Nobody Saw No One (22 page)

*

The Digit’s hot-wired a motor, but I’m of the opinion we’d make faster progress hot-footing it. How can so many thousand vehicles crawl along so slow? There ain’t no fast lanes on Seven Sisters Road, that’s for sure.

“Does Jackson have his motor?” I’m asking.

“’E’s been livin’ in it. With its blacked-out windows it’s the safest ’ide-out. The cops were even stakin’ out my gaff. I ain’t surprised ’e’s so panicked.” She feeds me a look of utmost severity. “You saw ’ow ’e was the other night. ’E’s ten times worse now. Gone right over, ’e ’as. Take a left ’ere, Didge, there’ll be less traffic.” She stops talking for a moment, like she’s chewing something over. She looks over at me and whispers, “I’m leavin’ ’im.”

“What? You told me you’d tried it before – and it ain’t safe.”

“It’s a lot less safe stayin’ with ’im. ’E’s finished off ’is testosterone stash. ’E’s like fifty kids at a birthday bash, all rolled into one giant bun fight. Smashin’ everythin’ in ’is path, jus’ for the fun of it.”

“How far now?”

“Jus’ round this next corner.”

If we’re in time, I’m going to get Alfi out of there. I promise, I’ll never let him down again.

Summat wakes us.

Someone banging at the door, sounding dead urgent.

I open me eyes and see Patti has her back arched and hackles up. She’s hissing. There’s a bang against the door. Iggy jumps off me lap and hides behind the sofa. Another bang, and the catflap explodes into the living room. Through splintered wood I see fangs and bloody eyes, a monster dog snapping its way through the debris.

Patti’s going ape. Claws out.

Another crash and the rest of the door smashes in. A giant man. “Obnob,” the giant snarls at the beast. “Kill.”

It’s the bloke from the park. And the dog with the torn ear.

I’m still sat in the chair.

The dog bounds in, snapping its jaws around Patti’s head, shaking her madly, like a rag doll. The cat is screeching.

She stops screeching, and the dog drops her. She’s dead.

The giant bloke’s got a big crowbar and he smashes it against Scarlett and Danny’s record player, so bits of it go flying everywhere and the music dies. He laughs like it’s the start of the party. Fixes his eyes on me. He nods, like he’s giving hisself approval.

Iggy pounces, nipping at Obnob’s back legs. The beast spins round, snapping its fangs. The two dogs race round and round the room, smashing everything over as they snap and yelp.

The giant pulls down all o’ the record racks.

I’m still in the chair. He lurches towards us. He grabs me phone. Chucks it on the floor and stamps all over it, till it’s a million pieces.

“Proper off-radar now, ain’tcha?” he spits, and then laughs. “Crooooow-Boy!”

He’s a lunatic.

I try and leap out o’ the chair, but he jabs me chest with his finger and it’s like I’ve been stabbed with a great stick. I fall back.

He unzips his gym bag and puts it on the floor in front o’ me chair. He brings out a tea towel and a bottle, which he starts unscrewing and there’s a nasty stench like cat pee and he’s pouring it all over the towel.

I’m shrinking deeper into the chair. Giant man has a look on his face like he wants to eat us up. He pushes the towel at me face and there’s nowhere for us to go. It reeks. I feel sick. He lifts us up by me collar with one hand. Can’t breathe. I’m floating up like I’m part of the spacey bassy ape music. Fumes in me face making me fadey…

I drop face-first into the bag.
Thunk.
Black hole. No pain. He’s folding me legs and arms, bending me into shape like I’m luggage squeezing in. Sleepy-face baggage.

Zip, zip, zipped away.

Blackness.

Nice quiet side-street. Tree-lined, lazy cats on garden walls. I bet Alfi’s been loving it here. No wonder he had no hurries to return to
Cash Counters
.

I’m waiting for Grace to direct me to the right house, but there’s no need. What I see makes my heart go cold. Somebody’s had a riot or a party. Citizen Digit ain’t happy. When you see a big holiness where a door used to be, you can assume there’s more than the doorbell bust.

I park the motor up the road, gesture to Grace for softly-softliness, and cast a bit of my invisibility over her natural brightness.

Inside, first thing we see is a load of spilled records scattered all over. Then, lying in the middle of them, is a dead cat. There’s a horrible pong, and Grace mimes holding her nose, show she can sniff it too.

No Alfi.

