Speak No Evil (10 page)

He shrugs, tries to put her back at ease. ‘What sort of boy he is. What he's like. That kind of thing.'

She relaxes slightly but still keeps her arms crossed. ‘He's a good lad. A really good lad.'

‘He doesn't know …'

She leans forward. ‘No. He doesn't. And that's the way I'm goin' to keep it. Poor lad.'

‘Why poor lad?'

She thinks f or a minute before responding. ‘When I think what … when I think about my childhood, if you can call it that … my upbringing. When I think about my mother …' She waves her hands at him, sits back. ‘I don't know. I can't explain.'

He leans back, at ease. ‘Take your time.'

She nods, tries again. ‘A mother's love is the strongest of all. Or it should be. Mrs Everett told me that. Joanne taught me that. The art therapist. She had a son. A stepson really, he wasn't even properly hers. But she loved him and brought him up and she was, to all intents and purposes, his mother. And I used to think about that. About her. And my mother. My biological mother, the woman who gave birth to me. She …' Her hands go to the table. The bandaged fingers start knotting and unknotting. She doesn't look at them. ‘She …' She sighs. ‘I just want him to have a good life. I don't want him to go through what … what I had to go through. He didn't ask to be bom. But he's my responsibility. I've got to raise him right. Make him feel safe. Make him proud.'

He nods. Knows there's more. Waits.

‘It's not a sickness, what I've got. What I did. It's supposed to be because of my psychopathic personality. And that's not somethin' you're bom with, I don't think. It's somethin' that happens to you. But it feels like a sickness. Like somethin's not right, in there.' She points to her head. ‘Like the bad spirits are there just waitin' for their chance to break through. Lookin' for weaknesses, lookin' for holes … I tell meself that it's not that. It's something psychological and treatable.'

She sighs. He waits. She looks down at the table, at her bandaged hands, continues without raising her head.

‘But sometimes, the dreams, the voices
…
the bad spirits. They're there. I know they are. I can feel them. Hear them.'

‘And what do these spirits tell you to do?'

She keeps looking at the table. He waits.

‘They're angry with me. Want me to do, to do bad things.'

‘What kind of bad things?'

She looks at her hands. ‘Just … bad things.'

‘Hurt people? That kind of thing?'

She nods.

‘And do you listen to them? Ever?'

She shakes her head. ‘I keep them at bay. Whatever it takes, I keep them at bay. Because Jack's there. And I have to protect him. I have to protect him no matter what.'

She keeps looking at her hands. He waits.

8

‘Is it much further?'

‘Keep your voice down, knacker, they might hear you.'

Tess Preston closed her mouth, said nothing more. Renny led the three of them through the estate. Tess had started out trying to keep track of where she was headed but Renny had taken them this way and that, navigating through silent, shadow-laden cut-throughs, over-exposed patches of scorched earth grass and through a dingy, unlit, tunnel-like maze of streets and walkways, some of which looked so familiar she was sure she had been led through them at least three times. She had thought her army training would come in handy. If their plan was to disorientate her it was working.

She had met them down the road from the school gates, away from any other lurking, predatory journos or paps. This was her lead. Let them get their own.

‘Right,' Tess had said, looking between the two of them, ‘where we going?'

‘Money up front,' said Renny, his eyes hard, his features studiedly blank, a next-generation inner-city recidivist in waiting.

‘Sure …' Tess had hoped they wouldn't mention it or be fobbed off with waiting for later but she knew from the boy's expression that it wasn't worth risking. She covered her irritation with a smile. It didn't matter really. If they came up with a story it would be worth so much more than that.

‘Will you take a cheque?' she asked.

The scowl she received in return answered that question.

‘Thought not.' Tess dug into her pocket, opened up her work wallet. She had been careful to move her own money to another pocket so they would think she didn't have any more. She counted out the bills into her hand. ‘A thousand. Now I need you to sign this …'

She produced a form, handed it to Renny along with a pen. Renny took his eyes off the money in order to frown suspiciously at it. ‘What's this?'

