Warhol's Prophecy (4 page)

‘Where did you get to?’ Hailey said finally, a slight edge to her voice, her concern now almost overridden by anger. ‘Why did you walk away from me? I’ve told you before never to leave me when we’re out in a crowd.’

‘I went to look for a CD for Dad,’ Becky said apologetically. ‘I could still see you from where I was. Then some men stood in front, and I couldn’t see you. You ran away.’

‘Because I thought I’d lost you,’ Hailey snapped. ‘I was
looking
for you.’

Again she hugged her daughter. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she persisted. ‘No one touched you, did they? Where have you been all this time?’

‘Adam found me,’ said Becky, turning. Now, for the first time, Hailey noticed that there was someone else at the door.

She straightened up, still holding Becky as if frightened to release her.

The newcomers moved sheepishly into the room, nervous of intruding on this reunion. One wore the dark blue uniform of a security guard.

‘That’s Adam,’ said Becky, jabbing her small index finger in the direction of the other man by the doorway.

‘Adam Walker,’ he said, smiling.

‘My name’s Stuart Jenkins,’ the uniformed man told her. ‘I’m with Security here.’ There was an officiousness to his tone.

‘Where did you find her?’ asked Hailey.

‘By the fountain outside,’ Walker said. ‘She was looking at the fish – weren’t you?’ He winked at Becky, who smiled coyly.

‘What were you doing by the fountain?’ Hailey demanded of her daughter. ‘That’s nowhere
near
where we got separated.’

‘Mr Walker actually prevented an accident,’ Jenkins offered. ‘Your daughter wandered outside onto the road. If it hadn’t been for Mr Walker’s intervention . . .’ He allowed the sentence to trail off.

‘What were you doing out on the road?’ Hailey rasped, gripping her daughter by the arm. ‘You could have been killed.’

‘I was looking for the car,’ Becky said, tears welling. ‘I thought I’d wait for you there.’

Walker cut the child short. ‘You’ve got her back, that’s all that matters,’ he said, still smiling that infectious smile.

He took a step back.

‘I’ll leave you alone now,’ he said, retreating. ‘Unless there’s anything else I can do to help. Do you need a lift home or anything? You must be a bit shaken up after what’s happened.’

‘We’ll be OK. Thanks for offering, though.’

‘Goodbye, then, Becky,’ he said, waving to her. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you.’ He bowed exaggeratedly. ‘Although I wish it had been in happier circumstances.’

Becky sniffed back a tear and managed a smile.

‘’Bye, Adam,’ said the little girl, waving back at him.

‘Thanks again, Mr Walker,’ Hailey offered.

‘Adam,’ he insisted. ‘It was my pleasure, Hailey.’

She looked surprised that he knew her name.

Noticing this, he pointed at Becky.

‘You can’t have any secrets when you’ve got a five-year-old, can you?’

And he was gone.

Jenkins followed him out of the room.

‘Are we going home now, Mum?’ Becky wanted to know.

Hailey looked at her and kissed her on the forehead.

‘What do
you
think?’ She smiled.

16 WARDLE BROOK AVENUE, HATTERSLEY, GREATER MANCHESTER

It was too cold to be out at this time of night. Standing waiting for the door to be opened. What was the big deal anyway? Why the secrecy?

Mind you, Ian was always like that. But Ian knew what was what. Clever man, Ian.

He’d lent him books and recommended others for reading. Part of an education, he had joked.

It was Ian who answered the door now. He looked smart for such a late hour: waistcoat and cufflinks. He looked as if he was on his way out somewhere, not on his way to bed.

He ushered his visitor inside, said something about those miniature bottles of alcohol he’d been promising to show. Then he disappeared for a moment.

The scream came from the sitting room.

Then a voice he recognized.

‘
Help him. Help him.
’

He dashed into the sitting room, stopping dead at the threshold.

The room was in virtual darkness. Thick shadows, cast by the lamp on top of the TV set, carpeted the small room.

On the floor next to the couch a figure lay on its stomach.

It was screaming.

Ian was standing astride it.

Hitting it with something.

Great savage blows across the back of the skull, and the figure continued to writhe and scream.

He realized that the figure was a youth barely older than himself. Or wasn’t it real?

No, this had to be some kind of joke, didn’t it?

Ian was playing a joke on him.

The figure
had
to be a life-size model the way it jerked about with each fresh impact.

Each fresh impact on the skull.

With the axe.

The weapon was wielded with expert ferocity. And now he saw blood spurting, and he knew for sure that this was no joke.

He looked at Ian, who continued striking with the axe. He heard words like ‘
bastard
’ and ‘
cunt
’ shouted with each blow.

Fourteen blows.

And there was blood everywhere.

