Highbridge Read online

  The childhood memory, like all the others, had started to become bittersweet, taking on the rosy tint of lost innocence. A time before responsibility pressed in and grief started to visit. Like every child who wakes up suddenly an adult, he had come to accept that one day he would lose his mum and dad – but not his sister Janey. Even the cat and dog fights he and Joey had had with her were becoming cherished memories. Which was why he was now spending less and less time fretting over trying to persuade the Chinese to buy an extra sweater rather than build another power station, and more and more poncing about, as his brother Joe put it, with after-dinner speeches on the charity circuit. If they couldn’t stop people like Janey being killed on their own streets, then what was the point of everything else?

  ‘What was all that about?’ Natasha asked as Joey dropped into the car and leaned over to kiss her. She smelt good. She always did.

  ‘Mediocre dickhead in a mediocre town. Product of what our Sean calls the cycle of deprivation.’

  She knew better than to take the bait, so pointed the car in the direction of home, via the underpass Joey had just run through. He looked at the graffiti and piss stains and smiled as he let his mind go back to the time he kissed Margi Hewland under there when he was fourteen. That’s the thing about kids today, he thought. They never get to learn the shortcuts. No need. No hot pursuit. No door to door. No reading the clues trying to track the gang. Now it was all precision rendezvouses by GPS. Live feeds from their mobiles.

  ‘You have to break the continuum, don’t you?’ It was Luke’s spotter, Matt O’Connor, lying next to him. And, like him, wearing black Gelert packaway waterproofs over his Helly Hansen jacket and jeans. Equally effective in the dark, cheaper and less conspicuous than cammos. Matt rolled to one side, reached down and massaged the scar on his inner thigh. He’d started to notice that the pressure cramps were coming more frequently, a consequence of age. And weight. Although medium build, he’d always been referred to as stocky in youth, then as a bull of a man, but now he was veering towards rounded. One of life’s natural sociologists, always quick to find the black humour in life, believing it was naïve to be surprised by anything people do. They are, as he often says, only human, but Matt also believed that every day is a crossroads and it is up to everyone to decide which turning to take next. Some choose a selfish route, others tend towards helping others. Each is a choice. Each comes with its own consequences.

  ‘Take out all the warlords at once,’ he continued as he shifted his weight from the scar. ‘Otherwise, pop one, another steps up. Slot ’em all. Or, give their women the vote. They’d soon be bogged down putting up shelves and decorating instead of blowing up marketplaces. Democracy. They’re going to have it whether they like it or not.’

  ‘Great idea. And end up like us? Not having a clue who or what we are voting for?’

  ‘You never voted.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ Luke turned, his tall frame extending a foot or so beyond Matt’s boots. He was still trim, almost angelic looking. When he chose to be. More often the angel of death, but the transitions were getting harder as the ageing cracks started to multiply. If Matt was the sociologist, Luke was the philosopher. Which made him one of life’s squad leaders, but also deepened the cracks. Understanding why people committed evil did not prevent it. Or excuse them. But it made killing them easier.

  ‘In a democracy, O’Connor, you’re supposed to ask. Not sit round carving it up for yourself. The political class we now seem to have are as bad as the herders round their campfires.’

  ‘What did you expect? They’d phone you up or something?’

  ‘Why not?’ Luke went back to his scope. ‘They’ve got my mobile. They’ve got all our mobiles. No point havin’ GCHQ, MI6, Echelon or Homeland Bloody Security if they haven’t.’

  Matt laughed. ‘They could just send out a sort of national emergency text, like: Do you, or do you not, agree with nuking Europe. Text one for yes. Or three for no.’

  ‘I vote we focus on tonight’s target and sort out the voting system tomorrow.’

  Matt rolled back to his spotting scope to see the chippy owner getting into his daily opening routine. ‘I know I’ve put on a few ounces, but he’s like a bin bag full of balloons.’ Then, without a pause, ‘Are we going to slot him?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Luke replied and then grinned. ‘Do we get to vote on it?’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Gave up caring in Somalia.’

