CAFÉ ASSASSIN Read online

  Don’t suppose there’s anything on your system for murderers, is there?

  Outside the sky was bright grey. The air in the job centre had been dry and sterile and I was thirsty. It was only ten o’clock but early enough for the pubs to be open. One of the noticeable differences. You might think that I would have been more at sea in this new world, given the length of time I had been away. But you get to watch a lot of television inside and there are new people coming in all the time, so I was prepared for most of the changes I encountered. But pubs opening at eight in the morning was not something that had occurred to me. It was a welcome novelty. I bought a newspaper, rolling tobacco and more Rizlas. I walked through the city centre.

  It was March, cold but crisp, clean on my skin. I’d shaved a few hours ago and the chill tickled my cheeks. I walked beneath the inner ring road, via the subway. I skipped over a rivulet of piss intersecting my path. The air was tangy. It wasn’t a particularly salubrious scene or indeed an inviting one, but this was freedom and, although freedom stank of piss and incarceration stank of piss, this piss still smelled sweeter than prison cell piss.

  The landlord was just opening up. He nodded ‘hello’ as I approached the bar. A plump and friendly barmaid served me a pint. I sized her up. It was good to gaze on a real woman and not the uniformed simulacra of womanhood the female screws represented. I sat in the corner. There were already a few postmen at the bar and some old alkies in flat caps and oil-stained overcoats. I drank from my glass and, for a moment, I felt normal.

  Beer is the one thing you can’t get inside. Some prisoners attempt to brew their own beverage. The preferred method is to use orange juice, sugar and cream crackers (for the yeast content). The result is a very unpalatable, albeit lethal, ‘poteen’ style concoction. You can easily acquire skunk, crack, smack, Valium, Mogadon, Subbies, any drug you like, but a pint of real ale … I’d fixated on it many times. I would close my eyes and I’d be there at the bar, some curvaceous barmaid with plenty of cleavage pulling the pump. The froth flowing over her hand, like some cheesy beer advert. A pathetic male fantasy, but the sort that’s necessary when you’re banged up and clinging to the fine threads of your sanity.

  I took hold of the glass and consumed the beer in four sups. I went back for a refill. How do the purveyors of alcoholic beverages view their clientele? With pity, scorn, disdain? Rarely with affection. But they should reassess this relationship, for what they sell is all the goodness of the world. That pint of beer tasted to me of laughter and innocence. It was golden and glowing with life. Like an eighteen-year-old girl dancing and singing, spinning round, her hair bouncing, her eyes sparkling. I was thinking of Liv. A mess of black hair down over her shoulders, smoke-grey eyes, framed by thick black eyeliner. Curves, calves, clavicles.

  The TV was on in the corner. Twenty-four hour news. Bombs, tanks, Libya. Gaddafi railing against foreign imperialism. He looked confused. A few months ago he’d been laughing and drinking champagne with the very people that were now dropping bombs on his head. You’ve got to watch that. Your enemy is the man standing next to you, smiling. Your enemy is the man who pats you on your back and says, well done, mate. Your enemy is neatly dressed in a charcoal suit, a plain tie and a crisp white shirt.

  The footage changed. Cuts. Cuts in spending. Police, the arts, the NHS. No one escaping the axe except the bankers and the barristers. There was an anonymous suit trying to justify funding the arts by explaining how it feeds the economy. I can tell you how to justify it. You justify it like this: first, picture a man locked inside a white concrete box, with a bright light in his eyes, with no sense of hope. Picture this pitiful creature lying on his bed, repeating a line of poetry over and over again. Why is he doing this? He’s doing this to feel human. He is doing this to feel connected to something outside of his own hell. He is doing this because if he doesn’t the water will pour in and he will drown.

  Rising crime, rising unemployment. An old man in a flat cap nursing a half, turned to me. It’s like the eighties all over again, he said and stared at the screen.

  There was a band on the radio sounding just like The Pixies. He was right, the eighties all over again, and I was transported in my mind to that club on that night.

