Bang Bang You're Dead (7 page)

'You've never done anything like that before,' I muttered as we crossed the car park. Jamie was so full of adrenalin he was half running. I could barely keep up with him. 'What if Doctor Zeelander tells—?'

'Shut up, Mia,' Jamie snarled at me. Anger was still flooding out of him, so blazing and white-hot it was almost tangible. I had never
seen
him like that before. He had never shown that side of him to anyone, even me. 'She won't tell, and anyway, what does it matter if she does? There weren't any witnesses except you. That snotty bitch deserved it, and more.'

The following day I was in the Spar minimarket at the end of our street, and there a sentence on the front of the local newspaper leaped out at me with sickening clarity.
Doctor's car vandalized – police appeal for witnesses. See page 4.

It wasn't the main story, it wasn't even a big headline, but somehow it was almost like I'd been waiting for it. Like I'd been expecting it.

As if in a dream, I saw my trembling hands reach for the newspaper and turn to page 4.

DOCTOR'S CAR TARGETED
BY VANDALS

Police today appealed for witnesses after a local doctor's car was wrecked by vandals. Dr Caroline Zeelander, a locum at the Waterford Surgery in Kenwright Road, found her car – a new silver BMW 5 series with the distinctive numberplate ZEE 1 – had been targeted yesterday when she left after evening surgery to drive home. Not only were the car's headlights smashed and the tyres slashed, but a tin of red paint had also been poured over the entire vehicle.

'This was a vicious attack,' commented community PC Rehana Patel, who was first on the scene. 'It's possible that this is a random act of vandalism, or it could be someone who has a particular grudge against Doctor Zeelander, we just don't know yet.'

PC Patel went on to request that if anyone saw anything of the attack, believed to have taken place between 6 and 8 p.m. on Monday evening, then they should contact the police immediately. When asked about the incident, Dr Zeelander refused to confirm reports that she had taken out a restraining order against her estranged husband only the previous week.

I stood there staring at the newspaper for so long that the manager of the minimarket came to ask me if I was all right. I could barely answer him because I felt that if I opened my mouth, I might actually blurt out the terrible thing I was thinking.

Had Jamie had anything to do with the attack on Dr Zeelander's car? He'd disappeared without a word yesterday around a quarter to six. He'd come home just after eight.

It seemed so impossible, and I did try very hard to convince myself that it could not be. After all, Caroline Zeelander hadn't come across as the most sympathetic of doctors. Even though she was only working at the surgery temporarily, any of the other patients there might have had a grudge against her. Alternatively, as the newspaper seemed to be implying, it might have happened because of problems in her personal life.

But all those little incidents – Michael Riley and the others – had lodged themselves deep in my subconscious over the years and very gradually, almost without me acknowledging or even realizing it, I had come to accept that Jamie was – well – volatile. Dangerous.

And the memory of the venomous rage, driven by frustration, that he had directed at Dr Zeelander still made me gasp. The helplessness he felt in dealing with Mum and – be honest, Mia – with
me
was pushing him to breaking point.

And I could not stop asking myself this question.

How far would Jamie dare to go?

Monday 10 March, 9.35 a.m.

'
No!
'

I stand in front of the locked doors that bar me from entering the annexe, my whole body a pantomime of complete disbelief. My eyes are wide, my mouth falls open, my fists are clenched.

I push at the doors again more violently, shoulder-charging them, but it's useless. They are definitely locked.

It never occurred to me that this would happen: during school hours the doors at both ends of the L-shaped glass corridor always remain open. They're only ever locked at night. I guess that, as the school was evacuated, a teacher or maybe the caretaker thought it might be a good idea to contain the potential threat posed by the gunman while everyone escaped.

Even as these thoughts race through my mind, which only takes about two seconds, I am aware that I don't have time to stand and think.

Because if I'm going to make it into the annexe before the armed police arrive, somehow I have to get these doors open.

