The Two O'Clock Boy

by Mark Hill

  She shouldn’t be near him. Dylan shouldn’t be near him. He was despicable, toxic, and deserved their contempt and hatred. His old man had made him that, and that creep Tallis. Both of them long dead, but both still gleefully pulling his strings, making him dance to their tune.

  All he could think to say, even though he knew it was the understatement of the century, was: ‘I messed up.’

  ‘Tell me what you did.’ Her eyes dropped to his bloody fist, which throbbed on the end of his arm. He wished she wouldn’t keep repeating it. ‘Tell me what you did.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, voice hoarse, because it would be the end.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Elliot shook his head.

  Dylan clattered down the stairs with a bag, and Rhonda told him to get to his room. She needed to pack some things before they left.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked the boy. ‘What’s going on with Elliot?’

  ‘Go back upstairs.’

  ‘I didn’t mean what I said, about him being just some passing bloke.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Elliot’s voiced cracked with emotion. ‘And don’t you ever think it is. None of it.’

  ‘Go to your room!’ snapped Rhonda, and the boy thumped back upstairs, a strangled little noise coming from his throat. ‘We can work this out. Whatever you’ve done, or think you’ve done, we can get past it.’

  ‘Not this.’ His tongue felt swollen. ‘We can’t get past this.’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve done.’

  Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of him. After a lifetime of lies, to himself and everybody else, they had become such a part of him that he barely knew where they ended and where the real Elliot Juniper began. The Two O’Clock Boy had always known the truth about Elliot, had known the kind of man he was.

  ‘You have to take responsibility for yourself,’ Rhonda told him. ‘If you can’t do it for me or for Dylan, then do it for yourself. Because if you don’t, you will never be happy.’

  ‘I’ll never be happy without you.’

  ‘You should have thought about that earlier. Before you brought this, whatever this is,’ she kicked the rucksack with her foot, ‘into my home.’ She didn’t raise her voice, that wasn’t Rhonda’s style, but it was full of quiet contempt. ‘Congratulations, Elliot, you’ve finally gone too far. You’ve brought it into our home, Elliot, our home, and you can’t even be truthful with me.’

  ‘That’s me.’ He laughed miserably. ‘Elliot the idiot.’

  ‘Ask yourself how you can make it stop, all the unhappiness you carry with you, because I don’t think I’m enough. I hoped I would be, that Dylan would be, but we’re not.’

  ‘This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘No,’ she said bitterly, ‘it isn’t. You’re the only one who can stop reacting to the world like a bullied little boy and become a grown-up. And you can start by taking responsibility for this.’ She nodded at the bag. ‘Will you do that, Elliot?’

  He whispered, ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Then tell me what you’ve done,’ she said. ‘Tell me why there’s a gun in my home and I promise we will get through this.’

  He wanted to tell her, but he had killed a man, and there were some things that could never be, should never be, forgiven.

  She shouldn’t be around him, neither of them should. The one sliver of hope was that he would get them away from that maniac, and they would be safe.

  And so he said: ‘Just go.’

  And Rhonda gave him a cold, reproachful look that obliterated all his hopes and dreams of a future, any kind of future, and climbed the stairs.

  48

  Ray Drake’s car skidded to a stop outside Amelia Troy’s warehouse. He killed the engine and lights.

  Amelia’s floor was dark. The steel door was ajar. Edging inside the building, he called the lift. The mechanism boomed into life high above him. He raised the handgun, but when the elevator arrived, its innards lit by the sallow bulb, it was empty.

  Drake stepped inside, pulling the metal cage shut, and hit the button. In this tiny box he would be a sitting duck when it reached the top, but it was the only way up. Unscrewing the hot bulb above his head, Drake plunged the lift into darkness. He crunched the bulb beneath his foot. The upper floors passed dimly, infused faintly with an ambient glow.

  The lift thunked to a halt at Amelia’s floor. Inches of speckled floor were visible at his feet, and the lights of the city in the windows, but the space in between was a blank. Careful to keep his gun raised, he rattled open the cage and called: ‘Amelia!’

