The Concrete Grove

CHAPTER SIX





WHEN LANA WOKE she felt a strange sense of panicked urgency, as if she should be doing something important but couldn’t remember what it was that required her attention. She blinked at the daylight, opening her mouth to run her dry tongue across her even drier lips. She felt the beginnings of a headache flaring up behind her eyes.

The radio was playing at a low volume on the dressing table. There was make-up scattered across the table’s surface, on the seat of the chair and on the floor. Eyeliner pencils, tubes of lipstick and other beauty paraphernalia had been thrown down carelessly. She didn’t remember much, just a vague notion of applying make-up, washing it off, and reapplying it differently. She had a mental picture of her face in the mirror, eyes blackened by mascara, lipstick smears across her mouth.

She sat up slowly, not wanting to encourage the headache. An empty wine bottle rolled off the bed and onto the floor, hitting the carpet with a soft thud. She’d taken alcohol to bed again. That was never a good idea, and she knew that it was happening too often for comfort. Her father had died from drink – his heart had failed under the pressure of too many years of chronic alcohol abuse. She didn’t want to go the same way, leaving behind a blotchy, wine-sodden corpse for her daughter to bury in a cheap coffin.

Lana glanced over to the open bedroom door. She usually closed it at night – a leftover fear from her childhood, when she couldn’t sleep with an open door – but now it was wide to the wall. Daylight slanted through the gaps between vertical blinds, forming lines across the carpet which stretched to the doorway. Lana watched the bright tramlines, light-headed and slightly nauseous.

She reached out and turned off the radio.

There was a noise from somewhere inside the flat. It sounded like something heavy falling to the floor, or perhaps a door slamming. Was Hailey up and about, getting ready for school? Lana slid out of bed and put on her dressing gown. She caught sight of her reflection in the wall-mounted mirror and was relieved to see that last night’s horror-show make-up had been cleaned away. Her cheeks were bare, shiny. They looked sunken. Her eyes were too wide, and as flat as old-fashioned copper pennies. She tried to swallow but it hurt her throat. Her skin was clammy.

She left the room and walked along the short hallway, towards Hailey’s room. “You up yet, honey?”

There was no reply.

“Hailey? Come on, let’s get up and get you ready for school. No messing about, now.” She stood outside Hailey’s room, one hand on the door handle. She squeezed the handle but didn’t turn it. Something held her back, an echo of fear. She didn’t understand why she felt so afraid, but terror filled her like water, drowning her from the inside. Lana felt like she was about to choke on it, to stop breathing.

She turned the door handle and pushed open the door. Breathing steady now, she entered the room. Some identikit boy band stared down from a poster on the wall. Hailey’s books were all lined up neatly on their shelves. Stuffed toys glared at her from the floor. Her television was on, the picture stuck on a DVD menu: images of dancing animals dressed in human clothes.

The bed had been made, the quilt smoothed down on the mattress and the corners – weren’t they called ‘hospital corners’? – tucked down tight. “Hailey, where are you?”

She listened to the silence, waiting for a tell-tale sound, but none came. Hailey, if she was still indoors, was keeping quiet. Lana glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 7:30. Hailey didn’t usually leave for school until well after 8 o’clock, so she must still be here. The girl didn’t have many friends she could go and meet up with before classes, and there was nowhere else she could have gone this early.

She turned and padded quickly back out into the hallway. The bathroom door, at the far end near the front of the flat, was closed. She moved towards it, wondering if Hailey was having a bath – the shower had worked only sporadically for almost two months, and no-one from the council had been out to fix it. This failure to fix things was a recurring pattern, both in the home and in Lana’s life in general.

She paused for a moment at the door, and then knocked. A sudden burst of daylight shone in her eyes, reaching her through the lounge window; it was hot and bright, making her wince. Then the light faded, and when she looked at the window the day outside was dull and hazy.

“Are you in there, Hailey? What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

There was a long pause, and then Hailey finally answered: “Not feeling well, mum. Just a bit sick, that’s all.”

Lana tried the handle but the door was locked. “Come on, let me in. Do you need something? Is it your period?”

Again, Hailey said nothing. Lana knew that the girl was embarrassed to talk about these things, but it was an important part of life, and one that required discussion, particularly if Hailey was having problems.

“Listen to me. I used to suffer really badly with cramps. They were so bad that I used to vomit. Is that what’s up with you? Is it cramps?”

“Yes.” Then she heard the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by what might have been Hailey putting things back in the bathroom cabinet. Was that a bottle of pills she could hear rattling?

The lock clicked; the door opened. Hailey stood there in her white school blouse and pleated black skirt. The tail of her blouse was hanging out of her waistband, and she looked small and frail. Her eyes were huge, with dark circles beneath them. There was a splatter of vomit on her chin.

