by Peter Cocks
Sophie seemed to glow a bit brighter than the others, too. Her conversation looked animated and lively, and there were laughs whenever she said anything. It was as if she had a natural aura of celebrity about her.
I didn’t gawp, of course. I used some of my newly learnt field craft to observe from afar, to keep a distance and remain unobtrusive.
I had caught the DLR from Deptford Bridge, then hopped on a bus at Lewisham Station that took me down towards Bromley, in the posher part of the suburbs. Even though the bus stopped directly outside Marlowe Sixth Form College, I got off a couple of stops early. I didn’t want anyone to see me arrive at the gates. In fact I circled around the block and approached the college from the opposite direction. Quite a few of the students arrived in cars, and I was surprised by the number of Minis, Golfs and Beetle convertibles in the small car park. I didn’t attract any attention: I was underdressed in jeans, a charcoal grey sweatshirt and black suede skate shoes, carrying a backpack that held my phone, laptop and some books. The idea was to blend in with the background.
Everyone was gathered in the large yard at the rear of the college building. It was the first day of term and students clustered in pairs and groups. The noise of their chatter was loud in the air, with that excitement that people have catching up after their holidays. I did a circuit of the yard but looking around vaguely, taking in all the groups, acting as if I was looking for someone. All the while I kept Sophie Kelly and her gang, all leggings, hair and Ugg boots, firmly in my sights.
Another unusual thing about them was that there were no males hanging around. Boys circled and watched, but didn’t join in. I felt as if I was watching some kind of wildlife documentary. The girls surrounding Sophie Kelly knew the boys were circling and made gestures: playing with their hair, checking their lipgloss, putting their hands behind their heads, world-weary, as if they were already bored by the day. The looks they flashed at nearby males did nothing to encourage an approach. They were all protecting their queen bee.
Getting to know Sophie Kelly was already looking more difficult than I had anticipated.
“Sorry…” I’d stepped back straight onto someone’s foot. I automatically apologized, but whoever was behind me must have virtually been breathing down my neck. I turned to see a geeky-looking bloke with a big head of curly hair just short of an afro.
“No worries,” he said, grinning. “The Kelly Gang.” He nodded towards the group of girls and I was instantly mad at myself. So much for my subtle surveillance – I had already been caught watching by someone watching me.
“You can look, but don’t touch,” the Hairdo continued.
“Oh, right.”
“You’re new,” he said. “Benjy Fwench.” He obviously had a problem with his Rs. He held out his hand for me to shake. I did and it felt limp and slightly damp, like a fish.
“Eddie Savage,” I replied. “Yes, I am new.”
“You’ll be needing a friend to show you around then,” Benjy French continued, as if I had no choice in the matter. “What subjects are you doing?”
“IT, Art History and French.” I resisted the urge to say Fwench.
“Interesting choices,” he said. “You’ll be doing IT with me.”
“What are the chances?”
Benjy grinned, uncertain as to whether or not I was being sarcastic.
“Best mosey on in then,” he said finally. “It’s first session.”
Benjy French made sure he sat next to me during IT. Other lads pushed and jostled him on the way in, taking the piss and ruffling his curly hair. He was clearly the butt of plenty of jokes but seemed to accept his position in life, good-naturedly telling the others to naff off.
Wherever you go, it’s always the needy freaks who run up and try to make friends first. They’re either the ones that no one else likes, or they have worn out all their other friendships by being weird and demanding. They’ve tried everyone else, so you’re next in line. Fresh meat.
I tend to think that people who are desperate to be your friend are best avoided, so although I felt a bit cruel, I tried to shake him off at the first break. But Benjy wasn’t having it and followed me to the canteen, stuck like glue. I worried that his presence was already cramping my style – but then no one else had so much as looked at me, let alone spoken to me, so I decided Benjy French was a good enough place to start my enquiries. I grabbed a coffee and he sat himself down next to me, sucking from a bottle of water like a thirsty baby.
“First impressions?” he said, glancing around the canteen. It looked pretty ordinary to me: a few vending machines, some tables, a sandwich bar. Sophie Kelly and a couple of her girls were sitting over on the other side.
“Yeah, pretty good,” I said, not wishing to offend.
“So, how come you’re starting this year?” Benjy asked.
“I had a gap in my education,” I said honestly. “A death in the family. I took time out, then got a place here.”
“Sorry about that,” said Benjy, looking at me sideways. He shut up for a moment, as if he was worried he might have upset me. I used his silence to take the initiative.
“So, what’s the big deal with Sophie Kelly then?” I asked, nodding in her general direction.
“Don’t you know?” Benjy almost squeaked, his voice then dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Her old man is supposed to be some major villain. Serious robberies, drugs, fraud … the lot.”
The way Benjy struggled with his Rs made the list sound almost comical and I had to stop myself from smiling. His voice got lower still. “He gets people sorted … you know, blown away.”
I shrugged as if to say no, I didn’t know. Of course, I had done some background reading on Sophie Kelly’s family, but it was best to act ignorant.
