Witness (2 page)

Ziggy waited at the bridge to see which route they were taking. Fiona signalled ahead: ‘Go on Zig.’ The dog waited and trotted over the bridge when Fiona reached the steps. The pub on the other bank, Jackson’s Boat, once derelict, had been done up a couple of years ago and there were parties sitting at the picnic tables. The smell of fried food lingered in the air, children squealed in the playground. Back in the mists of time she and Jeff had occasionally treated themselves to Sunday lunch there, Owen in his pushchair.

The lane led through an avenue of trees, the canopies in full leaf, the track beneath still muddy in the shadiest places from last week’s rains. Fiona hoped she wouldn’t run into any of the regulars, the dog walkers who’d come to know each other through their animals. A rag-tag community, all shapes and sizes. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She tried to immerse herself in the natural world around her: the heady perfume of dog-roses, splashed pink among the hedgerows, the clamour of sparrows, a small tortoiseshell butterfly dancing in the nettles, the flash of orange and the blue edging far fancier than its name suggested. They crossed into the little wood by the nature reserve building and she saw a wren busy in the undergrowth and a ball of gnats in a roiling jig under the boughs of the trees. The path led on to the water park. The lake was the colour of blue-black ink, ruffled despite the still of the evening. The motorway ran at the other side, its roar ever-present. Pylons stood sentinel, their wires stretched high above the water. Bulrushes and Himalayan balsam, with its sweet, waxy scent, lined the banks. The lake was used for sailing and canoeing but the water was clear of craft now, the boats locked away in the yard on the far side near the fancy motorway footbridge with its triangular frame. Now only ducks and Canada geese, gulls and a solitary heron broke the water’s surface.

Ziggy ran down to the shore and barked half-heartedly at a clutch of geese. The birds ignored the dog. They were resident here all year; their marbled olive-green and white guano decorated the banks and the paths. Further along Fiona saw fishermen, hunkering down for the night, with their green tents and paraphernalia, rods already baited and propped on stays.

Fiona and Ziggy passed a man and a woman with a golden retriever. Strangers: smiles and nods exchanged. When the path left the lakeside, she took the turn up to the river. The banks had been raised for flood defences, and the broken bricks and chunks of concrete peeked through the grass here and there. A path ran along the top and another had been carved out halfway down. Fiona took the lower route, which was punctuated by heaps of debris – kindling and plastic waste – left by the storms. As they neared the bridge again, she was tiring. She stopped and stared into the river, following the ripple where some obstacle altered the current. Ziggy ran ahead then back, waited unsettled, head cocked on one side. They turned for home. The air was cooling now, the sun lost behind the tiled roofs, the swifts still in flight. She had read that they sleep in flight, roosting high above the ground, unable to fly again if they are forced to land. Ziggy waited for her at the back gate. Fiona looked up at the house. Owen was still out. She wasn’t due in work till Wednesday. She must ring in the morning, tell them she hadn’t finished her last visit.

She locked the gate behind them, let the dog in. She took off her trainers and cleared up the dishes even though it was Owen’s job, unable to let them sit and then face another argument about it. She poured a glass of wine.

It was almost nine. She tuned the radio into the local station. Why was she doing this? Proof? Prurience? The jingle came on then the time signal. The newscaster gave her introduction, then announced the headline:
Police in Greater Manchester have launched a murder inquiry after a sixteen-year-old boy was shot and killed in the Hulme district of Manchester earlier today. The youth has not yet been named.

‘Danny,’ Fiona whispered, ‘Danny Macateer.’ She turned the radio off and sat in silence until she heard Owen come in at quarter past ten, his footsteps thudding up the stairs, shaking the house. She stood and went up after him. Met him on the landing.

‘Hey,’ she kept her voice light, ‘I said ten.’

He gave a sigh.

‘I love you, you know,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’ He made a noise in his throat. She squeezed his shoulder. He swung past her into the bathroom, a half-smile on his lips.

She cleared up the living room, set the alarm, put Ziggy in the kitchen. Routines. Then she went to bed, promising herself that if she couldn’t doze off, she’d get up and read or something. It didn’t matter; she’d no work in the morning. She felt so tired, as though she’d not enough blood in her any more, insubstantial. She closed her eyes. And slept. 

