Authors: Cath Staincliffe
Mike
I
an was ready to sack Mike. He’d had customers on his back: several express deliveries not received, the firm’s golden guarantee rendered worthless.
Mike explained the situation and Ian had nowhere to go with it. Took a while for his body to catch up with his brain: face still grimacing, shoulders flexing as he processed the fact that witnessing a murder probably did count as a rock-solid excuse. Mike promised to stay late, clear his backlog, half-hoping Ian would give him a break, put some of his sheet on to one of the other couriers, but Ian just nodded and clapped him on the back. Trying for matey. Failing.
Word spread fast and a couple of the lads caught up with Mike in the loading bay. Mike was holding court describing the scene, telling it like a story, when Ian came out of the office, hitching his pants up. Already had the gut of a man ten years older.
‘Best get on.’ Mike broke up the little gathering before Ian could. ‘Shocking, no two ways about it. I tell you.’ He headed for his van.
‘Never seen a dead body,’ one of the younger men said.
Mike just caught the backchat as he clambered into his cab. ‘Hang around here any longer and we’ll all see one.’ The gale of laughter.
Mike felt a quickening in the pit of his guts. The shadow of the time before. The other boy who’d died, his father running into the street with his son in his arms. Mike pushed the shadow away, shaken, and stabbed at the button on the radio. Retuned to XFM, local rock station, Elbow singing ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, plaintive riffs and Mancunian lyrics.
Vicky had been great. They’d fed the kids, got them to bed early. Mike had surreptitiously washed Kieran’s straw, turned it the other way up so the boy wouldn’t find the faint indentations his teeth had already made. Later Mike had snipped half a centimetre off the end so it’d look fresh enough to do for breakfast in the morning.
With the kids out of the way, she’d sent him for a shower. ‘You don’t half reek, Mike.’ And when he came back she gave him a cold lager, sat him down, wanted to know everything. When he got ahead of himself, she interrupted, pulled him back to the right point.
‘It’s bloody awful,’ she said when he’d done. She held his gaze. ‘You okay?’
He tipped his head.
‘Do you want to get off down the pub for a bit?’ He met up with the lads a couple of times a week.
‘Nah.’ He nodded at the fridge. ‘I’ll have another can. Maybe an early night.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She walked to the fridge, got the beer, turned and faced him. Grinned, one tooth snagging on her bottom lip. ‘What sort of early night?’
‘Bring that over here and I’ll show you.’ He felt the heat of anticipation in his groin.
Vicky giggled, popped the ring pull and took a swig. Walked over to him, nice and slow, her hips swaying, the fine, straight blonde hair swinging in time.
She sat astride his legs, took another swig and handed him his drink. Her eyes were dancing. She smiled and reached for the buttons on his jeans.
* * *
Thursday the police wanted to see him. The murder had been all over the papers. A boy gunned down on his way to a band rehearsal. A lad who had a bright future by all accounts. Well liked in school, never in trouble. Planned to do a course in sound production and dreamed of being a successful musician. Mike had never done much at school. Just the thought of the place brought back memories he’d rather not have, set the swirl of unease moving inside him like dirty water, dampened his day.
They couldn’t tell him how long he’d be there. And the answer didn’t change when he explained things were a bit tricky work-wise. He agreed to go in for one o’clock, hoping an hour would cover it and he could call it lunch.
It was like he’d never spoken to the officer in the police car, the woman. He had to start from scratch. Sat in a meeting room with a copper who was a few years older than Mike. Grey hair but well turned out – suit and white shirt. He slipped the jacket off once they were settled. Joe Kitson, a detective inspector. ‘Call me Joe,’ he told Mike. Mike appreciated the informality. Understood it too. People would open up to you more if you were on first-name terms.
Joe asked Mike to talk him through what happened. Then he wrote down what Mike had told him. Checking sentence by sentence. He wrote on a laptop, fast, read back each complete paragraph and made sure he’d got it right. Joe didn’t talk much but he had an easy way to him, a good listener, not only for the statement but for the other stuff Mike mentioned: the situation at work, the shock he’d felt when he realized he was seeing it for real.
