Guilty Innocence

by Maggie James

  ‘It’s crap. Only a fucking queer nancy boy would wear shit like that.’ He punches Joshua’s arm, too forcefully again, as he laughs, and Joshua’s careful to conceal his wince. Adam’s right; the watch is cheap and tacky, and Joshua tells himself he’ll give it to some homeless guy. Clearly, the other boy doesn’t steal because he wants the item; he does it because it’s all a lark and he gets high on the adrenaline rush.

  A few days later, Adam joins him in the park, his arm curled around something hidden under his jacket. They wander down to a secluded part under some trees. Adam pulls out a bottle of cheap cider.

  ‘Got this earlier on,’ he announces. ‘Had to run like hell when the alarm went off but fuck, what a laugh! The wanker in the shop was old and fat, never stood a chance of catching me.’ He unscrews the top, the cider fizzing inside the bottle, and draws a long draught into his mouth. Joshua’s never tasted cider, but he knows he’s about to; he prays it’ll be easier to deal with than the cigarettes, the taste of which still revolts him. Adam passes him the bottle. Relief hits him as the cider pings off the back of his throat. Not bad at all; he could get to like the stuff, although he daren’t risk going home to Joanna Barker tipsy. So he takes small swigs against Adam’s large ones, never asking for the bottle, which Adam hogs anyway. They sprawl on the grass, Adam commenting on the tits of the women who serve lunch at school, enthusing over the firm, high boobs of one of them.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind giving the blonde tart a fuck,’ he boasts. Pure bravado, of course, Joshua realises. Nothing but talk, aimed at reinforcing his hard nut image. For now, anyway. Thing is, though, Adam’s physically way ahead of the game for eleven years of age, and Joshua doesn’t think the loss of the other boy’s virginity will be too far off. Sex. The idea seems repellent; girls are a giggling mystery to him, strange and alien, and he’s content to leave the whole thing alone for now. Even if Adam does taunt him about his reluctance. ‘Fucking nancy boy,’ he jeers, before resuming his eulogy about the dinner woman’s boobs.

  Despite his earlier resolve, Joshua feels the alcohol gradually warming him through, relaxing him, giving him boldness he doesn’t normally possess with Adam. He’s drunk just enough to take the edge off the need to defer to the other boy. When the conversation gets round to what they’ll do that weekend, Joshua seizes his chance. He’s tired of playing underdog, desperate for once to do something with Adam he doesn’t feel secretly ashamed of afterwards.

  ‘We’ll try our luck down town again Saturday. Been wanting myself a leather jacket,’ Adam says.

  ‘I don’t think we should pinch any more stuff.’ Joshua’s voice comes out firm and strong.

  Adam doesn’t reply straight away. Then, his eyes drilling through Joshua’s, he injects pure steel into his tone.

  ‘What did you say, nancy boy?’

  With that, Joshua’s resolve hightails it out of the park, leaving him realising he’s challenged Adam, a departure from the norm. When he replies, the strength has vanished from his voice, the words coming out too high in pitch.

  ‘I said I don’t think we should pinch any more stuff.’

  Adam’s gaze terrifies him but Joshua can’t bring himself to break eye contact, although he dearly wants to. Snake and rabbit, deer and headlights, they stare at each other as Adam’s boozed-up brain processes the fact someone’s dared to challenge his dominance. Joshua realises Adam’s drunk a lot more of the cider than he has. He’s got no idea how it’ll affect him, but he doesn’t reckon it’ll be in a good way.

  And he’s right. Quicker than a snake’s strike, Adam’s right arm shoots out, grabbing Joshua’s throat, slamming him onto the grass, pinning him down with his bulk. His hand catches Joshua’s windpipe in a powerful vice, but his eyes do the scaring. Some dark quality within them strikes Joshua as abnormal, although he’s uncertain how he knows this. What he sees in Adam speaks of instability, of not being bound by conscience or any restraint from doing what he wants, whenever it suits. Combined with his size and strength, it’s a terrifying mix, and for the first time Joshua realises he’s scared shitless of the other boy, terrified of what those weird eyes say he’s capable of doing.

  His hand still constricting Joshua’s windpipe, Adam never breaks eye contact.

