You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]

by Andrew Hankinson

  A car horn beeps. Birds chirp. You press stop.

  …

  It’s 10pm. The three of you get in the car. Sean drives.

  …

  You want food, but you’ve got no money. You tell Sean to look for somewhere quiet to rob. You see a chippy in Seaton Delaval.

  It looks empty.

  Sean drives past a couple of times.

  He parks in the alley behind it. You get out.

  You’ve got the gun.

  You walk to the front door of the shop and go inside. There are no customers, just an Asian guy with a moustache.

  You point the gun at him and shout,

  Give me the money!

  He looks terrified. He gives you £100.

  Easy.

  You walk out the front door and go round the corner to the alley, but the shop guy is in the alley too. He must have come out the back door. You point the gun at him and shout,

  Come on, then!

  He goes back inside. You get in the car and laugh. Sean puts his foot down and you throw a handful of notes at Karl,

  Wonga.

  You fancy a KFC.

  …

  Sean drives to Blyth, but the guy on the speaker says they’re closed and you shout,

  Fuck off!

  Sean drives away.

  …

  Let’s go get a Maccy D’s.

  Sean drives to McDonald’s in Ashington. It’s open. He orders at the hatch, two large Chicken Select meals with chilli dips, a Diet Coke for you, Coke for Karl, Big Tasty meal with Coke for Sean and three Yorkie McFlurry ice creams. He parks facing the exit.

  …

  You eat. Another car pulls up, just some girls.

  …

  There’s a police station around the corner.

  …

  You see a police car drive past. You say,

  Will I get him?

  But you don’t. You’re busy eating your McFlurry.

  …

  Sean starts driving back to Rothbury. A police car follows you, but pulls off after half a mile.

  Lucky bastard.

  You do nothing.

  Your mood has changed.

  [TUESDAY JULY 6, 2010]

  YOU WILL DIE IN THREE DAYS

  Tuesday. 9am.

  Sean’s at the car, or near the car, or he was supposed to be, but he’s calling you. He says the police are at the car. You tell him to hurry back, get to the tent, throw everything in the bushes.

  Karl helps him.

  …

  You walk towards the car, hiding in the trees. There are armed police around it.

  …

  You call Sean and Karl and tell them to head downriver.

  You go into the trees.

  …

  You call them again. They’re fine.

  …

  You call again. They don’t answer.

  It’s 10.06am.

  You head east.

  You stay under the trees.

  You keep going.

  The helicopter’s in the sky.

  You hide in the woods.

  …

  You wait.

  …

  You’ve got a tumble-dryer stomach, lying here, checking off all the things you left at base camp — the dictaphone and the tapes, they’re the main things, hopefully they’ll get to the press.

  What else?

  The letter to Sam. Fucking hell.

  …

  You stay hidden.

  …

  At least she’ll be able to sell her story. There’ll be books written about all this, and you’ll be made out to be some crazed fucking maniac, but she’ll be set for life.

  …

  She’ll make a fortune off this.

  …

  But you can’t stop thinking about her, because the thing you don’t understand is, she knew that other side of you, the side you keep buried. Only she can control it, make it go away, bring it back, because it’s like the Hulk, but more than anger, and it only comes out when you get hurt, and she really hurt you this time, being mean, really quite mean, abusing you. You heard it when you were outside that window with the gun, listening to them slagging you off, and you can always tell when she’s got an audience because she’s even more of a cunt, very hurtful, cutting you in two, but you wish you hadn’t shot her.

  …

  You looked around for anyone else to shoot, but there was nobody, just Sam.

  …

  At least you don’t need to die worrying about her.

  …

  She’ll have a good life now.

  …

  You were setting her up for life.

  …

  Making sure she got compensation.

  …

  There’s no going back with her now.

  …

  Going back isn’t an option.

  You’re committed.

  It’s just a case of doing your thing.

  They did this to you.

  …

  They bullied you.

