by Ben Jeapes
Malcolm and Ted left the manager’s office and started back to the shop in tight, angry silence. When they both finally spoke it was at the same time.
“I did not appreciate–”
“I’m sorry I–”
They stopped and glared at each other.
“I’m sorry I got you into it,” Ted muttered. “I couldn’t think who else to call.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better if you hadn’t needed to call anyone at all?”
Ted just turned away.
“I’ll go back to the shop and get my things and then I’ll be gone.” His voice had no life in it. Malcolm wondered how used he was to screwing up and moving on. He had never had anything to do with juvenile crime. There must be hundreds of Teds every day; lives with such promise that just collapsed into weak-willed failure. At least the corporate fraudsters he had specialised in prosecuting had had a lifetime of wrong decisions behind them to bring them to that point.
“Probably best.” Malcolm fell into step beside him. Neither of them glanced at the other.
For some reason he remembered the conversation he had overheard earlier between Zoe and Ted, about wizards. He wondered if what he had just done seemed like wizardry to Ted. Malcolm wouldn’t have gone to court to defend the boy – of course not. He no longer practised, and even if he did, he didn’t do juvenile cases, he wasn’t a defender, and the case was so open and shut that all he could have done was turn up. The duty barrister fielded by the Crown Prosecution Service would have had a clear run. But, without lying or active deception, he had played on the grey areas in the manager’s perceptions. The man was obviously as unused to prosecuting teenagers as Malcolm was to defending them, and where there were gaps in his understanding, Malcolm had filled those gaps in – his way.
It hadn’t been hard: in fact, compared to some of the cases Malcolm had fought, it was embarrassing. He could do it but he wasn’t proud of it.
“That wasn’t your first offence, was it?” he asked.
In the corner of his eye he saw Ted shake his head.
“You’ve had a caution?”
Nod.
“It would have gone to youth court, Ted. And when you apply for a job, you’re meant to disclose anything like that.”
“I know. And I swear, I honestly thought Barry had told you.”
Every wrongdoer Malcolm had ever met before, without exception, would lie, or bluster, or plead or just outright brag about their wrongdoing. This was the first time he had seen someone simply accept their guilt.
“I mean,” Ted carried on bitterly, “he’s made sure everyone else knows. The neighbours know. School knows. All my mates know – I mean, my ex-mates, ’cos it’s kinda hard to stay mates when they know you nick things and one of them loses his iPod and so they all think it was you ... they all know, so why shouldn’t you know too?”
If Ted had thanked Malcolm for getting him off then that would have been the end of it. In the last half hour Malcolm’s respect for the boy had drained away through the soles of his feet but now he felt it very, very slowly recharging.
“I suppose I should have guessed he hadn’t.” Ted carried on as if he was talking to himself. “I mean, why would a guy like you let a thief run around his shop? Mind the petty cash!”
“Well, at least you’ve not stolen from me,” Malcolm said. It was meant to be a friendly throwaway remark to show that they could part on civilised terms. Ted didn’t say anything but again he saw a slight catch, a breath half-drawn and ready to contradict. The spotty little brute had stolen from the shop? But nothing was missing ...
When he realised, the sheer bafflement took his breath away.
“The calculator?”
Another nod.
“Ted, we got that thing free at a petrol station!”
Ted suddenly turned on him and shouted at the top of his voice, regardless of the looks from passers-by.
“I don’t steal valuable stuff! I don’t steal because I’m poor, or because I need it, or because it’s cool! I just ... steal! I’m just a thief! Okay?”
He bit his lip and turned away.
“I’m just a thief,” he whispered.
Malcolm was pretty sure the incipient tears were real. Interesting. He folded his arms and leaned back against a lamppost.
“Okay, Ted. Talk me through it. Apparently I’m your brief, so brief me. How long has this been going on?”
Ted looked back at him, head cocked sceptically, maybe wondering if it was worth the effort. Then he shrugged.
