To Catch a Rabbit (17 page)

‘Does he ever turn it off?’ Reg muttered, not quietly enough.

‘Text, from Trisha and Paul.’ Max said. ‘Happy Christmas! They’re having lunch at Middlewood Hall. They took Trisha’s mum and dad.’

Later, while Karen washed up, her father stood outside the back door with his pipe. As the smoke-sweet smell reached her, she felt like a little girl again, ready to throw her arms round his legs and be swung up into the air. When he back came in, there was a drip on the end of his nose. He hadn’t felt it. She handed him a piece of kitchen towel and wished he wasn’t getting older.

‘I suppose you’d rather be at Middlewood Hall too,’ he said, ‘if you didn’t have your poor old Dad staying. I bet they don’t burn the sprouts.’

‘I bet they do. They probably call it Bruxelles Brulées and charge extra.’

He almost laughed, but it came out as a sigh.

‘I don’t know what to think, Karen,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t felt very close to your brother for the last few years. But every Christmas, he did at least send a card, pick up the phone.’

‘I know.’ She put her arm round his tweedy shoulders.

They were in bed early. Max turned away from her, his nose in a new book about men and their ties.

‘We should have goose next year. Everyone has goose.’ And then, almost immediately, he was snoring and the book slid to the floor.

On her bedside table her mobile phone was plugged into its charger. She turned it on. There were no messages. She thought about tiptoeing downstairs to get Charlie’s card. She could text him a Happy Christmas, but he was probably with someone. She didn’t want to cause any trouble.

Bonfire Night: 4.
30pm

Phil turned off the dual carriageway and slowed into the narrow lane towards the quarry. The light was almost gone and he flicked his headlights on to full beam, startling a rabbit, which froze before turning and scarpering with a flick of its white tail. Where the lane dipped down towards the quarry itself, the trees and bushes appeared blacker. Beyond them an endless darkness looked like it could suck in an unwary traveller. He laughed at how easily he could scare himself, but he couldn’t wait to get the stock in the shed and be on his way home.

He veered right on to the track and noticed a glow leaking through the caravan’s thin curtains. There was another car parked in front, a dark green Vauxhall Astra. He cut the van engine and got out, leaving the lights on. He circled the empty car. There was a grey suit jacket hanging from the handle above the rear window. Phil tapped on the door of the caravan and it was opened immediately. The girl was wearing a long baggy tee shirt and her legs were bare.

‘Hello again.’ She smiled as if she was pleased to see him. He was confused for a moment.

‘I thought you’d be at work,’ he said.

A man’s voice from inside the caravan called out, ‘Eh! What’s going on?’

‘I am at work.’ The smile fell. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

She closed the door. Phil stood for a moment, looking at the scratched plastic window, frosted with condensation trapped behind a dirty orange curtain. A drop of water detached itself and ran like a tear towards a greenish strip of rubber sealant.

‘You thick bugger,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Potato picking in November?’

He turned back to his van. The last cup of coffee had made its way through his system and he needed to pee. He liberally sprayed the nearside wheel of the Astra and was reminded of the neighbours’ cats marking territory in his dad’s suburban garden.

Over beyond the dual carriageway the haze, which lit up the ragged edge of the Chasebridge Estate, was interrupted by a sudden burst of bright green; like a flower-head spitting stars. It was the first firework, sent up early as dusk turned to evening. He rolled a cigarette and walked along the field edge, watching the skyline for the next firework. The whole situation in the caravan made him feel sick. Another burst of colour, a cluster of purple and gold exploding above the streetlights. He lit his cigarette and drew on it, pinpointing the moment when the nicotine rush claimed that quiet spot in the centre of his brain. Then he heard someone cry out.

