Cath Staincliffe - Witness

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.

‘I should think so an’ all.’

She snatched the paper up from where he’d left it and started walking towards the kitchen. ‘Next time just bloody tell us, then.’

‘What? That I’ve got a bit on the side?’

Vicky turned and hurled the paper at him and then began to laugh. He loved her laugh, rich and dirty. He loved her. And he’d got away with it. ‘Get us a beer,’ he said.

‘Get it yourself,’ she told him. But she went to the fridge, anyway.

Oh, God. It was all going to be okay.

Zak

Zak gave his evidence via video link from Hull County Court. Hull was a dump. Freezing cold and nothing going on. It was by the sea and the wind blew from the east. Little said it came all the way from Siberia. With knives in it. Even the rain fell sideways. Zak’s bones hurt deep inside.

Little also told Zak it had been an important port for hundreds of years, a big trading post and a fishing port until the Cod Wars, but there were still working docks. Zak wasn’t impressed. Okay there was a marina and arcades and stuff in the town but the rest of it, the places Zak lived and worked, were minging.

Zak had been in one place for a couple of weeks, straight after they arrived from Manchester. Like a safe house with no personal stuff anywhere and alert alarms in all the rooms. From outside it just looked like all the other houses in the row. Little and Large took turns with him in the days, talking him through his new identity and what he was to tell people. At night another guy came, a minder. He stayed up all night watching the nature channel on satellite TV. He only spoke when Zak spoke to him and then never gave anything away. Like words were money and he was skint. The worst thing was no drugs, not being able to have a puff or a snort and chill out. He even had to have his cigs out in the back yard.

They let him walk Bess, always one of them following him. At first he had felt safe, a bit like the hospital but the food not so good, then he got bored and by the end of those two weeks he was close to exploding just for summat to do. Then they got him the flat, and the job. The flat was in a three-storey block. Nine flats each floor, beside a dual carriageway. Zak’s was at the back so he could hear the traffic but his view was just rooftops, rows of them. He’d a bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom. Low ceilings, dark carpet. He got excited thinking about decorating it, making it comfy. Never had a place of his own for more than a few weeks, and most of those just a room in a squat or a place that only the desperate would pay good money for. Then something would happen, like gatecrashers turning the place into a war zone, or kids stealing the lead piping so there was no water any more, or a shortfall in the rent and he’d be off.

Little and Large made it clear that wasn’t an option. Banged on and on about it being his responsibility, his side of the deal. Large kept saying it was his big chance, turn his life around, settle down. But it was Hull, he didn’t know anyone, he didn’t belong. He missed Manchester.

Zak asked them about other destinations but Little snapped it was witness protection not a sodding travel agency. Same with his new name. Ryan Wilson. Ryan! He hated the name. There’d been a Ryan in one of the homes, a psycho bully who robbed everyone’s stuff and had pointy, baby teeth and asthma.

But they forced him to have the name and he had to practise writing it. He told them he didn’t go in for much reading and writing but they insisted he’d need a new signature. Not being good with reading limited the jobs they could find him. In the end he started at a recycling centre: sorting glass and metal. The rubbish came in on a wide belt and the ‘operatives’ as they were called stood either side picking off items for the different crates. You had to wear full protective clothing: overalls and gloves and boots. The place was cold and the work made a right racket, the crashing of glass and the metal clanging. It stank too from the bits of old booze and food and that. You got all sorts coming on the belt. A dead dog one time, just a pup. That cut Zak up to see it.

Zak’s new life story was that he’d grown up with his mam in Wigan. ‘I don’t talk like I come from Wigan,’ he’d told Large.

‘No one over this side’ll know the difference,’ Large said, fiddling with the braces on his teeth.

Then they’d moved to Hull.

‘Why? Why would anyone come here?’

‘For work.’

‘There isn’t any.’

‘She worked for Woolies before they went bust, transferred here. Died of cancer three years ago.’ Large looked at him carefully. Zak didn’t like him peering like that. Knew he was thinking about Zak’s real mam and all that bother. What did they know? She was all he had, her and Bess. He’d been really naughty, must have, and she had to punish him. Went a bit too far, that’s all. Zak shuddered, got up and stretched.

‘Her name was Julie Wilson. You never knew your dad.’

‘You got that right.’

They began to call him Ryan and he hated it. ‘Can’t I have a nickname?’

‘Like what?’ Little laughed. ‘Fingers?’

‘Behave!’ Zak said.

‘Willie – short for Wilson.’ Little kept laughing.

Zak went outside for a fag.

‘A middle name, then?’ he asked when he got back in.

Little shook his head.

‘Why not? Does it cost more or summat?’ Zak felt like crying. He did not want to be Ryan.

They wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s all sorted now, birth certificate and all. No can do.’

Ryan Wilson had no other family and had dropped out of school, drifted about for a bit. They kept it simple.

Once Zak got settled at work, he told the rest to call him Matt, said it was his middle name. He carried on like that. Only used Ryan for the official stuff. Handy in a way: if someone called asking for Ryan he knew it wasn’t a mate. Not that he’d much to do with the others outside work, the odd kickabout with the younger ones but mostly he’d go home, take Bess out then have some scran and watch telly. Little and Large had warned him not to get too pally too soon. Keep his distance. They’d be checking up on him. So once or twice a week he’d get a call from them, or one of them would pitch up at the flat unannounced.

A couple of months after he’d started the job, he heard one of the lads bragging about some weed. Zak asked if he could get him some. It arrived the next day. Zak got home, saw to Bess, had a pot noodle then fired one up. He was catatonic by 9 p.m. Next thing, Large is on the phone, on his case. Why wasn’t he at work?

‘Migraine,’ he told him. ‘Happens now and again.’

Zak should have been happy: he had Bess, he had a warm flat, a place of his own, didn’t have to look for somewhere to crash every night. He could lock the door and keep the world out, get up when he liked at weekends, watch telly all night long if he liked. He could afford to eat three times a day. But he felt lost and lonely. Zak accepted he’d have to stay in Hull till the trial.

‘What about after?’ he asked Large.

‘It’s not that bad,’ Large told him.

‘Compared to what? When can I move?’

‘We’ll talk after the trial. Look, we’ve sorted you out: nice flat, regular work. Not easy.’

Then it was the trial. He had to be kept close, they said. It was like going back to those first two weeks with Little and Large babysitting him. They took him to a motel outside town. Bess had to go into kennels.

‘No way,’ Zak said. ‘She’s never been in kennels, she’ll hate it.’ Why couldn’t they stay at the safe house again? Why couldn’t Bess stay at the flat and them take him back there after the trial? He tried facing them down, saying he wouldn’t go ahead if they sent Bess to kennels. Little went ballistic and Large sent him out to cool down and told Zak he was on very thin ice and that protection could be withdrawn if he wasn’t fully cooperative. So they were at the Travelodge for two nights and the day in between. Adjoining rooms. There was nothing to do but drink and watch telly. Then the second night Large told him they’d an early start in the morning. His time had come.