Nick Oldham - Hidden Witness

‘Hey, babe,’ Lee Clarke slurred as Ellen Thompson entered the living room of their tiny house on north shore. She pulled off her coat and tossed it across the dining table on top of a pile of other clothes. ‘I knew you’d come… babe, I missed you. I hate you working.’

‘Well if I didn’t, we’d have nothing at all, would we?’ She sat down, unzipped her tight boots and peeled them off with gratitude. They were killing her feet.

Clarke was smoking a joint and Ellen sniffed appreciatively. ‘Good shit,’ she said and waggled her fingers at him in a ‘gimme’ gesture.

‘Last one,’ Clarke said sadly, inspecting the spliff. She waggled her fingers more urgently. ‘Oh, babe,’ he whined.

‘Give.’

Reluctantly, he handed her the joint and she took the last drag, holding the smoke deep in her lungs, feeling the wonderful euphoria of the drug seep into every part of her body. She exhaled slowly and sat back.

‘You got some dosh?’ Clarke asked.

‘Few quid.’

‘Enough for a few pints and some more good shit?’

‘Dunno, dunno.’ The cannabis had made her feel out of it already.

‘Nobody handed any cash in today for you to take a percentage?’

‘No… oh, I did get something…’ She crossed unsteadily to the dining table, rooted in her coat and found the mobile phone. She handed it to Clarke. ‘You can get something for this, can’t you?’

Clarke inspected it. He had stolen and fenced many a mobile phone and knew their worth. ‘Found property?’ he said with a knowing chortle.

‘Our property,’ Ellen said.

‘Hey, this is a good phone,’ he said appreciatively.

‘How much?’

‘Forty quid, I guess. It sells in the hundreds.’

‘Can you get that tonight?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘So we can party, party, party?’

‘Oh yeah.’

She stood in front of him, still dressed in the knee length, but tight, skirt and white blouse of her PEA uniform. She hitched up the skirt and straddled him. ‘Let’s start how we mean to go on,’ she said, slowly unbuttoning the blouse.

Clarke’s eyes misted lustfully over as he reached up and grabbed her generous boobs. She leaned into him and mashed her lips on to his, forcing her tongue into his mouth.

The pounding on the door was a rude interruption.

Clarke pulled his head away and gasped. ‘I hope that’s not Tweedy,’ he said, referring to his dealer. ‘I owe him some money, but coming round here is bang out of order. Ignore him.’

But the knocking persisted in an authoritative way. Whoever it was, wasn’t going to go away in a hurry.

‘Shit,’ Clarke said and pushed Ellen to one side, extracting himself from underneath her. She moaned with annoyance as Clarke got up and said, ‘I’ll piss him off.’

‘How much do you owe him?’

‘Dunno. Twenty, I guess. Not a lot.’

For Mark Carter it might as well have been another police cell. Out of one, into another, the only difference being this one was en-suite and the bed looked half-comfortable and inviting.

‘You’re lucky,’ the social worker had told him on the way.

‘And why would that be?’ he asked harshly. The social worker, God bless him, came across as a decent kind of guy, trying his best to do a thankless job with a stroppy teenager. However, Mark had no intention of making anything easy for him.

‘You’re the first guest. The place doesn’t officially open until next week after being refurbished. People haven’t started filtering in and out yet.’

‘Inmates, you mean?’

‘I mean young people with serious needs.’

‘So there won’t be anyone else there tonight?’

‘Nope — just you. But I’ll be in a room down the corridor if you need anything. I won’t be far away.’

‘Like bumming, you mean?’

‘Eh?’ Then the guy got it, reddened and laughed nervously. ‘We’re not all raving perverts, you know,’ he chuckled with a tinge of hurt.

‘Well that’s reassuring,’ Mark said. ‘I feel as if I’m being bum-fucked anyway. You might as well just do it for real. I don’t give a toss.’

‘Now then, Mark. We’re simply interested in your welfare, that’s all. You’ve been through a lot and we’re trying to do the right thing for you.’

‘Oh? And do I get to have a say in what the right thing is?’

‘Of course you do, Mark, of course you do.’

Mark had been handed over to the care of the social worker after he had spent some time with Alex Bent making a witness statement and then with the police artist at the computer, compiling an e-fit of the guy he had seen murder the old man. When finished, Mark had been spooked by the likeness. It was spot on.

He had then protested he didn’t need social services and could easily look after himself, and would answer bail and not do a runner. Unfortunately, by virtue of the fact he’d been arrested doing a runner was just one of the things that negated his argument. He had money in his pocket and the police thought he would probably never be seen again. He was also a juvenile who had just lost a parent, did not have any other immediate family, and there was a responsibility to ensure his safety. That meant, for the short-term at least, Mark would be put in a home.

Had Mark known anything about stereotypes, he would have sneered at the social worker’s car. A completely knackered old Citroen with a gear lever coming out of the dashboard, which was built as flimsily as a paper house in Japan. Instead, he sat glumly in the front seat, his mind in turmoil.

‘Is my mum really dead?’ Mark asked at one point.

‘I’m afraid so, Mark.’

‘Whatever.’

They drove up the promenade, passing the Norbreck Castle Hotel on the right, until they came to Little Bispham where the social worker pulled the car across the road into the wide driveway of a large detached house opposite the tram stop at Melton Place. It was a big, old, imposing building, erected some time between the world wars, called Cleveley House.

‘Here we are.’

Mark eyed the place and sighed. ‘This isn’t secure accommodation, is it? I mean, I don’t have to stay here if I don’t want to.’

‘In theory, Mark, you can walk out anytime.’

‘Which means I can’t, obviously.’

‘It means that if you do, next time you will end up in a secure home. You see, there is a bit of trust needed here. We know you’re a sensible lad and that you know it’d be silly to walk away because of the consequences.’

‘Some bloody situation.’

‘Come on, let’s make the best of it. Let’s get you settled in, then let’s go out and get a takeaway, my treat, then come back and watch TV for a while and try to chill our beans. There’s satellite TV on a forty-two-inch screen in one of the lounges, so we could either watch a film that’s on, or hire one for the night. Up to you.’

‘Tch.’ Mark shook his head.

‘I’m Barry, by the way.’

‘Whatever.’

The social worker unlocked the front door of the house and they entered a grand hallway, with a central staircase that split either way on the first floor. He showed Mark to a bedroom at the end of a long corridor up the stairs.

‘This is yours. If you want to get a shower, then maybe come down to the kitchen at the back of the house?’ The social worker, Barry, nodded reassuringly as he spoke, trying to be infectious in his positivity. ‘There are towels and soap and stuff. No change of clothing yet, but I’ll sort that in the morning.’

And that was something Mark had not really thought about. Tomorrow. He sat on the bed, brooding, his brain churning. Part of him wanted to walk out, another part craved the security that this place, and Barry, offered. He also needed to sleep. Tiredness overwhelmed him. A night in a coal-hole and a shed hadn’t really been all that comfortable. He decided to forego the shower and go straight for the food. He fancied a Chinese. He was famished and very thirsty all of a sudden. Wearily, he stood up and sauntered back along the corridor to the top of the stairs. He paused here, wondering if he really wanted to spend any time with the good-natured Barry. There was every possibility he would drive Mark mad. Maybe being alone would be the best end for the day. Let it all roll and tumble through his mind.