Boy A (26 page)

If he’d known about the Internet reward in those days, it might have ended when he’d located the little git, with only twenty grand. Which would still have been a tidy score. But back then he thought he needed more. Something that might persuade the papers to break their traitorous promises of anonymity. Some evidence of instability perhaps. He had never hoped that a little digging would release the geyser of filth that eventually erupted.

The
Evening News
was the clue, not so difficult to spot when dear dad bought two copies. And in the photo, at which Terry stared overly long, was the lad he went to drink with on his precious Tuesday nights. The double of the little fuck that he carries in his wallet. Zed’s seen the wallet, opened it with a stomach-clenching sickness. Rifled through it, sure that there must be a picture of him too, in it somewhere. But no, just the young pretender, sitting in the plastic enclosed space that should be Zed’s by birthright. Live by the sword and you die by the sword, you fuck. The picture in the
Evening News
was Prince Jack’s undoing. Nicely presented as it was with his first and second names, but also those of his workmate, a friend, a way in, a wormhole.

The phone book led to Chris and Zed followed him to Steve’s one night. When the front door was opened by an
uncomplicated-looking blond lad in a DV baseball cap, Zed decided straightaway to shift his attention. He hadn’t liked the look of Chris. There was something of the Alex about him. Something altogether too bloody knowing. Anyway, if he failed to make friends with Steve, then he still had Chris. A second chance in case he fucked up. Zed was not unaccustomed to fucking things up.

As it turned out, making friends with Steve was easy. Every Thursday he played killer pool on his own, in a contest at his local. Jed didn’t win the pool, but the rest was like blunderbussing fish-tanks. Steve couldn’t get over how much they had in common, and Jed couldn’t get over how smoothly his lies were laid to the simpleton. Old Stevie liked to talk; he was as bad as Terry: a couple of beers and he wanted nothing more than some friendly ears. And to his joy, Jed found that his new friend was also a good friend of Jack’s. Though he called him Bruiser sometimes, because of a fight. Jed, of course, said this would go no further. Certainly he wouldn’t mention it in front of Jack, if the lad was sensitive about it.

Zed, on the other hand, made contact with a red-top tabloid and began some complex negotiations. Mainly concerned with proof, but corresponding to very large sums of money. He wore a wire the next time he broached Steve. And he could hear his bank balance clicking up like a milometer, with every word Steve said. He got more than he’d dared hope for. After hearing about the Alton Towers escapade, and posing as TV researcher, he got actual footage of a criminal act, courtesy of a security guard who was saving for a holiday. Invest to earn. It was easier than he would have believed. There wasn’t even any need to go pouring through hours of tape. The park renta-cops kept all shots of people breaking and entering, in case they caught them at it again. ‘Breaking and entering’ seemed a bit strong to Zed, looking at the footage; but that and the alleged
GBH were more than enough for the paper’s peace of mind. To reassure a litigation-scarred editor that disclosure was in the public interest. Zed threw in the missing stock at DV as a sweetener. There was nothing to link it to Jack, so the hacks could just use it as background fact. Let the public mull it over as coincidence or not.

But the missing Michelle should be a godsend. An extra twist worth another twenty at least. ‘Missing Girl, Blond Like Angela Milton’, that’s how he sees the headlines. He wishes he’d brought in Max Clifford to do the bargaining. Fuck it, he’ll be nicely set up from this. And Jack and Terry both get theirs. The little brat that he’s sure caused his parents to divorce and started this slide of shit that’s been his life, and the father that ditched him. Zed gets paid and they get paid, everyone’s a winner. And Terry gets one more good night out of it…

The evening they go to print, tomorrow night, Zed’s going to get him hammered; slip him a mickey too, just to be certain. Make sure he’ll sleep all day. Then Zed’ll unplug all the phones and Jack’ll find out what it really means to be alone. To be deserted by Terry in a time of need. Just one more little stage to set, a few more spotlights to direct, and then the show can go on.

It’s only just gone Guy Fawkes, but there are workmen by the side of the road hanging strings of Christmas lights. They loll unlit between the lamp-posts in the city centre, like badly drawn bunting or burned laundry. It’s not just Monday morning blues; the world is darker today. Chris has barely spoken, not even trying the radio quizzes. Shell is still missing and she’s left a gap in Jack. But today he realizes everyone’s got these holes in them. Spaces that they try and plug with work or hobbies or family or booze, none of which ever really fit, because the thing that was meant to fill them has gone.

