Without turning around he inspected the pot’s contents. It was filled with compacted dirt.
“I’m going to take this home,” Will said. “Now it’s out I don’t want to do anything that might damage it.”
“Probably a good idea,” Steve said, jumping down to the same level as Will.
“Where are the others?” Will said.
“I slipped away,” he said, and made Will’s wriggling gesture with his arm. “Said I left my wallet with you. But I came to find you because I had an idea.”
“Well, it’s out now,” Will said, holding up the pot.
“What do you think it is?”
“Dunno.”
“Is it valuable?”
“Dunno.”
“Can I have a look?” Steve held out his hands.
Will didn’t want to give him the pot, didn’t trust him. “What was it, your idea?”
“It’s about the game. The bookies have actually stopped taking bets on you being kicked out of the group. You know, even if Rupesh finishes last you have to finish in first place to beat him outright.”
“I know. There’s a good chance I’ll lose,” Will said. “But there’s also a chance we’ll draw. What happens then?”
“You don’t want to know,” Steve said. “But I think the fairest thing, given Jen quite obviously helped out Rupesh, and no one is really taking this seriously, the best thing to level things up would be for me to help you.”
“How can you help me?”
“It’s my round. I can help you win. I can’t necessarily make Rupesh lose, he’s all fighting talk back there. But I can make sure you have the best chance.”
It was nice of Steve to offer, and yeah, now he brought it up it probably was unfair that Rupesh’d had some extra help. What was in it for him, though? Why would he come all this way back if there wasn’t something in it for—
“Steve, who do you want to win?” Will asked.
The question clearly surprised him because he shifted his weight onto his other foot, poked out his lower lip and shrugged. “I don’t really have a preference, Will. I just want it all to be fair. Balanced. I don’t want anyone to feel cheated.”
He could understand that, balance. Why he’d wanted to defend Bill to Steve. Balance. Speaking of which, Bill would soon be here, it had been ten to five when he’d last looked at his watch.
“I’m going to head back soon,” he said, planning to perhaps make up a story about meeting his dad in order to get away from Steve before sneaking back here.
“Do you want to hear my plan?”
Will wouldn’t like what Steve was going to say, that much he was convinced of. It would be about Rupesh. He was the only one of them that ever really stood up to Steve, even if it was in his own, quiet little way. Maybe he should just say yes to whatever it was, then come last anyway. It would be funny, even if no one else found out. Especially if Dad really was going to move the family to the seaside soon. And pissing Steve off would have its own appeal.
“Yeah, but I should probably get this back. I’m worried if rain gets on it.”
“Really? What is it you think this is? It’s a bit of rubbish. Fine, take it home, then come to mine.”
“Yeah, will do.”
He held out his hands again. “Can I at least see this wonder of the world then?”
Will didn’t hand over the pot. He pulled it closer to him. Steve frowned. “Just let me hold it, mate. Two seconds.”
“I can show it you once it’s been cleaned off.”
Steve rolled his eyes, then took a step towards Will.
“You need to take no for a fucking answer,” Bill said, coming over the stile behind the pit. He was using a voice that made all those gangster stories he told suddenly a lot more believable. Will felt relief and fear; he’d not wanted this meeting to occur but at least he didn’t have to hand over the pot.
“What’s it got to do with you?” Steve said. He didn’t sound as sure of himself any more. Will hadn’t heard that before.
“There’s a word for kids like you. You’re a bully, and I’ve no truck with that sort.”
Steve laughed at this, forced and loud.
“I told you before, you’re on eggshells with me,” Bill said. “I wouldn’t go pushing your luck. Why don’t you hop it? I want to see what this is all about.”
“I don’t have to go if I don’t—”
Elvis burst out of the cornfield and ran around the pit barking, then he jumped down into the pit and charged at Steve, knocking his leg out from under him and causing him to fall onto his side.
“Elvis,” Bill said, and the dog ran to his side.
Steve got up, looked down at his dirty jeans, then at his hands. There was blood on one palm. He held it up to Bill with a grin.
“That’s probably enough to have him put down,” Steve said.
Bill only glared, sizing Steve up. Would they fight? Would they actually fight? A part of Will was curious to see it happen. Who would win? Strachan was strong, sure, but the thing about—
Steve jumped out the pit and started backing up in the direction of Raven Way. He pointed at Bill.
“You’re on eggshells with me,” he said. “That dog’s on death row. It should have been put down years ago. Will, you coming? You don’t want to be out here with him, on your own.”
Will paused, not knowing how to get out of this without picking a side. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’ve got to show him something anyway.”
Steve didn’t know how to react to this. His face tried on a number of fierce expressions before settling on dismay. He shook his head, threw up his arm and walked off, muttering something about the dog.
Will didn’t like that at all. No, not one bit. Maybe a physical fight would have been better. At least then there was a winner and a loser. Before this things had been balanced, now Steve would want revenge. He had let the wallet thing go, had wanted to move on to other things. Now it might all start again.
He hadn’t noticed that Bill was admiring the pot now. He made the same give-me gesture Steve had earlier given him, only this time Will handed it over.
