Byker Books

The Phone Call

POYNT: Hello, is that Mr… uh… Steel?

STEEL: Speaking.

POYNT: You might not know me, but… uh… I’ve been told to call… uh... Steel? Is that your real name, or is it just one that you use for working? Like a stage name?

STEEL (coldly): That is of no importance to you. Who are you and who gave you my number?

POYNT: Davies… uh… Davies gave me your number… He said that you were the government’s ‘fixer’. You know, like somebody that doesn’t strictly appear on the payroll…

STEEL (interrupting): Not on an unsecured line, Mr. Poynt. Hang up now and I will be with you as soon as I can.

POYNT: I’ll give you directions. Where are you?

STEEL: You don’t need to know where I am. I know where you are.

POYNT (uncertainly): That’s… uh… ruddy great. I’m delighted you can help…

STEEL: Mr. Poynt; not to put too fine a point on it, I am the last person you want to see round at your house in the middle of the night. Because when you see me, you know that something has gone terribly wrong. I am what you would call your last chance saloon.

5

The Fixer

‘Tell me what happened. Who came?’ asked Steel. He was leaning against the big American fridge wearing a blank expression. He was a big man, reassuringly big, but after the terror of earlier, the Poynts knew that evil came in all shapes and sizes.

‘Never told me his name,’ replied Robert, slowly, as though trying to recite some long-forgotten recipe. ‘He was kind of small; the type you’d see on the tube and say they were unassuming. At first it was like we were meeting with our ruddy bank manager or something. He seemed so polite.’

Cheryl answered in her own way; a terrified gurgling sound erupted from her.

Steel said nothing, but a flicker of something crossed over his face. It looked a lot like dread.

‘He came in saying: “you’ve defaulted on your loan.” He sounded business-like,’ continued Robert, running a hand through his thinning hair. ‘He knew enough about politics to be able to ask: “were your parliamentary expenses not enough?” He didn’t know enough about politics to know that you have to have an Aga at your country pile. People in your constituency won’t trust you otherwise.’

‘Shut up Rob,’ screeched Cheryl. ‘Shut up about the fucking Aga.’

Robert looked at his wife, aghast.

‘So what happened then?’ asked Steel, turning to Mrs. Poynt.

‘T…t…torture, spluttered Cheryl.

‘He tortured you?’ asked Steel, rather too quickly. ‘Are you OK? I can’t see any real damage…’

‘Not us… he tortured himself… A man came into our house and tortured himself in front of us…’

‘It’s a damn disgrace in this day and age,’ muttered Poynt, pointlessly.

6

Extract from the diary of Cheryl Poynt

The high-brow press call him the ‘Drugs Tsar’, while those gutter rags have termed him ‘Puffer Poynt’. I’m amazed that they’ve been able to dig that far into our past to find out the truth about him. I mean, it’s not like he plastered it all over some social networking site like the future politicians of tomorrow do today. Oh dear, I’ve mentioned tomorrow and today in the same sentence: that definitely means that Rob’s newspeak is rubbing off on me.

I’ve always known that our finances were a bit Mark Knopfler, but recently they’ve become so bad that he’s had to try and get loans off sharky-looking blokes that he’s met in seedy holes Idontwanttoknowwhere in London.

And he’s developed this kind of connoisseur’s taste for drugs again. Maybe it’s something about being surrounded by them all day long. Or maybe he’s just looking for excuses like those internet paedos that claim they are only looking at six year olds doing God knows what for research purposes.

Anyway, drugs are evidently expensive these days. They are all about ‘look at me; look at what I’ve taken; look at what I can afford to take.’

Well, not any more. I remember how I got him off the drugs last time.

7

Panic at the disco

You can’t even trace it in your bloodstream mate yeah it’s completely natural product see and does this fing where it sort of blows up your testosterone yeah makes you feel like ten men yeah and highly attractive too yeah everyone in London’s taking it now and the pigs can’t say nothing about it man yeah just try a bit yeah no you don’t snort it you drink it slip it in your drink like you’re giving yourself that rohypnol yeah you’ll be so high man that you wanna date-rape yourself man yeah.

Only a monkey to you mate yeah no five hundred you fahkin mug eh ain’t you that geezer wots in the houses of parliament?

