by Kevin Brooks
‘Pete Boland.’
‘Boland?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where do you live, Pete?’
‘Hythe Street.’
‘Number?’
‘Ten.’
He nodded. ‘Were you here last night?’
‘At the fair, do you mean?’
‘Yes, at the fair.’
‘Yeah… yeah, I was actually.’
‘What time did you get here?’
‘About ten thirty, I think.’
‘And what time did you leave?’
I shrugged. ‘Around midnight.’
He nodded again. ‘So, you just came up here this morning for another look round the fair… is that it?’
‘Yeah… well, no… I mean, I didn’t really mean to come up here. I was going to see some friends in Recreation Road, but they weren’t in, so I just came up here to hang around for a bit, you know… to pass the time.’
‘Right. So you’ll be going back to your friends’ place now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘In Recreation Road.’
‘That’s right.’
He smiled at me. ‘Off you go then.’
As I turned round and started walking away, I could feel him watching me, and I wondered why I hadn’t told him about Raymond, and why I hadn’t asked him what was going on…
God, why was I so pathetic?
I didn’t look back to see if the police officer was still watching me until I’d reached the recreation ground gates. Even then, I was feeling so stupidly paranoid that I didn’t risk looking back until I’d actually turned left at the gates and taken a few steps towards Recreation Road, just in case he was still watching me. But he wasn’t. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I looked again, just to make sure, then I quickly turned round and headed back the other way, towards Back Lane.
Apart from a bunch of skateboard kids hanging around the gas towers, the lane was quiet and deserted. There were no dog-walkers around, no dossers, no weirdos, no odd-looking men with moustaches. No sign of Raymond either. In fact, there was no sign of anything. I was keeping my eyes open as I walked, looking all around – down at the ground, up at the bank, into the trees – but I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I was just looking, I suppose. Just looking…
Actually, come to think of it, I wasn’t really looking at all. I mean, my eyes were open, and they were moving around, and if I had seen something… well, that would have been fine – or not fine, depending on what I’d seen – but all I was really doing was trying to keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t have to think about what I might find when I got to the den.
I knew that everything might be all right, that I might get to the den and find Raymond sitting there, alive and well… and I also knew that I might not find anything at all. But there was another possibility, and that was the one that was bothering me, the one that I didn’t want to think about. But the closer I got to the den, the harder it was not to think about it, and as I started clambering up the bank, threading my way through the bushes and brambles, I couldn’t help imagining the worst.
It was the rabbit, I suppose… the image of Black Rabbit’s severed head on the gate, its blank eyes staring at nothing. I just couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. And I couldn’t stop it from playing tricks with me either, making me see things I didn’t want to see.
A rabbit’s head with Raymond’s eyes…
Raymond’s head with rabbit’s teeth…
Black fur, black clothes…
Whispered voices…
Blood and flies…
There it is.
I’d reached the top of the bank now, and as I stood in front of the den, breathing hard, everything looked the same. The overgrown brambles, the wooden boards, the faded blue paint on the roof. Everything was just the same.
It looks all right, doesn’t it?
I told you it’d still be here.
Yeah, you did.
I glanced over my shoulder and looked down the bank. There was nobody there. I turned back to the den and stepped up to the door.
After you.
No, after you.
I paused for a moment, listening to the echo of Raymond’s voice, then I stooped down and opened the door.
There was nothing in there. No nightmares, no bodies, no blood… just a scattering of empty bottles, a stale smell of cigarette smoke and sweat, and a sweetly dark memory I wanted to forget.
Thirteen
Mum was watching TV in the living room when I got home. She was perched on the edge of the settee with a cigarette in one hand and the remote control in the other, and she was so engrossed in whatever she was watching that I didn’t think she’d seen me come in.
‘Hey, Mum,’ I said. ‘Has Dad rung –?’
‘Hold on,’ she said, turning up the volume on the TV. ‘I think this is about Stella.’
‘What?’
‘Sky News,’ she said, nodding at the TV. ‘They’re talking about Stella.’
I turned to the TV and stared at the picture. breaking news it said at the bottom of the screen, teenage celebrity feared missing. The newsreader – a smartly dressed woman with a very small head and very big hair – was holding a piece of paper in her hand and peering at a laptop.
‘… these reports are still unconfirmed,’ she was saying, ‘but we understand that Essex police were alerted by Mr and Mrs Ross earlier this morning, and officers are currently carrying out an investigation in the area of St Leonard’s where Miss Ross was last seen.’ The newsreader put down the piece of paper and looked gravely into the camera. ‘Stella Ross,’ she said in summary, ‘apparently reported missing this morning.’ She glanced at her laptop again, pressed a button, then turned back to the camera. ‘Our reporter, John Desmond, is in St Leonard’s now, and we’ll be going over to him shortly for a further update. In the meantime, I think we can go back to Sheila McCall in Baghdad…’
Mum hit the mute button and looked at me. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it looks like Dad’s going to be busy.’
‘Yeah…’
‘This is going to be a big one.’
‘If it’s true.’
‘What do you mean?’
