Lucy

32

 

 

            The thought of actually taking the test made her feel like someone had punched her in the stomach.  The thought would not go away obviously, and the only answer, the only way to get rid of that feeling, would be to take the test.  The pregnancy test lay like a dead weight of anticipation in her handbag.  She had bought it the day after she had realised how late she was.  An embarrassing visit to Boots where the chemist had made her feel like a naughty school girl instead of a grown woman of twenty four, who had every right to be pregnant, should she want to be.  Still, she had wandered nervously around the shop four times before she’d had the courage to approach the tests and pick one up.  And now it had been sitting in her bag for almost a week.  Lucy had gone back to school, ignored her daily bout of sickness, and pushed the test and the implications of the test, to the back of her head.

She berated herself about it at the end of the working day, when she came home and kicked off her heels, and thought about pouring her usual glass of wine.  She would stop then, pausing with her hand on the fridge door, shaking her head slowly, feeling like an idiot.  Of course she knew she had to do the test, so she would know what she was dealing with.  But the thought of knowing was terrifying, the thought of having her suspicions confirmed took her breath away.  Not knowing was better, she decided, day after day.  Not knowing was okay.  She found it relatively easy to get through the usual hectic day at school.

The doubts and the fears and the sick feeling in her stomach all kicked in when she returned home.  Tonight was no different.  If anything, tonight was worse, it being another Friday alone.  Another night she would normally open a bottle of wine and be enjoying company.  She had sent Danny two messages in the last week, not expecting to hear back.  He had, at last, replied to the second one.  She had kept it on her phone and took it out every evening to read through again.  She thought it was probably the longest message he had ever sent her; Don’t want 2 b mad at u- luv u – don’t get why u done this – 2 much goin on right now u don’t need 2 no – head is a mess but I still no I luv u. spk soon, Danny. It made her smile sadly every time she read it.  She loved the way he had finally mastered the art of text speak and getting a message out quickly.  She loved the fact he had said he loved her, twice.  It pained her to think that he still did not understand why she had let him go, and it worried her to think what could be going on his life, that she was now not a part of.  But speak soon, she told herself, speak soon was hopeful.  Speak soon meant he could turn up at any time, probably totally uninvited and unexpected, Danny style. 

Curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea in place of wine, Lucy thought again of the test in her bag.  She told herself she had to stop being a wimp and get it over with.  She reminded herself she was an adult, not a child.  She scolded herself for being so afraid, when Danny was out there facing his demons, being attacked by strangers who had it in for him.  All she had to do was take the bloody test, and then she would know.  She would have decisions to make, possibly.

Lucy let out a growl of impatience with herself and threw back her duvet.  She stomped into the kitchen as fast as she could, snatched her handbag from the table and rooted around inside until she found the pregnancy test.  She looked at it for a brief moment, her heart falling again, her stomach curling up, and then she took a deep breath, ordered herself to be brave, and marched through to the bathroom.  She ripped the cellophane off and ran her eyes impatiently over the instructions.  “Okay..okay,” she murmured to herself, suddenly wishing she had a friend to hold her hand.  “Pee on this end, wait two minutes.  Fine.  Easy…..Right then.”  She smiled at her reflection in the mirror before pulling up her skirt and tugging her pants down.  “Can have a nice big glass of wine after this,” she said aloud in the small blue bathroom.  She placed the stick in the sink when she had done the deed, and looked at her watch to note the time. 

While the time ticked on, Lucy thought about the outcome.  She amused herself by imagining herself getting fatter and rounder.  She horrified herself by picturing how she would tell Danny he was to be a father, and she surprised herself by imagining something else, something in the future, her and Danny, and a small child…She shook herself out of it, and picked the test back up with trembling fingers.  Still sat on the toilet, with her knickers looped around her ankles, Lucy Chapman discovered that she was going to be a mother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danny

33

 

December 2004

 

            After running from the pub, Danny had brooded for the following two weeks.  Every time he thought he had his head back together again, and was ready to go back there, he would see Jack Freeman in his mind, and would fall apart all over again. He was constantly on the urge of going back, even going so far as to tell Michael he was ready, only to change his mind again. He went to work at the record shop, and felt like he was living in the past, in more ways than one.  He would walk there from the flat, nervous and twitchy, looking over his shoulder, becoming accustomed to the heavy lump of dread that had grown into something alive inside his belly. Just like back then, he would think angrily and helplessly, this is like some fucked up dream where I’m back in time, living the same fucking life, the same fucking fears.  Only a few days after he had started work for Terry, the shop suffered two broken windows.  A few days after that Terry received a letter. “No fucker is gonna’ tell me what to do!” he had ranted for a while in front of Danny. “And don’t you even think of going anywhere mate! I stood up to the cunt back then, and I will again!”

It made Danny feel miserable, and again, the only option was to visit Jack Freeman and try to get it all to stop.   For a while he could not even explain to himself why it was seemed so impossible to move.  Jack Freeman was nothing like Lee Howard, he told himself.  Jack Freeman had not beaten him on a daily basis and made his life a living hell.  Jack Freeman, for such a long time, had just been this shadowy figure on the edge of everything. He was even older and fatter now, Danny reminded himself.  Nothing to fear there.  He had fought him off and won a day before his sixteenth birthday.  That image came to him now, night after night, when he couldn’t sleep.  The knife sticking out of Jack Freeman’s shoe, blood gushing out over it.  He had not seen him again after that, not for nearly nine years.

Questions filled his mind whenever he was alone.  How long had Freeman been living that close?  How was he tied up in all of the harassment they had been getting, and why?  Why hadn’t he stayed in Essex?  Danny realised that the only person who could answer the hundreds of questions he had, was Freeman himself.  And the harassment had not stopped.  Far from it. 

They had been followed twice more by the black Golf.  On both occasions Michael had eventually pulled in, and they had got out of the car to confront whoever it was.  Both times the Golf had driven away.  Danny had passed the registration of the car on to the police, but as usual, it seemed there was nothing they could do.  No laws had been broken. 

Danny could not help feeling he was being provoked into action, or reaction, and he had been all along.  He and Michael were receiving the brunt of things now, as long as they kept a safe distance from Lucy, Anthony and his mother, then they were all left alone.  Which again, made it seem likely that they were being constantly watched. 

What do you want me to do then? Danny would think to himself, as the days passed by, what are you waiting for?  “You need to get yourself a hobby, get out and about a bit more, or do a course or something,” his mum had told him over the phone.  “It’s not good for you just waiting around for something to happen.  Have you spoken to Lucy yet?” His chats with his mother would inevitably return to this subject. “You could just go and have coffee with her, you know, just be friends and see what happens?”  Danny never had an answer for this, so he would change the subject, or end the conversation.  Lucy was just another thing he could barely stand to think about.  There simply was not enough room in his head. Need to speak to Freeman.  Rule him out or work him out. Then on to the next one.  Get this thing over.  He would nod to himself, talk himself into it and believe in his own strength, until the moment to actually leave arrived, and then he would put if off again. 

Michael hovered around on the sidelines, unsure whether to encourage his friend on, or allow him more time.  “I would ask Anthony for advice,” he said forlornly more than once, “but I’m not allowed to, am I?”

On a Friday night two weeks after he and Michael had located Jack Freeman in the White Horse, Danny found himself nursing a can of beer and trying to talk himself into going back.  Michael had just opened his second can.  They had stayed in the flat a lot lately, Danny realised, looking at him.  Going out just seemed pointless and dangerous, and inviting people over was just not an option either.  We’re trapped here, Danny told himself, purposefully attempting to urge himself into action, that’s what they’ve done, they’ve got us trapped here, waiting for them to fucking strike. He tried to will himself to move, like they had the time before, just get up and go without thinking, just get in the car and drive.  He tried to think of what he would say to Jack Freeman after all these years.

“You okay?” Michael murmured, his expression troubled, as he threw Danny a cigarette.  “You’ve hardly spoken all day.”  Danny nodded, thinking.  Michael sighed and lit his cigarette. “You heard from Haskell?”

Danny nodded again. “Practically every day,” he yawned. “She wants to know why I haven’t spoken to Freeman yet.  She wants the next part of the interview lined up.” He rolled his eyes and scratched his head. “Wish I’d never started all this, sometimes.”

Michael looked at him in sympathy. “I never imagined it would be like this.  I thought given a few weeks you would be all settled, and sorted and life would be cool.  You’ve no idea how excited I was the months leading up to your release.  Been a long fucking time coming, and now this, this shit!  We need to sort it out Dan.  I’m serious.  We need to put an end to it and stop living in fear.  Look at us for fuck’s sake!”

Danny sat forward, tapped ash into the ashtray and pushed one hand back through his hair in frustration. “I know, I know,” he said, “you don’t need to tell me.  I’ve got my mother on my back constantly telling me what I should be doing.  I know it.  I should have my own place sorted out, a proper job or something.  I should be thinking of ways to spend that bloody money.”

“Look I’m with you,” Michael said to him. “Whatever happens.  We can even get more people.  I’ve still got Jaime Lawler’s number you know.  He’d help us out, I know he would.”

“I don’t like getting anyone else involved.”

Danny saw Michael suck his breath in, trying to bite his tongue. “Danny, that was half the problem back then mate.  You didn’t tell anyone because you wanted to keep them out of it, after what happened to Anthony.  Don’t let them pull that on you again. No one has actually been hurt, have they?  Bricks and fucking letters, so what?”

“You’re forgetting about the three guys in the pub, idiot,” Danny could not resist smiling at him.

“Oh. Yeah.  That wasn’t good.  But that’s why we need more muscle Danny, come on!  Let me at least call Jaime. You’d like to see Jaime, wouldn’t you?”

Danny thought about it for a moment. “The last time I saw Jaime was when he came to the phone box for me,” he nodded, seeing it again in his head.  That night had always been a bit of a blur for him, but lately he had been remembering more and more.  Fragmented images would come to him at random times, for no real reason.  He saw Jaime Lawler now, in his head, a tall thin young man, always wearing a baseball cap and a tracksuit jacket.  Always with a cigarette pinched between his fingers, and always hopping about restlessly on his feet.  He had called Jaime from the phone box, just down the road from the bed-sit.  He had called him to ask a favour, and Jaime had come through for him. 

“He felt bad about that for years,” Michael mused, sipping his beer. “He’d come around the bed-sit after for a while.  He felt crap about it.  Like it was his fault.”

“I shouldn’t have involved him,” Danny sighed, glancing down at his hands.  He remembered how he’d felt something snap inside of him, when Howard had finally let him out of the car.  How he had looked back into that man’s face and realised in a cold moment what he had to do.  And then he had called Jaime.  His body had been wrecked, his year long escape had ended, the monster was back and the monster was never going to let him go.  He had needed something to feel strong again, and so he had called Jaime, and Jaime had brought him the cocaine and helped him out of the phone box, and he had limped towards the bed-sit.  He had told Jaime he was going to fight back, and that was the last time they had seen each other.

Danny was about to get up from the sofa, stretch out his legs and think about another drink, when suddenly there was an almighty crash.  He ducked down instinctively, his arms going over his head.  He felt what seemed like a whoosh of cold air, followed by a tinkling of objects raining down, which he quickly realised was broken glass.  “Holy fuck!” he heard Michael exclaim.  A stunned silence followed the crash. Danny lowered his arms, and looked down in disbelief at the shining shards of glass that covered his lap, and Kurt.  He immediately stood up, letting the glass shake down to the floor, where he saw the offending object sat bullishly beside the coffee table.  A large red brick with a piece of paper tied around it.

Michael leapt to his feet, snatched it up and ran to the window.  Danny followed, picking specks of glass from Kurt’s fur.  The little dog whined and trembled in his arms from the shock.  “You fucking bastards! Come on then!” Michael was raging at the window.  Danny glared down at the street, it was dark and eerily empty at that time of night.  He looked at Michael. 

“You’re cut!”

“Hey?” Michael swatted a hand at his cheek, and held it out in front of him, staring in disgust and fury at the bright blood on his fingertips. “Fucking bastards! Come on up here then you fucking cowardly cunts!”

“Right that’s it,” Danny said then, shaking his head and allowing the rage to seep slowly through him.  “That’s fucking it.”

“You’re telling me it is! Fuckinhell!” Michael looked down at the brick, and then angrily pulled the paper free.  It was another photo of Danny, but this time someone had drawn what appeared to be prison bars over it, and the slogan read; go back where you belong!  “Fuck’s sake,” Michael spat in fury. “This takes the piss. This is disgusting.  Come on then, let’s go!”

Danny nodded in agreement.  He felt his guts curl up and die inside of him, but he knew that he did not have any more time to wait it out.  He turned around decisively, spurred on by anger, and grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa.  They were out of the flat in seconds.

 

“This is probably what they want,” Michael spoke on the drive back to the White Horse, “this could be some kind of set up.”

“Could be,” Danny agreed helplessly.  He was trying to hold onto the anger in his belly, but the closer they got to the pub, the more it was slipping.  It wasn’t just the fear, he realised, it was the constant delving back into the past.  It felt like ripping open old scars, and rubbing them raw.  He pushed his thoughts and feelings aside and focused on one thing at a time the way he had learnt to inside prison.  Talk to him, he’s an old man, he’s a fat old man, just talk to him, to get all this stopped, that’s all you have to do, talk to him and get it stopped.

Michael screeched to a halt outside the pub and checked his watch. “Nearly closing time,” he commented. “Come on.”

Danny put a hand on his arm then. “Can you stay here?”

Michael stared back at him in dismay and confusion. “Eh?”

“I’ll be all right,” Danny assured him, passing him Kurt to hold. “I’ll keep your number up, and press send if I need you, yeah?  Just come in if I do.”

“You can’t go in there alone Danny!  It could be a set up!”

“I’ll be careful,” Danny reached for the door handle, but Michael caught his elbow and held him back.

“Seriously,” he begged, his dark eyes pleading. “This is not a good idea!”

“I need to talk to him alone,” Danny tried to explain. “Give me a call in ten minutes, yeah?  I’ll let you know I’m okay.”

“I don’t like it.  You’re crazy!”

Danny pulled away and climbed out of the door.  He felt the adrenaline throbbing wildly through him, clogging up his chest and making it hard to breathe.  He nodded down at Michael. “This is nothing,” he winked at him. “He’s not Howard, okay?  Never was.  Call me in ten.”  With that he turned and walked briskly away from the car, pulling his jacket around him as the wind from the sea whipped back his hair.

He heard Michael close the car door behind him, and walked on, his head down.  He could smell the sea, and he could hear the waves too, thrashing violently against the cliff, making him think of that night again, on a cliff top not far from Cedar View and it’s rows of huge houses and sweeping driveways.  He remembered waking up, in a small dark space, his face running with blood, terrified, not knowing if he was dead or alive.  It had taken him a few muddled minutes to work out that he was sat in the footwell of the passenger seat in Lee Howard’s car.  The last thing he could remember was Howard turning up at the bed-sit when he was alone, and hurling Kurt against the wall.  After that, nothing, just blackness. 

