by S. L. Powell
‘Hello, Gil,’ Mum said. ‘Did you sleep OK?’
Gil gave up his play-acting and slid on to an empty chair.
‘Uh – not so well, actually,’ he said.
‘Did the phone disturb you?’
‘No, I had a nose bleed. What happened with the phone?’
For a dreadful moment Gil thought Dad was going to cry. Mum put a hand on Dad’s arm and spoke for him.
‘It was the police,’ she said. ‘They phoned about three o’clock this morning. There’s been a raid on the labs and the research animals have been stolen.’
Gil waited for Dad to say something, but he gazed deep into his coffee and said nothing at all.
‘Oh,’ Gil said at last. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes,’ said Dad, thinly. ‘I bet you are.’
Gil flinched. It was like being stung by a wasp. Mum leant forwards, her face full of concern, and gave Dad’s arm a little shake.
‘Come on, Matt,’ she said. ‘I know you had a terrible row yesterday and we’re all in shock, but —’
‘No,’ said Dad. He shook his head. ‘Gil doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a stuff about my research. He probably thinks this is the best news he’s had in ages. Don’t you?’ He flashed a bitter look at Gil.
Gil looked away.
‘Don’t you?’ repeated Dad. ‘In fact, I don’t suppose this raid has even come as much of a surprise to you, has it?’
Gil felt sick. Dad suspected him. This was exactly what he’d dreaded.
‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Dad,’ he said.
‘Matt,’ said Mum. ‘What on earth are you suggesting?’
‘Work it out, Rachel,’ said Dad. Gil had never heard him sound so cruel. ‘Use your intelligence.’
‘Are you accusing Gil of being involved in this somehow?’
‘That’s exactly right, yes.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Yeah, Dad,’ said Gil, trying to sound defiant. ‘Where’s your evidence?’
‘Oh, there’ll be evidence,’ said Dad. ‘The police will find evidence.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better go and get my head together. They’ll be here soon to interview me.’
‘Matt,’ said Mum. ‘Stop.’ There was a tone in her voice that Gil hadn’t heard for a long time. Dad stopped at once, looking taken aback. ‘Be very, very careful,’ said Mum. ‘Do you understand me?’
Dad stood still, his face completely expressionless. After a few seconds he turned towards the door, but Mum made a tiny noise that stopped him again in his tracks.
‘I need to know that you’ve heard me, Matt,’ said Mum. She wasn’t asking him, she was telling him, although Gil wasn’t at all clear exactly what she was telling him. Then, abruptly, Dad nodded and left, and at the same time Mum got up and went to fill the kettle. The sudden silence in the kitchen was suffocating. Gil slumped forwards over the table and waited helplessly for Mum to ask him the inevitable questions. What’s going on, then? Is Dad right, that you’re mixed up in this? He toyed with different answers, ways of bluffing his way through it. As he went over it all in his mind he began to imagine it was not Mum asking the questions, but the police. He knew with absolute certainty that if he came under suspicion the police wouldn’t let him off the way they had the last time. This wasn’t littering in a public park. This was a serious crime with serious consequences. He’d never be able to get away with it. Gradually the secret began to weigh him down. The longer Mum asked no questions, the more desperate Gil became to confess. He felt as if he might explode with the pressure.
At last he heard the clink of a teacup on the table and the creak of a chair.
‘What a mess,’ Mum said from somewhere near him. ‘I mean, I thought things were a mess yesterday, but this . . .’
Gil didn’t dare to raise his head. He feared his face would tell her everything. He waited in agony for Mum to speak again.
‘Do you hate me, Gil?’ she said quietly.
Gil sat up in astonishment. It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. ‘What?’ he said.
Mum was pale and serious, but she was not crying. ‘For hiding so many things from you,’ she said.
‘No, of course not, but . . .’
‘You hate Dad,’ said Mum.
Gil said nothing.
