January Read online

  Kitkat grasped the bag and leant against the headrest.

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  The flat was empty as Kitkat pushed his front door closed and headed along the hallway. If his dad had been home he’d have been snoring in front of the television, but the only sound was the vague echo of fireworks farting into the air on the next estate over. Kitkat leant against the doorframe of the living room peering into the darkness, wondering in which boozer his father had ended up celebrating the new year.

  As if it mattered.

  He turned and edged towards his bedroom, peering cautiously towards the kitchen beyond just in case his dad was home. With no sign of movement, he entered his room and sat on the bed, running through the events of the evening. The carrier bag weighed heavily in his hands.

  Five grand.

  It was definitely somebody else’s money but, through whatever twist of fate, it had ended up in his hands. He’d been without a job since leaving school, bumming around the estate and doing odd jobs here and there. The last thing he wanted was to end up like Chris Green, nicking lead from roofs and fantasising over get-rich schemes that’d never come off. He wanted a proper job, something that would earn him money to get out of living with his dad on this hellhole estate. Now he had five thousand, enough to get his own flat somewhere nicer. Enough to buy a suit or something else he could use for interviews. If Chris had ended up with the money, it’d be gone on mad plots hatched with his idiot mate, Clarkey. Kitkat wasn’t stupid. If he was going to keep the money – if – he was going to do something sensible with it.

  He peered into the carrier bag at the rolled-up bundles of notes and then reached underneath his bed, hauling out his old school rucksack and emptying the cash into it. As he stifled a yawn, Kitkat stuffed the pack into the space between his bed and the simmering radiator. He sat staring at the crumpled bag, possibilities and consequences filling his mind before a cavalcade of eye-watering yawns replaced them.

  Whatever he decided to do, it was going to have to wait until morning.

  Kitkat was woken by the throbbing of the stump where his finger used to be. It was always like this when he spent any amount of time in the cold. He always felt ridiculous wearing gloves with one flapping finger, so he wore none and pretended he didn’t feel the chill. If he’d known how to use a needle and thread, he’d have customised a pair of woollen gloves but, instead, the biting Manchester winters were left to blitz his missing digit.

  He pushed himself up in bed, hearing a clatter from the kitchen as he rubbed at the space between his little finger and middle one. It took a moment for the cloud of sleep to clear but then he remembered the money. There was five thousand pounds lying a few centimetres from his head, waiting to be returned.

  Or spent.

  Kitkat yawned, glancing at the bag that was stuffed where he’d left it. He headed into the hallway with a stretch and another yawn, then tried to click his bedroom door closed quietly. The creak of the floorboards gave him away. The kitchen door was open and his father turned away from the cooker, thrusting a spatula in the air. Given that he would have been in the pub until the early hours, Kitkat’s dad looked surprisingly alert. He was dressed and shaven, his short greying hair glistening from a recent shower. He offered a chirpy wink.

  ‘Happy New Year! What did you get up to?’

  Kitkat swallowed a yawn and shrugged. ‘Not much.’ He turned in a circle, glancing towards the front door. It was locked, the chain in place, nothing smashed. If whoever the money belonged to knew he had it, they’d not come knocking.

  ‘I’m doing fried potatoes and tomatoes if you want some?’

  The memory of Chris’s chicken made Kitkat’s stomach turn. The last thing he wanted was food. ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Eleven. I figured I’d let you sleep. Do you want something to eat?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Kitkat mumbled something apologetic and headed for the bathroom. It smelled of shower gel and the walls were speckled with condensation. He sat on the toilet with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of the cooker. The flat’s walls were so thin that they offered next to no privacy from room to room. That was another reason to use the money wisely and get his own place. If he did ever get a girlfriend, he could hardly bring her back here.

  After flushing, Kitkat hurried across the hall to his bedroom, scooping up his phone from the floor where it had been charging. He had three text messages, all predictably from Chris and along the same lines.

  ‘Lunch at HH?’

  ‘Meet @ 1?’

  ‘HH yeh?’

