Black Rabbit Summer

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Fair enough,’ Tom shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Campbell’s waiting for you somewhere.’

  I thought about that for a moment, imagining Campbell sitting in his car in a side street somewhere, waiting for me to walk past, waiting for his chance to get me on my own…

  And then I thought about Tom, and I couldn’t help wondering about his motives again. Why was he helping me? Why was he looking out for me? Why should I trust him? I mean, Stella’s blood was found on his caravan, wasn’t it? And his caravan had been parked down by the river. And now here he was, offering to walk me back home, back to my house in Hythe Street… just a few hundred metres from the river. And just because he’d told me that he’d followed me from the trailer because he’d seen Campbell following me and he’d thought I might need some help… well, I only had his word for that, didn’t I? Maybe he’d followed me for his own reasons, and maybe he’d saved me from Campbell for his own reasons too?

  I looked at him, smiling nervously, and as he looked back at me with those cold blue eyes, I found myself re-imagining his capabilities…

  I didn’t know who Tom Noyce was.

  I had no idea who he was.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked me. ‘You don’t look so good. Do you want me to –?’

  ‘Has your mother ever worked with Bretton’s Funfairs?’ I heard myself ask him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or Funderstorm?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what –’

  He stopped abruptly as the piercing wail of a police siren suddenly blipped on and off behind him, and as he spun round to see where it was coming from, I saw the flashing blue lights of a police patrol car accelerating up the street towards us. The headlights flashed, the siren blipped again… and then the patrol car was pulling up at the side of the road, the doors were opening, and two uniformed officers were getting out and moving purposefully towards us.

  ‘Shit,’ sighed Tom. ‘Here we go again.’

  Mum and Dad were waiting for me at the police station. They were both in the reception area when one of the officers took me in, sitting with DI Barry on a red metal bench, and they both looked pale and exhausted. As soon as Mum saw me, she jumped up from the bench and hurried over to me.

  ‘Pete!’ she cried, pushing the officer out of the way and flinging her arms round me. ‘Christ… I was so worried. We didn’t know where you’d gone. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’ She stopped hugging me for a moment and held me at arm’s-length, looking intently into my eyes. ‘Are you all right? Has anything happened to you? You’re not –?’

  ‘I’m all right, Mum,’ I told her. ‘I’m fine –’

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said, letting herself get slightly angry now. It was the kind of relieved anger that parents allow themselves when everything has turned out OK in the end, but they know that it might not have turned out OK.

  I could see Dad and DI Barry coming over to us now. Dad looked surprisingly calm, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. He always looked pretty calm when things were really bad.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you were looking for me, I thought you were asleep –’

  ‘Have you been with him?’ she asked me, shooting a look at Tom Noyce as the other officer led him past us towards the security doors.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Boland,’ DI Barry said as he came up and stopped beside us. ‘We need to ask your son a few questions.’

  Mum ignored him, keeping her eyes fixed on me. ‘What’s going on, Pete?’ she said. ‘What have you been doing all night?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just –’

  ‘Please, Mrs Boland,’ Barry said. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot tonight, and I know you want to be with Peter right now, but we really need to ask him some questions first.’

  ‘You’re not questioning him without me,’ Mum said firmly.

  ‘Of course not.’ Barry looked at Dad. ‘I need to talk to him, Jeff. The sooner the better.’

  Dad nodded and turned to me. ‘Are you all right, Pete?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Are you up to answering questions?’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose…’

  ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you’re going to have to do it at some point. You might as well get it over with now.’

  I looked at him. ‘Can you come with me?’

  Dad glanced at DI Barry.

  Barry shook his head. ‘Sorry, Jeff.’

  Dad turned back to me. ‘Mum’ll be with you. Is that OK?’

  I looked at Mum.

  She smiled at me. ‘You’ll have to make do with second-best again.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that –’

  ‘I know. I was only joking.’

  ‘I just meant –’

  ‘It’s all right, Pete,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I know what you meant.’

  ‘Sorry…’

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s just get this done, OK? The sooner it’s over, the sooner we can all go home.’

  I looked at him. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, Dad. I was just trying to –’

  ‘Later, Pete,’ he said, giving me a look. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

  It was the same interview room as before, and I was sitting there, just like before, with Mum sitting next to me and Barry sitting opposite, and the red light of a tape recorder blinking away in the corner, and a stack of video equipment piled on a table against the wall. The only difference this time was that DC Gallagher’s place at the table had been taken by John Kesey, which Mum didn’t like one bit. And she didn’t try to hide it either.

