The Chaos (13 page)

‘Take a look,’ I say. ‘Do you think I’m ever going to be all right again? Take a look at my face.’

I can hear myself doing it, I hate myself for it, but who else have I got to take it out on?

‘I’ve seen your face,’ she says quietly. ‘It’ll get better, better than it is now.’

‘It’s not going to get better, you silly cow. This is it. This is what I look like.’

She reaches in her pocket for a cigarette. She puts the end in her mouth and holds her lighter to the other end. She flicks the flame into life, and the smell of the paper catching, the tobacco starting to burn, hits me like an express train. The smoke is in my eyes, behind my eyes, all around me, and I’m burning, the hair sizzling off my head, my skin crinkling in the flames.

‘Stop it! Get the fuck out of here! Get out!’ My voice rises to a scream.

She looks up, puzzled, and then horrified as I snatch the
cigarette out of her hands, drop it the floor and stamp on it.

‘Adam!’

‘Get out! Just leave me alone!’

She leaves, and I’ve got what I wanted. Except it isn’t really – I’m on my own again, alone with my reflection and a head full of flames and fists, knives and the last look on Junior’s face. There’s another face too. Sarah’s, with that terror of hers, and her body squirming to get away from me in the car.

Chapter 28: Sarah

I
 can’t get on with the spray-cans. It’s too different, not my style, but once I’ve got some brushes, I’m away. I thought Vinny was mad, but there’s something in this. Each sweep of my arm is liberating. It feels like I’m getting the nightmare out there and maybe that’s where it will stay. Out of me.

I’m in a tunnel where the road cuts under the railway. Hardly any cars use it, but there are some pedestrians, walking from the estate through to the High Street. Even so, I can paint here during the day. It’s amazing – people look as they walk by, but no one’s tried to stop me. Perhaps because I’m doing something big, they think it’s official, or maybe they can see it’s going to be better than a blank wall.

I come here whenever I can, even Christmas Day. It’s a funny sort of Christmas. No decorations, no tree, but there are presents. There’s a little plastic bag on the kitchen table when I go downstairs in the morning. Inside, there’s a box of chocs for me and a little woolly hat for Mia, with a note:
‘Happy Christmas, from Vin xx’

I feel ashamed ’cause I’ve not got him anything and I’ve got no money, so before I go out I make him a cup of tea and some toast and I take it up to his room. Breakfast in bed, that’s something, isn’t it? He’s out for the count. I want to wake him up, so he can see what I’ve done, but I haven’t got the heart, so I just leave the mug and plate next to his mattress.

I bring Mia with me. She lies in the old buggy Vinny got out of a skip. I don’t leave her at the house, ever. They’re all nice guys, don’t get me wrong, and they’d never do her any harm, but, at the end of the day, they’re junkies. I’m not judging them – who the hell am I to judge anyone? It’s just that Mia’s too precious. I can’t take any risks with her.

So I paint for as long as she lets me, sometimes two or three hours at a time. It starts to come together and I love it. I almost forget what it’s all about and get lost in the physical thing of painting, of creating something. Then when I step back and look, I’m taken by surprise. The violence in it, the chaos, the horror. It’s come from me, it’s part of me.

When I paint Adam, that’s when I start to get emotional. It’s so obviously him: it feels like naming and shaming. I start to lose my nerve. Can I put real people up there? Is it right? But then I think, I’ve got to stay true to myself. This isn’t just a dream, it isn’t a fantasy, it’s real. I’m warning people. So I do Adam, exactly as I see him – beautiful eyes full of flame, scarred face, and I do Mia and I do the date.

And suddenly there it all is. It’s big, you can’t really see the whole thing at once. You have to walk along and take it in bit by bit. But it’s there. The thing I’ve lived with for so long. It’s out there. I did it.

I walk up and down, looking. There are bits I would
change, bits that could be better, but I’m not going to start tinkering with it now. It’s starting to get dark. I cuddle Mia closer.

‘Let’s go home, Mia. Let’s get some sleep.’

Chapter 29: Adam

I
 lie on my bed for hours. When I drift off to sleep, the same thoughts morph into nightmares so bad I have to wake myself up. I don’t know where I am. The window’s on the wrong side, the bedside table’s the wrong height. This isn’t Weston. Where the hell am I? Where’s Mum?

