Six Years Ago...
You are hoping and praying that the kid is okay when you get there; that the recorded images of the injuries he sustained looked far worse than they actually are. He has to be alright otherwise you may as well kiss goodbye to your fifty grand and any hope that you will be the new King of Hollyoaks.
Fucking John. So much for trustworthy. The man is an untamed animal. A monster with no control. All brawn and no brain.
Now you have the mammoth job of damage limitation and dealing with a soon to be very pissed off Brendan.
Your four by four drives through the narrow single lanes of Chester's countryside with little regard for speed limits and potential oncoming traffic.
Your car's tires screech to a stop when you get to the barn, pushing a cloud of dust and gravel up into the air. Yours is the only car parked, raising concern that John has already done a runner. You shove your gun into the back of your jeans hiding it from view with your t-shirt and jump out of your jeep into the bright summer weather. You run towards the closed heavy double doors of the barn. They open before you get to them and John steps out.
He looks like he is about to escape; frazzled, sweaty and nervous. His clothes are soiled with dust and debris as if he has been rolling around on the ground. The dressing covering his left cheek is almost completely soaked with blood.
You assess him quickly. He is normally packing but you can't see his gun. Not that that means anything. You have to be careful with him.
"What happened to your face?" You ask. As if you don't know already that Ste tore it up with the lid of a tin can.
"Fell."
"You going somewhere?" You ask innocently.
"No." He scratches his forehead with a finger then looks at his watch. "That was quick, boss."
"I find that money is a great motivator." You shove past him nearly toppling him over as you head to the barn's doors. "You got the package ready for exchange?"
He follows you into the dark musky smelling barn.
You take inventory. Unopened baked bean cans and the flasks of water are in a corner. The piss bucket and toppled over chair are in the middle of the room. Your eyes track to a dark spot on the ground where Ste had been lying earlier on images you watched.
It is a stagnant pool of congealed blood. There is a smear that extends from it towards the barn's entrance, getting fainter until it disappears altogether.
No weasel-face.
No surprise.
You knew John would try to hide his fuck up.
You face him.
"There seems to be something missing here." You keep your voice low. Measured.
"Yeah. About that..." He takes a step back.
"Where is Ste?" You say as your anger builds.
He gives you a nervous laugh and says. "The thing is, Warren, when I find out that I have been on candid camera so that you can incriminate me, cover your behind and put me in the shit, I get angry and disappointed and frankly a little insulted."
So he found the camera.
"The camera was to keep the package safe when neither of us were around. Not to watch you. I didn't realise that I had to... until today."
He laughs nervously. "Today was a misunderstanding."
"Where is he?"
He approaches you. "I showed him. He had it coming. Cocky little fucker tried to escape."
You get flashes of the images you saw earlier and feel queasy. You, the hard man. That is how disturbing John's actions were.
"You were supposed to keep him unharmed."
"It's not my fault he didn't listen."
Your patience has run out. You produce your gun and point it at him.
"Show me where he is. He needs medical attention."
John starts laughing and you realise then that the man is mad. You don't know how you didn't notice before. Perhaps because it has always been a help rather than a hindrance in past jobs.
His laughing stops abruptly. "I'm sorry, boss, but I think it might be too late for medical attention."
"What?" Your gun falters in your hand.
"I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure you're going to get your money in exchange for a dead package. A personal theory. I might be wrong."
Your world bottoms out.
Is John implying that a simple abduction has been upgraded into a murder?
You don't need this shit. This whole kidnapping exercise has been completely counterproductive and backfired in your face. Now you have blood on your hands without being any richer.
You think fast. You need to come out of this unscathed somehow. If you can completely implicate John then you might be able to get off scot free.
"Show me the body." You take the safety off the gun.
"Don't worry. I've taken care of it."
"Where?"
"Out the back."
You keep your gun pointed at him and indicate for him to lead the way. He slowly walks you round to the back to a wooded area. Your eyes scan the perimeter looking for the lad. You can't see him anywhere.
You press the gun into John's back and hiss, "You had better not be playing games with me."
"I'm not." He says. That is when you see his eyes subconsciously flit to a raised mound of soil in the ground. If that's a shallow grave it is a pitiful attempt to hide a corpse. You walk over to it and get down on your knees. You keep your gun pointed at John with one hand while the other digs furiously.
He watches you silently. When your fingers touch damp cold cloth your heart sinks. Shit. He wasn't lying. He's fucking buried the lad. But when you tug at the cloth, Ste's bloodied Chez-Chez t-shirt pulls out of the ground minus Ste. You delve some more and you fish out his underwear, trousers, his shoes and socks, the camera you set up and John's gun.