“Sweet,” I said. “So does she have a boyfriend?”
Benjy snorted. “Apparently there was one, a couple of years ago. The rumour was he was thrown off a multi-storey car park for trying to get her bra off.”
Bwa… I had to bite my lip.
“So, even if she was interested in getting a bloke,” Benjy continued, “no one would go near her for fear of her old man.”
I glanced up and saw that Sophie Kelly was looking directly at me from across the room. My stomach lurched a little as I felt I’d been caught in the headlights. I attempted a tight smile and she turned away again. I kept looking for a moment longer.
She really did have a fantastic figure. Like I said, curvy. I wondered whether it would be worth the risk of the multi-storey…
FOURTEEN
I got back to Deptford about five. It had been my first day on the job and I thought I should start writing up my notes. I opened up a blank page in one of the new notebooks and stared at it for a while. Then fiddled with a pen and looked at the page a little longer. I didn’t know where to start.
I had worked out a hidey-hole in the floor of the closet in my bedroom by levering up a plank that opened into a cable duct. There was a good space down there and once I had replaced the square of carpet over it, I reckoned it was pretty secure.
I lifted the carpet and pulled up the plank. Underneath were spare SIM cards and memory cards, my false passport and ID, and the memory stick that Tony Morris had given me. I plugged it into the laptop and double-clicked on the icon. There were several MP3 files, labelled Classified and dated two or three years ago. I clicked on the first.
My brother’s voice.
It was a verbal account, a bit monotonous, but Steve’s voice. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but all I could hear was the sound of him. I spooled the clip back to the start and listened again.
“Came back to Belfast a week before the start of term. Just to get into the swing of things, do some groundwork before the rest of the mob gets back to Queen’s. The chemical engineering course attracts all the nutters and misfits… The chemists spend more time in the pub than students on any other course, and the ones who aren’t learning to make explosives seem to be intent
on making stuff to blow their minds…”
I scrolled forwards a bit.
“They’ve bought my cover as a mature research student on secondment from Royal Holloway. It all fits with what they know about London: my flat in Kilburn; my sympathy for the cause. My accent is pretty much London, but my ‘parents’ are Irish. I’m James Boyle to them. Jimmy. It all adds up, and none of them seem to be the suspicious type … I hope.”
He went on to describe how he had gone out for an evening with the Irish guys on his corridor, Dessie and Paul. How they had taken him up to a pub in the Falls Road area:
“Paul ordered Guinnesses all round and we sat at a formica-topped table at the back of the bar by the pool table. Dessie racked up a game and broke. Paul never took his eyes off me. I was getting pretty uncomfortable. I sipped Guinness I didn’t want, just to stop my mouth from being dry. This was all happening too soon. Paul finally spoke, told me that Dessie had seen me hanging around the college during the holidays.
‘Sniffing around,’ he said.
I repeated my story that I had come back early to revise for exams. Paul nodded and didn’t say anything else, which made me more nervous. I needed a leak badly and went out to the toilets.
I heard the toilet door swing open behind me and felt the heavy thump of a fist on the back of my head.
I dropped forwards and hit my nose on the low windowsill above the urinal. Some training kicked in and I banged a leg out as I fell, catching Paul in the shin and bringing him down with me. We wrestled on the slippery tiled floor but he had the better of me. I was on my back and he held me by the collar and cracked my head against the floor.
‘I don’t feckin’ believe you!’ he spat into my face, and I could smell and taste the beer, the fags and the aggression on his breath.
I tried to blink my mind clear through the drink and the throb from the back of my head.
‘I’m straight, I tell you. I’m feckin’ straight.’
Paul punched me in the mouth and my head went back against the tiles again. I tasted blood. I hadn’t expected everything to happen so quickly. It was supposed to have taken me months to get this far into their organization. I had to think fast. I didn’t want to fight back too hard and reveal my training but I had no time to spare. I would have to play my joker now, or…”
The sound clip finished. I clicked on to the next one, my heart pounding. I felt sick just hearing about it. I sat on the edge of the bed listening to Steve getting it off his chest. How he had shown Paul his membership to The Harp Club in London and finally convinced them he was on their side. I scrolled forward again.
“Dessie came round the following morning and apologized: said that taking me up to the Falls was the only way to test me. To put me through the trial by fire with that animal Paul.
‘What’s with the man?’ I asked. Dessie said he’s got IRA genes that stretch back to Michael Collins, that he’s spent years inside and on the run in Spain. He’s only here now under an alias. The authorities know, but he has protection in some very high places. I need to work on finding out his real ID. He could be pivotal to cracking this one.
I asked Dessie what Paul was wanted for – what he’d done. Dessie said it was more a case of what Paul hadn’t done. It was a very short list. I asked what might have happened if I hadn’t belonged to The Harp.
Dessie chuckled grimly. Said he’d probably have cut my ears off first for fun, then kneecapped me with a power drill, castrated me and cut my throat with a bread knife before burying bits of my dismembered body all over the county. It made me feel a bit sick, as I think he was only partly joking, telling me in case there was any further doubt about whose side I was on.
