Nowhere Child (4 page)

I’m not sure about that, though.

I made it as far as the phone box and hung about outside. Just as I plucked up the courage to make the call, some guy shoved me out of the way and went in, piling up his money, turning to give me a sly, toothless grin.

I didn’t call her. The loser who elbowed me gave me a good excuse. The truth is I’m scared of what Emma might say to me. I can’t forget what I did, so how could she?

I decided I needed to tell Andy everything last night. I didn’t want him to hate me, though, so before I told him the dreadful thing I‘d done, I told him about how my dad had set up my abduction when I was six, how my mum died, and how I ended up living with Rory and Donna Slater.

‘What was it like, living with a gangland family?’ he asked me.

‘I didn’t realise for ages that they were part of a gang.’ I answered. ‘I thought it was normal to have to steal if you wanted to eat. We all did it, and because I didn’t go to school, I didn’t know any different. There was always a chance that one of the teachers would recognise me, see, so I stayed at home, and they put me to good use – everything from nicking stuff to weighing and measuring the drugs that Rory sold. The other kids that lived there were okay, really. I had a friend, but she died.’

Andy had looked at me with a frown when I said that. I didn’t want to talk about Izzy, though. The thought of how she had been forced to spend the last few weeks of her life, and what my life might have become, still gives me nightmares. I didn’t want Andy to know that I had agreed to kidnap my baby brother to save myself from a life as a thirteen-year-old prostitute, being pawed over by fat, greasy guys who got their kicks from screwing kids. I could sometimes feel their grubby hands touching my body while I slept, and I couldn’t stand the thought of Andy imagining me like that.

‘When did you realise – about the gang, I mean?’

‘When I first met Finn McGuinness. I heard him talking to Rory, and I knew Rory was being made to do stuff – that he wasn’t in charge, like I’d always thought. But even Finn wasn’t top dog. There was somebody higher up. Finn and Rory were just part of his operation. I don’t know who the main guy was, though.’

‘So why do you think the police are looking for you now?’

We both knew Emma wasn’t the only one asking about me, and although I tried to pretend the police are looking because I’m a runaway, that isn’t very convincing given the number of other kids there are on the streets. Why single me out for special treatment?

‘They want me because of what I did.’ I said it out loud; I admitted I had done something terrible. And I knew I would have to tell Andy the rest.

He waited. He was good like that. So I told him I had stolen Ollie – my cute, lovable, baby half-brother – that I had walked out of the house with him, and handed him over to Rory. I just stuck to the facts; I kept to myself the way I had felt, but the memories came flooding back.

At first, the planning had felt good. I wanted to punish my dad for betraying me and for setting up the abduction that had killed my mother all those years earlier. But Ollie had made me feel soft inside, and I wasn’t expecting that. I kept telling myself to stop being weak, that my dad deserved the pain and that I had to save myself from the alternative life I knew was my only other option.

Walking out of the house with Ollie had been easy. I had felt quite clever for a moment. But when I picked his warm little body out of his pushchair and held him out to Rory – a man who stank of stale booze and cigarettes – I had felt sick. Ollie had turned back to me, stretched out his arms towards me, wanting me to take him back from the horrible man who was squeezing him too tight. He had looked frightened, his eyes wide and his mouth open, ready to scream. Rory had put his hand over Ollie’s mouth and I’d shouted then. ‘Don’t hurt him,’ I had cried. ‘He’s just a baby.’

At that moment I had wanted more than anything to take Ollie back – to pluck his chubby body in its cuddly down romper suit from Rory’s arms and run as fast as I could.

But I didn’t tell Andy any of this. I only told him what I had done.

He stared at me with his mouth open like a goldfish. I had to carry on. I didn’t want to make it sound less than it was: evil, mean, destructive. I had thought then that it was the only thing I could do, but how could I explain this to a kind, thoughtful boy like Andy? That Finn had given me no choice? That he had planned it and made it clear what my options were?

I rushed to finish my story, swallowing my words as they spilled out, telling him stuff I hadn’t wanted him to know, but feeling I had to somehow make excuses for myself.

