CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

...SUNDERLAND, A SMALL terraced cottage. A middle-aged woman named Beth Hardy readies herself for bed. Heavy winter nightdress, thick knee-length socks, a hot mug of cocoa. Climbing into bed, she hears a sound outside her bedroom window. It is late. She suffers from terrible insomnia. Who can be out and about at this hour?

Beth puts her cup down on the cluttered bedside cabinet, beside a James Patterson novel. She slips out from beneath the duvet and crosses the room to the window. Her late husband’s watch, key ring and old-fashioned hair brushes rest upon the top of the dresser, a small shrine to the only man she has ever loved.

Smiling sadly, an ache in her chest, she leans across the dresser and opens the curtains.

The face she sees looking in at her is at once familiar and totally alien. It looks like her late husband, has the same salt-and-pepper hair, squat American nose (he was born in Texas; his family crossed the pond to England when he was eleven), sad, almost mournful grey eyes, grizzled beard on his blunt chin, but surely it cannot be Norm? The man has been dead for nearly a year, after his heart failed during a midnight visit to the lavatory.

The Norm-thing shifts an inch to the left, the movement enough to break the spell and allow Beth to acknowledge the signs of decay. His cheeks have fallen into his face, those sombre eyes are dried out and sightless, the nose she once loved has been partially eaten away. The salt-and-pepper hair looks more like dust-and-cobwebs.

Beth knows that she should scream; can feel the response building in her throat, travelling up from her gut. But she does not make a sound. Instead she walks through into the living room, and stands before the front door. She listens, her ears alert to the shuffling sound as the Norm-thing traces a familiar route to the doorstep.

For years, her friends had warned her of his gallivanting ways, his dirty stop-out nature, but in the end, like clockwork, he always returned to her bed. No matter which whore he had on the go behind her back, she was always the one he came back to, cap in hand, dick in pants, an apology on his clever tongue.

Beth pauses before opening the door, and then flings it open to greet her dead husband. The Norm-thing, hung in rags and stinking of grave dirt, leans in for one last kiss...

 

 

...BIRMINGHAM, A RUN-DOWN sink estate. Danny Blake stands on a street corner, needing a fix. He doesn’t care what he ends up with; he just wants something to ease the tension, remove the sights and sounds of the shit hitting the fan. He knows that it isn’t exactly safe here, on this lonely corner, but none of his usual contacts can be reached.

He needs to find someone quickly; anyone with a deal to be made.

Becka moaned and griped when he took the food money, but the baby could always suck her tit if it got too hungry. Sure, it was a bit old for that, but when needs must...

A sound startles him. Shuffling footsteps. A can being kicked into the gutter. None of the lights in this grimy street are working; darkness sits heavy across his shoulders like a football scarf, his nerve endings are on fire. He wishes he had enough for crack, but Becka has already been to the shops this week and spent some of the cash. The fucking bitch: always squandering his dole money, using it for shite that means nothing to him. She doesn’t even care about his habit. All she wants is his cock twice a week, his fist once a month, and his hard cash whenever he manages to grub enough together to buy the brat a new pair of shoes.

Fuck them. Fuck them both. Shit is going on that he doesn’t understand. Back at the house, the baby hasn’t moved for over an hour, and all Becka seems to want to do is cry. He heard gunshots earlier, and screams. The mates he rang on his mobile all told him to stay inside and wait for things to cool down.

Fuck them, too. He needs a fix, so a fix is what he is going to have.

Just then a figure weaves around the corner, clutching its head. It’s Ally, the dickhead from Sully Street who always has something in his pocket.

He takes a step towards the dealer, raising a hand in greeting. The stumbling figure bounces off the wall, cracking his elbow against the brickwork but not even flinching.

Danny takes an involuntary step back, away from the stinking bastard – God, he smells like dogshit, like a fucking open sewer.

You got anything, like?

His words fall flat; the dealer isn’t playing. He twirls in a slow circle, still grabbing at the side of his head. Danny sees that there’s blood there, in his hair: it’s all matted, like burned candy floss. There’s something seriously wrong with the daft cunt.

Shit.

