Screen of Deceit

by Nick Oldham

  ‘You need to know something right now, Mark,’ Jonny said earnestly.

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘I didn’t give any heroin or nowt to Beth. I’ll hold my hand up’ – he held up his free hand, palm forward – ‘I did give her a bit of weed once, but never anything stronger. I swear.’

  Mark regarded him, sipping his tea as he did. ‘Why should I believe you? You’re a dealer, you were going out with her, she was on drugs … stands to reason it came from you, don’t it?’

  ‘Nah … not me. Honest.’

  ‘OK, say I believe you – is that why you’ve come here, to plead innocent?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘What’s the other bit?’

  ‘I want us to mate around together.’

  Mark spluttered his tea and almost dropped his mug. ‘You what?’

  ‘I actually like you, respect you.’

  Mark’s face screwed up in disbelief at the admission.

  ‘No, it’s true. You’re not frightened of me and there’s not many who aren’t. The wheel in the balls, for example. You attacking me. Not many would have a go at what you did. I respect that. You’re not like them sucky-up gits who trail around after me. I want us to be friends. We’re not so different.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be sure of that.’

  ‘Nah – you reckon you’re all goody-goody, but you fight dirty and you steal. Qualities like I have. And … I could use someone like you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I lost a lot of my market when I got booted out of school. You could pick it up for me … Mr Clean, the guy no one would suspect. Fucking ideal, if you ask me! And I’m getting hassle from up above.’ Jonny jerked his thumb up to the ceiling. ‘The boss, y’know? You’re in a great position … and you’d get a percentage … soon buy another bike with what I’d pay you, from a proper bike shop, even.’

  Mark snorted. ‘Me and you?’

  ‘Think about it.’ He slurped his tea. ‘And not only that, I can get top whack for anything you need to sell … like stolen property, if you know what I mean? And I can lay my hands on virtually anything you might want.’

  ‘How about an iPod?’

  ‘Easy – on the house.’

  ‘How do you know you can trust me?’

  ‘Put it this way – if you ever do the dirty on me, you’re dead.’ Jonny held out a bony hand. ‘Deal or no deal?’

  Reluctantly, Mark placed his mug down on a work surface. He did not want to appear too eager just in case Jonny sniffed something he didn’t like the reek of. With a slight tremble in his fingers, he took Jonny’s hand. Jonny held on longer than he should have done, his eyes beaming a sort of contemptuous victory which made Mark’s skin crawl. He wanted to pull his hand away and chuck Jonny out of the house because he was certain that if this went wrong, he’d be in Jonny’s debt, and there was nothing more certain … Jonny would come collecting.

  ‘Don’t look so bloody worried,’ Jonny said in a way that did not reassure Mark. ‘I don’t bite.’

  Mark eased his fingers out of Jonny’s grip and considered the irony of the situation: both thought they had the other one hooked.

  Jonny hung around for another hour. They talked about the cops, and Mark’s bike, with Jonny loving it that the bike Mark had so jealously guarded, said was straight, was – apparently – stolen. A belief that Mark did nothing to dispel.

  ‘You’ll never see that again,’ Jonny declared confidently.

  ‘I’ll have to start saving – unless I nick another,’ Mark said glumly.

  ‘What is the dosh situation?’

  ‘I’ve got bugger all,’ Mark admitted. ‘That’s why I was trying to sell those games and stuff.’

  ‘Police got ’em?’

  Mark shook his head and grinned. ‘No, they missed them when they searched the house. Still got ’em.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Mark climbed on to the kitchen sink and reached up on top of a cupboard, his fingers stretching until they found the carrier bag. He jumped down and handed it to Jonny, who appraised the contents. ‘Good stuff here. What did Tonno offer you?’

  ‘Forty,’ Mark exaggerated slightly.

  Jonny winced, then thoughtfully raised his eyes as he calculated things. ‘I’ll get fifty-five out of him,’ he guessed. ‘If I give you thirty now, then another fifteen when I sell ’em … a tenner for me. How does that sound?’

  Mark pretended to consider the offer.

