Killing the Beasts (6 page)

'Shit! You mean you're getting married? Or is she pregnant? Or both?' Tom pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Jon.

'No thanks – that's part of the deal. No marriage yet, but we're giving up smoking and starting to try for a kid. A general cleanliving caper.' He looked down at his pint and tilted it reflectively to the side. 'Apart from the odd ale, of course.'

'Jesus,' said Tom, lighting up. 'Feel ready for all that stuff, then?'

Jon took a long sip from his pint. He would have given a totally honest answer if he hadn't felt that Tom was holding back on his own description of married life. He would have admitted the whole prospect terrified him, admitted that he feared his entire life was about to be ruined. He might even have admitted that now he couldn't help looking at Nikki Kingston, the crime scene manager he casually flirted with, as a potential escape route if he turned out to be as big a failure at fatherhood as he feared. Instead he said, 'Ready as you can ever be, I suppose. It's about time. Alice is thirty two now and you know women – they start getting very aware of their biological clocks after thirty. You've got eight years to go with Charlotte.'

'Yeah, 'Tom faintly replied. Jon got the feeling it was a source of regret for his friend.

'Anyway,' said Jon, draining the last of his pint. 'What are we doing? Staying here for another or calling it a day?'

Tom looked down at the pitch. Most of the crowd had now gone and a group of kids tussled over a rugby ball beneath one set of posts while a couple of groundsmen trod back dislodged lumps of turf at the halfway line, their shadows stretching far out across the grass. 'Come on. Let's get a cab into town.'

'Yeah, why not?' Jon felt a sudden warm surge of pleasure at the prospect of a lazy Sunday evening spent getting drunk. He caved in to it and picked up his friend's pack of Silk Cut. 'Don't bloody tell Alice,' he mumbled, a cigarette bobbing between his lips.

Tom laughed and offered him a light.

Evening sun flooded through the windscreen as they waited for the lights to change. Drumming his fingers on his knee, Jon squinted up at the twenty-two-storey office block on his right. Its entire side had been coated in a vivid yellow and almost 250 feet above, three painted figures – one red, one blue, one green – stood with arms raised in triumph. Below them classically styled, twenty-foot-high lettering proudly proclaimed, 'Manchester 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games.'

Jon's eyes slid halfway down the building to the enormous digital readout mounted on its side. The orange number glowing from the screen had dropped again.

'Eighty-one days to go. Can you believe it?' he said, looking up the four lanes of Portland Street towards Piccadilly Gardens. Suspended from each lamppost along the length of the street were vertical banners. Orange, purple, lime or turquoise, each one had the same three triumphant figures at the top and the words, 'The XVII Commonwealth Games' stretching below. They lent the street a celebratory air, the kind Jon imagined ancient Rome enjoyed prior to an event in the Colosseum. 'So come on then, talk me through what you actually do to deserve your flash car and big house in Didsbury.'

'Loads, actually,' Tom told him pompously. 'Big, big, highpowered stuff. Very complicated for the lay person to understand.' He grinned, dropping the act. 'Just sales, really. Ringing people up and persuading them to part with some cash. Only this time round I'm usually offering people money to take my product.'

In explanation, he swivelled round and pointed to the intersection behind them, 'See that derelict martial arts centre at the corner of Princess Street? I've just persuaded the owner to take a big payment from Cusson's so they can wrap it in a giant advertisement for their soap. That site is a monster – it'll probably need eighteen drops of material stitched together to cover it. Did you know Cusson's have also just confirmed their contribution to the sponsorship pot? It's now got over forty million in it.'

By now they were parallel with the Commonwealth Games visitor centre. Located in a recently built office, its plate glass windows were blanked out with poorly arranged sheets of white paper. Through the gaps, workmen could be seen hurriedly constructing the shop's interior.

Nodding towards it, the taxi driver joined in. 'I was driving one of the guys on the council's organizing committee the other day. He told me what the sales projections are for that outlet and the one at Sportcity once the Games start. What do you reckon, mate? How much merchandise are they planning to flog?'

Tom thought for a few moments. 'I don't know, twenty grand'sworth a day?'

