Gun Dog

by Peter Lancett

  Who’s deluded though? Didn’t I just say that I’ve been to see the latest Jason Bourne movie and I’m looking to see what gun he carries? Like I think that because I have a gun under my bed I’m in some way part of the world that Jason Bourne inhabits. At least with that lot and the hot hatchbacks, they dream about emulating a world that actually exists. I’m associating myself with a world of spies and assassins that I’m sure is merely a fantasy. And yet I just called them delusional. I should just get rid of that gun.

  Actually, it’s quite cold this evening. I stick my hands in my pockets as we walk out of the bright lights of the multiplex and the arcades and cross the huge car park that surrounds the complex like an oversized moat. The car park itself is well lit with pools of orange light cascading down from high grey metal lamps.

  ‘You not going to wave?’

  Andy has stopped and is craning his head as though he is scanning the heavens. I know exactly what he’s referring to as I watch him pull stupid faces and wave in grand flourishing gestures. He’s making a show for the CCTV cameras. On tall metal poles at regular intervals are the plastic globes containing cameras that can spy on every square inch of the retail park. Andy is right to remind me; it’s part of our ritual when we come here. So I wave half-heartedly, even though I’m not really in the mood, before sticking my hands back into my pockets against the cold of the evening.

  ‘Do you think anyone is ever actually watching?’

  Andy is hurrying after me now. I stop and wait for him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  How can any of us know? In England we’re watched by CCTV cameras more than any other people in the supposedly free world. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in Britain, and there’s been stuff in the papers that lots of them have zoom lenses and listening devices. They say that during a typical day, you probably turn up on a CCTV camera as many as three hundred times. But I don’t know anyone who feels safer or less scared because of this.

  ‘Do you know who actually runs these cameras?’

  I shake my head and shrug.

  ‘Could be the people who own the retail park.’

  I’m just guessing. It could also be a private security company hired out to monitor the area. It could be the local authority. It could even be the police.

  ‘Do you think they actually work?’

  ‘Depends on what you think they’re meant to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I’m surprised that Andy has to ask. He’s pretty bright – smarter than me I’d say.

  ‘Well, do you think they’re here to keep an eye on what’s going on, so that they can spot any criminal activity?’

  ‘You’d think so wouldn’t you?’

  Andy says that in a way that tells me he doesn’t actually think that at all; he’s just being provocative. I won’t disappoint him.

  ‘What about that girl who was raped behind the carpet place three weeks ago?’

  I point at the giant modern warehouse-showroom a couple of car parks away but still looming large and grey through the orange glow of the lighting.

  ‘Right behind there, at about this time of night when there were people about. How come that wasn’t spotted?’

  ‘It was. They’ve got film of the three guys dragging her behind the warehouse.’

  I turn to look at Andy, shaking my head. He can’t be serious about this.

  ‘Yeah and I bet that’s a comfort to the girl. She was only fifteen.’

  Even I know that her age shouldn’t matter but actually it does. She’s only young and this has probably ruined her entire life. But I’m on a roll, so I continue.

  ‘It’s not like it was spotted as it actually happened. They only looked at those tapes after the crime had been reported. And you know what? The pictures are too dark and grainy to identify anyone properly. Christ, how often do you hear that?’

  ‘They can’t be watching every camera all the time. It was just unlucky.’

  ‘I can see how that will cheer her up. Perhaps you should write and tell her that.’

  Andy doesn’t answer. We carry on walking, across the huge expanse of car park and between the parked cars towards the bus shelter. But all the time I’m thinking of that girl. And I feel sure that the cameras focused on the businesses on this retail park are the ones that are watched the most.

  We are supposed to feel safe having these cameras all over the place. Like the knowledge that there is supposedly someone watching will deter potential wrongdoers from doing wrong. I don’t buy that. Most people don’t. And I’m sure that the girl who was raped doesn’t feel safe any more. If you ask me what might deter people from behaving badly, I’d have to say that you couldn’t do better than have the physical presence of someone big, wearing a uniform, carrying a heavy stick and backed by some kind of authority. Someone actually there, patrolling. And the mass of cameras in every town centre don’t seem to have any effect on the drunken, brawling, puking, pissing crowds that gather to get wasted on Friday and Saturday nights. Not that it’s totally restricted to weekends.

  We’re getting to the far side of the car park now, and the parked cars have started to thin out. From some of these cars we hear the persistent rhythm of techno-trance music from the entertainment systems.

  Gathered around the cars in places are groups and gangs I don’t know or recognise. They all look the same though and dress the same. And talk the same. Actually, it’s like a totally separate language. There’s nothing new in this. These lot use street talk that I think is based on the language used by American hip-hop stars – not that I’ve analysed it or anything, but that’s how it sounds to me. My brother Sean talks like this all the time. Others – like Andy and me, for example – don’t speak like this. But we understand it readily enough. We’re immersed in it and surrounded by it. To the chavs who wear the Burberry and the hooded sweatshirts, it’s their language of choice. And because I’m thinking of this right now, I’m stretching my ears to listen to what’s being said in the group we’re now passing.

