by Jay Stringer
“No, no, come on. I haven’t told it yet, so shut up. Laura wants to hear it. Don’t you, Laura?” Laura played along and nodded. “There you go, Laura wants to hear it. So, anyway, there’s this guy and he’s working in the pub.”
“Which pub?”
“What? Shut up, Smudge, it doesn’t matter which pub. It’s just a joke.”
“You gotta set the scene, man.”
“Right, okay, so it’s like the Golden Lion or—what was that one that we used to live in?”
“You don’t remember?”
“It was a long time ago, come on. So it’s called the Golden Lion, and this guy’s working there. He’s working behind the bar—”
“So can we just split the difference and call him the barman?”
The women stood and watched us go back and forth trying to shoot each other down. Waiting for the edge to creep in, the point when it would turn nasty. A buzzer went off in the kitchen, and Mum stepped forward.
“Oh, that’s the dinner. You boys carry on without me.”
Laura volunteered to help and followed her into the kitchen. Rosie turned to me. “Are you and Laura going to patch things up?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“No, that’s over. I don’t know what we are these days, but we’re not a couple.”
“Shame,” she said with real emotion in her voice. “Ah well. Mind if I have a go, then?”
Noah laughed. Then he gave her a gentle shove. “Lakki mandi.”
“Speak English, Noah. You know I don’t understand you.” Rosie pulled a face. “Besides, I get the impression I’ll have more luck than you.”
I asked what she meant, but she just shrugged. And then it was the three of us trying to shoot each other down. The same old tired game, going round and round until somebody won. But nobody ever won, and I had no patience for it anymore. I went to set the table as a distraction. Rosie joined me, and we pulled out all the cutlery and glasses; Mum clearly wanted to pull out all the stops to make this a proper family occasion. I pulled the table out into the middle of the room, and Rosie began setting it. I could feel her watching me. She was the opposite of Noah; she was contemplative and fixed you with a calm gaze when she spoke. She didn’t move around wildly when she talked; in fact, before she ever said a word, she watched you as if taking your measure.
“How you doing, Smudge?”
“Me? I’m fine.”
She pushed her tongue out at me to show her skepticism.
“Bollocks. You’ve never been fine. We worry about you, you know? Laura does too.”
“Laura’s got her own problems to worry about.” I shouldn’t have said that. I pushed on quickly to forget it. “It’s Noah that people should be worried about. What’s this sudden need to come home and settle? You believe in this new leaf of his?”
“I don’t know. We’ve heard it all before. We’ll see, I guess. Thing is, though, at least Noah’s always known who he is. You? You’ve never had that. You jump from one foot to the other, always.”
We worked in silence for a minute, the only noise the clinking of cutlery on the table. I hated these talks. Rosie had brains to spare, but sometimes she thought that meant she could talk down to her own family.
“How about you? Last I heard you were living in Glasgow?”
“Uh-huh, yeah. I was up there helping them set up UNICEF and then doing some work for a homeless charity.”
“And now?”
“Good question. I’ve a friend down in London who wants to try suing the government for human rights violations. It’s a nonstarter—I mean, it’ll get thrown out at the first hurdle—but it might get some publicity. And that would be a win, you know?”
Publicity. “There’s always got to be a camera, eh? No point saving the world if you can’t get some press while you do it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, sorry.” I half smiled to show her that I regretted my snarky comment. “I got stabbed, you know. Seen my scar lately?” I lifted up my T-shirt to show her. She waved it away, and we forgot the argument. Or shelved it for another time.
The meal was large. Like a grieving widow tidying her house, our mother had buried her pain by cooking. And cooking. And cooking. Noah was subdued during the meal, and most of the conversation was directed at Laura, both Rosie and Mum wanting to know everything that had happened since her promotion. Laura had to leave out a few details. There were two bottles of wine on the table, and the women steadily made their way through them. Rosie clearly had a lot of our father in her; she buried glass after glass without showing any ill effects. Laura stopped when she knew she’d had enough, showing that kind of professional discipline that I’d never possessed.
Halfway through dessert, a homemade sticky toffee pudding, Mum began to fade and left to lie down. The food and company was making my spliced guts hurt, and I needed to take a painkiller. I didn’t want to take one in front of anybody, so I stood up and started to excuse myself.
“You going to do the washing?” Rosie passed me her plate.
“Yeah, Smudge. Well volunteered.” Noah grinned. It lasted until Rosie told him he needed to help. She nodded toward Laura and said they’d be fine on their own. Noah protested, looking from Rosie to me before giving up and following my lead.
Later, the four of us settled in the living room for coffee. Laura was about ready to go—I could still sense when she’d had enough. Being around my family was hard work. I nodded at her in a way I would have done if we were at a party together, letting her know it was okay to leave, but she shook her head.
A few more minutes.
Noah still wanted revenge on me for ruining his chance to tell the joke. It had been building through dinner. “You still listening to that miserable music, Smudge?”
“None of it’s miserable.”
“Yes, it is.” Laura snorted through a mouthful of coffee. “Always some song about pain and heartbreak. I wouldn’t mind if any of them could actually sing.”
