Screen of Deceit (5 page)

‘Maybe if I just steer clear of the estate, that's where Jonny mainly hangs around … anyway,' Mark changed the subject breezily, ‘I need some food. You had your tea yet?'

‘Not yet. Mum hasn't landed home.'

‘Fancy going down the front, see what we can cadge?'

Bradley gave an uncertain shrug. ‘I do, but …' He huffed, screwing his face up, obviously torn.

‘Come on,' Mark encouraged him, a little unfairly really. Bradley had what Mark called a ‘proper family', a mum and a dad who worked normal hours, came home at normal times and did things that a proper family did – at least what Mark thought a
proper
family did. Not like his ragbag excuse for a family: a mum who worked weird hours and was always staying out or, worse, bringing home a succession of boyfriends; and a sister who was too busy with her own life to be bothered about him. Mark often speculated what it would be like to be Bradley. Sometimes he was envious, sometimes not. At least, he would think, I can come and go as I please, do what I want when I want. I haven't got somebody watching over my shoulder all the time.

Then sometimes he wished he had …

‘I'll have to leave a note for Mum,' Bradley decided, ‘and I'll have to be back for eight. I think that'll be OK.'

‘Fair dos.'

They raced through the streets on their bikes, down alleyways and other short cuts, riding like feral boys, screeching round corners, leaving braking almost too late, nearly knocking people over and tearing across busy roads without stopping. From Shoreside down on to the front at Blackpool took less than ten minutes.

They surfaced on to the promenade just north of the main entrance to the Pleasure Beach and turned right with the grey Irish Sea across to their left as they pedalled up the prom. Sticking to the wide pavement, they meandered more slowly now towards Central Pier and the Golden Mile, that stretch of the prom which was all amusement arcades, fast food outlets, pubs, clubs and tacky shops – and, of course, Blackpool Tower.

Mark had grown up in the resort and knew it intimately, and also a lot of the people, which was handy when on the scrounge for a food handout.

It was that time of year between Easter and summer when, during midweek, the town was pretty quiet, so riding up the pavement was possible without crashing into people. They reached a pub called the Manchester at a point where the tram tracks crossed the wide road and cut inland from the sea front. Once across this wide junction, there were more pedestrians knocking about, so Mark and Bradley dismounted, pushed their bikes.

On the way down from the estate they'd been shouting to each other, wondering where would be best to try and get a free burger each. They settled on Tony's Burger Bar. It was basically nothing more than a serving hatch to catch passing foot traffic and sold a delicious range of greasy burgers and carbonated drinks. It was owned by a guy called Ray, not Tony – Tony had been the previous owner and Ray couldn't be bothered to change the name – and Ray occasionally let Mark and Bradley do odd jobs for him in exchange for payment by food. The jobs were usually horrible cleaning jobs associated with chip fat, grease and cockroaches, and drains blocked with congealed fat. Despite the small size of the business, Ray always shut down after the illuminations in November and decamped to Tenerife for the winter where he ran a similar business in Playa de las Americas.

As well as giving them food, Ray allowed the lads to leave their bikes around the back of the shop, where they would be safe.

Even though business was light that evening, Ray grudgingly gave them a burger, fried onions, chips and a cheap cola each based on the promise they'd return at the weekend and clean up the accumulated mess behind the shop as payment.

With the bikes securely stowed away, they set off on foot up the Golden Mile towards the tower, hoodies tugged over their heads, munching their feasts.

‘They're actually really horrid, these,' Bradley whined, but kept eating as though it was his last meal before execution. ‘Taste like cardboard.'

‘Fried onions're nice, though.' Mark stopped in his tracks and slurped a particularly long piece of juicy onion into his mouth. He sighed with pleasure as he bit into it. ‘Perfect.' The more burnt, the better.

They crossed the road at the junction opposite Central Pier, their hunger slightly assuaged, and reached the more crowded pavement near to the tower, just two lads cruising amongst many others. They drifted aimlessly through a few amusement arcades, banging their fists hopefully on fruit machines and pressing the buttons in case they got lucky and money fell into their hands, and having a go at some of the arcade shooting games without actually putting any money into them.

