Crossing the Line (Kerry Wilkinson) (5 page)

Junkie.

‘So, Anarky . . .’

Tony glanced away towards the corner of the room. ‘I’ve not been on any of their marches for ages.

I left all that behind.’

‘But you used to be a part of everything they did. You were on our watch list – probably still are –

because every time there was a protest march through the city, there you were.’

As he reached towards the teapot, Tony’s hand was shaking. He plucked off the lid, took out the

strainer, and dunked in a spoon, swirling the liquid around manically. ‘I was different then. Those

guys used to meet in the pub, so I’d see ’em there. I was so pissed half the time, I didn’t even know

what they were on about. I thought they were on a pub crawl.’

‘Come on, Tony . . .’

He filled both cups with a steaming green liquid that smelled vaguely of tree bark and offered

Jessica one, the saucer rattling in his hand as he passed it over. ‘Okay, it wasn’t quite like that but I still didn’t really know them. They’d go on about how big government was run by rich men and that

we were all puppets. They bought me a few drinks, so I tagged along.’

‘What about the other marches?’

Tony sat back on the floor, sipping his tea, his eyes on Jessica’s feet. ‘I don’t remember everything

but it was always a day out – a bit of excitement. I remember this pink one where they had biscuits at

the end.’

‘Pink one?’

‘Yeah, a bunch of girls all wearing pink going on about stuff. I remember the colour.’

‘I think that was a breast cancer awareness march.’

‘Whatever – I’m just saying that I don’t remember much. Whenever I saw the groups around, I

thought free booze or free biscuits. Then someone would say, “Let’s smash something up”, and I’d be

all “Yeah, let’s stick it to the man, man”. It was all the booze.’

‘I take it you’re not talking about the breast cancer march. They don’t tend to do much smashing.’

The corners of Tony’s lips curled into a smile and Jessica realised he was actually quite good-

looking. Now they weren’t hazed over by a drug-related fog of confusion, his eyes had a glint,

mischievous but not shop-smashing. She couldn’t remember but perhaps that’s why she’d told him to

stop mucking his life up all those years ago, rather than just slapping on the cuffs and chucking him

and his pissy pants into a van.

‘How much do you know about Anarky?’ she asked.

‘Not much – there was some Tom bloke, I really don’t remember. I know everyone tells you that but

I actually
don’t
remember and anything I could come up with could potentially be a dream anyway.

I’m not entirely sure everything I recall is accurate – well, unless I once sat down for tea with a giant green elephant and we talked about the onset of global capitalism.’

It was Jessica’s turn to grin. She picked up the tea and sniffed it, thinking it smelled a bit like her

back garden after a solid weekend of rain. She sipped it anyway, surprising herself by not gagging. It

wasn’t that bad, so she took another drink, thinking about the impending, swirling shit-storm that

awaited her back at the station and concluding she was best hiding here for as long as she could.

‘How does it feel to be clean?’

Tony’s smile became a laugh. ‘A bit boring really – I don’t know what to do with myself half the

time.’ He lay back on the carpet, giggling to himself. ‘No, it’s good, like there was this grey fog which has gone now. Before, I used to look at everything as a means to getting something else to drink, or go

up my arms.’ He sat up again, eyes back at Jessica’s feet, with a sigh. ‘You’d see mobile phones in

shop windows and think, “that must be worth a few quid, I wonder what I could get for that”. You’d

hang around cashpoints hoping someone gave you something or dropped a note. One time this woman

walked off with her card but left the cash in the slot. There was about a hundred quid, so I took it and pegged it before she noticed. It only hit me a few days later that she was some woman with a kid in a

pushchair, run off her feet, knackered, probably taking out her shopping money for the week. I thought

about that kid going hungry, p’raps her old man giving her a slap, like, and I’d spent all her money on

shite. I couldn’t stop thinking about her but then it just made me depressed, so I went and nicked some

shoes from this shop on Deansgate. Got twenty quid for them and guess where that went.’

‘What were you on?’

Tony shrugged. ‘You name it, I probably tried it. I think I was into paint-thinner for a while.’

