Lucas

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘John—’

  ‘Tait’s a natural born liar, Lenny. Same as his father. They all are. You know that.’

  ‘Just calm down, John. Take it easy.’

  Dad glared at him. His face was tight and his eyes were on fire. I thought for a moment he was going to crack up, but after a while his face relaxed and I saw the anger fading from his eyes. He breathed out slowly and lit a cigarette.

  ‘All right,’ he said calmly. ‘What’s their story?’

  Lenny looked embarrassed. ‘Well … the way they saw it, Kylie dived off the raft when it reached the buoy. She wasn’t drowning, she was just swimming.’ He coughed nervously. ‘They’re saying the boy went in after her and dragged her onto the beach—’

  ‘That’s crap,’ said Dad.

  ‘Mr Hanson has confirmed she dived in. So have his two boys.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Mr Hanson?’

  ‘Derek Hanson – a friend of Mrs Coombe. It was Derek’s raft—’

  ‘What kind of friend?’

  ‘I don’t know – Ellen’s divorced. He’s the boyfriend, I suppose.’

  ‘He’s bound to lie, then, isn’t he?’ Dad snorted. ‘What about Kylie? What does she have to say?’

  ‘She says she can’t remember.’

  Dad was getting irate again. ‘It’s ridiculous. Why the hell would anyone dive in and drag a girl from the sea and then molest her in front of fifty witnesses? It’s a bloody ludicrous idea.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why are you even listening to these idiots?’

  Lenny didn’t answer.

  Dad said, ‘What about all the others? What did they have to say?’

  ‘Not much. One or two tell it the same as you. Others go along with Tait and the rest. Most of them aren’t willing to commit themselves. Either they didn’t see anything, or it all happened too fast, or they can’t remember … you know how it is.’

  ‘Yeah … it’s pathetic.’

  I got up from the table and went over to the sink to wash my face. I was feeling hot all over. Hot and sweaty and fluttery. It was all turning to hell, just as Lucas said it would – people don’t like it when they don’t know what you are. They don’t like things that don’t fit. It frightens them. They’d rather have a monster they know than a mystery they don’t …

  At the table Dad was still arguing with Lenny.

  ‘You surely can’t believe all this, can you? You met the boy. Did he act like a lunatic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he seem deranged?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why would he do something that only a madman would do?’

  ‘I don’t know … why would half a dozen people lie about it? Tell me that, John. What have they got to gain by lying? What’s in it for them?’

  Pleasure, I thought to myself. They gain pleasure from the suffering of others. Particularly from others they perceive as a threat. Lucas is a threat to them because he’s different, because he’s unknown, because he does things that they don’t understand. And that makes them feel bad.

  And when something makes you feel bad, you either put up with it, learn to like it, or you get rid of it. If getting rid of it is the easiest option, or the most pleasurable, then that’s the one you take.

  Right or wrong, that’s the way it is.

  I filled a glass from the tap and took a long cool drink.

  Dad and Lenny were still talking.

  ‘… I wanted to keep him in for a while, at least until we’d done some more checking, but Toms told me to let him go.’

  ‘I should think so,’ said Dad.

  Lenny lowered his voice. ‘For God’s sake, John. I didn’t want to keep him in for questioning. I wanted to protect him. You can’t keep this sort of thing quiet. What do you think’s going to happen when the rumours start to spread? You know what people are like.’

  ‘You think he’s in danger?’

  ‘I don’t know … but I think it’s probably best if he doesn’t hang around …’

  ‘Did you tell him that?’

  Lenny nodded.

  ‘And?’ Dad asked. ‘What did he say?’

  A puzzled look creased Lenny’s face. ‘He said that he was content with what he was.’

  Dad didn’t speak for a moment. He just stared at the table, rubbing thoughtfully at his brow. Eventually he looked up and took a puff on his cigarette. ‘Martial,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  Dad smiled. ‘It’s a quote from a first-century Latin poet called Marcus Valerius Martialis. “Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.”’

  nine

  O

  n Wednesday morning Dad went into Moulton with Bill’s mum. He needed some stuff from the big stationery warehouse in town, and Rita needed someone to give her a hand with a pine cupboard she was buying.

