His violin case lay in the hall exactly where he'd dropped it on Saturday evening. Normally he'd have practised at least four hours of scales by now, with or without Dave tinkering alongside. Normally he'd have helped empty the dishwasher. Normally...
As for that odour which had hung around him and the clothes he'd strewn on the washing machine, it was semen and something else... Just like in his bedroom.
"I think you should have a man-to-man chat with him." Jacquie re-corked the Paul Masson and took her empty glass to the dish-washer. "I think he's fiddling with himself a lot. I can smell it."
"For God’s sake, woman, just let him be.”
Jacquie watched the unblemished sun slide behind Dingle Wood. She wanted to go down with it, to wherever. The middle of the world if need be.
"Did you send our
soirée
invites out after all?" Dave quizzed
en route
to the lounge.
"Don't I do everything I'm told?"
"I was only asking."
"It'll be a crush. Especially in this heat."
The closer the better, he thought, opening the piano lid.
"Who's actually performing here on Saturday? Apart from you, of course?"
"Why?"
"Just interested."
“You won’t know them.”
“I might.”
Dick Myers, ‘cello, with the boy and me, if he'll play ball."
"What boy?"
"Yours, of course."
You mean
Louis
?" She emphasised his name. "We know
him
."
"Indeed we do."
"Meaning?"
Silence.
"Who else is involved?"
"Yvonne Dunkley's singing
lieder
after the interval, oh, and there's a flautist. Someone called Carla…"
13
Wednesday 7th July 3p.m. and thirty nine degrees Fahrenheit. Louis' watch said so. The one he'd pestered for every Saturday morning whenever The Fawn dragged him off to the Mall. It made the school Grubs treat him with even more respect.
He'd slid out of double Design Technology on the urgent pretext of stomach trouble. The one thing North Barton Boys’ School were slack on. You could sit on the bog there for two hours with no hassle after some parent complained about lack of privacy and threatened to involve the European Court of Human Rights.
*
Too hot to breathe, to think straight, but once in the matted shade of Greythorn Wood, he ditched his D&T folder amongst a scrum of foliage, tucked his old PE shirt in his belt in place of the green one, and slung his blazer from an overhead branch. He then extracted a can of 1664 and pinged off the lid. Within three gulps it was empty. He burped.
There was no sign of either the swans or the moorhens. The brook as calm as a tray of molasses. Suddenly came the crack of breaking twigs - a heavier tread than Jez. Louis spun round to see some old geezer coming closer, veering from side to side. Pissed out of his skull, no doubt. His clothes reeking.
Louis began to sweat fear. Where was his mate? He'd let him have it alright for being late again. Candy or no fucking candy...
"Can ye nae spare us a wee bit o' that drink?" The stranger wheedled in a faint Scottish accent, his tongue swiping back and fore along his bottom lip. His breath strong enough to light a fire.
"It's all gone. Anyhow, who the hell are you?"
"Ne'er ye mind, laddie." The man's jaundiced eyes followed Louis' every move. "Have ye nae heard o’ the Good Samaritan? Come on now. Be a sport..."
A hand more veiny than any alder trunk, reached out for the can. Louis recoiled, then flung it with all his might at the drunkard's head.
"Ye bastard! Jus' ye wait!" The man cried, while a dark blood sprang from above his left eyebrow and trickled down to his cheek.
Louis felt his knife in his trouser pocket. He unsheathed it and gripped the handle tight, waiting for the grungy stranger to get up close and personal. He did, and the knife invaded the striped shirt showing beneath the coat.
The man roared, toppled backwards crashing his head against a tree. Louis bent over him, pulled the weapon clear and plunged it in six more times. His dick enjoying each thrust. Having wiped the blade clean on a mossy stone, he tore up all the soiled vegetation and flung the mess into the brook.
No…
Jez.