Dave calls Jack into his office when they get back to base, after the first round of drops. He wants to know where Michelle is. Jack says that he thinks she’s still ill, at her mum’s, maybe. He doesn’t want her to lose her job, and he doesn’t want a manhunt. Not now, not while he can still hope she’s fine. While there’s a chance for a happy ending.

Kelly isn’t there when he gets home. She’s working double shifts all this week, so she’s staying in the accommodation at the hospital. There’s no sign of Marble either. A note in Kelly’s neat nurse print reminds Jack to feed it, but baby hoops of biscuit that look like congealed
sawdust already slouch untouched in its moulded plastic bowl.

Hoping to find some food for himself, Jack inspects his cupboard. There’s plenty of pasta and rice in it, but he can’t cope with their bland look, and can’t be arsed to cook. He decides to get a burger from the end of the road, when his hunger gets on top of him. There’s no pleasure in eating for the sake of it. To enjoy your food it’s best to wait until you really need it.

The burger is a disappointment. If he wasn’t so hungry, he probably wouldn’t finish it. All the relish is slid to one side, like the guy who made it really couldn’t give a toss. And it’s got sweetcorn in it. Jack hates sweetcorn; little lumps like witches’ teeth, yellow and sickly. Hacendado used to say that if sweetcorn was any good for you, it wouldn’t come out intact in your shit. That’s your body’s way of telling you not to bother.

Jack hasn’t even got the energy for the telly. There’s nothing on anyway, but a film on Channel 5, which is topless tripe. Unplotted, unerotic, the beautiful women so feeble and pleading they are unarousing. He keeps seeing Shell anyway. When she isn’t servicing an army of Chippendale-like lovers, she is lying naked in a ditch, eels leaving tracks of dirty water as they slither over her wan skin.

In bed he feels feverish. Maybe he really is coming down with something. The top strip of the duvet, where the foam or feathers don’t fill out the cloth, feels like a rope across his throat. And he notices for the first time the stain that his head has left on the pillow. Grease from his hair and face has made the centre dirty and shiny. But the murk lurks all around his room. Pockets of shadow holding something dingier within them, which he hopes has not come from him, is not in him too. His nervous tension has risen to such a level that he nearly screams when a shape bursts from one of the patches of gloom and streaks across the floor. But it’s
only Marble, some animal urge making it desert the pile of dirty clothes in which it’s been dozing. It’s just a cat.

In films, when someone realizes it’s just a cat, they die in the same scene.

The grubby shadows are still around at 6:04 am, when Jack wakes up so wired there is no point in trying to sleep for such a little while longer. He goes downstairs in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, flipping on lights as he moves. Opening blinds and curtains to begin with, until he sees that the darkness outside sucks away the comfort of the electric bulbs. He is shaky when he goes into the kitchen, where even in this whitest, brightest room the harsh glare of the strip-light is not enough. He opens the fridge to get its diminutive beam on as well. The cold blast on his bare legs makes them crumple into goosebumps and stands their hairs on end. He can’t figure out his sudden sensitivity to the dark. Something weird is going on. The hairs on his neck prickle too. And he’s not sure if this is caused by the eerie fear, or by the worry that he’s losing it entirely.

He tries to eat a bowl of cornflakes, but the cereal is too dry. It plasters itself to his gullet. When he leaves it a few minutes to sponge up the milk, it becomes inedible mush. He pours it into Marble’s bowl, in the slot where water should go.

He sits in the lounge not watching an Open University programme about soil creep. His legs are irritated by the feel of the sofa’s cloth.

At 6:37 the phone rings. The unexpected noise sends a shock through him. Jack looks at it, bewildered. He can’t understand who could be calling at this time in the morning. It rings off just as he finally decides he’d better answer it. While he’s dialling 1471 he hears his mobile going upstairs. The ring tone is a spooky tick-tick tune, which is suddenly not funny in the silence of a day that is doing his head in. Everything is conspiring to unnerve him, and his
belief in such omens makes every one register deeper than the last. He races upstairs, stubbing his bare toe on his bedroom doorframe. The phone’s green glowing screen says it’s Dave Vernon. Relieved, but still confused, Jack presses the ‘yes’ button to take the call.

