Highbridge (2 page)

Two miles further on, three girls were walking down the appropriately named Hill Street towards the equally appropriately named High Street.

‘I'm just saying, he's a psycho.'

‘You think everyone's a psycho.'

‘Five per cent of people are psychos.'

‘You just hate him because he's foreign.'

‘Christ, will you two give it a rest.' It was the tall one, Tanya Nolan, Sean's niece, Joey's daughter. The one with the ASOS oversized bucket bag. She was walking between her two friends, Becky, the short one, with the now scuffed Stella McCartney Python tote bag, and Carol, the medium one, with a leather Topshop slouchy holdall. All were in jeans. Parkas pulled tight and arms folded, huddled against the cold. They were all in boots. Tanya and Carol in worker's. Becky in biker's.

‘It's five per cent are deviants. Not psychos,' Tanya added as she hit the pedestrian crossing button but didn't stop to wait for green.

‘Well, he's a deviant, then,' insisted Carol, following automatically.

‘What about hating foreigners? That's deviant,' countered Becky, as she hesitated and looked right, left and right again. But quickly.

‘It isn't. Deviancy is when you stray from the norm. Right, Tan?'

Tanya refused to comment. She, like her dad, always seemed to end up playing the role of mediator. And like her dad, sometimes wished other people would sort out their own issues.

‘You saying that being racist is the norm?' Becky fired back at Carol.

‘No.'

‘You just did. You said hating foreigners is normal.'

‘I didn't.'

‘You did.'

‘What am I supposed to do now? Say “didn't”? And then we grab hair and have a catfight?'

‘You said—'

But Tanya cut across them. ‘Will you stop it? It's like a bad version of some big celebrity reality slag-off.'

Back at the station, two other deviants from the norm were about to collide as Joey's bag came out of the door. The guy carrying it was busy checking back over his shoulder so had no idea that Joey was about to stand in front of him; no idea that Joey was pulling his beanie down to cushion his own forehead, nor any warning that Joey's head was about to hit his own. He went down under the force and a cascade of sincere-sounding apologies from Joey.

‘Sorry, mate. Really sorry. You OK?'

This had the desired effect of guiding the slowing onlookers on their way. Especially as Joey knelt down as though to administer further aid. The guy looked far from OK. Groggy. Blood running from his nose.

‘Don't move too quickly. Take it easy.' Then, more quietly, ‘It's not like on the telly, is it? It really hurt, yeah?' Then quieter as he leaned in. Closer. And flicked the bagman's nose. ‘Like that. Looks broken. Hope so anyway.'

Bagman was now starting to look more wary than shocked.

‘Yeah. Weren't expecting that, were you? Like I wasn't expecting you to carry me bag off the train for me, you thievin' get. Now go, before I break every other bone in your body.' Joey leaned back, with a cheery smile for the benefit of the last onlookers. ‘You'll be OK, mate.'

Bagman hesitated, but saw the cheery smile fade and didn't like what replaced it. He rolled to one side and was already up and running as a jobsworth approached from the station.

‘Oi. Did you just go over the fence on the other side?'

‘Yep. And?'

‘Do you have a ticket?'

‘For what? Jumping the fence?'

‘Don't get smart with me, lad.'

‘OK,' said Joey, handing over the ticket.

‘Then why did you jump the fence?'

‘Never been one for sitting on them.' Joey turned and walked away towards the car park. He never saw the bag snatcher again. He didn't want to and he didn't care. His body loosened. His smile returned. His mind had already moved on. To Natasha. As she brought the Q7 alongside.

Sean was standing under the body dryer for a last blast of warm air to help dry his hair and beard, looking across to the floor to ceiling mirror. Sandra's right, he thought, we shouldn't have that mirror there. There are other ways of demonstrating success than carrying round a pot belly, even it was all paid for. She preferred jewellery. He liked having a body dryer in his bathroom. The eco-warriors and anti-carbonists would hate it, though. Having an electric heater to save drying yourself with a towel is a bit OTT, he knew. But it was fun.