Not much was happening. None of their other mates were around and soon they became bored with this feckless activity … and they were hungry again, their growing bodies demanding some proper sustenance.

But such was the lifestyle of a kid in Blackpool. It was pretty boring and pointless, mostly. Especially if you didn't have money.

‘I think I'll head off home. My guts're churning,' Bradley complained. He was a bigger lad than Mark, more of him to fill, and was forever eating. He said it was because of a growth spurt, but to Mark it seemed that his mate was always going upwards.

‘We could see if Ray'll sub us another burger,' Mark suggested hopefully. He didn't particularly want to go back home, even though he was bored, because there would probably only be him in the house. Bethany would have gone out by now and his mum … well, his mum … Mark just didn't expect her to be there.

More hours spent alone in front of the telly didn't really appeal to him.

‘Nah, I want summat proper in me belly.' Bradley rubbed his tum. ‘Me mum'll be home by now.'

Mark pulled a face and almost said, ‘Lucky sod.' Instead he shrugged and said, ‘Whatever.'

‘I could ask her if she'll let you have tea with us.'

‘Eh? That'd be great,' Mark blurted enthusiastically.

They walked back toward Tony's Burger Bar, but none too quickly. Neither lad could resist checking out the arcades, mooching from machine to machine, seeing if anyone had missed collecting their winnings, but they were singularly unlucky that day.

Crossing back over the Chapel Street junction, they passed the MacDonald's where Bill Clinton had once had a burger as part of some witless publicity stunt.

It was getting colder as the night drew in, a wind slicing through the air like a knife from the sea. Both huddled down into their hoodies and quickened their pace as they left the arcades behind.

At the Lonsdale Arms they waited for a tram to trundle past, then legged it before the lights changed, passing the pub as a gaggle of people crowded into the door. Mark wasn't really taking much notice of them, but as they crushed through the revolving doors, he heard a girl's laugh he thought he recognized. He stopped and yanked Bradley back, almost pulling him over.

‘What?' Bradley demanded.

‘Come on.' Mark dragged him.

‘What?' Bradley bleated, struggling.

‘I wanna go in here and have a look.'

‘What for? It's a pub!' Bradley was nonplussed. ‘You're only fourteen.'

‘I know. I just want a look, OK?'

Mark set off to the side door on Lytham Road. Usually they had bouncers here and Mark was wary. Even though he believed he looked older than fourteen, doormen were pretty good at estimating the age of kids. Probably more to do with body language than appearance: youngsters who shouldn't be in pubs, who weren't used to being in pubs, were awkward in their movements because they were always expecting the fateful hand on the shoulder. Those who sneaked into pubs regularly looked and acted more naturally. Mark didn't go into pubs – and as he walked up to the door, putting on his cocky walk (always a dead giveaway), he felt as if a big inflated finger was pointing down at him from the sky, singling him out and a booming, Godlike voice saying, ‘Underage! Underage!' As luck had it, probably because it was still early, there was no one on the door. He entered with Bradley behind.

For the time of day, the place was heaving with bodies. Thumping dance music blared out of huge, ceiling-hung speakers, stuff that Mark did not like. He was more into straight-up rock, not drum and bass crap. People crushed together, shouting to be heard. Lots of smoke rose, despite the non-smoking policy, with some strange niff within the normal smoke, something sweet smelling.

Moving through the pub he expected to be identified as being too young, then dragged to the door to be ejected by some ape of a bouncer, but no one looked at him twice. They were all engrossed in their own worlds. Bradley stayed up close behind him, very uncomfortable in this environment.

‘What're we doing here?' he demanded in Mark's ear.

‘Lookin', that's all.'

Bradley gave the back of Mark's head a confused grimace.

They went once around the pub. Mark thought he might've been mistaken. Maybe he had misheard.

As they circled back to the door they'd come in at, Mark stopped abruptly and Bradley walked into him.

