Breakers Read online

  On TV now was a show where a cartoon boy lived in a real family’s house. They were Northern Irish for some reason. He always got them into scrapes, but by the end of the ten-minute programme it was all good again, the happy and loving mum, dad and sister giving him a big hug. Tyler was glad Bean had stuff like this in her life, it gave her something to aim for when she grew up instead of the shitshow going on around her.

  ‘Can we go see Snook and the babies?’ Bean said, a dribble of milk on her chin.

  Tyler made a face and looked at his watch. ‘If you’re quick brushing your teeth.’

  She bounced down from the stool and out to the bathroom.

  He put her bowl and spoon in the sink, rinsed them and stuck them on the draining board, did the same with his butter knife. He grabbed some food for Snook from a cupboard and shoved it in his schoolbag.

  He turned and stared at the pillowcase, duvet cover and the rest of the stash still piled in the corner of the room. Bean hadn’t asked about it. He remembered the Polaroid camera from the first job last night and pulled it out.

  ‘Ready,’ Bean said from the doorway. Her uniform was scruffy, black leggings thin at the knees and he knew there was a small hole in the crotch that you couldn’t see except when she did cartwheels. The jumper with the school crest on it was stolen from the school’s second-hand sale, a hand-me-down.

  ‘Come here,’ Tyler said. ‘Turn round.’

  He took her hair-tie out, ran his fingers through a few times, tied it back up, neater.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, showing her the Polaroid.

  ‘What is it?’ She turned it around in her hands, fingers running over the buttons.

  ‘A camera.’

  ‘Like on your phone?’

  ‘Not quite, look.’ He opened a packet of film and loaded it. Pointed it at her.

  ‘Say cheese.’

  She pouted and did a peace sign with her fingers. The camera flashed and whirred then spat out the picture. She took it from him.

  ‘There’s nothing on it,’ she said, staring at the white square.

  ‘Wait.’

  Her face emerged slowly and she raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Can I take it to school?’

  ‘Sure, but don’t waste the film, it’s not like digital. Once they’re used up, that’s it. Make each picture count.’

  ‘Let’s do a selfie,’ she said.

  He shook his head but leaned in next to her, turned the camera and pressed. Flash and whir. He held the picture until it emerged, two smiling faces, a sliver of time captured forever. He handed it to her but she shook her head.

  ‘You have that one,’ she said. ‘So you don’t forget me while I’m at school.’

  He stared at the picture as she stuffed the camera into her bag.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘I want to see the little ones.’

  Tyler put the picture in his pocket and switched the television off, then picked up both schoolbags and ushered her out the door, all the while thinking about the woman’s hand rising then falling to the varnished hardwood floor.

  They headed round the building site and came to an isolated derelict house, Bean holding Tyler’s hand and singing the theme tune from that last show on TV. When all the other houses were knocked down, this one was left standing for some reason, but the owners eventually moved out and it was now a slab of concrete frontage and crumbling roof in the middle of scrubland.

  They walked round the back where the board over one of the windows was loose. Tyler looked around out of habit. Just the new-build houses of Sandilands Close on the horizon, the hospital, then offices further south. Someone walking a dog halfway up Craigmillar Hill. He was always worried this place would get taken over by junkies. He prised the board away from the window frame, peered in and heard a whimpering sound. He lifted Bean through the gap, careful not to catch her uniform on the broken glass of the window frame. He climbed in after her and waited a moment for his eyes to acclimatise.

  ‘Snook.’ Bean ran over to the mongrel on the mattress. She was part collie and part something else, black-and-white fur, one of her ears ripped, her right eye blotchy red. Her tail thumped on the edge of the mattress as Bean ruffled her ears and got licks to the face. Snuffling around Snook’s teats were three drowsy puppies.

