by Kevin Brooks
Dad stared at me, thinking it through. After a minute he turned to Lucas.
‘Do you know Sara Toms?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever seen her?’
‘From a distance.’
‘Could it have been her?’
He nodded.
‘How sure are you?’
‘It was her.’
‘Damn.’
Lucas grinned coldly. ‘Makes it a bit complicated, doesn’t it?’
‘It does for you,’ replied Dad. ‘Christ … no wonder Bob Toms was acting so strangely. How the hell did he know?’
‘Did you smell the perfume in there?’ Lucas asked.
Dad looked at him. ‘Angel’s?’
Lucas looked to me. ‘Would Angel wear Chanel?’
‘No chance.’
‘Do you know anyone who does?’
I didn’t have to answer.
Lucas turned to Dad. ‘Does a father recognise his daughter’s scent?’
‘I wouldn’t – but Bob Toms probably would. My God … he must have known straight away. He must have guessed.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lucas. ‘That’s why I have to get off the island. Toms can probably cover up the forensics and fix an alibi for Sara, but I’m the one he really needs to fix.’
‘No,’ said Dad. ‘I can’t believe that. Bob Toms might be a lot of things – he is a lot of things – but I can’t believe he’d go that far—’
‘Of course he will,’ Lucas said. ‘He’s already started.’
‘No … I’ll talk to him—’
‘Waste of time. This is his daughter he’s trying to save. He’s not going to listen to sense.’ He looked at Dad. ‘Imagine Cait had attacked someone with a knife and you had the power to blame it on a dirty little gypsy who everyone thinks is a pervert anyway. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
Lucas smiled. ‘You’re a fine story-teller, John – but a hopeless liar.’
The room sank into silence.
I wished I was confused. I wished I didn’t understand what was going on. I wished I could just get into bed and go to sleep and then wake up in the morning with everything back to normal. But I knew it wouldn’t happen. I could see it all too clearly. Everything led to here. This was it. There was nowhere else to go.
It was a dead end.
Just then a loud metallic clink echoed out from the lane. We all heard it this time. Deefer barked and Dad and Lucas rushed to the window. As I followed them I heard the roar of a motorcycle starting up somewhere along the lane. Dad pulled Lucas away from the window.
‘Get down!’ he hissed.
Lucas sank to his knees and Dad flung open the curtains. Although dawn had broken, the light was dim and hazy and the sky was darkened with storm clouds. I could hear the sound of the motorcycle racing up the lane but I couldn’t see anything.
‘Where is it?’ I said.
‘He’s got his lights off,’ Dad replied. ‘Wait a minute – there!’ He pointed past the yard and I saw a flash of black against the grey of the hedge. I watched the blurred black shape speeding up the drive and crashing through the puddles, and then it faded from view. I heard the engine slow at the top of the drive, I heard it pull out onto the lane, and then I heard it race away into the morning gloom.
‘Shit,’ said Dad, dropping the curtain and turning to the doorway as Dominic came in. ‘Did you see him?’
Dom nodded. ‘Mick Buck.’
Lucas stood up. ‘He must have been there all night waiting for me. He’s gone to tell the others I’m here. I’m sorry, I should have known. I’ll go.’
Dad took hold of him. ‘You’re not going anywhere, son.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Shut up and listen. You’re exhausted. There’s another storm on the way. You’re staying here.’
‘No, I can’t—’
Dad pushed him gently but firmly into the chair. ‘We’ve got about half an hour before they get here. An hour at the most. Dom, pop up to Rita’s and let them know what’s going on. They should be all right, but tell them to stay inside and keep everything locked. When you get back, take the car and park it across the driveway, about halfway up. Then get back in here.’
‘OK.’
Dad turned to me. ‘Get dressed and get Lucas up in the attic. I want you both to stay up there until I say otherwise. All right?’
I nodded.
He looked at Dom. ‘Go.’
Dom left.
Dad looked at Lucas. ‘Can I trust you to look after my daughter?’
‘It’d be safer for all of you if I left. They’re not going to leave if they know I’m here.’
