Authors: Cath Staincliffe
Zak
Z
ak and Bess were sleeping in an underground car park, below a block of flats, been there almost two months. Zak had gone in there one night, after Christmas, walking in through the automatic gates after a car, figuring that the worst that could happen is the driver chucks him out.
He found a store cupboard down there, tucked away in a corner. Full of cleaning materials and things. He thought he’d struck lucky, it wasn’t locked. He moved some stuff about a bit to make space to lie down. He just fitted if he curled his legs up. Then the door opened and there was a guy in brown overalls and a Hitler tache looking at him. The caretaker, a can of woodstain in his hand.
Zak scrambled to his feet. ‘Soz, mate, just looking for somewhere to kip.’ Bess got up, wagged her tail.
‘How d’you get in the gate?’ the bloke asked.
‘Followed a car in.’
The bloke shook his head. ‘Thick as planks, half of ’em. And then they wonder why they get robbed.’
‘I’m not on the rob,’ Zak protested.
‘I could turn a blind eye,’ the bloke said. ‘Few nights, you make it worth it.’
Zak knew he meant for money. He only had about £4 in change. He dug in his pocket, held it out.
‘No notes?’ the bloke complained.
Zak shook his head.
‘That’ll do you for tonight but I’ll be wanting more.’
Zak nodded. ‘Ta, thanks, mate.’
The bloke, he was called Russell, nodded at Bess. ‘He house trained?’
‘She. Yeah.’
‘And you?’
Zak ignored that.
‘You can’t smoke in here.’ Russell nodded to the tins. ‘Hazardous chemicals, fire risk.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Zak.
‘Most of ’em are gone by nine in the morning.’ Russell indicated at the cars. ‘Stay in here till then, then I’ll let you out.’
Zak’s heart skipped a beat. ‘You’re not locking us in! No way.’ If that was part of the deal, then Zak was walking. He’d go mental. He couldn’t be locked up. Never again.
Russell stared at him. He twitched his moustache. ‘If anyone sees you—’
‘I’ll stay in here, I promise.’
He gave a grunt. ‘Make yourself scarce after that. Just press the green button for the gates.’
‘Right. How’ll I get back in?’
‘Be here before six, I’ll let you through.’
After a couple of weeks Russell gave Zak the code of the gates so he could get in himself. Zak’s ‘rent’ was a nice little earner for him. Zak was a model tenant. When he did smoke he nipped out of the store and did it in the garage, kept his dimps to chuck away somewhere else so Russell wouldn’t find out.
It was the worst time of year to be on the streets: the cold and the way it got dark so early. People were tight an’ all, the times after Christmas. Often as he could Zak went round to Midge’s, a chance to get warm, have a brew and a spliff. Stacey was still there and still had it in for him so he had to be careful, not overstay his welcome. He tried to smooth the way by running errands for Midge: a delivery here, picking a package up there.
Today when he and Bess turned up there was a big gang of lads already at the house. Bikes were piled up in the front garden like a scrap merchant’s. Nowhere left to sit in the front room.
Conversation died when Zak walked in. Everyone looked at him and he felt his face burn. He rose on the balls of his feet, nodded to Midge. ‘I can come back.’
Midge shrugged. ‘S’ all right, you can go for some Rizlas, king-size.’ He tossed Zak a coin.
Zak went to the shop and when he came back the lads were gone.
‘What’s going on?’ He handed Midge the papers and change.
‘Carlton and Sam Millins, they’re being done for murder. Danny Macateer.’
Zak stared at Midge. ‘You’re shittin’ me!’
‘It’s true. Picked ’em up the day before yesterday, charged ’em last night, in court this morning. Denied bail.’ Midge ruffled Bess, and Zak blew a long breath out wondering what to say.
‘The rest of ’em, they’re all freakin’ case they get done too, conspiracy and that,’ Midge said.
Zak counted on his fingers. ‘Eight months it must be. Everyone thought they’d got away with it.’ He shook his head.
Midge made a brew and skinned up. When they’d smoked it, he said, ‘Wait there,’ and went upstairs.
