They only stood together for a few more seconds. Then they moved off, in different directions. Nelis perhaps to spend some of his money. And Armour to make a very important phone call.
I couldn’t wait for long. Didn’t know how much time I had. I had to get inside there as soon as possible before the police descended on the place.
Could I do it again? Unseen? Had to try.
I said a prayer. There had to be a saint up there who could help me. There was a patron saint for everything. There must be a patron saint for sneaking into derelict properties.
Just in case there wasn’t, I decided to cut out the middle man. Go to the Big Man himself.
‘God, help me to do the right thing.’ It was all I said. Couldn’t think of anything else.
Then I took a deep breath and headed for the house.
My plan was simple enough. I would slip Armour’s gun with his prints, his saliva, McCrae’s blood – every bit of evidence against him – slip it down under the floorboards with Nelis’s guns. When the police came after Armour’s call they would find them all. They would have Nelis, thanks to Armour. And they would have Armour himself and all the evidence to prove he was McCrae’s killer. It would look as if, unknown to Armour, Nelis had had the murder weapon all the time.
That they had perhaps worked together to get rid of McCrae and then had turned on each other.
And no one would ever know I had anything to do with it.
g
44
Good plan, eh?
But first I had to get in, hide the gun, pray no one caught me.
I crossed the back greens and flattened myself against the wall of the building. I’d been going over in my mind just how I had got in there the first time. Through the loose steel panel boarding up one of the windows on the ground floor.
It was easy to find. The only one with any kind of gap. So slim that only a boy like me could get through. Nelis, of course, had his own way in – a way he could secure and know his stash was safe.
I reached up for the window sill and pulled my way up. Not easy with a gun in one hand. I squeezed my way inside. And dropped to the floor. I was in the old kitchen again. I waited. Waited for a horde of Nelis’s men to jump me.
But Armour wouldn’t have come in if any of Nelis’s men were there. Or he wouldn’t have come out again. I waited. The house was silent. Nothing. Nelis had left it unguarded again.
Or had he?
I cursed myself for losing my torch. This was when I needed it. I hesitated – to give my eyes time to become accustomed to the darkness. There was a door ahead of me lying half open, and beyond that the room with the loose floorboards. And under those floorboards . . .
Why wasn’t anyone guarding this place? It was hard to believe Nelis had left it unguarded for all these weeks.
I took a few tiptoed steps forward. Imagined again a whole gang of Nelis’s men waiting for me, guns aimed straight at me.
But when I pulled the door open wider there was still no sound. The room was empty. Pitch-black and empty.
I imagined Nelis and Armour when they were in here not so long ago – Armour demanding to see the merchandise. Nelis hauling the boards across to show him what he had.
Why wasn’t anyone guarding this place? The thought wouldn’t go away.
Maybe he didn’t need people to guard here. He couldn’t trust people. Who else would he leave on guard ?
I was almost stopped in my tracks.
Dogs.
Rottweilers. Dobermanns.
I held my breath, listening for a sound. A low growl. The sound of jaws dripping. I looked around, looking for two pinpoints of light watching me. But there was nothing.
They would have been alerted as soon as I’d jumped into the kitchen, surely?
There couldn’t be any dogs here.
Nelis was just stupid. I’d always thought so. He thought because everyone knew this was his place he didn’t need guards.
My foot brushed against something as I walked on. I didn’t look to see what it might be. My eyes homed in on that loose floorboard. I saw nothing else. It had been lifted and now lay on top of the floor.
The guns were still there. And there was something menacing about them even as they lay still and unused.
I crouched down. I slipped a second pair of surgical gloves on, just to be on the safe side. Didn’t want my fingerprints left anywhere here.
I dropped to my knees to crawl closer when my foot brushed again against something metal. This time I reached back to move whatever it was aside. Not afraid. Not thinking.
Should have looked first.
There was the sudden snap of metal, missing my fingers by a centimetre. I flinched back. Another terrifying snap next to me. I froze. Saw what it was at last.
A trap. A metal trap, its jaws now closed tight.
I looked all around the room. It seemed to become clear as day all at once. As if moonlight had lit it with a strange silver glow.
Nelis hadn’t left anything human to guard his stash.
He had just booby-trapped the whole room.
g
45
My whole body froze. I’d read about your hair standing on end, but this was the first time I knew what that meant. I knew – should have known – it wouldn’t be this easy.
I had walked into this room, managing by sheer luck so far to miss the traps that were set here. Steel teeth everywhere, ready to snap shut. Animal traps. Man traps. We were close to farmland here, easy for Nelis to get his hands on them. Easy and deadly. They hadn’t been here when I had found the guns. Nelis probably hadn’t had time to set them then.
Now I knew what it was that had struck Armour as funny. I saw them again, him and Nelis, laughing as they came out of the building. I could almost hear Armour congratulating him on laying the traps to deter any intruders, telling him how clever he was, and Nelis too stupid to realise the joke was about to be on him.