8

The Fixer II

The fixer was adept at dealing with people in shock. He made no sudden movements and spoke in this low, measured tone which sounded like it was in training for the voice-over on one of those get-to-sleep CDs that you can buy. He allowed Cheryl a moment to collect herself, watched with interest as she hugged a flowery cushion to her chest.

‘The man that came here was a monster,’ she said, finally, staring fixedly into space.

‘From what you’ve already said, it sounds like I know who he is,’ replied Steel. ‘If it’s who I think he is then he’s a monster with a very firm grasp of human psychology. He knows the politics of pain. Most people like you are scared of inflicting pain on others, or of even seeing pain in others. He knows that the very idea of anyone not caring about pain will simply scare the living daylights out of you. And he has done.’

‘I’m sick of men being in my house, talking about things like the politics of pain,’ muttered Cheryl. ‘He stood on our big rug and just opened the veins on his wrist, then looked up at me with a big grin on his face.’

Steel placed a protective hand on her arm. ‘I have to do this,’ he said. ‘I have to find out all I can. You said earlier that when you weren’t forthcoming with your first answer, for some reason, he started to unzip the fly on his trousers. What happened then?’

‘He buggered the dog,’ yelped Cheryl. ‘And when Boris kept wriggling and snapping at him with his teeth, the man seemed to enjoy it even more.’

9

Back in the Kitchen

POYNT: You know who he is then?

STEEL: I’ve got a pretty rock-solid theory, yeah.

POYNT: Can’t we get rid of him? Don’t the government have access to hit-men or something? You know, send a killer to catch a killer? They are always doing stuff like that on cop shows and stuff.

STEEL: Franchise isn’t like anything from the cop shows.

POYNT: That’s his name? Franchise?

STEEL: Don’t sneer. It’s not befitting for a man in your position to sneer. Franchise does things to himself which are so bad that nobody would believe that they could be self-inflicted. That’s the way that he blackmails you… so the police think that you’ve gone over the top on a burglar or something… if you don’t give him what he wants then he nearly kills himself.

Margaret has stalked back into the room and listens, head tilted to one side to the politicking.

POYNT: What are you going to do?

STEEL: He’ll still be in the area. He usually is after he’s performed his little shows… likes to watch the audience reaction. Now all we need to do is lure him back here.

MARGARET: You’re going to bring him back here?!

10

Cheryl Poynt

The way it happened was… oh don’t look at me like that Margot, as though butter wouldn’t melt, you know that you’ve heard and seen worse than what I’ve told you on those detective shows you like… If you’ll let me finish, the way it happened was kind of just desserts for our Rob. That man Steel told him that he had to act as bait, he had to call up and say that he’d pay-up for what he owed and that he was also after some more Ten Men to get over the shock of what had happened. I know, I know; that’s how they get people hooked. See? It’s not just some other world that you don’t understand, is it? So, if you’ll stop interrupting…

Rob made that call. He made it sounding even less like a man than I remember him on the night of our wedding when he couldn’t get it up. He was lurching between shameful self-disgust and this kind of self-pitying whine like when he had to give that press conference after the papers published the stuff about him in his university days. According to Rob, our delightful Mr. Franchise was only too happy to pay us another visit. Seemed he couldn’t get enough of poor old Boris.

11

Robert Poynt II

When Franchise arrives again, he pulls up in this sleek, black ruddy Range Rover contraption, scattering gravel off the drive all over the lawn. Some of the guys down in London that I know have vehicles like these and even cover them in ruddy fake mud to make them seem more authentic. Now that Steel is here, I feel a bit more ready to face down this little man, after all, what’s the worst that can happen? He’ll start to hack off parts of his own flesh?

Franchise struggles to get down from the high doors of the Range Rover, or Hummer, or whatever it is. For a moment, I feel my heart leaping: maybe the man is feeling the pain of his earlier visit? Maybe he’s had enough? But then I realise that it is probably just because the door is so high up, and Franchise is jockey-like in size, although not down there. I already saw what he had down there when he rogered Boris.

Franchise approaches the front door and we can see him from the camera in the lion by the door. He looks a little pissed-off like we’ve interrupted his favourite television programme perhaps. Cheryl sees the look differently: ‘He had that look in his eyes when he buggered the dog,’ she says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Steel place a hand on my wife’s shoulder as though doing his husbandly duty of shielding her from the nastiness of the world. They thought I hadn’t noticed what was going on between them. Maybe this is my chance to teach them, and the world at large, a ruddy-great lesson.

