The Chaos

  Sarah sits up a little.

  ‘They’re going to find the people responsible,’ she quotes the Prime Minister’s words. ‘That’s us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Us and Nelson.’

  ‘What’ll they do? What’ll they do to us?’ Her questions hang in the air and then someone batters on the door. Sarah gasps. Nan swears and I close my eyes. What next? What now? I want it all to go away.

  ‘Open up! Police!’

  ‘Shit, better get it. Adam?’ Nan says. ‘Get the door before they break it down.’

  I drag myself to my feet, put the chain on and open the door enough to see out. There are half a dozen uniformed coppers in the front yard.

  ‘Adam Marsh?’ the one at the front asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘Open up, please.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open up, sir.’

  I push the door to, unhook the chain. I’m about to open the door properly when it’s pushed into my face and a hand grabs my wrist and puts a handcuff round it.

  ‘What the fuck …?’

  ‘Adam Marsh, I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Junior Driscoll on the sixth of December 2026.’

  Chapter 56: Sarah

  They take him away, just like that. Val goes with him and I’m left on my own. It was bad enough being without Mia when everyone else was here, but it’s ten times worse on my own. I sit, numb, for a while, then I wander into the kitchen and look for something to tidy up, but it’s all neat and clean. I empty Val’s ashtray into the bin, wash it and dry it with some kitchen paper.

  Back in the lounge, the TV is full of the same story. Panic and paranoia in London, people on the move, people criticising the government, police leave cancelled, army on standby. Adam is a side-story now – it’s got bigger than him, although they do show footage of him being arrested, and marched down Val’s front path watched by an army of silent gnomes.

  I leave the telly on and go upstairs, wandering into Adam’s room. I feel so useless. I don’t know where Mia is. I don’t know what’s happening to her or to Adam. I pace from one side of the room to the other, bouncing off the walls, then hitting them with my fists, screaming.

  I don’t know how long I carry on like that. I’ve lost it, completely lost it. It’s frightening letting go, and now I’ve started I can’t seem to stop. At some point I pick up the chair by the door and fling it. The back breaks off as it hits the wall. I keep moving, hitting, screaming until the adrenalin’s gone and I finally see how pathetic it is, how pathetic I am.

  I flop down onto the floor near the bed and lean against Adam’s bedside table. It digs into my back but I’m too exhausted to move. My throat is sore from all the noise I’ve been making. What good did it all do? What difference did I make? None of it got me one centimetre nearer to Mia. She’s out there somewhere, without me. Is she missing me at all? Has she noticed I’m not there for her?

  I look around me for something, anything to distract from the misery of being me right now. It’s a room full of boy’s things – posters, heaps of old clothes, trainers lying around. There’s something on the floor under the bed, a book maybe. I’m thinking it’s going to be porn – that’s what boys keep under the bed, isn’t it? I slide it across the carpet towards me, and I feel a little shiver run down my spine. It’s not a printed book, or a magazine – it’s a notebook. It’s the notebook I saw Adam with, that very first day at school.

  I pick it up and rest it on one palm, brushing dust and fluff off the cover with my other hand.

  I know it’s his.

  I know it’s private.

  I shouldn’t look.

  I open the cover.

  His writing is messy. It’s joined up and slopes strongly to the right. The horizontal lines on the book are printed, but he’s ruled vertical ones on every page to make columns, and he’s recorded names and dates and descriptions and more dates. There are pages and pages of them.

  I scan down just one.

  ‘Junior, 4/09/2026, at school, violent, a knife, the smell of blood, a sick feeling, 6/12/2026.’

  Junior. He’s the one Adam’s been arrested for. Adam wrote his death down in this book on the fourth of September, three months before he died.

  This is dynamite. I honestly don’t know if Adam killed the boy or not, but this could convict him.

  I turn over the page and I gasp as I read the name in the left-hand column.

  ‘Sarah.’

