A Reason to Kill Page 6

  George sat down on the edge of his friend’s bed and watched as he set up the computer game. Paul had got the latest Final Fantasy a couple of weeks before and, ordinarily, George would be almost salivating with anticipation. Today though, he saw Paul’s fumbling about with the connections and taking extra time fiddling for exactly what it was: delaying tactics so he didn’t have to talk. George had been shocked by the sight of his friend. Two black eyes, purpling now at the edges, dark bruises on the back of his arm that even a parent couldn’t mistake for anything other than deep finger marks and an elbow so swollen and painful that even just plugging in the connections caused him to wince.

  ‘She knows you never fell down the stairs,’ George said finally. ‘Yer mum’s not daft.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘She’s hoping you’ll get it out of me,’ he said flatly.

  ‘So, what do you want me to tell her when she asks?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘How should I know?’

  ‘So, what don’t you want me to tell her? That Mark Dowling beat you up?’

  Paul sighed and handed the controller to George. ‘Play if you want. It hurts my hand.’

  George shrugged. ‘Better make some noise anyway,’ he said. He moved back on the bed and selected his character, sensing that he’d be more likely to get the truth out of his friend if he let him take his time and at least appeared not to be listening. That was the thing with Paul. He kept his thoughts and his feelings locked up some place even George was rarely allowed access to. It was something George didn’t really understand about him. Paul’s family was happy, close, nice, and yet he seemed to think he had a duty to keep himself a bit apart.

  George told himself he’d love to have parents like Paul’s but in his more honest moments he wasn’t sure that was true. He didn’t really know what that would be like and he wasn’t sure that his imagination was capable of grasping it.

  ‘Dwayne was on the bus,’ he said. His thumbs shifted automatically across the control pad. ‘He reckoned he knew about the old lady. That Mark Dowling knew. He said you told him.’

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paul shrug. He came over and sat down next to George, his back against the wall, eyes fixed on the screen.

  ‘The police are there, at the old lady’s house. I saw them. I had to walk past when I got off the bus.’

  ‘He killed her,’ Paul said softly. ‘He bashed her head in.’

  George dropped the controller. ‘He what?’ He stared at Paul. ‘How? When? How do you know? Do the police know? I mean …’

  Paul stared straight at the screen, his body rigid, face white beneath the blackened bruising. ‘I know ‘cause I was there,’ he said. ‘He beat her up and her face was all bashed in and there was blood all over and she was just lying there on the floor and I didn’t do nothing to stop him.’

  George stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the food he had so recently eaten suddenly greasy and leaden in his belly.

  ‘I told him about the gun,’ Paul whispered. Gingerly, he fingered his damaged elbow. ‘He made me tell.’

  Ten

  The silence between them seemed to George like a solid thing. Across the room the computer game played out a fantasy battle, dramatic music sounding softly and then ceasing as George slithered off the bed and reached to put the game on pause.

  He wished that it was possible to put real life on pause. Stop it dead until you could figure out what to do.

  ‘You went with him? Back to the old woman’s house?’

  ‘Mrs Freer,’ Paul said. ‘Mam says she was called Mrs Freer. I never even knew that.’

  ‘How did Mark Dowling hear about the gun? Paul, you gotta have said something to someone for him to know about it.’

  He turned, stared hard at his friend. Paul had his eyes closed but the tears still crept beneath the lids and he’d pulled his knees close to his chest, drawing in on himself.

  ‘I never told no one,’ Paul blurted. ‘Someone seen us that night, when … when we broke in.’

  ‘Jesus.’ George crossed back to the bed, curled himself at the opposite end, his tense body a mirror image of his friend’s. ‘Who? We didn’t see no one.’

  ‘I don’t know. Mark just said someone seen us go in then seen us leave. He was laughing at me, running away from some old woman like … like … anyway, I got mad. I said he’d have run too.’

  ‘Mark Dowling? He don’t run from anything. He’s an effing psycho.’