‘We made all the decisions together,’ said Mum. ‘We tried to do the right thing. Now it’s obvious we got some of it badly wrong. But we both have to take responsibility for that. It’s not just Dad’s fault.’
Was she asking him to forgive Dad? Gil didn’t think he could do it. And anyway, Dad probably hated him now, after what he had done. Gil opened his mouth without any clear idea of what he was going to say, but to his relief Mum carried on talking.
‘I’m not asking for any kind of confession,’ said Mum. ‘I appreciate I don’t have such a great track record on being trusted right now. I just need to know that, whatever’s been going on, it’s going to stop.’
‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘I promise.’ It was the easiest promise he had ever made.
Mum nodded. ‘Please forgive me,’ she said. ‘I’ve made things very hard for you.’
‘I just —’ Gil swallowed. ‘I just don’t want you to be ill, Mum.’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘Well, I may not be. And if I am, at least now it’s something we can face together, and that gives me hope.’
Gil felt the pressure in his chest begin to build again, the warning of the storm approaching. He did not want to be with Mum when it broke. ‘I’m just going to —’ he said, vaguely, pushing the chair back.
‘Of course,’ Mum said. ‘See you later.’
Gil hurried back to the safety of his room and shut the door firmly behind him. As he battled to bring his breathing under control he wondered when the police would arrive and how much they already knew. A thought dawned on him, and he went and retrieved the old mobile phone from the back of the drawer under the bed. Then he sat and looked at it for a while before he got up the courage to call Jude’s number.
It rang for a long time and then cut to voicemail. Gil rang off, prepared a brief message in his head and tried again. After two rings it was answered.
‘Yes?’
The voice was so curt Gil couldn’t be sure it was Jude, but he could not risk saying Jude’s name aloud in the house.
‘It’s Gil,’ he said.
‘I know that.’ Jude was clearly not going to make this any easier.
‘I think Dad’s worked it out,’ Gil said.
He waited.
‘Thanks for the tip-off,’ said the crisp voice on the other end. ‘Just get rid of the phone, eh?’
Then he was gone.
A few seconds later, the doorbell trilled downstairs. Gil raked through the junk in his drawer until he found a pair of scissors, all the while listening to Mum as she opened the door, greeted someone and took them down the corridor to Dad’s study. With the scissors Gil prised the plastic covers off the phone and took out the sim card and the battery. He snipped the sim card in quarters and then began methodically to destroy the keypad and the screen with the point of a blade. As pieces of the phone fell apart he collected them carefully and put them in a pile on his desk. It was weirdly calming.
If Dad tells the police . . .
He tried not to think about it. The work of dismantling the phone absorbed him for some time but when his mind swung round to the thought again, it had changed subtly.
When Dad tells the police . . .
It’s all right, Gil told himself. Jude will get away. He’s not stupid. He’s done this kind of thing before. But that was not the only thing there was to worry about. Gil’s hands started to shake so much he could no longer hold the scissors. He swept up the bits of the phone and wrapped them in a carrier bag which he stuffed in his backpack. Then he got unsteadily to his feet. It was the suspense that was unbearable. If he just went down and told the police everything perhaps it would be a relief.
But he was only
halfway down the stairs before the study door opened and the voices spilled out into the corridor. Gil froze, his resolve draining away.
‘Well, thank you very much, Dr Walker.’ The voice made the hair stand up on the back of Gil’s neck. There was something horribly familiar about it. ‘We’ll make sure we keep you informed.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dad’s voice.
They were coming towards the bottom of the stairs and Gil tried to work out why he recognised the voice. Then he remembered. It was the policeman who had picked him up in the park when he’d first met Jude. Gil turned to run back upstairs, but it was too late.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t the ASBO boy,’ said the policeman. ‘I hope you’ve been behaving yourself.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Gil said faintly, leaning back against the wall.
‘We scared some sense into you, then.’
‘Uh . . .’