I wrench the plastic bag of tools from my waist. My first crazy thought is to use the hammer to smash my way through the wooden panels at the bottom, but I realize instantly that this would make a loud noise. So instead I grab the largest chisel and begin trying to jemmy one of the doors open.

I am the most inept burglar in the whole world though, because however hard I bear down on the chisel, even with all my weight behind it, nothing happens. The door does not move a single millimetre.

I am too angry and too fired up even to burst into tears, which is my usual coping technique in a crisis. I realize that there is only one way I'm going to get into the annexe, and it is not through these doors.

Instead I must go outside and find another way in, out of view of the police.

And then I hear it. The sound of a vehicle arriving at the school gates. I don't bother to draw the blind aside a little to look because I already know what it is.

The armed police are arriving.

Somehow I have to get out of the glass corridor and into the annexe before I am spotted, apprehended or shot.

I have only two choices.

One is to return the way I've just come, into the main school building, and then out through the exit near the DT room. From there I can run along the back of the school, past this glass corridor where I am now, and into the annexe through the back entrance.

'Will I have time?' I mutter to myself, still levering at the doors with the chisel, still making little or no impact on them.

Or will the armed police swarm silently around the building and catch me?

There
is
another way out of here. I am not at all athletic, but I think even I can manage this.

Slipping the chisel back into my bag, I turn to my left, to the large plate-glass windows opposite the ones that have the blinds drawn. The white-painted window ledges are broad and low, almost like window seats, and I jump up onto the nearest one.

Then I reach up to the long, rectangular window above the bigger bottom sheet of glass that does not open. I unhook the latch.

The window swings open and fresh, frosty air hits my face, sending a stream of invigorating energy through me. I grasp the bottom of the frame and heave myself up, my trainers scrabbling for a foothold on the smooth expanse of glass below.

I pause for breath and then manage to swing one leg up and out of the window. I sit astride the frame painfully for a second or two, and then I swing my other leg out. Slowly I let myself down to the ground on the other side. There's no broad window seat outside, only a narrow ledge, so I have to drop further than I would like.

I land on my knees on the gravelled flowerbed under the window, scraping holes in my thick black tights and cutting my hands. But I am out.

Yes!

I can't shout the word aloud, but I punch the air in triumph.

I turn to my right, back towards the annexe. Keeping close to the building, I edge my way along the length of glass corridor to the side wall of the annexe which juts out beyond it. I press myself nervously into the shadow of the building and take a couple of breaths.

Then, glancing nervously from side to side like a frightened bird, I slip sideways and round the corner of the annexe.

There I stop and look up. I am almost directly below Class 9D's form room on the first-floor corner of the annexe. I know the classroom well. I had French lessons there when I was in Year Eight.

But I can see nothing because the blinds are drawn. In fact, I note that the blinds are drawn at all the classroom windows at the back of the annexe. I hope that no one is standing watching me right now, peering round the blind as I watched the police myself a few minutes ago.

Wondering what I am doing and how to stop me from doing it . . .

Hugging the wall, keeping flat, I scuttle as fast as I dare to the back doors, which are about halfway along the building. Every second I expect to hear a shout of
Stop!
Maybe even
Put your hands in the air and don't move!

But I hear nothing and see nothing.

Gasping with relief, I reach the back doors of the annexe. I push them but they do not move. These doors are also locked.

'Oh, God, I don't believe it!'

Dropping my head into my hands, I clutch wildly at my hair. Now I am seriously panicking.

Think.

I know the school like the back of my hand.

Find another way in.

Almost crazed with tension, my last remaining bit of common sense telling me to give up and give in, I look along the back of the annexe. I dare not attempt the fire escape because that is right round the corner, on the side wall of the building, and would put me at grave risk of being spotted by the police.

Nor can I see any windows open on the ground floor of the annexe that would allow me a way in. But a little further along, right at the far corner, is the flat-roofed, single-storey extension that was added to provide extra cloakrooms for those pupils whose form rooms are in the annexe. When I glance upwards, I can see that one of the tiny first-floor windows above the flat roof is open, just a sliver of a gap. I rack my brains and realize that it is a window into the girls' lavatories.