‘Finn told me if I didn’t take Ollie, I would have to go to Julie’s, the place my friend Izzy – the one who killed herself – escaped from. It wasn’t a good place, Andy. Anyway, I hated my dad. I still do, for what he did. I wanted to make him suffer.’

But never Ollie, I thought to myself. It should never have been Ollie. My baby brother.

Andy was quiet for a moment, thinking. He picked up a pebble and threw it up and down in the air, catching it and tossing it up again, as if he was weighing everything up.

‘So why does Emma want you back, do you think, if you stole her bairn?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why I had to leave. The police would have arrested me, Emma hated me, my dad was a useless piece of crap – and I couldn’t go back to Rory because I’d grassed on him and the rest of them. He’d have killed me. What else could I have done? So I came here.’

‘What happened to Rory and Finn, then?’ Andy asked.

I didn’t know the answer. I’d been trying to find out – to track down some of the other kids from the Slaters’ house. I’d hung around their school for a while at the beginning, hiding in the door of a derelict house that had obviously been the victim of a fire, because everything I touched turned my fingers black. But none of the kids ever came. They must
have been taken somewhere else. I didn’t know if Rory had done a runner with the lot of them, or been locked up for keeping me hidden all those years and a whole string of other crimes they might have uncovered.

That policeman – Tom, Emma called him – knew what Rory had done to me, and he didn’t look like the kind of bloke who would let him get away with it.

‘I think the cops might have arrested Rory, but I don’t know about Finn. It doesn’t matter much. Whether Finn is inside or not, he’s got contacts. He knows I grassed them up – and he’ll get me if that’s what he wants. I’ve been expecting something to happen since the moment I ran.’

It seems far more likely that Finn McGuinness is offering the reward. Why he’s waited so long is a mystery, but it would be just like him to offer money to some young guy who in the end will probably never see a penny of it. But I still want to know for sure. I want to know where the danger is coming from. I should have made that call.

I feel safer now that I’m back underground. I don’t want Andy to hate me after everything I told him and I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s been so good to me, and I don’t want to spoil things. I plucked up the courage last night to ask him why he looked out for me all the time. He said it felt good to be able to protect somebody, then he clammed up. I’m going to try to explain better about what my life was like. I’ll tell him about the Pit, how it felt to be thrown into a damp, cold, dark hole in the ground for not doing as I was told, and how it felt to learn my dad had sold my young life to save his own skin.

I wander back through the tunnel, back to Andy, and I realise that after I’ve told him the rest I’m going to have to leave him and move on. I’m a danger to anybody around me, and I don’t want Andy to get dragged into my mess. My eyes mist over at the thought of losing him, and my step falters. Nobody looks at me as I walk past.

There’s something funny about the atmosphere down here tonight. Everybody seems jumpy – or is it just me? Tension seems to be bouncing off the walls. I’m looking at the floor as I walk, making sure I don’t tread in anything nasty, but out of the corner of my eye I notice that nobody is looking at me because they’re all looking away, down the tunnel towards our pitch.

I lift my eyes from the floor and stop dead. Quietly I move to the side of the tunnel, deep into the shadows.

Andy is up ahead, and the man from the other night is with him. I know it’s him – it’s the way he stands; the slight bow in his legs with his feet spread apart. He’s got a knife – against
Andy’s throat. I edge a little closer so I can hear what’s being said. The tunnel echoes and the voice sounds weird, but I can make out the words.

‘You know something, don’t you, kid?’

Andy starts to shake his head, then obviously thinks better of it with the knife up against his neck.

‘No – why do you think that?’

‘Because when I came asking the other night, you were too fucking interested. That’s why.’

‘Only ’cos you mentioned five grand. I’d do anything for a piece of that.’ Andy sounds convincing, but his voice is shaking.

‘There’s people looking for this girl – serious people – people who would slit your throat and not even think about it. Just like I’m going to.’

I’m about to jump out of the shadows and give myself up. He can’t kill Andy – this is my problem. Then he carries on speaking, so I stay where I am.

