The Killer You Know

by S. R. Masters

  Steve’s car pulled away from the kerb, and when it had passed me I noticed someone had fingered the smiley-faced Nirvana logo in the dirt down in the left corner of the rear window: two crosses for eyes and a tongue poking from the wavy mouth. I shivered, remembering Will’s bedroom. Then, imagining perhaps some kids just like us having been the culprits, I let myself smile. They really did love heavy guitars around here.

  Rupesh, 1997

  At the entrance to Elm Close is a post box, a phone box and an old boxy bus shelter. The shelter is set back from the road and surrounded on all sides by an overgrown bush. Rupesh, out posting a letter for his dad, is close enough to read the graffiti on its dark wood panels when cigarette smoke draws him closer and from inside someone with a deep voice calls his name. Recognising the voice, he peers inside. Will is sitting in a shadowy corner smoking.

  “Not seen you in a while,” he says.

  A good few days have passed since Rupesh’s no-show at Dead Man’s Alley and he’s been avoiding them all in the hope that they eventually forget he didn’t turn up.

  “I’ve been busy,” Rupesh says, and sits down beside Will, still clutching the letter. Will offers Rupesh the cigarette. He notices all the dirt under Will’s fingernails and recalls Will telling him he only brushed his teeth once a week.

  “No thanks,” Rupesh says.

  Will doesn’t act like he holds the no-show against Rupesh, which is something. He starts off on one about Kurt Cobain, how he’s more famous than ever now he’s dead and how well death sells. Maybe he’s already forgotten? He wouldn’t put it past Will. He hopes they haven’t all been talking about him behind his back. That they don’t all hate him now.

  In the middle of Will explaining how if he were a rock star he’d just start off his career pretending to be dead, Adeline appears in the shelter entrance and says: “Why is there a bus stop if there are no buses?”

  Both he and Will jump.

  Once Rupesh has finished chastising her for scaring them, he says, “There used to be one, but everyone drives out here, don’t they? It never got used.”

  She nods, happy. “So what happened to you the other night?”

  Cockflaps. She hasn’t forgotten. Now he’s going to have to explain himself.

  “I did warn you I wouldn’t be able to get out,” he says. “I could hear my parents. They were still up. I was all ready to come out, too.”

  It’s a lie; he’d fallen asleep early with no intention of going outside. Steve sometimes goes too far—and that Strachan thing had just been ridiculous. Why so late? Why so… well, adventurous? Every gang needs someone like Steve to pull them all together, sure, to find places for them to hang out and come up with things to do, but why make it all so stressful?

  He knows why, though. Steve’s seen too many films, especially ones with gangs of kids coming together to beat some shared enemy against the odds. Those sorts of films are fine, but best watched rather than lived. Rupesh prefers stories like Sherlock Holmes or Batman, brilliant individuals who are sort of better than the rest in some way, and are only really troubled by other brilliant individuals, like Moriarty or The Joker.

  Will offers Adeline the cigarette and she takes a puff. She hands it to Rupesh and this time he also takes a puff, even though the cigarette feels odd in his hand. When he gives it back to Will he narrows his eyes at Rupesh.

  “Where have you been then?” Adeline says.

  “Oh just, well, busy with life things,” he says.

  “Bullshit,” Adeline says. “You’ve been avoiding us, haven’t you?”

  She smiles and so does he. He can’t help it. “Fine, I just was worried you’d all be annoyed with me.”

  This isn’t quite a lie, though it isn’t the whole truth either. He really means that Steve will be annoyed with him. The thing is he never expected the thing to happen if he just said he couldn’t do it. Rupesh’s role in the group is to balance Steve out. It’s like what his physics teacher Mrs. Kaur once taught them about moments, how a construction crane needs a counterweight at the back to stop it toppling forward. Usually, if they weren’t all doing it together the gang did something else. Not this time, though. Now he’s the odd one out.

  Adeline is rolling her eyes at him. “No one’s annoyed with you, are they, Will?”

  “No one cares,” Will says.

