by Tom Grieves
I walk and walk. I see side entrances and back alleys, but none are right. I stop and buy a sandwich and listen to an old man flirt with the girl behind the counter. It’s funny and good-natured. I glance at a younger man, not so well dressed, who watches them the same way I do. I catch his eye and he looks away, then stalks off. I turn my attention back to the old geezer and his terrible chat-up lines. It’s silly and harmless. It’s so alien to me it sounds like another language entirely.
On I go, round in circles, trying to be methodical about this. I’ve got a map and I’ve worked out an area that should cover it. I get to an alley that looks promising, but there are no black shutters to be seen. And then I see that lad again, the one in the cafe. He’s standing at the far end of the alley, his hands dug into a grey tracksuit top. He sees me and holds my gaze for a moment before turning and hurrying away.
Once is fine. Twice is worrying. I jog to the end of the alley, but he’s gone.
It goes on like this for hours. I stop to fuel up with fizzy drinks and lots of bread – it’s the cheapest way to keep going – then get moving again, walking around, checking the map, crossing it off, trying again. I can’t be wrong. I just need to keep going, be patient. I pass laughing women with large shopping bags and smart long coats. I’m more and more depressed, miserable and tired, and their fine make-up and fancy ways feel like a kick in the shins. I walk back and forth, back and forth, but there’s nothing. Maybe they’re watching. Watching, and laughing at how pathetic I am. I didn’t plan on storming the place or anything. Just finding it, just knowing where they were. Once I’d done that I was going to follow one of them, follow him home. And then I’d get to the truth. But here, aimless, clueless, running out of cash and dog-tired, I feel like there’s some big fucking joke and it’s all on me.
And then I see that lad again.
He’s sitting with his back to the wall, just sitting there on the pavement. And he’s watching me. His jeans are dirty, now I see him better, and his trainers are scuffed and old. He could be seventeen, he could be twenty-seven; his skin’s pale and his eyes are red. And he’s watching me. As I walk towards him he stands up and I find that I’m working out his weight, checking his hands and his shoulders to see how he’ll throw a punch.
I go up close to him, but he says nothing. He glances either way down the road then meets my eye again. A nod.
‘Looking for business?’
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s talking about. He’s offering sex.
‘No. Wrong guy.’ I turn and walk away, but feel his hand on my arm.
‘You sure? You ran after me before.’
‘I’m sure. Fuck off. Okay?’
But then I see another guy, like him scuffed and grimy, coming the other way. His eyes are on me, but he’s walking at an angle, trying to hide his intentions.
I’m in a trap. I take a quick step away from the first one. I look to his hands. He’ll have a syringe.
No, he doesn’t. And neither does the second.
But I’m stuck in a back alley, with no one to see, and two guys who want something.
‘Hey, don’t be nervous,’ the first one says. ‘I’m sure we can do a deal.’ His hand is back on my arm. I shrug him off. He looks around again, then whispers something. I don’t hear what he says.
‘What?’
The other one’s still across the road. I don’t get this. Then he says it again and I have to lean in. Suddenly he headbutts me and I see stars, then black. I hit the pavement hard. I feel his hands go to my jacket, trying to steal my wallet. He’s shouting something, and then I feel the other one joining him, his hands rooting around my trouser pockets.
A leg kicks one of them hard – finding the knee, snapping it back so he howls in pain.
A hand strikes the other one in the throat and he’s choking, his eyes bulging out, his hands clutching his neck to try to soften the pain.
And I’m back on my feet and I see how I could stamp there, kick there and there, how I could have them silent and bloody in seconds. I am Nudger, I am Lee Mackenzie. I want this.
The first one screams and it would be so easy to kick him hard in the face and shut him up. I’m not after his money, I doubt he’s got any, I just want to punch things better. I’ve held back for so long, but now I can do it. Someone like him, a thief and a whore, is easy meat. I won’t regret it. I won’t let the nice Ben stop me this time. I’ll have some, a little cosmic payback for all the shit that life’s dealt me. A bit of justice. Come on, he’s dirt. Come on, let’s do it …
I stop running when my lungs give out and I have to lean against a wall to stop myself falling over. I didn’t run from him, from sirens, or from men who might have seen me standing over him. I ran away before I started, before I hurt him properly. I ran to stop whatever it was inside me from taking over completely.