  The Hare and Hound was the pub closest to where they lived. It was an utter hole and had been shut down twice in the previous eighteen months because of drug-dealing landlords. Somehow it kept reopening in a slightly lower state of repair than when it had closed. There was barely an evening that passed without someone trying to kick off, yet the prices kept the locals returning. Unsurprisingly, it was Chris’s boozer of choice. He was drawn to trouble like a Member of Parliament to an expenses form.

  As Kitkat stared at his phone, wondering how to reply, it buzzed again.

  ‘Shall I invite Clarkey?’

  Kitkat thumbed the screen, angrily tapping out the message. ‘NO CLARKEY – CU at 1.’

  If Chris was a liability, then his mate, Clarkey, was a bigger one. Together, they were a walking disaster zone. The last thing Kitkat wanted was the pair of them plotting how best to spend five thousand pounds.

  Kitkat put on his jeans and hoody from the previous evening, peered at the money that was bundled in the bottom of his backpack, and then looped the straps over his shoulders. He peeped around the kitchen door to where his father was sitting at the dining table, leafing through the racing pages of a red-top as he picked at the mound of potato, sausage and tomato on his plate.

  ‘You off out?’ Kitkat’s father asked.

  ‘For a bit.’

  His dad nodded towards the stove. ‘There are a couple of sausages going if you want any.’

  Kitkat shook his head. ‘Maybe later.’

  The slop of the mud ate into what was left of the grass on the courtyard outside Kitkat’s flat. The sagging Christmas tree in the centre was leaning even further to the side, hours away from toppling over entirely. Aside from a distant hum of traffic, everything was silent as a fluttering supermarket carrier bag drifted on the breeze, before entangling itself with the tree’s branches like the cheapest of decorations. Everyone had got so lashed the previous evening that no one was likely to emerge before lunch.

  Kitkat bustled along the row of flats, heading to the parking spaces, where his car remained untouched. The front was rimmed by crusty brown rust that was slowly beginning to overtake green as the vehicle’s main colour. It was a good job he knew the bloke who did the MOT, else there was no way it would have passed. Kitkat peered through the windows, wondering if anyone had left him a message asking for the money back, but there was nothing other than the smears of grease across the passenger seat and dashboard.

  Chris Sodding Bastarding Arseholing Green.

  With an hour and a half to kill before he went to the Hare and Hound, Kitkat had only one destination in mind. He thrust his hands into his pockets and set off, pacing sharply along the frosty, crumbling pavements in the vague direction of Manchester city centre. The wind was bitter, slicing through the material of his clothes and boring into his stump. He wrapped his remaining fingers around the gap, squeezing tightly and trying to pretend it wasn’t hurting.

  Soon, Kitkat crossed the Bridgewater Canal and then the River Irwell, barely seeing a soul until he reached the outskirts of the retail park. The red, white and blue lights still blazed from the Tennessee Fried Chicken restaurant as they had probably done all night. He pressed the button at the pedestrian crossing, but headed across without waiting for the green man to flash. There was no traffic anyway.

  He wasn’t sure what he expected – there was hardly going to be a ‘Where’s ou
r money?’ sign in the front window – but it was as if nothing had happened. Kitkat watched through the large panes at the front as the uniformed staff bustled behind the counter. There were three vehicles in the car park and a dozen or so people inside, but no sign of the server from the previous night – though it would have been quite the shift length if he was still on. No police, no signs, nothing. All was normal. Happy New Year: here’s five grand.

  Kitkat pulled the straps on his rucksack tighter, hoisting the bag higher on his shoulders. He could feel the money at the bottom. Was it really his? Could things be that easy?

  He edged along the front of the restaurant, sitting on a fixed bench at the end and removing his phone from his pocket. His fingers were shivering but he unlocked the screen to see that nobody had bothered to message him other than Chris earlier. He peered back through the window of the restaurant but nobody was paying him any attention.

  It was a new year but he was stuck with the same life – and was utterly invisible to all around him.

