A House Without Windows (21 page)

The train back to London Bridge was surprisingly empty.  Joss sat alone in the carriage apart from a business-type opposite him who was reading from an iPad.  The man was dressed in an expensive-looking three-piece suit, and a briefcase rested on the floor by his feet.  After a while the man fell fast asleep with his mouth open, the iPad still in his hands. 

Acting on impulse and with a feeling of impending doom awaiting him on his return home, he put his rucksack quietly on his back and began to move the briefcase towards him gradually as the train slowed ready to pull into Manningtree station. The engines stopped and the man slept on.  Joss snatched the briefcase, made his exit, and closed the door without a sound.  Running the entire length of the platform he found an empty carriage at the back of the train.  Heart racing with excitement, he opened the door, jumped in, and flung the briefcase on the seat as the train moved off towards Ipswich. 

The case was locked.  Searching in the zipped front pocket of his rucksack he found the small penknife he always kept there for emergencies.  Jabbing frenziedly at the two locks he eventually prized them open. 

The case was empty except for a large sealed envelope.  Tearing it apart Joss found a pocket diary and a large amount of cash.  Grinning from ear to ear he stuffed the envelope in his rucksack and hid the man’s briefcase under one of the seats.  When the train moved off from Ipswich station he saw the man’s back as he walked towards the exit, and crouched down low in his seat.  Checking that nobody else had got into the open carriage at Ipswich he had a quick count up of the money, and to his absolute delight he found there was a fifteen hundred pound stash in tens, twenties and fives.

He rested his head on the back of the seat and closed in eyes in relief.  Everything would be alright now.

CHAPTER 54

He took a deep breath and turned his key in the lock.  His parents came out at once into the hallway:

“I told you to come home ages ago!  You’re grounded, young man!  This is way out of order!”  His mother’s face was livid-red with rage.

“Sorry Mum!  I was in Norwich with Benny and we lost track of time.  I was looking for something to buy Tara for her birthday.”  The lies slipped out easily, one after the other.

“The shops closed ages ago.  Where have you been since then?”  His father, unsmiling, came towards him as though looking him over for possible injuries.

“We went to the cinema. Sorry.  I’m really sorry.”  Bowing his head, Joss actually did feel some sort of remorse for lying to his parents.  However he couldn’t bring himself to tell them the real reason for his absence.

“Where is the money that was in the cash box?  You took it didn’t you?”  His mother always could see right through him.  Joss reasoned it was futile to lie about that one.

“Yes I took it, but I couldn’t find anything to buy Tara.  It’s still in my bag.  I’ll put it back in the cash box now.  Sorry, but I really like her and wanted to buy her something.”  He sighed and looked down on the ground. He hoped his little-boy-lost look would work on his mother.

“You’re grounded for a month!  If you want money you’re going to have to earn it like everybody else!  You have to learn that you can’t go stealing what’s not yours. You can start tomorrow by washing the cars.  There’s plenty of other jobs around the house you can do as well.”

“Mum!  Not for a month!”

“A month. I will be picking you up in the car as soon as school ends. Dad and I don’t take kindly to being lied to or having our money stolen by our ow
n son.  One hundred pounds was to pay Bill.  He came round this morning for his wages, and wasn’t too pleased either when I couldn’t pay him. You can pop over the road now, apologise, and give him his money!” 

Shit!

With a heavy heart Joss swung his rucksack back over his shoulder, and with his parents watching his every move, he crossed the road and opened the gate to Bill’s well-manicured garden.  He fished around in his rucksack, retrieving £100 pounds from the envelope, and then knocked on the door.  He shouted through the letterbox in case Bill had taken his hearing aid out.

“Bill, it’s me; Joss!”

Joss could hear the sound of footsteps and then security chain being taken off.  The old man put his head around the door:

“Hello Joss.  This is a surprise! Come in.”  He opened the door further.

“No it’s ok.  I’ve just come to give you your wages.  Sorry the money wasn’t there earlier when you came round.”  He handed over the money, anxious to get away before the lonely old man started talking him to death.

“Thanks.  Tell Mum I’ll be over on Monday to prune the shrubs.”

“Will do.  Bye for now.”  Joss was already walking backwards down the path.

“All done.”  He brushed past his parents and headed for the stairs.

“Don’t forget.  You’re grounded.”  He could feel his mother’s eyes staring into his retreating back.

“How can I forget?  You’ll keep on reminding me!”  He ran upstairs to his room and slammed the door.

He lay on his bed with the events of the day swimming around in his head.
Was he a bad lot just like his real dad?
  He’d stolen his parents’ money and the man’s briefcase, but both crimes had been committed out of desperation.  However, after seeing the disappointing reality that was his biological father, he now wished he’d listened to his mother and left well alone. 
If only he was able to turn back the clock!

‘I’m grounded for a month.  Will explain at school on Monday. x’

He’d just finished sending the text to Tara when there was a soft tapping on the door.  Joss knew it wasn’t his mother:

“Come in, Dad.”  He pushed his rucksack under the bed out of sight and lay back down on the pillow.

The door opened and the familiar face of the man he’d always thought was his father came into the room.

“Not a good day son, eh?”  His father smiled at him in his usual charming way and came to sit down beside him on the bed.

“The worst.  I’m sorry I took the money.  At least I didn’t spend it.”  He hoped his father would fall for the lie.

