Boy A (28 page)

After maybe a quarter of an hour, the boy eased Angela down on to her back, without breaking the seal of their mouths. In this position his hands became more adventurous. They roamed her bare legs, which
A
knew to be so delicate that you could see patches of blue on them, where her royal blood showed through beneath the pale skin. His right hand strayed up her top, to feel one of the tiny bumps that you could only barely see when she wore her tightest school blouse. They were not yet even the promise of breasts. And Angela clearly felt they were not promised to this boy, because she sat up a moment or two after his fingers crept there, and forcibly removed his hand. The boy sat up too, and smiled and shook his head; and obviously spoke kindly or cleverly enough to calm her down again. Because soon his arm was around her and they were once more joined at the face.

A
couldn’t have left if he’d wanted to by then. A part of him was almost poking out the leg of his shorts. It skewered him into the squat, and would have made walking embarrassing if not impossible. He was not accustomed to this feeling, outside of a waking need to wee. But it didn’t worry him, only made the watching more necessary somehow.

The boy, better versed in the world’s ways, had let his hands stroll to Angela’s thighs once again. Brushing the boundaries of her short white-lace skirt. This time though, one hand sank down, between her legs, beneath the cloth. She tried to raise herself from the ground, but his far bulkier chest was on top of her. She shook her mouth free of his, but he just lowered his head to kiss and suck at her neck. His arm showed the continued movement of his buried hand. Only when, eventually, she began to rain blows down on his back, did he remove his urgent fingers. At which he looked
with some revulsion. He sat up, and as he did so she slapped him. The boy looked shocked. For a moment he looked as if he might sob, but then he raised a single middle digit at her, and stormed away. Angela stayed sat where she was, but pulled her knees to her chest and shook.

‘She’s crying,’
A
said.

‘Let’s go and see if she’ll do it to us too,’ said his friend.

A
knew this was stupid, a plan sure to fail. But it was also the first day of the summer holidays. It was one of those days where you knew that anything could happen. One of those days that could change your life.

‘Are you all right?’
A
asked her.

She turned to him with a look of such disgust and loathing that it seemed to stop her tears. She wiped her eyes, even as her mouth twisted in a disdainful: ‘What do you want?’

B
seemed not to notice these obvious signs. ‘We were wondering if you fancied doing that to us. You know, kissing and that.’

Angela stood up; she was taller than either of them.
A
noticed that there were tiny flecks of red on her skirt. Like speckles of something spilled. ‘You two are sick little spying shit-bags and you can both piss off.’

A
turned to go, shoulders slumped with the inevitability of the attack.

But
B
was taken aback. He looked genuinely shocked by the outburst, offended even. He grabbed her by the arm, and with his face straining in effort, like a dog on the lead, started to pull her along the path, towards the bridge which ran over the Byrne.
A
, remembering that this was not just any old Monday, grabbed her other side and dragged too.

Until five minutes before, Angela had lived in a world where bad things did not happen. She struggled to free herself with girlish shakes of her arms, and her shoes left
trails like tram-tracks in the dirt. But she didn’t scream. Probably didn’t even see how she could need to.

When they got her to the dark of the troll bridge, and stopped, it was clear they had reached the end of any plan.

‘Well done. You’ve got me here, now let me go, or you’re really going to pay.’ She turned to
A
, who she knew had witnessed her authority, and said: ‘You leave off my wrist this second, or you’re going to regret it.’

They both dropped her arms and pulled back. But
B
produced the Stanley knife, the Stonelee knife, the knife whose news print picture would sit on coffee tables and trains throughout the country.

Angela Milton looked at the knife, and then from one of the boys to the other in absolute amazement.

‘You little freaks,’ she spat. ‘You’ve got no idea, have you? I’m going to make sure everyone knows what animals you are! Your lives are going to be hell! You’re going to wish you’d never been born!’

