by Kevin Brooks
And Raymond might still be alive.
I looked up at Eric and Campbell. They were both standing in front of me now, the light from the ventilation grid outlining their figures with haloes of shimmering dust.
‘What are you going to do?’ I said to Eric.
‘What are you going to do?’ Campbell answered.
‘Nothing,’ I said, looking at him.
He laughed. ‘You got that fucking right.’
‘Look,’ I started to say, ‘I really don’t care what happened down here –’
‘Get up,’ Campbell said.
I looked at him.
‘Stand up,’ he told me.
I glanced at Eric.
‘Just do what he says, Pete.’
As I looked up at Campbell again, he grabbed me by the hair and yanked me to my feet. I reached up instinctively, trying to get hold of his hand, but he just tightened his grip, pulled even harder, and then – with a sudden sharp yank – he ripped out a handful of hair. I yelped, a pathetic little sound, and stared wide-eyed at him.
He was studying the clump of hair in his hand, feeling it carefully with his thumb. ‘Nice,’ he said distantly. ‘A bit sweaty, maybe…’
He smiled at me.
I didn’t know what to say. I rubbed at the sore patch on my scalp, watching curiously as Campbell stepped to one side, walked around me, and sprinkled the handful of hair over the ground. As he rubbed his hands together, getting rid of every last hair, I turned and looked at Eric.
‘What the hell’s he doing?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, Pete,’ Eric said, stepping towards me. ‘But this is the only way.’
I saw him glance over my shoulder then, and as I turned to see what he was looking at, Campbell stepped up and flat-handed me hard in the nose. My head roared, screaming with pain, and as I staggered back into Eric, I could already feel the blood streaming out of my nose. Eric grabbed hold of me, clamping his arms round my chest and pinning my arms to my sides.
‘All right?’ I heard him say to Campbell.
‘Yeah,’ Campbell said. ‘Get him down on the ground.’
I felt a sharp kick in the back of my knee then, and as my leg buckled, Eric pushed me down to the ground and threw himself on top of me. I was face down in the dirt now. Eric was straddling my back, holding me down… and I was too shocked and breathless to do anything. For a second or two, all I could do was lie there, spitting out strings of blood and snot, trying to get some air into my lungs… but then I felt Campbell crouching down beside me, and as he reached out and gripped my head in his hands, I suddenly started struggling like a maniac – twisting and squirming, kicking and screaming, shaking my head from side to side, trying to break free, trying to get up…
‘Fuck off,’ I spat. ‘Fuckughh –’
Dirt filled my mouth as Campbell shoved my face into the ground. It didn’t really hurt that much, but it kind of knocked all the fight out of me, and as I jerked my head to one side, coughing and spitting out blood, I was just about ready to give up struggling and let Campbell do whatever he wanted.
But then, to my surprise, I heard him say, ‘That’ll do,’ and I felt him let go of my head, and a moment later I felt Eric clambering off me… and all of a sudden everything was silent and still, and I was just lying there, trying not to cry.
∗
I didn’t move for a while, I just lay there in the dirt, my eyes closed, my heart thumping, my head spinning dully, numbed with shock. My nose was throbbing like hell, but it was a strangely distant kind of pain. I mean, it hurt… but not as much as the feelings that went with it. They were small and childish feelings – self-pity, shame, humiliation – the kind of feelings that make you want to curl up into a ball and cry. But I wasn’t going to cry. I was sixteen years old, for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t a child any more. And even if I was, even if I did feel like the smallest thing in the world, I still wasn’t going to let myself cry.
Not yet, anyway.
I sat up slowly and wiped my face. My nose seemed to have stopped bleeding now, but there was plenty of blood on the ground. Dull red stains, already soaking into the dirt. Blood and spit. And hairs… my hairs, scattered amongst the blood and dust.
‘Are you all right, Pete?’ I heard Eric say.
