Cleaning Up

by Paul Connor-Kearns

  Tommy picked up his coat and made his way out to the shop.

  Sunday and the weather had changed - it had to be at least ten degrees warmer than the day before, maybe they were in for an earlyish spring after all. It was a game day today but, thankfully, a pretty low-key one. Today’s opponents were a newly promoted, provincial city team with a relatively small following whose supporters had no real rep’ for thuggery and mayhem. It proved to be an easy win for City too, which kept the local knuckle draggers placated. Darrin still couldn’t get his head around the intensity of the fans and whenever he bothered to look at them he found the contorted faces and the vituperative bile that came from the terraces more than a little disconcerting. Grown men, many of them in their forties and beyond, apoplectic because a linesman hadn’t flagged for offside, it was fucking wacked alright.

  ‘It’s just tribalism son,’ was Moz’s analysis when he’d mentioned the primal shit to him. For once, he thought, Moz was being overly kind to the morons. To Darrin, it was more like feeding time at the zoo.

  It was all quiet back at the station, just a couple of drunks who’d taken advantage of the nice weather by getting hammered in a beer garden and, to lower the tone further, a recidivist wife beater. Sarge Thomas was obviously a little bored behind the desk.

  ‘Nice and quiet eh Sarge?’

  ‘Aye lad - they’re still paying us the same money though. A missing persons has come in. A young lad from the Barrington,’ Sarge picked up the paperwork, ‘a Matthew Marshall, you heard of him?’

  Darrin hadn’t. That must have been the mother that he’d passed by coming back in to the station from the game; red eyed, a nice enough figure but plenty of hard miles on the clock - obviously a boozer, probably more.

  ‘Been gone a week apparently.’

  ‘A week - Jesus!’

  Sarge shrugged.

  ‘She must have been busy, eh boyo?’

  ‘Aye - fucking busy alright.’

  ‘She doesn’t reckon him as a runaway but, you never know, he could be somewhere down in London eating a burger and chips with a new uncle mind.’

  Darrin flinched at the image.

  ‘Anyway it’s out there now - summat might turn up.’

  And it did - word came out when he was back out on patrol with Johno - a body found in a skip, partially hidden under a tarp’, out on the north western edges of the city. He was discovered by a crew of builders who’d been idle during the cold snap - a cursory ID and it looked like it was the Marshall kid. Trish and Johnno were off to do the door knock with the mother - a short straw job if ever there was one.

  Confirmation came through just before he was ready to clock off, it was him alright, the poor little bastard. Suspected foul play- he hadn’t climbed in there for a kip, had he? Autopsy reports would tell them more. Maybe he’d get in on this one.

  Pasquale had heard the news about M while he was still at school, a big, gangly kid whose name he could never remember told him during the lunch break. He didn’t believe it but, straight away, his legs felt wobbly and he felt his breathing change, quick and shallow in his chest. He immediately tried Junior’s phone but there was no pick up from him.

  His mum confirmed it later that day she’d heard it on the local radio and also from one of the women at her work who lived in the next street to M. It would be all over the Barrington like a fucking forest fire.

  Pasquale was numbed - he didn’t know what he felt and he didn’t know what he should feel.

  His mum tried to give him a hug when she came home but he blocked it, he didn’t want to be touched at all. She ordered in a pizza but he only managed a slice, he went up to his room early and lay on his bed in the dark, his eyes following the car lights that slowly swept across the ceiling.

  At three in the morning he got up, tiptoed downstairs, grabbed his bicycle and rode through the silent back streets over to M’s home.

  He stopped on the far side of the road and looked at M’s place. All the house lights in the street were off, nobody was up. The fat man’s car was parked outside of his own house this time. Pasquale pushed his bike over to the car and took the driver’s rear view mirror off with a savage snap kick, it clattered away and came to rest a couple of yards in front of the car. He leaned his bike against the driver’s door, walked up to where the mirror lay, picked it up and tossed it into the fat man’s garden. He got back on his bike and made the return journey home. He fell asleep pretty much as soon as he hit the pillow; still dressed, exhausted and feeling indescribably empty.