And of course, I was on the wrong side.”
Whatever side that was, Steve was a cool customer.
I looked again at my blank page. A tear had rolled down my nose and onto the paper. Hearing his voice again, I guess. What I was up to seemed so childish compared with the stuff Steve was talking about, but you had to start somewhere. I relived the moments of the day … arriving at Marlowe College, surveying the yard, meeting Benjy French and locating Sophie Kelly.
I began to write.
FIFTEEN
Donnie did the pick-up at eight.
If he cut through the back of Sidcup and Chislehurst, avoiding the main arteries into town, he should make it by nine.
He got there for eight, but Her Ladyship kept him waiting a good ten minutes, which would put the pressure on if she wanted to be on time. Naturally, he forgave her everything when she got in the car. She gave him the old charm offensive as she climbed into the Merc: the white smile, the baby blues and a flash of cleavage. She always smelt so good too. Donnie breathed in her perfume and was as helpless as a kitten.
She apologized for being late and for the fact that her car was in the garage after her latest ding. Donnie didn’t know how the boss put up with it. She’d only been driving a few months and had already mashed up a new Mini. But, it seemed, everyone forgave Sophie everything. Always had.
Donnie hadn’t been so forgiving of Donna, his own daughter. He’d been a bit pissed off when she got herself tubbed up at sixteen. The drug habit and the black boyfriend hadn’t helped matters, in Donnie’s view. Sophie was cut from a different cloth altogether. Donnie didn’t even think of her as the same species as his own daughter, never once connecting the way Donna had turned out with his own heavy-handed parenting skills and the black eyes he’d inflicted on his ex.
Donnie checked the rear-view mirror. Sophie looked comfortable in the back, leafing through a copy of Vogue, her blonde hair caught in the sunlight streaking in through the window.
The rest of his day would not be quite so pretty, he thought. Once he’d dropped Sophie off, he was going on to Croydon. He had some goods to pick up from one of their offices down there. Then there was the route up through South Norwood and Crystal Palace, picking up sums of money that were owing by some of their smaller-scale clients. The kinds of sums that generally took a smack in the mouth or a kick in the Jacobs to extract.
At 8.55 a.m. precisely, Donnie pulled up outside Marlowe Sixth Form College. Sophie asked him to drive on a bit, said she didn’t want to be seen getting out of one of her dad’s cars. Donnie felt a small pang of hurt: perhaps she didn’t want to be seen being driven by him. The pain was soon forgotten, however, as Sophie leant forwards, thanked him and kissed him on the cheek before climbing out.
Donnie felt himself blush and unleashed a rare smile, revealing a mouthful of capped and broken teeth. He didn’t smile very often. Which was probably a good thing.
At the end of my first week at Marlowe I got off the bus at the stop just past the college so as not to fall into a routine. The bus stop was occupied by a big, navy-blue Mercedes and the bus had to pull alongside to let passengers off, blocking the car in.
The car horn blared and the bus driver hooted back. The electric window of the car slid down and the big bloke inside told the bus driver to piss off. I hopped off the bus while the altercation continued and almost bumped right into Sophie Kelly, who had just got out of the Mercedes. She saw me and looked embarrassed, turned and walked back towards the college. I followed a couple of steps behind her. She looked as good from behind as she did from the front.
I had about a hundred paces to make up my mind.
If only she’d drop a hanky or a book or something naff like that, then I’d have an excuse. But she didn’t, sod it. And in one of those mad moments, I just dived in. I quickened my step and caught up with her.
“Your taxi driver looked a bit hairy,” I said, jerking my thumb back to where she’d been dropped off.
She barely looked at me but smiled, reddening, which I liked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Really embarrassing.”
I pressed on. “I’m new this term. I think we’re in the same Art History group.”
“Yeah, I think so.” This was going well.
The conversation would have ended ther
e, but the gates were getting closer and any minute Sophie Kelly would be swallowed by her gaggle of protective bitches. This was a rare gap in the defence.
So I took it.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go out some time?” I couldn’t believe it myself as the words tumbled out. Maybe it was easier to say because I was hiding behind a mask. It didn’t feel like it was me who was saying it. A couple of months earlier I would never have dared. My words had an instant effect. Sophie stopped dead and looked at me.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Well, I don’t really know anyone here,” I began to explain. “And you look really nice.”
She smiled. I was encouraged.
“Better than nice,” I said.
Sophie burst into a laugh and put a hand over her mouth. “You are,” she said. “You’re asking me out!”
“Is that so bad?” I opened my arms so that she could look at me.
She laughed again and began to walk towards the gates.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“Eddie.” I caught her up and held my hand out for her to shake. She didn’t take it but looked at it as if it was something strange, unknown. She smiled at me again and turned into the gates.
“I’m Sophie,” she replied. “And I’ll think about your kind offer … Eddie.”