Danny slipped through the first set of doors, letting a merry group of young men and women bundle past him first.  He held the door for the last one, and then closed it softly behind him.  When he turned around he could already see Jack Freeman, through the glass of the next doors.  He took a breath, and pushed through.  The pub was empty.  Jack Freeman had his head down at one of the tills, while the girl with the pink hair was collecting glasses from the table.  The man looked up, saw Danny, and stopped what he was doing.  For the longest, strangest moment they just stared at each other.  Then Jack Freeman wiped at his nose with his finger and thumb, sniffed loudly and called out to the girl; “hey Lizzie, you can go early if you like.  I got it covered.”

The girl looked up in surprise, shook her head as if amazed, and then grinned to herself.  She carried over the glasses she had collected and placed them on the bar close to Freeman.  “Great, thanks Jack,” she beamed, and darted around the other side of the bar.  She returned seconds later, tugging on a battered green parka and wrapping a tatty pink scarf around her neck.  She gave Danny a brief frown as she passed him, as if she remembered him from before. Then she was gone.

Danny stared at the man behind the bar and he realised something that surprised him then.  He was not afraid.  He felt a lot of things then, as he stared the past in the face.  He felt anger and he felt disgust and he felt a small amount of pity, but he did not feel any fear.  He slipped his hands into his pockets and took a few steps forward.  “You know who I am?” he asked, his voice coming out far calmer than he had anticipated.  He saw Jack Freeman swallow, and then he cleared his throat and placed the palms of both hands down on the bar.  He was wearing a loose fitting beige shirt, with the top three buttons undone, exposing the dark curly chest hair beneath. His hair was nearly all grey now, and had thinned to almost nothing across the top of his head.  Danny had found him repulsive back then, and found him even more so now.

Jack Freeman gave a little chuckle, and narrowed his slate grey eyes slightly at Danny. “You haven’t changed that much,” he replied. Danny looked around at the empty pub, and the debris from the night’s drinking.

“So how long have you been here?” he looked back at Freeman.

“Bought the lease about eight years ago,” the man answered, his hands still planted flat on the bar top.  He relaxed his body slightly, his hip jutting casually out to one side.  Danny nodded at him.

“You’ve been here all that time?”

“Well our good friend Lee left me half the old club in his will, you didn’t know that?”

Danny came forward rather reluctantly and stopped at the bar, just feet away from a man who had been a frequent visitor to his nightmares.  He shook his head.  Freeman sniffed, raised his eyebrows, and went back to cashing up.  “Well he did.  Didn’t find out until after he died. So I came back, sold the club and bought the lease to this place.”

“Nice,” Danny said, nodding. “My mum never said you got half.”

Freeman just shrugged, looking down at the money he was counting into small bags.  “So what can I do for you?” he asked, sounding almost bored, as if he was speaking to an everyday customer, not someone he had plied with drugs and tried to attack nine years ago.  “Don’t suppose you just popped in for a drink.”

“We’ve got to talk,” Danny said. “But a drink sounds good too.”

Freeman folded over the bag he had finished and dumped it onto a pile.  He turned and got down a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, and without even asking what Danny preferred, he poured them each a shot and shoved one across the bar towards him.  With a grunt and a sniff he went back to cashing up and Danny looked at him, at the fat and slug like mess of him, and wondered what the fuck to say, where the fuck to even start.  He sighed, picked up his glass, and that was when he heard his phone buzzing madly in his pocket.  He put down the glass and answered the phone.

“Mike?”

“You okay?” Michael sounded panicked. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing.  I’m fine.  Call you back in a bit.”  He hung up and pushed the phone back into his pocket, looking up in time to catch Freeman’s shifty eyes on him.  He felt a chill creep down his spine then, and shivered.  He remembered those eyes, sinking into the folds of flesh in his face, but always watching silently. 

“Your friend Michael?” Freeman asked him, slurping back a mouthful of his own whiskey.

“Yeah.  He’s outside.”

“He didn’t want to come in too?  Say hello?  Catch up?”  Freeman lowered his glass, and Danny saw his yellowed teeth shine in a smile.

“I got out back in October,” Danny said, thinking they may as well get on with this. “To start again, you know?  I did eight years of the ten they gave me.”  He looked down at his feet, glass in hand, and nodded to himself.  “But there’s someone, or some people out there who don’t want me to start again.” He raised his eyes, caught Freeman staring at him in curiosity.  “I think I know who.  The cops are useless.  So I’m trying to sort it out, one way or another.  There’s been a lot of trouble, see.  I’ve got to put a stop to it.”

Freeman drank the last of his shot, dropped the glass onto the bar with an abrupt bang and wiped his mouth with the back of one wrinkled hand.  “And you think this has something to do with me?”

Danny shrugged at him. “I came up with three people who might have it in for me, and you were one of them.”

Freeman laughed then, and the sound of it made Danny’s skin crawl, and he stepped back a little from the bar.  “Why the fuck would I have it in for you?” he bellowed in amusement. “Me and you are even, far as I can see.”

Danny frowned. “We are?”

“Course we are,” Freeman winked at him knowingly, grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle and poured himself another shot.  He held the bottle aloft to Danny.  He drank the last drop in his glass and held it out for a refill. “I tried to fuck with you and you stabbed me in the foot!” He was smiling, his shoulders shaking. “See?  Fucking even as far as I can tell.  I took the hint.  Let’s put it that way.”

Danny looked at the whiskey in his glass. “You know Jerry?” he asked. “Lee’s dad?  I’ve seen him a few times lately.  Never set eyes on him back then, but can’t fucking get rid of him these days.  It’s him.  I know it’s him.  Question is, who’s he recruited to help him?  He’s an old man.  Older than you.”

“I’ve seen him about over the years,” Freeman shrugged carelessly. “So what?  I knew him as a kid, didn’t I?  Used to train at his gym.  That’s how me and Lee met in the first place, at the gym.”

Danny drank his whiskey, thinking of Dennis, and River House, but he said nothing.  He decided to save that information for now.  “He’s out to get me.  He said as much to my face.  He thinks I should still be in jail.  He’s behind all the harassment we’ve been getting.  You know about that?” Danny eyed Freeman accusingly, his eyes boring into his, trying to read what he saw there. “Bricks through the windows with pictures of me on them?  Letters warning people to stay away from me.  Creepy phone calls.  Oh yeah, and three hired thugs that attacked us in the pub.”

Freeman looked slightly amused and puffed out his breath. “You’ve had a shit time lately.  I get it.  But it’s nothing to do with me boy.”

Danny fixed him with an icy stare.  “I think it is.”

Freeman let out another bellow of a laugh. “Why would I have it in for you?  For killing Lee?  Jesus Christ kid, you did me a massive favour the day you killed him.” Freeman looked cocky, Danny thought, watching him as he went back to the bagging up of money.  He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.  Here he was, despite all the sick things he had done, with his own pub, with staff and customers, surrounded by young people who had no idea who, and what he really was. 

“How?” Danny demanded.  “What do you mean?”

Freeman met his eyes again.  “Think about it boy.  He knew all my dirty little secrets, didn’t he eh?  He had a hold over me for fucking years.  Made out we were fucking friends and that, but he pulled the strings any time he wanted to, believe me.  Well that all died with him, didn’t it?” Freeman dumped another bag of coins onto the pile and sloshed the rest of his second whiskey down his throat.  He leant on the bar, sticking his backside out, his eyes narrow, yet brimming with excitement as he looked Danny in the eye.  “Died with him,” he repeated slowly.  “On the kitchen floor, no less.  How did that actually feel, by the way?  I’ve got to ask, seeing as you’re right here in front of me, all these years later.  It must have felt pretty fucking good, eh?  After everything that bastard did to you?”

Danny finished his drink and set the glass on the bar.  “Felt great, from what I can remember,” he replied softly.  “And he’s not the only one who knew your secrets, don’t forget.”

Freeman grinned at him.  “I always warned him you’d snap one day, you know,” he said. “I told him loads of times to watch it. I saw the look in your eyes, you see, but he ignored it. I told him after you did the runner.  I told him to leave you alone.  I told him what you did to me, and he’d be next.”  Still smiling, as if enjoying the trip down memory lane, Freeman rocked back on his heels and dropped his hands into the pockets of his loose grey trousers.  “That mad bastard wouldn’t listen though, would he?  Nah, he’d never fucking listen to anyone.  The more you said to him, the less he’d fucking listen.  He always had to be right, didn’t he?  I bet you remember that well enough.  So what actually happened that day anyway?  What made you finally snap?”

“I’m not here to talk about that,” Danny told him coldly. “I’m here to find out who’s been harassing me.  Who has reason.  Jerry has reason, and so do you.”

“I just told you, you did me a fucking favour that day!” Freeman threw his hands out to either side. “I got this place because of you!”

“I grassed you up.  I spoke about you and what you did.  What you tried to do.  Then other boys came forward.  You got arrested.  They told me.”

Freeman laughed again, and Danny felt like picking up one of the empty shot glasses and ramming it into his face.  What was so fucking funny?  He wanted to grab the dirty bastard by the hair and smash his face into the wall.  What the hell was amusing about any of this?  “That all fell apart,” Freeman informed him, rolling his eyes at the memory.  “I got a suspended sentence.  No big deal.  You had no proof and the other kid waited years to say something.  You were out of your face back then, remember?  Plus you were on trial for murder, trying to deflect attention from what you’d done.”

“You are so disgusting,” Danny murmured, shaking his head, finding it hard to look back at the man and his sick smile.  “Look, I need to know who’s got it in for me.  I need to put a stop to it, that’s why I’m here.  Is it you and Jerry?  Is it?”

“Why would I bother?” Freeman shook his head at him.  “Like I said, you did me a massive favour that day, and I’m extremely thankful to you for getting rid of him.  Staying for one more?” He grabbed the bottle again.  “Like old times eh?”

“They were bad times,” Danny said fiercely.  “They were fucking horrendous times.  I don’t know how someone like you sleeps at night after what you did.”

“Come on, don’t be a dick, have another drink with me.  It’s good to see you.  I often thought about you, you know, once I heard what had happened.  How was prison by the way?” Freeman had poured two more shots, and stood, feet spread, expression greedy as he screwed the lid back upon the bottle.  “Howard always said you’d end up there, you know.  They treat you well in there did they?”

“It was better than living with him,” Danny nodded, taking the drink. “Safer.”

“Well,” Freeman came forward then, leant across the bar and lifted his drink up towards Danny, who flinched back in distaste.  “You did what you had to do mate.  I don’t blame you, I never did.  I can’t speak for Jerry, but to tell you the truth, he’s fucking crazy anyway, always was.  Scary bastard, and Lee wanted to be just like him.  Looked up to his old man big time.”

“And what about Dennis?” Danny asked then, stepping forward again, his eyes clashing with Freeman’s, his lip curling.  “Did he want to be like his old man too?”

Freeman pushed back away from the bar, his smile fading.  He dug around in one trouser pocket and pulled out a pack of tobacco.  “Dennis,” he said, his voice a sigh, his lips protruding.  He rolled two cigarettes on the bar, stuck one between his teeth and held the second one out to Danny.  Danny took it, again reminded of that night Howard had dangled him from the cliff.  He and Howard had sat in the car together back at Belfield Park, and Danny had suggested a drink and a smoke, and they’d had both.  “Poor old Dennis,” said Freeman, lighting up.  “Poor fella eh?”

“I didn’t know much about him until recently,” said Danny, picking up the lighter when Freeman tossed it towards him.  “But I went to meet him.  I was expecting another monster.  Another Lee.  Another Jerry.”

“Ah he can’t help it, he was born that way,” Freeman grunted. “He was always an embarrassment to that family.  They tried to hide him.  Tried to shut him away all the time.  Lee was vile to him, as you can imagine.  Jerry loathed him.  Put all his hopes and dreams into Lee.”

“You were a friend to him though?” Danny questioned, sucking on his cigarette, his other hand deep inside his pocket, wrapped around his phone.  Freeman met his eyes silently.  Danny nodded.  “I went to see him,” he said again. “Poor git.  He’s still ashamed of whatever you did to him.  He still thinks he’s a bad boy who got sent away for it.  How old was he eh?  You fucking dirty bastard.  How old was that poor fucker?”

Jack Freeman tossed his head, turned his shoulder and grunted. “Old enough,” was his surly, defensive reply.  “Old enough to know what he wanted, I can tell you that.”

“And what about me then?” Danny heard his voice come out as a whisper.  Freeman kept his eyes averted for a moment.  Danny looked at him stood there, square and wide and stocky, one hand in his pocket, the other smoking the cigarette. He could not tell if the man felt awkward, or ashamed or anything.  He felt his phone buzzing again in his pocket and ignored it.  “What about me?” he pressed, feeling the horror rise suddenly and painfully inside of him.  “Was I old enough?  Was I?”

Freeman glanced back at him briefly, and grunted. “I told you, we’re even.  Lee sent me that day.  He knew what he was doing, that fucking bastard.  I was hammered.  Off my face.  He was always dangling the fucking carrot in front of me.”

“I’m not just talking about that day,” Danny hissed at him, stepping closer again, his hand in his pocket tightening around his phone.  Freeman was finding it harder to look at him, and Danny felt his heart beating faster, so fast he felt suddenly drunk on it all, not just on the whiskeys, but the fear and the anticipation and the memories.  “I’m talking about all the times I was at your place.  All the times I was fucked up and passed out.  You know.  You know what I mean.”

Freeman shuffled around slowly, facing him.  He dragged on his cigarette and flicked the ash at the floor. Danny watched the tension ease away from his face.  His eyes turned up slowly and his lips cracked over his teeth.   “But you were a beautiful boy back then, you know,” he said, his voice a purr rolling out over his lips.  “Too much so.  You still are.”

Danny bristled, and felt his muscles tense all over his body.  He breathed in, looked away from Freeman and glanced at the whiskey bottle on the bar.  Whisky and Jack Freeman were joined at the lips, he remembered wryly.  He had always reeked of it.  Whiskey on his lips.  Whiskey on his breath.  Stale whiskey on his shabby clothes.  “Too old for you now though eh?” he snarled suddenly.  “You weren’t supposed to do anything.”

Jack Freeman moved towards the whiskey bottle and seized it with both hands, cigarette dangling between his teeth.  His eyes raged at Danny as he unscrewed the lid and sloshed himself a double measure.  And then he raised the drink at Danny and tipped him a wink, his lips pulling into an amused grimace.  “Yeah but who can blame me eh?  A beautiful teenage boy, beaten and wasted on my fucking sofa, eh?” He looked almost proud of himself for a moment. Danny watched, eyes fixed on him in horror.  “Lee knew what he was doing all right.  That was the fucking reason he called me down here in the first place.  He knew what I liked.  It was just another way for him to scare you, and control me.” 

Danny looked at the bar and stubbed his cigarette out in the nearest ashtray.  “You disgust me,” he announced, almost laughing.  “You disgusted me back then, and you disgust me now.” He looked up, right into Freeman’s face. “You are vile, and you ought to be ashamed, but you’re not, are you?  Look at you!  In your shit hole pub, surrounded by fucking kids, probably on the lookout for the next victim eh?  The next poor kid off his face on drugs and drink?  What’s the matter with you?  Can’t you get it any other way?” He placed his hands on the bar and looked at Freeman with pure disgust.  “You make me sick.  You’re as bad as him.  You should be dead too!”