  ‘I tried to take it back, George – tell him I didn’t mean nothing – but he wouldn’t believe me. He said he wanted to know what I meant and that he’d beat it out of me if he had to.’

  Looking at his friend, George figured that was exactly what Mark Dowling had done. He remembered the blows he had received at the hands of his own father, the way his dad thrashed his mum until she was begging for him to let up. He remembered how he’d stood there, watching, just too scared to intervene after that first time when he’d tried to protect her. Tried and failed. Tried and, as she’d later thrown back at him, just made it worse.

  George of all people could understand how Paul had frozen, been unable to intervene, but still he couldn’t stop the question falling from his mouth. ‘Why’d you go with him? Why didn’t you scarper, go and get help? Why didn’t you come home and call the police? They might have been able to …’

  He broke off; the bruising on Paul’s face seemed now to be darkening, pinching his face closed, contorting it with pain. ‘Don’t you ever tell my mam,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t you ever. I swear, you ever let on and I’ll …’

  George swallowed hard. ‘She’ll want to know something,’ he said softly. ‘Paul, she’s seen your arms, your face; she knows you never fell down the stairs. She knows something’s up. Besides, Mark Dowling went and killed that woman. We gotta tell someone that.’

  ‘No!’ Paul almost shouted it. Both boys stared at the door, afraid the sound would have brought Paul’s mother up the stairs.

  ‘No,’ he repeated quietly. ‘I’ll get blamed too, won’t I? You said yourself, I never done nothing to help. They’ll say I might have saved her. Might have stopped him.’

  ‘But he killed her, Paul.’

  ‘And he only knew about the gun because I told him and we only knew about it because … because of what we did, so it’s our fault too.’

  George closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. There was no denying their own guilt and, to be truthful, he could no longer be certain why the hell they had done what they had that night. ‘We were pissed,’ he said.

  ‘That make it better?’

  ‘No. Course it doesn’t, but that’s why we done it. Shaz Bates’s cider.’ Actually, George wasn’t too sure it had been just cider. It had had a kick to it that cider didn’t usually have – at least from his limited knowledge of it – and Shaz Bates’s dad was known to have a well-stocked bar. It wouldn’t be the first time she had mixed it. And that brought another bit of the puzzle into focus for George. Who might have seen them? Shaz was one of Mark Dowling’s little gang, or at least she was on the fringes of it, her older brother being one of Dowling’s friends.

  ‘She must have been the one what seen us,’ he said. ‘When we left everyone at the tin huts, she said she’d have to get off home. She must have seen.’

  Miserably, Paul nodded. Had they been sober, George figured, they might have thought it was odd that Shaz was leaving what was really her party so early. The Bates family had never been one to chase up the whereabouts of their numerous kids or to insist on early bed on school nights. And she’d been the one who’d said …

  ‘She said I didn’t have the nerve,’ Paul said and George realized that this was the first time it had all made sense to him. What Shaz had actually said, George recalled, was that she reckoned Paul would piss himself, that he was a mammy’s boy, that he didn’t have what it took. George had asked what did that prove anyway; it just showed that Paul was a nice person, and everyone had jeered at that, laughed until
Paul had been red in the face with shame.

  George recalled the brief argument they had after leaving the sheds, Paul walking with exaggerated care across the rough ground and announcing loudly to the world that he was capable of anything.

  ‘She keeps cash in her kitchen drawer, everyone knows that, just like me nan does, and all we have to do is get in there and—’

  ‘Steal it.’ George had reminded him. ‘It’s thieving, Paul, and she’s an old woman. You don’t steal from an old woman. She might be your nan.’

  ‘She ain’t my nan. I don’t even know her.’ Paul fell over, lay on his back staring up at the night sky until George hauled him back on to his feet.

  ‘OK, then, ok. I won’t take nothing. No money or nothing, just a little something or other to prove we done it.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You coming with me?’