Perhaps I should include that in the talk tonight, he mused. How the carbonists had started to make everyone feel guilty about switching on anything electrical. And never mind all the talk of asking the Indians and Chinese not to follow the same path to industrialisation that we had trodden, it's hard enough for people like himself, who had had to develop mountaineering skills to traverse from the bedroom he shared with his brother Joe to the kitchen. Every morning. Clothes bundled in his arms he'd go down the wooden banister, then use the skirting boards to shimmy his way along the hallway before swinging on the kitchen door to land on the seat near the cooker. All to avoid having to walk on the glacial surface of the quarry-tiled floors. He'd light the grill to warm up the kitchen while he got washed and dressed at the sink, using the pan of water his mother had boiled before heading off for work as a cleaner at the local Comp where Joe and Janey ended up going.

Those skills were learned because he had passed the old eleven-plus, which meant he had to go to the grammar school across town. Which meant he had to get a bus. Which meant he had to leave the house by 7.30 and be in school at 8.30, while the others fell out of bed to a warmed-up house at 8.30 to walk the 300 yards to the Comp. And they would be home at four, while Sean had to battle his way back across town to get back by five. His parents might not have named him Sue, but they certainly sent him out with a target on his chest. That badge of St Bede on his blazer pocket.

The childhood memory, like all the others, had started to become bittersweet, taking on the rosy tint of lost innocence. A time before responsibility pressed in and grief started to visit. Like every child who wakes up suddenly an adult, he had come to accept that one day he would lose his mum and dad – but not his sister Janey. Even the cat and dog fights he and Joey had had with her were becoming cherished memories. Which was why he was now spending less and less time fretting over trying to persuade the Chinese to buy an extra sweater rather than build another power station, and more and more poncing about, as his brother Joe put it, with after-dinner speeches on the charity circuit. If they couldn't stop people like Janey being killed on their own streets, then what was the point of everything else?

‘What was all that about?' Natasha asked as Joey dropped into the car and leaned over to kiss her. She smelt good. She always did.

‘Mediocre dickhead in a mediocre town. Product of what our Sean calls the cycle of deprivation.'

She knew better than to take the bait, so pointed the car in the direction of home, via the underpass Joey had just run through. He looked at the graffiti and piss stains and smiled as he let his mind go back to the time he kissed Margi Hewland under there when he was fourteen. That's the thing about kids today, he thought. They never get to learn the shortcuts. No need. No hot pursuit. No door to door. No reading the clues trying to track the gang. Now it was all precision rendezvouses by GPS. Live feeds from their mobiles.

‘You have to break the continuum, don't you?' It was Luke's spotter, Matt O'Connor, lying next to him. And, like him, wearing black Gelert packaway waterproofs over his Helly Hansen jacket and jeans. Equally effective in the dark, cheaper and less conspicuous than cammos. Matt rolled to one side, reached down and massaged the scar on his inner thigh. He'd started to notice that the pressure cramps were coming more frequently, a consequence of age. And weight. Although medium build, he'd always been referred to as stocky in youth, then as a bull of a man, but now he was veering towards rounded. One of life's natural sociologists, always quick to find the black humour in life, believing it was naïve to be surprised by anything people do. They are, as he often says, only human, but Matt also believed that every day is a crossroads and it is up to everyone to decide which turning to take next. Some choose a selfish route, others tend towards helping others. Each is a choice. Each comes with its own consequences.

‘Take out all the warlords at once,' he continued as he shifted his weight from the scar. ‘Otherwise, pop one, another steps up. Slot 'em all. Or, give their women the vote. They'd soon be bogged down putting up shelves and decorating instead of blowing up marketplaces. Democracy. They're going to have it whether they like it or not.'

‘Great idea. And end up like us? Not having a clue who or what we are voting for?'

‘You never voted.'

‘That's not the point.' Luke turned, his tall frame extending a foot or so beyond Matt's boots. He was still trim, almost angelic looking. When he chose to be. More often the angel of death, but the transitions were getting harder as the ageing cracks started to multiply. If Matt was the sociologist, Luke was the philosopher. Which made him one of life's squad leaders, but also deepened the cracks. Understanding why people committed evil did not prevent it. Or excuse them. But it made killing them easier.