You check it (still loaded) and pocket it. It might come in handy.
Still there is no body. This is just John's pitiful attempt to hide evidence. So where is the biggest evidence of all?
Where is Ste?
XOXO
Present Day...
You check out the red brick building, nod and emit a low whistle of approval.
Brendan has done alright for himself. This place looks nice. Slick. Classy. Everything Chez-Chez wasn't with its brash logo and even brasher clientele.
This is VIBE, a member's only nightclub.
It is the middle of the day so you are half expecting the unassuming door to the building to be closed but it isn't. You push it open and it leads to a tastefully decorated low-lit hall that goes up to some stairs with dripping chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
A very nice first impression.
The stairs lead to a landing that opens up to a room which is surprisingly spacious. The staircase continues to what must be a second floor.
You stop at the first though and call out,
"Hello!" You walk into the room. "Is anybody here?"
You automatically walk behind the bar and help yourself to a pint of lager, releasing a satisfying belch after downing it in one.
"We're closed."
You look across the room to a young woman that is standing near a door that you assume leads to an office.
She's tasty with the lithe physique of a high jump athlete covered by a pair of skinny jeans and a loose off the shoulder lightweight top. She is wearing impossibly high black patent heels. Her long shiny loosely plaited dark hair is swept to one side. Her drop earrings accentuate her long neck. Her eyes are blue and piercing, almost feline.
It's a shame the look is spoilt by apprehension since her arms are crossed over her chest and she looks at you like you might rape her any minute.
You know who she is already. You have done your research. Nicola Manzoni. Co-owner of this club and another on the other side of town.
You put on your friendliest, most approachable smile and say,
"The door was open downstairs so I came up. I was looking for someone. I'm sorry. I'll go." You round the bar and head for the stairs again.
You hear her sniff behind you.
"Who were you looking for?" She asks.
You smirk at yourself then you turn around. "My friend, Brendan."
"Brady?" She asks for clarification.
You give her a small regretful smile. "We lost touch for a while. I moved away. States. Back now and we thought we should catch up."
She looks at you sceptically as you walk up to her with your arm out ready for a handshake. Now that you are up close and personal she looks tired, like she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"I'm Warren, by the way." You shake her limp hand as she eyes you up carefully.
"I'm sorry but he has never mentioned a Warren to me before." She pulls her hand away and folds her arms again.
You laugh lightly. "That's Brendan for you. He's not exactly one for sharing details of his past, is he?"
She shrugs and keeps looking over at the stairs as if working out how easy it would be to run away if things got dangerous.
Bitch. Why isn't she falling for your charms the way women normally do?
"He has told me about you though. Nicola, right?"
"Brendan calls me Niks."
"You are very close to him, aren't you? He speaks very highly of you."
She melts a little at the compliment. "Yeah well, we have been pissing each other off for five years now so." She eyes you up and down trying to calculate whether to trust you. "So when you say you are his friend...?"
You get what she means straight away. "I mean friend." You point at your physique; all six foot three, two hundred and twenty pounds of you. "I'm not exactly Bren's type, now am I?" You laugh. "And anyway, I'm straight."
She finally cracks a smile. "I've heard that before. Believe me. People yo-yo all over that Kinsey scale when Brendan and a bit of booze are involved."
"Not me." You grin back. "So is he going to be in later?"
She chews her lip, lightly strokes her arms as if giving herself a hug and then looks away. "No. Not here. He should be at the ELECTRIC though from about nine."
You nod. "Thanks."
"I'll tell him to expect you then, Warren." She says.
"Don't bother. I want to surprise him."
"He'll like that, you know, with everything that has gone on in the last month."
You go blank. What's been going on? You imitate her morose expression, and say, "Yes. I think he will."
She suddenly stands up and delves into her pocket to get her phone out. "Did you get here by taxi?"
"Yes."
She grins. "Let me order you a cab. On the house. What hotel are you staying at?"
XOXO
Six years ago...
"Where is he?" You ask John. You have no patience left.
"I told you. I've taken care of it."
You stand up and march up to him and push the gun into his forehead, jabbing against it a few times for good measure. "I'm not playing games, John. Fucking show me where he is."
The big man finally looks scared. "Okay. Okay. I'll show you but I can't have this coming out. Linda can't know what happened." His wife. He is thinking about his wife at a time like this.
He becomes hysterical.
"And if I get done for this, with my record, I am going in for life! I can't do that!"
You knee him in the stomach to level him out and he lets out a chocked cry. You stop him from going down by holding him up under his armpits.