“You’ve done well here, mate,” he said. “I think you might actually have something good. Do you mind if I show it to a few people?”
And strangely he didn’t mind at all.
“Do you think that kid was serious, by the way, about Elvis?” Bill said. “You saw he didn’t touch him.”
“I’m meant to go see him later,” he said. “I’ll try and talk him out of it.”
“If he comes for him I’ll kill the fucker. You can tell him that.”
A little speck of spit had flown from his mouth when he’d sworn and it landed on Will’s cheek. He wiped it away. Bill looked like he really meant it. And once more all those stories he’d told Will about the past felt like they might actually be true.
Winter, 2015
The afternoon has given way to the evening by the time Dad and I are set free from the waiting area of Marlstone Hospital and allowed to enter the ITU. New Year’s Eve is only a few hours away.
Mum’s head has been shaved and bandaged. The surgeons have done what they can, and the tones they’ve spoken to us in are hopeful though the story their eyes tell is grim. Mum doesn’t look like Mum at all, and perhaps that is a good thing. It’s a stranger in the bed.
Dad looks tired and he has been continuously mumbling to himself since my arrival. He insists on staying at the hospital all night—in the waiting room if necessary. Needing a break, needing air and space to understand, I offer to return to the house to pick up some things for him. He isn’t hungry, but he asks for his toothbrush and his puzzle book.
Out in the ambulance bay I turn on my phone. It buzzes and flashes with messages of concern. From the fragments displayed in the bar at the top of the screen most of them are from the others, worrying, wanting updates, wishing me well. One is from Xan, an order to call him because Jon has made a decision. It’s a message from another
lifetime, a parallel universe.
I call Steve, on standby since dropping me off that morning, and he dutifully picks me up and drives me back to Elm Close.
“Thank you so much,” I say as we pull onto the drive. I lean over and kiss him on the mouth. He offers to come with me but not knowing what I’ll find in the house, I suggest he waits in the car.
Inside is oddly calm given the events of that morning. Still, I’m anxious. What if Mum had heard someone downstairs that night?
A semicircle of blood marks the carpet at the foot of the stairwell, not much, but it brings to mind the scene that must have greeted Dad: Mum’s slack face beneath her blood-soaked hair. I kneel down by the patch, can’t resist touching it, though it’s hardened and leaves no mark on my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I’m crying, not because the anger has suddenly drifted away and given way to deep love, rather because all at once it occurs to me that our relationship might now be a finite thing. That it will be forever broken, forever stuck as it always had been, had always meant to be, a child and her child. There will be nothing more to it.
I’ve gathered all Dad’s things, and am preparing to leave, when I notice another envelope on the kitchen counter. ADELINE is written on the front beneath a smiley face with crossed-out eyes. I open it, and as I read my hands begin to shake. Then I’m running out of the house, to Steve’s car, and he takes me into his arms and reads the letter over my shoulder.
“We need to get the others together,” he says.
Friends,
You weren’t meant to find me yet! So now the game has changed.
NEW RULES: I have someone. Play along and they’ll live.
Consider it a reboot, Adeline; a new Dedication, Steve; opening night, Jen; the cure to what ails you, Rupesh.
Tomorrow trace the paths of your original Dedications. There will be items left along the way that you will need to present to me at the end. Bring me them all and the girl can live.
ADDITIONAL RULES: Anyone doesn’t play, calls the police, gives up: I’ll come for you. And I won’t stop there. I’ll come for your friends, your families, your pets. I can get a lot done before I’m caught.
Ask Adeline’s mum if you don’t think I’m serious?
The order of your Dedications tomorrow:
Trashcan, Please, Resist, Strain.
Each anagram belongs to just one of you: perhaps it’s a secret, a memory, a moment we shared. The only way you’ll know whose is whose is to take a walk down memory lane. Get to know each other all over again.
I’VE WATCHED, I’VE LISTENED, I’VE LEARNED.
Now it’s your turn. Start early tomorrow, I suggest 6 a.m. It will be a long day. My final location will be revealed at the end of the final Dedication.
Love, Will X
Jen is the last of us to read the note, a side of childish writing on an A4 sheet. Done, she puts it down on Rupesh’s coffee table. She is next to me, and reaches over to touch my arm. It’s so soft I don’t notice straight away, and when I do I smile weakly. I’m trying hard not to throw up again, my hangover not entirely gone and now reacting with the adrenalin in my blood.
“Obviously we go back to the police,” Rupesh says. “But we need to think for a second.”
“Sure,” Steve says. “What about this person he has? I mean, you read what he said. If we don’t play this sick little game of his… And then there’s our safety if we don’t do what he says…”
“We’re not sitting around solving clues and doing our Dedications again?” Jen says. She’s determined, almost angry. She’s not making eye contact with anyone and appears embarrassed to be here.
“No, I just meant what Rupesh said,” Steve says. “That we need to think about it.”
“Well, I just meant that we need to get our story straight,” Rupesh says. “Are we going to tell the police what we’ve done? Are we going to tell them about breaking into Will’s house? About your visit to Derby? They’re going to want to know how we got his address.”
Once more, Rupesh is thinking about himself.