I looked up at him. He was standing beside Campbell, smoking a cigarette. His eyes were so mixed up that I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. I don’t even think that he knew what he was feeling. I struggled wearily to my feet, steadied myself for a moment, and looked at him again. He was half-smiling at me now, half-shrugging… half-wanting to help me, half-knowing he couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry, Pete,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, neither of us did… but we didn’t have any choice. We had to do it. It was the only way.’ When I didn’t say anything, Eric glanced at Campbell for support. ‘Tell him, Wes.’
‘Tell him what?’
‘It’s over now, isn’t it? We’re finished. He can go.’
Campbell stared at me. ‘Your old man’s a cop, right?’
‘So?’ I said.
‘So you know how it works.’ He nodded at the ground. ‘That’s your blood down there. Your hair. Your fingerprints are on the door handle and the shelf unit. There’s probably all kinds of other crap around too – sweat, spit, bits of skin, whatever.’ He grinned at me. ‘You see where we’re going with this?’
‘DNA,’ I said.
‘Right. Your DNA’s all over the place.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, there’s nothing to stop you coming back here and trying to get rid of it, but you’re never going to get rid of all of it, are you? There’s always going to be a bit of you down here. So, you know, if you start shooting your mouth off about Stella, and the cops come down here with all their forensic shit… well, they’re going to know that you were down here, aren’t they? Your blood, Stella’s blood. Your fingerprints, Stella’s fingerprints. Your DNA, Stella’s DNA.’
‘And yours,’ I said, ‘and Eric’s –’
‘That won’t change anything for you, though, will it? You’ll still be part of it. And we’re not going to say you weren’t. Me and Eric don’t have anything to lose, neither does Pauly. It’ll be our word against yours. Three against one. Who do you think the cops are going to believe if we all say that it was you that killed Stella?’
‘They already know who killed her,’ I said.
Campbell barely blinked. ‘Yeah, right…’
‘They found a bit of Eric’s necklace in Stella’s pocket.’
Campbell’s eyes darkened. ‘They what?’
I looked at Eric. ‘The gold chain you were wearing on Saturday night, the one you borrowed from Nic –’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Campbell said, turning to Eric.
‘I thought I’d got rid of it,’ Eric muttered.
‘Got rid of what?’
Eric sighed. ‘She broke it… Stella. When she brought me down here on my own – remember? She said she wanted to talk to me about something –’
‘Yeah, I remember. What did she break?’
‘Nic’s necklace… you know, the one you really like? The gold one. Stella broke it.’
‘How?’
Eric put his hand on Campbell’s arm. ‘Look, I didn’t want to tell you about it at the time because I didn’t want to upset you… and it was just so pathetic anyway. She was just trying to…’
‘Trying to what?’
‘She was, you know… she was coming on to me, trying to kiss me…’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘She said she was trying to convert me, the stupid bitch.’
‘What?’
‘It’s all right –’
‘No, it’s not fucking all right. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because nothing happened, Wes. She was just messing about, you know… grabbing me round the neck, trying to stick her tongue down my throat. I just pushed her away, told her to piss off… and that’s how the necklace got broken. When I pushed her away
, she just kind of lashed out at me, and somehow the necklace came off in her hand. I snatched it back off her, but I just thought the clasp had broken, you know. She must have had some of the chain left in her hand.’
Campbell took a breath, calming himself. ‘What did you do with the bit of necklace you had?’
‘I got rid of it.’
‘Where?’
‘In the fire.’
‘You burned it?’
‘Yeah… well, you told me to burn all my clothes and stuff, didn’t you?’
‘Christ,’ Campbell said, shaking his head. ‘I told you to burn your clothes… I didn’t tell you to burn your fucking jewellery.’ He stared angrily at Eric. ‘Metal doesn’t burn in a bonfire, does it? Shit. If the cops find it, they can match it with the bit they found in Stella’s pocket…’ He paused for a moment, thinking about something. ‘I thought you checked all her pockets anyway?’
‘I did,’ Eric said.
‘So how come you didn’t find it?’
‘It was in the little coin-pocket,’ I said.
Campbell stared at me, his face as tight as a drum. ‘How do you know?’