‘I asked you a question.’
Lucas looked at me, then at Dad. ‘You can trust me.’
‘Good. Well – what are you waiting for? The lady wants to get dressed. Make yourself useful and get some coffee going.’ He grinned. ‘Do you know how to use a kettle?’
Lucas breathed in through his teeth and rolled his eyes. ‘Well, I don’t know about that … is it one of them newfangled electric ones?’
Dad smiled and opened the door. ‘Out.’
They left together and I started getting dressed. As they went down the hall I could hear them talking. They sounded like old friends. Calm, quiet, perfectly at ease with each other. I listened hard, trying to hear what they were saying, but all I could hear was Dad’s quiet laughter drifting away down the stairs.
twenty-one
I
dressed quickly and started getting the ladder down from the attic. The storm was rising again. Driving rain was beginning to pound against the windows and the skies were rumbling. For just a moment I let myself think that if it got any worse it might dampen things down a bit. A cold wind, a good strong downpour … maybe it would put the fire out …
Yeah, I thought, just like it did yesterday.
The ladder trundled down and I automatically stepped to one side to avoid getting clonked on the head. The whirring sound was just as I remembered it – the sound of secrets and darkness. I began to climb the cold metal rungs, one at a time. I was halfway up when Lucas appeared on the landing carrying two mugs of coffee.
‘Your dad says to hurry up,’ he said.
‘Just a minute.’ I climbed up through the hatchway and felt the familiar seam of cold air cooling my face. I breathed in the smell of soot and old wood. Nothing had changed. I turned to Lucas. ‘Come on then. Pass me those.’
He stepped on to the ladder and passed me the coffees. I placed them on the attic floor.
I said, ‘Let me get in and then you can come up.’ I hoisted myself into the attic, turned on the light, and sat cross-legged on the floor. ‘OK,’ I called down.
As Lucas climbed the ladder, I looked around the attic.
I could see the dark beams and the scarred rafters and the light of the sky glinting through the cracked slate tiles. I could hear the rain pattering on the roof and birds scratching in the eaves … and I knew. I’d known all along that it was going to end here. Here, among the dusty things hanging from beams … here was a world that was anything I wanted it to be. A desert island, the woods …
Only now I wasn’t alone.
Lucas’s head appeared through the hatchway.
‘Nice,’ he said, gazing around.
‘Yeah, it is. I like it.’
He pulled himself up and sat down next to me. I pressed a switch and the ladder started to trundle back up. Lucas watched it, fascinated.
‘Electric,’ I smiled.
‘Ah …’
The ladder’s feet slid through the hatchway, the ladder clanked to a halt, and the hatch flapped shut behind it. I reached across and fastened the latch.
‘Here,’ I said, passing Lucas a coffee and waving my hand at the attic. ‘Make yourself at home.’
He got up and began looking around, keeping his head down to avoid the beams.
‘Is it safe?’ he asked, looking at the floor.
‘As l
ong as you keep to the central walkway.’
‘What happens if I don’t?’
‘You’ll fall through the ceiling.’
While he carried on poking around, looking at this and that, studying the things hanging on the wall, examining the contents of boxes, I went over and sat in a battered old chair beside the water tank. Shadowed light fell from the bare lightbulb hanging from the rafters. It was only a weak light and the attic was still quite dark. Dark, but not gloomy, like the inside of a tent on a rainy day. Or the inside of a den, snug and warm, with the rain ticking on the plastic sheeting, a wood fire smouldering outside, the smell of the smoke drifting in the rain …
‘What’s this?’ asked Lucas.
I looked up. He was standing at the other end of the attic where an old piece of sheet was draped over the beams.
I smiled. ‘I used to play in here when I was a kid. That was … well, I don’t know what it was exactly. My secret place.’
‘Your hideaway?’
‘Yeah.’
He grinned. ‘What did you think about when you were up here? What did you wish for?’
‘I don’t know … I just wanted to be on my own, I suppose. I wanted to get away from people.’
He nodded. ‘It’s good to get away.’
