Black Rabbit Summer (45 page)

I went over to the pile of old car tyres, stuffed all the newspapers and dried twigs into a gap at the bottom of the heap, then took Eric’s lighter out of my pocket and set light to it. There was more litter inside the pile – bits of paper, polythene bags, ancient sweet wrappers – and it was all so dry that within a few seconds the pile of tyres was burning away like mad. I waited a few moments, watching as the flames took hold, and the smoke turned thick and black, then I turned round and started running.

Back through the gap in the fence, back down the bank, back down the overgrown path… there was nothing familiar about it any more. It didn’t remind me of anything, it didn’t bring back any feelings, it didn’t take me back to a time when everything was wonderful and exciting…

It was just a path.

The same as it had always been.

About halfway down, I stopped running for a moment to get my bearings. After a quick look around, I realized that it’d be easier to cut through the undergrowth here than to go all the way down to the bottom of the bank and then clamber back up through the brambles to the oak tree. I could see the oak tree from here. I fixed it in my mind, stepped off the path, and started cutting across through the undergrowth.

It was pretty thick, and most of it was pretty thorny, but there was no way of avoiding it, so I just gritted my teeth and ploughed
on through. I could smell the smoke from the burning tyres now, and when I glanced over my shoulder I could see plumes of thick black smoke billowing up into the sky. Hopefully, somebody else would see it too. And even if they didn’t, at least it would show the ambulance where to go.

I came out of the undergrowth just below the oak tree, and for a second or two, as I stood there wheezing and panting, I couldn’t remember what I was doing. Where was my shirt? Why was my mouth hurting? Why the hell was I staring at an oak tree?

‘Oh, yeah…’ I heard myself say.

And then I was scrambling over to the tree, crawling down into the ditch, reaching inside the hollow trunk, trying to remember where I’d put Eric’s phone. Where was it? All I could feel was dirt, dead leaves, twigs, more dirt…

Plastic.

I grabbed the phone, pulled it out, and sat back against the tree. Still breathing hard, I flipped open the phone and turned it on. And then I just waited. Staring at the display, dripping sweat… waiting… staring… hoping for a signal. The phone beeped. Main menu. I wiped a drop of sweat off the screen and stared at the reception indicator. Three bars. I punched in the number and put the phone to my ear.

Dad answered almost immediately. ‘Hello?’

‘Dad, it’s me –’

‘Pete! Christ, where
are
you! Are you all right? What the hell –?’

‘Listen, Dad,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m all right –’

‘Where
are
you?’

‘Dad,
please
,’ I said sharply. ‘Just listen to me, OK? I might lose the signal any second. Are you listening?’

I heard him take a breath. ‘Yes… yeah, I’m listening.’

‘I know what happened to Stella, Dad. I know who did it. It
was Pauly and Eric and a kid called Wes Campbell –’

‘Say that again. You’re breaking up. Eric and who?’

‘Never mind, I’ll explain everything later. Eric needs an ambulance, Dad. He’s been stabbed in the thigh and he’s bleeding really badly. He’s in the basement of one of the old factory buildings. Tell the ambulance crew to look for the fire. There’ll be someone waiting outside the building.’

‘Are you with Eric now?’

‘No. Wes Campbell’s with him, but I’m not far away. I’ll go back now and wait for the ambulance.’

‘I’ll be there in five minutes. Do you need anything?’

‘Just get here as quick as you can, Dad.’

‘I’m leaving right now.’

He put the phone down.

I breathed out heavily, closed my eyes, and slumped back against the tree. I could rest for a minute or two now. I didn’t have to think about Eric and Campbell any more, I didn’t have to think about Stella. All that was over. Finished. It was out of my hands. I just needed to rest for a minute. Then I could get back to the old factory, let Dad take me home, try to explain everything to him… take a bath, get some sleep… and then I’d be ready to start thinking about Raymond again.

Raymond…

I opened my eyes and looked up at a blue sky darkened with smoke.

