Balzac of the Badlands Page 8

  ‘OK. I’m OK. Poor man.’

  ‘Tell me, ba-’

  ‘He can barely speak, his mouth and jaw are swollen. They took him to his haulage yard. They asked about his daughter. The more he denied knowledge, the more they beat him. They took him to his office, trashed the place, tried to find paperwork relating to addresses where she might be hiding. Couldn’t find anything so they beat him more. When he could – when he was conscious – he asked about his daughter. They beat him more.’

  ‘Wait a minute. The people who’ve got Mr. Beckford don’t have Sarah? Doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Hold on. They made him phone his employees to tell them to take the day off. They stripped him and took him outside. They opened up the back of the lorry, threw him in. Then two climbed in after him, tied him up, and beat him again. All over. Everywhere. He says he’s not sure how long he’s been unconscious or where he is. He’s crammed in somewhere and is finding it hard to breathe. He can’t move. He’s gagged and tied. The blindfold’s fallen off but it’s pitch black. He thinks he can see a strip of light but because of the beatings he’s been hallucinating so he’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t. And he keeps slipping in and out of consciousness.’

  ‘OK. They might not have taken him off site.’

  ‘He also said he thought some of the men were English.’

  ‘English? I thought it had something to do with the Kurds. But then Ozan… Is he still there? I mean, can you talk to him? Hear him?’

  ‘No. He said he heard the men talking about finding his daughter. He didn’t hear why.’

  ‘Hold on. Why are they looking for her?’

  ‘What are you getting at, Balzac?’

  ‘Hold on,’ and I take my moby out and dial.

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Are you outside Beckford Haulage?’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Is that on the same street?’

  ‘–––-’

  I can’t help smirking. I just can’t. ‘Trollope’s Trucking? You’re having a laugh.’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Spoken to Ozan. Says he doesn’t know a thing. Showed him the photo. Not a sausage.’ Damn! There’s that guilt again.

  ‘Go in and have a look. Mr. Beckford’s in there somewhere. I know it. He’s crammed in – dunno, maybe a car boot…’

  ‘He says it’s rusty and smells of diesel.’

  ‘Rusty and smells of diesel,’ The Mermaid reckons. ‘Yeah, it worked. Gruesome picture. They gave the poor bastard a right seeing-to. But, and listen to this, no sign of the daughter.’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Give us ten and we’ll be over to help you look.’

  ‘Balzac, sorry, but all that talk of Ozan and Kurds…’

  ‘Yeah, what of it? On the wrong track, wasn’t I?’

  ‘But doesn’t Sarah work for a refugee charity? Isn’t she some sort of fundraiser?’

  ‘Fuck. Yeah, she is. Duh!’

  ‘And you’re telling me Ozan doesn’t know her?’

  ‘Let’s go and have another word. Where are you parked?’

  ‘Burgoyne.’

  ‘Get your car. Drive around the block. Pick me up in ten minutes outside Ozan’s club. Call H and tell him we’ll be a little late.’

  I’m sort of trembling and shaky. Could be just the normal feeling after a night on the lash or the after effects from that sugar low earlier. But I don’t think so. This is different. More ancient. Primal. I don’t know how else to describe it.

  Grand Parade is busy with shoppers – looks like they’ve come from all over: Wood Greenians, Crouch Enders, Tottenhamites, all mixed with what could be Neptunians, Plutonians, Erisians. People gape at mystery fruits, prod the alien skin of suspicious vegetables. They turn as I pass. Shoppers shield their secret purchases. Sickly children wipe snot on their mother’s purple leggings. This is how it gets to me. Once things start falling into place, the wheels of the world slow to a grind, I see things as if for the first time. The carmine filigreed veins on that woman’s cheeks, the olive-emerald eye snot of the baker’s assistant, the bus driver’s purple eye patch, and the grime beneath the nails of the boy carrying the extra-large pizza box. It’s like peering into a new world, one that you understand, are somehow attached to – that backward look of recognition – one that gives you a hard-on, expunges the frothing clouds, abolishes that furtive vulnerability.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ I hear.