‘Dave?’ he says.

There is hesitation at the other end before Dave’s voice says: ‘Jack?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re not going to need you at work for the moment. Well…’ he tails off.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t come in today.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t come in until… unless… if, I ask you to. It’s not good for the business.’

‘What’s this about, Dave?’ Jack is aware of the desperation in his voice. ‘Is it the stock? It’s not me, I haven’t taken a thing.’

‘You know what it’s about. I’m sorry but that’s the end of it. I don’t wish to continue this discussion.’

‘Dave,’ Jack says, ‘Dave?’ But the line is dead.

He puts his work clothes on anyway, not sure why, perhaps because they are lying ready for him over the chair. He can’t understand what just happened. He doesn’t want to believe the most obvious explanation for Dave’s behaviour: that he knows; somehow he knows.

Jack clips the panic button/pager to his belt, and slides it round to his hip, to beneath his right hand. Swallowing saliva as he realizes what he is admitting to himself. That he believes today he might need this machine. He is tempted to press it straightaway. He actually flips up the screen cap, and his finger hovers over the button. But that would be crazy. As freaked out as he is, he has to stay rational. How would Dave know? He’d be the last one to know. He’s got his head
up his own arse most of the time. It’s much more likely that it’s to do with the stolen stock. He’s bound to be the first suspect; Dave knows he’s done time. He’ll wait till half seven or eight, and then phone Terry. He sits down on the sprawl of his unmade bed. Maybe he’d better call Chris now, though, tell him not to bother with the pick-up, in case he doesn’t know. Find out what Dave’s told him, if he does.

Chris is engaged constantly. It’s 6:57 when Jack finally makes the connection. He pours out about being told not to come in, before Chris has a chance to open his mouth.

‘I know,’ Chris says coldly. ‘Dave’s given me the day off.’

‘Is it the stock?’ Jack asks.

‘It’s you, Jack, or whoever you are. It’s about you. How could you? I mean why? I mean what the fuck?’ Chris’ voice is tremulous now, you can almost hear his lip quivering. But then he spews out in total rage: ‘Have you hurt her? Just tell me that, have you hurt Michelle?’

‘No, never, I couldn’t. What’s happened, have they found her?’

‘Read the fucking paper. Read the
Sun
. I’ve already had them phone me this morning.’ His anger drops a notch, or at least his voice does. ‘All the lies. How could you? How could you keep that up? How could you just squirm your way into our world? I’d tell you I’m done with you. But then, I don’t know who the fuck you are anyway.’ He puts the phone down.

Jack is left standing in the hallway, with the buzz of his handset in his ear. Hearing this from Chris is like being beaten with his birthday present. But it’s his old nemesis, the
Sun
, that’s dealt the blow. He needs to know what they’ve written. Peering through the window of Kelly’s room, he sees that the streets are still deserted. Grey with grimy pre-dawn light, looking squalid, ominous, but at least devoid of life. He can run down to the paper shop in less than a minute.

Jack gets his DV cap from the drawer, a hat that has
helped him escape detection before, and pulls it down hard with determined hands. He scans the street once more from Kelly’s window, and then again from the front room, before he walks stiff-legged to the door. Every muscle is tense as he twists the Yale lock. He realizes he has no money, and lets it click back into the clasp of the frame, while he dashes upstairs to get his wallet. He has to do this while he still has the nerve. He checks the panic button is still to hand and that he has his keys, before he opens the door again. Cautiously, studying the road, he lets it close behind him.

He has just raised his right leg to provide the starting momentum for his run when the first flash catches him. It blinds him, blurring his vision, leaving an imprint on his eyes. He raises his hand to block out the light, as another flash comes from the same spot: behind a wheely-bin in the neighbour’s dark alley. It’s joined by a second bulb from a similar concealment across the street, then a third. All now firing in rapid succession. He turns and tries to force his key back into the lock. It won’t fit. They must have stuffed something into the hole to keep him out here.

‘Have you got anything you want to say?’ a man shouts. ‘Put your side before they all get here.’