Nicholas Dane

  Then it all happened very quickly. Nick wriggled violently and fell to the floor in a cascade of shampoo, toothpaste and various bathroom condiments. He was certain the man would go for him but instead, he backed off. Nick jumped to his feet and charged. He shoved the man in the stomach so that he fell back out of the doorway and ran out into the corridor and down the stairs. At the back door there was a tremendous bang where Jones and Manley were trying to beat the door down. As the alarm finally went off, Nick flung himself at the door, fiddling with the locks - but of course there was no key - Jones hadn’t even thought of that.

  Nick ran round to the back room and looked out of the window. Jones was leering in through his fox mask, clutching the shotgun, waving a hand at him and shouting something muffled. He was trying to tell Nick to smash the window with a chair or something, but Nick had no idea what he was on about. Then Manley appeared behind him, heaving a flowerpot in his hand, which he flung through the window. The window burst with a crash and shattered glass poured down into the room. Jones wiped the remainder of the window away with the shotgun and clambered in.

  The two men pushed past Nick and ran upstairs, where the chemist had barricaded himself and his wife into the bedroom.

  ‘Open the door - now!’ screamed Jones, his voice muffled by the fox mask. The chemist refused. ‘Open the fucking door now or I’ll shoot it down,’ screamed Jones. The chemist refused again and Jones emptied one barrel of the shotgun into the ceiling. The chemist opened the door. Jones ignored his cries for mercy and stuck the gun barrel in his fat stomach.

  ‘The cabinet,’ he growled. He pushed the poor man downstairs. By now, Nick had been in the house for five minutes. It was another five before the chemist got into the shop at the front and opened the cabinet. Jones and Manley emptied the contents into sacks and at last, they were done. Gratuitously, Jones slammed the gun into the man’s middle to make him double up, and all three of them rushed out the back and through the window they’d come in by. A moment later, they were running through the dark streets. The alarm had been joined by the call of sirens. Nick had a hell of a job keeping up with them, and just about managed to get in the car in time as they were pulling away.

  Manley pressed down the gas, and they shot off. They squealed round a few corners, then slowed right down. They drove down another few streets before they parked up, abandoned the car with the masks in it and got into another one, Jones’s old Ford, parked on the edge of a piece of waste ground.

  The drive back was slow and anxious. Every car they saw looked like a police car, but they had successfully eluded a chase. Another fifteen minutes saw them back home.

  It was half past three. The whole operation had only taken one and a half hours.

  ‘Stella!’ roared Jones. ‘Down ’ere.’

  He and Manley ran upstairs with the stolen goods in sacks while Stella came down. Across the sitting room, Stella and Nick looked at each other - two kids deeply out of their depth. As, of course, were Jones and Manley.

  The two men came down shortly after with some relieved chatter and laughs.

  ‘Couple a beers, Stella,’ said Manley. ‘Drink to our success, eh, Jonesy?’

  ‘I don’t want you getting off yer face,’ grumbled Jones. ‘We could still ’ave trouble.’

  ‘What trouble?’ said Manley. ‘We’re miles away and the cops are looking for a monkey, a fox and a Prime Minister. I need a drink after that.’

  He went to the fridge and came back with three cans, one of which he threw to Nick.

  ‘Did you see that bloke’s face?’ he sniggered.

  ‘Looked like he’d seen a ghost!’

  ‘Yah - his own.’

  They laughed. Nick remembered the look on the chemist’s face as he hung upside down from the window and started to snigger himself.

  ‘Nothing like a bit of violence for a good laugh, eh?’ said Stella scornfully. She turned and went up to bed. Nick felt bad, but it wasn’t the violence - it was the release from fear that was funny. It was all over now.

  Jones stuck his fingers up at the departing Stella and then pulled a carton slyly from his pocket. ‘This is a good way of celebrating,’ he said. ‘And not too noisy for the hour, either.’ He rattled the box.

  ‘Moggies,’ said Manley happily. Jones took out a card of little white pills and popped out three each. He gave three each to Manley and to Nick, and raised his beer to them. ‘Down the ’atch!’

