Bella roared, and sprang up at her brother. The fat boy grabbed her from behind, splaying his sweaty palms over her bare breasts. The other two turned on her and she saw the tall boy leer, revealing two sharp, pointed canine teeth.
‘Sean!’ she cried, but Olly had grabbed his gun again and was pointing it straight at him.
‘Don’t make a move, lover boy,’ he said. Then he yelled at his companions. ‘Get away from her, you animals. And Bella, put something on, or you’ll get what you deserve.’
Bella picked up her clothes, which she had thrown off an hour before, when she was free. ‘Olly, please go away,’ she whispered to him as she pulled her dress on.
‘I’m not finished yet,’ Olly said, smiling at Sean.
‘Leave him alone.’ Bella threw herself again at her brother.
‘Steady Bella,’ Olly said, sidestepping her, his gun trained on Sean. ‘It’s loaded and ready to go. We don’t want a nasty accident.’
‘Put it down, Olly.’ Bella planted herself between Olly and Sean.
‘Jesus. Guys, do something with my sister,’ Olly said.
‘Anything?’ The boy with the canines leered into her face.
‘Not that, Kyle,’ Olly said. ‘Just get her out of the way.’
Kyle put his rucksack down and got out a bottle of Jack Daniels, which he swigged and passed on to the fat boy. Then he pulled out a length of rope.
‘This do, Olly man?’ he said. Olly nodded. Bella tried to scramble away, but Kyle was with her in two paces, thumping her on the ground, his whole body on top of her.
‘Careful,’ Olly said.
‘You just wriggle some more, little girl,’ Kyle hissed into her ear as she struggled to get away from him. ‘That’s real nice.’ He tied her hands behind her back, yanked her up and, dragging her by her hair to a tree, lashed her to its trunk.
‘Don’t you even look at her,’ Olly hissed to Sean, as he motioned with his gun for him to stand up. ‘Get him,’ he said to the others. ‘Let’s see what he’s got.’
The three boys hauled Sean up and held him, one on each arm, one round his neck, so he was splayed, naked, in front of Olly. He put up no resistance, and didn’t make a sound, but he looked straight into Olly’s eyes, not wavering for one minute.
‘Leave him!’ Bella screamed.
Olly put his gun on the ground and, getting a knife out of his belt, moved in on Sean. He placed the blade on his belly, right below his navel, and leered into his face.
‘Not such a happy chappy now, are we?’ Olly said, flipping Sean’s penis with the blunt side of his knife. ‘Not like when you were FUCKING MY SISTER, eh? I thought I told you not to touch her.’
Bella saw Sean swallow. He said nothing, but still he held Olly’s stare.
‘Now then,’ Olly said. ‘What am I going to do with you?’
‘He’s got a real purty mouth,’ the fat boy said, laughing again with his peculiar, high-pitched cackle.
‘And we always knew he was a faggot,’ Kyle said, ‘Right from kindergarten.’
‘Fag,’ the blond sneered, then he sang a snatch of ‘Duelling Banjos’. The three of them found this so funny they snickered until their eyes streamed with tears. But they didn’t, for one minute, let go of their hold on Sean.
‘Turn him round,’ Olly said. ‘Pull his legs apart.’
The others did it, roughly, and, powerless, Sean let them do it.
Olly stood there for a while, considering, looking at Sean’s naked backside, splayed above his shaking knees.
‘No!’ Bella screamed.
‘Shut it, sister,’ Olly barked. Then he spat at Sean’s back. ‘I can’t bring myself,’ he said in a mincing voice. ‘He’s not my type.’
Again, his three cronies sniggered. Kyle passed Olly the whisky and he took a long, hard slug.
‘Turn him round again, get him on the ground,’ Olly said. The boys pushed Sean down on his back. Olly reached inside his pocket and got out a packet of cigarettes, a pair of gloves and a Zippo. ‘I’ve decided I’m going to be kind to you,’ he said, lighting up a cigarette. ‘Not that you deserve it.’ He delivered a sharp kick to Sean’s ribs, bent close to his face and rubbed some dirt into his cheeks and mouth. ‘I’m going to give you a warning this time, but you’re lucky because you’re also being taught a lesson. It’s good to learn. Hold him tight.’
Kyle and the blond boy positioned themselves one at each arm. The fat boy put all of his weight on Sean’s legs.
