Mike just caught the backchat as he clambered into his cab. ‘Hang around here any longer and we’ll all see one.’ The gale of laughter.
Mike felt a quickening in the pit of his guts. The shadow of the time before. The other boy who’d died, his father running into the street with his son in his arms. Mike pushed the shadow away, shaken, and stabbed at the button on the radio. Retuned to XFM, local rock station, Elbow singing ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, plaintive riffs and Mancunian lyrics.
Vicky had been great. They’d fed the kids, got them to bed early. Mike had surreptitiously washed Kieran’s straw, turned it the other way up so the boy wouldn’t find the faint indentations his teeth had already made. Later Mike had snipped half a centimetre off the end so it’d look fresh enough to do for breakfast in the morning.
With the kids out of the way, she’d sent him for a shower. ‘You don’t half reek, Mike.’ And when he came back she gave him a cold lager, sat him down, wanted to know everything. When he got ahead of himself, she interrupted, pulled him back to the right point.
‘It’s bloody awful,’ she said when he’d done. She held his gaze. ‘You okay?’
He tipped his head.
‘Do you want to get off down the pub for a bit?’ He met up with the lads a couple of times a week.
‘Nah.’ He nodded at the fridge. ‘I’ll have another can. Maybe an early night.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She walked to the fridge, got the beer, turned and faced him. Grinned, one tooth snagging on her bottom lip. ‘What sort of early night?’
‘Bring that over here and I’ll show you.’ He felt the heat of anticipation in his groin.
Vicky giggled, popped the ring pull and took a swig. Walked over to him, nice and slow, her hips swaying, the fine, straight blonde hair swinging in time.
She sat astride his legs, took another swig and handed him his drink. Her eyes were dancing. She smiled and reached for the buttons on his jeans.
* * *
Thursday the police wanted to see him. The murder had been all over the papers. A boy gunned down on his way to a band rehearsal. A lad who had a bright future by all accounts. Well liked in school, never in trouble. Planned to do a course in sound production and dreamed of being a successful musician. Mike had never done much at school. Just the thought of the place brought back memories he’d rather not have, set the swirl of unease moving inside him like dirty water, dampened his day.
They couldn’t tell him how long he’d be there. And the answer didn’t change when he explained things were a bit tricky work-wise. He agreed to go in for one o’clock, hoping an hour would cover it and he could call it lunch.