Witness - [34]

‘What, I imagined getting rammed by a car, did I? I imagined swerving and nearly crashing?’

Megan wriggled in his arms, her cries getting louder. ‘Vicky, let’s talk later. It’s just coincidence. Bad luck.’

‘Why are you being like this?’ She spat the words at him.

He felt bile rise. Set Megan down, ignoring her howl of protest. He moved towards Vicky, his skin hot, his arms shaking. ‘I’m doing the right thing,’ he said tightly. ‘If one of our kids was hurt…’

Vicky flinched.

‘… I’d want people to come forward. Any decent man-’

‘Don’t talk to me about decent. What’s decent is protecting your own family, being a proper father and husband. There will be other witnesses. Let them do it.’

Mike shook his head. The thought of pulling out made him weak with shame. Like a dog sidling away, wriggling its back end, craven. He’d lived with that feeling all these years. Now another boy had died and he could pay penance. ‘You have to let me do this,’ he told her.

Her face hardened.

‘We can ask for protection, if that’ll make you feel safer. I can ring them now.’

She shook her head. Wiped her hand roughly at her face. ‘Your choice, Mike. If you carry on, you do it without us.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cheryl

Cheryl had made £30 doing nails that week. Not all profit if you counted the cost of the acrylics and the varnishes and everything. But still a welcome contribution to the household. The television licence had to be paid and even though Nana had been buying stamps at the post office towards the gas and electric, the bill was much bigger than last winter.

Milo got ill in the New Year; his temp high and him sleeping so much, Cheryl got really worried. She called the health visitor and asked her what to do. Flu and winter vomiting sickness were both in the news. The health visitor asked her a couple of questions about rashes and his neck (to rule out meningitis, she said) then told her to use Calpol and plenty of fluids and not to take him out. Nana saw how scared Cheryl was and told her Milo was a fine strong boy. She reminded Cheryl of how sick she had been when she caught glandular fever at the end of primary school. And how the only thing that would cheer her up was lying on the sofa watching the RugRats cartoon on telly.

After four days Milo started eating again, but he still had a rattling cough. Nana caught the cough. It kept her inside too. She said the cold wind set it off. She didn’t even get to church. She sent Cheryl to the health food shop to buy black molasses and liquorice roots. She boiled up some mess that looked like dirty car oil and stank the house out. A tonic.

Nana Rose, Danny’s grandma, came round to visit. She’d gone so thin since the murder and her back was bent as though it was too heavy to bear. Nana scolded Rose for venturing out and risking catching the flu but Nana Rose hushed her. The two of them sat side by side on the sofa, holding hands, watching Doctors and turning over for Sixty MinuteMakeover. Cheryl tried to imagine herself and Vinia growing old like that. Couldn’t see it. Nana Rose would go back before it got dark at four o’clock.

‘Back home,’ Nana said, ‘it hardly change, sunset near to six every night.’

‘Warm all year,’ Nana Rose added.

‘You had hurricanes though,’ Cheryl said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Nana said. ‘Tearing the roofs off and everything blown every way.’

‘Were you scared?’ Cheryl knew the answers but knew too that Nana and Rose grew happy and mellow remembering home. Cheryl had asked Nana if she’d like to go back for a visit but Nana said it was all changed now. Cheryl thought she’d like to go, take Milo when he was bigger, see where they came from.

‘Yes, we would go in the root cellar of the farm next door and when the wind was shrieking the boys would say it was Satan flying in the wind.’

‘Poppa Joe’s car!’ Nana Rose giggled.

‘Ay! Poppa Joe’s car went up in the tree. So high. And the land there was too swampy for them to put any machines on to reach for it.’

‘And when you came here it was cold?’

‘Like the North Pole! Ice and snow and frost on the windows – on the inside.’

Cheryl made them a cup of tea and Nana Rose told them that the school was building a music centre in Danny’s memory. It was to have spaces for rehearsals and a recording studio and would be open to all of the community not just the school students.

Cheryl left Milo with Nana while she went to the supermarket. In the taxi back the guy was going on about another shooting. Somewhere on the Range. He meant Whalley Range. ‘The Range’ made it sound like a Western, thought Cheryl. Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt with stetsons. Men of honour cleaning up town. When really the Range was mostly just a poor neighbourhood and the gunfights as pointless and sordid as Carlton shooting Danny. Stupid and deadly.

She didn’t mention the rumour to Nana but watched the local TV news later. Another lad, nineteen this time, shot leaving a bakery. Cheryl didn’t recognize the name or the photo. The report ended with a reminder that police were still investigating the murder of Danny Macateer, seven months earlier.