  ‘She’ll probably want to buy me a burger on the way back,’ Dad told me. ‘But I shouldn’t be too long.’

  I gave his belly a squeeze. ‘Take as long as you like. You never know – you might even enjoy yourself.’

  He gave me a doubtful smile. ‘Yeah.’

  After he’d left, I had a bath and got dressed and then I went downstairs and made myself some breakfast. In all the turmoil of the last few days I’d forgotten how restful the house can be when it’s empty, and it was a real pleasure to sit in the kitchen munching toast and drinking tea and gazing out of the window without having to talk to anyone. I wasn’t completely alone, of course. Deefer was out in the garden, lying in the shade of a cherry tree, chewing lazily on a bit of old bone. I could hear the grinding chomp of his back teeth and the occasional sharp crack as the bone splintered in his mouth. He had the bone lodged between his two front paws, and as he chewed on it his eyes wandered casually around the garden, checking on this and that. Every now and then he’d pause in mid-chew to concentrate on the movements of a bird or an insect, and then, satisfied with what he’d seen, he’d start chomping again.

  I sipped my tea and started thinking about the day ahead. It didn’t take long. There was the washing up to do, a bit of hoovering … Simon was coming round at six … and that was about it.

  It wasn’t exactly Thrill City, but I didn’t mind – I enjoy a bit of boredom now and then.

  After I’d stacked the dishes in the sink, I started wandering around the house. As far as I was aware, there was no particular purpose to my wandering, I was just bumbling around, enjoying the solitude and the silence, getting to know the house again.

  In the front room I tidied up a few magazines, straightened the cushions on the settee, clicked on the television, then clicked it off again. I browsed the bookshelves for a while, reminding myself of all the books I’d always meant to read but had never got round to – To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Bell Jar, Mehalah, The Ballad of the Sad Café – then I went over to the large bay window that looks out over the garden. In the distance the tide was going out and the receding sea looked flat and silver in the low light of the sun. Flickering rays fanned out across the water like the veins of a petal. I rubbed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair. The house was quiet.

  No one home.

  Just me and Deefer.

  I glanced up the lane, saw it was empty, and then I went upstairs and into Dominic’s bedroom.

  The curtains were closed and the light was off. I stepped over to the window and pulled back the curtains. Outside, the sky was clouding over and cold shadows were creeping across the yard. I turned to face the room. It looked a lot emptier than I remembered it. There was a bed, a bedside cabinet, a chest of drawers, a wicker chair by the window, and that was about it. Bare shelves, no ornaments, no pictures on the wall. No one lived here any more. It was just a drab and empty room. The bed was unmade and a pile of pillows lay scrunched up on the floor. Dirty clothes were scattered all over the place and a chaotic heap of belongings radiated out from an upturned rucksack in the middle of the floor. Books,
magazines, disposable razors, a packet of cigarettes, letters, train tickets, chewing-gum wrappers, coins …

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around.

  I didn’t know what I was doing in here. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or why, or what I was going to do if I found anything. And even if I did find something, I knew it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t solve any problems or make me feel any better. Worst of all, I knew in my heart that what I was doing was wrong. It was sneaky. Treacherous. Underhand.

  It was stupid.

  I started going through the drawers of the bedside cabinet.

  In the top drawer I found a packet of cigarettes and a torn pack of cigarette papers with a scribbled note on the cover – fr7br1k – 07712664150. I stared at the note for a while, trying to work out what it could mean. The last bit was obviously a mobile telephone number, but the rest of it didn’t make much sense. fr could be Friday, I thought, and 7 could be a date. But it was the ninth today, so that didn’t fit. Unless it meant the 7th of September? I started counting out the days to see if the 7th of September was a Friday, but I kept getting lost, so I gave up. Maybe it meant seven o’clock? Or maybe it was a street number. 7br …? Seven something road? A road beginning with b?

