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I don’t go home for a while. I can’t. I need to process what I’ve seen. I feel a bit sick, the kind of sick you feel when you realise you’ve done something really really stupid, or when you realise that you’ve been found out over something. That pit of the stomach sickness that eats away at you until you have to own up or something because otherwise it’ll consume you.
But I haven’t done anything stupid. There’s nothing to own up to. I just saw . . . Actually, I don’t want to think about what I saw. Don’t want to think about anything.
‘You’re late.’
Dad speaks the minute I open the door. I look at him for a second or two. I want to tell Dad what happened. I want to tell him so he can sort my head out for me, to make sense of it. But Dad doesn’t look like he’s in the mood.
‘Late for what?’ I say eventually. The television’s on. It’s the news. My eyes rest on it for a few seconds – there’s been a fire at a building housing eastern European workers. Steelworkers, the newsreader is saying. Foul play is suspected. She interviews a man in a suit who says that this kind of action is intolerable, that economic migrants are being scapegoated because of the recession. Then another man comes on, an angry-looking man, who says that the other man doesn’t understand the situation, doesn’t care about the working man, that this sort of thing will keep on happening until a new government is in place, one that will work to make Britain great again instead of letting us get walked over by anyone and everyone.
‘Where have you been?’
I don’t hear the question at first; I’m concentrating on the newsreader. Then Dad asks me again and I look up.
‘Nowhere.’
‘You’ve been at the river again? You know I don’t like you going there.’
‘Where else am I going to go?’
‘You could stay here and do some work. You could help out round here. Do something useful for a change.’
We stare at each other; we know this could go either way. A normal conversation or a big fight. It doesn’t take much these days. I’m not sure why. It’s probably my fault.
Me and Dad, we get on. But we’re not close. It’s not like it was when Mum was here. When she was still alive, there was more . . . I dunno, warmth. We did stuff together as a family. We laughed more. Me and Dad, we’re fine, but. I always feel like somehow I’m letting him down.
‘There’s some chicken in the oven.’ Dad sits back on the chair that’s been his position in the sitting room since Mum died. They used to sit on the sofa together, but looking at him now I can’t imagine it somehow.
No fight then. In some ways I’m disappointed. Sometimes it feels like we only really communicate with each other when we’re arguing.
‘Thanks.’
I go into the kitchen, take out a plate. It’s a ready-meal chicken kiev – I can smell the garlic. I boil some peas; there are chips in the oven too. I hear Dad come in behind me.
‘Everything all right?’
I shrug.
‘I’ve got Patrick coming over in a minute or so. Nasty business. Happened earlier this evening. Mr Best from the post office was stabbed.’
I turn my head slightly.
He shakes his head wearily. ‘And the government says curbing immigration isn’t the answer. What about protecting our own people from those foreign thugs? What about that? Like Patrick says, sometimes people need a shock to make them look around and see what’s happening.’
I look at him curiously. He doesn’t usually talk to me about this kind of stuff. Usually he just asks me about homework or tells me to stop doing whatever it is I’m doing. Him talking to me like this makes me feel older, like an adult, as if he respects me. I want him to carry on. I like it. I rack my brains for something to say.
‘I saw . . .’ I say, then stop when his head turns towards me.
‘Saw what, son?’
‘Nothing.’ Wrong thing to say. Why do I always do that?
He’s staring at me. ‘Nothing? You saw nothing? Come on, son. Out with it.’
I swallow with difficulty. I’m fenced in. I don’t have a choice. ‘I saw it,’ I say. ‘I was there.’
‘You were there? And you didn’t say anything before?’
I look down. ‘I didn’t . . . I mean, I . . .’
‘You saw who did it then?’ He’s not staring now; he’s looking at me closely, almost warily.
‘No. I saw Yan . . .’
‘Yan.’ Dad nods. ‘No surprise there.’
He looks away, picks a plate up off the counter.
‘No, he wasn’t . . .’ I start to say, but Dad isn’t listening any more.
‘Now he’s going to know what it feels like,’ he’s muttering to himself. ‘Now he’s going to find out.’
‘Yan?’ I ask uncertainly.
Dad looks as though he’s forgotten I was even there.
‘Not Yan,’ he says. ‘That man.’
He means Yan’s dad. I’m pretty sure he does anyway. They don’t get on. Actually, that’s the understatement of the year.
I sit down next to him and start to eat. The inside of the chicken kiev is too hot – it burns my mouth. I get up to pour myself a glass of water.
‘I think Yan was shouting for help,’ I say eventually. ‘He called for me to phone the police.’
Dad turns sharply. ‘After he’d seen you,’ he says. It’s a statement not a question. I nod. I take a gulp of water and feel the relief on my scalded tongue. ‘Of course he did,’ Dad says. ‘Oldest trick in the book. First witness to murder is almost always the guilty party.’