You whisper calmly into his ear. "Then help me help you. Show me where he is. We will destroy the evidence together. It will be like this never happened. I can't let you take the fall for this alone. I know that. You'd sing like a bird, wouldn't you? Give them my name. I get that. Let's help each other out, ey? Come on."
He is sobbing now.
"I just don't want him to talk." He moans.
"Who?"
"The package."
Fuck.
You let go of John's shoulders and he stumbles. What is he saying?
"Are you saying Ste is alive?"
He nods while crying. "Barely."
This guy is fucked up in the head. But now you understand how his brain works. You know what he meant by "I've taken care of it". He was planning to leave Ste for dead or kill him off to hide any evidence of what he had done.
You think hard. Where could Weasel-face be? There aren't that many places in the vicinity. Then you remember John's 'missing' car.
"He is in your car." You say. You are sure of it.
You know the area well that even know where he has parked. You run to the only clearing in the woods that is out of sight of the road and within close distance of the barn. John follows you.
Bingo. His car is there. You pull your gun away from him while you look through the windows. There is no one there. You use your sleeve to try the boot. It doesn't open so you shoot at the lock and force it open making sure not to leave finger prints.
The moment you look inside your hand goes up to cover your face in shock and disgust. You feel like retching.
This. Is. Not. Good.
Ste is naked, curled up and facing away from you. There are multiple grazes over his back and buttocks, mainly superficial, covered in dirt and mud. They are the least of his injuries. His hair is wet and matted at the back by congealed blood. He has a big ugly bruise over his left chest (you suspect that was the injury you inflicted on him when you got him in the alleyway on his way home). It's his legs and left arm that surprise you. They are abnormally angled. In fact his left leg has an open fracture. His limbs are broken.
That wasn't the case in the VT.
It takes you a second to figure out how these injuries were inflicted. The edges on the boot door are bloodied and dented. Ste must have been conscious when John tried to get him into the boot.
"Ste, wake up!" You say loudly but don't get a response.
The lad must have struggled to try to get out of the boot while John repeatedly tried closing it against his flailing limbs until they got cracked and the excruciating pain rendered the lad submissive.
"Jesus, John." You say looking at the man.
He looks back at you, bewildered. "He wouldn't stop moving."
You press into Ste's shoulder; into that spot that makes grown hard men drop to the floor to see whether he reacts.
He doesn't flinch but at least he is warm. You feel for a pulse in his neck. It is there. Weak but present.
You are about to fish your phone out of your pocket to call for an ambulance when you hear a screech of tires on gravel. That is rapidly followed by the opening and closing of a door.
"Shit!" John shouts then bolts probably assuming it's the police.
Idiot.
You know it isn't. How would they know you were here this quickly? You have your suspicions of who it is though.
You don't bother running after John. He is a slow lumbering large twat so he is an easy target. You aim for his legs and shoot them both using his own gun which has a silencer. His cries out in pain and falls to the ground a few feet away from you. The bastard can't escape.
This is all on him.
Moments later, you hear someone running round the barn towards you.
You look over.
As you suspected it is Brendan. He must have tailed you. Clever fucker.
You are in a pinch here but you work well under pressure. You have to somehow not end up dead or in jail despite your archenemy showing up. It won't be easy to come out of this smelling like roses.
A barn.
A pile of exposed evidence in a shallow grave at the back of it.
A motionless very injured innocent man.
A writhing injured very guilty man.
A protective Irish lover with a very violent streak.
All within metres of you.
This will be interesting.
You crack your neck in preparation for a showdown and look at Brendan.
"Hiya, Tache-man." You say conversationally, blocking the open boot from his sight. You keep your hand on the trigger of your gun but you aren't pointing it at him, yet.
"What's going on here, foxy? I saw you speed out of the village like a bat out of hell so I thought I'd come along and check out what all the fuss was about." He says.
He looks at John who is gripping his legs in pain and wailing. "It isn't normal to turn on your accomplices, Warren. At least that is who I'm assuming he is."
"He was. Now he is an arsehole I want nothing to do with." You say calmly.
He is trying to make sense of the situation. Calculating and evaluating. He is hiding it fairly well but you know that behind all that bravado he is worried sick. His wide anxious eyes and film of sweat give him away.
"I see that. Now, how about you hand over Stephen and I'll give you some money and we'll call it a day well spent." He says.
There is a crack in his voice that belies the calm veneer. He tries a smile but it is brief and goes nowhere near his eyes.
As if by magic a gun appears in his hand pointed at you.
A standoff. How fun. Now the adrenaline is pumping.