I spot somebody’s hair beside the coffee table. Were they
scalped
?

The hair starts crawling towards us. Despite being Hero of the N
^th
Degree, I jump in fright. The hair goes
Yip, yip!

I see. Grace makes soothing noises and the dog stops yipping and creeps towards her. She lets it have a good sniff of her fingers, and then she strokes its head. The dog rolls over onto its back and shows us its tum.

Little doggie needs to go to doggie hospital.

Soon as we see the bite mark, it’s confirmation who’s been and paid a social visit to this tidy part of Finsbury Park. Wig-Dog is lucky to have any wiggle left at all. It must have squeezed itself underneath a sofa or something, where Obnob couldn’t get to it, finish it off.

Me and Grace don’t say nothing, on account of the scene says it all already.

I hear a car pull up out front, footsteps getting out, making their way up the garden path. Instantaneous, I’m seeking a hidey-hole. Grace too, but the Citizen’s got keener peepers from years of practice. These good Groans have long velvet curtains for their windows, hanging down to the floor. Drawn open, they’re all a ruffle. I guide Grace to one and slip behind the other. Stock still, like we’re playing Statues.

Grace keeps herself fully within the folds, but I can risk letting an eye out.

This woman comes in, and she drops her bag at the sight before her. The wig-dog whimpers at her and she bends down to pet it, going all
coo, coo
. Then she sees the dead cat and a horrible sob comes out of her, and she leaves the dog and she’s taking in the debris and sits down on the sofa and bends her head, like she’s in church. Maybe she’s crying. Then I realize she’s texting. I guess she’s texting her man.
Get home. Now.
Then she looks like she’s sending another text, but she’s not, she’s making a call. She puts the phone to her ear, and I can hear the tinny voice at the other end,
Emergency services
something, and
What’s your name and
something. And this woman, sitting there with what’s left of her living room, amongst the absence of Alfi, and her dead cat and mauled dog, she’s all at a loss of words, just goes
err
for a moment, and then she is, she is crying, and it’s time for the Digit and Grace to make our disappearance. Leave the lady to her loss.

So much for Alfi’s perfect new home.

The Digit’s waiting for the opportune mo to slip away, but the sobbing lady won’t stop her sobbing. I’m thinking she’s just going to sit there right in front of us, sobbing away until the Sherlocks arrive, and it’s really curtains for me and Grace.

Then she stops, and she’s looking in our direction. I wonder if she’s just gazing aimlessly out of the window, but she says, “I can see you.”

Impossible!

But of course, it’s Grace she sees, and Grace knows it. She steps out from behind her curtain.

“It ain’t ’ow it looks,” she says. “I’m a friend of Alfi’s.”

“Alfi?” says the lady.

Grace gestures at the mess around her. “Alfi.” Like that clarifies that.

“The boy?”

“’E’s in proper danger.”

The lady scoffs at that, understandably enough. She’s cradling the wig-dog like it’s all she’s got left.

Grace takes a step forward.

Lady starts back. “I called the police.”

“What’s your name?” says Grace, unfazed.

Lady studies Grace’s face, like she’s trying to decide whether she’s a goodie or a baddie. Finally, she says, “I’m Fred’s – Alfi’s foster mum. What have you done with him?”

“I’m…” says Grace, “I’m Alfi’s sister. I didn’t do this. It’s ’orrible.” She tails off. “’E’s in danger.”

“Well, the police’ll be here in a minute.”

Grace gives a sad laugh, shakes her head. “You tried to make a home for him, didn’t you?”

“Till someone came along and smashed it all up – yeah.”

I’ve seen places more busted up than this. I’ve lived in them. Some people like ruins.

“It’s a nice ’ome,” Grace says. She goes all wobble-kneed and plonks herself down on what’s left of the coffee table. “Do yer mind?” She asks permission, polite as ever.

What’s she playing at? We don’t have time for this!

Table cracks beneath her and a leg gives way. Table and Grace crumple carpetwards.

“Make yourself at home,” says the lady.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We can get it all fixed. Replace what’s busted. ’Onest. It’ll be even better than it was.”

She ain’t saying how she’s going to fix the busted pussycat. She puts her head in her hands, and I’m thinking this ain’t helping Alfi one bit. Now ain’t the time to be cracking up, along with the furniture.

Lady stares at her. Precious seconds tick-tock by. But I see her face slowly softening. “Do I know you?” she says. “You remind me of a girl who stayed with us once?”

