Nobody Saw No One (24 page)

JB is snarling and his dog whimpers, fretful. JB’s red eyes flame down at Grace.

“J…” she murmurs. A red trickle flows from behind her head. She’s banged it when she fell. Hard.

Her eyes roll up into her head. Like it’s all another predictable irritation, and a sigh escapes her, like she’s had enough. Or a final breath.

Ain’t Banks her sweetheart?

Banks has a brick heart. He roars and raises the bolt-cutters. His rage is heartrage. He’s going to finish her.

Blank Space. Blank Space.
Byron
Blank Space
. He’s only little. He loves his sisters, now that Mum has gone, they look out for him. His sisters, his assisters.

His dad is mad. Drunk and mad.

“Hide, Byron. It’s just a game of Hide’n’Seek. You’re so good at playing.”

Byron’s sisters in a fluster. In the cupboard they want him to go. Behind the sofa. Under the bed. Running round in a panic.
Hide, Byron, hide.

Where did Byron go? What did Byron do? How much did Byron see? Why did he survive?

He didn’t! He didn’t survive. Citizen Digit survived and thrived. Grew big and clever. Decided he could live without having to watch further badness.

Didn’t wanna see no more Bad Dads.

Idiot Byron just hid, and watched, and died of the watching.

Tricia and Dee pushed and shoved and squeezed little Byron into the washing machine, shut the door on him. Closed him off from the world.

How could he fit? It was such a little space. The only space for a tiny speck of a boy.

I watched, a heavy load, through the round glass screen. He tore the house apart. He swore and slapped and threatened and shook those fists, but my sisters wouldn’t give me up, they never would. Then he knocked Tricia to the ground, fell on her, and began punching. I could see his fists as they raised back up, taking aim again, bloodying. And Dee, hitting him on the head with the iron, and him grabbing her and smashing her against the wall. His knees clamping down over Tricia, and his big hands smashing Dee, over and over like she was a dolly. Byron hiding, dumb, hearing the moan and the smash and the grunt, and Tricia whimpering all the while.

Obnob shuffles in next to the Digit, watching his master about to make murder, his sniffer tortured by the stench of it. But the Digit can still see past the dog’s earflaps, can see what Jackson Banks is about to do to Grace. Byron is watching it all, again.

When my dad was done with Dee, he focused back on Tricia. “Where is he?” he slurred.

She never gave me up. Even as he dragged her final playtime out of her, she never gave me up. Her face was turned towards my round glass window. My sister looked at me and she never gave me up and then the life went; her eyes turned to marbles, dolly’s eyes.

Grace.

The Digit is shaking memories from his head. We don’t need Byron’s old and ancients right now. But we don’t want to be reliving them either.

So Byron leaps out from his hiding place. I show myself.

I stand between Grace and Jackson’s killer blow.

I don’t know what I can do. Grace isn’t dead, I’m sure of it, but he will finish her off. So there’s only one thing I can do. I tell a lie, and I tell a truth.

“She’s dead!” I yell at him.

He blinks for a second, stopped in his tracks, drops the bolt-cutters. Daddy played too hard. Tears before bedtime. But this won’t last for long. He’s got further murderousness coiled inside him.

It’s time to blind him with the truth.

I let him see who I really am.

“You may as well know,” I say. “It’s me you’ve been looking for. I’m the one. I’m Byron.”

At last.

I suppose I thought I was going to have him chase me out of the house, away from Grace and Alfi, but my legs won’t let me move. I’m standing there, not Citizen Digit, but a real boy.

Byron.

He blinks at me. Looks down at Grace, slumped. Wails, despairing, desperate. Looks back at me. Blinks again. His fist smashes forward, and my lights go out.

*

Jackson Banks is still gripping the razor. He don’t say nowt, just glowers.

I’m saying nowt either. I’m fixed by his looney mad-dog eyes.

Burning at us. Like he’s going to do me too. I don’t care. I see who he is. I can’t turn away. There’s nowt here, just his eyes and mine, the dog whimpering from under the table, Grace and Byron lying silenced on the floor.

He shudders, looks away towards his dog. Anywhere but at me. Anywhere but at Byron. Anywhere but at Grace.

Jackson Banks has seen what he has done. I see what he has done. He turns back to me. If he’s going to do us in, let him do it. I’m only a boy. There’s millions others.

I don’t really count.

