Midnight's Door by Robert F. Barker

Author:Robert F. Barker [Barker, Robert F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

'Eric?' I said into the phone as I left the house. 'You still there?'

'Yes.'

'Drive round for another ten minutes, then head for the new stadium site behind Morrisons. I'll be waiting.'

'Are we going to sort these fuckers out, or what?'

'I guess we'll have to.'

'Cracker. It's about time.'

'Don't try anything while on you're own.'

'I won't. Just make sure you're there when I get there.'

'I will be.'

As I pulled away to head back into town, I brought up Gol's number on the car phone. It took half a dozen rings for him to answer. Gol's never got his head around voicemail.

'Hello Boss?'

'Where are you?'

'At home. We're about to-'

'Meet me at the new stadium site in nine minutes. Eric's got a vanload on his tail.'

'Right.' He hung up. The good thing about Gurkhas. They never question.

My big fear was I'd get snarled in traffic. The site of the town's new sports stadium was this side of the town centre on the old Greenall's site behind Morrison's Supermarket. Speed limits aside, it was easily reachable in ten minutes, but a jam through Stockton Heath could fuck everything up. As it happened, I sailed through and got to the site with a minute and a half to spare. It was all locked up, as I knew it would be. Work finished at six. I parked up against the blue hoarding perimeter fence next to the main gate. Eric would see me the moment he turned into the access road. I reached round into the back and pulled out the pick-axe handle that since Monday had become my travelling companion. Thirty seconds later, Gol's silver Toyota pulled up next to me. I dropped my window.

'You ready?'

He reached into the passenger foot-well and showed me what looked like the handle of a baseball bat.

'How many?' he said, through the toothy grin I'd seen many times before. He wears it when he knows he's about to call upon some of the skills he learned over fifteen years’ army service in places as far apart as Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.

'Five, maybe?' I said. ‘Possibly six?’

'Good,' he said, meaning the odds. The three of us together had faced a lot worse in our time.

We got out and stood between the cars, waiting. A minute passed. Then another. Then another.

'He should be here by now,' I said, checking my watch.

Even as I spoke, my phone rang, showing Eric's name. I just managed to catch his garbled shout of , '-ACKERS... BRID-,' before it cut off.

'Shit,' I said. already turning back to my truck.

'Where?' Gol shouted across.

'Ackers Road Bridge.'

Then I was back in the truck, spinning wheels on gravel as I made a quick reverse and took off.

Less than a mile from the stadium site where we'd been waiting, Ackers Road forms the 'T' across the end of Ellesmere Road, a long, straight road that runs parallel to the Manchester Ship Canal. Part of the leafy suburbia that is Stockton Heath, Ellesmere is made narrow by the parked cars that line the side where the garage-less houses overlook the canal.

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