Authors: Cathy MacPhail
I went out to the walkway to call Baz. I wanted to warn him, prepare him for what the police would ask.
“I’ve had them here too,” he said. Different cops, same questions.
But they hadn’t suggested to him that he might have been the one who did it.
“They’re winding you up, mate,” he said when I told him that. “Trying to trick you. Hoping you would tell them something they didn’t know. They did the same with me.”
“They didn’t accuse you of attacking Claude?”
“No. But they asked me what other gangs I was in. What I was doing that night. I wasn’t there, remember? And all the other stuff they asked you, they asked me too.”
I phoned Gary first thing next morning. I seemed to be calling him more with each passing day. The police had been to see him too – probably, by the way he described them, the same cops who had visited me.
“Did you tell them anything?” Gary was the weakest link. Maybe he had blabbed everything to the cops.
“Of course I didn’t.” He snapped at me. “What do you think I am? I never said nothing.”
“Ok, ok, keep your hair on.”
I knew I couldn’t tell Gary about my suspicions that we were being taken out in sequence. He’d freak out. Instead I tried to make him laugh.
“I don’t suppose they’d accept an apology – a nice card saying, ‘Dear
Mad Mike, sorry we torched your warehouse. We include a gift card from Tesco as compensation.’”
To my surprise, Gary laughed. “You can be so funny at times, Logan. I wish it as was simple as that.” Then his voice became a whisper. As if he was afraid someone might be listening. “No chance. They’re not gonny stop till they get us.”
The story of Claude’s attack was in the papers. Only a small item, about a boy attacked in an alley on the estate. Not major news with all the other terrible things happening in the world. After I read it, I tried to call Baz. I tried to call Gary. No answer from either of them. I felt alone.
Of course Vince had told my mother about the police visit. “I had to tell her, Logan,” he told me. He sounded sincere, I have to give him that. “The neighbours saw the police come in here. Of course I had to tell her.”
“It was about Claude.”
But she wouldn’t listen.
“Do you know who did it, Logan? Because if you do, you’ve got to tell them.”
To my surprise it was Vince who came to my rescue. “I said that too, Marie, but I’ve thought about it, and you’ve got to understand how the boy feels. He can’t grass. Even if he knows, he can’t grass.” Then he looked at me. “But I wish you would tell
us
, Logan.”
Mum flopped on the sofa. “I thought it would be different here. All the trouble you got into in Aberdeen, I thought it would stop down here.”
She talked as if I’d been some kind of major criminal in Aberdeen. I’d only got in with the wrong crowd. Easily led. Lucie’s words bounded back at me. I’d been told that before somewhere. But where? I couldn’t think.
When I came back into the house that evening, Mum was just hanging up the phone. She looked as if she’d been crying. “That was Claude’s mum,” she said.
Claude’s mum had never called our house before. My heart sank. “Has anything else happened to him?”
“She’s warning me that you better keep well back from her son. You’re a bad influence, she says. I thought she was going to come through the phone at me.”
“Me!
I’m
a bad influence!” I almost said she’d better have phoned the other boys’ parents too. Especially Gary’s and Baz’s. Gary with his wide boy father, and Baz, who was the one who had egged us on to run in after Al Butler. He was the one who had dared him to set the place alight. Yet I didn’t mention their names. Couldn’t bring them into it, even then. But it wasn’t fair, Claude’s mum calling here. I was the least bad influence in the gang.
“Why is she blaming you, Logan?”
“Because I always seem to get the blame for everything that happens.”
I stormed into my room. I so wanted someone to talk to. But no matter how often I texted or rang, no replies – not from Gary, not from Baz.
I was stuck with Lucie, and there was only so much I could tell her. Swerving round the truth. But I had to talk to someone, and next day at school I did tell her what Claude’s mum had said. That had hurt.
“Imagine, blaming me! Blame everybody else but her son, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Lucie said. “Take responsibility for your own actions, don’t blame other people.”
“You always do, don’t you, Lucie?”
“So should you. Don’t blame anyone else. It’s you.”
She was right, of course. In my head, though I would never say it to anyone else, in my head I know I was beginning to blame Baz. I did too much to please him, to keep him happy. But then, I had had a choice. I shouldn’t have listened to him, and I had. Lucie was right. It was me who was responsible.