It is my only chance. First, though, I have to climb up onto the flat roof.

I feel an urge to burst into hysterical laughter and almost have to slap my own face to calm myself down.

How the hell am I going to do that?
I wonder.

Climbing up onto the flat roof is a much more difficult proposition than getting out of the window in the glass corridor. There are no broad window-seat type ledges for me to balance on. The cloakroom windows have narrow ledges that look barely wide enough for a foothold.

But nevertheless I know I'm going to try.

I choose the window closest to the drainpipe that runs from the flat roof to the ground. Grasping the ledge, I haul myself onto it, clinging to the drainpipe for support.

As I suspected, the ledge is too narrow for me to balance my feet on properly. Cursing under my breath, wobbling precariously, I try to hold onto the drainpipe, but its smooth round surface makes it difficult to get a good grip.

Still teetering on the ledge, I pull my tie from my waist and loop it around one of the drainpipe's brackets. Then I hang onto it. Having something to hold onto means I can balance on the ledge a little more easily.

Once I have stopped wobbling quite so much, I stretch upwards, straining every muscle to extend my arms so that I can grasp the edge of the flat roof.

'I only get one go at this,' I whisper to myself as I flex my fingers. I know there is a strong possibility that, if I don't haul myself up at my first attempt, I will unbalance myself and fall backwards off the window ledge.

I push all thoughts of falling, hitting my head on solid concrete, breaking bones, out of my head. I let go of the tie as my hands close on the edge of the flat roof, and then I push upwards with all my might. My feet flail in thin air for a moment and then I find a toe-hold on the window frame.

I manage to raise myself a little higher than the edge of the roof and then pitch forward so that I fall flat onto my stomach. A surge of triumph rushes through me as I scramble awkwardly up onto the roof.

For a moment I stand there, hands bleeding, savouring my success. Then I realize that I am a sitting target and drop hastily to my knees. The flat roof is filthy, covered with dead leaves and punctured footballs and, strangely, a single old and battered Nike trainer.

I reach over the edge and pull my tie free of the drainpipe. Then, keeping low, I shuffle over to the window that I noticed from below. Unfortunately it looks even smaller than I first thought.

'Am I actually going to get
through
there?' I ask myself doubtfully.

I won't know until I try.

And once again, I'm not exactly overwhelmed with other options.

I try to slide my fingers into the narrow gap at the bottom of the window to push it upwards, but it's a tight fit. So I take out the small chisel. The end of the chisel slides smoothly into the gap, fitting perfectly.

Then I push on the handle of the chisel as hard as I can and the window jerks up a little way. I drop the chisel and now my fingers will fit underneath the window and I can lever it up. I exert all my strength, and the window moves up, once, twice more. Then it sticks again and all my efforts won't move it a single centimetre.

I bite the inside of my cheek anxiously as I stare at the gap. It's wider than before, but I'm still not really sure if it's big enough for me to get through.

Here I go.

I push my bag of tools through the window and drop them gently onto the floor of the lavatory cubicle below me. Then I follow, head first. The gap is small and I'm panicking already. I manage to get my shoulders through and suddenly I am halfway in.

I put my hands on the cold white china of the toilet cistern just below me and take a breath. Then I begin to wiggle this way and that to get the rest of me through the narrow space.

But nothing happens.

I strain and I push and I heave, but I do not move. It's just like a comedy film, except that this is not funny in any way.

I'm like a cork in a bottle.

I am stuck fast.

I'm a coward, as you know, and I didn't say anything to Jamie about my suspicions. But for the next few weeks I checked the local newspaper every day to see if the person who wrecked Dr Zeelander's car had been caught. In fact, I almost got banned from the minimarket because I was in there every day after school, leafing slowly through the paper, scanning every page intently but buying nothing.