Then Joe printed it all out on a special form and asked Mike to read it, and sign and date it at the bottom. He’d give evidence if the case came to court, Joe said, Mike understood that?
‘Yes, of course,’ Mike said
Joe explained what would happen next. The police would be gathering as much evidence as possible to try and bring charges against the culprits. It would probably be a matter of months rather than weeks before they knew whether they had enough to mount a prosecution.
Joe told him that they intended to keep the witnesses’ identity secret to minimize any chances of coercion. He asked Mike not to advertise the fact he was giving a statement and might be called as a witness. Joe gave him his card, told him to get in touch if he had any questions, any concerns.
‘What do you reckon the chances are?’ Mike asked as Joe walked him out. ‘Reckon you’ll find out who did it?’
‘Oh, we’ve a pretty shrewd idea of who’s behind it,’ said Joe. ‘What we have to do now is see if we can prove it.’
‘Did you trace the car? You’d think a Beemer like that’d be a doddle to find.’
Joe smiled, shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’m not allowed to discuss the investigation with you.’
Mike nodded. ‘Need to know basis,’ he said. Some line off the telly. He felt a prat as soon as he said it.
‘That’s right,’ Joe agreed. They shook hands at the front desk. ‘Thanks for coming in, and I hope we’ll be in touch later in the year.’
Mike had lost an hour and three-quarters and missed two calls from Ian. He rang his boss.
‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ Ian barked. ‘I’ve had Sandringham Way mithering about a new laptop for the past hour, stayed off work to take delivery.’
‘Almost there,’ Mike lied, ‘five minutes.’
‘Keep your bloody phone on!’ Ian ended the call.
Mike sighed, slid a CD into the player. Jumped to Track 4, prepared to sing along with Jagger: ‘Hey You Get Off My Cloud’.
Zak
T
opping up his phone had used up what was left from the supermarket money. And he only made a tenner on the stuff from the house. Everyone had a camera these days and the people in the pub slagged off the one he was flogging: no video and only two megapixels, they’d better on their phones. The jewellery brought a bit more.
He bought half an ounce of Golden Virginia and some Rizlas, a bottle of Lambrini. In the shop they were talking about the murder. Zak didn’t want to hear it. Made him remember the way Carlton had looked at him, trapped in the window. And if Carlton knew Zak had seen him shoot, what then? He’d be coming after Zak before too long – to shut him up.
He was living in an old house near Plattfields Park. Not on the council estate but the other side of Wilmslow Road. The place was scheduled for demolition, chain link fencing and warning signs. Zak wasn’t much of a reader but he could tell what the red and white sign with the picture of an Alsatian meant. And he knew it was just for show. Any hint of a real guard dog and Bess would have let on.
There was a gap below the fencing at one side where a part of the low garden wall had collapsed. He only needed to shove some bricks aside to wriggle under and Bess had followed.
The house was full of damp and the garden thick with saplings and brambles. Now they were in leaf and hid most of the building. It looked blind: sheets of chipboard nailed over the windows and doors. When he first found it, he could see they’d been there a good while. Broken guttering poured rainwater on to the sheet over the side door and the wood had gone black and green with mould, the bottom swelling with rot.
It hadn’t taken Zak much effort to work one edge loose, lumps of wood crumbling off like Weetabix and woodlice scurrying away. A couple of kicks had got him through the brittle door behind.
Now, when he came and went, he could swing the chipboard out a couple of feet and push it back in place. From any distance the property still looked secure.
No electrics so it was pitch dark day and night, and full of creepy crawlies, but it was safer than the streets.
Zak had nicked some candles from the health food shop. Big, fat yellow ones that burned for hours. The driest room was at the back. The old dining room. He’d got his sleeping bag in there and there was a massive fireplace where he could burn stuff. The smoke came back in the room but it was worth it to see the flames dancing and feel the glow of heat. The place was stone cold even now in summer and come winter he thought it’d be unbearable. Unless he got hold of some sort of arctic clothing, bearskin or summat, like explorers use. He’d have to move on. Maybe find out if his mam was sorted out now and move back there.
