Kill All Enemies

by Melvin Burgess

  Chris

  The police came round the next day to take a statement about the attack. I don’t know what they wanted a statement from me for. Mad Billie had done it in front of everyone. Jim, Hannah, all the kids in the PRU – they’d all seen it. They had enough witnesses to lock her up and throw the key away forever, as far as I could make out. Sounded like a good idea.

  When they’d done, the coppers closed their books and stood to go.

  ‘We’ve been after her for a long time,’ one of them said.

  ‘What’ll happen to her?’ I asked. I was feeling a bit bad, actually. I may have laid it on a bit thick in that statement, looking back. You can’t blame me. Not only was I stuck in hospital with a nasty testicular injury, I’d also been tortured with embarrassment by nurses.

  ‘She’ll get locked up if they’ve got any sense,’ said the copper.

  ‘Where is she now? Have you arrested her?’

  ‘No, she’s on the run.’

  ‘She’s run off? Where to?’

  ‘Well, if we knew that we’d be round taking her in. She’ll turn up. She hasn’t got anywhere to go. She knows it’s over for her now. She’s just putting off the day of judgement. There isn’t a judge in the country won’t chuck the book at her.’

  ‘She’s got away with murder in the past,’ the other copper said.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They don’t like locking kids up, even kids like Billie Trevors. And she has friends. Those people in the Brant don’t want her put away. They always think they can sort them out. But kids like Billie Trevors don’t learn. The only thing you can do with her is lock her up.’

  It made me feel better about laying it on a bit thick. If she was going to be let off lightly, I needed to redress the balance. I made up my mind: if it ever got to court, I’d lay it on as thick as I could, get her locked up for as long as humanly possible. I mean, she’s clearly a monster. A ball crusher.

  I felt better then.

  Alex came to see me after school that day. I was pleased to start off with. I was getting fed up with him lately, but it gets so boring in hospital I’d have been happy to see Genghis Khan.

  I was the talk of the school, apparently. The boy who got his nads flattened by Billie Trevors was all everyone could talk about. According to Alex, the teachers were loving it in a ‘that’s what happens when you get into trouble’ kind of way. Just like my dad.

  ‘What, if you get excluded, you’re going to get your balls flattened? How pathetic!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, but they have a point, don’t they?’ said Alex. ‘It’s the sort of people who go there. The sort of people who get excluded.’

  Pure blind prejudice – and there’s the teachers encouraging it. Unbelievable. And these people call themselves educators. I was so irritated at them making hay out of my misfortune like that.

  ‘I think I felt better before you came here,’ I told Alex.

  ‘I can go if you like,’ he said. But I let him stay, which was a mistake because he spent the entire time nagging me to let him take a picture of my nads on his phone.

  ‘No! Are you mad? Why would I let you do that?’

  ‘Everyone’s curious.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Everyone. All the lads – and the girls.’

  ‘Which girls?’

  ‘Beverley Summers.’

  I used to go out with Beverley. Sort of.

  ‘Maybe she wants to compare them. Before and after,’ sniggered Alex. That was his idea of humour. And then before I had a chance to respond – guess what? I mean, guess who? Only the nut-stamping lunatic herself, Billie Trevors. How psycho is that? I spotted her at once, as soon as the door opened. She had a face like thunder, glaring about, scowling, peering into the beds. Talk about ugly. She looked like someone had peed in her shoes.

  She’d come to finish off the job.

  ‘Alex … Alex … !’ I hissed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s her – that girl …’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Billie Trevors. The one who stamped on my bollocks. She’s coming this way!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there. She’s come to finish the job … I interfered in her fight … Call the nurse … Alex? Alex!’

  Because Alex, dear Alex, my best mate, had shot off to hide down the ward.

  ‘Alex! Come back! I’ll never forgive you for this … Alex!’

  It was too late. Psychonut was already upon me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said brightly, while my hand groped desperately for the bell to call the nurse.

  Billie stood there glaring down at me. She was in a right state – hair all over the place, clothes creased, stains down her front.

  ‘I’ve been feeling bad,’ she said.

  My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  She glanced at the bed. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

  ‘… Go ahead.’

  Billie sat down and clenched her hands together. Her fingernails were black.

  ‘How are you?’ she said.

  ‘A bit, you know, sore.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘I lost it.’ She sat there chewing her lip. She seemed calm but I was worrying about mood swings. What were the signs? How long did it take her to go from calm to monster?

  ‘Nothing permanent, then?’

  ‘No! I can still … have children and everything. They just, you know, kept me in for observation.’

  Billie looked up at the ceiling and smiled.

  ‘Thank God for that. I was really worried. I know you were just jumping in to save your mate – it wasn’t anything to do with you. And he just …’

  ‘Grabbed out at the wrong thing,’ I suggested.

  Billie blushed. ‘Yeah. If I’d have known, I’d have changed me pants.’

  And we both laughed.

  Funny, eh? One minute you’re doing your best to get her locked up, the next you’re sitting there having a laugh with her. I told her what really happened. That big bully kid, Roly Poly, it wasn’t his fault. He was tripped. I saw it. It was Ed – the most irritating kid in the world.