I lean against the wall and suck the air back into my lungs. I can feel the cruel man inside, Nudger, screaming in frustration. I stopped him. Just.
Oh God I’m going mad. I’m bi-polar or schizophrenic or something.
My heart’s slowing now, the oxygen back in my system, my legs no longer shaking.
I was this close. It’s like, ever since I left Carrie I’m losing a part of me. The Ben bit. And the old bit of me is rising back up. And I’m scared of this. If I stay away for too long, I wonder if I’ll become him completely.
I’m not coping on my own. It keeps happening, this old temper, this cruel, spiteful bastard bit of me, and I’m scared one day it’s going to take control. Like drugs or booze. I could have killed that guy. I felt it inside me.
I stalk the streets. I don’t know what else to do. I’ll never find them, not unless they want me to. I have nowhere to go. I’m scared and tired and hopeless. I stop in a busy street lined with shops. Everything’s carrying on as normal. The sun shines, people gossip, music plays. As the anger fades, as everything carries on being so painfully normal, I end up standing dead still in the middle of it all. I am so lonely. I feel like a trapped animal that is too frightened to move, that allows its predator to feed off it without complaint. Shoppers mill past me. I’m stuck. Homeless and hopeless.
I watch an old couple make their own particular slow progress amongst the throng. He stands proudly next to her, a barrier from the kids on skateboards. She stops him to point out something in a shop window. I watch as they smile and joke about it. Instinctively, they reach out without looking and hold hands. Then they turn and shuffle on. I’m so jealous of them, I nearly cry again.
Several hours later I end up in an internet cafe. I sit at a computer but can’t think of anything to type in. I have nothing left to search for.
‘Those bastards.’
I turn to find out who’s swearing and see two lads – kids really – with big headphones hanging loosely around their shoulders. They wear low-hanging shorts and T-shirts with strange logos – ‘Give Peas a Chance’ and ‘Not Athletic’. They’re hunched over a screen, excited about something. One’s tall and very spotty, his greasy hair hanging down to his shoulders, the second is shorter and even thinner but with the same lanky hair. The tall one types something else, a pause and then they both gasp.
‘No way, no way!’ screams the tall one, spinning in a delighted circle as Thinner slams his fingers down on the keyboard so hard and fast I think he might break it.
‘Try it.’
‘I’m there, blud.’
‘So do it already and cut out the fake gangster chat, you geek.’
‘You’re so two thousand. I’m street.’
‘Sesame Street, sure.’
‘Shut your fat mouth – oh!’
‘Woah,’ the other gasps in reverence.
‘Here he is. How long till they find this one?’
‘Let’s time it – time it, bruv!’
I’m too intrigued not to wander over. The two guys are looking at a video clip of something on the screen. They see me and go quiet. I’m aware of how I look, but
I try to be friendly.
‘Hi guys. What are you looking at?’
‘Who are you?’
‘He’s a spook,’ says Tall to Thinner, fidgeting with the neck of his T-shirt.
‘It’s a free country, man, we can look at whatever we want.’
‘Yeah, it’s not fucking China, dude!’
I hear the words, but I don’t understand a word they’re saying.
‘Yeah, so fuck off and send Kim Jung Un our best.’
‘I just wanted to know … I’m sorry I bothered you.’ I turn, scratching my head. I hear a shuffle of feet behind me. A whisper – come on, look at him …
‘Hey, mister. You’re not a spook?’ calls out Tall.
‘You mean a spy?’
‘It could be a double-bluff,’ says Thinner, wary.
‘I guess I could be but … I don’t know, I don’t know how spooks work, but I don’t think they hang out in places like this, do they? Are you boys a threat to national security then?’
A pause, then they both burst out laughing.
‘He’s alright.’