  They’d come across her in the process of giving birth on the way home from school a week ago. She was laying in some bushes by the side of the road, moaning and keening to herself. Bean had asked what was happening and Tyler tried to explain. He got her to comfort the dog and she stuck to the task, whispering a stream of mushy gobbledygook, stroking her ears and nose, nuzzling her like they were part of the same pack. When the first puppy began to emerge Bean stared with wide eyes. Her hand stopped on the dog’s snout. Snook whimpered and began licking Bean’s hand, and she went back to stroking her, talking in her ear, but this time she kept her eyes on the other end, raising her eyebrows as the first puppy slithered out and a second one crowned. Tyler placed the first one near its mum’s face and Snook moved her head away from Bean and began licking the pup.

  Ten minutes later she had three in total, furry little things making sucking noises and wriggling around. It began to rain. Tyler took his jacket off and bundled the puppies into it, tying up the sleeves and handing it to Bean.

  ‘Be careful.’

  He’d lifted Snook in his arms and they jogged down the hill. Tyler was going to take them back to the flat but then thought of Barry. God knows what he’d do to three newborn pups and an exhausted mother. The way he treated his own dogs was bad enough.

  So Tyler stopped outside the house they were now in, found a way in round the back and deposited Snook and the pups inside. On subsequent visits they’d brought everything the dogs needed, an old mattress from the street as a bed, plastic ice cream containers for food and water dishes. Tyler liked how simple it was. Food, shelter and a mum who looked after you, that’s all you needed to stay alive.

  He looked at Bean playing with the puppies now. He had no longterm plan here, no clue what to do when they got older. They couldn’t stay here forever, but for now it was enough. It was good to feel as if things were contained, under control.

  He emptied dog food into the bowl and filled the water bowl from the tap in the bathroom. For some reason, the water hadn’t ever been turned off. When he came back Snook was picking at the food, the puppies fussing as she nudged them out of her way.

  Tyler looked at his watch.

  ‘Time to go.’

  ‘Aw.’

  ‘We can pop in after school.’

  ‘When can we take them for a walk?’

  ‘The puppies are too small, I told you. And we can’t take their mummy from them.’

  Bean thought about that. This mother-and-babies thing was throwing up all sorts of stuff in her mind, and Tyler didn’t like that. He just wanted to get her to school on time, then home, then same again tomorrow and the next day.

  ‘Say goodbye,’ he said.

  Bean gripped Snook’s neck then lifted each puppy in turn and snuggled them. Tyler rolled his eyes. Bean took the Polaroid out of her bag, pointed it at the dogs and it flashed. She grinned at Tyler then the picture, then stuffed it all back in her bag.

  ‘See you after school,’ Bean said to the dogs. ‘Stay safe.’

  Craigmillar Primary was a new orange-brick building surrounded by security cameras and a spiky fence. It had been closed as part of the PFI scandal a year before, after a wall in a similar school across town fell down, but they found nothing wrong with it and reopened. It was a lot better than the crumbling shithole Tyler attended a few years ago, and a hundred times nicer than the Castlemound High dump next door that he went to now.

  Bean let go of his hand as they came through the gates and ran to Isla and Aisha, who were showing each other the JoJo bows in their hair. Bean had been after one for ages but they were nine quid a pop. Maybe he should get her one from the money he’d skimmed last n
ight, but he never knew how long he would go between paydays, so he always felt guilty buying luxuries over food and electricity. And now he had to buy dog food into the bargain.

  Bean was Bethany to her pals, she was only called Bean at home. Tyler couldn’t remember how it started but he hoped it wasn’t Barry’s idea, nothing good ever came from him. Maybe it was because she was so small, six inches shorter than Isla and Aisha.

  The bell went and Bean and her friends meandered over to the line. Tyler hung back with the mums. A few of them weren’t that much older than him, which meant they’d had their kids when they were still at school. Tyler watched to see if Bean would look over when Miss Kelvin called them in, but she was gabbing with Aisha, engrossed in her own world.