  They knocked back the pills.

  ‘Night, night, my sons,’ said Manley. They went to sit down. Jones tried the telly, there wasn’t much on but nobody cared. They sat smiling vaguely at one another for a while, until one by one, they all fell fast asleep. When Stella came down the next morning, all three them were in their chairs in exactly the same positions they’d sat down in, still flat out.

  29

  The Old Folks at Home

  Nick awoke a little later from a deep, seamless sleep feeling emptied out, as if he’d woken from an anaesthetic, which of course, he had. The room was full of the smell of frying bacon and for a moment he thought he was back at home with his mother, waking up on a Saturday or Sunday morning. The house he was in wasn’t so different, just scruffier and dirtier. He lay still and blinked at the walls as his memory filled him in.

  He found Stella in the kitchen with the frying pan.

  ‘You’ve been out for the count. Eating those marbles. Those two are out, they’ll be back in an hour or so. Fancy some?' she asked. Nick nodded and sat himself down at the table.

  ‘Nice fry-up after a good day’s work, eh?’ said Stella, and she gave him a lopsided smile.

  He waited until he had his food in front of him before he said what was on his mind.

  ‘He’s a bloody maniac, isn’t he?’

  ‘He has his good sides.’

  ‘Has he?’ Nick looked at her to see if she was joking. She didn’t appear to be. ‘Bloody hell, Stella.’

  She shrugged. ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘But.’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘Every time I see you you have another bruise or something.’

  ‘’Cos I love him?’ she said. She pulled a wry smile. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I ran away from Meadow Hill to get away from all that. It does my head in, you sticking to it like that.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean it, Nick. He’s always really sorry afterwards.’ She looked him briefly in the face. ‘He’s got a heart, too, you know.’

  ‘Where’s he keep it?’

  ‘He just finds it hard to find it.’

  Nick shook his head.

  ‘I know. But I love him,’ said Stella. ‘So that’s all there is to it. I made my bed, I guess.’

  ‘I don’t think all that much of being in love if that’s what it means,’ said Nick. Stella laughed at him.

  ‘Being in love, it’s the best thing in the world,’ she told him, but the words sounded foolish on her lips. As for Nick, he carried that conversation in his heart long, long after it had ceased to be any use.

  They chatted on and ate their food until the door banged open and Jones and Manley came in, in great good spirits. Some sort of a sale had been made.

  ‘Now then,’ said Jones, clapping his hands together. ‘Time to have a little merry, eh?’ Stella smiled and went upstairs to change. Nick stood awkwardly at the edge, hoping that he was going to be released from his service.

  Jones came over and poked him in the chest with his finger. ‘What happened last night, never happened. Not a word. Because if a word gets out, I’ll know where it came from. Get me?’

  ‘I get you,’ said Nick.

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ said Manley. ‘He did his part.’

  ‘Just so long as he knows, if a word gets out, I know who it is.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s to come with us for a drink.’

  Jones rolled his eyes. As for Nick, it was the last thing he wanted. ‘It’s all right,’ he began, but Manley had made up his mind. He c
ame over and slapped his face playfully.

  ‘Nah, he held his own, didn’t he, Jonesy?’

  ‘He never even got us in.’

  ‘How could he, he had no key. Nah, he done all right, he’ll come with us,' insisted Manley. He winked at Nick. ‘Don’t mind old Jones,’ he said. ‘He’ll be a lot cheerier with a few pints inside him. Come on, Stella,’ he bellowed up the stairs.

  ‘Coming,’ called Stella. Jones and Manley rolled their eyes at each other, and started walking up and down with their hands behind their backs, tutting and looking at their watches comically. It was the first time Nick had ever seen Jones being playful, and he couldn’t help laughing at them. Jones was delighted with it, and he turned to Nick and gave him a wide-mouthed, wobbly grin, that suddenly made his hard face look weak and tired and old. Nick had to make a conscious effort not to stare.

