Little and Large went at it for hours: going over what Zak had seen again and again, butting in and trying to trip him up. Almost like they didn’t believe him, thought he was making it up to get off the burglary charge.
They videoed him the whole time. Whenever he asked anything, about Bess, or if they were going to give him protection, they ignored him. Said they needed a full and complete statement first.
‘I’m not going to court without,’ Zak told them. ‘They’ll kill me, they know me. You got to sort me out, new identity, the lot, me and Bess and me mam.’
‘We do this first.’ Little showed his teeth.
Finally they let him have a break and he got given a chicken tikka sandwich and a bag of crisps and a Sprite. Even let him out for a smoke. He wished he had something stronger to take the edge off. He hated being in the cell, locked in. Brought back those sick feelings. Glimpses of memories he didn’t want at the side of his head like glitches on a screen.
He remembered the fly on his face, buzzing by his nose. Buzzing in his head too so he couldn’t think. Everything fuzzy and fizzy. But he wasn’t cold any more. Hot then, lovely and hot. Even with his eyes shut he could feel the line of sunlight, feel the weight of heat pressing him down, heavy as sand. Then the commotion, voices, banging.
Little and Large talked to him again and then they were writing it all out. They wanted him to read it, sign it. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he shrugged.
‘You can’t read,’ Large said like he’d known it all along. ‘I’ll read it, then you sign.’
It sounded dead weird; nothing that wasn’t true but not put the way Zak would put it. He wrote his name on the bottom. He was left-handed and he couldn’t help but smudge the letters.
Large looked at Little. ‘Could do a video statement?’
Zak groaned. ‘Not more.’
‘We edit what we’ve already got, play that in court instead of the prosecution taking you through this.’ He put his hand on the paper statement.
‘Haven’t said I’ll testify yet,’ Zak said. ‘Need some guarantees I’ll be safe.’
‘We’re looking into it,’ Large told him. ‘It’s not a soft option. If we go ahead, accept you on the programme, you’ll be relocated, you’ll lose everyone: friends, family-’
‘I’m not going on my own,’ Zak argued. ‘My mam?’
‘It’s possible. Even so, big strain for both of you. And if you break your cover, make a call, let something slip, do something stupid, then we can’t protect you. All bets are off.’
Little took over. ‘Also, we’d need you to be rock solid for the trial, stand by your evidence.’
‘I will, course I will,’ Zak promised.
He wondered where they’d send them. If it’d be abroad. Spain maybe. He could work in a bar and it’d be warm all the time and his mam’d maybe work there too, or at a restaurant and Bess’d get the leftovers. People’d be on holiday and give good tips ’cos they were having a good time and soon they’d have their own restaurant and pay other people to work and that. But maybe Bess wouldn’t be allowed in Spain ’cos of rabies. So somewhere else. Cornwall? Midge had been down there, he said it was like another country, well chilled and full of surfers and old hippies and that.
It was really, really late when Little and Large came back the next time. They didn’t have him brought up to an interview room but talked in his cell. Zak was climbing the walls by now, his skin all twitchy like insects were crawling over him and the room shrinking in on him.
‘You’ve not been completely straight with us,’ Little said, sitting next to him on the bench. Large leant against the door.
‘I have,’ Zak retorted. ‘It’s all true, all happened like I said.’
‘Your mother, you claim to have lost touch?’
Zak’s belly ached. ‘We did.’
‘When was that?’ Little asked him.
Zak shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ He just wanted to see her.
‘Fifteen years,’ Large said, ‘you were seven years old. You were taken into care. Remember that?’
Zak began to shake, jittery inside.
‘We’ve seen the files,’ Large said. ‘Your mother went down for child cruelty and neglect. She got a five-year sentence.’
A flash: his skin hot and dry, quivering, the volley of blows. Flayed until he could barely crawl. ‘It’s not true,’ Zak shouted. He’d been bad, that was all. He’d be good now, she’d see.
‘Eleven different fractures, ruptured spleen, malnourished, dehydrated. She kept you chained in a shed.’
Scattered sensations, the bite of metal cold on his ankle, the taste of iron in his mouth, licking his palms for the salt, the crumbs of rubber on his tongue, trying to grind them smaller. ‘It was a car crash,’ he shouted.
‘A car crash that lasted seven years? That what she told you to say?’ Large asked him. ‘You were starving; you’d chewed up the lino. You were covered in your own filth. You looked like a famine victim. The social workers recommended that there be no further contact. She showed no sign of remorse.’
Zak had his hands over his ears, he wouldn’t listen to them.
‘She nearly killed you,’ Little said. ‘Why on earth – this, running off into the sunset, it ain’t going to happen, Zak. Even if we could trace her, why the hell would you want to?’
Zak started crying, he couldn’t help it. Little shuffled about a bit then got up and said they’d be back in a while.
He must have nodded off because next thing someone was shaking his shoulder and it was Large saying, ‘Come on, lad, we’re shipping you out.’
‘Where to?’
‘Hull.’
‘Hull? Where’s Hull?’ Zak knew nothing about the place but the name. He’d a feeling it wasn’t Cornwall.
‘North-east.’ Little flashed his teeth.
‘Newcastle?’ Zak sat up, swung his legs off the bench, in a daze.
‘Down a bit. It’s going to be home from now on,’ Little said.
‘Can I get my stuff?’ Zak asked; his sleeping bag was in the underground car park, his other bits.
Large shook his head, looked glum. ‘No souvenirs, no goodbyes, no forwarding address. Clean slate. Welcome to witness protection.’
‘What about Bess?’ Zak began to panic, shaking. ‘I’m not going without her.’
Large nodded. ‘She’s coming.’
That was cool then. He got to his feet. ‘Will I have to change my name?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Large nodded. ‘New name, new history, flat, job, whole kit and caboodle.’
‘And Bess?’
‘I said she’s coming,’ Large said.
‘No,’ said Zak, ‘will she have to change her name an’ all?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mike
‘She won’t wear it,’ Mike had told Joe. Mike had been to sign on and Joe was out of the office, as he put it, so they’d met up at a cafe near the Jobcentre. ‘I told her everything like you said, about the crash and the panic alarm, but she won’t budge. She hasn’t just put her foot down,’ he said bitterly, ‘she’s nailed it to the floor.’
‘And if you go ahead?’ Joe asked.
‘I lose them, she kicks me out.’ Mike couldn’t imagine it: going home to some bedsit, no Vicky beside him, no kids making a racket. Just himself, the ultimate loser, no job, no family. ‘You’ve got other witnesses?’ He couldn’t look at Joe, the shame heavy in him, a plea in his voice.
‘We need you, Mike.’ Joe had spoken simply: no theatrics, just facts.
‘How can I?’ Mike swung his head to look out of the window: a gang of kids had chalks, were scribbling on the flagstones. There was a CD on in the cafe, Coldplay, the third album X &Y, not their best, Mike reckoned, but this particular track a masterpiece, though not the soundtrack Mike wanted to his craven betrayal. Chris Martin’s voice, pure as water, intimate as they come, singing ‘Fix You’. Not this, mate, Mike thought, no fixing this.