‘The police told me. They showed me the chain –’
‘Did you tell them it was Eric’s?’
‘No, but –’
‘So they don’t know anything, do they?’ A crooked grin cracked his face. ‘As long as you keep your mouth shut, and as long as Eric finds his burned fucking necklace before the cops come snooping around, we’re all still cool, aren’t we?’
‘You don’t look too cool,’ I said.
‘You what?’
I gazed steadily at him. ‘What are you scared of, Wes?’
‘What?’
‘I mean, if everything happened like you say it did, what have you got to worry about? Stella was blackmailing Eric. The kidnap was all her idea. And you didn’t kill her anyway. It was Pauly.’
‘Nothing to worry about?’ Campbell said. ‘We were there when she died, remember? We didn’t report it. We dumped her naked body in the river, we tried to frame the guy in the caravan –’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why go to all that trouble? Why didn’t you just blame it all on Pauly?’ I looked at Eric. ‘Were you scared of what he’d tell people about you?’
Eric glanced nervously at Campbell.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Campbell said. ‘He’s just trying to fuck with you.’
‘I just don’t get it,’ I said, shaking my head.
Eric turned back to me. ‘Get what?’
‘You and Wes… I mean, are you really that ashamed of him?’
Eric just stared at me, his eyes cold and white in the gloom.
I stared back at him, my heart pounding. ‘What do you think’s going to happen if people find out you’re in love with him? Do you think it’s going to make the newspapers or something? Middle-Class Gay Kid In Love With Council Estate Thug? I mean, come on, Eric – do you really think anyone cares?’
‘You don’t understand,’ Eric said quietly.
‘No?’
‘It’s nothing to do with being ashamed of anything –’
‘You used to be so proud of yourself,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘Remember when you first came out and you used to wear that Gay Pride T-shirt all the time…’ I looked at him. ‘Where’s your pride now?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about –’
‘And you,’ I said, turning to Campbell. ‘You’re just scared that no one’s going to be scared of you any more if they find out you’re gay.’ I smiled nastily, taunting him. ‘Tough guys aren’t supposed to be gay, are they? Tough guys aren’t supposed to fall in love with poofs like Eric – they’re supposed to beat the shit out of them. They’re supposed to hate them. I mean, they’re disgusting, aren’t they? Fucking queers, they’re unnatural –’
Campbell hit me then, a vicious crack in the mouth that sent me lurching back into the wall. I wiped blood from my lips and looked at him… and I saw what I was hoping to see. Pure hate. Despite the jagged pain in my mouth, and the jagged fear in my heart, I smiled to myself. I’d got to him. He was losing it. I spat blood on the floor and grinned at him.
‘Tough guy,’ I said.
His eyes went blank as he pulled the knife from his pocket and started moving towards me, and I knew he was without a conscience now. There was nothing to him – no feelings, no emotion, no fear. He didn’t even hate me any more. I was just a thing he had to shut up. A thing he had to cut up. Simple as that. There was nothing I could do to stop him.
I was banking on Eric to do that.
But as Campbell got closer and closer to me, and Eric just stood there doing nothing, it suddenly dawned on me that I was making a big mistake. A really big mistake. Eric wasn’t going to do anything to stop Campbell. Why should he? He loved him.
Simple as that.
Campbell was bearing down on me now, his right hand gripping the knife, his left hand still holding the torch… and I knew it was too late to do anything. I couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go. He was too close, too big, too determined. He’s going to cut me, I realized. It’s really going to happen. I’m going to get cut. And all I could do was stare at him, watching in dumb disbelief as he raised the knife in his hand…
And then all at once Eric was there, barging into him, wrapping his arms round him, pulling him away from me… and Campbell was fighting back like a madman – twisting and writhing, grunting and cursing, dropping his torch as he tried to break free from Eric’s grip – and the light from the fallen torch was beaming weirdly through the dust-scattered half-light, casting strange shadows across the walls… and as I was standing there watching it all, I felt a sudden black crack inside my head, like the sound of shattering glass, and just for a moment I could see and feel everything all at once. Everything and everyone. I was Stella Ross, the Stella of Pauly’s story. I was a lie. I was Campbell, fighting like crazy. Raymond was Pauly. Pauly was Campbell, out of control, pumped up with madness and drugs. Eric was Nicole, Eric was Campbell, Eric was Eric. Wednesday morning was Saturday night. It was dark outside. A storm was coming. It was bright outside, the sun was shining. I was dead. I was alive…
The inside of my head flashed white.
