by Roberta Kray
Lolly was heading towards the Mansfield for her last delivery of the day. Joseph would probably be in the east tunnel. It was called a tunnel by all the residents but it wasn’t actually underground: the long straight throughway was at ground level and linked the front and back of Carlton House. The ceiling was low with the plaster peeling off and the walls were covered in graffiti. There were six of these passages on the estate. It was where the dealers hung out, the druggies, the gang boys and even the occasional brass if it was chilly outside.
It was dusk by the time Lolly arrived. She peered along the length of the tunnel. As usual a few of the lights were out and the place, full of shadows, had an eerie feel to it. Halfway down there were a couple of lads, a bit older than her, leaning against the wall and sharing a fag, but no sign of Joseph. From past experience, however, she knew he could be at the far end, off to the left where she couldn’t see him, hanging out near the base of the stairwell.
Lolly was wary of the lads and scuttled past with her head down. In the event she needn’t have worried. She could feel their eyes on her as she passed by, but neither of them said anything. They were bored but not bored enough to bother with her. She was too young to be of any interest.
Lolly was almost at the end of the tunnel when she heard the raised voices, a boy and a girl in the middle of an argument.
‘Why couldn’t you keep out of it, you interfering bitch?’
‘Jesus, it’s not my fault. What are you blaming me for?’
It took a moment for the penny to drop and by then it was too late; she had already turned the corner and was face to face with Jude Rule and Amy Wiltshire. The two of them were standing by the foot of the stairs. Jude was wearing jeans and a black raincoat with the hood pulled up. She could tell how angry he was by the bright red flush on his cheeks. Amy looked defiant; her mouth was a tight straight line and her arms were folded across her chest. As soon as they realised who it was, they stopped arguing and stared at her.
Lolly glanced from one to the other. It was the first time she’d seen Amy since Bonfire Night when, she was sure, the girl had conspired with FJ and Tony in the big ‘joke’ with the guy. She felt the anger gathering inside, her guts turning over at the memory of it. She hated both of them: Amy for what she’d allowed the brothers to do, and Jude for his betrayal. If she’d been braver she might have confronted them, asked why, but all she wanted to do was get away. The very sight of them made her sick.
Before anyone could say anything, Lolly quickly pushed past, strode across the rear lobby and went through the door. Outside, the cold air stung her face. She hunched her shoulders and buried her chin in the collar of her coat. She had a lump in her throat but she fought against the urge to cry.
As she headed towards the west tunnel on the other side of the tower, Lolly wondered what they’d been rowing about. Not that she cared. Why should she? If she never saw either of them again it would be too soon. People couldn’t be trusted and that was the beginning and end of it. Now that her mum was gone, there was no one special in her life. She was on her own and she’d better get used to the idea.
Lolly had only walked a short distance when she began to feel unsteady on her legs – a delayed reaction, perhaps, to bumping into Jude again. There was a low wall by the scrubby patch of green and she sat down. It was dark now and the windows of the towers were lit up. They made curious patterns, long lines and zigzags. She wondered about the people who lived behind the bright panes of glass, what they were like, what they were doing.
For some reason, Stanley Parrish came into her head. She hadn’t seen him since he’d turned up at the pawnbroker’s and that could only mean one thing: he hadn’t been able to find any family. Not that she’d expected him to. He’d probably given up by now or forgotten all about it. The whole idea was crazy anyway; if there had been any relatives, she’d have known about them.
Lolly was so wrapped up in her thoughts she wasn’t sure how long she sat there for. It was the cold that finally pulled her to her feet again. She jogged along the front of the building and ducked into the west tunnel, glad to be out of the wind. She saw Joseph almost immediately and gave a sigh of relief. Time was getting on and she had to be back by five-thirty if she was to avoid a clip round the ear from Brenda. Her bag bounced against her hip as she made her way towards him. He was fifty yards in, leaning against the wall with that faraway look on his face.
There were a few other people coming in the opposite direction and Lolly slowed down to give them time to pass. She wouldn’t stop unless the coast was clear. She’d walk straight on without even saying hi. She saw a man sidle up, glancing furtively along the tunnel, before slipping some money into Joseph’s hand. The deal was done in the blink of an eye. The man continued on his way as if nothing had happened. Joseph leaned back against the wall, staring into space again.
There was no one else around when Lolly drew level with him. ‘Hey,’ she said.
Joseph gave a broad smile. ‘Hey, Lollipop. How you doin’ today?’
‘Yeah, I’m good.’ She slipped the small package out of her satchel, gave it to him and watched it instantly disappear into the pocket of his jacket.