  Kesey had stood up and smiled at her when we’d first come in. ‘Hello, Anne,’ he’d said, offering his hand. ‘It’s good to know that Pete’s safe and sound –’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ignoring his hand and sitting down. ‘Can we just get on with it, please? It’s late. Everyone’s tired.’ She glared at DI Barry. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes and then we’re leaving. So you’d better start asking your questions.’

  DI Barry did as he was told.

  ‘Where did you go tonight, Peter?’

  ‘I went to see Lottie Noyce.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to her.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Raymond, Stella… anything she might know.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Not really?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I told him some of the stuff we’d talked about – how she’d guessed things about Raymond, how she’d thought he was troubled, how she’d understood why I was worried about him.

  ‘She told me she’d seen him following Nicole back to Luke Kemp’s trailer,’ I said. ‘She thought he was worried about her.’

  ‘Raymond was worried about Nicole?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he cared about her. Because she was drunk, and she didn’t know what she was doing… and Raymond probably didn’t like the look of Luke Kemp.’ I looked at Barry. ‘Did you know he’s suspected of drugging girls?’

  Barry nodded. ‘We’re looking into it. Was Tom Noyce at Lottie’s trailer tonight?’

  I looked at John Kesey. He was taking notes. ‘Have you looked into all these fairground disappearances yet?’ I asked him.

  Kesey smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘We’re looking into everything, Pete.’

  DI Barry said, ‘Please answer my question, Peter. Was Tom Noyce at the trailer tonight?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you ever met him before?’

  ‘I saw him once, that’s all. I told you before, I saw him on Saturday night –’

  ‘So you’ve never met him before?’

  ‘No.’

&n
bsp; ‘Did you talk to him tonight?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Not at the trailer… well, he saw me outside and asked me what I was doing there, but after that, when I was talking with Lottie, he never said anything.’

  ‘So how did you end up in Recreation Road together?’

  ‘He said he was worried about me… he’d seen some kids from the Greenwell Estate hanging around when I left, and he thought they might be following me or something. They were in a car.’

  ‘Why would they be following you?’

  I shrugged. ‘I was on my own, it was late…’

  ‘And why would Tom Noyce be worried about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.’

  ‘We will.’ Barry smiled briefly. ‘So he followed you home, is that right?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was there until some guy pulled up in a car and started hassling me.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘In Recreation Road, by the old factory. This guy just pulled up and asked me if he could use my phone, and when I asked him why, he started getting all nasty about it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was threatening me, telling me to give him my phone… and then he started getting out of the car and waving a knife at me. And that’s when Tom Noyce showed up.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He told the guy to get back in his car and go home.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘The guy got back in his car and drove off.’

  ‘Lucky for you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you know him – the guy in the car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could you describe him?’

  I described someone who could have been anyone – mid-twenties, dark eyes, short brown hair – and as John Kesey wrote it all down, I kept my eyes fixed firmly on the table. I was pretty sure that Barry knew I was lying, but if I’d told him the truth then – if I’d told him that the guy in the car was Wes Campbell – Barry would have wanted to know who Campbell was, and how I knew him, and how he knew me, and why I hadn’t said anything about knowing him before… and I really didn’t think I could cope with all that.

  ‘So,’ Barry said, ‘after Tom Noyce had scared this guy off, what did you do then?’

  ‘Not much… I thanked him, asked him what he was doing there, and that was about it. I was just about to get going when the police car showed up.’

  ‘Where were you going?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘What about Noyce? Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where do you think he was going?’

  ‘I don’t know. Back to his mum’s trailer, I expect.’

  Barry stared at the table in silence for a moment, then he let out a long sigh and looked up at me. ‘All right, Peter… let me ask you something else.’ He paused, staring at me. ‘What would you say if I were to tell you that we’d found your fingerprints on Tom Noyce’s caravan?’

  The question surprised me, as I suppose it was meant to, and I found myself glancing instinctively at Mum. She looked back at me for a moment, equally surprised, then she turned to Barry.

  ‘If you’re going to ask questions,’ she said to him, ‘just ask them. Don’t give us all that what would you say if I were to tell you rubbish. Were Pete’s fingerprints found on the caravan or not?’

  ‘Yes, on the door handle.’

  ‘And you’d like to know how they got there?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘Right, so ask him.’

  Barry looked at me, trying to hide a hint of embarrassment. ‘All right, Peter. Your fingerprints were found on the door handle of Tom Noyce’s caravan. Would you like to tell me how they got there?’

  It didn’t take long to explain everything: how I’d gone looking for Raymond on Sunday morning, how I’d seen the caravan down at the river and wondered if Raymond might be inside, how I’d knocked on the door and called out, and how, when there’d been no answer, I’d tried the door. It was simple. The truth. The simple straightforward truth.

  But I was pretty sure that Barry didn’t believe it.