  You were at the bar, Andrew, and I was dancing with Liv on the floor. She was wearing the red and blue polka dot dress with the white collar, which made her look both chaste and filthy at the same time. It was The Pixies song, ‘Debaser’. And I was singing along, ‘I want to grow up to be, be a debaser’. Liv was joining in. ‘DEEE-BASER!’ The whole club was moving to the manic beat. Her eyes were sparkling, her hair was shining, her skin was glowing. I was careful not to get too close to her. I kept looking to where you were standing by the bar, but you were busy chatting to someone. It was meant to be just me and you. Our last night out before you went to King’s College to study law. A goodbye blowout. But we were predictable. We were eighteen and there was only one club we went to, and that happened to be the same club that everyone else in our social circle also went to.

  The Hacienda was for estate scallies in designer tat and over-styled haircuts, or middle-class students pretending to be estate scallies in designer tat and over-styled haircuts. I always hated Kicker boots and baggy jeans. I hated those over-sized long sleeved T-shirts with a smiley face and ‘aceeeeeed!’ printed across the chest. We would look at the queue of clones outside and go next door instead, down the stairs, following the fog from the smoke machine, following the bass from the sound system, submerging into the comforting dark of The Venue.

  We’d shared a small bottle of Southern Comfort on the bus. We’d had a couple of pints in the Britons Protection, and now we were coming up on a pill. We weren’t very experienced in the world of illicit pharmaceuticals and this was, if I remember correctly, only our fifth or sixth time. We were starting to feel the music tingle and the warm feeling spread right to the tips of our fingers. I couldn’t take my eyes off your girlfriend. I wanted to touch her skin. I wanted to kiss her flesh. Euphoria, wave after wave. Over and over. The eighties, cuts, cuts, cuts, Gaddafi, Gaddafi, Gaddafi, Ecstasy, Ecstasy, Ecstasy.

  I sat back, warm in the memory, warm in the glow from the second beer. I looked back to the old man. He was staring at the TV. Two postmen were chatting in the corner. I looked over at the barmaid, taking a steaming glass from the washer and placing it on the shelf above her, enjoying watching her arm stretch up and her cleavage rise above her top. I rolled a cigarette, put it to my lips and lit it.

  Immediately, the landlord rushed over and grabbed it off me. It wasn’t 1989, Andrew, it was 2011, and smoking in public houses was outlawed. You could smoke in prison but not in pubs. You could smoke in the bar of the Houses of Parliament but not in pubs. Prisoners and politicians. Criminals and crooks. Only the damned are given licence. You can smoke all you like in hell. I looked over to the door. The door was open. It was something I kept having to remind myself. The door was open, it wasn’t locked.

  I stayed for one more drink. I wanted to bask in this state of having found you. I surreptitiously glanced at the barmaid’s supple body and glistening flesh. I imagined her with no clothes on. Desire is both wonderful and terrible: it charges you with hope, it chokes you with despair.

  I spent the rest of the day wandering round the city, mesmerised by all that was new and immersed in the life around me. Back at my newly rented flat I made myself a coffee and sat at the Formica table. The floor was in terrible condition and a new patch on the ceiling indicated that there had been a leak. I listened to the deafening hum of the fridge. Why was it so loud? I turned on the radio to block out the sound and listened to it for a few hours. I rolled a spliff and smoked it down to the roach. Dark outside but it wasn’t late. Probably no later than ten o’clock. A bit stoned, a bit pissed. Just the radio for company. I decided to go for a walk.

  It was dark and cold. I wandered down each narrow snicket, passing the backs of peo
ple’s houses. As I wandered, I could peer into their lives. There was a couple, their kids probably already tucked up warm in bed. She was in a bathrobe, he was in tracksuit bottoms and vest. They were snuggled up together on their sofa, staring at the screen that lit up the room and made their faces glow.

