Authors: Bob Summer
To get to the comp, Stuart cut through a large open park with an area fenced off to house kiddy swings and slides. I tended to jog around the outside, shielded from sight by the trees ringing the border. Most days, only a few other straggling school-kids cluttered my view, but today about half a dozen girls were congregated in the play area. I didn’t need to plug my earpins in to recognise what was going on. East or west, when one girl is sitting on a bench, looking at her feet and a bunch of others surround her laughing and chanting, it’s clear to an idiot that somebody’s having a hard time. Neither is it tough picking out the main instigator. She’s usually the noisiest – loud laugh, loud hair, loud clothes, loud make-up, loud everything, and almost always surrounded by a set of wannabe clones, tittering and smirking, giving out the idea she’s all that.
Stuart slowed his pace and took a mini diversion which put him within shouting distance of the group. He stopped and looked around, perhaps hoping somebody else might step up and intervene. When nobody else showed any interest, he shuffled his feet and fiddled with the strap on his backpack.
I stepped behind a tree and fished for my earpins which had slipped deep into my hip pocket. The snugness of my combats caused me to make a mental note – less junk nights with Fran.
Stuart turned away and upped his stride to head out of the park leaving the girl to whatever damage the others saw fit. He might look the hot, heroic type but an easty is an easty - spineless. But then I saw a suited man stepping out towards the girls. He waved his arm at the bitch with the loud face. Her cronies backed away but she did at least throw a comment in the suit’s direction, probably something inane and pointless. I missed it, only getting my earpins plugged in in time to catch the suit speak to the girl on the bench.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’
He sat down next to her. ‘They’ve gone now, you don’t have to pretend with me.’
‘They were only joking.’
‘I know.’
The girl started to cry. She tried to hide it at first. The tears were in her voice long before they reached her face but once the game was up she gave way and shouted her misery. ‘It’s not fair. I don’t do anything wrong to anybody. I don’t know why they’re so mean to me all the time.’ She did a noisy, gloopy sniff which stuck in my throat and I turned the volume down. ‘I hate it here,’ she whined, ‘I wish I’d never had to come.’
‘Are you new to the area?’ He spoke slow and precise. Carefully might be a good word.
‘I used to live in London,’ she said. The pride in her voice stopped her crying for a second. ‘My parents were very important people but since they were killed I’ve had to come and live in this cesspit.’
My sympathy for her took a knock. She really should take a look at the west, it might improve her perception skills somewhat. I mean, the east? A cesspit? Ha.
The suit rubbed her arm. ‘It’s not as bad as all that. Are you living with grandparents? Aunty and uncle?’
‘My uncle. But he doesn’t want me. Just the money I came with. My parents were bankers.’
The suit slid along the bench and put his arm around her shoulder.
Us westy girls are warned from the time we can walk how to spot a paedo. And the suit, even from across the park, reeked of a class A groomer. It wasn’t my place to interfere, but neither could I not. The whole exchange had taken less than two minutes. Stuart was still walking towards the park exit. The odds of anything happening to him right then were slim. If I put a rattle on, I could distract the greaseball and still catch Stuart up before he got to school. It was an easy decision to make - the girl needed me more. I pocketed my earpins and made my way over, keeping a sharp lookout for any Reds. I waltzed up to the bench smiling and chirruping like an idiot.
‘Hey,’ I said to the girl and totally blanked the suit. ‘How’re you doing?’
She swiped at her nose with the back of her wrist then ground the sleeve into her trousers, it looked like a herd of slugs had crawled over her lap. Nice look. The suit offered me a tight smile. His eyes were coal-black, empty and small, like in a dead snake. And he had the blackest, greasiest hair; I couldn’t help but gawp at it.
‘Friend of yours?’ he asked.
He might have been talking to the girl but I answered. ‘Yeah, best of friends. And you are?’
He grinned, a gold tooth smack in the middle of his mug. ‘Can I see your papers?’
I put on my best stunned face. ‘Eh?’
‘Papers.’
‘Why?’
He removed his arm from the girl’s shoulders and flashed a badge from his inside pocket – ISS approved.
‘I see,’ I said, playing for time. Bad decision, Atty. Only then did I recognise him as the guy from the limo. Suits in limos might be sore news, but give them ISS approval and I was in deep, proper doo-doo. Why oh why didn’t I ever learn to mind my own business? As soon as he spotted the west logo on my ID he’d call the Law and they’d cart me home in a nanosecond. Probably with all sorts of conditions stamped across my papers. In red. And that’s if they were in a good mood.
He had his hand out, waiting.
I spoke to the girl. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why are you being questioned by the ISS? If you haven’t done anything?’
