JIM HOWIE’S TATTOO and piercing parlour, INK-XS, was tucked away off the Port of Felixstowe Road. It was a small place, but not too seedy. It was split into two halves: the back part was where the inking was done, behind a shoulder-height partition, and the front was for customers to wait in and browse the designs pinned to the walls and in the three folders on a low table. There was also a knackered sofa, which came in very handy for the squeamish ones who fainted when they felt the needle or glimpsed the blood. At the rear of the building was a monotonous vista of huge sea containers. They were dwarfed by the massive cranes straddling the horizon, which always reminded Howie of steel dinosaurs. Appropriate enough for the stark tundra of the largest container port in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe.
Howie was a big-bellied man in his thirties, with a square-cut, gingery beard, shaved head and enough tattoos on his fleshy body to reupholster that old sofa. He sported two piercings in his lower lip, another through his septum and one more through his right eyebrow.
Looking around at his shop, he moaned as Tommo and Miller hauled another of those large wooden crates through the door.
“Hey, c’mon,” he complained. “That’s five of them now. How many of these things are there?”
“Just one more,” Tommo told him. “If you’d give us a hand, you’d have seen that yourself. These aren’t filled with fresh air, you know; we could do with the extra manpower.”
Howie waved the suggestion aside. “I’m an artist, man,” he declared. “I can’t risk damaging these delicate instruments with a load of splinters.”
Miller and Tommo shoved the fifth crate alongside the others they had fetched from the van and leaned on it to catch their breaths and rest their aching muscles. It had taken two long trips from the strange, ugly house to Howie’s shop to bring all six crates over, to say nothing of the struggle hoisting them up from that cellar. Jezza had been insistent though.
“It’s time for them to leave home,” he had said, “and make their way in the world.”
“I can barely squeeze by them!” Howie grouched. “Just for tonight, capiche? I can’t have these blocking my shop. I’ve got a business to run – and don’t tell me what’s in them, I don’t want to know, but how hot is it? We talking tepid or scalding? If the filth come sniffing around, you’re not dropping me in it. You got that? I’ll tell them exactly who it belongs to – or doesn’t.”
“Peace, brother,” Jezza’s voice interrupted as he came in. “This is… legit merchandise.”
Howie raised his eyes heavenward. “Like the Blu-ray players you stashed here last month?” he asked. “Yeah, they was so bona fide they burned a hole in the lino!”
Jezza ran his hands along the edge of one of the crates. “I’m done with all that,” he announced. “The old life is over, no more hooky gear. I’ve got a better, higher purpose now – and if you’re a good little bunny, you can come with me. The door of destiny has just swung open and I’m inviting you to step through it.”
“Hallelujah!” Howie mocked. “He done seen the light!”
Jezza’s eyes glinted at him and he showed his crooked smile. “You couldn’t be further from the truth, Mr Tattoo Man,” he said.
Miller shifted uneasily and glanced at Tommo.
“Bring in the last box,” Jezza told them. “I want Howie to see what he’s storing for me.”
“An’ we want to see what we’ve been busting our guts over,” Miller said.
“Less of the guts, please,” Tommo pleaded. “Come on. Let’s go get the last Alexander.”
“The last what?”
“I’m wasted here,” Tommo sighed.
The three of them returned to the yard where the VW was parked, leaving a puzzled Howie scratching his beard. He’d never seen Jezza behave like this before.
“He’s been like that since we went into that vile house,” Shiela spoke from the doorway. “It’s weird, like… oh, I dunno – like it’s him, but it isn’t.”
Howie looked at her. “What happened in that place then?” he asked. “No one’s said.”
The girl frowned then shrugged it off. “Mad stuff,” she finally answered. “I freaked out big style and so did Miller – but Jezza…”
“What?”
“I wish I knew – or maybe I don’t.”
“Are you all on something? Nobody’s making sense.”
“Wait till you see what else we found,” she said. “What’s still back there – in the manky conservatory.”
“Mind your backs!” Tommo called, lumbering in, carrying the final crate with Miller. “There! That’s the lot. Now my gaseous friend’s innards here are rumbling like Krakatoa so we’d better get some food in him. Come on, Methane Maker, let’s…”
Their exit was barred by Jezza. He was standing in the doorway, eyes gleaming.
“We haven’t finished yet, boys,” he said, removing the loose lid from the last crate and reaching inside. “This is only the beginning. You have no idea of the incredible honour you’ve been granted. You’re here, right at the start of everything. We’ve each been chosen and should be on our knees in gratitude. Take a breath and look around you. Remember this momentous night. The whole world is about to change and this is the last time you’ll see it like it was.”
A look of panic flashed over Howie’s face. “Bloody hell!” he cried. “You’ve never got guns in them boxes?”
Jezza laughed as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard.
“What then?” Howie demanded. “Bombs or something? You’re out of your greasy mind and way out of your league! You’re crazy!”
Jezza continued to laugh. It was a horrible, throat-rattling sound. Shiela clutched at the collar of her denim jacket. The voice she heard was not his.
Then he slammed his palm on the side of the crate and the laugh subsided to a dry chuckle.
“Guns and bombs have been tried,” he said in a far-off kind of way. “Tried and failed, tried and failed, time and again. That’s not how to do it. Wars are finite. They blaze for a few years and it’s fantastic and showy and spectacularly loud and operatic. Then suddenly peace breaks out like a rash and you’re back where you started and you have to foment it all over again. War doesn’t work. It unites more than it destroys.”
“What’s the matter with him?” Howie demanded.
Before the others could answer, Jezza flashed his teeth in a wide grin and threw something at him.
Howie ducked and jumped out of the way, half expecting it to be a hand grenade. This was lunacy.
The thing landed at his feet and he peered down at it warily. When he saw what the thing actually was, he thought it even stranger than if it had been an explosive.
“A book?” he exclaimed incredulously.
“It’s time for you all to have one,” Jezza said solemnly, his voice recognisably him once again. “Take them, cherish them… coddle them.”
He passed the copies around. Only Shiela had seen the book already, but she stared at it with the same fascination as the first time.
“Dancing Jacks,” Howie read. “Where did you get a load of second-hand kids’ books from? And what for?”
Jezza was relishing the looks on their faces