Thursday
Gareth is standing on the top rung of the stepladder, one hand pressed against the outside wall of his house, the other gripping a drill, when someone shouts his name. He turns, carefully, to see Kath and Georgia leaving their house; Kath looks lovely in a black pencil skirt, grey jumper and low heels, while Georgia’s in her school uniform with a bag clutched to her chest and a scowl on her face. In an alternate universe, the one where he and Kath are an item, he’d probably tell her to put her feet up for a bit while he gave Georgia a lift to school on his way to work.
But this is his reality, so he smiles instead. ‘Good morning!’
‘Your peephole’s a bit high, isn’t it?’ Kath points to the hole Gareth’s drilled above his front door.
He gestures at the small black camera on the top step of the ladder. ‘CCTV.’
‘Ooh.’ She looks mildly impressed, as though he’s just announced that he’s getting a new car or an extension, then her expression changes. ‘You haven’t …’ she glances at Georgia, who’s turned away and is fiddling with her phone ‘… you haven’t been burgled, have you?
‘No, no. Nothing like that. I’ve been meaning to put it up for a while. Mum’s not getting any better.’
‘Has she been going on walkabout then?’
Walkabout. The word sounds vaguely ridiculous to Gareth’s ears. It reminds him of a book he read at school about a brother and sister who survived a plane crash in the Australian outback and then wandered around aimlessly, looking for help. His mother has never walked aimlessly anywhere. She’s always strode, Margaret Thatcher-like, swinging her handbag at her side. Even now, in the grip of dementia, she still moves with purpose through the house even if, once she enters a new room, she frequently forgets what she’s doing there. He’s had multiple conversations with her since her diagnosis, about how she shouldn’t go out unless accompanied by Sally, Yvonne or himself, but she refuses to listen.
‘No one’s going to keep me a prisoner in my own home.’ It was a dictat, rather than a discussion, the last time he brought it up.
There’s only a small snatch of time – two or three hours tops – when she’s alone in the house each day and, while she’s unlikely to stray much further than the corner shop and post office at the end of the road, he finds himself holding his breath as he walks up the path and looks for the flicker of the television in the front room and the familiar shape of his mother in her favourite chair.
It hadn’t occurred to him that the CCTV camera could keep an eye on her movements but now Kath’s mentioned it it’s definitely a bonus. His primary motivation is to catch Mackesy in the act of leaving another postcard. The first one was posted but the second one was almost certainly hand-delivered; it had to be, considering there was no stamp.
‘She’s allowed to go out,’ he says to Kath, then immediately regrets his sharp tone as her chin drops and she mutters, ‘Of course she is.’
He’s tired, that’s why he’s being so prickly. He barely slept last night for worrying about his mum and the situation at work. He came up with a plan for dealing with Dunford as he paced his room a little after midnight but now he’s not sure if he can go through with it. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but when he woke, and cool dawn light crept through the curtains, so did chest-crushing doubt.
‘I don’t often see you two leaving together,’ Gareth says, forcing a bright tone. ‘Getting a lift in are you, Georgia?’
‘We’ve got a meeting with her head of year.’ Kath silently mouths the word ‘bullying’.
Georgia’s bent head and slumped shoulders reminds Gareth of himself as a teen. He can still remember waking up with a feeling of dread in his stomach and having to force his legs to walk through the school gates at the start of the day. He tries to think of something encouraging he can say but nothing that crosses his mind – they will stop eventually, I stood up to my bullies and won, I was bullied but I’m really successful now – is true. Instead he flashes the young girl what he hopes is an expression of empathy but suspects looks more like a gurn.
‘I’ll let you get off!’ He nods at Kath and raises a hand in goodbye. He’s already made the hole as big as it needs to be to feed the CCTV cable through to the camera but he picks up his drill anyway. It’s weighty and powerful and as he pulls the trigger he idly imagines the drill bit whirring its way through the centre of Liam Dunford’s forehead.