But I never saw anything more about Dr Zeelander. So what did I do then?

I simply tried to forget all about it.

And yet, in the deepest, darkest, most remote corners of my mind, those places where we dare not go in the light of day,
I absolutely believed that it was Jamie. That he had returned to the surgery with revenge in mind, and had taken out his fury with Dr Zeelander on her car.

I could deal with this terrifying thought fairly successfully by keeping busy and refusing to think about it. But it would surface with relentless, agonizing regularity in the middle of the night and keep me awake for hours.

I did not
want
to believe it.

But I did.

So where did I go from here?

Well,
nowhere.

What could I do?

I had no proof of anything and Jamie was my twin brother and I loved him and I needed him. He was the only person I could lean on and even if his support was waning, I was clinging on tenaciously because it was all I had.

'What do we do now?' I asked Jamie the day after I'd read the newspaper report. I did not mention it, of course. I would have cut my tongue out first. Nor did I say anything about what had happened in Dr Zeelander's office because I knew instinctively that Jamie would not talk about it.

'Excuse me?' Jamie said politely, as if I was some kind of crazy stranger who'd accosted him in the street. 'What do we do about
what?
'

I stared at him in perplexity. 'Well – Mum, of course.'

Jamie pressed his fingers to his temples as if he was in pain. 'How many times have we had this conversation before, Mia?' he murmured, still in the same polite tone. 'Let's go through the options again, shall we? We could ring Social Services—'

'No, Jamie.'

As far as I knew, Social Services weren't aware of our problems as we'd lived such a stable life with Grandpa for the last eleven years or so. And I wasn't even certain that we would be a high priority for them, anyway. I mean, it wasn't as if Jamie and I couldn't take care of ourselves and Mum wasn't dangerous or abusive. Not
really.
She yelled a lot and threw things, but she'd never been violent. We had food and we had a roof over our heads.

On the other hand, I always had a terrible, lurking fear that, if Social Services got involved, they would find some way to split us up.

Jamie sighed. 'What are you so afraid of, Mia?'

'I don't want to be taken into care,' I cried. The tears came fast, as they always did, but I swallowed and gulped and managed to hold them back because I knew how much Jamie hated my weakness. 'I don't want to run that risk.'

'All right,' Jamie conceded. 'You'd have to toughen up anyway. Right now you wouldn't last five minutes in care on your own, Mia.'

'But I wouldn't be on my own,' I said quickly. 'You'd be with me.'

Again, that strange, enigmatic look on Jamie's face. 'I am
not
going into care,' he stated with frightening certainty. His eyes were as black and as fathomless as the night sky as he looked away from me. 'What about Mrs Francis?'

'The school counsellor?'

'Yes.'

I shivered violently at the very idea. 'I don't want
anyone
at school to find out about Mum.'

I meant the other kids. I could all too easily imagine their comments. Some of the teachers knew about our situation, but I'd never told them that Grandpa had died, and I knew Jamie hadn't either, so I expect they assumed that everything at home was still all right.

'Then the only way is to make Mum go back to the doctor and get her started on the treatment again,' Jamie replied impatiently. 'Then even if the doctor tells Social Services, at least Mum will be back on the happy pills and it's much less likely that they'll do anything drastic. And we are
not
seeing that useless cow Doctor Zeelander again.' He smiled coldly, secretively, to himself and I had to look away. 'Ask for someone else.'

'But Mum won't go to the doctor so then we're back where we started—' I began in that dispirited,
poor-little-me
tone that I knew drove Jamie to utter distraction. But I couldn't help it.

Jamie shook his head. 'No, we're not.' His clenched knuckles were white, betraying the tension within him, belying the casual calm of his voice. 'Because this time we're going to do it differently.'

'How?' I asked, mystified.