‘Why’d you get clean?’

‘Me ma. When I dropped out of uni and ended up doing this, my dad said he didn’t want anything to

do with me. I think that made it worse ’cos that’s when I moved on from the booze. But me ma came

to see me one day – she sat where you are now, crying and saying that I was capable of much more. I

was buzzing but there was something in her face. She kept saying she’d help. You know they’ve got a

few quid, don’t you?’

‘I’ve heard.’

Jessica was aware that his parents owned a string of properties around the country, which Tony

stood to inherit. He’d come to the city for university but dropped out during his first year for a reason no one seemed to know and ended up living rough. When his parents reported him missing, it was left

to the police to tell them that their son was perfectly fine – he was choosing to live on the street.

Tony nodded: ‘She was saying they’d pay for the clinic if I wanted to, p’raps sort me out with a

job. I thought I could take the money and spend it on . . . y’know . . . but every time I kept thinking of me ma’s face, saying she was disappointed. I mean, she’s me ma – what was I supposed to do?’

‘So you got help?’

‘Yeah, this place out Stockport. Costs a bomb but when I got out, I thought “fair enough”. It was

sound, not having that fog all the time – being able to go into a shop and not seeing everything as

something I could sell on. Honestly, it’s the best thing I’ve done.’

As he continued speaking, Jessica noticed how much of the Manc twang he’d picked up; stretching

out the vowels, making the Os sound like Us and pronouncing the letter Y as an E-H.

Tony finished his tea and poured a second cup, including another for Jessica. When he sat again, he

tugged up his sleeve. It seemed like a day for that type of thing but his marks were far worse than

either hers or Debbie’s. Etched along the inside crook of elbow was a train track of scars and

scratches, a web of blue, purple, black and pink indelibly a part of him.

‘I’ve got a contact who could look at those for you,’ Jessica said. ‘They do good work removing

things and restoring the skin.’

Tony shook his head. ‘I kind of like them – it’s a reminder whenever I have my top off, letting me

know what I used to be.’ He pointed his thumb back over his shoulder. ‘Some dude with a gallery out

that way wants to take photos of them. Bit weird, like, but I might do it.’

Jessica thought of the flower pot filled with used condoms that they’d found in the back alleys –

perhaps it really was an art exhibit. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.

‘Me ma wants me to leave Manchester and go home.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Just over the border in Yorkshire. Nothing there but p’raps I need a new start? I’ve been working

in this cafe round the corner – cleaning tables, taking orders, that sort of stuff. It feels weird taking people’s money and not wanting to go off with it. It’s nice – like being a normal person. That’s how I

got into me tea. Me ma says they’ll find me something proper to do.’ Tony pulled a battered mobile

phone out of his pocket and pressed the screen. ‘Look, I’ve gotta go – I’ve got a shift at the cafe, it’s only a few hours but I’ve been on a trial period and don’t want to be late. I really don’t remember

anything about Anarky.’

Tony slurped down his tea in one go as Jessica finished the dregs of hers and then helped him carry

everything into the kitchen. ‘It’s good to see you’ve sorted yourself out. Given the number of man-

hours you’ve cost us over the years, we’ll probably throw a going-away party for you if you do go.’

Tony took it in the spirit it was meant, laughing and picking up a denim jacket. ‘What happened to

your old coat?’ she added.

‘That giant thing with the yellow foam spilling out?’

‘It was how we identified you on CCTV a few times – like your calling card.’

As he unlatched the door to the flat, Tony pointed towards a cupboard built into the wall. ‘In there

– I wanted to throw it away with everything else but it’s like an old mate.’

He led her down the stairs and out of the front door. ‘Do you need a lift?’ Jessica asked.

‘It’s only around the corner. I—’ Tony stopped himself, peering across the road where a man in a

sharp suit and long expensive-looking overcoat was leaning against a lamppost, staring at the front

door. He had a shaven head and was wearing a pair of leather gloves. Jessica saw the man’s eyes

flicker from Tony to her and then back again. He tapped his wrist as if to indicate a watch and then

removed a phone from his pocket and turned his back.

