invited me to the fucking thing.’
Jacko whistled. ‘Man, that’s mental!’
‘Imagine telling Karyn that. Imagine how that’ll make her feel.’
‘Don’t tell her, it’s too harsh.’ Jacko chucked his rollie stub into the puddle at their feet. Two soggy cigarette butts floating together like a couple of boats.
A plan began to form in the silence. It was a crazy plan, and Mikey tried to push it away, but it kept building. He thought of home, told himself he should have a kick-about in the courtyard with Holly to make up for not taking her to school, told himself he had to get some shopping in case Mum forgot. But the plan wouldn’t go away. His family would have to manage – he couldn’t look after them all the time. ‘You busy tonight?’
A slow smile dawned on Jacko’s face. ‘We’re going to crash the party?’
‘I promised Karyn I’d get him. Why not get him on the night he least expects it?’
‘You want me to call backup?’
He meant Woody, Sean, Mark – the lads they’d gone to school with, the ones they’d fought side-by-side with through years of playground scraps and teen battles over territory. They still met up for regular games of pool and a pint, but all of them had moved on. Woody was married now, even had a kid on the way. Sean and Mark were apprentice brickies. The night Karyn came back from the police station, they’d been solid when Jacko called them. None of them would forget the anger they shared that night, but it wasn’t fair to ask them again. Karyn was
‘We’ll get noticed if we go team-handy.’
Jacko nodded. Mikey could see him running over the basics in his head – tactics and plans for intel kicking in. In school fights, Jacko had been strategy king. His hours on the Xbox proved useful in the real world.
Sue came out then and tapped at her watch.
‘There’ll be loads of people there,’ Jacko said as they followed her back through the bar. ‘But we’ll have darkness as cover.’ He held the door to the kitchen open. Dex had the radio tuned in to his usual country station, where the songs were always about divorce and heartache and preachers. He waved the peeling knife at them.
‘My boys!’ he said.
Jacko leaned in to Mikey. ‘You want me to drive?’
‘You’re up for it?’
‘Course! I’m here for you, man. I’ll do whatever you need.’
Mikey smiled. It was the first time anything had gone right for days.
Four
Ellie Parker sat on the patio steps and waved her arms like antennae at the sun. It was strange, because as she did this, the whole garden fell suddenly silent. She held her breath because she didn’t want to spoil it, it was so beautiful. For a moment, it was as if she was controlling the universe. Then the catering woman clunked past carrying a stack of boxes, and her mother came up with her clipboard and said, ‘Thank goodness that rain’s stopped.’
Ellie tugged a leaf from the bay tree and broke it in half, smelled it, then ripped it to shreds. She scattered the sharp pieces over the steps. She ripped another and another, their green turning bruised and ruined in her hands.
Her mother sat next to her and leaned in close. ‘Stop worrying, love. Your brother’s safely in the car on his way home.’
‘What if the police change their minds?’
‘It’s been through Crown Court. There’s no going back.’
‘What if they suddenly get new information?’
Mum shook her head, smiling confidently. ‘Dad’s got everything under control and we’re going to get through this, you wait and see.’
Ellie wanted to believe her, but sometimes when she closed her eyes she saw things that felt impossible to get through. She saw Tom taken in for questioning, pale and scared as they led him away. She saw the van parked in the driveway with SCIENTIFIC SERVICES written on the side, and the scene-of-crime officers in their black clothes walking out of the house with Tom’s laptop, his bed sheets and duvet in plastic bags. Then there were the lads in the car who watched everything from the lane, so you just knew it would be all over town by morning. She saw the officer put a padlock and tape on Tom’s door and heard him say, ‘Don’t tamper with it, please, this room is a crime scene now.’ And Dad said, ‘Surely we have rights in our own home?’ Mum sat on the stairs and wept. Tears washed into her mouth.
Ellie concentrated on trying to calm the nerves in her belly. It was as if something was stuck there and needed to come out. She looked around the garden at the empty tables and stacks of chairs, at the boxes of lanterns waiting to be hung, at the ladder leaning against the fence, and she wished more than anything that it could be just the four of them tonight – back in their old house, miles from here, with a takeaway and a DVD.
Mum nudged her, as if reading her thoughts. ‘It’ll be fine, Ellie, really it will. We’re getting our Tom back. Let’s try and be happy today.’
Ellie nodded, but couldn’t quite look her in the eye. ‘Mum, can I tell you something?’
Her mother’s smile died at the corners, her whole body stiffened. ‘You can talk to me about anything, you know that.’
‘Karyn McKenzie’s not taking her exams. In fact, she’s left school.’
They sat in awkward silence for a minute. Ellie gnawed on her lip. She should have kept quiet, but it was hard holding on to so many things. Sometimes the smaller ones slipped out.
‘I had a friend,’ her mother said, ‘who got attacked by two men and dragged into a car. She didn’t make it up, it really happened. It was terrible and brutal, but she used it as a turning point and changed everything about her life.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means,’ her mother said, standing up and brushing nonexistent fluff from her trousers, ‘that you make your own luck. Now I’m going to talk to the marquee man. If you hear the car, shout for me. I want to be there when he arrives. And if you’re stuck for something to do, put some balloons up.’
Sometimes Ellie imagined Karyn McKenzie as monstrous – cloaked and hooded and laughing maniacally as she clawed Tom down into a sulphurous pit. In real life she knew she was tall and skinny with long dark hair and she lived on a housing estate across town. She fancied Tom, had done for ages apparently. She was clearly desperate for him to notice her that Saturday night, with her red-hot nail varnish, purple lipstick and flaming orange mini-skirt stretched tight around her thighs. At school she had a reputation for being good at Art and pretty much crap at everything else. It did seem crazy to give up your exams though – even a few GCSEs could lead to college and maybe a career of some kind. If you gave up in Year Eleven, then the whole thing slid away from you for ever.
A girl walked by carrying two silver tea trays. She was Ellie’s age, maybe a bit older, dressed in a black skirt and white shirt. She stopped in front of Ellie, said, ‘You’re the sister, right?’ She leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘What’s it like then? Must be weird for you.’ She was wearing a lot of make-up.
Ellie said, ‘Haven’t you got work to do, or something?’ Then she stood up and walked round the side of the house to the driveway.
Sometimes it felt physical, as if walls were moving slowly towards her. Sometimes it felt psychological, a strange panic in her brain, which meant if she had to live in this nightmare for one more minute she’d self-combust. The only way she knew to deal with it was to switch off and think of something else, which was becoming increasingly difficult. Walking away was a whole lot easier. She didn’t go far because she didn’t have a coat on, just up the gravel drive to the electric gate. She pressed the button, waited for it to slide open and stepped through. The lane was churned to mud and patched with dirty puddles, the first few daffodils trembled on the grass verge. The gate shut behind her.
This was the lane she watched from her window every night, wondering when Tom would come home.