  ‘Take it or leave it,’ Jonny pushed, ‘but I’ll throw in an MP3 player, not an iPod.’

  ‘All right,’ Mark said slowly.

  Jonny reached into his back jeans pocket and eased out a wad of folded bank notes. Lots of them. Mark’s eyes widened. He peeled off three tens and handed them across wedged between his first and middle finger. Mark eased the money off him.

  Jonny beamed. ‘I think we’re in business.’

  Mark was relieved beyond belief when Jonny eventually left his house and almost collapsed behind the front door after he’d locked it. He felt as though he had just got into bed with Satan.

  Seventeen

  Mark and Jonny were seen out and about together on several occasions over the next few days and it was disconcerting for Mark suddenly to become Jonny’s biggest mate. Only a matter of days before they had been trying to rip out each other’s throats.

  They didn’t get up to much and Mark wondered what Sparks did with all the spare time he had on his hands. Mostly, it seemed, very little. Didn’t get up till late then dossed around; Mark was even invited around to Jonny’s house where there was no sign of any parents; here they watched DVDs (mostly ultra-violent ones which made Mark squirm), played games on a brand new Xbox 360, ate rubbish, then in the afternoon wandered down to town. Here, with Sam and Eric in tow, they meandered around the arcades, striking poses, looking tough and mixing with the other kids doing much the same thing: bunking off school and living an aimless life with one eye over the shoulder for cops or Education Authority officials.

  Mark hated it, but stuck at it. He missed his old life desperately. School. His bike, of course. His mates … Katie; he was really pining for her and could not rid his mind of the point they’d reached together. Mark wondered if he’d blown it completely with her, or whether he’d be able to pull it back when this was all over.

  Yes, he hated it, but he did a damned good job of convincing Jonny that he was born for this life.

  Bethany’s funeral, which loomed ominously over Mark like a storm cloud for days, put a bit of a dent into this new lifestyle, at least for a day.

  On the morning of the event, Jack turned up in the Porsche Cayenne, suited and booted and bearing a suit, shirt, tie and black shoes for Mark, and a sombre new dress for mum. Mark dressed in his new clothes, pulling them on as though he was a death row prisoner getting ready for the trip to the electric chair. They fitted him well. Then, with the others, he waited for the arrival of the hearse and funeral car.

  It was the second worst day of Mark’s life: sat in the back of a long, black limo with his Mum and Jack, following the hearse to the crematorium.

  Shite, he kept telling himself.

  Tears began to roll. He could not contain them. He turned to his mother for a hug, but she sat there cold and brittle, staring dead ahead, making no move to take Mark under her arm and hold him tight.

  Mark blubbered when he realized that there would be nothing there. He sat bolt upright between his mum and a sombre-looking Jack, trapped his hands between his knees and attempted to get a grip of himself.

  He couldn’t remember the rest of the morning.

  When it was over and they were back home, he retreated to his room and lay on his bed, hands clasped behind his head, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling, trying to come to terms with the fact that his sister was now just a pile of ashes. Which made him even more determined to finish off what he’d started.

  He was out on the streets with Jonny that same evening, knowing that the events o
f the day had had a bad effect on him. He was on the lookout for trouble and if trouble found him, it had better bloody well watch out.

  Jonny picked up on Mark’s dark mood with an amused pleasure and went with it because he could sense Mark’s wildness and knew something would come of it.

  Mark, Jonny, Sam and Eric barged their way around the arcades in the town centre, an air of violence emanating from the way in which they entered a premises and stalked through it. Like hungry hyenas. Smirks of superiority on their faces. Pushing for a fight. Hoping someone would stand in their way, or give them a dirty look.

  No one did.

  Everyone shied respectfully out of their way. No challenges, no disrespect tonight.

  Underneath the façade, though, Mark was unhappy. Yes, this was his true mood. He was angry and frustrated and at that moment in time he hated the world and wanted to lash out, but the truth was that everything inside him was really directed at Jonny, although he did not allow that to show. He had to keep that in check, but a big part of him wanted them all to get into a fight which they couldn’t win, one in which Sparks would get the hammering he deserved without Mark blowing his cover.