The policeman stood eyeing Gil up and down triumphantly. He seemed reluctant to move on. Any minute now, and he would put two and two together. He would say, Hang on a mo. You were with that bloke in the park, weren’t you? That troublemaker, Jude. We know all about Jude. So what have you been up to, then? Behind the policeman Gil could see Dad frowning. The game was up. Maybe he should just put his wrists out for the handcuffs now.
‘And just as well, from what your dad’s told us,’ said the policeman cheerfully.‘It’s a good job we stopped you getting mixed up with that animal rights bloke, eh? Could have been nasty.’
‘What?’ Gil didn’t understand. What had Dad said? Gil saw Dad’s frown deepen. ‘But it was . . .’
‘Gil,’ said Dad. ‘Go and sit in the kitchen, please.’
‘But . . .’
‘Kitchen.’ Dad tilted his head sideways. ‘Go on.’
Gil slid down to the foot of the stairs and retreated towards the kitchen. Behind him he heard the policeman again.
‘What’s up with him? He looks as if he’s seen a ghost.’
‘Well, we’ve all had a bad night,’ said Dad smoothly.
They moved slowly in the direction of the front door.
When he stumbled into the kitchen Gil could tell from Mum’s expression that he must look terrible. She didn’t say anything, but she came and put a hand on his shoulder as he fell into a chair. Then they waited together while the policeman chatted on the doorstep and Dad said ‘Thank you. Yes, of course. Thank you,’ over and over again, trying to end the conversation.
Then there was the click of the front door shutting and after a moment Dad appeared.
Gil was too scared to look at him. He was in turmoil. What had Dad told the police? He must have told them something. The policeman seemed to know about the connection with Jude. What was Dad up to? Was he just stringing things out to make it as unpleasant for Gil as possible?
‘I need another coffee,’ said Dad, sitting down heavily at the table.
‘I think you need to tell us what’s going on first,’ said Mum, not moving.
‘Well, I told them my suspicions,’ said Dad calmly.
Gil felt the room begin to disintegrate. He wanted to be sick.
‘And your suspicions are . . .?’ asked Mum. Her fingers dug into Gil’s shoulder.
‘That this is likely to be the work of that animal rights activist who confronted me in town a couple of weeks ago. And I’ve told them that Gil —’
The pause was so long it sounded like a scream in Gil’s head.
‘That Gil may have passed on some crucial information without realising the damage it could cause.’
‘You mean he did it unintentionally,’ said Mum. For a moment Gil had no idea if this was a good thing or a bad thing. He had totally lost his bearings.
‘Yes,’ said Dad slowly. He reached out and began to fiddle with the handle of Mum’s empty teacup. ‘You know, it’s very odd. There are a number of things that don’t quite add up.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, the policeman told me the raiders didn’t manage to take all the animals. By some extraordinary quirk of fate, it looks as if all the mice from my project are still there. Just my animals, nobody else’s.’
‘But that’s amazing!’ said Mum. ‘That means you won’t have to start your research again from scratch!’
‘Yes, it’s amazing,’ said Dad. ‘Although not quite so amazing for my colleagues who’ve lost everything. Here’s the next odd thing. The police are convinced that someone deliberately set off the fire alarms in the building. The burglar alarms had been deactivated – it’s not clear when that was done. But the fire alarm in the room where I keep my mice had been smashed. It doesn’t look like an accident. They found a lot of blood on the floor, and blood on the glass of the alarm too, as if someone had cut themselves rather badly when they broke it . . .’
Gil’s hands were hidden under the table. He instinctively went to touch the place where he’d gashed himself, and winced with pain again.
Dad breathed deeply and glanced around the room, not quite managing to look directly at Gil. ‘Look, Rachel,’ he said, ‘could I possibly have another coffee?’
In the interval while Mum made coffee, Gil stared at the table and furiously tried to fathom exactly what Dad knew and what game he was playing. Dad knew his mice were safe. But if he thought Gil had anything to do with it he wouldn’t be talking about it now, would he? Had Dad really told the police that Gil was only involved accidentally? How much more than that did he know or suspect? How much longer could Gil sit here and pretend to know nothing about what had happened at the labs?