  Chapter 57: Adam

  I can’t do this. There’s two days to go and I’m in a cell. At the back of my mind I knew they’d do me for Junior. How could they not? I wrote down his death date – on my palm-net, my dad’s computer, in my book. It’s there. I can’t deny it, and how can I make anyone understand that although I knew it, I didn’t plan it? Who’s going to believe me?

  I knew they’d do me, but I didn’t think it would be now. I thought I’d be with Nan, with Sarah, helping them, finding Mia, keeping them safe. I feel like I’ve let them down. I’m not there for them.

  The cops say I’ll be sent to court tomorrow and, like as not, the magistrates’ll put me on remand ’til the trial. Only God knows how long I’ll have to wait for that.

  And the men in suits are back. Just before they lock me up in here, the two of them come into the interview room, the fat guy and the one with ginger hair.

  ‘Turning up at Grosvenor Square,’ says Big-gut, ‘not a smart move. You’ve seen the panic you’ve created. You and your “friends”. We know who they are: Sarah Halligan, Val Dawson, Nelson Pickard. We know where Sarah and your grandmother are,’ – my stomach lurches and I feel the panic rising – ‘but Nelson, where is he, Adam? Where’s Nelson?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You don’t know or you’re not telling? You’re in a lot of trouble. We could maybe … help you.’

  A glimmer of hope. Maybe this is my way home.

  ‘Get me out?’

  He shakes his head. ‘You’re being charged with murder, Adam. Even we can’t get you out of that. No, we could make things easier though, get you moved to a hospital. Hearing voices, seeing numbers, and a family history of it. Your mum and everything. We could make sure they offered you treatment.’

  I look away.

  ‘We just need to know where Nelson is, that’s all.’

  I hate what they’re saying and I’m scared for Nelson, what I’ve got him into. I look the guy straight in the eye.

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ I say. ‘Nelson’s a hero. He’s worth ten of you. He reached people. He got them moving. You did nothing. You knew about it, and you did nothing. I’m not talking, not even if you pull my fingernails out.’

  He laughs then.

  ‘We don’t do that, not in this country.’ He pauses. ‘Pity.’

  The two of them exchange a smile. S’pose that’s their idea of a joke. I want to wipe the smile off their faces. I want them to go away.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,’ I say and I look them both in the eye, one after the other. ‘You should be on that motorway yourselves. You haven’t got long left.’

  The older one frowns at me.

  ‘That sounds like a threat.’

  ‘Not a threat, man, I just say what I see.’

  He scrapes his chair back and makes for the door.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ he says to the copper outside. ‘Get him out.’

  Chapter 58: Sarah

  Val comes home just past midnight. She looks exhausted, the skin round her eyes sagging, her mouth set in a grim line.

  ‘They’ve charged him. They say he’ll be taken to some young offenders’ place bloody miles from here. God knows how I’ll get there to see him.’

  I help her off with her coat and put the kettle on. The book is on the kitchen table. She doesn’t seem to see it. She’s concentrating on lighting her cigarette. Her lighter’s nearly out of gas and she flicks and flicks at it with increasing ferocity.

&nbs
p; ‘Come on,’ she growls, with the cigarette dangling out of one corner of her mouth. ‘Light, damn you. Why won’t you light?’

  ‘There’s another one somewhere. Here …’ I snatch up a new one from the top of the microwave, spark it up and hold it to the end of her fag. She’s clutching the old lighter so hard it looks as though she might crush it. I take it gently from her and put it on the table next to Adam’s book. And that’s when she sees it.

  ‘Where d’you get that from?’

  ‘I found it. Under his bed. I wasn’t looking or anything. It caught my eye.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’ Those hazel eyes are searching mine now, warily.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  I can’t lie to her. She can look right inside me.

  ‘Some.’ Enough. Too much. My number. Mia’s. ‘Have you?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘No. Don’t want to. Well, I do, but I don’t.’

  I know exactly what she means.

