Shut Eye

by Adam Baron

  I flicked through the pages. Maybe the timetable had just lain around for months and Dominic hadn’t bothered to chuck it out. Perhaps he didn’t realize he still had it. Or maybe he kept it on purpose, and looked at it now and then, when his head was somehow higher than the shit which surrounded him usually and which was slowly pulling him down into it. Maybe he looked at it now and then and wondered if one day he would ever make use of it. It was like a St Christopher, a small, desperate, useless talisman of hope. I decided that one day soon I really did have to speak with his mother, and when I did I would tell her about it. It might provide some kind of comfort to her to know that once in a while her son did think of home.

  I had another idea. I left the car where it was and walked towards the Cross. I turned right. I walked past the spot where I had spoken to Dominic, past the alley Rollo had stopped me in. I crossed the road and peered through the window of the cafe at the bottom of Calshot Street, and then walked round the back. A gate was open. I glanced in and saw a small backyard with an old Biffa skip and some stacked crates. The back door of the cafe was ajar and I could see into the kitchen where a pair of dark hands was chopping a shiny mound of liver. I slipped into the yard and stood in shadow behind the skip, with my eye on the door. I waited.

  She came out after about forty minutes, with a cigarette already in her mouth and a Bic going up to light it. I moved behind her slowly and pushed the door shut, making as little noise as possible. She turned at the sound.

  ‘What…’

  I didn’t let her get any further. I grabbed hold of her wrist and pushed her backwards into the hard wood of the fence which surrounded the yard. A streetlight lit her face and I saw her recognize me. She tried to scream but I forced her back further by grabbing hold of her neck.

  ‘Who else did you tell?’

  She shook her head desperately but she didn’t make any noise.

  ‘Who the hell else did you tell about me watching Dominic?’

  I loosened my grip a bit.

  ‘I don’t know Dominic.’

  ‘Mikey. Mikey. Who did you tell?’

  ‘No one …’

  ‘You told Rollo. You told him and he was waiting for me. Someone else knew. Who the fuck was it, who did you tell?’

  ‘No one. I swear. I never. Please.’

  ‘Where’s the girl who lived with Mikey?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never went there.’

  ‘Didn’t Rollo live there?’

  ‘No, he just went for the money. Please, you’re hurting me.’

  I pressed my thumb harder, up into her chin.

  ‘Who did you tell?’

  ‘I didn’t, I swear I didn’t.’

  I let go of her throat and put my hand over her mouth. I fished into my pocket and pulled out one of the pictures that were still in there.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see it.’

  I held the picture more into the light.

  ‘I’ve never seen him, I…’

  “Tell me about Rollo. How long have you been seeing him?’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not! He just used to come in.’

  ‘You knew what he did?’

  ‘Not at first. Oh, listen, I screwed him a couple of times. He’s got a really nice place, that’s how I know he didn’t live with those kids. When I heard about that boy it was terrible. He used to come in for Coke.’

  ‘And the girl he lived with?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘What was her fucking name!’

  My hands went up to her throat again.

  ‘Emma, I think her name was Emma.’

  I released her. I stood back. Her hands went straight up to her neck, and she rubbed it, breathing deeply. Her eyes narrowed and I could tell that she was scared. But not of me.

  ‘You bastard,’ she said. Her voice was small and full of hate. I left her there and walked back to the station.

  * * *

  I spoke to Ken Clay, who made a point not to mention the rug I’d left him, and I sat with a guy on their computer imager. I gave a description of Emma and he pressed the right buttons until something close to the face I had seen through a crack in the door of number 23 Elm Drive appeared on the screen. It’s amazing what a memory the mind has for faces, if someone is trained to give it a hand. Clay said he’d get the picture and the name to the boys in blue first thing and it wouldn’t be long before Emma turned up. I didn’t ask him if he would give me a copy of it. I’d had enough of showing pictures around.

  Clay wasn’t angry with me any more, not now I was giving him stuff.

  ‘What about the waitress?’ he asked me.

  ‘Pick her up,’ I said. ‘She might tell you who the bastard is eventually. I don’t think she knows though.’

  ‘Rollo neither,’ Clay said. ‘We’ve got him on a dealing charge, raided his place and found the usual.’ There was a glint in Clay’s eye which told me that ‘found’ might not be the right word. ‘We’ve offered to forget about it if he’ll give up the man in the picture and I can tell he wants to. He’s either scared or hasn’t got it.’

  ‘The man said he knew him. Or at least knew who he was.’

  ‘Everybody knows Rollo. He’s a flash one, spreads it about. This other chap keeps himself to himself it seems.’

  ‘Yes, but if he knew Rollo, maybe he’s in the same line of business.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Clay said.

  I left Clay to it and walked back to my car. I was glad I’d thought of the girl in the house Dominic was living in. Emma. She might know something. I’d let the police find her though. I didn’t think it would take them long. I wondered if she’d tell them anything, or just clam up like Rollo. I remembered her sick face and her flat eyes.