Jamie shook his head. He was supernaturally calm, scarily so. 'I don't know yet,' he replied slowly, consideringly. 'I have to think about it. We might only get one chance at this, and so it has to be
right.
'

I couldn't breathe. I felt as if I was hurtling into a dark, airless tunnel and there was no way out, no light at the other end. 'I'm frightened, Jamie.' This time I
did
start to cry, I couldn't help it. 'Tell me what the hell you mean.'

Jamie did not reply. I wasn't sure he'd even heard me.

'You – you won't do anything without telling me f-first?' I stammered and stuttered to get the words out as he strode over to the door. 'Promise me, Jamie? Promise me!'

My words hung in the air as Jamie left the room. He did not promise. He didn't say anything at all.

Jamie's cryptic words had made me desperate. I had no idea what he was planning, but I guessed it would be something crazy and reckless, something that would surely be dangerous for all of us, including Jamie himself.

How could I stop him?

I tried everything I could to get Mum to see a doctor. I begged and pleaded and wept to no avail. I didn't know why, but Mum had what amounted to a phobia about doctors and surgeries and hospitals, and nothing I said made a blind bit of difference.

In the middle of all this, I almost cracked and asked Ms Kennedy for help. One Friday morning just after half-term she asked me to stay behind after an English lesson, and when everyone else had gone she placed a leaflet on her desk in front of me.

UK Young Writers' Essay Competition.
Win hundreds of pounds worth of book
tokens for you and your school!

I remember I looked up at Ms Kennedy, puzzled.

'I'm showing this to a few select pupils,' she said, a slight smile on her lips. She nodded encouragingly at me. 'You're one of them, Mia. You know what a talented writer I think you are. You must enter.'

I picked up the leaflet, but I didn't read it straight away. Instead I studied Ms Kennedy for a second or two. She was beautiful and glowing, and even though she was just about old enough to be my mother, I felt drab and dull, frumpy and thick-witted in comparison.

One day Ms Kennedy would have beautiful, intelligent children and she would be the perfect mother, kind and caring and sympathetic, interested in everything her sons and daughters did or said. I wondered how it would feel to have a mother like that. Someone you could confide in.

'Well, what do you think, Mia? You have plenty of time – the closing date isn't for a few weeks yet.'

The moment for confidences passed as I thought better of it. I read the leaflet instead.

Write an essay of no more than 1,000 words on the following subject: 'My Life and the People Most Important to Me'.

Writing the essay was a challenge I took on gladly. I had no thought in my head of winning, but it gave me something to focus on besides my daily battles with Mum and my fears about what Jamie might secretly be planning.

But by the time the essay was finished, I'd had an idea.

Tossing and turning sleeplessly in bed every night, I had suddenly realized that there was one person left who
might
help us without wanting anything in return or putting in motion what might turn out to be dangerous consequences. It was a very long shot, but it was the only one I had left.

Jamie and I knew nothing about our father, not even his first name, and we'd never tried to find out either. But it proved remarkably easy once I set my mind to it. While Mum was out late at night – and, as often as not, Jamie too – I was feverishly searching the house, looking for anything about our father that would help me to track him down. At the very least, it gave me something to do besides sitting and worrying about both Jamie and Mum.

I knew only a pitifully small amount of facts, gleaned from the occasional unguarded remarks that Mum and Grandpa had made about him. I knew that he was originally from Birmingham, like Mum, and that they'd moved to London after they were married. They had divorced and my father had left London for somewhere else. That was it. To start searching for him, I would need his full name.

It took me a few weeks, but one evening I was sorting through the huge antique mahogany bureau that had belonged to Grandpa when what I was looking for literally fell into my lap. A crumpled but official-looking document tumbled out of the pages of an old address book and my own name leaped out at me.

Mia Katherine Jackson.

I'd never seen it before but I knew it was my birth certificate. I smoothed the paper with trembling fingers, wondering if my father's name would be there. It was:

Father's name:
Leo Dominic Jackson.
Occupation:
Graphic designer.

Then an address in London, the place where Mum had been living when Jamie and I were born, I thought. But by that time my father had left London altogether.