Zak had never been upstairs. Part of the staircase had come down and there was no easy way up. The floors were probably all rotten up there. The first night he’d heard noises upstairs. Come awake so sudden, Bess had growled, picking up on his fear. He’d listened awhile. Scratching sounds. He didn’t think it was rats or he’d see them downstairs too and Bess would have been after them. Maybe squirrels? Or pigeons in the roof.
Even with its gloom and damp he liked the vibe of the house. He liked to imagine it full of people. A family and all their mates. Bess by the fire or under the table when they sat down to eat. Plates piled high. And a swing in the garden and a Christmas tree, a real one in the corner.
He’d shifted Christmas trees last winter. A mate of Midge’s had a batch going for a song. Midge did him a sign on cardboard and the mate dropped them off at dawn, on the corner where a lot of commuters would be driving past into work in town. Norway Spruce, they were. £25 for five foot. Undercut all the other outlets. They were bound up tight, easy to slide on to a roof rack or in a car.
‘Just don’t let ’em open them,’ Midge’s mate warned him.
‘Why’s that?’
He tapped his nose. ‘And any you don’t shift, just leave ’em. No returns.’
Zak had sold nineteen by eleven thirty. Made a shedload of dosh. He left the last one for himself. Levelled it on his shoulder and walked back to the place he was staying. A little terrace in Fallowfield. The small bedroom at the back. No room for a tree there, and all the other rooms full of blokes over from Bulgaria, sharing three or four to a room, but he could stick it in the yard. He left it while he went to Aldi, got some decorations and a fairy, some stuff like Bailey’s seeing as it was that time of year.
He’d taken the tree out and cut off the netting and stood it up. Stared at it and heard the laughter from the kitchen doorway behind him, two of the lads. One of them slapping his knees and wheezing. Zak stared at it. Branches at the top lush and green and a skirt the same round the bottom. In between a naked trunk. A great gap where the middle should be like something had eaten the best bit.
He carried on. Put the baubles on top and bottom, left the tinsel hanging down to fill the hole. All the while the men almost hysterical behind him. Better than nothing. They shared a toast with him once he’d set the fairy on top.
Now he lit a candle, fed Bess and rolled a joint. Drank some of the Lambrini. Grew sleepy. He slid into his sleeping bag and Bess padded over to join him. She circled a couple of times then plumped down, stretched out by his side. Head on her paws. Zak always left the candle going, to take the sting out of the darkness. Not enough to see much by but he wanted the light to stop the dreams. That and the booze. It didn’t always work. It could happen any time, a beast with a gaping, black mouth, swallowing him down, where it was suffocating and cold and no one could hear him crying.
His bones ached, an icy, needling pain too deep to reach. Scars from the crash. He didn’t like to think about that. It didn’t do any good thinking about that. When they lifted him out and he was yelping with the pain. The look in their eyes: he knew it was bad, he must be very bad. And one of the men turned away, Zak saw his nose redden and his mouth tremble and saw the man was crying. Then Zak had wanted to cry too but his tears didn’t work any more.
He closed his eyes and imagined the house on a summer’s day, a barbecue in the garden. Zak flipping burgers and Bess waiting for any crumbs. His mam at the table with all the others, catching his eye and smiling at him.
Zak drifted off to sleep. Met his dreams. Found himself running, darting, dodging. The mud sucking him under. Stones thudding into him. Twitching and jerking as he slept. His restless movements echoed by the dog at his side.
Fiona
F
iona was rarely ill and Owen didn’t know how to react. She’d taken sick leave and explained everything to Shelley, who stressed that she was to have as long as she needed and not try and rush back to work.
Over tea that same day she told Owen. ‘So, I’m going to be at home and I’ve got some tablets from the doctor. I’ll be seeing a therapist as well.’
His face, what she could see of it, froze. His eyes met hers. Dismay. A slight curl to his lip.
‘Lots of people do,’ she said amused, ‘you don’t have to be bonkers. Have you any plans for the weekend?’ She changed the conversation, letting him off the hook.