  Manley laughed at his discomfort. ‘Jones’s smile takes a bit of getting used to,’ he said, and patted his friend on his back, so that Jones, still in his charming mood, smiled almost shyly at Nick, and made him think of Stella’s words - that he had a heart after all but found it hard to find. Then Stella came down the stairs and they headed off in the car, Stella at the wheel, for the pub.

  Jones and Manley didn’t want to be seen locally with something to celebrate, so they headed off to the other side of town, a place Manley knew just outside Wythenshaw, where he used to live. They drove across Manchester for half an hour before Stella pulled up at a big, old Victorian pub on the edge of a housing estate. They went in, got a table and Manley went to the bar.

  ‘Now then, first one down quick to get things moving,’ he said when he came back, putting down four pints on the table. He, Jones and Stella solemnly downed the beer. Nick wasn’t used to it and watched them pour it down their necks in amazement at how quickly it vanished.

  ‘Get a move on,’ said Jones, when they’d all finished and Nick was still half full.

  ‘Don’t push him, we don’t want him getting sick drunk, or we’ll have to take him back,’ said Stella.

  Jones muttered something about baby-sitting, but he went along with it for now. He went to the bar to get another one, and Manley gave Nick a wink.

  ‘You’ll see - another four a them and he’ll be a different man.’

  ‘And yeah, and another four after that and he’ll be another one again,’ said Stella, so gloomily that they both began to laugh.

  The pub filled up; things got loud. Nick had a couple of beers and then a couple more. Manley and Jones were taking whiskey chasers, but fortunately they didn’t force any on him. Even so, the pub began to get blurry and loud, and very, very funny. Without meaning to, Nick was enjoying himself. Like Manley said, Jones became another man - a clever, happy man, making jokes and smart remarks, roaring with laughter, wiping his eyes, smooching up with Stella and getting all sentimental.

  It carried on like that for a while, but then Nick found himself dozing off sitting upright in his chair and Jones started nudging him irritably again.

  ‘I don’t want you falling asleep and drawing attention to us,’ he hissed in Nick’s ear. Nick looked across to Manley, but he was in the middle of an intense conversation with Stella. Jones looked as if his good mood was evaporating.

  Nick lurched to his feet, ‘...breath of air,’ he muttered. Jones nodded and scowled and stuck his nose in his beer, and Nick weaved his way through the crowd towards the door. There was a beer garden outside. He was feeling sick now he stood up. Maybe a brisk walk around the garden, or even a brisk vomit come to that, would sort him out.

  Outside, he was surprised to find it was still day. The light hurt his eyes but it was good to get away from the fug of cigarettes and beer fumes. It was a sunshiny day, a few high white clouds, cold in the wind but quite warm in the sheltered garden. There was a patch of scratty grass with some tables set up, and a few hardy souls were sitting at them in their coats, with drinks and packets of crisps on the tabletops. There was a family group at one table, a husband and wife with a couple of small children, out for a drink with some friends, two older men. Next to one of the men was another boy, aged about twelve or thirteen, watching what was going on with a bored expression on his face.

  There was something about the boy Nick couldn’t place. It was the poor clothes, the haircut, the way he sat ... Everything about him was vaguely familiar.

  Nick walked out past them and as he did he caught sight of the men’s faces. It was such a shock to his system that he felt for a second that he was treading on air, as if his whole body left him behind for an instant. He caught himself and turned his face away quickly before they spotted him. He walked back into the pub. Suddenly, he was as sober as a bottle of lemonade.

  Inside was so loud, he felt hidden in the noise, but he couldn’t believe what his eyes had just told him, so he went back out for another look, even though every nerve in him told him to bury himself in the ground or run out the back door, anything to get away. But he had to see. He went out and dodged round behind the porch, so he was hidden from the drinkers in the garden. He stood there to catch his breath for a moment, before peering round to get a proper look.

  The men were sideways on. One of them he’d only ever seen once before, but in circumstances he could never forget. The other one was Tony Creal.

  Nick let out a small whimper of amazement. Tony Creal, out for a drink with one of the men who had joined him gang raping Nick in the Secure Unit.