I was alive.
I was here.
I was Pete Boland.
Eric was Eric, and Campbell was Campbell, and they were dancing together in the middle of the floor… no, they weren’t dancing. They were holding each other in anger. Red-faced, tempers lost, embraced in the passion of a lovers’ fight. They were screaming at each other.
‘You can’t just –’
‘I was only going to hurt him, for Christ’s sake.’
‘There’s no need –’
‘Fuck your need,’ Campbell yelled, pushing Eric away. ‘Shit,’ he spat, ‘we wouldn’t even be here if you’d listened to me –’
‘About what?’
‘Everything. I told you to get rid of your phone –’
‘I was going to –’
‘Yeah, but you didn’t, did you? Now this fucker’s got it hidden away somewhere.’ He shook his head. ‘And you fucked up with the necklace.’
‘I didn’t do it on purpose, did I? It was a mistake –’
‘The whole fucking thing was a mistake. You should have told Stella to fuck off in the first place.’
‘I couldn’t, could I?’
‘Why not?’
‘You know why not.’
‘Yeah,’ Campbell sneered. ‘We can’t let anyone know about us, can we?’
Eric shook his head and turned away. ‘I’m not getting into all this again. It’s ridiculous –’
‘Don’t turn your back on me,’ Campbell said angrily, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him round. ‘I asked you a question.’
Eric glared at him. ‘What are you going to do, Wes? Beat me up?’
It only took a moment for Campbell to whip the knif
e from his pocket and grab hold of Eric by the neck, but then – just as suddenly – he froze, as if he’d only just realized what he was doing. I saw him look at Eric, his eyes shocked, and I’m sure that if Eric had just waited a second, everything would have been all right. Campbell would have said sorry. Eric would have forgiven him. They both would have calmed down and stopped fighting.
But instead of waiting, Eric started laughing. It was a nasty laugh, cold and mocking, and when he spoke his voice was equally nasty.
‘You’re going to cut me now, are you?’ he sneered. ‘You’re going to cut me up?’
Campbell tried to control himself, and I could see him staring intensely at Eric, silently telling him to shut up, that’s enough, no more. But Eric wasn’t in control of himself either. Campbell had pulled a knife on him… he’d pulled a knife on him.
‘Fuck you, Wes,’ he hissed, twisting away from Campbell and chopping his arm away. ‘Why don’t you just piss off back to where you belong?’ He turned angrily and started marching towards the steps.
Campbell went after him, his eyes burning black. ‘Hey! Hey… who the fuck d’you think you’re talking to?’
Eric ignored him and carried on walking.
Campbell hurried after him, not bothering to say anything now, intent only on stopping him. Eric was just starting to climb the steps when Campbell came up behind him. Eric heard him coming and increased his pace, but Campbell was already reaching out for him now. He made a grab for him, almost caught hold of his belt, but Eric dodged out of his way. Campbell scrambled up the steps and tried to get hold of him again, and this time Eric stood his ground. He was half a dozen steps above Campbell, his feet about level with his head, and the only real option he had was to kick out at him. And that’s what he tried to do – spinning round, launching a kick at Campbell’s head… but Campbell was ready for it. As Eric kicked out at him, he lurched forward and grabbed hold of his leg, pushing Eric back… and then all of a sudden Eric let out a sharp scream of pain and fell to one side, grasping his thigh.
I didn’t think it was anything to worry about at first. I just thought he’d pulled a muscle or twisted his leg or something…
But then I saw all the blood.