Lets Drink To The Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

a packet of matches. The fumes make his head swim. They sting his eyes, too, so he shuts them. When he opens them again, Johnny, Mark and Sam are stood there, smiling, and he knows his debt is paid.
    “I got them for you,” he says. “I punished them.”
    Johnny shakes his head. You stopped them, Yolly. Their punishment’s still to come.
    “But not for me?”
    No, not for you. Not now.
    Yolly puts the match to the sandpaper. He takes a deep breath. This bit’s difficult. In the second before the match strikes and its sulphurous flames enfold him, he consoles himself that it’s nothing to the debt Alan Latimer will pay, when his day of reckoning comes.

 
    GIDEON
     
     
    1
     
    November, 1985
     
    T HE VAN RATTLED along Dunwich Road, across the moors from Yorkshire.
    In the passenger seat, Dani’s eyelids drooped. Stay awake. Stay awake . At the corner of her eye she could feel the driver eyeing her up.
    Rain hit the windscreen like specks of grit. A car’s oncoming headlights flared; Dani squinted, sat up straight.
    Up ahead, hills; Dunwich Road cut through them and on through the town. A sign flashed by: Manchester 20 . Halfway there, anyroad. And after that–?
    The van turned right, down a dark, narrow lane that ran beside the hill.
    “What’s this?” Dani sat up straight. But she knew; of course she knew. It had been on the cards from the minute he’d picked her up. She were young, not daft.
    “Nowt, lass,” the driver said. “Nowt much.”
    They were going too fast for her to risk jumping out. She looked back; the lights of the cars on Dunwich Road receded, then vanished as the van rounded a bend. The driver was looking sidelong at her, a smile on his lips. Christ, he was forty-odd – dad’s age – and with a gut on him like a bag of spuds. But he was strong too; big shoulders, thick heavy arms – heavy with muscle, not flab.
    A house coming up on the right: lights out, derelict. He stopped the van.
    “I’ve carried you this far,” he said. “Carry you rest of way into Manchester if you like. But I think you owe us summat in exchange.”
    “Oh aye?” Glad she’d kept her denim jacket on; she eased her hand into the pocket.
    “Aye, lass. You know. Ride for a ride, that’s the sayin’, in’t it?” He sniggered, showing big yellow teeth.
    “Fuck off,” Dani said. The snigger stopped and the driver’s look changed from a sneer to a scowl. He was used to women being doormats. That was one thing had changed around her way during the Strike; she’d learnt a few new things.
    “Right, then,” he said, and his hand lifted from the wheel, came up to strike–
    Dani moved first – her hand slid out of her pocket and snaked towards his face, thumb pushing the catch on the switchblade. The blade shot out, the point less than an inch from his eye.
    “Fuckin’ move,” she said, “and you’re blind.”
    The driver pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose. Not happy. Watch him. And think. Fast. Before he does.
    “Wind down your window,” she said.
    “What?”
    “You heard. Driver’s window. Wind it down.”
    He did.
    “Now take the keys out and sling ’em.”
    “Aw, come on–”
    “Do it or lose an eye.”
    He took the keys and flung them out. She heard them clatter on the tarmac. Not far away. Not far enough. Shit.
    She unfastened the passenger door, pushed it open, then leant in close to him, kept the blade at his eye, wriggling round to reach into the footwell and pull out her backpack. “Stay put,” she said. “Forget me. Find your keys and carry on where you were going. Right?” He didn’t answer. “ Right? ”
    “Right,” he said. She didn’t believe him, but what was she going to do? Stab him?
    Dani slid out of the van onto the road. The man climbed after her.
    “Stay back,” she said. There was a shake in her voice. Fuck.
    The driver grinned. He jumped out onto the road, flexed his arms. Shit. She’d backed away and now he was barring the way back to