Before the Fire (6 page)

‘Kieran, you have to understand—’ his dad started.

‘No!’ Stick swung round. ‘I’m eighteen nearly. This is fucking stupid.’ He had to get out. The hall was too small. The house was too small. His heart was racing and
his skin had turned hot and itchy and tight. Stick reached around his mum and opened the front door – a breath of cool, outside air.

‘Have you got your phone?’ She spoke so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. ‘Kieran? Your phone.’

‘It’s in the car.’ He moved past her and out of the house.

‘Kieran? Please.’

He made a show of opening the car door, holding up his phone and putting it in his pocket, and then he stalked off without looking back.

It started raining as soon as he reached the end of the road, drops darkening the paving slabs like a child was flicking paint. Queen’s Road looked the same as usual – traffic, an
empty beer can rolling around in front of the housing office, the traffic lights repeating themselves over and over. A few people ran along with newspapers or plastic bags held over their heads.
Two kids stood in the chippy gazing up at the menu, which hadn’t changed in forever. Stick walked slowly, the rain soaking into his clothes. It made no difference to anything if he got
wet.

Paget Street. Short enough that you could stand at one end and see cars and buses rushing up and down Rochdale Road at the other. A scabby-looking tortoiseshell cat stalking along the bit of
grass that was just about big enough for a game of footy. Blue-and-white police tape had been wrapped around thin metal posts to mark out a wonky rectangle. And just next to the tape, half on the
pavement, half on the grass, was a caravan with ‘incident unit’ written across the side in dark-blue letters and the police logo, with the red crown sticking up off the top, almost the
full height of it.

A bored-looking policewoman in a black shirt and a bulletproof vest with a radio attached stood by a set of narrow metal steps, absent-mindedly kicking at them – right foot, left foot,
right foot. When she looked up and saw Stick she brought both feet together, as though standing to attention. She had neat black cornrows, just visible under her hat, which, as he approached her,
Stick saw was beaded with drops of water.

He stepped up to the tape, held the slippery wet plastic between his finger and thumb.

‘You’re not to cross that,’ the woman said.

Stick stared at the ground. Mac: two grass skirts over his shorts; coconuts gaffer-taped to his T-shirt; a pair of pink plastic sunglasses. ‘I was his best mate,’ he said.

Her hand went straight for her radio.

Stick shook his head. ‘I’ve already talked to them. I don’t know anything. Is this where—’ He tried to picture Mac with a knife in his chest, falling.

‘Do you want to come out of the rain?’ The woman nodded towards the caravan. ‘Have a cup of tea or something?’

‘Is there blood?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Blood.’ Stick pointed.

‘They’ll have taken samples of everything.’

‘So why’s this tape still up?’ He plucked at the plastic.

‘It’ll be down as soon as they’re ready for it to be down. I said you’re not to cross that.’

The grass was thick summer green, with bright clumps of dandelions. Stick pictured Mac stumbling backwards, hands against his stomach, blood gathering between his fingers.

‘Did he have a fight then, or what?’ Stick asked.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have that information.’

‘Everyone loved Mac.’ Stick heard his voice catch and coughed, pretending he had something in his throat. ‘No one would kill him.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Stick looked at her. She had dark eyes and a pretty snub nose. ‘Are you?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘So tell me what happened.’

She gave him a half-smile. ‘I’m afraid we don’t know yet. We’re trying to get as much information as we can. That’s what this is for.’ She pointed at the
caravan. ‘Maybe you could help? Encourage people to come and talk to us?’

‘I missed my stop,’ Stick said. ‘I fell asleep on the bus. If I hadn’t missed my stop I’d have seen him, wouldn’t I?’

‘We’ve got victim support leaflets inside. There’s a number to call if you want to talk to someone.’

‘Why’d I want to talk to someone?’

‘It’s hard to come to terms with something like this. It can help to talk it through.’

‘I just want to know what happened. Is there a number I can call for that?’

‘We’re doing our best, you can be sure we’re doing our best.’

‘Fuck’s sake.’ Stick kicked at the metal steps so they rattled against the pavement.

If Mac was there he’d be chatting up the policewoman, getting her to tell them about police stuff – fingerprinting, CCTV, forensics, profiling. Stick glanced past her to the
rectangle of tape. Who would kill Mac? He could imagine someone wanting to kill Ricky, or his dad, but Mac?

