Born Under Punches (31 page)

He crossed to the CD player, stuck in a CD.

UK garage. The best.

He whacked up the volume, rolled a spliff, opened the window.

He lay on the bed, beats thumping their way into his brain, draw easing its way into his mind. Soothing him, stopping the sad thoughts. Stopping any thoughts.

He took another drag, held the smoke in his chest until it burned, exhaled. Felt the numbness rush to his head.

He smiled. Not happy, but near to it.

Angela threw the sausages into the pan, ignoring the hot fat pin-spitting at her, and sighed. She made her way into the front room, stood hands on hips, looking down at Mick.

‘Listen to that,' she said, pointing up at the ceiling. ‘Do we have to put up with that?'

‘Boy's got to do somethin',' said Mick, not meeting her eyes. ‘You were a teenager once.'

‘Not like that. Not like him. Those locks on his room …'

‘He needs privacy. Boy his age. It's natural.' Mick's hands were shaking as he placed the roll-up between his lips.

‘It's not natural. No shuttin' us out like that. And where does all that stuff he's got come from, eh? You never ask him about it.'

Mick cleared his throat, swallowed.

‘Neither do you.'

‘I wash me hands of the whole thing. He's like his sister. Just as bad. He has to learn, like her, that you either toe the line in this house or you get out.'

Mick said nothing. He held the match with both hands as he lit his roll-up. He looked at the TV. Tried to be interested in the election coverage.

‘Are you listenin' to me?'

He looked up.

‘Aye, pet. Aye.'

Angela looked at him, her eyes hard, unreadable.

‘You're his father. You say somethin' to him.'

‘Aye. Aye.'

Mick smoked, watched TV.

She left the room, went back to the kitchen.

The tea was soon ready and dished up. Mick was instructed to shout upstairs for their son. The music went off, the door was re-padlocked. Down he came. Davva took his seat at the kitchen table.

They ate in silence.

The occasion felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar. They weren't a family who sat down together at mealtimes. Or hadn't been for a long time. Davva's presence made them regard each other as strangers.

‘Your father has somethin' to say to you,' said Angela through a mouthful of sausage.

Mick looked up.

‘Now?'

‘Yes. Now.'

Mick swallowed, looked thoughtful.

‘Listen, son. Wh-where you been today?'

‘Around.'

‘It's just that… me an' your mother, we get, you know, we think you should be at school or somethin'. Learnin'.'

‘No point, is there? No jobs.'

Mick's voice sounded hollow in his own ears. ‘But you have to go to school—'

‘Why? So I can spend all me life on the dole? Like you?'

Mick put his knife and fork down, stopped eating.

‘Don't speak like that to your father,' said Angela. ‘You with all that stuff in your room. Where did all that come from, eh? Where's the money? Here's us haven't got two pennies to rub together and there's you with all that stuff up there. Well?'

Davva stood up.

‘Is that it, is it?'

He thrust his hand into his jeans pocket, gathered up whatever notes were in there and flung them down on the table.

‘There,' he said. ‘If that's what you want, take it.'

He walked away, leaving his tea half-eaten, and went straight out the back door, slamming it as he went. Mick and Angela sat still, not looking at each other, Mick not eating. Angela absently forking in mouthfuls, the money lying on the table between them. They sat like that for a long time. Eventually Angela finished, placed her knife and fork on the plate, sighed.

‘Well,' said Mick, his voice small, hesitant, ‘least he's helpin' out with money. If he's got it comin' in, he should be doin' that.'

Angela looked at the notes lying there, then slowly reached across the table and picked them up. She counted them, pocketed them. She nodded, stood up.

They didn't know what they were feeling. They couldn't name it.

‘I'll get the puddin',' Angela said.

Her voice was rich with the disease Davva believed she had.

Coldwell Colliery was opened in 1901. The seam was expected to last for nearly two hundred years. It was owned by the Northumbrian Colliery Company. Hartsdean House was where the NCC had its headquarters. An imposing Edwardian structure, heavy with red brick and soot. It lay to the north of Coldwell colliery, and from the top floor the three businessmen who owned it could look out over the mine, watching the winding tower wheels turn, calculate how much coal could be turned into profit.

