11. The Eldest Son

Reese prepares to go to Rotterdam, before receiving devastating news.

11

That night Reese dreamt of Berrow beach and the summer he had walked out onto the mudflats. He had sunk up to his shoulders in the sucking wet sludge, but Dad had been there to haul him out and hold him after when the shock set in. He had been a small man, but strong. Big hands, work-rough and capable.  
     His own hands were soft. Dad had tried to get him interested in the physical side of his job but it had never suited. Reese was tall and ropy, like his mum, but he’d never liked manual work and he didn’t understand the banter between the men. 
     He didn’t understand the men he was with now. They didn’t speak, they didn’t laugh. There was no back-and-forth like there was between his dad’s lot. They were aggressively silent. 
    Reese wanted to leave. He wanted to go back to mum but they would hurt her. Dad said so.

    The room began to solidify around him. He could hear the furious whir of a fan; a laptop had been left on a bed and was overheating. He could hear the grunt and the wet slap of a lubricated hand which told him that his roommate was masturbating again. Reese rolled over and faced the wall so he didn’t have to see. He studied the repeating pattern on the floral wallpaper. It was bulging with damp and he pressed his fingertip into one of the blisters, leaving a little dimple in its centre. 
     It was barely dawn. The sky outside was still dark and would be for a half hour yet before the first smudge of sulphurous yellow light. There was frost on both sides of the single pane and lining the bathroom sink. 
     They had a long journey ahead of them, one he was getting used to; Dover to Rotterdam, by way of Zeebrugge. In his bedside drawer was a passport that said he was six years older than he was. Kidd had equipped him with it. The photo wasn’t of him, but no-one official had ever looked close enough to realise. The likeness was pretty good, if he didn’t shave and wore his hair in the same style. 
     Sometimes Reese wondered who the man in it was and how he had ended up with his picture, his papers, but the dark twists his imagination took deterred him from thinking too hard about it.
      The laptop snapped shut. The whirring stopped. There was a thud as it was put down on the thinly carpeted floor and a rustle as tissues were tugged from their box. Reese rolled onto his back again and something was thrown over his head. 
     ‘Get up. He’ll be here in a minute.’ 
     Reese pulled the t-shirt from his face and sat up with a groan, his eyes still burning with fatigue. He unzipped the sleeping bag and the chill of the room rushed in; he had two pairs of socks on and had tucked his joggers into them, but he was still shivering like an addict as he pulled on new clothes: a vest, a t-shirt and a grey hooded top that smelt only slightly of B.O.

     He stuck his legs into a pair of jeans in whose pockets he’d stashed the keys to the car the men didn’t know he had. 
     He had parked the Audi a couple of streets away on a residential road. Last time he’d checked on it someone had lifted his wipers up; one of the residents taking offence to somebody nicking their regular spot, he figured, but he wasn’t breaking any laws. He closed his hand tight about the fob and ran his thumb along the grooves of the key. It would be his get-away vehicle, if he ever needed it. He was safe to drive it all the time mum didn’t rat on him.
     She wouldn’t, though. Keeping things from the police had become second nature in their family.
    ‘Come on, Reesey! Move your skinny a*s!’ His roommate shoved him towards the bedroom door. His name was Levi. He was a fat blonde Dutchman with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes who Reese didn’t know much about, besides his preference for Amazonian black women and American sit-coms. 
     They slouched down a narrow staircase and into a hall stacked with overstuffed bin-bags; it was dark throughout the two-bed terrace house, the letterbox had been sealed off with duct-tape and the front windows with newspaper. This had been accommodation for the six of them for the past month, two in each of the bedrooms, two in the lounge.

They would be leaving soon and just as well. The walls had begun to sweat the smell of them: stale tobacco, oily food and wet boots. The toilet had backed up and Reese had been elected to fix it �" or rather, bundled into the bathroom and locked in until he had �" but there was still the raw stench of sewage on the upper floor.  
      The other four were sat around a folding table in the kitchen, taking it in turns to chuck bacon in the pan. A white smoke was hanging from the ceiling and hot drops of fat were spitting at whoever passed the stove but no one seemed overly concerned.

With the cooking and the close pressed bodies it was at least warm in this room. Reese was shouldered aside by Levi who made a grab for the last rashers. Reese didn’t care, he wasn’t hungry, and seldom was these days. 
     Nobody spoke, just ate, solidly and without any pleasure. Someone had wedged a small TV on the countertop and a mahogany-tanned presenter was doing her best to look like she gave a s**t about the book her guest was promoting.

The average age in the room was at least forty, with Reese bringing it down ten years. These were seasoned men who had graduated prison after proper length sentences, armed with a list of contacts and a need to scrape back some of what they’d forfeited during their time inside. Families had been lost, friendships, opportunities…There was compensation owed to them, by the state, by the universe. 
     Reese wasn’t sure how he’d become one of their number. 
     There was a tension in the room which was the standard forecast whenever they were due a visit from Kidd. This morning Reese was above it, too spaced to care. He leant back against the greasy cabinets and watched the screen. The author’s spot was over apparently, as the presenter had begun to thank him and applaud him out of his seat mid-sentence. 
     The news came on and when Deano’s picture flashed up it was so surreal that Reese didn’t register it at first and dismissed it as a symptom of his exhaustion. It was him though, his brother.

