Tuesday after training, Adam watches as a boy with sloping shoulders makes his way down the street. Wearing a grey hoodie, dark jeans and canvas kung fu shoes, the boy’s hands are buried deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt. He walks with deliberate intent, his head down. Any of Adam’s neighbours chancing a look out of their front window right now would see only his lean shape and hurried gait, his face, reduced to the occasional flash of broad nose, concealed in the depths of the hood.
This boy is Adam’s prey.
Adam haunts him, moving soundlessly from tree to fence, keeping his distance, watching and waiting. Something in his demeanour had alerted Adam the moment the boy emerged from the dairy. He isn’t from around here, Adam’s sure about that. And he isn’t a regular customer either: he hasn’t turned up on the other evenings Adam’s held vigil outside the dairy. Perhaps it’d been the boy’s furtive glances left and right, or the fact that he hadn’t bothered to buy anything in spite of hurrying into the store only minutes before Mr Singh closed up. Whatever it was, Adam felt compelled to follow him. Grateful to be still wearing his running shoes, Adam crosses the road and takes up a position behind a lemon bush in Mrs Steele’s front yard. As he pulls a branch aside to better track the boy, it occurs to Adam that in real life surveillance is less sexy and more prickly than it is on TV. He peers through the thicket of woody stems.
Unaware he’s being watched, the hoodie boy pads down the street. Outside Mr Wilson’s house he stops and looks about. He pulls a can from inside his clothes, pulls off the cap, shakes it quietly. Adam almost smiles. Contractors from the council came only days ago to paint out the tagging on the transformer. This guy’s back to do the deed again. Adam can hardly believe his luck.
The lemon branch flicks back, the leaves rustling as they hit Adam’s jacket. The small sound pierces the hushed gloom of the street. Startled, the boy looks about, his head darting left and right, still shrouded in the hood. Adam jumps back into the shadows of Mrs Steele’s house. He stands still and doesn’t dare to breathe. A car drives past. The boy stuffs the can into his sweat pocket and sits on Mr Wilson’s concrete fence, dangling his feet and rocking to music on an imaginary iPod.
Clever.
He looks as if he’s waiting for a mate or a bus or something. When the car has turned into the next street, the boy slips off the fence and whips out his can again. This time he doesn’t muck around. The deed is done within seconds: a smear of illegible script in fuck-you red and with a final flamboyant flourish through the centre. He steps back to admire his handiwork for a moment, then flings the can into Mr Wilson’s flowerbed before setting off down the road.
Adam hurls himself over Mrs Steele’s front wall after the boy.
Accelerating from a standing start.
Fast feet, fast feet, fast feet.
Every footfall closing the space between them. But at this tempo, Adam can’t help the slap his trainers make on the tar seal. Annoyed, Adam propels himself forward, but the boy, on alert, hears Adam’s approach. He tears away, veering right, his camouflage hoodie flopping backwards as he flees.
He’s fast, but Adam is faster—thanks to Reece’s tick-the-box training programme. A few deep lungfuls of evening air, half a dozen stride-outs and he’s back on the boy’s heels. He lunges.
The boy ducks away, weaving inside. ‘Fuck off!’ he hisses.
Adam dives for the boy’s knees, tackles him to the ground and pins him there, his face in the grass at the edge of the road. He’s young, only about thirteen, but full of bravado.
‘Get off me! I didn’t do nothing!’ he yelps, but not so loudly that the neighbours will hear and come out to check what’s going on.
‘You were tagging the transformer box.’
‘I wasn’t.’ The boy wriggles to free himself. Adam holds him fast.
‘I saw you.’
‘Must’ve been someone else.’ His tone is defiant.
‘You see anyone else in the vicinity?’
‘Yeah? So what if you saw me? Just your word against mine.’ The boy twists around sharply and looks Adam in the face, scanning his features for weakness.
‘Took a picture on my iPhone,’ Adam bluffs.
‘That won’t prove anything. I had my hoodie on.’
Adam shrugs, loosens his hold a little. ‘Up to you. I happen to think it’s a pretty convincing photo.’ The kid pales. Not so brave, then. Adam goes on. ‘I could delete it, but I need some information. Something you might be able to help me with.’ The boy jerks desperately, probably thinking if he could slip free of Adam’s grasp, he might still get away with it. Adam tightens his grip.