“Maybe you’re right,” Freeman returned, with a lazy shrug.  “But it was his fault Danny.  He put me in that position.  He called me here.”

“You didn’t have to come!  And what about Dennis?  And those other kids?  You’re a fucking scumbag pervert, you are.  I can’t believe you’re not in prison.  Just got off scott free didn’t you?  Whereas me, I get subjected to all that fucking shit, all that fucking torture, from you fucking aresholes and when I finally snap, when I finally stand up for myself, I get ten fucking years in jail!” Danny felt it snap again then, just like it had at his mothers weeks before, after meeting Dennis.  It was almost as if he could feel the line that reached towards calm, stretched out inside him, pulled as tight as a wire could be pulled.  He was as close as he could get to Jack Freeman without actually jumping over the bar.  Freeman squared up to him then, unflinching to Danny’s dismay.  “You’re a piece of shit,” Danny raged, now trembling from head to toe.  “You and him, just the same.  Pieces of shit.  You’re inhuman.”

“Get a grip of yourself son,” Freeman said then, shrugging his shoulders while his expression was uncertain.  “It’s all in the past.  It’s all over.  Done and dusted.  You got yours in the end, didn’t you eh?  What actually happened that night?  Why were you even with him?  He should have left well alone, shouldn’t he?”

“He wanted me to take your old job,” Danny nodded, shaking his head and swallowing.  “Yeah, that’s right.  Once he found where I was.  Kept following me about and pestering me.  Then he turned up at the bed-sit where we lived, and Michael and Anthony were out.  He knocked me out and the next thing I knew I was in his fucking car. Thought I was gonna’ die.  He drags me out the car, hangs me over the fucking cliff.  Then he’s all, you got to do what I say, you got to be a good boy, all that shit.  Then he beat me with his belt.  That was a nice touch.  Drove me home like all was good and well in his fucked up little life again.  Sat there in his car we did!” Danny laughed then, leaning over the bar and raking his hand through his hair. “Yeah we had a drink and a smoke and a little chat, and then he sent me on my merry way, thinking he had it all cornered again.  But I looked at him, right, I fucking looked into his face and I knew it there and then, kill him, kill the bastard, fucking wipe him from this planet!” Danny stepped to the right, so that he was directly opposite Jack Freeman, and pushed his face as near as he was able to his.  “So I got myself nice and coked up, just a little trick I learned from you of course! How to feel big for once!  How to feel strong, and not take any shit!  And I armed myself with a load of knives, and I went round there in the morning.”

“Pretty brave,” Freeman nodded, his tongue lashing across his lower lip. “I warned him though.  I knew you’d do something like that one day.  I told him! Especially after you stabbed me, I told him.  I said you had it in you.  The way you looked at him.  You fucking hated him.”

“Too right I fucking did,” Danny nodded. “And I was more than happy to take my time in jail, but now I’m out, and like you say it’s all done and dusted right?  It’s all done with.  It’s over.  I want to get on with my life and be happy.  I deserve it, for fuck’s sake!”

 “I don’t disagree,” Freeman said, his tone soft and soothing, his expression sympathetic.  “Course you do.  I’m on your side mate, I always was…”

“On my side?” Danny roared, reaching for him then, finding his shirt and seizing him across the bar by it.  “You weren’t on my side you fat pervert! You pretended you were, made out I had this safe place to go, when all the time you were just as bad as him!”  Freeman shook his head, his eyes wide. His hands came up and gripped onto Danny’s.

“No,” he said, his face crumpling in pain.  “No that’s not true, I wasn’t like him!  He was cruel to you!  He wanted to destroy you!  I loved you!”

“Fucking shit!” Danny held him tighter and shook him hard.  He felt all the power and strength he had not owned as a boy, coursing through his body as he held onto him.  “People like you aren’t capable of love! You’d stand by every time and watch him hurt me, you never said a fucking word! You’d just stand there, just fucking watching! You disgusting piece of shit, you and him ruined my life!” He pulled back with one hand, balled it into a fist and watched the alarm fill Freeman’s eyes before he yanked him closer with his other hand, and ploughed the fist into his face. 

Danny ignored the pain that careered up his wrist, and he ignored the frantic ringing in his pocket.  He leapt quickly over the bar and found Jack Freeman on his knees on the other side, both hands over his nose.  Bright blood trickled through his podgy fingers. “I tried to leave you alone, I really did…” he spoke through his hands, his voice thick and nasal from the pumping blood.  “I swear to God I tried…you don’t know what it’s like!  He never should have asked me to come!”

“He knew you abused Dennis, didn’t he?” Danny stared down at him, sneering in repulse. “You two sicko’s had been pulling the same shit for years!”

“He didn’t care about Dennis,” Freeman spluttered. “He meant nothing to Lee, nothing.  He caught us one day, in the changing rooms at the gym.  I thought he’d kill me, but he just laughed.  He said Dennis probably liked it, and left us alone. It was so he would have something on me, but I didn’t realise that at the time.”

“Disgusting,” Danny said again, standing over him, shaking his head. “You’ve got every excuse going haven’t you?  What about Jerry? Did he know?”

“No, no, he never knew, never, but Lee made up a story, told him Dennis was gay, and he believed him.  That’s when he sent him to River House.”

“What was that place?”

“Just a home,” Freeman shrugged pathetically. “A home for people like him.  They let him out when he was in his thirties.  I hear he copes okay on his own now.”

“You’re gonna’ tell me what I need to know,” Danny said then, stepping closer.  He felt a coldness fall over him then, as he looked down at Freeman.  He glanced at the mans fat thighs, spread apart and he lashed out suddenly, aggressively, kicking him as hard as he could between the legs.  He laughed when Freeman toppled slowly to one side, his hands down on his groin, his face twisted in silent agony.  His phone was still ringing.  He took it out and answered it while Freeman writhed on the floor.  “Mike, it’s okay.”

“Jesus Christ Danny, I’m coming in!”

“No, you don’t need to, I’m fine.”

“Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Too busy talking.  I’ll be out in a minute.” He hung up again, and knew that he did not have much time before Michael would rush in.  He knelt down carefully, fixing his eyes on Jack Freeman’s gasping, screwed up face.  “You look a bit like Lee did,” he told him.  “When he was on his kitchen floor with a knife sticking out of him.  Took me a while to get him, you know.  He nearly killed me first.  But he didn’t know how many knives I had, you see, he thought I only had one, the stupid bastard.  You know, I can still see that final look on his face?  Before he died.  He was fucking outraged, I can tell you Jack.  He was outraged that I got him.  That I won.  He was fucking outraged that he never got me in line like he wanted.  I was never his good boy, was I eh?  Thank fuck.”

“He was addicted to violence,” Freeman grunted, his eyes opening up to slits, his head on the floor, and his hands still cupped around his groin.  “He was the same when we were young.  Once he found someone to bully he couldn’t stop himself…it was like a fucking drug to him…he craved it. He never would have stopped.  You had to kill him, kid, you had to…”

“I could kill you too,” Danny informed him brightly, leaning closer. “Couldn’t I Jack?  I don’t care about going back to jail, you know.  Life is all fucked up out here anyway, always will be.  I’ll go back to jail happily, yeah.  Happy knowing that both you evil cunts are gone forever.”

“I’ll tell you…” Freeman pushed himself up one elbow, his thin strands of hair hanging limply over his eyes.  “Whatever you want to know…I owe you…I’m sorry.”

Danny leaned closer, his eyes fierce, his lip curled. “Tell me what you did to me, when I was passed out, you filthy scumbag, I have fucking nightmares every night, not knowing…”

“Nothing!” Freeman gasped up at him, pushing himself up more with his palm against the floor.  “Nothing, I didn’t do anything….I just messed around a bit, just touched you, that was it kid, that was it! Nothing, it was nothing…you would have woke up if it was anything more.”

“That’s not nothing!” Danny stood up then, and kicked him in the belly.  He could feel no ribs, no muscle, just soft yielding fat, as the man dropped back to the floor, groaning.  He kicked him again, harder this time.  “That’s not nothing you shitting scumbag!”  Danny looked at him and he really wanted to hurt him then, he really wanted to damage him.  He was still kicking him when Michael rushed breathlessly through the double doors, and called out to him urgently.

“Danny what the fuck are you doing?”

30

Lucy

 

 

For the first time she could remember, Lucy phoned in sick and took a day off work.  She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she supposed a lot of it was exhaustion and worry catching up with her.  For the past few weeks, since Danny had stormed away from her at the beach, she had barely slept at all.  She was kept awake hour after hour, wondering if she had made a terrible mistake, fearing that she would never get him back and would be forced to regret it for the rest of her life.  Michael had said just as much to her, in fact.  You better hope he comes back to you. Like Danny, Michael had not understood her reasons either.  He saw things in black and white, she realised, and to him, if she and Danny loved each other, then they should be together.

Lucy spent the morning under her duvet on the sofa, watching rubbish on TV and feeling too sick to eat breakfast.  She felt the familiar wretched sensation of guilt in her gut, and the thought of food actually made her gag.  The only people who seemed to understand what she had done, were her parents, and Danny’s mother.  Maybe being that much older, from a different generation helped them see the situation the way that she did.  Danny had so much to work through, so much growing up and figuring out to do, how could he do that with her attached to him?

            Lucy had sent him three texts that he had not answered.  Each had suggested that they be friends, and meet up if he wanted to talk.  No answer.  She wondered helplessly if he was out meeting women and it ripped through her like glass.  Just then, her phone beeped and she found it on the coffee table and pulled it under the duvet to inspect.  It was her mother; I’m just around the corner, fancy a cuppa?  Lucy smiled and immediately agreed. 

  Her mother let herself in less than ten minutes later, called out a breezy hello and started moving around the kitchen, putting on the kettle and doing the washing up.  “Tea or coffee?” she called in to Lucy.  “Anything to eat?”   She poked her head around the door and frowned.  “Oh my, don’t you look a sight for sore eyes?  Good job I came around!  Haven’t seen you that pale since you were little.”

“Tea,” Lucy replied, unsurely, as he mother walked over to her and placed a hand across her forehead.

“You’re not hot,” she exclaimed.  “You just look awful darling.  I expect you’ve picked something up from the kids at school.  Surprised you don’t more often!”

“Probably nearly immune,” Lucy sighed, as her mother went back into the kitchen to make the tea.  She tugged her duvet back up to her chin.  Her mother came back in with two cups of tea, sat down beside her on the sofa and passed her one. 

“You deserve a day off anyway,” she said. “You work so hard.  And there’s been so much going on lately.” 

Lucy blew on the top of her tea and then sipped it carefully.  She knew her mother was referring to the graffiti and the cut power lines, and the phone call.  Interestingly, there had been nothing else since her and Danny had parted ways.  Just thinking about it gave her a cold chill all over.  They had been watched at some point, by someone, and that was more than creepy.  She still had her mobile in one hand, and ran her thumb across the buttons, wondering if he was okay.  If something else happened, would any of them tell her now?

Her mother watched her for a moment and then asked; “so have you heard anything from him?”  It was like having her mind read constantly, Lucy realised in amusement. Did all mothers have that natural knack?  She thought briefly then of her ongoing communication with Kay.  She heard from his mother more than she did Danny, these days, she realised with a sad sigh.  Kay had called her in concern, after Danny had turned up at her flat, ranting and raving.  Too much going on in his head, her words to Lucy had been, don’t feel too bad Lucy, you did the right thing and I tried to tell him that, and I think deep down he does understand. Lucy clung to this statement at night, when sleep was increasingly impossible.

“No, nothing,” she told her mum, sipping more tea.  She felt her stomach starting to protest.  “Which is fair enough.  I think I really hurt him mum.  The way he must see it, I’ve let him down again when he needed me.”

“You don’t want to have a relationship like that though,” her mother leaned against her and advised. “With one of you always needing the other, or needing help. It should be equal and you shouldn’t have to view him like a child.  That’s not fair on him, or you.”  Her mum slipped an arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. “I think you did the right thing darling, but I do hope he comes around and sorts himself out.  Me and your dad would like to see you both make a go of it.”

“Really?  Even after everything?”

“We just want you to be happy Lucy.  That’s all any parent wants.  If he makes you happy, then that makes us happy too.”

Lucy nodded and went to sip more tea, but suddenly she had to put the cup down quickly, dropping her mobile to the floor and covering her mouth with both hands.  Her stomach was heaving.  “You all right?” she heard her mum ask in alarm, as she flung back the duvet and ran for the bathroom.

Not much came up, because she had hardly eaten in days.  Just tea, and water and yellow bile.  Lucy splashed her face with cold water and then wiped it dry with a towel.  When she straightened up to look in the mirror she could see why her mother had come over to feel her forehead.  She did look awful.  Pale and clammy, with grey shadows under her eyes.  She rolled her eyes at herself and padded miserably back into the lounge, where her mum was waiting to wrap her up in the duvet again.

“Oh dear me,” her mum was saying, as she rested her head on a cushion, feeling the strong urge to close her eyes.  She gave a little chuckle then, like mothers do when their child is looking a bit pathetic.  She smoothed back Lucy’s hair, kissed her pallid cheek and joked; “you’re not pregnant are you?”

Lucy jerked her head up to stare at her mum in horror.  “No mum!”  She put her head back down, and then she couldn’t help herself, she had to check the dates off in her mind, count off the weeks, and question again, what date was it today?  Her mother was watching her more intently now.

“Lucy?”

“No mum,” she said again, firmer this time, because she couldn’t be, she just couldn’t be, she was not that stupid, and she was just ill, and…oh Christ. Her mum had narrowed eyes trained in on her.  “No mum,” she repeated.  “No way.”

 

Without meaning to, Lucy soon drifted into an uneasy sleep.  Her mother stayed with her, cuddling up next to her to watch daytime TV.  She woke up at lunchtime, still feeling sick, but her stomach was empty.  Her mother made her a sandwich and said she had to go, and Lucy promised to eat the food and stay in bed.  As soon as her mother had gone, Lucy flung back the duvet, got up from the sofa and ran into the kitchen to find her bag.  She dug through it frantically, shoving tissues and chocolate wrappers out of the way until she found her diary.  She pulled it out, sank into a kitchen chair and started to flip through the pages.  She always marked the day she was due on with a dot on the day.  The day she actually came on she would mark with a cross, and the day her period ended she would mark with an x. She located the last dot and her heart sank with her stomach. It was worse than she had feared.  Fuck she thought, sinking her head down onto her arms, I’ve missed two periods! How the hell did I not notice that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael

31

 

 

            When Michael returned from Jenny’s he found Danny still lying on the sofa, with his feet up, and Kurt asleep on his stomach.  Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ album was playing rather loudly.  “So how did it go?” he felt compelled to ask immediately, slinging down his jacket and collapsing into the chair beside the sofa.  Danny turned to face him and smiled weakly and sheepishly.  Michael frowned.  “Did you?”  He lifted his eyebrows in question and Danny nodded.  “Again?” 

“Mmm.”