  It was impossible.

  It could be in code. It could mean anything.

  It probably meant nothing.

  I dropped the packet of papers back in the drawer, closed it, and opened up the middle drawer.

  There were a couple of magazines – FHM and Loaded – a train timetable, a packet of condoms, and, tucked away in the corner, a roll of £20 notes tied with an elastic band. I took out the money and counted it. Traces of fine white powder dusted some of the notes, and they showed signs of having being rolled into a tube. There were seventeen notes in all – £340. It was a hardly a fortune, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, while Dad was working night and day just to keep us in food, Dominic had a bundle of dodgy cash squirreled away in his drawer. That’s what sickened me.

  With a heavy heart I put the money back and opened up the last drawer, the bottom one. At first glance the contents seemed quite harmless. There were no mysterious codes, no condoms, no money, just a row of balled-up socks and a couple of pairs of pants. I would have liked to have left it at that, to have simply accepted things as they were – nice and neat and normal – but I knew I couldn’t. I reached inside the drawer and started checking through the socks and pants. My hands felt numb and unfamiliar, as if they belonged to someone else, someone with a cold and unforgiving heart.

  I found the bottle of pills stuffed inside a pair of socks.

  It was one of those brown plastic bottles you get from the chemist. The label was worn and smeared and the writing on it was illegible. I shook the bottle and held it up to the light. The tablets were small, white, and round. The bottle was about half full.

  I tugged on the lid, trying to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I held it up to the light again and looked closer, realising with a shake of my head that it was a child-proof lid and I’d forgotten to line up the little arrows.

  ‘Idiot,’ I whispered to myself.

  I lined up the arrows and got my thumbs under the rim of the lid. Then, just as I was popping it open, a sudden loud bark erupted from the garden. The sound shot through me like a jolt of electricity. My body jerked, my heart leapt, and the bottle of pills flew out of my hand and spilled all over the place. I cursed Deefer, then I cursed myself for reacting like a scared rabbit, and then I just cursed. The pills had scattered everywhere – on the bed, under the bed, on the bedside cabinet, on the floor. There seemed to be thousands of them. I looked around for the bottle, found it on the floor, and started picking up the pills. Outside, Deefer was still barking. It was his warning bark. He was telling me that someone was coming down the driveway.

  I stopped picking up the pills and listened.

  At first all I could hear was Deefer.

  Maybe he’s wrong, I thought. Maybe he heard someone up at Rita’s, or Joe Rampton’s. Or maybe it’s just the wind …

  Then I heard it. A car, rumbling down the driveway. Faint at first, then louder … and louder. For a moment I tried to convince myself that it was Rita’s car, or Lenny’s … but I knew it wasn’t. I knew whose car it was. I remembered the sound of it roaring down the lane and screeching into the yard in the early hours of the morning. I remembered the sound of laughter and drunken voices cracking the night – yay, there! Dommo, Dommo … watch it! … woof! woof! … can’t get out, man … hey, hey, Caity …

  It was Jamie Tait’s car.

  And now it was turning into the yard, slowing, stopping …

  I jumped up off the bed and ran over to the window and peeked out through the gap in the curtains. A jetblack Jeep with bull-bars and tinted windows was parked in the middle of the yard. The top was down and dance music was blaring from a huge pair of speakers in the back. Jamie Tait was sitting in the driver’s seat swigging from a can of beer, and Dominic was sitting next to him. They were both wearing sunglasses and smoking cigarettes. As Deefer padded slowly across the yard to greet them, Jamie switched off the music and they both started to get out of the car.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the pills scattered on the floor, then I looked out of the window again. Jamie and Dom were halfway across the yard. They were coming in. Once they were in, they were bound to come up here. And when they came in here and Dom saw the pills all over the place …

  My heart was thumping like a hammer, pumping adrenaline into my body, screaming at me to run – get out of here, quick, before they catch you – but my head was telling me different. If you go now, it was saying, Dom’s going to know you’ve been in here searching through his stuff … so pick up the pills and then go.