“They can sing. At least they’re using their own voices—which makes it sound better and more honest. I’d rather listen to someone who can write their own lyrics and blow a note with emotion than some puppet whose voice has been Auto-Tuned to perfection.”
Noah shook his head and pulled a face, waving away my defense.
“Come on, they’re all fucking miserable. I caught Springsteen on the radio the other day, that Philadelphia song. Man, I was ready to slash my wrists. How’ve you not done yourself in?”
“They’re not all like that. I mean, I actually find ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ a hopeful song—redemption and rest, you know? But he’s written tons of upbeat songs that you’d like.”
“Like what? Name one.”
“‘Born to Run.’”
“But see, that’s exactly it. What’s he running from?”
“Zombies.” Rosie killed the conversation, and we all laughed.
EIGHTEEN
Laura called a taxi and then hugged each of us. She whispered it had been good to see me again, and I remembered a time when that would have made my chest fold in on itself. Now all I noticed was how the absence of that feeling hurt. Do we ever stop grieving for our past?
As though to build that wall back up between us, I slipped in some shoptalk. “We’ll need to talk soon. About Gaines and Mann, I mean.”
A shadow crossed over her face before she turned toward the waiting taxi. After she’d gone, Rosie, Noah, and I sat in silence for too long. It had to be the longest we’d ever been together without an argument, and everybody was too scared to speak. Rosie announced she was going to bed, probably to try and beat the odds.
“Good seeing you both.”
“Yeah.”
And that was it, the evening put to bed. We beat a path to the front door, and I pulled it shut behind me. The evening air had just enough of a chill that it felt crisp and fresh to breathe it in.
Noah turned to me. “She talk down to you?”
“Hell yes. You too, huh?”
He nodded. We walked out to my car, but I hesitated before putting the key in the lock. The night felt good, and it was only half an hour’s walk to my flat. I tossed the car keys to Noah.
“Meet you back at the flat, okay? I fancy a walk.”
He shrugged and let himself into my car. The tires squealed as he floored it. It was a small-town evening—peaceful except for the occasional passing car, and siren in the distance. A drunk was sleeping on the bench at the bottom of the street. The police wouldn’t pass by here to move him. Nearby was the M6 motorway, the busiest stretch of road in the country. During the day it was a constant background hum, so ingrained and distant you didn’t hear it. It was only at night, when the traffic had died away to a small procession of truck drivers, that you noticed it. You noticed its absence. I walked past a few pubs that had been closed for hours and an all-night takeaway. I turned onto Park Lane. It was a long main road that would take me almost all the way to the town center and my flat, where Noah was probably already claiming the bed. I walked past IKEA, the sounds of night deliveries drifting down toward me, and then on past another pub, the Myvod.
I reached the foot of Church Hill and then walked up it, pausing outside Father Connolly’s church. It looked cold and uninviting in the darkness. My old wounds were complaining, so I slipped a couple more pills into my mouth, noticing the bottle was almost empty. I started to worry about whether I had a refill at the flat, but then the numbness took over, and I found myself walking down Hydes Road, the route Ruth had walked the night she was attacked.
At the alleyway where she had become scared, I stopped and looked around. There was a streetlight right above the path, but it was broken, and the shadow at this time of night was impenetrable, made even more dense by overhanging trees. I could stand in it and stay hidden from the road—an attacker could have done so, too. Maybe she’d been right to turn and walk away.
I turned and followed the route she’d taken down to the river, where she had turned off to cut along the bank to the footbridge. As I walked along the water’s edge, the hairs on my neck stood up. Nearby I could hear the crackle of overhead electric cables, the sound mixing in with the gurgle of the river. At the footbridge I looked around again for a sign of a struggle. In the darkness it was harder to see than it had been earlier, but at least now I was seeing it in the right time frame. It was the same time of night as when Ruth had been attacked. I bent down a few times and touched the ground, looking for any marks.
While I was stooped I saw a woman from the nearby estate out walking her dog, probably a late-night potty walk. She was a couple hundred yards away, and I was out of range of any of the streetlights. I stayed still and invisible, but the woman was clearly nervous to be out in the dark, constantly looking around. The dog seemed to sense me, and it looked my way without barking. They came closer, and the dog sniffed the air, pulling in my direction on the lead. The woman was in too much of a hurry to take much notice, and she pulled the dog back as she walked toward the houses.
I felt a rush of adrenaline break through the numbness. I’d felt powerful as I’d watched her. It was a good feeling, and that troubled me. Was it the same thing the rapist had felt? I thought back to the moment I’d told Salma that maybe this was like all other crimes. But something told me this wasn’t just a random john who’d seen an opportunity and seized it. There was something else there, but my drugged mind balked at thinking it through. I caught motion. It was on the other side of the bridge. I waited until I caught it again, and I realized it came from a car parked alongside the river, where the road ended. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, barely moving. There was a spark of light, which illuminated a few basic features on a male face, followed by the glowing red embers of a cigarette that hovered in the darkness.
How long had he been there?
Since before I’d come along, that much was certain. He had to know I was there, surely? Had he watched the woman walking the dog? And, more important, had he done it before?