He came down with a shoebox, sat on the sofa next to Zak and opened it. Inside, chamois leather. Zak had been expecting trainers, knock-offs or counterfeits. Midge lifted the yellow cloth out, unwrapped it.
There was a gun.
‘Whoah!’ Zak said. A handgun, dull, grey steel, a squat shape.
‘Feel the weight of it.’
Midge handed him the gun. It was heavy, dense, like a stone in his fist. Zak levelled it at the telly, squinted. ‘Is it loaded?’
‘Nah. Look.’ Midge took it from him, moved something and ejected the clip. ‘See.’
‘You selling it?’ Zak asked. Thinking of the next time someone had a go at him. Watching their faces change as he drew the gun. Watching them back down, back away.
‘Nah, just looking after it. Why? Might be able to hire it out, you interested?’
‘You expanding the business?’ Zak joked.
‘Only way to go, see an opportunity, fill it.’ Midge sounded like someone off
Dragons’ Den
.
‘Might do sometime,’ Zak said, ‘not now though.’ He’d have to save up.
After he left Midge’s, he walked a different way back into town. Came across a carpet warehouse that had reopened as a food and household shop: Value-Mart. He tied Bess up at the door and went in. It was a bit like a cash and carry, brands no one had heard of, plenty of bulk buys. They had everything from shower gel and biscuits to whisky, even a pile of rugs in the central aisle that they’d probably bought as a job lot off the carpet firm. It was a big barn of a place, breeze block walls, metal roof, the back section where the stock was kept separated by strips of plastic sheeting. A guy was pushing a set of ladders along, the sort you could wheel around to get to high shelves. They almost reached the top of the wall, where it met the pitched roof. A row of skylights ran along one side of the roof.
That’s when Zak had the idea. He bought some rissoles, the ones you could eat hot or cold, and asked the woman on the till when they closed. She pointed to a big black and white notice on the wall behind her. ‘Eight till eight,’ she said. ‘Eleven till four on Sunday.’
Outside he sat on a low wall and shared the food with Bess.
The warehouse stood on a plot of its own, an old chain-link fence, broken here and there, surrounding it. There was a drainpipe at the back corner of the building, the corner nearest to him. Across the way was a block of flats and at the other side some other small industrial units. Nothing too close. It wouldn’t be easy – but man, it’d be worth it!
Zak and Bess got in through one of the gaps in the fence. Zak had been begging on Deansgate and raised enough money to buy a little headlamp, like a miner’s light but LED, and a lump hammer from the discount hardware shop in the precinct. Then they’d waited: half an hour in the café, another in the park. Now Value-Mart was deserted, all locked up.
Zak told Bess to lie down by the loading bay. She was out of sight of anyone driving past and it gave her a bit of shelter. ‘Won’t be long,’ he told her, patted her back, ‘good girl.’ She licked his face.
The windows on the block of flats were lit up looking like an advent calendar. Curtains and blinds closed against the night. The industrial estate slumbered in the shadows between street lights, their blue-white glow like the colour from a telly. The drainpipe was a doddle but the climb up the roof from there was treacherous. The galvanized metal was slick with condensation, hard to get a grab on, the undulations on the surface not deep enough for purchase and his bad wrist throbbed with the strain. Zak slipped, slid back, his guts churning. He rammed his feet into the guttering to brake, praying it would hold. Sweat broke out all over his body, chilling quickly.
He decided it would be easier to try going up the very edge of the roof to the apex of the gable, then along the top. He shredded his fingers getting up there but he didn’t fall, then he sat astride the roof and shuffled along until he reached the skylights. He’d counted when he was in the store, reckoned the third one would be best. He positioned himself close to it and looked down. The light of his lamp shone back at him, blinding stars in the glass.
One thing he didn’t know was how the alarm was rigged. Breaking the glass might set it off, some places had sensors for vibration, others only alarmed the entry points, the doors. But even if he was unlucky, Zak reckoned he’d have maybe fifteen minutes before the police showed. Time to fill his bags and get away.