‘But not yet,’ he says. ‘I think you know something.’ He pushes his knife against Andy’s throat, forcing his chin up. ‘Look at me, kid.’ Andy opens his eyes and stares at the man. Even from here I can imagine the terror in those eyes. Andy’s a peace-loving kid, and I think he’s known too much violence in his short life. Haven’t we all, I guess.

The guy is talking again, pushing the knife harder, and I can see darker marks around the blade. It can only be blood.

’If I find out you’re hiding something from me – you’re dead. Tell me where she is, I’ll let you live. Have you got that?’

Andy can’t nod without his neck being sliced open, so he whispers, ‘Yes.’

‘And just so that you know I’m not kidding …’ The man pulls the knife away but grabs Andy’s hair in his other hand and pulls him down over his extended leg and lets go. Andy falls hard onto the floor, and I hear the crack of his head as he fails to protect it with his bad arm. He is sprawled on the floor, unable to move.

The man pulls back his skinny shin and kicks Andy in the guts. Andy cries out once, and the man laughs.

‘Pathetic. If you think that’s hurting, you ain’t got a clue what’s coming.’

He is still laughing as he walks away, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his puffa jacket.

I wait until I’m sure he’s gone. I don’t know if he’s going to come back or not, but I can’t leave Andy like this. He’s not moving, and I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.

This is all my fault. Again. Why is it that I bring misery everywhere I go? I don’t mean to, but it just seems to happen.

I know that I’m going to have to move on – leave Andy and walk away from the feeling of being safe when I’m with him. I need to be on my own, just as I thought, where I can’t destroy anybody else’s life. Maybe I should just give in and let them have me. Then nobody would have to worry about me any more.

7

‘Hello,’ Emma said, slightly out of breath after running from Ollie’s room to her own bedroom. She could have let the call go to answer-phone, but she was obsessive about answering phone calls – just in case.

There was silence at the other end of the line, and Emma felt her hopes rise. Could it be …?

‘Hello – is that you, Tasha?’ she asked.

She heard a chuckle down the phone that sounded more derisive than amused.

‘Were you expecting to hear from her, Mrs Joseph?’ The voice was male, but young. And even down the phone line she could sense the poison.

Emma said nothing. She waited, wanting to put the phone down, but if this was about Tasha, she couldn’t.

‘You want to cut me off, don’t you – but I know you can’t. Because perhaps I know something about Tasha – maybe I can tell you where she is. Is that what you’re thinking, Emma?’ There was something slick about his tone that made Emma shudder.

‘I’m not thinking anything,’ she said, trying to sound brisk and efficient.

‘Well, let me explain something to you, shall I? Tasha’s been a bad girl. She’s upset a lot of very important people.’

Emma made a pfff sound – she couldn’t help herself.

‘Oh no, I wouldn’t go dissing these guys. I thought you, more than anybody, would know better than that. I have a feeling you’ve seen what they’re capable of. But they’ve got long memories, so don’t underestimate them.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know where Tasha is.’ The voice had become hard, the speech faster. Less of the slippery innuendo – he was getting to the point.

‘I don’t know where she is, and if you knew anything at all, you would know that I’m looking for her too.’

‘And you think we don’t know that? The police are looking as well, and we both know why. They want her to give evidence against Finn McGuinness.’

‘They don’t need Tasha for that. They have a cast iron case.’ Emma knew this wasn’t true, but maybe they didn’t.

She was wrong. Another of those chuckles made her skin erupt in goosebumps.

‘They need her. But it’s not going to happen, Emma. If you find her, we’ll know. She was one of us – and that makes her betrayal the worst kind. We’re happy for you to carry on looking, though. Because we’re watching you, you see. If you don’t want to risk your little boy’s life again, you need to help us find her.’ The threat to Ollie dripped like ice water down her spine, but the caller hadn’t finished. ‘You owe her nothing. Because of her you nearly lost your baby, and your husband died. All because of Tasha.’ The last four words were uttered in a slow, sing-song voice, but they drove the fear from Emma’s heart.

‘You’re wrong about Tasha. My husband died because of his own mistakes. Ollie was taken because of what
he
did. None of this should have happened to Tasha. And you had better believe this. If I find her first, you will never get to her. You need to understand that.’