On the carpet. On the sofa. The walls. The fireplace.

It would have to be cleaned up.

Perhaps the woman watching would do that, he thought. The woman with the platinum-blonde hair, who stood gazing raptly at the scene of carnage before her. She was patting her two dogs, who had been in the room the whole time – but he had only just noticed them.

The woman paused for a moment, as if waiting for orders, then she wandered into the kitchen and he heard the sound of running water.

Ian told him to go and help. Help to clean the place up. Myra couldn’t be expected to do it all on her own, could she?

And, when they’d finished, she’d make them all a cup of tea.

Good old Myra.

As he stepped across the blood-slicked carpet, he almost trod in something.

Something reddish-grey in colour.

Something with the consistency of jelly.

It took him only a second to realize it was a sliver of brain.

He thought he was going to be sick.

6 October 1965

T
HE BLADE WAS
no more than three inches long.

Fashioned from a single piece of iron, it was triangular in shape, rough-sharpened on both sides and needle-sharp at the tip.

The makeshift handle had been formed by driving the sharpened metal into a piece of thick wood. That wood had then been repeatedly wrapped in masking tape.

The whole lethal weapon was less than six inches in length.

‘And how the fuck did you get that out of the machine shop?’ asked Paul Doolan, looking at the blade.

David Layton didn’t answer.

He sat silently on the edge of his bunk, gazing down almost lovingly at the knife that rested on his pillow.

‘If the screws flip this fucking cell, we’re both in the shit,’ said Doolan. ‘If they find that, we’ll . . .’

‘They’re not going to find it,’ snapped Layton irritably. ‘The fucking thing won’t be here long enough for that. Besides, if we don’t give the fucking twirls reason to flip us, then they won’t, will they? This’ll be gone by tomorrow.’

‘When you doing it?’ Doolan wanted to know.

Layton shrugged.

‘When the time’s right,’ he said quietly.

‘Who is this geezer anyway? Why does Brycey want him cut?’

‘It’s family business, so I hear. This Morton bloke, the one who Brycey wants cut, they stick him in here for receiving, or something like that. Only it turns out, while he’s been in the real world, he’s been shafting Brycey’s cousin, hasn’t he?’

‘And Brycey didn’t know that?’

Layton shook his head.

‘One of the most powerful gang bosses in East London, and this Morton geezer is cutting a slice off his fucking cousin,’ he chuckled.

‘So Morton didn’t know who this bird was?’

‘No, not a clue. ’Course, the fact that she’s only seventeen didn’t exactly please Brycey, did it? I mean, from what I’ve heard, she’s a right little slag anyway. Could suck a golf ball through a fucking garden hose, that type.’

Both men laughed.

‘More pricks than a second-hand dartboard,’ Doolan added.

‘Yeah –
and
the rest,’ Layton continued.

‘So Brycey wants you to do him up?’

‘What was I going to say? If Geoff Bryce asks you to do something, you fucking do it, don’t you?’

‘With less than a month to parole?’

‘What would
you
have done? Told him to go fuck himself?’

‘No, of course not. But
I
haven’t got less than a month to jam roll, have I?’

‘Look, if I do this job for Brycey, I walk out of here with a few bob in my pocket. If I
don’t
do it, I don’t
walk
. Besides, I couldn’t give a fuck. I don’t
know
this Morton bloke, so what do
I
care?’

David Layton slid the blade beneath his pillow and lay back on his bunk.

He lay on his side, gazing across at the opposite wall of the cell: at the array of photos showing naked women in every manner of pose. He’d stuck most of the pictures up there himself, Blu-tacked to the discoloured stonework.

On the bunk above him, Paul Doolan was flipping slowly through the daily paper, occasionally reading sections aloud.

He was thirty-two, four years older than Layton. Both men had spent the majority of their lives in and out of various institutions. Layton himself had begun with a remand home at thirteen and then, as theft had become receiving stolen goods, then possession of cocaine, and finally several charges of assault and grievous bodily harm, he had graduated to a series of prisons.

This cell in Wandsworth was his latest.

A three stretch for glassing some fucking ponce inside a nightclub in Hackney. It had left the victim with one hundred and twenty-six stitches in his face, and Layton with another listing on his record. He had once joked that he had more form than Red Rum.

Prison life didn’t bother him. Why should it? He knew the system here inside out. He knew how to work it to his advantage. Lots of men folded inside. Not David Layton: he had blossomed.

‘So,’ said Doolan, leaning over to look down at his cellmate. ‘How
did
you get that blade out of the machine shop? You didn’t tell me. You couldn’t have crutched something like
that
.’

‘Does it matter?’ said Layton.

‘Just curious.’

‘Well, you know what curiosity does, don’t you? And not just to cats.’