by Mark Hill
She pointed to the glass as she headed out of the room. ‘Refill, please.’
24
All the way home, that feeling he was being followed. Drake swung the car into the dark square outside his house. The engine shuddered and died.
On the passenger seat, the phone rang. The caller’s name and number was blocked. He put it to his ear, ready this time. ‘Yes.’
The electronic voice was aggressive. ‘You thought you could hide from me?’
‘Who is this?’
‘You thought I wouldn’t know where to find you?’
Drake twisted in his seat to scan the square. ‘Why should I speak to you, if you won’t identify yourself?’
‘Because you’re to blame!’ The static exploded angrily, the words becoming discordant. ‘You’re guilty and you’re going to pay the price. Don’t think for one moment, one moment, you won’t. You made it happen, you made it happen, and you will pay, just like those others.’
‘Tell me your name.’ Drake swung open the car door, stepping into the cold night to look beyond the yellow spray of the streetlamps.
‘I’m many people now, so many people,’ said the voice, speaking urgently. ‘One, two, twelve, twenty, so many it’s difficult to keep count.’ Digital glitches gave every word, each vowel, an abrupt glottal slap. ‘So don’t try to find me, because I’m all around you. I’m close, I’m everywhere.’
‘We knew each other.’ Turning in a slow circle, Drake’s feet crunched on the frost clinging to the road. ‘I met you at the home.’
‘You can’t hide from me,’ said the voice bitterly. ‘I found you, like I found the others.’
Drake tried to sound calm, reasonable. ‘Why don’t we meet?’
‘Oh, we’re going to meet,’ the voice screeched. ‘You think I don’t know where you are, and how to get to you? I know who you are.’
On the other side of the square an indistinct figure approached, phone clamped to its ear, and Drake moved towards it, his feet clipping noisily on the road.
The voice was shouting, smothered by clicks and loops as the connection warped and distorted. ‘I – ember – you did – I – saw – fire!’
‘I don’t know what you think you—’
‘You’re to bla – and like the oth – you will pay the con–quences!’
The figure – he saw a raincoat, a cap pulled low – increased its stride as Drake accelerated towards it, but then it turned quickly into a gate and fumbled a key at a door. Drake stopped dead on the pavement, recognising his neighbour. The door thudded shut.
‘Do you think it’s right that everyone should carry on with their lives as if nothing happened?’ screamed the voice, the connection stabilising. ‘I was alone in that place!’
‘Tell me your name.’
‘You’re going to pay!’
‘Tell me who you are,’ repeated Drake.
‘You think you don’t have to face the consequences of your actions. You’re wrong and you will pay, you will all pay.’
Moving back towards his own house, Drake saw a slanted shadow across the alley that led to the garden. The side door was ajar. ‘You killed them all?’
‘Not all, but soon.’
‘Then let’s meet, let’s talk about it.’
‘Oh, we’ll meet soon enough.’ Static flared in Drake’s ear. ‘Sooner than you think.’
Drake pushed open the side door, peered down the unlit path. ‘When?’
‘You people, with your happy lives, with your loving families, have no idea. You think you can carry on like nothing happened!’
‘Are you here now?’ Drake squinted into the blackness of the side alley. ‘Are you at my home?’
‘Just remember I know who you are, and where you are,’ the voice said. ‘The wife is already dead, I would have liked to have killed her myself, but the daughter …’
‘No!’ Drake’s heart clenched.
‘You remember me,’ the voice screamed, ‘and I know you. The Two O’Clock Boy is coming!’
A car sped past, the heavy thud of bass thumping from its window, making Drake flinch. When he replaced the phone to his ear, the call had been disconnected. He slipped it into his pocket.
The path at the side of the house was usually lit by a security light activated by a motion detector, but when Drake waved a hand beneath the sensor it didn’t work. He walked slowly along the narrow corridor, one hand against the cold brick, the light diminishing with every step.
