The Anita Waller Collection

by Anita Waller

  No sense have they of ills to come,

  Nor care beyond to-day.

  Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

  Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747) 1. 51

  Chapter 1

  The sunlight was dappled in the deepest part of the woods. It wasn’t a huge wood, but their den was there; hidden from the road, hidden from the adjoining car park, hidden from everything. During the summer holidays, when school no longer gave them the interaction they enjoyed and needed, the Gang of Six, as they liked to call themselves, took full advantage of the copse’s proximity to their homes.

  Mark and Dominic Brownlow were the oldest; at eleven and a half, they considered themselves the leaders. However, Mark thought of himself as the sole leader, with twin brother Dom his second-in-command. Dom was quite happy to go along with that. The quieter of the two boys, he usually acceded to Mark’s leadership, unless it was exceptionally crazy and likely to end with a grounding from their mother.

  Physically, they were identical, with dark-blond hair, blue-grey eyes and straight noses, but the other members of the Gang of Six had no difficulty in recognising who was who. Teachers at the school they all attended insisted the two boys wore name badges. It made life easier.

  Occasionally, they swapped the badges, just because they could.

  The boys had a sister, two years younger, with the same dark-blonde hair and slightly bluer eyes, a much smaller nose than her siblings, and very pretty; but in the competitive stakes, she was fierce. Her parents laughingly called her feral, feral Freya. They weren’t always laughing when they said it. She had to be the winner; Mark and Dom accepted this for a fact and had shown no hesitation in bringing her into the gang. They always nodded when their mum asked them to look after Freya, keep her safe. The truth was that Freya could very well look after herself. The twins simply let her get on with it.

  Freya had a best friend, Ella Johnston. She had known Ella from the start of their school life, and she had invited Ella to join them. Ella had agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. She wasn’t sure her mum would approve of her running free in the woods with a group of boys. Her mum always said she had to be careful around boys, and yet, here she was, blindly following Freya, as usual. Ella’s skin was a lovely toffee colour, and her dark eyes and hair set off that shade to perfection. Freya didn’t see it; skin tones didn’t come into her world.

  And at nine, Freya Brownlow was in love with skin so dark, it seemed ebonised, covering the wiry frame of Sammy Walker, another eleven-year-old from the same class as the Brownlow twins. His curly black hair and flashing dark eyes, combined with an ever-present smile, made him a cool kid at school. Sammy, in return, had found the love of his life in Freya. It was a match made in heaven, and they laughed and joked and loved without even so much as a shared kiss between them. They didn’t even mind saying bye as the days headed towards evening, because they knew they would be together again the following morning. To them, their friendship was a beautiful thing.

  And the sixth member of the close-knit group was Daryl Clarkson. Taller than the others, with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, he was the sensible one. He stopped them dying from ingestion of assorted berries and fruits, by simply taking out his iPhone (they were all envious of the acquisition of this, even though it was merely a cast off after an upgrade, via his dad). He would google the berry and tell them yea or nay as to its poisonous qualities. Daryl Clarkson was probably the most important member of the Gang of Six. He kept them alive.

  The woods were bursting at the seams with creatures. Squirrels, hedgehogs, tiny mice, badgers, a fox family – they had all been seen at one time or another by the children. The den had been converted into a veterinary hospital a couple of times, when they had spotted some injured animals.

  It had taken them three long weeks to build the den, constructed after school during May, so that it was ready for them when summer fully arrived, and school closed for the six-week holiday. They had worked carefully, always aware that the woods were situated next to a massive police station; they didn’t want to be moved along, because they knew that their parents wouldn’t allow them to wander any further away from home than the current site.

  The less their parents knew, the better. Likewise, the police.