I couldn’t see anything in it. No rabbits, no faces, no visions.

I closed my eyes again.

Eric’s mobile beeped twice.

Ignore it
, I told myself.
You’re not thinking about Eric any more. All that’s over. Finished. It’s out of your hands…

I opened my eyes and looked down at the phone.

The display read:

I wasn’t really thinking as I instinctively pressed
read
, I just assumed it was a message from Pauly to Eric. But then, as the message came up, I suddenly remembered that Pauly had seen me with Eric’s phone. He knew that I had it. He knew that I’d answer it.

His message wasn’t for Eric, it was for me:

I didn’t get it at first. I just thought it was Pauly being Pauly again. He’d probably been drinking his juiced-up booze again, I imagined, and now he was just lying around somewhere, his brains in a mess, sending me meaningless text messages.

But then I started feeling something, something wrong…

And as I tried to work out what it was, a half-forgotten image suddenly flashed into my mind, an image of Pauly in the den that morning: his face twitching, his lips trembling, his eyes out of control.

You can’t hide for ever
, I’d told him.

And he’d looked at me, smiling strangely.
You reckon?

With the sound of his words echoing ominously in my head, I started reading through his message again…

I’m bad.

Gotta do it now.

… and suddenly it didn’t feel so stupid any more.

Kill me.

Now.

I could see Pauly’s house now, I could feel it inside me – the emptiness, the coldness, the lightlessness. I could feel the grubbiness of his room – the smell of sweat and stale air, the flies buzzing around unwashed plates… the dirty floor, the dirty furniture, the dirty pictures tacked to the walls…

I’m bad.

… and Pauly himself, closing his eyes and putting his hands to his face.

It was a long hard run to Pauly’s place, and even before I’d got halfway I didn’t think I was going to make it. My legs were like lead, my chest was exploding. My lungs were on fire, my heart was bursting… I didn’t think I could walk any further, let alone run. But I couldn’t let myself stop. If I stopped, I’d stop hurting. And if I stopped hurting, I’d start thinking. And I didn’t want to start thinking, because I knew it would hurt too much.

So I just kept running.

Across the wasteground, through the fence, along the dock road and up into the Greenwell Estate…

Pauly’s house felt dead when I got there. The windows were shut, the curtains were closed. The house was silent and still. I walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

No answer.

I hammered on the door.

No reply.

I crouched down and called through the letter box. ‘Pauly? Hey,
Pauly
!
PAULY
!’

Nothing.

I stepped back and started shouting at the upstairs windows. ‘
PAULY! Are you there? PAULY!
’

The door of the house next door swung open and an angry-looking woman leaned out. ‘What d’you think you’re
doing
?’ she yelled at me. ‘Jesus! I’m trying to watch TV in here –’

‘Is he in?’ I snapped at her. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘Seen who?’

‘Pauly. Pauly Gilpin. Have you seen him?’

‘No, I haven’t
seen
him. And I can’t say that I want to either… hold on, what are you doing?’

I’d turned away from her and picked up a lump of concrete from the side of the path. I could hear her saying something else to me as I stepped over to the front window, hefting the lump of concrete in my hand, but I wasn’t listening any more. I wasn’t anything any more. I was just desperate to get into the house.

I heaved the concrete slab at the window. The glass exploded, shattering all over the place. I scrambled up on to a broken pallet that was leaning against the wall, reached in through the broken glass, unlatched the window, and clambered through into the sitting room.

It was dark and dingy inside. A small TV flickered silently in one corner, and the air was lifeless and dull. I thought about calling out again, but somehow it didn’t seem right. It was too quiet for shouting… too hushed. It just didn’t feel right.

I crossed the sitting room, opened the door, and went out into the hallway. The stairs were on my left. I paused for a moment,
gazing up into the dimness, trying to convince myself that I didn’t
have
to go up there, that it probably wasn’t going to make any difference now anyway… but I knew there was no going back.

