We Own the Sky(90)

“We don’t, I’m afraid. It was a quick sale, and he kept saying he would send one, but he never did. I do have an email address for him, if that helps.”

“No, it’s fine, I have that.”

“Okay,” he says, looking confused and suddenly wary of the stranger standing on his doorstep.

“And you don’t have any idea where he’s gone?”

The man thinks for a moment, still weighing up the situation. “I think he moved to the Reeves property, as unlikely as it sounds. It’s on the edge of town.”

“Reeves as in  R e e v e s.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Thank you, you’ve been very kind. I might have a look around there.”

He stares at me again, still unsure what to make of me. “Well, it’s a big place.

And not the sort of place you’d want to look around. Or take your car,” he says, nodding at the Audi.

I laugh. “Ah, I see, well, thanks anyway. I might have a rethink.”

“Yes, quite,” he says. “Look, could you do me a favor? We have all this mail piling up for Mr. Barnes. It sounds like you’ve got a better chance of giving it to him than we have. Would you take it?”

“Yes, of course. I’d be happy to.”

He disappears for a minute or two, and I stand awkwardly on the doorstep.

Then he comes back with four large shopping bags full of letters. “Here you go,”

he says. “Evidently your friend was a very popular chap.”

  *

I put the bags of letters in the trunk and then, with the man still watching me from his door, drive back to the main road. Along the main street, most of the shops are boarded up. All that are left are a few Indian takeouts, minicab companies, a shabby office advertising “no win, no fee” legal services.

I pull in to the parking lot of a pub, a little one-story building in between two taller row houses. There is fire damage up one wall and in the row of houses, the pub looks like a broken, blackened tooth. I sit there for a while, drumming on the steering wheel, looking at the map on my phone.

As I’m thinking what to do, there is a knock on the window. Standing next to the car are two scrawny children sharing a can of superstrength lager.

“Want any bangs, mister?” says the smaller boy, as the window rolls down.

“No,” I answer, not even knowing what bangs are.

“You some fuckin’ pedo then, parked here?”

“Fuck off,” I say.

“So what you doing here, pedo?” The older kid starts sniggering and they fist-bump and pass their can back and forth.

“I’m looking for someone actually. Can you help?”

“Why the fuck should we help you?” the older boy says, spitting on the

ground.

“I’ll pay,” I say.

“How much?”

“Twenty quid.”

“Fuck off, ya twat. I can get that in five seconds selling these wraps.”

“Fifty.”

The boys look at each other, eyeing each other up under their baseball caps.

“Okay. Give us the money then.”

I hold a fifty-pound note just out of their reach. “I’m looking for someone called Nev Barnes. Do you know him?”

“Might do.”

“Don’t play silly buggers. Either you do or you don’t.”

“Believe it or not, pal, but I do actually,” the younger boy says, “but I won’t tell you unless you give us money first.”

I look him up and down. “Come on then,” I say, handing the cash over, but the boys just stand there, smiling at each other, lighting fresh cigarettes.

The younger boy leans in through the car window, and he smells of cigarettes and cheap body spray. “I’ll tell you what, pal,” he says, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. “I will definitely tell you, because I know Nev, I do. His kid goes to my school. Moved here a couple of years ago.”

His kid. Him and his little one. My hands are shaking so I hold on to the steering wheel.

“You see those lads over there?” He points to some older boys on BMXs

across the road, and I nod. “Right, if you don’t give me another one of them fifties, I’m gonna tell those lads you just offered me fifty quid for a BJ.”

He smiles a sweet cherubic smile, as if he is having his picture taken at school, and I know that I am being had, but I don’t see how I have any choice, so I take out another note and press it into his palm.

He smiles and puts the money loosely into his pocket. “You’re very close

actually, pal,” he says. “Just around the corner. It’s got a red fence, and there’s an old Fiesta in the drive.”

“Thank you.”

“Fuck off, you posh nob,” he says, and they walk away laughing, swigging

from their can.

The boy was right. I was about thirty seconds away, a vast rectangle of grass, surrounded on all sides by run-down row houses. On the grass, there are piles of rubbish, large industrial containers and a bonfire surrounded by a black halo. In the corner of the green, there is a bricked-off section with patches of paler concrete, where the slide and climbing frames used to stand.

I can see Nev’s house, the Fiesta in the drive, the broken red fence, a St.