CHAPTER TWO

Mike

M
ike’s first thought was that it was a movie. Someone making a film. The guy stepping out of the Beemer, raising his arm. The retort of the weapon cutting through the traffic noise, through Joe Strummer’s snarling vocals and the thrash of guitars. You saw plenty of filming in the city. Granada Studios were in town. Only a couple of miles or so from here. They used locations for
Coronation Street,
for other programmes they made. The Town Hall was popular – it doubled as the Houses of Parliament inside – all the marble pillars and stone stairways, elaborate ceilings and mullioned windows. They’d filmed across the way from Mike’s one time. An episode of
Cracker,
Robbie Coltrane, the big man himself, playing the police shrink, criminal profiler they called it. Coltrane had to knock on this door and when it opened he stepped inside. All morning they’d filmed. Mike had to move his van round the corner out of the way. The little street was chocker with cables and flight cases and the crew. Must have been twenty people milling around. Coltrane did his move again, and again. Up to the door, knocking, stepping inside. Mike grew bored after a while but Vicky was fascinated. She watched from their upstairs bedroom window. Circle seats. Working out what all the crew’s jobs were. Mike left for work. He had to wait for a signal from a guy in a knee-length bubble coat and headset before he could walk down the road to get his van. In case his shadow or his footsteps or something spoiled the shot.

So that was Mike’s first thought: a film. But there was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach like he knew before he’d even thought it through. No vans or cables, no UNIT signs on the lampposts, no clusters of make-up artists or technicians. No camera.

The lad crossing the grass, he had his back to the man with the gun. Mike wanted to call out, the word rose in his throat. NO! A warning to the lad or a plea to the shooter. The word died on his lips as the lad was jolted, spun a quarter turn then, arms flailing, fell. Lay twitching.

Mike slammed on his brakes, felt the seat belt bite his shoulder, hauled the wheel over to the left and mounted the pavement. Earning a blast on the horn from the car in his wake. He killed the engine and The Clash cut out mid-beat.

Across the far side of the recreation ground the bloke with the gun slid into the passenger seat, pulled the door to and the car set off at speed, the driver gunning the engine. The car was side on and Mike couldn’t see the registration plates. Wouldn’t be able to read them at this distance. There was a woman coming out of one of the houses, dressed in a blue uniform. A nurse. The car almost mowed her down, bucked and swerved past her. She was running to the boy. Mike pulled out his phone and pressed 999 as he jumped down from the van. He walked quickly, closing the distance between himself and the figures on the ground. The lad in his green top and jeans, the nurse crouched over him. Across the way, at the corner of the houses, a dog stood barking up at the roof. At something Mike couldn’t see. Pigeons perhaps, or a cat.

‘Ambulance,’ he snapped when they asked him which service he required.

‘What’s your emergency?’

‘There’s a lad been shot on the field near Abbey Street, in Hulme. Beyond the bridge.’

‘Please stay on the line.’

Mike kept walking, and the operator asked him all sorts of impossible questions about the situation and the lad’s health. He tried to stay calm, to get enough breath and control the trembling in his voice as he answered her. He was close enough now to see the lake of blood, glossy in the light, and the nurse doing mouth-to-mouth. He relayed what he could see, told her what the nurse was doing. She kept him talking until the sirens materialized. He thanked her several times before sliding his phone shut. Watching the paramedics scurry from the ambulance, Mike stepped back. The lad wasn’t moving. He couldn’t be very old. Maybe fourteen or fifteen.

Then there was a crowd in Sunday best swarming to the field. A black woman near the front, running fast, her face a mask of fear. Mike had to look away. He tried to swallow, suddenly thirsty. He had some Coke in the van but it didn’t seem right to walk away.

The black woman was on her knees by the paramedics, an older woman beside her, others around them. The woman was shouting and crying, her distress making her words unintelligible but Mike knew exactly what she meant. Any human being would: my son, my son! Mike bit his tongue, took a steadying breath.

Four squad cars arrived, and other assorted vehicles as the lad was stretchered into the ambulance. His mother, an older woman and a teenage girl were directed to an unmarked car. Manchester Royal Infirmary was the nearest A&E, only a couple of streets away. They’d be there in no time, Mike thought. The police were edging people away, asking them to go to the road by the houses, to give their details.

The policeman who first spoke to him was a pudgy lad with large blue eyes. Staring eyes, like he’d had a surprise and never got over it. He took Mike’s name and address, date of birth, and asked him what he was doing in the area.

Mike explained and gestured to his van.

‘And can you tell me what you saw?’

‘I saw the shooting,’ Mike said.

The police officer glanced swiftly at him, as if to check he was serious. Then nodded and wrote something in his notebook. ‘Can you come over here, sir? We’d like to take some details now.’

It was another hour and a half before they were done. There was a lot of waiting about. Mike tried ringing Vicky but there was no answer on either her mobile or the landline. Then he sat in a car with a woman who took a detailed account from him, and she seemed to deliberately take it slowly. First interrupting him and wanting him to elaborate on things, then asking him to repeat what he’d just told her. He was thirsty and asked if he could get his Coke but she wouldn’t let him. She drummed up a bottle of water, warm but wet. Mike drank it all. Someone removed his shoes and returned them after taking an impression of the soles.