‘Just because I’m into tagging, doesn’t mean I’m into drugs,’ the boy says with a plucky lift of his chin. ‘I don’t do that stuff. Don’t take it, don’t sell it. Don’t know who does either. So I can’t help you there.’
‘It’s not drugs.’
The boy’s eyes narrow. ‘So, what then? What kind of information?’
‘You tagged the box last time, didn’t you? About three weeks ago?’
‘Nah, that wasn’t me. You got the wrong guy.’
‘Pity,’ Adam says, using his weight to press the boy back to the ground. ‘I’ve still got this photo. And Mr Wilson was pretty steamed last time. I reckon he might even back me up. With my photo to corroborate it, he might even say he looked out the window, saw you doing it...’
‘Shit!’
‘That was you. Three weeks ago.’ It’s a statement, not a question. The boy twists and squirms some more, but Adam has the upper hand and, after a couple of futile jerks, he relaxes.
‘Okay, what say it was me? I’m not saying it was, but you know, if it was...’
‘What time did you tag the box?’
‘Hey, I didn’t say it was me...’
‘I. Said. What. Time?’ Adam snarls, impatient now.
‘I dunno. Around five o'clock?’
‘You see anyone else in the street?’
‘How dumb do ya think I am? I wouldn’t have tagged the box if someone was about.’
‘So you didn’t see anyone? No one walking past on the footpath on the other side of the road?’
‘Nah.’
‘A car, maybe?’
‘There might’ve been a car.’
‘What sort of car?’
‘I don’t know. A car. What does it matter?’
‘Colour?’
‘No idea.’
‘Make?’ The boy glares.
Adam insists, ‘You’re sure you didn’t see anyone?’
‘Nup.’
‘No one out walking their dog?’
‘You already asked me. There was no one around. This street is dead!’
Adam shudders at the boy’s choice of words. Defeated, he pushes him away and collapses on the grass verge close to tears. The hoodie boy was right here on the street, maybe steps away from Adam’s mother, and yet he didn’t see her. It’s as if she were invisible, as if she vanished into nothingness. Adam feels a wrenching in his chest. He’s lost her all over again.
Slumped beside Adam, the boy sniffs, intruding on his grief.
‘Go on, get!’ Adam shouts. The boy doesn’t leave. Instead, he hovers beside Adam for a few moments, then hunkers down beside him on the grass.
‘So what’s this about, aye?’
Adam stares into the gloom. ‘My mother disappeared that night.’
‘Oh.’ The boy sits for a minute, thinking. Then he says, ‘She the one in the photo at the dairy?’
‘Yeah. She was going there. I thought... I thought...’ Adam chokes up.
‘I didn’t see her. Honest. I’d tell you if I did.’
Adam doesn’t really blame the kid. Who even registers other people’s mothers? Mothers are just there, aren’t they? You can spend hours hanging out in their homes, eating their cooking, and befriending their kids without even registering them. Mothers are flat and soulless like cardboard cut-outs: middle-aged, ordinary, invisible. The revelation rocks Adam.
Is that how other people saw his mother?
The boy looks at Adam with eyes full of intelligence.
‘You going to be okay?’
‘Sure. Go on. Get home.’
‘You’re not going to dob me in?’
‘No.’
The kid cocks his head. ‘What about the photo?’
‘I didn’t take your photo. I was bullshitting.’
‘Thought so.’ A lopsided grin.
‘You did not!’
‘You’re right, I was pissing myself.’
‘You need to get a new hobby.’
‘Yeah, right!’
‘You should. Eventually, you’re going to get caught, you know. There are other things to do for a buzz. You could try running, you’re pretty fast. Or rugby league.’
There’s a pause.
‘I’m sorry about your mum.’ Adam’s surprised. The boy seems sincere.
‘Thanks.’
With a hand, the boy gestures behind him at the houses. ‘You live in one of these?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You should go home. People might be getting worried about you. You know, because of your mum.’
Adam nods and pulls himself to his feet. The kid’s maybe thirteen, he’s a tagger, and here he is telling Adam what to do, like he’s the responsible one!
‘What’s your name?’
The boy gets up and brushes the grass off jeans. ‘I tell you my name, you promise you’re not going to tell the police?’
‘Nah.’
The boy grins. ‘Simon. What ‘bout you?’
‘Adam.’
He grins again. ‘Hey, I’ll be seeing ya, Adam.’
‘Yeah, see you around.’