Reality creeps back into my head, but it don’t bring any comfort. Because as well as the fire, the fight, Junior, Sarah, there’s something else. 112027. I’m another day nearer. Time’s running out. If I’m going to do something about it, it’ll have to be soon, but I can’t do anything. Not a damn thing. All I can do is lie here, and listen to the clock ticking, and listen to my heart beating and wish I was a million miles away, and wish I was someone else.

The police come for me early. Six o’clock on Boxing Day morning. I hear them battering at the door and, in an instant, I’m back in Weston and I feel sick in the pit of my stomach. I can hear voices – Nan’s and theirs – and then Nan is in my room.

‘They want to question you, down the station. You better get dressed. I’m coming too. They’re going to search the house while we’re there, got a warrant and everything.’

‘Shit!’

‘Don’t kick up, Adam. Not this time.’

‘I didn’t do nothing.’

‘I know. You’re the victim, that’s what I said to them, but you were there, and a kid’s dead, so they’re bound to ask you questions.’

I look round the room. It’s all I’ve got, my space, the weird mixture of my things and Dad’s. I don’t want anyone poking about, looking at stuff that isn’t theirs.

‘Get up, son. We’ve got a couple of minutes to get ready, that’s all. Oh, and your notebook.’

‘What?’

‘Give it here. Wouldn’t help if they found that, would it?’ My notebook! With Junior’s death right there in black and white. Predicted. Premeditated. Planned. My notebook could make me into a murderer. 

‘Have you read it?’

She could’ve, last time she looked after it for me. 

She shakes her head.

‘Don’t need to. I know what’s in it. It’s your dates, innit, your numbers.’

‘There’s the computer as well. Dad’s PC, and all the stuff I put on it.’ 

She shrugs.

‘Can’t do nothing about that one.’

We look at each other, and suddenly, at last, I feel like I could talk to her.

‘He was making threats, Nan. But I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me.’

She puts her finger up to her mouth.

‘Don’t say a word to them,’ she whispers. ‘Not a bloody word.’ Then she takes the book and scuttles off to her room to get dressed.

The questions go on all day.

I don’t say a thing.

‘Who else was there?’
Do you think I’d tell you that?
 

‘How did you end up in the fire?’
What do you think?
 

‘Did you see anyone with a knife?’

It starts to become obvious they haven’t found the knife. It’s still out there somewhere; dumped, hidden or being carried about.

They haven’t got the knife. They’ve got names but no evidence.

I’m waiting for it to play out like a TV cop show, for someone to come in and whisper in the ear of the guy asking all the questions – the killer clue that’ll seal the deal for them.
It was planned. The kid was ambushed, he didn’t stand a chance.
There’ll be that look of triumph on their faces – we’ve got him. But it don’t come.

Nan has a word with the solicitor sitting in with us, a young woman, dark and intense, making notes on her laptop the whole time. She shuts the laptop lid and starts asking her own questions.

‘Are you going to charge him?’

‘If you want to keep him any longer, I’m going to insist on a doctor being present – he’s only just come out of hospital. Are you going to keep him?’

‘You’re putting undue pressure on him. He’s sixteen. Are you familiar with the contents of the Children and Criminal Justice Act 2012?’

They’re not happy but they finally agree I won’t be
charged today, and I’m allowed to go. Outside, Nan shakes hands with the solicitor and nudges me to do the same. 

‘Thanks,’ I say. The solicitor breaks into a smile. 

‘You can speak, then,’ she says. She hands Nan her business card. ‘Ring me if you need to, day or night.’

We make our own way home, not knowing what we’ll find when we get there, but it’s just as we left it. I check my room, all okay, nothing missing, not even the computer.

Back downstairs, with the kettle on and a fag sparked up, Nan fishes down her top and produces the notebook. 

‘You’d better have this back.’

‘Nan,’ I say, ‘you know I never wanted to come to London?’

She narrows her eyes, looking at me through a cloud of smoke.

‘Yeah.’

‘I reckon we should get out now. London’s a bad place for me. My mum said it, didn’t she? It’s not safe here.’

‘Well, that’s where she and I disagreed, see, ’cause I think you’re here for a purpose. Times like these need people like you, people that show other people the way. You’re a prophet.’