  ‘Sarah,’ she says, ‘get rid of it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We need to get rid. He’s in enough trouble as it is. Won’t help if they find this. Here …’ She picks up the new lighter and holds it out towards me. She wants me to burn it.

  ‘It’s Adam’s. It’s personal.’

  ‘Is there anything in there about that lad, Junior?’

  Violent, a knife, the smell of blood, a sick feeling, 6/12/2026.

  ‘Yes. Yes, there is.’

  ‘So do it. Burn it, Sarah. I know he never done it. He’s told me that and I believe him. I think they got some stuff off of his computer, but this’ll send him to prison. This could send him to the gallows. The death penalty kicks in at sixteen. They could ’ave ’im, Sarah. My boy. My beautiful boy.’

  I take the lighter from her, and look around. The bin is plastic, so that’s no good. I can’t go outside because of the press gathered there. I don’t want a bloody audience, and I don’t want to be caught on camera destroying evidence. It’ll have to be the sink.

  I hold the notebook up in one hand and the lighter underneath it, concentrating the flame on one corner. It doesn’t take long to catch. I keep hold of it as long as I can, but when the flames start licking my fingertips, I let the burning book drop into the sink. Val and I stand watching the pages curl, tormented in the heat, until all that’s left is a pile of black and grey flakes. Then I scoop them up in my bare hands and dump them in the bin.

  ‘Gone,’ she says. ‘Thanks, Sarah.’

  I run my hands under the tap, rubbing at them to get rid of the fragments of ash clinging onto my skin. If only I could wash away the contents of the book so easily. But they’re in my head, now, like they’ve been in Adam’s for so long – death sentences, numbers, my own number and Mia’s.

  1/1/2027.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  Chapter 59: Adam

  Up the front of the courtroom three stiffs in suits are sitting behind a sort of desk, on a raised-up platform – two men and a woman. The woman’s in the middle and it looks like she’s the one in charge. She’s got a sharp red jacket on and evil-looking, black-framed glasses.

  There’s some desks in front of the judges and then at the back of the room a little partition with a couple of rows of chairs behind. There’s a guy with a notebook sitting there and there’s Nan and Sarah.

  I wasn’t expecting to see them. It never crossed my mind they’d be here.

  I don’t want them to see me like this.

  I can’t look at them.

  Nan raises her hand, starts waving, but I turn my head the other way and walk past.

  I’m shown to a chair next to my solicitor. She smiles at me as I sit down, gives my arm a little squeeze.

  ‘All right?’ she says.

  I can’t answer. I’m numb. I don’t believe this is happening to me.

  Red-jacket says, ‘Right, let’s start,’ and a bloke in a shabby suit stands up and starts firing questions at me. Name? Address?

  I mumble my replies and then they read the charge out.

  Murder.

  There’s more talking, but I don’t know what it’s about. ‘Committal … remand … preliminary hearing …’

  Then everyone’s standing up, the guards are back and it’s time for me to go again. What now? What’s happening?

  My brief leans over. ‘I’ll see you in Sydenham. Tomorrow or the next day. We can talk then.’

  ‘Sydenham? Where is it? What’s going on?’

  ‘Young offenders’ institution,’ she says. ‘You’ll be there until your trial. Keep your head down. Don’t do anything silly. I’ll see you tomorrow …’

  Nan reaches over the barrier as I’m led past. The guard blocks her and pushes me forward so I almost trip.

  ‘Adam …’ she calls out, but there’s no time. I’m out of there and down the steps and back in the cell. They uncuff me and then the door’s slammed shut, and I can hear the guards’ footsteps echoing down the corridor.

  ‘What’s happening? What’s happening to me?’

  I bang on the grill. They said I was gonna be taken somewhere, and now I’m back here again.

  The footsteps stop.

  ‘Quiet in there. We’ll move you when there’s a van ready. It’s fucking chaos in London today. Just sit tight and shut up.’

  How can I sit tight? We’re running out of time. I can feel the seconds ticking away in my head, a non-stop countdown. The clock in the court said half-past eleven. Just over twelve hours ’til New Year’s Day. What are Nan and Sarah doing now? What the hell am I going to do, banged up in a fucking cell?