  …

  Wherever you went, wherever you worked, they were spoiling it, every good woman chased away under advisement by some police officer doing a PNC check in front of her with their radio turned up full, your kids in tears, you and Sam hounded, negative comments, and it would have been fair enough years ago, but not now, uplifting your vehicles, arrests for violence you didn’t do, yet the stuff you did do you didn’t get arrested for. It’s been a sorry state of affairs. And like with all bullying, it affects your frame of mind. It affected how you behaved with Sam. Not violence, but losing your spark for fun living. You miss her, you really fucking miss her and you’re never going to see her again. It fucking hurts. You wish you could turn the clock back. Because you never wanted this. You and her used to be like Siamese twins. You could have lived a normal life with Sam, you really do believe that. She would have loved it round here, though not the spiders and stuff because Sam’s all hair and nails and spider, eek. Like, if you ever wanted to get some peace you’d go in the shed because spiders were guaranteed in there. She’d have liked living in the sticks though. You and her talked about getting a place out here, either buying a place or going privately rented, which is what you would have done probably, on the lease. You saw this one house which had a bit of farmland, and it would have been ideal. Because you’re a bit of a farmer type. People probably realise that. It comes from the French side of your family. They’ve been into farming for years. The truth is, you never got used to the city, not at all, even after twenty years, with all the hustle and bustle and traffic jams, but when the family moved to England they went straight to Fenham, so you’ve spent the best part of your life there. Well you moved around a bit, up and down the country [you’ve lived in Fenham all your life, but you told people otherwise, including a psychiatrist and social workers]. You ended up back in Fenham because of the good schools for the kids, but you knew you needed your space, so you and Sam were looking for a place out here, because she could have had her horses, and you’d have land for your animals, dogs and rabbits and stuff, which you’ve always liked the idea of, having your animals. Maybe that’s something you got from your gran. She got you into all that. She had a pond with koi carp in it, a couple of ducks too, though the ducks didn’t last long. The council probably told her to get rid of them. But you used to feed the fish and put frogspawn in the pond, and you and Tony [Tony Laidler, who lived down the street and is still a good friend] would catch tadpoles in the Pond of Life and put them in Gran’s pond, and the two of you would go on adventures all over Newcastle, hunting for little beasties. You’d catch wasps [and put them in jars, and make them fight or drown them]. You’d catch spiders and put them in the road to see whose got sq
uashed first. It was just kids’ stuff. Or you’d get all the eggs from different nests and put them in one nest, or take them home and tell your gran the nest had been abandoned, and she’d try to incubate them, and sometimes you went up to the golf course to find baby shrews around the edge of the golf course to take home [but one night you put them in your bed and forgot about them and when you fell asleep you squashed them]. You used to go all over the place exploring and fishing. You were an outdoors kid, really. You used to come up here, to the river at Rothbury, catching minnows, literally a stone’s throw from here, staying at a caravan. That’s a great holiday for a kid to go on, because you make loads of friends on a holiday like that, and sometimes you’d skip school to come up here. The thing of it is, your schoolwork probably did suffer, though anyone will say you’re a clever kid. You had a cat for a bit. It was called Kitty, a ginger female, which is unusual, because usually they get torn to pieces by the male for being a freak, but that cat died when you moved into your mum’s house [when you were about ten], and you got another cat after that, but it died as well. And you had a bullfrog. You can remember because when you and Angus argued over whether it was South American or North American, Uncle Charlie asked whether it was wearing a Stetson or a sombrero. Ha. And you wanted hamsters, but Mum and Brian said no [so you got some anyway and hid them in the garage, but when Brian found them he came upstairs and you ended up crying and you couldn’t keep them].

  …

  You get up off the ground. You’ve got a gun. You stay under the trees. You walk to the crags. You hide.

  …

  You and Angus used to come up here. You’d come at the weekend with other kids, getting the bus. You’d bring a rifle and catapult to shoot rabbits. Really, you shot fence-posts and trees more than anything else. You’d borrow equipment from the scout hut [you were both in the scouts] and you had to make sure you got back to Rothbury high street by about 5pm, because that was when the last bus left, and if you missed it there was basically no way back. You missed it once. You and Angus and this other kid were up here, after doing some hiking or something, and you went to this local pub. You had your hair in braids, like the British Bulldog, and Angus was a grunge kid so had his hair long and black, and you went in this pub, which was full of locals. It was like one of those old westerns where everything went quiet. They all left and went off to another room, and you thought, well, fuck that, so you went to a different pub where the people were a lot nicer, and there was a guy at the bar who looked exactly like Andy Bell from Erasure. You being you, you started singing the victim of love one they did, and Angus and this other kid had to bundle you out, but you’d missed the bus by then, so you all sat on this bench next to the war memorial, and this local copper came over asking what you were up to. You’d been drinking and were underage so you stayed quiet until you threw up by his feet and said to him,

  Stormy at sea …

  Angus thought it was hilarious. You and Angus were close as kids, but he changed. He’s certainly the most intelligent bloke you’ve ever met [he’s three years older than you and you’ve got the same mum but different dads]. The funny thing is, he had everything going for him. He was like a rhino, a little bulldog, and he used to be into boxing and the weights, and you were jealous of him when you were young. He’s a respectable kid, but he went to university and it was the worst thing he ever did, because he became an arse after that, an absolute arse. He had it all, and when you’ve got that kind of intelligence you can have the best of everything — the top class jobs and all that — but he spent all his time being angry at the wrongs of the world and he blew it [he’s doing fine, living in Newcastle, with a good job and friends].

  …

  [Someone breaks into houses near Rothbury, but the police aren’t certain that it was you.]

  …

  You’re not going to get much sleep. You don’t need sleep. It’s quiet. You cover yourself with bits of trees and leaves. You lie in a dip in the ground. You keep thinking. Think. Think. Think. There are snakes out here. You saw them when you were cutting down trees at Kielder. They’d lie on the stumps in the sunshine.