  ‘You’ll fucking well do what I say.’ Saliva flicks from Adam’s mouth as he spits the words out. Fear overwhelms Joshua, his breathing laboured against Adam’s grip. He gasps as he tries to force the word sorry past his constricted windpipe.

  Adam reaches into his inside pocket with his spare hand. He brings out a flick knife and releases the blade. Joshua’s eyes dart to Adam’s hand, clasped tightly around the knife. He’s sweating now with terror. Adam inches the knife up to Joshua’s throat, the edge indenting the flesh without breaking the skin.

  ‘You got that?’ Joshua’s head bobs up and down, his eyes never leaving Adam’s face. Adam doesn’t let go immediately, but he slackens his grip. Joshua’s breathing gradually gets easier, less laboured. Adam clicks shut the flick knife, replacing it in his pocket, and moves back, still with his hand encircling Joshua’s throat. He nods in satisfaction. Then he lets go, leaving Joshua gasping on the ground, more frightened than he’s ever been in his life.

  Adam passes him the cider. His voice is back to normal when he next speaks.

  ‘Get some of this down you, you fucking wuss.’ He leans back on his elbows, surveying Joshua with an amused expression, all trace of the rage of a few seconds ago erased. It’s as if he shifted gear temporarily into something dark and horrifying and now he’s back to normal, although Joshua later suspects the murky side is Adam’s natural state. He gulps down the cider, the bubbles gliding over his bruised throat, as he attempts to process the incident.

  Adam laughs. ‘You’re so fucking easy to wind up at times. Should have seen your face. Bloody priceless.’

  Joshua sits up. He should be getting home but daren’t risk saying anything. So he takes another sip of cider, staring at Adam, wondering how the darkness within can come and go so quickly, leaving no trace. Adam goes back to talking about boobs, coarse stuff about what he’d like to do to the dinner woman, and Joshua’s safe. For now.

  He’s shaken up by the incident, though. That night, he lies in bed, unable to sleep, trying to decide what course of action to take where Adam Campbell’s concerned. Best to back off, he tells himself, mix more with the other boys. Find some new mates. No more constant anxiety over whether his mother will discover he’s been bunking off school. So far, his absences have gone unnoticed or unchallenged but his luck can’t last.

  The next day, he avoids Adam, opting instead to hang around near the other boys, hoping he’ll be invited to join them at football practice, to eat with them, or whatever. It doesn’t happen, despite Joshua’s best efforts over the ensuing week. He’s allowed to partake in conversations, but the invites for more don’t come. By then, the friendship cliques are long established, their ranks firmly closed against outsiders, and whilst Joshua isn’t left out, he’s not exactly made welcome either.

  He suspects the reason for his exclusion lies in his connection with Adam Campbell. The other boy isn’t liked, not at all; instead, he’s feared. Joshua is tainted by association, a stain difficult to wash off. By the end of the week, he’s no further forward in establishing any meaningful links with the other boys; loneliness starts to seep back into the fabric of his life.

  Adam doesn’t attempt to rekindle their association during this time, which surprises Joshua. He’s fearful the other boy won’t let go now he’s laid claim to him, worried there’ll be a repetition of the knife at the throat incident. Nothing happens, though. Adam watches him, shooting cool stares of appraisal his way, but without attempting anything in the way of conversation. No mention of bunking off together or hanging out down town. The reason clicks into place in Joshua’s brain. Adam’s waiting for his sidekick to return by his own volition, realising Joshua won’t be accepted elsewhere. When he comes back to Adam, as he will, the b
onds will be a lot tighter. Stronger by far than if the other boy tries to force him back through overt dominance.

  It doesn’t take long. Worn down by his failure to break into any of the school cliques, tired of eating alone every day, weary of having nobody to hang around with, Joshua caves in. He spots Adam watching him one day and the dam of loneliness inside him bursts. Any company seems better than none, given how emotionally sterile his home environment is, and he finds himself walking over to Adam, despising himself for his weakness but desperate to end his solitude.

  ‘Want to hang out down the park?’ he asks. Adam nods; a grin, a smug and self-satisfied one, forms on his mouth, sealing with it Joshua’s role in their double act.

