by Gill, J. G.
“Who’d you think it would be, you numpty?” said Bede, in a voice that wasn’t much more than a whisper.
“You could have been anyone! What’s with all the sneaking up behind me and sticking your hand over my mouth?” I said, not so quietly. “Do you think it’s the movies or something?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” said Bede, “someone has trashed our house and written a nice little message on one of the mirrors. Do you really think it’s a smart move to be crashing about and screaming when whoever has done this might still be around?”
Now I was really mad. One thing I really hate is when Bede does the patronising ‘I’m your older brother, I know best’ routine.
“Of course I’ve noticed!” I said. “What do you think I was doing in Dad’s room, whistling the national anthem and admiring the wallpaper? If you’d just acted like a normal person and not grabbed me I wouldn’t have needed to scream, would I?”
“Clare, I know you. If I hadn’t done what I did we’d still be in that room having a big, heavy conversation about it. We really don’t have the time.”
I glared at him. There was that patronising tone of his again. Well I could rise above it and show him just how mature I really was.
“You’re a total dickhead,” I blurted. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t.
“Yeah, well you’re not exactly genius of the week either,” said Bede.
I could see this was fast turning into one of our usual slanging matches, and as much as I still had a whole stockpile of well-deserved insults that were itching to be dumped on Bede’s head, I figured they’d just have to wait.
“Have you tried calling Dad or Arlene?” I asked.
“Yeah, a few times. They’re not picking up.”
I glanced across at the phone that was dashed on the floor, its receiver lying belly up. Bede read my mind.
“It’s been cut,” he said. He pulled his mobile from his back pocket and tossed it to me. “Try again if you want. I’m going to raid whatever money we’ve got lying around the house.” I caught the phone with both hands.
“They’ll have already nicked it won’t they?” I said. Bede shook his head.
“That’s the weird thing. Everything’s been wrecked but nothing’s actually been taken.”
Arlene was the first name in Bede’s address book. I punched the ‘call’ button and listened impatiently to the ring tone. “Come on, come on,” I felt like screaming, as the monotonous ‘doot, doot’ rang in my ear. After a few seconds her silky voice message started playing. I waited for the tone and garbled a message into the mouthpiece.
“Arlene, it’s me, Clare. Umm, something’s happened at home and I’m just wondering if you can call me back. I mean, if you can call Bede back, this is his phone. I mean, you can call me back as well, it’s just my phone’s in my bag.”
Bede stopped ferreting around the kitchen for a moment to roll his eyes at me. I ignored him and called Dad’s number. Again, the dial tone began to ring in my ear, but this time I heard the phone ring, too.
“What the..?” Bede ran down the hall, trying to track down where the sound was coming from. He returned a few seconds later, his fingers clamped gingerly around Dad’s phone like the pincers on a crab. The phone was covered in bloody fingerprints. I hit the ‘call end’ button on Bede’s phone and looked at him in shock. I could feel my mouth open and start to shudder, but my screaming voice had suddenly deserted me. Instead, I stood staring at the phone.
“We’ve got to call the police,” I said.
I dialled the number and was about to hit ‘send’, when I suddenly heard a noise coming from somewhere behind me. It sounded distinctly like the back door creaking open against its hinges. Now there were footsteps, big, solid, clumpy ones, coming down the hall. Bede and I locked eyes, the whites of his shining like a panicked horse. Without speaking, he lunged for my shirt and hauled me down the corridor to the nearest bedroom. It happened to be mine. Before I could say a word, Bede flung me towards the bed.
“Get under it,” he hissed.
I dropped to the ground, too frightened to speak and scrambled under the valance. It’d been a long time since I’d dusted under there and for a second I thought I was going to have a sneezing fit. Luckily, I managed to stifle it just in time, as Bede slid under the other side next to me.
From the dull sound of heels thudding against the wooden floorboards, I could tell that the intruder was now in the lounge. I could also now hear a man’s voice, deep, and gruff, speaking in random chunks of sentences. He was clearly talking to someone on a mobile.
“Nah, there’s no sign of him. Looks like the kid’s legged it.”
I frowned at Bede questioningly. He shrugged and scrunched his mouth as if he was as confused as I was.
“I know, I know, it makes sense,” the man continued. “If that tip-off’s right and the kid’s murdered his own father, he’ll be long gone.”
“Murder?” I mouthed the words.
Bede shook his head in disbelief, while the man on the phone paused, presumably listening to the person on the other end of the line.
“Yeah sergeant, that’s right, Bede de Milo. I ran his stats in the car. He’s been in trouble before, but nothing this serious.”
“What the..?” Bede looked as if he’d just been punched in the stomach.
“From the information we’ve had, the kid’s likely to be armed and extremely dangerous. I know, ‘fair trial’ and all that, but this doesn’t look good.” There was a patch of silence, before the voice sucked its breath back behind its teeth. “Yeah, but young or not, murder is murder. It’s bad enough when it’s a complete stranger, but your own father? The kid’ll be locked away for years.”
I glanced at Bede, trying not to let the panic show on my face. He was paler than I’ve ever seen him. The man sighed into the phone.