‘A release form. An invoice. To say where you got the money from. Standard procedure.'

‘I'm not signin' anythin'.'

Tess began to re-pocket the money. ‘Then thanks for your time.'

‘Wait.' Renny watched the money disappearing. ‘Gis the pen.' He took the pen, filled in his name and address details, handed it back. Tess pocketed the form, brought out the notes again.

‘All yours. This better be worth it. If it's not I'll be after you. I've got your details.' She patted her pocket.

‘Try it.' There was defiance in Renny's eyes but also fear. Tess doubted that Renny's parents – if he had parents – would see any of the money. So the threat of an appearance by a journalist at his house would keep the kid in order. She had him. There would be no more trouble tonight.

‘Let's go, then,' said Tess, gesturing for Renny and Pez to lead.

They had done. And now Tess was totally lost.

Broken glass and cracked cement underfoot. Dark, threatening shapes cast by haphazard lighting. Everything lit by sickly sodium orange or lurking in black shadow: graffitied walls, rusted handrails, stinking skips. And the triple-S cacophony – screams, shouts and sirens – bleeding in and out of the night.

Tess kept her voice quiet. ‘So where is it we're going again?'

‘Shut up,' hissed Renny. ‘We're nearly there.'

Anne Marie looked round the corner of the block of flats, scanned the open space in front of her, tried to make out shapes, movement, anything. Or anything resembling Jack.

He had gone to the takeaway hours ago and not returned. She had been arguing with Rob and hadn't noticed at first. Jack did this often, just quietly slipped out of the flat, usually when Rob turned up. Anne Marie knew he wasn't the best of men but he was certainly the best she had ever had. He had been good to her. Better than some.

But if he ever laid a finger on Jack he was out. And he knew it.

When it had looked like becoming serious with Rob she had dropped some hints about her past life. A childhood in prison, abuse in her past. Just enough to be honest, not enough for him to walk away. That had happened too many times in the past and she had learned from it.

It hadn't been enough. He had asked more questions. Eventually she told him. Not everything but near enough. And he hadn't judged her. More importantly, he had stayed around. Became protective of her. He wasn't bad. But he had his own demons. She just wished he didn't drink so much.

She had wanted him to be another father to Jack but it hadn't worked out that way. Rob had accepted that if he wanted to be with Anne Marie then Jack was part of the deal. Jack, for his part, had been mature enough to realize that his mother had needs that only a partner could meet and had accepted Rob. But it was always uneasy. And just lately with her bringing in the money and Rob incapable of finding, or unwilling to find, any work his moods had become blacker, his drinking heavier. She had better wrap the book up as quickly as possible and move on to something else.

Moving on. Her life was a constant moving on. For one reason or another. She tried not to dwell on it too much. Don't give the bad spirits a reason to stay.

At the thought of bad spirits her hands began to shake, her legs felt weak. The wounds on the palms of her hands beneath the bandages felt sticky. She tried to push the thoughts from her mind, concentrate on looking for Jack.

She walked around the corner of her block, the geography not yet imprinted in her mind, still having to think where she was going. Crossed the main forecourt. No one about. A murder on an estate tends to have that effect, she thought. Just lights on behind curtains, doors firmly closed on landings.

She moved cautiously, watching for any sudden movements. She felt scared on the estate, as she had on most estates she had lived on. If she had been housed there, she often thought, then who else was there? She knew kids shouldn't carry knives, but in a way, she didn't blame them. She might have done if she was their age.

She reached the row of shops where the takeaway was. An array of graffitied metal shutters and grilles. The off-licence was still open, dispensing cheap, sugary alcohol and cigarettes to the local kids over a counter in the window behind a metal cage, the Indian owners no longer taking chances. Next to it was the takeaway. It didn't really have a name just an illuminated sign advertising what it sold: pizzas, burgers, kebabs, fried chicken, fish and chips. There were photos stuck to the glass of the supposed food, full colour, unattainable; wish-fulfilment of a level the food dispensed there could never reach.