‘Like Jesus or something.’

‘Maybe.’

I feel like the ground shifting under my feet. I knew Nan was weird, but I reckon she’s really losing her marbles now. 

‘Shut up. Don’t be so fucking stupid.’

‘There’s that language again. You’re right, you’re not Jesus – Jesus would never have sworn at his Nan.’

‘Nan, I’m not Jesus. I’m not anything like that. I’m just … ordinary.’

‘Well, we both know that’s not true.’

There’s a pause, while we look at each other – we both know she’s right.

‘Okay, I’m different. I can see things, but that don’t mean I can change the world.’

‘Can’t you? Can’t you really?’

‘No, Nan!’

‘I think you can. I think you will.’

‘And I think if I don’t get out of London, I’m going to die in a prison cell.’

Her hands go up to her face then.

‘Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that.’

‘Nan, I don’t know what my number is. But a fuck-load of people are going to die here, and maybe I’m one of them.’

She slumps down in the chair and runs her hands through her hair. It’s a while since she’s dyed it and the grey roots are showing through. For once, she’s speechless. I think at last I’ve got through to her. I know I’ve got to get out of here, and maybe she’ll come with me.

‘Let’s pack some bags now, leave tonight.’

She looks up from the chair.

‘What about that girl …?’

Sarah. And her number. The number that tells me I won’t die in a cell. Or does it?

Nan’s question’s still hanging in the air when the doorbell rings. We both freeze. My first thought is that it’s Sarah. The old witch has summoned her up. My heart starts pounding in my chest. What if it is? What’ll I do? What’ll I say? My second thought is that it’s the police. They’ve found the knife. My heart won’t let up pounding.

‘You gonna get that?’ Nan asks.

‘Dunno,’ I say, and I bite the edge of my lip.

‘Don’t sound like they’re going to go away. Go on, Adam. Save my old legs.’

I go to the front door. It’s dark outside, so I flick on the light as I open the door.

There’s a boy on the doorstep, a little kid with glasses. For a minute I can’t remember where I’ve seen him before. He clocks my face and looks away, but then he looks back again, at my eyes, not my skin.

‘I’m … I’m sorry …’ he stammers. His face twitches and the penny drops – Nelson, the boy from Maths Club.

‘What are you sorry for?’ I ask.

‘For your accident, for coming here. I just thought you should have this …’ He holds out a sheet of paper, rolled up with a rubber band round the middle.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘It’s those birthdays. I plotted them. Only …’

‘What?’

‘Only … they’re not birthdays, are they?’ The twitch in his face is going mad. All I can think of is,
More evidence, printed, plotted, mapped.

‘You better come in.’

We flatten out the printout on the coffee table in the lounge. It’s a map of West London covered in dots. There are so many dots you can’t hardly see the map underneath.

‘I worked with the data you gave me, although I don’t think it stands up to scrutiny. Anyway, it was what I had so I had a go. I looked up postcodes, had to make a best guess for some of them, and plotted them. Different colours for the different dates – there’s a key by the side there. The bigger the circle, the more people. I’ve done it in bands, the smallest dot for up to five, then five to ten, ten to twenty, and the biggest one for over twenty.’

He’s done black for the first of January, blue for the
second, red for the third, and so on. 

‘So where are we?’

Nelson points to an area with a massive black dot on. 

‘Where do you live, Nelson?’ He points again. Black.

We sit and look at it for a minute in silence. Nelson keeps looking at me and back at the map. His face is going mad – twitch, twitch, twitch. Finally, he pushes his glasses further up his nose, and says what he’s been screwing himself up to say.

‘I don’t think it’s birthdays, Adam. There are too many in some places and the distribution is so uneven. What is it? What are these dates?’

I look at him blinking nervously at me, face dancing on its own. It’s there in his eyes. His number. 112027. If I can’t save the world, perhaps I can save him. Perhaps the best place to start is the truth. There’s a voice in my head, Mum’s voice, but I push it to the back of my mind.

Then another voice cuts in.

‘Tell ’im. Tell ’im the truth.’ Nan’s standing in the kitchen doorway.

‘They’re death dates,’ I say. ‘I can see them. Do you believe me?’

Nelson blinks and swallows. I can’t help looking at him, and his number makes me scared. Scared for him, scared for me.