Phil turned back towards the caravan. His boots ground the loose stones of the track, picking up a rhythm until he was running. The cold metal catch sprang under his fingers, the door so flimsy that it bounced as he flung it back. Then he was inside. A tea-light in a saucer on the edge of the sink cast shadows over a landscape of two dirty cups, nesting on the plates they’d eaten their sandwiches off at lunchtime. Beyond this was another tableau, framed by the sweating walls of the van itself, candlelit and frozen at Phil’s entrance. The girl was on the far corner of the bed, her mouth gagged with a pair of tights, her wrists tied with a man’s leather belt and hooked above her head on the edge of the curtain pelmet. She was naked. A dark-haired man, fully dressed in a shirt and tie but with his trousers round his ankles, stood leaning forward, his hands taking his weight. Phil was reminded of the stance of a mountain gorrilla. The man turned and his mouth opened but no sound came. He tried to grab at the waistband of his trousers but Phil was already on him, his right fist raised and then dropped square into the man’s face. Something under his knuckle seemed to crumple. Cartilage, bone maybe. The man was sprawled backwards on the bed and then someone was screaming. It was the girl, the tights in her hand, the belt hanging empty on the edge of the pelmet. She threw herself at Phil.

‘What you doing? Stop it!’

She was pushing him backwards towards the sink. His back hit the edge of the unit and he felt the pile of crockery slide away. Cups and plates landed and shattered on the floor. The blood was spreading across the man’s face. He seemed to forget about his trousers as he felt for his nose.

‘You fucking bitch!’ he shouted. ‘That’s your game is it? Well you’re not going to rob me, you and your fucking pimp!’

The man picked up a broken plate from the floor and then he was on his feet, lunging forward in that tiny space, the light of the candles flickering off the sharp edge of the china.

‘What did she call me?’ Sandy asked.

They were good-humoured enough, but the drink was flowing.

‘Go on, Sean,’ Carly had a wicked look in her eye, ‘can’t you find someone your own age?’

‘Course I can, watch me now!’ He spun round and spotted Lizzie by the buffet. ‘Miss Morrison, are you dancing?’

He didn’t wait for an answer but took Lizzie by the arms and drew her on to the sticky dance floor. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear over the music. He reached round her waist in what he imagined was a ballroom hold.

‘Don’t be an arsehole, Sean,’ she shouted. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’

Then she made a move so fast and hard with her hands that he thought his arm was going to come out of its socket.

Carly came to his rescue and lead him to the bar. ‘That was a nifty move. Kansetsu Waza, if I’m not much mistaken.’

‘Sounds like something off the buffet.’ He rubbed his wrist.

‘It’s Jiu Jitsu. I must ask her where she trains.’ Carly said. ‘And you were being an arsehole.’

‘Should I apologise? I should, shouldn’t I?’

But he was saved the trouble by the appearance in the doorway of a man in a very slick pinstripe suit. Lizzie flashed a hard smile at no one in particular, wished them all a happy Christmas and left with the suit.

‘Who was that?’ Sandy joined them at the bar. ‘Nice looking feller. That her bloke?’

‘That’s Guy of the Rovers. He drives an Audi TT.’ And he’s a wanker, Sean thought to himself, and ordered another JD and Coke.

Arieta had taken up residence on the settee. Since she’d arrived, she’d woken early, tidied her bedclothes into a neat pile, opened the curtains and was usually reading a magazine at the kitchen table by the time Sean or Maureen were up. She usually offered him a coffee and would have cooked him breakfast, if he’d let her. She talked about the weather or something she’d seen on TV, but she wouldn’t tell him any more about her life. She seemed content to live from day to day, watching television with Maureen and doing the crosswords in the puzzle magazines that filled the coffee table. She hadn’t left the house, apart from standing in the back garden to have a cigarette. It was as if she was waiting for something, a sign that it was safe to move on. She appeared to have forgiven him for his play-acting and claimed to have known all along that he wasn’t from a church.

‘Too nice looking,’ she said.

On Christmas morning he discovered she’d helped Maureen pack his stocking. She bounced up and down on the sofa as he opened it.

‘If I had little brother, he would be like you.’

The last thing out of the old football sock - after the sweets and the apple and the satsuma, the playing cards and the joke book - wrapped so tightly he thought it was just more tissue paper, was a small square of fine cotton lace-work. When he held it up to the light, he could see it was a picture of a goose.

‘One day I fly south again, like goose. You have something to remember me by. It is only small because I have little time. But I remember what my grandmother taught me.’

‘It’s lovely.’ He had no idea what he was supposed to do with it but Maureen came to his rescue. She’d bought him a postcard frame that fitted it perfectly, the delicate white pattern set off against the black card background.

They divided the turkey roast between three and Arieta cried into her sherry because, she said, she was so happy.