He wasn't wrong after all. The laugh he thought he'd heard coming from the bunch of people entering the pub
was
Bethany's. Mark had come in hoping to surprise her and her mates, but now, as he spotted her, he edged backwards, using his arms to get Bradley to walk backwards too, a kind of fear ripping through him.

There she was, Bethany Carter. As large as life, in the centre of a throng of youths, part of a gang, all seated in a dark corner of the pub. She had a drink in one hand, a fat-looking cigarette dangling from her fingers. Mark knew it was a spliff – cannabis.

He melted further back, his eyes fixed on the group, Bethany in particular.

At one point she turned and looked directly at him and he didn't know what to do. Duck? Dive? Wave? He just stood as if frozen.

It didn't matter, though. She might've been looking straight at him, but she didn't see him. Her eyes were hazy, watery and bleary. Her head seemed to be wobbling as though it might drop off at any moment, like it could not balance. She was looking but not seeing a thing, not Mark, not anything. Then her head swivelled back, a slightly contorted smile on her lips, and she burst into a sort of inane laughter, a strange, disjointed cackle, as if she wasn't all there. A sandwich short of a picnic.

But as unsettling as all that was – Mark knew she was into drugs, though he'd never seen her under their influence – it was something else that really scared the living pants off him.

He watched her lean sideways and start snogging the guy sitting next to her. A real, full-on snog, tongues, slaver, everything. She was almost eating him alive. To Mark it looked horrible, doing something like that in public, in a pub full of punters.

But that was still not the worst of it.

The worst of it was that the guy she was kissing was Jonny Sparks.

I
t was 2.20 a.m.

Mark was in bed, his Man U duvet pulled up tight over his head. Even so, he was cold, shivering. He could not sleep, couldn't even doze off. He was wide awake and there was an empty, carved out feeling in the pit of his stomach. He just found it impossible to rid his mind of the vision of Bethany's lips attached to Jonny Sparks's face like a limpet. A repulsive sight, it made him feel weak and ill. He'd tried a few pages of
Treasure Island
, but even that didn't help.

He tugged the duvet down, blinked and stared at the cracked ceiling.

Mark, generally speaking, was proud of himself. Most people would have thought that Mark Carter wouldn't have had a chance growing up on the estate with no dad, a mother who worked hard and played even harder, surrounded by drugs and criminality. Actually, he often wondered why he hadn't been lured to that sort of life, but from early on, he'd somehow known that nicking other people's stuff was wrong. He just knew instinctively. Add to that he'd had stuff pinched from him, nearly had his bike robbed, and he knew what it was like to lose something valuable. He could never have inflicted that feeling on somebody else. Just wasn't right. It was probably down to a bit of Jack's influence, too. He'd always preached right and wrong – sometimes Mark had been bored rigid by his elder brother's sermons – but the words had stuck and therefore Mark avoided the worst of the estate and did his best.

Obviously the same hadn't rubbed off on Beth. What the hell was she doing with Jonny Sparks?

OK, she was Mark's older sister and had always moved in different circles to him, but he'd always thought she was doing all right. Not that he could ever recall having a heart-to-heart with her. Didn't mean he didn't love her. He did. Lots. They just didn't live in each other's pockets.

But Jonny bloody Sparks!

Mark thought she had more sense than to fall in with a bad sod like him. He'd been excluded from school time after time and was known to be a drug dealer, the rumour being that he worked for the Crackman.

Mark didn't know whether that was true or not. Certainly Jonny would have everyone believe he was on the Crackman's payroll, even tried to make some gullible fools think he was the Crackman himself. Mark didn't believe that for one nanosecond – Sparks didn't have the intellect to run a business – but he certainly believed Sparks was a runner, dealer and maybe occasionally a taxman for the Crackman; that is, someone who went around collecting debts and kicking people's heads in if they didn't pay up.

The Crackman was a bit of a legend on the estate and in Blackpool. He was supposed to be the main man who controlled all drug dealing on Shoreside and in large chunks of the rest of town. He specialised in crack cocaine – hence his nickname – but also dealt in huge quantities in every other illegal drug imaginable. He was supposed to have a complex web of dealers and a chain of command that meant he was untouchable.