  Heart: there isn’t time …

  Head: yes there is …

  No there isn’t …

  Yes there is …

  I looked out of the window again. They were at the front door. Dom was getting his keys out …

  There wasn’t time to think any more.

  I turned from the window and hurried across to the bed and started scooping up the pills into the plastic bottle. I got the ones off the bedside table first, then I turned to the bed. The duvet was white, the same colour as the tablets – I couldn’t see the damn things. As I ran my hand over the duvet, feeling for the pills, I heard the front door opening downstairs. I paused, listening. Deep, muffled voices … a laugh … the door closing … footsteps moving along the hallway. I breathed out. They were going into the kitchen. I carried on running my hands over the bed until I was sure I had all the pills, then I dropped them into the plastic bottle and turned to the floor. Christ, they were all over the place. Under the bed, against the skirting board, mixed in with Dom’s dirty clothes … As quietly as I could, I got down on my hands and knees and started crawling around picking them up, all the time keeping my ears open for footsteps on the stairs. I inched along the floor, scanning the carpet in front of me and grabbing up pills with both hands, and after a while I began to think I might just make it. I had a good rhythm going. The bottle was filling up. The pills on the floor were gradually disappearing. Faint sounds from the kitchen told me that Jamie and Dom were still downstairs. All I needed was another couple of minutes to get the last few tablets into the bottle, have a final look around, put the bottle back in the drawer, then I could get out and sneak along the landing into my bedroom …

  Then I heard them coming up the stairs.

  I was at the door, picking out a pill that was stuck under the carpet. I dropped it in the bottle, jumped to my feet, and automatically reached for the door handle. But it was too late. I knew it. They were halfway up the stairs. I could hear them talking, grunting, laughing. Even if I went right now they’d see me.

  I was trapped.

  Breathing hard, I backed away from the door and moved quickly across to the bed, looking around as I went to make sure I had all the pills. I d
idn’t know what I was doing, or where I was going. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could see Dominic opening the door and asking me what the hell I was doing, and a stream of half-baked excuses were already running through my head – uh, I was just looking for something … I thought I heard something … I was just tidying things up …

  It was a waste of time. He’d know I was lying.

  They were coming along the landing now, passing the bathroom … and then they stopped. I heard someone tapping on a door, then Dominic calling out my name – ‘Cait? Are you in there? Cait?’ – and I realised they were outside my bedroom, checking to see if I was in. I heard Jamie say something, but I couldn’t make out what it was, and then I heard someone open my bedroom door.

  My skin felt icy cold.

  I bent down and put the bottle of pills in the bedside drawer.

  My hands were shaking.

  I quietly shut the drawer.

  I heard my bedroom door closing, more muffled voices, and then their footsteps moved along the hallway and stopped at Dom’s room.

  I couldn’t move.

  I stared, petrified, at the door handle.

  Nothing happened for a moment. Maybe they’ve changed their minds, I thought. Maybe they’ve forgotten something, and they aren’t coming in after all. Maybe they’ll turn around and go back downstairs and everything will be all right …

  Then the handle turned and the door swung open.

  * * *

  It’s amazing how fast you can move when your mind shuts down and your body takes over. It’s the survival instinct, I suppose. The autonomic nervous system, primitive reflexes, fight or flight … whatever. I don’t know what it is or how it all works … but I guess that’s the whole point. If you knew how it worked, it wouldn’t work. Conscious thinking is all well and good, but when you get right down to it, it’s the not-knowing stuff that does the business.

  I didn’t know what I was doing as the door opened, but my body did. It buckled my knees, dropped me to the floor, stretched out my arms, and rolled me under the bed. It was all over before I knew it – bam bam bam. Half a second, tops. By the time my mind kicked in again I was lying on my back, staring up at the underside of Dominic’s mattress, listening intently as the bedroom door slammed shut and voices filled the room.