Black Rabbit Summer (19 page)

So I gave up and just lay there, thinking about what she’d said, and I wondered again why Eric was lying. I mean, this thing about sleeping with some older guy, and being really embarrassed about it – it just didn’t make sense. Even if it
was
true, and Eric
had
been embarrassed – which, knowing Eric, I very much doubted – that still didn’t explain why he’d lied to me. He could have just told me he’d spent the night with someone. He needn’t have told me who it was, and he must have known I wouldn’t have asked, so there wouldn’t have been anything to be embarrassed about.

So why lie?

And why was he with Wes Campbell last night at the fair?

And Stella, I thought about Stella…

And Pauly.

But most of all, I thought about Raymond.

Raymond…

His face, his smile… his loopy eyes.

His parents – too many troubles, too many misunderstandings.

His moments of light –
the star’s going out tonight.

His future: the death card.

Is someone going to die?

Life is not life without death.

My mind started drifting then, and after a while I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes to a darkened room, and the air was hushed with the sounds of the night. I was sweating, shivering. Hot and cold. I was awake. But not quite awake. I wasn’t asleep, and I knew I wasn’t dreaming, but I felt as if I was. My head was floating, my mind disconnected. My senses didn’t seem to belong to me any more. The darkness had a strange silver light to it, and in the dark light I could see the shapes of things shifting. The TV was still on, shimmering with 3d colours. My CD player was smiling at me. My skin was velvet, the air was white. The ceiling above me was a million miles away, another universe. It had mountains, rivers, valleys, roads.

Children were laughing up there.

A fairground organ was playing.

And the porcelain rabbit on my chest of drawers was a horse… a horse with a frown… a necklace of flowers… and a moustache.

The flowers were dripping blood.

The horse was a rabbit, twitching its porcelain nose…

Whispering to me.

Black Rabbit was whispering to me.

Take me home… bring me home…

‘Raymond?’ I heard myself mutter.

Bring me home.

‘Where are you?’

Nowhere.

‘Where
are
you, Raymond?’

Everywhere…

‘What happened to you?’

Nothing. It doesn’t matter.

‘Raymond? What’s happening?’

He was changing now, looming over me like a great black giant…

Pete…?

… with a giant head and a giant mouth and a giant hand, reaching out for me. ‘Peter?’

The giant voice was deep and slow and without a point of origin. It was distended, everywhere, nowhere. It was terrifying. I cowered away, whimpering like a baby, covering my eyes with my senseless hands…

‘What’s the matter, Pete? What are you doing?’

The voice was suddenly soft.

And familiar.

And when I opened my eyes and blinked away the sweat, everything was back to normal again. My room was just my room. There were no smiling CD players, no talking rabbits, or horses with moustaches. There were no black giants with giant heads and giant hands. There was just my dad, standing beside my bed, reaching out gently towards me.

I don’t think Dad really believed me when I told him there was nothing to worry about, that I’d just been having a nightmare, but I don’t think he wanted to believe anything else either. I mean, he might have
thought
I was crazy, or delirious, or whacked out of my head on drugs or something, but he didn’t want to believe it. So he just stood there for a while, quietly watching me as I sat up on the bed and wiped the sweat from my face, and then, after a minute or so’s thoughtful silence, he sighed to himself – putting his doubts to one side – and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he said.

‘Yeah…’

‘You don’t
look
all right.’

I smiled at him. ‘It was just a nightmare, Dad. Really… I’m fine.’

I wasn’t, of course. I was nowhere
near
fine. I felt heavy and numbed, as if someone had injected lead into my veins. My limbs were tingling, my eyes were too big, and my head…

God, my head felt
so
weird.

‘How come you’re dressed?’ Dad said.

‘What?’

‘It’s not even eight o’clock yet.’

I looked around, rubbing my eyes, suddenly confused as to what time it was. I’d assumed it was around midnight or something, but now Dad was saying it was eight o’clock, which didn’t make sense, because it wouldn’t have been dark if it was only eight o’clock in the evening… but then, as I looked over at the window and saw the sunlight streaming in, I realized that it
wasn’t
dark any more… of
course
it wasn’t dark. It was eight o’clock in the
morning.

