by Pete Trewin
The rain was heavy now and Chris had to run from the pub to the lodge. He went to the bathroom and dried his hair with a towel. As he came out of the bathroom, he noticed that water was pooling on the floor under the window. He definitely hadn’t left it open. It was slightly ajar. He took a flashlight from behind the door and went outside, braving the rain again. It looked like someone had tried to force the window. He pushed it shut.
FOURTEEN
The room was a lot better than it might have been. Smallish but the furniture wasn’t too scuffed and the walls and ceiling had recently been redecorated. Bed, fold-down table, wardrobe. Basic dark blue, corded carpet. The mattress was new. Probably policy that, given that not all the occupants of the hostel would be continent and squeaky clean. The bed was a bit short for him.
Stroller went to the window and looked out over Falkner Square. All he could see were trees on the wide pavement and in the central gardens being whipped by the wind and rain. Glimpse of the white-painted terrace on the other side of the square.
He went into the communal kitchen. A hand-painted sign on the wall read:
“Help yourself to tea and coffee. Milk in fridge. Please clean up after yourself.”
As he waited for the kettle to boil, he noticed that the table, chairs and units were more dented and scruffy than in his room.
‘Hi, mate? New?’
He turned to face a middle-aged man. Medium height. Long dark hair going grey in patches. Careworn face.
Stroller nodded.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’
‘Like the pop?’ said the man as they sat down at the table with their mugs.
‘I like a pint,’ said Stroller.
‘Nah. Do you like it too much like I did?’
‘Oh, I see. No. I haven’t got a problem like that.’
‘Ah, so you’re from the other place. No sweat. Everyone’s equal here. My name’s Lenny’
He held out his hand. Stroller shook it.
‘Stroller.’
‘That’s good. Is that your real name or a nickname?’
‘I’ve been known as that since school. I used to charge around all day knocking people over.’
They both laughed and took swigs of tea. Stroller pointed to the window.
‘This Falkner Square. Didn’t it have a bad reputation? For naughty women and drugs and that kind of stuff?’
‘It did. When I first came here you couldn’t move on the pavement for them but the corpy and the police clamped down. Here.’ Lenny got up and went to the window. ‘See this house next door?’
Stroller leaned over.
‘It’s a knocking shop,’ said Lenny.
‘Aren’t they supposed to have a red light over the door?’
‘Pull back a bit, they’re always on the look-out. Very discreet they are. The owners collect the money every week. Tomorrow night. Regular as clockwork. It’s like something off The Bill or The Sweeney. You half expect Dennis Waterman and John Thaw to come round the corner in one of those old-fashioned Jags with a bell ringing on the top and a blue light flashing.’
‘Get your trousers on, you’re nicked?’ said Stroller.
They finished their tea and Lenny went to his room. Stroller went for a walk. They had asked for cash in advance for the room and he was a bit short of spending money.
It was raining lightly but a wind was blowing, whipping the branches of the trees. He pulled his hood over his head. He would have to get some decent clobber. He walked down a gloomy street lined with tall terraced houses until he could see the cathedral. Impressive with the lights on it. Then down towards the city centre. He could see the Liver Buildings and some sort of tower.
He walked down a long street with shops on either side, nearly all of them closed. The occasional pedestrian walked quickly to get out of the wind and rain. He stopped at a window display of replica guns. Luger. Winchester rifle. Colt 45 automatic. They certainly looked realistic when seen from a metre away through glass.
The first pair of cash machines he came to had a person at each one. The next ones had a long queue at each. He walked down a brightly lit road with lots of restaurants and fast food shops on it. The smell of cooking chips made him feel hungry. He would get some on the way back.
The next cash machine was on a quiet street. No one about. A single middle-aged man was struggling with a briefcase and umbrella as he tried to work the machine. Finally he managed to get the card in and the money out.
Stroller moved quickly up behind him. He grasped the arm holding the card and the money and twisted it behind the man’s back.
