This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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To Stephen and Patricia Volk, with love.

“Monster? But we’re British, you know!”

ONE
FRIDAY, 26 JULY 1996

I
was nineteen years old and scared to death. So scared that I had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. Which was ironic, because it was the height of summer, 32° in the shade. The inside of the car was rank with the smell of sweat, testosterone and baked leather.

I was aware of Chris sitting beside me, his black-gloved hands gripping the steering wheel as if it was a safety bar on a roller coaster. His face, what I could see of it, was a lumpy, dark blur in its stocking mask, like a sculpture of a human head worn smooth by the wind and rain. Neither of us had said anything for the past five minutes. I didn’t know about Chris, but I was worried that if I spoke the waver in my voice would give away how terrified I was. I stared out through the windscreen at the terrace of derelict houses opposite, and tried to pretend I was calm, in control. But really I was thinking:
Why the fuck am I doing this?

I knew why, though. I was doing it for Candice. That’s what I told myself anyway, though in hindsight I have to admit that that wasn’t strictly true. The thing is, with what I earned driving a furniture delivery van six days a week (plus overtime), I
could
have managed to pay Michelle for Candice’s welfare,
and
pay my rent on my grotty bedsit in Dagenham,
and
just about scrape by on a weekly diet of baked beans, mashed spuds and cheap mince. I
could
have. People do, don’t they? But I was nineteen, and I wanted a bit of a life. Nothing special, nothing extravagant. Just a few extra quid to go out on a weekend, buy some decent clothes, maybe get a car.

So when it boiled down to it, I suppose you
could
say that I was about to hold up a security van with my mates just so that I wouldn’t have to stay in every night, eating Pot Noodles and staring at my little black-and-white telly. I know that sounds pathetic, but what you’ve got to understand is that crime wasn’t such a big deal where I was brought up. To most of the kids I knew, and many of the adults too, it was a way of life, of getting by. Though when I say ‘crime’, I don’t necessarily mean the sort of crime that we were about to commit. I didn’t live my early life surrounded by murderers and rapists and armed robbers – though I knew of a few people who fell into one or other of those categories. No, I’m talking about petty crime: shoplifting, nicking cars, selling drugs, robbing houses. More serious crimes were still a bigger deal – but at the same time they weren’t
that
huge a leap. The prospect of being drawn in, as I had been, wasn’t as shocking or unthinkable as it would have seemed to the law-abiding majority.

I’m not sure whether that’s an explanation or an excuse for my actions. I’m not sure whether I’m trying to make you understand or gain your sympathy. I’ll leave my words for you to judge as you see fit. Because the thing is, everyone’s unique, and everyone interprets what they see and hear based on their own experiences. I’m a different person now to the one I was on that hot summer’s day in 1996. And what I’ve learned over the years is that we’re each of us a stew of physical and psychological ingredients, shaped by genetics, environment, upbringing, peer pressure and human interaction. So what’s acceptable, or at least understandable, to one person is going to be unacceptable or inconceivable to another.
C’est la vie
. When it comes down to it, there’s no black and white. Only grey.

So there I was, sitting in the passenger seat of a ripped-off Ford Mondeo next to my best mate Chris Langtree. From where we were parked, in the shadowy forecourt of one of a row of abandoned warehouses, we had a view of the long, quiet road almost up to the mouldering brick wall at its far end.
At
that far end, although we couldn’t see them from our position, Ray Duffy and Cosmic Dennis were sitting in a brown Vauxhall Vectra, also ripped off. The Vectra was tucked into the pot-holed entrance of a long-disused textile factory, so snug against the high wall which enclosed the factory grounds that Cosmic Dennis wouldn’t have been able to open his door more than an inch even if he’d wanted to. This meant that the car would be unseen by any vehicle turning on to the street at its far end. I couldn’t help imagining the Vectra as a funnel-web spider, poised in the darkness of its lair, ready to leap out on unsuspecting prey.