I waited him out, and halfway down the cigarette the engine turned over, and the headlights came on full force and illuminated the bridge. They didn’t quite catch me, and I squatted lower to stay hidden as he did a three-point turn and pulled away in the opposite direction. I was able to catch the license plate as it passed a streetlight. My time on the force might not have given me much, but I’d learned to remember plates. I’d also learned never to trust my memory, so I typed the plate into a text and sent it to Becker.
I didn’t expect a reply at that time of night, but my phone buzzed in my hand almost immediately. I read his text, a coded message we used when I asked him for information. NGR?
Not gang related?
I texted the same initials back to confirm I wasn’t using him for Gaines business. That was where he drew the line in our friendship, and I’d always respected the boundary.
I was about to stand to walk back to town as the light from my phone blinked off, but something stopped me. I pressed a button again, lighting up the ground where I was knelt, and I saw something white: it was a set of earbuds, the kind that come free with an iPod, trampled down into the dirt. I looked around on the ground, and sure enough, there was an obvious depression where a body had been pressed down. To my right were three scratches gouged into the hard dirt, and I slipped by finger into them to confirm what I thought. Someone clawing at the ground.
My stomach turned, and I stood to breathe away the anger that had welled up. I picked up the earbuds and stuffed them into my pocket. Then I turned and walked back along the riverbank, onto the road, and then headed up into the town. As I turned into the side street leading to my flat, the hairs on my neck stood up again. I felt someone step in close behind me seconds before a great weight hit my right leg and swept it out from under me.
I hit the pavement facedown, the wind knocked from me, and turned over just in time to see a cricket bat flying down toward me.
I rolled out of the way, and a boot hooked into my stomach. I almost spilled my dinner onto the path beside me. Bursts of light danced at the edges of my vision as I rolled onto my back and looked up at the stars. Two figures loomed over me, their faces hidden in the shadow of their hoodies.
Both had cricket bats.
One of them swung at me again, and I couldn’t find the strength to move. The bat smashed into my side, and the edge of my vision exploded with starbursts. The second figure lifted his bat and rested the tip of it against my mouth and pressed firmly. He didn’t force the issue. He just left it pushed up against my teeth while his partner leaned in close to look at me.
As the hoodie drew nearer, I saw that his face was obscured from the nose down by a bandanna. It looked more like a tea towel, actually, but I wasn’t in the mood to poke fun.
“You owe us, you Gypsy fuck.” The voice was unfamiliar, muffled beneath the towel. “You’re going to pay up.”
The holder leaned on the bat, and I realized he was about to stove my teeth in. I let out a muffled choking sound and then found the guts to scream.
Then there was a different kind of screaming, and it sounded strong and angry. A shape leaped into my vision, and in a blur of movement my would-be dentist was knocked to the ground. I sighed in relief as I felt the pressure on my gums disappear. There was a solid sound of someone swinging a bat and connecting it with a body. The other hoodie turned to join in the fight, and I saw him take a hit in the face from the bat. I rolled into a kneeling position and started climbing to my feet. My vision had cleared enough to make out the scene.
Noah had one of the bats. The attacker whom Noah had just hit in the face was curled on the ground and trying to stanch the flow of blood gushing from his mouth. Noah was preparing for a second strike at my dentist, who was cowering on the pavement where he’d fallen. Noah stood between them and me and hissed out threats through his teeth.
The two hoodies scrambled to their feet and ran, leaving the extra cricket bat on the path in f
ront of us. Noah turned and pulled me the rest of the way to my feet.
“I leave you alone for an hour and you get yourself into this?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I went and asked to get attacked.”
“What was that about, anyway?”
I stared at the cricket bat at our feet and remembered the last time I’d seen one of those.
“Promises to keep,” I said.
The flames lick at the windows, climbing out of the open door.
The paint makes little chipping sounds as it cracks under the heat, and we cough a little as the plastic begins to melt and pollute the air around us.
The car was expensive. There will be hell to pay.
Until five minutes ago it had been a shiny red sports car. Imitation leather upholstery and new-car smell.
Until two hours ago it had been parked in the driveway of my school headmaster, fresh from being washed.
Now it’s a bonfire. The flames reach toward the sky like praying demons.
Noah had done most of the driving because I kept stalling it every time I changed gear. He’d stopped next to every woman we’d passed and tried flirting with each of them.
Now we stand panting and laughing, ready to run as soon as we hear the sirens.
He turns to me and smiles.
“Never forget,” he says.
We hear the sirens. It sounds like the fire brigade is going to beat the police to the scene. We run through the side streets of the council estate.
Unstoppable.
NINETEEN
My body did not want to move the next morning. It took a lot of effort—and the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen—to get me up and about.
Noah had let me take the bed, and I’d stared at the ceiling until the adrenaline had run its course and I’d finally passed out. It was the pain more than anything that woke me up. My knee and my gut screamed, and my side was covered in a light burning sensation as the bruises began to take hold. I limped into the shower and took it slowly, wincing as the warm water hit my sore body. I was becoming an expert at tending to my own wounds, and I did a half-decent job of making sure there was nothing permanent. I took a few pills to start the day right and limped down the stairs. Noah handed me a bacon sandwich and a fresh coffee.