‘Hey, can we turn this up?’ he said to the room, which despite the absence of conversation seemed suddenly loud with the sound of chewing, the wet click of jaws and tongues. Reese sought around for the remote and couldn’t find it. ‘Can we turn the volume up? How do I make it louder?’ He was ignored. He went to the ancient television set, found a button with a plus sign on it and pressed it repeatedly. The sound crept up.

He heard what the newscaster was saying but it took a little longer for the words to take effect.

‘The body of a child found in Kent woodlands two days ago has been identified as local schoolboy Dean Stowe, son of shamed construction executive Sam Stowe. Kent police earlier confirmed that Dean had been murdered. Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death are ongoing, as tributes for the popular teenager continue to pour in today on social media �" ’

Reese fumbled with the key in the kitchen door. He threw it open and staggered out onto the freezing patio. His stomach lurched and he dry-heaved into a planter full of f*g ends and dead nettles.

It was Deano, not Dean. No-one called him Dean. If they were wrong about that then they could be wrong about him being dead. Maybe it was another kid. Reese realised he was wishing this loss on some other family, but he didn’t care.

Deano. His cocky, snarky little s**t of a brother. There was no conceivable way he could be gone. He was the only one of them who hadn’t known anything. He was the only innocent one of the lot of them. There was no reason for him to be dead. He was a child.

Reese clicked. That was why the fat cop had been at the house. He had assumed it was something to do with dad, poor dad, who had sat alone and dead for so long.

Reese dropped onto his bony backside and vaguely registered the damp seeping up through his jeans. He spat out the last dregs of bile and wiped his wrist across his mouth, staring up at the staggered row of tiny brick houses that lined the vertiginous street, whose small single-glazed windows were dark and empty at this hour.

Lights would start to come on soon. The sky was becoming a lighter shade of grey. He was expected in Rotterdam by evening.

He couldn’t go, not now. How would mum be coping? He needed to call her, needed to call Deano, just to check. He would answer. It was impossible that he wouldn’t answer.

‘What are you doing?’

Kidd stood silhouetted in the kitchen doorway with his feet shoulder width apart and arms folded. He stood like a cop did. Not for the first time, Reese wondered if he had once been Filth.

‘My brother’s dead.’ He didn’t know why he told him. He was fairly certain Kidd wouldn’t give a f**k. Reese clasped his hands behind his neck and put his head between his knees. Saying it made it real and the pain was visceral. ‘Someone killed him…’

As he scrunched his eyes shut Reese felt a warmth beside him and a muscular arm drop heavily around his shoulders. Kidd was sitting next to him on the rain soaked flagstone. ‘Was it you?’ Reese croaked. He didn’t know where his gall had come from. Kidd’s grip tightened. Reese lifted his head and looked into the man’s eyes which were the colour of glacial ice and just as lacking in warmth. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘No. We didn’t.’ Kidd’s voice was level. He had an accent that Reese had never been able to pin. Northern, maybe somewhere from the borders. He spoke in short, concise sentences. He smelt of cologne, more chemical than fragrant. Everything about him was clean, clinical. Reese had no reason not to believe the man. No reason to trust him either. ‘You’re on the Rotterdam rig.’
     ‘Yeah.’

‘We’ll find someone else.’ Kidd stood and swept his palms over his dark jeans.  ‘Go back to bed.’

Reese lifted his head, his eyes pink and suspicious. ‘But…’

‘We’ll find out what happened to your brother.’

‘The police are �"’

‘The police are f*****g useless. We’ll sort this. Go back to bed.’ Kidd held the door open for him. The first dim light of day picked out the silver in his russet beard. ‘Go on.’

Reese got slowly, stiffly to his feet. He trailed past Kidd who slapped one large hand on his shoulder again. He felt a blast of wind behind him as the door was sucked shut. He was in the hall when Kidd turned the key to the kitchen door, locking it. The sound of the deadbolt shooting home had a finality to it. He removed the key and pocketed it.

Levi made eye contact. Kidd stared him down. ‘Not a word,’ he threatened the Dutchman. ‘Not one word.’ 

 

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[NoelHC]

The description of the place made my skin crawl, I have been in dismal settings like this one, you have shown the grit and seamier side of that sub-culture. I feel this has advanced the tale and introduced some characters I am guessing we will hear about again. Reese underestimated his mother, her concern for her son outweighed her usual reticence with the cops.

A few suggestions:

Dutchman with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes who he didn’t know much about (Replace he with Reese?)

Down a narrow staircase, into a hall stacked with overstuffed bin-bags. (Clause, not a sentence, start with They went?) I dunno, I often use clauses, like one would in conversation, myself. I always get busted on that.

To scrape back some of what they’d forfeited during their time inside. (Clause, not a sentence, maybe a ; to join?)

[SLD Bailey]

Ahh, naughty clauses! I usually catch these things during the editing process - must have been off my game! Thanks for pointing them out :) You're absolutely right about Jodie, of course. Reese (and others...) would do well not to underestimate her.

[escherflight]

Wow! Brilliant atmosphere, well judged details. Horrible existence for you protagonist, but superb delivery of it by you!

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks so much for taking the time to read, escherflight! I'm glad the atmosphere was suitably nasty -- this was not a chapter I enjoyed writing particularly..!

[W.k.kortas]

A bit of a departure in that there isn't a great deal of action, but that's simply an observation, and certainly not a criticism; the descriptive language, the scene-setting, the dialogue is all first-rate.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks, Kortas :) The chapter felt like a departure to write as well, particularly as it's the first not primarily from Vega's POV. I hope you enjoyed it!