Decay Inevitable

How had he got through that nightmare? It was bad enough trying to dodge Eddie, but there had been one outlandish, Carry On moment that almost undid him. Assembling outside the changing rooms, in preparation to move on to the nearest pub to start the day’s drinking in earnest, Sean had cried off to Danny and Nicky, complaining that he hadn’t slept well and was feeling really washed out. He had batted away all protests and was turning to go when Danny told him that Eddie wasn’t staying either and could give him a lift into town.

“Do you know,” Sean said, “I think maybe you’re right. Mullered as I am, it might just do me the world of good to get some ale inside me and have some fun for a change.”

It had proved to be only a slightly better alternative to facing up to Futcher and risking his being exposed as an ex-cop. Punishing wasn’t the word. There hadn’t yet been a word invented to describe the hell Danny’s stag night visited upon him and, judging by the appearance of some of them come midnight, his companions too.

After the football, relocating to the Cheshire Cheese for a restorative first pint, it was put forward that the logical progression for the day was to walk to town, dropping in at the pubs on the way, and then head in the opposite direction, stopping off for a few lanes at the bowling alley, then turn back into town for the evening slog, a curry, and on to a club.

Sean did all that, and the last thing he remembered before the alcohol took him over and plotted its autopilot course for the evening, was how pleasant it was, really, to be legless in daylight. Tim Enever hung on the coat-tails of the pack, drinking orange juice and eating endless packets of prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps. He refereed during an impromptu pool tournament at the Lord Rodney. He got up at Tempo, a fun-pub with more video screens than punters, and sang an excruciating version of “All Time High” on the karaoke that shut up the entire pub and brought the manager downstairs to ask if it was possible that Danny Chant’s party could leave “before freakboy scared everyone away”.

Sean remembered speaking to Tim, as well as Robbie – before he made his excuses – and Nicky Preece, but he couldn’t remember what it was they had talked about. All he could picture was Tim’s owlish eyes rotating in his head and spilling their rheum and Nicky with his arms around him, calling him his “Wonderwall” and asking if he was planning on knocking himself in with his lump hammer.

He had pretty much dismissed all suspicions of the boys being in with Vernon Lord at all, or having anything to do with Naomi’s death.

Two a.m., he had been sitting with Danny Chant and some guy called Norman who Sean was adamant had only just turned up but who, according to Danny, had been there from the very start.

“And you were dancing with him, Redders, in the club.”

They were sitting on a fence overlooking a bowling green belonging to a social club. A bottle of port nobody could remember buying was doing the rounds. As was a cold doner kebab. Danny’s eyes were doing figures of eight.

“I pity the poor sod who’s getting married,” he said. “You’ll never catch me at that game.” Then he leaned over to vomit gracefully in the rhododendron bush, slipped and was asleep before he hit the deck.

“I need to take a piss,” Sean said, and leapt down from the wall, landing a foot either side of Danny Chant’s head. Norman raised the port bottle in acknowledgement.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, taking a swig.

Sean staggered deep into the trees, enjoying the gentle striping of wet twigs against his face. The canal emerged through the knot of branches, coils of reflected white light mixing into the treacly water. Something thrashed against the surface, a pike maybe, before becoming submerged again, leaving only a cluster of bubbles and a spreading ripple to suggest a presence in the first place. It was impressive to think anything could survive in that soup. From here, the smell was brown and oppressive; it lingered like the urinous reek of scorched dinners in your clothes. Sean unzipped himself and added to the rich stew. He watched steam from his waste rise lazily and drift off to the row of gleaming black railings that separated the banks of the canal from a clutch of depressed shops and upper-floor bedsits.

Sense descended on him; he recognised this place. He had rescued Emma from the bushes over there. Remembering what he had been doing around here was harder to dredge, but it came, when he recalled the route he had taken while running that morning, and the defunct ironmonger’s that he had observed Ronnie Salt enter.