‘For a spook.’
‘So what if he is? We didn’t post any of this. Look, come here, check this out. About a week ago, some kid nearly went and threw himself off a roof. Loads of guys caught it on their phones and posted it. So it’s a big hit for a day, you know. We don’t care, so what, right?’
‘Right,’ I say and I’m already a bit bored.
‘Yeah, right, so what, exactly. But.’
‘But—’ jumps in Thinner excited, ‘someone starts taking all the posts down. Gets them banned, removes them et cetera et cetera. Someone doesn’t want us to see the kid.’
‘His dad?’
‘No, no way, not his dad. Cos his dad’s just going to be some tragic bloke in his forties who thinks the net’s about Amazon and porn. The people who are doing this – they’re …’ Thinner shrugs.
‘Professionals,’ says Tall.
‘Not just professionals. They’ve got an agenda. It takes a lot of time and a lot of money to make someone disappear from the internet. You know?’
‘So we’re playing a game. Find the sites that still have the video and see how long before black ops take it down.’
‘Black ops?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know who they are, man, but you might as well call them black ops. They’re like commandos. We found a site, I tell you, it was hard for us to find it and we’re seriously good at this shit.’
‘We’re the best, bruv! This is what we do!’
‘We find it and thirty seconds later, it’s gone. I swear, if we weren’t coded and encrypted, I’d swear they were tracing us. You feel me?’
‘We found him again. Here, see? Watch it if you want, it’s nothing special.’
Tall clicks the computer and a grainy, blurred video starts to play.
‘Looks terrible, huh?’
It does. I watch the camera swing around – a load of drunk boys and girls, a grim building, a school, I suppose. They’re all laughing, pointing upwards. The camera follows their gesticulations and it’s dark, there’s nothing for a moment, just a blur and then the camera zooms and focuses on a figure standing on the edge of the roof, staring down at us. You can hear the kids chanting – ‘jump, jump, jump!’ Little bastards, I think. And then the camera focuses on the boy on the roof …
It’s the boy in my dreams. It’s the boy in the bed, the bed next to mine.
He stares down at the camera, he’s saying something, but the camera can’t capture the words. He looks … happy.
It is the boy. I’m sure. It’s the boy and they’re trying to hide him.
‘Shit quality, huh?’ says Thinner.
‘Did he jump?’
‘Nah, some bloke stops him, you’ll see.’
He’s alive.
‘That’s the thing. It’s not like it’s against public decency or any of that legitimised censorship shit. There’s an agenda here, dude.’
I look at the boy. He’s staring down at me, through the camera. I want to wave.
And then suddenly the video freezes. A pause and then the image vanishes. Text appears in the box, replacing this image: This video has been removed for breaching copyright terms.
‘BOOM!’ screams Tall, and he and Thinner share a high-five.
‘Two minutes? They’re tracing us. They’re like totally watching us, right now, man!’
They’re giggling. Tall glances at me, sees my bemused gaze and laughs even more.
‘You think that’s the last one?’ asks Thinner.
‘Nah, but by the end of the day, they’ll all be gone. Gotta hand it to them, they’re ruthless!’
Another high-five. This is all a game to them.
‘Who is he? The boy?’ I ask.
‘Who cares?’
‘He’s called Tony or Toby or something.’
‘You don’t know?’ I try to hide the panic in my voice. They’re so casual I could hit them.
‘He’s …’ Tall taps at the keyboard. ‘Here. Toby Mayhew. It’s all down here.’
It is. On the screen are all the details of the boy I could ever need. His name, his parents, his school, his address. Thinner presses a button and the details print out in the corner. I try to be calm as I wander over and glance at the sheet. But the boys have forgotten me already.
‘Come on, let’s find him again!’
I take the sheet of paper and walk out of the cafe. The boys whoop and wail about some new discovery, but I don’t need them now. I stop in the entrance, watching – always watching – then walk along the back streets, walking all night, not stopping. I’ve covered thirty miles by the morning.