‘You have to find whoever did it,’ he said, looking her straight in the eyes. ‘You have to.’

She nodded. ‘Patience and hard work, that’s what my boss always says, patience and hard work.’

‘Stick!’ Lainey was standing at the top of the caravan steps, a shiny black bag hugged to her chest like a teddy bear. She wore a dress the same colour as the daffodils, tight and
low cut. There were big smudges of mascara around her eyes.

‘Stick!’ she shouted again, and waved, then half stumbled down the stairs and pulled him into a hug, her breasts pressed against his chest. She smelt of sherbet and strawberry lip
gloss, and she was crying – he could feel it shaking through her, hear her sniff into his T-shirt.

‘I came down cos I didn’t believe it.’ She pulled back and gestured towards the caravan, shaking her head, her breath coming in short gasps.
‘Mac’s—’

‘I know.’

‘He can’t be—’ She twisted a yellow plastic ring around and around her finger and stared at Stick. ‘He was there.’

‘Where?’

‘Yesterday. In the bar. He was there.’ She held her hands out as if she could see Mac and was touching him on both shoulders. ‘I kissed him.’ She started crying
again.

Stick stood with his arms against his sides, looking at Lainey’s bag so he didn’t have to look at her face all screwed up and wet.

She took a big, shaky breath in. ‘It’s my fault,’ she declared.

Stick shook his head but didn’t say anything.

‘I – I wouldn’t go back with him. And then we started fighting about Spain and Spanish girls, and I don’t even know, I was that pissed. And he went. And so it’s my
fault.’ She started crying again.

The policewoman had moved away and was looking towards the backs of the row of houses like she wasn’t really listening, though he’d bet she was.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Stick said. He sounded like a robot. Lainey just kept on crying.

The tortoiseshell cat had settled itself in the middle of the blue-and-white police tape rectangle, stuck its leg in the air and started licking at its fur. Stick bent down, picked up a stone
and threw it. He missed and the cat took no notice.

‘What are you doing?’ Lainey was staring at him, her breath still coming in little hiccuping sobs, like she was trying not to drown.

‘I don’t want it licking its arse there.’

‘You can’t throw stones at cats.’

‘Shoo,’ Stick shouted at the cat. ‘Fuck off.’ It looked at him for a brief moment, then went back to its cleaning. ‘I said fuck off,’ he shouted, louder. He
could see the policewoman at the edge of his vision, hand on her radio.

‘Stick.’ Lainey touched his arm.

‘I told him to wait,’ Stick said and then walked up to the caravan and punched it, hard, with his right fist. Hurt like fuck. Ridged metal against his knuckles. If Mac wasn’t
such a stubborn bastard he wouldn’t be dead. They’d be past Birmingham now, halfway to Kent.

‘It’s not your fault either,’ Lainey said.

Stick punched the caravan again.

‘Will you knock that off?’ A different policewoman stood at the top of the steps. Stick glowered at her. ‘You’ve got something to tell us, come on in,’ she said.
‘Otherwise, scoot.’

‘I’m not a dog,’ he snapped.

‘And this isn’t a punchbag.’

Stick slammed his foot into the ground.

‘He’s upset, Miss,’ Lainey said, sniffing.

‘I still don’t need him here kicking off.’

‘I wouldn’t be here if you’d tell me what fucking happened,’ Stick said.

‘You need to leave.’ The policewoman walked down the steps and stood in front of Stick.

‘Fucking pigs,’ Lainey snapped.

‘Now,’ said the woman, quietly.

‘We were leaving anyway. Come on, Stick.’ Lainey tugged at his arm.

He followed her, away from where Mac had died, and the whole way back home he kept thinking, did it hurt? Did he struggle? Did he shit himself? Did he cry? Was there a point when he knew that
that was it? What the fuck did it feel like to stop being alive?

He kept the TV on all night because every time he turned it off his heart started racing and his breath got tangled in his throat and he felt like he would explode unless he
opened his mouth and shouted, or got out of the house and ran. Plus his mum was up and about again, fussing at the plugs, and the TV covered up the noise enough that he could stop himself going
downstairs to help her.

