Mark Billingham: Good as Dead

Chewing gum and chocolate, maybe a bottle of water on those hen’s teeth days when the sun was shining. A paper for the journey into work and half a minute of meaningless chat while she was waiting for her change.

Nothing there worth dying for.

Helen Weeks would tell herself much the same thing many times before it was over. In the hours spent staring at the small black hole from which death could emerge in less time than it took for her heart to beat. Or stop beating. In those slow-motion moments of terror that measured out each day and in the sleepless nights that followed. While the man who might kill her at any moment was shouting at himself just a few feet away, or crying in the next room.

It is not my time to die.

Or my baby’s time to lose his mother…

The chewing gum was a habitual thing, something to do and to help her stay off the cigarettes she’d given up two years before when she’d become pregnant. A newspaper ensured she would not have to look at the people sitting opposite her on the train, presuming she was lucky enough to get a seat and did not find herself pressed up against some lard-arse in a cheap suit who bought his aftershave from Poundstretcher. The chocolate was an addiction, pure and simple. One that had made the struggle to lose weight since her son was born no more than partially successful. She would try and eke it out; a chunk or two around eleven with a coffee, another after lunch and the rest as a treat at the end of the day. That was always the plan, but it was usually gone before she’d so much as logged on at her desk or, if the case she was working on was particularly unpleasant, by the time her train had finished its four-minute journey to Streatham station.

There were a lot of unpleasant cases.

She collected her paper from the rack near the door of the newsagent’s, and by the time she reached the counter Mr Akhtar had already picked out her usual chewing gum and chocolate bar of choice. He smiled and brandished them as she approached.

Same as always. Their private joke.

‘How is the little one?’ he asked.

Mr Akhtar was a short, prematurely balding man who almost always had a smile on his face. He rarely wore anything other than dark trousers, a white shirt and a cardigan, though that might be blue or brown. Helen thought he was probably younger than he looked, but put him somewhere in his mid-fifties.

‘He’s good,’ Helen said. She was aware of the customer she had seen browsing through the magazines on her way in, moving up to stand behind her. The man – tall, black, thirties – had been looking up at some of the covers in the top shelf’s ‘gentleman’s interest’ section and had quickly dropped his eyes down to the lifestyle and motoring mags when he’d seen Helen come in. ‘Yeah, he’s good.’

Mr Akhtar smiled and nodded and handed over the chewing gum and chocolate. ‘Hard work though, yes?’

Helen rolled her eyes and said, ‘Sometimes.’

Actually, Alfie was way better than good. He was indescribably brilliant. She grinned, thinking about her one-year-old son babbling happily as she had walked him to the childminder half an hour before. He was happy almost all of the time, as far as she could tell, but he certainly let her know when he wasn’t. He had Paul’s temper, Helen had decided, as well as his eyes.

Or was she kidding herself?

‘Worth it though, yes?’

‘Definitely,’ she said.

‘Trust me, it gets harder.’

‘Oh, don’t tell me that.’ Laughing, Helen handed over two pound coins and waited for the forty-three pence she was given back every morning. As Mr Akhtar was digging her change from the till, she heard the bell on the door. She saw him glance up and heard the voices, braying and fearless, as a group of lads came into the shop.

She looked round. Three of them: one black, two white. All full of themselves.

‘Here you are,’ Mr Akhtar said. He held out Helen’s change, but his eyes were on the three boys, and his voice was a little smaller than it had been a few seconds earlier. Before Helen turned back to him, she watched the boys amble across to the tall fridge and open the door, laughing and cursing.

Enjoying the attention of an audience, Helen thought.

‘Looks like it might be nice today.’

‘That’s good,’ Mr Akhtar said. Still quiet, looking towards the fridge.

‘Won’t last.’ Helen put the coins into her purse and folded the newspaper into her bag. She heard the man behind her exhale loudly, clearly impatient to be served. She had just opened her mouth to say ‘see you tomorrow’ when Mr Akhtar leaned towards her and whispered, nodding towards the three boys.

‘I hate those bastards,’ he hissed.

Helen looked round again. They were rooting around inside the fridge, pulling out cans, then putting them back again. Laughing and pushing each other. One, who must have grabbed a paper on the way in, was leaning against a display of greeting cards, rifling through the pages.

The man standing behind Helen muttered, ‘Christ’s sake.’ She could not be sure if it was frustration at being made to wait or irritation at the behaviour of the boys at the fridge.

‘Hey,’ Mr Akhtar said.

Helen turned back to the till, then heard the hiss of a can being opened and saw Mr Akhtar’s expression darken suddenly.

‘ Hey! ’

Another hiss, and now two boys were swigging from cans of Coke, while the third tossed the remains of his newspaper away and reached into the fridge for one of his own.

‘You pay for those,’ Mr Akhtar shouted.

‘I forgot my wallet,’ one of the boys said. The other two laughed, touched their fists together.

The white boy who had been reading the newspaper drained his can and crushed it. ‘What are you going to do if we don’t?’ He held his arms out wide in challenge. ‘Blow yourself up or something?’

‘You need to pay.’

Helen looked at Mr Akhtar. She could see the muscles working in his jaw, his arms stiff at his sides, his fists clenched. She took a small step to her right, moved into his eyeline, and shook her head.

Leave it.

‘Get out of my shop,’ Mr Akhtar shouted.

The white boy’s eyes looked small and dead as he dropped his empty can and walked slowly towards the till. One hand slid fast into the pocket of his hooded top. ‘Make us,’ he said. Behind him, his friends dropped their own cans, sending Coke fizzing across the floor of the shop.

‘Sorry,’ one of them said.

Suddenly, Helen had no spit in her mouth. She eased her hand into her bag and closed her fingers around the wallet that held both her Oyster and warrant cards. It was bravado, no more than that, she was almost certain. One flash of her ID and a few strong words and the gobby little sods would be out of there in a shot.

‘I think Osama’s shit himself.’

But an instant after Helen’s professional instinct kicked in, another took hold that was far stronger. It could so easily be a knife in the kid’s pocket, after all. She knew that she could take nothing for granted and was aware of what could happen to have-a-go heroes. She knew one community police support officer in Forest Hill who had reprimanded a fourteen-year-old for dropping litter a few months before. He was still on a ventilator.

She had had more than her fair share of this a year or so before.

Now, she had a child…

‘Your shop, but it ain’t your country.’

The man who had been waiting to be served moved closer to her. Was he trying to protect her, or protect himself? Either way, he was breathing heavily and when she turned she could see that he was eyeing up the door, wondering if he should make a dash for it.