The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 Part 5

"Mum, don't go calling me that. That's his name, I don't want it."

Bauser had almost made it through the living room before his granny caught him. She was settled in her usual armchair, directly in front of the telly and below a photograph of her husband. She rose out of her chair in a ma.s.s of flailing arms and legs, making a funny squealing noise at the thought of not getting a kiss. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then made it out the door before any more family members appeared to molest him.

On the tram ride into town, he could feel the lump against his back. A sweat was trickling down there, sticking between the metal and his skin. This never seemed to be a problem in the films. Not once had he seen a character pull out a concealed weapon and then have to wipe the sweat off before using it.

The conductor was someone he knew from school. Tony or Timmy, something like that. One of those faceless kids he used to steal lunch money off. Look at him now in his cheap blue blazer, tie b.u.t.toned up as if he was proud of it. Faceless Timmy saw Bauser but left him alone. The schoolyard never left some people. It would have been a free journey if some old lady hadn't taken offence at the idea and pointed Bauser out to the conductor again.

He wanted to say, Oi, b.i.t.c.h, I got a gun. Shut the f.u.c.k up. He wanted to say a lot, but words had never been his thing. And after today, he wouldn't need them. He wouldn't be riding the tram to work, he'd get picked up any time he wanted.

After today, if he needed bullets for the gun, he'd be able to get them. The Mann brothers would let him have all the ammunition he needed.

The tram station in the city centre was in front of the police station. Bauser caught a thrill. His spine tingled and his shoulders felt a hundred feet wide as he stood and looked up at the front door. For the first time, he started to feel a little bit of weight in the metal he was carrying.

Two men frisked Bauser at the door before letting him into the restaurant.

Later on it would be full of drunken football fans and students, but right now it was playing host to a board meeting. The tables in the middle of the room had been pushed to one side, clearing a s.p.a.ce for them all to stand. The stereo was already playing the generic Indian music that would fill the room later on. Bauser suppressed a smile.

They were all there. Both Mann brothers, Gav and Channy. They had to be there to give their approval. Teek and Marvin, the guys who called the shots on the streets. Pepsi and Letisha, the two team leaders who had recommended Bauser. They all greeted him with smiles when he walked in, handshakes and backslaps, a hug from Latisha. The talking seemed to have already been done.

"So you ready to step up?" Channy Mann looked Bauser up and down as he spoke. "You think you're ready to run a team?"

"h.e.l.l yeah."

His confidence was only about fifty per cent bravado. The rest was naivety. But the Mann brothers seemed to like his answer. Channy continued.

"How long have you been with us now?"

"Four years."

"Started young."

"He aye never missed a count." Marv spoke up. "Never called in sick. Kept his mouth shut when the police pulled him."

"Yeah." Gav smiled and looked Bauser up and down as if he was sizing up a pitbull. "I think you are. You're bursting for it."

Bauser nodded, hoping he looked cool and relaxed but his heart was breaking out of his chest.

"This means, you get arrested? We'll get you bail and a good lawyer. You don't have to carry that on your own. You need to go anywhere? You get a man to drive you. You need anything? They can fetch it for you."

Bauser was liking this. It sounded like being a king.

"But, and we tell you this now, you're the man we come to. One of your boys f.u.c.ks up? You carry that. You put your fingers in the till? Marv and Teek here will f.u.c.k you up."

"Totally, man. I'd never do you guys like that."

Channy nodded his head toward the door at the back of the room. Letisha tapped Bauser on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow and she and Pepsi headed over to the door. It led to the kitchen at the back of the building. It was spotless and smelled of cleaning fluids. Aside from a ratty old sofa against the wall, it was the very model of a well-run kitchen. Letisha and Pepsi slouched down into the sofa, but Bauser stayed on his feet.

"They're talking about me, right?"

"Yup."

"They like me though, right? I mean, they wouldn't have me here if they wasn't going to give me the job, right?"

Letisha shrugged and Pepsi started replying to a text message on his phone.

"What if they change their minds?"

Pepsi didn't take his eyes off the phone. "Probably kill you."

They let Bauser hang there for a moment feeling his heart stop until they started laughing. Letisha stuck out her hand and Pepsi slapped it. Bauser kicked them both in the shins.

The laughter stopped when Marv stepped into the kitchen and shut the door again after him. He was a quiet man and stillness seemed to settle in around him wherever he was.

"There's a problem." He said it in a low voice, and the room seemed to suck in around his words and drain the air away.

"Wha-?"

He pulled a gun out from the folds of his hoodie. It was Bauser's gun, the one that had been taken off him at the door.

"Did you get this from Sukhi?"

"Nah, some guy in West Brom."

"Let me tell you, it worries us. Kids come into this wanting to play gangsta? They don't last very long. What made you get a gun?"

"I thought that was how it worked. I seen Pepsi carries a gun and, you know, I thought that all you team leaders did?"

Marv stared off into s.p.a.ce for a moment, lining things up in his mind. Then he nodded and smiled down at the gun.

