A Reason to Kill (7 page)

‘I heard that's not all you bin doin'.' Dwayne's grin stretched even wider.

George shrugged. ‘Don't know what you mean.'

A burst of laughter this time. Cruel, harsh. ‘That ain't what I hear.'

‘And what do you hear?' George tried to keep it casual but his heart seemed to have other ideas and was beating like a hammer.

‘I hear you took to scaring old ladies.'

George shrugged as carelessly as he could. He turned to look fully at Dwayne, trying to ignore the stupid grin which, broad as it was, was never reflected in the cold, ice-blue eyes. ‘Don't know what you mean.'

‘She wet herself, did she? The old bird. Wet herself when she saw you and that other plonker? Where's he at today anyway? Stopped at home with his mummy, has he?'

‘Paul's sick,' George said.

‘Anyway, I hear she scared you off.'

‘Still don't know what you mean.' The hammering in George's chest had grown so loud he was sure it could be heard.

Dwayne sat back in his seat and howled a mirthless laugh. ‘Scared off by an old lady. Georgie Porgie ickle scaredy baby.'

George turned away and stared steadfastly out of the bus window. He could feel the colour rising to his cheeks, knew it would soon be a close match to his shock of scarlet hair. He blushed like a girl, his dad said, and somehow that thought calmed him down if only because it reminded him that he hated his dad even more than he hated Dwayne and the rest. Hated him, but managed to survive him. George drew strength from that thought.

They were only a few minutes from home now and Dwayne would get off first when they passed the Jubilee Estate. Or at least he ought to. Occasionally he'd stay on the bus for another stop, just so he could torment George for that little bit longer.

Dwayne shifted on the seat and leaned in close, so close that George could feel his breath on the back of his neck. Smell that he'd been eating those cheese crisp things that George hated. ‘I know
how
she scared you off anyway,' Dwayne said. ‘I hear Paul told Mark Dowling all about it.'

George spun to face the other boy. Dwayne was so close they were almost nose to nose. Paul would never tell anything to Mark Dowling.

‘I hear she had a gun,' Dwayne whispered. ‘True, was it, she threatened to shoot, did she, Georgie?'

The bus shuddered to a halt and Dwayne, still grinning, pushed off from his seat and barged his way along the aisle to the front of the bus. George watched him go. His heart had enlarged now, big enough to fill his chest and block his throat. The bus moved off and Dwayne waved at him from the pavement, the grin fixed and rigid.

Paul and Mark Dowling?
George was chilled now. Shivering despite the bus heater that blasted hot air beneath his seat. His stop arrived a few minutes later and George stumbled to his feet, joined the queue of those getting off, as usual one of the last to leave.

Mark Dowling
, George thought. The colour had drained from his face now. He could feel it slipping down from his cheeks and his neck, leaving behind his usual white, pasty skin speckled with an overgenerous spattering of freckles.

He waited until the bus moved off and then started to cross the road, his route home taking him past Mrs Freer's house. He glanced up and then stopped dead.

Police cars, tape, white-clad figures moving inside the front room. For a wild second or two, George convinced himself that this wasn't real. Someone was shooting a film, that was it. He'd see it on TV sometime and be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, I saw them filming on my street.' This wasn't the old woman's house; it couldn't be.

But it was.

George felt the pavement shift beneath his feet. The world grew fuzzy round the edges. He swallowed hard to fight the sickness rising in his throat. What was happening here?

One of the policemen looked his way, his gaze quizzical and accusing. George turned and walked on down the road, crossing only when he was opposite his own house.

They know
, he thought.
They must know
. The way that policeman had looked at him. Worse still, Dwayne knew and worse even than that, Mark Dowling knew.