Cycling through the wood. His spine of red hair caught in a beam of sunlight. He dismounted, letting his bike fall - its wheels spinning black dust. His hand clamped over his mouth. His already pale face turned the colour of a broad bean. He puked up where he stood, forgetting to wipe his mouth. Then turned to his friend.
"Wot ye bleedin' done, Pete?"
Louis grabbed him by his blazer. That vomit smell turning his own stomach. But the boy wriggled free to crouch over the corpse.
"'E’d ‘ave topped me. I 'ad to sort 'im out."
That raspberry-coloured tongue spasmed from between the man's parted lips, and a trickle of stuff like toffee yoghurt eked out on to his coat collar. Was Jez groaning or sobbing? Whatever, it was way over the bloody top. He suddenly felt as if a glass screen had dropped between them. Him and the ginger who at least had a Dad and a Mum not pushing him into doing stuff. He didn't know how fucking lucky he was. With the bigger dick and all...
"Ye know who 'e is, don't ye?" The Lucky One stood up. Bits of black leaves sticking to the smudges on his face. "That perv Wheeler. It'll be in all the papers, just like this..."
He produced a scrap of newsprint from his shirt pocket. Louis stared at the bottom of the page.
DEAD DOG FOUND IN WILLOW BROOK
A Mr and Mrs Gunther Zeller of 16, Meadow Hill, discovered the remains of a black lurcher cross-breed at the bottom of their garden yesterday morning.
There was no collar. Anyone missing such a dog should contact the Briar Bank branch of the RSPCA.
Never once had Louis considered the Brook's current. Never thought there was one. He wondered with a brief shudder what else might find its way into that development, but on second thoughts, was that such a bad idea after all?
"We’ve just been over to Meadow Hill." Jez went on. "Why I was late. Number 16 reckoned we was pikeys didn't they? Bloody cheek. Pr’aps Jip’d bin chasin’ summat…” He wiped his wet eyes with the back of his hand, went over to the nettles where his knife box was hidden. Having slotted the remaining sheathed knife into his jeans’ pocket, he left the empty box with its lid open amongst the weeds. "'S weird though, 'cos he hated water. And how come ‘is collar was missin’?"
"Sorry, mate. Really am." Was all Louis could say, patting the other's shoulder.
"'S OK." Jez returned the cutting to his shirt pocket, gathered up his bike and cocked his leg over the saddle. "But yer on yer own now. Don't come near me. I've 'ad enough of this place and yer fuckin' nutty ways." With that, he pulled his spare knife from the back pocket of his jeans and threw it into the nearby sludge.
Louis charged after him and toppled the boy onto the bank. Once the traitor was pinned down, he used his teeth to unsheathe the other knife he’d kept hold of. Suddenly the sour-sweet smell of shit hit his nose. All it took before he got to work.
*
Louis lugged the dead weight along the brook to where he knew the soft, silty ground would soon fold over his footprints and the grooves made by those dragging heels.
He'd never been so far up Black Dog Brook before. Here, at the back end of the estate, the junk was worse, and from the Scrub Lane underpass above him, came the rumble of wheels. Several smaller trees had been hacked down but those remaining bore noose ropes dangling from their lower branches, while high overhead, someone had assembled a tree house. Like a giant crow's nest, it blocked out the fierce sun but not the deep, black silence.
*
4p.m. The Fawn would be nagging him again if he was late. As for The Maggot, he was losing interest. Shagging someone else. Louis could tell.
The other boy's eyes stared up with a surprised expression as if he'd just been asked to pose for a snap. The tips of his top front teeth bared like a hamster. Brown stuff oozing from both jeans' legs. Louis tried not to look, then thought about the boy's dick. Better not take it to add to his collection. Anyone could turn up.
Instead, he hauled the red-head towards the edge of the brook. Before rolling him in, he checked all pockets. The black mobile, a week-old bus ticket into town, a fragment of foil – unfortunately nothing else for a snort - and a used scratch card. He scrunched them up and chucked them in after him. So far so good.