‘Maybe Central.’ The indoor skate park in town. Skateboarding was the only active thing Owen showed any interest in, and because it got him up and away from his video games she supported him to the hilt. That meant shelling out for all the gear as well as the boards and fittings. The bulky shoes with their lurid patterns (Etnies, Vans, DCs), the fluorescent belts and garish socks, the particular brands of hooded jackets.
And of course the hair, straight and dark. Owen’s natural colour was mid-brown but now he dyed it black with Fiona’s assistance. She helped him apply it, wiped the splodges from his neck and ears, reminded him when twenty-five minutes was up. How much longer would he let her help? ‘Have you got homework?’ she asked him.
Owen shrugged.
‘Well, you don’t go anywhere until you’ve checked and you’ve done it.’
Owen kept eating.
‘Did you hear me?’ She was irritated at how he ignored her.
‘I’m not deaf,’ Owen retorted and got to his feet, scraping the chair across the wood flooring.
‘Well, don’t act like you are then,’ she said sharply.
Owen glared at her, his face reddening.
Fiona couldn’t bear it. She raised a hand, fingers spread, trying to be reasonable. ‘Maybe it’s about time I trusted you to do your homework,’ she said, ‘without any nagging from me. Okay? So it’s up to you from now on.’
He waited, shoulders slumped, head on one side, mouth open, a study in tedium, to see if she had finished. Then he walked away. Her eyes prickled, she sniffed hard. It won’t always be like this, she reminded herself. It will change.
After tea she read the local evening paper. All week she had been devouring coverage about the murder. Each time she found an item her heart would swell and her throat tighten. Often she would weep, the tears always so close to the surface. She read and reread, hoping to find something there, some meaning, some understanding. She drank in the details about the boy and his family: his parents Paulette and Stephen, Danny’s twin sister Nadine, also a hard-working student who wanted to make films, the grandmother Rose. Fiona pored over the pictures, the school photographs, the family occasions.
Tonight the article carried a photograph of the family in mourning. Dark clothes and harrowed expressions outside their church. Preparations were under way for the funeral. Momentarily Fiona considered going. But the germ of the idea was crushed by the weight of fear. It might prompt another attack. The GP had told her that it could be a couple of weeks before the medication started working and she should avoid stressful situations. It felt craven, cowardly, but she could not risk it. Both for her own sake but also because she knew it would be unforgivable if she went and the worst happened and she distracted attention from what really mattered. The burial of a child.
She didn’t like to throw the papers in the bin, it seemed irreverent. Instead she cut out the articles about Danny first and put them in a large envelope. She left it in the dining room, with her work files. She did it secretively, waiting until she was alone, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it seemed ghoulish.
Fiona no longer trusted herself to drive. The car brought associations of both the murder and the crippling panic. So when the police wanted her to go in and make a statement she asked if it would be possible to do it at her house. She might have been able to work out a bus route or hire a cab but if going over the incident made her ill with anxiety she wanted to be under her own roof. The man she spoke to, DI Kitson, agreed and turned up promptly on the Tuesday afternoon.
Joe was a nice man, softly spoken. She’d expected someone with more bluster or drive, someone sharper round the edges. He put her at her ease and set up his laptop to take notes. She liked the way he listened to her, really listened, instead of simply waiting for her to stop talking so he could start, which is how many of her male colleagues in senior positions behaved. And he thought carefully when she asked him questions rather than jumping straight in with a response.
He had a sketch of the area – the main road and the recreation ground. The houses and their back yards all marked off exactly like the diagrams on house deeds. He took it a stage at a time, asking her to show him where she was when she left the house, after she crossed the road, when she reached Danny – and what else she saw, who else she remembered each time. She was back there,
blink,
the sun hot on the nape of her neck and her hands on Danny’s chest,
blink,
his blood still warm on his T-shirt. She felt sick, felt her gullet spasm and her ears buzz. She made a noise and he saw. He knew.
‘Breathe out,’ he said, ‘slowly. Good, that’s good. Wait, shallow now.’ It was ironic – exactly the sort of coaching she would use with one of her mums in labour.
He repeated the words until she’d calmed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘something like this, it’s a terrible thing.’
‘I have a son,’ she said. A sudden urge to confide. Wiping at her face with her fingers.