  He walked away, avoiding eye contact with Miss Kelvin and the mums, then he went out of the gate and turned left, the opposite way from the high school. He walked down Niddrie Farm Grove past the red-and-white terraces then the doctor’s surgery and came out at the bus stop. He waited a few minutes then jumped on a number thirty, pressing his fake pass against the ticket gizmo. He’d taken it from a house months ago, stuck his own face over the owner’s. Martin Lawrence. It had never been cancelled so it still worked, Lothian Buses’ systems obviously weren’t airtight. People think security systems are in place to protect them, but nine times out of ten they don’t work. They need authorities to be joined up, communicating with each other, and who has the time for that? Everyone is under the cosh, everyone’s job is up for review, budgets slashed, working more hours for less money. People don’t give a shit about a teenage boy riding the bus for free on someone else’s pass. They don’t care about an Xbox that’s covered by insurance, or a car that gets fenced. They get a replacement, it’s shinier than the one that was nicked, more features, better satnav, Bluetooth for your iPhone, heated driver’s seat.

  He plugged in his earbuds and played Boards of Canada. Everyone in his year listened to hip-hop or metal. He got enough angry shit at home. He loved Boards of Canada, what the future would sound like projected from the past. He’d Googled and found out they were two East Lothian brothers who never did interviews or played live, which he liked.

  He stared out of the upstairs window as wobbly synths and drunken drums fought with each other. He had the same feeling as last night, the quick transformation from the grey pebbledash of Niddrie and Craigmillar to the bigger houses of Prestonfield and Newington.

  He took the woman’s phone out of his pocket and stared at it for a while, then switched it on. The screen showed that she had six missed calls, one from the emergency services last night, the rest from ‘Derek’. A husband or boyfriend wondering where she was. Or a son. He switched it off and put it away. If they were already tracking the phone, they’d get a ping from the mast at Prestonfield.

  He jumped off at Dalkeith Road and walked amongst the massive houses of Blacket Avenue. He cut onto Grange Loan then up Dalrymple Crescent, last night’s first job. He took deep breaths but didn’t alter his stride. A teenage kid walking down a street listening to music, that’s all. He glanced at number thirteen as he passed. No sign of life, nothing to show they’d been in there. He thought about the Polaroid camera, in Bean’s schoolbag right now. He kept walking, swallowing hard, blinking. When he closed his eyes he felt his lack of sleep but also his adrenaline levels topping up by being back here.

  He bumped along Dick Place and Blackford Road, more million-pound homes, the pavement shadowed by tree canopies reaching over high walls and thick hedges. He imagined people inside, sitting in their summerhouses, picking a dress from a walk-in wardrobe, playing a racing game on a home entertainment system.

  His heart caught in his throat as he walked up Whitehouse Loan and reached St Margaret’s Road. He turned in without hesitation. You never knew if CCTV was watching, and loitering was suspicious. As long as you looked like you had a purpose you could do anything. He glanced at the houses as he went past, and it was only now that he noticed the numbers went up one side – one, two, three – then down the other. It was a tiny street with only eight houses. He went over in his mind why they hadn’t chosen the others. A recent alarm system on one, not enough tree cover on the next, cars in the driveway and a streetlight outside the third.

  Then he was already passing number four. He took the edge out of his stride, not enough to notice but enough for him to concentrate, eyes wide, soaking it up. He saw the stone driveway posts, the climbing plant along the sidewall, the neat garage next to the house, the white front door, closed. He imagined going up to that door and ringing the bell, making up some bullshit that he was doing a marketing survey, or trying to sell windows. He imagined the woman answering the door, tea towel in her hands or a glass of juice, smiling at him, saying no thanks but with a friendly look in her eyes. She didn’t recognise him from last night, in fact last night hadn’t happened at all. She got in from the gym, had a shower, made a sandwich, maybe drank a glass of red wine, then off to bed with a book, waiting for her husband to come back from the office night out he’d been dreading.

  Then he remembered the shotgun under the bed, the pile of phones, the money clip. The look on her face as she lay soaked in blood.

  He was already round the corner by now, near the end of Greenhill Place. He leaned over and puked behind an electrical exchange box on the corner, wiped his mouth and walked on.