‘Who’s that?’ Jessica asked.

‘No one.’

‘It looked like he knew you.’

‘Never seen him before.’

Before she could reply, Tony began hurrying along the pavement, hands in his pockets, nervously

glancing towards the other side of the road where the bald man still had his back turned, phone

pressed to his ear. Jessica had no idea who he was but even from a distance, she could smell

something distinctive: trouble.

5

Izzy stuck a small pile of Post-it notes on Jessica’s computer monitor and stepped backwards,

narrowly avoiding tripping over a haphazard stack of cardboard folders and collapsing into a chair.

‘Are you ever going to move office?’

Jessica skimmed the top note. ‘I don’t want to cause all that upheaval for everyone.’

‘You mean you don’t want to move all your crap?’

Jessica peered over her glasses at the constable, nodding towards the back corner where a grubby

pile of cardboard document boxes were stacked. ‘That too, Christ knows what’s back there.’ She

paused, before adding: ‘You know, you’ve become a lot more cynical since you let your hair go back

to its natural colour. When you were red or purple, you were nice happy-go-lucky Izzy, now you’re

all “isn’t everything shite”.’

Izzy started tugging at her hair. ‘Perhaps it’s just that my level of cynicism is directly related to how long I’ve worked with you? Either that, or it’s since I had Amber.’

‘How old is she now?’

‘Twenty-five months.’

Jessica counted on her fingers. ‘Two then?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘I’ve never got that with parents – ask them how old their kid is and it’s like: “Ooh, little Billy’s

thirty-eight months now”. You don’t get that off adults, do you? Take your first boyfriend home and

you tell your dad he’s one hundred and seventy-nine months, or whatever.’

Izzy let her strand of hair go. ‘Fancy a tea before I talk you through everything?’

‘No chance – my body’s about forty per cent Earl Grey at the moment. Before I started here, I never

drank the stuff, now I can’t get through to lunch without ten cups.’

In the other half of the room, a phone started ringing. Izzy started to stretch towards it but Jessica

told her to leave it. ‘They’ve not managed to redirect Louise’s calls to the sergeant station yet, so

everything comes through here.’

‘Doesn’t that mean we should answer it?’

Jessica took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘How long have you worked here?’

‘Three, four years?’

‘Lesson number three is never answer a phone unless it’s your own. If you can get away with it,

don’t even answer your own, it’s only ever bad news.’

‘What’s lesson one?’

‘I’m always right.’

‘Even when you’re wrong?’

‘Especially when I’m wrong.’

‘And lesson two?’

‘Always get someone else to make the tea. If it’s your turn, make a shit one then nobody asks again.

And don’t trust the tea machine – whatever they put in there isn’t tea, it’s more like dishwater.’

Izzy ignored her. ‘If all the sergeants have been moved into their own office, what’s happening in

here?’

Jessica put her feet on the desk at the same time as the phone stopped ringing. ‘They’re apparently

hiring. They need a sergeant to replace me, perhaps another one too, a DI and a constable or two. And

if you believe that, you’ll believe anything – they’ll end up promoting someone, getting somebody in

on work experience and that’ll be about it.’

‘What do you want first – Anarky, Debbie or a surprise?’

‘Always the surprise.’

‘Okay, it’s not much of a surprise though. There’s been a pile-up on the M60 out Audenshaw way,

some lorry driver in the fog wiped out a Peugeot. The traffic is chaos already because everyone’s

coming through the city. Half the people we had out doing stuff are stuck in traffic jams – well, either that or they’ve buggered off home, which I wouldn’t blame them for.’

‘I thought it was quiet around here. I turned the radio off in the car before they got to the traffic

news – somehow they’ve got hold of Esther’s name, poor cow. It’s not even her job but the bastards

will try to get her sacked. I left her a message but her phone’s off. Don’t blame her – if it was me, I’d be leaking email after email from the minister bloke saying he wanted to be accessible.’

‘Is she the kidnap woman?’

‘Used to be. We’ve stayed in contact on and off since that Lloyd Corless kid went missing. You’d