Although at this minute it was no joke for me either. If my leg had been caught in that trap, it would have been the end for me and my plan. My blood, my DNA – probably my dead body – would have been found here in this room when the police swooped.
I was afraid to move. Wasn’t hard. My body was like a block of ice.
What was I going to do? If only I’d had the torch I could at least see what I was doing. See exactly where those traps where. And how to avoid them. I couldn’t trust to luck again.
But I had no torch. There was no way I was going to get out of here avoiding those traps. I was done for.
Deal with it, Leo. It was Sean in my mind, telling me I had to find a way.
OK, smart alec, I barked back at him. Any more advice?
Get that gun in with the others. That’s your mission. I was so sure I heard Sean’s voice I looked around.
Yes, he was right. I’d come here to put that gun under the floorboards with the others and no amount of booby traps was going to stop me.
That gun was going to convict Armour. And if by any chance I was still here. I’d just have to find a way to explain it.
I wasn’t going to be here!
I would find a way out, some way.
I turned and moved warily forward, one sliding movement after the other. From here I was almost sure if I leaned forward, reached out, I could move that floorboard further out of the way.
Snap!
The jaws of another trap snapped shut as soon as my foot touched it.
It was impossible to stay still then. I was too scared. I jerked to the side and behind me. Close to my hands, too close, another bite of a trap. They were everywhere. I felt as if I was in shark-infested waters.
I was burning up and freezing at the same time. But I knew I couldn’t stop now. I had
a mission. I focused on the open floor. Tried to wipe everything else out of my mind. I wanted to throw the gun in there and run but it had to be secure with the rest of the arsenal. The black bag intact, the evidence uncontaminated. I held the gun tightly, leaned closer and edged the floorboard aside.
It seemed to fly in the air as one of the traps closed on it. It took every bit of nerve I had not to flinch then. If it fell and hit me I’d lose my balance for sure. Those waiting steel jaws wouldn’t miss me then. The floorboard fell with a crack and a snap, caught by another trap.
For an age, I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. Too terrified.
Almost there. Sean’s voice urging me on.
He was right. I was almost there. I leaned forward as far as I could and pushed the gun in with the others. It slipped inside easily as if it was being sucked in, as if it belonged there.
It was done. The best way I could.
‘Mission accomplished,’ I said softly. Well, almost.
All I had to do now, was get out of this room in one piece.
Well I had managed to get this far, hadn’t I?
What would Sean and I have done in such a situation? And it came to me at once what to do.
When soldiers were in a minefield they would lie flat on their bellies and crawl forward, pushing their backpacks ahead of them, using them to clear a safe route. The trap closest to me – the one near my hands, was already snapped shut. If I pushed that in front of me it would surely clear a path for me as I inched my way towards the kitchen. Through the open door I could make out a slit of pale moonlight. I kept my eye on that. Hope. Escape. That’s where I was heading.
I lay even flatter. Touched the cold steel of the trap. Took a deep breath. Inch by inch I slithered forward. The trap that could have killed me moments ago became my saviour. It touched another trap and it too snapped closed. It pushed others aside safely out of my way.
It must have only taken minutes but it seemed like hours before I reached the door at last. The trap edged it open wider. Still I lay flat, afraid to move a fraction out of the path laid for me. Not until I was safely into the kitchen did I jump to my feet. I began to shake. Shook so hard I thought I wouldn’t stop. An earthquake moved inside me. I’d never get into anything like this again.
I wanted to be a boy again, and do the daft, crazy things that Sean and I loved doing.
I could hardly pull open the steel panel my hands shook so much. I’d never make it home. I was sure of it. I stumbled as I fell to the ground from the window. But I had to make it home. I was bathed in ice-cold sweat but I couldn’t rest yet. I had to get away from here. I began to run.
Home.
I couldn’t wait to get home.
g
46
My mum had to wake me next morning. Calling to me from the doorway of my bedroom. Lucky for me she didn’t come closer. I had slept in my clothes. Crept back into the house sometime in the middle of the night, terrified my dad would be waiting up for me. That thought scared me more than anything else that night. For how would I explain where I’d been?
But the house had been silent. No one was waiting for me. No one had missed me. I was still in the bad books.
It was only when I was back in my own bedroom that the full force of what I’d done hit me. I began to shake once again and couldn’t stop. I shivered, so cold my teeth began to chatter. Nerves I suppose, catching up with me. I climbed into bed and pulled the duvet up around me. Just wanted to get warm, planned to change into my pyjamas as soon as there was some heat in me. And that’s the last thing I remember.
My dad was working this Sunday but he hadn’t left for work when I went downstairs for breakfast. I knew he was waiting for me.
‘You look like death.’ First thing he said.
