping an eye on him, watching his progress. Whatever it was, this thing, it had been drawing closer, narrowing the distance between them as the years played out into decades.

  Something was keeping a close eye on Brendan, and he knew in his heart that it had begun on the night that he and the other two Amigos had been trapped in the building outside the cabin in which he now sat.

  He was reading a Stephen King novel and trying to pretend that fictional terrors were more frightening than real life, but he also knew that this was a lie. Real life was worse, always so much worse, than fiction... and hadn’t his life become a fiction, like something from the books he liked to read?

  How many times had he gone over the same page in the book he was holding? It felt like time had slowed down and he’d been there for hours, reading and re-reading the same passage. But still the story made little sense, and the intricacies of the plot eluded him.

  He stood up and went to the door, opened it and looked out at the night. Darkness lay like a shroud across the landscape. He blinked, his eyes burning for a moment, and then he glanced left, then right, before stepping out of the security cabin. The Needle loomed above him, watching him, just like whatever he and his friends had disturbed had always watched him, and in the same way that he often examined himself, in the mirror. Filled with doubt and mistrust; not quite believing the image that he saw reflected there in the glass.

  The acne on his back had calmed down earlier, but now it was beginning to itch. He resisted the urge to scratch at it, and clenched his hands into fists.

  No, he thought. Don’t touch it.

  The thought of the telephone call he’d received from his boss only a couple of hours earlier filled him with a rage that felt like something sexual, a slow-building sensation demanding some kind of release. Brendan was nobody’s gofer, but right now, wrapped up in the arms of an endless night – a night that had lasted for two decades – he felt like he was bound to his old friends like a horse strapped into an ill-fitting harness.

  This time Simon had gone too far; his actions were offensive. Brendan knew that he was probably overreacting, and that Jane would talk him down in the morning, but when it came to Simon Ridley, and the way that bastard had left them all here to rot, he often found it difficult to rein in his emotions.

  The skin on his back and shoulders itched madly. He tightened his fists and dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. One pain to take away another, like for like, tit for tat: it was like old magic, and the spell never failed.

  Grinding his fingernails into the soft flesh, he forgot about his acne, and imagined his fingers digging right down into the skin and gristle and tearing through his hands, emerging from the other side dripping in blood.

  Sighing, he looked up, at the second, third, fourth floors, and saw a shadow flit across one of the intact windows. Was it Banjo, the junki
e, making a night-time patrol of his own, or was it something much worse? He remembered a man with a stick and a beaked mask, a figure who made a sound like maracas but in slow motion. They had called him a name, Captain Clickety, but he knew now that the simple act of naming your demon does not banish it back under the bed or to the rear of the wardrobe... sometimes a demon will like its given name, and it will reach out to embrace those that named it.

  Sometimes the monsters were real.

  He turned around and went back inside the cabin. Glancing at the novel, he was unable to pick it back up and finish the chapter. Not now; not tonight.

  Not when it was night in the Concrete Grove, and the memories were so close to the surface that they threatened to break through and hurt him.

  Once again, the skin of his back and shoulders started to itch. This time, he knew, it would be even more difficult to resist scratching at the wounds. Maybe they’d open up and bleed anew, causing new pain to layer over the old.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “SHAKE HANDS,” SAID the ref, pushing Marty and the Polish kid together at the centre of the ring. Marty stuck out his wrapped hand and the other man grabbed it, squeezed hard, and shook it once.

  “Zaraz cię zabiję,” said the Polish kid – Aleksi. His name was Aleksi. Marty needed to remember that, if only to register who it was he had beaten.

  The two men parted company, backing away towards their corners. The next time they came together, it would be all business.

  There were as many variations of the rules in these bouts as there were fighters. This time, as was often the case with one of Erik Best’s fights, it was old school: fists only, no feet, no chokeholds, no head butting; no biting or gouging or elbows. The ref – a big man himself, another ex-boxer – was there to ensure that nobody stepped across the line and the fight was, insomuch as any illegal bout could ever be, a fair one.