Sweet William

by Iain Maitland

  7.23pm SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

  Did they see me?

  Did they fuck.

  It was close, mind.

  The second I saw the front of the police car turning, I snatched up William without thinking, swung open the front gate of the terraced house next to us, slipped inside, and crouched down low behind the brick wall.

  That’s where we are now.

  I’ve got him in a grip, I can tell you.

  Daren’t take any chances. He has to be quiet.

  I’m kneeling, crouched over, sideways on to a waist-high brick wall that separates us from the pavement.

  The little fellow’s jammed tight between my legs, my hand clamped hard on his mouth.

  He’s struggling and he’s a determined little chap.

  I have to hold him tighter.

  Not a sound, little William, not a sound.

  The police car’s come to a halt and is parked in a space a little way down from me, I reckon. May be uphill, to my left, though. I can’t quite tell. I think we’ve got coppers up to the left of us, up by that woman’s house, and the sister-in-law and the coppers down to the right.

  I daren’t sit up and even look over the wall. They might see me.

  From the left?

  To the right?

  I can’t even look up and over at the terraced houses on the opposite side of the street.

  Know what? The whole street, from top to bottom, is soon going to be lit up brightly.

  I can hear the sister-in-law’s voice; she’s just yards away from us now. From the left, hurrying along.

  Now going past.

  Now gone.

  She’s normally loud and strident, though this time she sounds scared and whiny. I can’t make out the words, but she’s obviously telling the coppers what happened again. I can hear them talking, moving quickly away.

  A whistle.

  Someone running.

  A flurry of voices. It sounds like they’ve stopped, are turning, are coming back up, this time more slowly.

  I guess these coppers have put two and two together. She’s told them about me and sweet William. They’ve probably had a report about Veitch being beaten up by the toilets. Then there’s this business with the woman up at the top. Never mind what happened in Nottingham – those three things occurring in a town of this size, on the same night, all within an hour or so of each other. Well, it’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?

  I crouch down low, still holding William tight.

  I can’t breathe, daren’t. William’s the same, I can sense it.

  I hold him tight, so tight, I imagine my fingers turning stiff and white.

  They’re almost upon us again, walking up towards that woman’s house where all the police are gathered; that’s where the coppers, constables, most probably, will hand the woman over to whichever CID man-in-a-suit is coordinating everything.

  From there, once they’ve heard her story, know who it is they’re looking for, they’ll flood the town with coppers, roadblocks on the way in and out, helicopters, dogs, the whole fucking lot.

  I feel the little ’un twitch and jerk violently in my arms.

  Have I held him too tight? My hand clamped over his mouth and his nose together?

  Or is it some sort of fit? He twitches again suddenly as I hold him down; we daren’t make a noise. It’s for his own good. Really it is.

  Then they’re alongside us, no more than a foot or two away, moving ever so slowly it seems. If they turned, maybe heard a noise, looked over the wall, we’d be done for. I can hear one of the coppers clearly now, just a snatch of conversation, “ . . .tor Hudson will know”.

  What’s that? Hudson will know? Was it Inspector Hudson will know? Know what? What’s happening?

  My guess is that Inspector Hudson – whoever he is – is up at that woman’s house. He’s CID and coordinating it all.

  He’s the copper in charge I reckon; he’s getting everyone together at the house to compare notes. The neighbour who raised the alarm – what did she hear or see? Veitch? Maybe the coppers who attended to him have reported back. The sister-in-law? She’s the final piece of the jigsaw for sure. The coppers will know I’m in town and I’ve got little William. That’s all they need to know to trigger the full-scale, bells and trumpets, whistle and drums alert.

  If only they knew where I was.

  Just a stride away, hidden behind a garden wall.

  I hold William ever tighter, willing him now to be quiet.

  And then, as quickly as they came, they’re gone. The coppers and the sister-in-law. They’re up and by us and on the way to the woman’s house, their voices drifting into the distance. Simple as that.

  It’s okay, William, it’s okay.

  I loosen my grip, remove my hands, turn him over.

  He’s lifeless in my arms.

  I’ve killed William.

  7.31pm SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

  The young woman stepped back when she saw him, his face bruised and battered.

  “Rick, Rick, where the hell is he? Where’s Will?”

  The young man stepped forward, moving to put his arms around his wife.

  She shrugged him off, twisting towards the policewoman and men standing close by them in the police station reception.

  “You said you had Will, that you’d made an arrest. Where is he? Where’s Will?”

  The police officers looked at each other, waiting for one of them to speak.

  “He took him off me, Nat, took Will away,” answered the young man, his voice shaking. “Down at the beach. He hit me, look, here . . . took me by surprise. I couldn’t stop him. He’s out there somewhere. I keep telling them but they won’t listen.”

  She spun back towards the police, focusing on the policewoman who seemed to be in charge.

  “I saw him, running away with Will. Along the parade. I chased him, but it was too crowded. I told you this. I thought he’d gone up the hill down by the bakers, out of town. You said . . .” She turned towards the policeman next to her, “ . . .he’d been arrested. This is Rick, my husband, Will’s dad . . . You’ve not got him, have you? He’s still out there somewhere with Will.”