  It’s Adeline that has changed things in the group. Shifted the dynamics in some important way he needs to get his head around. It’s obvious why: she is really fit. It’s obvious too that Steve fancies her, and probably Will too—although he is harder to read. Does Rupesh fancy her? He is unsure. While her whole monochromatic Gothy thing is attractive, there is something hard about her he doesn’t like. He probably does fancy her, even if she could be a bit blunt sometimes, a bit sweary, a bit frightening. Not like Jen, who is always so sweet to him. With Adeline around powering Steve’s enthusiasm, resisting its excesses is going to be that much harder.

  “Anyway, it’s my birthday tomorrow and you need to come and celebrate,” she says.

  “Steve says he has plans,” Will says with a trace of world-weariness.

  “We’re meeting at Steve’s after lunch. If you’re not there I’ll come and hunt you down and drag you out.”

  Yeah, she’s scary, Adeline. But it’s nice she gives enough of a stuff to make a fuss about him being there to celebrate her birthday.

  Still, the next day he’s nervous about seeing them all together again when he makes his way down Elm Close. He’s running late, as he always is, and that won’t help with Steve’s hypothetical grudge. Passing Mr. Strachan’s the road is fragrant with freshly mown grass, and when he looks over at the neat lawn the dog isn’t there.

  He lets himself into the lounge where they are all engrossed in a conversation about a film they’d watched without him. Adeline raises a hand when he comes in, but the rest don’t notice. Or they’re ignoring him. Not a good start.

  “Sorry about the other night, guys,” he says when there is a gap in the chatter. “Like I said to these guys, I was all set to go but it was just impossible.”

  Jen, whose back had been to him, turns and utters a joyous cry of his name. It probably means she doesn’t hate him—a real relief. Of all the gang it’s Jen’s opinion that matters most to him. Without a doubt he definitely fancies her. He’s not her type, though, he’s realistic about that. She always likes the most conventional-looking actors in the films they watch. Even if through some miracle she did like him, there are all sorts of complications around what his parents might think about him having a girlfriend which he didn’t necessarily want to find out about. Not to mention that joke she once made when she was angry with her parents, about the best revenge on them would be to start going out with Rupesh because he was Asian. Plenty of reasons existed to help him not waste too much energy on fantasising about getting together with Jen Sherman. Still, her reaction buoys him.

  “You didn’t really need me anyway, did you?” he says. “I’ve not seen that dog since.”

  “We thought you’d fallen asleep,” Steve says, and the others laugh. He doesn’t like that laugh one bit. The anxiety that had evaporated on seeing Jen drenches him once more. From his tone alone he can tell Steve hates him for not showing up. He’s playing it cool, but he’s annoyed.

  They have been talking about him. Jen probably thinks he’s lazy. A coward even.

  Rupesh has spoken too soon.

  Strachan’s dog is back on the front lawn once more. Like he’s been waiting for them all to be together again to make his next move.

  Out in the field behind Elm Close they sing a half-hearted Happy Birthday to Adeline, the mood in the group low. Will’s claim that it’s a declaration of war isn’t far off the mark. That’s how it feels. Rupesh doesn’t like Strachan one bit—whenever he sees Rupesh he always scowls at him—and though Rupesh could take some satisfaction in Steve’s plan failing, he doesn’t. In fact, he is unsettled by this development. While it’s one thing
for Rupesh to challenge Steve, it’s another entirely for someone like Strachan to do it.

  Jen passes around some vodka, which perks them up, and Steve says they should just enjoy the rest of Adeline’s birthday and not let Strachan ruin it. He instigates a game of Jurassic Park, a souped-up version of hide-and-seek he invented last year where the seekers are “velociraptors,” and if you are caught you are “disembowelled,” then become part of the raptor pack. It’s ridiculous, really; though if Rupesh’s going to going to get back into Steve’s good books he’ll have to throw himself into it this year. And of the things Steve makes them do it isn’t the worst.

  After Steve’s outlined the concept and the rules, Adeline says, “You lot are fucking mental. How old are you?”