I can do this, Gareth tells himself as he keys in the code to the cramped, airless room that serves as a bag and coat drop for the security staff – a toilet cubicle at one end, benches under the coat hooks and absolutely nothing else. When he started at the Meads thirteen years ago one wall housed a row of metal lockers, the sort you’d find in a swimming pool changing room, but they were ripped out at the end of last year because they were so damaged they’d become a health and safety hazard. Replacement lockers have been ordered but, in the interim, the guards have no choice but to hang up their belongings and hope their colleagues don’t have sticky fingers. There was a discussion about whether to install a CCTV camera in the room but it was ruled out because of the cost and disruption it would cause. At the time, Gareth was pissed off with management but now, as he surveys the row of largely black, grey and tan coats and jackets in front of him, he’s quietly grateful.
Liam was waiting when he arrived at work, standing outside the CCTV office at the top of the stairs.
‘Today’s the day.’ He grinned at Gareth, revealing the penny-edge gap between his front teeth.
‘The day for what?’
‘That you give me a pay rise.’
‘You know I can’t do that. It’s set by head office. I can’t just magically award you extra cash. It’s just not possible.’
Liam coughs. ‘Who said anything about getting head office involved? Like I said yesterday, five hundred pounds should be enough to give me a touch of amnesia.’
Gareth shifted his weight to one side and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. ‘You’re blackmailing me.’
‘That’s an unpleasant word. I prefer to think of it as two colleagues helping each other out. You don’t end up in the shit and I get a bit of cash to put towards my next holiday. We both win.’ Gareth laughed, a low, incredulous rumble. What planet was Liam living on, thinking he’d just hand over that kind of money? It was ridiculous. He glanced over his shoulder to check that no one more senior was walking up the stairs, then looked back at the man. ‘If you think I’m giving you anything, you can get fucked.’
‘Harsh, really harsh. Well, I guess you’ll need every penny you’ve got when Mark sacks you. You know he’s looking for any excuse. You said as much too the other week. Didn’t you, Gaz?’
Gareth unfolded his arms and pulled himself up to his full height. He was a good four or five inches shorter than the other man and had to raise his chin to look at him. He clenched his hands into fists and drew back his shoulders.
‘Like I said, get fucked.’
‘Is that all you’ve got? Good luck on the breadline!’ Liam raised a dismissive hand. ‘There’s a food bank in Bedminster if your mum gets hungry.’
As Liam sauntered down the stairs, rage surged through Gareth like nothing he had ever felt before. It was as though a fire had been lit in the base of his brain. It spread rapidly, travelling down to his throat, his arms, his torso, his legs and he leapt forwards, hands reaching for Liam’s shoulders. He wanted to shove him and watch him tumble down the stairs. He wanted him to shut the fuck up. He wanted him gone. Dead.
But as his fingertips grazed the thick fabric of Liam’s jacket the fire in him was damped down by a new thought. If you go to prison, what will happen to Mum? He snatched back his arms, feet see-sawing on the edge of the top step as he fought to keep his balance and Liam Dunford, completely oblivious to his sliding-doors fate, continued on down the stairs.
A bead of sweat dribbles down Gareth’s back and settles under the thick elastic waistband of his jockey shorts as he surveys the row of bags and jackets. He pulls on a pair of latex gloves. Theft. Ironically, the offence most sacked security guards commit. That and brutality, but Liam’s been on his best behaviour recently and there isn’t time to wait for him to screw up again. No, what Gareth needs to do is transfer some of the valuables from the other guards’ bags into Liam’s sports holdall, then sit back and wait for the drama to unfold. He knows Liam will point the finger in his direction as soon as the crime is discovered but he’s pretty sure some of the other guards will back him up. Or at least he hopes they will. Old Larry who does the security for Mirage Fashions can’t stand Liam but he’s not sure how Adrian, Jakub and Hafeez feel. He knows Adrian’s been for beers with Liam before.
Gareth twists his hands together, his palms sweating beneath the latex. He can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to rifle through his colleagues’ belongings. It’s not the kind of thing he does. He’s not a vengeful man. He’s not deceitful. There isn’t much he prides himself on, but he’s always been a man of integrity. ‘Upstanding’ – that’s the word his mum would use to describe him. Gareth Filer, a good, upstanding man. He can’t fit Liam up. That’s not who he is.
Sighing, he peels off his gloves and chucks them into the bin in the corner, then he heads for the CCTV room to ring his boss. A man of integrity indeed. Why couldn’t he have been born an arsehole instead?