“Wipe your mouth,” said Lana, picking up a tissue and using it to wipe Hailey’s face, doing a mother’s job before Hailey even had the chance to pull away and look in the mirror. “It’s okay, honey. I can do this.” She smoothed down her daughter’s hair with her fingers, noticing how dry it felt. The skin of Hailey’s forehead was hard and flaky; her T-zone felt like fine emery paper.

“Thanks,” said Hailey, taking a step back, part-way into the bathroom. Her eyes were squinted, as if the light hurt them. She licked her lips and her tongue looked dark, almost purple.

“What is it? Aren’t you feeling well? Maybe you should stay off school today.”

Hailey shook her head. “We have a maths test. If I miss it I’ll have to sit it again some evening after school. I’d rather go in. I’m fine.” She pushed the hair out of her eyes with her thin, white fingers.

“I’ve never seen you look so pale… it’s like you’re anaemic. Maybe I should make an appointment with the doctor.” Lana wanted to hold the girl, but felt that it might scare her. When exactly had they moved so far apart?

“No. Really. I said I was fine. I am, really. I’m okay. Just a bit tired.”

Lana moved away from the door. “Aren’t you sleeping?”

Hailey shook her head. “Not too well. Not here, in this place.” She walked past Lana, being careful not to touch her.

Lana felt like crying. “I’m sorry. I never wanted it to be like this. I had plans for us, big plans.” She stood where she was, bathed in the glow from the bathroom light, feeling its fragile warmth on the side of her face. “I thought things might be better once we settled in.”

Hailey wasn’t listening. She crossed the lounge and went into the kitchen area, where she sat down at the breakfast bar, staring at an empty bowl. Her eyes looked odd, as if she were blind.

“Let me get you something.” Lana followed her daughter, opened a cupboard, and poured some cornflakes into Hailey’s bowl. Then she opened the fridge. “F*ck,” she said, feeling useless. “There’s no milk. I forgot to buy milk.” The omission felt like a metaphor, a symbol of how bad a mother she was. “How could I forget to buy the f*cking milk?” She felt hysteria building, as if she were about to laugh or scream – she wasn’t sure which, and even when it came the sound would be difficult to identify.

Slowly, carefully, she closed the fridge door. Then she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Hailey, standing and pushing the stool across the cheaply tiled floor. “I’ll get something on the way to school.”

Lana was unable to open her eyes. She was entranced by the dancing darkness behind the lids. “Do you have money?”

Hailey laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Yes. I have money.” Then she went to the front door, opened it, and slammed it behind her as she left.

Lana straightened up and opened her eyes. She saw bright little points of light in her field of vision; dancing moonbeams, trapped in her kitchen in broad daylight. The bright spots faded, going out like distant flames blown by a wind, and then vanished altogether.

Acting on impulse, she returned to the bathroom, lifting the toilet lid and staring down into the bowl. Stringy vomit floated like pale kelp in the water, clinging to the side of the bowl where it had not quite been flushed away. There were tiny red flecks in the matter, as if Hailey had also brought up a small amount of blood. She could be mistaken, but it looked as if that was what had happened… unless she was suffering from the hangover and the weird morning light, and the redness was simply the result of tired eyes. She reached out and pressed the flush, watched the water as it swirled and cleaned away the stains.

A rogue thought entered her head, and she was unable to push it away: what if it isn’t vomit? But the thought of Hailey issuing that pale, clotted material from elsewhere was one she couldn’t countenance. It was too much; too terrible to hold inside her mind.

Back in the kitchen she made instant coffee and sat at the breakfast bar wondering how she could get her life back on track. Things had gone so wrong by now that it seemed impossible to put them right. Everything was difficult; the world was at best uncaring and at worst actively against her. Nothing went right, not now: everything she tried seemed to fail, and her attempts to fix their situation usually brought more pain into their lives.

At first she didn’t hear the knocking at her door, but after a short while the sound grew louder and drew her attention. Lana put down her cup and walked across the room to the door. Monty Bright’s phone call was fresh in her mind. She thought about putting the security chain in place, but then decided against it. If Bright wanted to get to her, he could pick and choose his moment. A cheap door chain would not hold him back.

She opened the door.

The man standing in the corridor was big, possibly the largest human being she had ever seen. He stood well over six feet tall and his girth was proportional to his height. A large round shaven head sat on a neck that resembled a joint of uncooked beef – wide, raw and spilling over the collar of his white shirt – and when he smiled a gold tooth glinted somewhere at the back of his mouth.

