When I Was Joe (32 page)

‘Get back, get back,' a policeman is shouting, but I push on forward through the crowd to the edge of the tape.

And then I see it. A dark pool of blood at our front door. For a moment the world stops, and my heart isn't even beating. I'm swaying, and everything is going whiter and smaller and I'm like one of the seagulls flying overhead, looking down on the crowd and screaming to the sky.

I don't know what to do. I think about just running away, so I never need find out what happened. Then arms hug me tight and it's Gran, oh God, it's Gran, and she's pulling me over to a police car. My mum's hunched up in the back. She's making a weird noise – a kind of gasping,
howling, hooting noise. It reminds me of when Jamie Robins had an asthma attack in year three – it was scary then and it's hideous now.

All her face is white, even her lips, and she's staring right through me – and then Gran slaps her face hard and Mum stops the terrible noise and falls into her arms. They're both still in their dressing gowns. There's blood on Gran's fluffy pink slippers.

Gran sits with her arms around my mum rocking her back and forth and saying, ‘You'll be OK my darling, stay strong Nicki, you'll be OK.'

‘What . . . who?' I ask, but I know. I'm already beginning to piece together what must have happened.

They must have rung our doorbell. Most days it would have been my mum stumbling down the stairs to the front door. If she had, then I think they would have grabbed her, dragged her upstairs and searched the place for me. When they found no one, what then? Kept her gagged and silent until I came back, then shot us both, I should think.

But Mum didn't open the door. She's sitting here in the car, retching and sobbing, doubled over like she's in pain. It must have been Alistair who went downstairs. Alistair, the guy she had just started seeing before we had to move here.

Alistair, who spent the night in her bed.

Alistair, who turned up last night, out of the blue.
No one bothered to tell me why or how.

Alistair, with his gelled hair and muscled arms. He looked like a prat from a boy band, but he was OK really. He was a good cook. My mum liked him a lot.

Alistair who worked in a gym and trained Ellie so well that she's going to the Paralympics next year. She was the first person to realise that I've got potential as a runner. Ellie's sister is Claire, my Claire. I'm probably never going to see either of them again.

Anyway. Alistair opens the door. He knew I was going out running and he probably thought I'd forgotten my key.

He's half asleep, hair all over the place. And they shout at him, ‘Ty? Ty Lewis?' He stares, yawning and bewildered – he doesn't even know I have a real name, let alone what it is – and they must take that as a yes because then they shoot him. His hands are trying to keep his brains from spilling out. Then he drops to his knees on the doorstep and blood leaks from his broken body and he dies right there on the path. And they don't hang around because they think they've done their job. They've killed me.

This isn't the first time that someone's tried to silence me forever. It's just the first time that someone else has died instead.

My mum's woken up by the noise of the shots. She's standing at the top of the stairs, screaming and screaming, and then my gran, who's lived downstairs for
the last few weeks, wakes up too. Gran spots Alastair's body – the blood. She screams and rushes to hug my mum. And then she calls the police.

Then the cars arrive, sirens shouting and the tape goes up and I get home from my run.

At the police station, they put us into a room on our own and say they'll send someone to take our statements. Gran pulls her mobile out of her pocket and starts ringing: first my aunties, then Doug, the policeman who's meant to be keeping us safe. Our witness protection officer. The man who's meant to keep us safe from the people who want to stop me testifying in court.

It seems like hours, but then they all start to arrive. Gran's trying to explain about witness protection to the local cops, and my Auntie Louise just says, ‘Take us to whoever's in charge.'

Then Gran and Louise disappear into a room with the police guys and when Doug arrives he goes in there too. Doug looks incredibly rough. He doesn't even say hello to us. Mum and my Auntie Emma and I sit side by side in the corridor outside and I'm straining to hear what's going on. All I can hear is Lou's raised voice. She's good at shouting – she has to be, she's a teacher.

Mum is still shaking and crying and no one is doing anything to help her except Emma who's hugging her and saying, ‘It'll be OK, it'll be OK,' in a really unconvinced voice. Deep, deep inside me there's a tiny muffled scream
–
he's dead . . . he was shot . . . that should have been me
– but shock has sucked all the feeling out of me and I'm getting that distant feeling again. It's like I've been laminated.

‘I'm fed up with this,' I say. ‘I'm going in there.'

Emma says, ‘Ty, you can't just interrupt,' but I say, ‘Watch me,' and I push the door open. They all go quiet as I barge into the room. It's almost funny to see Gran sitting there in her pink dressing gown in a room full of coppers.

‘Look,' I say, ‘we've been sitting here for hours. My mum's just seen her boyfriend shot. We all know they wanted to shoot me. What's going on?' I top it up with a lot of words that I don't usually say in front of my Gran.

Louise shakes her head and says, ‘Just because there's been a murder is no reason for you to be foul-mouthed.'

‘Oh for Christ's sake, Lou, you're not in the classroom now,' I say and I can see the police officers smiling. I sit down at the table with them. She frowns at me, but I'm going nowhere.

‘Right,' she says, ‘I think we've finished here anyway. Ty, you're coming with me. We've lost confidence in witness protection for you. We'll coordinate with the police when it's time for you to give evidence. But only if we're satisfied with their security arrangements.

