Deadly Code (4 page)

Chapter 5

Things were quiet now. He could tell by her eyes. Spike took Esther's hand and slipped it through his arm.

'Chips?'

‘Yeah.' She waved the money Sean had given her. 'Let's make it a fish supper.'

The all-night cafe was empty apart from a few stragglers who needed the sustenance in order to get home.

She sat down and handed him the plastic menu with a flourish. *No expense spared.'

After the feast he said, 'You were great.'

When she asked how he knew, he told her he'd climbed in a toilet window.

She laughed. 'Did anyone see you?'

She laughed even more when he said, 'Only the guy wanking off in the cubicle I landed in. And he wasn't going to tell anybody.'

'And I thought I was singing in a respectable jazz club.'

'Wanking is respectable,' he told her, 'unless you've been brought up . . .' he came to a halt, a shadow crossing his face.

She reached out and took his hand. 'Like you?'

'Like me.' He went quiet.

'Heh?' She squeezed his hand. 'We're doing fine.'

She was always positive when the voices weren't there. He suspected something in her past had made her ill like this but Esther never spoke about it and he didn't ask. He didn't want to talk about his past either.

They had met in Safeways. She was shopping, he was there to steal something to eat. She spotted him slipping a tin of corned beef in his pocket and made him put it in her trolley. When they got to the counter, she paid for it.

Outside she asked him where he was staying and he took too long to lie, so she took him home. In his head he made her the big sister he never had. It didn't always work.

'Okay,' she said. 'Let's go home.'

Spike stood up, happy. He loved it when she spoke like that, as if they would be together forever. He had played out the scenario a million times in his head. It didn't matter that he was only sixteen. He could look after Esther, hold her when she was frightened, even maybe ...

He shut down his brain at that point. He hated himself for even thinking about making a move on her. He would never do that. Never.

Her voice punctured his thoughts.

'Sean was great. Even when I almost blew it in the toilet.'

'What?'

'Someone came in when . . . when things were bad. She told Sean I was taking stuff.'

‘Jesus.’

She smiled at his worried face. 'It's okay. I told him I had a migraine and was sick. He believed me.'

He hated when the voices came and he wasn't with her. Sometimes he felt they were waiting for him to go away, just so they could torment her.

They were passing a block of red sandstone tenements. On the ground floor, plants filled a window box and trailed down in a burst of flowers. Their scent hung heavy in the night air.

'Maybe we could move,' she said suddenly, 'get a better flat.'

She grabbed his arm in excitement. 'Sean says he can run me six weeks, maybe more. With that sort of money I could put down a deposit on a decent place. Sean says once the word is out I'll get more gigs.'

Spike fought back the fear that slid up his throat. Now she was back singing, she might not need him any more.

She touched his arm. 'You'll come with me, won't you Spike?' Her voice was small and lonely again.

His fear subsided.

'Of course I will.'

Then he thought about the baby.

'We'll tell the social about the baby,' she said, reading his mind.

The child was half-starved. It would be totally starved if Spike wasn't there to feed it.

'She was going to shop you anyway.'

Esther was right. The mother was always threatening to tell the authorities about him. It was only a matter of time. And the baby wasn't his responsibility.

'Okay.' He tried a smile. ‘Okay.'

She was happy now. They had a plan, a plan for the future.

Above them, the street lamps sent soft lights to reflect their images in the puddles. Spike saw them there together, arm and arm.

Nothing or nobody would get them, he decided. He would see to that.

When they reached the tenement block, the stairwell was in darkness. He took her hand and they negotiated the broken bottles that littered the entrance. He felt in his pocket for his lighter.

'Some bastard's smashed the lights.'

He went up the left hand side, sliding his arm along the wall, encouraging the small blue flame to light up the next step.

When they reached their landing, Spike produced the key.

'Spike.' Esther pointed at the broken lock.

'What the fuck!'

He made a move to go in, but she caught his arm.

'No.' Her face was terrified in the flare of the lighter.

Whoever was inside had heard them. Footsteps came towards the door. Esther ran for the stairs. Spike flipped the lighter shut and followed. They stumbled their way down. They were one level below when they heard the door open. Spike held Esther against him. He could feel the thump of her heart.

‘There's nobody there,’ a man's voice called.

Esther gave a whimper. As the door swung shut, Spike took a quick look. A thickset figure was framed in the doorway.

Esther's eyes were wide with fear.

'Who was it?'

She was shaking, her words rattling through her teeth. Spike suddenly realised she thought the intruder had come looking for her.

'We have to get away from here,' she pleaded.

He took off his jacket and put it round her. 'It's okay. I think it was the Flintstone guy from next door,' he lied. 'He probably came to give me a kicking for taking the baby again.'

Relief flooded her face. 'Are you sure?'

He nodded. 'We'll come back tomorrow. He'll have given up by then.'

Spike ran it over in his mind. His own fear of discovery had started just after he met Esther. Bags, the Big Issue seller, had shown him a photo. It didn't look like him and even Bags didn't recognise him from it. In the photo his hair was short and neat In the photo, he was fourteen.

'Looks like a computer nerd,' Spike had said, trying to sound casual. 'Who's looking for him?'

'A Yank. Gave me a twenty to keep a lookout.'

'Easy shit.'