“Somebody is after us, Lucie. But I don’t want you involved, or my mum. I don’t want to put you in any danger.”
Lucie touched my arm. Lucie never touched me, so she took me by surprise. “You’re a really nice boy, Logan. You are so much better without…” she hesitated. “By yourself. Just be yourself. Please.”
Without Baz
, that’s what she was going to say. Perhaps he had been given the same advice about me. That he was better without me. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t answering my texts. I tried again later and still no answer. He didn’t text me back. Neither did Gary.
I told myself we were all trying to keep back from each other. We were all scared.
But I had to know what was happening. So after school next day I didn’t wait for Lucie. Instead, I took a detour and went to Gary’s house. I’d had a bad feeling in my stomach all that day. And I knew as soon as the door was opened that something was wrong.
A man was standing there. I didn’t know him, but he turned out to be Gary’s uncle. “Do you know where he is?” First thing he said, his voice brusque.
Then he gripped my arm and pulled me into the house. “It’s that boy Gary runs around with,” he was saying as he led me into the living room. Not ‘his friend’, or ‘his mate’. Just ‘that boy he runs around with’.
Gary’s mum stood up as I came in. She didn’t look so pretty now. Her eyes were puffy, her face was streaked with tears. “You know where he is?” A question? A statement? She sounded desperate. Hopeful too, that I might know something. She grabbed my shoulders. “If you know where he is, please tell us.”
A big man appeared from one of the rooms. Gary’s dad. I’d met him before a few times when he’d picked up Gary from the precinct. “Do you know where Gary’s gone?”
I didn’t want to hear what they were telling me. “What do you mean? Gary’s gone?”
His dad’s face was grim with worry. “We haven’t seen Gary since yesterday.”
They didn’t ask me to sit down. In fact, now that she saw I knew nothing, Gary’s mum just glared at me. As if she was blaming me too. I looked from her angry gaze to her husband’s. He looked more worried than angry. Every time I had seen him before, he always had a cheery smile on his face. He was one of those men everyone seemed to like, selling stuff on the cheap, always a bit on the dodgy side, but no one had a bad word for him even though they knew he was a bit of a crook.
He wasn’t smiling now.
“He was shaking like a leaf when he came home from that hospital,” he said. It was as if he had repeated that same thing over and over. “He wouldn’t tell us why.” He took a threatening step toward me. “So you tell me, what happened at the hospital? Who attacked Claude?”
“Claude doesn’t know who attacked him. His mother thinks we know, but we don’t.” The lies all tumbled out quickly because how could I tell the truth? That Mad Mike Machan might have sent his enforcers after us because we’d been there when his property was torched? It would only get us all into more trouble – trouble with the Machans, and it sounded too unbelievable, and anyway, telling the truth would lead to too many other questions.
Gary’s dad might be a bit of a crook, but he had never been arrested, and never been involved in any violence. If Gary hadn’t told him anything, how could I? Gary wouldn’t want me to tell him anything.
“We were scared whoever did it would come after us too. Because we were mates.”
I said it as if it was true. I almost believed it myself. A band of mindless Nazi thugs roaming the estate were coming after us. It sounded true. “That’s all I know. I’m scared too.”
His dad sat on the sofa next to his wife.
“How long’s he been gone?” I asked.
His dad’s voice was lifeless. “Went off to school yesterday. Didn’t get there. Don’t know where he’s gone. Been on to cousins, uncles, as many people as we can think of.”
“He’s been gone before, bruv,” the uncle said. He looked like the ugly version of Gary’s dad. As if when they’d been handing out the good looks in the family he’d been at the back of the queue. “You know our Gary. One argument and he’s away.” He was trying to make a joke of it.
His brother looked up at him. “We didn’t have an argument. I mean, not this time.” Then his tone softened. “I know, you’re only trying to make us feel better. Thanks bruv.”
“What do the police say?” Had to ask, though I didn’t want to.
“They’re not taking it seriously. He’s not been gone long enough and this isn’t the first time he’s run off.” Gary had run away before, I remembered him telling us that. He always came back. Safe and sound. That thought made me feel better.