  Stepping out, Drake could just about make out the surface of the long table. The rectangular canvas frames loomed black against the sills, like portals into space. His careful steps scraped on the concrete floor as he swung round the side of the elevator, back pressed against the shaft. The furnished area of the space was smothered in gloom, the lamps switched off. Drake wished he’d brought a torch.

  ‘Anyone here?’ A rustle in the darkness. ‘Amelia?’

  He moved forward and bumped his knees against the sofa. Drake found the metal pole of the standing lamp and scrabbled with the switch – but it didn’t come on.

  There was a muffled sound of distress. Pistol raised, Drake took out his phone with his free hand and touched the screen to bathe the area in front of him – a foot, perhaps, no more – with a faint blue light. Gun pointed, phone light sprayed ahead, he rounded the sofa.

  A figure was seated in the dark, just beyond the circle of light. He heard the shuffle of plastic, a muffled cry. Drake stepped forward, stumbling over the lip of a rug, and the figure in the chair was revealed.

  Amelia bound in layers of clinging plastic.

  As soon as she saw him, she strained in the chair. Drake moved forward. And the phone light whipped across someone rushing towards him in the darkness.

  Drake lifted the weapon, bracing with both hands against the recoil, and fired. Once, twice.

  The explosions were deafening in the dark. The windows vibrated in their frames, a toneless buzz, and the figure was flung backwards. Drake lifted the phone and edged forward, small pigeon steps in the dark, to see the featureless face of the tailor’s dummy on the floor. Jagged splinters splayed from its wooden chest. The upended wheels spun on their stand.

  Drake retreated to Amelia and tore at the plastic over her mouth. Her eyes stared at him in terror. He was getting nowhere fast with the gun in his hand, and shoved it beneath his armpit to fumble in his pocket for his keys, using a serrated edge to cut the material. It tore away, shreds of it corkscrewing around her cheek.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he told her, ‘just stay still.’

  When her mouth was free, Amelia was almost hysterical. ‘He’s … he’s—’

  Then she screamed.

  A blur of movement at the edge of the tiny circle of light.

  A metal bar swung out of the darkness. Instinctively, Drake lifted his arm high to protect his head. His shoulder went dead. The gun dropped to the floor. Another stinging blow to the thigh dropped him to his knees. Reaching for the gun he swung it up, but the weapon was knocked from his hand and skittered into the darkness. Drake’s arms and legs propelled him backwards. He scuttled like a crab as a shape – a mass, a weight barely heavier than the blackness surrounding it – moved with him, bringing down the steel rod. Sparks flew up from the concrete floor in the space between his legs.

  At any moment, one of those blows would find his skull and it would be game over. Drake kicked blindly with his leg into the dark, and the mass stumbled. He heard the metal bar clatter on the concrete.

  A faint rectangle of light lay behind him, the phone upside down on the rough floor. Drake rolled on his side, scrabbling the last few inches to snatch it. Holding the phone to the floor, its glow revealing an inch of racing blue concrete, he scrambled to where the gun had disappeared.

  Behind him, he heard the metal rod scrape as it was picked up. The gun appeared in the phone’s scant light and
Drake lunged for it, rolling onto his back and pulling the trigger.

  The gun discharged three times. He heard the rod hit the floor with a discordant clang.

  When the echo of the shots had died, he lay there – trying not to pass out from the juddering pain that rippled through his already beaten body. The rod rolled out of the blackness and touched his foot. Drake listened to his own rapid breath, heard the elevator cage open.

  ‘Not yet!’ that familiar voice echoed. ‘Soon, though. Very soon.’

  The cage door shut. The elevator chuntered into life and descended.

  Amelia screamed in the chair, rocking from side to side in a frenzy.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Drake, climbing wearily to his feet. ‘I’m here.’

  49

  There it was again, that noise, barely louder than the squeak of a mouse.