He fumbled in his pocket for his key and stumbled inside, slamming the front door hard. It would be another hour at least before his mum got home and his sister probably wouldn't be in till after that, if she bothered coming home at all. These days she stayed over at her boyfriend's place more often than she came back here. For a brief moment George thought about phoning her. He and Karen got on better than most siblings he knew, probably because they'd both been through so much. Probably because of what had happened with their dad. Karen would go mad at him but she'd listen, try to help. George knew better than even to try and talk to his mum. Too ground down by the troubles she'd already encountered in her life, George and Karen were both careful of anything that might rub yet another hole in the thin foil she had become. Not that she'd ever been that reliable, he thought bitterly. She'd been the one to name him George.

George dropped his bag and sat down on the bottom step, reached through between the spindles to grab the phone from the hall table. He dialled Paul's number and waited impatiently, staring at the front door, half afraid the policeman who had looked at him would have followed him home.

‘Yeah?' Paul didn't have the best telephone technique.

‘You weren't at school.'

‘Quick that, you noticing.'

‘What's up with you?'

‘I … er … I fell down the stairs. Mum thought I'd busted my arm, dragged me to casualty.'

Someone's there
, George thought.
Listening
.

‘Fell down the stairs?' he repeated

‘Yeah,' Paul told him. ‘You know, like you do.'

‘Yeah, I know how you do.' He closed his eyes. His mother had ‘fallen down the stairs' more times than George could count. Paul knew that. The difference was, Paul's dad didn't beat him up. So who had?

‘Mark Dowling?' he asked softly, scared that whoever was listening would catch the name and ask what it meant.

‘Y'know.' George could hear the shrug in his friend's voice. ‘These things happen. At least it's not bust.' He paused. George heard a woman's voice in the background. ‘Mum says you can come round. Stop for tea. You coming?'

George breathed relief, realizing how much he didn't want to be alone.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘Be right there.'

He reached back through the stair rails and dropped the phone back on the cradle. He peered cautiously out through the front-room window before opening the door and then ran full pelt to where, three doors down, Paul was waiting for him.

T
ea at Paul's house had been a stilted affair. George wolfed the sausage, egg and chips with extra bread and butter that Paul's mother served up for them and drank down two mugs of the strong, sweet tea. She gave them both a can of Coke and a chocolate bar and watched anxiously from the kitchen door while the boys headed upstairs to Paul's room.

Paul had eaten almost nothing, just played with his meal and finally, reluctantly, ploughed his way through just enough to satisfy his mum before asking if they could leave the table.

‘Your dad won't be home till late,' she told him. ‘I'll be getting his dinner for when he comes in. You want me to do you something? You might feel more like it later.'

Paul shook his head and grunted something unintelligible. His mother sighed. ‘OK, get along with the pair of you, but just you watch that arm.'

George sat down on the edge of his friend's bed and watched as he set up the computer game. Paul had got the latest
Final Fantasy
a couple of weeks before and, ordinarily, George would be almost salivating with anticipation. Today though, he saw Paul's fumbling about with the connections and taking extra time fiddling for exactly what it was: delaying tactics so he didn't have to talk. George had been shocked by the sight of his friend. Two black eyes, purpling now at the edges, dark bruises on the back of his arm that even a parent couldn't mistake for anything other than deep finger marks and an elbow so swollen and painful that even just plugging in the connections caused him to wince.

‘She knows you never fell down the stairs,' George said finally. ‘Yer mum's not daft.'

Paul shrugged. ‘She's hoping you'll get it out of me,' he said flatly.

‘So, what do you want me to tell her when she asks?'

Paul shrugged. ‘How should I know?'

‘So, what
don't
you want me to tell her? That Mark Dowling beat you up?'

Paul sighed and handed the controller to George. ‘Play if you want. It hurts my hand.'

George shrugged. ‘Better make some noise anyway,' he said. He moved back on the bed and selected his character, sensing that he'd be more likely to get the truth out of his friend if he let him take his time and at least appeared not to be listening. That was the thing with Paul. He kept his thoughts and his feelings locked up some place even George was rarely allowed access to. It was something George didn't really understand about him. Paul's family was happy, close, nice, and yet he seemed to think he had a duty to keep himself a bit apart.

