It didn’t help that he was being charged £35-a-month for the privilege either.
His head throbbed slightly as he remembered the previous evening. Not only had he endured a bad week but he had spent nearly seventy quid the night before and ended up in the same position he always did with the opposite sex – precisely nowhere. As one of his supposed mates had pointed out in the taxi a few hours ago, this was more than a sexual barren spell; it was becoming a life choice.
Garry threw the duvet off and went to the window to see what the day had to offer him. Opening the curtains, he was surprised to see the bright light of the sun shining into the room. Nice day or not, there wasn’t an awful lot the sunlight could do about his shambles of a home. He had never been sure whether his rented accommodation actually counted as a flat, a bedsit or a hovel.
Everything was in one room, or two if you counted the fact that the bathroom had a door that didn’t quite shut all the way. In the main room, that also doubled as the kitchen and dining room, his bed folded out from the sofa. It didn’t matter whether you used it as a couch or a bed though, either way the springs had gone. He had a small old-fashioned portable television on a nearby table with an indoor aerial that never seemed to work properly planted on top pointing at the window. There was a cooker and microwave next to a sink just a few feet away and a dining table with two plastic garden chairs in the centre of the room. On the other side of the bed was a chest of drawers that was, for some reason, the largest item of furniture in the entire flat. Aside from the faded flowery wallpaper, that was it for the main room.
The bathroom had a shower cubicle, laughably called a “suite” in the advert he had answered. It had long since been taken over by a black, mouldy damp-type substance Garry was in no rush to have a fight with. If that wasn’t bad enough, the toilet had a cracked seat and there was no sink in the bathroom, he had to use the one in the kitchen.
Although he knew it was awful, it was very cheap and actually placed pretty perfectly for his needs. It was very close to the centre of Manchester towards the back of the Oldham Street area above a shop. Or, as his one of his less-eloquent friends put it, “Where all those artsy pricks live”. Its location meant he could walk to work and manage to get to all the bars on his doorstep without too many problems. Even if he did just need a taxi home every now and then, it didn’t cost too much.
Garry ran his hands through his thick, black straggly, shoulder-length hair. There had been a time where he thought longish hair would give him a rock star look all the girls would go for. All these years down the line and that thinking had definitely gone out the window but he still couldn’t be bothered to get it cut.
He looked at the scene in front of him and thought that, even though his choice of home wasn’t that appealing, he probably wasn’t helping himself. Clothes were strewn over most of the free floor space, while the sink that was supposed to act as somewhere to prepare food, clean dishes and wash his hands, was overflowing with a mix of pots, pans, cups, plates and a folded up pizza box.
‘Right,’ he said out loud to the empty room, ‘Let’s get this mutha sorted.’
It wasn’t the type of thing he would have said if anyone else were present.
Garry was fairly slim and unimposing with his hair his most striking feature. His white, pasty frame was covered only by a pair of blue boxer shorts he had worn the whole of the previous day then slept in overnight. He put on some music to play through his phone, the rock tracks blending into one and sounding tinny through the device’s underwhelming speaker. Garry could hear them well enough and, safe in the knowledge he was on his own, he sang along to the words he knew, made up the ones he didn’t, played a bit of air-guitar and danced around in a way he never would on a night out.
Slowly but surely the scuffed wooden floor began to become visible. Clothes were shoved into the oversized chest of drawers or dropped in a giant supermarket carrier bag he had kept so he could do his own laundry.
As he was finishing, the playlist of songs he had set up on his phone came to an end and the room went quiet. Not knowing what to do with the rest of the day, Garry folded his bed back into the sofa and flicked the TV on. The indoor aerial was, as usual, not giving him much of a signal into the cheap digital box he had hooked up. He fumbled around with it but the television just kept spewing out a hum of dissatisfaction. Annoyed, he turned it off and picked his phone up, skimming through his contacts until he got to a certain name.
James Llewellyn was one of the quieter people he knew and, although Garry fancied a drink and a chat, he didn’t really want to spend the rest of the day in the pub. He dialled the number and, after a brief conversation, the pair arranged to meet at his local in half-an-hour.
