Musclebound (29 page)

So I was clean. I was laundry fresh about stolen motors in the yard. See, even with wrecks, you got to have papers and proper records. And the politzei couldn’t get the wrecks and the records to match. So they started to look at the second-hand motors with reconditioned engines. Then they tried to find the yard owner. But, surprise, surprise, they couldn’t. So they got the foreman and the manager out of bed and brought them to the yard. And they got me.

And, surprise, surprise, none of us knew diddly-piddly. I swear I
really
don’t know diddly. Honest. What they get up to in the daytime ain’t none of my business. I don’t even see it, do I? I’m asleep. I’m the security guard so I work at night, don’t I? How’m I supposed to know?

‘Take it easy, Eva,’ Simone said. ‘Don’t get so excited.’

But I couldn’t help it. They was crawling all over everything like maggots. They was even in my Static with their maggot fingers in all my things.

They had their maggoty noses in all my cupboards, even in my bunk. They said they was looking for car stereos and speakers.

‘What’s the point?’ I said. ‘I ain’t got electricity. You can’t run a CD player off a torch battery.’

But the maggot detective didn’t say nothing. He just went on turning over all my bits and pieces with his creepy-crawly hands.

Then he faced me and said, ‘Turn out your pockets.’

‘What for?’ I said. ‘You think I’m hiding a reconditioned engine in me pocket? Or a kalashnikov? Or a BMW?’

‘Sshsh, Eva,’ Simone said. ‘Just do it. Then he’ll see you’ve got nothing to hide.’

They can make you do it. They can make you take all your clothes off, and they can even stick their maggot fingers up your
arse if they want to. They can make it so you got nothing of your own, even your own arse. Free country?
Bollocks
.

So I turned out my pockets, and Detective Sergeant Maggot went through everything.

Would you like it? Well, would you? If you’ve got to explain every little ball of fluff in your pockets or your handbag or your home? They can make you if they want to. It’s up to them, if they decide they want to. It’s your turn. So they give you a tug and they make you explain every sodding item in your possession. It ain’t up to you.
You
can’t decide. Oh no. And you’re lucky if you get away with your arse intact. Believe.

There it all was, on the table – my skinning knife, the sheath, my tobacco tin, money, snot-rag, torch, keys, Swiss Army knife, short-handled screwdriver, tin of flea powder.

‘Why’ve you got two knives?’ Detective Sergeant Maggot said. ‘What’s the skinning knife for?’

‘Hush,’ said Simone.

‘Fresh meat,’ I said. ‘For the dogs.’

‘Have you got a receipt for it?’

‘No.’

‘Show me all the locks these keys fit. Every one.’

See, he was saving the best till last. That’s what the politzei do. They pretend they’re interested in what’s in your tobacco tin, and they’ll go on and on about it till you’re climbing the walls. It’s only when they’ve scraped you off the ceiling that they’ll start talking about the money.

And all the time Detective Sergeant Maggot was asking me about the matches, candle stub, stock cubes I keep in the tobacco tin, his little assistant maggot, Detective Constable Oily-Rag, was rummaging through the rest of my belongings. And every now and then she’d bring something else and put it on the table – like another torch or my sponge-bag or a box of tampons.

You can’t concentrate. DS Maggot’s firing questions, questions, questions while you’re trying to see what DC Oily-Rag’s up to. That’s how they try to trick you.

‘Let me get this straight,’ DS Maggot said, ‘you keep a wire saw, waterproof matches, et cetera, in this tobacco tin because you’re afraid of a nuclear accident or an earthquake or something. Am I hearing correctly?’

‘I ain’t afraid of nothing.’

‘It’s OK, Eva,’ Simone said.

‘The SAS manual says it’s a good idea,’ I said.

‘You’re winding me up,’ he said.

Then DC Oily-Rag threw my dirty old jeans on the table and said, ‘There’s something in the pockets, Sarge.’

That gave me an awful fright. I was scared I’d forgotten one or two of those dung squillions when I changed to my brand-new zippy strides.

What they found was my lucky piece – the ten pence that old lady dropped for me when I was waiting to ask Harsh to be my personal trainer. Except he wouldn’t and he just gummed off about toothbrushes, so it wasn’t lucky after all. The other thing they found was the lottery ticket. The real one. And that
was
lucky because it reminded me of my story. And it proved to Simone I was telling the truth. ‘Cos now she could see with her own eyes I was the sort of person who went in for the lottery.

‘That’s mine,’ I said. ‘You ain’t taking it.’