  Myra Drake had lived in this house all her life and was familiar with its every wheeze and sigh. People presumed that the older you got, the more your senses degraded, but she had always had excellent hearing. Her eyes weren’t what they once were, and these days everything tasted the same, but her ears were as sharp as ever.

  Raymond insisted that she leave, but she had always intended to stay, despite her promise to him. This was her home, and she was not going to let anybody scare her away. Besides, she didn’t even know if she still had a suitcase. At Myra’s age it was sensible to assume your next trip would not require luggage.

  A few months ago, Raymond had given her a mobile phone with his number programmed into it, in case of an accident. She held it now. The small plastic rectangle felt insubstantial in her palm. Raymond had told her how to operate it, explaining the buttons in a loud and condescending manner. She was a pensioner, she had told him, not an imbecile. But no matter how many times she pressed the On button, the screen remained blank. The battery on the device had died. She had never recharged it. So she sat on the sofa and listened. Seconds later, a loose tile on the parquet rattled outside the door.

  ‘Stop that creeping around, I can hear you.’ It was a big house, and easy to get lost. ‘In here.’

  A man walked in, dressed in black from head to toe, and wearing a balaclava. He held a long knife in his hand.

  ‘Take that off,’ she said. ‘You look ridiculous.’

  The intruder’s eyes bulged. Then he pulled off the woollen garment, brushing a hand over his scalp to remove any clinging fibres.

  ‘Careful.’ Myra’s smile was brittle. ‘You don’t want to leave any DNA around the place.’

  ‘It’s too late to worry about that,’ said the boy. He walked around the room, hands clasped behind his back. Perusing the bookcase, the items on the mantelpiece, taking a great interest in everything, as if he were a tourist at a stately home. ‘Do you remember me?’

  Myra considered him. ‘You appear to be an eminently forgettable person. Should I?’

  For so many years he had strived to be invisible to others, as insubstantial as vapour – that was how he was able to go about his business so successfully – and yet her response made his blood boil. He perched on the arm of a chair, sensing it would irritate her, even as she was facing death.

  ‘We met a long time ago.’

  ‘And you are here to kill me.’

  ‘Yes. And then your granddaughter will die. And, of course …’ His grin was sarcastic. ‘Your boy.’

  Myra Drake’s thumbs spun restlessly in her lap. ‘I doubt that. Raymond is a better man than you in every way. He has more intelligence and more guile. He will not allow himself to be murdered, by you or any other person.’

  What the boy could tell her, the supercilious old crone, was how he could have killed him twice already; how he had placed a knife to his throat only this morning, was so close he could see the tendons in his neck glide beneath the skin; how he had toyed with him in the warehouse only this evening. He could also tell her just how many people had died at his hands. That would wipe the sneer off her face. ‘After everything you have done for him, and he’s allowed you to die.’

  ‘It is not his place to allow me to do anything. Besides, it’s something of a relief. Since the death of my husband, I confess I’ve found life somewhat trying.’

  ‘I can understand that. My time is also coming to an end.’

  ‘Well,’ the corners of her mouth twitched, ‘that’s something, I suppose. And how do you intend to kill me?’ He placed the long blade, its polished edge gleaming, across his knees. Myra pulled her cardigan around her shoulders. ‘Will it be quick?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’ll take my time and you will die in agony. I harbour a lifetime’s resentment against your family.’

  Myra’s stare glittered with contempt. ‘I remember you now. There was something off about you even then. It was those dead eyes.’

  ‘I was just a boy!’ he shouted.

  ‘And you are now a dismal little man.’

  A tear ran down his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘I’m not the man I should be, that’s true enough.’

  ‘Well, if nothing else, you’re not self-deceiving.’

  The man checked his watch and jumped up. ‘Well, let’s get on.’

  Myra nodded bleakly. When he stepped forward, lifting the knife, she raised a shaking hand.

  ‘Please,’ she said, and he stopped.

  Myra Drake took off her glasses and folded them neatly on the occasional table, beneath the ornate lamp and beside her copy of Trollope, as she had done every night for fifty, sixty years.