  I don’t know why I told her that. Roly had it coming. You heard what he said while I was writhing on the floor in mortal agony? ‘I still owe you.’ I still owe you – after I’d had my balls crushed trying to save his sorry fat hide. I should have kept my mouth shut and let Billie destroy him in her own time – but it wasn’t fair. As for Ed – that’s another matter. I had some business with Ed, and maybe Roly Poly did as well. And maybe telling Billie about it was sorting it out on both our accounts.

  We had a good old chat in the end, me and Billie. When she’s not scowling, Billie actually … she could be pretty hot if she dressed herself right. And sweet. Amazingly – but yeah. You can read everything that’s going on with her. When I told her about Ed, you should have seen her. First she looked amazed, then she looked furious, then she looked really sad.

  ‘He was tripped. And I battered him. And then I battered you.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. He pulled your trousers down. He deserved it.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. I just went crazy. Anyway, I just came in to say I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Sorry accepted,’ I said.

  She stood up to go. ‘That’s what I came to say,’ she said. ‘I’ll go now.’

  ‘Er … you wanna grape or something? Biscuit?’ I asked. Now that she’d come to say sorry, I didn’t want to let her go. It was stupid, really – she was a known psychopath, unable to control her violence by her own admission. But I liked her. At least she wasn’t bland. At least she wasn’t hiding up the ward thinking about herself like Alex.

  Billie glanced around her, scowling away, like it might not be safe. She looked like one of those Manga comics when she scowled like that. Then she eyed the food.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered gruffly, and sat back down and started wolfing down the fruit and biscuits and stuff on the plate beside me like a dog.

  ‘… Hungry,’ she said when she saw me looking.

  ‘Yeah. What have you been doing, then?’ I asked her.

  ‘On the run,’ she said, and she gave me a bit of a smile. ‘Desperado,’ she said with her mouth full. ‘Outlaw.’

  ‘Yeah, the police said.’

  ‘The cops? They’ve been round here?’ she said, pausing and looking around.

  ‘Yeah, yeah – hours ago. They wanted a …’ Then I remembered what I’d said to them and changed the subject. ‘But what’s it really like?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘On the run. I mean, it sounds like fun, but is it?’

  Billie pulled a face. ‘It’s crap,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been home since.’ She ducked her head. ‘I’m in such shit.’

  ‘What’ll they do when they get you? The police, I mean?’

  ‘Dunno yet. Secure, in the end. The LOK for now.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s where they send all the bad kids.’

  ‘I thought that was the Brant.’

  ‘The Brant is for beginners. The LOK is a proper concentration camp.’

  I felt dreadful.

  ‘Won’t they let you back in the Brant until then?’

  Billie shook her head. ‘That was my last chance. I messed up big time. They really put their necks out for me and I let everyone down. Why would they give me another chance? I wouldn’t.’

  She couldn’t look at me. Her eyes had gone red. I looked away and picked myself a grape, and she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Big hard Billie – and here she was, sitting at the edge of my bed trying not to cry.

  ‘I can’t help myself,’ she said in a gruff voice. I wanted to hold her hand or pat her on the shoulder or something, but I was too scared.

  We chatted a bit. Talked about music and films. She liked really ordinary things – the same sort of things I liked. Keanu Reeves, Bruce Willis, Angelina Jolie. I suppose I was expecting her to like something really strange. Music was the same – rap, rock … and heavy metal, which seemed to fit more.

  ‘Metal, yeah,’ she said. ‘Wanna hear my death growl?’

  ‘What’s that? Yeah – go on.’

  She did this voice – it was hilarious. Like a bear with a sore throat, only singing. And the amazing thing was it was in tune. It was so loud and deep it made me laugh my head off. She was laughing too, snorting biscuits over the bed. Then there was a kerfuffle down the end of the ward. Billie stood up and looked over.

  Over by the desk, on the other side of the double doors, there was a flash of dark blue. A uniform. A face looked through the glass panel.

  Police.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Billie, I didn’t call them.’

  Billie looked down at me with a face full of scorn. ‘No one ever does,’ she said. She tipped back her head, and walked off towards the double doors.

  ‘Billie, don’t go!’ I shouted. ‘Do a runner!’

  But it was too late. She pushed open the door at the end of the ward. I wondered if she was going to put up a fight, but she didn’t. She just walked through without a glance back and the police closed in on her on the other side, quick, like they were catching something. They were. She looked back then, over her shoulder at me, her white face, scared like a little kid.

  Then she was gone.

  A couple of minutes later Alex came up, grinning all over his stupid face.

  ‘I saved your nads,’ he said.

  ‘How come,’ I said, ‘you manage to cock up everything you ever do?’

  Hannah

  I got a call off Barbara Barking at eight.

  ‘They’ve picked her up. She was at the hospital, getting back on to that boy she stamped on.’

  Billie – no!

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At home. They’re going to give me a ring when I can go and pick her up.’

  ‘You get down there right away. Tell them you want to see her now.’

  ‘But they said it could be hours yet.’

  ‘We don’t have to do it their way. Get down there, give her a bit of support, even if they don’t tell her now she’ll know later on you were there for her. I’ve got to finish up here. I’ll come and join you soon as I’ve sorted out some care for my Joe.’