  But it was unlikely to happen.

  Jonny breezed through everybody. His fearsome reputation made them step aside and cower. No one would be taking them on tonight.

  They’d gravitated to a cheapo greasy-spoon café near the Winter Gardens. Over Cokes, they had been laughing at the patheticness of every wimp in town, and wondering what to do later that evening, when Jonny got the call on his phone. The ringtone, as ever, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day. Mark’s favourite. He cringed.

  Jonny suddenly became businesslike – just like on the day he’d got the call when he and Mark had faced each other over the BMX.

  Mark sat back, tried to act natural and pretend he wasn’t interested.

  It was obviously an important call. Business.

  ‘Need to get this,’ Jonny said. He stood up and left the other three sitting at the cracked, Formica-topped table. Jonny walked out of the caff and took the call on the street. Mark watched him discreetly whilst at the same time trying to give the impression he was interested in the dumb-arse ramblings of Sam and Eric who, in truth, struggled to sling two coherent sentences together. They really needed schooling, Mark thought sadly. He’d learned neither could really read or write and their futures looked bleak. He’d also learned that Jonny could read and write, which put him one step up the evolutionary ladder from his mates. Perhaps made him a chimp. That said, Mark believed that Jonny was canny enough underneath his toughness to have a better future than the one already mapped out for him, if only he could see it.

  Mark slyly eyed Jonny on the phone. It was a phone call during which Jonny did most of the listening. A few nods, some monosyllabic responses.

  ‘Bet it’s the Crackman,’ Eric said suddenly.

  ‘Eh?’ Mark turned to him – too quickly – then tried to disguise his interest by taking a swig of his Coke. He needn’t have worried. Neither goon saw his body language.

  ‘On t’phone.’ Eric put his thumb to his ear, little finger to his mouth in the well-known gesture to imitate a phone.

  ‘Who’s the Crackman?’ Mark asked dumbly.

  ‘Don’t effin’ ask me. I dunno,’ Eric said.

  ‘And that’s the Crackman on the phone, is it?’

  ‘Er … probably, that’s his ringtone I think,’ Eric said dumbly, losing interest in the conversation. He had started cracking his knuckles one by one, loudly, by bending his fingers right back. Mark winced and felt queasy.

  Then Sam joined in, making a stereo, knuckle-cracking symphony which was weirdly in tune, giving Mark the perfect excuse to get up and walk away with an ‘Ugh!’ on his lips.

  Jonny’s phone call ended. He was about to return inside as Mark shouldered his way out of the door and met him.

  ‘Those two are going to have arthritis big style when they get older,’ Mark said disgustedly.

  ‘Knuckle-cracking?’ Jonny said knowingly.

  ‘Yep.’

  Jonny raised his right fist and, using the palm of his left, spectacularly cracked his knuckles, one by one, like dry twigs snapping. Then he laughed.

  ‘Whatever.’ Mark raised his hands in submission. ‘Was that business?’ he asked innocently.

  Jonny ran his eyes over Mark. ‘What’s it to do wi’ you?’

  ‘Sorry, mate – just asking. Those guys said it was the Crackman.’

  ‘Pricks!’ Jonny uttered. ‘Big-mouthed pricks.’

  ‘Hey, hey, no need to get riled.’ Mark used his hands in a calming gesture. ‘No big deal. I don’t know owt, OK? I’m not prying.’

  Jonny’s eyes blazed, then the fire went out of them and the expression he gave Mark was one of serious consideration. ‘Maybe it’s about time you started earning your keep.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Mark kept the excitement out of his voice as best he could.

  ‘OK,’ Jonny relented, ‘that was the Crackman.’ He held up his phone. ‘You know about the Crackman, don’t you?’

  ‘Only by reputation. Don’t know who he is.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You deal for him, don’t you? You distribute for him, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t push it. I don’t know who he is and I don’t want to know. I got recommended by a friend of a friend, got a call, then took it from there. The rest is history.’

  ‘But you don’t know who he is?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘He must know who you are.’ Mark desperately wanted to ask about the phone, but couldn’t think how to phrase a question so that it seemed innocent … but then Jonny seemed to sense what was going on in Mark’s head and was suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Hey – why all the questions? You an undercover cop or summat?’

