Naked

by Kevin Brooks

  The picture on the screen had switched to a reporter now – a man with a moustache, standing halfway down the street, talking into a microphone. ‘… well, details are still very sketchy at the moment,’ he was saying, ‘but I can confirm that the explosion took place at approximately three fifteen in a workshop owned by Warwick Motors, a local car-repair business. The workshop was situated beneath a railway bridge, and as you can see behind me, the bridge above the workshop has been destroyed. As yet, though, we still have no information on the cause of the explosion or the extent of any casualties.’

  ‘Are the police treating this as a terrorist attack?’ the presenter asked.

  ‘So far, there’s been no official statement from the police, but sources I’ve spoken to are in no doubt that the cause of this devastation was a massive bomb blast, and that it does bear striking similarities to other bombings carried out recently by the IRA.’

  ‘Was any warning given?’

  ‘Not as far as we know. But it’s possible that the bomb wasn’t meant to go off here, and that what we’re actually looking at is the result of a terrorist operation that has somehow gone wrong …’

  Gone wrong …

  Gone wrong …

  Gone wrong …

  What had gone wrong? How? Why? What had happened …? My head was spinning now … the whole room was spinning. I couldn’t take anything in. The words and images were just tumbling around in my mind like confetti in the wind – the workshop, the pile of rubble … owned by Warwick Motors … the burning car, the smouldering debris … a massive bomb blast … the IRA …

  And suddenly I could hear William’s voice in my head: … I don’t want anyone to get hurt … I don’t want anyone else to get killed … I won’t let it happen … if I find out that they’re planning something that’s likely to hurt or kill people, I’ll stop them …

  ‘No …’ I muttered, shaking my head. ‘No …’

  The dressing-room door swung open then, and I heard someone say something to me, but all I could hear was the voice on the TV – ‘… and we’ll be back with more news of the North London bombing in our late-night bulletin at eleven fifty …’ – and then, as the weather map appeared, I reached up and switched over to ITV, desperate for more news, but there was nothing, just people talking about politics, and I stabbed frantically at the controls, switching to BBC2, but there was nothing there either, just an Open University programme …

  ‘Lili!’

  I tried BBC1 again …

  ‘Lili!’

  A sports programme was on now …

  ‘Fuck!’ I spat, punching the buttons. ‘Fucking stupid … fucking sports –’

  And then I felt someone get hold of me, and I spun round and started lashing out at them, stopping only when I realized that it was Curtis.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Lili,’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘William …’ I mumbled.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I think …’

  ‘What? You think what?’

  What could I say? I couldn’t tell him anything, could I? I couldn’t tell anyone anything. There was nothing I could do …

  ‘Lili?’

  Nothing …

  I looked at Curtis.

  ‘What is it?’ he said quietly. ‘What’s the matter?’

  I just looked at him, feeling utterly helpless.

  Then Jake came rushing in, all panicky and flustered. ‘Shit, there you are … come on! They’re ready to record, they’re waiting for you out there. What the fuck are you doing? Come on …’

  Curtis didn’t panic, he just looked me in the eye and said, ‘Are you all right, Lili? Can you do this?’

  I nodded, not really sure what I was doing any more. And the next thing I knew, I was following Curtis along the corridor, then through some doors into the studio, and I vaguely recall being blinded by the sudden bright lights as I crossed the stage and picked up my bass …

  But the rest of it …

  I can’t remember.

  I was in a trance, I was gone, somewhere else.

  I wasn’t there at all.

  The next thing I can remember with any real clarity is sitting in the back of a taxi, staring out of the window, trying to convince myself that maybe William was OK after all – maybe he wasn’t there when the bomb went off, maybe he had nothing to do with it all … maybe it was just the three IRA men in the workshop … and maybe, when I got to Cranleigh Farm, I’d find him safe and well … and he’d explain what had happened, and I’d pretend that I was annoyed with him for frightening me to death … and then he’d tell me how sorry he was, and he’d look at me with those hazel eyes … and he’d give me that wonderful smile … and everything would be all right again …

  ‘I’ll have to go round by Seven Sisters, love, all right?’ the taxi driver called out over his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s all closed up round Green Lanes because of the bomb, so I’ll have to go round Seven Sisters. It shouldn’t take much longer.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘OK …’ I leaned forward and spoke though the hatch. ‘Is there any more news about the bomb?’

  ‘IRA, they reckon. Probably went off by mistake.’ He shook his head. ‘Bloody Irish –’

  ‘Do they know if anyone was killed?’

  ‘The police aren’t saying yet, but I heard there was three, maybe four of them.’

  ‘Three or four dead?’

  He nodded. ‘They reckon the bomb was in a car in the workshop and it went off with the bombers inside. Serves them fucking right, if you ask me.’

  I leaned back and stared out of the window again, suddenly convinced now that William wasn’t OK after all – he had been there when the bomb went off, he was with the three IRA men in the workshop … and when I got to Cranleigh Farm, I wouldn’t find him safe and well …

  I wouldn’t see those hazel eyes.