  The kid had turned up on the Monday but had missed the Wednesday session. Tommy decided to leave it till Friday and see whether he turned up then, by rights he should have been on to the school but he’d cut the kid a bit of slack.

  Sonny had rung him the day before and let him know about Matthew Marshall. According to Sonny preliminary tests had shown alcohol, smoke and methamphetamine in the boy’s system and it looked like an overdose but he hadn’t jumped in the skip by himself. He was a pretty big kid for his age too, so there had to be at least a couple of adults involved. Tommy hung up, exhaled loudly then quickly stood and did some laps of the room. He was feeling slightly burned by the news.

  He talked to his dad about it that night. They were nice and warm in the heat and glow of the lounge room gas fire.

  Mick was quiet for a while, stroking his chin and looking into the distance.

  ‘What was he like this kid?’

  ‘Didn’t really know him Dad, he had plenty of energy, full of piss and vinegar. Not that likeable really but, you know, not exactly been dealt the best of hands either.’

  ‘Cops got anything?’

  ‘Not heard owt, they’re trying to back-track but the mum is all over the place. He’d been gone at least a week.’

  His dad flicked his eyebrows at that and slowly shook his head.

  ‘Let’s hope they get the fuckers then Tom.’

  ‘Yeah - let’s hope they do.’

  Tommy called both Donna and the school on Friday when Pasquale failed to show. He also got onto Sonny to see if he could track him down to have a word.

  Donna told him that she had let him stay home, he wondered if that was for the best but he kept it to himself.

  ‘Funerals on a Tuesday,’ he told her, ‘they had a whip round for the mum at some of the locals.’

  ‘You going?’ he asked.

  ‘Pasquale wants to; I said I’d go along. You?’

  ‘No, no I barely knew him. Sonny will probably be there.’

  ‘On the 21st eh!’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry Donna, The 21st of March, the funeral. It’s the first day of the spring, you know, the equinox.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, a little flatly, ‘I suppose.’

  He’d wished he kept that interesting gem to himself - portents and meaning in fucking everything and nothing.

  They said a quick goodbye and Tommy stood for a while and gazed out of the office at nothing in particular.

  RIP Matthew Marshall, he thought.

  Jimbo called him after lunch - Piccolos again tonight, did he fancy it? He did - slaves to the fucking rhythm.

  APRIL

  Moz had joined him in the canteen on the Friday. Darrin was sat alone finishing off his brew while cheerily humming one of the tunes that he’d danced along to last night. He still wasn’t that caught up by the music - but he kept coming away from it feeling plenty of bounce. He’d even had a crack at the intermediates last week, at the smiling behest of Rosa the Venezuelan instructor.

  Moz had swerved his way towards him through a couple of busy tables. He plopped down a tray loaded with a plate full of a particularly anaemic looking lasagne, a wagon wheel for afters and one of the foul little trifles that the canteen often divvied up, usually towards the end of the week - all in all fucking disgusting. Little wonder the fat fucker was larding around three stone of excess.

  Mozzer shunned any conversation, tucking straight
into the lasagne. Darrin tried to look elsewhere whilst Moz dispatched the fodder. Five minutes of robotic shovelling and the main meal was gone. Moz leaned back in his chair let out a belch and reached for his napkin to give his face a cursory wipe, smearing a little bit of overdone white sauce up and onto his left temple.

  Moz gave Darrin the once over - now ready to share whatever he had.

  ‘Got something for yer PC May, should untwist those jocks of yours a bit. Tell yer what, let me rip into this trifle and then I’ll give it to yer.’

  Darrin felt his leg drumming impatiently as the fat man wolfed down the trifle: three mouthfuls and it was all gone. Moz yawned and this time gave out another more ostentatious belch, which caused a trio of plain clothes who were sat on the next table to turn around and look at him with looks of both amusement and wrinkle nosed disgust.

  ‘Go on then Moz - spill it - I’ll have Sarge Thomas up my arse if I don’t crack on.’

  Moz leaned forward slightly. ‘I’ve drawn the kid who was found in the skip - fancy being my wing man on it?’

  That was well worth the waiting.

  ‘Sure, sure - count me in Moz, Jolika on it too?’