‘Mrs Rajkuma was there first,’ I say.
Dad’s eyes narrow. He’s not that big on the Rajkumas either but I don’t think even he thinks Mrs Rajkuma’s capable of murder.
I should drop it. I know I should. Why won’t I? ‘It looked . . . It looked like Yan was trying to give Mr Best mouth-to-mouth.’
Dad snorts. ‘I bet he was. Look, son, he had Mr Best’s money in his pockets. His fingerprints are all over the knife.’
I digest this for a second or two. ‘I’m not sure, Dad. It didn’t look like he’d done it.’
Dad’s fist comes down on the table hard. ‘You saw him there,’ he thunders. ‘Don’t you argue with me about things you know nothing about. They’ve got the evidence. It’s cut and dried. Patrick told me. That little punk is going to get what he deserves.’
I walk back to my stool. I catch Dad’s eye, hold his gaze for a few seconds. Then I nod.
Dad doesn’t move for a little while. Then his hand moves towards me, awkwardly, and attempts a sort of punch on my shoulder.
‘Me and you. We’re a team, aren’t we, son? We’re on the same side, right?’
I look at him curiously. Then I smile. ‘Sure,’ I nod. ‘We’re a team.’ I finish my chicken kiev and push the plate away.
It was two years before Mum died that Yan and his family moved next door. Patrick told Mum and Dad that it was a sign of the times that only people like them could afford to buy houses these days, but Mum told him to mind his own business and Dad didn’t say anything. But I could see Dad was wary of them. When Yan’s dad said hello to him on the street, he never looked him in the eye; he just kind of half waved and scooted indoors as quickly as he could.
But that didn’t bother me. There were now two boys who lived next door and they wanted to hang out with me. Yan was two years older than me and he had a little brother who was two years younger.
We played football in their garden a couple of times. Our gardens were side by side and only divided by an old wire fence with huge holes in it, so it was easy for me to go round there. Yan was much better than me, which wasn’t ideal, but he taught me some stuff – tricks, exercises. His little brother never said much. Shy, Yan said.
Then his dad invited us all round for supper. Dad didn’t want to go but Mum persuaded him. She was good at persuading him to do things. He’d start off all gruff, and Mum would tease him, then she’d ask him questions that he couldn’t really answer, like ‘Give me one good reason for not going. And don’t tell me you’ve got a headache – you haven’t’, and then she’d kiss him and tell him that without her he’d be the grumpiest man in the whole wide world and that he should live a little, that maybe he was nervous of saying yes in case he actually enjoyed himself.
It was a warm evening and we sat outside at a table covered in little candles, and ate spicy food in bowls and huge loaves of bread that didn’t taste anything like the bread we had at home. I remember it as if it was yesterday, even though I was only six. It felt like we were in another country; the house was the same as ours but it was completely different. I’d been round there once before when it was Mr and Mrs Daniels’ house, and then it had been like any other house only a bit more musty, as though no one had opened any windows or washed any clothes in a while. But now that Yan’s family lived there it smelt sweet and clean and warm all at once. His mother was really pretty too. Not as pretty as Mum, not the same kind of pretty. She was fatter, but in a nice way, and she had these dark eyes with really long eyelashes and lots of black make up all around them that made her look like a cat or something. She always leant down to my level when she spoke to me and it made me blush, made me want to grow up quickly so that she didn’t have to. We ate our meal, Yan’s mother showing us how to use our bread to dunk into the various bowls and then using our hands to put it straight in our mouths. And I barely dared to look at Dad, who always said that only savages ate with their hands and who made me use my knife and fork properly, not even just a fork because that was ‘American’. Mum winked at me and started to dunk, and then I did and it was delicious, not like anything we ever had at home, and it was spicy and made my cheeks glow. Eventually Dad had some too. And some beer. After a while he actually started to relax – he lost the frozen look off his face and started to talk a bit more normally, like he wasn’t counting the seconds until he could leave.
And then Yan’s dad spread out his hands and told Dad about the company he’d bought. For a ‘knock-down price’. ‘So many bargains to be had here,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘It is the new land of opportunity.’
Dad didn’t say anything. I think he wanted to, but Mum gave him one of her looks.
‘And great that you did,’ she said quickly. ‘Otherwise it could have collapsed. Hundreds of people would have lost their jobs.’
‘Would have,’ Yan’s dad agreed. ‘Without a doubt.’
‘You did all right, though, didn’t you?’ Dad said, a hint of bitterness in his voice.
‘I did very all right.’ He didn’t notice the bitterness in Dad’s voice; he grinned at his good fortune. ‘Very happy.’
