‘Where were you?’
‘An interview.’ Mike coughed. ‘A new job. I couldn’t let work know – they’d be brassed off, so I fed them the line about a family wedding.’
‘What job?’ She wasn’t buying it but it was all he had to sell. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Didn’t know if I’d get it, didn’t know if you’d like the idea.’
‘Why?’
Mike’s brain was doing a Basil Fawlty, John Cleese lurching around in blind panic. He tried to find something suitably disgusting. Gross. ‘Abattoir.’
‘Is this bullshit, Mike?’
How could she tell? ‘No!’
‘You can’t stand blood and guts.’
‘I know. More money though. Didn’t get it,’ he added. ‘It was horrible, nearly chucked up.’
She stared at him. ‘Is this the truth?’
He tried not to blink. ‘Yeah, honest.’
‘Give me your phone.’
‘What?’ He wondered if he could pretend it was missing, that Kieran had squirrelled it away somewhere.
‘Something to hide?’ Her lip curled.
‘No, just be nice to be trusted, seeing as I haven’t done owt wrong.’ He was sinking.
‘We’ll see, shall we?’
‘Vicky-’
‘Give it here.’ She’d got her face on, hard as stone, eyes all glittering.
He handed it over. He’d deleted all his messages, made a habit of it, and his call register. She was going through his contacts.
‘Who’s JK?’
Joe Kitson. ‘What?’ Mike’s skin fizzed, his bowels loosened.
‘You heard.’
‘Oh, bloke at work, John King. I’ll prove it, shall I?’ He put his hand out. ‘Like a word with him, would you?’ Irate himself now.
‘Yeah, I would.’
Mike felt sick. He called Joe Kitson, praying the man would be quick on the uptake. Mike spoke quickly, a laugh in his voice. ‘John mate, Mike here, from work. Do us a favour, say hello to the missus, will yer? Settle a bet. I’ll tell you the rest at work tomorrow. I’ll put her on. Cheers, John.’
Vicky’s turn to look a bit sick. Mike passed her the handset.
‘Hello?’ Vicky said.
‘What’s this bet then?’ Mike could hear Joe ask.
‘Nothing really,’ she said awkwardly. ‘See you.’ Her face flared crimson as she handed Mike his phone. ‘I don’t remember you mentioning a John,’ she said, still not admitting defeat.
‘Course you do.’ Mike’s knees were weak and his heart was going like a pump hammer. ‘Worse at chess than I am. Quiet bloke.’ He grinned. ‘You daft cow.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.
‘I should think so an’ all.’
She snatched the paper up from where he’d left it and started walking towards the kitchen. ‘Next time just bloody tell us, then.’
‘What? That I’ve got a bit on the side?’
Vicky turned and hurled the paper at him and then began to laugh. He loved her laugh, rich and dirty. He loved her. And he’d got away with it. ‘Get us a beer,’ he said.
‘Get it yourself,’ she told him. But she went to the fridge, anyway.
Oh, God. It was all going to be okay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Zak
Zak gave his evidence via video link from Hull County Court. Hull was a dump. Freezing cold and nothing going on. It was by the sea and the wind blew from the east. Little said it came all the way from Siberia. With knives in it. Even the rain fell sideways. Zak’s bones hurt deep inside.
Little also told Zak it had been an important port for hundreds of years, a big trading post and a fishing port until the Cod Wars, but there were still working docks. Zak wasn’t impressed. Okay there was a marina and arcades and stuff in the town but the rest of it, the places Zak lived and worked, were minging.
Zak had been in one place for a couple of weeks, straight after they arrived from Manchester. Like a safe house with no personal stuff anywhere and alert alarms in all the rooms. From outside it just looked like all the other houses in the row. Little and Large took turns with him in the days, talking him through his new identity and what he was to tell people. At night another guy came, a minder. He stayed up all night watching the nature channel on satellite TV. He only spoke when Zak spoke to him and then never gave anything away. Like words were money and he was skint. The worst thing was no drugs, not being able to have a puff or a snort and chill out. He even had to have his cigs out in the back yard.
They let him walk Bess, always one of them following him. At first he had felt safe, a bit like the hospital but the food not so good, then he got bored and by the end of those two weeks he was close to exploding just for summat to do. Then they got him the flat, and the job. The flat was in a three-storey block. Nine flats each floor, beside a dual carriageway. Zak’s was at the back so he could hear the traffic but his view was just rooftops, rows of them. He’d a bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom. Low ceilings, dark carpet. He got excited thinking about decorating it, making it comfy. Never had a place of his own for more than a few weeks, and most of those just a room in a squat or a place that only the desperate would pay good money for. Then something would happen, like gatecrashers turning the place into a war zone, or kids stealing the lead piping so there was no water any more, or a shortfall in the rent and he’d be off.
Little and Large made it clear that wasn’t an option. Banged on and on about it being his responsibility, his side of the deal. Large kept saying it was his big chance, turn his life around, settle down. But it was Hull, he didn’t know anyone, he didn’t belong. He missed Manchester.
Zak asked them about other destinations but Little snapped it was witness protection not a sodding travel agency. Same with his new name. Ryan Wilson. Ryan! He hated the name. There’d been a Ryan in one of the homes, a psycho bully who robbed everyone’s stuff and had pointy, baby teeth and asthma.
But they forced him to have the name and he had to practise writing it. He told them he didn’t go in for much reading and writing but they insisted he’d need a new signature. Not being good with reading limited the jobs they could find him. In the end he started at a recycling centre: sorting glass and metal. The rubbish came in on a wide belt and the ‘operatives’ as they were called stood either side picking off items for the different crates. You had to wear full protective clothing: overalls and gloves and boots. The place was cold and the work made a right racket, the crashing of glass and the metal clanging. It stank too from the bits of old booze and food and that. You got all sorts coming on the belt. A dead dog one time, just a pup. That cut Zak up to see it.
Zak’s new life story was that he’d grown up with his mam in Wigan. ‘I don’t talk like I come from Wigan,’ he’d told Large.
‘No one over this side’ll know the difference,’ Large said, fiddling with the braces on his teeth.
Then they’d moved to Hull.
‘Why? Why would anyone come here?’
‘For work.’
‘There isn’t any.’
‘She worked for Woolies before they went bust, transferred here. Died of cancer three years ago.’ Large looked at him carefully. Zak didn’t like him peering like that. Knew he was thinking about Zak’s real mam and all that bother. What did they know? She was all he had, her and Bess. He’d been really naughty, must have, and she had to punish him. Went a bit too far, that’s all. Zak shuddered, got up and stretched.
‘Her name was Julie Wilson. You never knew your dad.’
‘You got that right.’
They began to call him Ryan and he hated it. ‘Can’t I have a nickname?’
‘Like what?’ Little laughed. ‘Fingers?’
‘Behave!’ Zak said.
‘Willie – short for Wilson.’ Little kept laughing.
Zak went outside for a fag.
‘A middle name, then?’ he asked when he got back in.