‘Hey! What!’ cried the man.
‘How much did you get out?’
Stroller gripped the man’s wrist with his other hand and bent it back.
‘Aah! Fifty quid.’
‘Well be a good fellow and get me some out. Say, two hundred and fifty?’
FIFTEEN
The next morning the rain had cleared and Chris had a chance to examine the window that had been tampered with. There were definite marks. Probably made by a pocket knife. Amateurish. A professional burglar would have used a jemmy. He had not installed any security precautions at the lodge – alarms, cameras – as it was rented. He could get permission but that would take time. He went to the van for his tool-box. He added a stronger lock to the window then fetched the step-ladder to check the top of the window bay for leaks. The flashing had come away slightly. He dried it as much as he could with a cloth then filled the gap with a silicone gun. That would have to do for the time being.
The lady was working on a laptop on the other side of the pub, a soft drink on the table. The only woman in the place apart from the barmaid. The lady who’d met Sefton in the Windermere Towers. It must be Alison Mason. She was certainly a looker. And her curves were obvious even though she was wearing a sweater, blue jeans and trainers. She looked familiar but Chris couldn’t place her. He noticed that she was watching what was going on in the pub. Making notes on a laptop.
He sipped his mineral water with ice and lemon and nursed a minor hangover. He was knackered. Someone had rung the doorbell several times in the night, waking him up. Kids, most likely. What were they doing out in the middle of the night?
He was tucked away in a corner, reading a folded newspaper with his head down. It was only half eleven in the morning but it was amazing how many people were in at that time, mainly older men drinking lager. He risked a sandwich at twelve. It stayed down and he began to feel better.
Alison snapped the lid of her laptop shut, finished her drink and got up to leave. Chris went out of the other door and walked across the street. The wind and rain had cleared. Alison was getting into the big Merc with the huge chauffeur in the driving seat.
Chris got in his van and followed the car. The driver was most likely experienced and would keep an eye out for any followers. Aigburth Road and out into the leafy suburbs. Past Garston and then the Speke Retail Park and a dual carriageway. These were more difficult for following a car than ordinary roads. The Merc was cruising well within the speed limit and all the other cars were rushing by.
Then out towards the airport where, as usual, an orange trimmed easyJet was hanging in the air on the approach. Someone was making a bomb out of transporting planeloads of scousers to Benidorm. Down Speke Hall Avenue, almost to the entrance to the hall itself. Great place for a Tudor stately house. Next to the Mersey, an airport and a notorious housing estate. Though when they’d made the decision to build the house none of that was there.
The Merc turned onto a factory forecourt and parked up. Alison went round the back. Chris kept well away as there wasn’t too much activity on the road.
A long wait. There was a sign reading Snug as a Bug at the front of the factory. Skips full of lengths of white plastic. Big white vans parked. One came in and two men got out carrying packets of sandwiches and went into the factory. He cruised past the entrance and got a couple of shots of the factory and the parke
d Merc. Not exactly evidence of wrongdoing. He parked on the road nearby, with a view back to the entrance.
He noticed a woodland next to where he was parked, with a wooden fence and a kissing gate. He got out and went in, the camera slung over his shoulder. A footpath wound around the back of the factories through mature oak trees.
A freestanding sign and information board explained that This is the work of The Mersey Forest. Sponsored by Snug as a Bug Windows. The path was obviously well-used but until you were on it you wouldn’t know that it existed. Might be a useful place for a run if it connected with other paths.
Several wood pigeons clattered out of a tree in front of him as he approached the rear of Snug as a Bug’s premises, which were enclosed by a high wire fence. He squatted down and waited.