'Yeah. Wish he was looking for me.'

Bags had a phone number to call. He waved it in front of Spike like another twenty.

'So if you see the nerd?'

'Sure.'

If an American was looking for him, it had to be something to do with his father. A cold knot formed in Spike's chest.

He'd been even more careful after that. If it hadn't been for Esther he would have left Glasgow, gone to London. They would never find him there.

They bedded down in the park under a tree, Esther curled against him, he holding his body a celibate inch away. Eventually she slept and he listened to the soft sound of her breathing.

She had told him once that the voices were there in her sleep, weaving their way into her dreams. He imagined people attached to these disembodied voices and routinely killed them to set her free, but they always came back to haunt her, especially when she was nervous or frightened.

The voices were sent to punish her. That's what she believed. Punish her for what?

Spike had no idea who the guy in their flat had been, but it wasn't their neighbour. He had been convinced it was somebody looking for him, but Esther thought the man had come for her and it had frightened the wits out of her.

Who was Esther afraid of? Some old boyfriend who'd been bad to her? Spike hated the thought of someone hurting Esther. He hated the thought of someone else being with her.

Spike felt his cock harden and immediately pulled back from the warmth of Esther's body.

He spat his distaste for himself into the grass.

'Heh.' She was awake and watching.

He jumped up and walked towards the bushes, afraid she would see his erection.

When he re-emerged, she was ready to go.

They went back to the cafe.

Esther was listless and Spike sensed she had entered that other world. The world of voices that told her she was shite, a nothing who didn't deserve to live.

‘Esther?'

She didn't respond.

'Esther! Look at me.'

She lifted her head.

'We'll find somewhere else to stay. Don't worry.'

She gave him a small smile.

When he met her after her rehearsal, she was transformed. There was no rush to find a place, she told him excitedly.

'Sean says we can stay at his while his girlfriend's in California. That'll give us time to find somewhere decent.'

It didn't sound right to Spike. Why would this Sean guy offer Esther a room while his girlfriend was away?

'I don't think that's a good idea. He'll ask about me.'

'I told him you were my young cousin from up north. He doesn't mind.'

He doesn't mind. He doesn't mind. The words blew Spike's brain. Sean might not mind but Spike fucking well did.

'We don't need Sean. I'll find us somewhere.'

But she wasn't listening.

'Please, Spike. Sean gave me the key. We could at least take a look.'

A big black cat met them in the hall. Esther bent down and rubbed its head.

'Sean says it's called Chance.'

The cat made off and Esther followed.

Spike hung back, hating being in someone else's place. He took in the thick rugs, the polished wooden floor.

This was crazy. They couldn't stay here.

'Spike. Come and see this.'

He found her in a kitchen, standing at the window.

'It looks like a convent at the back.'

He joined her at the window and looked down on a trim lawn and neat flower beds. In the middle of the grass stood a statue of the Virgin Mary.

The whole thing was madness. They shouldn't be here. Already the space between them and the real world was diminishing. At the flat they were themselves, separate. They didn't have to discuss who they were, where they had come from. Here there would be questions and they would have to have answers.

'You don't want to be here, do you?' Esther was looking at him sadly.

'It's better if I don't stay with you.'

He knew how afraid she was of being alone with the voices.

'No. We'll find somewhere else.'

She made for the door, decided. Spike felt mean. You couldn't blame her for wanting this. To be warm, comfortable, clean, safe.

'So where's our room then?' he forced himself to say.

Her face lit up.

'You'll hardly see Sean. Anyway, he's not the nosy type.'

Yeah, thought Spike, but what about when the girlfriend comes home?

He almost chickened out when he saw the double bed. He forced himself not to imagine them there, his arms about her.

'We could share the bed,' she suggested, her voice light.

'It's alright. I'll just sleep on the couch.'

She opened another door and Spike caught a glimpse of mirrored tiles.

'A bathroom . . . with a shower!' Esther was like a kid on Christmas morning.

He smiled. 'I bet there's hot water too.'

She turned on the shower and began pulling off her clothes.

'I'll go and get our stuff,' he mumbled awkwardly.

'Sean says we can borrow his van tomorrow.'

'I'll just pick up some clothes and some CDs.'

'Okay, but be careful.'

Outside, the sun was blinking through the clouds. The pavement was lined with trees, big spreading sycamores waving their long pendulous May flowers. He was in the same city as before, but it was hard to believe it

The American would never look for him in this part of Glasgow. Christ, even Bags wouldn't look for him here. He smiled, thinking about Bags' face if he knew Spike was holed up in a posh flat in the West End.

He tried to convince himself. All he had to do was lay low. Eventually, whoever was looking for him would get fed up, think he was dead too.

If only his father hadn't made him post the letters the day before it happened. He had insisted Spike take them to the post office. Mrs MacMurdo, the postmistress, read the American address. He knew she had, although she never mentioned it.

Nobody said things on the island but they knew everything. Not everything, he reminded himself. He shoved his hands in his pockets to stop himself looking at them. The marks were getting worse. Esther would notice them soon. He would have to think up something to tell her.

Maybe it was thinking about home that made him remember the baby. The nearer he got to the old flat, the more worried he became. It was like coming home after school to find his baby brother Calum alone and crying in the house while his mother walked the cliffs and his father worked in his laboratory.