‘In a democracy, O'Connor, you're supposed to ask. Not sit round carving it up for yourself. The political class we now seem to have are as bad as the herders round their campfires.'

‘What did you expect? They'd phone you up or something?'

‘Why not?' Luke went back to his scope. ‘They've got my mobile. They've got all our mobiles. No point havin' GCHQ, MI6, Echelon or Homeland Bloody Security if they haven't.'

Matt laughed. ‘They could just send out a sort of national emergency text, like: Do you, or do you not, agree with nuking Europe. Text one for yes. Or three for no.'

‘I vote we focus on tonight's target and sort out the voting system tomorrow.'

Matt rolled back to his spotting scope to see the chippy owner getting into his daily opening routine. ‘I know I've put on a few ounces, but he's like a bin bag full of balloons.' Then, without a pause, ‘Are we going to slot him?'

‘Dunno,' Luke replied and then grinned. ‘Do we get to vote on it?'

‘Do you care?'

‘Gave up caring in Somalia.'

‘We weren't supposed to be there, remember. And Janey definitely wasn't there, Luke.'

‘But we were. And I was. When it happened.' It was as harsh as it was still raw.

Matt had learned over the past three years that, unlike his thigh, this was an open wound, but he never gave up trying. ‘You couldn't have done anything. It was just one of those crap wrong place, wrong time things.'

Luke knew his friend was right, but it never made it any easier. Why should Janey have been in the wrong place at any time? Just because of pieces of filth like the one in his scope right now. He tightened his finger. One small squeeze. Then he felt Matt's version of the Vulcan nerve pinch on his shoulder.

‘He's the bait. Bigger fish to fry.'

Luke hesitated for a moment, but then relaxed his finger. ‘Was that an attempt to defuse the moment with humour, Dr O'Connor?'

‘Only following orders.'

‘I hate democracy.'

‘That is the point, mate. It makes it inconvenient for psychos like you.'

The girls were heading along the High Street. In silence, heading for Sanderson's, one of the few remaining independents to survive the supermarket wars, passing the local hoodies loitering with intent outside the Lion. Intent on doing what was always open to question, but typically one detached himself from the pack to stand blocking their path.

Tanya instinctively reached for her phone. Becky and Carol instinctively stepped off the pavement to walk round. The hoodie instinctively turned and watched them, with a power grin. Until he suddenly felt himself knocked sideways. He spun round ready to confront whoever it was but hesitated as he took in the big brown eyes, big lashes and bigger hair as Tanya, apparently busy texting, looked up from her phone, and was right in his face. ‘You're in the way.'

Another instinctive reaction, as Hoodie stepped back. Meekly. The ASBO manual didn't tell him how to deal with Barbie on steroids.

‘No need to apologise.' Tanya threw the comment and her hair back over her shoulder as she strode away, leaving Hoodie to sidle back to the pack, all of them obviously enjoying his moment of discomfort.

‘If anyone's a psycho, it's you,' said Becky as she looked back at the brooding hoodie, kicking out at one sidecrack too far.

Tanya just grinned as she strode on. The young lioness. Her father's daughter. And like Joey, she never realised how much she intimidated people. She was also her mother's daughter and, like Natasha, she never realised that a lot of it was because of the way she looked. Just as she still couldn't accept that she had been in real danger a fortnight before when she was clawing and scratching at some randomer who had tried to snatch not hers, but Becky's bag. And why Joey had gone over the edge.

‘Do you know why each generation is taller than the next?' Joey was still musing as Natasha guided the Q7 on to the so-called expressway.

‘Am I supposed to say nutrition?'

‘You are, but it's communication. Each generation learns how to communicate better so they don't wear their legs out looking for each other.'

‘Is that the sort of thing you think about on that train every Friday night?'

‘Nah. I have much better things to think about than that.' He reached across and felt for the telltale bump under her thick woollen skirt.

‘I don't know why you like these stupid things. They're freezing in this weather.'

‘And I don't know why you keep asking. You know I'm damaged. Sexually abused as a kid.'