  The den was cosy inside. They had made seating for all six of them and had used a triangular shape formed by three thick trees to construct the erection of twigs and thicker branches. Nothing showed on the outside to give any casual onlooker the impression that it was something man-made…children-made…but inside, it sported seats around the edge covered by a couple of throws purloined from the Brownlow’s and the Clarkson’s homes. Tucked underneath the seats were small bottles of water, bought from a nearby Asda and paid for by Daryl; he was the only one who received any sort of pocket money. From the outside, it blended in perfectly with its surroundings. They had built in two small windows; they did not want anyone creeping up on them, so the viewing holes were at eye level when they were sitting down.

  One day, they had seen Sammy’s older brother Joe in the woods, with a girl from his school. He had been holding her hand, and they had seen him kiss her, not six feet away from the den.

  They had remained silent; Sammy and Daryl being on lookout duty, the rest had waited for a signal from them before daring to speak.

  Eventually, Sammy did. ‘Bloody ’ell. That was our Joe with Kelly Marsden, an’ ’e kissed ’er!’

  They all giggled nervously, and then, Freya spoke. ‘It shows our den’s pretty good. They didn’t even know it was here.’

  Everyone nodded in unison. Crisis averted, their hideaway had passed the test.

  One day in June, there had been an accident. They had decided to play hide and seek, and Ella had fallen headlong over a thick tree root. Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, no protection for the skin on her legs, the resultant gash on her knee was truly spectacular.

  They helped her back to the den, and Daryl, the patient, caring one, used some of the water and a leaf to clean her wound.

  ‘Will you be able to walk okay?’ he asked a tearful Ella.

  She nodded. ‘Just give me some of that water, I’ll be okay. It hurts.’

  They cancelled the rest of the day’s activities and helped Ella home. Her mum was in the back garden and looked shocked when she saw the cut.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I fell over.’

  ‘Let’s get you inside and put a plaster on it. It needs cleaning first.’

  Ella turned and smiled at the five members ranged around her. They smiled back and turned to leave. They knew Ella’s day was over, but they also knew she would be back again the following day.

  The next day, Daryl arrived with a first aid kit. Nobody questioned how he had got it – the supplier had struck again.

  The summer of 2016 was a warm one, and once school had ended, the Gang of Six met every day in the woods. They had added supplies to the den; sparkling water instead of the ordinary stuff, because it quenched their thirst better, even if it tasted a bit iffy, biscuits that they kept in a plastic box, and some Haribo sweets because they loved them. Everything was protected from attack by animals by keeping it all in plastics of various kinds, and the days passed with nobody querying where they had been.

  Tuesday 26 July was overcast. It was still warm, and Daryl was the last to arrive.

  ‘Mum said I should stay home, because it was looking like rain.’ He sounded shocked. ‘Stay home? Is she daft?’ He grinned at the others. ‘Bet you thought I’d knocked, didn’t yer?’

  ‘As if,’ Dom scoffed. ‘We knew you’d turn up at some point. What we gonna do now we’re all here, then?’ He turned to his brother. ‘Bro? What we doing?’

  ‘Let’s have a meeting.’

  Mark bent and crawled inside the den, and the others followed. Daryl produced a long tube of plastic cups. ‘Thought I’d get these. Then, we don’t have to drink full bottles of water, we can have a small cup, if that’s
all we want.’ He stashed them under the seats, and they all sat down.

  ‘Right, Ella and Sammy on look-out today.’

  They took the appropriate seats for looking out of the apertures they called windows, and everyone else sat around them.

  Mark took charge. ‘I thought we might do a bit of litter picking. There’s loads of plastic bags and stuff after that gale the other night, and we don’t want any nosey parkers coming in to clean up, do we? I’ve brought us some bags. What does everybody think?’

  They nodded; they remembered the council sending some workers in to clean up before, and they had to make the decision to stay home, instead of going to the den, in case they were still in the woods.

  ‘Okay, we work in twos. Me and Dom, Freya and Ella, and Sammy and Daryl. Any problems, blow your whistle.’ They had set up the system very early on in the gang’s formation. Everybody had a whistle – provided by Daryl – and each had their own distinctive call. They had practiced and practiced until they unerringly recognised all six individual sounds.