‘I’m not. I haven’t.’ She wasn’t having her best day. First the ‘it’ girls, then the suit, now me.
‘Well, ISS agents don’t happen along looking to pass the day in kiddy parks for no reason. They’re busy people.’
‘Not too busy to take a look at your papers.’
I ignored him. ‘So.’ My voice must surely be shaking. Hopefully it would pass as fury. I glared at the girl, big sister style. ‘What have you been up to?’
She stood up and screamed into my face. ‘I haven’t done anything!’ She grabbed her school bag. ‘Why is everybody giving me such a hard time? I just want everybody to leave me alone.’ And she walked away.
‘Wait up.’ I jogged after her. ‘We can walk together. I’ve got an exam this morning.’
She glanced back, wide-eyed scared. ‘Who are … ’
‘Chinese.’ I raised my voice and hooked my arm through hers, propelling her the hell out of there. ‘Three hours it is. THREE.’ The back of my neck tingled and every muscle tensed, waiting for a tap on the shoulder. No way would Greasy-haired Goldtooth let me simply walk away. The girl tried to push me off but I kept tight hold and whispered, ‘Just walk. Don’t look back.’
She finally began to grasp what I’d been trying to do. ‘Stop it, he’s okay, he’s been talking to me, that’s all.’
‘Trust me, he’s bad news.’
‘But if he’s ISS approved he’s got to be okay.’
Oh the innocence. ‘We’ll be late for school,’
A tap on my shoulder had been optimistic thinking: he came up behind and gripped my arm so hard I felt the tips of his fingers bruise my bones. ‘I asked to see your papers.’ He leaned so close I flinched away from his breath, but it smelt clean, like peppermint.
‘Okay, take it easy.’ I said and smiled at the girl. ‘You go on ahead, I’ll catch you up, no point in us both being late.’ My voice sounded normal enough but my papers felt bulky in my back pocket. Surely he’d spotted them already. I held my hands up, ‘Okay. I admit it. I left my ID at home.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Come on, it’s not like I’ve done anything wrong. It was her you wanted, not me.’ I stopped and tilted my head, feigning quizzical interest. ‘Why were you questioning her?’ The girl loitered around like a fart, shuffling her bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘You go ahead or you’ll be late.’
A familiar voice spoke from behind me. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Just checking this young lady’s ID.’
‘Let me save you the trouble.’ Bluebottle-eyes smiled. ‘I know exactly who she is. We’ve met before, haven’t we, Bethany?’
Bluebottle led me to a van parked at the gates. People stopped and stared as he guided me into the back and locked me in what looked like a dog cage. ‘Sit tight. Back in a tick.’
In the fraction of a second before the door slammed shut I locked eyes with Stuart, who stood leaning against the gatepost at the entrance to the park. Boogah. Plop went my low profile, right down the flusher.
The air inside the van was cool and stank of stale pee and testosterone. A screen made from chicken wire separated me from a grumpy driver who gazed at me with dull eyes via the rear-view mirror.
‘Good morning,’ I said.
Each time he inhaled, the folds on the back of his neck rippled causing the bristles of his number one to shimmer in the sunlight. Fat people always made such a meal of everything, even breathing seemed an effort.
‘Lovely day for it,’ I said. The relief of getting away from the ISS guy sent me giddy and a babbling danger to myself. The safest thing to do would be to shut the hell up.
The driver looked out of the passenger window towards Bluebottle talking to Goldtooth and the girl.
‘Do those two know each other already?’ I asked.
Fatty’s eyes returned to the mirror then looked away.
‘Friendly, aren’t we?’
Shut up. Shut UP! I shut up.
I watched as the girl wandered away alone in one direction and Stuart in another. Bluebottle and Goldtooth chatted a little more before shaking hands and parting company. Bluebottle climbed into the passenger seat and swivelled to talk to me.
‘I told you to behave yourself. What are you doing over here at this time of day anyway? Thought you lot didn’t get out of bed until at least midday.’
‘Early run. Just making my way back.’
He scowled and spoke to the driver. ‘Let’s take her home and this time …’ turning to snarl at me - again, ‘… stay there. I’m going to be keeping my eye on you, do you hear?’
The driver started the engine. ‘Aren’t we going to take her in? Caution her or something?’
‘We haven’t got time. Not if we want to go to the party.’
The driver gave a filthy laugh and snorted. If he’d rubbed his crotch it wouldn’t have been more obvious what sort of party they had planned.
Bluebottle sniggered. ‘It’s your lucky day, Bethany.’
They dropped me off over the river, back in the grot of the west. Bluebottle gave me one final warning to stay out of trouble. ‘Next time, I’ll bring you in.’