Zak pulled the lump hammer from his pocket and settled its weight in his hand. He gripped the shaft and swung the head down hard on the centre of the pane. There was a ringing noise and the glass crazed a little. No alarm sounded. He hit again, the same spot, and the glass fractured more, lines running here and there, the surface turning white. Three more strikes and the glass had buckled and split, one end peeling down into the maw of the building. Zak used his right heel to hit at the lower end of the frame and the rest of the glass came loose and fell. It made less noise than he’d expected.
Zak peered into the hole. The beams of his headlamp picked up the pile of rugs directly below and the glint of glass on the floor at the side. Zak smiled. He leaned in and flung the lump hammer out to the left, heard it clang against the shelving. He swung his legs round until they were dangling in space. He leaned to his left and bent over to grip the top edge of the broken frame. Then he shifted forward, let go with his hands and dropped, felt the plunge of falling and landed with a whoomp on the dusty rugs. Winded but satisfied he lay looking up, seeing little, only what the thin beams of his lamp picked out. He coughed a bit then clambered down off the pile of rugs.
Waggling his head about to scan as much as he could, he made his way along the central aisle to the front of the store where the public entrance was. There were light switches in the corner there and Zak tried one, then the rest, and filled the place with the blaze of fluorescents.
He had a big laundry bag folded in each pocket. He got them out and set about filling them. Whisky in those cardboard tubes, vodka too. Fruitcakes, some frozen lamb that Midge might like, batteries, a socket set, an electric drill, DVD players and a couple of digital cameras. Dried food for Bess. They didn’t sell fags which was a pity.
He picked up a set of earrings and a matching locket for his mam. Put that in. And a trench coat and a fleece for himself.
When the bags were full he went to get the big ladders.
They were padlocked to a ring in the wall, in the storage area.
He couldn’t believe it! He went to find the lump hammer and came back. He smashed at the padlock again and again and the hammer just bounced off. Then he went for the ring in the wall, battering the brickwork around it, cursing and nearly bawling with frustration. Then the shaft of the hammer split and the head flew off. Useless.
Zak’s head was going to blow up so he sat down on the steps of the ladder and had a smoke. There was no way he could get back up to the skylights, no way. So, he’d have to find another way out. He was worried about Bess, she’d be getting hungry.
There was only one option, he’d have to get out through the roller shutters. Zak ate some fruitcake and drank some whisky while he strung together enough extension cables to reach the shutters that led to the loading bay. He plugged in the drill. His fingers were slippery with blood by now so he fixed up the cuts with plasters from a car first aid kit then turned on the drill. The drill snarled and sparked, dancing off the metal and sheering away, making a shrieking noise swiftly accompanied by the bowel-emptying scream of the alarm system. He kept going, the pain in his wrist gnawing like a cold burn, but the only impact he could make was a series of little scratches and pockmarks on the rippling shutters.
When he stopped he could hear the sound of an engine and Bess barking. He watched the shutters crank open and saw first the legs then the rest of an Asian guy, and two police officers, and Bess wagging her tail.
‘I can pay for the damage,’ Zak told the Asian guy. ‘Or work it off?’ The man swore at Zak in English and some other language and motioned for the police to take him. They arrested him and Zak kicked off, refusing to go anywhere without Bess, swearing that there was no one who could look after her. ‘You make me leave her and I’ll get the RSPCA on yer.’
‘She’ll go in the pound,’ one of the coppers said.
‘Fine, I can’t leave her here, can’t abandon her.’
They walked him round to fetch her and let her into the car with him. Zak told her she was a good girl and she licked his face. ‘It’ll be right,’ he told her. But he knew he was fucked.
They booked him in and put him in a cell and then took him to an interview room. He started trying to tell them that it was a prank gone wrong, that he just wanted a bed for the night, wasn’t after robbing ’owt.
‘The store has internal CCTV,’ one of the coppers said. ‘Light activated.’
The other one winked. ‘You’ve been framed.’
Zak imagined it: his plundering the shelves, the action with the lump hammer on the padlock.
He laid his head on his arms.
‘Sit up, son,’ the copper said. ‘I am charging you with breaking and entering, going with intent to burgle, attempted theft and criminal damage.’ Then he read the caution. He asked Zak if he had anything to say.