“Fucking hell mate!” Michael exploded, thumping the side of the chair in excitement.  He laughed out loud and then tried to reel himself in.  There was a part of him that was undeniably and stupidly proud of Danny, the lad in him, he guessed.  He wanted to laugh and clap him on the back and hear all the gory details.  But he forced himself to calm his enthusiasms down, because as usual, there was far more to all this than met the eye, and another part of him found it all a little unsettling.  He looked at Danny questioningly, legs crossed at the ankles, and hands on either arm rest, his fingers drumming restlessly.  “So,” he started, “was this before or after the interview?  Or let me guess, you didn’t even do the interview?  She just wants your body, not your mind and your story?”

Danny frowned back at him with a faint smile.  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “and I feel the same, believe me.  It was after.”

“Ooh,” Michael made a face, as if in pain. “Now that is kind of weird.  Any booze involved this time?”

“No,” Danny shook his head and looked even guiltier. “I can’t even blame it on that, can I?”

“What can you blame it on then?  Do you like her?”

“I don’t know.  Not really.  Maybe.” He shrugged, looking lost.  “I don’t know Mike.  She just came at me.”

Michael’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “Did she?  Oh mate!  You poor thing!”

Danny smirked. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“Course it fucking wasn’t, you dirty bastard.  What, she felt all sorry for you or something?” Again, he narrowed his dark eyes and drummed his fingers.  There was something about all of this that made him uneasy, and he could tell by Danny’s face that he felt the same.  “She might be trying to get more out of you,” he suggested. “You know, by getting closer to you?  I wouldn’t put it past a hack to do that.  They’re all immoral aren’t they?  They have to be.”

“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged. “She said something before she left.”

“What?”

“That me and her had more in common than I knew. What do you think that means?”

“Don’t know mate,” Michael replied. “She didn’t kill anyone, did she?” He laughed at his own joke, while Danny rolled his eyes at his never-ending ability to be distasteful.  “Just trying to get round you, I reckon,” he went on. “That’s why I don’t trust her.  She wants her precious article at any cost.  If she was professional and all that, she wouldn’t be sleeping with you would she? It is a bit weird mate, that’s all.”

“I know,” Danny was nodding.  “I know it is.”

“So how was the interview?”

“Mmm, not nice.” Danny got up from the sofa then and stretched his limbs out. “Had quite a long trip down memory lane,” he said. “Stuff I haven’t even thought about for years, let alone talked to anyone about.”

Michael looked down at his hands, bringing them together in his lap. “Freeman?”

“Yeah,” Danny nodded, grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the table, and threw one to Michael before lighting one up himself. “And look at this.  Wait until you see this,” he was digging around in his pocket. “This will freak you right out.”

Michael caught the folded piece of paper when Danny tossed it to him.  He  opened it and saw Jack Freeman’s name scrawled upon it, and a neatly written address beneath.  Immediately he got to his feet and held the paper out at arms length, as if it somehow disgusted him. “Danny, this is just outside town! This is the address of a pub!”

Danny came forward, snatched the paper back. “A pub?”

“Yeah!  I know of it.  It’s the local this girl I used to see lived near.  The white swan or something, or white horse?  It’s near the beach.  Rough area. Seabourne?”

Danny swallowed, smoked his cigarette and looked nervous. “You’re sure?”

“Yes!” Michael nodded emphatically. He felt his heart hammering into action in his chest, as the fear and the adrenaline he had grown to know so well, started to flow aggressively. “I’m sure.  I recognise the road name, it’s packed full of cheap b and b’s, and student flats, and this one pub.  It’s on the corner.  Bit of a dive with a bad reputation.  He can’t live there Danny!  He can’t live that close!  Didn’t he go back to Essex?”

Danny had stuffed the address back into his pocket. “I just thought he had,” he admitted. “I assumed he had.  Howard never said any different.  Maybe he did.  Maybe he came back!”

Michael shook his head, trying to clear his mind and organise his thoughts.  He smoked his cigarette and found himself at one of the windows.  He couldn’t stay away from them sometimes.  It was always so busy out there on the high street.  So many different people, coming and going.  “Shit,” he said, looking back at Danny. “I wish we could tell Anthony this, Dan.”

“No,” Danny shook his head firmly.  “He’s just got things back on track with his wife, and he’s been left alone since we stopped telling him stuff.  Same for Lucy.  It’s like anyone we see for too long, gets targeted, have you noticed that?  Like me sleeping at my mum’s the other night?  Right away she gets a nasty letter.  It’s like there are spies everywhere out there Mike, just waiting to pounce.”

Michael sighed, feeling frustrated. “So what do we do now?”

Danny patted his pocket where the address was, and Michael felt his heart sink a little lower. “Go see him.  We have to.  It’s the only way.”

“Fuckinghell, I don’t even want to think about it mate,” Michael groaned, dropping his head into his hands for a moment.  Danny arrived next to him at the window.

“I’m not as scared as I was,” he said, looking at Michael.

“You’re not?”

“No. I don’t know why.  Maybe it was seeing Dennis Howard.  Piecing things together in my mind.  I don’t know.  But Freeman is the next link, we have to see him.  It makes my skin crawl, but I have to talk to him.”

Michael sighed and nodded.  “Okay then.”  He felt the urge to pat Danny on the shoulder, or something, to congratulate him on being so brave, and so held together, but he didn’t.  He breathed out slowly and gazed back out of the window.  He found his eyes drifting back to the flats opposite, the ones you could never quite tell were empty or not.  “I wonder about those flats over there,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“Those flats.  Who lives there.  You can’t tell, look.  No obvious signs.  Be the perfect spot to spy on us from, wouldn’t it?”

Danny peered closer. “Maybe.  You think they can see right in here?”

“When the lights are on, yeah. Plus they could see who walks around to the back.  Just makes me wonder sometimes that’s all.”

“Don’t worry,” Danny told him then.  “We’ll soon have this all sorted.  When can you come with me?  When are you free?  I want to do if before I chicken out.”

“Whenever you want,” Michael replied, with a heavy heart. “Just say the word.”

“Well we could go now,” Danny said, his voice cracking slightly.  He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just to find it.  We don’t have to go in.  Could just check it out for another time.”

“Okay,” Michael agreed.  He pulled himself away from the window, crossed the room and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.  “Let’s go,” he looked up at Danny and said. “You’re right, we need to do it before we chicken out.”

Danny nodded, scooped Kurt up from the sofa, and they left the flat.

 

They sat in Michael’s car, shaking from the cold, teeth chattering, while Michael let the old engine warm up.  He pulled a pair of fingerless gloves from the side of the door and put them on.  Danny had zipped his coat up to his chin and wrapped his arms tightly around Kurt, who was also shivering violently.  “Just takes a while,” Michael murmured, glancing up when he saw a car park a few spaces back behind them in the alley.  He thought nothing of it, rubbed his hands together, put the car into gear and drove off, the car juddering in protest as it crawled jerkily out of the mouth of the alley.  He glanced in the wing mirror to see that the other car had followed them.

Three turnings later, Michael had a bad feeling. “Oi,” he said to Danny, jerking his head towards the rear view mirror.  “Is it me being totally paranoid, or is that black car following us?”

Danny looked, and kept looking.  “Make a few random turns,” he advised.  Michael did just that, turning left when he really needed to turn right, and then doing the same again at the next junction.  The small black car remained behind them the whole time.  Michael swallowed, his throat draining of all moisture.  “Shit,” he said, his eyes jerking between the both mirrors, and the road. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Keep going,” Danny shrugged, his expression dark.  “Just drive to this pub and see what happens. I’m getting the cops number up on my phone just in case.”

“Good thinking.  You ever seen that car before?”

Danny peered into the wing mirror on his side again.  “What is it a Golf?” he asked.  Michael nodded.

“New one.”

“Then yeah.  I think I have.”

“Shit!” Michael exclaimed, feeling tremors crawl down his spine that he knew were not from the cold, “when?”

“At the cemetery, the last time I was there,” Danny replied. “In the car park. I made a note of the cars in my head, you know?  With everything going on.”

“It could be Jerry Howard then?”

Danny nodded silently and fiddled with his phone.  They drove on, both nervously checking the mirrors as much as they dared, a heavy silence between them. Seabourne was the area next to Belfield Park.  It was a nicer area in parts, closer to the sea, with lots of bed and breakfasts, hotels, and retirement homes.  A lot of these were in good condition, or undergoing renovation, but there were just as many that had become run down as well.  Michael drove through street after street lined with battered wind beaten b and b’s, and old Victorian homes that resembled a lot of the bed-sits on Belfield Park.  At the corner of one of these roads sat a pub.  Michael slowed the car to a stop just outside, but left the engine running.  He looked up at the rear view mirror, and watched the black Golf pull in a few spaces back.  He tried to make out how many people were in it, but the windows were dark, and it was hard to tell.

“This is it?” Danny asked, his voice a croak, as he stared out of the window up at the pub.

“Yep.  The White Horse, not Swan.  It’s a shit pit by the looks of it. There are loads of student places around here.  It’s pretty much a student pub.”

“So how can Jack Freeman live there?”

“Maybe he works there,” Michael shrugged, watching the car behind. “Maybe he owns it?”

Danny did not answer.  He was staring at the pub.  It was sat on the corner, with a garden going most of the way around.  The overgrown grass had a number of weather beaten picnic tables scattered across it.  They watched two long-haired young men saunter up, the collars of their coats turned up against the wind, shoulder bags across their chests.  They pushed through the double doors and disappeared inside.  Michael glanced at a blackboard near the doors.  It said live music every Friday night on it.  “What do you want to do about those guys behind?” Michael finally asked Danny.  Danny sighed, his shoulders dropping as he turned to look at Michael.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I suddenly feel like a little kid again, how about you?”

“The same,” Michael was happy to admit.  “It’s times like this I wish we had Anthony on board.”

“Mmm.” Danny looked back into the wing mirror.  “Let’s get out,” he said suddenly, lifting Kurt carefully onto the back seat.  “Stretch our legs and see what they do.”

“Okay.” Michael turned off the engine and got out, while Danny climbed out his side.  They met on the pavement and looked nervously at the black Golf.  Danny frowned and took a decisive step towards it, when suddenly it roared back into life and screeched off down the road. They looked at each other, stunned.

“Oh,” said Danny.  “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Did you get the plate number?” Michael asked then, his hand going to his head in frustration.  Danny shook his head. “Oh we’re so dumb.  We were sat there long enough to note it down.”

Danny turned on the pavement and sunk his hands into the pockets of his jeans.  He stared up at the pub with a wretched and nervous expression that Michael well understood. “Shall we pop in?” he heard him ask. “Just put our heads around the door?”

“I’m right behind you,” Michael said, patting his back and nodding firmly, hoping that his voice sounded strong and confident.  They started towards the pub garden, dragging their feet.  “Just say the word and we’re gone,” he reminded Danny as they weaved their way through the picnic tables towards the doors.  A group of three young girls came out, just as they reached them.  They all looked around nineteen or twenty years of age, and were giggling and laughing, totally oblivious to the pain that was building in Michael’s chest, as he imagined it was in Danny’s.  They let them pass, and Michael held the door open as Danny stepped inside.

It was pretty much what he had expected he thought, looking around. The double doors led into an entrance, where another blackboard, this time up on the wall, listed the various bands playing there this week. On the opposite wall a whole host of leaflets and posters advertising everything from lonely hearts, to music tutition, to live events at other venues, had been tacked up by people.  They could hear music playing, and Michael strained his ears, thinking it sounded like an REM song from a few years back.  They went through the next set of doors and saw the bar.  It was a u shape, and reminded Michael of the layout at Chaos.  You had tables and chairs and fruit machines to the right, and a small stage and a dance floor to the right.  There was less seating on this side, but as the stage was empty, various groups of young people were perched on it, pints in hand, deep in conversation.

Michael looked back at the bar. It did not seem busy.  There were a few more clusters of students to the right, spread out across the tables and the bar stools, and a handful of people leaning on the bar, chatting or waiting to be served.  It was warm, and smelled like the sea.  Michael shivered and nudged Danny with an elbow. “I can’t picture Freeman in a joint like this,” he said, his voice low.  “I don’t get it.”

Danny nodded, staring at a young woman with bright pink hair who was behind the bar.  She had chubby cheeks and a ring through her nose.  Danny started to move towards her, so Michael followed cautiously.  They didn’t stand out, he realised, in their usual scruffy jeans and trainers, they didn’t look any different from the other young people in here, but Michael felt different.  He felt older for one thing, and he felt afraid.  He remembered the times he had encountered Jack Freeman, back when Danny had thought nothing of going to his flat nearly every day.  There had been a time where that was where he went, if he wanted to find Danny.  It had made his guts twist then, even before Anthony and Jaime had discovered the truth about him.  Michael had never liked the way the man just sat there, barely speaking, yet letting them use his flat, drink his whiskey and take his drugs.  He remembered him and Danny chatting and laughing on one sofa, while Freeman sat sprawled out on another, and he remembered every time he looked up quickly he would catch Freeman watching them out of the corner of his eye.  It had given him the creeps.

Danny approached the bar and smiled pleasantly at the young girl.  “Can I help you?” she asked brightly, rubbing a damp cloth briskly across the bar top.

“Just two pints of Carlsberg please,” Danny replied, resting one elbow on the bar and nodding at Michael who nodded back.  The girl got the drinks and Danny took out some money to pay her.  She then went around the other side to serve someone else.

“Should have asked her,” Michael hissed. “Who’s in charge.”

Danny shrugged, looking around him, his dark blue eyes scanning the place, and jerking from person to person. “I just want to wait a minute,” he explained. “I’ll ask before we go, don’t worry.”

“If we see him, are you gonna’ talk to him?”

“Be a bit pointless coming here if I didn’t,” Danny shrugged and sipped at his pint.  Michael breathed out, trying to release the tension he felt inside.  He sat on the nearest bar stool and gulped his pint quickly.  He wanted to go.  He didn’t want to see Jack Freeman, and he didn’t want Danny to speak to him either.  He was starting to hope they would just finish their drinks and leave with nothing.  He found himself staring at the space behind the bar.  There was a narrow corridor going out to the back, and Michael could see the usual boxes of crisps and nuts piled up along the wall out there. He imagined there was a room, or an office, or a kitchen back there somewhere, and despite gulping his pint greedily, his throat felt like sandpaper.

Danny kept looking around, he noticed.  Not in an obvious way, but just checking the place out, and the people.  He looked stiff, and his face was pale, making the stitches in his forehead stand out even more.  Michael sighed, and rubbed tiredly at one eye, and again wished that Anthony was with them. 

“We’re just having the one yeah?” Michael checked with Danny, when his pint was nearly gone.  Danny nodded silently.  Michael drained the last few mouthfuls and plonked his glass back on the bar.  “Can you see the mens?” he asked. “Think I’ll have a piss before we go.”

“Over that side, past the stage,” Danny said, nodding.  Michael slid down from the stool and glanced at Danny’s drink.  He only had a few mouthfuls left.