Morning arrived, lightening his room through the curtains. Stick shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at anything, and tried to work out if he’d slept or not. Not, he decided. At
some point his mum knocked on his door to say she was going to work; she wished he’d stay in the house, just for the next few days; if he had to go out would he take his phone? Stick lay on
his back and nodded and eventually she left.

The news came on the TV – protests in Greece; protests in Syria; Olympics tickets; pensions crisis. He flicked through channels until he found
The Simpsons
and closed his eyes
again. They should be in France by now, bleary from a night in the car, trying to find a bacon butty for breakfast, unfolding the map to remind themselves which way to go.

You can’t just lie around moping, Mac would say. Stop being pathetic, he’d say. Get up and fucking do something. Stick tried to think of something to do. An episode of
The
Simpsons
later he decided he’d go and buy flowers for Mrs McKinley.

There were two rolls of money sat at the top of his sports bag: fifty pounds, and three hundred euros. He pulled the rubber band off the euros and flicked through them. He and Mac had gone to
the post office on Spring Gardens last week and exchanged grubby English twenties for clean, glossy notes – green, orange, blue, red. ‘Hard-earned cash,’ Mac had said to the woman
at the counter and she’d smiled like she didn’t believe him.

Stick rolled the euros up again and shoved them back into the bag, put the pounds into his pocket and went downstairs. He opened the fridge and stared inside but there was nothing he wanted to
eat – it was as though his stomach had disappeared along with Mac.

He wanted nice flowers, not the sad-looking ones in the newsagent’s or a bunch with a Tesco’s label, so he got the bus into town, walking the long way round so he
didn’t have to go down Paget Street. In a shop filled with buckets of flowers, the air thick with scent, he told the man – man! – at the counter that he wanted a big bunch,
something that looked classy. He hadn’t realised flowers could be so expensive, but he handed over thirty quid and got the bus back. People looked at you different if you were carrying a
bunch of flowers – like you were a good person.

He sat downstairs with them on his lap, careful not to crease the purple tissue paper or squash the petals. With his other hand he flicked through his phone to the photo: Mac and Lainey, Aaron
and Malika, lit up for a second. Mac, fat-faced, red-cheeked, a pair of pink sunglasses propped up on top of his head. Mac squeezing Lainey’s shoulder, his mouth open, top teeth showing.
Stick stared at him. What had he been saying? Probably something stupid, but he wished he knew.

At school, Stick’s art teacher once got them to make a camera out of a shoebox with a tiny hole in one side. A photograph is a physical thing, he kept saying. The film holds the reflected
light from whatever is in the image – it’s a mark, from the world. Stick had rolled his eyes and sniggered with the rest of them, but he remembered it now, and wished that he’d
taken a picture of Mac with a shoebox camera, not his shitty phone. A digital image, the teacher said, was just a collection of pixels, just lots and lots of tiny squares, and if you blew it up
enough then the whole thing would fall apart. It’s not physical, he kept saying, it’s not the same.

Stick took the stairs up to Mac’s flat. To Mrs McKinley’s flat. The closer he got, the more he thought about turning back, because what was he going to say?
Through the double doors the corridor was dim and quiet and empty. It felt longer than normal, like it was an optical illusion that you could never get to the end of. Except, of course, there he
was, standing outside the blue door with its locks and its doorbell and its sticker with flowers round the outside and
Strangers are just friends not yet made
printed in blue swirly
writing.

As he rang the bell, Stick suddenly thought that there must be fingerprints; Mac’s would still be on the door. Even with visitors and police and whatever, there’d be one, rings
within rings like the inside of a tree. If he had white powder and one of those see-through sheets, he could lift one of Mac’s fingerprints and keep it.

Mrs McKinley opened the door and made a strangled kind of a noise, her hand darting to her mouth and her eyes widening.

‘Mrs McKinley.’ Stick swallowed. He glanced into the flat, half expecting Mac to barrel out of the kitchen, a coconut in one hand, a knife in the other. ‘I brought you
these.’ He held out the flowers.

Mrs McKinley looked at them as though she wasn’t sure what they were and then she reached up a hand and stroked Stick’s cheek, her fingers cold on his skin. He stepped back, but she
took hold of his arm. ‘Come in, come in. He’s just left.’

‘What?’

‘Rob.’ Her whole face looked puffy, like she’d had an allergic reaction. ‘Family liaison officer, he said that’s what they call him.’ She sounded drunk.
‘Nice man. A bit thin.’