‘Yeah … I always came back, though.’
He looked at me. ‘That’s what you wanted.’
‘I suppose so. What about you? Didn’t you want to go back?’
He shook his head thoughtfully, gazing past me into the shadows. ‘No …’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t want to go back …’ His words trailed off as he stared blindly at the wall.
The wind whistled through the roof tiles and the light-bulb swung in the rafters, distorting the shadows.
I shivered. It was suddenly getting cold.
Lucas snapped out of his trance. ‘Is there any way of looking out? Can we see the yard from up here?’
‘Over here,’ I told him.
He walked over to where I was sitting and I pointed out a gap in the side of roof where the tiles were missing and the roofing felt was torn. ‘If you lie down on that board and slither along you can see outside.’ I rubbed soot from my hands. ‘What’s Dad doing?’
Lucas moved over to the gap in the roof. ‘He’s on the phone, trying to get through to Lenny. He didn’t seem to be having much luck.’ He lowered himself to the floor and slid along until he was close enough to the gap to look out. ‘This is good,’ he said.
‘What do you think’s going to happen?’ I asked.
He adjusted his position, shuffling his legs about to make more room for himself. He said, ‘In about ten minutes, a bunch of people are coming down your driveway looking for my blood. They’ll probably be led by Tait and Brendell and Angel’s brother, backed up by the boys from the Stand and whoever else fancies it. They’ll be drunk and pumped up with coke and speed, and most of them will be out of their minds with hate. Bob Toms will be there, ostensibly to arrest me, but he won’t do anything to stop any trouble. That old Fiesta of yours parked across the drive is going to hold them up for about two seconds. They’re going to stream into the yard and your dad’s going to go out and face them. He’ll tell them I’m not here. He’ll tell them I was here, because he knows they know it, but that I’m not here any more. I left half an hour ago, heading for the Stand.’
I got out of the chair and joined Lucas on the floor. As I wriggled up alongside him he moved over to make room for me.
‘Then what?’ I asked.
‘Well according to your dad, they’ll slap their thighs, turn around, and go chasing back to the Stand.’
‘And according to you?’
He hesitated for a moment, shifting his head to let me see through the gap. I was right next to him now. I could smell him, his skin, his breath. I could feel the dampness of his clothing. We lay side by side and peered down at the yard below. It looked strange from up here. Cramped and unfamiliar. Too pale. Too flat. Its colour and dimensions distorted by the height.
‘According to you?’ I repeated.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
‘Yes you do.’
He turned his head and looked at me. I’d been close to him before, but not like this. I could see every line and every pore on his face, every little scar. I could see deep down into his eyes …
‘We’ll soon find out,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s happening now.’
I looked outside.
A convoy of vehicles was coming down the drive.
twenty-two
L
ying side by side on the attic floor, we watched the trail of cars and vans rumbling down the driveway towards the yard. The groan of slow-moving engines shook the air, rattling the beams of the attic and showering us with dust. Thunder rolled in the distance, lightning flickered, and the rain-darkened driveway was ablaze with headlights. There must have been about a dozen vehicles in all. Jamie Tait’s Jeep was in front, followed by the white van, then a ragbag assortment of cars, pick-up trucks, motorcycles …
‘This is unbelievable,’ I whispered.
‘Believe it,’ said Lucas.
The black Jeep approached the spot where the Fiesta blocked the driveway. It slowed, pulled over to one side, and stopped. Jamie stood up in the driver’s seat and gestured at the white van behind. He looked like a tinpot dictator directing a band of guerrillas. The van lurched forward, pulled out around the Jeep and accelerated towards the Fiesta. The tinny white car didn’t stand a chance. A hollow crunch rang out as the speeding van slammed into it, and the Fiesta bounced across the drive and slid into the hedge with all the resistance of a broken ping-pong ball. Shattered windows sparkled in the rain and the bonnet flapped open with a rusty clank. Drunken cheers drifted in the wind. The van reversed, the Jeep took its place, and the convoy rumbled on.
