Lucas

by Kevin Brooks

  Hey … hey … help me … I need some help … there’s a girl …

  I raised my head and looked down the street. A skinny old man with a yellowing beard was running up from the direction of the beach. He was about sixty or sixty-five, wearing baggy trousers with the legs rolled up and a pair of sandals and no shirt. For some reason I remember him quite clearly – I can still picture his half-starved chest and his caved-in stomach, all bony and white, and his withered arms waving in the air as he ran and shouted.

  Help … please … help …

  I stood up, my heart quickening. I could see the old man’s eyes, wide and terrified, and I could hear the breathlessness in his voice.

  For God’s sake … please …

  People were moving towards him now, the sound of footsteps and puzzled voices getting louder as everyone realised that something was seriously wrong.

  ‘What is it?’ Simon said. ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘Stay here,’ Mrs Reed said. ‘I’ll go and see what’s happening.’

  As she started off, I followed her.

  ‘You too, Cait,’ she said. ‘Stay here.’

  I ignored her and began running.

  ‘Cait!’

  Up ahead the old man was bent over in the middle of the street with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He was surrounded by a growing circle of faces, with everyone firing questions at him – what’s up? are you all right? what’s the matter? Someone got him a chair and sat him down and someone else got him a glass of water. When I ran up to the crowd he was thirstily draining the glass and wiping the drips from his chin. I edged my way through to the front of the circle.

  ‘There’s a girl,’ he was saying. ‘There’s a girl …’

  ‘Take it easy,’ someone said. ‘Get your breath back.’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s a girl … on the beach. A young girl. I saw her. It was terrible …’

  A man in a white cap crouched down in front of him and spoke calmly. ‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘What did you see?’ I recognised the voice. It was Shev Patel from the village shop. He gently put his hand on the man’s knee and looked in his eyes. ‘Tell me what you saw,’ he repeated.

  The old man looked at him and shuddered. ‘A girl … all cut up … I think she’s dead.’

  seventeen

  N

  o one spoke for a moment. Everyone just stood there looking down at the old man, not sure whether to believe him or not. I could see the doubts in their eyes – he’s old, he’s been out in the sun too long, he’s probably just seeing things. The old man looked back at them, recognising their cynicism, and raised his hands, showing the dried blood on his palms.

  ‘She’s in the pillbox,’ he said.

  Someone said – oh my God! – and then everyone started bustling about, filling the air with a clamour of jostling footsteps and excitable voices – what did he say? what’s happened? a girl? who is it? where is she? is she dead? Amid all the jabbering and head-shaking I caught the word ‘gypsy’ a couple of times, and I thought I heard someone say ‘Lucas’, but I couldn’t be sure. A strange sense of detachment had come over me. I felt disconnected from everything, even myself. I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t scared. I had no emotions at all. I was there, but I wasn’t there. As the initial panic subsided and everybody started doing things, all I could do was stand there motionless in the middle of the street watching them.

  Shev Patel took charge. The first thing he did was whip out his mobile phone and dial 999. While he waited for an answer, he barked out a series of instructions. ‘Everybody stay calm. Keep the noise down – get back, give him some room. You two—’ this to some ladies from the Women’s Institute stall ‘—look after the old man. Get him some more water and cover him up with a blanket.’ Then he called over to Mrs Reed. ‘Jenny, find out exactly— hello?’ As he started speaking into the phone, asking for police and an ambulance, Mrs Reed knelt down in front of the old man and spoke quietly to him. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. The street was awash with noise.

  I looked slowly around.

  A group of young men had already got themselves organised and were starting off towards the beach carrying boards and blankets and first-aid equipment. One of them was also carrying a metal pole. There were people standing on the tops of vans scanning the beach with binoculars. Children were crying. I could hear people calling up friends on their mobiles to let them know that something was going on. Others were moving away: quiet couples, young women, families taking their children home. One or two solitary people were just standing around grimly enjoying the excitement.

  Shev was still speaking into the phone. ‘—that’s right, the pillbox by the Point. The man who found her is a Mr Willington, Stanley Willington.’ Shev’s eyes focused on someone up the street and he raised his hand and waved them over as he carried on talking into the phone. ‘Mr Willington’s being looked after. He’s in the High Street. I’ll take someone with me and meet you at the Point … no, I know … I won’t touch anything … OK … whenever you can.’ He clicked off the phone and looked up as Dad appeared through the crowd.

  ‘Glad to see you, Mac,’ Shev said. ‘Just a minute.’ He turned and shouted at the group of young men hurrying off towards the beach. ‘Hey! Hold on! Wait a minute!’

  The men didn’t stop.

  Dad glanced at me. ‘What’s going on, Cait? Are you all right?’

  Before I could answer, Shev took him by the arm and led him off down the street, talking quickly to him as they went and glancing anxiously at the young men who were picking up pace and starting to run.

  Someone from the crowd shouted out, ‘Go get ‘im! Get the dirty bastard!’

  Someone else called out, ‘Yeah! Teach ‘im a lesson!’, and then they all started, egging on the young men with snarling shouts and clenched fists waved in the air.