  I passed a house with a conservatory. In the living room, a man slumped in an armchair was watching a large plasma. In the conservatory, a woman slumped in an armchair was watching a smaller plasma. They were like a diminishing reflection of each other. Their wedding album on the shelf, unopened, collecting dust. Down another snicket, different houses, different windows, same images. Through a ginnel, terraced houses, kitchens.

  I stopped to watch a man at his kitchen window, washing up. He placed a white plate in the sink and scrubbed at it with a green and yellow sponge. It was a simple action, but it captured my attention. He took another plate, removed the grease and made it clean. I could see the dignity of being alive, being free, independent. I watched as he took each item of crockery, submerging it in the foaming water, cleaning it with a sponge and then stacking it on the plastic drainer. He took a towel and wiped his hands, carefully dabbing between his fingers and the edges of his nails. The job was done. He seemed satisfied.

  A woman entered the room and walked up behind him, putting her arms around his waist. He turned to her and they embraced. This image of them entwined was framed in the window, backlit by the kitchen light. I watched them until they broke off from their embrace and left the room, switching off the light as they went, creating a black screen. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. My whole body ached. I felt sick with longing.

  I came to the main road. I could see something skulk in the distance. It looked like a fox, slinking across, but as it got closer I could tell that it was a dog. Startled, it ran into the road. A car screeched round the corner, clipping the dog, sending it flying up and onto the pavement. A dull thud as it hit the flags. The car drove off, the driver perhaps unaware of what he had done. I chased after the car, but it had gone. I went back to the dog.

  It lay in a heap on the pavement, eyes looking scared. It wasn’t wearing a collar. There was blood pouring from its back leg. I picked it up – it wasn’t heavy – and carried it back to the flat. I laid it out on a blanket. It was a male. I examined him. He didn’t seem to mind. He let me feel him all over, as I checked for broken bones.

  He seemed unharmed apart from his back leg. I bathed it with a cloth and warm water. It wasn’t broken but there was a deep cut that revealed the bone beneath. I cleaned the wound and bandaged it with a clean rag. I looked in his eyes again. Trust.

  Are you hungry?

  I took two cereal bowls from the cupboard above the sink, filled one with water and emptied a tin of tuna into the other. I took them over to where he was lying but he didn’t show any interest. He was probably too exhausted to eat, or in too much pain. I propped his head with a pillow and put some of the fish onto my palm. He fed from my hand. I kept doing this until all the tuna was gone. Then I took the pillow away and let him lie back on the blanket. It was hard to tell his age, but he wasn’t old. He was slim, with plenty of muscle under his hair. He had done a lot of running away. I felt scabs along his back. He’d done a lot of fighting.

  There’s a good boy.

  He needed a name. He looked like a fox so I called him Reynard. Ray for short.

  I stroked him, There you go Ray, you’ll soon feel better.

  He’d only just met me but it was there already. Trust. It’s something you lose over time. Bit by bit you lose it and then there’s nothing left, is there, Andrew? It was important that this dog didn’t lose it. Trust.

  Outside the wind was blowing refuse around. A can clattered down the street. I closed my eyes and in my mind I was clutching a pestle and mortar. I was making a powder by grinding your teeth.

  You are playing pool with a man who murdered his best friend with a hammer. His name is Philip Heggerty. You are in Gartree prison in Leicestershire. This is your final spell of incarceration. You are surrounded by killers: religious killers, contract killers, domestic killers, binge killers, nice killers, rich killers, poor killers, police killers. You have been to see the senior forensic psychologist, Stephanie Simpson. She has really helped you come to terms with what you have done. You just wanted to thank her now you have been given the all clear. You are old mates these days.

  You have just seven-balled Shaun Gibbs who killed a woman by strangling her, a woman he had only just met in a kebab house. He followed her to the park, murdered her, then handed himself in. He is autistic and finishing off a degree in pure mathematics. Everything you do is being watched and everything you do is being judged. But it no longer matters. You smile at a closed circuit camera.