  ‘Bo bredrin, wa g’wan?’

  ‘Skeen Kelly Richards init?

  ‘She a right sket, init.’

  ‘She’s right blinged up and with Stewart Macca.’

  ‘Macca’s solid man, so don’t be dissin Kelly.’

  ‘Nah, he a pimp, init.’

  ‘Skeen ’is wheels? Fuckin’ wack init?’

  And so it goes on, but we’re out of earshot already. I know instinctively what they’re saying; it translates as something like this:

  ‘I say there, friends, what’s going on?’

  ‘Have you seen Kelly Richards?’

  ‘She’s an utter slut isn’t she?’

  ‘Well, she’s dressed to the nines and adorned with a great deal of jewellery, and she is currently escorting Stewart MacCartney.’

  ‘MacCartney is something of a tough fellow, so it would be a good idea not to say anything disrespectful about Kelly.’

  ‘I disagree –he’s actually nothing better than a common male prostitute.’

  ‘Have you seen the car he currently drives? It’s absolutely awful, wouldn’t you say?’

  OK, I shouldn’t make fun like that. But I do get a kick out of doing these little translations when I’m listening in on conversations. And by the way, just so that you know; Kelly Richards is a slut.

  Going home, we stay on the bus for an extra stop. It means we’ll have further to walk to get to our houses, but we don’t really want to get off anywhere near The Gardens. Even though we don’t speak about it in these terms, it’s fair to say that our lives have been changed by that little incident earlier. We’ll never use The Gardens as a short cut again. So we’ll be having to walk further. We’ll be having to walk a route that wouldn’t be our first choice. It’s little things like this that make life more and more restrictive and more and more uncomfortable and more and more stressful on estates like ours. And nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

 
And for people like us, for my mum and dad, for Andy’s mum and dad, there’s nowhere to go. People like us don’t have the financial clout to move. I mean, my mum and dad own our house. Although we live on a council estate, they bought the house through the ‘right to buy’ policy which came in before I was even born. They must have been so proud when they did that. Made them homeowners. They must have thought that it would secure our future and would be an investment for us all. They never speak about that now. And while the papers are full of wondrous stories telling of the house-price miracle that sees properties increasing in value each month by more than the homeowners actually earn, my mum and dad don’t talk about it. Nobody would ever want to buy a house on an estate like ours. And even if we could sell it, where would we go? All the nicer places have seen their values rise so that we couldn’t even dream of buying there.

  There are thousands like us. We’re trapped. And nobody wants to look after us on estates where there is just drip after drip after drip of anti-social behaviour so that you end up imprisoned within your own four walls. You end up too depressed to want to venture outside. You just don’t want to keep having to face up to it.

  I dream of getting out. I dream of university. Nobody in our house ever needs to ask Catherine why she doesn’t come home as often as she could. We all of us want to avoid that discussion at all costs. Nobody cares about decent people like my mum and dad and Andy’s mum and dad. And Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret.

  Walking back through the darkened streets of our estate, Andy and me are pretty quiet. We’re taking a route that doesn’t even go past The Gardens. But we don’t talk about it. There are streetlights throwing down pools of pale yellow or orange light, but it’s not as bright here as it was on the retail park. Property is more important than people is a thought that goes through my head, even though I know it’s not as simple as that.

  Some of the houses we pass are in darkness, the occupants already gone to bed. From others we get the tinted flicker of television calling us to turn and look. One house that we pass, the curtains haven’t been drawn and we can see a man and a woman asleep in each other’s arms on the sofa while the television bathes them in shimmering changing colours. I think that this is beautiful and poetic, but I don’t say that to Andy. And anyway, just then we hear the squealing and laughter of a couple of young kids who really shouldn’t be out on the streets so late, but whose parents just don’t give a shit.

  And then we round the corner and suddenly it’s like we’ve turned up on a film set. We’ve heard it before we ever got to see it, of course – all the shouting and the swearing and, as we got nearer and could make out the words, the threats. So as we round the corner, we stop to watch. And what we’re looking at is four police cars slung any old how in front of a house. The blue lights are spinning so that it all looks like a big deal and that they’ve cracked a Columbian drug den, or maybe raided an Al Qaeda bomb factory. Neighbours in various states of night-time attire are out in their gardens and on their doorsteps watching. There’s a small group of foul-mouthed yobs pointing and swearing, and being prevented from intruding upon the garden of the house by a couple of our uniformed finest. I’d find this entertaining too, as a rule, in the same way that the neighbours who are silently watching do. But this is all going on outside Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house, and my heart sinks to the point where I feel like I want to be sick. Worse still, the baying yobs are all part of the Rogers clan.

  I look beyond the Rogers scum and the blue-flashing police cars, to the patch of ground next to the house. And I have to turn away because I can’t bear to gaze for long upon the little Nissan Micra that Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret had saved so long and so hard to get. You can see the dents all over it, and the front windshield is smashed to fuck. The dents are catastrophic too, like the little Micra has been repeatedly kicked and jumped upon. The lights are all smashed out too.

