Pinprick (2 page)

Chapter One

July 2006

As memories of his childhood came back to him, Shane tried to ignore them and focus his attention on reading the paper. Eventually, he sighed, carefully folded the Financial Times newspaper twice and placed it on the seat beside him. He couldn’t focus on the stock market today so he thought he’d leave it for some other lucky reader to browse.

He looked out of the train window to his right and made out the squat green tower of Jumbo, one of the city’s major landmarks, a gigantic Victorian red brick water tower that had been standing since 1883. He always looked out for that when he was coming from London. There was a time where he knew Colchester’s skyline intimately, but after all the travelling he’d done, all the skylines tended to blur. But he was glad to see Jumbo looming over the cityscape. Years ago, his mother had sat him on her knee and pointed it out to him, from a carriage similar to this one.

A friend of his had told him recently that  someone had paid £330,000 for it and were planning to turn it into a luxury penthouse for him- or herself. Even though he loved the building he was okay with the idea, just as long as the person who owned it did not change its outward appearance.

He stood and picked up his black jacket, umbrella and briefcase from the seat beside him. He hooked the umbrella onto his case as he walked along the carriage. The train pulled in at Colchester train station.

The sun reflected off Shane’s bald head. In his punk rock days, he had had a green Mohawk but his hair had receded rapidly in his early twenties and now he kept it shaved. His mother had always hated the mohawk. She often begged him to let her shave it off and even teased him that she might take her scissors to it while he slept.

As he strolled through the crowd, he became one with all the other commuters in their business suits as they rushed up and down the busy cold grey platform.

The one thing that he liked about Colchester train station, even though it contradicted his beliefs, was the fact that they had not done much modernisation to the railway station. Normally, he was all for modernisation and improvements but it was still the same as it had been when he was a child: red bricked with little nooks and locked doorways that still captivated his mind as to what dwelled behind them.

Walking towards him, against the tide of the suited crowd, was a small blonde boy who was holding his mother’s hand. Something about the way she moved reminded him of his own mother. Perhaps it was the way her handbag swung from the nook of her arm, or the way her hips swayed as she trotted along on her heels. He averted his gaze as they passed.

Shane strolled out of the station, headed straight for the taxi rank and got in to the back of the first cab. The driver, a white haired man with a ruddy complexion turned round and said, “Where to, mate?”

It seemed like a long time since he had heard such a strong Essex accent. In the last few years, he had often wondered what might be big enough to make him come back… somehow this scenario had never even occurred to him. Naively, he assumed she would be around forever. He pushed the thought aside.

“‘La Rana Azul’ on Culver Street.”

As the cab pulled out and drove down the small hill that led from the station, Shane realised that he had turned in to an impolite bastard. He hardly ever said thank you to anyone anymore; waiters, drivers, shop assistants alike. Did he feel like they were there to serve him and were not worthy of any gratitude? He used to hate people like that. As a teenager he was always appalled at people who behaved in this way and he had turned into one of them.

The taxi driver made no attempt at further conversation, much to Shane’s delight as the summer’s heat and the hot train journey had made his head throb. He leaned back on the black seat and mopped a white handkerchief across his brow. His shirt clung to his back, slick like a second skin. Shane considered loosening his tie but chose not to. He wound down the window but the air was hot and dry and hurt his throat as it came in. He sighed and shut his eyes as the taxi climbed North Hill towards the sixth form college passing little unknown shops. It seems like every second business was boarded up and the street was dotted with ‘To Let’ signs. The open ones seemed to burst with wares, doing their best to get business lest they succumb to their neighbours’ regression.

Turning a corner, he noticed a shopping centre that he hadn’t seen before; exhausted red-faced Saturday shoppers rushing in and out of the glass doors with bags undoubtedly full of the latest summer offers. The high-pitched wail of a siren rang as a paramedic motorcyclist stopped outside the entrance.
The heat has overcome some poor bugger
, he thought as the taxi pulled away in to the centre of the road to skirt around the parked motorcycle.

“Here will be fine, thank you,” Shane said as he tapped on the glass divide to the taxi driver, making a conscious effort to be polite. The taxi pulled over onto the high street. Shane handed the driver a note, told him to keep the change, picked up his things and left the cab. He stood up on the pavement and straightened up his back. His joints always stiffened up after sitting for long periods. He was only thirty-eight yet he felt like sixty-eight. He did himself a mental reminder to update his gym membership. Over the last twenty years he had maintained his weight and had stuck to a strict low calorie diet.

He opened his wallet again, the black leather slightly moist with sweat. A couple of ten pound notes gazed up at him and he knew it’d hardly be enough to pay for a meal at ‘La Rana Azul’. Looking down the high street he was pleased to see that they hadn’t moved his bank. He sighed and eyed his watch then moved on down the high street.

Should be quiet in there
, he thought as he approached the door of the bank.

A queue of about thirty people snaked across and around the interior of the building. Shane sighed loudly and tutted. At least the air conditioning was on.

Hmmm
, he thought. The problem with air con’ is the fact that it’s wonderful when you’re indoors to appreciate it but it just makes the temperature outside even more unbearable.

He stood behind a young brunette girl in a business suit. Casually, he cast an eye over her shapely figure and wondered how she seemed to keep so cool. There he was, sweat pouring down his forehead while she looked indifferent to the heat. The air con’ was good though.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” came a voice behind him. Shane didn’t turn around for fear of annoying the owner of the yob-like voice by simply looking at him, Shane checked out his reflection in the glass partitions that separated the bank clerks from the normal people. A huge, rough looking man who resembled a bulldog stood impatiently behind him. He smelled of rank cigarettes and leather that reminded him of Malcolm. Shane subtly held a hand to his nose and sighed deeply. The queue crept forward.