‘Will they put us inside?’ His throat was aching and his knee jigging all on its own.
‘Oh yes. You’ll not walk away from this one.’
He’d lose Bess. They’d put him in prison with all the nutters and the hard men. Lock him in. Zak couldn’t stop shaking.
‘Is there anything else?’ the copper said.
‘Yeah.’ Zak wiped at his nose, pressed his hands between his knees, rocking forward. ‘I want witness protection. I seen who shot Danny Macateer.’
Mike
V
icky didn’t see the letter; Mike watched out for it after Joe Kitson’s call. The post didn’t come till lunchtime most days and by then Vicky was usually out doing The Perms. He’d been able to hide it and didn’t let on when she got in from work.
He needn’t have bothered.
Granada Reports
had it as the top story.
Police have charged two men on
suspicion of the murder of Danny Macateer in June
last year
. Vicky turned to him. ‘Did you know about this?’
Mike shook his head slowly.
‘You’ll have to tell them now, Mike, that you’re stepping down, you won’t give evidence.’
Stepping down, Mike thought, sounded weird, like he had some smart executive position that he was giving up to ‘spend more time with his family’. What she should have said was running away. ‘I will,’ he said.
‘You’d better. Now it’s definitely on, we’re sitting ducks.’ She was paranoid again, her eyes like marbles, her face tight. ‘Ring them.’
‘They won’t be there, now,’ Mike told her, ‘I’ll go in the morning.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
She was still looking at him sideways, her antennae on full alert.
‘I promise,’ he repeated, louder than he meant to.
‘No need to yell at me,’ she told him.
Joe Kitson kept him waiting fifteen minutes which Mike reckoned was fair enough given he’d turned up on spec and the man must be busy.
Joe came out and shook his hand then took him through and along a corridor past various offices and up a flight of stairs. A different place from last time. There were posters and noticeboards along the way: everything from car crime and property marking to first aid training and Drink Aware.
Joe led Mike into a small room. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘I’m fine,’ Mike told him.
‘Wise choice,’ Joe smiled. ‘How can I help?’
Mike had practised what he’d say, tried it out in his mind this way and that but not found any way to make it sound right.
‘I can’t be a witness,’ he said bluntly. ‘I can’t do it.’
Joe Kitson just gave a half-nod. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘It’s the wife,’ Mike explained. ‘First off, someone broke in, nicked the telly. Then she had this car crash, she reckons they were trying to run her off the road.’
Joe’s face sharpened. ‘When was this?’
Mike told him.
‘You didn’t report it?’
‘She wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t let me. She thought we were being warned off. I told her she was crazy. That until someone was actually charged there was no risk.’
‘And now someone has been charged …’ Joe supplied.
‘She’s freaking out.’
Joe Kitson gave a soft breath out, looked down at the table between them.
Mike felt crappy. A henpecked husband with no guts. ‘I promised her,’ he added. ‘If it was down to me—’ Mike broke off.
‘These incidents – the burglary, the crash – I’d like you to give me all the details.’
Mike waited for him to explain.
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent certain there’s no link between this case and those incidents but I’d like to nail it one hundred per cent.’
Mike felt a bubble of hope. ‘You could do that?’
‘Building evidence, particularly in a murder inquiry, means looking at people’s actions
after
the actual crime is committed as well as investigating the crime itself. Keeping tabs on potential suspects if you like.’
‘You’ve been watching them.’ Mike wanted to be sure he understood properly.
Joe nodded. ‘So, take the car crash: with the place and time, your wife’s registration, it may be possible to identify the registration of the other vehicle. Trace the owner. Set your minds at rest.’
Mike felt relieved, until he imagined trying to get Vicky on board. ‘She won’t listen to reason.’
‘But if she had proof? Knew for certain there was no connection?’
Mike allowed maybe she’d rethink. ‘I can tell you where and when and that.’
Joe nodded. ‘Good. Now as for the future – the trial. Like I said on the phone, there’ll be special measures in place to ensure you can’t be intimidated while giving your evidence.’
‘And before the trial?’