  He hid again behind the porch and lay against the wall to catch his breath before he poked his head back to have another look. No doubt about it. It was Tony Creal, wrapped up warm like your kind old uncle in his grey overcoat and woolly hat, his nose dipped in a glass of Guinness, as if him being out and loose in the world was a cosy kind of thing, something to feel happy about. And the boy. And the two smaller boys out with their mum and dad and dear old Tony Creal.

  ‘Bum boys,’ whispered Nick to himself, and in his damaged heart felt a surge of hatred for both Creal and his victim.

  He leaned back against the wall. He was going to go, he was off, out of there. He just needed to clear his head and wait for his moment. But before he was ready, the door opened and out came Jones, looking for him. He stood outside the door of the porch with his glass in his hand, looking this way and that for Nick for a moment before he caught sight of him flattened up against the wall like a crab trying to hide.

  ‘What are you up to?’ demanded Jones.

  ‘I got stuck,’ said Nick softly. Despite himself, he peered around the body of Jones to see what Creal was up to.

  ‘You tell me when you want to wander off,’ Jones began. As he spoke, he looked around instinctively, to see what Nick was watching.

  There was a pause. Then, without a word, Jones stepped back behind the porch, just as Nick had done, and pressed himself flat beside him, just as Nick had done, and twisted his head sideways for a closer look just as Nick had done. His breath hissed out of him. It was a moment or two before Nick realised what he was saying.

  ‘Creal,’ Jones was whispering to himself. ‘Dear Tony. It’s only fucking Tony Creal.’

  Jones stood like that for several seconds before he remembered Nick standing next to him. He turned abruptly and looked down at him, his fishy eyes as wide and as frightened as they had been over twenty years before when he first discovered what Tony Creal was capable of.

  Their eyes met. There was no disguising it. They both knew in an instant that they had this man in common.

  Nick didn’t wait to find out how he was going to react; he knew the kind of hatred Creal bred. Without a second’s thought he darted out across the garden, keeping his head down to hide his face, and fled down the steps that led up to the pub, up the street and away. Jones started after him, but then stopped and pressed himself back behind the wall. He peered round once more to make sure that, yes, yes, it really was Tony Creal who sat there sipping his beer, and then went back into the pub.

  30

 
The Heart of Jones

  It wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to know about Jones. Nick didn’t know who he was more scared of, him or Creal. He was certain that just as he had felt that unfair pulse of hatred for the poor lad sitting there with Creal, and just as he had turned on Oliver all those months ago, Jones felt the same thing for him. It made no sense, but he knew it.

  He ran until his breath was gone and he was certain that he wasn’t being followed, before slowing down to a walk and starting to take note of his surroundings. He was on the edge of a wooded park. He followed it round and gradually began to get a sense that he’d been here before. In fact, he was just off the Palatine Road, the same road that had led him and Davey to freedom when they had broken out of Meadow Hill months before.

  He wandered about until he found his way onto the main road, then jumped on a bus. He sat there, shaking and shivering and muttering to himself until he got back into town, and then caught another bus out to Jenny’s house. It was four o’clock in the afternoon by this time, and there was no one in - she had to work late that day, and Grace and Joe were at after-school club. She’d given him a key, however, so Nick let himself in, went upstairs to Jenny’s bedroom, drew the curtains, got into her bed, and fell into a troubled sleep, full of images he hadn’t thought about for months - of Tony Creal, of the faces of those other two men in the Secure Unit... of Oliver, of Oliver, of Oliver...

  Meanwhile, Jones wandered back into the pub and sat down with Manley and Stella.

  ‘Found him?’ asked Manley.

  ‘Done a runner.’

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘Guess who’s out there having a drink,’ said Jones, nodding his head at the garden.

  Manley cast a suspicious glance at the door.

  ‘Only Creal.’

  ‘Creal,’ said Manley.

  ‘You know Creal.’

  Manley sipped his beer. ‘I know who you mean,’ he said. ‘What’s he doing here?’