It was Monday morning.

I’d been asleep for God knows how long.

I couldn’t
believe
it.

I looked at Dad, trying to hide my surprise. ‘I was tired,’ I told him. ‘I must have fallen asleep watching TV.’

He glanced over at the television. It was still tuned to Sky News. They were talking about stocks and shares.

I said to Dad, ‘Have you just got back from work?’

He nodded. ‘About half an hour ago.’

‘I thought you were coming home yesterday? You said on the phone you’d be back in a while –’

‘Yeah, I know, but things started happening… I couldn’t get away.’ He looked at me. ‘We need to talk, Pete. And we don’t have much time.’

‘What do you mean?’

He paused for a moment, looking into my eyes. Then he took a deep breath and said, ‘One of my colleagues is coming round here in about half an hour to talk to you about Raymond and Stella. I don’t know if he’s actually going to take a written statement just yet, but he’s going to want to know everything that happened on Saturday night. And I mean
everything
– do you understand?’

‘I’ve already told you what happened.’

‘You haven’t told me everything, though, have you?’

I shrugged.

He said, ‘Look, this is really important, Pete. I know it might be a bit difficult for you, but the police have to know what happened –’

‘Why can’t I just tell
you
?’ I said. ‘Why do they have to send someone else round to talk to me? You could take a statement from me, couldn’t you?’

Dad shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re involved.’ He took another deep breath, and as he slowly let it out, I could sense the exhaustion seeping out of him. ‘You were with Raymond,’ he said wearily, ‘and Raymond’s still missing. And you were both at the fair when Stella Ross disappeared.’ He looked at me. ‘You’re involved, Pete. And I’m your father. And that means that I
can’t
be involved.’

‘Why not?’

‘Conflict of interests,’ he said simply. ‘If anything ever came to court, and one of the witnesses turned out to be the son of one of the investigating officers… well, the case wouldn’t even
get
to court.’ He sighed. ‘So, as of seven o’clock this morning, I’m officially off the case. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about it really.’

‘But you are.’

He smiled at me. ‘I’m doing my best.’

I looked at him. ‘Is there any news about Raymond?’

He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

‘What about Stella?’

He looked at his watch. ‘Look, we’ve only got about twenty minutes before…’

He stopped talking and listened as a car pulled up outside. I heard a car door open and shut –
clunk, clunk
– then footsteps moving towards the house. Dad got up and went over to the window.

‘Shit,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘He’s early.’

The doorbell rang.

Dad turned from the window and looked at me. ‘You know John Kesey, don’t you?’

I nodded. John Kesey was a detective sergeant who’d worked with Dad for years. They were friends outside work too. Good friends.

‘All right, listen,’ Dad said quickly. ‘I want you to tell John the truth, OK? Whatever he asks you, no matter how awkward you feel about it, just tell him the truth. Do you understand?’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘I’ll be there when he talks to you, but don’t think you have to hide anything from me.’ He came over and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Look, I know about the bottle of wine you took, OK? And I know you got a bit drunk… and I expect you did some other things that you don’t want me to know about too. But it doesn’t matter. All right? Just tell the truth, and don’t hide
anything.
OK?’

When we went downstairs, Mum had already let John Kesey in, and they were both waiting for us in the living room. Kesey looked pretty much the same as he’d always looked – kind of pale and sickly, as if he spent all his time in darkened pubs. He was about the same age as Dad, but he looked more worn out
and stressed. He had tired eyes, nicotine-stained fingers, and his breath smelled of stale beer and mints.

He nodded at Dad as we came into the room.

‘John,’ Dad said, nodding back. ‘You’re early.’

‘Yeah, sorry Jeff, we couldn’t wait. You know how it is… I can wait in the car for a few minutes if you want –’

‘No,’ Dad told him, ‘you’re all right.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah.’