  Moz cocked a knowing eyebrow and gave him a little shake of the head.

  Yeah, yeah, Errol Flynn, she’ll be on it too - Super’s upping the numbers on the drug squad op. The ice found in the kid shows the probable link to the hottest ticket in town and the kid being found rotting in a skip is not good for the Super’s beloved PR like - is it?’

  It wasn’t, even in a big ugly metropolis like this, the kid’s death had caused the ripples of unease and concern amongst the community. Big media coverage in the first few days - the local politicians being seen to be on it, strutting their shinyarsed, self-aware, self-promoting shit.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, suppose.’ Darrin didn’t give a fuck about the local politicians, the local media, the Super or his precious public relations.

  ‘When do we kick off then Moz?’

  ‘You can get suited and booted tomorra young Dazzler. We need to get an overview on the recent adventures of young Matthew - if we can.’

  Moz finger-nailed the food from under his temple and examined the evidence. Thankfully, he chose to wipe it onto his crumpled napkin.

  ‘The youth worker - Sonny Rasheed, you know him?’

  Darrin did, Sonny was a smart, lively Asian guy with a big smile.

  ‘He’s bringing in two of the kid’s homies,’ Moz made the inverted commas sign, ‘in this afternoon, see what they know. We’ve had the word that they were out and about with him on the Friday. The mum saw him for half an hour or so Saturday lunch and then, a big fat nothing.’

  ‘They got a time of death yet?’ Darrin asked.

  ‘Early Sunday morning apparently – decomp’ was slowed down a fair bit by that cold snap.’

  ‘No responses of note from the stuff in the paper then?’

  ‘No - we’ve drawn a blank son. We have a fair bit of work to do.’

  Darrin cleared up his stuff and left Moz to the confectionary. Energy pulsated through his legs. About fucking time, he was more than up for this.

  Later that day, they had chatted for a frustrating, silence-filled two hours with Matthew’s mates but in the end they had drawn fuck all of any help from either one of them. Yes they were with him on the Friday and that was pretty much that. Sonny had tried to push and prompt the pair as much as possible. But they had proven to be the two half-smart monkeys. The Italian looking kid managed to be a mixture of diffidence and defiance whilst Junior, at the grand old age of sixteen, came across all world-weary and jaded.

  He’d had a brief chat with Sonny in the reception.

  ‘Sorry about that Constable, I think they are still coming to terms with it - big shock for both of them.’

  ‘Might prevent them from using themselves though eh?’ It came out a bit more blunt than Darrin had intended.

  Sonny looked at him a little sharply then gave him a little half nod.

  ‘Maybe - or they may even go the other way, who knows?’

  ‘You think they might know more than they’re saying then?’

  Sonny thought about that for a little while and intimated his ambivalence with a tilting of his right hand.

  ‘Not sure to be honest, M was the one on the fringes of the scene but I don’t think those two are really. Looks like Matthew was all alone on this one.’

  ‘Yeah he was all alone alright – that’s for fucking sure.’

  Sonny gave him another little look, followed by a friendly clap on the shoulder.

  ‘See you later then Constable.’

  ‘OK Sonny, it’s Darrin by the way, Darrin May.’

  Sonny gave him that cloud-bursting grin of his. ‘Yeah nice one - PC Darrin May eh. OK then Darrin - later.’

  Pasquale’s heart had been racing for what seemed like ages after they’d left the station, Junior had bidden him a curt farewell in the station car park and he’d made his way back home alone. Sonny had offered him a lift but he knocked it back, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore - he’d had a gutful of it.

  He’d kept it together during the funeral though, unlike M’s mum who had blubbered like a baby all the way through. His mum had put his arm around him and he had let her keep it there, grateful for the comfort that it had given him. He couldn’t remember anything the vicar had said - it was just the usual empty Bible bollocks. All he’d taken in was a rheumy-eyed old guy opening and closing his mouth. They had finished the service with this song, which M and his mum had supposedly loved. It was some bird warbling her way through an Eminem rap - ‘it’s not so bad’, she reckoned. It had caught him on the hop as he had never heard M talk about the song, he liked the feel of it right enough even if he didn’t kick in with the sentiments, coz it was fucking bad, in fact it felt fucking terrible.

