Nick's Blues (3 page)

Finished, Nick emptied his trash into the bin and pushed back outside. The drum set in the music shop window sparkled in the overhead light alongside a line of red and gold electric guitars, nothing old and acoustic like the one his dad had played.

“Let's form a band,” Scott had said one afternoon. They were upstairs in Christopher's house, passing round a spliff and listening to White Stripes.

“All right,” Nick had said. “Who's gonna play what?”

“Who cares?”

Aside from Christopher, who had grade three piano, none of them could play a thing. Or sing.

It didn't stop them spending the next hour thinking up names: Omerta (Christopher had been watching documentaries on BBC Four again), The Missing, Moving Targets, Casey and the Unknowns.

“Who's Casey?” Nick had asked.

“Nobody knows.”

Which had been enough to have them falling about laughing, eventually recovering enough to go downstairs and raid the kitchen for some munchies, a packet of chocolate chip cookies, half a Mr Kipling fruit pie, the remnants of some blackberry and apple crumble from the back of the fridge.

Nick looked at his watch. It was starting to get dark. He had three lots of homework and the deal he'd made with himself about studying on those nights he wasn't working seemed in danger of being forgotten. Heading back, he took a short cut between the backs of the houses, a narrow alley that passed eventually beneath the railway bridge, emerging close to where he lived.

Midway along he heard someone running fast in his direction and two youths burst past, forcing him to flatten himself against the crumbling wall or be sent flying. He couldn't be sure, both were wearing sports tops with the hoods pulled well over their heads, but one of them Nick thought he might have recognised.

Minutes later, skirting an abandoned refrigerator which had been pulled down on to its side, he heard the siren of a police car drawing closer and then fading. If his mum was still in when he got back he'd apologise for going off at half-cock. There were questions he wanted to ask and if she was in a mood she'd never tell him anything.

He slowed down passing under the bridge, darker there and God knows what he might step in. Twenty metres further along the alley opened out on to the road and he was almost home. As his feet touched the pavement, a police car, travelling fast, swung hard across and came to a squealing halt in front of him, blocking his path.

Nick's instinct was to run.

Car doors were thrown open and two uniformed officers jumped out.

“Okay, son. Take it easy. We just want a word.”

The one who spoke was big, with ginger hair, six two or three, the other one younger, smaller, pimples livid on his face.

“Where you off to?” Ginger said.

“Home.”

“Where's that?”

Nick told him.

“What's your name?”

Nick told him that too.

“Watch him,” Ginger said, moving back towards the car. The other officer nodded and took a step closer, while Ginger repeated Nick's name into the handset clipped to his uniform.

“What's this about?” Nick asked.

No reply.

Gawking, a couple on the opposite side of the street walked slowly past.

“Okay, son,” Ginger said, stepping back. “Why don't you just get in the car?”

“What?”

“Get in the car.”

“What for?”

“Just a few questions, at the station.”

“What questions?”

“At the station.”

There was a woman with two shopping bags now, on her way from the bus stop, standing there staring.

“Come on,” Ginger said, not unkindly. “We haven't got all night.”

Nick didn't know what else to do. He ducked his head beneath the officer's hand and the rear door was closed firmly behind him. Moments later they were pulling away.

Dawn Harman hadn't been able to get him out of her mind: Les, her former husband, Nick's father. Not since handing over the box the previous morning. The box she'd come so close to throwing away a hundred times. And then, that evening, when Nick had started asking those questions about when she and Les had first met…

***

It had been a pub over by Highbury Corner, a room upstairs, some kind of — what was it? — acoustic evening. Not the kind of thing Dawn went in for at all, not then anyway, but one of her friends had said it might be a laugh, said she'd been before.

Well, it wasn't a laugh at all, not exactly.

The room was cold and draughty, no heating. Benches and tables, candles, a handful of rickety chairs. She'd kept her coat on most of the evening, only taking it off to fold it across her legs in at attempt to keep them warm. Slide her hands down underneath. And the acts, most of them, had been dire: a couple of singers mumbling, lovelorn, over their guitars; a man with carroty hair who ranted on about striking miners, a hand clapped the whole time over one ear; a poet with dreadlocks; this Irish bloke playing the penny whistle and jigging around in hobnail boots. And then there'd been Les.

She hadn't noticed him before, no reason to, just one of those blokes hanging round the bar. Not till he stepped out front to a smattering of applause. Leather trousers, boots with a heel, waistcoat unbuttoned over a denim shirt; his hair was long, longer than she liked, his beard trimmed and dark.

The thing that struck her first, he seemed more professional than the rest. He had had his own equipment for one thing, amplifier and microphone. And the way he spoke, straight out at the audience, direct, no mumbling. Confident.

“Hi, I'm Les Harman.”

Even in the murk of that room, you could see the blue of his eyes.

“What d'you think?” her friend said. “Nice looking, isn't he?”

Dawn thought she could never fancy a bloke who wore denim shirts, it just wasn't her style.

Quietly, Les ran his thumb over the strings of his guitar, made some small adjustment to the microphone and, satisfied, hooked one of his heels over the rung of the stool.

“I'd like to start off with an old Big Bill Broonzy song, especially for any of you heading back down to Balham or Clapham Junction via the Angel. It's ‘Southbound Train'.”

Dawn didn't remember the rest in detail, one tune fading into another, her friend leaning forward, never taking her eyes off him, and Les acknowledging the applause for each song with a slightly self-conscious laugh before sliding into the next.

“The good news,” Les announced, “I've got just one more before the interval. The bad, I'll be back later.”

After chatting to a couple of obvious fans, he came over to where they were sitting. “I was wondering,” he said, “if I could buy you ladies a drink?”