"I trust you, son. That's why we're promoting you." Bauser's face lit up and he was about to speak but Marv continued. "But a gun? That's something else. This aye Birmingham. Bullets are expensive, man. You only carry if we say so, and you're not there yet."

He turned the gun over in his hand.

"Nice. Sweaty though. You nervous today, huh?"

Bauser shrugged.

"It's OK, you can admit it. We're all nervous the first time. To be honest, it's always there, just a little bit. You put it behind your back, right? Don't do that. You got a hoodie?"

Bauser nodded. He had lots of hoodies. He'd always liked them, and when the men on TV started saying hoodies were evil, he'd liked them even more.

"Cool. Wear ones with big pockets, like mine. You can carry a gun in front of you and it don't have to get wet. Or in your hood, unless there's police around. A good trick? Carry it in your sleeve a couple of times, let people see it. Then always keep your right hand covered by your sleeve and people will think you've always got it." He held up a bullet and slipped it into the cartridge. "I want you to prove yourself before you carry, and that's going to take time. But let's see if you've got what it takes."

He turned in the direction of the kitchen door and pushed through. Bauser followed. The Mann brothers had left, and in the centre of the room was a man tied to a chair. He was doing his best to shout, but the sock that they'd forced down his throat meant it was coming out as a choking sound.

He was old and tired, and his face was swollen from a beating. Through the swelling, though, Bauser could still recognize him.

He was the face from pictures on his mum's dressing table, and half-remembered trips to the cinema and McDonald's. He was a name on a birthday card every few years. His name was Eric, and he was Bauser's father. Marv handed him the gun.

"Your old man here's been running up a tab that he never intended to pay. We was going to let you talk him round, but this is a better way. All yours."

Marv went and stood by the kitchen door. Bauser felt his gut turn and try to climb its way out through his a.s.s. His feet were made of lead. The gun in his hand felt real now, it was a serious f.u.c.king cannon. He looked down at it, at the way it shone in the dim light, and at how the outside world fell away when he stared at the metal.

His father's eyes were wide as golf b.a.l.l.s, bloodshot and terrified. He was shaking his head and the choking sounds now sounded pleading rather than angry. As the gun came into view, he twisted and toppled the chair, and began trying to wriggle his way to the front door. It was a pathetic sight, and he didn't have the energy to move too far. Bauser just stood and watched for a moment, waiting until the old man gave up before he knelt and pressed the gun against his temple. The smell of warm p.i.s.s filled the room, followed by one last whimper.

This felt f.u.c.king amazing.

Bauser's finger tightened against the trigger and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them and looked back down, he noticed just how much his father resembled Marcus.

"f.u.c.k you," he said into the old man's ear.

He got to his feet and walked over to stand with his boss.

"Why didn't you shoot him?" Marvin said.

"Like you said, bullets are expensive."

WHOLE LIFE.

Liza Cody.

IF EYES WERE knives she'd have cut me stone dead. Instead she gave me that look and then spat. I hate pa.s.sing the bus shelter. But I have to pa.s.s it by because I can't wait for a bus there any more.

They took the shoe off of the roof of the shelter, but they still haven't mended the crazy crack where Jamie's board hit the safety plastic. It was a drenching night, that night, so when the Law arrived they say there was hardly any blood left. It gurgled away down the gutter as fast as it spilled out of Jamie's body and there's not even a stain left. Poor ginger lamb.

That's what I'd tell the woman with the eyes poor ginger lamb. He was red-headed, plump, gay, and that night he was carrying a new skateboard. If she was even talking to me she'd tell me he was a sweet kid who never did anyone any harm. And she'd say he had "his whole life ahead of him". That's what they always say: "Whole life ahead ..."

What's a whole life? Is my life without my son a whole life? Is it a whole life when I can't use the nearest bus stop? My life, minus my kid and a bus stop; my life minus respect, my reputation, two of my three jobs and all my friends, isn't a whole life, is it? It's a life full of holes.

Jamie's whole life ran red from his eyes, mouth, ears, nose and groin. It ran away from him down a storm drain never to return. And Ben came home and said, "Can you wash my shirt, Mum? A kid had a nosebleed and it went all over me." It was his school uniform so I stuffed his clothes into the washing machine and he had a hot bath because he was shivering from the rain and cold. I left him alone to do his homework with half a pizza in the oven and some chocolate pud in the fridge. His whole life was ahead of him. Then I went to the Saracen's Head to serve drinks to drunks.

You see, I thought I was a good mother. I washed Ben's clothes and I left a hot supper for him I didn't just bung him a couple of quid and expect him to go back out into the rain for a takeaway.

The Law said, "Your son comes in covered in a murdered boy's blood and all you do is wash his clothes? You must've known something was up. We could charge you as an accessory."

