Witness - [36]

‘You’re not going, are you?’ he asked. She couldn’t place his accent.

‘Thinking of it.’

His tongue was caught between his teeth. White teeth. He laughed.

‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said, knowing this was risky, showing too keen an interest.

‘Took some of my gear back to the hotel.’

‘You don’t live in Manchester?’

‘Bristol.’ He looked about, sniffed. ‘We could get something to eat?’

‘Cool,’ she said, ‘yeah.’ She turned to Tony. ‘Where’s open now?’

He made some suggestions. Cheryl nodded, barely taking them in.

‘Thanks, mate,’ Jeri-KO said. Then to her, ‘Sushi sounds good. Okay by you?’

Cheryl knew what sushi was, raw fish, Japanese food. Never had it. ‘Good, yeah.’ She turned to Tony. ‘See you.’

He winked at her. ‘Take care.’

Cheryl felt the fizz of excitement inside, the dizzy sensation like she’d faint or fall or float off.

‘Is Jeri-KO your real name?’

‘Jeremy – I prefer Jeri. And you’re Cheryl.’

She stopped, surprised. ‘How do you know?’

‘I asked around.’

She smiled. And he took her hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Zak

The house was gone. Zak stood there for a minute blinking as if his eyesight had just packed in and would start up again any second and hey presto, there’d be the view as it should be, the house and the trees and everything. Not so.

There was a pile of bricks in the centre of the plot and wooden joists and bits of window frames stacked to the side. All the brambles and the saplings had been stripped away and the bigger trees by the perimeter fence had been pruned. There was a big brazier too, blackened, and Zak caught the whiff of burning wood still in the air.

Zak shivered. The weather was bitter, his wrist ached with the cold, a gnawing pain and he wanted to rub it warm but it was still clad in the plaster cast.

He looked again at the house and shook his head. His sleeping bag had been in there, the spare clothes he had. He knew it would have been freezing in the winter but he could have burned stuff, made like an Indian in a tepee. Now he’d nowhere.

He walked to the PDSA, stopped a couple of passers-by with the mam in hospital story and got £1.50.

Bess was mental when she saw him. Wriggling and licking his face. He knew they didn’t have set charges, ’cos it was for poor people who couldn’t pay for a proper vet, but they liked you to make a contribution. He gave the woman his £1.50, said sorry it wasn’t more.

It was growing dark already as they left. Zak weighed up his options: a shop doorway or Midge’s. He rang Midge. ‘Just a night,’ he asked. ‘I’ll find somewhere tomorrow.’

Midge hesitated. Zak waited, hoping.

‘Can’t be any longer,’ Midge said.

‘Course not. Thanks, mate.’

There was a girl living with Midge now, Stacey, and she didn’t take to Zak, wrinkled her nose and went off to the bedroom when he got there. Midge raised his eyebrows and said she was a mardy cow but not to take any notice.

Later Stacey went out, trimmed up like a Christmas tree, all shiny and gaudy. Midge gave Zak a fiver and he went for chips and jumbo sausages and curry sauce (no sauce for Bess).

Midge had to stay in; he’d business to do. People calling round to score.

Zak and Midge had a blow after the chips. Started Zak’s cough off but he liked the blurry feeling that followed, made him dopey and giggly.

One of Midge’s customers brought a couple of big bottles of cider with him and they shared them and watched Top Gear and a Bear Grylls rerun, surviving in the jungle. Zak got the giggles, then the munchies, but Midge said they had to leave some stuff for Stacey.

Zak slept on the sofa, Bess alongside him on the floor nearby. Midge had turned the lights off but the curtains were sheer and the street light, a fierce blue-white, filled the room with a glow.

In the early hours he heard Stacey come back and clatter around. He smelt toast and bacon and his stomach growled. Bess twitched, raised her head and looked at him. He put his hand on her head for a bit. Then she relaxed again, settled back with a sigh.

Zak had a dream he was with Bear Grylls in the jungle. Bear was picking grubs off the floor and eating them. Zak felt sick and Bear was yelling at him, ‘Eat it or starve, see if I care!’ Then Bear was hitting him, hitting his head and making him feel even more sick. Zak woke up and he was glad he was in Manchester, on Midge’s couch, even if he was dead cold.

In the morning he didn’t see Stacey but Midge made him a fried egg buttie and a coffee. Zak took his pills. Midge asked him what they were but told him there wasn’t much of a call for them. Midge dealt in temazepam and co-codamol as well as weed and E’s. Zak thought he’d keep them anyway, try and sort his chest out for good.

‘Where you gonna go?’ Midge asked him.

Zak shrugged. He hated the hostels and they wouldn’t let him in with Bess, anyway.

‘Maybe another old wreck.’

Midge narrowed his eyes. ‘They’ve boarded up the Narrow Boat,’ he said. Zak imagined the pub, dark, smelling of old fags and beer. Better than nothing.

‘Need somewhere I can get into without too much bother.’

Midge waggled his head. ‘They’ve put grills up.’