Jordan Hughes gazed up at the ceiling’s vast emptiness. From outside came the familiar clunk and clang of a cooking pot being vigorously scraped clean. He didn’t want to move, but the dark waves of self-loathing threatened to drown him if he didn’t. They aren’t real, he told himself. Those feelings wouldn’t be here if you were taking the pills.
Sitting up, he held his head in his hands and wondered what he’d done. He knew what he’d done. The images might have been half obscured in the fog of his mind, but the sensations had sunk into his muscles. How it took a really good thrust of the knife to get it through Kevin’s clothing and properly into his body. Then, once he’d thought to punch down with an over-arm action, how things got easier.
He caught a quick glimpse of what he’d done to Kevin’s face and screwed his eyes shut, grinding his knuckles against the top of his head. His legs started to shiver and he looked desperately about. He hated this place. This shitty room that was hardly bigger than his cell. There was a can on the floor. Lancaster Super Strength. The thing was half full and he gulped it back, hoping his stomach would hold. Next, he saw a business card on the floor. Black with pink writing. Piccadilly Sauna. He groaned as another memory nudged its way forward. How many more of them were waiting out of sight?
One of the girl’s working there had laid him back on the bed, eased his trousers and pants down. There was nothing happening. Why would there be? Before being locked-up, he’d only managed a few teenage fumbles. How could he expect to do the actual thing straight away? He lay there for a while, but the only bit of him that didn’t feel numb was the inside of his mouth and they didn’t sell booze. She said she could have some brought in, but he knew it would be far cheaper to get it himself. So he’d pulled his keks back up and gone on his way.
A disconnected series of images followed. As if he’d been walking with his eyes shut, opening them long enough to let a single image press itself on his brain.
A big hotel by the station, on the corner of Dale Street. Yet another building that seemed alien in its newness. A suit standing out the front of it, nervously hurrying his cigarette as Jordan had got closer. His hands shaking the doors of a shop, banging on the window before he figured it was shut. The vertical banner on a building further along. Boo-hoo or something that sounded like a word for crying. A huge mural of a blue tit, five floors high, covering the side of a building by Stevenson Square.
He’d spotted a youngster, searching for cig-ends on the pavement opposite the Millstone. Got her up against the wall, but it all went wrong. Why did it go wrong? Something had happened.
His eyes opened.
The copper from by the arches. The pretty one with the curly mop of black hair. He’d popped up from nowhere. Did they fight? He let his head hang down, eyes almost shut. He had the faint impression of a confined area. Cold concrete surfaces. Yeah, they’d ended up in there, the two of them. Had the copper caught him with a punch?
Jordan ran his fingertips over a lump on his temple. He touched his nose and winced. He probed at his nostrils with his little finger. When he examined its tip, he saw flakes of dry blood sticking to it. So why wasn’t he in a cell? He got away somehow, fuck knows how. From now on, he said to himself, I must be more careful.
His forearm felt tight from where he’d cut himself and lines of black lurked beneath his nails. His or Kevin’s blood? He threw the empty can aside and stood. Veins pulsed either side of his eyes and his vision dimmed. Motionless, he waited for his surroundings to announce themselves once more. There he was. Back in the room. More cans of Lancaster – these unopened – on the side. A scatter of coins and a couple of crumpled notes.
He recalled going through Kevin’s house once the job was done. Wallet had been in the kitchen, next to the keys for his van. He remembered pausing before the fridge, draining the last of the rum and noticing the photos of the young lad playing football stuck to the fridge. Then it had been upstairs to get clean and have a root around. Two bedrooms, one belonging to the bairn. Posters of Aguero and people like that. Manchester City duvet. He’d returned to the ground floor empty handed.
He’d put a matchstick gallows together and left it on the side in the hallway. The wallet had some cards in it. He’d heard about the contactless thing. And in the first shop he tried, the man at the till didn’t even blink. Bizarre. Twelve cans of lager and not a coin changed hands or a button pressed.
Jordan sat down in the bedsit’s knackered armchair, scooped his coat off the floor and went through its pockets. There was the card he’d used. Mr K. Rowe. How long before it stopped working? Was there a limit? He’d find out later.
The can hissed in defiance as he forced the tab up, raised it to his lips and sucked at the contents. He heard a dripping noise on the carpet and, in his mind, he could see dots of blood landing on Kevin’s carpet and walls. Fuck off! He gulped harder. Once it was empty, he dropped it on the carpet, foraged through his other pockets and came across an envelope.
The label said: The Owner, Crazy Diamond Window Cleaning Services, 14 Bosley Street, Gorton.
Why, Jordan wondered, did I take that? Must have been for some reason. I need to work out whereabouts the shop I bought the cans from is, too. The one where I used the card to do the contactless thing. Free fucking money! He wanted to laugh. Don’t go back, though. Never go back to the same place. Had it been somewhere near Kevin’s? He thought it had. Later, he’d catch a bus to another shop somewhere else and get more booze from there. He examined the envelope again. Tried to focus on the words.
‘My head,’ he whispered, glancing at the empty can. Too much of you.
He reached for another. Hiss and gulp. He placed it aside and turned the envelope over. There was some writing on the back and he recognized the simple, looped letters. I wrote that. Squinting at the words, he eventually heard Kevin mumbling them. He’d had to take the blade to Kevin’s face but he gave it up eventually. He smiled. Clever boy, Jordy, you did good. Not such a fuck-up after all, are you? Hey?
He lifted the envelope and kissed the words: Shoreside Farm, Higher Openshaw.
Anthony Brown’s home address.