  You have been in prison longer than you have been out of prison. There is a certain amount of respect for you now. You’re a veteran. You have your own cell. It is a small room but you are allowed to put up posters. You have covered the walls with pictures of dead poets. Only the back wall is still bare. You are not allowed to put posters up on the back wall in case you do a ‘Shawshank’. You have a budgie called Baudelaire which you keep in a cage. Sometimes you let Baudelaire out of the cage so that he is free within your cage.

  You were given a tariff, a minimum number of years you have to spend in prison before you will be considered for parole. You were given this tariff a long time ago and you are nearly at the point of being eligible for early release. You like thinking about this. You can see the time ticking down in your skull. You can see yourself walking down a city road. You know exactly where you are going. You know exactly who you want to see. You picture this person in your mind. But this is replaced by another image. An image you don’t want to see.

  Instead, you concentrate on the yellow and the red balls. You like the yellow and the red balls. You like the way the green baize of the table offsets the colours of the balls and intensifies their hues. You like the white ball, isolated and yet at the centre of everything. You focus on the black ball. The black ball unnerves you. It is like you. Inside of you is a black ball. The black ball inside you is a secret. The secret is black and hard and densely packed.

  You have read somewhere that pool balls used to be made of celluloid and could explode at any moment. Celluloid is a volatile substance. Your secret is made of celluloid.

  In Gartree, prisoners are only locked in their cells overnight and at lunch times. During the day you are expected to keep yourself busy with education, exercise, or work. You are even paid for your work, and you can spend this money on luxuries, such as CDs, books, or treats for Baudelaire. It is not a tough prison, despite being full of murderers.

  You have decided to do the rest of your time on your own. No more complications. You are over that now. You can beat it by yourself. You pocket one of your reds and snooker Philip behind another. You watch Philip pot the white ball by mistake, giving you two shots again. But you are not going to pot the black ball. You are going to let Philip win this game because, unlike Shaun, you understand what Philip Heggerty did.

  3

  An old fucked Ford, a few hundred quid, a battered guitar and a rusty tool box. That was all he left me when he died. The old fucker. The old fucker hadn’t worked for years. Council house. No family, no friends. Just a few old winos down the local for company. You’ll remember that he was a plumber by trade, self-employed, had his own van with his name and number on. But he was done for drink-driving and lost his licence. Don’t know if we ever talked about the ins and outs of it. I remember you calling for me, standing in the back yard, afraid to come in, or knocking on the front door so quietly I could barely hear you.

  He’d sit at the dining table massaging his temples, staring off into the distance. You didn’t dare enter the room when he was like that. Neither did I. Best to stay well clear. The drinking got to be a real problem. By the time of my trial he was rarely sober. T
he only thing that would wake him up was a boot in his bollocks.

  As I grew taller than him and he grew more inebriated, the tables turned. I was no longer afraid of him. I looked down on this mess of a human being. But now his money, his guitar, his toolbox and his car were my only possessions. The car hadn’t been driven for months. He’d won it in a bet a few years before he died. No tax, no insurance, no MOT. It took me the best part of the morning to get the engine going. Two years as an apprentice fitter in a motor factory. Some of those skills were still there. Eventually the pistons turned over and it choked into action, just like my old man used to do.

  Did you know that they let me out to go to his funeral? A rare moment of compassion. There was no one there I recognised. Just a few blokes from the boozers he frequented. I didn’t introduce myself. In and out. It was over in twenty minutes. I scattered the ashes over the cricket pitch where he used to play as a lad. He was captain of his team back then. Bit of an athlete.

  I stopped to get petrol. Probably had just under a hundred quid left. I was worried about what I’d do when it ran out. There was no hope of a job. Not a conventional one, at any rate. I put twenty quid of petrol in the tank. I had no idea how far outside of Leeds you lived. I imagined you in a leafy suburb, or in the countryside. Perhaps on the outskirts of a picturesque village or hamlet. There would be a community centre with activities for children and pensioners: Pilates classes, story-time, zumba. A charming summer fete with a hook-a-duck and a guess-the-weight competition. Hanging baskets full of flowers. You wouldn’t be an active community member, but you would give a large donation to the centre twice a year.