Grace dun’t count.

Scarlett and Danny will take in other kids. Jackson Banks will find another Grace, another Crow. Call-Me Norman will hold other parties, with other men and other kids. Virus will gather a thousand more Citizen Digits. Byron ain’t owt special.

We might not be owt special, but so what? We are who we are.

So I look at the man.

“I en’t Crow,” I say. “My name is Alfi Spar. Me mam’s name were Katariina. She were young, just like Grace. You can do what you like, but you can’t take who we are. I’m Alfi, son of Katariina, friend of Byron, friend of Grace.” I meet his eyes, and I say, “Who are
you
?”

He drops the razor, and the bolt-cutters. He grabs Grace’s coat off o’ the table and chucks it over her, like she’s some dead pet run down in the road. So you can’t see her face.

Then he grabs the bolt-cutters. But instead o’ clobbering us, he starts tapping them against the side of his head, like he’s trying to drum sense back into hisself.
Clank,
it goes, and he smiles like he’s realizing how funny it is.
Clank,
again, and he tilts his head sideways to greet its beat.
Clank,
again, and a red trickle flows down into his ear.
Clank,
smiling like an idiot. Then his fist gripping the tool wobbles, like it’s suddenly heavy, and he holds it out towards us, and cuts me chains. He frees me.

I’m rubbing at me wrists where the chains were chafing, wondering if it’s all over, finished at last. And his hand comes round to me face, wi’ that stinking rag, and I can’t breathe. I’m going to go under. Again.

Byron’s eyelids may well be drawn, but Citizen Digit’s found a tiny gap between them and is peeping out.

My head is laid against Grace’s chest, where I fell from Jackson’s punch, and I can feel her, still breathing. And here’s me, pretending not to breathe, let JB think he’s done for the two of us.

Watch, and wait.

Alfi Spar is staring at Jackson Banks. Jackson Banks is staring right back at Alfi. The Digit ought to be doing something right now.

Alfi Spar’s eyes are bright, round, innocent. Baby blues. They fix themselves on Banks’s bulldog eyes, blazing murder.

Alfi’s angel gaze will not waver. Jackson relaxes his grip on the weapon. Obnob pauses in his scratting at the door, turns to stare at them both.

It’s me, the dog and Jackson, all caught in Alfi Spar’s clear blue wonder.

Alfi Spar is a witness.

Alfi won’t free Jackson from his gaze. He shifts his head, slowly, taking Jackson with him, round and down to the floor where Grace lies. Alfi lets Jackson’s gaze settle on her.

Alfi knows. And he shows him. Blabber-Boy lets Jackson Banks know what he’s done.

The dog howls to be free, free of the stench, and the spell breaks, and JB grabs Grace’s coat from the table, hurls it over her head, so you can’t see her face.

Breathless, I see my sisters’ faces.

We remember the bad dads. Mean old daddies with their bunches of fives.

What does Jackson do? He does what he’s learned to do, don’t he? He picks up the bolt-cutters and strikes. He smashes. Each time he bashes the bolt-cutters against his own thick skull his eyes widen a little more, like he’s getting pleasure from it. Like he thinks it’s Alfi he’s bashing. Over and over with the greatest of pleasure.

Is this how it’ll be for all of us, if we ever reach Groandom? Once we’re too big to be clobbered by others, we do it to ourselves? Self-administer, like Virus and his zapper? Is this how it’ll be?

Jackson bashes himself and glowers at Alfi. Battering the child.

Then he turns to Alfi, raising the bolt-cutters up over his head, and gives an animal roar.

He cuts Alfi free.

Then he knocks him out with the chloroform, and he packs him back into the gym bag, and casts one final look of horror at the coat on the floor, the coat that makes the shape of Grace.

He shudders, and throws open the door. Obnob barks relief and flurries out, fleeing the scene.

When my father was finished with my sisters he fled the scene. Little Byron was left, scrunched up tight inside the washing machine, not wanting to climb back into the world.

Just waiting. Wishing everything different.

It’s like that now.

My eyes are awake, but my face is a few moments behind, and my arms and legs several minutes after that. That was some wallop Jackson hit me with. Grace still ain’t coming round. I crawl my way towards the kitchen, find a tap, water. I let out a sob, I can’t help it, and I go over into the corner and curl into a chair and tears are leaking all over, leaking for Grace, and for my sisters.