At the edge of the garden, foliage shivered in the wind. Fallen leaves crunched beneath his feet. Then—
Footsteps ran along the alley. Pain detonated in his head, a starburst of light and colour obliterated his vision. His legs crumpled beneath him. Drake had a fleeting sense of someone in front and also behind, and he let the forward momentum barrel him into the waist of his attacker, heaving them against the wall.
Grappling for a hold, Drake lashed out with a fist, but there was no power behind his punch, and another jolting pain in his kidneys took his breath away. He dropped to his knees and slid onto his back beneath a hail of blows. Curled up, covering his head as best he could against kicks and punches. Thudding into his hands, his face and stomach, sending jolting pain along his ribs and spine.
It was all he could do to breathe. A boot stung his cheek. A rib clicked in his chest. With one final fierce kick into his side, the attack stopped. Drake rolled onto his back, groaning, vision spinning. Two figures towered above him, their features obliterated by darting shapes behind his eyes.
One of them crouched. Breath bloomed in Drake’s face. ‘Cockroach! You’re a cockroach!’ A finger was pushed hard into his temple, forcing his head to the paving. ‘Mind your own fucking business!’
Someone spat on his shirt, and then he heard footsteps clatter away. Craning his neck, he saw the silhouettes of his burly attackers high-fiving, heard the smack of their palms, as they leapt, laughing, exhilarated, on the tilted paving.
When they had gone, Drake lay on the stone patio, letting the pounding in his head subside, watching the stars trail across the sky like meteorites, until the world shifted itself the right way up. His phone vibrated in his breast pocket. Even the gentle buzz of it, the flutter of the slim sliver of metal, was a hammer against his chest. Gingerly, he lifted his arm, gritting his teeth against the jolting shocks crackling down his body, and took it out. Its blue screen flashed in his face.
He didn’t want to answer it, just wanted to lie there for a while, let the frost dampen his hair – but knew he had to.
His voice was a croak. ‘Ray Drake.’
‘DI Drake?’ Amelia Troy’s voice was tense. ‘There’s somebody here. I think there’s somebody outside my building.’
25
1984
The boy was bright eyed and bushy tailed, and as soon as he saw him, Elliot wanted to smash his face in.
‘Who’s this, then?’ he asked.
‘I’m Toby!’
He was the kind of kid you saw on telly shows. A mop of blond hair, a button nose and a big smile – off for adventures all day and back home for tea, the Secret Seven and all that crap. He even dressed like it. He wore a tank top patterned with purple diamonds that looked like someone’s blind granny had knitted it. The leather tongue on his sandals curled with age, and his trousers didn’t quite reach down to his ankles – he’d grown out of them – revealing ridiculous red woollen socks.
Elliot smirked. ‘Where’s he been evacuated from?’
A muscle tweaked in Gordon’s jaw. ‘Shake the boy’s hand, lads, like proper gentlemen.’
Connor and Elliot reluctantly took his hand and he shook energetically. But when Gordon turned away, Elliot scowled.
Toby beamed as if he didn’t see it. ‘I’m on holiday!’
There was something off about him, Elliot decided. He was too tidy, too spirited. He didn’t belong here, not in this place.
There was something different about Gordon, too. Recently, he’d been looking incr
easingly unkempt; his pockmarked face had become blotchy, and he wore the same clothes every day. But this morning he’d made an effort, changed his shirt, pulled on a tie, and for the first morning in a long time didn’t stink of spirits. To go and meet the boy’s parents, Gordon said, and bring him back here.
‘Toby’s going to be staying with us, just for a week or two.’
‘Yes, sir!’ The boy spoke as if being there was the most exciting thing ever. Elliot almost felt sorry for the kid. He was clever, you could tell by his bright eyes, by the way he spoke, but he knew nothing about the world.
‘I want you two to look after him, and ensure he settles in.’ Gordon locked eyes with Elliot. ‘Do you hear me? The boy is to be made welcome.’ He ruffled Toby’s hair. ‘He’s a happy chappy.’
Elliot favoured the kid with an angry grin. He slapped Toby on the back so hard that the boy staggered forward. ‘I’ll show you around.’
When the two boys left the office, Gordon pulled down the tie and collapsed into his chair.