“Hurry up,” he advised. “And don’t go anywhere without me.  I’ll be back in a sec.”  Danny nodded in agreement, and Michael set off for the toilet.  He crossed the dance floor, looking around him quizzically, wondering what kind of music filled the place on a busy Friday night.   He discovered the men’s toilets were surprisingly clean and fragrant for a change.  He did his business as fast as he could, zipped himself back up and hurried back out.  That’s it, he thought to himself, we can go, we can get the fuck out of this creepy place, and maybe Caroline got it wrong anyway…He then stopped in his tracks half way across the empty dance floor, because he could see Danny at the bar, and his body language had changed dramatically.  He was staring, his eyes wide, his lips tight, at someone stood behind the bar.  Michael forced himself to walk on, his chest tightening painfully.  He arrived beside Danny and saw whom he was staring so intently at. 

There was no mistaking him.  Except for looking older, and greyer, he was exactly the same as he had been back then.  There was a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, and he was unshaven, wearing a light blue shirt that was half untucked.  The buttons were straining across his beer belly, which had grown even bigger, and he had a few extra chins as well, Michael noticed.  Jack Freeman.  Behind the bar.  Staring back at them silently, wonderingly, as if he were not quite sure what or who he was seeing, as if he was trying to place them, and understand them.  Caroline had got it right. 

Danny seemed frozen to the spot, his eyes locked on Freeman’s.  Michael looked from him, back to Freeman and saw the man relax his pose, placing one foot forward. Michael wondered if it was the one Danny had stabbed. Freeman lifted his chin up at them, his eyes squinting curiously.  If he was alarmed, or worried, or anxious in any way to find the two of them there in his pub, then it did not show in his face.  He knew them though, Michael could see that.  Eight years on, he knew them all right.

Michael swallowed, reached out to touch Danny’s arm, and that was when he pulled away, spun around and tore out of the pub.  Michael went after him, letting the pub doors swing shut with a bang behind him.  “Can’t do it,” Danny was mumbling already, as they hurried towards the car.  “Sorry Mike, not today, I can’t, I can’t do it.”

“It’s all right mate, calm down,” Michael unlocked the car and they climbed in.  He started the engine and raced off before Danny could ask him twice.

Danny

 

 

            It made him feel physically sick every time he thought about another interview with Caroline Haskell.  “You don’t have to do it,” Michael had told him more than once.  “You don’t have to do anything.”

“The police have nothing,” he had shrugged in return.  There was a part of him that wanted to do nothing, sit back and give up, let them do their worse, whoever they were.  Roll with the punches, he had mused, just like the old days.  There was another part of him that was increasingly tempted to deal with it all by just getting hammered.  He thought about this a lot.  He could get drunk and do the next part of the interview.  He could roll around to Jack Freeman’s, out of his face, and see where that led them all?  He could dive into a bottle and pretty much never return.  And then there was the part of him that missed Lucy.  The part of him that saw her face every time he closed his eyes.  The part that missed her with a searing physical pain and did not know what to do about it.

Anthony wanted him to call her.  Anthony thought they should stay friends, and keep talking.  Michael wanted him to sleep with more women.  Anthony wondered if all the harassment had died down, because nothing had come his way for a time.  Danny and Michael knew this was because he didn’t know what they were planning next.  Jack Freeman.  The big one.  The name tasted sour and thick upon his tongue when he spoke it.  They didn’t tell Anthony what was next on the agenda, and they didn’t tell him about Dennis Howard, and they didn’t tell him that Kay had received another nasty letter, just hours after Danny had left her flat.

It wasn’t over.  Danny knew it in his bones.  He told himself to be strong and stick to the plan.  At least they were doing something.  It was horrible but it was better than just sitting there, waiting to be attacked. He had thought starting work for Terry would be a welcome distraction, but in fact it just brought its own worries. He found himself scrutinising nearly every customer who entered the shop.  Who were they? Were they in there to spy on him? How long before Terry got a brick through the window for employing him?  The worry of it all was exhausting, so two weeks after he had slept with her, Danny sent a text to Caroline Haskell, telling her he was ready for more questions.  His phone practically exploded into life in his hand.  She wanted to know when and where and how had things gone with Dennis?  Danny told her to come to Michael’s flat, and left it at that.

While waiting, Michael busied himself with tidying and sporadic cleaning.  He was both concerned and amused about Danny seeing Caroline again.  “Maybe I should hang about, you know, just in the kitchen?  In case you need me?”

“I’m not drunk this time,” Danny reminded him from the sofa where he was relaxing with Kurt.  “You can leave me to it.”

“You won’t shag on my bed will you?”

“Fuck off Mike.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.  Going to Jenny’s.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s doing my lunch.”

“Lucky bastard,” Danny grinned. “Off you run then.”

 

Alone in the flat, Danny closed his eyes and used the time to try and clear his head.  He had known he was going to lose it with his mum as soon as he had set eyes on her.  Maybe he had subconsciously gone there for that very reason.  Better to act like a shit around your mum, than anyone else, he supposed.  That’s what they were there for, weren’t they?  He felt a chill though, when he thought about how he had looked up into her face, how the same thought had pounded through his mind ;it is all your fault, it is all your fault, fucking everything is all your fault!  He had said it to her, and he had meant it.  Now he just felt numb and confused again.  He told himself she hadn’t known, he hadn’t told her, so how could it all be her fault?  Lee had practically brainwashed her from day one, he remembered.  Had he ever tried to tell her again, had he ever sat her down and explained what was happening to him?  No, he thought now, encased in the silence and blackness of his own mind, he hadn’t.

Jack Freeman.  He didn’t want to think about him, he didn’t want to go and see him, but he had to.  He toyed with the idea that Jack would know nothing about who was harassing him, that it was Jerry Howard and a few hired hands.  But there was something that niggled at him now, more and more after meeting Dennis.  Maybe Jack Freeman was behind more than he realised.  Back then he had seemed to be just this bumbling, shuffling sidekick of Lee’s.  Just this smoking, whiskey-sodden loner, who barely spoke a word.  He had seemed so harmless.  Going to his flat had been cool, he thought, remembering how he had felt the strange and useless urge to make Michael and Anthony understand this.  He’d had all these cool old books for one thing. Danny had sat and read them when he was alone.  If he’d gone to Billy and his dad for his music fix, then he had gone to Jack Freeman for his literature fix.  There had been an odd unexplained peacefulness at his place.  No questions were ever asked.  No comments were ever made, unprompted. 

Michael had never liked it, he remembered, sucking in his breath and rubbing the heel of one hand deep into his eye.  Michael had never been comfortable there.  Even when they were alone.  He would always seem restless and fidgety, and make suggestions about other places to go.  Danny recalled how sad and desolate he had always felt when Michael did leave, to find some real fun elsewhere.  He hadn’t had the words to explain to him back then, what made him stay.

He considered it now.  He remembered the books, and how it had felt to go rustling through them all, pulling them out by their dusty spines and then spending unknown hours lost among them.  He remembered taking all his music there, because Howard complained about it at home.  He could put his albums on, as loud as he wanted, and just sit back on one of the battered old sofa’s and just get lost in it.  All alone, he would close his eyes, feel the beats reverberate through his bones, as the lyrics scorched through his soul.  He would feel alive.  He would feel like he was surrounded by hidden secrets. 

Then there were the drugs.  He hadn’t realised, at first, that Howard was in on it, so at home he lived in a constant state of fear about his little tin being discovered.  He hid it in his sock drawer for a while, then grew paranoid about that and moved it to the top of his wardrobe, and then after that stuffed it under his mattress.  The thought of Lee finding out, was enough to make his skin sweat.  But at Jack’s place, he could just relax.  He would set up his stuff, roll a joint and not worry.  Not even give it a thought.  Jack had introduced him to Jaime Lawler, the local drug dealer, who had introduced him to speed, and uppers and downers.  He had been searching for some kind of oblivion, some kind of way of living that would make him shut down, forget, not care, and he had found it.

At Jack’s place, his stomach would unwind.  The pain of it would ease and flow away.  He didn’t have to give a shit what he said, or what he did.  Lee was impossible to please.  Something you did right one day, done the same the next day, would be completely and unforgivably wrong.  Danny recalled, how some days, when in a rage he would demand that Danny look at him.  It would incense him if he so much as glanced away, or even blinked.  He would have to keep his eyes on Lee the whole time he was speaking, or else.  Then another day, this would be wrong.  Another day it would be don’t look at me, don’t you fucking look at me unless I tell you you can! And he would have to stare at the floor, or the wall, or anything.  You could never win, he remembered with a sigh, as the buzzer in the hall sounded loud and angry. 

He got lazily and reluctantly from the sofa, and half regretted not being drunk again.  He pressed the buzzer and let her in, leaving the door propped open with the brick so that he could return to his sofa.  Caroline Haskell came purposefully and curiously into the flat.  She nudged the brick out of place with her foot, and let the door slam shut behind her.  Danny nodded at her from the sofa, with Kurt pulled back onto his lap.  He lit a cigarette.  He had put ‘Nevermind’ on not long before.  She stopped, shaking her hair back over one shoulder, and frowned slightly at the song playing, as if trying to place it in her own mind. 

“Nirvana,” he helped her out, folding one arm casually back behind his head and crossing his legs up on the sofa.  Caroline made a face of recognition and dropped her shoulder bag onto the nearest chair.  He noticed she was wearing a slim fitting pencil skirt, knee high boots, and a tight fitting shirt.  She looked like she had made an extra effort, he thought lingeringly. 

“Oh yes, of course it is,” she said, of the music, slipping her coat off and arranging it carefully on the back of the chair.  “I take it you’re a fan?  Or were?”

“Just taking a trip down memory lane, on your behalf,” he explained to her with a smile.  She frowned in question.  “To put me in the mood, for your questions,” he explained with a roll of the eyes.  She nodded and sat down, pulling her bag back up onto her lap.

“Ah, I see.  A big fan as a kid, were you?”

“They were my first love,” he mused.  “In terms of music, I mean.  The first music I ever got properly, totally obsessed with, you know?  I used to lie down with my head between the speakers at my friend Billy’s house.  Wouldn’t give a shit what I looked like.  Just wanted to hear the music in my brain.  Every word, you know?  Everything.  Every part of it.”

“Wow,” Caroline raised her eyebrows at him.  “You really do like your music.  I was never into this stuff, personally.”

“Still a classic album,” he argued.  “Always will be.  You know, at the time this was out, to me, it was like every fucking thing it said, every single line of every song, meant something to me personally, you know?  Really, I am serious.  Every line of every song.  Can you say that about any albums that you own?”

Caroline had pulled out her familiar notebook and recorder and organised them neatly on her knees.  “No,” she admitted after a moments thought.  “I can’t.”

“Well I can.  I was fucking devastated when he died.”

“Oh God, yeah, I’d forgotten about that!  That was awful.”

“Suppose you shouldn’t really have heroes,” Danny remarked, reaching out from the sofa to tap his cigarette against the ashtray.  “For that reason, I mean.”

“So this music brings back a lot of memories for you?”

Danny looked up and caught her eye.  “Have you got your recorder on yet?” he asked her shrewdly, thinking he would not put it past her.  “Is that your first question?”

“No, of course not!” Caroline laughed, waving a hand at him, but her cheeks had flushed an instant shade of red.  Danny chuckled.

“Don’t you want to know how it went with Dennis?” he asked her. 

“Yes, of course I do, how was it?  What was he like?”

Danny found himself examining her through narrowed eyes.  It did help having the music on, he realised then.  It somehow transported him back to another him, a braver him, a stronger him.  A kid who had broken every rule there was but didn’t know why.  That was good, he thought, that would help, that memory of who he had once been.

“Did you know he was a retard?” he asked Caroline brightly. She looked surprised and confused, but he was pretty sure she was faking it.

“A retard?”

“Yeah, you know, backwards?  Probably not meant to say retard these days, are you?  Simple, you know?  Don’t know how he’s allowed to live alone actually.  He was like a five year old.”

“Was he really?”

Danny nodded at her.  “So he wasn’t too much help anyway.  Well, he was in some ways.  But I don’t think he’s got anything to do with the harassment.  So I need the next address don’t I?  I need to know where Jack Freeman lives these days.”

“Ah, of course,” Caroline opened her notebook, pulled the lid from her pen and began to scan down her open page, her brow furrowed. “Which leads us to our questions then.”

“I should probably have offered you a drink or something.”

“What are you drinking?” she looked up and asked him.  He grinned.

“I’m having a day off.  For my liver.”

Caroline grinned and lifted one eyebrow.  “Okay.  I’ll get started then, shall I?”

“Fire away.”

He watched her as she gathered her hair in one hand and flung it behind her shoulder, as her expression changed the way it always did when she got down to business.  “You were telling me before, about how and when the violence from your stepfather began.  Can I ask who else knew about it, at the time?”

Danny sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Ooh look at you, getting right to it.  Anyone would think you were one of those people, you know, who slow down to look at car crashes?”

Caroline’s eyes jerked up to meet his.  “Pardon me?”

“Just a joke,” Danny laughed, enjoying his position.  “Michael and Anthony knew after a while.  They figured it out.”

“Why them, and no one else?”

“Is that number two?” he checked, grinning at her deviously.  She pressed pause and looked confused.

“No of course it’s not, I was just pressing you, that’s what journalists do!  Can you answer it please?”

“Oh Jesus Christ, you’re taking the piss you are.  If I added up all your questions there’d be about ten by now, you know.”

“Danny, please.  Come on.”

“Okay, okay then.  Why them?  Probably partly because they were the people closest to me, and partly because their dad was rough on them too.”

Caroline opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and looked back down at her book.  “Okay,” she said, obviously getting onto question number two now, “Can you tell me specifically, some of the memories you have of those years, before you killed him?”

Danny stared at her in confusion and pity.  He smoked the last of his cigarette and stubbed it out. “This is some article you’ve got planned isn’t it?” he asked her with a faint smile.  She pressed paused again, and he saw her steady herself, clenching her teeth ever so slightly, and smiling a brittle smile. “What angle are you doing it on?” he asked.  “I mean, what’s the theme?  What’s the title even?  Let me guess; when kids kill or something dramatic like that?”

“Danny,” she said, her tone as patient as her eyes were fierce. “I did explain to you before, that after I have asked all the questions, I will write the article and then show it to you before I do anything with it.  If you don’t like the angle, or the theme, you can take it up with me then.  Can we just get on with this now?” She made a show of checking her watch. 

“Memories,” he said then, lifting his gaze to the ceiling and exhaling dramatically so she would think he was thinking it over.  “What kind of memories?  Memories of good things or bad things?”

“Things to do with Lee Howard.  So that we can understand what led you to kill him, you see.”

“Oh of course, I see, of course that’s what you want.  What do you want me to do then?” he looked her sharply in the eye.  “List all the evil things he did for you?”

“Well, basically, I just want to put across your side Danny, the history behind it, you know?”  She was looking back at him expectantly.  Danny half expected her to get out the piece of paper with the next address on it and start to wave it in front of his face enticingly to encourage him.  He sat up instead, lowering his feet to the floor, and splaying the fingers of one hand so he could count off on them with the other.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s go.  Ooh, where to start?  Oh I know, he got Anthony sent back to jail because he tried to warn him to leave me alone.  How about that?  He’d not long come out of prison for stupid stuff.  He has a go at Howard at my fourteenth birthday party, when he tries to drag me home from it.  Next thing some drugs are planted in his house and the cops show up, and Anthony is back in the slammer for another year.” Danny clapped his hands triumphantly while Caroline stared at him curiously.  “That enough for you?  Michael loses the only good thing in his crappy life because of Lee Howard.  He also got rid of my mum by sending her off on some trip to a friends for a few weeks, while he beat the shit out of me and told my teachers and the cops that I fell off my bike at the cliff.  That was good.  That’s a memory for you darling, or do you want more detail than that?  That was the first time I thought I was going to die, you know?  I thought he’d never stop.  But he was very clever, I realise now.”