“I agree, there’s not much point hanging around. I’ll cordon off the property now and head back to base. Might take another drive by later tonight. There’s a chance he’ll come back for his stuff.”
Bede and I listened silently from beneath the bed, as heavy footsteps receded down the hall towards the back door. Neither of us dared to breathe. Even after we’d heard the engine of the police car start, then drive away, we stayed perfectly still for at least another five minutes. It was Bede who broke the silence first.
“We’ve got to get going. Grab whatever you can – money, warm clothes, whatever else you think you might need – and I’ll meet you back here in five.” He’d already lifted the valance and was about to wriggle out from underneath the bed.
“Hang on, don’t we need to talk about this first?” I said, grabbing his arm. “It’s crazy what that policeman was saying, why don’t we just go down to the station and explain what’s happened? There’s obviously been some weird kind of mix up. Once we straighten it out they’ll be able to help us find Dad.”
Bede shot me a glance as if I’d just sprouted another head.
“Yeah, and what exactly are we going to ‘explain’?” he said sarcastically. “We don’t actually know what’s happened. The cops aren’t going to simply believe that someone’s playing a sick joke on us. They’ll lock me up on sight. Didn’t you hear that cop? Murder means getting put away for a long time, most likely in a psychiatric unit.”
“Only if you’ve done it, Bede, which you haven’t,” I said, returning his ‘don’t be such a moron’ stare. “What do you think running away’s going to do, other than convince the police they’re right?”
“They already seemed pretty convinced to me,” said Bede dryly. “Whoever the psycho is who’s gone and spread all that crap about me, they’ve obviously done a pretty good job.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to get you in trouble?” I said, thinking instantly of half a dozen of Bede’s idiot friends who had no concept of when ‘a joke’ wasn’t actually a joke.
“Nah,” said Bede, shaking his head dismissively. “We’ve got to find Dad an
d Arlene. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to sort this mess out.”
“Bede…” I paused, thinking how best to phrase what I wanted to say. “I know it’s a real long shot, but maybe Aunt Pixie could help us?”
Bede shook his head. “She hasn’t seen us for years, I don’t even know if she’d recognise us. Besides, this is about Dad, and you know how much she hates him.”
“I don’t know if she exactly hates him,” I said.
Still, I could see Bede’s point. Aunt Pixie and Dad had made no secret of the fact that they weren’t friends, and it was highly unlikely she’d want to get involved if it meant helping him. I stared at my brother for a couple of seconds, debating whether I should continue arguing or just do what he said. Normally I hated doing stuff just because Bede told me to. This time, though, I could tell he wasn’t just saying it for the thrill of bossing me around. He was as scared as I was.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly, “but if we don’t find them in the next few hours then we definitely need to go to the police.”
“Fine,” said Bede. From the tone of his voice I could tell he was just humouring me but I decided to let it go.
Shuffling sideways on my stomach, I scrambled ungracefully out from under the valance and onto my feet. I ran to the lounge. My backpack was still waiting for me at the front door where I’d left it. I grabbed it, pelted back to my room and dumped its innards on the floor, reloading it with jeans, socks, knickers, some tops and a couple of thick, warm jumpers. It was way more than I’d need for one night but I’d always been indecisive when it came to packing. Next, I threw in my phone, wallet and a hairbrush. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush from the rack and was about to signal to Bede that I was ready when I suddenly remembered we needed money. Running back to my room, my piggy bank was sitting conveniently on my bedside table. I snatched it, ripped the seal off the bottom, and stuffed its contents into my jeans pockets. Lastly, I slipped on the gold and silver bangle Mum had given me for my ninth birthday, the year before she died, and slung on my winter coat.
Bede popped his head around my door.
“Ready?” he said.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
Bede was wearing his large camping backpack, which made him look even bigger than he was. If I’m tall, my brother has a good head or so on me, and is broad with it. He gave me one of his lopsided grins.
“Got your lipstick?”
I gave him the one finger salute and smiled sarcastically as I made my way to the door. He grabbed my arm before I could pass into the hallway.
“Nah, we should leave by the window.”
I turned and glanced sceptically at the far end of the room where the dark triffid-like bushes were reaching out towards the glass.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Yeah, anyone could be watching the house,” said Bede. “The trees should give us some cover until we can get to the road.”
He opened the sash, dropped his bag onto the ground outside, and manoeuvred his long limbs through the window as if he’d done it a hundred times before. It suddenly occurred to me that, knowing my brother, it probably wasn’t too far away from the truth. I figured it was better not to ask.
I passed my bag through the window to him and tried to mimic the way I’d seen him slide his legs, one, then the other, neatly through the gap. As I felt my back scrape against the bottom of the sash, I knew how ridiculous I must have looked. Bede turned away from me, his body shaking with laughter.
“C’mon,” he said, stifling a smirk as we headed down Percy Road, across Dowling Street, and onto Beasley Pass. As I struggled to keep up, I realised I hadn’t bargained on just how much speed an extra bit of leg length could add. Although I had to admit, it wasn’t just leg-length that was the problem – I was seriously out of shape. Who’d have thought skateboarding all day could make you so fit? I thought resentfully. My lungs were now burning a hole in my chest and I began to regret the time I’d spent finding novel ways to dodge sports at school.
