Names Have Been Changed

By Justin Crozier

Here's how it happened. I had fallen through the net. I had a passport - two years to expiry - but I had no address. I had no national insurance number and no bank account. No job. I couldn't take a job that wasn't paid cash.

The reason? Debt. The bank had closed my accounts. I hadn't used an ATM for months. There were bailiffs on my trail.

So there I was: jobless, CV-less, and increasingly friendless. Poverty had a way of picking friends off. In London, I'd borrowed too much from some college mates to ever see them again. In some cases, I use the word "borrowed" very loosely.

For some time, I'd avoided rent by sofa-surfing. But sofas soon grew scarce. At my lowest ebb, I lived in an East End ditch. I was still working then, my last "proper" job - temping at a City law firm, where three of my college friends plied their profession. I'd wake at first light, slide aside my corrugated-iron roof, and heave my clothed
carcass out of my sleeping bag. I'd pack all I had into my holdall, then shiver towards the Tube and doze until Liverpool Street. I'd creep down to the office basement with the lockers and showers. And so I'd enter the office, clean, even sweet -smelling, in the suit that hung in my locker by night.

I worked late a lot and I stole a few snatches of sleep here and there. And of course, I stole something else.

It happened after my three friends scraped some time from their Outlook calendars to lure me to a pub. They plied me with pints and proposals to get me "back on my feet". Eventually, I rolled back to the office to retrieve my ditchwear. Half-cut, I decided to use the internet a little (it's surprising what those firewalls let past). Then I saw it on my supervisor's desk: her taxi-card. My ticket "home". And my ticket in the next day, and the next too, until, inevitably, I was caught. CCTV.

The temp agency told me that the fares would be deducted from my final wage-slip. And that I'd never work for them again. And that they would have to mention this in any reference.

It was the same week that I topped up my mobile and found a message on it from the last friend on whose sofa I'd slept for any length of time, telling me that a letter had come for me (hand-delivered, concerning debts). I was there straight away. I tore open the letter to find that the debt agency would be writing to my current bank about the
debts on my old account.

I went round the corner and withdrew everything I owned - £321.53 with the last week's contribution. I bought a cheap one-way to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh was untainted memories. Boarding school - when I was still on the up. But there was more than memories here. There were a few distant but unbroken friendships - a fresh supply of sofas, even spare beds.

And so I got work in a pub on Leith Walk. They paid cash, no questions. I could afford a bed in the youth hostel - just. And then Louise sashayed into my life. Sashayed. That's what she'd say. I'd say staggered. Or lurched.

Anyway, she folded herself onto a barstool and called for gin. Then she fumbled for cigarettes. I said she'd have to go outside and she said "Never mind, have a drink with me?". And I poured a drink and my job away. I got the sack and her in it. Or she got me.

Louise was trading on looks ten years past their sell-by date. Fag-years and boozeyears and sunbed-years. But I saw past the leathery surface. I saw her flat, just across the street. And her job - marketing for some tiresomely complicated investment
company. So I moved in.

It was awful. But at least it was free.

I'd told her I was a writer. A struggling novelist. She wanted to read some of my stuff, so I filled a memory stick with reams of perfect prose I'd hammered out. It wasn't strictly mine, of course, it was Raymond Carver's. But it did the job.

This bought me the run of the flat. Time to think. And it was while I was thinking that I became aware of Louise's new neighbour. Flat three on the landing below. He moved in shortly after I did. A drug-dealer, Louise had heard.

I soon worked out who he was. They called him Davey: a mean-looking, wiry goon, tracksuited (of course) with a hardman's swagger. He didn't look hard, with his pale, pinched face and his spindly limbs, but his dog more than made up for him. It was a pallid, slobbering monster, all chest and head and snout. White, like a shark. A dogshark. One of those beasts that sneaks into the "non-pitbull" category by dint of a grandparent, the way a Kiwi sneaks into the Scotland XV. It barked all the time. Its bite looked worse.

Davey didn't leave the house much. He preferred to entertain at home. His visitors
were legion. You would see goths flapping round the entrance like rooks while one of them phoned, then went up. Rattled the letterbox. In and out in seconds. Frazzledlooking dropouts. Students. Hoodies.

I was surprised how frequent and flagrant these visits were. Louise called the police. Nothing happened.

At first, the loitering in the stairwell and the rattling letterbox were just irritating. But I grew less irked and more intrigued. I saw an opportunity.

I watched from the window. I listened down the stairwell. I picked up patterns. Two guys who looked like bouncers came every fortnight, with a black bag. They left with a similar bag. Not the same one, I noticed. Every fortnight. Friday lunchtime. Without fail.

Here was the plan. I'd boxed in college. I'd have got a blue too, if my opponent had shown up. I could throw a punch. What could be easier than to go down to Davey's, smack him one (or two) and make off with his loot?

And then? Then I'd be gone. Abroad, maybe. Teach English, perhaps. Save a bit. One way or another, I'd get back on my feet.