The driver gave a little whistle and pointed a forefinger up at the ceiling of the car. 'Fifteen grand an hour. Fifteen thousand pounds each bloody hour. I tell you, there are fortunes to be made once this thing gets going. Absolute fortunes.'

Slowly the cab eased out of the block-shaped shadow cast by the seventies-style Piccadilly Hotel. As they passed over a set of tram rails, the space on their left opened up into the newly revamped Piccadilly Gardens. Jon thought back to when the area was nothing more than a sunken collection of flowerbeds that seemed to suck in rubbish and debris like a drain attracts water. When lunch hour arrived office workers, desperate for any sort of green surroundings in the city centre, used to make do with the patchy grass slopes. He reflected on how much time he'd spent as a fresh-faced constable moving on the bickering huddles of drunks from the lacerated benches that bordered the gardens. The statues that interspersed the area had greened over with age. Pigeons would nestle on Queen Victoria's head, staining her hair white with their shit.

Now, after a ten-million-pound facelift, the area was almost ready to reopen. Behind ten-feet-high perimeter panels displaying colourful snapshots of central Manchester, the sunken gardens had been filled in, the all-day drinkers moved on and the pigeons made perchless while the statues were taken away for cleaning. Expanses of freshly laid turf and multitudes of designer benches awaited the rush. At the far end, in front of the Burger King, clusters of newly planted saplings stood in a sea of pristine pavement. Square after square of Spanish limestone and slabs of grey York stone silently waited their first footfalls.

The car had now reached the turning for London Road, which led down to Piccadilly station, gateway to Manchester's city centre. Again the workmen had been busy, altering the road layout to incorporate a raised concrete area dotted with trees down its middle.

Tom pointed to a partially converted building on their left. 'That is going to be a Rossetti hotel. The scaffolding won't be down before the Games start, so I rang them and asked if they'd be interested in a nice building wrap to hide all their builders' hairy arses. Nastro Azzurro rang last week looking for a site, so I paired them up. You know how Italians like doing business with each other – the Godfather and all that.'

'And how much money are they paying for it?' asked Jon, examining the mass of scaffolding. 'Thousands.'

'And what sort of commission do you get on the deal?'

'Thousands,' repeated Tom, unable to help smiling.

Jon sat back in his seat and blew out his cheeks.

At the junction to the half-built station concourse Tom asked, 'You really want to drink in the Bull's Head?' He looked down the road to the pub.

'Yeah,' answered Jon. 'Why?'

Tom laughed. 'Nothing. It's just that we come all the way into town – Castlefield, Deansgate Locks, the Northern Quarter – and you choose an old boozer behind the station.'

Jon shrugged. 'I told you. Give me somewhere with decent beer, music that lets you talk and enough seats. It's not like we're out trying to pull, are we?'

Tom nodded. 'Tell you what, let's have a look at my office first. It's only round the corner in Ardwick.' He leaned forward to address the driver. 'That all right, mate?'

'You're the boss,' he replied. 'What's the address?'

'Seven, Ardwick Crescent.'

The car carried on through the lights, past the redeveloped rear of the station with its new taxi rank. Within seconds, they'd pulled up outside what had once been a cramped terrace of residential housing.

Above the front door of the house before them was a sign reading,' It's A Wrap'. The office was two old houses turned into one, the narrow alley between them sealed off with plated glass which arched backwards to form a curved atrium between the two buildings.

'This is where it all happens,' said Tom, looking up at the building and seeing the windows lit up on the first floor. 'I don't believe it; Creepy George is in.'

They flicked the driver a fiver each and climbed out.

'Who's Creepy George?'

Tom shook his head. 'Don't ask. Hopefully someone's just left the lights on and he's not there at all.'

He pulled out his keys and opened up the heavily reinforced front door. When the alarm didn't start up with its warning beeps Tom said over his shoulder, 'He's here.'

Jon followed him into a foyer that continued the theme of a modern office carved from an industrial town house. The walls were stripped back to the brickwork and an old mangle stood in the corner. Hessian sacks with the word 'cotton' were piled to the side of the brushed stainless steel desk.

Tom opened a side door that led into the main boardroom. He pulled open the pale yellow Smeg fridge in the corner, took out two bottles of Becks, popped the caps on the wall-mounted opener and handed one to Jon.