“Started ... started after we lost Dad. I was … angry. I was only a little kid. I took a couple of things, little things, sweets from shops, that kind of thing. I knew I shouldn’t, it just made me feel better. Felt I was getting my own back on … on ‘them’, whoever ‘them’ was. Mum took me to see this lady, we got it sorted out. I still wanted stuff, I just … she showed me how to look at myself and see what I’m doing and … anyway, I stopped.” He drew a deep breath, let it out as a sigh. “Until about a year ago when suddenly it didn’t work anymore. It started again. Still little things. I mean, relatively. But they got bigger because–”
For the first time it seemed to occur to him he was on a crowded street, because he glanced around to see who might be listening, and then leaned closer so he could talk more quietly.
“When I take something, it’s like ... Look, I’ve never done drugs, right? But I guess that’s what it’s like. It doesn’t last long, there’s this warm sort of glow for just a few minutes but while it lasts it’s the best – thing – ever. And Christmas was … was the first time I got caught. In fact, it was in there.”
He jerked a thumb at a department store across the road.
“They made me watch myself on CCTV. It was socks. Can you believe that? Socks! I couldn’t deny it. You could tell I was going to do it. I was looking out for risks, I was waiting till there was no one about ... and I took them, simple as that. Put them in my bag, walked straight out.”
He looked straight at Malcolm again. “Happy?”
“Happy? No. Enlightened, informed – a little.” Malcolm shifted into a slightly more comfortable position. “I’m not an expert in this area but that sounds like some kind of obsessive-compulsive condition. You come from a broken family, you don’t get on with your stepfather–”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ted sneered, “poor psycho screwed up head-case Ted! Barry says it’s only a condition if you can’t control it, and if I plan it and stake things out then that shows I do control it, so it’s not a condition, I’m just – a – thief.”
He shot Malcolm a sideways, defiant glance.
“And we’re not a broken family. My dad was killed in a crash.”
Malcolm let himself break the rhythm by half a beat. Pay more attention, Malcolm. He did say, ‘we lost Dad’. “I’m sorry, I stand corrected. But perhaps Barry should stick to property law. The law recognises what compulsive behaviour does and, what’s more, the law can help. You’re still held responsible for your actions but there’s programmes available. Have you–”
“Been there, done that!” snapped Ted. “Sure, there’s programmes, there’s therapy, there’s medication. I’ve talked to a counsellor. Again. But Barry says I just need to snap out of it–”
“And I’m getting less and less interested in what Barry says.” Malcolm put a little more emotion, anger, into his voice. Sadly, he could picture it all too well: Ted coming home from the counsellor, brimming with resolve, to have any good work achieved that day well-meaningly knocked out of him by his stepfather, who was convinced he just had to grow up. “If you’d been arrested and gone to court, they’d have put you in a programme, if they didn’t just lock you up, and he’d have no say in it, and you’d have a criminal record to boot. Ted, you’ve got a problem–”
Ted bellowed.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, I know I’ve got a fucking problem! I don’t steal fucking porn for the fucking kicks!” He dug his fingers into his skull and his voice
crackled with self loathing. “If I could just tear the fucking thing out of me, I would, I swear–”
Malcolm stood up straight, unfolding himself suddenly from his slouch against the lamppost, and Ted took a step back in surprise.
“And that is the last time you ever swear at me, young man, understand? Now, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to look up the latest treatment. You’re going to see what services are available through the council or the NHS or whatever, and you’re going to get help.” He could see Ted already looking sceptical, already drawing another breath to contradict him. The boy was used to failure and Malcolm’s wasn’t saying anything Ted hadn’t heard a thousand times already. “Maybe you’ve done it before. You’ll do it again, and this time you will get onto a programme and you will get help. And I will ask you, every day, what progress you’ve made, and every day I will expect you to have something to tell me. Barry is irrelevant to this process and if he raises a fuss then you will refer him to me. Is that understood?”