“He’ll come back,” I said it almost to myself.
“Yeah, yeah, he’ll come back.” His dad was trying to reassure himself, and his wife. She began to sob quietly and he put his arms round her and drew her to him. “Don’t cry, darlin’. Our boy will be ok. He can take care of himself.”
In answer she clutched at his hand, and he kissed her brow. I watched, amazed. I never saw tenderness like that in my house. Not any more.
How on earth could Gary run away from here?
I thought. There was love in this house. Love for him, and his parents had love for each other. It hurt to realise I was jealous.
I left Gary’s and just had to talk to Baz. If he didn’t answer his phone
this time, I was going to his house, I decided.
He answered on the first ring. “Where have you been? I was beginning to think you’d run off with Gary.”
He hesitated. “Gary’s gone?”
“Just been to his house. His family’s cracking up. The cops’ll be back asking us about this now as well.”
“Yeah, they will.”
“Do you think we should tell them?”
“Tell them what?” Baz shouted down the phone at me. “We don’t know anything. Gary’s run away before. He’ll come back. You wait and see.”
It was only after I’d come off the phone I realised he hadn’t answered my question. I still didn’t know where he’d been.
That night, those same two policemen came back to the house. This time my mum was there.
“You have absolutely no idea why Gary would go on the run?”
I sat beside Mum on the couch. Shook my head. “No.” I said.
“Was he afraid of something?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, those guys that attacked Claude, he was scared they might come back for us. We’re his mates. That’s the only reason I can think of.”
“Has he been in touch with you?”
I shook my head. “I’ve tried phoning him, but… there’s no answer.”
“Was he being bullied by anyone, maybe at school?” The sudden change of direction in his questions took me by surprise. A lot of kids do run away if they’re being bullied, don’t they?
“He might have been.” I nodded. “I wasn’t in his school. You should ask his pals at that school.”
One of the policemen leaned across to me. “You look relieved about that.”
Did my face go red? It might have.
“I know he was worried that the gang that attacked Claude would come and get him, really worried about that.” How often did I have to say it to them?
“Do you really think that’s why he ran away?”
“I’m not the detective,” I said. Mum poked me in the ribs. The policeman scowled. “Anyway, he’ll come back. He’s run away before. He always comes back.” I so wanted that to be true.
As soon as they left the house, Mum grabbed my hand. “Do you know anything about that boy running away?”
“No.”
“Because if you know where he is, if you’ve heard from him, you should tell the police. Please, tell the police. You wouldn’t be grassing anybody up. You’re hiding something. They can see it. I can see it. What is it, Logan? I only want to help you, son.”
And if I told her? Would they come after her too? I only wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t let her see that. So, I reacted like a hooligan. I pulled my hand away from hers. “Why won’t you believe me? I don’t know anything. I wish I knew where he is, but I don’t.”
She was on the verge of tears. “I know you think everything would be great if we moved back to Aberdeen, if Vince wasn’t here,” she said. “But we had to get away from Aberdeen, and Vince is a good man if you give him a chance. I’m so afraid for you, Logan.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
I slammed out of the house before she could stop me.
There was only one person I could talk to about this, and it was Baz. He was the only one left for me.
I called him as soon as I was outside. The police had already been to him too.
“We’ve just got to keep our heads down. Gary’ll come back.” But he didn’t sound so sure now.
I wish
, I thought then,
I wish I was anywhere else but here
.
Gary didn’t come back. Not the next day, nor the next. I was afraid to call his house, and though there was an item about him in the local rag, read by about fifty people on the estate, he didn’t make the national news. Too many teenagers running away, going missing, for his disappearance to be either unusual or interesting. But in the local paper there was a CCTV image of him in a shop on the morning he disappeared. He’d stopped on his way to school to buy crisps and coke.
Getting ready for a journey? the paper suggested. Didn’t seem to occur to them he might be buying them instead of a canteen dinner at school. Lucie saw my fear. “That mate of yours still missing?” she asked one day on our way to school. I had started trying to leave earlier so I would miss her. But that day she caught up with me.
“He’s done it before,” I said.
“Bit rotten doing that to your family.”
“Maybe he’s got his reasons,” I said.
“He’s got a nice family. My mum knows his dad. Bit of a lad, she says, but a good heart.”
