Cath Staincliffe - Witness

‘No,’ Fiona said quickly. The prospect of that terror clawing through her again, the flailing fear, the feeling that she was dying, was untenable. She asked for a prescription and said she would like to try the CBT. Dr Melling said there might be a wait but Fiona would get a letter as soon as an appointment was available.

Fiona filled the prescription at the pharmacy next door to the surgery. To be taken with food , it read on the label. She wasn’t hungry but she wanted the medicine so managed a couple of oatcakes and cheese.

She prayed the drugs would work quickly to protect her from the panic returning. She also hoped they would stop the pictures that were lodged in her skull. The relentless carousel of images shuttering on and on. Blink , Danny’s palm on the grass. Blink , his eyes rolling back in his skull. Blink , his mother on her knees, her face torn wide with grief.

Mike

Ian was ready to sack Mike. He’d had customers on his back: several express deliveries not received, the firm’s golden guarantee rendered worthless.

Mike explained the situation and Ian had nowhere to go with it. Took a while for his body to catch up with his brain: face still grimacing, shoulders flexing as he processed the fact that witnessing a murder probably did count as a rock-solid excuse. Mike promised to stay late, clear his backlog, half-hoping Ian would give him a break, put some of his sheet on to one of the other couriers, but Ian just nodded and clapped him on the back. Trying for matey. Failing.

Word spread fast and a couple of the lads caught up with Mike in the loading bay. Mike was holding court describing the scene, telling it like a story, when Ian came out of the office, hitching his pants up. Already had the gut of a man ten years older.

‘Best get on.’ Mike broke up the little gathering before Ian could. ‘Shocking, no two ways about it. I tell you.’ He headed for his van.

‘Never seen a dead body,’ one of the younger men said.

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.

It was like he’d never spoken to the officer in the police car, the woman. He had to start from scratch. Sat in a meeting room with a copper who was a few years older than Mike. Grey hair but well turned out – suit and white shirt. He slipped the jacket off once they were settled. Joe Kitson, a detective inspector. ‘Call me Joe,’ he told Mike. Mike appreciated the informality. Understood it too. People would open up to you more if you were on first-name terms.

Joe asked Mike to talk him through what happened. Then he wrote down what Mike had told him. Checking sentence by sentence. He wrote on a laptop, fast, read back each complete paragraph and made sure he’d got it right. Joe didn’t talk much but he had an easy way to him, a good listener, not only for the statement but for the other stuff Mike mentioned: the situation at work, the shock he’d felt when he realized he was seeing it for real.

Then Joe printed it all out on a special form and asked Mike to read it, and sign and date it at the bottom. He’d give evidence if the case came to court, Joe said, Mike understood that?

‘Yes, of course,’ Mike said

Joe explained what would happen next. The police would be gathering as much evidence as possible to try and bring charges against the culprits. It would probably be a matter of months rather than weeks before they knew whether they had enough to mount a prosecution.

Joe told him that they intended to keep the witnesses’ identity secret to minimize any chances of coercion. He asked Mike not to advertise the fact he was giving a statement and might be called as a witness. Joe gave him his card, told him to get in touch if he had any questions, any concerns.

‘What do you reckon the chances are?’ Mike asked as Joe walked him out. ‘Reckon you’ll find out who did it?’

‘Oh, we’ve a pretty shrewd idea of who’s behind it,’ said Joe. ‘What we have to do now is see if we can prove it.’

‘Did you trace the car? You’d think a Beemer like that’d be a doddle to find.’

Joe smiled, shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’m not allowed to discuss the investigation with you.’

Mike nodded. ‘Need to know basis,’ he said. Some line off the telly. He felt a prat as soon as he said it.

‘That’s right,’ Joe agreed. They shook hands at the front desk. ‘Thanks for coming in, and I hope we’ll be in touch later in the year.’

Mike had lost an hour and three-quarters and missed two calls from Ian. He rang his boss.

‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ Ian barked. ‘I’ve had Sandringham Way mithering about a new laptop for the past hour, stayed off work to take delivery.’

‘Almost there,’ Mike lied, ‘five minutes.’

‘Keep your bloody phone on!’ Ian ended the call.

Mike sighed, slid a CD into the player. Jumped to Track 4, prepared to sing along with Jagger: ‘Hey You Get Off My Cloud’.

Zak

Topping up his phone had used up what was left from the supermarket money. And he only made a tenner on the stuff from the house. Everyone had a camera these days and the people in the pub slagged off the one he was flogging: no video and only two megapixels, they’d better on their phones. The jewellery brought a bit more.