“Man, you’re slow,” said Bede, stopping yet again to let me catch up.
“Yeah, well now’s not exactly a great time to be worrying about my fitness,” I said.
Bede shook his shaggy head and rolled his eyes at me again.
“Let’s head to the river, we’ll be able to hide down there.”
I nodded, while grimacing silently to myself. The Wiltsdown River was still several kilometres away. I took a deep breath and tried to cajole my legs into running again. Man, I was going to be sore the next day.
The afternoon was steadily blackening into night and the street lamps had begun sputtering into life. The neatly manicured lawns of the neighbourhoods, so ghostly peaceful in the twilight, seemed surreal when I thought of the devastation we’d left at home. By the time we’d reached the banks of the river it was completely dark, but if I looked south to the Old Town I could still make out the vague shape of the clock tower on the far bank. The bridges spanning the river to either side of us were covered in car headlights. A pang of envy struck me as I imagined the lucky passengers travelling home to their safe, normal lives.
Bede suddenly elbowed me in the ribs and I turned to see him pointing towards Murphy Bridge, immediately in front of us.
“If we cross here we can walk down to the old jetty,” he said.
I nodded. If it was privacy we wanted then the old jetty made sense. No one ever went down there any more. We began walking along the footbridge and were halfway across when Bede made an announcement that made me stop dead in my tracks.
“We can hopefully find somewhere to camp down here tonight.”
“Camp?” I said. “You mean, as in ‘outdoors’?”
“Yeah, that’s usually what camping means,” he said.
“Bede, it’s winter. We’ll freeze,” I argued.
“C’mon,” he said, beckoning with his hand as if completely ignoring what I’d just said. I stood my ground.
“No. This is completely ridiculous. I still think we should go to the police and explain.”
This time Bede paid attention.
“Look, Clare, if the police get hold of me I don’t know what they’re going to do. Please, trust me on this, it’s going to be okay.”
My brother’s had some harebrained ideas in the past, but the way he was looking at me, so serious and frightened, made me believe that this one was different.
“Okay,” I said eventually, “but I’m trusting you.”
We carried on walking while I fished out my mobile to check if Arlene had called. There were no new messages. I thought about asking Bede to check his phone too, but then I realised there was probably no point. If Arlene hadn’t called me, then she definitely wouldn’t have called him. Those two had never got on. I think it was partly Mum’s death, which had hit us both really hard, but Arlene also didn’t make much of a secret that she found Bede and me a bit of an inconvenience. She also had this really annoying way of manipulating Dad into doing whatever she wanted – buying the new house was just one example. Neither Bede nor I trusted her, but I think I was probably just better at hiding it than he was.
I began gazing at the thick black oiliness of the water below, imaging how cold it was, when my thoughts were shattered by the sound of a police siren approaching from somewhere behind us. Bede began to walk faster.
“Just keep going,” he said. “Don’t act weird or anything and it will probably just drive by.”
I frowned at him. Did he really think I was about to cartwheel my way through the traffic or something?
Bede caught my look. “Just let me do the talking, okay?” he said.
I sighed quietly to myself. He was doing that ‘I’m the oldest’ thing again.
“Fine,” I said.
The siren was now deafeningly loud, making me cringe into the collar of my coat as I waited for it to tear past. Then, all of a sudden, the wailing stopped and I could hear a car slowing down. It crawled towards the kerb and pulled up just
in front of us. I glanced at Bede.
“Just act normal,” he said.
We watched as an officer stepped out of the car and started walking slowly towards us. I could feel the muscles in my chest tense up, just like they do before an exam. The officer nodded to us.
“Evening. Where are you two heading?”
“Just into the Old Town,” said Bede.
“Something special happening tonight?”
“Umm, not really,” said Bede. “Just going to see…umm, a band.” He glanced at me for support and I nodded on cue.
“Who’s playing?”
“Oh, no one really, it’s just some High School thing,” said Bede, shifting nervously on his feet.
The officer glanced sceptically at Bede’s back-pack.
“Clothes,” said Bede quickly, “for the band.”
The officer gave a small nod. “Would you mind just staying here for a minute?” he said.
“Sure,” said Bede, sounding anything but sure. I sneaked a sidelong glance at him, as the officer ambled back towards his car. Bede had his ‘serious face’ on, the one that always made me worry that something bad was about to happen. The officer crouched by the boot of the car and began examining one of the tail lights.
“I don’t suppose either of you noticed if one of these lights was out when I pulled in?” he said.
“Err, no,” I said, completely forgetting Bede’s instructions about letting him do the talking. As soon as the words were out though, it was too late. I figured I couldn’t just stop talking or else it would be too weird and the officer would definitely suspect something. There was only one thing for it, I had to keep talking like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I mean, we didn’t notice if it wasn’t working, not that it actually wasn’t. Although it probably was working. I mean, it’s a police car, isn’t it? Stuff on police cars always works. It’s not like a normal car is it? If it was, how would you catch anyone? Not that you probably do want to catch anyone…”