FIFTY-TWO

Newcastle General, Accident & Emergency. I help George out of the car and walk him wincing towards the entrance. The ramp leading up to the automatic doors is a struggle, but he makes it into the reception area without being dropped. I ease him into a chair and he stretches his legs as far as the pain allows. I crouch by George and slip two hundred and fifty notes into his jacket pocket. 'Came through in the end. Thanks, George.'

His face cracks into a sarcastic grin. 'Don't mention it, mate.'

'You going to be okay?’

‘I'll be fine.'

Then I'm out of the building, bump into a wheezy old guy with hair as white as his face, dragging down the last of a filterless cigarette. He tries to swear at me, but he can't find the breath. I get behind the wheel of the Micra and spark a cigarette of my own. The car smells like stale sweat and urine. I make a mental note to get it cleaned when this is over.

The address Stokes gave me, it's in Heaton. I have to consult the A-Z, and when I finally roll into the right street, the place is deserted, just a white van down the road. This is student country, could be anywhere in Britain. Lots of terraced houses with overgrown gardens and tapestries for curtains. I park up the street, keep an eye on the front door. He's been given a last-minute reprieve. I just hope he has the sense to grab it with both hands. When I spoke to him, there

was that tremble to his voice that meant I'd put the fear of God into him. Putting the fear of Mo would have been good enough. But the bottom line is that Alison's in there, prob- ably asleep, and she's got no idea that she's been rumbled.

I close my eyes for a moment. The seat seems to sink and I feel myself slipping away, so I have to snap awake.

Let's get this over with. I grab my mobile, call Mo. Takes him a few rings to pick up. He sounds like he's having a whale of a time, like he's actually smiling down the phone at me. 'Innes! The fuck are you?'

'Morning,' I say.

'Where are you?'

'I'm in Heaton.'

'What's the address?'

I take a moment to flick ash from the end of the Embassy. I hear you got your sister pregnant, Mo.'

Silence at the other end. Then, for a moment, I hear what sounds like a man's voice in the background. He's not at the Travelodge anymore, that's for sure. Mo makes a sucking sound then says, 'You talked to Alison.'

'Is it true?'

'When'd you talk to Alison?'

'I'll take that as a yes, then. So what happens when your dad finds out you've been rolling your own?’

‘She's me half-sister.'

'Semantics, mate. She's sixteen, barely fuckin' legal.'

'What's the matter with you? You have a run-in with the law or something?'

I had a run-in with the hairy side of someone's hand, repeatedly. Then some boots. All this after a nasty wee meeting with the front of a speeding car. And you know what? It makes a bloke think different, gives life a new spin. Because this was never about me finding Rob Stokes, was it?

This was about bringing Alison back home, and some lanky streak of paedo piss bricking it in case I tell his father.'

'Where are you?' he says quietly. 'Tell me where you are.'

I give him the address. Then: 'I lost Stokes. I lost the money. Alison's here. You might catch her. See, the thing is with me, I'm so knocked up I can't think straight. I've been lied to that fuckin' much, I don't even know if I'm at the right house, know what I mean?' A laugh breaks out of me; it sounds like someone else. 'Tell me something, Mo. Did your dad hold you back from this? Is that why you had to have me followed?'

'Fuck are you talking about?'

'Your man in the black leather jacket. Didn't occur to me until now, really. The guy who took a knife to the tyres of my car, updated the paint job with a spray can. The fucker who replaced that scally who tried to tail me in Manchester.'

Mo hangs up. Something I said? And it's the only con- firmation I need. There was a moment there when I thought I was going nuts, but it's all falling into place now. Morris tells Mo he can't take care of this — either because the lad's a psycho or a fuck-up or because deep down Morris knows that Mo's been keeping it in the family — and Mo, being the tenacious cunt he is, he decides to have me followed. When it looks like I'm straying from the job, looking for Alison, he gets his thug to slice up my car.

And perhaps that would have scared me off before. But the past couple of days have made me stupid, hard. I look at myself in the rear view. Well, not that hard — my face is still black and blue. I stretch out in my seat, pull it back a few notches and stick Johnny Cash in the tape deck. One of the later songs, when it sounded like he'd been gargling with gravel. A man going round, taking names.

My muscles start to relax, my back isn't pinching me like it has been. A couple of clicks in the knee, and my tongue roams the empty socket where my tooth used to be. Thanks for that, Rob. I owe you one.

I'll stay here until Mo turns up. It's that last loose end I need to tie up. I need to see Alison taken home. I don't want to leave and have to come back up here again. This city's given me enough gyp the past couple of days and I don't want any reason to come back here. I'm a Manchester lad through and through. There's something about Newcastle that stinks of failure and mental deficiency. Case in point, the last good band to come out of Newcastle was The Animals, and that was over forty fucking years ago. It didn't get any better than that.

Donna's still up here, though. And she's been in the back of my head since I met her. Part of me wants to call her now, but it's too early. That same part wants to make amends for the way we left things. But then, that part of me is too romantic for its own good. I'm told she looked at me in a different way, like she didn't care I was an ex-con, like she actually cared about what happened to me, like I was actually one of the good guys.

But that's all speculation. It's all reading between the lines, two and two making five.

I might call her, I might not. We'll see how it goes. There are things about me I haven't told her, and those things aren't the easiest to bring up in polite conversation. I don't even know if I can talk about them yet. When I got out, word had already spread. Declan looked at me differently, like I was the type to give up his dignity. Like I was the type to take anything as long as it led to an easy life. This coming from a junkie grass. You know you've hit rock bottom when they start looking at you like you're something they stepped in.

But Declan knew that if it hadn't been me, it would've been him. And he wouldn't have lasted five seconds. Dec was a bigger coward than me back then, which is saying something.

When my dad took his hand to the pair of us, Declan was the first to bolt from the house. When he moved to Manchester, he left me to fend for myself and didn't think twice about it.

He once said to me, 'Cal, I couldn't take it, man. One more day and I would've topped myself.'

My dad's voice was full of thick spit. He sounded like he had a cold when he drank and he drank most of the time. Once the strike of'84 was over with, he refused to work. The unions were gone, he said, and there was no such thing as an honest wage anymore. Everything was poisoned, but it didn't stop him sending me and my brother out to work. He'd pour that cash down his neck and take the back of a hairbrush to our faces if we brought it up. Mam knew, but she didn't show it. She couldn't do anything to stop my dad, so what was the point of dwelling on something she couldn't change? She just pretended it never happened.

Then Dad got stupid. His vision blurred one too many times. He didn't realise I was bigger than him.