by Kevin Brooks
She looked me in the eye. “You’d tell me if you were in any trouble, wouldn’t you?”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
She shook her head. “Look, I know how hard it is . . . around here, I mean. It’s so easy to get mixed up with the wrong kind of people —”
“Gram,” I said, genuinely confused. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She reached across and put her hand on mine. “Just tell me the truth, Tommy. Did you get that money from somewhere and put it into my account?”
I shook my head. “Where would I get that kind of money from?”
“Where does anyone get that kind of money from in Crow Town?”
I stared at her. “You think I’m selling drugs?”
She shrugged. “I’m just asking —”
“Christ, Gram,” I said angrily. “You really think I’d do that?”
“So, you’re not?”
“No,” I sighed. “I’m not.”
“And you’re not thieving or anything either?”
I sighed again. “How can you even think anything like that?”
“I’m sorry, Tommy,” she said. “But it happens . . . it can happen to anyone. Even someone like you. I mean, I know that you’re a really good person, a really decent person, and I know that you love me . . . but I also know that because you love me, you’d do almost anything to help me. And if you knew that I was in financial difficulties . . . well, you might do the wrong thing to help me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, of course I understand. But I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Gram looked at me, nodding her head, then she picked up some letters from the table. “This,” she said, showing me one of the letters, “this is confirmation that my council tax arrears have been paid off.” She put down the letter and showed me another one. “And this is a statement showing that I’m all up-to-date on the rent payments.” She looked at me. “Did you know I owed all this money?”
“No,” I lied.
“Did you pay these bills?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
Gram sighed. “Well, someone did, and it wasn’t me.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say then, so I just sat there, trying to look innocent.
Gram sat there in silence for a while, too, just looking at the letters, occasionally shaking her head . . . and then, eventually, she said to me, “Look, Tommy, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you or offended you or anything, but I had to ask. It’s not that I don’t trust you, because I do. And even if you were mixed up in something illegal, I’d still love you.” She smiled at me. “And, besides, you have been acting a bit strangely recently.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re either in your room all day, doing God knows what, or you’re out all the time . . . especially at night. And you seem so preoccupied, so worried about things, and you look really tired —”
“I’ve been studying.”
“Studying?”
I nodded. “In my room . . . at the library. I’ve missed a lot of school, so I thought I’d try to catch up a bit on my own.”
Gram frowned at me. “Really?”
“Yeah . . . what’s the matter? Don’t you believe me?”
“Well, I’m not saying that I don’t believe you —”
“Test me.”
“Sorry?”
“You can test me. I’ll prove to you that I’ve been studying.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“No, go on,” I insisted. “I’ve been studying British post-war history. Ask me a question.”
“Don’t be silly, Tommy. I believe you.”
“Post-war history,” I repeated. “1946 to the present day.”
“I’m not going to —”
“Any question you like.”
“All right,” Gram sighed wearily. “If you insist —”
“I do.”
“OK, let me think a minute . . .”
While she thought of a question to ask, I went inside my head and opened up Google. I was feeling kind of sick of myself now, wishing that I’d never got into this whole stupid lying thing . . . wishing that I could just tell Gram the truth. The whole truth. But I couldn’t, could I? How could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her that her grandson wasn’t normal anymore, that he had extraordinary powers, and that he was using those powers to seek out and punish the world of people who’d beaten and raped Lucy — the world of the O’Neil brothers, the world of Paul Adebajo and DeWayne Firman, the world of Jayden Carroll and Yusef Hashim and Carl Patrick . . . the world of Howard Ellman.
How could I tell Gram that?
And how could I tell her that her grandson was afraid that he was not only beginning to lose any sense of compassion he may once have had, but also that he was beginning to lose his mind . . . ?
How could I tell her that?
I couldn’t, could I?
I just couldn’t.
And I hated myself for that.
“Who was the prime minister in 1956?”
I looked at Gram. “What?”
“You asked me to ask you a question,” she said. “About post-war history.”
“Oh, right . . . yeah.”
“That’s my question — who was the prime minister in 1956?”
I looked inside my head at a website of British prime ministers:
. . . Eden replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister in April 1955. Later that year he attended a summit conference at Geneva with the heads of government of the USA, France, and the Soviet Union . . .
“Sir Anthony Eden,” I said.
Gram looked surprised. “Very good.”
“He was succeeded by Harold Macmillan on 10 January 1957,” I added, “and he spent his later years writing his memoirs, which were published in three volumes between 1960 and 1965. He also wrote an account of his war experiences called Another World, which was published in 1976.” I smiled at Gram. “He died in 1977.”
Gram shook her head in disbelief. “You really have been studying.”
“I told you, didn’t I.”
“I’m impressed.”
You shouldn’t be, I thought.
“Yeah, well,” I said, looking at the clock on the wall. “I’ll be off to the library again now, if that’s OK.” I grinned at her. “Get some more studying done.”