  Shev looked angrily over his shoulder and the crowd momentarily quietened. He called back to one of the women looking after Mr Willington. ‘There’s a high tide coming in, Betty, so the police might be delayed. If they’re not here in half an hour get Mr Willington inside the library, but make sure you leave someone out here to wait.’ The woman called Betty raised her hand and nodded. Shev turned to the crowd. ‘The rest of you – stay calm and keep out of it. And for God’s sake keep away from the beach.’

  With a final glare he turned back to Dad and the two of them hurried off after the others. As they moved out of earshot I heard someone say, ‘Bloody Paki – who the hell does he think he is? He’s only been here five minutes and he thinks he runs the sodding place.’

  This was met with murmurs of agreement.

  ‘That Paddy, too,’ someone added.

  ‘Yeah …’

  I had my eyes lowered, but I could feel people looking at me. I could feel the growing hysteria in their voices.

  ‘Coming here and taking our jobs—’

  ‘Scum!’

  ‘It’s our island—’

  They were losing control.

  ‘Get the van, Tully,’ someone said. ‘Let’s find us a gyppo.’

  Feet started moving, keys jangling, car doors opening.

  Betty said, ‘Now hold on, you heard Mr Patel. The police will be here soon—’

  But no one was listening any more.

  ‘Someone get up the Stand, block it off, make sure he don’t get away.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Tide’s coming up – get a boat out there.’

  ‘Check the old woods, flush him out – get old Jack, he knows the flats.’

  ‘Who’s up for it?’

  ‘Come on!’

  The whirlpool raged around me and all I could do was hang my head and listen to its ugly roar. The sound of vans starting up, heavy feet running, the primitive rush of violent voices …

  It was beyond belief.

  Within about ten minutes most of the men had gone and the street was quiet again. The wind was getting up, scatteri
ng litter around the half-empty roads, and the temperature was dropping quite rapidly. Dark clouds were looming in the distance and the air smelled of thunder.

  I looked around at the people left behind. Some of the faces I didn’t recognise, and I guessed these were people from the mainland hanging around to see what happened, but most of them were locals. Apart from a handful of youngsters they were mainly women and older men. Simon was there, standing with his mum. Betty and some others were still tending to Mr Willington. Dominic had turned up with Rita and Bill. And in the background the remaining stall-holders were shuffling back to their stalls to continue packing up. A cloud of shameful resignation darkened the street. It was everywhere. In the way people walked, the way they talked, the way they avoided making eye contact. Everyone had that ‘nothing-to-do-with-me’ look on their faces, the look of people who know that what they’re witnessing is wrong, but are either too scared or too embarrassed to do anything about it.

  It was an incredibly depressing sensation.

  As the storm closed in and the first spots of rain began moistening the ground, Dominic walked up to me and put his arm round my shoulder.

  ‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s go home.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do—’

  ‘It’s Angel,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The girl – it’s Angel.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I looked at him. ‘I saw her with Jamie earlier on. They were heading for the beach – I saw them, Dom.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know – about an hour after we saw him with Sara. About three-thirty, I suppose. They went down the path at the end of the street.’

  ‘Together?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Have you told anyone?’

  ‘Who? There isn’t anyone to tell.’

  ‘Where’s Lenny Craine?’

  ‘In Moulton, probably, looking for Lucas.’

  The rain was coming down quite heavily now and gusts of wind were flapping noisily in the canopies of stalls. People were putting on coats and struggling with umbrellas and some of the mainlanders were beginning to drift away. Mrs Reed was helping Betty with Mr Willington, getting him to his feet and into the shelter of a nearby shop, and I could see Simon and Bill standing together on the library steps.

  Dominic looked up at the sky. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘Get Bill and I’ll meet you at Rita’s car.’

  ‘But what about—’

  ‘There nothing we can do here. I’ve got Shev’s mobile number. When we get home I’ll give him a ring and then I’ll call Lenny and tell him about Tait.’

  ‘What about all those people looking for Lucas?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell Lenny about them.’

  ‘He won’t do anything.’

  ‘Yes, he will. Now go on.’ He gave me a little shove. ‘I’ll meet you back at the car.’

  As we pulled away from the village the skies opened up with a thundering crash and the rain came down in torrents. High winds buffeted the car and tore at the branches of roadside trees. The narrow lanes were rapidly flooding. Rita drove slowly, concentrating on keeping the car on the road. Her body was rigid and her face was taut as she peered intently through the waves of water gushing across the windscreen. The rest of us just sat there shivering in our wet clothes, listening to the sound of rain hammering hard on the roof. No one said anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

  There was quite a lot of traffic around, mostly festival traffic heading off the island, but I was surprised to see almost as much coming back the other way, towards the village. I thought at first they were gruesome sightseers coming from the mainland, drawn like flies to the scent of blood, but as we approached the junction at the Stand I realised I was wrong.

  ‘Look at this,’ murmured Rita, slowing the car.

  I squinted through the windscreen at the queue of traffic stretching back from the Stand. It must have been half a kilometre long. The water level in the estuary was higher than I’d ever seen it, lapping up over the railings and still rising. The Stand was completely submerged beneath the storm-ravaged waters of a muddy-brown lake.