  I rushed around like a maniac getting things sorted. By the time I arrived, Barbara and Dan were sitting holding hands in the waiting room, every inch the concerned parents. I had a quick pow-wow – Billie had already been in there two hours. Her social worker had been and gone and she was still locked up. They had her just where they wanted her. As luck would have it they had Sergeant Farrell on the desk. We’re old mates, me and Sergeant Farrell. I told him a while ago.

  ‘Think you know it all, don’t you, Sergeant? Maybe you do. But so do I. So while I’m here – do it by the book, right?’

  No point in being coy when it comes to people like that.

  ‘I’m here to see Billie Trevors,’ I told him.

  Farrell hardly looked up from his paperwork.

  ‘She’s being questioned at the moment,’ he said.

  ‘Has she had her phone call?’

  ‘I’m not aware …’

  ‘Then I’ll do it for her, shall I? She’s still a minor. If you don’t mind.’ And I straightened up as if I was expecting to get taken through.

  ‘I’ll have a word when I’ve finished filling in this form,’ he told me, without looking up.

  ‘You have a vulnerable child locked up in there. I want to see her now.’

  He looked at me as if I was made out of sick. ‘Vulnerable?’ he said. ‘Do you know what she did?’

  ‘She kicked a bloke in the balls. Don’t tell me you haven’t done the same thing. I don’t see you being held in the cells overnight.’

  He looked away and shook his head disgustedly.

  I leaned across the desk. ‘I’m having lunch with your chief constable next week, Sergeant. Let’s hope your name comes up in a positive light, shall we?’

  ‘I don’t see much chance of that happening if it’s you saying it,’ he told me.

  ‘If you stick to doing your job rather than harassing prisoners you don’t personally like, your name will come up in a positive way. Now, I’d like to know what’s going on here, please. Has she been arrested? On what grounds are you holding her?’

  ‘She’s helping us with our enquiries,’ he said calmly, going all formal on me. ‘Take a seat, Mrs Holloway. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for you.’

  I stayed where I was. I waited. He waited.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ I said.

  He put down his pen and went out round the back to have a word with his inspector.

  I shouldn’t do it really. I expect he just went back to the cells and gave her a hard time. But Billie would want me to give them some stick.

  In between nagging the police, I had a catch-up with Barbara and Dan. I hadn’t had much to do with them before, but over the past couple of days we’d been on the phone all the time. She’s not exactly what you’d call stable. It’s all sunshine and light one minute, fits of rage the next. Today, it was the guilt. ‘Oh, Hannah, it’s all my fault, I’ve been too strict, I called the police, I’ve not given her a fair chance.’

  ‘Yes, Barbara,’ I replied. ‘It is all your fault. You called an armed-response unit out because she lost it after going to give her mum a birthday present – despite the fact that you’ve been told by several sources, including myself, many times, when her mum’s birthday is and to expect problems around that time. You chose that evening to try and ground her for a month. Well done.’

  Only I didn’t.

  ‘No, Barbara, you mustn’t blame yourself, don’t be daft … blah bla
h blah.’

  It’s her husband, Dan, has the level head. I’d like to say to her, Can you not listen to your husband, love? He’s got more sense in his little finger than you have in your entire body. But she’s the dominant one. She doesn’t just wear the trousers, she’s got his Y-fronts on as well. He knows it’s wrong, the way she goes on, but he hasn’t got the guts to put his foot down and say no.

  That’s life. No one gets a degree in bringing up kids – you get what you’re given. At least she sticks with Billie, which is more than her other carers have done. And that counts for a lot.

  I got a bit more of the picture sitting in the waiting room that night, in between chasing up the police. Billie hadn’t told me the half of it. I knew that she’d punched him, for example; I didn’t know how many times. Or about the time she punched her. Bloody hell. By the time I’d heard it all I’d changed my mind a little bit. They certainly had sticking power.

  It was a puzzle, for sure. Why hang on to a kid that you’re unsuited to care for, even after she’s punched your lights out two or three times? Not that I’m one to talk, mind. Why do any of us do it? Me, I have my work at the Brant, I have my son, Joe – that’s my life. I don’t have time for anything else. I don’t see anyone, I don’t go out. I haven’t had a bloke for years, and that was an affair with a married man – it’s all I have time for. It’s my job to do everything in my power to be the best mother I can to those kids. It’s a hard job – it’s impossible, actually. The pay’s rubbish. Why do I do it? I don’t know. But I do it and I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  But Barbara – calling the armed-response team in? Her and her husband getting black eyes once a month? What does she get out of it?

  ‘You’re a professional, Hannah,’ she said. ‘You have a lot of experience with girls like Billie.’

  ‘There’s not many quite like Billie, but yeah.’

  ‘When we first took her on, they said how if you’re just prepared to see it through, a child will learn to love you. Tell me honestly: do you think Billie will ever come to see me as a mother?’

  I thought, Oh, gawd. Is that it? She wants to be Billie’s mum.

  You’d think it’d work, wouldn’t you? She wants to be a mum and Billie wants a mum – it should be a match made in heaven. Except …