She nodded. “I’d better get to work myself.”
“How’s it going?” I asked her.
“Not bad . . .” She smiled at me. “Maybe my publishers might even give me a bonus for this one.”
“Very funny,” I said.
She grinned.
I got to my feet. “I’ll see you later, OK?”
“OK . . . but don’t stay out too long. You are looking tired.”
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said, heading for the door. “I promise.”
“And, Tommy?”
I stopped and looked back at her. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry . . . sorry I doubted you.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Gram. Honestly . . . it’s OK.”
“I know. But I am sorry.”
I felt too bad to say anything else to her. What could I say? She was apologizing for not trusting me, but she had every right to mistrust me. I was lying to her. I was betraying her trust. I should have been apologizing to her . . .
I very nearly told her the truth then.
I was so sick of lying to her and making her feel bad about herself that I’d just about decided that no matter how difficult it would be, I simply had to tell her the truth.
But then, just as the words were beginning to form in my mind, the doorbell rang, and before I had a chance to say anything, Gram had got up from the table, gone out into the hallway, and opened the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” I heard her say. “What do you want?”
“Good morning, Ms. Harvey,” a vaguely familiar male voice said. “Is your grandson in?”
It took me a moment to recognize the two men who followed Gram into the kitchen. The last time I’d seen them was at the hospital, when I’d only just woken up from another dream that wasn’t a dream, the non-dream about Lucy — A 15-year-old girl has been raped by a gang of youths on the Crow Lane Estate — which, understandably, had left me feeling slightly confused at the time. Now, though, as the two men stood there looking down at me, smiling their supposedly comforting smiles, I wasn’t too confused to remember them. The tall, fair-haired one — the one with the tobacco-stained teeth and bad skin — was DS Johnson. The other one — who was so unremarkable-looking that he didn’t really look like anything — was DC Webster.
“Hi, Tom,” Johnson said. “How’s it going?”
I looked at Gram.
She half-shrugged. “Sorry, Tommy . . . they want to ask you some questions. You can say no, if you like.”
I looked at Johnson. “Questions about what?”
Without asking, he sat down at the table. “So, Tom,” he said, overly casual, “how’s the head? That’s a nice-looking scar you’ve got there.” He smiled, winking at me. “The girls are going to like that, you know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They all love a guy who’s had brain surgery, don’t they?”
His smile faded, and for a moment he looked a little embarrassed. He sniffed and cleared his throat. “All right,” he said. “Well, the reason we’re here . . .” He looked up at Gram. “Would you like to sit down, Ms. Harvey?”
“Nice of you to ask,” Gram said, “but I’m all right here, thanks.” She looked at Webster, who was standing behind Johnson with an open notebook and a pencil in his hands. “Would you like to sit down?” she asked him.
“No,” he mumbled, glancing at Johnson. “No . . . I’m all right here, thanks.”
Johnson frowned at Gram, not sure if she was being sarcastic or not, then — after a quick glance at DC Webster — he turned back to me. “So, as I was saying, the reason we’re here . . . well, basically, we’d just like to ask you a few more questions about your accident —”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“No, I know . . . well, actually, we don’t know if it was an accident or not, but we’re assuming it wasn’t. We think the mobile phone that caused your injuries was probably thrown out of the window during the attack on Lucy and Ben Walker.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”
“You saw it being thrown?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t see who threw it, though. The sun was in my eyes. All I could see was someone at the window.”
“Can you describe them?”
I shook my head. “They were too far away.”
“Was it a man? A boy?”
“A boy, I think.”
“Black or white?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“OK . . . but you definitely saw a boy at the window, and you think he threw the phone at you?”
“Yeah.”
“What time was this?”
“Ten to four.”
Johnson raised his eyebrows. “That’s very precise.”
I shrugged. “I remember looking at my watch just before it happened. It was ten to four.”
He nodded. “Right. So you’d just left school?”
“Yeah.”
“And where were you going?”
“Home.”
“Right . . . you were coming here?”
“Yeah.”
“OK.” He glanced at Webster, who was busy writing down everything I was saying, then he looked back at me. “Were you aware at the time that an assault was taking place in a flat on the thirtieth floor?”
“No.”
“You didn’t find out until later?”
“That’s right.”
“Remind me again how you found out about the attack.”
“It was when I was in the hospital,” I told him, looking him in the eye. “I was in the bathroom and someone had left an old copy of the Southwark Gazette behind. There was a report about the attack in the paper.”
Johnson nodded, looking at Webster. Webster flicked through his notebook, checked something, then nodded back at Johnson.
Johnson turned back to me.
I said to him, “Have you caught them yet?”
“Sorry?”
“The kids who raped Lucy — have you caught them?”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m afraid we can’t reveal any details of an ongoing investigation —”
“You haven’t caught them.”