‘You’d better go down and get ready to answer the door,’ says Steel.

‘Yes,’ I agree. And when I’m down there I’ll put some water on to boil again. At least I’m good with the Aga.

12

Boris

When old Robert, came back down to the kitchen I was pretty pleased. Loathe as I am to admit it, but I thought it was bang out of order to leave me on me own down here after the trauma I’d been through. It’s weird about me master, the way that he always seems to sense when there’s somebody about to get to the front door. It’s almost like he’s a dog or something. Or maybe its them cameras he's always fannying around with... Anyway, almost as soon as he got in the kitchen, the doorbell rang with its annoying little tune. Usually I bark like fuck when that starts up, just to drown out the noise, but this time, I sensed that the bad-man stranger was back.

I was right. It was him. As soon as he stepped through the door, I slunk into that little gap next to the chest of drawers where they keep all my tinned food and I sunk low, out of sight.

The two men exchanged some words, don’t know what, don’t care what; they never mentioned ‘Boris’ though, so I started to feel a bit better then. Even when all the blood started coming, all the chopping and all the confusion, I didn’t really mind. And when the bad-man chopped his own finger off, nobody noticed when I sneaked over and gobbled it up, just to teach him a lesson, like.

13

Doe-Eyes

Cheryl Poynt nervously glances at the interviewer; she flutters her lashes a little, stares at some point off in the mid-distance and then looks back at him with full-beam doe-eyes.

‘I can’t answer that question properly on a family news programme,’ she says, bashfully.

‘The viewers will understand my need to ask,’ probes the interviewer, leaning forward in his seat, firing relentless questions off at her. People always prefer to know no matter how horrific the truth may be. ‘There is a great hunger for closure in this situation, as I’m sure that you’ll understand. In our interview with your neighbour, Margot Beech, she mentioned that there was still some doubt over whose body was found.’

‘As I’m sure you’ll understand, I do not wish to speak of that woman,’ says Cheryl, softly. ‘Despite the fact that there is now only one person in our marriage, it feels as though there are three sometimes, what with her constant presence in the media nowadays.’

‘I’m sure that Mrs. Beech is only trying to help in what must be a very difficult situation…’

Cheryl interrupts: ‘When a menace like that is let loose in your lives, there is only ever one outcome.’

‘What do you mean? Mrs. Beech? The drugs? Mr. Franchise? Tell me, Cheryl; was there ever really a Mr. Franchise? The name sounds kinda fake to me.’

‘If you could interview my dog, Boris, he’d be able to testify to the reality of the man,’ says Cheryl, climbing to her feet. Through the dazzling studio lights you can just about make out that she has pulled off the tiny microphone which has been attached to her lapel and is now flouncing out of the room.

14

Police Report

The unidentified male body was discovered inside the Aga cooker. It had been dissected into numerous pieces and had been charred to a crisp. Although DNA evidence was taken, it has proved inconclusive when taken into consideration with the other evidence. Given the fact that it has already been submitted to this court that a Mr. Franchise had removed part of his own body whilst at the scene, and the fact that we have since been unable to trace Mr. Franchise, we feel duty bound to report a finding of non-conclusive evidence in this case.

CCTV footage shows that the only person to leave the Poynt country residence was Mrs. Poynt, accompanied by a female police officer, after the crime scene had been sealed.

15

Jacob Franchise

Over the past few weeks, three competing books have been published about the events at the Poynt residence. There have been eight or nine feature-length documentaries and countless theories put forward as to what happened. There have been criminal psychologists spouting nonsense about ‘Steel and Franchise’ being separate parts of Poynt’s drug-enhanced multiple personality. There have been retired policeman and detectives talking about hidden tunnels under the house through which the real Steel and Franchise escaped or about satanic cults.

The journalist from the Post seems to have developed a bit of an obsession with the case and the other day; they dedicated an entire front page to the idea that Steel had been hired by the government in order to get rid of Poynt.

What nobody’s even come close to suggesting is the truth, whatever that may be. I just think that everybody loves speculating. We love being able to come up with our own stories. Who am I to put a stop to all that? 

© AJ Kirby 2009