  I was exhausted. I thought of but immediately canned the idea of going down to Nicky’s for a beer and drove home instead, to my newly arranged flat and to my newly installed futon.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In the next few days I went through the names in Lloyd’s diary. I got him to tell me who they all were and each one of them checked out the way he had said they would. Other MPs, colleagues at both the lobby company and the Holdings firm as well as a couple of old friends and his brother. Harvey turned out to be Harvey Lawrence, Lloyd’s only partner in the Buckner Group. I called him and pretended to be a potential investor. He seemed very pleased to hear from me and didn’t even ask where I’d got hold of his name. I arranged to meet him in two days’ time which would give me a chance to set up a meeting with Charlotte Morgan’s accountant first.

  But I never got the chance to meet either of them.

  I wanted to talk to Dominic’s other friends, the other kids on his patch. One of them must have seen him go off with the man in the hat that night. Andy phoned to tell me that the police had found Emma but she hadn’t seen Dominic since the night before he was killed. I wanted to speak to the kid I’d seen Dominic with the night I’d had the run-in with Rollo. I was pretty sure I’d recognize him. I’d seen him and Dominic talking; they looked like friends. I set myself up in a pub this time, on the Pentonville Road itself, which was not as near as the cafe was but close enough that I could still tell if there was anyone standing about for business without having to get my zoom out and make a show of myself. The pub was dark and smoky and smelled of piss. It had a smallish stage which was occupied by a bored stream of readers’ wives style strippers. The pub’s clientele was made up exclusively of men but I wasn’t the only one not bothering to pay attention.

  The spot across the street was completely empty for the first day that I sat there watching it. I guessed this was due to what happened to Dominic, which the other kids would have heard about and felt that the best way to protect themselves was to go and stand on a different corner. They would always come back though; knowing that they would lose regular custom, their pimps would have told them they had to. Ano
ther possible reason for their absence was that the police had steamed in with pictures of Dominic and scared them all off. In that case they would still return, but it might take longer. Fear of the police was stronger in boy junkies than fear of serial killers. I sat in the pub all of that day and for most of the evening.

  During the morning of the second day, a couple of lads showed up. I was glad. I didn’t want to go traipsing all over Dalston and out to Stoke Newington to find the place they’d decamped to. I waited in the pub. When the number had risen to four by midday I took a stroll past to see if any of them was the boy I had seen with Dominic. No luck. I thought about asking them anyway but decided against. The word might get round and the place would be dead again. I went back to the pub.

  It was difficult to see but by late afternoon I thought the boy had arrived. I put my bag over my shoulder again and walked out on to the street. I walked past the twenty-four-hour store and crossed over the road. I passed the Thameslink station and walked up towards the derelict kebab shop where the boys were waiting for pick-ups. There were three of them, standing together in tight jeans and bomber jackets. They looked just like any three teenagers, hanging out, trying to be cool, either chewing gum or smoking. Other people walked by, most not noticing them. A young girl checked one of them out. An old lady’s face drew up into a frown when one of the kids spat on the pavement, not seeing her, forcing her to make a small diversion in her path.

  When I was twenty feet or so away from them, I could tell that the boy was not there. None of them was him. I was disappointed but this time I did decide to speak to the others anyway as I was quite confident that I could do it without spooking them. I approached the nearest one, but spoke so that all of them could hear me.

  ‘Listen, guys,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to get you all nervous. I’m not the Bill or anything. I was just wondering if any of you knew that kid Mikey. He used to work from here.’

  The three of them looked suspicious but not overly worried or defensive. The one nearest said, ‘No, mate. Never knew him. Heard of him though. You sure you’re not Bill?’

  ‘I’m positive.’

  ‘What are you then?’

  I never got a chance to answer. I was stood facing towards the Cross, and I was about to speak when another boy walked around the corner towards us. He was black, about fourteen years old, and he was dressed in a bright orange puffa jacket and a blue cap which he had on backwards. The boy’s face was bruised some, the damage hidden to a large degree by the natural colour of his skin, but evident nevertheless. He was walking with his hands in his pockets, his face a sullen mask of worry, and as he approached us one of the boys I was talking to looked up in a way which told me that he knew him. He nodded slightly and the black boy nodded back. I thought the black boy was going to say something, to make some sort of greeting but he didn’t. He slowed down suddenly and came to a stop.

  He came to a stop because of me.

  Given warning, a second or two to get a hold of himself, the kid might just have bluffed it out and said hi to his mates and kept walking. But the surprise at seeing me was instant and as his gaze automatically locked into mine, his expression gave him away. He was afraid that I was there looking for him. Even then he could have shaken it off, if it were not for the fact that he could tell I had seen it. Seen his surprise. I stared into his eyes, trying to place him. I could feel recognition cogs wheeling into place and I knew that I’d have him in a matter of seconds.

  Then I did have him.

  The boy looked away from me and turned around immediately. He began to walk.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said. He turned round very briefly but didn’t stop. ‘Excuse me,’ I said again.

  He was off.