  ‘Inaccessible,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t go by that name any more,’ he says, ‘got some respect now, ain’t I?’

  ‘Look, I’m busy. I’m on my way to see Ozan. You’re more than welcome to come with.’

  Inaccessible blanches at the sound of Ozan’s name.

  ‘Thanks for the drink earlier. Eric says you owe him. Double brandy.’

  He takes a swing, I duck, grab the nearest thing at hand – handy – a watermelon. It bounces off Inaccessible’s head, rolls into the road where a number 29 pulps it to soup, splashing the passing cars with hard rind and soft flesh. Inaccessible’s down on one knee – a smaller version of Citrullus lanatus blooming from his forehead. People ignore us. This is nothing. I make sure Inaccessible doesn’t fall into traffic. He slumps forward. I nestle him between a lamppost and a rubbish bag. I’m going to have to sort this once and for all. Later.

  Ozan stands, arms folded, at the doorway to his club.

  ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Inaccessible.’

  ‘He’s out?’

  ‘Yeah, in more ways than one. Here, heard any more about the party balloons?’

  ‘Kurds from Iraq. Came in via Calais. Lorry-load of smack all mixed in with ‘em. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Come on, Ozan. Pull the other one. The Badirkhans are banged up – who else would be organizing something like this?’

  ‘Not me. Not drugs. I feel sorry for the poor bastards but smuggling shit in their stomach…’

  ‘What? That doesn’t make sense. What’ll happen to ‘em?’

  ‘The ones that got away, or were found, are claiming refugee status. Probably have family here. They’ll be put up somewhere until the papers are processed. They’ll be all right. They said they know nothing about the drugs – say they were made to swallow stuff, weren’t sure what it was. Said they were promised jobs. News to me.’

  I take out the photo of Sarah and show it to Ozan, I slip the photo of her father behind it. Ozan takes them. Looks at one, then the other. Grimaces.

  ‘Nasty. Friend of yours?’

  ‘Sarah’s dad. He’s been kicked to shit and locked up somewhere. I’m off to help H find him. Strange, he owns a haulage yard near to where your mates were found. And she,’ I says tapping the photo, ‘works for a refugee charity. Local,’ I add.

  Ozan looks at both, holding them up, one in each hand. His cheeks redden.

  ‘Can’t help you,’ he says and turns.

  I grab his arm.

  ‘Come on, Ozan, it’s me. You know something.’

  Ozan stares at me. Shrugs off my hand.

  ‘All I’m saying. And this is all I’m saying, Balzac, and then leave it.’

  ‘I just want to find that geezer and his daughter. Come on, Ozan, look at the state of him.’

  ‘She got mixed up in something. Over her head.’

  ‘Do you know where she is? Where he is? I’m guessing somewhere in his haulage yard.’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. But that would be my guess. I can’t say more, Balzac, I just can’t. Go and find that poor sod before he dies.’

  I hear the unmistakable be-bop-a-lula of a car horn – The Mermaid in the Mermobile.

  ‘I’ll be back, Ozan, don’t you go walkies now.’

  ‘Balzac, if I could help you I would. I can’t right now. You be careful.’

  I get into the car still staring at Ozan. ‘Drive,’ I tell The Mermaid, ‘drive.’

  ‘What’s up?’

 
‘Ozan knows something about Sarah – knows where she is, what she’s been up to but he won’t say. You know what he’s like – the steely gaze. But something’s not quite right. I think he’s scared.’

  ‘Why didn’t he tell you what he knew? It’s Ozan.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Sorry. Something’s going on with the Kurds. Something we’re missing. Sarah’s involved. Mr. Beckford’s just got caught up in it somehow. Let’s find him and then see if we can sort this thing out. And I thought it was a pissy little missing persons – a week of phone calls and questioning shopkeepers, nice little earner, lovely jubblee. JD.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now? Now we’ve got Kurds with bellies full of brown who were smuggled in on lorries already smuggling the stuff – must’ve looked like bags of brown sugar – my worst nightmare. And theirs, I suppose. And we’ve got a missing and badly beaten father – not to mention client – and a daughter who’s somehow involved in all of it. Fuck! And I wanted to go to the game on Saturday.’