Kesey looked at me. ‘All right, Pete?’

I nodded.

He smiled at me.

Dad said to him, ‘Do you want some coffee or something?’

‘Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.’

Dad looked at Mum. ‘Do you mind, love?’

Mum glanced at me, smiled, then looked back at Dad. I thought for a moment she was going to say something to him, but she didn’t. She just looked at him for a few seconds, letting him see what she was thinking – whatever that was – then she turned round and headed out to the kitchen.

Dad said to Kesey, ‘Are you taking a statement?’

‘Not just now,’ Kesey told him. ‘The DCI just wants to put everything together first. We still don’t really know what we’re looking at.’ He looked at me again. ‘We just want to ask you a few questions, if that’s OK.’

I shrugged.

Dad said to him, ‘Any problems with me sitting in?’

Kesey shook his head. ‘As long as you don’t –’

‘Yeah, I know. I’ll keep my mouth shut.’

Kesey looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jeff. I know this is really awkward for you –’

‘It’s fine,’ Dad said gruffly. ‘No problem. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’

By the time we’d all sat ourselves down – me on the settee, Kesey in the armchair beside me, and Dad in another armchair by the window – Mum had come back in with two cups of coffee. She gave one to Dad, the other one to Kesey, then turned round and walked out without saying anything.

‘All right, Pete,’ Kesey said, taking a sip of his coffee, ‘all we’re going to do here is go over what happened on Saturday night, OK?’ He put down the coffee cup and opened his notebook. ‘This isn’t an official interview, and you’re not under caution or anything, we’re just making some preliminary enquiries and we need to know a few details. Is that all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good… OK, well, I’m sure you know that Raymond Daggett has been reported missing by his parents, and according to your dad, you might have been the last person to see him. Is that right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And this was at the fairground on Saturday night?’

‘Yeah… well, it was Sunday morning, actually.’

‘OK, Sunday morning. So you and Raymond went to the fair together?’

‘Sort of…’

‘What do you mean –
sort of
?’

I
tried
to do what Dad had told me, I
tried
to tell Kesey the truth, and at first I didn’t have any problems. I told him straight away that I’d taken a bottle of Dad’s wine, and that Raymond had taken some drink from his parents too. Then I told him how we’d met up with the others in the den, and I explained where it was, and who the others were, and I admitted that we’d all been
drinking (I didn’t mention the dope), and that I’d stayed behind in the den with Nicole when the others had gone on to the fair…

‘Hold on a minute,’ Kesey said at that point. ‘You stayed behind in the den with Nicole?’

‘Yeah…’

‘What did Raymond do?’

‘He went on to the fair with Pauly and Eric.’

‘Right… but you stayed behind with Nicole?’

‘Yeah.’

‘For how long?’

‘I don’t know… about twenty minutes maybe, something like that.’

I saw Kesey glance quickly at Dad, then he turned back to me. ‘Why did the two of you stay behind?’

‘Nic wanted to talk to me,’ I told him. ‘In private.’

Kesey didn’t say anything, he just looked at me.

‘We used to be pretty close,’ I explained, trying not to blush. ‘I mean, we used to hang around together quite a lot when we were kids, and she just wanted to talk about it, you know… talk about the old times.’

‘Right,’ said Kesey. ‘So that’s it? You just talked about the old times?’

I felt something holding me back then, some kind of… I don’t know. Some kind of instinctive warning maybe. It’s hard to describe, but it was as if there was something inside me – an insistent whisper in the back of my mind – telling me to be careful, don’t say too much… you don’t have to tell him
everything.
I didn’t really understand it, but I’d already made the mistake of
not
listening to things I didn’t understand, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

‘Pete?’ Kesey said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah… sorry. I was just…’

‘Just what?’

‘Nothing.’ I smiled vaguely at him. ‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten what I was saying.’

‘You were telling me about Nicole,’ he said patiently. ‘Remember? You were in the den with her, talking about the “old days”.’