It dawned on him that spending his Saturday afternoons in the pub was hardly embracing life but he didn’t think he had much else better to do.
Garry had already drunk a third of his pint when James slid into the booth opposite him, plonking a full glass of beer on the table between them. The pub was only two minutes’ walk from Garry’s flat and usually full of locals. Because it was away from the main street, the tourists didn’t really see it, although most would have opted for a much-posher bar anyway. It was a mile or so away from the student district and, whenever he went for a drink, Garry was convinced he was the youngest person there.
‘You all right mate?’ James asked.
‘Not too bad, just work and that.’ His tone clearly gave his mood away.
James had picked his drink up but put it back down to avoid spilling it as he laughed. ‘Blimey, it can’t be that bad? Want to talk about it?’
‘Maybe. It’s a bit girly isn’t it?’
James looked at him and laughed again. ‘What talking? You really have got problems.’
Garry knew James through a mutual friend but, because they lived in close proximity to each other, they often went for a quiet drink together. They shared quite a bit in common but James earned a very good salary, which was a little intimidating. Garry pushed his hair behind his ears and took another mouthful from his drink.
‘You just think things are going to be better than this, don’t you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well I always wanted to be a journalist. You watch all these programmes and read the papers and everyone seems to be doing something worthwhile. I wanted to be a travel writer. From what I thought, you’d just be sent off to explore the world and get to stay in all these plush hotels and flirt with the exotic barmaids. You’d just send through a few hundred words then move on to the next place.’
‘I don’t think most jobs are like that mate,’ his friend laughed.
‘I know but I want to do things like go to the football and interview the players and so on. As it is, I can’t even get into movies for free.’
‘Why should you be able to?’
‘Well someone’s got to review these things.’
‘Not you though?’
‘No chance mate.’
‘So what do you do? I thought you at least got to interview some famous people?’
‘Sort of. You remember that reality TV girl who slept with that guy? You know that presenter bloke? It was all over the news.’
James looked blankly at him and shook his head. ‘That’s not the most-accurate portrayal of someone I’ve ever heard.’
‘Well I don’t know their names.’
‘Neither do I from that description.’
‘Whatever,’ Garry said shaking his head. ‘Anyway, I went to interview her. She had a book she was supposed to be promoting but talked in one and two-word answers. If that’s how she spoke then God knows how bad the writing was. Aside from her own fingernails, she wasn’t interested in anything. After fifteen minutes of not answering questions, she was whisked off to some other appointment by her PA.’
‘Was she hot though?’
Garry smiled. ‘In a glowing orange radioactive-type way.’
‘You’re too picky.’
‘I wish I had the opportunity to be fussy.’
James finished another mouthful of his drink then laughed again.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Garry continued. ‘Most of the time I get stuck talking to councillors about all sorts of nonsense.’
‘That does sound pretty boring. What’s the name of your paper again?’
‘The Manchester Morning Herald. I’ve worked there for eighteen months now. How many front page stories do you reckon I’ve got in that time?’
‘I have no idea. I don’t really look at papers to be honest. Twenty?’
‘Two – and both of them were about how often people’s bins get emptied.’
‘Ooh, big-time.’
It was Garry’s turn to laugh. ‘I know but it’s mad out there. People will put up with most things; gangs on the streets, giant pot holes in their roads, rising crime rates, you name it. But stop emptying their bins every week and it all kicks off.’
‘Funnily enough, my dad was moaning about his bins over the phone the other week.’
‘See what I mean? It’s crazy and these are the people I’m out talking to every day.’
‘Go on then, tell me about your worst encounter.’
‘All right. Do you remember how freezing it was last winter with all the snow and everything? On the coldest day for six years, I got sent out on to the streets to ask people their views on local government.’
James spat half a mouthful of beer back into his glass. ‘Bloody hell mate, no wonder you’re annoyed.’