  …

  These trees were massive. You took some of the logs home to use as fuel in an open fire, because the plan was to have zero bills in winter, then use the rest to build an adventure playground for the kids [you never built an open fire or an adventure playground].

  …

  You promised the kids a farm out here. You promised they’d be able to have rabbits, like they had in Fenham, before all the rabbits caught myxomatosis and their eyes turned pink and swelled up, and they were falling over, like they were drunk, a horrible way to go. It would have been like Of Mice and Men. Sam would have had her horses, you’d have bred dogs, and you just needed a few more contracts so you could get a bit more money in, like you had when you were on the doors, because that’s your job as a dad, and nobody can say you’re not a grafter, you know how to work. You started Mr Trimmit from nothing, just got up one morning with the lawnmower and started knocking on doors. And the truth is, if you do the hours you get the money, but it’s not an easy lifestyle. Not like on the doors. But you can’t do the doors if you’ve got kids, because things come back to your house. You never know when trouble’s coming. Which is why you put everything into Mr Trimmit, because it’s what you always wanted to do, ever since you were a kid, when you were wanting to go to agricultural college after school, but it didn’t work out so you went to Vickers to make tanks, then a welding company, yet people never say Raoul Moat the engineer or Raoul Moat the tree surgeon, it’s always Raoul Moat the doorman. But anyway, you’re a grafter, and you were working all hours trying to make Mr Trimmit work, because you didn’t want to be skint forever, but the thing is, the recession smashed it to bits, and if there’s anything people can put off spending money on when they’re pinching their purse it’s a tree, you know, because a tree’s not going anywhere, so that’s why work dropped off, and being fair, you were still putting the hours in, but it moved over to the recovery work, because you’re a grafter, and you’ll make a job, but again, more problems, which is what you’ve realised over the past few years, that if you’re polite over here you get taken advantage of, badly, which is what happened when you were buying this trailer on eBay. You used to go on there all the time to keep your fingers in any amount of pies. People laugh, but one time you bought ten thousand sets of locking nuts for two and a half grand. It was bankrupt stock and some of it had been flooded, so the packaging was damaged. People said you were mad, and you can remember your girlfriend’s mum at that time going bonkers, but in three months you made ten grand off that. eBay was like a little marketplace, and this time you won a recovery trailer, an ex-AA one, heavy-duty, with the tilt bed and everything, and you went down to pick it up. Now if a kid’s fair then you’re fair. You’ll have your little bit of investigation, but you’re not going to sit and pull it apart. So this guy was like a Norman Wisdom gypsy type, and you paid seven hundred and fifty quid. That’s not a bad price. It was worth a thousand pounds all day long. But what you noticed was, instead of discussing things he was giving you his sales patter. The way you thought about it was, you don’t exactly look friendly, so if they’re daft enough to sell to a big man like you then they’re bringing it on their own head. But you were driving it home, and every time you hit the brakes it’s going into the back of the hitch. So you got home and start pulling it apart, and it turned out the brake cables were slack and it was all fused together. That needed to be replaced. Then you noticed the tyres weren’t even commercial. And when you looked in the brake drum there were no contents. Fucking hell. That’s not right. So you phoned him up. No answer. You sent a message through eBay. Nothing. The thing is, people are learning. What he’d done was insist that you pay him through his daughter’s account, which you didn’t like. So you sent him an email, and the daughter’s giving it how he’s away. What that means is you have to wait a
nother week, by which time you’ll not be protected, right. So you put in a claim with PayPal and they’ve just quashed it. Next thing is you phone up and get some Pakistani on the phone and they can’t understand a word you’re saying, which is why you told them to put someone on who can speak English, and this team manager comes on, and you explain the situation, and what they said was you’re not covered because you haven’t paid the full amount through PayPal [that’s your recollection]. Another one you got hit with was this spoiler you bought to go on a Subaru Impreza. You saw it on there and ordered it, but when it turned up you couldn’t believe it, because it was off a fucking Tonka toy. Like, is this for real? You were fuming, so you phoned the guy, as you do, kicking off. You paid a hundred and twenty five quid for this thing, but he just said, look in the description mate. You get stitched up in this country, and there’s nothing Trading Standards can do. It’s like the trailer thing. You could have been an arse about it and pulled the trailer to pieces in front of him, and re-haggled, but you don’t, because it’s politeness. It’s not in your culture to be like that, but this is how it works in this country now. You never used to have any bother, but it’s different these days. The thing is, nobody likes to be lied to, nobody likes to get taken advantage of, and it’s a disgrace to be honest, because you worked solid for two years, up at 5am and 6am every morning, grafting sixteen hours a day to get down to London and back some days, wanting it, wanting it, wanting it, but it crippled the family, and like you said to the council, it’s not that you want to be treated like an idiot, but you take the stress of the world on your shoulders, the stress of your family, and all you wanted was to be able to ask for help, but you blinked and missed it, and suddenly the kids had grown up and you didn’t have enough time with Sam, the kids, all of it, and everything just broke down.