Ted’s eyes were perfectly round.
“So – I can stay at the shop?”
“Probably.” Malcolm didn’t let himself smile. “I’ll take a risk with the petty cash. We’ll go back there now, and you’ll tell me everything, and I mean, everything about this condition of yours. Then I’ll make my final decision.” As if it wasn’t already made, you big softie. “Got that?”
Ted nodded violently. “Okay!”
“And you may find that the easiest way to avoid stealing pornography is to stay away from pornography sections.”
Ted bit his lip and flushed a burning red.
“And something else you should know, since we’re apparently making full disclosure to each other. I said that I was a prosecutor? The people I prosecuted were big business crooks who thought nothing of falsifying their profits, or dipping their fingers into the pension fund, or ripping off the tax payer, never mind how many lives they destroyed in the meantime. I went up against the best that their fraudulent millions could buy and I always won. One compulsive teenage shoplifter–” He let it trail away when he saw in Ted’s eyes that the boy understood perfectly. “Let’s both of us avoid being put in that position, shall we?”
Ted nodded so fast his head looked like it might fall off.
“Right!”
“Besides–” Malcolm kept his face like stone. “I need you back at the shop because the computer’s playing up. Speaking of which, I talked last night to my friends in the book club and they were very excited about the website idea. They would love you to go through with it. They might start sending things through.”
“Right! Right!”
“Come on.” Malcolm put a hand on his shoulder to guide him across the road, and had to fight the temptation to put his arm all the way round and give the boy a hug. “The others will be wondering.”
Chapter 5
Hope yr well. Vatican beautiful. Long wait fr Sistene Chapel. Sarah fell dwn Spanish Steps. Barry worried abt strike 2moro. Mum x
Ted gazed at his phone’s little screen but couldn’t muster the willpower to send an answer. He dropped onto the sofa and let his head flop back, then gazed glassily at the ceiling of his living room and breathed out for a long, long time.
“Ah-h-h-h–”
He had seen Barry do this many times after coming back from a heavy day at work. He had never realised just how much it could take out of you.
A chirrup from the floor gave him just enough warning to put his knees together before the cat leaped into his lap. Mr Furry turned on the spot a few times before settling down and digging his claws into Ted’s legs, which was the signal that he was now ready to be adored.
“Bad day at the office, you say? Well, now you mention it–” Ted tickled the cat behind the ears; Mr Furry rewarded him with a loud purr and increased jabbing. “... bad day doesn’t begin to describe it.”
The cat kept purring.
“Okay, since you ask, I got nicked for stealing porn and I kept my job by the skin of my teeth because my boss has decided to treat me as a project, and believe me, he is way scarier than Social Work Lady.”
Social Work Lady was lovely. She tried so hard to be stern but he knew she really didn’t want him to go to jail. Malcolm, Ted suspected, could live with the idea quite easily. So, he was on probation with steroids.
He had been to see Robert after work and told him all about it. He had got the usual, i.e. no response. For a moment Ted had actually envied his brother’s worry-free existence.
Stephen had indicated by text that he wanted to be left alone while he worked through a tough coding challenge, so Ted faced an evening on his own. He closed his eyes. The tension continued to drain away and he felt his waking mind go with it. He was at the stage just before going to sleep, when sounds and sights around you and memories and thoughts inside you all run into one.
The woman with V-shaped hair peered into Ted’s face. He convulsed and Mr Furry leapt indignantly off his lap.
O-kay. He sat on the edge of the sofa and waited for his heart to stop pounding. Best not to sit here day-dreaming, right? He made a mental list of things to do instead.
Put pizza in oven.
Feed cat.
Eat pizza.
And then, he supposed, he should do what he had told Malcolm he would. Get researching. Do some finding out. Malcolm would ask.
Mr Furry twigged his intention as he pushed himself to his feet, and trotted beside him as he shuffled to the kitchen.
