Tim had black hair plastered in Brylcreem or summat like it. He sat opposite me and touched my hand, a gesture what made me draw back and shiver.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said, grinning. His teeth were dandelion yellow and I could smell his breath from where I was sat. ‘You mustn’t tell them what you was up to with Mark,’ he said.
I just looked at him. ‘As if I was going to,’ I said. I’d started to talk a bit posher, like Bek, and read her books too.
‘Oh, you’re not going to, are you not, Princess Broxtowe?’ he said, pronouncing the o-w-e like no one does and taking the piss. I gave him one of the dirty looks Bek’d been teaching me. ‘Aren’t you scary?’ he said. He grinned yellow teeth at me. ‘See yer getting an education in here. Of sorts,’ he said. ‘No bad thing.’
I didn’t answer and he let the other people back in. He put on this professional front then. That made me laugh inside but I was careful to stay looking all stroppy.
The police boss said he was Detective Inspector summat or other. He said all this into a tape, and when I asked why they were recording he said it were for my own protection. Everyone seemed dead bothered about ‘protecting’ and ‘caring’ for me all of a sudden. The detective had huge eyebrows what sat on his forehead like two hairy caterpillars.
‘On what basis are you planning to hold my client, then?’ Tim said to him.
‘She bit the arresting officer,’ he said. I could see then Tim was struggling not to laugh and I liked him better for that. The detective frowned, and his brows covered up his eyes so’s he looked like some freaky animal what’d been born blind.
‘And under what circumstances did she bite the officer?’ Tim asked him.
‘She was being put into the car.’
‘Don’t you think she was probably scared? You stood outside a house where she was staying with her stepdad and his friend. You were armed with guns, and when they came out you arrested and handcuffed this little girl. And found no basis in the house for your actions,’ Tim said.
‘You know as well as I do what that pair were up to, Hesketh. And we didn’t know the girl was in the house.’
Tim Hesketh leaned over the table. He snarled across at the policeman, showing all his yellow teeth and a pink tongue. ‘We could sue,’ he said. ‘You’ve put this young lady through all sorts.’
Tim went on for ages, talking all that legal shit and this and that and release dates. Truth was, I didn’t care for going home. I was enjoying me-sen where I was. I didn’t want to go back to Mam’s house on the close and put up with the noises she made with the men she brought back. I didn’t want to stand in the cold in front of Player and Crane with stuff in my pockets what made tall lads want to smash my face in. I wanted to see Jon, and look at Morph again, and that were about it.
I went back to my room and found Bek waiting there. She smelled lovely. She’d had a visit too, from her mam, who’d brought her new perfume and some make-up. She was putting it on in front of the mirror. She was beautiful. I stood and stared at her.
‘What are you looking at?’ she said, catching my eye through the mirror. Then she laughed. ‘I’ve got a special treat for us,’ she said. She went into the top drawer of her dressing table and pulled out a wrap. She opened it and I saw white powder.
‘I’m bored-a speed,’ I said, throwing me-sen on the bed.
‘It’s not whizz,’ she told me. And her grin grew so broad I thought her lips might rip at the edges. She had a ruler on her dressing table and organised the powder into lines. She took the straw out of her glass of water, and shook it dry. Then I knew what the powder was.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘But you should be,’ she said. She snorted two lines and held her hand out to me, pulled me over. She sat me on her knee and helped me take the rest. ‘You won’t regret it,’ she whispered in my ear.
She was right.
