Witch Hunt

Chapter One




11th October, 2012

It was the night that I bumped into Joe. So I guess, you could say that it wasn’t ALL bad. I mean, it was terrible. There was no getting away from it: painful, gut-churning and all the rest. But at least something good came from it.

And when I say I bumped into Joe I mean exactly that. Literally. I was drunk, but in my defence I had had a seriously bad day. Anyway, there I was, coming down from the high giddy arc of a – even if I do say so myself – quite magnificent thrashing pirouette.

I know. At my age: thirty-three going on fifteen. Ridiculous.

Though to be fair, I had checked with the fount of all knowledge, Maggie Haines, beforehand.

‘Am I too old to slam in the moshpit?’ I had been swaying even then. Maggie, my dear friend, sometimes boss and celebrated editor of arts magazine, Mercurial, had peered at me and wriggled her button nose. Her face had a distinctly kittenish appearance, which was thoroughly misleading. The pretty feline exterior concealed a steely determination and unsettling intelligence that had notched up two degrees and an MA and which had far more in common with panthers than domestic cats. I knew Maggie would give it to me straight – no messing. She was sober and had a grim look about her. And she hadn’t wanted us to go to the club at all. In fact she’d been dead set on getting me straight home; I think I must have already been in a right old state when we’d left the pub. We were on the way to the local cab rank just a couple of blocks down when I heard the music coming from the basement of a venue and decided we should all go in. She’d said no. In fact she’d said ‘No way,’ and tried to wrap me up in her embrace and physically carry me down the road. But Jules, Maggie’s hubby, put a staying hand on her arm and said, ‘Let her.’ Then he’d turned to me and said, ‘Just for a bit, Sadie, okay?’

This time, though, Maggie looked like she was coming back with a firm ‘no’, but Jules convinced her (I think he’d had a few drinks and was starting to liven up a bit himself).

‘Look around you, Sadie,’ he said in answer to my question, with a grin that was only half-formed. There was sympathy in it and hints of condescension, but I didn’t care. I followed his lead and stole a wider glance at the club. Stifling and dimly lit, it was packed full of sweaty bodies in varying states of inebriation and spatial coordination. The outfit on stage was playing at full pelt and the throng of clubbers clustered at their feet were going for it.

‘Go on then,’ Jules said. ‘But we’ll go straight home afterwards. Pogo is de rigueur here. Don’t worry about your age. It’s a punk covers band. We’re surrounded by middle-aged spread. That bloke down the front with the red mohican looks past sixty.’

He was right. The place was jammed with bald heads and beer bellies. Not a pretty sight. The majority of blokes were in the full throes of midlife crisis, desperately trying to hold on to their proudly misspent youth. The band themselves would have averaged about fifty-five in a ‘10 Years Younger’ age poll. Though if you went on energy levels alone, you’d put them in their early twenties. They were setting the crowd on fire.

Saying that, you can’t go wrong with the Buzzcocks, can you?

So, once I’d been granted permission, I launched myself into the front of the crowd and for about three minutes and twenty seconds I was able to submerge myself in the thumped-up beat and drag my head away from the awful images reeling in my head. Ironically the only time my thoughts stilled that day were as my body whirled and whirled.

For that, I will always salute thee, Punk Rock.

So, what happened was this; the alcohol had interfered with my sense of perspective and, in addition, boosted my energy. The result was a grand overshooting of the moshpit. In fact, I think if Joe hadn’t been there with his mates, I probably would have landed flat on my arse amongst the broken glass at the edge of the dance floor.

That would not have been a great look.

But he was.

A six-foot-something, human monolith, standing there, very upright, radiating principle and that good old-fashioned honesty of his. You could suss his confidence from the way he owned his space. He was firm. Unfazed. And, luckily, ready to cushion my fall. I remember the way he propped me back up and looked at me, and, because he was out of his usual context, I had a split second of objectivity. I took in the regulation cropped brown hair, the round wholesome eyes and not-so-designer stubble, casual t-shirt, jeans, trainers. He could have been a manual labourer: a carpenter or a builder. He had a pint in his hand and a cheeky grin on his face that gave him dimples. I remember thinking ‘Not bad at all,’ and then doing some hurried shoe shuffle on the floor to correct my balance and retrieve what shreds were left of my dignity. And then he said, ‘Nice of you to drop in on me like this, Sadie.’

I recognised the voice and looked closer and said, ‘Oh. Joe?’

And he laughed and said, ‘One and the same.’

But after that, it’s just fragments.

I must have talked to him and his mates for a bit till I returned to the dance floor, pulling Joe greedily and then taking him with me. I don’t think he particularly wanted to dance. In fact, even though my perception was pretty clouded, I got the impression he was just going on bodyguard duty for me.

Then I rebounded back to Maggie and Jules and introduced him. I think they were saying that they wanted to go but I wanted to stay, and made some big dramatic thing of finding my drink and downing it in one. I bet that’s what pushed me over the edge, because the next moment I was in the toilets revisiting the dignified spread that had been supplied earlier at the pub.

When I came back Maggie and Jules had got my coat and Joe had got his.

Maggie said, ‘I dunno – he’s offered to drive us home. How many has he had?’

I laughed and said, ‘Not likely to have had any, Mags. He’s a copper.’ Then I got twisted up in my coat and Jules frowned.

I think Joe must have heard all that because he leant over and flashed his warrant card and said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not over the limit. She’s off her head and needs to go.’

And I put my arm round his shoulders and said, ‘But I haven’t been cunting at all Drinkstable.’ Then I hiccupped.

When I woke up in the back of Joe’s car we were outside my flat. Maggie and Jules had already been dropped off. Joe brought me up the stairs of my small flat. I think he even carried me into my bedroom, laid me on the bed and took my shoes off. And that was over and above the call of duty to be sure.

I remember trying to kiss him. And that he pulled away and said, ‘Not tonight, Sadie. I would but I can’t.’ Then he did that phone thing that people do with their hands – an L-shape like an old receiver – you call me or I’ll call you.

I think he was sympathetic.

But when he closed the door I started bawling. And I carried on doing that till I passed out.

What a mess.

To be expected I suppose.

After all, it’s not every day you bury your mum.