Maybe he had gone back there since. I hoped not. It would take me about ten years to save up the money to go to London.

Or maybe he had come back home to Birmingham as Mum had done.

I would start with both possibilities.

I did not tell Jamie what I was planning. I wanted to show him that I was strong enough and capable enough to do something about our situation. I wanted him to be proud of me.

Or maybe it was because, somewhere in my subconscious mind, I had already realized that this could be one huge disaster.

I spent long hours in the local library, copying down the addresses and phone numbers of all the L. D. Jacksons who lived in London and in Birmingham. That took me several weeks. Then I sold some of Grandpa's beautiful Chinese bowls of paper-thin porcelain to a second-hand shop in order to get the money to make the phone calls. I hated doing it but I had no choice.

So whenever Mum and Jamie were both out, I would go to the phone box at the bottom of our street and call the next name on the list.

'Hello, I'm looking for Leo Dominic Jackson.'

'Sorry, love, no one of that name here.'

During the Christmas holidays I worked my way through the London names and then started on the Birmingham ones. I knew that Leo Jackson might be anywhere. He might have emigrated, he might have died. But at least this gave me the feeling that I was doing something, however futile my quest might be.

And then, just after we'd returned to school in January, when I'd begun to think I had no real hope of ever getting anywhere, I called a number in an area on the other side of Birmingham.

'Leo's not here,' said a soft female voice with the faintest twang of a transatlantic accent. 'Can I take a message?'

I cut the connection because I immediately felt sick and dizzy. My head swam and I thought I might faint; I grabbed onto the sides of the telephone box for support. Up until this very moment, crazy as it sounds, I had been concentrating on how I could help Mum, how I could show Jamie that there was some other way we could get out of this situation, believing that maybe our father would be the key to it all. I hadn't really thought much about what it would be like to meet my dad for the first time after so many years.

But now my heart was slamming against my chest, my stomach churning, my nerves shot to pieces. These physical symptoms of my fear were bad enough, but I couldn't understand what was happening inside me, to my emotions. I was a bubbling, seething, indescribable mass of terror and elation.

The next Saturday morning I slipped out of the house to cross the city to Leo Jackson's address.
The Pines, Gladstone Road.
It was a cold, frosty day and the bus journey took ages. But my mind was running ahead of me so fast, I did not notice the distance.

I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what I was going to say to Leo Jackson. I didn't even know if I would have the nerve to knock on his door. Leo Jackson appeared to have a wife or a girlfriend; he might have other children. My stepbrothers and stepsisters.

Was Leo Jackson aware that I even existed? If he was, then why hadn't he been in touch for all those years?

And if he wasn't, he was now going to get a hell of a shock.

I had never been to Gladstone Road before. Every house was huge, detached, immaculate, with sweeping driveways and landscaped front gardens. BMWs, Jaguars, Mercedes, all with brand-new numberplates, crouched on the drives like armed guards.

The Pines was between The Firs and The Beeches. I stood at the edge of the drive and gazed up at the house. The expensive loops of curtains at the windows, the Japanese-themed front garden with a small pond and an intricate red and black bridge across it, the electric gates, the shiny black Mercedes and new red and white Mini parked behind it all screamed
Look! I made it! I'm rich!

I felt sick with nerves. I doubted whether a pool of vomit on his pristine drive would endear me much to Leo Jackson. Should I leave right now? What was I doing here anyway? Why didn't I have a plan? Did I intend to march up the drive and knock on the door? How exactly did you approach your father after fourteen years? Were there any accepted guidelines? It was all too much.

I need to think about this.

I took a shaky step backwards.

'Excuse me, can I help you?'

I turned. For one crazy moment I thought that the man standing behind me with a newspaper under his arm was Jamie. I saw the same dark hair falling over the brow in exactly the same way, the dark eyes, the tall, slim figure. I saw Jamie, and I saw myself. And I knew.