  All of a sudden I get flashes in my mind of being in the back of that car with Uncle Jack driving and Aunty Margaret singing the stupid kid songs and me singing along with her. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes and I don’t know where to turn now. I don’t want Andy to see.

  All at once the commotion increases. Cops are having to physically restrain the Rogers scum as the front door of the house is opened. I see Uncle Jack step out and he looks old in a way I’ve never noticed before. This ramrod of a man who had once been a Grenadier Guardsman is stoop-shouldered and withdrawn as he shuffles onto his own immaculate garden path. The foul threats of the Rogers scum are blasting around him, drowning the crackling words of the police car radios. I can’t turn away from this, no matter how much it’s hurting. And it is hurting. Uncle Jack has his head bowed, looking down at the path that I watched him weeding only a few days ago. His face looks grey and tired in the shadows. But not frightened. Uncle Jack is a real man and he does not frighten. But what he does seem is bewildered.

  I almost call out when I see the handcuffs. The filth have Uncle Jack handcuffed. He’s never committed a crime in the whole of his life. And he’s in his mid-seventies for fuck’s sake! Yeah – takes a lot of guts to arrest an old man and treat him like that. I’m angry – you bet I am. But what am I going to do? I know only too well that I can’t speak out on Uncle Jack’s behalf. I bet these brave pigs wouldn’t think twice about treating me the same way and I’d be joining him down at the nick. And yet there are the Rogers scum, yelling and swearing and threatening. And they are not being arrested.

  Uncle Jack gets to the garden gate, and some tiny slip of a woman cop opens it. You can just imagine her trying to arrest one of the Rogers scum. I can only feel contempt. Uncle Jack lifts his head and turns to look back, and that’s when I see Aunty Margaret stood in the doorway. There she is, framed by the little house she and Uncle Jack have made lovely, have turned into a true home. There is Aunty Margaret crying and holding out a pathetic hand towards her husband while those Rogers bastards call her all the vile names that you can imagine. There is Aunty Margaret who has always been a friend and helper to everyone in this dreadful place. And there she is, standing all alone and crying, so that tears fall down my face too. Why are they taking Uncle Jack? What can have happened?

  ‘We’d better get going.’

  Andy has a hand on my arm. I turn to look at him, no longer caring whether or not he sees my tears. But Andy isn’t paying any attention to me. I turn my face to look where he’s looking and I see that the little shit Derek Rogers is staring across at us.

  I just turn and start to walk. There’s nothing I can do here. Andy is by my side.

  ‘Rogers Bastards.’

  I can’t say anything, not even to agree. I can’t get the images of Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret out of my mind. I just can’t. I think I’m realising for the first time that what I actually feel for Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret is a kind of love. There, I’ve said it. It’s like they’re my own family. They’re part of my childhood. Part of me, who I am. And it kills me that I can’t do anything to help them. I’m managing to hold back the tears for now. But I know they’ll just come flooding when I’m safe at home in my room. And of course I’m thinking of the Ruger. Who wouldn’t be?

  CHAPTER 7

  The Ruger P95 and the gun dog

  It’s early Saturday morning and I’m up, standing at my garden gate. It’s that time of year when the mornings are cold and you know that there is mist in the air. All the cars parked at the roadside outside the houses are covered in beads of freezing dew. It’s incredibly quiet.

  I’ve been awake all night, unable to sleep. Clouded in a fog of sadness, I’ve been clicking the mouse and following pages on the internet.

  Ruger P95

  Weight: 765g

  Overall Length: 184mm

  Barrel Length: 99mm

  I know this off by heart now. Not that I went out of my way to learn it; I wasn’t even aware that I was reading it. My mind has been elsewhere; outside Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house; down at the nic
k watching Uncle Jack being DNA swabbed and having his finger prints taken. That information will be on the records forever now, even if Uncle Jack isn’t convicted of anything. Once they’ve got you recorded, they never let you go. Uncle Jack will be immortalised, along with the rapists and paedophiles and ponces and thugs.

  Ruger P95

  Grips: Black synthetic

  Frame: Polymer

  Sights: Fixed front and rear

  I turn my head to look as the sound of a front door clicking open breaks the silence. It’s the house next door and I nod a silent hello to our neighbour Alan, who spots me as he ushers his two excited Springer Spaniels out before him. The dogs stand on Alan’s lawn looking back at him, their backsides wobbling as they wag their tails furiously. They’re excited, yes, but they’re patient. They’re well brought up so they’ve learned to respect authority and not to fool around. Alan is wearing a green waxed Barbour jacket that looks heavy and is covered with voluminous patch pockets. He’s wearing camouflage pants and hiking boots. Alan’s front door clicks as he closes it softly behind him so as not to wake his still sleeping wife and not disturb the neighbourhood. I guess we’re lucky to have a neighbour like Alan.

  I watch the dogs fall in behind Alan as he strides along his garden path. They’re still excited enough to pant, but they don’t bark and they keep nice and close without him having to tell them.