Free Devil You Know by Cathy MacPhail Page B

“I’ve never even met your mum. What makes her think I’m trouble? What have you been telling her?”
    She didn’t answer that. Instead she said. “You’re not bad when you’re like this.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    She waved her hands around as if she was trying to snatch the right words out of the air. “On your own,” she said at last.
    “You think maybe some people are a bad influence on me?” She was meaning Baz, of course. I knew she was.
    “Maybe you’re the one,” Lucie said, “who’s a bad influence on other people.”
    I kicked at stones as I walked away from her. Sometimes Lucie said things that made me think. This was one of those times. Lucie bothered me. More than I would ever admit to anyone.

Twenty-Three
    Over those days after the fire, the estate teemed with police. They seemed to be everywhere. Some of the older boys were taken in for questioning. I kept wondering if Al Butler was too. Maybe they had him in custody already. Then I would start to worry about what he might tell them about us. But no, if he told them about us, he would have to admit he was at the warehouse.
    News about the fire was constantly on television. Questions being asked. Questions answered. Each time I caught sight of a news bulletin I held my breath, waiting to see that old man’s face again, hear his words: ‘Don’t for a moment think you’re safe.’
    But he never appeared. I began to feel I had only imagined it.
    I watched a Crimewatch programme one night and CCTV images appeared, hardened criminals the whole country was looking for, menacing hooded figures with scowling faces, every one of them with a number printed underneath. Would my number come up soon?
    But there were never any images of us. We were safe.
    The days passed, the residents of the burnt-out flats were all discharged from hospital, and no one came after us. Not the police, nor that old man. In my mind he grew older. His face became more wrinkled, like a withered apple, his skin grey, his jaws slack. He was a pantomime old man, wagging his bent bony fingers at me. We had nothing to fear. We were young. We were invincible.
    “Who’s up for a day out tomorrow? Hey, it’s Saturday. We got no school to go to.” It was Baz who suggested it. “And we’ve got somethingto celebrate, the cops are looking everywhere… except at us. We weren’t caught. What did I tell you?”
    Hadn’t I been thinking the same thing? “Yeah, come on, one day out for the boys. All those people from the fire, they’re all out of hospital, did you hear?”
    Mickey nodded. “And they’re saying it was definitely an insurance job now. They’ve got the owner in for questioning, I heard.”
    That was news – great news – to me. “Are they really?”
    “They found traces of that lighter fluid, even the bottle it was in, so they know it was deliberate, so now it’s the owners they’re after.”
    The owners? That old man? I felt a touch of guilt about an innocent man being blamed for something he didn’t do. But I shook the thought of him away. Now there was no chance of him coming after us, was there? He would have enough to contend with convincing the police he had nothing to do with the fire, so he’d have less time to worry about us, wouldn’t he?
    “Ok, day out,” Claude said. “Where will we go?”
    “Into the city,” Gary said at once. “Where else would you go for a day out?”
    “Into Glasgow?” Mickey looked baffled, as if we had just suggested a trip to the moon.
    “You’re talking as if you’ve never been there,” Claude laughed.
    “I never have.”
    “Oh come on! You, Mickey?” Gary sounded astonished. “I mean, I can understand Logan here never having been in, but you! You’re a native Glaswegian.”
    “Well, I’ve never been into the city. Ok?”
    “It’ll be good,” I said, glad that for once I wasn’t the only one who was an outsider. “I’m dying to see it.” I felt excited at the thought.
    “Hey! We’re going