Grace straightens her face, offers her a little smile. “No,” and the smile sort of slides off her face. “Well, we’re all the same pretty much, ain’t we?”

Then the two of them are just sitting there, saying nothing. The Digit don’t get it. Grace is looking round, at the photos on the wall. And the lady is looking at Grace, in a sad sort of way. “I’m sorry,” Grace says again. “I’m sorry. We break everything.”

No, we don’t.
Everything’s already busted, before we even arrive. We just get plonked on top of it all, the last scrap tossed on the scrapheap.

“It’s just things,” the lady says, all kindly. “Home isn’t made of things, it’s the people in it.” She reaches out a hand and touches Grace’s shoulder.

“I’m Scarlett,” she’s says.

Grace bites her lip. All of a sud, she looks a lot younger, and she’s gone all red-eyed.

“I’m Grace,” she says. She’s an insaniac. You
never
give your name.

And Scarlett says, “Shall I make us some tea?”

That cracks Grace up. She starts crying. Not sobbing and wailing, just sitting still with a thin trickle running down each cheek. Doesn’t even try and wipe them away.

The Digit’s getting fidgety as a flea-bit dog. Scarlett leans forward and wraps her arms round Grace, and Grace sinks into her. Last human touch she had was JB play-throttling her throat. “There, there,” says Scarlett. “It’s all right. It’s OK.”

But it ain’t OK! I hear a car pulling up, and through the front window I can see blue light reflecting on a wall. Sherlocks.

We’re out of time. Grace is getting mothered. If she ain’t careful, she’s going to get long-armed.

She pulls out of the hug. Pulling herself together. We’re on the wrong side of the thin blue line. Not even Alfi was safe here.

“I have to go.” She leaps up.

“Wait!”

But she’s already making for the back door. I hear her yell, “I’ll save him. I’ll save Alfi – I promise!” Then there’s a slam, and I see her hurtling through the garden.

Another slam, and Scarlett appears in the garden. But Grace is gone. There’s nothing for Scarlett to do but come back through to the front and face the Sherlocks.

I myself glide through to the kitchen, open the back door, soft as a feather, and ease my way into the back garden.

I vault a fence. I’ll leave the car, it hardly being much faster than legging it. I hop over several garden fences, quick and agile, and race back towards Jackson Banks’s Arsenal bolthole as fast as a flash. I pray one of us will get there in time to save Alfi’s face.

There’s summat round me wrist. Me face stings. I smell like cat wee. I open me eyes. Where am I? Somewhere stinky and dusty and dark.

Handcuffs? Handcuffs attached to a big metal chain like folk use to lock up posh bikes.

A chain. I’m abducted. Call-Me Norman has caught us. Barry’s gonna bash us up.

The Jimmys! I’m chained up in a Jimmy dungeon.

Dogs. They’ve got dogs. They killed Patti. Iggy too?

I’ll get blamed. Scarlett and Danny’ll think I killed their cat and trashed their house and ran away. Another foster home ruined.

I’m back in the hands o’ the Jimmys.

They’re going to do stuff to us. Like in Digit’s film. One after t’other.

I hear breathing. Heavy breathing. Like someone’s watching us.

Focus. Concentrate. I’m still wearing me clothes. Good. I’m Katariina’s son. Who’s watching us? Are they filming us? Where’s the breathing?

Me eyes adjust. There’s a bit o’ light. Daytime. Little window. It’s an attic. A house. Tenderness House?

“Hello?”

The breathing stops. Now it’s a snorting, a snuffling.

There. Sat in an armchair. The dog, Obnob, curled up, asleep. He wakes, I’m dead. He in’t even on a leash.

They’ve left him as a guard dog, han’t they? Only this dog in’t no guard dog – it’s an attack dog. Big difference, that is. A guard dog’ll only stop you escaping. An attack’ll have your throat out soon as look at yer. Like this one, here.

I take a step back. The metal chain rattles against the wall, where it’s attached on a big hook. Dog opens its eyes, glares at us.

I’m dead.

It curls back its lips and its fangs are ragged and raw. It bounds off the chair, snarling right in front of us, lip trembling like it can’t control its rage.

Allus said I wanted a dog o’ me own.

I take another step back, but I’m up against the wall, and the dog lunges at us. Its teeth snippy-snap, threatening to take a chunk from me leg. Sizing us up. Licking its lips. I’m cornered, chained.