On Boxing Day he was back on duty. He polished his left shoe until it shone, picked up the right shoe and held it close to his face. He’d already cleaned it, but there was a little mark, just off centre, near the toe. He spat and rubbed, as if having clean shoes would make pacing the estate any more enticing. He took the hi-vis jacket from the back of the kitchen chair. Police Community Support Officer, in big silver letters on a blue background. He liked it when people called him officer. It didn’t happen often, but ever since he’d found Su-Mai, he’d begun to feel like a real policeman. Now, though, he wondered if having Arieta in his house could get him into trouble, fired even. But he couldn’t throw her back out on to the street, wouldn’t be able to even if he wanted to. Maureen would never allow it.

‘Got your warm socks on love?’ Maureen wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her. ‘It’s going to be cold out there. There was a hard frost last night.’

She wasn’t wrong. It was bitter. He walked fast to keep his feet warm and his toes from going numb. He wished he had someone to talk to
but Carly had been called in for a meeting to question her conduct on Christmas Eve. By her own admission she’d shoved a teenager who’d been giving her lip. Sean hadn’t seen the incident, but he imagined the lad was asking for it. Today he’d have to be The Lone Ranger again, walking the mean streets of the estate.

He checked his watch. Just gone 8 a.m. Nice and quiet. No one about. This lull between Christmas and New Year felt like a truce in the middle of a battle. He took the road up towards the recreation ground and sat down for a breather on a low concrete wall that skirted the corner of the Eagle Mount blocks. A dog was snuffling through ripped bin bags against the wall opposite. It seemed to sense him watching and returned his stare. He whistled to see what it would do, but it ignored him and turned back to the bags. A window opened on the first floor and someone threw a shoe down in the dog’s direction.

‘Fuck off, Ruby, you little bastard! Declan, get that bloody dog in, she’s after the turkey bones.’

Within a minute a door slammed and Declan appeared from the flats. Sean stood up and crossed over.

‘Hello there, having a good holiday?’

‘S’all right.’ The boy peered up at him. ‘You were the one when we found that lass, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, you did a good job there, son.’

‘Yeah? And I’ve found summat else.’

He didn’t say any more, but concentrated on trying to pull Ruby away from the bin bag. The dog braced her back legs and engaged him in a tug of war.

‘Do you want a hand?’

‘All right.’

Sean got hold of the dog’s collar with both hands behind her neck, hoping she wouldn’t be able to bite him at that angle. Together they tugged her towards the back door of the block. As they got close, the dog finally relaxed, and Declan managed to shut her inside. They heard her claws skitter on the concrete stairs.

‘She knows where to go. She’ll bark at the door and they’ll let her in, if they feel like it.’ He turned back to Sean, a grin playing across his face. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’

‘Okay then, what have you found?’ Sean sighed.

‘There’s a caravan in the quarry.’

‘Oh?’

‘Might have been nicked.’

Sean thought of old Mr Mayhew and how he’d agreed to help him find his missing caravan.

‘Go on then, let’s have a look.’

When Sean was a kid, the quarry was still functioning. The lorries hurtled back and forth along the narrow lane, coating the brambles with a fine yellow dust. It must have closed down eight or nine years ago. Now grasses and thistles punctured the tarmac. A hoar frost made it almost beautiful, if it hadn’t been for the bin bags and the old tires, carpets and fridges piled up in mounds under the hawthorn hedge at either side.

‘Not a good day,’ had been the response of the operator when he called it in. She pointed out that half the station was still on holiday, so maybe he should just have a look and then radio back if it looked like the stolen caravan. He looked down at Declan, trying to match his footsteps with a frown of concentration on his small face. The boy’s legs struck out ahead of him like a tin soldier. Chasebridge kids were either overweight or underweight. There was no in between. Declan was one of the skinny type, hard cheekbones and large eyes glowering under a choppy fringe. It was a quiet day; it couldn’t do any harm to give the boy a bit of postive attention. PCSOs were meant to be role models; that’s what the training manual said. The lane climbed past a potato field. Through a broken wooden gate, Sean could see the ring road on the other side. Downhill and around the next bend was the entrance to the quarry itself. The gate there was a sturdy, five-bar metal construction with a large chain and padlock. Sean was wondering whether to climb or vault over it, when Declan tugged at his sleeve.