“Next time ask me.  If only you’d asked me I could have given you an advance on your pocket money.  There’s no need to go stealing.” 

“I know.  I will ask you next time.  I really like Tara.  I wanted to buy her something but got caught up with Benny and forgot.”

“She’s a nice girl.”

“The best.  I really like her, Dad.”  The
dad
came easily. Suddenly he wanted this man to think well of him:

“I’m not bad like my real father am I?”  He sat up, confused and anxious.

“Of course you’re not bad.  You’ve just done something stupid today, and you’ll learn from it.  Take your punishment like a man and after a month we’ll forget it ever happened.” 

If only his real dad could have been as kind!

“Sorry, Dad.”  Joss felt hot tears starting to fall.  He wondered if he could live with himself for lying so glibly to his parents.

“Come here.”  His father held out his arms and Joss crawled into them, feeling loved, wanted, and safe.

CHAPTER 55

“Why are you grounded?”  Tara shared her apple with Joss as they sat on the wall outside the sixth form block.

“I wanted to see my dad, but didn’t have any money for the train fare.   I took the cash that Mum was going to use to pay our gardener with.”

“You’re in the shit then!”  Tara laughed and shuffled closer. “Never mind. It’s only for a month.”  She kissed him on the cheek, and Joss felt a stirring in his loins at her nearness. 

“Why didn’t you ask your parents for the money?”  Tara thrummed her heels against the wall as she ate.

“They don’t want me to visit him.” 

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story; one that I don’t really want to go into right now.”  Joss sighed with the weight of the secret he was carrying.

“You can tell me.  I won’t say anything.” 

Joss desperately wanted to unburden himself.  He decided to take a chance on this girl he was liking more and more:

“He’s a prisoner.”

“He’s in prison?”  Tara looked at Joss, surprised.

“No, not the usual prison.  It’s like a secure hospital and he can’t get out. He’s mentally ill.” He felt better straight away for telling her.

“Wow.  No wonder they don’t want you going there.  He might be dangerous.”  Tara threw her apple core into a hedgerow and turned to look at Joss.

“He is dangerous, but I just wanted to meet him.  I only found out about him recently.  I never knew he existed.”  He closed his eyes with the relief of sharing his burden.

The bell rang for the end of morning break. 

“Got to go or I’ll be late for music theory.  See you later.”  Tara jumped down from the wall, and Joss felt her warm hand on his:

“Text me any time.  I won’t tell a soul.  Promise.”

“I love you, Tara.”  His face felt hot with embarrassment.

“I love you too.”  She smiled at him and then was gone, mingling with the students going off to their various classrooms.

Joss sat stupefied for a few more minutes, amazed at Tara’s revelation.  Suddenly the world didn’t seem such a bad place after all.  Levering himself off the top of the wall he ran to catch his next class with a smile upon his face that refused to budge for the rest of the day.

True to her promise his mother was waiting for him in the car just outside the school gates.  There was no chance for him to have another word with Tara.  Joss opened the passenger door and got in:

“We’re not going straight home.”  His mother looked grim. “We’ve got to visit the police station first. Dad’s meeting us down there.”

“Why?”  He had a sudden frightening thought that his mother might be mad enough to report him.

“I had a visit from the police today.  It seems that the money you gave Bill yesterday was counterfeit.  Poor Bill got arrested trying to spend some of it in town this afternoon.”

“What!”  Joss could feel his heart start to race.

“Yes.  When he was asked where he got the money from, Bill naturally told them we’d given it to him.”

“Who’s given it to us then?  We don’t know!”  He began to panic.

“I withdrew the money from the bank on Friday.  The money you gave Bill did not come from the bank.  It had no watermarks. Where did it come from, Joss?”  His mother started up the car and pulled away from the kerb, her lips set in a tight line.

Joss felt sick to his stomach.  He had a sudden terrible thought of ending up a prisoner just like his real dad; rotten to the core.  The bad genes had already been transferred from father to son; he would never be able to shake the legacy:

“It must have come from the bank!  Where else would it have come from?”  He tried one last time to absolve himself of any blame.

“We will get to the bottom of this at the police station.  That’s all I’m going to say just now.”

The silence in the car was almost palpable.  As they approached the station his mother found a space and parked the car.  Joss looked out of the window and saw his father waiting for them at the main entrance, looking equally as grim.

But no, the man waiting for them was not his father; in fact he was not a blood relation at all.  His real father was a kidnapper, rapist, and God knows what else! 

CHAPTER 56

“Joss, I’m Detective Inspector Mike Farnes.  I expect you know why you’re here with your parents today?” 

Joss looked across the table to the burly dark-haired man sitting opposite, sipping coffee nonchalantly from a cracked mug.

“Yes.  Mum told me.”  He tried to keep his voice from shaking with nervousness.

“What have you got to say about it all then?”  The tone was even, and seemed to have a calming effect on his young interviewee.

“When I changed one of the twenty pound notes in a cafe I must have been given a dodgy tenner, that’s all I can think of.”  Joss held his breath and prayed:

“It’s a bit more than a dodgy tenner, son.  When Mr Robertson gave us the rest of the money, the entire amount was counterfeit.”  Farnes put his cup down, and stared across the table.

Backed up into a corner like a trapped fox, Joss’s heart started to race again.  He looked at his parents sitting to his left but they were gazing at him incomprehensibly, waiting for an answer.