  ‘Shh,’ Ella spoke urgently. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘Somebody coming.’

  They immediately became silent; nobody moved. They could hear twigs snapping as the footsteps drew closer, then passed by their den. Still nobody moved. The intruder progressed into Sammy’s view, and the young boy continued to watch as the man drew further away. Sammy held up his hand to indicate it still wasn’t safe to talk or move. He watched the man move towards the edge of the woods, then look around. He was alone, and he appeared to be checking that nobody was following him.

  Sammy’s eyes never left him. He watched every movement; the man knelt and took a trowel out of his backpack. He dug a hole, and then, he took a large pack of white powder out and laid it into the hole.

  Sammy was no fool; he was only eleven, but he’d seen lots of television shows about white powder, along with the drug education classes they’d all sat through at school. This was drugs. He stifled the gasp that threatened to come out of his mouth and continued to watch. The man was pulling the soil back into the hole.

  He stood, and Sammy froze. There was something about him… He felt sure he knew him, and then, there was recognition. The man stood perfectly still for a moment, before checking all around that nobody had seen him. He continued on his way through the woods, towards the Asda car park that adjoined the leafy, secluded area.

  Sammy dropped his head. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Did you know him?’ Daryl was curious. He had been watching his friend’s face and knew something was wrong.

  Sammy shrugged. ‘I thought so, but I’m not sure. If I do, I can’t remember who he is. We need to forget about this, though.’ Sammy had decided it was safer to deny he had recognised the man.

  ‘Why?’ Freya turned huge blue eyes on him. ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’

  ‘What did he do?’ Mark and Dom spoke almost in unison.

  ‘He buried something…’

  ‘Sammy, for goodness’ sake, what did he bury?’ Freya was demanding.

  ‘It looked like a bag of white powder.’

  Even Freya and Ella, the youngest members of the group, understood the significance of white powder.

  ‘Shit,’ Daryl said, speaking for them all. He took out his mobile phone, keyed in a few words and then showed them several pictures thrown up by the browser. ‘Cocaine,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s cocaine. Is this what it looked like, Sammy?’

  Sammy nodded. ‘Yeah, I knew as soon as I saw it. It was the same as they showed us at school. It’s not going to be a bag of icing sugar, is it? And if it’s not cocaine, it’s something just as bad.’

  They sat silently, not knowing what to say.

  Mark was the first to speak. ‘Do we dig it up?’

  ‘Are you mad?’ His brother stared at him, horror written across his face. ‘We ignore the bloody thing. We can hardly go to the police, can we, because they’d want to know how we saw it, and we’d lose this place. Let’s leave them to get on with it. He’ll have hidden it for somebody to pick up later.’

  ‘We could have more people wandering around?’ Ella had tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Hey, come on, Ella.’ Daryl put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. ‘We’re safe while we’re in here, as long as we’re quiet, so stop worrying.’

  ‘Can we stay in here today, then? We don’t know when somebody’s going to come to collect it.’

  ‘If that’s what you want to do. I know you’re frightened, but there’s six of us. And if the worst does happen and we’re spotted, we’re next to the police station. That makes it safe to be here. I know we’d probably lose this, but we can build another one. I don’t see why we should lose it, though. Kids always build dens.’ Daryl was ever the logical one.

  ‘They’d tell our parents, numpty,’ said Freya. ‘It’d be the ‘rents who stopped us. We don’t want that.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Daryl conceded, ‘but if we’re ever in trouble in these woods, we tell the coppers. Right? We don’t risk getting hurt ’cos we don’t want to lose our den.’

  He looked around at them, and they held up their thumbs, the usual way they agreed things.

  ‘Right,’ Mark said, once again assuming command. ‘What shall we do? Play cards?’

  Daryl reached under the seat and produced the card box. ‘Uno?’

  Once again, they agreed, and Daryl took out a piece of paper and wrote their initials along the top, ready for putting scores on it. They loved Uno, and normally, the game produced gales of laughter.