  A few days later, it’s the weekend. Adam’s parents have gone out; he’s sprawled with Joshua on the floor in his bedroom, swigging Coke and talking football and girls. Adam’s room’s a tip, of course; dirty laundry strewn around, drawers open, plates with toast crusts turning green shoved under the bed. The smell of furtively smoked cigarettes and unwashed bedding pervades the room. Adam’s banging on about tits again and Joshua’s attention wanders to his chest of drawers, one of which is pulled open and half-full of clothes. His eyes go to something tucked underneath the mess, something distinctly out of place. Sugar pink, a colour far removed from Adam Campbell’s tastes. Either thick cardboard or plastic, a right angle shape peeking out from under some socks.

  ‘What’s that?’ The words are out of Joshua’s mouth before he has a chance to consider whether they’re wise. Adam glances over, and a smug grin etches itself on his face. He reaches towards the item and pulls it out, his fingers caressing it.

  It’s a girl’s diary, the current year embossed in gold on the cover, matched by a flimsy lock on the side. A flowery pattern sprawls across the front. Joshua’s bemused. Adam’s an only child; he’s never spoken of any female cousins and certainly doesn’t have any girls as friends. All females are stupid, weak and ripe for abuse, according to the law of Adam Campbell. So who…?

  ‘Whose is that?’ he asks.

  Adam sneers. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  Joshua waits. He’s familiar enough by now with the way Adam operates to realise the other boy’s dying to tell him. He’ll have something to boast about in connection with the diary, some story to demonstrate how strong and powerful he is.

  Adam grins. ‘Ran into her a while back. Got bored with being dragged along every time my parents visit my uncle. Went off by myself, had a mooch around.’

  He tosses the diary across the floor, where it lands beside Joshua, open. The flimsy lock has long since been broken. At the front, someone’s written a name, the exotic syllables of which sink into his memory. With a surname like Abruzzo, the diary’s owner is clearly Italian. He flips the pages, puzzled. Childish handwriting, the entries often doodled around with hearts and stars. Joshua can decipher the more obvious ones, despite the fact they’re all in Italian. Cinema con Gina. Dentista. Vacanza in Sicilia. He doesn’t have much interest in it, however strange Adam’s possession of it is, but then he notices the expression on the other boy’s face. His grin bears a smug hallmark of satisfaction, and Joshua twigs the diary’s owner must be another child who’s fallen foul of Adam’s need to be top dog.

  Joshua fingers the diary, picturing a young Italian girl, someone even smaller and weaker than himself. All the more attractive to Adam for being less able to fight back. The girl to whom the diary once belonged.

  ‘Took myself a little something to remember her by,’ Adam says, his mind clearly roaming in the past. A sigh of satisfaction escapes him. Joshua sets the diary down on the floor, switching the conversation back to who has the best midfielders, Manchester United or Liverpool. They swig more Coke and Joshua lines up his opinion with Adam’s. Far safer that way.

  An hour passes. It’s nearly time for Joshua to head back to Joanna Barker’s frosty maternal care. Scrambling up from the floor, he forgets his half-empty can of Coke. The tin topples over, flooding dark streams over the pink diary that’s open beside it.

  ‘Hey! Watch what you’re doing, you clumsy motherfucker!’ Adam seizes the diary, shaking rivers of Coke from it. The cheap cardboard cover is already puckered, the pages stained a dirty brown.

  ‘Fucking ruined now, that is.’ Adam turns the diary over in his hands, before tossing it into the nearby rubbish bin, clearly judging it unsalvageable. Whatever fond memories he harbours about its acquisition, Joshua seems to have sullied them with his clumsiness. The other boy’s expression is dark and shuttered. Joshua realises what’s coming.

  The first blow slams into his belly, folding him in two as he doubles over, bracing himself against the pain and the other punches that follow. Adam smashes his fists against Joshua’s arms, his chest, wherever he can land a blow. Not his face, something that strikes Joshua later with its significance. Even in the midst of his rage, Adam exerts control. Joshua doesn’t return home that day with any obvious signs of having been in a fight. Nothing to arouse questions. Given Joanna Barker’s maternal indifference, it’s simple enough for him to conceal the livid bruises covering his body.