‘There’s too many of them,’ I said to Lucas. ‘We don’t stand a chance. What are we going to do? We can’t just—’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, touching my shoulder. ‘There’s always a way out. It’s just a matter of finding it.’
I looked at him. He was barely aware of my presence. His face was dark and intense, his eyes fixed on the approaching vehicles like the eyes of a hunter. A hunted hunter.
‘Wait and see,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Wait and see.’
The cars were turning into the yard now, their tyres crunching on the wet gravel as one by one they rolled to a stop, forming a ragged semi-circle facing the house. The engines ticked to silence and steam rose into the air. Headlights glared coldly in the rain. Car doors started opening and figures emerged. I could see their faces. I could put names to most of them. Jamie Tait and Robbie Dean in the Jeep. Lee Brendell and Tully Jones in the front of the van, another half dozen stumbling out of the back. Mick Buck, some local bikers, others I didn’t recognise. Probably from Moulton. Faces from the village: troublemakers, young lads, grown men who ought to know better. Women, even. Ellen Coombe, a handful of hard-faced mothers. Some of the men carried sticks, batons, bars, bottles. One of them had a machete. They were all high on something or other: drink, drugs, hate, excitement, twisted morality, the promise of blood.
My stomach churned.
At the back, keeping a low profile, I saw Bob Toms and a stony-faced man in a long black overcoat getting quietly out of a dark saloon.
A voice rang out through the rain. ‘Hey! McCann! Get out here!’
I looked down and saw Jamie Tait standing at the front of the mob yelling up at the house. A black woollen cap was pulled down tight on his head and his black T-shirt and jeans were soaked to his skin. Brendell stood beside him, solid as a rock, and Robbie Dean stood on the other side, blank and emotionless, with a tyre-lever dangling from his hand.
Jamie cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘McCann! We don’t want you! Just the boy! Send him out! Hey! Are you listening, McCann—’
His voice stopped abruptly as the front door opened and Dad and Dominic walked
out with Deefer beside them. Dominic was carrying the baseball bat.
Jamie grinned and took a step back, holding up one hand to quieten the murmuring crowd gathered behind him.
‘Morning, Mac,’ he said breezily. ‘Dom.’
Dad ignored him, still scanning the crowd. ‘Where’s Toms? Toms!’
Jamie moved forward. ‘Where’s the gypsy, Mac?’
Dad looked at Robbie. ‘Robbie – I’m sorry about your sister. It’s a terrible thing—’
‘Where’s the gyppo?’ someone shouted.
Dad looked up. ‘He’s not here. He didn’t do it.’
Jamie laughed. ‘Of course he didn’t.’
Dad ignored him and spoke to Dean. ‘Listen to me, Robbie. I know what happened to Angel. I know who did it. I can—’
A voice from the crowd drowned him out. ‘Liar!’
More shouts –
‘Bastard!’
‘Get him!’
‘Drag him out!’
The voices rose to an incoherent swell and the mob began to move.
‘No!’ I whispered. ‘No …’
‘It’s all right,’ Lucas said calmly. ‘Tait wants to play it. Just wait.’
I saw Jamie turn and raise both hands, waving the crowd back. ‘Hold on!’ he called out. ‘Just a minute! Just a minute!’
The crowd hesitated and the shouting faded to an angry murmur. As the rain hissed down and the wind howled around the yard, Jamie stood there with his eyes alight and his hands held out in supplication, like a preacher at the pulpit facing his congregation. He waited for the voices to fall and then he spoke. His voice echoed with madness. ‘Listen to me! Listen! We’re not animals. We’re civilised people. We’re not killers. All we want is justice. Let me talk to the man. Let me reason with him.’
‘He’s lost it,’ Lucas said. ‘He’s flipped.’ Then, under his breath, ‘Watch the brother, John. The brother …’
I looked down.
Jamie had turned to face Dad. Brendell hadn’t moved. Dad was watching the crowd. Deefer was sitting beside him, rigid as a board, growling quietly. And Robbie Dean was staring murderously at the ground with the tyre-lever clutched in his hand.