The heist had been Ray’s idea. By the time Chris got me involved everything was sorted, all the details worked out with military precision. I didn’t know what I was getting into at first. Chris rang me at work one day – I couldn’t even afford a home phone – and said that he had a proposition for me. I went round to his flat that night, expecting… I don’t know… something mildly dodgy, I suppose. I’d known Chris since primary school and we were like brothers. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets, we didn’t always see eye to eye, but we trusted each other implicitly. Chris worked in a shop selling electrical equipment for DJs and bands – record decks, sound systems, that sort of thing – but he made most of his money from fencing (the kind that involves stolen goods, not poking people with swords) and from selling dope to muso potheads on the side. In the past he’d slipped me a few quid to store ripped-off gear in my bedsit or to look after his stash while the cops were sniffing around. I’d once had a pair of speakers taking up most of the floor space in my bedroom with ‘ZZ Top’ stencilled on the side.

This time it was different, though.

The second I stepped through the door of his grotty Housing Association flat I heard voices. Chris handed me a tin of McEwan’s, which wasn’t anywhere near cold enough, and cast me an odd glance, half sly and half apologetic, which immediately made me uneasy.

‘Come through,’ he said, turning away from me. ‘We’re in here.’

I followed him down the narrow corridor, breathing in the musty scent from the damp-mottled walls, and into a square room which doubled as his bedroom and main living space. The floor was carpeted with a sludge-brown nylon weave and the walls were lined with haphazard stacks of electrical equipment. The low central table was cluttered with crumpled beer cans, empty coffee mugs and joint-rolling paraphernalia. To my left, slumped on the sagging sofa-bed beneath the big window which looked out on to the street, Dennis Jasper snorted in apparent mirth, snagging my attention. He was a rangy, raddled man with a long, bony, deeply lined face and stiff, mousey hair that stuck out at all angles. He wore a ratty old waistcoat over an off-white T-shirt, drainpipe jeans which made his legs look as spindly as broom handles, and tan leather cowboy boots. He was sucking on a spliff pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, his mouth wrinkling inwards like a contracting anus. He took a good lungful of smoke, the end of the spliff crackling and glowing orange as it burned down, then offered it to me.

I shook my head, not because I was averse to weed, but because I couldn’t face the thought of putting my lips where his fingers had been. Dennis Jasper – known as Cosmic Dennis because of the bullshit he spouted whenever he was high (which was most of the time) – was one of life’s grubby men. His teeth were brown, his over-long fingernails were permanently clogged with black gunge, and his moist-looking, dirt-ingrained skin exuded a faint odour of old toilets.

He gave another cackle, as though my refusal was the punchline to a private joke, and said something incomprehensible about the ‘angel of death’. Still holding the unopened can of beer in my hand, I looked away from him, turning my attention to the other man in the room. He was already leaning forward, an old dining chair creaking beneath his solid, meaty bulk, as he offered his hand across the cluttered table. The chunky bracelet encircling his wrist and the thick silver rings on each of his fingers gave the impression that his body had been strengthened with metal joints, like a cyborg from a sci-fi movie.

‘Alex,’ he said, his voice a husky croak, ‘good to see you, mate.’ He had the amiable but vaguely threatening presence of a man who was so hard that he didn’t feel a need to prove it.

I took the hand and shook it. ‘How you doing, Ray?’

‘Doing good, mate. How about you?’

‘Can’t complain.’

He nodded, his sleepy eyes assessing me, his gaze unwavering. After a moment he said, ‘Sit down, mate, have a drink.’

I couldn’t help feeling I was about to be interrogated, that as soon as I sat he would drop his nice-guy persona and start to pump me with questions. I racked my brains, wondering what he thought I’d done, what he’d been told I might know, but I couldn’t think of anything. I wanted to ask what was wrong, whether someone had been bad-mouthing me, but I thought that might sound like an admission of guilt, so I stayed silent. I glanced at Chris, who was standing behind me with his arms folded, looking pensive. He nodded at me – encouragingly, I hoped. I sat.

‘Aren’t you gonna open your beer?’ Ray said, nodding at the can in my hand.

‘Sure,’ I said. I popped the ring-pull, took a swig of the fizzy, metallic-tasting stuff, and forced it down.

He nodded in approval, his close-cropped hair gleaming with styling wax. When he moved, his black puffa jacket made a dry, slithering sound like a snake. Over by the window Cosmic Dennis watched the sweet-smelling smoke coiling above his head and chuckled for no discernible reason.

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