“Morning, darling.” His voice was squeaky, quavering, like a tardy teenager’s late-breaking tones.

He was wearing a tight black leather bomber jacket and dark blue jeans. The clothes were so big that Lana assumed they must be custom-made, and were probably expensive to buy.

Lana took a single step back, into the narrow hallway. She didn’t mean to retreat; it was an instinctive reaction to the presence of the giant at her door, the monster who was even now following her inside. Only when he moved did she catch sight of the other two men behind him. They were not as big as the first, but they were big enough; tough enough.

“I hope we aren’t disturbing you, Miss Fraser.” The last one in closed the door behind him. The flat felt tiny, as if it were a doll’s house.

“I haven’t got the money.” She stood against the wall just inside the lounge, giving them the run of the place. She decided that subservience might be the safest course of action. “I told Monty yesterday, when he called me. I don’t have anything this week.”

The smallest man, the one closest to the door, stepped forward and gave her a fast back-handed slap across the face. Just before her head started buzzing, Lana noticed that he was wearing black leather gloves. She didn’t realise that her head had shot backwards and hit the wall until the pain started: a hot, beating place at the back of her skull. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks, and she was ashamed. The last thing she wanted to do was show these bastards how much they scared her.

“Just keep your f*cking mouth shut until we tell you to speak, Miss Fraser.” It was the one who’d hit her: he was standing right in front of her, his scarred face only inches from her own. He ran a hand along her bare arm; the black leather felt wrong, like diseased skin.

She nodded, trying to smile.

“That’s better,” said Leather Glove Man. “It’s always easier when you people let us control the situation.”

“Get a f*cking move on, Terry,” said the large one. He was examining the room, picking up books and putting them down again, running his fingers over her ornaments and framed photographs. “Ooh, nice.” He picked up a photo of Hailey in a swimsuit. “I like it when they get those little pointy titties. Like buds, they are.” He brought the photograph to his face and licked the glass frame.

Lana closed her eyes. The third man, who had moved further into the room, began to giggle. “Dirty bastard,” he said; his voice was nasal and unpleasant. “You’d shag anything, wouldn’t you?”

“If it bleeds it breeds,” said the big man. “And I do like it when they bleed...”

Lana opened her eyes. “Listen, I can give you some other stuff, just to buy some time. I have jewellery. Some of it’s still worth a lot of money – it’s from before, when we were better off.” She moved away from the wall but Terry pushed her back against the plaster, his leather-clad hand pressed against her chest, between her breasts. He looked right into her eyes and smiled.

“Come on,” she said, feigning weakness while all the time she wanted to tear out his throat with her teeth. “Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable,” said the big man. “And what’s reasonable about borrowing money and not paying it back? Monty’s a reasonable man; all he wants is what’s due to him. Nothing more, nothing less. He wants what he’s owed.” The gold tooth glinted. Leather Glove Man’s hand at her chest pushed harder, shoving her back against the plasterboard wall.

Lana was trapped. She knew it, and the men in her flat knew it. This was a game, a routine, and they were all aware of the rules. They would intimidate her for a little while, maybe even rough her up a bit more, and then they would take whatever they wanted in lieu of money owed.

Her right cheek was burning. The pain where she’d hit the wall with her head was a gentle throbbing, subsiding as she spoke to the men.

The big man stepped forward. His leather jacket creaked and his footsteps were loud and heavy, like sacks of wet earth being dropped onto the floor. “You know why we’re here.” He pushed Terry out of the way, bringing up his hand to stroke her cheek. “We’re going to take your stuff and go away. Then we’ll come back again, but for the money next time. This is a warning. We won’t hurt you, not today. But next time we’re going to have to break some fingers, or maybe even a pretty little hand. Not an arm or a leg – that’ll come after. It gets worse each time.” His meaty fingers slithered across her face, cupping her chin. He squeezed, forcing open her mouth. “We might even take something else... something that you won’t want to give freely. You have a very pretty mouth.” He blinked rapidly, as if there was something in his eyes. “So does your daughter.”

Lana was breathing heavily, as if her heart was approaching a cardiac arrest. It was panic, building in her chest and spreading outwards, like a fire. She fought to control her rage: lashing out would make things worse, and probably result in even greater violence.

Just a warning, she thought. That’s all.

“There’s a message, too. From Monty. You want to hear it?”

Lana nodded. He was still gripping her chin, keeping her jaws locked open. Her mouth was wet. Saliva filled the back of her throat, but she was unable to swallow.

“If you want to pay off the debt in another way, come and see him at the gym. He’s always willing to negotiate, and you’re a very attractive woman, Miss Fraser.” He paused, cocked his head to one side like a dog. “You don’t mind me saying that, do you?” He pushed his knee between her legs, forcing them apart.