‘Your Gran's going to stay here with Nicki so they
can make their statements, and maybe someone'll be thoughtful enough to get them some clothes and then they'll have a discussion with Doug about where to go next.'

What does she mean? How is she going to look after me? What's going to happen to my mum? And Gran? Will the police even let me go?

Doug says, ‘We'll give Ty 24-hour protection now this has happened. I don't think you should be too hasty.'

Louise is very near completely losing her temper. I can tell by the way the end of her nose has gone pink.

‘As far as I can see, Ty is pretty safe right now. The bastards who are out to get him think they've succeeded. Until you release the victim's name that'll be the case. I'm assuming you won't do that right away. So I've got time to get Ty somewhere where no one will know where he is. And that includes the Metropolitan Police, and every other bloody police force in the country.'

‘Are you suggesting
we
had something to do with this?' says Doug, who sounds pretty upset himself.

‘I'm suggesting you launch an inquiry right away to find out how they got Nicki and Ty's address. I'll bet you'll find there was a leak somewhere close to home. And just in case you don't do that, I'm going to get on the phone to the Police Complaints Commission just as soon as I've sorted my nephew out.'

She's not finished with Doug. ‘I want you to go to the flat and pack all of Ty's things, so I can leave here with him in half an hour. And then you can concentrate on making sure that Nicki and my mum and Emma – oh and me as well – have somewhere reasonably safe to go. You can keep your 24-hour protection for us.'

She leads Gran and me out of the room. Doug follows, and when he sees my mum he says, ‘Nicki, I don't know what to say,'

Louise snaps, ‘An apology would be nice, but that's not allowed, is it Doug? That would be admitting liability.'

Then she asks for some privacy to make phone calls and a policeman takes her away down the corridor.

Emma's rocking Mum back and forth, and Gran holds me tight.

‘Ty, my love,' she says, ‘this isn't going to be easy, but Louise knows what's she's about. She's rock solid that girl, always made the right choices, she'll know what's best for you.'

‘I want to stay with you,' I say. ‘I only just got you back.'

Gran's always been more like a mother to me than my own mum. I nearly fell apart without her these last few months. I can't believe I'm going to be taken away from her again. I cling on to her like I'm a baby monkey, not someone who's going to be fifteen in just over a month.

She kisses my forehead and says, ‘I'm always with you darling, I always love you. But Nicki needs me more than you do right now.'

And that's it. Doug comes back with my bag, and puts it into Lou's car. I have a final hug with Gran and Emma. My mum is throwing up in the Ladies, so we wait for her, and I give her a hug too, even though she smells of vomit. She can't stop crying and I'm not even very sure that she understands that I might not see her for . . . for weeks? For months? Ever?

‘Take care,' she says. ‘Take care. Lou, take care of him.'

Louise says, ‘Don't worry Nicki, I'll do what's best.'

My mum stops crying, mid-sob. She does an enormous sniff, which doesn't even begin to retrieve the snot on her face, looks Louise straight in the eye and says, ‘He's
my
son, Louise, don't you forget that.'

And my auntie says, ‘No one's ever in danger of forgetting that, Nicki. I'll be seeing you soon. Take care of yourselves.'

Then she puts her arm on my back and leads me away, underground where her car is waiting.

This book was conceived and mostly written at City University's Writing for Children evening classes. A big thank you to Anna Longman who suggested that I take the class and has made many excellent suggestions ever since. Amanda Swift was a great tutor – inspiring, encouraging, generous, insightful and always entertaining. And thanks to everyone on both courses for putting up with my copy flow.

I am completely indebted to Tony Metzer for his legal advice; likewise Jeremy Nathan on medical matters. Sue Demont introduced me to the concept of restorative justice in schools and Michelle Patoff checked all things Catholic.

Thanks to my agent Jenny Savill and her colleagues at the very cool multilingual Andrew Nurnberg Associates. And to everyone at Frances Lincoln Children's Books, especially Maurice Lyon.

Many thanks to Phoebe, my first reader, for many clever ideas, thanks also to Tom, Hannah and Avital and to Judah for fantastic proofreading. Deborah Nathan gave helpful tips on the ways of fourteen-year-old boys, and Alun David was a top-class critic. Thanks to Mum for her encouragement and Dad for lending his name. Thanks for reading and more, Valerie Kampmeier, Cindy Yianni, Katie Frankel, Emma Cravitz, Laura Blaskett, Ann Maher, Mandy Appleyard, Yvette Genn and Anne Webbe. And thanks to Nicky Goldman for some well-timed advice.

Last, but most, my thanks to Laurence for everything.

 

 

Growing up in a small town in Hertfordshire,
Keren David
had two ambitions: to write a book and to live in London. Several decades on, she has finally achieved both. She was distracted by journalism, starting out at eighteen as a messenger girl, then working as a reporter, news editor, features editor and feature writer for many and various newspapers and magazines. She has lived in Glasgow and Amsterdam, where, in eight years, she learnt enough Dutch to order coffee and buy vegetables. She is now back in London, and lives with her husband, two children and their insatiably hungry guinea pigs. She blogs about her life and books at
www.wheniwasjoe.blogspot.com
.