  ‘Did anyone see you at the caravan?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was important.’

  ‘Didn’t you see the blood on the caravan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see Stella’s clothes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long have you known Tom Noyce?’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘What were you doing at the fairground on Saturday when Stella Ross disappeared?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why were you sitting on that bench near the toilets? Were you waiting for someone?’

  ‘I’ve already told you –’

  ‘All right,’ Mum said. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘What are you hiding, Peter?’ Barry said quietly.

  ‘He’s not answering any more questions,’ Mum said firmly, starting to get up. She looked at me. ‘Come on, Pete. We’re leaving.’

  ‘Sit down, please, Mrs Boland,’ Barry said.

  She glared at him. ‘Is Pete under arrest?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Are you going to arrest him?’

  ‘We’re just trying to find out –’

  ‘Are you going to arrest him?’

  ‘No,’ Barry sighed.

  ‘So he’s free to go?’ ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right,’ Mum said, turning to me and almost dragging me to my feet. ‘Come on, we’re going home.’

  Twenty-six

  As I sat in the back of Dad’s car on the way home from the police station, all I could feel was a brain-deadening tiredness and a hopeless desire to go back in time and start all over again. I wanted to be lying on my bed again on that hot Thursday night, just as the sun was beginning to go down. I wanted to be busy doing nothing again, not caring about anything… I wanted to be happy enough doing nothing. And when the telephone rang, and I heard Mum calling out to me from downstairs – Pete! Phone! – I wanted to stay where I was, just lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, minding my own mindless business…

  I wanted to make myself stay there.

  Happy enough doing nothing.

  I looked out of the car window. We were heading out of town now, heading home, and I realized that Dad was taking the long way round, so I guessed all the press reporters and TV crews were still camped out in the old factory car park. The sun was coming up, rising over the blued horizon in a blaze of burning orange, and as its tireless light streamed in through the car windows, I could already feel the first faint promise of another scorching day.

  The back of my neck was sweating.

  I couldn’t be bothered to wipe it.

  ‘Is there any news about Raymond?’ I asked Dad.

  He looked at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘You might not realize it, Pete, but I’ve had more important things to think about than Raymond tonight.’ He shook his head, and his voice hardened. ‘I mean, what do you think we’ve both been doing all night? Do you think we’ve been sitting around thinking about Raymond?’

  ‘No, of course not –’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’ve been doing,’ he said. ‘We’ve been trying not to panic, we’ve been trying not to imagine the worst… we’ve been ringing your mobile, ringing the police, ringing your school friends… Christ, Pete, we’ve been up all night worrying ourselves to death. That’s what we’ve been doing.’

  ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘Don’t ever do that again. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘And wherever you go,’ Mum added, ‘whatever you’re doing, always keep your
mobile turned on.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry.’

  ‘Christ,’ Dad sighed. ‘Why can’t you just do what you’re told for once in your life?’

  I looked at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You told me that sometimes you have to do whatever’s necessary. You have to do what you think is right.’

  ‘Yes, I know –’

  ‘I’m only doing what I think is right.’

  Dad sighed again. ‘Well, that’s as maybe…’

  ‘That’s what you told me.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I didn’t tell you –’

  ‘Not now,’ Mum said, touching his arm. ‘Let’s just get home first, OK? We’re all tired. We need a rest. There’ll be plenty of time for talking later.’

  Dad went quiet.

  Mum looked at him for a moment, then she turned in her seat and smiled at me. ‘You must be hungry.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘How does bacon and eggs sound?’

  ‘Sizzly,’ I said.

  She smiled.

  I sat back in my seat and looked out of the window.

  I had no conscious intention of doing what I did next, and considering what Dad had just been telling me about how much pain and worry I’d caused, I’d like to think that it was beyond my conscience too. Or maybe I’m just making excuses. Maybe I’m just trying to kid myself that I had no control over my actions.

  I don’t know.

  But as the car pulled up outside our house, and Dad turned off the engine, I heard myself saying, ‘I have to go somewhere. I’m really sorry, but I’ll be all right. I just have to go somewhere.’

  And as Mum and Dad turned round, their faces blank with disbelief, I opened the car door, stepped out, and started running.

  I was perfectly aware of myself as I ran down Hythe Street and ducked into the alleyway – I could feel my tired feet slapping on the ground, I could feel the rush of air on my face, I could hear Mum and Dad shouting out after me, their voices strained with shock and desperation… and as I jumped up on to a wheelie bin and clambered over the wall into the old churchyard, I knew exactly what I was doing. I could hear Dad now, running down the street and following me into the alleyway, yelling at me to come back…

  But I was gone now.

  My awareness didn’t belong to me any more.

  I couldn’t go back.