Davey? Well, he knew I lived above. He'd seen me on the stair. I'd said hello, and he'd grunted. But I doubt he even knew I lived with Louise. And even if he did, everything I'd told her was a lie, just about. The most he could get out of her was my name. I shared that with thousands.

So all I had to do was get out of Edinburgh. What was Davey going to do? Call the police?

No, it was down to the dog. Get past the dog, slap the cash out of Davey and waltz off with that black bag. Sayonara.

How to deal with the dog? Well. But presumably Davey tied the dog up when he had customers. They all seemed to get out alive. I thought a couple of dummy runs might be needed. Built up a bit of trust.

Crazy plan? Sure. But I was desperate. Caught between the witch and the ditch.

Here's how it played out. I knew I would need some seed. I had been laying some down. Louise's handbag. She regularly rolled in drunk, and I knew she'd never miss a tenner here, a twenty there. Like I say, she had a good job. So I'd been doing that for three months. It gave me a little spending money, and stopped her realising just how broke I was. I'd more than a couple of hundred stashed in my moneybelt, next to my
passport.

So, one Thursday lunchtime, down I went. Moneybelt on. Gloves in my pockets, just in case.

I flapped the letterbox. Something massive hurled itself against the door. The dogshark. My heart smacked my ribcage. Then the door opened on a chain, and the dog was all straining jaws and saliva. Above them an eye. "Aye?"

"Um. I was after some stuff …" I began.

"Do I know you, son?"

Son! I had ten years on him.

"Um … Upstairs?" I pointed.

"Which flat?"

"Seven", I lied. In seven lived a rotating cast of burly Poles. I owed Louise that much.

"Alright. But phone first next time, eh?"

I nodded. I didn't know his number.

"In," he said, releasing the chain and hauling the beast back. He dragged it into a room and I followed.

"Door!"

I closed it.

The living room. Blinds down. Lurid stacks of DVDs. Wardrobe-sized TV. Beer cans. The table a mosaic of takeaway boxes, ashtrays, skins and bottles: vodka, tequila, ouzo. Trainers. Jazz mags. Bowls of dogfood.

"Sit!"

I sat down.

"No you!"

I stood.

The dog squatted beside him.

"How much?"

"Um. An eighth?"

"This is wholesale, pal! White Widow."

"Ah. Good. Two ounces, then."

He cocked an eyebrow.

"Two hunnerd. The now."

I reached into my shirt and fumbled with the moneybelt. I counted the notes. Twenty left. Never mind.

He took the cash. The dog stood, snarling. I looked terrified. I didn't have to try.

Davey turned and - bingo - hooked its chain round a solid-looking fireplace fixture.

Then he left the room. He returned with two freezer bags of dried buds and stalks.

"White Widow, son."

Now or never. He proffered the bags. I threw a good right cross and caught him square. He went down, head cracking the fireplace. The dog sprang. The chain held. Blood soaked in among the carpet stains. Christ! The dog was at him, lapping the blood. And then - genius! I pulled on the gloves, grabbed the bottle of ouzo and sloshed it over Davey and the slobbering dog. I threw the bottle down beside him. Aniseed. Perfect. The dog lost it. I couldn't look.

I could see the black bag from the bedroom doorway. I opened it. Bundles of cash. Nice. My £200 on the bed. I pocketed that. I crept passed the living room. Davey was dogfood.

And that was that. Up the stairs, bag stashed in my old holdall, wallet replenished. Acting normal. The dog barked the stair down for a couple of hours. Then it went quiet. Only one or two rattles at Davey's letterbox. Most customers called him first, I suppose.

I held it together. I cooked Louise dinner. I washed the dishes. I announced a breakthrough with the novel.

Next day, I watched. The two heavies came. They knocked. They pounded. They kicked in Davey's door. They must have rummaged around for the cash. But they didn't stay long. They didn't stick around with Dogfood Davey.

And the police? Of course the police came. They went round all the flats on the Friday evening. I told them what I'd seen and heard. On Friday. Louise spent the whole time jabbing an accusing talon at them. "I called you lot so many times. I told you about that guy …"

They took statements. They left. The newspapers came the next day.

I took my time. I got another pub job. I went to the Citizen's Advice Bureau. I settled my debts. Compound interest and everything. Eventually, I opened another account. I paid in what was left of the cash. How much? I'm not telling. More than I'd hoped
for, anyway.

Davey? You probably saw the headlines. "DEAD DEALER'S DEVIL DOG!" "HORROR HOUND PUT DOWN!" And yes, "DOGFOOD DEALER!"

Louise? Let's say we drifted apart.

And me? I'm doing fine, thanks. The weather's great out here. My conscience? Well, I didn't mean to kill him. But it certainly helped. And I'm a long way away. It's case closed. If I don't talk about it, who else will? You won't tell. Will you? Anyway, the names have been changed.