  ‘You can’t be thinking of football now, Balzac.’

  ‘I’m not. Phone Mrs. Beckford and ask if she’s heard anything else.’

  ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  We turn right on to St. Ann’s Road and then take the Seven Sisters to Broad Lane.

  ‘No, we don’t. It’s one way,’ The Mermaid says.

  So we have to go up the High Road, turn into Tynemouth, then back south down Broad Lane to Markfield Road. Trollope’s Trucks.

  ‘Keep going,’ I tell The Mermaid, ‘park further down.’

  No sign of Mr. Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones. If he’s in The Dutch House…

  ‘If he’s in The Dutch House,’ I say to The Mermaid as I undo my seatbelt.

  ‘He’s there,’ she says, pointing to the gates of Beckford Haulage.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There,’ she says.

  And I see H at first one side of the gates, then the other. He hasn’t seen us. The gates are open. There is no sign of the police. And now no sign of H.

  ‘Where the fuck is he?’

  ‘Here,’ he says.

  ‘H,’ I say, my heart going like a coked-up sparrow in a coffee grinder, ‘find anything?’

  ‘Knowing, as I do, the simple strategies of the lackeys employed by the state to apprehend and incarcerate its various enemies, I surmised that, having already discovered a few members of the stateless peoples known since ancient times as the Kurds, their stomachs filled to bursting with processed opium, the boys from the Metropolitan Police would have clapped their hands together, given this establishment a cursory once-over, and departed to the local hostelry.’

  ‘You been drinking?’

  ‘Not a touch, not a drop, not a dash.’

  ‘Have a look at this.’ I show him the photo of Mr. Beckford.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Let’s fucking find him,’ H says.

  ***

  H does his thing and moves between the buildings faster than I can open a yoghurt carton. I ask The Mermaid to wait outside on the lookout in case the police return and I also ask her to call Mrs. Beckford to see if she’s heard anything else. You notice I don’t tell her. I ask her. Even so, The Mermaid’s none too pleased, arguing that in a fight she’d handle herself better than I could, which is true. I’ll tell you all about it later when we’re not so busy. But for now, stay on my tail while we look for Mr. Beckford. I know he’s in here somewhere.

  In the centre of the yard, parked at an angle to the buildings either side of it, is a lorry. What I know about lorries you could write on an angel’s eyelash. But this one looks new, lots of shiny chrome. It’s a Merc, I know that much. So, not cheap, I’d guess. I get down on my hands and knees and look underneath. Nothing but pebbles, mud, and puddles. I’ve never liked the smell of petrol. This place reeks of it. Or diesel. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.

  Pipes and stuff everywhere, making the underside of the lorry look intestinal, about to belch forth a froth of oil, or a flock of choking smoke. Cold. The police have been all over it, I know. But they might have missed something. I bang on a piece of metal that looks like it should be hollow – told you I know nothing about vehicle mechanics. It resonates and throws echoes off the stones. The puddles underneath tremble then settle, their miniature rainbows ripple then reform like someone’s using a Constable painting as a wobble board. Absorbed in palpitating the reality before me, I can’t be sure if I hear a response to my tapping.

  ***

  Ozan misses an easy eight-ball into the bottom right-hand pocket, the cue ball spins off, up on to the side of the pool table then on to the floor bouncing between the legs of a chair occupied by a young man picking his teeth with the edge of a crisp packet.

  ‘See what this has made me do?’ Ozan says to the room.

  ***

  But as I pull myself from under the rig, there it is – the scraping. It’s coming from the building to my right. H is in there, so it might be him making the noise, but it seems urgent, manic even. I didn’t hear it when we came into the yard, and it’s intermittent rather than rhythmic, so it’s probably not a machine. It’s coming to me gradually, then surging, then scrape, scrape, soft, as if tiring. Then constant again. No bloody sign of H.

  ***

  Apart from the young man picking his teeth, three other people sit or stand in the Qedrî Can social club. The club, closed during the day for the first time anyone can remember, holds the heat from their bodies, uneaten food cools on the side. Every ten minutes or so, the door gives slightly as someone tries to gain entry. Then a polite knock, the occasional swear word, and the sound of footsteps retreating up or down Grand Parade.

