Black Rabbit Summer

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Sort of…’

  ‘What do you mean – sort of?’

  I tried to do what Dad had told me, I tried to tell Kesey the truth, and at first I didn’t have any problems. I told him straight away that I’d taken a bottle of Dad’s wine, and that Raymond had taken some drink from his parents too. Then I told him how we’d met up with the others in the den, and I explained where it was, and who the others were, and I admitted that we’d all been drinking (I didn’t mention the dope), and that I’d stayed behind in the den with Nicole when the others had gone on to the fair…

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ Kesey said at that point. ‘You stayed behind in the den with Nicole?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘What did Raymond do?’

  ‘He went on to the fair with Pauly and Eric.’

  ‘Right… but you stayed behind with Nicole?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know… about twenty minutes maybe, something like that.’

  I saw Kesey glance quickly at Dad, then he turned back to me. ‘Why did the two of you stay behind?’

  ‘Nic wanted to talk to me,’ I told him. ‘In private.’

  Kesey didn’t say anything, he just looked at me.

  ‘We used to be pretty close,’ I explained, trying not to blush. ‘I mean, we used to hang around together quite a lot when we were kids, and she just wanted to talk about it, you know… talk about the old times.’

  ‘Right,’ said Kesey. ‘So that’s it? You just talked about the old times?’

  I felt something holding me back then, some kind of… I don’t know. Some kind of instinctive warning maybe. It’s hard to describe, but it was as if there was something inside me – an insistent whisper in the back of my mind – telling me to be careful, don’t say too much… you don’t have to tell him everything. I didn’t really understand it, but I’d already made the mistake of not listening to things I didn’t understand, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

  ‘Pete?’ Kesey said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah… sorry. I was just…’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I smiled vaguely at him. ‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten what I was saying.’

  ‘You were telling me about Nicole,’ he said patiently. ‘Remember? You were in the den with her, talking about the “old days”.’

  ‘Right, yeah…’

  ‘And that’s all you did? The two of you just talked?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Like what?’

  He smiled knowingly at me. ‘Come on, Pete, you know what I’m talking about – you and Nicole, alone in the den… you’ve both had a few drinks…’

  ‘We just talked about stuff,’ I said casually, holding his gaze. ‘That’s all. Nothing happened.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, his smile quickly fading. ‘So how come Nicole ended up going to the fair on her own?’

  I hesitated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Pete,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ve seen the film clip they keep showing on the news, the one with Stella at the fair. That’s Nicole in the background, isn’t it? The girl that Stella blanks… that’s Nicole Leigh.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And she’s just arrived at the fair.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘On her own.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So where were you? I mean, if the two of you were in the den together, having a nice friendly chat together, why didn’t you go to the fair together?’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment. I just stared at him, trying not to look too stupid.

  He said, ‘Do you see what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I mumbled, lowering my eyes.

  ‘What happened, Pete?’

  I took a deep breath and looked up at him. ‘It was nothing… I mean, we just had a bit of an argument, that’s all.’

  ‘You and Nicole?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You had an argument in the den?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Nothing, really…’

  ‘It must have been about something.’

  I shook my head. ‘It was just one of those things, you know… we’d both had too much to drink, I said the wrong thing, Nicole got a bit angry with me…’

  Kesey raised his eyebrows. ‘What did you say to make her angry?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember?’

  I shrugged again. ‘Like I said, it was just one of those things…’

  He stared at me for a moment, letting me see that he wasn’t too happy with my answer, and then he just nodded. ‘All right,’ he sighed, ‘so the two of you had an argument. What happened then?’

  ‘Nic left the den and went on to the fair on her own.’

  ‘Was she still angry with you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What did you do after she’d left?’

  ‘Not much… I stayed in the den for a while, maybe five minutes or so, and then I went on to the fair.’

  Kesey looked at me. ‘Do Stella and Nicole know each other?’

  The sudden change of subject caught me off guard. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Stella and Nicole,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Do they know each other?’

  ‘Well, yeah… I mean, they used to be friends when Stella was still at school, but they kind of drifted apart when Stella got famous –’

  ‘So they’re not friends any more?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Is that why Stella blanked Nicole at the fair?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably…’ I looked at him, suddenly realizing what he was getting at. ‘They don’t hate each other or anything,’ I told him. ‘I mean, if you’re trying to suggest that Nic –’

  ‘I’m not trying to suggest anything,’ he said calmly. ‘Do you know where the film clip came from?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The video of Stella at the fair… do you know who made it?’

  ‘It was just some guy with a camera,’ I said. ‘He was with Stella. There was a guy with a microphone too.’

  ‘They were with Stella?’

  ‘Yeah, she had loads of people with her.’

  ‘What did the cameraman and the guy with the microphone look like?’