The black water was much deeper here because Wrecker's Brook ran into it further up. Almost six metres, so he’d heard, and because this particular body was much heavier than the dog, Louis reasoned the mud underneath would soon claim him.
This had to be the right place.
Once the last lick of red hair had vanished, he raced back for the green bike. With no-one around, he half-pushed, half-rode on the sharp saddle to beyond the underpass. To any rubbernecker, he was just another aimless lad tooling around. Then, having dismounted, he hurled the machine into the brook. It was soon gone, save for the chrome end of a handlebar, too far out of reach to shove out of sight.
He didn't stay to watch. He had his D&T folder and blazer to collect, plus the knife box. Besides he'd need to exit the wood into Scrub Lane. The long way round.
As for the dead perv, he could stay where he was. Enough people had wanted to waste him. That wasn't the problem. Returning home unseen and looking normal was.
*
He undid his satchel and placed his blazer and the box inside, forcing the clasps to not close properly. He then ran through the thick screen of chestnut and hawthorn, ignoring the savage little cuts on his skin, until he broke through into Sallow Drive alongside the
Old Soldier
. The estate's only pub.
He re-joined the footbridge to Meadow Hill, practising his normal voice. With Jez gone, he, Pete Brown would now have to find someone else who'd show him more respect. More
fear
. Or maybe not. As he walked home, he weighed up the pros and cons of going solo. Of tricking the cops and those in authority. Those who'd let him down.
By the time he’d left the footbridge, he realised he didn't
need
anyone else. Hadn't Jez Martin always been late? Less than reliable? Louis smiled. Things were really much clearer now, and all he had to do was keep cool, stay one step ahead.
He ducked into the edge of Dingle Wood by the Zeller's fence and, having torn the old PE shirt into strips and buried them along with his glasses, changed back into his green shirt complete with the AD LUDORUM tie. Thus he emerged once more as a typical North Barton Boys’ School pupil.
14
"Stop indoors, you." Rita Martin yelled at her daughter who'd fetched her own yellow plastic spade and was advancing down the patch of garden. "And keep an eye on Freddie."
"'E was
my
doggie," whined the eight year old. "I wanna see 'im one last time." Kayleigh hung her head, sneaking a look as her mother pressed her Doc Marten boot down yet again on the borrowed spade and swore.
"This ground's like a bloody rock."
And so it was. Burnt by the sun without the intrusion of weeds or the benefit of shade - the only spot away from where the kids played and the washing line sagged between two makeshift posts. The one job Frank Martin had done before he'd left six months ago.
Now she’d no choice. For Jip it was either here or the vet’s to end up as zoo meat. That's what she'd been told about dead dogs, and he deserved better than that. She tried again and this time the spade end found a crack which reached deep into the ground. Her wiry strength forced a clump to come loose and she dumped it to one side before attacking the rest.
As the hole deepened so her red hair grew dark with sweat, sticking to her forehead.
And all the while Kayleigh stood there. Watching her every move.
"I said, go in,” Rita reminded her. “God knows what Freddie's up to. And Jez for that matter." She didn't know why she'd added that. Just something about the way he'd left her after the Zellers to go to Homework Club. She'd expected him to be more upset about Jip, but no. He'd been determined to get back to school.
The eight year-old finally obeyed. Her lime green socks padded away through the scrubby grass up the stained steps to the kitchen door.
At least they had a garden, Rita thought, seeing one of the Ishmael's curtains moving. The odd couple who never emerged from their flat without two black umbrellas opened low over their heads. Who seemed frightened by daylight, frightened by everything, in fact.
A fly from the dog's corpse settled on Rita's nose. She batted it away and rested a moment, aware of sweat gliding down her cheeks. Instead of dwelling on Jip's back paws protruding from a tear in the bin liner, she tried getting Our Father in the right order. By the time she'd reached "and forgive them our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," the grave was almost ready and her tears dropped and dried instantly in the ground.