‘Right,’ said Mum at last, placing the coffee in front of Dad. ‘Go on.’ She pulled a chair up to sit next to Gil.
‘The police are baffled as to why anyone would have set off the fire alarm,’ said Dad. ‘It suggests there was someone there who wanted to stop the raid. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. And then – whoever it was – they seem to have made their escape from my office by climbing down twenty metres of fire escape ladder. In the dark. Alone, perhaps. With the sirens going off around them, and the police on their way, and an injury that caused a fair amount of bleeding.’
He’s talking about me, thought Gil. He can’t know it was me, can he? In his mind’s eye he watched his painful descent of the ladder, rung by rung, as if it were a scene in a film. He began to feel giddy.
‘How strange,’ said Mum thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘It’s a mystery.’
Gil felt the kitchen spinning quietly around him. Eventually he could bear it no longer.
‘I’ve hurt my hand,’ he said, much too loudly. ‘Look.’
He pulled his right hand from under the table and turned it palm upwards so that the wound was visible. A dark stain was beginning to show through the big square plaster. Dad reached across and took hold of Gil’s wrist.
‘That doesn’t look so good,’ he said. He started to peel back the plaster. As it came away it pulled sharply at the wound and Gil yelped in pain. Dad’s eyes widened and Mum gave a little gasp. The gash was oozing blood again and the edges of the hole gaped open. It looked huge.
‘What did you do, Gil?’ asked Dad.
‘I cut it on some glass,’ said Gil.
‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘Last night?’
‘Yes, when I was —’
Gil stopped and swayed forwards as if he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. His hand hurt so much he thought he was going to faint.
‘When I was —’ he tried again.
‘Oh, dear God, no,’ said Mum suddenly.
‘On some glass,’ Gil repeated dizzily. ‘On the glass of the . . . Dad, I need to tell you . . .’ He reached for the rest of the sentence in his head but it swam away from him.
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘No.’ She was not shouting, but the words were like gunshots. Gil looked up in surprise to see where they had come from.
‘What do you mean, no?’ said Dad. ‘I want to hear what Gil’s got
to say.’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘You do not. I forbid you. I forbid you both.’ She jumped up and grabbed some kitchen roll and held it gently against the wound in Gil’s hand.
‘Forbid me? I don’t understand.’
‘Listen to me,’ said Mum. She spoke rapidly and with agitation. ‘Over the last few weeks we have almost destroyed ourselves as a family. We have kept secrets from each other – all of us have. We are all responsible for this, and we are almost at the point of no return. If we stop now – if we turn back and deal with the awful things that happened yesterday – we have a chance. But this is a revelation too far. If we go on – if you insist, Matt, on hearing what Gil wants to tell you, and if you insist, Gil, on telling him, then I’m not sure there is any way out of this mess. At this precise moment I at least know very little about what happened last night. Can I beg you both that we keep it that way?’
Through his pain and guilt and confusion, slowly Gil began to understand. If he confessed, Mum and Dad would have to tell the police. Gil had no clear idea of what would happen then, but images from television police dramas filled his head – locked rooms with steel doors and no windows, a big policeman yelling right into his face, a courtroom with Mum and Dad miles above him in the gallery as he sat looking up from inside a cubicle of bullet-proof glass. And then prison – would they send him to prison? How serious was it, exactly, to take secret film of the labs and steal Dad’s keys and crack the code for the burglar alarm to enable Jude to break in and liberate the animals? Did they send thirteen-year-olds to prison for that?
‘But we need to know the truth,’ Dad said.
‘We know more than enough,’ said Mum. ‘And if you’re going to start talking about justice being done and facing up to the consequences of your actions and accepting the punishment you deserve, then I think we’ve all experienced enough of that in the last couple of days to last us a lifetime.’