I don’t remember much about that night cept this. Bek turned her music up dead loud, and no one bothered us – she’d probably paid them off. It were Tears for Fears. We danced to ‘Shout’, jumping up and down so’s we made the record jump too. The vinyl crackled between tracks. Then ‘Mad World’ came on. ‘This is my favourite,’ Bek told me. She grabbed me and we danced, slow and close like men and women dance at the end of a disco. I’m not a lesbian or owt, but it felt nice. Then she kissed me, a proper kiss on the lips. She drew back and looked at me. Her face was all smiley and her eyes shone with water. ‘You’re way too young,’ she told me. Then she hugged me tight. There are only a few people in my life I’d count as real mates. People you know’d never let you down. Not like them silly bitches Jaqui and Trace who’d leave you on the park with a psycho glue head, or my mommar, who’d run off and left us when we were just babies. And Mark wasn’t much better neither, took me ages to realise it but he wasn’t. But Bek was. And Mrs Ivanovich and Jon and that were about it, and Jon doesn’t totally count cause he’s family and that’s the way it should be. I didn’t know if Bek was gay, or if it were just the drugs. It didn’t matter cause she didn’t take advantage.
The next day they came and said I could go.
SEVEN
I’d only been in the EMHG about three months but everything felt totally different as the social worker drove me down the road what led up to our close. As we came near, I saw the houses standing in a circle holding hands, like a ring a fucking roses. I noticed like I’d never before what a shitty brown the bricks were. The council were cutting the grass on the park and the smell got up my nose and down my throat. The social worker cow was going on and on, saying how she was glad I was coming out, how all places like EMHG did for kids as young as me was teach them new tricks. She didn’t have a clue what she was taking me back to. I looked out the window and let her drone on to her-sen. We drove round the close and curtains moved one after another, as if a breeze from the car’d made them.
My mam answered the door still wearing her dressing gown. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed for days and she had blonde stubble above her lip. I saw her the way the social worker must of, and it were a right shock to me. It hadn’t took long for me to get used to Bek’s standards about things. Mam nodded her head backwards, which meant come in. She walked through to the kitchen and me and this woman both followed. Mam was sat at the table when we got in the room, sucking on a cigarette.
‘Fag?’ she asked the social worker, who shook her head.
‘Wouldn’t mind a cuppa though,’ she said. She made an effort to talk more like my mam did, and it sounded fake. I sat down at the table and lay my head on it. Mam got up like her whole life was a job she didn’t want to do, and pressed down the button on the kettle. The room went quiet then. The kettle shivered into action and Mam banged cups round, threw a teabag in one of them.
‘It must be good to be home, Kerrie-Ann. Bet you’ve missed your mum, haven’t you?’ the social worker said. My mam sucked her teeth and I didn’t say owt.
I walked out and left them to it. Couldn’t be arsed with it. This silly cow asking my mam questions and getting one-word answers and a waft of fag smoke for her trouble. I wanted to find Morph. I went up to where I’d hid him, underneath one of the loose floorboards at the back of my room, behind the bed where the carpet didn’t quite reach. I breathed fast, crossing everything I had that she hadn’t found him. She’d of either smashed him up or pawned him for skag money. She’d not though. He was safe and well, a bit dusted up from not being touched in a while was all.
I pushed Morph back into his hidey-hole and covered him up. I stood up and had a look round. The stupid Barbie dolls were still piled in pieces in the corner. Heads, legs, plastic tits, like a sick open grave from some porno movie culling. Mam’d not become housewife of the year while I’d been gone. My bedsheets hadn’t been changed at all and nowt’d been hoovered. Everything was where I’d left it. Cept Jon. I couldn’t find him nowhere. I heard the door go, Mrs Self Righteous Bitch letting her-sen out. I went down to the front room, pu
t on the telly.
‘Where’s Jon?’ I called to my mam.
‘An’t got a clue,’ she said.
I stood up sharp and walked through to the kitchen, where she was pulling washing out the machine.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.
‘Get you wi-yer begging and yer pardons,’ she said, looking up from the washing.
‘Jon?’ I said.
‘Disappeared when I wa-out working late. Looked round but I cun’t find-im. He’ll come back before he starves,’ she said, smoking her fag out the corner of her mouth as she spoke.
I could of hit her and I would of too. Cept I knew from experience about Mam’s punch and knew I’d be up for miles more damage than she would. It should of struck me then, what was she doing out working late, but I was worried about Jon so’s it didn’t. I stormed out, slamming the door on the way. I walked without knowing where I’d go for a minute. And then I realised there was only one place I could be sure of getting some help.