George told himself he'd love to have parents like Paul's but in his more honest moments he wasn't sure that was true. He didn't really know what that would be like and he wasn't sure that his imagination was capable of grasping it.

‘Dwayne was on the bus,' he said. His thumbs shifted automatically across the control pad. ‘He reckoned he knew about the old lady. That Mark Dowling knew. He said you told him.'

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paul shrug. He came over and sat down next to George, his back against the wall, eyes fixed on the screen.

‘The police are there, at the old lady's house. I saw them. I had to walk past when I got off the bus.'

‘He killed her,' Paul said softly. ‘He bashed her head in.'

George dropped the controller. ‘He
what
?' He stared at Paul. ‘How? When? How do you know? Do the police know? I mean …'

Paul stared straight at the screen, his body rigid, face white beneath the blackened bruising. ‘I know ‘cause I was there,' he said. ‘He beat her up and her face was all bashed in and there was blood all over and she was just lying there on the floor and I didn't do nothing to stop him.'

George stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the food he had so recently eaten suddenly greasy and leaden in his belly.

‘I told him about the gun,' Paul whispered. Gingerly, he fingered his damaged elbow. ‘He made me tell.'

T
he silence between them seemed to George like a solid thing. Across the room the computer game played out a fantasy battle, dramatic music sounding softly and then ceasing as George slithered off the bed and reached to put the game on pause.

He wished that it was possible to put real life on pause. Stop it dead until you could figure out what to do.

‘You went with him? Back to the old woman's house?'

‘Mrs Freer,' Paul said. ‘Mam says she was called Mrs Freer. I never even knew that.'

‘How did Mark Dowling hear about the gun? Paul, you gotta have said something to someone for him to know about it.'

He turned, stared hard at his friend. Paul had his eyes closed but the tears still crept beneath the lids and he'd pulled his knees close to his chest, drawing in on himself.

‘I never told no one,' Paul blurted. ‘Someone seen us that night, when … when we broke in.'

‘Jesus.' George crossed back to the bed, curled himself at the opposite end, his tense body a mirror image of his friend's. ‘Who? We didn't see no one.'

‘I don't know. Mark just said someone seen us go in then seen us leave. He was laughing at me, running away from some old woman like … like … anyway, I got mad. I said he'd have run too.'

‘Mark Dowling? He don't run from anything. He's an effing psycho.'

‘I tried to take it back, George – tell him I didn't mean nothing – but he wouldn't believe me. He said he wanted to know what I meant and that he'd beat it out of me if he had to.'

Looking at his friend, George figured that was exactly what Mark Dowling had done. He remembered the blows he had received at the hands of his own father, the way his dad thrashed his mum until she was begging for him to let up. He remembered how he'd stood there, watching, just too scared to intervene after that first time when he'd tried to protect her. Tried and failed. Tried and, as she'd later thrown back at him, just made it worse.

George of all people could understand how Paul had frozen, been unable to intervene, but still he couldn't stop the question falling from his mouth. ‘Why'd you go with him? Why didn't you scarper, go and get help? Why didn't you come home and call the police? They might have been able to …'

He broke off; the bruising on Paul's face seemed now to be darkening, pinching his face closed, contorting it with pain. ‘Don't you ever tell my mam,' he whispered. ‘Don't you ever. I swear, you ever let on and I'll …'

George swallowed hard. ‘She'll want to know something,' he said softly. ‘Paul, she's seen your arms, your face; she knows you never fell down the stairs. She knows something's up. Besides, Mark Dowling went and killed that woman. We gotta tell someone that.'

‘No!' Paul almost shouted it. Both boys stared at the door, afraid the sound would have brought Paul's mother up the stairs.

‘No,' he repeated quietly. ‘I'll get blamed too, won't I? You said yourself, I never done nothing to help. They'll say I might have saved her. Might have stopped him.'

‘But he
killed
her, Paul.'

‘And he only knew about the gun because I told him and we only knew about it because … because of what we did, so it's our fault too.'