He nodded. He knew of course, that was one of her background details.
Joe explained there were two areas he wanted to focus on more closely, to see if she could add anything further: one was the car that had almost run her over and the other was the man behind the wheel. She’d already described a silver BMW. He asked if she could recall any details.
‘I didn’t see the number plate.’
‘What about the windscreen, the tax disc?’
She shook her head. ‘It was so fast.’
‘Any decals, decorations, anything dangling from the rear-view mirror?’
It was a blank. All she could see was the sheen of the glass and the glimpse of the man.
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was white, a slim face, a wide mouth.’ She had practised this, gone over it again and again in her mind’s eye, determined not to let the snapshot fade. ‘Very short hair, pretty really, like a male model. Good cheekbones. I’m sorry.’ She laughed at herself and Joe gave an easy grin. ‘A bit like Johnny Depp,’ she added. ‘That sounds so stupid. But that’s who he reminded me of.’
‘That’s very good. Anything else? Clothes, hands?’
‘I only saw his face. He braked, I jumped back, there was this moment—’ her voice shook and her mouth felt dry – ‘we were just staring at each other, both shocked.’ She recalled the way he glared at her. ‘And then he drove on.’
‘And the other man?’
‘I barely registered him. I could tell there were two people in the car but I only saw the driver.’
Joe shifted in his seat. Typed a bit more into his laptop. Then he explained that he’d like her to try and identify the man she saw but she would have to do that at the police station. It was important to make sure it was done above board, the right checks and balances. ‘Someone else has to do it, I’m not allowed.’ He smiled. ‘Make sure I don’t tip you the wink.’
Fiona felt uneasy. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We could pop along now,’ he said quietly. ‘No fuss, no complicated arrangements. Be back within the hour.’ His eyes were greeny grey, the colour of shale, of bay leaf.
Later she thought he had planned it like that, making it easier to do because she wouldn’t be anticipating it, wouldn’t have a chance to get cold feet.
Still she hesitated. ‘But if I …’
He read her mind. ‘You find it’s too much, I’ll bring you straight home.’
She agreed. Wanting to be brave, wanting to impress him. Pathetic, she told herself.
The drive took only ten minutes and when they got to the police station it was all set up. Joe left her with a jovial, whiskery man and a younger woman. There was a monitor for her to watch and a camera would record Fiona’s reactions for evidence.
‘What we have are eight video IDs,’ the man said. ‘I’d like you to watch them, all of them, and only at the end tell me if the man you saw driving the BMW is among them and which number he is. You can look again at any of the images and we can freeze them for you too, if you ask. You can’t ask me any questions and please take your time. Is that all right?’
It was and the woman set the camera going.
They were like moving mug-shots, Fiona thought to herself, the men looking straight ahead then turning this way and that for the profiles. The men were all white with short hair. She saw him, number four, with a lurch of recognition. Then did as instructed and watched the rest. None of the others came close. ‘Number four.’ Her voice sounded dusty. ‘That was him.’ The man put number four back on the screen. He had large, dark eyes. A sensuous mouth, the sculpted face. Dress him in ringlets and kohl, pantaloons and a frilly shirt, and he could be Captain Jack in
Pirates of the Caribbean
.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Completely.’
‘Thank you.’
The woman stopped filming. Then Fiona had to answer several questions and her answers were recorded on forms: when and where she had seen the man, how close she had been, whether her view had been obstructed and so on.
Joe met her afterwards. He had already spoken to the man conducting the identification.
‘How did I do?’ Fiona asked.
‘Very well,’ Joe smiled. ‘You identified Sam Millins. He’s known to us already and his name is high on the list for this inquiry.’
She soaked up his air of satisfaction. She wanted to please him. ‘Were there other witnesses?’ she asked.
Joe nodded. ‘One, so far. We hope there will be others.’
‘In the paper, they talk about people being afraid to talk to the police.’
He sighed. ‘That’s our biggest problem.’
She told him about Carmen Johnson: how the new mum turned Fiona away, unwilling to be associated with her.
After Joe had dropped her home, Fiona found herself wondering about him: whether he was married and had children, what he did outside work. And whether she would see him again.