“No,” she said, her breath coming in short, sharp stabs. “No, not at all.”

The big man pressed his broad kneecap into her groin. Her legs began to tremble.

“Thank you, Miss Fraser,” he said, pulling away from her. “Now we’ll just take a few things and be on our way.”

Lana felt her body crumple like a discarded suit. Her legs buckled and she slid down the wall, rubbing at her chin. Her face ached; her legs felt like partially disassembled plastic toys, unable to hold her upright. She sat on the floor and watched the three men as they moved around the flat, mentally cataloguing her belongings. When Terry, the one with the leather gloves and the quick hands, entered Hailey’s room she fought the urge to scream.

It took them less than thirty minutes to clear her out. They knew what they were doing and the type of goods they were looking for. They only took the stuff that was worth something in terms of resale value; everything else they either left behind or destroyed for fun. The last thing they carried down the stairs to load onto the back of their van was the television. Hailey would be distraught if she couldn’t watch her shows: lacking close friends or any kind of regular social life, she used her video games and the TV as her main sources of distraction.

But at least they’d left her books. Thugs like these were not renowned for their love of literature, and Hailey had a shelf filled with classics and science-fiction novels, books that had belonged to her father. Hardy, Wells, Vonnegut; the girl loved her books, and would have been distraught if she'd lost them.

The men said little more before they left: just a few words, a couple of vulgar promises that washed over her, not even touching her where it mattered. The big man grabbed his crotch in his massive hand and blew her a kiss on his way out the door. “Next time we’ll have some proper fun,” he said, before thrusting his hips like a piston. “Some proper f*cking fun...”

Lana remained where she was on the floor, squatting like some primitive warrior woman delivering a baby in the dirt. She was no longer shaking. It was comfortable down there, near the dusty skirting board. She stayed there for a long time even after they left, thinking about her options, trying to work out what to do about the situation. Once again, she had failed her daughter. The choices she had made led only to despair.

Soon all she could think of was Hailey’s face when she walked through the door after school to find the flat emptied of their belongings.

Hailey’s poor, sad face and a single word, one she’d always been afraid of, even when it had entered her life two years ago. A word that stayed there, lodged inside her head, even when she stood up, crossed the room and closed the door. Her hands, when she looked at them, were as steady as those of a stone sculpture.

The word in her mind brought horror, it promised terror and a release from financial bondage: the word was revenge. But it was something she shied away from, terrified. Violence was an option she could only ever consider once everything else had failed. She’d learned that, at least, from her desperate murderer of a husband.





THE THREE MEN walked outside and headed towards their car, the largest of the group hanging back from his colleagues. He stopped, looked up, and then looked back at the Grove Court flats, feeling a strange tingling sensation at the back of his neck, as if he were being watched.

“Boater! You coming?”

He kept staring at the grey-walled building, his eyes scanning the façade. Finally they came to rest upon the window of the flat they’d just left – Lana Fraser’s place. What was drawing his gaze? Why was he staring so hard, so intently, at that window? Was it that he was desperate to get another glimpse of the woman inside? Yes, she was beautiful, but he’d seen better. In truth, he’d had better. Despite his size, and the fact that he was not a handsome man, the power associated with his position as one of Monty Bright’s pack-dogs ensured that he never went hungry for physical pleasure.

No, it wasn’t just her beauty. There was something more – an inexplicable desire, a craving. It exhausted him to think about her, and the obscene act he’d put on inside the flat had caused him to lose his grip on the day. All he wanted now was to go home and rest.

“Come on, man! For f*ck’s sake, we have work to do. That junkie needs sorting out, for one thing. Monty doesn’t want him coming down from his high before he can go to work on the skinny bastard’s arse.”

Francis Boater fought hard to drag his eyes from the window. He strained, forcing the muscles in his neck to turn his head. Then, when he was once again facing in the direction he was meant to be heading, he pushed his reluctant feet across the pavement.

“I’m coming,” he said, but what he really wanted was to get away, to go back to the flat and tell that woman that everything would be fine. These thoughts were new to him; never before had he felt even a glimmer of tenderness. Not way back when his mother used to treat him like a house pet, or during any of the subsequent desperate relationships he’d fallen into. This feeling – it was so large, so much bigger than him, that he felt like falling to his knees and crying, or pummelling the nearest face into mush.

Yes, that was it – that felt so much better. A normal reaction: the lust for violence. Francis Boater would be nothing, just an empty shell, if it were not for the violence at his core. It was what drove him, what made him real.

He joined the others at the car, those alien thoughts banished for now. Banished but not forgotten.