  “It’s really fun,” Rupesh says. Only he notices Steve flash him a side-eye, undoubtedly because the last time he’d played he complained about it the entire time.

  “Drink some more of this,” Jen says and hands Adeline the repurposed plastic water bottle. “I know what you mean, but trust me, it’s a laugh. And this is as good as it gets out here.”

  “It’s so great the corn’s this high,” Steve says.

  Trying to sound helpful, Rupesh says, “Actually, it’s not corn, it’s maize.”

  From a pile of rubble that might once have been an outhouse—the “base”—all of them except Jen scatter in different directions.

  Rupesh hates it deep in the maize. You can’t tell the shhhhh of the leaves from the sound of someone approaching. Once he is alone down one of the rows he turns back on himself and waits for Jen to leave. When she’s gone he sits on a pile of bricks at the base and waits for the others to finish running around. He’s technically won now. If Steve doesn’t work out what he’s done, he might even congratulate him. In fact, is it enough to make up for the no-show? No, dream on. He’ll have to make a bigger show of things than just being here when they all arrive. Make it look like he’s been wandering around out there the whole time like the rest of them.

  With some reluctance he re-enters the maize down one of the rows. The shhhhh sound seems to follow him, like the stalks have lined up to applaud his decision. It’s creepy. He slows down, and quickly understands that all the leaves are at ear level, meaning that it only sounds like they are responding to his presence because he is close enough to hear them. The explanation is good, yet his heart still pounds.

  He tries to distract himself, focus on that end goal of not having to worry about Steve making him the butt of the group joke. Yet out here the plan seems stupid. It had been the alcohol thinking for him. Steve’s not going to see him playing the game enthusiastically as equal to him not showing up. That just isn’t how Steve’s idea of fairness works.

  An idea with such chilling plausibility overwhelms him. He’ll probably make Rupesh do something awful to Strachan. Two birds, one stone. The next time you hear from us will not be in the form of a note, they’d written. Whatever that might be he’ll want Rupesh to do it to level it all out. Even bloody Steven.

  His panic is broken by the sounds of nearby voices. He crouches on the floor and looks through the stalks. Five, maybe six rows across to his right, he sees movement. He watches and waits.

  It becomes apparent that whoever is over there isn’t on the hunt, so must be hiding. With a few stealthy steps he crosses two rows in the direction of the voices.

  It’s Adeline and Steve. Of course it would be those two. Of bloody course. He can hear them, an intimacy in their back and forth. She’s thanking him for a CD and Steve is making a weak effort to convince her the gift was from all of them. Steve probably set up this whole afternoon to get her out here alone.

  There is a long silence, then Steve says, “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “What?” he asks again, laughing.

  “I was imagining what would happen if I actually just kissed you,” she says. “What your face would do.”

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  “I want to see what happens to your face.”

  He shrugs. “Do it then.”

  It’s not hard to guess what happens in the following silence, especially when Adeline breaks it with, “You’re not meant to open your fucking eyes. I’ll look silly.”

  Rupesh doesn’t want to hear any more. He’s happy for them, he supposes, even if the inevitability of Steve once again getting exactly what he wants without any effort is so boring it’s crushing. Just once couldn’t he have to jump through the same hoops as the rest of them?

  Just once couldn’t it be that easy for Rupesh?

  He is walking backwards through the stalks, too wrapped up in his thoughts and trying to be quiet to notice Jen standing in the row he has just joined. By the time he does it’s too late. Clever girl. She puts one finger to her lips, then with her clawed free hand she strokes her fingertips across his lower belly.

  “Rar-r,” she says.

  His plan to win the thing no longer matters. Jen’s touch ripples through his body. All he can think to say back is, “Rar-r.”

  Now a raptor, Rupesh whispers to Jen that Steve and Adeline are close by. He almost relishes interrupting them now with Jen at his side.