No, that wasn't true, she thought. The pizzas were quite nice.

The lights were on, it was still open. She walked to the doorway, stepped inside. Immediately the smell of hot, dirty frying oil hit her. She didn't find it unpleasant. Years of exposure had made it a comforting smell to her, the nearest thing to a happy memory of home cooking that she had.

The two men behind the counter looked up at her approach. Dark-skinned, but she couldn't place their ethnic origin. Could be anywhere from Greece to Iran for all she knew. One of them gave a weary half-smile as she approached the till, the other turned his back, busying himself with cleaning down surfaces.

‘Hiya,' she said. ‘Have you seen a lad?'

‘We see a lot of lads in here.'

‘Well, he's about this high …' She gestured with her hand. ‘Tall, skinny. Long hair. Wearin' a black jacket and jeans. New trainers. And he was supposed to be gettin' some tea from here. She thought for a moment, couldn't remember what he had actually gone to get. ‘Pizza or somethin'. Kebab. Have you seen him? Has he been in?'

The man behind the counter shrugged, clearly disappointed at not making a sale. His eyes went to her bandaged hands, the dressing now loose and dirty. She put her hands behind her back, kept talking.

‘You haven't seen him, then? He's new around here. We haven't been moved in long.'

Another shrug, a shake of the head.

‘He has long hair?' The second man spoke without turning his back, his hand still cleaning the work surface.

‘Yeah, that's right, long hair,' said Anne Marie, suddenly nervous over what might have happened to him.

‘Listening to music?' The man pointed to his ears.

‘Yeah.'

‘He was in earlier. Couple of hours.'

A couple of hours … Had she really been drinking and arguing with Rob for that long? A shaft of guilt ran through her. Sort yourself out.

‘D'you know where he is now?' She realized how stupid the question was as soon as it left her lips. ‘I mean, did he say where he was goin'?'

The first man shook his head. Anne Marie looked from one to the other, waiting as if for Jack to appear or for them to tell her where he was. The second man stopped cleaning, turned and spoke.

‘After what happened to that boy last night everybody worries.'

Anne Marie nodded, thanked them and, her hands unclasped from behind her back, left the shop. Panic was rising in her chest. She tried to tamp it down, calm herself with the deep breathing exercises she had been taught. She had to think.

Where was he? Where would he have gone?

She didn't know. She looked round again, chose a direction and walked towards it. If she had believed in God she would have prayed that Jack was at the end of it.

As it was she just hoped.

‘Here.' Renny stopped walking, dropped down behind a brick wall. Tess stopped walking as Renny spoke, did exactly what the boy did. Pez too.

‘What am I looking at?' said Tess, risking a glance over the wall.

Renny pulled her back down. ‘Fuck off, man, if they see wuh, they'll fuckin' have wuh.'

‘Right.' Tess stayed where she was.

As she had looked up, she saw a flash of a Tesco sign, an industrial estate, a car park. There were cars in the car park. Revving up, lights full on, the drivers, passengers and hangers-on clustered round, drinking, smoking, talking, laughing.

‘None of them seem too worried about a possible murderer,' said Tess.

‘That's because one of them did it,' said Renny.

‘Right.' Tess felt that shiver of excitement when she knew she was on to something. She nodded. ‘Which one?'

‘Dunno,' said Renny.

‘Then how do you know it's one of them?'

‘'Cos we were here last night,' said Pez. ‘Aye, an' we saw them—'

A kick from Renny shut him up. Too late, Tess had heard.

‘You were here last night?' she said. Renny reluctantly nodded. ‘With Calvin?' Another reluctant nod, ‘What happened?'

‘Calvin went home,' said Renny. We were down there with the drivers an' that, an' Calvin wanted a ride an' they wouldn't give him one. So he went home.'

Tess looked between the two of them. ‘And that's it? He went home?'

‘Aye,' said Pez. ‘You gonna give us the rest of the money now?'

Tess ignored the question. ‘Did you see anyone follow him? Did he argue with anyone?'