A lot of the questions were about the man with the gun. His height and size, which arm he raised, his stance, his clothes, his hairstyle. Mike could see the guy in his mind’s eye but when she repeated her questions uncertainty corroded the picture. He was black, yes, like the boy he shot. Tall, solid build. Baggy yellow and blue clothes, like the basketball players wear. But Mike was too far away to be sure about his hair, or his features.

‘Could you identify him?’ she asked. It was warm in the car, even with the windows open, and tiny beads of sweat framed her forehead. Mike could smell his own sweat. Rank. He wanted to apologize for it. It couldn’t be pleasant. You must get used to it, he thought, people in a state. He recalled the nurse standing up once the ambulance arrived, her hands and knees crimson and blood daubed on her uniform, a smear on one cheek. Looking dazed and lost.

‘I was too far away,’ he admitted.

Finally the woman told Mike he could go. They’d be in touch.

‘Is there any news,’ he asked ‘from the hospital?’

She pulled her mouth down, took off her specs, there were deep red grooves either side of the bridge of her nose. ‘They couldn’t revive him,’ she said.

Mike nodded once, his hands balled into fists.

He’d missed nine deliveries. He was one of the few drivers who covered Sundays – same rate, Ian never paid double time. Most of the trade was home shopping, people ordering from catalogues and, more often nowadays, online.

Ian owned the business. Mike had been a postman before that, kept it up when Kieran came along but by the time he was a year old and it was clear there was something wrong, him being so difficult to manage, Vicky begged Mike to find something with more sociable hours. Where he wasn’t heading off at four in the morning leaving her to cope on her own. Mike didn’t mind the driving job, liked his own company, listened to music or the radio when he got bored; Radio 5 Live or Radio 4. Learnt all sorts.

With the money Vicky made from her mobile hairdressing and tax credits from the government they could just about manage. It was touch and go at times: no leeway if the washing machine packed in or the gas bill doubled. Annual holidays were beyond their means and Vicky’s old banger was running on a lick and a prayer but holidays weren’t really an option with Kieran anyway. Change of any sort, the slightest deviation from routine, brought out the worst of his behaviour.

Mike looked at his clipboard. Two of the parcels were 24-hour express. Timperley and over in Urmston. Opposite sides of the city. ‘Sod it,’ he said quietly, deciding he would make an early start tomorrow and try to clear the backlog plus whatever else was on his sheet. He looked over to the rec, the white tent which now shielded the ground where the lad had lain. ‘It’ll keep.’

Back home he could smell pizza. Vicky was in the garden with the kids. Megan was on the slide; she skimmed down then raced across the grass to greet him. He swung her up and she let out a peal of laughter. ‘Again, Dad.’

‘Later, matey, Dad’s tired. Hey, Kieran.’

His son was nestled in the corner of the small area of decking, facing the walls. Mike could see the toys scattered between his legs. The bafflingly random items that Kieran formed an attachment to. A small rubber ring for a dog, a thimble, a piece of yellow felt, a plastic snake.

‘Did you get the straws?’ Vicky asked.

‘Oh, shit.’ Mike couldn’t face going out again. The only way Kieran would drink was through a particular make of striped plastic straws. No others. The child would die of dehydration rather than compromise. And the only place that sold those straws was Morrison’s supermarket, the nearest branch out in Reddish.

‘They’ll be shut, now,’ Mike said.

‘How could you forget!’ Her eyes were blazing.

‘Aren’t there any left?’

They bought in bulk, a system that worked for months at a time making them complacent, not aware of dwindling supplies.

Vicky swore and stalked into the kitchen. Mike followed. ‘I rang,’ he said. ‘You never answered.’ Bit of a red herring, really, he would never have made it to the supermarket even if he had got through and Vicky had reminded him.

‘Yes, well, he’s hidden the phone again,’ she hissed, pulling at the drawers, rifling through, just in case. Another of Kieran’s obsessions: taking and hiding phones.

‘And your mobile?’

‘Recharging. Look!’ She turned, furious, her face contorted, holding up the transparent plastic box. ‘That’s it!’ A single straw.

Mike’s mouth began to twitch, a bubble of hysteria fluttered in his chest. His diaphragm and belly convulsed. Don’t say it, he thought. Don’t.

‘It’s not funny, Mike.’ She looked askance. ‘It’s the last straw!’

Laughter burst from him. Snatching his breath and sight and sense. And then his face was wet and his shoulders shook and he lifted his hands to his face.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Vicky said quietly. ‘What on earth is it?’