I went to Mark’s house, his mam’s place on Bradfield Road. I knocked loud on the door. His mam answered it and looked me up and down. She turned and shouted up the stairs to Mark.
‘Thank Christ you got out,’ she said. ‘That kid-a-yourn’s driving me round the bend.’
I couldn’t work out what she meant, then I saw Mark on the stairs. His hair was all shaved, but he must of done it his-sen cause there were little tufty bits left round his head. He’d gone all skinny, and his cheekbones stood out even more down to this, so’s he reminded me of a pixie, a rough-looking one. I was shocked by how much he’d changed, but even more surprised as I looked over his shoulder and saw a little boy following him down the stairs. It were Jon. He’d changed even more. Kids that age grow so quick. I was worried he’d not recognise me at all but I needn’t of been. He ran down the stairs towards me with his arms out. I grabbed him and pulled him close. I could feel my face all wet, and squeezed my little brother hard.
‘What’s these?’ I said, pulling on the little dreadlocks he’d grown.
‘Mark helped me do-em,’ he said. ‘Dan, in’t they?’
‘God, yeah,’ I said. I hugged Jon again and leaned over his shoulder. I saw Mark standing there, smiling at me. ‘Thank you.’ I mouthed the words over and over. ‘Thank you.’
‘Couldn’t hardly leave him out on the street,’ he said. But he knew what it meant to me.
Mark’s mam went off to make me jam sandwiches and a strong cup of tea. I sat with Mark and he caught me up with what’d gone off while I’d been away. His dad and Frank’d been let out straight away cause they’d not done owt silly like bit someone. Then they’d done a runner, worried the police’d come for them again. They’d got a big truck and took all the stuff we’d hid for them, hadn’t been seen nowhere since. Rumour had it they’d gone off to Newcastle to set up there, but no one knew owt for sure cept they’d took Jason with them. Mark seemed all right about it, and I was surprised. I thought he’d of been broken up.
‘I’ve missed yer, Kez,’ he said. He put his hand across the table towards mine, but his mam pushed it away, putting the sandwiches down in front of me.
‘She’s way too young fer yer,’ she said.
Jon ran outside to play, and I asked about my mam, how come she’d managed to lose a little boy.
‘She’s out-on-it. Back on the game too,’ Mark said. That shut me up. I’d never known she’d been on the game in the first place. I sucked my teeth and sat there wondering if mine and Jon’s dads had paid for the privilege. And it made sense, fitted with the way I used to get shut up if I asked owt about my dad. The thought made me feel sick and I pushed the sandwiches away.
‘Sorry,’ Mark said. ‘Thought yer knew.’ And he grabbed my hand and held it dead tight. I didn’t cry though.
Mark and me built up a business of our own. He knew a lot of people, through helping out his dad and Frank, and me and him were ‘lickle stars’ as far as they were concerned cause of how we’d sorted stuff when the police turned up. We stuck to grass and speed to start with, in the main cause it were easier to get hold of. The clients weren’t such psychos neither, not like ones who were into brown. We had a slow start but the cash started flowing when I started at senior school and could work the yard at dinner. My school was called Player like the cigarettes and we all smoked them, and other specials much less legal. Not long after I left, Player was in all the papers cause it came rock bottom of some table or other, officially the country’s worst school. They closed it down soon after. I didn’t like doing the yard that much cause Mark didn’t go to school very often. I was scared some kid’d give me another kicking. Mark said not to worry, that he had plans to deal with all that.
Mark and me kind of got it together too. We didn’t go out to the pictures or owt naff like that. It were just a given after I’d got out of EMHG. Mark’d hold my hand sometimes, and kiss me when he felt like it. That suited me. But Mark wanted more than that. Course he did. He was fifteen and more would of been the only thing on his mind.