I sat down. ‘I don’t know, Mum, it just seems a bit… I don’t know. I mean, I saw Stella last night at the fair. She was with loads of people. There was even a guy with a camera there.’
‘So?’
I shook my head. ‘It just seems a bit strange, that’s all.’
‘What’s so strange about it? She’s a young girl, her parents don’t know where she is –’
‘Yeah, but she’s Stella Ross, Mum. She’s a star, she travels all over the place, all over the world… her parents probably don’t know where she is most of the time. And now, just because she didn’t come home from some stupid little fair, they call the police straight away?’ I looked at Mum. ‘Doesn’t that seem a bit odd to you?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe they know something we don’t.’
‘Yeah, maybe…’
I glanced at the TV. A woman with a microphone was standing in a rubble-filled street, talking and waving her hands around. Behind her, dead bodies in black bags were being loaded into the back of a truck.
‘Did you find Raymond?’ Mum asked me.
‘No,’ I said, looking at her. ‘He’s still not home.’
‘Have you talked to his mum and dad?’
I nodded. ‘They don’t care.’
‘I’m sure they do –’
‘They don’t,’ I said bitterly. ‘Nobody cares… not about Raymond. I mean, he’s not a celebrity, is he? He’s not good-looking, he doesn’t have famous parents, he doesn’t have millions of sad old men ogling him on the Internet… why should anyone care about him? He’s just a dumb-looking weird kid.’
‘Come on, Pete,’ Mum said softly, ‘it’s not like that.’
‘Yeah, it is. He’s just as missing as Stella, isn’t he? He’s just as vulnerable as her… in fact, he’s more vu
lnerable. But they’re not talking about him on the news, are they?’ I looked at the TV again. They were showing a photograph of Stella now. It was a publicity shot – all golden hair and shining eyes, lots of cleavage, a superstar smile. ‘See?’ I said to Mum, waving at the screen, ‘I bet they wouldn’t show a photo of Raymond like that on the news.’
She gave me a slightly puzzled look, and I knew what she meant – yes, it was a stupid thing to say, and, no, it didn’t make sense – but I think she knew what I was trying to say. I stared at the TV as she turned up the volume.
‘… is the daughter of Justin Ross and Sophie Hart,’ the newsreader was saying. ‘She first came to fame as a feisty teenager in a popular and award-winning series of TV commercials, and has since gone on to star in pop videos, soap operas, glamour magazines…’
As the newsreader jabbered on about Stella’s famous parents, her shielded upbringing, and her more recent tabloid notoriety, a series of pictures and TV clips flashed across the screen showing Stella in all her glory: dancing in videos, posing for magazine covers, acting badly in soaps. The more intimate photos from the Internet weren’t shown, of course, and they weren’t actually mentioned either. But there were enough hidden hints and unseen winks to put us all in the picture.
It was kind of sickening really. The TV people had nothing to report. There was no information. No facts. No news. They were just talking, gossiping, speculating, filling in time. It was like watching some kind of grim entertainment show.
‘Look,’ said Mum, pointing at the screen. ‘Isn’t that Nicole?’
The newsreader was talking over a film clip now, explaining that it was an exclusive piece of video footage, allegedly filmed at a funfair in St Leonard’s on Saturday night. The film clip didn’t last very long, no more than twenty seconds or so, but they kept playing it over and over again, and as I leaned forward and stared breathlessly at the screen, I realized that Mum was right. Nicole was there. You could just make her out at the beginning of the clip – out of focus, in the background, entering the fairground. She was on her own, looking pretty pissed off… as if she’d just been insulted by some stupid guy in a den. As the camera zoomed in on Stella’s laughing face, Nicole disappeared from the picture for a moment, but then Stella turned and looked over her shoulder, as if something had just caught her attention, and as the camera panned out again, I could see that she was looking at Nic. Nic was walking up to her now, a false-looking smile fixed to her face – as if she was just saying hello to her old friend Stella – but her old friend Stella wasn’t even bothering to pretend to smile back at her. She was looking at Nic as if she’d never seen her before. Like – who the hell are you? Nic looked puzzled for a moment, then her puzzlement turned to an angry frown as Stella turned away, blanking her, and just for a second or two I saw a flash of rage in Nic’s eyes – a glare of naked hate – and then the camera zoomed back to Stella’s laughing face again.
It was all really quick, the camerawork a little bit shaky, and everything was slightly out of focus, but there was no doubt it had happened. Stella had blanked Nic at the fair, and Nic hadn’t liked it one bit.
I didn’t know if that meant anything or not.
All I knew was that Sky had the film, and if they had that piece of film, they probably had the rest. Which meant they probably had film showing Stella with Raymond…
The star’s going out tonight…
… and Stella with me…
You’re going to wish you hadn’t done this…
Stella and Raymond.
Raymond and Stella…
‘Pete?’ Mum said, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
I looked at her. She was still perched on the edge of the settee, and she still had the remote in her hand. The TV was muted again now. The room was quiet, the news had moved on to Afghanistan, and Mum was staring at me with a worried look on her face.
‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked me.
‘Nothing…’
‘Come on, Pete,’ she sighed. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘About what?’
‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘Stella Ross, the fair… whatever happened last night.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know something about it, don’t you?’
I gave her an innocent look. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘I’m your mother, Pete. I know when you’re hiding something –’
‘I’m not hiding anything –’
‘No?’
She was giving me one of those looks now, the kind of look that makes you lower your eyes and stare at the floor, hoping you don’t look as guilty as you feel.
‘What is it, Pete?’ she said softly. ‘Come on, you can tell me.’
‘I don’t know anything, Mum,’ I muttered, still staring at the floor. ‘Honest… I’d tell you if I did. I’m just really worried about Raymond, that’s all. I don’t know what to do about him, you know… I don’t know what to think.’
Mum nodded slowly. ‘What about the others who were there last night? Nicole, Eric, Pauly… maybe they know where he is.’
I shook my head. ‘They haven’t seen him.’
‘Do you think he might know something about Stella?’
‘What?’ I said, looking up.
‘Raymond,’ she said cautiously. ‘I mean, if he’s missing, and Stella’s missing…’
I’d been trying not to think about that. Ever since Dad had got the phone call from his DCI, I’d been trying to ignore the possibility that Raymond’s disappearance might have something to do with Stella’s. I didn’t want to believe it – and I didn’t believe it. What was there to believe? All that stuff at the fortune-teller’s about people dying and bad things happening…? That didn’t mean anything. And Raymond’s words, or Black Rabbit’s words – the star’s going out tonight – they didn’t mean anything either. Rabbits don’t talk, for a start. And wherever Raymond had got the words from – from himself, from his weirdness, from whatever voices he had in his head – he couldn’t have known they had anything to do with Stella, because he didn’t even know that she was going to be at the fair.
At least, I didn’t think he knew…
But they had been together at the fair.
And Mum was right, they were both missing now.
Stella and Raymond.
Raymond and Stella…
As I looked at Mum again, I suddenly felt incredibly sad. ‘Raymond wouldn’t do anything bad,’ I said quietly, shaking my head. ‘He wouldn’t hurt anyone… he couldn’t…’
‘All right, Pete,’ Mum said. ‘It’s all right –’
‘No, it’s not,’ I whispered, my voice quivering now. ‘It’s not all right. Nothing’s all right.’
I tried to get some sleep after that, but all I could do was lie on my bed and stare at the mute TV, waiting for something to happen. Sky News kept showing the video clip of Stella and Nic at the fair, and I kept watching it, wondering if it meant anything… and wondering when they were going to show the rest of it.
Stella with Raymond…
The star’s going out tonight…
… and Stella with me…
You’re going to wish you hadn’t done this…
The haunting words kept burning away in my head.
I was still lying on my bed, still staring at the mute TV, when I heard the phone ringing downstairs. I heard Mum coming out of the living room, walking down the hall, picking up the phone… and I heard her talking quietly for a few minutes. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was talking to Dad. And it wasn’t hard to guess what they were talking about.
I waited, listening… and just for a moment my mind flashed back to Thursday night when the phone had rung and the summer of this story had begun. I’d been lying on my bed then too. Busy doing nothing, just staring at the ceiling, minding my own mindless business…
‘Pete!’ Mum called out now. ‘Dad’s on the phone!’
>
I didn’t move for a moment. I just lay there on the bed, staring blindly at the bedroom door… lost in a world of nothing.
‘Pete!’ Mum called out again, louder this time. ‘Come on, hurry up. Dad wants to talk to you… it’s important.’
I shook the nothingness from my head, got up off the bed, and made my way downstairs.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I said, taking the phone from Mum’s hand. ‘Have you found –?’
‘I told you not to go out.’
‘I didn’t –’
‘Don’t lie to me, Pete. I know where you’ve been.’
‘I only –’
‘Look,’ he said angrily, ‘when I tell you to stay at home, you stay at home. Do you understand?’
‘Yeah, but –’
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Dad. Sorry.’
‘All right, listen,’ he said quickly, ‘I have to go in a minute… things are getting complicated. I don’t know if they’re going to let me…’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Let you what?’
‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter. Look, I want you to stay at home with your mum for the rest of the day. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t talk to anyone. Have you got that?’
‘Yeah –’
‘And I mean anyone, Pete. Do you understand? I don’t care who it is – the media, your friends, the police –’
‘The police?’
‘I’ll explain later. Just don’t say a word about anything until you’ve talked to me first. I’ll be home in a while –’
‘But why –?’
‘Just do it, Pete.’
‘Yeah, OK…’
‘Right, I’ve got to go –’
‘Have you heard anything about Raymond yet?’
‘No, but we’re looking for him. His mother called in about an hour ago. We’re going to need a written statement from you about last night –’
‘A statement?’
‘Later… I’ll explain everything when I get home. Just sit tight for now, and I’ll see you as soon as I can.’
Mum tried talking to me for a while after that, asking me what Dad had said, and what I’d said to him, but I wasn’t in the mood for answering questions, so I just mumbled and muttered and kept shrugging my shoulders, and eventually she gave up and let me go back to my room.