  ‘Paul, I don’t want to. It’s stupid.’ George had only had a swig or two of the cider cocktail. Enough to get light headed and to seem to be fitting in, but he’d lost track of how much Paul had drunk. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘We should be getting home.’

  ‘I’m not a kid,’ Paul had muttered angrily. ‘Not a bloody kid.’

  Now, sat together on Paul’s bed, the memory of that fateful night became all too clear. ‘It weren’t your fault,’ Paul said, his voice harsh with unshed tears. ‘You just went with me. I’d have gone anyway.’

  ‘No. No you wouldn’t. You’d have fallen over in another ditch or forgot where you were going or summat. You wouldn’t have done it on your own. I wouldn’t have done it on my own neither.’

  The silence thumped down between them once again and George stared at the paused screen, a small part of him wanting to pick up the controllers and beat seven shades out of the monsters, as if there was nothing wrong.

  ‘We could talk to Karen,’ he said finally. ‘She’d know what to do.’

  Paul shrugged and then winced. ‘Maybe.’ He bit his lip. ‘Mam wanted to call the police. She said she thought I’d been in a fight or something. Wanted to know if I was being bullied.’ He laughed harshly.

  ‘I guess Mark Dowling would count as a bully,’ George said, and for a moment they both laughed.

  Paul wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he confessed.

  ‘We talk to Karen,’ George reaffirmed. ‘I dunno if she’ll be back tonight, but she’s promised to be home tomorrow after work. We gotta talk to someone; Karen will know what to do.’

  Paul nodded reluctantly but George could see the relief already dawning in his eyes. George had told Paul how it was Karen who had got them away from his dad, Karen who’d taken over when their mum had been put in hospital that last time. Karen who’d taken George and camped out in the front office of the local police station, refusing to move until they got the help they needed and then Karen who’d made sure they kept moving on and moving on until they were so far from their start point and from their dad that she felt safe enough to settle down.

  George gnawed on his lower lip and glanced once more at the game screen, wishing again that it was possible to put life on pause. He had something else on his mind, something that under other circumstances he’d have wanted so much to share with Paul.

  Yesterday, and then again today, he had glimpsed someone standing on the street as the bus had pulled away from school. The man had been bundled up against the rain and cold, but George was certain now that it had been his dad.

  Eleven

  Friday night, and another lonely one for Mac. He had channel-surfed for a while, flicking between gardening programmes and quiz shows and a hospital drama that held his attention for ten minutes or so before the sight of so much fake blood reminded him of Mrs Freer and he abandoned it. Finally he switched off the set and wandered restlessly over to the window, twitched the curtain aside and peered out into the night.

  Outside the evening breeze had stiffened, beating the high tide into a frenzy and crashing waves against the sea wall. Mac watched the spray soaking the promenade and the little clouds scudding fast across a starry sky. The forecast for tomorrow had looked good but he guessed a turn in the weather was on its way.

  Irritably, he let the curtain fall. He seemed to have become obsessed with weather watching since moving here. Stupid really; he’d spent almost all of his adult life living close to the sea and it had never occurred to him until now that he might have a predilection for forecasting. Perhaps it was that this southern coast seemed so much more exposed, which in itself was a foolish thought. The east coast with which he was so familiar was every bit as weather-ridden and far more prone to storms.

  Knowing he’d be unable to settle, Mac wrapped himself against the cold and went out into the night. The strengthening wind battered him the moment he opened the door, grabbing at his coat and tugging at his well wound scarf. Mac wished he’d thought to get himself a hat. He’d resisted because, no matter what style he chose, he still managed to look as though he’d borrowed it as a joke. His hair fought hats, pushing them off, and his face, rather long and too heavy about the jaw, just looked even more unbalanced with something stuck to the top of his head. In his youth, people had described him as square jawed and the kindest had told him he had ‘strong features’. Mac knew what that meant: you can’t be handsome so settle for interesting. He lifted his gloved hand and examined his jaw line, worrying that ‘square’ would, when he got to Eden’s age, translate into jowls.