Joe held up his thumb, counted it off. ‘You’re not known to the defendants, correct?’
Mike nodded.
Joe stretched out his first finger, tapped it. ‘You work in the area where the crime was carried out?’
Mike shook his head. He didn’t work anywhere, any more.
Joe added a second finger to his tally of advantages. ‘You live in the area?’
‘No,’ Mike said.
Joe lowered his hand. ‘The defendants will not be given your name or any details that could help them identify you.’
‘What about their lawyers? They’ll see my statement and that?’
‘Yes, but they won’t be passing it on to their clients. And remember these guys have entered not guilty pleas. Interfering with independent witnesses would sabotage their position.’
Mike still wasn’t sure, and if he wasn’t, Vicky wouldn’t be. ‘What d’you mean, independent?’
‘You don’t know any of the people involved, you have no possible axe to grind, no ulterior motive, nothing to gain. It’s the strongest form of testimony we can get. Other witnesses with a prior relationship could have all sorts of dubious reasons for pointing the finger and the defence will milk that for all it is worth. Rip ’em apart. Have to, that’s the way it works. But you, you’re the bedrock.’ Joe sat back, studied Mike. ‘Money’s always an issue but if your wife needs further reassurance we are sometimes able to relocate people in temporary accommodation for the duration.’
Mike thought of Kieran, the nightmare that would be. ‘We couldn’t,’ he said. ‘My lad, he relies on things staying exactly the same.’
‘Perhaps other measures? Panic alarms? Talk to your wife about it. We can always get one of our security guys round to beef things up at the house. Meanwhile I’ll get those details from you and set to work eliminating those previous upsets from the picture. How’s that sound?’
Mike felt a flare of optimism. Joe agreed with him, they were not being targeted, and with hard proof Vicky would have to see sense. ‘Thanks, yeah, do that.’
Vicky grilled him when he got home. Mike bluffed his way through it. Yes, he’d asked to withdraw, retract they called it, and he had to give reasons and then they had to look into it. Lots of paperwork and stuff like that, same as everything else these days. He had decided he would wait to hear from Joe about the crash before he tackled her head on.
A week later Joe phoned him. They had traced the vehicle that hit Vicky even though the crash itself hadn’t been caught on camera. The silver Mercedes (not BMW) belonged to a twenty-year-old from Alderley Edge whose parents had more money than sense. Undercover police observation of the major suspects in the murder inquiry had confirmed that all had been elsewhere at the time that Mike’s place was burgled.
Armed with the solid facts, Mike suggested a night out to Vicky; they asked her mum round to babysit. They couldn’t afford to eat out but went to the flicks instead. Watched the latest action blockbuster and had a drink in the bar after. They talked about the kids for a bit, they always talked about the kids. And Vicky made him laugh telling him about some of the daft things her clients had said. He got another round in and some dry-roasted nuts.
‘I heard from the police,’ he told her. ‘It’s good news.’
‘Go on,’ she said, still pretty easy-going.
‘The car crash, they’ve traced the other car. Nothing to do with the court case at all. Total coincidence. Same with the break-in.’
Her face changed, the colour fading from her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes dimming. Disappointment, then temper, in the set of her mouth.
‘And they’ll give us protection,’ he said, his voice too eager, too brittle. ‘Better locks, panic alarms if we want it, not that there’s any risk, just if we want it. And my name, it’ll be kept out, I’ll be anonymous.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ she cut in. ‘Is this what tonight’s about? You promised me—’
‘Vicky, just listen.’
‘No!’
Mike was aware of the hostility between them and how people around were picking up on it: glancing their way, shifting position. The threat of a domestic in the air. ‘He explained it all to me,’ Mike raced on, a loud whisper, not wanting to shout his business for the entertainment of the bar. ‘We are not at risk, we are not a target. We never were.’
‘Of course he’d say that,’ she countered. ‘He wants you up there. People know it’s not safe to talk, that’s why it’s taken so long, why they had to offer a reward. It’s not safe. Not when it’s a gang thing. And those two are gang leaders!’
Mike groaned, rubbed at his face. Why was she so bloody set on this? ‘I think the police know more about it than you do.’