  Together they stalk, and are within two rows when Jen halts. Adeline and Steve are clearly visible from here, and the sight is quite something. Adeline’s on top of Steve. They’re kissing. Worse, they look like they might be trying to—

  Rupesh turns to Jen, offering a look somewhere between disgust and shock. She only has eyes for them, though. And now the softness and playfulness have gone, replaced by a look Rupesh can’t fathom. Jealousy, maybe. Is that what he’s seeing? Cockflaps. That would just be perfect. And why wouldn’t Jen fancy Steve? He’s more her type than Rupesh.

  Finally she snaps out of whatever hold the scene has on her. She gestures for Rupesh to wait further down the row, which he does, knowing that she plans to flush them his way.

  He hears Jen leap through the stalks, hears Steve yell to Adeline, “Run, save yourself,” then the sound of pounding feet heading his way. A flash of black and white in his peripheral vision, and he leaps through the two rows and grabs Adeline around the waist. She screams, delighted, and the two of them fall to the floor laughing.

  After catching her breath, the four of them, all raptors now, fruitlessly search for Will before they eventually find him back at the base, smoking a victory roll-up on top of a pile of bricks in the rubble.

  “You took your time,” he says.

  Will had clearly stolen Rupesh’s plan.

  Hours later, tired and thirsty after multiple rounds of the game, they head across the field to the stile onto Elm Close not far from Steve’s. Jen offers Adeline the water bottle filled with the remaining vodka and Adeline shakes her head. Then she offers it to Rupesh, who casts a quick glance Adeline’s way, then shakes his too. Jen looks puzzled by this, which had been Rupesh’s intention, then shrugs and drinks some herself. If she fancies Steve now, then maybe he’ll just fancy Adeline.

  Steve is leading the way, and Will is trailing behind them. Jen drops back and hands the bottle to Will, who responds with a simple, “Cheers, ears.”

  Oh great, maybe she fancies Will now. Good work, Rupesh. His thoughts are fuzzy, and not in a pleasant way this time.

  Up ahead Steve has slowed down, and when they catch up they see why. A police car is parked outside Mr. Strachan’s. Steve urges them to be cool and keep walking. Mr. Strachan is standing by the silver van on his drive with two police officers, a man and a woman. The windscreen is cracked in a spider-web pattern and at the centre a brick protrudes from the glass. Jen turns to Will and sees he is grinning. Mr. Strachan is pointing in their direction and the officers watch them all file towards the farmhouse before making their own way over to them.

  Cockflaps.

  The police take all of their addresses, and the following evening they interview everyone individually with their parents present. Mr. Strachan’s claim is that he saw “a you
ngster” running off in the direction of the fields after hearing the windscreen smash. He has also shown the police the note left on his car earlier in the holidays.

  Rupesh sits nodding through the whole process, head pounding with what must be a hangover, not wanting to speak in case he blurts out that it’s Steve they want really. He’s the instigator. He’s the reason any of them have to do these things. If it weren’t for him then Rupesh would just stay indoors.

  The police are kind, though. And it’s clear they don’t actually think Rupesh has anything to do with it. Once they have gone his dad tells Rupesh to maybe give those other kids a wide berth for the rest of the summer, and that he knows all about that troublemaker Mr. Strachan, whom he’d trust about as far as he could throw him.

  That night Rupesh is in his room listening to Foo Fighters, his headache fading but complicated thought still a great effort. It’s nice of Will to have made him a copy, although the album’s a difficult listen because at the end of each track Will’s taped himself talking about each song, offering his wild theories about what he thinks the songs mean. The forty-five-minute album takes up both sides of a ninety-minute tape.

  The door opens slowly and his mum walks in. Rupesh turns off his Walkman.

  “Hi,” he says.

  She stares out of the window at the fields behind the house, saying nothing. His mum mostly does this when she is lonely, although today it could be to talk about the police visit. Only after a few minutes does the taut sensation in his middle start to ease and Rupesh turns the music back on, leaving her to it. Eventually she moves from the window, kneeling down by the bed where Rupesh is lying, and takes his wrist. This is less common, but still something he is used to. She runs her long fingernails down the lines on his palm, a pleasant sensation, and one he finds particularly comforting today. She rarely touches him.