Dawn's friend blushed and mumbled agreement; Dawn's “No, thank you,” was firm and clear.

“Some other time perhaps,” Les said and held her gaze.

On the way out she slipped one of the fliers advertising his future gigs into her pocket.

After that — she didn't want to think about after that.

***

Now she looked round at the clock, wondering how long it would be before Nick calmed down and came back home. Most likely he'd gone round to his mate Christopher's, taking it out on some video game.

She was leafing through the paper, looking to see what was on the television, when the phone rang.

That'll be him now, she thought, crossing to pick it up.

“Hello,” the voice said. “Is that Mrs Harman?”

“Who's this?” Someone wanting me to change my gas supplier, she thought, those people never give up.

“This is Holmes Road Police Station. We have your son, Nick, here…”

“Nick? What's happened? Is he all right?”

“If you could come down to the station, Mrs Harman…”

“What's this all about? Is he in trouble?”

“If you could come down…”

“Nick, have you arrested him or something? What's he done?”

“As of now, Mrs Harman, we just want to ask him some questions. If it's not convenient for you to come yourself, we can always contact a social worker…”

“You'll do no such bloody thing. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

If she rang for a cab it would likely be fifteen, twenty minutes before one arrived and she could walk it in less; as it was, a C2 was coming along when she reached the main road and she jumped on that.

Nick had been taken into the station and then left sitting in a corner while the two officers who'd brought him in conferred with the sergeant behind the desk. There were glances in his direction and a certain amount of nodding and head shaking and then the sergeant beckoned him over.

“Okay, son, why don't we see what you've got in your pockets?”

If Nick thought of refusing, standing there with three men staring at him soon wiped any such ideas from his mind. Besides, aside from his keys and some small change, a few scraps of paper, what would they find?

“There's nothing else?”

Nick shook his head.

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

A bit more hushed discussion and he was told to go back and sit down.

“How much longer've I got to stay here?” Nick asked.

Nobody answered.

The two officers who had brought him in went away and after a short while he was aware of some movement in the corridor outside and faces looking at him through the square of glass at the top of the door.

Then nothing: nothing specific. The life of the station went on around him.

After what seemed an age but was probably no more than minutes, an officer he hadn't seen before approached. “Best come wait in here.”

“I thought I could go.”

The room was small and airless, narrow, a table and several chairs. It smelt faintly of disinfectant.

“Lucky lad,” the officer said. “Your mum's coming to get you.”

Nick closed his eyes.

***

Flustered, short of breath after running from the bus stop, Dawn excused herself past an African woman with a vibrant blue head-dress to get the duty officer's attention.

“Yes, ma'am?” He blinked back at her through reinforced glass.

“My son was brought here. Nick. Nick Harman. I was asked to come.”

“And you are?”

“I'm his mother. Mrs Harman. Dawn.”

“Just one moment.”

The officer turned aside, dialled a number and spoke into the phone.

“If you'll just wait here, someone will be out to see you.”

Dawn stepped aside and let the African woman past. Several others had entered and were milling around the entrance. Dawn glanced at her watch and shook her head and realised that what she wanted most was a cigarette.

The door from the interior of the station swung open and if she'd been expecting to see Nick she was mistaken.

“Mrs Harman?”

The woman holding out a hand was perhaps an inch taller than Dawn, dark hair cut short and framing a strong face that, a touch of lipstick aside, seemed free of make up. She was wearing a dark suit, brown with a thin stripe, jacket undone, trousers slightly flared. Late thirties, Dawn thought, a few years younger than herself.

“Jackie Ferris. Detective Inspector.” Her hand was smooth, its grip quick and strong. “Let's go inside, shall we? Where we can talk.”

“I want to see my son.”

“Of course.”

Dawn followed her along a corridor and towards a flight of stairs.

Conversations, some ordered and calm, others less so, went on behind partitioned walls.

“With your permission, Mrs Harman, we'd like to ask your son some questions.”

“What about? What's he supposed to have done?”

Ferris stopped and turned. “There was a robbery earlier this evening, around the time your son was on his way home. A group of youths attacked a man, four or five of them, and knocked him to the ground. Stole his wallet, watch, mobile phone.”

Dawn stared at her, incredulous. “And you're saying Nick was involved?”

“Not necessarily, no.”

“Not necessarily…”

“Someone saw the tail end of what happened and called us. We had a couple of cars in the area. One of them drove round with the victim to see if he could pick out any of his attackers.”

“And he picked Nick?”

“Your boy was of a similar height and build and wearing similar clothes…”

“So's half the estate…”

“Mrs Harman, a search was carried out at the station with your son's consent.”

“And?”

“And we found nothing compromising, nothing…”

“Then why are you keeping him here like some criminal?”

“As I say, we'd like to ask him a few straightforward questions in your presence. If he agrees.”

“And if he doesn't?”

The inspector waited just a fraction longer before replying. “Then, of course, he can leave.”

***

Nick had been alternately sitting and pacing around, wondering how much longer he was going to kept there, running over and over in his mind what had happened. Whenever he heard footsteps approaching, he looked expectantly towards the door but the steps always continued on past.

A burglary. A mugging.

The two youths who had pushed past him at the alley's end, legging it for all they were worth.

He thought again about the one he might have recognised, uncertain.

The face he'd seen for a moment, little more.

This kid a year below him at school, skinny and tall.

If it was him, Nick had spotted him hanging round the estate, sometimes with Blevitt and his crew, sometimes not.

He was doing his best to fix on a name when he realised that this time the footsteps had stopped outside the door. Some woman he didn't know came in first and then his mum.

“Nick. Nicky. Are you all right?”

Dawn had to stop herself rushing forward and hugging him, knowing it would be the last thing he wanted. He'd not forgive her for embarrassing him.