He sighed. “We’re doing our best, Tom. But with these kinds of cases . . . well, it’s difficult. You know what it’s like around here. People won’t talk to us. They’re afraid.” He looked at me. “You know Lucy Walker, don’t you?”
I nodded. “We grew up together.”
“I believe you’ve been visiting her recently. Is that right?”
“Who told you that?”
“How is she?” he asked, ignoring my question. “How’s she holding up?”
I shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
He looked at me. “Has she talked to you about what happened?”
I glanced at Gram, not sure what to say.
She turned to Johnson. “Whatever Lucy and Tommy have talked about, that’s their business. Now, have you got any more questions? Because if you haven’t —”
“I’ll let you know when we’re finished, Ms. Harvey,” Johnson said, turning away from her and looking at me. “I’d like to ask both of you about a series of incidents that have occurred in Crow Lane over the last week or so.”
“Incidents?” Gram said. “What incidents?”
Johnson kept looking at me. “A number of the individuals that we suspect were either involved in or have information about the attack on Lucy and Ben have recently been subjected to varying degrees of assault.”
I frowned at him. “Can you say that again, please? In English.”
Johnson stared at me. “You heard me. Someone’s been taking the law into their own hands. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” I said.
He looked at Gram. “Ms. Harvey?”
She looked puzzled. “You mean someone’s been attacking the boys you suspect of raping Lucy?”
“Well, it’s not quite as simple as that . . . and because no one’s talking to us, most of the information we have is sketchy to say the least. But we think that someone, probably someone local, might be targeting anyone who has connections with the local street gangs.” He looked at me again. “So we think it’s probably someone who has some kind of grudge against the gangs . . . someone seeking revenge, perhaps.”
I laughed quietly. “What? And you think that might be me or Gram?”
Johnson shrugged. “I’m just asking if you know anything, Tom. That’s all. You’re friends with Lucy . . . maybe you know someone who might want to punish the people who hurt her. Can you think of anyone like that?”
I slowly shook my head. “No . . . no one springs to mind. And, anyway, how would they know who did it? I mean, how would they know who to punish?”
Johnson shrugged again. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe Lucy told them, or Ben . . . or maybe they witnessed the attack themselves but are too afraid to tell us. Or perhaps they’ve just been listening to all the rumors going round the tower blocks. Or maybe they don’t know who did it, they’re just assuming it was the Crows or the FGH —”
“This is all getting a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?” sighed Gram.
Johnson looked at her. “You think so?”
“I do.”
“Why’s that, Ms. Harvey?”
“Well, firstly . . .” Gram held up a finger. “The gangs are always fighting each other. It’s what gangs do — they beat each other up, stab each other
, shoot each other. They’ve been doing it for hundreds of years, and they’ll carry on doing it until they’re all gone . . . which won’t ever happen. So I don’t see why you suddenly seem to think that any of it means anything. I also don’t understand why you’re wasting your time looking for someone who’s attacking the bad guys, when you still haven’t found the bad guys yourself.”
“Well . . .” Johnson started to explain, “as I said before—”
“And secondly,” Gram said, holding up another finger, “even if there is some kind of vigilante out there, which I very much doubt, I don’t see what that’s got to do with us.” She stared at Johnson. “Do I look like I’m capable of terrorizing gangsters?”
Johnson shook his head. “I never said —”
“Do you think Tommy’s capable? I mean, he’s still recovering from a life-threatening operation, for God’s sake. And even if he wasn’t . . . well, look at him. He couldn’t terrorize a fly.” She smiled at me. “No offense, Tommy.”
“None taken.”
She turned back to Johnson. “So, unless you’ve got anything more relevant —”
“A number of youths were assaulted near Fitzroy House yesterday evening,” he said sternly, turning to me. “Two of them are still in the hospital, one in a critical condition. During the assault, a van was set on fire. We have a witness who saw you at the children’s playground minutes before the attack. Do you deny being there?”
“No, I was there.”
“Hold on, Tommy,” Gram said. She turned to Johnson. “What’s going on here? You can’t just —”
“Yes, I can, Ms. Harvey. Your grandson is a potential witness to a very serious assault that may end up as a murder case. I need to ask him some questions. All right?”
Gram looked at me.
“It’s OK, Gram,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
Johnson said to me, “Did you see what happened?”
“No.”
He tutted and sighed. “Come on, Tom . . . you were there. I know you were there —”
“Yeah, I was at the playground,” I said. “But I wasn’t there for long, and I didn’t see anything happening at Fitzroy House. I didn’t go anywhere near there.”
“You didn’t see anything?” he said incredulously. “How could you not see anything? There were about a dozen FGH boys, and six of them got knocked out, so there must have been a hell of a fight . . . and even if you didn’t see that, a van was set on fire, for God’s sake. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you didn’t see anything?”
