Devil You Know (9 page)

“You went without me,” Baz said. We were walking home having left the other boys to go their separate ways. It hadn’t been a good night. We’d all been on the verge of arguing.

I’d almost forgotten our day out to Glasgow. “Where were you?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer, just said, “You might have phoned me.”

“I did. You didn’t answer.”

“I never heard the phone.”

“I did phone, honest,” I said, as if I needed to prove it.

Why couldn’t I just say what he would say? Like,
Why didn’t you phone me?

He grunted. “Where did you go?” he asked after a while.

“Just into the city. You know, cinema then a burger.”

He only nodded. He was annoyed that we’d gone without him, though he wouldn’t tell me where
he’d
been.

“I got there,” he said. “And you lot had flown the coop.”

I so wished he’d stop talking about it. “Waited for ages for you.” My voice sounded shaky. I could see he wasn’t going to let it go.

“You could have kept phoning me,” he said again.

Phones work both ways.
That’s what I wanted to say. Why couldn’t I? And know what I said instead? “Sorry.”

He turned his dark eyes on me, and with that look I knew why I’d rather have Baz as my friend than my enemy. I was scared of Baz. Scared to go against him. Scared to annoy him.

Then, all of a sudden, his face broke into a wide grin. “I probably had a
better time than you anyway.”

I nodded and smiled back as if I agreed with him. Glad the tension was over. And yet, he still didn’t tell me where he’d been. And I didn’t ask.

That was the last night I had a good night’s sleep.

Gary phoned me next day; I’d just come in from school. He was breathless, as if he’d been running. Or as if he was scared. “Meet me at the precinct, Logan? I’m there now.”

I knew as soon as I saw him something had happened. He was jumping from one foot to the other and his face was ashen.

“What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen this? Have you seen the news?” He whipped out his phone. I saw that his hand was shaking. “Saw it on the way back from school.”

He tapped into

I read on.

I shrugged. “So?”

“Wait,” he said. He was breathing so fast I thought he was about to hyperventilate.

He scrolled down and a moment later a photograph appeared. It looked like someone out of Crimewatch: a grainy, unsmiling face staring
out of that small screen.

I almost said ‘Who is this?’ But I didn’t, because there was something familiar in that face. I’d seen it before. Where?

“Recognise him?” Gary asked.

I didn’t answer. In that second I knew him. The photo was in black and white, but I could still imagine those so-blue eyes staring out at me.

Gary answered his own question. “Al Butler. The man at the fire, the guy who torched the warehouse. Remember him now?”

He’d been smiling that night. Now he’d never smile again.

Gary snapped his phone off. “Don’t try and tell me now that nobody saw us that night. That we weren’t spotted. ‘Gangland execution’ – that’s what it says. The gangsters got him.”

I’d never seen Gary like this, shaking, scared. “He was with us, and they got him.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“Did you see what that report said? It was a gangster-style execution. That was how they described it. Gangland execution. Had to be the Machans. And they’re coming after us next.”

I tried to calm him down. “He was older than us. A lot older. And look at that photo. It was a mug shot. You said yourself, Al Butler was a well-known criminal. He probably had lots of enemies. We’ve never been in trouble. No mug shots of us. We’re invisible. How could they know we were there?”

“I’ll tell you how they know. CCTV.”

“The camera was destroyed in the fire, and the police haven’t even mentioned CCTV.”

“And I’ll tell you why. My dad told me last night. Something we didn’t even think about. I didn’t even know.” He slapped his head as if he was some dumbnut. “It didn’t matter if the camera was destroyed. It was all going onto a tape, a tape with our faces all over it. The tape isn’t in the camera, it’s not even usually in the same building. And it’ll be the Machans who have got that
tape, not the police. That’s why the police have never mentioned surveillance cameras. The cameras weren’t set up by the police or by some security firm, they were set up by the Machans. And we’re all over the tape along with Al Butler.”

My stomach turned, my mouth went dry. The cameras didn’t matter, not if we were on the tape. “But we didn’t do anything.”

Gary was shaking with fear. I’d never seen him like this. “We were there with Al Butler. He called us ‘his boys’, remember? We should go to the cops. They’ll give us protection.”