  How he wasn’t killed by a cab accelerating away from the lights up towards the Angel I will never know. The shock and terror on the driver’s face as he swerved straight into the goods van in the other lane was like a Munch sketch in motion. I ignored the havoc and the car horns and followed the kid over the road, keeping sight of his orange jacket as he ran and jostled through the crowd of pedestrians going to and from King’s Cross. He ran towards the station and I just about kept up with him, fifteen or twenty yards behind him as he burned past the Standard vendors and the winos and the bus queues and the suits standing in line by the taxi rank. I ran after him, hampered by my hold-all which thudded against my hip with every second stride I took. I lost him as he turned right and ran up towards the Pancras Road.

  Why the fuck was he running from me? I saw his face, nervous in the gym, just before he started sparring. Holding his coat. And earlier, just stood there, after I’d come out of the weights room. He’d come looking for me too, it must have been him Alberto saw in the cafe. Why was he … I thought of his bruises. Sal would never have let that happen to him in her gym. No way. Where did he get them? Why did I make him so terrified? No point worrying. He was running. He’d seen me and he was running.

  I was on to him again as soon as I’d turned the way he had. He cut a right down a small road behind King’s Cross station itself. I cut an earlier right and managed to beat him to the end, seeing him run out up ahead of me. He turned left and kept running and I followed, my side breaking as my ribs pulled apart where the cracks were beginning to knit. I pounded on, knowing that if he kept his pace up I was going to lose him. A boxing gym? He should have been at Crystal frigging Palace.

  He took another right and I had an idea as to where he might be going. Again there was an earlier right, an old, cobbled mechanic’s yard, and I took it, stopping myself before I flew out of the end of it. I held on to the wall and peered around the corner, just catching sight of a blur of orange as it came out ahead of me. I ducked back in and then heard the sound of his feet coming to a stop. Then there was the scuff sound of a quick sprint which stopped again, abruptly.

  I pushed my ribs into my side and tried not to let my lungs pull in so much of the air it so desperately needed. Each breath was the ghost of the size tens I’d received at York Way. I left it a second and looked round the corner again, still breathing heavily. The kid was nowhere. I jogged up the street, up to the cast-iron fence-cum-wall at the top of it. I looked left and right but couldn’t see the kid in either direction. I looked at the wall again and jumped up on to it, holding myself steady as I peered over the top.

  The area I was looking into was land owned by British Rail. It was big, perhaps as big as two football pitches. I’d read somewhere that the land had been offered as part of a sweetener deal for companies interested in buying into the network when it was privatized. The land was central, perfect for high-rent office blocks and designer security homes. This hadn’t happened yet though. The land was derelict, patched with the remains of abandoned fires lit by kids or the homeless, out for fun or heat. I could see rusting shopping trolleys and a punctured football, pieces of old carpet and a scorched three-piece suite.

  And I could see a young boy in an orange puffa running directly away from where I was perched. He was running more slowly than he had been before, his head moving left and right as he looked around for me. As he moved his head and shoulders all the way round to take a look behind him, I dropped back out of sight.

  After leaving a couple of seconds I pulled myself up again, this time getting a better hold so that I could duck down without coming off the wall completely. I looked over. I could see the boy jogging towards an old caravan, still looking all around him. The van was a hundred yards away. It was old and knackered, resting on six piles of bricks. I watched as the boy approached the van, reached up and knocked on the door. He pulled the door open. I ducked down again, knowing that he’d have one last look behind before stepping into the van. I came up to see the door closing. I took out my camera and zoomed in. I tried to see through the stained plastic windows but they were covered by brown curtains. I couldn’t make out any movement behind them.

  I focused on the door and was surprised when, after five minutes, it was thrown open. I caught a
pair of hands, pushing the same boy out of the van on to the concrete. The door of the van shut and the boy got up. He held his knee where he’d fallen on it and then put his hand up to his face. Through the lens I could see that his nose was bleeding. The kid then hobbled off, one hand on his damaged knee, the other palm down, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose, wiping some on to the sleeve of his coat and then trying to wipe that off with his hand.

  The boy walked off at a right angle to where I was sitting, towards a derelict building protected by wire meshing. He could probably get through there on to the street. It may even be where he slept. I looked up from the viewfinder and then put the camera back in my bag, still watching to make sure no one came out of the van.

  I had it now. The gym. He wasn’t scared of fighting. That wasn’t why that doubt had come into his face when he saw me there. This kid looked like he got into fights quite often, and never came out of them too well. No. He was frightened of me. He was frightened of the picture that he’d seen me showing to Sal; it had been lying on the table in the weights room. He must have seen it. He was frightened because he knew the man in the picture and even more frightened of what might happen to him if he told me who the man was. I got the impression, thinking about it, that what frightened him most of all was that he really did want to tell me. He was terrified that that was exactly what he was going to do. That would have been fine if nothing could link me to him, but when he’d seen me on the corner with his colleagues he was sure he was in big trouble. If they knew he’d been looking for me, to tell me who the man in the picture was, they’d tell the man and he’d be as good as dead.