No fix, unless he can take it by force. The tosser must be legless, or stoned on his own gear. Maybe the goings-on tonight have been too much for him, too.

Danny moves in, as swift as he can but not swift enough – clumsy, strung out, reeking of the sweat of withdrawal.

The dealer becomes aware of Danny’s presence. Looks up, his eyes black as liquorice coins, the kind Danny used to eat all the time as a young boy, running through these streets as if they were the whole wide world.

Got any gear?

The dealer pitches forward, towards Danny, his arms outstretched. Too late, Danny sees the knife handle sticking out of the dealer’s chest, right where the heart is. Then he remembers the rumours he heard in the pub last night, the story about Ally getting on the wrong side of some twat from Acocks Green and getting himself done over. Danny hadn’t believed it at the time; Ally was one of them lucky buggers, the type who never seem to come off too badly, who always seem to avoid disaster.

Danny barely feels it when the teeth sink into his cheek. Only when the hands come up to claw at his face, his throat, his chest, does he realise that this is not a bout of junkie delirium. Cunt! All he wanted was a fucking fix...

 

 

...BEDFORD, A SHELTERED refuge for homeless girls. Janice Smythe is sick of her job, sick of her life. These ungrateful young girls, the ones she works so hard to keep safe and secure and on the right side of the law, don’t ever seem to realise how much she does for them.

Take tonight, for instance. Every twenty minutes or so someone bangs on the front door, making a racket. The police keep saying they are unable to attend because of civil unrest elsewhere in the town centre, but advise her to keep the doors locked, the windows shut. The girls are all in their rooms, listening to their ipods or chatting on their mobile phones, not even bothered that the neighbourhood has gone mad and the sirens outside always seem to be heading in the opposite direction.

So who’s left to sort everything out, to ensure that things are kept under control? Muggins here, that’s who! Bloody Muggins, the local doormat!

Entering the kitchen, she goes to check the basement door. One of the girls – she thinks it was Sophie – was down there earlier, storing some of her old belongings, and the girls never think to lock the door. The basement is a point of easy access; there’s a row of small windows down there located at street level. Anyone could kick them in, bend down, and if they were small enough they might be able to squeeze through one of the gaps.

As expected, the door is wide open. A slight breeze wafts up the stairs, bringing with it the cloying aroma of mould. Janice hates the basement. It has always scared her. The earthy odour, the sense of being buried alive.

She closes the door, her hands shaking as she turns the key in the lock and then transfers the key to her pocket. Stupid girls: always thinking about themselves, or boys – never aware enough to consider the feelings of anyone else. She often wonders why she stays here, why she loves the girls so much.

Shrugging her narrow shoulders, Janice turns away from the basement door, a chill reaching up to caress her spine. She shivers.

The man who was standing behind her – who is now in fact standing right in front of her – doesn’t move. He just stands there, expressionless, not even blinking.

Janice is suddenly cold.

She recalls:

The long days spent at Brighton Beach during her early childhood, growing up in Barnet, playing ball with the neighbour’s kids; her mother’s green housecoat, her dad’s old Vespa moped, her sister’s forearms, her first pet – a cat called Tony – and the way the wind sings in the eaves during a storm; the sound of rain on glass, a good tenor, cold dry cider, sausage and mash.

In an instantaneous flash of agonising insight, she knows that she will never experience these things, these blissful memories, again.

It has been a good life, of sorts, but also one stained with tragedy:

Her stillborn brother, dad’s early death, her mother’s stroke; the boyfriend who hung himself when he was eighteen, spoiling her for any other man; the bank robbery in Islington when she was punched in the face; the car crash the following summer, the rape, the abortion; the rotten flowers on her nightstand; the stinging nettles she fell into on holiday last year in Cornwall.

A good life, then – but also a bad one. A little bit of both, to balance things out, to make it like the lives of most other people.

She has nothing to regret; nothing to fear; nothing that important to leave behind. No impact on the world, and not much really to miss, apart from the girls.

The girls.

Who will take care of them after she is gone?

At least the man who will kill her has kind eyes, a nice white smile, nice cool hands...