*
I learn quickly enough that Toby is no longer at school. It’s not hard to find out that his English teacher has also gone missing and the matter is a minor scandal. I see his parents looking worried. They pull all the right faces for an article in the local paper.
I stand in their garden in the dark, watching. They go through the motions, they look exhausted, I hear them argue and fight but the words are muffled. Maybe they are genuine. Maybe Carrie was genuine.
The teacher has a best friend called Kath. She likes vodka, single men and bars. She tells me she can’t believe her friend would abduct a boy, but she’s also not entirely surprised. The girl has secrets, she drawls, nudging her empty glass across the table at me. Some friend. We roll drunkenly out of the bar and she’s put out when I don’t invite her back to mine. She offers her place instead and leans in. I feel her bosom pressed against me, smell the booze on her breath. Maybe in another life I’d have been tempted. I let her think it’s possible and we walk down the street together, hand in hand. I imagine the confusion then slow rage that must have filtered through her when she turned at the traffic lights and found that her new beau had vanished. Sorry, love, but I’m on a mission.
The teacher has a father, but she won’t go to him. He’s respectable, it says so on the web. No other family. She’s almost invisible, but not quite. If a woman like her is going to run, then she’ll run to someone; she’ll have a plan. Not family, not friends, someone with no obvious links to her. Kath had blathered on about some kid she had befriended before and tried to help but he’d turned out bad. Two years before, she’d said.
I access the school’s list, find the boys she taught two years ago. Find the boy who was expelled. Terry Miller. I have an address half an hour later. A flat high up in a shitty towerblock. I don’t like it – there are no easy escapes from here. If this is another trap, I’m going to need weapons to get me out. I have checked out a couple of hunting stores, but the shotguns are far too well protected for me to risk a break-in. I buy a set of kitchen knives instead. I tie one to my thigh, strap two above my belt, out of sight but easily reached. Then I wait for nightfall.
There’s CCTV on the ground floor. I watch the camera pan left to right, following a bunch of boys lounging on pushbikes with nothing to do. I slip past and jog up the
stairs. I reach his floor and my lungs are pounding. I pause for a moment, get my strength back and then go to the door. I listen in, it’s quiet. I break in with a credit card and a screwdriver, hardly making a sound. All these things I could do, they’re coming back quicker and quicker.
Inside, a fat woman’s watching TV, facing away from me in a room on my right. I see the plate of fag butts on the arm of the sofa and her yellow-stained, chubby fingers. She’s no use. I look left – there’s a closed door, a light from under it. I go to the door, listen in. Voices. They’re in there.
Stop. Think. If this is a trap, how do you get out?
I glance back at the woman – I can only see her fat ankles and slippered feet, but it doesn’t look like she’s moving any time soon.
I put my hand on the door, take a deep breath, then push it open and enter. Inside are three people. A lad who must be Terry Miller, dressed in the same sort of uniform as those kids in the internet cafe. His T-shirt reads ‘I ♥ Slogans’. He sees me and jumps up, reaching for something in the drawer. I’m there in a second, pushing him to the floor, knocking the taser gun he has just grabbed away from him. I look up at the other two. A woman, bespectacled, scared – totally out of her depth. And the boy. The kid I’ve seen in my dreams. Here. Right here in the same room as me.
The lad beneath me is struggling, swearing and kicking. I pick him up in one easy motion and throw him onto the bed.
‘HE’S GOING TO KILL US!’ he screams.
But Toby doesn’t move.
‘No he’s not,’ he says, quietly. The teacher and the other lad look at him, amazed. He stares at me and then smiles. And I smile back.
‘Hi,’ I say.
SIXTEEN
Anna should have screamed when the heavy-set, wild-eyed man stormed into the room. He seemed to appear from nowhere, moving so fast, throwing Terry across the room. His clothes were dirty, his nose broken and his hands were tightly balled fists, scuffed and bloody. She should have screamed, but her mouth simply opened and closed, wordless, as the man turned towards her, took her in and then dismissed her. His gaze settled instead on Toby. She should have screamed or done something. But she just stood there, useless.