'You can just help yourself?' said Jon, surprised.

'As long as you don't take the piss.'

Jon stepped into the room, opened up the fridge and saw it was stacked full of bottles. 'Bloody hell! Why am I in the public sector? We even have to pay for our coffee and tea.'

Tom laughed. 'Come on, I'll show you my office.'

They proceeded through an archway that led into the flagstone alley. Beneath the protective glass panels, two giant rubber plants thrived. Stepping through into the adjoining building, Tom pointed towards a door marked 'Head Honcho'. He raised his hand to his forehead and made a dickhead gesture, then began climbing up the circular iron staircase that curled up to the first floor where former bedrooms had been knocked through to form a single, open-plan office. Inside five workstations had been crammed in for the account handlers. The corner alcove was entirely taken up by a fortress of monitors and computer equipment.

Tom stepped through the doorway and was about to wave a hand at his desk when a flurry of activity started up. Visible behind the barricade of equipment in the corner was a mass of black hair. Creepy George. Their sudden appearance had obviously taken him by surprise and he was scrabbling to close down whatever he had been viewing on his monitor.

'Evening, George. Keeping busy?' Tom asked, not stepping any closer to his colleague's work area.

'Mmm, yes. I...' Slowly Creepy George rose to his feet, the bushy hair connecting with an equally dense pair of sideburns. Framed in it all was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with particularly thick lenses. His eyes flashed darkly. 'Just tidying up some old files on the main server.' He reached for the front pocket of his thick khaki shirt and pulled out a Phillips screwdriver. Pointing it at the semi-disembowelled hard drive on his desk, wires and circuit boards exposed for everyone to see, he added, 'I need to fix Tris's

machine before Monday, too.'

He still hadn't looked at Jon.

'Oh right,' said Tom. 'Well, we're only popping in so my friend here can have a look round. Jon, this is George.'

'Hi,' said Jon, stepping forwards and holding a hand out over the monitors separating George from the rest of the room. A pair of magnified eyes blinked once, almost black irises giving him the stare of a corpse. Then a clammy palm was pressed briefly against Jon's hand, fingers barely flexing before contact was broken.

To Jon's surprise, a feeling that bordered on revulsion suddenly reared up inside him, instinctive and instantaneous.

Ten minutes later they were settling into two leather chairs in the snug surroundings of the Bull's Head. An early Van Morrison track was playing quietly from invisible speakers as Jon gulped a mouthful of beer and said, 'What's the score with that bloke in your office?'

'Creepy George?' said Tom, shrugging his shoulders. 'He was at the company long before I joined. One of those people who melt into the background whenever the occasional job has to be cut. I'm not really sure what his exact role is – I've heard him described as office manager; he's responsible for the computer system and in charge of getting the photocopiers and colour printers up and running again when they get jammed or run out of toner. Aside from that, he backs up all the files at the end of the day, orders new pieces of kit and upgrades equipment when it's needed. He chooses to work really strange hours – comes in late morning then works through far into the evenings, totally alone. If he's ever at his desk first thing in the morning, he's been there all night. Doing exactly what, I've no idea. No one has ever seen him eat anything other than family-size bags of Minstrels and he only drinks some type of purple squash from a bottle he brings in with him each day.'

'Well,' said Jon. 'He wasn't tidying up old computer files when we walked in on him. He couldn't get rid of whatever was on his computer screen fast enough.'

'That's the copper in you,' said Tom. 'I hadn't noticed. He was probably about to beat off to some teenage sex site.'

Or worse, Jon almost replied. Another pint later and Jon felt he could ask Tom about Charlotte again. 'So come on, mate. Cards on the table. How are you really finding married life?'

'What do you mean?' Tom answered, a tiny note of defensiveness in his voice.

Jon decided to lay out an admission of his own and see what it prompted. 'To be honest, the whole marriage thing makes me shit my pants.'

'What? But you're as good as married already! You've been with Alice for donkey's years.'

'Yeah, I know.' He looked at Tom's wedding band. 'But it's the formality of it all. I don't know, it makes me feel claustrophobic.'