Nick's Blues (16 page)

“Yes.”

“You've had lunch?”

Nick shook his head.

“Get something first. Don't want you fainting on the job.”

Nick grinned and headed back inside.

Steve Rawlings had a piece of tape across the bridge of his nose, helping him to breathe. There was residual bruising, slow to fade, beneath his right eye. The knuckles of his left hand were newly raw.

Less than an hour before, just a few hours after he'd done a bunk from the supposedly secure unit he'd been sent to, Rawlings had followed a fourteen-year old drug dealer into the car park of a block of flats behind the Holloway Road and attacked him with a brick. Hit him so hard and so often there were spots of blood dark across his t-shirt and brick dust embedded in the palm and fingers of his right hand.

Something well satisfying, Rawlings thought, hitting someone with the broken half of brick.

Almost more satisfying than cutting them with a blade.

How about more than using a gun?

As yet he didn't know.

He thought he might find out.

Murray had told him about the gun inside, the pair of them cooped up in a poky top floor room, bars on the windows and locks on the doors. Told him how Bradley — that was the kid Rawlings had just whacked with the brick — worked between the scuzzy park outside the leisure centre and the flats. Hand signals and mobile phones. Told him how Bradley, ever since he'd been lost his stash to some blokes in a pumped-up Sierra from south of the river, always carried a gun.

An air pistol converted to fire .22 ammunition.

Brocock ME38 Magnum.

Bradley braving it out at fourteen, a year and a bit less than Rawlings himself.

It had cost him a hundred quid, back of a pub in Willesden.

“I don't want no air pistol,” Rawlings had said. “Think I'm some kid or what?”

But when Murray assured him just such a weapon had killed an Asian taxi driver in Bradford, he thought it might be okay just the same.

Right now it felt good in Rawlings' hand.

And as he got close to the estate, it felt good tucked down into his belt beneath his t-shirt and his Nike top, cold against the small of his back.

He would call Casper on the mobile he'd taken along with the gun: call Casper and let him get hold of Harry and Josh.

***

The gun and the mobile weren't the only things Rawlings had boosted. By the time the four of them left Harry Leroy's flat they were pretty high. Leroy's mum working somewhere round Finsbury Park — no questions asked — and his dad finishing eighteen months inside.

Leroy's mum had been foolish enough to leave around an almost full bottle of cheap vodka and Josh had gone down to the corner shop for a couple of six-packs of beer.

They hit the walkway loud and crazy, pushing one another from side to side, laughing at Harry's infirm attempt to impersonate Biggie Smalls.

Smack into Ross Blevitt and half a dozen others, sauntering their way down to the Boston for a game of pool.

“Shit!” Josh said and nobody else said a word.

After a moment, Rawlings pushed back his hood and started to walk to where Blevitt stood. Blevitt, wearing his usual Burberry cap, waiting with amusement in his eyes.

“What's up?” Blevitt said. “Thought you was all tucked up inside.”

“You grassed me up,” Rawlings said. “Turned me in.”

Blevitt smiled. “Man, you grass yourself up, right? Every time you open your stupid mouth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You an' your pathetic little crew. Look at 'em, standin' there pissin' their pants.”

Laughter from Blevitt's friends, fingers pointing, gestures miming masturbation, fists.

“What you gonna do now,” Blevitt asked. “Find another girl to beat up, all by yourselves?”

Angry, Rawlings came a step closer, one step then another. “You'll find out, right? Soon enough.”

“Ooh,” Blevitt laughed. “Scary!”

Rawlings reached round behind and brought out the gun.

“Jesus!” someone said.

All watching as, hand not quite steady, Rawlings aimed the gun at Blevitt's chest.

“What'm I supposed to do now?” Blevitt said. “Get down on my knees? Pray?” And laughed in Rawlings' face. “You know what? You're too chicken, i'n'it? Pussy, yeah?”

Contempt on his face, he slowly turned and began to walk, slowly, away.

Finger close to the trigger, Rawlings straightened his arm and took aim.