“Exactly,” Steve says. “We need to consider this carefully. All of it.”
“The longer we wait the more questions they’ll have about our timeline,” I say. I’ve decided already, did all my thinking on the journey to the hospital and back taking Dad his things. “It’s already been an hour since I found the note. I think we should just come clean. About everything. There’s too much potential for messing up if we start lying to them. They might already have a report on Jen somewhere that they’ll link to this. I want them to take us seriously now, I want Will caught and I want this over with. We don’t even know he actually has kidnapped anyone.”
“It’s a trick,” Jen says. “To get us alone out in the fields.”
This is exactly it. Who knows what will happen once we are all out there, in the dark, sleep-deprived? Everything is in focus now, the murders, the smiley faces. I try to recall that innocent night in The George, and how we’d stumbled right into what he wanted, unprompted. Except there had been a prompt, all those years ago in the fields behind Blythe. He’d known even then that telling us what he did would become the very thing for which we’d remember him. And all it took was not showing up at a reunion.
“We have to assume he intends to kill a third person,” I say. “If it’s not this person he has then it must be one of us. Or all of us. This is a total unknown.”
“The morality isn’t clear here,” Rupesh says.
“This again,” Steve says.
“We don’t know what Will’s planned or, like Adeline says, if he even has a person kidnapped. All I’m saying is if we do go to the police then it’s not the same as pulling the trigger on this girl’s head.”
“Your old friend will take us seriously now, Steve,” I say.
“I don’t know,” Rupesh says. “What if they think we’re pulling some prank to get them to look into—”
“My mum’s in a fucking coma, Rup.” For a while no one speaks. My words have extra weight. “We have to go to the police.”
“Steve, you said you were worried for our safety,” Rupesh says.
“Of course I am,” he says. “He could be outside this place right now. He could have mic’ed up this place and be listening to us.” Steve gestures to the letter. “He implies he’ll be watching our every move. Suppose he sees a police car pull up here, then how do we know he’s not already waiting to go after your parents?” He looks at Jen. “Or Adeline’s dad? And what do you think happens once we’re done with the police?”
No one has an answer to this, so Steve continues. “They’re not going to give us armed protection, are they? We’ll walk out of the police station and be at his mercy until he’s caught. I mean, he’s not going to be hanging around that flat any more, is he? He’ll be hiding out, seeing what we’re doing.”
It’s a good point, and one I haven’t considered. Those boxes we’d assumed had not been unpacked might actually have been recently packed, ready for moving at a moment’s notice.
“Or it’s all bluff,” Jen says. “Either way the answer isn’t actually doing his stupid game, is it?” No one answers, so she says again, “Is it?” Her jaw quivers.
“No,” I say. “No, it’s over. It doesn’t stand up to this much thought. We go to the police, we tell them everything. Now.”
We leave Rupesh’s separately—Will can’t follow us all. Steve and Rupesh drive straight for the police station in their own cars, while Jen goes home to make sure her parents are out of the house for the rest of the night, somewhere public, at least until the police can advise us on our next steps. I drive to the hospital to tell Dad I’ve booked us both into the same hotel where Steve is staying, and that he’s to remain at the hospital until I return. For tonight at least, the plan is to stay together, strength in numbers.
When I arrive at the police station, the straight-faced receptionist takes me through to a stuffy side room where the other four are already se
ated beneath the harsh strip lights. Jen and Steve have both given statements, and they’ve apparently sent officers out to the address in Sparkbrook.
“They’ve gone to find someone else to interview you and Rupesh,” Jen says. She still seems twitchy, keeps brushing her hair over her ears.
“So they’re taking us seriously?” I say, relieved. Jen shrugs.
“They keep saying they’re looking into it. I don’t think they know what to make of us.”
After ten minutes, the receptionist offers to make us drinks and apologises for the delay, remarking on the lack of officers in the building and its relation to budget cuts.
“I don’t think he’s planned everything, you know,” Steve says when she’s gone. “This note, the attack… I’ve read up about this stuff. This is a textbook behaviour pattern. He’s losing control. Serial killers often do when they’re nearing the end of their spree and they want to get caught.”
“Yeah, I remember that killer in Ipswich got interviewed on the telly before they caught him,” I say.
“I read once, Dahmer I think it was,” Rupesh says, “he was inviting victims over to his place while his other kills were—Well, you get the point.”
“I think they’ll catch him,” Steve says. “That it’s over now.” From the seat beside me he reaches over and takes my hand.
Like he can’t bear the quiet, he asks, “Anyone thought on those clues in the note? Maybe they’ll help the police?”
“Let’s not,” Jen says.
“First one was Trashcan, all one word,” Rupesh says. “I’ve been trying to work it out. I can’t help myself. I used to watch Countdown with him sometimes.” There’s real emotion in his voice.
I make a brief attempt to solve it in my head but too much is competing in there for my attention. I take out my phone and find a website that decodes anagrams.
“Nothing useful here really. I mean, Cash Rant, Arch Ants, Can Harts.”
Most of us latch on to this distraction, and next we try resist as sister, and after mulling it over Rupesh asks the rest of us if we know Will had a sibling that died before. None of us do.
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