A
felt a numb horror, because he knew she could do what she said. Because he didn’t want to go back to a time of fear and hiding. He liked this new sepia world, in the shadows, under the ring road. Where actions were unreal, jumpy, like old films. Where you could do what you wanted, and no one would stop you. Where you were powerful. Where to ants and eels you were a god. And maybe you could be to girls.

B
passed the knife edgily from hand to hand.

Angela tried to push through them, but was knocked to the floor, by one or other, or both. It was hard to say. Everything was indistinct under the bridge, out of the sun.

It was
B
who pushed out the short locking blade, and slashed at her thrashing arm. Of that Jack is pretty sure.

But he also remembers another boy, who watched the drop of Angela’s jaw and revelled in the sudden shock that passed her eyes, as she realized she was not in charge.

It was
B
who first drew blood. He must have started the game.

But together they killed an Angel, and made her spell come true.

With his eyes closed, Jack feels himself slipping, dropping. He can hear cars pulling up outside. He wonders if it’s the police, but there’s no ring at the door. Just more excited press chatter. Sounds he can remember from outside a court in Newcastle. Shouts like the bark of a dog pack. They know he’s dug in. They know he’s finished. They’re just waiting. Unaware that he is escaping from them even while he lies here. But something makes him draw back his lids. And through the open bedroom door, he can see a patch of the sea-green hallway carpet illuminated. A beam of white shines through the skylight, like God showing the promised land. Dust and motes dance within its brilliance, swirling around each other. He can almost believe that this is his pathway to heaven. That this is a divine force showing him the getaway route he will take. Only, would he really be getting away? He can picture a blanket-covered form on an ambulance trolley, snarling faces, flashing cameras. Even when he’s dead they will have him.

Suddenly it seems to Jack that the light is telling him something totally different. It is saying that this isn’t the day to die. Not in here, not like this, not with the pack all around him. Not without a struggle. He pulls his duvet off, almost robotically, the action is so pronounced, so deliberate. What he has to do is clear.

The Nike Air Escape trainers that Terry bought him, that he has kept meticulously white, are still sat side by side at his wardrobe. He puts them on, not tucking the laces in, like he usually wears them, but pulled taut and tied tight. Their name reinforces the message of the beam of light, confirms his decision.

But first he has to visit the toilet. He kneels down on the rug before it, as if in prayer. Here, too, the window faces east, and it bathes him in the first forgiving rays of the sun. With his fingers he pushes at the back of his throat, until he feels a retch, which brings forth his breakfast of tablets and alcohol. The white pills bob in the Beaujolais waves of the bowl. Thankfully they still look pristine, not even dissolved at the edges. Taking no chances, he makes himself vomit again and again. Until it is the very lining of his stomach he is heaving. He already feels strangely cleansed by being so totally empty. But he washes his hands and face at the sink and cleans his teeth to be more so. Jack returns to the bedroom, to put on his cap – though some of the press have seen it, it may disguise him against the public. Then, with one last look around, he steps out into the bright white beam, as if into a teleporter.

The skylight is stiff to open; the gap it leaves barely large enough for him to fit through. It would be easier with a chair. But somehow there is a solemnity to this moment of exit, which would be spoiled if he went to get one now. With a heave, and legs kicking into nothingness, he gets his head and shoulders out on to the roof. The air is fresh. It smells of victory, not the fear he’s leaving in the house. He pulls his whole body out on to the sloping roof. Slowly. Careful not to roll. He is surprised to find that the tiles are not slate, like he imagined, but a kind of coarse plasticky stuff, warm to lie on. Prone like this he can see he is quite invisible to anyone watching the house from below, even if there are any in the back alley. He closes the skylight and
begins to move cautiously across the rooftop. Sliding his knees, in the commando crawl that he has seen so many times on TV. Though without a gun to hold, his hands can grip the tiles too. He’s still scared, but it’s channelled now. He uses it to fuel his progress. There is even a momentary flash of joy as he reaches the barely discernible boundary with the neighbouring house. Thank God for terraces.