‘Toby’s the son of a couple of old friends.’ Taking a bottle from a drawer, his hand trembled as he poured Scotch into a dirty glass. ‘I knew his father a long time ago, back when I was still something vaguely respectable in the community. They’re good people, Connor. Better than you or I will ever be.’ The tendons in his neck snapped taut like rope when he drank. ‘The lad’s grandma is unwell and lives in Singapore. Do you have any idea where that is, boy?’
‘Asia,’ said Connor.
‘Aye, a world away. Toby’s parents have gone to care for her, and Bernard has asked me to look after his son while they’re gone because he thinks I’m a good man. What do you think of that? The fool thinks I’m the man to care for his boy.’ He rubbed a hand across his bewildered face. ‘And like an idiot I said yes, because for one moment I forgot who I really was, I forgot I’m the kind of creature who swims with sharks. Always moving, always looking to feed.’ He moved his hand through the air like a fin through the ocean, eyeing Connor. ‘You’re a little like that, too, I’d say … or perhaps you think you’re better than me.’
When Connor didn’t reply, Gordon jumped up to pace. ‘Truth of the matter is, Connor, I’ve debts. You know what debts are?’
‘You owe people money.’
‘Big debts, lad. I owe money to some very bad people, and on top of that I’ve a dirty pig demanding cash I don’t have. I could do without having some snotty kid hanging around the place. Because we both know, don’t we, that I’m not a good man.’ He stopped at the desk to refill the glass. ‘Perhaps a long time ago I had the potential to be one, but I made the wrong choices. As you will, too. The last thing I need is for him to run back home telling tales about this place to Ma and Pa. So I’m relying on you and Elliot to keep him happy. If I hear he’s sad, if I see tears bulging in his angelic little eyes, I’m going to hold you responsible.’
When Connor turned to leave, Gordon put down the glass and said: ‘And do you know another thing about sharks, Connor?’
‘No.’
‘Sharks never forget, boy. So don’t be thinking you got away with our little confrontation the other night.’
In the kitchen, Connor heard Toby’s voice lifting from the bottom of the garden as he animatedly explained something about a bug on a leaf to Kenny and Debs and several others.
‘Who does he think he is? He shook everyone’s hand.’ Elliot put on a posh voice when Connor arrived at his side. ‘I’m Toby! How do yew do! How do yew do!’ His foot tapped impatiently, as if eager to stamp the insect into the mud and the new kid along with it. ‘If he tries to explain stuff to me, I’ll give him something to think about!’
‘You’ll do nothing.’
Elliot bit down on his response; he owed Connor now.
Ronnie and Gerry were sat fully dressed in the sun with a Monopoly board between them, and no sign of the tins of lager that usually littered the floor beneath their deckchairs. The Dents playing a board game – the world had gone mad.
If Toby Turrell was surprised by the squalor of the house, or the listless behaviour of the children, he didn’t show it. Over the next week he was like a ray of sunshine at the Longacre. His delighted singing could be heard all over the house. It was high and reedy like a choirboy’s, and even Connor found it soothing, particularly at night when his voice drifted down from the bedroom above. Toby organised games in the garden, and if Connor didn’t take part himself, he made a point of rounding up some of the other kids to join in.
Gordon kept mostly to his office. But on the occasions when he did emerge, he would laugh and joke. If there was a spill in the kitchen, or a child broke one of the rules, he wouldn’t scream or lash out. He wouldn’t lock them for hours in the small room behind the office. At night nobody listened anxiously for the thud of his footsteps on the stairs.
Everyone’s mood lifted, even Elliot had to admit that. Nobody understood why it had changed with the arrival of this boy – they were just going to enjoy the freedom while it lasted. The kids hoped Toby would stay there for ever, but he told everyone in his sing-song voice that he was on holiday. His parents would be coming soon to take him home.
