Short Story: Men At Work

Short Story: Men At Work

Pitch-black and we’d been digging for an hour.

‘Think this is deep enough?’

Typical of him, never wants to do any work.

‘Couple more feet, I reckon,’ I said.

Headlights swept across the ground and he ducked for cover.

‘Don’t be stupid,‘ I said, ‘nobody can see anything from the road.’

‘Well,’ he chucked his shovel out of the hole. ‘That’s me done.’

‘Okay,’ I climbed out after him to pick up my end of the tarpaulin. ‘Can you lift it?’

‘It!’ he snorted his displeasure at my apparently crass choice of words. ‘Him, you mean. Have a little respect.’

One, two, three and the tarpaulin landed with a thud in the makeshift grave. Joe let out a grunt and threw the gun in beside the body.

‘Sorry to have upset your finer feelings,’ I said after we finished up and were walking back to the Land Rover. ‘You haven’t got religious on me, have you?’

I slung the spades into the back of the car while Joe started the engine. As I climbed into the passenger seat I saw him stick one of those ridiculous fake plastic fags in his mouth. He drew on it hard as he backed the motor out onto the country road. ‘That man,’ he said, ‘was a sentient being. He had thoughts, hopes, fears, a soul.’

‘And children, a wife, a couple of mistresses, a dog that no doubt loved him, a cat that purred on his lap.’

‘Now you’re taking the piss,’ he puffed.

‘And what is with that thing?’ I indicated to the ‘cigarette’.

‘Smoking real ones is bad for your health.’

‘And you think you’ll live long enough to feel the benefit, do you?’

‘Nobody knows it was us,’ we were heading away from the woods now but the road was still clear.

‘Only the person who paid us.’

‘And we don’t know who that was.’

‘But we can hazard a good guess.’

‘Guessing is bad for your health too.’

‘So is getting all cosmic about some dude you’ve just shot in the head.’

Joe’s body stiffened as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘There’s a car behind us.’

‘This is a road, Joe. We may even encounter one in front of us shortly.’

‘I think it’s following us.’

He put his foot down but the other car kept pace. Joe turned hard left into some kind of new up-market housing estate, made another left then slowed to a crawl. The other car did not follow.

‘Paranoia,’ I said, secretly relieved. Joe grinned and we followed the estate full circle back on the same road we had entered.

‘Jesus,’ Joe said,’ how much must these houses cost? You’d think you’d get more than one road for your dosh.’

‘Let’s just get back on the motorway,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Give me the frozen north any day. I hate unfamiliar places.’

As we exited, I barely noticed the car parked on the other side of the road. Not until the driver hit the lights, started the engine and latched on to our tail once more.

‘Do you think he knew that road went in a circle?’ Joe was sweating and puffing hard on the faux fag.

‘Yeah, must be a local.’

‘Or a cop?’

‘No they’d come mob handed,’ I turned my head to see the headlights. ‘This is something else entirely.’

‘Leave behind no witnesses, you mean.’

‘Stop the car, Joe,’ I opened the glove compartment and pulled out a gun.

‘Jesus, Tom! I thought we’d got rid of those.’

‘Insurance,’ I said.

He pulled to the side of the road; the other car stopped a couple of hundred yards behind us. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

‘You stay here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and talk to this geezer, see what’s going on.’ I clicked the safety catch on the gun and held it by my side.

Joe didn’t hear the shot that killed him. It came from outside the driver’s side and he’d been too busy watching me approach the car behind to notice Monica sneaking up. She’s a good shot, Monica. I taught her myself.

‘Two birds with one stone,’ she said as we drove away. ‘It’ll look like a gang hit.’

I smiled across at her, she was the beautiful wife —I mean widow — of one of the toughest drug baron in London. He’d have murdered us both had he known about our affair. My poor old Manchester mate Joe was just the patsy. I opened a pack of Marlboro, stuck one in my mouth and lit it. Well, you never know.