  The young woman and the young man looked at each other in despair.

  They embraced.

  “He won’t hurt him, whatever he does,” murmured the young man. “He’s his son . . . and he won’t do anything else. He’s never been that way.”

  She pushed him back. “So far as we know. He’s mad, Rick. And nasty. You don’t know what he’s going to do or when. Look what he did to Katie. She said he never knew what he was doing himself from one minute to the next.”

  “You have to find him . . . quickly,” said the young man, turning back towards the police. “Nat, where did you last see him with Will?”

  The police looked at the young woman, seeming now, so the woman thought, to realise exactly what had happened.

  “He was running along the high street, the other side of the parade. I thought he’d turned and gone up the hill but I think he must have kept going back towards . . .”

  The young woman and the young man looked at each other.

  “Shit,” said the woman, “he knows we were down this end of town. He’s gone to the cottage to get our car – he’ll use that as a getaway.”

  “He’s going to need my keys,” added the man. “And my parents will be in the cottage when he arrives.” He gulped in air. “Seriously . . . please . . . you have to be quick. You have to get there before he does. It may be too late . . .”

  7.33pm SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

  I turn, oh-so-slowly, and look up at the terraced house behind me, then, ever so carefully, along the row of terraces, both up and down the street.

  I’ve got lucky.

  All I can see are lights on two or three doors down and lights on, farther up, towards the woman’s house. It’s a blaze of lights up there and all eyes, anyone looking out of any window, will be towards that, not me.

  In betwe
en, nothing.

  This house, the one I’m in front of, and the ones to either side of it, are dark.

  I reckon the owners are at the seafront or maybe, just maybe, like that woman, they’re from London and these are their holiday homes left empty most times.

  I’ve got lucky again.

  Told you I’m a lucky fellow, didn’t I? Remember?

  It gets better.

  The house I’m crouched in front of has a pathway between it and next door. The pathway goes between the two houses and into an alley with what look like back gates to either side. All I have to do is step over the knee-high wall to the side and onto the pathway, take a dozen steps into the alleyway, open the back gate and I’m out of sight in the back garden.

  Know what I’ll do? I’ll break in.

  Lie low as the coppers flood the streets in the next half-hour. Stay still as the helicopters fly over.

  Put my head down as the storm rages around me for the next 24 to 48 hours at most.

  Then, on Monday evening, nice, quiet Monday evening when the storm has subsided and everyone assumes I’m long gone, I’ll slip out in the dead of night, make my way along to the car from Nottingham that’s parked at the far end of the seafront and away I go.

  What’s to link me to that car from Nottingham? Nothing.

  Who’s to know it’s there? Nobody.

  What’s to stop me simply driving away? Nothing at all.

  It’s all going to go just as I planned. Down to Thurrock, onto a coach to Disneyland, over into Paris and away down to the south of France. A new life.

  But not with little William.

  Not my little man.

  God help me, what have I done?

  I have to hold myself together, not break down and sob; I have to do this quickly but oh-so-carefully. I have to concentrate on the task in hand. I have to put everything else – awful though it is – out of my mind.

  I look up and, ever so slowly, peer over the wall that faces the pavement and the houses opposite. If anyone looks out and sees me, a man kneeling in someone’s front garden, I’m done for.

  The houses opposite all look quiet, some dark, some lit, but all, so far as I can see, with blinds down and curtains drawn.

  No time to waste.

  My only chance.

  Have to do it now.

  I scoop up William’s lifeless body – I know, I know, what can I do? – and turn and step over the brick wall to the side.

  I glance backwards, can’t help myself, to check the houses and the street are still quiet.

  They are.

  Thank God.

  My luck holds.

  I walk swiftly down the pathway, William’s body held upright against mine, his head lolling. It breaks my heart, but, from behind, from the houses opposite and the street to the left and right, no one would see William. They’d just see a man walking, between the two terraced houses, along the alleyway and out of sight.

  I have to be strong; it was an accident, after all.

  I have to be practical. I can’t break down and cry, not here, not now.

  I can’t think about what I’ve done, I still have to get away. It’s what William would want with all of his little heart. I know it is.

  I’m at the back gate now. On a latch or bolted? I can’t put William down in the mud; no matter what, I can’t do that.

  Supporting William with my right arm, I push the gate handle down with my left hand. The gate swings open, we’re inside, the gate’s shut, we’re safe, at least for now.

  Moving quickly, no time to waste, I lay William on the patio, and peer up at the house. It’s hard to see much inside, everything’s so dark.

  For the next hour?

  For the winter?

  Who’s to tell?

  I’ll worry about that later. First things first, I need to get into this house with as little noise and damage as possible. If not, someone may hear me break in, maybe a copper will see a broken window when they make house-to-house enquiries – I’d guess, in the morning.

  I try the handle of the back door, which opens on to the kitchen.

  It’s locked.

  I’m not bothered. Want to know why?

