Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,11

peeled himself away from the crowd and we headed off toward his house.

Spider was subdued, shaking his head. “We freaked him out, man. He was scared.”

“I know,” I said quietly. He had echoed the thought that was haunting me: We’d caused it. I’d chased him into that road. If it wasn’t for me, he’d have been sat in that park, eating his manky old burger. Perhaps that’s what would have taken him, choking on a gobful of meat and bun. Perhaps he was heading for a heart attack. And the thought that I tried to keep down, but which kept coming back up: Perhaps it hadn’t been his last day today after all. Maybe meeting me had made it his last day.

Before I knew it, we were at Spider’s. I stopped at the gate. “I think I’ll just head back to Karen’s,” I said. I needed some space to get my head around all this.

“No, man, come inside for a bit. You don’t wanna be alone after something like that.”

I had another reason to hesitate. Those hazel eyes that saw my secrets.

Sure enough, Val was sitting on her perch in the kitchen. Spider bent to kiss her.

“Got off early, did you?” she asked, glancing at the kitchen clock.

“What?” Half-one. “You know I’ve been suspended, Nan. What’s wrong with you — losing your marbles? And Jem’s got…private tutoring.” He grinned, and Val smiled with him. She knew the score.

“You two going to settle down and read some books now, then?” Her gaze switched to me — direct, seeing, nowhere to hide.

“Actually we need to chill a bit. Just saw an old bloke get run over.”

She put down her cigarette.

“He alright, was he?”

“No, killed him. Died right there, on that road near the park. We saw it all.” There was a little quiver in his voice. Not such a tough guy after all.

Val heaved herself down from her perch and shuffled over to the kettle.

“That right? Here, sit down. I’ll make you both some tea. Nice sweet tea, that’s what you need. Bloody traffic, eh? Can’t even cross the bloody road now, can you?”

She pottered about making a pot of tea while we crashed in the sitting room, then came in to join us with three mugs and a box of biscuits on a tray. She put the tray on the pouf in the middle and eased herself into an armchair, puffing out as she did. “No good for me back, these chairs. Go on, drink up.”

I sipped the hot tea while Spider and his nan both sat dunking their biscuits and slurping down soggy, crumby mouthfuls.

“So, you were just walking along and saw it all, did you?”

I caught Spider’s eye. No need to worry, though, neither of us wanted her to know that this old guy spent his last minutes terrified we were going to mug him.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Shocking, isn’t it? You never know what’s ’round the next corner, do you?”

Spider went off to the bog, leaving me trapped there with her. She shifted forward in her chair. “You alright, Jem? Shakes you up, that sort of thing, doesn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Seen a dead body before? Or was this your first time?” Damn, she didn’t mess about, did she?

I should have just told her I didn’t want to talk about it. But, like I said, there was something about her — resistance was useless.

“Me mum,” I said, quietly. Her mouth formed an O, and she nodded like she’d known it all along. I liked that — I liked the fact that she didn’t get embarrassed or start gushing about how terrible it was. She just nodded. I kept going. “I found her, like. She died in bed. Overdose. She didn’t mean to. I mean, I don’t think so. Just unlucky.”

She nodded again. “Unlucky. Like my Cyril. Dropped dead at forty-one. Heart attack, bless him. No one knew there was anything wrong. No warnings or nothing. He’s over there, look, on the mantelpiece.”

I looked across to the wooden shelf above the fire. Sure enough, among the china dogs and brass candlesticks, there was a framed photo, one of those posh ones done in a studio. Black-and-white, just his head and shoulders. A handsome man, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye. Just a piece of paper in a frame, but it had the power to reach you, make you want to smile back at it.

“Fetch it over, love, go on.” Reluctantly, self-consciously, I went over to the fireplace. “Go on,