He thought back to the stolen DVD and smiled a little. How sad did you have to be to steal porn? That was what was so humiliating. Why steal what you could just download for free? Not that he even did that ... very often. He knew it was all fake – just acting, and not very good acting either. On the day that he finally got round to having sex, he wanted it to be awesome. You could tell that for them it was just a job, not awesome at all. But there were times when he felt more than ready for the real thing, and as he knew he wasn’t going to get it, the next best thing was watching someone else not being awesome and, well, helping them along in his own not particularly awesome way.
To be quite honest, right now was one of those times. Extreme emotion tended to bring it on. He smiled again and shook his head.
“Concentrate, Ted–” He took the pizza out of the freezer. Then he paused. On the other hand ... He was alone in the house. He could do what he liked – with the door open, and without one ear cocked for footsteps.
He turned the oven on thoughtfully, pressed the ignite switch. There were advantages to living on your own. He slid the pizza onto its shelf in the oven while the cat twined around his ankles.
“And no way are you watching,” he told it. Okay, the door would stay closed. And after that, he would do Malcolm’s homework. The evening was looking up as he started to open a tin of cat food.
The bell rang. Ted groaned, put the tin down, trudged into the hallway. Of all the times for the Jehovah’s Witnesses to call!
“Thank God you’ve come,” he muttered, “I just can’t hold the cat down and sharpen the knife at the same time–”
Mr Furry was already waiting by the front door. Cat logic said that if he was nice to enough humans then at least one of them would feed him, and who said a complete stranger couldn’t turn up with a bowl? Ted scooped him up and pulled the door open.
“Hiya, handsome!”
Zoe greeted him with a bright smile.
“Uh ... uh ... hi!” Ted pulled himself together. Whatever he had expected to see when he opened the door, she was so far removed from it that it took a moment to locate the necessary social subroutines.
“Aren’t you gorgeous? I could just eat you!”
Zoe had leaned down for some nose-to-nose communion with Mr Furry. While the cat returned the compliment and scanned her for the food, she looked up and grinned from beneath her dark fringe.
“Oh, and hi, Ted, good to see you too. It’s the right house, then.”
“Well, i
t’s the one I live in ... um, can I help you?”
He had never realised it before but ‘can I help you?’ was really just code for ‘what the hell do you want?’
“I was just passing, thought I’d drop in.” She winked. “Seeing as you’re on your own. I remembered you said you live in Henderson Close.”
“Didn’t say which number.” But even in his own ears that sounded particularly defensive and unwelcoming, so he stood back to let her in.
For just half a second she looked nonplussed. Then: “Seven in the evening on a summer’s day and yours is the only house without a car on the drive. Easy!”
Ted peeked out before closing the door. She was right, though there was a yellow Mini parked on the road which he presumed was hers.
“Could have been in the garage,” he muttered.
Zoe paused, sniffing the air, and then she was looking at him in dismay.
“You’re cooking something! I’ve interrupted your dinner!”
“It’s only pizza. Um. Want any?”
“No, thanks. I’ve eaten. Look, if I’m in the way, just say and I’ll go–”
Ted thought mournfully of all the naked women about to go unlooked at.
“No. It’s fine.” He smiled. It didn’t take that much effort, and maybe this was a slightly better excuse for not doing Malcolm’s homework. “Can I get you anything? Cup of tea?”
“Lovely. And ... could I use your bathroom?”
“Sure, it’s–”
“Thanks!”
She was already heading for the stairs.
“–over there,” he murmured, pointing at the downstairs toilet, but it seemed boorish to say it when she was already halfway up. So he went back to the kitchen, and put the kettle on, and finished opening the tin for Mr Furry.
Waiting for the kettle to boil took a couple of minutes and it began to dawn on him that she was taking her time upstairs.
And then it struck him like a spear of ice into his heart.
Oh, bloody hell. Seeing as you’re on your own? That’s what she had said. She had come round because he was on his own.
Ted stared up at the ceiling. Did she want ... could she actually want ...