“How do you mean clever?”

“Well he never put me in the hospital, I mean.  He never broke my bones.  I think he held back, in some way, from what he could have done.  Now, if you think about it, how premeditated is that shit?”  Danny nodded at her staring face.  “Just doing what he needed to do to keep me in line.  Oh hey, there’s another memory for you! I was never in line, you see, whatever the fuck that means.  That was his ambition, his goal.  To get me in line.”

“And did he ever succeed?”

“Stupid question,” Danny replied scathingly.  “Who’s dead, and who’s not eh?  He didn’t get me in line.  I didn’t let him.”

“You fought back?” Caroline asked. “And before you say it, yes that is the next question okay? How did you fight back?”

“I just tried not to let him win,” Danny shrugged in reply.  He got up then, stretched out his muscles and wandered over to Michael’s Cd player.

“Can you be a bit more specific?” Caroline’s voice followed him.  He shrugged.

“I stood up for myself.  When I could.  Even if I knew it would make him angry.  It was fun sometimes.  Sometimes being a pain in his arse was better than being shit scared the whole time, you know?  So I’d wind him up, tell him to fuck off, that kind of thing.  Not all the time though.  Most of the time I did everything I could to stay out of his fucking way.”

“Did that work?  Would he leave you alone?”

“No, not really,” Danny mused, picking up the case to Nevermind and holding it in his hands.  “Because he’d seek me out.  I tried to run away once and he dragged me back.  He got me working in the club so he could keep an eye on me.  He got me going to Jack Freeman’s place for the same reason.  He would come in my room once a fucking day and inspect it, looking for reasons to go mental.  Stuff like that.  Once he married her, he was even worse.  Even more controlling and insane.”

“My final question for today,” Caroline said behind him with a sigh.  He heard her turn the pages of her notebook.  He ran his own fingers down the list of songs on the back of the CD case.  For a moment he toyed with the idea of turning around and telling Caroline Haskell exactly what each song had meant to him back then and why.  How he had found solace and a place to escape to in that music.  How he had grown his hair like Kurt Cobain’s and copied his style of dress.  How just the sound of Kurt’s voice snarling the chorus to Smells Like Teen Spirit had set his heart on fire every time, and how the sorrowful tones of Something in The Way had caused him to sob for hours into his pillow, after he had learnt of his idols death. 

“Go on,” he murmured, not turning around.

“I’d like you to explain Jack Freeman’s part in all of this.  How you met him and when, and what your relationship with him was like.”

Danny turned around to look at her.  “I don’t even know the answers to that,” he shrugged at her. “So how am I supposed to explain it to you?”

“Start at the beginning,” she advised patiently, staring right back at him, unflinchingly.  Danny tapped the CD case against his palm.  He forced himself to think back, just to satisfy her, just to get the address of the man in question.  He wondered again what the hell he was doing with this woman.  Was this helping, in any way?  People sometimes said that the way to escape from the past was to talk about it, to figure it out, in order to close the door on it.  Danny had always found that the opposite was true.  He had not spoken a word about it to anyone inside prison.  He had said as little about it as he could get away with.  He had kept silent, and kept his head down, and somehow he had survived.  Since he had been out, it seemed like the past was all around him again, impossible to shut away.  Not only the harassment from whoever thought he should have been inside forever, but from his mother, from Lucy, and his friends, from the area, and the music, and people like Caroline Haskell, people who wanted to know all the juicy and gory details. 

He blew out his breath and stared once again down at the CD case.  ‘Come As You Are’, had just started.  Was the music painful to listen to, he wondered, frowning at the track list again?  He had thought it would be; the amount of times he had curled up under his duvet with this album on in his room, pain pulsing angrily through him, pain that reminded him how small and useless he was.  He shook himself out of his daydream then.  Let’s get this fucking over with, he thought, preparing to harden himself once more, do what she wants, get the address, sort this shit out and let it all be over.  For a moment it stunned and amused him that there was still a large part of him that faithfully believed that a normal, decent life lay just around the corner.

“Freeman turned up at the same time Anthony was set up and arrested,” Danny told her, watching her brow furrow in interest instantly.  “We’d camped out the night before, I came home and fell asleep on the sofa and woke up hearing two voices in the kitchen.  Howard and Freeman, though I didn’t know who he was then.  I heard them talking about the flat Howard was letting him have, and some kind of job.  Then he left.  I didn’t know then what had happened to Anthony, but I tried to sneak out the back door because I knew he’d be pissed at me, because Anthony had frightened him off at my party and he hadn’t managed to get me back yet, and he did, he caught me and told me mum had gone away for a few weeks.  It was just him and me.” Danny walked slowly back to the sofa, CD case still in hand.  He dropped down beside Kurt and the little dog immediately climbed back onto his lap.  “Just in case you don’t know, I was pretty small for my age when I was fourteen,” he said, not looking up, while the sound of the tape recorder whirred on.  “And Howard was like a fucking giant to me, you know.  So I was pretty scared to think my mum wasn’t there.  He bust me up so bad I couldn’t go to school.  I told you all that already.  And he let me know my friends wouldn’t want anything to do with me now either.  Years later, the night before I killed him, he admitted it to me, that he and Jack Freeman had done that to Anthony.  Jack used to be a copper.  He snuck in and planted the drugs then made an anonymous call to the cops.  Bye bye Anthony, about the only person big enough and brave enough to stand up to him.”

Danny sighed and lifted his gaze to Caroline, who was listening intently, tape recorder on lap, elbow on knee and head in hand.  “So that was the first time I knew about Freeman,” he went on.  “Then I met him in the club, because that period of time was when Howard started making me go with him, when mum was away.  Freeman just looked like this homeless guy or something, you know?  Just unshaven, and a bit grubby, just sat at the bar the whole time smoking and drinking whiskey.” Danny shrugged his shoulders.  “Nothing special.  I didn’t trust him, but mainly because he was Howard’s friend from Essex, so I assumed he was a dick.  He was all right though, after a while.  I wasn’t scared of him.  He’d sneak me drinks and smokes at the club, and it was all like, don’t let Lee know, our secret, you know?  I thought that was okay, at fourteen, fifteen years old.  It made me feel good, I suppose.”

Danny sat forward then, found his pack of cigarettes under a magazine on the coffee table, and pulled one out.  “So you had a good relationship with him, for a time?” Caroline prompted him.  He stuck a cigarette between his teeth, located a lighter in his pocket and lit up, nodding.

“Yeah.  Sort of.  He didn’t say much, you know?  He was the silent type.  He didn’t have a go, or criticise me, like Howard did.  He started letting me come over his flat. That was nice, just to get away from Howard. Mike would come over too, sometimes.  That was when we started doing speed.”

“Who gave you the speed?” Caroline was quick to ask him.

“Freeman did.  He did all sorts.  Right in front of me.  One of the first nights I was there, without Howard, he lit up a joint and passed it to me.  I’d already tried it, because Anthony let us smoke some at the party I’d had.  And then it was speed, stuff like that.” Danny sat back in the sofa again, hand dropping onto Kurt.  “Anthony would only touch pot and booze, that was it.  I know it sounds mad, if you’re anti-drugs or whatever, but they were the only two he said were safe, and only if you were sensible.  And he was right too.  Speed was not safe.  Nothing else was, but when someone is just handing it to you, at that age, and you hate your life and you’d do anything to escape, you kind of go along with it right?” He looked at her and she stared back silently.  “Anyway,” he went on, “so that was that.  Soon I was into all sorts.  Right off the rails I was.  He made out the whole time that I shouldn’t tell Howard, that he’d go mad at us both, that kind of thing.  So then one day in the club he introduces me to this drug dealer guy, Jaime Lawler, and says I have to buy stuff from him from now on, because he was worried Lee would find out.  So I did.  I had no choice.  The guy was okay.  He kind of became a friend in the end.  He was the one that gave me the coke, the night I…” Danny raised his eyebrows at her questioningly and she nodded right back in understanding.  “Anyway, again I had no idea Howard was behind all of this.  All of it.  He’d called Jack and got him down here because he needed someone to help him get rid of Anthony.  He knew the guy was a fucking….pervert or whatever….” Danny sucked in his breath with a hiss and looked longingly at the door.  He had to hurry this up, he thought then, this was getting more unbearable by the minute.  He smoked the cigarette hungrily, barely stopping for air. What else would she want to know?  “He knew he was dealing me drugs, even though on the surface he would have killed me if he’d caught me doing them.  He knew I was at that flat all the fucking time, not seeing my mates much, and my mum thinking Jack was so nice and sweet, and he knew I was off my face the whole time I was there.”  He smiled sadly at Caroline and shrugged again. “He knew what could happen.  He held the strings, you see.  He owned Freeman because he knew his past.  He used him to control me when he couldn’t.  Fucked up mind games.  Fucked up shit however you look at it.  He knew.  He controlled it all.  I truly believe it gave him a sick thrill, putting me in that position.  It taught me my place, one way or another.  He was the boss and I should never forget it.”

He fell into silence then.  Stared at the door and craved a drink.  Caroline Haskell flicked through her notebook, checked things off with a biro and waited for him to go on.  When he didn’t, she tossed back her hair and smiled a sad smile at him. 

“Danny?  What happened then?”

“I don’t know,” he answered her, and it was the truth.  He didn’t know for sure.  He only knew the feelings of disquiet and unease he had woken up with back then, and the strange images that had sometimes rumbled through his hungover mind, and how he had briefly thought to question things, but then halted his mind, because his mind was so young, and so fucked, and could not cope with much more.  So he had pushed things aside, ignored memories or convinced himself they were dreams or drug induced hallucinations. “One time I know I woke up and he was sat there in the dark…staring at me, then I fell asleep again…but woke up another time and he was stroking my hair.  I just slept.  I was always so fucked when I was there.  I didn’t let myself remember anything, if that makes sense. I didn’t want to.  I had this safe place to go, because I tried to stay away from my friends so Howard wouldn’t fuck with them again.  I went there to escape him.  To be left alone.  I knew something was wrong, but I don’t think my mind could have dealt with it if I’d questioned it, or thought about it.” He shrugged again, and looked at her expression, wondering what he saw there.  Was it pity, like he saw in so many other faces?  Was it distrust and accusation, the other emotions he picked up from people who knew what he had done?  Or was it just plain morbid greed?

“When did you know for sure something was wrong?” she asked him, her voice hard to read.  Danny sighed.  He almost reminded her that her questions were up, but then he thought fuck it.  What did it matter?  He was still probably selling his soul, one way or another.

“Anthony found out,” he told her, taking a sick kind of satisfaction in the sudden widening of her eyes, and the frantic flying of her pen across the pages of her open notebook.  He nodded at her.  “Bless him for that.  He paid Jaime Lawler to keep his nose to the ground at all times, to be on our side if you like.  He worked his arse off in a sweaty pub kitchen, was the only parent Mike had at that time, when he got back out, and he risked it all again to help me, to get them away from me.  He scrimped and saved to pay Jaime to find stuff out.  Jaime even had to bribe a copper he knew to do a check on Freeman, and that’s when he told me and Mike to stay the hell away from him.”

Caroline Haskell braved a question into the heavy silence that fell. “What had he found out?”

Danny swallowed, brushed back his hair and thought get it over with, get it out, fucking say it, tell her, end it. “When he was a detective, he had this rent boy as an informer, and the kid was fourteen, and accused Freeman of molesting him.  He then dropped the charges, and I don’t know for sure, but I reckon his good friend Howard was behind that.  Because I can just see how he would scare the shit out of a kid that age, you know, and let Freeman get away with it?  That way he has power over them both, as usual, just the way he likes it.  So anyway.  We stopped going to his flat after that.  We started planning our escape, and that my friend, is so the end of the interview for now.  I can’t do it anymore.” He looked at her and forced a smile that felt weak and alien upon his lips. She smiled graciously and he thought that she looked tired all of a sudden.  She clicked a button on the recorder, and bowed her head as she placed it down into her bag with her notebook.  She got up then, smoothing down her skirt and shaking back that glossy hair of hers again.  He watched her coming towards him on the sofa and wondered what the fuck that meant.

Caroline Haskell then hitched up her skirt as much as she could considering how tight it was, and climbed astride his lap, as he stared up at her, both amused and horrified simultaneously.  She stared down into his eyes and he narrowed them back at her, trying to figure her out, and it crossed his mind to wonder if she was not somehow a little bit turned on by his misfortune, and then she picked up his hand and pressed a folded piece of paper into it.  He unfolded it and glanced down at the name Jack Freeman and the address that followed, before pushing it deep inside his pocket and looking back up at her face.  “Good interview,” she told him, her voice becoming a silken purr, “better than last time I have to say.  And you don’t just get a piece of paper as your reward.”

  “I don’t?”

She shook her head at him.  “I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.”  She was staring down at him wonderingly.  Danny thought briefly about turning her down, about moving her gently to one side and getting up.  An image of Lucy flashed through his mind, and he felt the pain stabbing through his chest again, and it was too much to bear.  He let her kiss him, when she lowered her face towards his.  He told himself it was wrong, wrong, in so many ways, but he didn’t stop it.

 

He lay on the sofa and smoked, while she found her things and put her clothes back on.  He pushed a hand through his hair and thought, I can’t even blame it on alcohol this time. He thought of Lucy again, and wanted to cry.  He watched Caroline, and wondered why her face seemed different, when she wasn’t firing questions at him.  Okay, she was naked, and hurriedly pulling her underwear back on, but her face looked softer, and younger.  Did he even detect a trace of embarrassment in her eye, as she yanked up her skirt and zipped it up?  “Your turn to rush off this time,” he mused, deciding to break the ever awkward silence.  She found her bra and struggled into it, smiling weakly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really do have to be somewhere quickly.”

“I’m not worried.  You don’t have to apologise to me.”

Caroline smiled again and started to pull on her top.  “When do you think you will visit Freeman?” she asked him.

“Soon as possible,” he replied quickly, knowing it was the truth. “Before I can think about it too much or wimp out.”

“I can’t imagine you wimping out Danny.  You seem incredibly brave and together to me, for someone who has gone through all that.”  Caroline slotted her feet into her heels and smoothed her tousled hair down with both hands.

“Can I ask you something?” he said from the sofa.

“Sure.”

“Why is this really all so important to you? I mean, I get that it’s your job, and you were curious back then, and all that. But why do you want to write this article so much?  Why does it mean so much to you?”

Caroline Haskell slipped her arms into her coat, not meeting his eye, and picked her bag up from the floor.  She came towards him then, hair all messy and cheeks flushed red, and as she leant down to kiss him goodbye she said; “I’ll tell you all about it another day.  But let’s just say you and me have more in common than you realise.  I’ve got to go.  Let me know how you get on.”