Even that Ray kid had stopped hanging around. Connor didn’t see him when he was trudging alone around the borough with the brown packages hidden in a bag, and the handcuffs he always kept hidden in his pocket. Alone all day, his mind whirled with painful thoughts and feelings. Sometimes he felt like he was going to snap, like he was going to explode. He didn’t understand how he had ended up at that place, or why he stayed. It would be the easiest thing in the world to slip away. The city was big, the country vast, and Gordon couldn’t find him in a million years, wouldn’t even bother. But at the end of each day, when the bag was empty, something made him go back there – a weird sense of responsibility – even though the other kids avoided him. Sometimes the situation would become too much and would stop him in his tracks. It came out of nowhere, always when he was alone, when nobody could see. An angry loneliness would blast through him like a shockwave, making him dizzy, and he would drop to his knees and wait for it to pass.
Connor wanted to cry, but he couldn’t.
When his parents were delayed in Singapore, Toby’s stay was extended. A week became two, became three. The strain of having to keep his temper in check was getting to Gordon. Connor could see that. The manager did his best to stay out of the way, but the funk of booze and body odour in his office was almost unbearable on the occasions Connor went in there. Total strangers, mostly Gordon’s business associates, trooped in and out as usual, and there was often laughing and music behind the door into the early hours. Once, the copper from the nick, the one whose handcuffs he had stolen, came out without giving him a second glance. When he did emerge from his office, Gordon was snappy and irritable, and didn’t care whether Toby saw it or not.
One night, it was Elliot’s turn to help Gerry Dent make dinner, sausages and packet mash. Connor was sat between Ricky and Regina at one of the two dining tables. Chatter tumbled anxiously from Toby Turrell, opposite. The novelty of his presence had worn off. Most of the kids had become tired of his incessant stream of conversation and his knowledge about everything under the sun, and stayed out of his way.
And despite the increasingly bored efforts of Ronnie and Gerry to keep order, Toby had seen more than enough of the bullying and tension rife in the home, and spent a lot of time alone reading the books he’d brought with him. He was smiling as he babbled to Kenny, but Connor could sense his puzzlement about still being there.
‘My parents are going to come for me, soon. They’re coming to take me home. Shall we play a game after this, Kenny?’
‘Don’t feel like it,’ mumbled Kenny, and turned away.
Connor hadn’t seen Gordon. Usually, at about teatime, he strode from his office to bark instructions to the Dents, but tonight he was nowhere to be seen. Toby’s voice soared above the other conversations at the table, grating on everybody’s nerves.
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br /> ‘Daddy builds things.’ His attention turned hopefully to Connor. ‘And I help.’
Connor watched the kitchen doorway, suspicious. Elliot was walking around with a satisfied look on his face. Something was going on, something was definitely up.
‘He likes to teach me things. Carpentry, pottery. Honest work, he calls it. When I’m older, when I’m grown up, I shall make the most beautiful things. Daddy says I will be a very useful chap.’
When Elliot brought the food in, softly placing the plates in front of the kids, there was an angelic expression on his face that had no business being there. Usually, he enjoyed dropping the plates of lumpy mash and gristly sausage hard on the table so that the gravy splashed everywhere. But there was a gentleness about his movements that hardened Connor’s suspicions.
Connor was starving, as he always was on his delivery days. He was usually out of the door before breakfast, and back in the afternoon after walking miles. But looking down at the yellow splodge of mash in its puddle of thin gravy, he lost his appetite. He’d eat as much as he could stomach. The other children hungrily forked up their food as soon as it was put in front of them – everyone except Toby who, too busy talking, hadn’t realised his plate hadn’t arrived yet. Elliot came out of the kitchen with it, his thumb carelessly slipped into the mash.
Placing the plate down, he winked at Connor. ‘Here you go.’
Toby didn’t notice the food. ‘You must be very careful near a lathe, and follow the safety instructions, or you will lose a hand.’
Finally, he picked up his fork and looked down.
The sound of his chair screeching on the linoleum cut through the conversation. Elliot guffawed, and the kids crowded around Toby to look. Scrabbling around the mound of mash, its legs flicking in the gravy, was a cockroach. Everyone giggled, including Connor. It was funny to see the little creature, shiny brown shell glistening with tiny globules of food, antennas jerking and twitching, as it stumbled around.