I went home intending to try and relax a little, listen to some tunes, drink some blue and wait for the adrenalin rush to slow. I felt confident Stuart would be safely tucked up in the exam hall at school. I wasn’t so confident he’d forget seeing me in the van. But if I took a little extra care, dropped back an extra meter or two, be a tad more subtle, I could still swing it. I flicked on the kettle and then the radio, just to hear the sound of a human voice. The radio, like all media, was strictly controlled by the Law. Of course that meant it was mostly rubbish, but now and again they did play a little summer cheer to try and up the community morale. Nobody got fooled by it, but we all liked to pretend, if only for a short time, that life smelt rosy.
I caught the tail end of the news. A politician rabbited on why the ERP and letting all those cons out had proved such a good idea. He used phrases like, ‘community control’ and ‘real people at grass roots,’ … ‘the Law’s course of correction has cut petty crime to zero.’ It was all about control. I pictured him waving his arms around in genuine excitement. The presenter joined in. They sounded like a pair of ignorant children trying to brainwash the nation. Morons. I turned them off, set my alarm, and waited for sleep, pondering whether I should report the morning’s events to Joe. I decided not.
Things I learned over the next few days. Stuart hated his dad. Stuart’s dad hated Stuart, despite handing over wads of cash every five minutes. I could love pretty much anybody if they gave me dosh like that to play with. Stuart didn’t shy away from spending it either. He wore the best gear and, when not in school, treated his mates to food and drink at home and away. I spent hours loitering outside cafes and arcades. He didn’t half have an easy life. Born lucky.
I also saw how fond he was of Gemma. He listened to all her babbling and called her silly names like Hiccup and Fudgkins. He made her giggle and squirm and he stood behind her and scowled at the bigger kids when they teased her for her bizarre dress sense. Lucky little Gemma.
I’d been following Stuart for almost a week and, apart from the one incident at the park, he hadn’t spotted me at all. Neither Bluebottle, the limo, nor the gold-toothed greasy guy appeared again and I put them out of my head. Stuart dealt with any approach from the recruiters like a pro. The boy was doing well enough without me. I deserved a break. Not to say I left him to get on with it but one night, after his bedroom light went out, I decided to give Fran a shout and see if she wanted another night in the trance. A more chirpy one this time.
Fran and Carl lived on the Shanks estate in a typical west-side hovel. The Law tend not to patrol or care about such places so the people on Shanks run the streets themselves and that meant mob-rule. Fortunately, Joe runs the mob. But he can only do so much and he tends to focus on sorting the violent stuff. Everything else is left to take its natural course and, left to their own devices, things always run downhill. I trotted down alleys strewn with rubbish, broken bottles and lemondrop needles. Many houses had boarded up windows and patchwork doors. Life on the estate looked grim but nobody ever died from being grubby.
I knocked at Fran’s door for ages before the old woman next door poked her head out of an upstairs window. ‘Stop making that racket. I’m trying to watch Corrie in here.’ She paused and must have thought again when she saw just me, a girl, and her voice softened. ‘Nobody there any more, love. Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Kid went a week or so ago. Haven’t seen anybody go in nor out since.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s all I know.’ And she slammed the window shut.
Fran wouldn’t go away without saying goodbye. I went around the back and found an old pipe amongst the debris in the alley and jimmied it under the bars that covered the kitchen window. It took every ounce I had and blistered my fingers, but after ten minutes of heaving I’d made a big enough gap to squeeze through. I wrapped my fist in my jacket and punched the window in.
The first thing that struck me was the smell. I didn’t have to climb inside before it stuck in my throat and I heaved. I pulled the neck of my tee shirt up over my nose and breathed in the heat of my body. No wonder they’d moved out, the whole place reeked. I almost changed my mind and went home but I needed a clue as to where they might have gone. I clambered in and turned the kitchen light on. Everything shone bright and clean. A baby’s bottle stood soaking on the draining board and the breadbin lid lay propped against the fridge. Other than that, everything looked as spotless and uncluttered as Fran liked it. I checked the bin but it was empty. Perhaps the fridge. But that too had nothing in it to cause such a rancid stench.
The door from the kitchen led into a passage from which the back door and the living room turned off. And the stairs. It looked like it might be a big coat, or overalls, dangling from the upstairs bannister. I hoped someone might have thrown it willy-nilly and it had tumbled over and got stuck, left hanging by a sleeve.
But really I knew straight away. Probably knew from the minute I smelt the smell. Or from when nobody answered the door. Maybe even from when she told me she loved me.
I rang Joe and, as he always did, he came because I needed him. He took down Fran’s body and called the right people to take her away. He carried me back to his house, fed me hot soup, tucked me in, and sat with me all night wiping my snot and tears, letting me cry. Not once did he tell me to shush.