‘You tried telling your face that?’
‘Huh?’
‘You don’t look happy, babe. You look kind of pissed off if you don’t mind me saying.’
Lolly tried to force a smile but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. ‘I’m okay.’
Joseph shook his head. ‘I know what okay looks like and it sure as hell ain’t that. What’s on your mind? Come on, you can tell me. I won’t go blabbing to no one. Anything you tell me is straight up secret, right?’
Lolly was quiet for a moment and then she said, ‘I’m just missing my mum. I don’t like it without her. I mean, I know she wasn’t always… but we had each other. Now there’s no one.’
‘No, well, it ain’t easy losing someone close. Takes a good while to come to terms. Nothing you can rush. Just got to take it slow, a day at a time.’
‘You got family?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Some. But it ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
Joseph pulled a face. ‘Family’s just chance, the luck of the draw. Just ’cause they’re your folks don’t mean you’re going to get along. They say blood’s thicker than water but it ain’t always true. Sometimes you’ve got to start from scratch, make your own family.’
Lolly stared down at the ground for a while, thinking about it. Eventually she glanced up again. ‘How are you supposed to do that?’
‘With people you trust. Mates. I got brothers I’d trust with my life, but we ain’t related. That don’t matter, though. We got a bond, see. We’ve got each other’s backs.’
Lolly couldn’t think of anyone who’d got her back. ‘What happens if your mates let you down?’
‘Then you have to let ’em go.’ Joseph gave her a long steady look. ‘Someone screw you over, Lollipop?’
Lolly couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Jude – she was too afraid she might start crying – but found herself blurting out the story of her mum’s cardigan and the guy, and what FJ, Tony and Amy had done.
‘Little bastards,’ he said. ‘Who’d do a shitty thing like that? Those fuckin’ Cecils have got a lot to answer for.’
‘I don’t like living with them.’
‘Can’t say I blame you, babe. Wouldn’t fancy it much myself.’
Talking about the Cecils reminded Lolly that she was due back soon. ‘Do you have the time?’
Joseph stretched out his arm to reveal a flashy gold Rolex. Well, it looked like a Rolex but it probably wasn’t real. There was a ton of fakes for sale on the Mansfield estate, everything from watches to handbags.
‘Twenty past five,’ he said.
Lolly drew in a breath. ‘God, I’m going to be late. I’ve got to go.’
‘You take care, Lollipop. See you when I see you.’
‘Bye then.�
�
Lolly hurried through the tunnel, only glancing back when she reached the end. Joseph was in his familiar pose, lounging against the wall. She would have waved but she knew he wouldn’t wave back. He wasn’t watching her. He’d returned to his own thoughts, to whatever occupied his mind while he waited for the next customer.
Lolly was almost at the main gate when she saw the cop cars arriving, three of them with flashing lights and sirens. There was an ambulance too. She had a sudden recollection of the day her mum had died. It was the sirens, she thought, a sound she now found so ominous that her heart always missed a beat. She watched the vehicles sweep past and pull up outside Carlton House.
She was curious enough to stop and stare but knew she couldn’t hang about. Anyway, bad stuff was always happening on the Mansfield. The law spent more time here than anywhere else in Kellston. It would only be a gang fight or some bust-up between a bloke and his missus. Perhaps the latter, as she hadn’t heard any commotion as she left the tunnel.
Lolly passed through the gate, crossed the road and was back on the high street when she heard the sound of someone running behind her, their feet pounding on the pavement. She half-turned, instinctively veering to the left to let them pass, but instead they drew up beside her.
‘Lolly! Stop! Hold on.’
Lolly jumped with surprise. It was Jude. ‘What is it? What do you want?’
He took a moment to catch his breath and in those few seconds, as his chest rose and fell, she saw the terror on his face. A wave of fear rolled over her, a sense of dread. His mouth was partly open, strange and twisted, and there was a weird look in his eyes. Snot was running from his nose as if he’d been crying.
‘What is it?’ she asked again.
Jude stared wildly around and then grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the street lamps and into the shadows of a narrow alley that ran between the bakery and the newsagent. ‘Something… something’s happened.’
Even through the sleeve of her coat Lolly could feel his fingers digging into her flesh. She flinched and pulled her arm away. ‘You’re hurting me.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Christ, I don’t know what to do.’ Jude raked his fingers through his hair. He couldn’t stay still; every nerve end in his body seemed to be twitching. There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead. He covered his face, dropped his hands and then raised them again. He rubbed hard at his temples as if trying to scour some awful image from his mind. ‘It’s… it’s Amy. I found her. I left her but then I went back. And that’s when… she was just lying there, in the stairwell. Shit, shit. They’re going to think it was me, Lolly. They’re going to think I did it.’