  With little else to do, Kitkat stood and headed back towards the main road. He’d get to the Hare and Hound a little before one but had no doubt Chris would already be there, most likely feeding a stream of pound coins into the fruit machine, already half-cut.

  Kitkat crossed the road, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets as he turned into a headwind.

  New year, same old Manchester weather.

  As he went over the bridge spanning the canal, Kitkat upped his pace, wanting to get out of the maelstrom. He was about to cross another road when there was a squeal of tyres. Kitkat turned too late as metal doors clanged open. Before he could say anything, something walloped into the side of his head, a glancing blow but enough to send him stumbling. He was on his knees, blinking away the stars as something was stuffed into his mouth. Before he could think of fighting back, his wrists were clamped together, stiff plastic ties cutting into his skin. Everything was over in an instant as something was looped over his head, leaving him in darkness as he was bundled sideways into what he assumed was a van. There was another screech of wheels and then he found himself being flung backwards, landing painfully with only the rucksack cushioning his fall.

  Kitkat wanted to yell but his mouth was full of a sock or something similar. He was no fighter but had grown up in an area in which everyone had to know how to look after themselves. In this instance, he’d not even been given a chance.

  He knew he had to find a way to remain calm, concentrating on what he could feel and hear. His wrists were in agony from what he assumed were cable ties digging into his flesh, but the hood over his head hadn’t been fastened and he could at least breathe. He took a deep gasp, holding the air at the top of his throat and focusing. There was a mumbling of voices – male voices – but nothing distinctive enough for him to make out either precise words, or the tone of his kidnappers. His legs were free but there wasn’t much he’d be able to do with his eyes covered. If he lashed out, the best that could happen was that he’d catch someone who would then beat the crap out of him.

  The floor of the vehicle bobbed up and down through Manchester’s potholes, the metal cold through his clothes. Kitkat took another breath, fighting the instinct to panic. If these people really wanted to hurt him, they’d already be doing so given that he was largely defenceless. The fact they’d not done that yet meant they had plans for him. He was being taken . . . somewhere. He wasn’t naive – it surely had something to do with the money he’d stumbled across. Was one of his assailants the actual owner? If so, why hadn’t they simply asked him about the money?

  A chill flittered along Kitkat’s spine as another thought occurred to him. What if Chris had told Clarkey about the windfall? Chris was immature but harmless enough on his own; Clarkey was a full-on idiot. He had fingers in all sorts of pies and knew many types of dangerous people. Perhaps he owed the wrong person and, instead of paying off his own debt, he’d passed on the fact that Kitkat had come into money. That prospect was altogether more worrying.

  Whoever was driving ground their way through the gears, crunching to a halt and then accelerating again. Kitkat bumped up and down. He could sense others nearby but nobody said anything to him. For now, he’d have to bide his time, waiting for an opportunity which, if it came, would allow him to run. He might not be a fighter, but he was sure as hell a runner.

  He had no idea how long passed but Kitkat felt every thump from the uneven road. In failing to fill the endless sea of potholes, Manchester City Council was not only messing up people’s cars, it was endangering kidnap victims dumped on the bottom of vans.

  Kitkat grunted as his head thwacked into the metal for the fifth or sixth time before, mercifully, the engine died. He heard metal doors sliding open and was then hauled to his feet. A man’s voice muttered ‘walk’ as Kitkat felt hands under his armpits, plonking him onto hard ground. He did as he was told, allowing the hands to guide him into what sounded like a tight corridor. The footsteps of his abductors echoed noisily around the enclosed space until he was shoved into a chair. It felt like it was made of metal, legs squeaking along a tiled floor, the cold pressing into his back again.

  Silence.

  Kitkat heard nothing, but the hood was suddenly gone, and then the material was removed from his mouth. He spluttered and squinted, trying to regain his senses. Air poured into his lungs, the vague tang of fried food now unconcealed. Whatever it was smelled an awful lot better than the soft object that had been tickling his tongue. He hoped it hadn’t been a sock. Really hoped it wasn’t a sock.