Baz was all at once at my shoulder as if he’d come from nowhere. His hand shot out and grabbed Gary by the neck. It happened so fast it took him completely by surprise. Me too. “You better not even think that. You try that and I’ll be the one to get you. And I’ll be worse than any of them gangsters.”

Gary pulled himself free. I stepped in between him and Baz. Didn’t want Baz to grab him again.

“It will be ok, Gary. We’ll watch out for each other. I’m scared too, but we can’t lose it now.”

Gary began to back away, but he was shouting at Baz. “What is it with you! You’re crazy!” and then he was gone. His feet pounding on the pavement.

“You shouldn’t have said that to him, Baz,” I said. “He’s our mate. He’d never betray us. And he was your mate before mine. You should know that.”

“He goes to the cops he’ll get us all in trouble.” Baz would never admit he’d done anything wrong.

“Do you think he will? Go to the cops, I mean.”

He seemed to think about it, then he dismissed it. “Naw. Not Gary. All talk, him.”

I believed him because I wanted to believe him. But I didn’t sleep that night. Not a wink.

I wished I could tell someone in my family what I was afraid of – wished I had a family to tell. But my mum was too wrapped up in Vince and her job. And if I told her about this, I’d have to tell her I was there when the fire was started. Too complicated. And I couldn’t go to the police – I’d gotten into too much trouble in Aberdeen. I was on my final warning. Who had told me that? I couldn’t remember.

If I had a dad… It was at times like this I missed having a dad most. If he was here, I could tell him everything, and in my mind I could see him again, as clear as if he was standing in front of me. I remembered him – smiling, handsome, a bit wild, and if he was still alive all this wouldn’t have happened. I still had faint memories of him taking me places. Fishing and camping and football. Taking me on days out to the shore in Aberdeen. We used to fly kites – I could almost see them again, lifted up by the wind as we ran along the white sands of the beach. He was always there for me. If he hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have moved to Glasgow. I’d still be in Aberdeen. We’d still be a family. Everything would be different.

I couldn’t confide my fear to Baz. He was the last one I could talk to, and I couldn’t talk to any of the other boys behind his back. That would be a betrayal of Baz, and I couldn’t do that.

But Lucie was different, in more ways than one. As I waited for her next day, I decided she was the one person I could tell. I watched for her coming along the walkway of her flats, and waved at her. She waved back and came bouncing down the stairs and headed for me. As soon as she saw my face, she knew something was wrong. I obviously can’t hide fear
very well. “Got a problem?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Sad thing to say, but I can read you like a book. Not a very interesting one, mind you.”

That made me smile. “I’m about the only friend you’ve got, Lucie.”

“Look who’s talking!”

“I’ve got friends.” Did I snap it out? I think I did.

She stopped walking. “Are you sure they’re friends?”

“Yeah, they’re friends. Good friends.”

“So, Mr Popular-with-all-the-friends, what’s bothering you then?”

I took a deep breath. “Did you see that photo on television? That man who was murdered.” The story had made the television news the night before.

She curled her lip. “Been a lot of murders.”

“You know the one I mean. His body was found in a shallow grave, bullet through the head.”

“So what’s that got to do with you?”

“I saw him that night, at that big fire.” It was the first time I had talked about it to anyone besides the boys.

“Ah,” she said, “it all becomes clear. Were you with him? Did you know him?”

“Yes to the first. No to the second. But he was there, Lucie, and so were we.”

I pictured him again, as he was that night, surrounded by fire, his face wild, howling like an animal.

Did he howl again before the gangsters shot him?

Lucie put a finger to her brow. She fired an imaginary shot, then blew on her finger. “They say it was gangsters?”

“Gangland execution.”

“So, what have you got to do with gangsters?”

I began to tell her almost everything: about the fire, and about the
story I’d read in the paper. “I don’t know how it happened, Lucie. We were all caught up in it before we knew what was happening. But we didn’t do anything, not really. We were just there.”

It was Baz who dared him to drop the match. But I could never betray Baz by telling her that.

“I understand, Logan.”

