Nana was sitting in her chair, eyes closed, head resting back while Vinia made some tea. Nana looked old, the skin slack on her jaw, draped loose on her neck. Her brow and the sides of her mouth, deep furrows. When she opened her eyes to take the mug from Vinia, Cheryl saw that the whites of her eyes were yellow.
‘It’s a terrible thing.’ Nana blew on her tea.
Cheryl and Vinia murmured in agreement. Though Cheryl felt like strangling her if she said it again.
‘And no one speaks up. Someone knows.’
‘It’s not easy, Nana,’ Cheryl said.
‘I ain’t saying it’s easy but it is right. There is right and there is wrong.’
‘It was a lovely service.’ Vinia tried to head Nana off but she wasn’t for turning.
‘It wasn’t easy for Dr Martin Luther King but he speak out,’ she began the litany. ‘It wasn’t easy for Nelson Mandela but he never give in. Never.’ The skin on her face wobbled as she shook her head for emphasis. ‘Years in prison.’ She was on a roll now, jabbing her finger at them, her frown deeper, voice husky like she was wearing it out. ‘It wasn’t easy for Rosa Parks but she stood up.’
‘No, Nana, she sat down.’ Cheryl quipped. She’d been reared on the stories of these heroes, Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of the bus, parking herself on one of the ‘white’ seats, a civil rights pioneer. Vinia laughed.
Nana snorted her displeasure, her eyes grew hard. ‘There’s talk your stepbrother might know something,’ she challenged Vinia.
Cheryl tensed, pressing her toes into the floor. Was that why Nana had asked her friend if she wanted to stay? To try and shame her into saying something?
‘That’s crazy,’ said Vinia. ‘Stupid talk.’
‘No way!’ Cheryl backed Vinia up.
Nana sipped her tea. ‘Sad day,’ she said and struggled to her feet. Cheryl didn’t know if she meant the day was sad because of the funeral, or because people were afraid to speak about the murder. ‘Goodnight and God bless,’ she told them.
‘G’night,’ Cheryl said, hands cupping her own drink, the heat hurting her fingers, studying the tremor on the surface of the tea, unable to meet Nana’s eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mike
Mike woke suddenly at five. Bolt upright in bed, slippery with sweat. He grabbed a breath, listened, wondering whether Megan had cried out, though she usually came into their room if she’d had a bad dream and wriggled between them. No one got much sleep after that, her elbows and knees sharp as tacks. Plus she snored. A four-year-old! Mike asked Vicky once if they should get her checked out. Vicky rolled her eyes and told him to forget it: they’d enough on their plates seeing doctors for Kieran, Megan was just fine.
The house was quiet. Vicky, beside him, turned over and pulled at the duvet. Mike lay back down and closed his eyes. Had he been dreaming? He didn’t usually remember his dreams. Now he sensed an aftertaste, like a blurred reflection of something wrong, something shameful. The old sour feeling from way back, times he didn’t want to think about. He wiped it away, steam on a mirror, and tried to sleep; if he got back off sharpish he’d have another two hours.
Their routine proper began at seven. Kids up and dressed. Breakfast, packed lunches. At twenty past eight Vicky did the school run. Kieran was at Brook School, a place catering for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. There’d never been any suggestion of him going into mainstream schools, his needs too varied, too complex. Stick him in the local primary and he’d have sat in the corner for six hours, unreachable.
The staff at Brook were fantastic. Kieran had his own programme, a combination of one-to-one and group sessions to assist with his physical, mental and social skills. He’d come on in leaps and bounds, now able to greet people he’d not met before and sometimes answer simple questions. They all knew there were limits to what Kieran would achieve. He’d never live independently. Probably never take a bus ride unaccompanied. That frightened Mike more than anything. That when he and Vicky went, not to be maudlin or owt, Kieran would be in the care of the state. You couldn’t put that on to Megan, she’d have her own life to lead, maybe her own family. Might live abroad or anything.
Vicky had been home with Megan for three months after she was born but they couldn’t manage without Vicky’s income. She’d asked her mum to have Megan while she visited her customers but her mum’s health wasn’t great so it was a relief when they got a place at the childminder’s and were able to claim the fees back. Now Megan was at the nursery attached to the primary school and thriving on it. Vicky worked school hours and some evenings when Mike could sort the kids.
Mike let his thoughts drift. Wondered if a holiday might possibly be an option this year. Some last-minute bargain break. It would mean organizing respite care for Kieran. They’d only done that once before and they weren’t sure whether the pain was worth the gain. The stress of worrying how Kieran was, the guilt of being off on the beach, at the café or in the pool without him. Vicky had missed him, grown tearful by the end of the stay, homesick for the lad. Mike too, though not so bad. ‘It’s been good for Megan,’ he told Vicky, ‘look at her.’ She was laughing and splashing in the toddler pool.
‘She’s happy anywhere,’ Vicky said.
The alarm woke Mike just as he slipped away. He came swimming to consciousness: his mouth dry, his head aching. He wondered if he was coming down with a cold. Too bad. They didn’t do illness. Couldn’t afford to.
At the loading bay, Mike checked off his delivery sheet and packed the van so he’d got the parcels in the right sequence Most of it was short-run stuff, within ten miles of the depot. But he’d one delivery out into Cheshire, beyond Bollington. That’d make a change. The winding lanes instead of city bottlenecks. A bit of scenery. He’d aim for that in the middle of the day, have his butties in a lay-by somewhere. It was shaping up to be fine: a few clouds but no rain forecast.
Ian was prowling around looking for an argument so Mike got his stuff packed and didn’t hang about.
It took him forever to make his first two drops. Extensions to the tram network meant diversions and road closures, forcing the heavy traffic into a smaller number of routes. He made a stop in Ancoats where the process of converting crumbling warehouses from the rag trade into luxury gaffs for professionals continued even in the teeth of the recession. Then he crossed town to Salford Quays, where the BBC’s Media City was nearing completion.
Coming back into Manchester took him along Princess Road and past the recreation ground. There was a mobile cop shop there now and placards on the lamp-posts: Witness Appeal, Serious Incident. That’s when he saw the car.
Up ahead of him, taking a right, a silver BMW X5. He felt his guts clench and a jolt travel the length of his forearms. He checked his mirrors, indicated and nipped out. If he could just get the number plate. There were two other cars between him and his quarry, waiting for the lights to change.
He could get a picture. He rooted for his phone and pulled it out, switched the camera on. The traffic lights went red-and-amber then green. The Beemer moved at speed into the side road. One guy inside, but the angle of the sunlight cast reflections on the driver’s window and Mike couldn’t make the man out.
Halfway down the side street one of the other cars slowed to park. No indicator. Mike swore at him and swung out to overtake, his pulse jumping, just in time to register the Beemer perform a U-turn. Heading back towards him. Mike jammed on his brakes and grabbed the phone. Suddenly he was slammed forward, his head glancing off the windscreen, the seat belt biting into his shoulder, head snapping back and a burning at his wrists. He heard the sound of metal and glass and the whoomp of the impact, as the car behind him rear-ended his van. Then the whoop of an alarm, fast and urgent, howling in his ears, matching his heartbeat.