Danny watched her turn and click out of the flat in her neat little heels, hair swinging across her shoulders.  He wondered what she could mean by that, as he pulled the note back out from his pocket and looked at the name and address she had written on it for him.  He had been expecting the address to be somewhere in Essex, surely that was where the man had slunk back to all those years back?  But it wasn’t.  It was an address Danny recognised to be about ten minutes away.

27

Michael

 

            Keeping the plan from Anthony did not sit well with him, not one little bit, but he had promised Danny.  The address was near Southampton, which was why Danny had thought it seemed familiar for some reason.  He had lived in Southampton as a child.  They waited a few days before they went.  Everything had fallen quiet.  There had been no letters, no bricks, no eerie phone calls, nothing.  Everyone was starting to relax slightly, Michael noticed.  Chrissie had moved tentatively back in with Anthony.  They were working on things.  Anthony had promised to tell her the truth from now on, which in some ways made it easier for Michael to keep it from him.

He had to admit, he preferred the idea of him, Danny and Anthony all being together to visit Lee Howard’s estranged brother.  But doing it that way would put Anthony in an impossible position.  He would have to choose between letting them down, and lying to his wife.  Danny was right then, Michael decided, as the two of them set off early on a Friday morning, it was better this way. 

Still, knowing that did not stop Michael’s belly from feeling sick from the moment he woke up that morning.  They talked for a while about what to take, if anything?  What was the plan?  What were they going to do when they got there?  In the end they just packed themselves and Kurt into the car, and drove off. 

Michael fiddled with the radio for a while, finally swearing in disgust and turning it off. “There is no fucking good music these days,” he muttered. “Or if there is, I can’t find it. You found any masterpieces yet at the fat man’s?”

He looked at Danny, sat in the passenger seat with his arms around Kurt.  He was staring silently out of the window, and he had been that way for the last few days.  Michael had left him to it mostly.  He had heard from Lucy after the episode on the beach. “You’re nuts,” he had told her desperately, “please don’t do this!  He’ll be a mess, he won’t get it!”  Lucy had been crying, trying to explain how she felt.  Michael had felt the urge to hang up on her, but he hadn’t. 

“I just need to know he really wants me,” she had said, and Michael had thought that was just typical of a woman.  He was hoping the rest of the story would come out on the journey.  Danny had been brooding for days. 

“We should have a night at Chaos, you know,” he suggested, breaking the silence again.  “That could be a laugh.”

“It would have to be just you and me,” Danny replied, still staring out of the window.

“Eh?  Why?”

“You know why.  Gotta’ keep away from the rest of them,” Danny turned briefly to give Michael a dark stare.  “So they don’t get hurt.  Seems to be working lately.”  He sighed, and looked back to the window.

“Well not for much longer,” Michael said, “not once we’ve had it out with these three fuckers.  It’ll all be over mate.  You’ll be able to get on with your life.”

“Sometimes I doubt that will ever happen.”

“Oh don’t you be such a fucking pessimist!” Michael scolded him. “Don’t you pull that on me!  I’ve had enough of you sulking around these last few days.  You need to keep your chin up.  Think positive!”

Danny did not answer.  Michael rolled his eyes.  They had reached a junction, and he took the opportunity to light up a cigarette and pass another one to Danny.  He drove on, rolling down the window to let the smoke out.  “So spill the beans then,” he said. “What went on with you and Haskell?”

“Eh?”

“The interview.  Her pound of flesh.  Don’t try and tell me she gave you the addresses for nothing.”

“I’ve only got one address,” Danny corrected him, rolling down his own window and hanging one elbow out.

“One?  What happened to the others?”

“We didn’t trust each other,” Danny shrugged. “So I answered five questions for one address.  If this works out, I’ll answer some more questions, and so on.”

“Christ,” Michael gave him a puzzled look.  “She’s a viper that one, isn’t she?  That’s pretty clever that is.  What did she ask you anyway?”

“Oh just the usual shit.”

“It was okay then?  You didn’t mind?”

“I was drunk to be honest.”

“Oh Danny, you twat!” Michael groaned.  “I should have known.  I should have come down there and chased her off.  What a sneaky bitch!  Let me guess, she bought the drinks right?”  Danny shrugged in reply.

“It doesn’t matter.  It was easier to do it drunk.”

“Whatever you reckon mate.  Just be careful with her, I’m telling you.  She was relentless about it, eight years ago. I’m serious!” he shot a look at Danny, who yet again refused to meet his eyes.  “She followed Jake and Billy and Lucy to school and back, she hounded me and Anthony at the bed-sit, I’m telling you.  She wanted a visitors pass to see you inside.  She was obsessed!”

“She admitted that herself,” Danny told him, his tone weary. “She said she was there that morning, when the cops brought me out the house.  She saw it.  She told me all that.  I don’t care.”

“Well what does she want exactly?  To get famous? What?”

“I don’t know.  It’ll be some big article I think,” Danny smoked out of the window, his other arm carefully wrapped around Kurt.  “I’ll get to see it and check it before she publishes it.”

“She’ll be hoping to sell it to the nationals, or some stuck up ladies magazine or something,” Michael shook his head in disgust. “They’ll all be fighting over it mate.  She’ll make a fucking fortune, you do know that right?”

“Don’t care.”

“Okay.  It’s up to you.  You must know what you’re doing.”

“Not really,” Danny sighed again, and looked at him sheepishly. “I sort of went and slept with her afterwards.”

Michael’s mouth fell open.  He stared at Danny, but then had to look back to the road.  “Jesus fucking Christ!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “You filthy bastard!”

“Hmm.”

“You must have been hammered!”

“I was.”

“Oh and Lucy had just messed with your head,” Michael was nodding now, as it all began to make sense.  He shook his head and grinned sideways at his friend. “Oh well, fair enough, fair enough mate.  I don’t blame you.  She was hot back then, and she’s still hot now!  How was it?”

Danny just groaned and covered his eyes for a second. “Oh Mike don’t ask me that.  I feel sick enough about it.”

“Don’t feel sick about it, you idiot, any one of us would have done the same!  I know I would have, if she was laying it on a plate for me like that!”

“It’s kind of wrong though?”

“I don’t know,” Michael laughed and shrugged. “Not really.  You’re single now thanks to Lucy freaking out about nothing.  Isn’t that what she wanted you do do?  Sow your wild oats?  You’ll have to tell her mate, see if she’s happy now.”

Danny did not answer, and Michael realised that was the cue to change the subject.  He chuckled to himself silently though.  “You animal,” he murmured in amusement.

 

“We’re nearly there,” Danny remarked some time later.  Michael nodded, and wondered if his guts felt as sick as his own did.  Danny had an old a to z spread out on his lap and was frowning down at it.  They were driving through a pleasant looking housing estate just outside of Totton, not too far from the city centre.  Michael kept his eyes on the road signs, driving slowly. 

“You okay?” he asked Danny.

“I’m looking forward to this,” Danny replied, and Michael knew right away that he was lying.  Never mind, he thought, if we do this right, we’ll be making progress, we’ll be on the way to sorting this shit out.  Danny tapped his fingers on the map and checked the piece of paper Caroline had given him.  “Should be next on our left,” he said, looking up.  Michael drove on, his stomach tightening further.

“We should have bought weapons,” he commented. 

“We’re just gonna’ talk to him Mike.  We have to keep cool, okay?  In fact, unless I give you the nod, you just stay back and stay quiet, yeah?”

“Okay.  No problem.”

Michael pulled up in front of the house, and they both sat in the car, exhaling pent up breath, and staring out at number fifteen Rise View drive. It was an end terrace, possibly two bedrooms by the size of it.  The front garden was slightly overgrown, and the drive was empty.  There was a side gate, with two broken panels, leading around to the back.  The house had a small porch, and the windows were hung with tatty grey net curtains.  Michael noticed that there were no obvious signs of children, or family.  It looked a lot like a single man lived there alone.   Michael breathed out again and nudged Danny.  “What do you want to do mate?”

Danny was already getting out of the car.  He placed Kurt gently on the seat, left the window slightly open and gestured for Michael to follow.  They both stubbed the last of their cigarettes out on the pavement and looked again at the house. “Come on,” Danny muttered, and sinking his hands into his pockets, he headed for the door.

Michael followed, keeping just behind him.  Danny pressed the doorbell.  Michael felt his stomach do a flip, and his hairs stand on end.  He looked around at the rest of the street, but it seemed dead and quiet.  The inner door was opened and the shape of a man shuffled into the porch, undoing various locks.  Finally the porch door was pulled open and a face peered out at them.  If Danny was as taken back as Michael was, he did a fine job not showing it.  The face looked uncannily like Lee Howard.  The same high brow, the same small eyes, the receding hair-line, and small neat teeth were all identical.  The man looked like he had not shaved for a few days, and Michael could see he was wearing an unflattering beige cardigan and grey trousers.  “Hi,” Danny said quickly, and again Michael was amazed at how calm and steady his voice came out. “We’re really sorry to bother you sir.  Are you Dennis Howard?”

The man squinted at them both, looking confused and concerned. “Yes,” he said, and Michael noticed his voice was higher than Howard’s, and Jerry’s.  And when he spoke, his expression seemed different to theirs too.  Michael guessed he must be in his late forties at least but his voice somehow made him sound younger, younger and confused.  “That’s me.  Can I help you?”

Danny glanced momentarily at Michael, then back at Dennis. “Ah sir, Mr. Howard, this is a bit awkward.  This is about your brother Lee?  And your dad, Jerry?  I really need to talk to you about them.  Would we be able to come inside?”

The man’s forehead was creased with concern. “Lee’s dead,” he said, spluttering slightly over his words, spit flying out from between his lips.  He let the door open slightly wider though.  “That’s my brother.  He died.”

Danny looked wonderingly at Michael again.  “We know that sir,” he said to Dennis.  “Um, can we please come in and talk to you?  We really won’t be very long at all.”

“Okay,” the man agreed, sounding brighter then, and pulling the door wide open for him, as he shuffled back out of their way.  “You can come in.  I’m doing a crossword.”

Michael followed Danny in.  Something was not right, he thought.  This guy was not what they had expected at all.  He closed both doors behind them, and the man led them into his lounge, which was at the front of the house.  It smelled of vegetables, Michael thought sniffing, cabbage and leeks, that sort of thing, as if the guy had been eating them all day.  Now they were inside, Michael looked closer at Lee Howard’s brother.  He was shorter and slighter than Lee had been, sort of stooped over even.  He put his hands into the pockets of his loose grey trousers now, and stood sort of clumsily and awkwardly in his own room.  Then suddenly his face lit up, as if he had remembered something.  “Tea?” he asked them, and Michael saw he had a strange way of looking at them.  He sort of kept his head turned away, and looked at them sideways, as if he thought he wasn’t allowed to look right at them.  It was odd, Michael thought, really odd.  “I can make tea!” he said.  Danny looked at Michael and then shook his head at Dennis.

“No thank you Dennis.  Can we sit down a minute?  We won’t keep you long.”

“Yes, yes, you can sit down there,” he jerked his shoulder towards a short green sofa, and Danny and Michael promptly sat down.  The man nodded towards the armchair he was stood next to.  There was a newspaper on the seat.  “I’m doing a crossword,” he said again.  Danny nodded.

“Um, Dennis?  Lee was your older brother right?  You grew up together?”

“My big brother, yes,” the man replied, closing his eyes as a strange smile pulled his lips out to either side.  He kept his hands balled in his pockets.  Michael wondered why he did not sit down.  “He’s dead now.”

“And Jerry, he’s your dad?”

“Oh yes, yes, my dad, yes.”  Again Michael watched him talking to them, with his head turned slightly the other way. He was looking out of the corner of his eye the whole time.

“Do you see your dad much?” Danny asked him. 

“No he doesn’t come here,” was the immediate reply.  The man screwed up his face as if thinking.  “Oh he used to come to River House.  He came there!”

“What’s River House?”

“Where I was, where I lived, at River House.  He came there!  But he doesn’t come here, no.”

Danny looked at Michael and shrugged.  Michael mouthed the word simple to him, wonderingly and Danny replied with a quick nod.  He looked back at Dennis, who was still standing with his fists in his pockets.  “Dennis, you don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No,” the man shook his head, and smiled a little.  Danny bit his lip briefly and then sat forward on the sofa, his hands clasped between his knees.

“Dennis, your brother Lee, he was my stepfather for a while.”

Dennis screwed his face up again, his eyes disappearing. “Oh.”

“Yeah, he married my mum, Kay?  Did you know that?”

“Oh he had a bad boy, I know that,” Dennis nodded triumphantly, as if he was pleased he had remembered this piece of information.  “They told me that.  Dad told me that yes.  Lee had a boy, he had a bad boy.”  He carried on nodding.

“Yeah, that was me,” Danny went on.  “We didn’t get on.  Do you know what happened to Lee?  How he died?”

“Bad boy did it,” Dennis nodded in certainty, eyes on Danny, but head turned.

“That’s right,” Danny said gently.  “And I went to prison for a long time.  But now I’m out.  The thing is, some people are out to get me.  I think it might be your dad.  Wanting revenge.  That’s why we came to see you today.  To see if you could help us.”

“Oh,” Dennis said wonderingly.  “I don’t see my dad anymore.  He’s not proud of me.  He was proud of Lee.”

“Yes, I know he was.  Why wasn’t he proud of you Dennis?”

“Because I was at River House.  Because I was a bad boy.”

Michael sat and stared.  The guy sounded almost rehearsed in his answers, he thought, as if he had been told the same things again and again.

“You were a bad boy?” Danny was leaning forward even more, just perched on the edge of the sofa now.  “What do you mean Dennis? What did you do?”

“Oh it’s a secret,” Dennis whimpered now, his voice a little higher, his eyes darting about the room, his head turned even further the other way.  He was turning his body now too, sort of shuffling around, away from their staring eyes.

Danny got up.  Michael watched him approach the man slowly, sort of stooping to catch his lowered eyes.  “Dennis,” he said in a gentle voice. “It’s okay.  I’ve got a secret too you see.  Maybe me and you are the same?  Did they think you were a bad boy too?”

“Yes!” Dennis said, nodding vehemently, looking distressed now. “Yes I was!”

“But why ?  What did you do?  We won’t tell anyone, we promise.  I can tell you my secrets, if you tell me yours.”

Michael watched, mesmerised from the sofa.  If he had imagined this scene in any way, it had never been like this.  The guy was obviously not quite right in the head, for whatever reason.  It kind of explained why Lee had never mentioned him, he thought, and it explained why Jerry had been so proud of Lee, and had nothing to do with this son.  The poor bugger, he found himself thinking. 

“It’s because I did bad things,” Dennis spluttered now, his eyes still on Danny. He had pulled his hands out of his pockets and sort of curled them up under his chin, as if trying to protect himself somehow.

“What bad things?” Danny asked him.

“I did bad things with Lee’s friend,” Dennis said then, backing himself up to the wall, his hands knotted under his own chin, his face turned away, but his small eyes still fixed firmly on Danny.  There was a shattering silence.  Michael got to his feet.

“What friend?” Danny asked, his voice a whisper.  Michael stared, waiting, knowing, dreading.  He felt vomit rise in his throat and swallowed, coughing and tasting bile on his tongue. 