Mum came right over to me, felt my brow. ‘You feeling OK?’
‘Probably heard of the arrest,’ my dad snapped at me. He nodded over to the radio. ‘Just been on the news.’
I caught my breath – it had happened already! The police must have arrived just after I’d left last night.
I stumbled into a chair and Dad took my shock for sympathy. ‘Och, don’t worry. It’s not your pal, Armour. It’s Nelis . . . and I’m sure he’ll find a way to get out of it.’
‘They found guns – a whole blinking houseful of them,’ my mum said. ‘I don’t think he’ll get out of this one.’
My dad went back to his paper. ‘I hope not.’
I found my voice at last, but it came out as if it had been scraped with sandpaper. ‘Armour’s not my pal, Dad.’ I had to make him understand I knew exactly what Armour was. ‘I know Armour’s not a good man. I’m sorry, Dad.’
Dad stared at me. My sudden apology took him by surprise.
‘You were right, Dad. He never does anything without wanting something in return. He’s a nasty bit of work. I –’ I was stumbling over the words. ‘I don’t know how I ever thought he could be anything different. I was stupid, Dad.’
David sat, still in his pyjamas, looking from me to Dad. Waiting for what was going to happen next. It seemed to me my dad was taking a long time to say anything.
It was my mum who broke the silence. ‘For goodness’ sake, Dave, the boy’s trying to apologise. Don’t sit there like a big drink of water. Say something.’
My dad looked at her and I could tell he was trying to keep his face straight. Never could manage it with my mum. For her the ghost of a smile appeared. But when he glanced back at me his face was grim again. Too soon for him to forgive me.
‘I know you’re a good boy, Leo. I never doubted that.’
‘I’ll never see him again. I promise, Dad. I promise.’
My throat hurt because I wanted to cry so much. I think my dad did too.
He nodded. His eyes filled up. ‘I’ll see you when I come back in from work. We’ll talk about it then. OK?’
Better than OK, I thought because my dad was going to give me another chance.
David jumped from his chair. ‘Dad, Dad! I’m a good boy too.’
Dad lifted him high. ‘You’re a superhero, David. They’re always good boys.’
David turned and looked at me. ‘Leo’s a superhero as well, Dad.’
Dad looked at me, said nothing. It was too soon for me to move to superhero status again.
It was all over the town, the arrest. Nelis and umpteen of his men in police custody. Someone had grassed on him. Told the police about his guns. I saw Sean at Mass and he watched me, as if I was part of it.
It was the longest day of my life. Why hadn’t they arrested Armour? I waited for news of Armour being taken in for questioning. What if they hadn’t found the gun? What if some rookie cop had pulled it from the black bin bag, thinking it was just another gun in the stash? What if . . . what if . . . what if . . .?
The ‘what if’s drove me crazy all day.
But I needn’t have worried. By evening Armour had been arrested too. The town was buzzing with the news. No one seemed to doubt the story. It was Armour who had grassed on Nelis. The police had monitored the call, had prints of Armour’s voice. He had told the police about Nelis’s arsenal of guns little knowing that, according to a police statement, Nelis had already found the gun that Armour had used on McCrae. Hidden it among his own. Armour’s fingerprints, his DNA, had all been found on the gun.
Now, according to the rumours, they were screaming vengeance at each other.
I watched Armour’s arrest on television. He stepped through his front door, hands cuffed behind his back, and was led from the house with the stone lions at the gates. He looked angry.
A crowd had gathered outside, and I wished I’d been there standing in that silent crowd, watching him, and when he passed, do you know what I would have done? I would have winked – and he would have kn
own that I was responsible. Me. Leo McCabe. He would have known that it was because of me he was being arrested. Because of me he’d been tricked and would spend the next few years in prison.
And even thinking it I knew I could never have gone there, never let him know. To keep myself safe – my family safe, David safe. I could never let anyone know.
Armour could never know it was me.
And I wanted so much for him to know. One wink would have shown him who’d won in the end.
But I could never do it. I could never tell.
That was the only way to stay safe.
I’d never be able to tell my dad everything, that would always have to be my secret. But now I had the time – the chance – to prove to him that I was a son he could be proud of again. I was determined to do that, no matter how long it took.
Nelis and Armour were gone. The town was free of them at last. And my dad was determined that no one else would take their place. My dad and lots of other dads and mums in our town.
There will always be villains, I know that. But there will always be heroes too, like my dad. A real man.
In the next few days Mr Sheridan was released. It turned out that Armour had manufactured evidence of his involvement in the shooting. He had even supplied the false witnesses who said they’d seen him in the area.
How could I ever have believed that Armour would make sure he was freed? How could I have been so stupid?
My only excuse is . . . I wanted to protect my family.
But I had been responsible for ridding the town of him. I had turned the tables on him. But I couldn’t tell anyone.
Grass Page 14