  Most people leave a spare key outside their back door somewhere – it’s a proven fact: something like eight out of ten home-owners do it. Holiday home or not – it’s just in case they lose their keys or maybe, with a place like this, they have a cleaner come in the day before they travel, just to give everything a going over. That spare key is somewhere close to me. I know it.

  Doormat? No luck.

  Beneath the plant pot by the door? No.

  Round the soil of the pot. No.

  There’s a ledge above the door. I run my fingers along it. No, nothing there.

  I stop, turn round. Not much of a garden really. 15 feet wide maybe, 20 feet long.

  So where’s the fucking key?

  There’s a tiny shed at the end of the garden. That’s where it will be, for sure.

  I glance up at the windows of the houses to either side. Dark, all quiet.

  Four, five, six strides is all it takes.

  It’s locked.

  Not there then. Where next?

  I look down. There are rows of different-sized pots to either side of the shed; full of straggly, half-dead plants by the look of it.

  That’s good – it tells me that this is a holiday home that’s not used that much.

  If it’s not used for the next 48 hours while I lie low, I’m in luck.

  Even better, I’m lifting up one pot after another and, under the fourth one, at the back to the right of the shed and well out of sight to the casual eye, I find it.

  The key.

  All I need to do now is let myself into the house and we – I still think of ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ because that’s the kind of daddy I am – can lie out of sight for a day or two.

  Easy to do.

  Nice and simple.

  Behind me, I hear a cough.

  7.39pm SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

  “I’m not going to come here again,” said the old woman finally, looking at the old man opposite, reading a book by the fire. “I’ve had enough of this. It’s my last visit. It’s too . . . much.”

  He sighed, seeing that she had worked her way slowly through more than half a bottle since he’d come in from chopping wood at half past five or six. No mixers either, he noted.

  Lifting himself slowly up and out of the armchair, he reached for the axe resting by his chair and used the head of it to prod the fire in the grate back into life. “I’ll need to get some more wood,” he answered, ignoring her comment. “I didn’t do enough . . . some of it may be damp.”

  He smiled grimly to himself, realising that, for all the household DIY and chores he did, he had never really got to grips with chopping wood and lighting fires. Even now, he wondered what he’d do without a firelighter and newspapers. He wasn’t very good at handyman jobs, he thought. The place was too old-fashioned and had never really been updated since the 1970s, maybe earlier. There was simply too much to do. He didn’t know where he’d start.

  It occurred to him suddenly, for the first time, that the place really was a dump. She had said it was, one way or the other, several times that day in an increasingly tetchy voice that got on his nerves. He had never really seen it until now. And that, for some reason, angered him. He wondered how it could have got into such a state. How everything, his whole life really, had got as bad as it had. He wondered why he had not realised it until now.

  “We’ll need to get the place warmed through a bit more by the time Richard gets back,” he added, trying to ignore his sudden surge of anger. “You can’t let a kiddie sleep somewhere damp. The cold’s not so bad that you can’t wrap up against it, but the damp will get on his chest. You can’t have that if he’s a diabetic, it could kill him. The damp.”

  She looked at him scornfully.

  “He’s diabetic because she’s not fed him properly. You only have
to look at him to see how thin and scrawny he is. All this modern food and fuss and nonsense with injections. It’s all self-indulgence. Like all parents these days. They wrap them in cotton wool. She just likes the attention. They should throw that lot on the fire and start looking after him properly. Three square meals a day. Proper meat and vegetables. That’s what he needs.”

  He shook his head, exasperated.

  “It’s nothing to do with that at all,” he answered, his voice rising with anger. “Richard told you that, not her. He said it was just pot luck. Nothing to do with what they feed him or don’t feed him. It’s to do with insulin and blood sugar levels and all of that.”

  He got to his feet, swinging the axe in his left hand. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to chop some more wood.”

  “If you can manage it,” she shouted, struggling to her feet to confront him. “I’ve a good mind to do it myself.”

  “Do what?” He replied. “Chop some wood? That would be a first, wouldn’t it, you doing something useful for once? Sit down and drink yourself silly, leave me to sort things out for them.”

  He hesitated for a moment.

  “Why don’t you take the bottle upstairs with you? Get out of the way before they come back. Richard said they’d be back by eight, for William’s checks. Go up now; I’ll say you have a migraine.”

  “Not the wood,” she spat at him. “You chop wood and you don’t even do that properly, do you? The diabetic things. I’ve a good mind to throw them on the fire myself. It’s about time someone stood up to her, made her sort herself out.”

  She looked across the room at the hold-all in the corner. She had seen the young woman take testing equipment from there and putting it back.

  “Don’t you dare. Leave it alone. It’s nothing to do with us. Type one is a serious condition, that’s what Richard told us.”

  She moved towards it, unsteady on her feet.

  He switched the axe from his left hand to his right one.

  “I said leave it.”

  As he moved towards her, he heard the sound of a car, approaching the cottage at what seemed like high speed, spraying up gravel as it came to a halt close to the front door.