The queue was still going at a snail’s pace when he saw an Afro-Caribbean man walk right past the queue and go to the next available clerk. An old lady tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me–”

The man spun round and pointed a sawn-off shotgun at the old woman.

“Every person get the floor down!” he shouted his wide nostrils flaring and face shining with sweat.

Oh for god’s sake! At least if you’re going to rob a bank in England you could have the decency to learn better English!
Shane thought. He might have said it but he wasn’t a reckless nutter with suicidal tendencies… or a super hero. Instead, he lay on the floor as his heart thudded in his chest. His mind drifted back to another time when his heart had thundered…

July 1986

Pain, intense pain. A searing heat ran all over his body in invisible rivulets and throbbed powerfully through his bones. His heart drummed so fast he couldn’t tell when one beat ended and another began. He was wet and cold. His eyes hurt, but when he forced them open, he could make out the stars.

Oh well, at least it’s stopped raining!
he thought erratically. It was such an absurd thing to think at a time like this that he laughed like a mad man till the shooting pain in his ribs forced him to stop. When he reached up to hold his sides, he realised he couldn’t move. His arms were frozen in place no matter how hard he willed them to move.

He felt something warm spreading from below his waist and he couldn’t tell whether it was blood or urine. For some reason, all he could think of was a two-beaked pheasant and he didn’t know why. His head lolled back and he drifted into a two-day coma.

July 2006

As Shane lay face down on the beige carpeted floor of the bank he had to suppress a mad laugh – he must’ve been insane, given how frightened he was – at just how blundering the robbery had become.

“Hurry da fuck up!” The gunman shouted at the cashier, a young man who looked young enough to be on work experience was shaking and perspiring profusely. The other members of staff had been made to stand behind the counters with their hands aloft. The gun trembled in the man’s hand and Shane could see sweat gleaming on his dark forehead. The gunman kept looking back at where Shane and the other customers were laying on the floor. He pointed the gun at anyone who dared to move. When more customers walked in the unguarded door, they were greeted by the gunman, who immediately turned his weapon on them.

“Get the floor down.”

As they complied Shane watched the old woman who had complained about the gunman jumping the queue. She hadn’t even bothered to lie on the floor. She sat hunched over in a chair with her arms folded and her wrinkled mouth pursed in a look of sheer annoyance.

Despite her apparent defiance, Shane thought he saw a spark of fearful exhilaration in her old eyes. He wondered if she was visualising her friends’ reactions when she told them about her terrifying ordeal. They’d all meet at the tea rooms and she’d tell them in exaggerated detail about how the black gunman had thrust his gun in her face and screamed obscenities at her. The chances were, Shane thought, the only excitement that they’d probably had recently was being served a cheese scone instead of fruit.

Shane went back to watching the young cashier stuff notes into a cloth money bag; he tried not to look at the gunman who was still constantly shouting at him. Instead, he found himself focusing on the gunman’s sweat-drenched back; the light-coloured material had absorbed it creating a large dark stain. Looking away, Shane noticed the office girl lying in front of him and allowed his eyes to linger on her exposed thigh. He smiled at her reassuringly but he could see it did not ease her panic.

Then Shane heard something that sent him rocketing back mentally twenty years. Such was its power that it sent a shiver up his spine despite the sweltering bank. It was a number he rarely heard these days and it was a distinct reminder of his youth. It was the opening notes of ‘Pretty Vacant’ by The Sex Pistols.

July 1986

He was in a dark, dark place. He could see nothing and he could feel nothing. The pain had gone, that was good, but there was something slightly unnerving about the sense of emptiness that it left him with. This emptiness coupled with the nothingness made him wonder… Was he dead?

He could hear people talking in the darkness but he was not sure whether they were in his thoughts or actual voices. They called his name and spoke at the same time, so he couldn’t always understand them.

“We’re here with you Shane. We love you and need you to get better,” called Mum.

“You’ll return,” said an ominous voice; it was the only one in the cacophony of voices that was not familiar.

Other voices were more disturbing.

“Remember, you must remember!” they moaned in torment.

They came in unison, but he could recognise each of them as his four best mates. It pained him to hear his friends in so much distress. They kept screaming at him as one mournful cry.

“You must remember!”

“What? Remember what?” He yelled out, desperately trying to understand what they were trying to tell him. No matter how hard he tried, or how much they wailed, Shane didn’t know what they meant. They couldn’t hear him.

Since his mother’s voice was the most comforting, he focused his attention on her. Her calm tones were often accompanied by the voice of his sister Catherine.

“Don’t worry, you’re battered and bruised but–”

“Battered and bruised?” cut in Catherine, “He’s been in a traffic accident.”

Through listening to their voices he learned he was in a coma, which helped to explain the feeling of empty nothingness.

“Don’t worry love; the doctors are doing everything they can.”

After a while he noticed a low ambient noise and wondered how long it had been there. Although it was just about loud enough to hear, he had to concentrate extremely hard to focus on it. Finally, he realised it was a whistle. Soon the whistle became a tune, and then tune seemed familiar, as if he should know it but had not heard it for a long time.

This was his last recollection before the bright, blinding light and an intense white hot pain brought him back to agonising reality. The Sex Pistols played on a radio.