  Slowly the swarm of stars and colours began to clear. He was in a kitchen – a big kitchen, the sort found only in a restaurant or hotel. The floor was a tiled pattern of grey and black with matching worktops along both sides. Neat lines of sparkling pans hung on one side and he could see a wide sink on the other, brimming with soapy water.

  In front was the shape of a man. He had short fair hair and was wearing a tightly cut suit. Kitkat’s eyes opened wider, taking in the size of the man. He was big: powerful shoulders and arms bulging against the material.

  ‘D’you know who I am, kid?’

  Kitkat continued blinking, trying to unclutter his mind. Of course he knew the man. Everyone on the estate did.

  ‘Carter.’

  The man nodded but showed no emotion. He had been the right-hand man to Harry Irwell, the one-time guardian of their area. The person who owned pubs, clubs and who knew what else. He also had a host of other industries on the side. It was the secret that wasn’t a secret, not where Kitkat lived in any case. After Irwell’s demise, Carter had stepped up. He was their guardian now.

  ‘Where’s my money?’

  Kitkat tried to point a thumb towards the rucksack on his back, forgetting his hands were bound. ‘In the bag,’ he mumbled.

  Before he could add anything else, someone behind him stepped forward. He couldn’t see what was going on but felt two snips before the rucksack fell to the floor. There was a shuffling but he didn’t try to turn, instead focusing back on Carter, trying to read features that were unreadable.

  How much trouble was he in? Everyone on the estate heard rumours – so and so had borrowed money that he couldn’t repay, now he couldn’t walk. The betting shop on the corner refused to pay up and had burned down days later. What was to be his fate? Carter was the last person whose money he’d have wanted to end up with by accident.

  Kitkat sputtered, ‘I didn’t know’, but nobody replied. Slowly, the pieces began to slide together in his mind. Someone was running a side business at the chicken place, most likely selling drugs or legal highs alongside cholesterol-soaked meat. It was no wonder Chris said he went there ‘all the time’. Of course he bloody did – he always had a bag of weed on the go. There was no way Carter would let an industry like that flourish without him getting his cut. Somehow, Kitkat had ended up with the money instead of the intended recipient.

  ‘Four and a half.’ The male voice behind Kitkat sent tendrils
of ice spiralling through him.

  Carter’s eyes flickered towards the sound. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  The suited man’s gaze focused back on Kitkat. ‘Where’s the rest?’

  ‘What rest? That’s all there was.’

  Kitkat was panicking, twisting in the seat to see the pile of money on the floor. His bag was turned inside out, no chance of the bundles being hidden. He opened his mouth to protest but then it dawned on him. Chris had grabbed four bundles the previous evening and Kitkat hadn’t watched him put them all back in the bag. He’d not counted the money before going to bed. The thieving sod must’ve pocketed five hundred quid.

  Shite.

  He turned back, catching himself in Carter’s steely glare.

  ‘Where’s the rest?’ Carter demanded.

  ‘I swear, that’s all there was.’

  Kitkat tried to sound as genuine as he could but he was never going to be believed. In a flash of movement, the unseen people behind had yanked him out of the chair. This time he tried to kick but he was outnumbered and disorientated. Before he knew what was going on, his legs had been bound together and he was lying on the hard tiles, head spinning. He squeezed his palms together, attempting to give his wrists more room, but the ties continued to slice into his skin. He tried to scramble into a sitting position but a boot thundered into his knee and then he heard the strangled screech of a pulley. He realised what was going on a moment before it happened.

  Within seconds, he was hanging upside down, legs attached to a railing on the ceiling, head dangling over the teeming sink. Without another word, there was a flicker of movement and Kitkat’s head collided with the bottom of the metal sink. He was engulfed by soapy water that burst into his mouth and nostrils. He’d had no time, no warning, to take a breath. Now he really was panicking, trying to lift his neck and get himself out of the water, thrashing his limbs in an attempt to return to the air. The bubbles seeped through to the back of his throat, making him gasp and clamour.