‘You are so gullible.’ She stood up. ‘Well, I’m not going to watch you risk everything. I’ve already told you – you want to do this, Mike, you do it on your own.’ She walked away, pulling her coat on. The people around watched Mike, pretending not to, to see if he would follow.
He rounded on the nearest table, shouting. ‘Seen enough? Why don’t you buy a bloody ticket?’ He saw the bartender look across, ready for trouble.
There was only one thing left for him to do. Tell her why it mattered to him. Why in this he might have to be as stubborn as she was.
He caught up with her outside. The trees were tangled with blue and white lights, the parade of leisure facilities bristled with neon. The night was cold and clear but he could see only one star.
‘Vicky, stop, wait. I got summat to tell you.’
She looked at him, sighed. Her face washed out by the neon, miserable. She folded her arms across her front. ‘What?’
He shuffled from one foot to the other. The words in his chest like stones, hard to drag up. He blew out. ‘It’s hard,’ he said.
‘What? You having an affair?’ Her face was pinched, wary.
‘No!’ He wheeled away, eyes pinned on the sole star. ‘I want to do the right thing,’ he tried again.
‘The right thing is protecting your family,’ she shot back.
‘Wait,’ he said sharply. ‘Just listen for once, just bloody listen!’
She narrowed her lips, her eyes mean.
He found he couldn’t look at her when he spoke. Anywhere but. ‘I’ve never told you, never told anyone.’ He shivered. ‘When I was at school, there was this lad, Stuart. He was a bit slow, he was—’ Something caught in his throat. ‘He was just a kid. He wasn’t fat or crippled or mucky, he didn’t even wear specs, but there was something about him and he got picked on. Every day.’
She was still. Mike watched a bus pull out, a couple snogging on the top deck. ‘They’d wait for him after school, or at dinnertime. He’d never go to the toilets at school or anywhere quiet, sometimes he’d trail around after the dinner ladies. He got quieter, like he was shrinking, but it just made it worse.
Stuart Little
.’ Mike named the film. ‘Remember that?’ Mike glanced at her, she nodded.
‘That were his nickname – one of them. A couple of times the teachers found out and people got detention. Or the whole form did. Stuart never told. He knew it’d make it worse. This one day—’ Mike stopped. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to tell her. His fingers were cold, he tucked them under his armpits. Shivered again. ‘It was after school. I saw them dragging him into the changing room. He was crying.’ Mike swallowed. ‘I went home. I didn’t go and tell anyone, I just went home. Had my tea, watched the box.’ Mike’s heart hurt. He tightened his jaw, tried to stop his voice quavering. ‘Stuart wasn’t in school the next day.’ He looked across at the traffic lights, saw them turn to green and the traffic move. He heard a girl’s laugh cutting through the other noise, high-pitched, squealing. ‘He’d gone home and changed out of his uniform and hanged himself from his bedroom door.’ Mike’s voice cracked. ‘And I still never said anything.’ Stuart’s father had found the boy, carried him in his arms out into the street, weeping.
‘Oh, Mike.’ Her voice was full of concern. ‘You were just a kid, too.’
‘I knew right from wrong. I didn’t bully him but I did nothing to stop them. I didn’t get help. And even when they’d driven him to do that, I said nothing. That was wrong. This – the court case, it’s a chance to do the right thing.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said sadly. ‘You can’t change the past. What happened, that’s awful, it’s really sad, but your responsibility now – it’s not to the lad that got shot, it’s to Kieran and Megan.’
‘The police can protect us.’ It was almost a howl.
She shook her head, her lip curling. ‘You’d take that chance.’ Like he was dirt. Like he’d failed.
They walked home in silence. Not touching. Mike felt soiled, ashamed. All the old feelings. He wanted to weep but he didn’t know how.
He looked in on Kieran, peacefully asleep, and thought of Stuart’s parents, the horror they would carry with them forever. Of Danny Macateer’s parents.
Vicky came in. ‘I meant it, Mike.’ Her voice was fixed, flat. ‘It’s your choice.’
He had no answer.