  That day, it didn’t. They enjoyed playing it; it was better to be inside the den rather than outside it, because a fine misting of rain was falling, but they were aware of having to keep quiet. They took it in turns to watch their surroundings until it was time to head for home.

  The rain was a little heavier, although inside the den, they were dry. They packed away the cards and the piece of paper because nobody had yet reached the elimination number of 500.

  ‘We’ll finish it tomorrow,’ Daryl said, checking the weather on his phone. ‘It’s going to be like this again.’

  Once more, thumbs were held up.

  ‘We’ve got the dentists at ten,’ Dom said. ‘The three of us. We’ll get here as soon as we can.’

  Freya looked horrified. ‘Me? I thought it was you two.’

  ‘Sorry, sis.’ Dom laughed. ‘It’s the three of us. Perhaps Mum gets a discount for taking us all at the same time.’

  ‘I thought the dentist was free for kids…’

  The rest of them laughed, and Freya realised they’d been winding her up. Her ponytail swished angrily, and she glared at Dom. ‘I’ll get you back,’ she warned.

  ‘Oh, I’m scared.’ He grinned.

  ‘You should be,’ said Mark, and began the trek back to the main road. ‘I wouldn’t cross our Freya, not if I wanted to live.’

  They exited by the small thicket at the side of the police station and crossed the road to the estate.

  The Brownlows left first, then Sammy walked Ella to her door before heading home. Daryl walked the last couple of roads on his own before reaching his home.

  Sally Brownlow was waiting anxiously for them. ‘I expected you back before this,’ she scolded. ‘It’s been raining for a while. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘We were fine,’ Mark said. ‘We sat in the undercover car park in Asda and played Uno. Dry and warm, so we were fine. We’re doing the same tomorrow after the dentist, ’cos we didn’t finish the game.’

  Sally looked at them, unsure whether to believe them or not. Eventually, she gave them the benefit of the doubt and ushered them inside.

  ‘Fish fingers for tea. Go and have a wash, please. You’ve got five minutes.’

  They ran upstairs, keen to get back down for fish fingers and chips.

  Dom’s mind was racing. That white powder, he felt sure, was going to cause problems. How could they ever feel safe there again, i
f the woods were going to be used for dropping off drugs? Maybe they should have dug them up and taken them to the police station? Or at least gone in and passed on the location of the stash.

  He decided that the following day he would check if it was still there, and if it was, he would report it. He finished washing his hands and followed Freya and Mark downstairs. Somebody had to be the sensible one, and it had better be him.

  Lying in bed later, Dom spoke to Mark about it. They shared a room and had many private discussions once they had gone to bed.

  ‘I’m not sure about doing that,’ Mark said, suddenly afraid for his brother. ‘What if you’re seen?’

  ‘We can’t ignore it, Mark. Don’t you remember all that stuff they told us at school? People die from taking drugs. I think we’ve got to do something. I’ll not touch it, I promise, just scrape down far enough to check it’s still there. If it isn’t, that solves the problem, but if it is…’

  ‘We don’t tell the police about the den, though. We’ll say we were playing in the woods and saw somebody burying it. Agreed?’

  ‘I’ll agree if the others do. This isn’t only down to us,’ Dom conceded, ‘but I don’t think we can ignore it. We’ll talk to everybody tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Agreement made, they slept.

  Freya didn’t. She felt a little scared and, for the first time, wasn’t sure how to act. She needed to talk to her Sammy, listen to what he thought. It was no good talking to Ella, because she saw danger in everything, but Sammy was sensible, like Daryl, really.

  Yes, the next day, they had to talk, but mostly, she wanted to talk to Sammy. After all, Sammy thought he knew the guy, even though he tried to deny it; she knew her Sammy, and her Sammy knew who the man was.

  Chapter 2

  Vinnie Walmsley walked round to the back door and let himself into the kitchen. It resembled a pig sty. The sink was full of pots, clothes were everywhere, which he presumed were there for washing, and the cooker hob had several pans stacked on it.