  ‘Don’t be thick,’ Mark responded. He knew it was a question that might come at some time and had rehearsed his reaction to it. Was it a good enough reaction, though? Or did his body language leak the truth? ‘You’re the one who wanted to mate about with me, remember?’

  ‘In fact, thinking about it, I need to check,’ Jonny said warily.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Better safe than sorry. Maybe I’ve already said too much.’

  ‘What?’ Mark’s face was screwed up in puzzlement.

  ‘You wearin’ a wire?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A wire, y’know? Like summat that records what we say, what I say.’

  ‘Am I fuck!’ Mark said, uttering a word he detested, but which Jonny used with abandon. All part of the game plan.

  ‘Well let’s check it out, then,’ Jonny said. He pushed Mark in the chest, back inside the greasy-spoon, gesturing to the Hyenas that he needed some help here.

  Jonny manhandled him into the gents’ toilets, Mark’s face red, angry, his breath coming hard. Eric and Sam followed, eagerly wondering what the hell was going on, but gladly along for the ride.

  ‘Eric – door,’ Jonny barked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Guard the door. Don’t let anyone in,’ Jonny shouted at him whilst pinning Mark against the wall next to the washbasins. Sam checked all the stalls, found them empty. Not that anyone in their right mind would have willingly sat on any of the cracked, reeking toilets.

  ‘This is stupid,’ Mark said, nostrils flaring.

  ‘It’s only stupid if I don’t find a wire,’ Jonny came back at him. ‘So if I don’t, you can call me stupid, OK?’

  Sam completed his bog search, came and hovered by Jonny’s shoulder. ‘All crappers empty,’ he reported back.

  Mark looked at Jonny and saw in him the true feral monster he really was. Not the big mate he’d been pretending to be. This guy, even though he was only fourteen, was a truly hardened criminal, in a league of his own. His personality changed on a whim, and Mark guessed this is what they meant when they talked about psychopaths. Charming one minute, breaking
your friggin’ head the next and laughing while they did it – and maybe killing people by plying them with drugs.

  To put it bluntly, Mark, slammed hard against a graffiti-covered wall in a toilet in the back of a shit-hole café, was terrified, even though he knew Jonny would find nothing.

  ‘Take your jacket off and give it to Sam.’

  With his lips snarling, Mark did as he was told, peeling off his denim jacket and handing it across to Sam, who went through the pockets and inspected the stitching. He found some cash, nothing else.

  ‘Now the shirt.’

  Mark removed his short-sleeved tee-shirt with a breast pocket in which was clipped the MP3 player Jonny had given him in a moment of generosity. Sam searched it, found nothing incriminating.

  ‘Just this,’ Sam said, holding out the MP3 player, which Jonny took. He turned it over in his fingers and held it up to his mouth.

  ‘Hey – can you hear me, pig bastards?’ he screamed at it, making Mark jerk. He handed it back to Sam. ‘This is the one I gave him, it’s OK.’

  ‘Turn around and face the wall. I want to see your back.’

  Mark did as instructed, his nose inches from a felt-tip scrawled, ‘All coppers are bastards’. At that moment, he could not have agreed more with the sentiment.

  ‘OK, turn back and drop your keks.’

  ‘No chance,’ he said, defiantly facing Jonny, teeth gritted.

  Jonny looked eye to eye with him. Mark noted the line of wispy bum fluff growing over Jonny’s top lip. And his blackheads. And his zits, their creamy heads ripe for popping.

  ‘Do it, or I’ll cut you.’ Suddenly there was a click and in his hand was a flick knife, which he held up to Mark’s left eye.

  A beat.

  The point of the knife was only a centimetre from Mark’s eyeball.

  Mark unbuttoned his jeans, pushed them down and stood there with them around his ankles, just his boxers on.

  Jonny’s eyes dropped to Mark’s hairless body.

  ‘See,’ Mark growled. ‘Nothing.’

  At which point Jonny burst into laughter and Eric bundled the clothes back into Mark’s arms.