  Routine was important to Myra Drake and, looking back, considering all the turbulent events she had experienced, the people she had lost … well, it hadn’t been a bad sort of life. She clicked open the locket to look one last time at the photograph inside. Running a trembling thumb over it, she thought of her boy, Raymond. Then she folded her hands in her lap and shut her eyes. Whatever happened in the next few seconds, she would not open them again. She nodded.

  Myra felt a faint breeze as her murderer swung the blade high above his head. She clenched her teeth, determined not to cry out …

  And then there was a knock on the front door. Her eyes snapped open. Myra was ready to shout, but the man lifted the tip of the blade to her jaw.

  Another knock, and someone called. The man’s eyes slid towards the hallway, and the smile that lit up his face was ghastly.

  ‘I’m going to enjoy this.’

  50

  1984

  Leonard and Myra Drake arrived unexpectedly on the doorstep of the Longacre with Ray and a photographer from the local newspaper.

  ‘I hope we haven’t come at an inopportune time.’ Myra’s faint smile to Gordon Tallis suggested that she didn’t much care one way or the other what he thought. ‘My son was keen for us to see the work you do here. And Mr Sutherland from the local newspaper has agreed to record the occasion.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Gordon, biting down on his panic. ‘It will be my pleasure to talk to you, and perhaps give you a tour. However,’ he said, eyeing Ray, ‘your son can’t come in. I’m afraid he attacked one of our children. I don’t know what he’s told you—’

  ‘He’s told us enough,’ said Leonard, looking unhappy about leaving his car in such an unsavoury area.

  ‘I will vouch for my son’s behaviour,’ Myra said.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that he remains outside. The rest of you are welcome to come in.’

  Myra Drake considered Gordon. ‘Very well,’ she said eventually.

  ‘I want to come in,’ said Ray, annoyed. ‘I want to hear what he says.’

  ‘Wait in the car,’ his mother told him. ‘And we’ll talk afterwards.’

  Ray pressed forward. ‘I’m not staying outside.’

  ‘Raymond,’ said Myra Drake quietly. A single look from her silenced him. And no wonder, Gordon decided. It was a look that could fell a charging elephant. ‘Go to the car.’

  The boy threw an angry glance at Gordon, and pushed past the p
hotographer down the steps, throwing himself against the Daimler parked below.

  ‘Come in.’ Gordon led them into the office, Myra taking her older husband’s free arm – he leaned heavily on a cane with the other – to help him inside.

  Gordon was panicking. There had been no warning, no time to make the home look halfway presentable. All he could do was command the Dents to tidy the place as best they could in the time available. But Ronnie and Gerry had never had a talent for moving quickly, and to his frustration he knew the house wasn’t going to be miraculously transformed in a few, short minutes.

  ‘Which of the little bastards look presentable enough to meet them?’ He surveyed the kids roaming the garden.

  ‘There’s the new one,’ said Gerry. ‘The little fella’s going home soon, so he’ll be in a good mood.’

  Toby Turrell sat cross-legged, staring at the ground. Listening nearby, Connor saw Gordon tense at the thought of the boy returning home, and knew he wouldn’t – couldn’t – allow that, not after what the kid had seen. Someone like Sally, estranged from her family and with few ties to the world, could disappear, but not a boy with devoted parents. Gordon must see that no more harm could come to him. Trouble was, these days his thinking was all over the place.

  The manager grabbed Connor. ‘Round up some of the ones you trust to keep their mouths shut and come to my office.’ When Connor turned to leave, Gordon pulled him back. ‘But not the boy.’

  Connor found Amelia, and Jason and Kenny, and Elliot. And, despite Gordon’s strict instructions, he went to get Toby.

  ‘Please go away,’ pleaded the kid.

  ‘You’re coming with me.’ Connor hauled him to his feet. If Toby was going to get out of this place alive, the more people who knew about him the better. He needed to be seen by adults, important people – and they were taking a photo for the local newspaper.