“I’m scared, Lucie. If it was these gangsters got him…”

I didn’t have to finish. Lucie finished for me. “If it’s the Machans who have the tapes, and they saw him, they must have seen you too. Is that what you’re thinking?”

I nodded. “I know you’re going to say: I’m overreacting.” But Lucie never said anything you expected.

“I’d be thinking the same thing, if I were you. I’d be scared stiff. But maybe he was the only one caught on the camera?” I knew that wasn’t true. I remembered us all running in, and even waving boldly at the cameras. How stupid. “It would be easy for them to find this Al Butler.” Lucie was trying to make me feel better. “He was well known for all the wrong reasons. But you lot? How could they trace you? How could they find you? None of you have a record… do you?”

Did I? Surely the trouble I had got into in Aberdeen didn’t count. I was a juvenile. Even gangsters couldn’t access anything from juvenile records, could they?

Lucie touched my arm, still doing her best to reassure me. “You’re just small fry,” she said. “
Boys
, I have to remind you. You are just boys.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell myself.”

“And I suppose there’s no point saying you should go to the police?”

My expression told her what I thought about that suggestion. “No way.”

“Maybe nothing else will happen, Logan. No point worrying about it now. But, I think you should stay away from those friends of yours. For a while anyway.”

“One in particular? Is that what you’re saying?”

She couldn’t look me in the eye. Avoided the question. “I just think you’re easily led, Logan. Sorry if that offends you, but you are. And look what’s happened.”

All day I thought about what she said. And as I walked home I was trying to tell myself that she was right. Baz, I was really beginning to realise, was a bad influence. He had dared us to follow Al Butler into that building, he had dared him to drop the match. I did things to please him, to impress him. We all did. But you can’t go blaming other people for what you do wrong. You have to take responsibility for your own actions. My social worker in Aberdeen had told me that. I should have stood up and said I wasn’t following Al Butler into that warehouse that night. I should have walked away. But I didn’t. Lucie was right. I was easily led. That was how I had got into so much trouble in Aberdeen. I didn’t have the kind of courage to stand up to boys like Baz. But I wasn’t the only one. The other boys didn’t stand up to Baz either.

I almost phoned Gary that night. I never phoned him. Until that day out in Glasgow, I didn’t think Gary liked me much. Would one day have changed his opinion of me? That’s what stopped me in the end. The guy maybe still didn’t like me – why would he listen to me or my worries? But he was the only one who seemed actually bothered about this the way I was.

I couldn’t phone Baz. I wanted to avoid him, for a couple of days at least. He was never afraid. He’d laugh at my fears.

The next couple of nights I stayed in, wrapped in a duvet, not talking to anyone, hardly eating. I could hear my mother in the living room talking about me. “I’m worried about him, Vince. Something’s wrong with him. A few days ago he’s laughing and joking and I think he’s fine now, and then… something changes him. And I can’t get through to him.”

I didn’t even listen to his answer. I pulled the duvet right over my head. He was probably suggesting a social worker or, even worse, some kind of psychologist. They’d done it before. One day they would put me into care, I was sure of it.

They didn’t have to worry. I wouldn’t see the boys again. That’s what I decided. I could stay away from them all. I didn’t have to see them. They all went to a different school from me. No reason for us ever to get together again. Yes, I would start afresh. No Baz either. Definitely no Baz.

Al Butler’s face kept flashing onto the TV screen when I would least expect it.

Though nothing linking him to the fire.

Yet I felt better those few days. Lucie and me walking to school together, walking home, talking all the way, and I knew she liked it too. I told her I’d done exactly what she’d suggested, and I could see she was pleased about that. I was even thinking of asking her if she wanted to go to the movies on Saturday night. Not a date. You didn’t date girls like Lucie. Just a pal thing.

And after a few days and nothing else happening, I began to relax. I began to think I had been stupid even worrying about it in the first place. Al Butler had made a lot of enemies. His death, his murder, had nothing to do with the fire. And even if it had, Lucie was right. We were only boys. As if gangsters would come after us. It seemed ridiculous now. Baz was right too. There was nothing to be afraid of. Me and Gary were overreacting, dramatising everything.

And then, the dog died.