In 1947, when the industry was nationalized, the house was sold off. For years it was a nursing home then, when the owners went bankrupt, the building was allowed to become derelict. In 2001 a brewery bought the land and razed it.

The Hartsdean pub was new, themed and chained. It smelled not of ale and smoke but of fragrance and polish. Faux Victoriana-facaded CD jukeboxes pumped out bland and palatable background noise. Computerized tills beeped. Electric gas flickering on the wall, dimmer controlled from behind the bar, bounced a warm glow off the factory-produced stained-glass windows.

The pub had a bar and a dining area. Waiting staff costumed as Victorian maids and manservants could be glimpsed going about their duties. There were outdoor and indoor children's play areas. Trestle tables bordered an artificial lake built on the site of the deepest seam of the old mine, where twelve men lost their lives in a gas explosion in 1919. All around the lake, new trees and shrubs were planted, encased in white plastic sleeves, like grave markers for dead soldiers. A large gravelled car park was sprinkled with luxury saloons. Beyond was the roof of the leisure centre. Beyond that sprawled the T. Dan.

‘So what d'you want to know, exactly?'

Dave Wilkinson sat in a Liberty-print chair, a glass of orange juice on the dark wood table in front of him. He was again tracksuited, gym bag at his side.

Larkin sat in the chair opposite him. Stubbled, dishevelled, with a bottle of lager and a dictaphone beside him. He had performed the obligatories: thanked Wilkinson for meeting at short notice, allowed Wilkinson to pick the venue, assured him his work would be seen in nothing but a good light and that anything remotely contentious would be quoted anonymously.

Larkin switched on the dictaphone: the red light glowed.

‘We'll start with just an overview. How d'you see the role of the police today in Coldwell?'

‘Well, Stephen, my area, and therefore the only one I can really comment on with any kind of authority, is community policing. I'm based on the T. Dan. You'll have seen our mobile police station, the Portakabin?'

Larkin hadn't but nodded that he had.

‘Well, that's where my team is based. As you know, the T. Dan is an area with a lot of problems. Crimes against the person and property. Street crime. Theft, burglary. Very common. The majority of them drug-related. What we're there to do is give residents a reassuring presence, let them drop in for a cup of tea if they want, share their concerns with us, show them they haven't been forgotten. And act as a deterrent, of course. It's policing based on the needs of the community. A set of initiatives implemented after consultation with local residents themselves.'

It wasn't an answer; it was a recitation. Management-speak bullshitters r us. He'll go far, thought Larkin.

‘Which means what, in real terms?'

‘It means a more holistic approach to policing. People who commit crimes do so for many different sociological and psychological reasons. We have to balance that alongside the victim's view. We have to make people feel safe within their own homes and on their own streets. Bottom line.'

Wilkinson sipped his orange juice. Smacked his lips as if he enjoyed it. Smiled.

Larkin smiled back.

‘Far cry from the miners' strike, isn't it? Sounds more like you're social workers in uniform.'

It looked like the orange juice had soured in Wilkinson's mouth.

‘As I said to you the other day, I wasn't here during the miners' strike. I was just starting university then. I can't speak for what happened then. Nor would I want to. The force has changed since then. Moved on. Everything has. It's a different world now.'

Larkin took a pull from the neck of his beer bottle.

‘So how d'you get on with Tony Woodhouse?'

Wilkinson thought before answering. Whether he was deciding to get up and leave or just formulating his thoughts on Tony Woodhouse, Larkin couldn't tell.

‘He's a good man to work with.'

‘I wouldn't have thought you two would agree on many things.'

‘There's a common ground.'

Larkin nodded to encourage Wilkinson to continue. Instead he leaned across the table and switched off the dictaphone. Larkin looked startled. Wilkinson smiled.

‘I know where you're going with this line of questioning. I've worked out how you operate. You want me to admit that I'm in favour of decriminalization. Perhaps even legalization. Well, I might be. But if I am, I wouldn't admit it to you.