‘Now, I’d say this wasn’t going to hurt,’ Olly said, ‘But I’d be lying.’ Cigarette in mouth, he pulled on a glove and knelt, his back to Bella, one hand at Sean’s groin. For the first time, Sean struggled, but the others had him securely under their panting weight. Bella looked away. She couldn’t bear to see their greedy, excited faces as they waited to see what Olly had in store.
With his free hand, Olly lifted his cigarette high into the air. Then he brought it down to where his other hand had hold of Sean.
‘Sizzle,’ Kyle said.
Sean’s scream made Bella’s knees buckle. Olly lifted the cigarette away and leaned back. ‘Oh look, where’s your little man gone now, eh?’ he said. ‘You made my tab go out, lover boy, with your slippy dick.’ He took the Zippo again, and, bending forward he set it to work on Sean, who wailed like an animal being murdered.
Olly lifted the lighter and brought it down again. Again, Sean screamed.
‘Don’t you ever come near my fucking sister again,’ Olly yelled. ‘Or I’ll fucking kill you. You hear me, creep?’
‘That’s enough, man,’ Kyle said after Olly had applied the lighter the third time and Sean had screamed himself out underneath them.
‘You won’t be using that for a good while,’ Olly said, stepping back. ‘Let him go.’ The boys moved away and Sean curled up on the ground, weeping with pain.
Olly stood up and got his gun. ‘Stand up!’ he shouted. Whimpering, Sean scrambled to his feet. His beautiful body seemed to have shrunk and his skin was bleached of its tan. Tears ran rivers down the dirt in his face, and his hands were clamped over his front.
‘Your keys in those?’ Olly motioned to Sean’s jeans, which were still in the heap where they had fallen when Bella had greedily helped him off with them. Sean nodded. ‘Get them,’ Olly said to the blond boy.
‘Now, lover boy, take your keys, get in your car, start the engine and drive. Drive away from here and don’t come anywhere near my sister again. Understood?’
Sean went to pick up his jeans. ‘No,’ Olly said. ‘As you are.’
Sean limped, naked, to his car, got in and drove off.
‘And you couldn’t see him for dust,’ Olly laughed. Then he swung over to Bella and took her face in his hand. ‘Now then, little sis, what do you think of that?’
‘Bastard,’ Bella spat.
‘It’s for your own good,’ he said. He looked her in the eyes and sang, at full volume, the song he had practised the night before when she had tried to sleep.
‘Like me in lineaments: her eyes
Her hair, her features, all to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine …’
And he squeezed her cheeks so her skin burned with the pulling.
‘Who are you?’ she said, as he finished his song. She didn’t see a thing she recognised in her twin brother’s face.
‘You know me better than anyone, Bella,’ he said, his voice low.
‘I’m going to tell Mum.’
‘You try, and there’ll be a nice little gallery going up on Facebook.’
Bella tasted the bile in her mouth.
‘You got a line there, Aaron boy?’ Olly asked the blond boy. ‘Chop chop.’
‘Yum,’ Kyle said, reaching into Sean’s picnic basket. ‘Pizza.’
‘Like your face,’ Brandon said, and his laughter melted into Kyle’s cackle and they all joined in, until, once more, the tears rolled down their cheeks.
After they had finished Sean and Bella’s picnic and the lines of white powder had been snorted and the bottle of Jack Daniels was empty, the boys untied her.
‘What do I do now?’ she said, gesturing to the spot where Sean’s car had stood. ‘How do I get back?’
‘My boys here are hunters. They know all the trails through the forest,’ Olly said. ‘We can provide an escort.’
And, once again, the boys laughed until they were on the ground, rolling in the dirt.
‘AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?’
Marcus was smoking on the porch when Lara and Jack got back from Betty’s. At his feet sat two drained beer bottles, in his hand a third, half empty.
‘I’ve been up to the farm to see Betty,’ Lara said, mustering an Oscar-standard performance of unperturbed normality. ‘She gave us some beautiful veg, look.’ She held out the basket of courgettes, tomatoes and basil that Betty, her sweetness rediscovered, had pressed upon her.
Marcus grunted.
Lara left Jack to tell his father about the kittens while she took the produce through to the kitchen. As she opened the front door, the rotten smell coming from the cellar halted her in her tracks. It was worse than ever. Determined to sort out whatever was causing the stink, she crossed over to the secret door under the stairs. But her hand was stayed by the two new pieces of wood nailed across it, keeping it shut. She turned and saw a set of keys dangling from a new lock crudely but effectively cut into the front door. Apart from seeing Stephen, this was the best turn-up of a particularly trying day.