As I climbed the narrow stairs, the silence of the house seemed to close in all around me. I could feel it in the air, drifting over my skin like a film of oily grey water.

I stopped at the top of the stairs.

The sheet of stained newspaper was still on the landing. I stepped round it and went over to Pauly’s door. It was closed. I stood there for a moment, listening hard, and I thought for a moment I heard something. A faint creaking… once, twice… then it stopped. I breathed out, breathed in. The air smelled bad. Sour and stale, sweaty and dirty… and worse. There was something else, another smell, something awful.

The smell hit me first, the rank odour of human shit, and I was already starting to retch as I looked up and saw Pauly hanging from the ceiling. A belt was looped round his neck, the other end tied to the light fitting, and as I stood there – choking and gulping – the flex of the light fitting creaked and twisted, and Pauly’s bloated face turned slowly towards me. He was grinning – a final agonized grin – and his thickened tongue was sticking out between his teeth. His eyes were bulging, the whites flecked with blood. His neck was swollen. His bowels had emptied, staining his jeans, and there was a small pool of piss on the floor.

I closed my eyes.

Held my breath.

Please don’t let it be true.

But when I opened my eyes again, it was all still there: the body, the flies, the empty burger boxes, the dirt, the grief, the stink of guilt, the upended chair on the floor… and lying on the unmade bed, a computer printout of Stella Ross, her face scribbled out, a biro stuck through her heart.

‘Christ, Pauly,’ I muttered.

I was drenched in sweat now. My legs were shaking, my blood was cold, and as I lowered myself unsteadily to the floor and sat down in the doorway, a flood of wretchedness welled up inside me, filling my eyes with tears.

I buried my head in my hands and started sobbing.

I don’t know how long a moment lasts – a second, half a second… a millionth of a second – and I don’t know how the timelessness of a moment can invade your mind and turn itself into an everlasting memory… but I know I’ll never forget what I saw in that room. I
want
to forget it. I want to stop seeing it every night, every time I close my eyes, every time I think I’ve forgotten it. But I know it’s impossible to forget. It’s seared into my memory, burned into my mind – as sickeningly vivid now as it was all those months ago.

Pauly Gilpin.

Dead.

I still don’t know why he did it.

And I don’t think I’ll ever know.

Because I don’t think I ever knew him at all.

Not that it really matters.

Why
he killed himself, and whoever he was – he’s still dead.

And so is Stella.

They’re both gone now.

And the rest of us…?

Well, we’re all still here.

We’re all still living our moments.

∗

Eric Leigh and Wes Campbell were both arrested that day at the old factory. Campbell was taken in for questioning straight away, but Eric was still bleeding pretty badly, so he was rushed into hospital for emergency treatment. He’d lost a lot of blood, and he had to stay in hospital for a while, but it turned out that the knife hadn’t severed his artery after all, it’d just cut through a couple of veins, so there wasn’t any serious damage. He was interviewed by the police while he was still in hospital, and questioned again at the police station as soon as he was well enough to walk.

I don’t know what he told them about Stella, and I don’t know what Campbell told them either, but they were both eventually released on bail, pending further enquiries. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to them. I’m pretty sure they’ll end up facing some kind of charges, but whether or not they’ll ever stand trial for anything…

I really don’t know.

I really don’t care either.

I haven’t seen either of them since it all happened, and I’m hoping it stays that way. It’s not that I feel particularly bitter about what they did to me, and I’m certainly not frightened of them any more… in fact, I don’t really feel anything about them any more. I just don’t want to see them again.

Ever.

Which probably isn’t going to be all that easy, especially where Eric’s concerned, because I’ve kind of started seeing Nicole again.

After her parents postponed the move to Paris because of everything that was happening with Eric, Nic decided that she might as well go on to sixth-form college and start taking some A-levels.
She told me all this when we bumped into each other in the college canteen on the first day of term.

‘I’m trying to enrol in the Drama and Theatre Studies course,’ she told me, ‘but I’ve left it a bit late, you know…’