The cops got out of the car and fixed their hats. The first thing I noticed about cops these days was how young they looked. Then I'd try and work out where they were going.




Money was in short supply, but if I'd had any, I'd have put everything on them visiting the Sinclair's house. Violet Sinclair – or Domestic Violet as we liked to call her - had bruises all over her body from bumping into furniture or slipping down stairs or falling out of bath tubs. It was only a matter of time before a piece of furniture took a knife to her throat.




My wife Carol walked in from the kitchen and turned down the volume on the television, which was a sure fire sign she was getting ready to speak. The back of my head started to heat up where her eyes were focussed.




“Our son's a failure,” she said.




Pushing my cuff up over my hand I rubbed a finger print from the glass.




The policemen walked past the Sinclair's; the tallest cop talking into his walkie talkie. It would be Carson's house then. The old pervert should have been locked up years ago. Twice he'd been caught outside schools trying to talk kids into going home with him. He told them he had a train set in his loft.




When word got out a few of the men wanted to burn him out of his house, going as far as buying petrol and cloth to post first class through his letterbox. But I'd talked them out of it. A fiery rag was no way to administer justice.




Taking the T.V. Remote in her hand Carol blasted the sound right up to get my attention before turning it down again to give me room to speak. My son's birthday card fluttered and fell off the top of the television set and landed on the carpet.




“Some kids are late developers,” I said, bending to pick it up. Twenty plus years of living with a dog had taught me the importance of throwing her a bone every now and again. “He should be climbing trees then chasing girls, in that order. Leave him alone to enjoy his childhood.”




“You just don't understand,” she said slumping into an armchair. “He's bottom of the class in every subject. I spoke to the head master. I demanded he make him a genius and do you know what he told me? He said geniuses are born and not made. Those were his very words.”




When I looked back to the window the cops were still getting closer. After Carson's house came Bobby Williamson's. But it wouldn't be him. It had lain empty since Williamson took up permanent residence in the nut house. Grass grew over the steps and the door was boarded up. Williamson thought the government were poisoning his water supply. I smiled as I sipped my coffee.




“I haven't ruled out Prime Minister,” continued Carol. “Politics is all about looks these days and he is nothing if not a good looking boy. So I got him the manifestos of all the main parties in the last election. That way he can decide for himself.”




“That was considerate of you.”




She looked down at the coffee table and her eyes fuzzed over the way they did when she was running low on Venlafaxine. Justin Bieber stared back at her from the front cover of a teen mag. Bieber had the smug look of someone who'd made it. Half-finished application forms for every two-bit talent show in Northern Europe littered the carpet, alongside grooming kits for kids, blister packs, and self-help books like 'How to make your child taller.'




Poor kid. The only book that would help him would be the bible. It was designed with the meek in mind. I'd never taken much to do with him. He didn't even look like me. I figured all that would change once he got a bit older and could come to the pub. I could only really relate to anyone when I had a beer in my hand.




Until then he'd have to get used to wetting himself in the wings of auditoriums, hearing the director shout “Too fat” when he finally plucked up the courage to walk on stage, then the silence on the bus home as his mother refused to talk to him.




“Remember that girl Wendy Carmichael?”




“The girl who was murdered?”




“She wasn't just murdered Fred. She was abducted, mutilated, and her body parts were placed in a suitcase and left at Kings Cross Station.”




“I remember,” I said with one eye still on the street. “Why do you bring her up?”




“Because she was famous, that's why. Don't you see? She was on the news for three days straight. Her mother wore a Jasper Conran light grey business suit with a cropped one-button jacket. She was pictured placing flowers at the scene of the crime. She looked so graceful – the way only a grieving woman can. The British public loved her, everyone put suitcases on the pavement as a mark of solidarity when the hearse drove by, and all I want is the same for my son.”




My face flushed. The kid was stupid but I didn't want any harm coming to him. “Are you suggesting?” I pointed a long bony finger at her. “Are you suggesting that you'd like to see our son murdered?”




“I want see him famous Fred. It's the least he deserves. It's the least we deserve. I don't care how he does it but he's running out of options. He just sits in his room and plays computer games. And last week I found a magazine under his mattress. I can't begin to tell you how appalling it was.”




“That's a natural rite of passage for any young boy Carol.”




“A rite of back passage would be more accurate but he's not a young boy. He's twelve. I can't take it anymore.”




The police crossed the road and the shorter cop made eye contact with me for the first time. As I stared back he looked down at his shoes.




“I've been encouraging him to visit Mr. Carson's place at night to see his train set.”




My head rolled back as if I'd been punched, and I reached a blind hand over the table and felt for my heart medicine. I unscrewed the cap. “You know the type of man Carson is?” After taking a palm full of pills I threw them down my throat. “And you've encouraged our child to go there. You crazy fucking -”




She held the T.V. remote up like she was about to mute me.




“I'm only thinking about his future. He can't die in obscurity like I will, like you will, like ninety nine percent of this country will. It simply can't happen to my child. He will be famous or I'll die trying.”




“You will die trying then.”




“Oh you and your silly threats.”




“That's not a threat Carol. That's a promise.”




The policemen moved up the pathway. I stepped back from the window.




“I'm going to speak to our son,” I said. “And tell him that it's all right to lead a normal life. That it's all right to do a good deed without wanting the whole world to know about it. And I'm going to tell him that his mother is a little unhinged.”




“Well, that's going to be hard,” said Carol staring at the silent TV.




“Hard or easy, it's going to happen all the same.”




“No, you don't understand. He didn't come home last night. From Carson's I mean. I called the police.”




The door bell rang. Through the frosted glass I saw the shapes of the two police officers and I hesitated. On the coffee table Justin Bieber smiled back. Beside him was the Jasper Conran summer catalogue. My wife flicked through the pages, circling off outfits with a pen.