  ‘We weren’t supposed to be there, remember. And Janey definitely wasn’t there, Luke.’

  ‘But we were. And I was. When it happened.’ It was as harsh as it was still raw.

  Matt had learned over the past three years that, unlike his thigh, this was an open wound, but he never gave up trying. ‘You couldn’t have done anything. It was just one of those crap wrong place, wrong time things.’

  Luke knew his friend was right, but it never made it any easier. Why should Janey have been in the wrong place at any time? Just because of pieces of filth like the one in his scope right now. He tightened his finger. One small squeeze. Then he felt Matt’s version of the Vulcan nerve pinch on his shoulder.

  ‘He’s the bait. Bigger fish to fry.’

  Luke hesitated for a moment, but then relaxed his finger. ‘Was that an attempt to defuse the moment with humour, Dr O’Connor?’

  ‘Only following orders.’

  ‘I hate democracy.’

  ‘That is the point, mate. It makes it inconvenient for psychos like you.’

  The girls were heading along the High Street. In silence, heading for Sanderson’s, one of the few remaining independents to survive the supermarket wars, passing the local hoodies loitering with intent outside the Lion. Intent on doing what was always open to question, but typically one detached himself from the pack to stand blocking their path.

  Tanya instinctively reached for her phone. Becky and Carol instinctively stepped off the pavement to walk round. The hoodie instinctively turned and watched them, with a power grin. Until he suddenly felt himself knocked sideways. He spun round ready to confront whoever it was but hesitated as he took in the big brown eyes, big lashes and bigger hair as Tanya, apparently busy texting, looked up from her phone, and was right in his face. ‘You’re in the way.’

  Another instinctive reaction, as Hoodie stepped back. Meekly. The ASBO manual didn’t tell him how to deal with Barbie on steroids.

  ‘No need to apologise.’ Tanya threw the comment and her hair back over her shoulder as she strode away, leaving Hoodie to sidle back to the pack, all of them obviously enjoying his moment of discomfort.

  ‘If anyone’s a psycho, it’s you,’ said Becky as she looked back at the brooding hoodie, kicking out at one sidecrack too far.

  Tanya just grinned as she strode on. The young lioness. Her father’s daughter. And like Joey, she never realised how much she intimidated people. She was also her mother’s daughter and, like Natasha, she never realised that a lot of it was because of the way she looked. Just as she still couldn’t accept that she had been in real danger a fortnight before when she was clawing and scratching at some randomer who had tried to snatch not hers, but Becky’s bag. And why Joey had gone over the edge.

  ‘Do you know why each generation is taller than the next?’ Joey was still musing as Natasha guided the Q7 on to the so-called expressway.

  ‘Am I supposed to say nutrition?’

  ‘You are, but it’s communication. Each generation learns how to communicate better so they don’t wear their legs out looking for each other.’

  ‘Is that the sort of thing you think about on that train every Friday night?’

  ‘Nah. I have much better things to think about than that.’ He reached across and felt for the telltale bump under her thick woollen skirt.

  ‘I don’t know why you like these stupid things. They’re freezing in this weather.’

  ‘And I don’t know why you keep asking. You know I’m damaged. Sexually abused as a kid.’


  ‘Oh, you think being seduced by the woman next door amounted to sex abuse, do you?’

  ‘It’d count now. Just a male fantasy then. But that’s it, isn’t it. It left me vulnerable. Conditioned. Well, it’d be groomed now. Susceptible to manipulated media images of sexuality.’

  ‘Spent all week looking at pin-ups in the mess room, more like.’

  He turned and grinned. ‘Exactly. Only that lot can only dream. I’ve got the real thing.’

  She laughed. She always did. Just as she always denied her own looks. Something Joey put down to his mother-in-law, which she would tacitly admit on the rare occasions he could get her to see how she had everything other women paid good money to achieve. A childhood spent learning to be self-deprecating. A childhood that led to a life of self-criticism. A childhood conditioned by the manipulations of a demanding mother.