“His friend Jack,” Dennis told them, shrinking even further now. “His good friend Jack.  Bad things.  I was a bad boy.  So I went to River House.  Did you go to River House?”

Michael watched Danny’s shoulders fall from behind.  “No,” he told the man with a heavy sigh.  “I went somewhere else.  Jack Freeman was still Lee’s friend when I knew him.  I know who you mean.”

The man dropped his hands a little and moved slightly away from the wall.  He was staring at Danny in wonder.  “Did you do bad things with him too?  Is that why you are a bad boy too?”

Danny turned abruptly and nodded at Michael. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly, his eyes down.  “We’re sorry we bothered you Dennis. We have to go now.”

Danny headed quickly for the door and Michael followed. He took a last lingering look back at the guy, whose face fell as they left the room. “Goodbye,” he called after them, shuffling slowly into the hall. “Goodbye!”

Michael closed both doors behind him and unlocked the car so Danny could get in.  “You okay?” he asked, knowing he would not get an answer. Danny swept Kurt from the seat and hoisted him into the back.  Michael sat for a minute, key in the ignition, not sure what to do.  He looked at Danny, and saw his face was like thunder, and his fists were clenched tightly in his lap.  “Danny?”

“Fuck!” he snarled suddenly, lashing out and punching the dashboard. “Fuck! Fuck’s sake!”

“What is it?”

Danny shook his head, punched the dashboard again and then dropped his head down into his hands.  He clawed restlessly at his hair for a moment, and then jerked back violently and smashed his fist into the door.  “Danny stop beating up my car!” Michael gasped, hoping to joke him out of it.

“Just drive!” Danny snapped back at him, lifting one foot onto the seat and turning his face to the window.  “Just fucking get us out of here!”

“All right, all right, calm down, just calm down, I’m going.” Michael started the car and pulled away from Dennis Howard’s house.  “That was weird,” he said, right away.  “That was not what I expected at all.  The guy was not all there, right?” he glanced at Danny who nodded in return.  “Christ.  Those bastards.  That’s why they never mentioned him, right?  They were ashamed of him.  Sounds like they shut him away somewhere.”  He glanced sideways again.  Danny was shaking his head slightly, but quickly, pulling at his bottom lip with his fingers and looking like he wanted to kill someone.  “Dan?” Michael pressed gently.  “Just tell me you’re okay, yeah?  What are you thinking?”

“Fuck,” Danny said again, and then took a deep breath.  “Fuck.  Nothing.  Just drive.”

 

Michael did as he was told and drove.  As they neared home, Danny spoke up, only to ask if he could drop him at his mother’s house.  Michael was concerned.  After everything they had just discovered, why did Danny want to go there?  “Why?” he asked him.

“Need to talk to her.”

“All right mate.”

There was nothing else he could do.  He pulled up and let him out a short while later.  Danny took Kurt from the back seat, muttered a thank you and stalked away without another word.  Michael watched him go, feeling both bewildered and uneasy.  His gut reaction was to contact Anthony, or Lucy, but frustratingly he was not allowed to.  He drove on towards home occupying the shell-shocked silence alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28

Kay

 

           

            Having received his message, Kay left work early and hurried home as fast as she could.  She arrived to find him sat at the top of the stairs, just outside the door to her flat, with his little dog beside him.  She approached cautiously, never certain what mood she would find him in.  He had mostly been avoiding and ignoring her lately, so it had automatically filled her with both hope and fear to be summoned this way.  She stopped in front of him, and he did not look at her, but merely got stiffly to his feet and waited to be let into the flat. “Are you all right?” she asked him, dragging out her keys.

“No I’m fucking not,” was the terse reply.  Kay grimaced and let them both in.  Danny slouched into the lounge and sat on the edge of the sofa.  She glanced at him worriedly, before dropping her keys and handbag on the side table, and bustling into the kitchen to put on the kettle.

“You want tea?” she asked him over her shoulder.  He did not answer, and when she poked her head back around the door, he was staring morosely down at the carpet, his hands laced together tightly between his knees.  She thought he looked tightly sprung, as if about to explode at any second. She decided to make him one anyway, almost as a way to delay whatever was about to erupt.

Kay brought the teas and a plate of biscuits through to the lounge, and set them down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.  She hovered then, not knowing whether she ought to sit beside him, or on one of the armchairs. She struggled in her mind to decide upon a question.  She thought about asking him how the job was going, but then she decided not to delay the inevitable. “What is it?” she asked finally, standing next to him.  “What’s wrong?”

“Where do I start?” he sighed, lifting his hands and pressing them briefly to his face.  “Fucking everything, how about that?  Life is one shit disaster after another, and I wish I’d stayed in fucking prison, how about that?” he dropped his hands and stared up at her, challenging her to disagree. “I’m seriously thinking about disappearing.  Just going away.  Going far away and never coming back.”

Kay sat down cautiously beside him.  She longed to reach out and touch him, but she didn’t dare.  She could feel the anger throbbing from him violently.  “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?  Start at the beginning?”

“The beginning?” he questioned, gazing at her in wonder, as if he simply did not understand her.  “Well I’m not sure where the beginning is mum.  I think to be honest it’s when you met a psychopathic maniac and decided to marry him!  That might be the beginning!”

“Okaaay,” she nodded slowly. “I can see where this is going.  You don’t look like you are coping you know honey.  You look awful.  I did say before I thought you should get some help?”

“I want to punch something,” he said then, his eyes wide.  Kay flinched without meaning to.

“Danny?”

“I do.  I really fucking do.  I want to punch something.  I’m gonna go fucking mental in a minute!”

She got up then.  She couldn’t stop herself.  There was a look in his eye that unsettled her and made her nervous.  She picked her tea up from the table and crossed the room to stand next to the patio doors that led out to the balcony.  “You need to take some deep breaths, calm down and talk to me Danny,” she looked back and told him.  “Either that, or you go somewhere else, somewhere safe and find something to take it out on.  Or maybe I should call Lucy?”

Danny laughed then, rolling his eyes at her.  “Lucy dumped me mum.  Few days ago.  She called it quits.  It’s over.”

Kay released her breath slowly then, a small amount of relief falling over her.  So that was what this was about.  It was beginning to make sense.  “Okay,” she said carefully.  “What did she say?”

He waved a hand at her in frustration, his expression dark.  “Oh just a load of crap about me needing to be single!  She wants me to shag around or something, so she can be sure I want her.”  Danny shook his head, his lips curled.  “Fucking bullshit.  She just wants out.  Simple as that.  I’m too much trouble.  I’m damaged goods.”

“Don’t say that…”

“But it’s true.  That’s what she thinks, I know it.  Who can blame her eh?”

“Oh come on now,” Kay tilted her head at him sternly. “Don’t you start all the self-pitying crap with me Danny, you know I won’t stand for it.”

“You are unbelievable,” he said then, and she saw his hands reach out to either side of his legs, gripping onto the edge of the sofa, as if trying to anchor himself in place.

“Danny, I just mean calm down.  This won’t do any good.”

“It’s all your fault, you know that don’t you?”

Kay looked at him steadily.  She liked the distance between them, but could not stop looking at his hands, gripping the sofa so hard his knuckles had turned white. 

“Okay,” she said.  “You’re probably right, and we all know that.  What do you want to do about it?”

He turned then wildly, letting go and plunging his fist into the sofa cushion.  Kay flinched again, and backed closer to the doors.  She stood back and watched her son lose control.  She watched him digress to nothing more than an enraged infant, as he swiped the cushions, threw them to the floor and kicked them, before turning and knocking the cups and plate from the table so viciously they were hurled across the room, the white china shattering against the far wall.  He then stomped towards the wall, kicked at the pieces of broken crockery, before pounding both fists into the wall, one after the other.  She heard him grunting with pain and rage.  She felt tears in her eyes and longed to touch him, to comfort him and hold him, but her feet remained planted to the ground.

Finally she watched him pull in his fists, wincing in pain, and he turned and sank slowly to the floor, holding one hand in the other, his back sliding down the wall.  She went to him then.  She put down her mug and crouched down beside him.  The anger was slowly ebbing away, and now he hung his head miserably in one hand, pushing his bloodied knuckles back through his hair and hanging on there.  Kay touched his cheek, smoothing away his tears.  “It’s good to let it out,” she said softly to him then, her face close to his.  “It will do you good.”

“I saw his brother,” he said then, his eyes down, his head still hanging.  Kay tensed and pulled back.

“Whose brother?”

“Lee’s.   I found out where Dennis lived, and me and Mike just went to see him.”

Kay sucked her breath in and looked wildly around the room, shaking her head in confusion.  “Dennis?”

“Dennis is mentally handicapped, in some way,” Danny muttered through his hanging hair.  “That’s why Lee never saw him or talked about him.  He’s simple mum.  Backwards.”

Kay waited, blinking in surprise, at a total loss for words, not understanding.  Danny crossed his arms over his knees then, and lowered his head, totally obscuring his face from her.  She could see his shoulders shaking though.  She put her hand on his shoulder, waiting for more.  “He said they put him in some kind of home,” he said then. “Because he’d been bad.  He’d been bad with Lee’s friend Jack.”

Kay stiffened in confusion.  She patted his shoulders and had never felt more useless or lost.  “What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean mum? Jack must have…” he sighed a shuddery sigh, his shoulders heaving slowly up and down as he battled to regain control of himself.  “I think he meant Jack messed around with him…They told him he was bad and shut him away.”

Kay tightened her grip slowly on his shoulder, rubbing it firmly.  She brought her other hand up then, now that she was sure he would not pull away, and she placed it on his head and gently smoothed back his hair.  “This is why you are like this,” she said softly, and watched him nod.  “He wasn’t what you expected to find. Oh Danny, when is all this mess ever going to end?  Do you want to talk to me Danny?  Do you want to talk to me about Jack?  You and Jack?”

She felt his head shake slowly under her hand.  “I don’t know…” his voice came up muffled.  “’Cause I don’t remember…I don’t know.”

“But you think there was something, don’t you honey?  You remember something, don’t you?”

Her hand bobbed up and down as he nodded his silent reply, and she felt the tears cascading then, flowing effortlessly down from her eyes, and her cheeks began to sting and she tasted them on her lips.  She pressed her forehead down onto his hair.

“I don’t know what was dreams, and what was real,” she heard him mumble, and he sounded so very far away, that she wrapped both her arms tightly around him, keeping her head next to his.  “I used to wake up really confused…I thought I dreamt stuff…I thought it was the drugs.  I didn’t want to think about it.”

“And that bastard knew though, didn’t he?  He knew what Jack had done, what he was capable of…” Kay felt it then, stronger and deeper than ever, the hatred that had been festering inside her for years, she felt it double and intensify, and she had no idea what a person was supposed to do with a feeling like that.  If he wasn’t already dead, she thought then, I would kill him.

“I didn’t know that…I didn’t know anything for sure until Anthony found out.  He and Jaime Lawler did the digging.  It took him ages you know, and he had to pay money.  But when he found out, he told me and Mike to stay away and we did.”

“But before that?  Before that, you were around at his flat a lot, I remember,” Kay breathed slowly into his hair, wishing that her touch and love alone would be enough to mend him, but knowing in her heart that there would never be anything she could do.  “Oh it disgusts me now…to think back, how cosy and nice he made it seem. Like Jack was looking out for you.  Giving you somewhere you could hang out.  I thought it was really nice of him.”

“I’ve got to find him next.”

Kay pulled back, her arms now loosely around him.  “What?”

“Jack.  He’s next on my list.  This reporter woman is helping me find them.  So I can stop all this harassment.”

“Danny look at me.”

He did, painfully slowly, dragging the back of one hand across each wet eye. He met her eyes as if it were the hardest thing in the world to do.  “I have to,” he told her.  She frowned, shook her head at him and reached out to touch the stitches in his head.

“I don’t want you to.  Leave it to the police Danny, please.  It isn’t safe. Look what they’ve done to you already.”

“It’s too late.  I’ve already started and I’m not giving up now,” Kay looked at him and saw a little light return to his eyes, a little anger and fight, and she wanted to smile at it, but at the same time the thought of what he was proposing was terrifying.  “I have to try and end this,” he went on.  “To get them to stop and leave you all alone.  Leave me alone.  I’ll try mum, I’ll try to stop them, but if it doesn’t work, and if the cops do nothing, then I’ll have to leave.  I’ll go far away.  I’ll be on my own.  I’ll have to.”

She looked back at him and she didn’t know what to say except for; “I’ll help you.  What can I do to help you?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head.  “You all have to stay out of it.  I’ve got to do it mum.  I’ve got to close the door on all of this for good.  It’s the only way.  It’s the only chance I’ve got.”

“And what about Lucy?  Are you going to close the door on her too?”

Danny blew out a huge breath, blinked a few times and rubbed his face dry with both hands.  He got up slowly, using the wall to help, and then stumbled across the room to the sofa.  “She’s closed the door on me,” he replied, dumping himself down again and yawning.  His little dog had immediately jumped onto the sofa beside him and climbed nimbly onto his lap. 

“It’s not like you think,” Kay told him, kneeling down and picking up the pieces of broken crockery.  “She loves you.  You know she came to see me and told me?  She just needs to know she’s enough for you, that you really want her.”

“She told you that?”

Kay looked up and saw him eyeing her cautiously from the sofa. She wondered wearily if he would erupt again.  “I told you, she came to see me.  To talk about you.  Well, a lot of it was her wanting to know how I could have possibly stood by and let Lee…well, you know.  But aside from that, she was worried about where you two were heading.”

“Well what does that mean?”

“It means, she spent eight years without you, living a life, gaining a little experience of life and the world, and it didn’t take much for her to work out that you are the one she wants.  For good.”  Kay got up, dusted down her skirt and carried the broken pieces into the kitchen.  She deposited them into the bin, grabbed the half bottle of wine in the fridge, two glasses, and marched back to where he was sprawled on the sofa.  “Here,” she poured him a glass and pushed it at him.  “You look exhausted.  Have that and maybe a good sleep.”

Danny took the glass. “Why can’t she accept that I do want her?” he asked, trying and failing to stifle another huge yawn.  “Why can’t she believe that?”

“Well, probably because of what you’ve been through,” Kay sat down beside him.  “It’s not a normal situation is it?  Maybe you just have to try to trust her Danny.  That she’s doing it for the right reasons,” she lifted her shoulders in a shrug and dropped one hand onto his knee.  “Maybe a little time apart will do you both good.  You know, give you both time to think and take it all in.  Being back together after eight years would be tough enough on its own, but then there’s all this other stuff to deal with too.  I know you won’t like me saying this, but I do understand what she is doing, I think she is doing it for your own good, and I think somewhere deep inside you do know that.”

Danny did not answer.  He finished his wine and rested on the sofa.  She watched him smoke two cigarettes, one after the other, before he let his head fall back.  Ten minutes later he was asleep.  Kay sat and looked at him, a smile trembling on her lips.  Reminds me of when you were a baby, she thought to herself, fight, fight, fight, all day long, until you finally crashed, totally exhausted.   He stayed the night, covered up on the sofa with a blanket, his little dog curled up beside him.  Kay spent the night watching him. It will end for you, she promised him silently, I know it will.