‘Shush,’ said Simone. ‘No one’s taking it.’

‘Haven’t you checked the numbers?’ said DS Maggot. ‘Maybe you’ve won a million.’

‘Not with my mojo,’ I said. ‘If there was any good mojo going I wouldn’t have you bastards crawling all over me.’

‘Eva,’ said Simone, ‘shut up. Just answer the questions. I’m exhausted.’ She was talking to me like I was a baby. And the politzei was letting her do it. They never told her to go away. They thought I was so stupid I needed a responsible adult along to hold my hand. Which shows how stupid they are.

Simone wasn’t the only one who was totally butchered. As the night went on DS Maggot and DC Oily-Rag got more and more tired too. It was their own silly faults. They was trying to wear
me down so that I’d crumple when they got to asking about what really interested them. They forgot they was dealing with a trained athlete. They forgot that I’m used to being up all night.

So when Detective Sergeant Maggot decided to talk about the bent money I could of laughed, ‘cos actually he knew less than nothing. I knew he didn’t know piddly-pooh because of the questions he didn’t ask. He didn’t ask about God Greg. He didn’t ask about a red Carlton. He didn’t ask about a Puma sports bag.

What he had was one measly twenty-pound note which he said I bought a burger with, from John’s Burger Bar. That’s all he had.

I said, ‘You turned me place upside down ‘cos I bought a burger? One stinking burger. I s’pose if I bought a pizza you’d of sent me to prison.’

He and Simone said, ‘Shut up,’ together.

He didn’t know about the rest of it. He didn’t know about Hanif and Value Mart. That’s what surprised me. The Enemy wasn’t the one who dobbed me in. If she’d dobbed me in he’d of known about Hanif s and the army surplus store and Value Mart. But he didn’t. So she wasn’t the one and I was amazed. It must of been Burger Bar John. The sod – he can swing before I eat another of his smelly old burgers.

So it was morning before I got to tell the story Simone and God Greg wanted me to tell. I thought I told it pretty bloody well. But DS Maggot was scratching his stubble, and DC Oily-Rag was yawning, and Simone was rubbing her eyes by the time I finished.

‘Keeping you up, am I?’ I said.

‘Shut up,’ they all said together.

‘’Cos I got to feed my dogs,’ I said. ‘They ain’t ate since yesterday morning, and they’ve spent the whole night cooped up in your van. I ought to get the RSPCA on to you. I don’t s’pose you even gave them any water.’

‘Shut up.’

That’s a fine way to talk to someone in her own home. I was almost as knackered as they was but I wasn’t letting my guard
down. For one thing, I was rageous. I mean, it was my home they was trashing. It wasn’t Simone’s. It wasn’t DS Maggot’s or DC Oily-Rag’s. It was me they was tearing open with their questions. Not Simone, or Maggot or Oily-Rag. Who the hell did they think they was telling to shut up? When all I was doing was answering, answering, answering their stupid questions.

Maggot said, ‘This woman in the market? She gave you money for luck? You expect us to believe that?’

‘You lot never believe anything,’ I said.

‘How much?’

‘What?’

‘Money.’

I looked at Simone. I’d forgotten.

‘How much?’

‘Dunno,’ I said.

‘Don’t ask her,’ Simone said. ‘She can’t count.’

‘
Can,’
I said. ‘What d: you mean I can’t count?’

‘So how much?’ said Maggot.

‘Er …’

‘Come on.’

I looked at Simone again. I couldn’t remember what I told her.

‘Sixty-seven?’ I said.

‘Sixty-seven pounds?’ said Maggot.

‘A hundred?’ I said. ‘Um. And sixty-seven?’ I was looking at Simone and she was looking back, but she wasn’t telling me if I was right or wrong.

‘A thousand?’ I said. They was doing my head in. ‘Could of been fifty-seven thousand. No. A thousand and fifty-seven. I mean sixty-seven. I mean, a hundred.’

‘Christ,’ said Maggot.

Simone said nothing.

‘How much did she give me?’ I asked Simone. ‘I got to feed the dogs.’

‘I wasn’t there,’ Simone said.

‘I
can
count,’ I said.

‘Of course you can,’ she said.

‘I just forgotten.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. Maybe it’ll come back to you if we wait.’

We waited, but I couldn’t think numbers. All I could think of at that moment was Wozzisname and that was the worst possible thing to think of.

‘I
can
count,’ I said. ‘Why did you say I can’t?’

‘I was wrong,’ Simone said. ‘I’m sorry.’ She was tired too. She said, ‘Do you think, Detective Sergeant, that Eva could feed her dogs now? Could we have a word?’