  He continued in a daze, like he wasn’t in charge of his movements. He found himself on Strathearn Place then Greenhill Gardens, Church Hill then Clinton Road, the houses getting bigger all the time. He went along, checking the security of the buildings. It was broad daylight but he felt invisible, like a ghost walking through rich people’s lives. The delivery boy, the Uber driver, the cleaner, the handyman, the gardener. Not a part of this world, so they ignored you until they needed you.

  There were houses here with turrets and towers, crenellated outlines that looked like castles. He felt the urge to stop being an observer and take action. He recognised the feeling, he got it every time after the night jobs. His antennae tingled. There was a house he could use. No alarm, old windows and doors, lots of cover. He walked up the driveway, crunching footsteps like gunshots. He reached the front door, ornate etched glass panels in solid oak. Rang the bell, his heart choking his throat. He swallowed hard, cricked his neck. Waited. Rang the bell again. Cocked his head and listened. Light rustling of leaves in the birch trees. He took two steps back and looked up. Victorian, at least five bedrooms, the stonework recently cleaned and repointed. Some attic rooms with small windows were tucked away on the second floor. He turned and looked at the garden. He was fifteen yards from the road already, a tall stone wall and some sycamore obscuring the view from the street.

  He walked round the side of the house and tried the rear door of the adjoining garage. Open. He went through the garage, past shelves of paint and fertiliser, and tried the connecting door to the house. Locked. He went back outside. Above the garage was a landing window, small but big enough to get through. He went back into the garage, brought out a ladder and propped it against the wall. Clambered up and onto the garage roof, tried the window. Unlocked. He flipped it open, breathed and jumped, gripping the ledge and yanking himself up onto his elbows. He scrabbled with his trainers against the stone, pulled himself up and over, hands bracing on the inside ledge, and slithered through the gap and onto the floor like a newborn foal.

  He crouched for a full minute and listened to his own breathing and nothing else.

  He was in.

  8

  He wandered from room to room getting a feel for the place. This was a home in hibernation, not empty but not in everyday use either. In all the bedrooms, things were tidied away in drawers and cupboards, no bedside books or glasses of water, no piles of clothes on the floor of a teenage boy’s room, a thin layer of dust over it all. Neutral bed covers that hadn’t been slept in, tasteful lamps and dark wood fittings. But there were signs of life – a bookshelf full of Harry Potter, some boys
’ own adventure stuff, young James Bond.

  It was the same in the main bedroom. It hadn’t been used in a while, but there were clothes hanging up in the wardrobe, an array of women’s heels in the cupboard shelving. The bathroom had a few bottles around the deep bath but there were no soapy splodges, no damp towels, the tiling bone dry. It was almost like a show home, the odd piece of personal stuff here and there, positioned to give it fake character. Or like an Airbnb place waiting for some rich family to stay at festival time while they took in overpriced theatre and comedy.

  The attic rooms were the same. Small iron fireplaces, dust bunnies under the beds, the view from the higher windows out onto the garden. Through the foliage he could see a BT van in the street, workmen standing around a hole in the road. He watched for a moment then went down two flights of stairs, his hand sliding down the banister, not caring about fingerprints. No one looked for prints if they didn’t know their house had been broken into.

  The ground floor had some personal stuff. A collection of classical music on vinyl stacked next to a Linn turntable. He flicked through the records, arranged in alphabetical order, and pulled one out. Erik Satie. He took it out of the sleeve and placed it on the turntable. Switched the machine on with a pop and hum, then placed the needle on the record. The room filled with the warm wash of it. Slow piano, melancholic, lots of space. He felt his breathing and heart slow as he wandered the room. There were framed family pictures on the mantelpiece. Mum, Dad and two sons. The dad looked military, square shoulders, upper class, officer material. The woman was beautiful in a skeletal way, sharp features and empty eyes. She was smiling but it didn’t feel warm. The two boys were stocky teenagers, one a little older than Tyler, and they were trying to be like Daddy, chests puffed, chins sticking out, the same air of entitlement.