  Cold sea spray hitting him full force in the eyes encouraged him to turn off the promenade and he turned inland, unconsciously tracking back towards Newell Street and Peverill Lodge. He caught himself pausing outside Rina’s imposing house, noting that a light was on in Rina’s private sanctuary.

  For the briefest of moments he toyed with the idea of knocking on her door, but what should he say when she answered? What excuse could he give? It had been a long time, Mac reflected painfully, since he had simply and spontaneously called to see someone just because he wanted to. A terrifyingly long time since he’d just been to see a friend.

  Angry now that he was so morose; morose because he was angry and to no purpose, Mac walked swiftly on, turning left at the crossroads before he reached the lower end of Newell Street and was walking a parallel course to the promenade. Here between the houses it was sheltered and not so bitingly cold.

  ‘Your own fault,’ Mac muttered to himself. ‘You’ve not exactly tried, have you?’

  Self-consciously, he glanced around, glad that the cold had kept even the hardiest of souls inside and there was no one to hear. Up ahead of him the lights of the Railway pub twinkled enticingly. Mac drew level with it on the opposite side of the road, stared through the half opened curtains at the Friday-night crowd, recalling that the victims of two of the burglaries were regulars there.

  Should he go inside? He’d been meaning to anyway, get the lie of the land, ask a few meaningful questions. Irresolute, he crossed the road and loitered on the pavement. An A-frame sign toppled over by the wind advertised a quiz night every Thursday at seven. Mac righted it, noting the smaller notice tacked alongside that appealed for new competitors.

  Mac thought about it. Maybe he should go in and ask. Maybe that would be the perfect way to get involved with the local community. Maybe even a way to … Mac balked at the phrase ‘make friends’.

  A quiz team? Mac turned away. What the hell did he know about quiz teams? Irrationally irritated, he walked back the way he’d come. He was cold now, despite the coat and gloves and tightly wound scarf. His ears were stinging and his eyes running as he strode towards Newell Street. The wind had changed direction, veering so that it was directly in his face as he headed home. Mac lowered his head, blinking wind and dust and cold sea spray from his eyes.

  Once inside, he closed the door against the world and hung his damp coat on the back of a chair to dry. Then, standing at the centre of his barren living room, Mac made himself a promise. Things would change, he told himself. Tom
orrow he’d go along, sign up for the Thursday night battle in the Railway, make the effort, but his heart sank at the thought of it and his shoulders sagged beneath the weight of so small but heavy a decision. Sighing, Mac switched the television on and settled on the lumpy sofa, marking time until it was late enough to sleep, unreasonably eager for the working day to begin again.

  George Parker was alone in his room. Karen had phoned to say she wouldn’t be back that night but she’d promised to be home after work on Saturday and that she’d stay to cook Sunday lunch.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ George told her.

  ‘What’s wrong? Is Mum OK?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s fine. It’s … something else, but it’s important, Kaz.’

  He heard her stifle a small sigh. ‘OK, little brother, I’ll sort you out tomorrow. Promise ya.’

  George stared at the portable TV he had set up on the flat-pack desk in the corner of his room. He’d done his homework, early for once. Anything to take his mind off all the other stuff. From downstairs he could hear his mother watching some late-night chat thing in the living room. She’d sit there until she was finally exhausted enough to drop off and quite often George would find her still there in the morning, the TV talking to itself, his mother oblivious on the couch. He’d taken to wandering down about midnight, covering her with a blanket so she didn’t wake up cold. He never disturbed her, never. Not even to suggest she’d be more comfortable in bed. She found it so hard to sleep anyway, especially now the doctor had told her he wouldn’t give her any more pills, and George would never dream of disturbing what little rest she managed to get.

  He’d found an action film to watch – all loud explosions and no plot – but he was finding it hard to follow even what little story there was.

  He and Paul were in deep shit this time, he thought. Worse even than when he’d had to deal with his dad. George had never thought anything could be worse than that, but now it looked like he might be back too.