Mary Sharp didn't wash her twins' shirts. The Law found their clothes in a soggy tangle under the bunk beds. Roseen Hardesty didn't even come home that night. Rocky Hardesty tried to wash his own uniform but the machine was bust. He ate his beans cold, straight from the can, and stayed up till five in the morning playing computer games.

There wasn't even a speck on Jamal's clothes. I think cleanness is part of Jamal's mum's religion, but I don't really know because her English won't stand up to an ordinary conversation.

Me? I was home by half past midnight. I asked Ben if he'd done his homework and he said, "Yes why do you always go on at me?"

I told him to go to bed and I transferred his clothes from the washer to the dryer because he'd forgotten. Then I tidied the kitchen and was in bed by a quarter past one myself. I was tired and I had to be up and out at six-thirty to clean three offices by nine.

That's when I saw the police tape at the bus shelter. The one purple and white trainer was still on the roof. At that point no one knew it was Jamie's. So I still thought I had my whole life ahead of me, whereas I'd already lost it hours ago. So had Ben, although most folk round here would say he didn't lose it, he chucked it all away and got what he deserved.

"What happened here?" the bus driver asked when I got on.

"Search me," I said. "Kids?"

"Someone got knifed," a woman said. She works part time. I see her on the bus three mornings out of five.

"Not round here," I said. "They're good kids round here."

"I heard it on local radio," she said. And we all turned to look at the crazy crack on the plastic shelter as the bus pulled away.

Later, this same woman went round telling everyone that I was playing the innocent but she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was lying. Do doubts have shadows? I think they must do. My whole life has been about doubts and shadows ever since.

That morning I went straight from the office block to Moby's Cafe where I worked during the day. I did the food preparation, waitressing and cleaning up.

Mr Moby was there when the school rang to say that Ben was with the Law. He looked daggers at me because I wasn't supposed to take personal calls while I was at work.

"It's a mistake," I kept saying. "Ben's never been in any trouble." But I had to go to the police station to find out what was wrong and Mr Moby said he'd dock my wages. He'd been on my case since that time I slapped his face in the mop cupboard.

On the other hand he spoke up for me to the Law. He said I was a hard worker and as far as he knew I was honest. But he also told them I wasn't very bright. Then he fired me because of the boycott the Friends of Jamie Cooke people organized.

The Friends made Kath and Ed Majors at the Saracen's Head fire me too. But Pauline Greenberg said I could go on cleaning offices because I wasn't working with members of the public. She said n.o.body cared who cleaned for them as long as they didn't have to see me. She also gave me more hours on the nightshift, so I can keep up with the rent.

I remember Pauline from school. She was a couple of years older than me but she was famous for beating up two boys and Roseen Hardesty when they called her dad a dirty Jew. She did well for herself. She employs twenty women but never Roseen Hardesty.

She likes us to be on time so I walked quickly through the estate to Kennington Road to catch the number 3. There was no one at the bus stop but me and a gang of screaming urban seagulls. They'd torn a rubbish bag open and made a mess of the pavement. At first I thought they were fighting over a chicken carca.s.s, but then I saw they were plucking the eyes out of a dead pigeon and stabbing their cruel beaks into its throat and breast. Seagulls have such clean white heads. Their beaks are a beautiful fresh yellow. You wouldn't think, would you, that something so clean and fresh lived on city garbage and carrion.

I just waited for my bus and minded my own business. I didn't try to shoo the gulls away because they never take a blind bit of notice, and, truth to tell, I'm a little bit scared of them. They eat, fight and shriek, and if anyone gets in their way they attack a bit like ...

I didn't know Ben was in a gang. I just thought he had mates. He'd known the Sharp twins and Rocky since they were in Juniors together. When it all came out, he told me he'd only joined to stop the others picking on him. Jamal said the same thing too. The Law believed Jamal because Jamal's mum forced him to talk. But they didn't believe Ben. They took away his mobile phone and said they could prove that the gang members had been talking to each other non-stop all night.

But Ben is quite small; he hasn't had his growth spurt like the others. His skin is still fresh and peachy without spots and open pores. His voice hasn't broken, but he tucks his chin in and talks as low in his throat as he can. I think he was telling the truth maybe the bigger kids would have picked on him for being not manly enough. The Law said that was probably why he wanted to prove himself and that's why he turned on Jamie.

But how can such a beautiful boy do ugly things to a poor gay ginger lamb? He can't, I know he can't. He's too innocent to be guilty.

He's sensitive. He cried when his dad forgot his thirteenth birthday and didn't even send him a card from Hull or wherever he and his new family are living now. I can't believe a boy who cried about his own father would do anything so cruel to Jamie Cooke. But the Law never saw him cry so they said he was guilty and "showed no remorse".

A white van pulled up to the bus stop and a man leant over to open the pa.s.senger door. It was Ron Tidey who lives on the estate. He drank regularly at the Saracen's Head, and he drank a lot. But he said, "I saw you waiting all by yourself. Hop in. I'll give you a ride to work."

I don't much like Ron Tidey but I got in because no one had spoken to me for weeks.