I looked at her. “A good heart? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he helps people. People who can’t afford things, he helps them to get them.”
“The moneylenders round here help people too. Then they break your legs if you can’t pay them back.”
“Isn’t that what happened to your friend, Claude? Didn’t someone break his legs? Did he owe people money? Get on the wrong side of
someone?” I would have walked away from her but she held me back. “If you’re so scared, why don’t you tell the police?”
“You know why,” I said.
“Better getting into trouble with them, than with the gangsters don’t you think? Eh?”
Thing was, I felt as if I was cracking up. I lay in bed at night and every noise was a threat. The window rattled in the wind and I imagined a black-clothed ninja leaping in, prowling around the house, heading for my room. I imagined my mum getting up to see what the noise was and if she got in his way… he would kill her too. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to my mum.
Kill?
Why was I thinking
kill
?
Because they had killed Al Butler, hadn’t they?
But he was older, a known criminal; we were just boys. Was that why they had only poisoned Mickey’s dog? Was that why they had only broken Claude’s legs?
Only?
I drew my own legs up, hugged them, as if I could protect them from this imaginary attacker.
And Gary… Had he simply run away, had they threatened him too… or had they dragged him off into the shadows one night? No, they wouldn’t have killed him, would they?
If only I could get in touch with him. Or hear from him. I had tried his mobile from that very first day, but it was dead.
Dead.
Another squeak on the floorboards. Was that a footstep in the hall? Every time I thought I might drift off to sleep another sound would stab me awake.
Next morning I was up and out of the house earlier than usual. I phoned Baz as soon as I hit the walkway. “Are you as jumpy as I am?” I waited for him to say I was being stupid. Big bold Baz would never be
afraid like me. There was a long pause.
“I thought someone was following me last night,” he said.
“Where? When?”
“Went to the shops, on the way back, heard footsteps. Couldn’t see no one, but there was definitely somebody there. And when I began to run, so did he. I just made it home in time.”
“Who says we go to the cops, Baz?”
Right away his tone changed. “No! There was no one after me, Logan. It was all my imagination. We’re too jumpy that’s all. Don’t you mention the cops again, ok?”
I spent that day just walking, trying to think. Can’t even remember exactly where I went. I couldn’t get the thought of someone following Baz out of my mind. I kept glancing round, sure there was a figure behind me, that the footsteps at my back had been there all day, close behind my own. I was suspicious of the least sound. Maybe that was why what happened, happened.
I had only turned into the alley leading to our flats when I saw the shadow. Someone was standing under the stairs where the rubbish chute was, hiding, as if they were waiting for me. I didn’t wait to find out who it was. I began to run. A second later that someone was after me. Not my imagination this time. I leapt the wall between the two blocks without looking behind me. I could hear nothing, but I knew the person closing in behind me was still there. The only sound was my own heavy breathing, my own footsteps. I felt as if a panicked rabbit was running inside my chest, my heart was beating so fast. But I was almost home. If I could make the far end of the block, I could race up the stairs and on to my own walkway.
The place seemed quiet, dead almost.
Where was everyone? Usually there were people milling about on the balconies, chatting in doorways. Especially in summer. Now there was no one, just me and this silent stranger right on my tail. Had the neighbours
been warned? Something was going to happen. ‘Stay indoors, don’t be a witness?’ It had happened before, attacks in broad daylight. No witnesses. It was how it worked round here.
I searched in my pocket for my key as I ran. I belted around a corner and took the chance to glance at my back. Only a shadow, that was all I saw, all I needed to see. He was still behind me, whoever
he
was. I took the stairs leading to my walkway two at a time. Now I was sure I could hear footsteps, clanging on steel. Speeding up when I did. Footsteps coming closer. But I was well ahead. I could still make it. I dared another glance back. A black shape seemed to loom at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t make out anything else, and didn’t waste time looking harder. I was almost at my door. My hands shook, the keys jingled.
Don’t let me drop them
, I prayed. I fumbled for the lock, couldn’t get the key in. It was like a scene from some old movie, or some bad dream. I just couldn’t seem to fit the key in the lock. The footsteps were coming closer and closer.
I felt as if I was ready to scream.