  ***

  I call H. I hear his ringtone, it’s coming from the same direction as the noise.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you hear that?’

  ‘I could and then you called and the Schoenberg drowned out the stridulant sonance.’

  ‘Come again. Where are you?’

  ‘At the rear of what I take to be a loading bay.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  ***

  Ozan moves around the pool table, slams the eight-ball into the cushions, watches it angle around the table, grabs it, smashes it into a pocket, retrieves it from the hole, begins again, all the time thinking, sometimes letting the people in the room in on his thoughts.

  ***

  Jumping up on to the loading platform, I prang my knee and bite my lip in reaction to the pain. Quiet now, I walk cautiously over the splintered boards, the pockmarked concrete, into the dark recesses of the bay. Something is alive here. Misshapen boxes, stacked either side, loom over me like piles of bitten-off thumbs.

  I jump aside as one stack looks as if it is about to topple.

  I pull myself together and move on into the oily light.

  ‘H?’

  A pumping sound, deep, unnerving, as if the yard is aware of my presence and is slowly waking.

  ‘H, are you in here?’

  I turn away from the direction in which I’m heading and hear my name called in a clear and tinkling tremolo. The Mermaid. My name fills the cavernous bay. She’ll have to wait. The weak sun gutters in the windows far above my head, oblivious of its purpose to light, to warm. Where the fuck is H?

  ‘Here,’ he says, stepping from behind a packing crate.

  ‘Jesus! Don’t do that,’ I say.

  ‘I heard M calling your name.’

  ‘Call her and see what she wants. You find anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m going in there,’ I point to the back of the bay littered with machine parts and empty crates.

  ***

  ‘Who knows where she is?’ Ozan asks the room.

  The three men and one woman look at each other and then stare at the floor as if waiting for a message to appear there.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Boss, as soon
as it went pear-shaped, we got out of there. We thought she’d do the same.’

  ‘So, you just left her?’

  ‘No. We… Well, I thought Dîlan or Firat were with her.’

  Ozan looks at the young man picking his teeth. The young man puts the crisp packet down and holds his hands in the air.

  ‘She was with me but I lost her. She was in one of the lorries. I think,’ Dîlan says.

  ‘Did she make it back to the yard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ***

  Metal, intricately woven, defeated and tangled, covers the bay floor. Strangely suggestive, gaping holes, blind pipes, the machine parts are lonesome, unloved; industrial porn abandoned to the cheap memory of past use. Anti-life. Things cut. Things sawed. Things forced together by instruments of their own kind. Riveted. Welded. Lubricants to ease the ingress now dried, flaking, blackened. And that smell – blood-like, sharp, angry. I step carefully through the debris, aware of the teeth, the jagged edges, the rusty knuckles. Shit.

  I call out softly, ‘Mr. Beckford? Are you in here?’

  ***

  Ozan picks up the eight-ball and squeezes it. Fuck. This should have been easy. It should’ve been. He told Sarah about the two lorries smuggling Kurdish immigrants into the country through Dover. Thought she’d help later with paperwork and funds. She comes up trumps. Her father’s haulage yard. She can get a spare set of keys. If both lorries get through, we intercept them on the motorway. Get the people out of the trucks, make sure the people are OK, take them to her father’s yard, get as much info as we can, try to get them papers, disperse them throughout the country, use contacts to find them jobs, somewhere to live.

  ‘I don’t believe this! I don’t fucking believe it,’ Ozan shouts and throws the eight-ball against the wall.

  ***

  A trickle of piss runs along the inside of his thigh, drops from his knee, pools. The disgust and rage he’s sure has kept him alive now spent, wasted.

  ***

  ‘Right. I need to go through this again because we need to find her. Dîlan?’

  ***

  There’s a persistent and uneasy throbbing above his eyes. The sound of his daughter throwing a ball against a brick wall. The coldness. The sharp little stars his eyes make when he blinks. The roar of time. Solitary. Inner. Insistent.