‘Did what?’ Lolly whispered, although she didn’t need to ask. Already she was putting together the pieces, the cop cars and the ambulance and Jude’s terrified expression. Her fingers clenched into two tight fists. ‘Is she…?’
‘I didn’t do it. I swear. Please, Lolly, you’ve got to believe me. I never touched her.’
She stared at him, remembering the raised voices, the argument, the two bright spots of red on his cheeks. He’d been angry with Amy, called her an interfering bitch. And now, less than half an hour later, she was gone. ‘Are you sure she’s… you know? Are you sure?’
Jude’s head bobbed up and down. He clawed at her arm, his eyes full of pleading. ‘You’ve got to help me. Please. They’ll say I did it. They will.’
Lolly didn’t know how to respond. None of it felt quite real. It was like one of those strange scary dreams you couldn’t wake up from. At first she didn’t understand what he wanted from her – she frowned, confused – but the light gradually dawned. ‘I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I promise.’
‘I’ve had it,’ he said as though she hadn’t spoken. He turned away from her and paced a short way up the alley and back again. ‘They’re going to come for me. They’ll take me away, Lolly. They’ll lock me up.’
‘Not if you didn’t do it,’ she said.
Jude made a weird strangulated kind of sound, half snort, half sob. His voice rose up an octave. ‘That won’t matter. I was with her, wasn’t I? We had a fight and… they’ll pin it on me. I know they will.’
‘Maybe no one else saw you.’
He shook his head. ‘Tracy knew. She knew I went looking for Amy. She’ll grass me up. She’ll go running to the cops as soon as she finds out.’
‘So just tell them what happened.’
‘I can’t,’ he whined. ‘Don’t you see? You know what they’re like. They won’t listen. They’ll twist everything round. They’ll make it look as though…’ Jude gave a shudder, his face contorting again. ‘I’ve had it. Jesus, what am I going to do?’
Lolly didn’t have an answer. She stared at him, wide-eyed. Despite everything that had gone on between them, she still had feelings. She remembered the times he had been there for her rather than the times he hadn’t: afternoons on the sofa, peanut butter sandwiches, an old black and white film playing out its tragedies on the screen. She should hate him but she couldn’t. Old loyalties died hard.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been horrible to you. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. You’ve got no reason to help me. Why should you?’
Lolly waved the apology aside. ‘Why were you arguing with Amy?’
Jude glanced away. He stared at the wall for a moment before looking back. ‘She told Tracy I’d been coming on to her. But I hadn’t. She was just stirring, the bitch was always stirring.’ He must have heard the venom in his own voice because he quickly added, ‘I mean, she was always causing trouble, mixing it up, but that doesn’t mean… I wouldn’t have… I didn’t kill her, Lolly. I didn’t lay a finger on her.’
‘I believe you,’ she said.
Jude looked relieved, but then his face darkened again. ‘You might but they won’t.’
Another cop car sped down the high street with its sirens blaring. Lolly felt her stomach turn over. ‘You could run away.’
‘What with?’
‘I’ve got some money,’ she said. ‘Five pounds. You can have it if you want.’
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘Just odd jobs,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’ve been saving up.’
Jude gave a weak smile. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I won’t get far on a fiver. And anyway, if I run they’ll be sure it was me. It’s like saying you’re guilty, isn’t it? It’s like admitting to it.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What I need is an alibi,’ he said. ‘I need someone to say they were with me for the last hour, that I was never out of their sight. Could you do that for me, Lolly? Could you tell the cops that we were together?’
Lolly thought about it. She wasn’t bothered about lying – if you did it for the right reasons then it wasn’t really wrong – but about the practicalities. ‘What if someone else saw you at the stairs?’
‘They didn’t. I’m sure. You’re the only one who went past.’ Jude’s eyes brightened. ‘If I can prove I was never with Amy, they can’t blame me. We could say we were at the flat, that you came over after school. Why not? That would work.’
‘But what if someone saw me?’ Lolly asked. ‘Saw me on my own, I mean.’
Jude, who had started pacing again, instantly stopped. ‘Did they?’
Lolly thought back over everything she’d done since four o’clock. She’d met Terry and gone to see Stella, but hadn’t stayed long with either of them. And neither of them mattered as they were both en route from school to the Mansfield when she would have been alone anyway. Which only left Joseph. ‘Yes, there’s someone, but I don’t reckon he’ll say anything. He’ll keep schtum. He doesn’t like the law.’