‘We
all
need a break,’ Maggot said. ‘She can feed her dogs if she puts them on a leash and keeps them under control. And that’s the one place we haven’t searched yet – the dog pen.’

‘Ramses won’t like that,’ I said. ‘Dogs is territorial. Why should Ramses put up with having his home trashed any more than me? You got a warrant?’

‘Shut up,’ said Maggot. ‘I don’t need a warrant to search a doghouse.’

‘That’s not fair,’ I said. ‘Dogs got rights. I’ll get the RSPCA on to you.’

‘Shut up.’

Simone was looking at me like I was soft in the noodle. She didn’t understand, and she didn’t say nothing to stop them neither. So we all got up and went out.

It was daylight and the rain was coming down in strips. Even the politzei looked miserable. The manager and the foreman were still hanging in, answering this and that every time the troops found something dodgy.

When the men turned up for work they went through the politzei grinder one at a time, and then the manager or the foreman sent them home again. We’d been royally shafted. I thought that when this was over I’d deep-fry Burger Bar John upside down in his own chip pan and stuff his ears into one of his own soggy buns.

The dogs was in a terrible strop – except for Milo who was so pleased to see me he stood on his hind legs and gave me a morning wash. His stand-up ear looked a bit chewed. He spent the night cooped up with Ramses and Lineker and I spent the night cooped up with Maggot and Oily-Rag so I knew how he felt.

I fed them and gave them water. Then I had to put them back in the van.

‘Not Milo,’ I said. ‘He’s only a pup.’

‘A
what?’
said Oily-Rag. ‘He looks like a small horse to me.’

‘He’s too young to take chokey,’ I said. ‘I’m keeping him with me. He won’t bite no one – he’s a dead loss as a guard dog so far. He won’t even bite
you’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Maggot.

‘Herf,’ said Milo, looking pitiful. He was good at that.

‘But keep him on the leash,’ said Maggot.

‘Hip-herf,’ said Milo.

‘Shurrup,’ I said. ‘He talks too much. I dunno what to do about that. Guard dogs is supposed to be silent and deadly but he’s always got something to say.’

‘I wonder who he takes after?’ said Maggot. ‘Right, let’s look at the pen.’

So we tramped through the rain and the puddles to look at the pen.

There wasn’t nothing in the pen to look at except the old fridge I keep the dogs’ food and brushes in. It’s only a pen. It’s got an awning I rigged up to the doghouse and a mat under it so the dogs can sit out if they want to, even if it’s raining. Maggot looked under the mat and Oily-Rag emptied all the Bow Chow rusks on the floor.

‘Now they’re spoiled,’ I said. ‘You’re supposed to keep dog biscuits dry and hard. It’s for their teeth and gums. You’re taking food out of my dogs’ mouths and you ought to be ashamed.’

‘Shush, Eva,’ said Simone. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

They went into the dogs’ house. They turned their beds over. They shook out the bedding and I hope they caught fleas. I wished
my dogs was free to protect their own territory, ‘cos I couldn’t. Nobody listens to me. I should have a lawyer. My dogs should have a dog lawyer.

‘Shut up,’ said Maggot.

But he didn’t find nothing. He didn’t find no Puma sports bag filled with bent squillions. Did you think he would? Get a brain. I ain’t stupid.

‘Where can I wash my hands?’ said Oily-Rag.

‘Ssh-ssh,’ said Simone, ‘cos she thought I was going to tell Oily-Rag to wash her hands in the same place she put her enema. But I wouldn’t soil me lips.

What? Tell the politzei useful information? I wouldn’t even tell them their own names. I didn’t tell Detective Sergeant Chapman of the Fraud Squad his name was really Maggot of the Turd Squad, did I? No. I got my pride.

They didn’t leave till nearly midday. Then they got into their vans and cars and went back to the cesspit they came from. They took the manager with them. But they didn’t take me. And they didn’t take Ramses and Lineker.

They didn’t take the yard foreman neither.

‘Frigging Frieda,’ he said. ‘Ever been grateful you’re only small fry?’

‘I ain’t small anything,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s my job down the garbage chute,’ he said. ‘Yours too.’

‘What you talking about?’

‘No one’s going to pay you to guard an empty yard,’ he said. ‘And an empty yard’s what’s going to be left by the time the cops sort out the bent gear from the straight.’

‘That ain’t
fair,’
I said.

‘Don’t shout at me,’ he said. ‘When was life ever fair to the likes of us?’