  Even when she had lived up to the expectations of doing well in her A-levels, her mother had criticised the fact that she only got one A while her friend got three. Because Natasha was brighter. Which she was, but suffered the irony of a proud mother suffocating her by being overdemanding. She had decided not even to try for university, opting instead for one of the new regional colleges of further education, where she studied graphic design. Her mother, being a nurse, had wanted Natasha to do better and become a doctor, although her father, on being told of her plans, was delighted, having always regretted becoming a quantity surveyor rather than an architect. He wanted someone to take up his lost spark of creativity.

  Unfortunately, his untimely death from cancer meant he never lived to see her achieve her degree, and was probably also a reason why she took up with Joey. He was strong and supportive when she needed someone to fill the gaping hole in her life. She stayed with him because she got to lean on him, not his reputation. And discovered the man she then fell for. And he had been smitten from the moment she showed any interest.

  Joe squeezed her thigh and looked across. Like him, she was buttoned up, head to toe against the cold. But instead of Screwfix work gear, an All Saints Fin jacket masked the heavy, but practical sweater and skirt, creating an almost androgynous shape. Only the waves of perfume and hair suggesting what may lie beneath. The deep brown hair she had passed on to Tanya, but because of which, she was always threatening to cut it short. The eyes. Also brown, but always bright, sharp and mischievous that pointed to her Irish ancestry. As did her tongue. Never short of an opinion on anything and everything, but usually correct, and an ability to talk to anyone, about anything, which was probably one of the main things Joey admired about her. He preferred to keep his opinions to himself and couldn’t see the point of small talk, accepting that if it were not for Tasha, their social life would be extremely limited.

  This train of thought looped back to his mother-in-law. ‘How’s your mum been this week?’ he turned and asked.

  Natasha gave a weak, sad smile. ‘OK. Just OK. Sometimes she’s as bright as she always was. Then …’ She gave a sad shrug. ‘But it’s only going to get worse. And I’m still learning to go with the flow, as the doctors said. Correcting her all the time only makes things worse.’

  ‘They sure she’s losing it? My mum’s always been scatty. And she’s nursing people with dementia.’

  That started to bring the smile back to Natasha’s face, helped by Joey reaching across and stroking the back of her neck. ‘I love you, you know. Especially for coping when I’m not here to share the load.’

  She didn’t reply. She didn’t really want appreciation. She wanted him home. But she didn’t want to tell him that. They had made the decision for the future. So she just reached up and held his hand in acknowledgement.

  This was something else her mother had drummed into her. Almost contrary to the self-deprecation. Independence. An independence that made her more than a mental match. He could quite easily have ended up on the wrong side of the law, if she hadn’t been there to drag him back and keep at him to finish his electrical qualifications. She earned enough working at the local newspaper to allow him time to go on the training courses, until it was bought by a national group and things were rationalised. Which meant she was out of a job, but fortunately just when Joey started bringing in cash. She did the books during the first pregnancy, with Tanya, and had done so ever since, with a bit of coaching from her brother-in-law Sean. That developed into doing the design work for the garden centre promotional literature, which in turn led to a few other small contracts and from that she started selling cards and wall prints on Etsy.

  Joey was still looking at her with all this running through his mind. Brains and beauty. It didn’t get much better. She could easily have won the last Rose Queen title, before it was hounded off the social calendar by the townies, just as much as his sister-in-law Sandra, Sean’s wife, but Tasha never had any interest. Unlike Sandra, who still thought she held the title, which she did in a way, so appeared to dress the part. Joey sometimes thought it would be nice if Tasha dressed more girlie, but always ended up smiling. If she put herself out more she wouldn’t do this for him. He ran his fingers over the armoured cloth that disguised the suspender clasp again, causing her to glance across with a knowing, wicked grin. She could turn it on when she wanted to. But only for them.

  ‘You’ll have to control yourself tonight, though. Tanya’s having a gathering.’