Then I gulp the water and I gain the strength, and I pour more for Grace, and this time I’m going back on two feet rather than two knees.

Truly deeply – it may be minutes, or more, or less – I have the water to bring Grace round, I dab a finger to her forehead, cool against her burning pain, when there’s a screech of brakes. It can only mean JB went away. It can only mean he went away and he is back. I hear him bashing his way through the door and stromping up the stairs. I hear him sloshing liquid from a can all over everywhere. I smell it.

I know what. I know he’s pouring it all over the house, but he won’t come back into this room, won’t look at what he’s done. What he thinks he’s done. I know he’s trailing a stream of it through each of the rooms and back down the stairs. I listen and sniff as he fumes back through the house towards the front door. I’m immobility itself as the door thunks shut behind him. The click of a lighter, the snap of the letterbox and the whole building, with us inside, takes like a lit-up gas ring.

Whoosh.

I’m watering Grace. She’s coming back to the world. I got a pan, with water, I poured it, I soaked her. There’s a fire licking at our toes, and I have to get her out of here. I soaked myself. I’m hearing the sirens as the fire trucks arrive. We are meant to live. She splutters and coughs, and I’m tending her, bruised and battered and burned and smoky.

We are at the top of the house and there is only a skylight, out of reach. Smoke is flurrying upwards, mobbing us. I heave her up. I drag her down. She’s heavier than me, but I have sister-memory muscling my arms. I won’t be stopped. I am Byron; I am Digit; and Grace is loved and I will not let her go. I clunk her down the stairs,
biff
goes her head on each stair,
biff
, and I try to cushion her as I drag her, tell her I won’t let her cinder. She knows it’s true; she flutters those eyelashes and the flames will not flicker too close to us. Though we are inflammable,
whooooosh
goes my breath, blowing the flames away. Yellow and red and orange like one of her billowing skirts. Grace is the kaleidoscope of life.

Little brother flesh melts away from me, fresh muscles bulge and bubble with air and heat. I doused us with bath water, see us through the baptism of fire. Is it a game, or life?
Fire, Fire, Pans On Fire.
Byron and Sister playing on the stairs, coughing and staggering, hamming and heroic, skin and blister, secret cigarette smoke killing young lungs, the darkest, greyest dream…

Daylight drags us through the doorway, cold pavement kissing our singes, traffic fumes cooling our airwaves, coughing up ashes into North-London drizzle. Grey and wretched and all Groan-out.

“Digit.” She splutters to life, from the dusty gutter.

“Yes,” I say. “What? What?”

“It’s
Cash Counters,
” she rasps. “That’s his deal. He’s going to get Virus’s stash, so he can start again. Whatever he’s got planned for Alfi, the stash comes first.
Cash Counters
. You got to get to
Cash Counters
.”

Even now, she’s thinking how to rescue Alfi. I’m of the same infurious state. Whatever our own personal ills, JB’s animal verocity is shifting to
Cash Counters
’ vicinity.

I rest her on the pavement, ambulances and fire engines sirening up to us, and I know she’ll be OK, but I have to go. I have to save Alfi.

It’s simplicity itself.

Banks’s Bentley is jack-knifed across the kerb outside
Cash Counters
and the front door is smashed wide open. Hulk-Head has torn it off its hinges.

As I take my cautious pause across the street to check out the scene, I realize I’m a little too late. Again. There’s a gunshot from within.

I take two giant leaps into the next-door shop doorway. And I watch. Jackson Banks marches purposefully out of
Cash Counters
, gun in hand, metal safebox under his arm.

He wastes no time, tossing it into the passenger seat, flooring the accelerator and screeching away.

Alfi, gym-bagged Alfi, no doubt stuffed in the boot.

Citizen Digit feels a sudden sadness pass through him. I’m all Predictiv Tex as to what might be found up them
Cash Counters
stairs.

The Good Citizen spirits his bones across the road and up the stairs, following the stench of murder. As he reaches the top, the stench turns, again, to that of blood.

The word of advice is: leave no prints, leave no marks; this is the scene of crime – of the first degree – and the Digit must engage with no part of it.

And, oh, but it’s sadness itself. For what do I find upon the floor of
Cash Counters
’ fine dining room, but Mr Virus, the Great Manager, breathing and berating his last? I’m bending down to him, cradling his head, and his redness is juicing up all over his floor.