Five metres, ten, fifteen. Rawlings aware of everyone staring at him. His arm starting to shake.

Blevitt, never bothering to look back, was now thirty metres off and about to move out of sight.

Sweat ran down into Rawlings' eyes.

“Big deal,” he said, lowering his arm. “Bastard's all mouth, right?” And then, as he headed back along the walkway. “Better things to do, yeah?”

***

Lamont and Handley had heard the message on their radio, earlier in the day: Steven Rawlings, absconded from local authority care.

“Isn't that the lad went for that woman with a knife?” Lamont said.

“The same.”

“Let's stick close to the estate then. His sort, they never stray far from home.”

“Okay,” Handley said, wondering which course her partner had learned that on.

A little shy of ten, they were turning left out of the lights on Gordon House Road, when Lamont, driving, noticed four youths crossing towards the petrol station on the opposite corner.

“What d'you reckon?”

“Just kids.”

“Well,” Lamont said, turning the wheel. “Won't hurt to take a look.”

***

That time of evening the petrol station was usually pretty quiet. Those motorists who filled up on their way home had long been and gone and the late night rush, such as it was, was still to start. Just a few lone cars, one every ten minutes or so, no more; a handful of locals nipping in for a loaf of bread, a pint of milk.

Dawn wondered how much longer the owners were going to think it worthwhile opening evenings at all. Closing at eight might be better, eight-thirty at a pinch.

She always kept a magazine close by the counter,
Hello
or
OK
, something to stop the time dragging, but by now she was up to here with who'd married whom and who was wearing what, and was stacking cans in the chiller cabinet, bending low, practically kneeling, when the boys came in.

“No one here,” she heard one of them say.

Then one of the others, “Shut it!”

When she stood up the one who'd spoken last told her to get back over to the till and give them all the money she'd got. He was holding a gun.

***

Lamont drove past the petrol station on the opposite side of the road, did a U-turn and brought the vehicle to a standstill some three or four car-lengths short.

“What now?” Handley said.

Lamont shrugged. “Go in and take a look.”

“You wait here,” Handley said, releasing her seat belt. “I need some more mints. I'll go.”

“Suit yourself.”

Inside, no one had moved.

“You deaf,” Rawlings said, “or what?” Jabbing the gun barrel towards Dawn's face.

“No, no. I just…”

“Then get over there. Now.”

Something about the gun, Dawn thought, didn't look right and she wondered if it might be a replica; wondered without wanting to put it to the test.

“Move it!”

“Okay, okay.” Trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

She was almost at the till when she saw a uniformed policewoman crossing the forecourt towards the door.

At almost the same moment, Diane Handley saw Dawn looking in her direction and read the concern, the warning on her face; saw the way the youths were standing round her; saw, or thought she saw, the gun.

“What?” Rawlings said. “What's wrong?”

“N… nothing,” Dawn stumbled.

“Then open it up. And you,” pointing at Josh, “get those fags. Put 'em in a bag. Come on, do it now. Casper, what's the fuckin' matter with you? I tell you to keep watch or what?”

Handley made it back to the car without being seen.

“Armed robbery in progress. Call it in.”

When the message went back out from the control centre, logged Immediate, Jackie Ferris was sitting in her own car in Kentish Town, round the corner from Nandos, radio tuned to the police channel, eating peri-peri chicken and chips.

An armed response vehicle carrying two authorised firearms officers was closer, only minutes away, having been called to a brawl at a pub in Queen's Crescent.

Dawn breathed out slowly and evenly, pressed a button and the till sprang open.

“Okay,” Rawlings said. “Empty it. The notes, the notes, just the notes. Come on.”

Dawn fumbled, letting some of the money slip from her fingers, playing for time as best she could. Rawlings threatening, cursing, the rest of them more and more nervous. Harry Leroy, sober now, straight and sober, wishing to hell he wasn't there, close to making a run for it, worried only about what Rawlings would do.

Casper backed into the centre aisle and tins of lubricating oil went tumbling.

“Okay,” Rawlings said, snatching the last of the notes. “Let's get out of here.”