  I wouldn’t see that wonderful smile.

  And nothing would ever be all right again …

  And then I remember telling myself not to be so stupid … just because a taxi driver tells you that he heard something, that he heard that ‘there was three, maybe four of them’ … that doesn’t mean anything.

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  He doesn’t know anything.

  And neither do you.

  So don’t even think about giving up yet.

  Don’t think about anything …

  … I don’t want anyone else to get killed … I won’t let it happen …

  … just believe.

  37

  It must have been around nine o’clock when I knocked on the door of William’s flat. I’d started to cry in the lift on the way up, and by the time Nancy opened the door, I’d pretty much lost control and the tears were just pouring down my face.

  ‘Lili!’ Nancy gasped. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Is he here?’ I sobbed.

  ‘William? No … I thought he was with you.’

  I really broke down then, weeping and wailing so much that all Nancy could do was take me inside and hold me, letting me cry, letting me howl, letting me let it all out … until, eventually, the tears began to dry up, I stopped struggling for breath, and my voice very gradually came back to me.

  ‘The bomb …’ I muttered. ‘The bomb …’

  ‘All right,’ Nancy said softly. ‘Just take your time … breathe slowly … that’s it. Nice and easy …’

  I took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and looked at her. ‘When did you last see William?’

  ‘I don’t know … sometime this morning, I think. He left around twelve –’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  She shook her head. ‘He went out a bit earlier to make a phone call, came back for a while, then went out again.’ She was beginning to look wo
rried now. ‘Is he in some kind of trouble or something?’

  ‘I don’t know … I think he might …’

  ‘What is it, Lili? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Did you see the news tonight?’

  ‘What news?’ She frowned at me, and then suddenly her face dropped. ‘You don’t mean the bombing?’

  I nodded.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Not that … please don’t tell me –’

  ‘I don’t know anything yet,’ I said quickly. ‘All I know is –’

  ‘What? What do you know? Is William all right?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  It was her turn to take a deep breath now. She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself, then she breathed out slowly and looked at me. ‘Tell me,’ she said quietly. ‘Tell me everything.’

  I told her everything.

  ‘God, what was he thinking?’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Why couldn’t he just …?’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘I should have known … I should have …’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, crying quietly. ‘I tried to change his mind … but he just wouldn’t listen. And I didn’t know … you know, I didn’t know what to do … whether I should tell anyone or not. But I promised him that I wouldn’t …’ I looked at Nancy. ‘I’m so sorry …’

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ she said gently. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I should have told you –’

  ‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘A promise is a promise … there was nothing else you could have done.’

  I sniffed, wiping tears from my face. ‘Do you think …? I mean, do you think he’s –?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ a voice said suddenly, and I looked over and saw Little Joe in the doorway.

  ‘Not now, Joe,’ Nancy said, smiling at him. ‘Just go back to your room for a bit, OK?’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. We’re just … we just need to sort something out.’ She smiled again. ‘Go on, off you go.’ She waited until he’d gone and the door had closed behind him, then she turned back to me. ‘Did William tell you what the other two men were called?’

  I shook my head. ‘I never asked him.’

  ‘But you saw them all … you know what they look like?’

  I nodded, looking at her. ‘What are you thinking?’

  She sighed. ‘God knows … I’m just trying to get my head round this, I suppose. I’m just …’ She looked at her watch, then got up and switched on the TV. ‘I think we’ve just missed the ITV News, but there might be something on BBC.’ She stood in front of the television for a while, watching as an MP answered questions about food prices, then the interview finished and the programme switched to a report about Concorde … and Nancy turned down the sound. ‘Maybe it’s already been on,’ she said. ‘I’ll try the radio.’ She went into the kitchen and came back with a portable radio. She turned it on, tuned into a local station, listened for a while, then set the volume to low and put the radio on a table by the settee and sat down next to me.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked her.

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Shouldn’t we get in touch with the police?’

  She looked at me. ‘If this is what it looks like, if it is an IRA operation … we can’t go to the police.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because …’ She sighed heavily. ‘Well, firstly, whatever they’ve managed to find out so far, which probably isn’t very much, there’s no way that they’re going to tell us anything. They won’t confirm anything, they won’t deny anything. And secondly, if we go to the police and tell them that we think William might have been at the workshop, all they’ll do is pass us on to Special Branch or MI5 – because they’ll be the ones investigating this – and the chances are we’ll be taken away and stuck in a cell somewhere, and then, when they’re ready, they’ll start asking us questions …’ Nancy paused, looking at me. ‘They’ll want to know everything, Lili – about William, and me, and William’s parents – and they won’t stop until they’ve got everything they want, no matter how long it takes. And we still won’t know anything about William.’ She glanced up at the muted TV screen. The news had finished. A film was showing. Nancy sighed again. ‘Special Branch or MI5 can do what they like to me, Lili, I really don’t care … but I’m not going to let them get hold of you, and I’m not going to put Joe at risk either. Because if I’m not here to look after him …’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  I nodded. ‘But we have to do something, don’t we? What about trying the hospitals? I mean, he might have been hurt –’

  ‘The police will already have checked all the hospitals. If he was badly hurt – and he wouldn’t go to a hospital unless he was really badly hurt – the police would have found him by now. And besides …’

  ‘What?’

