Robert Swindells - Daz 4 Zoe

I’d underestimated him. He didn’t open the door and tell me to get in. The furnace stood on a brick base, very close to the wall: so close that when he shone his torch on it I noticed that whoever had limewashed the walls down here back in the good old days hadn’t been able to get at this section, which was black and greasy and furred with cobwebs.

‘Halfway along there,’ he said, ‘there’s a hole in the base. It’s a crawlspace, goes right in under the furnace.’ He chuckled. ‘I used to hide from our mam in there. I know it’s not so nice, Zoe, but I want you to wait in there till I come back for you.’

He was right. It wasn’t nice. I had to scrape along sideways and by the time I reached the hole my damp face was caked with cobwebs and flakes of rust and my hair was an old mop, stiff with dirt.

Under the furnace was horrible. Pitch black and horrible. I won’t go on about it. I forced myself not to think about spiders and black beetles and thought about Daz as a little boy, hiding here from his mother. I wondered whether his brother Del had come here too, but that started me thinking about ghosts so I shook my head and thought about something else.

The cops came, eventually. I heard them on the stairs, then at the foot of the stairs where they paused to voice their disgust as flashlights showed the dirt they’d have to wade through in their shiny boots. I hoped it’d put them off: that their search would be perfunctory. I hoped one of them wouldn’t turn out to be a Sherlock Holmes, the sort of guy who’d notice torn cobwebs and scuffmarks in the dirt. I doubted it. My hidey-hole was a good one.

They didn’t find me. They spent a minute, maybe a minute and a half in the place. They looked in the furnace – I heard the door squeak – then one of them hit the boiler with something and the great hollow boom damn near creamed my brain, but that was all.

I listened as they went back up the stairs. After that it was just a matter of waiting for Daz to come. Wondering if he would, and what I’d do if he didnt? Suppose he’d been arrested, and his mother too? Suppose they never came back – what then?

I was doing a pretty good job of driving myself crazy in that dark little hole when I heard his voice.

I was filthy all over, but he took me in his arms and hugged me. I felt wonderful but I knew I didn’t look it and I was glad he couldn’t see me. I asked him what had happened with the cops.

‘Routine search, Zoe. No tipoff, so they don’t know I’m involved yet, but they will. Your old man must be loaded – they’re offering big peanuts for you and somebody’s gonna collect before long. That’s why we’ve got to get you out of here.’

‘Yes, but where?’

‘School.’

‘School?’

‘That’s right.’ He steered me toward the stairs and we climbed stealthily up the four flights to the apartment. He went first, pressing himself against walls and peeping round corners, but all the doors were shut, the stairs and landings deserted. He turned and winked at me. ‘Can’t beat a visit from the law for making people stay home.’

Back in the apartment I had to visit that awful bucket again. Then Daz sat me down and told me about the teacher, James. Mr? Barraclough was lying down so we had the room to ourselves. When he’d finished I said, ‘Okay, so I hide in the school, but what happens to you when the cops get their tipoff- you and your mum?’

He shrugged. ‘I dunno, Zoe. James said something about seeing a guy, but I didn’t know what he meant.’ He chuckled. ‘I don’t think he knew himself, he was so scairt. We’ll just have to see what happens.’

I spread my hands, palms up, on my knees and looked at them. They were filthy. So were my jeans. There were cobwebs all down the front of my jumper and I felt itchy. I remembered the bucket of cold, scummy water in the kitchen and right then I’d have given anything to be standing in our gleaming shower back home. Tears filled my eyes and ran down my cheeks and I wiped at them with my fingers, knowing I was smearing dirt on my face. Daz got up and knelt by my chair and put his arms round me. He must’ve had a fair idea why I was crying and he didn’t say anything, just knelt there, rocking me in his arms like you would a little kid.

I hadn’t been a Chippy very long but I was beginning to understand why Mrs Barraclough had to have those pills.

As soon as it was properly dark we set off for the school. I’d wanted to clean myself up a bit before I went but Mrs Barraclough said I’d be safer the way I was. In fact, she persuaded me to take off my jumper, which was quite new, and put on an old one of hers which was through at the elbow and far too big for me. She had me take off my wristwatch and put it in my pocket. She thought people might notice my shoes, too, but she was nowhere near my size so we decided I’d have to risk it. They were pretty messed up from the dump and anyway it was dark.

It was drizzling, too, and we didn’t see many people as we trudged through the unlighted streets. The police always withdraw to the suburbs at night so we didn’t expect to encounter cops and we didn’t. It was almost seven when we got to the school, which was housed in a low wooden building which stood by itself on the edge of a vast, derelict site. The place in darkness but the door was open, and as we let ourselves in the teacher hurried forward.

‘Anyone see you come in here, Barraclough?’

Daz shook his head. ‘Don’t think so, sir. This is Zoe. Zoe, this is Mister James who’s gonna look after you.’

‘Only for a day or so,’ reminded the teacher. ‘I’m taking a big risk, y’know. If they find her here they’ll close the school and strip me of my status.’

Daz chuckled. ‘What’s the matter, sir- don’t you like it here? I thought you loved us Chippy kids. Wouldn’t it be great to be near us all the time?’

The teacher shuddered. ‘Heaven forbid. You’d better go now, Barraclough, but don’t let anyone see you, and remember you’ve got to come up with a different arrangement for this young woman pretty soon.’

We embraced briefly and then he was gone. I followed the teacher through the lobby, across the single classroom and into a tiny washroom. In this room stood a step-ladder, and a trapdoor in the ceiling was open.

James looked at me. ‘Why a child like you should want to leave Silverdale to live in a place like this I don’t know. What I do know is this – that if I had my way I’d take you, by force if necessary, and restore you to your parents this very night.’ He indicated the trapdoor. ‘Climb through there. You’ll find blankets, a flask of soup and a torch. It’s the bes I could manage. Use the torch only when absolutely necessary and be very quiet, especially during school hours. All right?’

I nodded and said, ‘You live in Silverdale, sir?’

‘I do. Why’d you ask?’

‘Well – I was wondering – I mean, could you get a message to my parents, tell them I’m alive and – you know?’

He smiled sadly, shaking his head. ‘Your parents are frantic with grief, Zoe. What d’you think they’d do if I showed up with a message like that? D’you think they’d say, Oh fine – when you see her again, give her our best. D’you think they’d do that?’

I shook my head and he said. ‘You’re right, they wouldn’t. They’d call DS and say There’s a guy here knows where our child is, and DS would hang me by the thumbs till I told them where you were and who’d been hiding you, and then they’d go get young Bar-raclough and his widowed mother and hang them.’