Harry Leroy was standing, frozen, in front of the reinforced glass door, watching as the police car pulled slowly into the forecourt. And, loud now, the sound of police sirens, close and getting closer.

“Out!” Rawlings shouted. “Out, out, now.”

Josh and Casper hurled themselves at the back door, locked with a bar across, and only succeeded in setting off an alarm.

“Move!” Rawlings yelled at Leroy and when he didn't budge, clubbed him with the barrel of the gun.

By then a second car had come skidding across the forecourt, narrowly avoiding collision with the petrol pumps, officers jumping out wearing protective vests, weapons drawn.

Rawlings leaped back towards the counter and grabbed Dawn by the arm, gun pointed at her face, and she swung the fire extinguisher she'd been holding behind her back. and struck him on the shoulder, hard enough to knock the gun aside. Swung again and caught him on the side of the head as he backed away.

Rawlings staggered, almost but not quite falling to his knees.

A police officer stood in the open doorway, a semiautomatic machine gun pointing at Rawlings' chest. He could feel blood running down onto his neck. His fingers opened and the air pistol slid to the floor. Tears flooded his eyes.

A second officer, armed with a 9mm handgun, ordered him to lay, face down, on the floor.

Jackie Ferris crossed to where Dawn was still standing, shaking, close to hyperventilating, and slowly prised the fire extinguisher from her hand.

***

“What was that all about before?” Nick asked, as Marcus passed through the kitchen. “Sirens and everything.”

“Something going on at the petrol station, apparently. Some kind of robbery.”

Nick pulled off his apron, heading for the door.

By the time he arrived, breathless, chest aching, his mum and Jackie Ferris were sitting outside on the low wall, sharing a cigarette. The first drags Ferris had allowed herself in almost two years. Rawlings and company had already been carted away.

“What happened?” Nick asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Dawn said, getting to her feet. “Not now.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“Then tell me.”

Behind them, Jackie Ferris stubbed out the cigarette and walked away.

Dawn held out her arms and hugged Nick close enough for him to feel her shake. “I'll tell you later, okay?”

It was two or three nights later that Nick walked up onto the bridge. The clock by his bed had read 02:42 and he'd been awake for hours, unable to get back to sleep. A voice he thought he recognised sounding in his head.

From where he stood now, he could look down through the railings to the road below, few cars at that time, the occasional lorry, little more. The sky was clear and filled with stars and for a moment Nick thought it was like looking up at the ceiling in his room. Only more so. The moon was almost full.

In the distance, never quite dark, the centre of the city rose against a faint orange glow.

Nick shivered and pulled his leather jacket close.

“Not about to do anything silly, are you?”

Nick turned at his father's voice and, expecting nothing, saw his father walking slowly towards him, still wearing the clothes in which he'd seen him last, blue cotton workman's jacket, basketball boots, blue jeans.

“No,” Nick said, a slight tingling at the back of the neck.

“One in the family enough, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“So?” his father said. “Surprised to see me?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” And yet he wasn't, not really.

“You think I've got some apologising to do.”

“Bit late for that.”

“Yes, well… I've always wanted to, you know. Apologise to you and your mum. For what I did. Only…” He smiled. “I could never figure out what to say.”

“The truth?”

“What's that?”

“Why you did it.”

“Why I jumped?”

“What else?”

“Oh, God, Nick, half a hundred things.”

“This was the one that mattered.”

His father was standing close to him now, close enough for Nick to feel his breath, ice cold, on his face.

For some little while he didn't speak.

Neither of them spoke.

“There was this look,” his father finally said, “would come into your mum's eyes. Something I'd not done, some little thing. Not so little sometimes, I suppose. And she'd get this look, this way of telling me, showing how she was disappointed. Not surprised. And you — Christ, Nick, you know sometimes I'd go into your room when you were asleep and look at you lying there, arms spread wide, eyes closed, and know that sooner or later that same look of disappointment would be on your face as well. Each time you saw me. Whenever I walked into the room. And I couldn't wait for that to happen.”