‘You said social workers in uniform before. Well, you're right. That's what we do. We pick them up, listen to their hard luck stories, try to sort them out with something or someone that'll keep them on the straight and narrow. We do everything but wipe their noses and arses. They tell us they're the victims. And yes, some of them have been through hell themselves. And some of them have had terrible lives, worse than we can imagine. And some of them are just plain bad. Plain nasty. And we try to work out which is which and we treat them accordingly.

‘But for all that, they're all the same. There's one thing they've got in common. A victim. Some eighty-year-old granny's frightened to live in her own home. Some honest, hard-working bloke's had his car nicked and torched by joyriders and he can't afford the insurance any more. Some girl's terrified of going out now in case the boys who raped her are still out there. Victims. We've become a society of victims. We're all victims. It's my job to work out who are the real ones.'

Wilkinson looked at his watch, drained his glass.

‘Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go. I've got a squash partner waiting.'

He stood up. Larkin did otherwise.

‘Dave?'

Wilkinson turned.

‘Thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it. I just wished you'd let me keep the tape on.'

Wilkinson searched Larkin's face for any trace of sarcasm. He found none. ‘Thank you.'

‘That's OK. There is one other thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘Tommy Jobson. D'you know him?'

‘Know of him. Why?'

‘I thought I saw him at the charity football match the other day. That's all.'

‘I wouldn't know. Wouldn't be surprised, though. That type think that giving to charity makes up for everything else. Now, if you'll excuse me.'

Wilkinson walked out, bag in hand.

Larkin sat down again, pocketed the dictaphone. He got to work on his beer, looking around the pub as he did so.

Wilkinson's words: it's a different world now.

The minimum wage barstaff, dressed in their Victorian weeds, were serving families disgorged from the Beamers and Mercs in the car park.

Larkin drained his bottle, stood up to leave.

Not that different, he thought.

Skegs climbed the stairs. He didn't even bother with the lift.

Cold concrete underfoot, cold plastic handrail. The block the twin of the one he lived in. He kept his hands beside him, not touching the rails. He had heard the stories: junkies leaving old syringes sticking out, needles upright, waiting to catch people unaware, share their previous owner's bad blood.

The air was cold. Even in the summer the air in the stairwell was cold. It smelled of old piss, so ingrained that Skegs barely noticed. The walls were scrawled with graffiti. Tags and messages: lives recorded, registered, writ large. A small slice of fame, immortal until they faded or were covered over.

Skegs felt strange, nervous. He doubted anyone would attack him – everyone knew who he was, who he worked for. A lone nutter might have a go but no one else. The thing that troubled him was being alone.

Davva was moody and hated to come second in anything. He was often cruel to Skegs, sometimes even beating him up. But despite all that, he was still Skegs's best friend. He did everything with Davva, and now he was on his own.

Strange. Nervous.

He reached the landing, found the correct door, knocked.

A chill wind carried old tabloids and kebab wrappers past his feet. He looked over the walkway, saw only dark towers against dark skies. He shivered.

The door opened. Tanya stood, holding on to the scarred wooden door as if it was the only thing keeping her upright.

Skegs looked at her, shocked. Her hair was lank and unwashed, absorbing light rather than reflecting it, her eyes dark-ringed. She was wearing something long and shapeless: a T-shirt, a nightie or even a shroud. She was shaking. She looked ill.

‘Are y'all right, Tanya?'

She looked at him, hard, as if trying to focus through frosted glass. She smiled, showing teeth that needed attention.

‘Our Davva's mate.'

She opened the door wide.

‘You got somethin' nice for me?'

‘Aye.'

Skegs swallowed hard.

‘Come in, then.'

He entered. She closed the door behind him, walked down the hall.

Skegs watched her move. Her arse and hips swayed side to side. She was naked under that shift.

He followed her into the living room. It looked even sparser than before. Darker. The overhead light in its dirty frilled shade cast everything in harsh illumination, like an ugly truth exposed. There was less furniture, only an old sofa, a small table. Carpet just an absorbent repository for dirt and waste.