It takes the best part of an hour for Jack to make his way up the street like this. The further he gets from number ten, the higher he allows himself to rise. By the end of the road he is moving in a crouched walk, right hand raised to clasp the peak of the roof as he goes. He knows where he is getting down. He’s seen it from afar. The second to last house has a small extension, or a brick shed, jutting out from it. Something he could drop on to, and from there to the ground.

It is easier in the imagination; reality shows further to fall. But the house has sturdy iron guttering, which allows Jack to hang by his fingertips before the drop. He lands with a thud, and rolls on to his back to lose the impact, like a parachutist. He’s uninjured, scrambles quickly to the end of the flat roof, in case the noise draws the owners out. The gate at the end of the short yard is already ajar. He has his eye on it as he takes the shorter second drop, and maybe this is what makes him twist on the impact. What creates the snap and the surge of hurt in his left knee. Takes it from under him.

He doesn’t even allow himself to test the leg as he gets up. The pain tells him it isn’t all right, but that’s not the point. It has to be all right enough to walk on, and adrenalin ensures it is. Jack limps out of the gate and then out of the alley. On to the road the paper shop is on, where he was headed first of all.

It’s not safe here though. It’s too open. He feels very vulnerable, less than a street away from where the hordes are surrounding his home. They might even be aware that he’s
gone by now, if the police have turned up for him. At the end of this road is one of the main arterial routes. A direction he’s taken countless times in the comfort of a white van. If he can make it down there, he might be able to hitch right out of the city. He heads towards it, hat pulled down, left knee excruciating. It’s almost the peak of rush hour now. Occasionally people push past as they walk much faster up the pavement, hurrying to another inconsequential day at work. There are too many faces around, too many watching eyes, staring at the guy who plods so obviously in pain. The end of the street is an impossibly long way off under such scrutiny, and hitchhiking suddenly seems far too risky a route. Who’s going to pick him up? Probably the police. He wouldn’t give himself a lift like this: injured, dishevelled, terrified.

When he sees a train rumbling across a grey bridge over the road, Jack’s plan changes immediately. He’s momentarily alone under the passover’s shadow, as he reaches it. And he climbs as fast as he can up the concrete bank towards the track. His leg screams with the strain of the steep ascent, forcing him to rest at the top, concealed by the concrete parapet. He’s shaking with the pain and the fear and the cold. He wishes he’d worn a coat, as well as his thin work fleece. Who knows where he’s going to sleep tonight?

The ground Jack’s sitting on is a narrow dirt trail, pressed flat by kid feet. Probably a short-cut to the back of the houses which run alongside the train-tracks. His knee has ballooned. He can feel its swollen shape through his trousers. But worried that he’ll be discovered here, he decides to move on.

He follows the rails away from the city centre. He hadn’t counted on how much harder it would be to walk on this uneven surface. The stones give way under his trainers, and with agonizing frequency his knee gives way too. When he tries to walk further from the tracks, in the long grass of the
banks, he finds it difficult to judge where to put his feet. Slowing his progress and shaking his confidence. He ends up winding his way, like a wounded snake, between the verge and the grey stones. Where do they get them from, so many identical stones?

When the trains rage past he has to stand well away, for fear that he’ll fall under them. But the rush to move quickly when he sees them makes a fall all the more likely. A couple of times he only just steadies himself on shifting shale as the front of an Intercity reaches him. But this threat of death is better than simply giving in and dying. The harder it gets, the more important it is to survive.

His leg has begun to numb a bit by the time he reaches a station. Though he can’t see how the walk can have helped it. A limping stagger that has taken close enough to two hours, including the rests when his knee became unbearable. Maybe his brain has just stopped letting as much pain through.

A gap in the fence allows him into the station car park unobserved. So he approaches the building at the normal entrance, by some steps. In spite of everything he feels some satisfaction, as he pulls himself up the blood-red, metal handrail. He’s pretty sure he’s made it this far unspotted. If he can get away he’ll come up with something. Maybe out of the country, abroad, where no one will ever recognize him. They’re always going on about the numbers of illegal immigrants getting in to Britain. It must be a piece of piss to get out.