  Chapter 60: Sarah

  New Year’s Eve. Val and I spend the morning at the Magistrate’s Court and the afternoon on the phone. I’m ringing Children’s Services trying to find out where Mia is. Val’s ringing the police, Adam’s solicitor, anyone else she can think of. For both of us, it’s like talking to a brick wall. Everyone is telling us that there are procedures to follow, that procedures like this take time.

  I’m told that I will be interviewed ‘within the next week or so’. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow, so there’ll only be on-call staff there, dealing with emergencies.

  ‘But this is an emergency.’

  ‘Your daughter is safe. She’s being cared for. After the Bank Holiday we will call you in for an interview. This will probably be one of a series. We need to get the full picture of you, your circumstances, your experience as a parent. Realistically, we’re looking at a case conference in early February, then a long-term custody decision sometime after that.’

  ‘Sometime? I need to see my daughter now. I need to see her tomorrow. I can’t wait.’

  ‘That’s the system, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Can’t I see her? Just see her. I don’t mind who else is there.’

  ‘We’ll be able to look at interim visitation rights after your first interview.’

  ‘At least tell me where she is.’

  ‘She’s safe.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Your daughter is safe. We’ll be in touch after the New Year.’

  And the phone is cut dead. That’s it. Dismissed. Sit tight. Do nothing for a couple of days. Do nothing while the world crashes down around us. Do nothing while London is torn into bits. I stare out of the kitchen window. It’s got dark outside. People are putting their lights on in the tower blocks around us. Each light means there’s somebody home, but there aren’t nearly as many as you’d expect. I reckon a lot of people have already left.

  Val doesn’t have any more luck trying to get to Adam or get him out of the Young Offenders’ place they’ve sent him to. I lean in the kitchen doorway while she talks. I can tell it’s not going well, but when she puts the phone down, she lets rip with a string of insults that even I’d be proud of.

  ‘They won’t even let me see ’im, Sarah, not for a couple of weeks. He’s a young lad. He’s going to be going mad in the
re. I know ’im. He’ll be worried about you, and Mia, and me. He’s got a temper on ’im an’ all. He could do anything.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘I dunno, love. I dunno.’

  We heat up some food, though neither of us eats much of it. We sit and stare at the TV as it moves from news updates to reviews of the year to so-called ‘entertainment’ shows filmed weeks ago in studios with big clocks in the background.

  ‘Of course, it’s New Year’s Eve, love. I was on me own this time last year …’

  ‘I was at home. At my mum and dad’s.’

  There are some big cans of worms here, and neither of us wants to open them.

  ‘Do you want a drink of something? I’m going to.’

  ‘I don’t really drink.’

  ‘I’ll just give you a drop then.’

  She scuttles into the kitchen and comes back with two thin glasses with rich, dark liquid in, and a bottle tucked under her arm.

  ‘Drop of sherry,’ she says, handing me one.

  ‘Right. Thanks.’ I sniff it. Just the vapour catches in the back of my throat. I cradle it in my hands, with no intention of drinking the vile stuff. Val’s got no hesitation in getting stuck in.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be getting ready?’ I say. ‘For tomorrow?’

  ‘What do we think it is? Earthquake? Bomb? S’pose we should head for the Underground, that’s what they did in the Second World War.’

  ‘Shall we do that, then? Go and camp out there?’

  ‘Don’t fancy it much. They make me feel hemmed in at the best of times. What if we couldn’t get out again? I reckon I’ll take my chances here. Hide under the kitchen table or something. What do you want to do?’

  Reckon I’ll take my chances. I saw her number in Adam’s book. I saw mine too. We’re going to be okay, me and Val. It doesn’t matter where we are when it hits – we're going to survive.

  But Mia’s different. Mia’s only got hours left. My daughter. My baby.

  ‘I’ve got to find Mia.’