I knew what was happening to you because it was on the news most days that first week. And the week after. Thanks to social media it seemed to go on forever. Not that I normally engaged with all that, but I did then—and you got a shedload of coverage on the local newspaper’s website as well. You made headlines nationally at first—“Sixty-Four-Year-Old Grandmother Victim of Arson Attack,” that sort of thing. The nation was outraged, but it didn’t seem to last. I reckon if it’d been your granddaughter who got hurt there would’ve been a lot more interest, but it’s like people don’t care so much about grannies and over-sixties, do they? That’s what my ma said.
Then it came out that your granddaughter’s violin had been lost in the blaze, one her dad had given her that was worth a good bit; she got plenty of coverage then. I saw her being interviewed on TV West and I thought to myself, must be nice to own something special like that, to have a dad who isn’t an a***hole who didn’t even hang around for the birth. A dad who’d think about what would make her happy when she got older and he was no longer around. I kind of get what she meant when she said she felt she’d lost the last part of him, and I forgot for a moment that it was because of me. Then I had this crazy idea about using some of the cash I’d made to try and get her a new one, but obviously I couldn’t do that, could I?
My mum cried when she saw her on the news, then she flipped out the way she does sometimes, screaming and banging her head against the wall like she wants to bash her own brains in. I had to pin her down or she’d have managed it. I’ve always hated it when she goes off on one like that. I want to shout at her and shake her to make her stop, but I don’t. I just hold on until the worst is past. Then I give her some vodka or weed and try to settle her down.
You won’t want to hear this, but apart from her hysterics everything else was sweet for me. As far as the bosses were concerned, I’d done good and they were happy to pay out. As usual it wasn’t as much as I was expecting, thanks to BJ and the cut he helped himself to. Anyway, it meant I could get my mum some new clothes for job interviews, like we’d planned, and a woman who lives in the next street—Julie—came in to do her hair. We bought a car, an old green Astra with a red driver’s door, and we were just about to get the kitchen window fixed when the s*** suddenly hit the fan.
It turned out the cops had the briefcase I was meant to have removed from the house the nights I broke in. I still don’t know what was in it, but when BJ came to beat the s*** out of me (he tried, failed) I got that some of the PCs I’ve delivered to in the past were suffering a lot of grief because of it. Actually, without making the connection, I’d already heard about some of the arrests on the news, high-profile stuff if you’re into that sort of world—basically corruption on plenty of levels—so no wonder the PC at the top of my command chain wanted it back.
I couldn’t feel sorry they’d been busted, who in their right mind gives a s*** about minted scumbags who’d pay to have you knifed in a dark alley if it was going to save their skin? But I’ll admit to the proper heebie-jeebies about what was going to happen to me for screwing up. None of the bosses had been pulled in yet. According to BJ they were just the slamsex suppliers, had nothing to do with the insider stuff, but only a tossbag like him would believe that crap.
The only good part of it all was that I was totally under the radar. The cops weren’t going to connect me with the torching, because they had no reason to. The only ones who knew were my ma, BJ, and the bosses who obvs weren’t going to talk. Oh, and I guess Monty, the mate in prison who I’d consulted about how to pull it off, he must have had an inkling it might be me, given it happened on my manor. Also, I reckon Smithy, who I’d borrowed the van from might have wondered. If he did, or if Monty did, they never said, and I wasn’t worried, because those of us who grew up on the estate never snitch on each other. They didn’t even speak up when a couple of kids we knew were hauled in to line up for an ID parade. Whether these kids were actually under suspicion I’ve got no idea, I just know they were on the radar for previous lightings, or spots of urban renewal as they termed it. At the end of the beauty pageant they walked, so no one got locked up that day for something they didn’t do.
I don’t suppose you’re much interested in any of this though, are you? While it was all going on you were still having surgeries until you were transferred to the local infirmary for ongoing treatment. Apparently this meant your condition was no longer critical, but you were still a long way from being able to go home.
I knew most of this thanks to Richie something-or-other, who kept on posting stuff on the Gazette website. He just couldn’t let it go, giving everyone constant updates on how you were doing, making a regular celebrity of you, and don’t think I didn’t understand what he was up to. He’d got it into his head that the job had been carried out by someone local, and so he was having a go at citizens’ consciences, trying to make someone come forward with any information they might have about the scumbag (my word, not his) who’d done this to you. He kept on and on and I read it all, couldn’t seem to stay away from it. I got a bit of a shock one day when he reported that someone called Miles Montgomery had been asking around about your daughter, Claudia, just before the fire. Apparently the cops were keen to know if anyone had heard of this bloke, or had been approached by him. I didn’t have a clue who he was myself, but what it told me was that there was someone else who might know I’d been chosen for the deed, and that didn’t make me feel very good.
Then I thought about it and decided that it wasn’t in anyone’s interest to feed me to the law; they wouldn’t want me shouting my mouth off about who and what I knew. But the possibility that a bunch of muscles was going to shadow my doorstep and pulverize me for having screwed up hadn’t gone away.
It was a stressful time, but I guess nothing in comparison to what it must have been like for you. My old lady kept going on about you. She was as fixated on this Richie’s postings as she was on Jeremy Kyle or Love Island, apart from when she was off her face. Then she cried a lot and got so scared and loud about what someone might do to me that I’d end up having to gag her before someone heard.
Then a new post from Richie of the Gazette came up one day, and looking back I guess that was when my time properly started to run out.