Then he told us that he was going to be sprucing up the house. Painting it. Redoing the fence, that sort of thing. Mum said that would be great. Said they’d been thinking about doing something to our house too. And then she was grinning too. She looked younger, suddenly, like a girl. I sort of liked it and sort of didn’t at the same time. She was giggly and flushed; she’d been drinking wine. I didn’t mind that – she always hugged me a lot when she’d been drinking wine. There was music playing softly in the background – a hypnotic rhythm, drums, and an instrument I’d never heard before. It made me feel light-headed. After we’d eaten, she stood up and started to move, just gently, her hips moving from side to side. And Yan’s dad got up and took her hand and then they were dancing in the garden, just like that. Dad was staring at Mum like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then Yan’s mother asked him if he’d like to dance too. He just kind of shrank back and said no, he didn’t dance, thanks all the same. And she winked at me and asked if I wanted to dance instead. And I wanted to so much I was almost bursting, but I said no, because Dad had, because of what he might think, because of how stupid I might look.
Mum looked so happy. Looked as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
She sang that night when she put me to bed. Kissed me lots of times, all over my face until I pushed her away but only half-heartedly. I miss Mum. I wish I hadn’t pushed her away now.
Patrick arrives at eight o’clock. Dad shows him into the living room and pours him some whisky.
‘Go on then. Shouldn’t really, Harry,’ Patrick says, his eyes looking at him beadily. He always calls dad Harry, even though everyone knows he prefers Henry. And Dad never says anything, even though he’d go mad if anyone else called him that.
Patrick used to be a policeman. A senior one. But he isn’t one any more – he’s a politician now. He wears a little badge, with a white and red flag on it, and he always makes us go to rallies where he shouts things like England for the English, and British Jobs for British Workers.
He’s been a friend of Dad’s for years – they met through work. He used to wear a uniform, years ago. But that was when he was a policeman. He wears another uniform now, though – drab, grey suits and white shirts that stretch against his stomach. He opens his jacket when he sits down – he looks like he’s longing to open the top button of his trousers too. I don’t know why people don’t just buy bigger trousers. Or lose weight. Wearing clothes that are too small just makes you look like a bloater.
Patrick comes round whenever he wants to. Mum never liked him. She used to say he treated our house as if it was his own, bossing her about and helping himself to whatever was in the fridge. Dad would just shrug and say the house might as well be his; without Patrick’s help they’d have lost it.
Dad pours another whisky for himself. I eye him warily.
Patrick sits down. ‘And how are you, Will? Behaving yourself at school? Haven’t been chucked out yet?’
I raise an eyebrow. He always asks the same questions, with a look in his eye that suggests he already knows the answers. ‘Not yet,’ I say.
‘He’s doing very well,’ Dad says immediately, even though he’s got no idea. ‘Aren’t you, Will?’
There’s a pause then, a silence. It’s awkward. Patrick looks at me with a half-smile on his face. ‘So got some homework to do then?’
It takes me a few seconds to realise this is my cue to leave. Not a bad idea, if Dad’s on the whisky.
‘Sure,’ I lie. Actually, it isn’t a lie – I have got homework to do. I just have no intention of actually doing it. Not now anyway.
But I loiter in the doorway. ‘You’re here about Mr Best? About Yan?’
Patrick looks at me sharply.
‘He was there, apparently,’ Dad says quickly, in case Patrick thinks he might have discussed the case with me. ‘Saw the whole thing.’
Patrick’s eyes widen and he looks at Dad, who shakes his head very slightly.
‘He saw Yan,’ he says. ‘Saw him crouching over the body, didn’t you, son?’
I nod uncertainly.
‘You did, did you?’ Patrick says. ‘How come we didn’t know?’
We. Like he’s in charge of the police force. He’s not even a policeman any more.
‘I didn’t hang about. I just saw Yan giving him mouth-to-mouth.’
‘Mouth-to-mouth?’ Patrick laughs darkly. ‘Yeah, that’d be right. He’d just killed the man. He was probably looking for his wallet.’
‘Maybe.’ I shrug.
‘Maybe?’ Patrick’s eyes narrow.
‘He was a long way away,’ Dad says. ‘He doesn’t know what he saw, not really.’
‘Still, you’ll need to go down to the station. Make a statement,’ Patrick says.
I think about this. I don’t want to go down to the police station. Even more people asking me if I’m keeping out of trouble, if I’m working hard at school, if I’ve got a girlfriend. It’s like there are only three questions that certain adults can think of when faced with a teenager.
‘Do I have to?’
Patrick winks at me. ‘How about you tell me what happened and I’ll see if it’s worth passing it on? How about that?’
I think about it for a second or two, then nod. ‘Yeah, OK.’
‘So why don’t I talk to your Dad first, then come upstairs and find you? What do you say?’
‘Fine,’ I say. I look at Dad. ‘I’ll be on the computer.’ He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. ‘Research,’ I say. His mouth closes.
I make my way upstairs to my room, turn my computer on, then, suddenly overcome with fatigue, I throw myself on the bed, allowing my eyes to close. My computer can wait. Right now, sleep can’t.