You take a deep breath and take a gamble. If what you have witnessed over the last few months between Ste and Brendan is real then this should work. If Brendan really cares for Ste then getting him sorted will take priority, revenge will be a close second and anything else will be forgotten, at least to begin with.
"Call an ambulance, Brendan." You say firmly.
He frowns at you as he glances at John again. "You must have mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck. I'm not calling an ambulance for that twat."
"Not for him." You say as calmly as possible and side step so that the boot is in view. "For him."
Brendan looks at you sceptically but you know that his mind is racing. You point into the trunk and he takes slow steps towards you while keeping the gun trained on you. It is only when he is almost right next to the car that he looks down.
The groan that comes out of him is unlike anything you have heard come out of a human being. It is the perfect intonation of pain and loss. His hand that is holding the gun goes limp and he almost tumbles into the boot with his loss of tone, his face grief-stricken as he wraps his arms around Ste. You are shocked at the level of emotion he is displaying in front of you. He stuffs his face into Ste's neck and he inadvertently smears blood onto himself.
"No." Is the only decipherable sound that comes out of him, while he wraps Ste's broken limp body in his arms.
"I don't think you should move him." You say. "I'll get an ambulance. He needs to be in hospital."
He turns to you helplessly with red wet blood shot eyes. He gently settles Ste back into the trunk and takes his coat off to lay it on the lad's exposed body.
"Brendan?"
Jesus. Peter Hamill is here, too. The fuck? He wheels up to you looking understandably concerned at his friend's broken expression. He spots the blood covering Brendan's shirt, face and hands and looks at you.
"It's not Brendan's blood." You tell him, in case he has a gun too and decides to shoot you down to protect his friend.
"What's going on?" Pete asks anxiously. "Where's Ste?"
"Did he do this?" Brendan sneers at you. You know he is referring to John.
There is pure concentrated anger in his eyes. You know the lengths to which a man can go when something precious has been harmed or taken away from him. You've been there yourself. Your mind becomes tunnelled. Filled with only one focus.
To seek revenge.
You look at John and realise that this is your 'get out of jail free' card. You can get rid of John and without even having to pull the trigger.
Brendan stands up slowly and shoves you so hard that you nearly fall over. "I said, did your partner do this to Stephen?"
You look at him, point blank in the eye and say, "Yes. Ste getting injured was not in my best interests. I knew that but this man is an animal. He fucked your boyfriend up and was about to dump him somewhere before making a runner. That's why I-"
You show him your gun to explain how you shot John.
Brendan rubs his face slowly, spreading Ste's blood all over him as he looks at you. His eyes are practically black, that is how dilated his pupils are. He looks otherworldly. Sinister. Still.
He is going to fucking shoot you. You are certain of it. Whatever your excuses you are the one who kidnapped the lad. This is still all your fault. You shakily raise you gun to him ready to play 'fastest finger first' but he just stares at you. Silently. Motionless. You could shoot him but that would be ridiculous. The body count is already looking like two more than you would like.
So you hold your breath and wait for his move.
He turns away from you and you exhale with relief.
He walks towards John; his gait is steady and a little shaky as if he is suffering from shock. It is as if he is a zombie. A member of the living dead.
His gun is loosely by his side yet he still looks ready for action. Peter tries to wheel himself towards Brendan but the terrain is murder on his wheels. It behaves like quicksand and he becomes wedged to the spot, yards away from his friend.
"Brendan. Don't do it, mate." He shouts at his friend while you try to hide a smile. Go on. Pull the trigger. Finish John off. Let me off the hook.
Pete continues to discourage him. You wish he would shut up. "Let the cops handle him. Don't get involved. Let's get Ste sorted, yeah?"
"Just call a fucking ambulance, Pete, yeah?" He replies in an even voice as he stands over a cowering John. "NOW!"
"Shit!" Peter grabs his phone and presses three digits. You hear him speak quickly into his phone to the emergency services.
John covers his head with his hands then tries to crawl away using his hands as Brendan points his gun at him. He kicks your accomplice so that he rolls onto his back.
"Look at me." He sneers at John.
It is such a forceful command that your accomplice does just that.
There must be a time when it becomes clear that one is about to meet one's fate. John must be having his epiphany now because he cackles at Brendan and says.
"I don't know what you are so upset about. Your boyfriend just lies there while you're fucking him. At least he did with me. He is seriously shit in bed."
The only sign that the words penetrate Brendan's senses is the slow shutting and then opening of his eyes.
The end is clinical. A straight arm aiming right between John's eyes. A single click, the loud clap of a gunshot and then the thud of a man as his lifeless body hits the ground.
You hear Pete say, "Quick, Bren. The ambulance is coming. What are we going to do now?"