  She hesitated. ‘Well … from what I saw on the news earlier on … I just think … I mean, if he was there when the bomb went off …’

  ‘He couldn’t have survived.’

  She didn’t answer me, but she didn’t have to. We both knew that it was true.

  ‘So what do we do?’ I said. ‘We can’t just sit here all night –’

  ‘I think that’s all we can do, Lili,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Just stay here, listen to the radio, watch the news …’ She shrugged. ‘I doubt very much if there’ll actually be any news, not real news anyway, but you never know. And if William is out there somewhere … well, we need to be here for him when he gets back.’

  I looked at her. ‘Do you think he could be …? I mean, do you really think that he might be out there somewhere?’

  She smiled sadly. ‘Anything’s possible with William, isn’t it?’

  I did my best to smile back at her, but I think we both knew that if William was still out there somewhere, if he was still alive, he would have let us know by now. And while I knew that Nancy was right, that anything was possible, I also knew that in the real world – and this was the real world – miracles don’t happen.

  No matter how much you want them to …

  They just don’t.

  After Nancy had taken me down to a phone box across the street, and I’d called Mum to let her know that I was staying the night at William’s, we went back to the flat and settled ourselves down on the settee.

  We waited.

  We listened to the radio.

  We watched the news.

  And Nancy was right, there wasn’t any more real news. There were reports about the bomb, regular updates, but no actual news.

  The police investigation was ‘ongoing’.

  Leads were being ‘pursued’.

  The cause of the explosion was still being ‘examined’.

  The extent of any casualties was still ‘unknown’.

  The time passed slowly, hours seeming to last for days, and as the clock ticked slowly away, I eventually began to drift in and out of sleep. I didn’t want to go to sleep – it just felt wrong – and I did everything I could to stay awake, but I just couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open, and at some point in the early hours of the morning – with my head resting heavily on Nancy’s shoulder – I finally drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  38

  It was early when I woke up, the pale light of dawn just beginning to show through the window. I was cold. My neck was stiff. I was curled up on the settee under a thin woollen blanket.

  ‘Lili …? Are you awake?’

  Nancy was sitting on the floor beside me. Her voice was faint, her face was pale. She was crying.

  I sat up. ‘Nancy …?’

  ‘Sorry … I didn’t mean to wake you …’

  ‘What is it?’ I said quickly. ‘Is it William? Have you heard something?’

  She shook her head. ‘I
was in his room … I was just …’ She wiped her eyes and looked at me. ‘I found this …’

  She passed me an envelope. I took it from her and looked at it. It was a plain white envelope … it was sealed. My name was written in black biro on the front.

  I looked at Nancy.

  She said, ‘There were two of them … one for me and Joe, one for you. I found them on his desk. They were both inside a bigger envelope …’ Sniffing back tears, she picked up a larger envelope from the floor and showed it to me. On the front, written in black biro, it said: Only to be opened if I don’t come back.

  My heart was dead now, dead and empty.

  I could barely speak.

  ‘Is that …?’ I cleared my throat. ‘Is that William’s handwriting?’

  Nancy nodded. We were both crying now. I looked down at the envelope in my hands. I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t want to know the truth.

  I looked at Nancy. ‘Have you …?’

  She nodded again, holding up a sheet of paper. It was a letter … in William’s handwriting. It was tear-stained.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nancy said, sobbing quietly. ‘I’m so sorry …’

  I looked down at the envelope in my hands again.

  I didn’t want to open it …

  Nancy put her hand on my knee.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said.

  I looked down at the envelope …

  I didn’t want to open it …

  I didn’t …

  I couldn’t …

  I opened it.

  There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded in three, with writing on both sides. I took it out, unfolded it, closed my eyes for a moment …

  Then I opened my eyes, and began to read:

  Dear Lili

  With a bit of luck you’ll never get round to reading this, but I need to ask you something now just in case I don’t see you again. I’ll have to be quick, I’m afraid, because I don’t have much time. So I’ll get straight to the point. It’s 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday (22 September), and Donal’s just told me to be at the workshop within the hour, so I’m guessing that whatever they’ve got planned it’s going ahead today. I think they’ve probably been keeping it from me until the very last minute because they’re still not 100% sure they can trust me. Hopefully, though, once I get there, I’ll find out what the target is, and then I can decide what to do about it. As I told you before, if there’s no chance of anyone getting hurt, I won’t do anything, I’ll just let them get on with it. But if there’s any possibility of people getting killed, I’ll stop them, I promise.