  Joey groaned. ‘What happened to wanting her freedom and individuality? And staying out later than I say she can?’

  ‘Something to do with them all wanting to protect Becky from some bloke who’s been pestering her.’

  ‘Oh great, not only babysitting but we’re likely to have a bunch of blokes round on the sniff.’

  ‘Think it’s a bit heavier than that. And anyway, thought you always wanted to know where she was.’

  ‘I can know without having her in the house on a Friday night. They must have figured that out by now. Alex and Ross go to their mates. Lucy goes to ballet. Tanya thinks she’s sneaking off to the pub without me knowing. That’s what Friday nights are about. It’s taken quite a bit of logistics to get that organised.’

  ‘Calm down. Another few hours won’t kill you. And as far as the kids are concerned we don’t do sex. Urrghhhh. Gross.’

  Joey smiled. Another of life’s great truisms. And, unfortunately, more and more so as the kids got older. Kids really are life’s natural contraceptives.

  Breaking the chain. Yes, that would be the theme for tonight, Sean thought as he reached for his dress shirt. How we need to break the cycle of deprivation that leads people into petty crime and anti-social behaviour, that in turn condemns them to a life of missed opportunity and social prejudice. Once branded, how do you redeem yourself?

  Yes, he’d talk about his own life, and perhaps that of his siblings. How they had come from the wrong side of town but had taken different paths. Both he and his younger brother Joe had passed the old eleven-plus and while he thrived at St Bede’s, Joe didn’t. Despite what Joe said about not hacking the academic bit, long disproved by breezing through his electrical qualifications, the truth, as Sean had included in his Best Man’s speech at Joey’s wedding, was that he dropped out because he was a randy sod and didn’t fancy turning gay.

  His sister Janey on the other hand, he had found out later in life, had pre-empted any such decisions by deliberately failing the eleven-plus so she wouldn’t be separated from her friends. All of whom she stayed in touch with and all of whom turned up at the funeral. Who was really the brightest of them all?

  Yes, Sean thought, his own life story, from college-pud, uni-geek and accountant to hippy garden centre owner has always gone down well at the charity dinners, especially since his sister Janey’s senseless death. Tonight was about yet another anti-drugs initiative. How many had he been to? Better detection. Better prevention. Better education. Better medical help. Better counselling. He’d given up counting, but the emerging pattern was obvious. Whatever people tried, it didn’t seem to work. Usually because of two
things. Short-term thinking and independent action. Not thinking far enough ahead, and therefore not providing adequate funding, and trying to work in isolation. But there was never one reason for people getting into difficulties, so how could there be one solution?

  Tonight, it was Stepping Stones. Or ‘stepping on stoneheads’, as Joe called it, but in reality a charity that wanted to give ex-offenders somewhere to go. Where they could get help with their particular problems and avoid slipping back into the drug culture. Not to find an immediate answer, but to be guided towards people who might have one. Sean got it. Give them a stepping stone. A place they can gather their thoughts and get themselves together. To work out what to do next and not, as brother Joe was quick to point out, where to get their next score.

  Sean knew that his brother was playing back popular sentiment, and within it a fundamental truth – most ex-offenders did reoffend – which was why tonight he would float a new idea. Instead of wasting time constantly trying to raise money, like tonight, to help the charity, so they could go on trying to persuade employers to take on ex-offenders, why not make it a statutory obligation? Part of the rehabilitation ethos of the judicial system. All local authorities must give ex-offenders a job on release. It was simple. If any organisation should have the capacity to handle ex-offenders, it should be the public services. But another great public truth stood in the way. Would any politician have the guts to do it? Probably not. Sean zipped up his trousers and fastened the waistband. Tighter than last time. When it came to diet, he too was a recidivist.

  ‘You have to break from tradition, see, Luke. Tradition encourages traditional thinking that leads to risk aversion and then inertia.’ Matt was also still musing as he prepared to slip out on the daily coffee run. The one operational luxury they permitted themselves.