This one day we were walking through Aspley holding hands. It were a Saturday, and we walked past the church and school yard on Kingsbury. There was some kind of fête thing going off at the school, cept it were dead formal. Everyone was sitting round on chairs outside and watching some kids do a play. The kids were all dressed up in old clothes and we were interested, so we snuck round the back to have a nosey. The acting was rubbish, like people reading from a sheet, the way it is with kids on stage, and the words were all old-fashioned and hard to get a handle on. But the story was great, about two kids falling in love and their families fighting and killing each other off. It were Romeo and Juliet, of course, but I didn’t have a clue who Shakespeare was, not then. I stood there watching Romeo hold the gell he thought was dead, rocking her, then taking the poison out his pocket. I wanted to shout out to him that she was just sleeping, even though I knew it were a play and there wasn’t no point. Then he downed the liquid, and lay back dying, and Juliet woke up, stabbed her-sen.
‘In’t that romantic?’ Mark said. ‘Would yer do that fer me?’
I looked up at him to try and work out if he was taking the piss. ‘Doubt it,’ I said.
‘Nice. And I would-a took the poison fer you,’ he said.
Then he kissed me full on, shoving his tongue in my mouth. He’d tried this a few times before and I wasn’t sure I enjoyed it specially. I noticed his trousers swell when he did it, and his mouth fill with saliva. He took my hand and pulled on it. I giggled and followed him. We snuck behind the bushes on the side of the yard and sat down. He pulled up my skirt. He used to do this when we were younger but back then it were just a silly game. I could see from the way he looked at me now it were serious. His eyes were all bright and searching, his hands insistent. It scared me. He looked too much like this dog I once saw, ripping apart a rabbit. I backed off.
‘Come on, Kez,’ he said.
‘It dun’t feel right.’
Mark crawled towards me on his hands and knees, grabbing hold of my wrists and pushing them on the ground. I shook him off and scrambled from under him and up, running round back to where people could see me. He followed and didn’t say owt. I thought how there were plenty of gells round who’d give him what he wanted, and maybes it were no bad thing if he worked that out too.
It were later that day I found out what he’d been planning to do to make sure I was left alone. Danny Morrison. He was the lad what cracked me one the winter before and Mark’d found out where he lived, up Aspley Lane, cross the road from the closed down cinema.
‘We’re going-ta pay him a lickle visit,’ Mark said.
We walked up the lane hand in hand, like we were going on a picnic. I thought Mark was going to beat him up when we got there, and felt a thrill inside at the thought of it. We walked past these small greens, waste of space places you weren’t supposed to play on. A load of kids were ignoring the ‘ball games prohibited’ signs. There were bushes round the edge of these lawn
s and I eyed them, worried Mark might try and pull me underneath the holly and privet again. He didn’t though.
He took this envelope out his pocket and opened it up, showed me a small tablet. It looked like an aspirin.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘E,’ he said.
I’d heard of ecstasy, course, but we’d never got any round our way before.
‘You tried it?’ I said.
He shook his head and broke the pill, kissing one of the halves before handing it to me.
‘We’re drug brothers,’ he said. And I didn’t correct him that I was a gell. He took a bottle of pop out his rucksack and we washed half each down. Powder from where the pill’d been split in two hit my tongue and it tasted rank, like summat you’d find under the sink. We were used to the quick hit of a mouthful of speed, and Mark looked disappointed when nowt happened straight off.
‘Maybes it teks a while to get through yer stomach and into yer system,’ I said, thinking about what Mrs Ivanovich’d said to me once when she gave me an aspirin.
‘It better be that cause this cost me twenty quid,’ Mark said.
We found Danny’s house and watched it for a bit. No one came in or out. Mark got up, and he looked that way he did sometimes, so wild for it he scared me. His jaw set like concrete and his face wore a snarl. He walked up to Danny’s door and knocked on it. I followed him down the path. Danny answered and I recognised him straight off. He didn’t look so huge now me and Mark were bigger. He was smiling as he turned towards Mark, like he’d just heard a joke or been watching telly. When he saw who it were, and the knife Mark’d flicked open as he turned, his smile fell clean off.
The Killing Jar Page 6