  He and Junior had met up on the sly during the week when Sonny had told them about the impending visit to the cop-shop. They had decided not to tell the cops about the phone call. During the interview the cops had asked them if M had owned a mobile - so that meant that they didn’t have it and somebody had to have taken it off him. Matty loved that fuckin’ phone.

  They hadn’t discussed why they shouldn’t tell the cops about the call but Pasquale knew that they were in agreement on it. There was no way that M would have blabbed to the cops about something like that - and that was that. But, when he thought about it, he knew that there was more to their decision, something a lot more basic than any kind of principled show of solidarity with a now dead friend. The very thought of mentioning Bazzer Dougan’s name in any kind of proximity to M’s death filled him with a numbing fear and he knew Junior well enough to know that he was frightened of the mad fucker too and Junior did not frighten easily. Besides, it was an overdose, that silly dumb bastard and his fucking drugs.

  His mum mentioned the literacy stuff with Tommy and he mumbled a promise to get down to both the Centre and the school, and with his promise she had let it drop. He thought about going down the shopping centre for a while but decided he couldn’t be arsed. He You-tubed the song that they had played for M and he played it maybe a dozen times, speculating idly as he did so about his father - gone when he was one year old and now with a new family, somewhere in Japan of all fucking places. His mum had encouraged him to go out there but he hadn’t felt like seeing him or his half brother and sister. Maybe one day, he thought, he’d go out there and get one of those cool looking Samurai swords.

  The following day Junior texted him about a party that was on not far from his place, his mum was a bit resistant to him going at first but she quickly relented, pleased that he had at least told her about it. One of her girlfriends had called earlier and a group of them were heading out for a meal and then a club - looked like his mum was ready for some fun too.

  Pasquale met Junior just around the corner from the off licence in Abercrombie Street and Junior went in and scored two bottles of vodka. Junior had done some
removal work for one of his uncles that morning and he’d scored fifty for his sweat.

  Junior had flashed the fake ID but old man Sohail would have probably served him without it - no questions ever asked by that money hungry fucker.

  Junior had told him that Stella would be there at the do and that there would be plenty of other talent there too and he was bang on. The placed was packed. Mum and Dad had gone off to Portugal for a fortnight - paaaarty. Junior found some coke in the fridge and divvied up the vodka. Some of the older boys who were slouching around in the kitchen were talking about a cage fighting night that was being held at the Expo some time next month. Junior was pretty keen to go and his birthday was coming up soon. Maybe his mum would divvy up the readies. He necked the vodka quickly and had a couple of smokes on top and the night had passed by in a blur. He managed to get close to Stella a couple of times when they were both dancing but he couldn’t bring himself to make the move. Around midnight he was puking his guts up in the garden, a couple of the girls going back inside the house in disgust at the sound of his retching. Junior was on guard, keeping a distant eye on him from the kitchen door.

  After an half an hour or so he managed to get himself upright and he made his escape around the side of house feeling a lot more sober and shivering like a wet, whipped dog. Thankfully, he was back home in ten minutes, his mum was still out with her mates and the house was quiet and dark on his return.

  Tommy and Jimbo had pulled the pin well before midnight. Jimbo had the kids tomorrow and he was picking them up early from the mum’s for a planned trip to the zoo. Looking around the bar Tommy had had the distinct notion that the two of them were creeping up close to becoming the oldest swingers in town. Just to keep in his hand Jimbo had engaged in some desultory chatting up of a brace of merry divorcees but it was all pitter-patter really. Anyway, Jimbo had just started a tentative thing with a single mum, from the Coleshaw of all fucking places! He hadn’t bothered giving an opinion when Jimbo told him that one. Jimbo loved firing down a marker for reasons that Tommy had never been able to fully understand. He usually chose to observe it all from a distance and marvelled at his friend’s long recognised bounce-backability. As a friend, Jimbo asked for fuck all from him apart from companionship, banter and the opportunity for disclosure and, when it mattered, he knew that Jimbo would be there for him in a flash.