‘Well done!’ she called to Marcus, as she went through to the kitchen. Her mood was further lifted when she noted that the back door now had bolts at top and bottom, so the house could be completely locked.
She got herself a beer from the fridge and went to join Marcus. Safety, she thought, in numbers. Jack had finished his story and was pottering around the front lawn with a football that had somehow appeared.
‘Thanks for sorting the locks,’ Lara said as she sat on the swing seat next to Marcus, scanning the road for anything untoward. Something at the back of her mind wondered if life was going to be like this from now on – always on the lookout.
‘What?’ Marcus said without much interest.
‘The doors and the basement. You took me seriously!’
‘Not me.’ Marcus held his hands up. ‘I’d never do that.’
‘You mentioned it to James though? He must’ve sent someone.’
‘Possibly,’ Marcus said, slapping a mosquito on his arm and flicking the bloody remnants on to the deck.
Lara turned to face him.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘I’m pretty fucked off if you must know,’ he said, tossing his cigarette butt into a spiky bush that grew up around the porch railings. Then he looked furiously at Lara and paused. She swallowed.
‘Why?’ she brought herself to ask.
‘James has got it into his head that we’re going to give the play the full Scottish treatment, accents, tartan and all.’
Lara was so relieved she nearly choked on her beer laughing.
‘It’s not funny,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s a total disaster.’
‘Yes,’ Lara said, reining herself in. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s so naff. And James’s ear is so unattuned now to any accent that comes east of Maine, that he can’t tell how shit the other actors are at it. It’s embarrassing.’
‘Can’t you just persuade him that he’s wrong?’
‘What do you think?’ Marcus said. One of his endless peeves about his profession was that it stuck him in a position of complete powerlessness. In his worst moments he said he was no more than a piece of walkie-talkie meat that just had to put up and shut up.
‘It’s not been a great day for you, has it?’ she said. Although, she thought, in comparison with my own …
‘It’s not funny,’ he said again, finishing his beer and childishly lobbing the bottle to join his cigarette butt in the bush.
Lara sighed, got up and retrieved the bottle, putting it by the front door, ready to take in to the recycling bin.
‘I’m beginning to see James in a different light,’ Marcus said, reaching down to a half-empty six-pack she hadn’t seen and popping the lid off another bottle. ‘I used to think the sun shone out of his arse, but actually he’s just a cunt.’
‘Eloquently put.’
Lara sat back down next to him. The low sun bled plastic tangerine into the hazy sky, but the close heat of the day wasn’t ready to let up. The only movement out on the street came from a couple of black, white and buff-coloured birds hopping on the tarmac, picking at seeds dropped from the trees above them. Oblivious to the thump of Jack’s ball as he kicked it up into the air, the birds called to one another.
Chick-a-dee-dee-dee
.
Like before, she wondered if there might be someone watching them from the houses opposite. Before today, it had only been a wild imagining. But now it posed a real possibility. Or what about up in those hills looming above the village? Did a watcher lie belly-down in the grass, a pair of long-range binoculars clamped to her eyes? Lara scanned the green for a glint of something glassy.
‘It’s your friend again,’ Marcus said and, alarmed, Lara wheeled round to see where he was looking.
It was only Dog. He trotted up the garden path and took up his usual station on the lawn, directly in front of the swing seat, so Lara and Marcus could see him.
Unhappy about her young meaty son being so close to what could possibly be a hound with a taste for human flesh, Lara flew down the steps and scooped Jack up off the grass.
‘I want to play ball, though,’ Jack said.
‘How about a bit of CBeebies instead?’ she said.
‘Yay!’
‘You’re supposed to encourage him to play outside,’ Marcus said, rolling another cigarette. ‘Not drag him in front of the computer.’
‘You’re not the only one who’s allergic to dogs,’ Lara said. She knew Jack was full of antihistamines, but Marcus didn’t.
‘Fair point.’ Marcus held up his hands in surrender. He gestured to Dog. ‘He looks thirsty. Get him a drink while you’re in there.’
Typical of Marcus, Lara thought, to get sentimental over Dog just as she had possibly found out something hideous about him. It was tempting to tell Marcus the full story, but she didn’t have the energy to go through with it right now. Not after the day she had just endured. Instead, after settling Jack in front of the laptop, she fetched a bowl of water for Dog.
‘There you go, boy,’ Marcus said to Dog from the safety of his position up on the porch. ‘There you go, wee laddie,’ he said again in a Scottish accent. He put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘I want to resign,’ he said. ‘I want to go home.’