  Later on, when Joshua’s banged up in Vinney Green, he has time to think over every nuance of his relationship with Adam Campbell, and the pink diary slides back into his brain, worrying away at him. Only one interpretation comes to mind, and it doesn’t bode well for the young Italian girl who records her life between the diary’s garish covers. The thought tortures him, tugs at him, making him wonder: is she Adam Campbell’s first victim? Has he killed before Abby Morgan?

  Is that why Adam explodes into rage when his cheap souvenir gets damaged?

  Once the idea takes root in his head, it worries him constantly. Something about the way Adam’s face oozed smug satisfaction tells Joshua the Abruzzo girl came off badly in her encounter with Adam. If he’s killed another child, he’s obviously got away with it. Joshua doesn’t recall ever hearing about a missing girl with such an unusual surname, although what with being preoccupied back then with football, Adam and pleasing his mother, he’s likely to have missed such an event anyway. The fact Adam took her diary disturbs him; the other boy clearly gets off on seizing trophy items from his victims. Abby Morgan’s green hippo proves the point. Joshua attempts furtive searches at Vinney Green whenever he gets Internet access, searching for missing children with the surname Abruzzo and slamming hard against a dead end. Reassuring, he supposes, but his obsessive-compulsive nature won’t let the matter drop. The whole thing boils around in his head whilst he’s in detention until it becomes vitally important to find out who the Abruzzo girl is and what happened between her and Adam Campbell. Until he finds her, he’ll always be uneasy, wondering if he shouldn’t have realised what the diary signified, what Adam was capable of doing. He’ll perpetually fret over whether it was a warning of what would happen to Abby Morgan, a sign he should have heeded.

  After he’s released, his obsession with the Italian girl fades in comparison with his immediate priority to adjust to life outside. Gradually, though, the old fixation returns. He needs to dispel, finally, his anxiety over the Abruzzo child, but fear of rocking his newfound stability holds him back initially. A long time passes through Mark’s life before he makes a promise to himself. He’s going to find out, once and for all, what Adam did to the little Italian girl and whether she survived.

  11

  HER SHAME REVEALED

  Rachel doesn’t hear from Mark for a couple of days, during which time every one of her insecurities kicks in. She’s too pale, too skinny, too unattractive for him to fancy her, the way she does him. She logs onto Facebook obsessively, her hopes crashing each time she doesn’t find a friend request from him.

  When she eventually does, she’s ecstatic. Her first priority is to scan his profile. Relationship status: single. Rachel’s pleased, but not surprised; Mark carries an air of solitariness about him, good-looking though he is. She’s prepared to bet he’s not had many girlfriends. S
o far, she’s his only friend on Facebook. Again, no surprise. She’s already sensed a certain isolation about him, as if he doesn’t make friends easily, something she can identify with.

  Should she send him a message? She’s debating whether to risk it when Fate decides for her. Mark is now online.

  ‘Hi how r u thanks for friending me on fb,’ she types.

  He takes a minute or so before he replies, and when he does, she notes he’s definitely not into text speak.

  ‘No problem. Been looking at the page for the fun run.’

  ‘U free? Gonna join me?’

  When he doesn’t reply, Rachel’s insecurities kick in again, intense and insistent. After a couple of minutes, she types another message.

  ‘Wld be gd to c u again and hv sum1 to do run with. Can u make it?’

  Eventually he replies. ‘Not sure at present. I’ll get back to you.’

  His closing words soften the perceived blow a little. ‘Will be in touch. Bye for now. Good to catch up with you.’

  Hmm. Far too brief a chat for her liking. Does he fancy her? He’s certainly made a strong impression on her; an unspoken bond seems to have sprung up between them. She can’t name it, but it exists, and she wants to deepen it, strengthen it. Mark seems familiar to her in some strange way, as though she knows him somehow, although she’s sure they’ve never met before.

  Mark Slater. Not exactly handsome, but his hair has finger-run-through appeal, his mud-brown eyes are soft and warm, and his athletic build is definitely attractive. So, too, is the dark tuft she noticed peeking over the top of his sweatshirt when they last met. She goes for hairy men, always has. The rugged masculine look. Don’t get your hopes up, she warns herself. He may already have a girlfriend, no matter what his Facebook status proclaims. The gremlins of self-doubt within her start shouting. You’re too small, too ginger, too freckly. Too tainted, what with your murdered sister and your alcoholic father. Who do you think you are, setting your sights on Mark Slater?