  ‘Christ,’ whispered Dom.

  At the junction a white Transit van was parked across the Black Hill road, blocking the entrance to the east of the island. A rough-looking man smoking a cigarette was sitting in the driver’s seat studying the cars as they approached the Stand. Three or four others were walking around directing traffic back to the village. As they leaned down to explain the situation to frustrated drivers I could see them surreptitiously checking inside the cars. It was like something out of a vigilante movie.

  The queue of traffic inched forward as those up ahead turned around and drove back to the village. I could see the drivers shaking their heads in dismay.

  ‘They won’t be going home for a while,’ Rita said.

  ‘Neither will we at this rate,’ Dom added.

  Some of the cars were pulling out of the queue and turning back before they got to the Stand, but most of them just carried on queueing, either waiting to find out what was going on, or hoping against hope they’d be able to get through. It took us about twenty minutes to reach the junction. During this time a motorcycle roared past us and raced up to the white van where it skidded to a halt. The rider, a helmetless thug in a leather jacket, spoke to someone in the passenger seat of the van, then swung the bike around and sped off up Black Hill. I saw Dom watching with a worried look on his face.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I asked.

  ‘Micky Buck,’ he whispered. ‘A friend of Brendell’s.’

  I started to say something else but Dom nudged me in the leg, nodded at Bill and Rita in the front of the car, and shook his head. I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but I knew enough to shut up.

  Rita put the car in gear and we edged up to the front of the queue. There was only one car ahead of us now and I had a clear view of the swollen estuary. Across the other side, cars were pulling up at the water’s edge before turning round and heading back to the mainland. Out in the middle of the estuary a small rowing boat was bobbing up and down in the waves. There were two men in it, both of whom I recognised from the festival. They were peering over the side of the boat like drunken fishermen looking for sharks. It was hard to believe how stupid they were. Even if Lucas was still on the island, did they really think he’d try to escape by swimming across a well-guarded estuary in the middle of a storm? And how did they think they were going to stop him if he did? What were they going to do – harpoon him?

  Idiots.

  As I was watching, one of them looked up and pointed at the sky. The other one craned his neck and got to his feet, but the boat started wobbling and he quickly sat down again, still looking upwards. Then I heard it too, the whirring chop-chop of a helicopter. I leaned against the window and gazed up just in time to see a small yellow helicopter flying low over the estuary making a bee-line for the Point.

  ‘Air ambulance,’ said Dom. ‘They’re going to have trouble landing in this weather.’

  ‘At least they’re trying,’ I said.

  Dom looked at me. He was about to say something when someone rapped on the driver’s window and a rainsoaked face appeared in the glass. Rita wound down the window and a stocky young man poked his head in, filling the car with a waft of beery breath.

  ‘You gotta go back,’ he said, glancing in the back. ‘Tide’s up, you can’t get through.’

  Rita glared at him. ‘Do you mind getting your head out of my car?’

  The man grinned. ‘Only trying to help, love. You see, when the tide comes in—’

  ‘We live here, you idiot. I’ve seen more high tides than you’ve got spots on your chin. Now get your head out of my car and get that bloody van moved. I want to go home.’

  He wasn’t grinning any more. He stared at Rita for a moment, shot another glance at me
and Dom, then snapped his head back and called across to the van. ‘Hey! Tully! This one says they live ‘ere! Wants the van moved!’

  The man in the van turned his head and spoke to someone in the passenger seat, then leaned out of the window and shouted something back through the howling rain.

  The stocky man leaned down again and said, ‘What’s the name?’

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Rita fumed. ‘I don’t have to give my name to you – Jesus Christ! Get out of my way before I call the police.’

  The man sniffed and spat on the ground. ‘The police are busy, lady. There’s a killer on the loose—’

  Rita shook her head and put the car in gear.

  The man reached in and put his hand on the wheel. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you.’

  Rita glared at him and thumped his hand. He swore at her and started reaching for the ignition keys. Dominic leaned across the seat and grabbed his wrist.

  ‘Tell Tully it’s McCann,’ he said.

  The young man looked at him.

  Dom’s eyes were hard. ‘Tell him we’re coming through and he’d better move the van right now.’ He let go of his wrist and the man stepped back. Dom put his hand on Rita’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded, glancing at the man. ‘I will be once fatso moves his face.’

  Dom looked at him. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  The man glared at Dom for a moment then spat again and started walking across to the van. Dom sank back into his seat. Aggression wasn’t in his character, and he looked almost as shocked as I felt. His face was drained and his hands were shaking.

  ‘Who’s Tully?’ I asked him.

  ‘The one in the van. Tully Jones – one of Tait’s lackeys. He’s nothing without Jamie, same as the rest of them.’

  Just then the car behind us sounded its horn. Rita turned around and gestured angrily through the back window. Bill, who hadn’t said a word so far, told her to calm down, and then they started arguing.

  Dom shook his head. ‘Christ, I don’t believe this. The whole thing’s turning into a bloody nightmare.’

  Meanwhile, over at the junction I saw the white van reversing halfway across the road.