He saw something moving and edged closer to the fence. Now he could see Alison. She was standing by a large blackened steel bin, from which a plume of smoke was rising. She reached into her pocket and answered a mobile. He took a couple of shots while she was talking. She put the mobile back and ran quickly around to the front of the unit. Two workers in white overalls came out of the rear door and towards the fence, laughing and joking, carrying newspapers and butty boxes. Chris eased back behind a large oak tree. They opened a gate in the fence and walked out onto the path. Chris followed them for about fifty yards to a picnic table in a clearing.
He went back and through the gate. The plume of smoke was still rising from the bin but the fire had gone out. A laptop was charred but not completely burned. He managed to get hold of an edge and pulled it out before crying in pain and dropping it onto paving slabs.
He sucked his fingers and waited for the laptop to cool down.
SIXTEEN
Alison only just made it to the school in time. She was flustered and out of breath when she needed to be calm and collected.
The head was her usual pleasant self. Or rather long-suffering self. She was getting on a bit, probably close to retirement, and must have seen it all before. The teacher sitting with her was a lot younger and probably more naïve.
Emile sat staring at the floor of the cramped head’s office as she read out a long list of his crimes, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
Emile was wearing a red tracksuit with a logo over the pocket indicating expensive designer gear. As did the box-fresh trainers on his feet. Not a school for uniforms. Kenny had bought him the outfit. The trouble was that now Emile would expect expensive gear all the time. In other words: exactly how to spoil a kid in three easy lessons.
They all seemed to be looking at Emile, expecting someone else to start. Even with the exaggerated, surly expression on his face, there was a startling resemblance to his mother. The black hair and smooth skin. The high cheekbones. There were also hints of his father - the squarish jaw and the small ears.
‘On the Monday,’ the head said, reading from the top sheet of several sheets of paper, ‘Emile called Mrs Gregson a “slag” and a “dog”, just because he was asked to stop talking in class. He then combined the two expletives into “slag-dog”. When she told him that he would have to stay in after school he told her…’ The head paused. ‘Oh dear, I can’t read this out.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Oh well. He told her to “suck my dick, slut”. On the Tuesday he was constantly skitting and hitting other children for no reason. On the Wednesday he was found to have cigarettes.’
The head paused and looked at everyone in the room.
‘The worst thing is,’ she said, ‘he denies everything, and won’t take responsibility for his actions. He does well for long periods then flips. He tries to escape.’
‘Escape?’ Alison said.
‘Escape. It’s not a prison, you know, it’s a school.’ The head sighed. ‘If a child doesn’t want to be here then we can’t enforce it. Except, we have a duty of care. We have to stop him hurting himself. And we have to stop him hurting others. And he keeps climbing.’
‘Climbing?’
‘Up. Over. Onto. The roof, trees walls. And yet he can be good. He loves playing on computers, for instance.’ She sighed. ‘It all culminated yesterday with him running out of school and deliberately trying to cause cars and buses to crash in the road. He had to be forcibly restrained by teachers until the police came.’
‘Restrained? That’s a bit...’
‘In fact, Mrs Gregson had to go to hospital to have a bruise on her leg treated where he kicked her. She still can’t walk properly.’ She paused. ‘There are half a dozen incidents on this list that would justify permanent exclusion.’
The head put the sheet of paper down. Emile’s head was almost in his lap.
‘So what have you got to say, Emile,’ she said. ‘We’re all trying to help you. You can be good. Your mother and your father know that.’
Emile glared at his fist and put it in his mouth. Alison pulled it away.
‘Come on, Emile,’ she hissed. ‘You’ve got to accept that you’ve been naughty before we can move forward. You’ve got to admit that you’ve done wrong. Do you deny that you did all these things?’
The faintest hint of a shrug.
‘I haven’t got a father,’ he said.
‘OK, Emile,’ said the head. ‘Go and sit outside while I have a talk with your mother.’
‘It’s all about skitting,’ the head sighed once the door had closed. ‘He does well for ages and then the skitting starts.’
‘What do you mean, skitting?’ Alison said. ‘Do they skit him? What do they say?’
‘Well…I can’t…’
‘Come on, I need to know.’