‘That’s not even the worst bit. Most people told me to eff off or whatever, or just ignored me. It was about eleven in the morning and there were these kids who I’m sure should have been in school. They were about thirteen or something. Anyway, they were standing just across the street shouting “kiddy-fiddler” and “paedo” at me.’
‘What did you say back?’
‘Nothing, I mean what kind of funny comeback is there to that?’
‘Hmm, good point. I might remember that next time my boss is giving me a hard time.’
‘What, you’re going to call him a “paedo”?’
‘Well, as you pointed out, what’s he going to say back?’
‘Probably “you’re fired”.’
James seemed to be in a perpetual state of laughter but Garry could hardly blame him. ‘Why don’t you just quit and look for something else?’ his friend asked.
‘I don’t know. Not much out there, is there? Besides, I keep telling myself it’s going to get better. Don’t want to end up having to move back with my mum and dad. It can’t get much worse than a twenty five-year-old moving back in with his parents.’
‘If your mum’s anything like mine, at least you’d get your washing done for free.’
‘That’s one thing I guess.’
‘You know what you need? A girlfriend or a big story - or both.’ James stood up after downing the rest of his drink and shook his glass. ‘You want another?’
‘Yeah, go on. Same as usual.’
James walked off to the bar and Garry slumped back into the seat thinking about his parents. He came from a small town just outside Ipswich, the kind of place that was great to live as a kid. All his mates lived within a few minutes of his house and there were loads of wide-open spaces to kick a ball around and get into trouble. But it was also the type of area that became decidedly duller as you got older. Everyone pretty much knew everyone else and, no matter who you were, your parents would always end up finding out anything you got up to.
His mother’s inquisitorial technique was often as basic as, “Is there anything you would like to tell me, Garry?” It was hardly Columbo but, given the number of things some nosey neighbour could have spotted him being up to, he frequently confessed to things she had no knowledge of.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the pubs wouldn’t serve anyone under age because they knew who everyone was. There was nowhere to go hang out or buy fast food and not even a decent cinema or bowling alley. All of that, along with the fact that none of the girls you had grown up with were now remotely interested in you, meant by the time you reached eighteen, you were desperate for a chance to get out into the real world.
University had given him that option. Garry was at least pretty good at school, albeit lazy but he had earned the A-level grades needed to study journalism at Liverpool, which was exactly what he wanted. As with most teenagers, he had seen plenty of enormously appealing American movies about college life and thought university would provide something similar. In a way it did but only if you saw yourself as one of those anonymous kids in the back of the parties in all those films.
He had a reasonable time living on campus, made a few good mates he was still in contact with and got a decent grade at the end of it all. He even had an on-off girlfriend for a few months, although the “off” part was definitely her choice, before becoming her permanent decision.
Like most people about to graduate, he had left the job-hunting a tad late, although resolved pretty quickly he didn’t have any intention of returning back to his home area. Big cities were definitely for him and he had spent two years in Liverpool, somehow making a living from freelancing around and doing a bit of bar work cash-in-hand. Generally he didn’t do much of any note but then he got his big break, or so he thought.
He responded to an advert to become a junior reporter on the Herald and miraculously didn’t mess up the interview. He even had his hair cut for the occasion, albeit not that short, but after eighteen months, he was gradually coming to the conclusion he had made a huge mistake.
He looked over to see James still standing in line at the bar then heard his phone ringing. The number wasn’t one he was familiar with but he answered anyway. ‘Hello?’ The caller introduced themselves.
‘Oh right. Why are you calling from a different number?’ By the time the person on the other end had finished telling him, the reason was pretty obvious.
Considering she had been woken up early and had a strong suspicion the biggest case of her career was hurtling towards a dead end, Jessica knew she was in a mood her flatmate Caroline would describe as “particularly sweary”.
The phone call wasn’t helping. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?’ she asked the man on the other end of the line, who was definitely going on her shit-list when she hung up. It was a fairly short list, consisting of the DCI, one of her ex-boyfriends and the pervy bloke who ran the chip shop at the bottom of her road.