‘Oh, it’s the usual. “Your ma sells her arse on Limey”. “Yer dad’s a drug pusher”.’
Alison felt her face heating up.
The head shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, they say it about everyone. The thing is, he’s at the age where you need to spend – and I know it’s a politically correct cliché – quality time with him. What about his father...’
‘His father’s not...not around.’
The head nodded.
‘Call him back in,’ Alison said.
‘Emile?’ She leapt to her feet, grabbed the kid by the head as he came in and forced his face up. She batted his hands away. ‘You’re going to sign this contract. I’m going to sign it. And Mrs Jones is going to sign it. And you’re going to keep to it.’
SEVENTEEN
‘I tell you what, Eddie, boy,’ said Jimmy Dooley as he drummed his fingers on the dashboard of the black cab. Stuck in traffic yet again. He glanced in the rear view mirror. Sefton was huge on the back seat. Jimmy looked back to the big green bus sitting five feet in front of the cab, its exhaust sending out a plume of black smoke. A bunch of kids on the bus’s back seat were giving him two and one finger salutes. ‘There’s always something going on to slow you down in this city. If it’s not the busies checking up on people it’s the council, digging up the road. Last week it was a fucking bomb threat.’
‘It was a hoax, Jimmy.’
‘I know it was a hoax,’ Jimmy said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘But it could of been real. One of these suicide bombers. They never should of got rid of capital punishment. The thing is you’ve got to have a deterrent. They’d think twice if we still had the rope.’
‘Have you heard the one about the two suicide bombers who were gay and wanted to get married?’ said Sefton.
‘Ah go on, that’d be daft. If they blew themselves up they could hardly get married could they? Anyway, them Muslims aren’t into that kind of thing.’
The traffic started to move but as Jimmy put the clutch in a tiny car shot out of a side-street and nearly crashed into the cab. The driver ended up about two feet from Jimmy. He was a middle-aged man in a smart suit. Probably used this bubble car effort to park in tight spots in the city, and had a big Merc or Jag in the garage at home.
‘Oi, mate!’ Jimmy shouted.
The man ignored him.
‘I’m awarding you the DFC!’
‘Dozy fucking cunt!’
The man held up one finger without looking at Jimmy and expertly shot in front of the cab as the traffic moved again.
‘Twat!’ Jimmy yelled. ‘Where’d you get that car, in a lucky bag?’ He turned to Sefton. ‘Did you see that?’
The traffic speeded up and he calmed down a bit.
‘See,’ he said. ‘What they should do is bring back hanging and send them all home.’
‘Who?’
‘The Muslims, of course.’
‘A bit tricky that, Jimmy. There’s quite a few of them.’
‘Well I wouldn’t be uncivilized about it. I’m not a Nazi. I’d have a rack of plane tickets on the desk. One way tickets to Iran, Yemen, Somalia. They can take their pick. And they can have a free meal on the flight. No alcoholic drinks, of course. Or ham sandwiches.’
He drove for a while, chortling at his wit.
‘And yesterday,’ he said, ‘it was one of those fucking preachers doing his stuff right in the middle of the street.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Ed said.
‘Giving it loads, he was. Saying that the world is going to end like Sodom and Gomorrah or Ancient Rome. I tell you what; they’d have crucified this cunt in Ancient Rome.’ He held up his arm and pointed. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it!’
‘What was that? What did this feller look like?’
‘Fat and little. Nothing like a fucking Old Testament prophet.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Ah, the usual shite. How we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart. About capitalists and gangsters. I couldn’t make out what the cunt was shouting about. Giving it loads, he was.’
The traffic was moving steadily now. Sefton did not reply and Jimmy glanced at him in the mirror.
‘Hey! There he is now!’
The man was standing on the street with his rucksack by his side. Jimmy glanced at Sefton in the mirror.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ he said. Sefton did not reply. Jimmy drove in silence for several minutes.