  I couldn’t really remember what they looked like, but I did my best to describe them. As I sat there mumbling away – one of them was tallish, the other one was a bit shorter – and Kesey sat there diligently writing it all down, I began to realize that if the police didn’t know who’d made the film, then they probably hadn’t seen any more of it. Which meant they probably didn’t know that Raymond had been with Stella at the fair, or that I’d taken him away from her. And that probably meant…

  ‘So you saw her then?’ Kesey said suddenly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stella Ross. You saw her at the fair?’

  I looked at him.

  He said, ‘I mean, if you saw these two guys with the film equipment, and you’re telling me that they were with Stella…’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I saw her.’

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘Only briefly…’ I shrugged. ‘We just said hello, you know… I used to know her at school.’

  Kesey smiled. ‘She didn’t blank you then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What time was it when you saw her?’

  ‘Quite early… around ten thirty, eleven. I’d only just got there.’

  ‘What was she doing?’

  ‘Not much… just walking around, you know… soaking up all the attention.’

  ‘And you just said hello to her?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  I shook my head. ‘I was trying to find Raymond. I felt bad about letting him go on to the fair without me.’

  ‘Wh
y?’

  ‘He’s a bit… he sometimes gets a bit anxious about things.’

  ‘Anxious?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Kesey wrote something in his notebook, then looked back at me. ‘So you went looking for Raymond?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  I carried on with the story then, only this time I was even more careful with the truth. I told Kesey how I’d found Raymond at the fair, but I didn’t go into any details. I told him how we’d gone to the fortune-teller, but I didn’t tell him what she’d said. And I told him how I’d lost track of Raymond at the Portaloos, and how I’d spent the next couple of hours looking for him, but I didn’t say anything about anything else.

  ‘So what time did you actually leave the fair?’ Kesey asked me.

  ‘I don’t know… it was pretty late. Gone midnight.’

  ‘And you went straight home?’

  ‘No, I stopped off at Eric and Nic’s place.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Recreation Road. I thought Raymond might be there.’

  ‘But he wasn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you talk to Eric or Nicole?’

  I shook my head. ‘They weren’t in.’

  ‘So what did you do then?’

  ‘I waited…’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know… I fell asleep.’

  Kesey grinned at me. ‘You fell asleep?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to… I just kind of sat down on the front step, and I suppose I was a bit drunk, you know…’

  ‘What time did you wake up?’

  ‘About six o’clock… it was raining. I walked back to Hythe Street and went round to Raymond’s to see if he was home… but he wasn’t. And someone had killed his rabbit –’

  ‘And that’s when you came back here and saw your dad?’

  ‘Yeah… I tried talking to Mr and Mrs Daggett about Raymond first, but they didn’t seem too bothered. So I ran back home and told Dad.’

  ‘Right.’ Kesey looked at me. ‘Why did you go back to the fairground on Sunday morning?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, Pete. Why did you go back there?’

  ‘To find Raymond. I was worried about him.’

  ‘That’s not what you told the PC who asked you what you were doing there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on, Pete,’ Kesey said, grinning at me again. ‘The uniformed constable at the fair on Sunday morning. He spoke to you, remember? He asked you what you were doing there, and you told him that you were just looking around. You didn’t mention anything about Raymond.’

  ‘Yeah, I know –’

  ‘And when he asked you what time you’d left the fairground on Saturday, you didn’t say anything about stopping off at Eric and Nic’s place on the way back, did you?’

  ‘Well, no –’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know… I just… I wasn’t trying to hide anything –’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nothing… I mean, there’s nothing to hide. I just meant, you know… I just wasn’t thinking straight.’ I looked at Dad, then back at Kesey. ‘I’m sorry, OK?’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said quietly. ‘As long as you’re telling us everything now.’

  ‘I am –’

  ‘Because we’ll find out if you’re not. You know that, don’t you?’ He tapped his notebook. ‘This is all going to be checked. So if there’s anything else you think you might have forgotten, now’s the time to tell me. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I’ve told you everything.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Because the more we know, the better chance we have of finding Raymond.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said sullenly, ‘if you’d started looking for him as quickly as you started looking for Stella –’

  ‘All right, Pete,’ Dad said, cutting me off. ‘Let’s not get into all that.’

  Kesey glanced over at Dad, and I saw a look in his eyes… a look that meant something, something between him and Dad, but I couldn’t work out what it was.

  ‘Is that it?’ Dad asked him. ‘Have you finished?’

  Kesey nodded. ‘Yeah, I think that’ll do for now.’ He closed his notebook and put it away. ‘We might need to talk to you again, Pete,’ he told me. ‘Obviously, if Raymond and Stella turn up, and hopefully they will, that’ll be the end of it. But if we don’t find them soon, you’ll need to make a written statement, and we’ll probably have to ask you a few more questions. OK?’

  I nodded.

  He looked at me, his eyes full of unanswered questions, and I’m pretty sure he was going to say something else, but Dad didn’t give him a chance.

  ‘Yeah, well, thanks a lot, John,’ he said, getting up and crossing the room. ‘And thanks for letting me stay. I appreciate it.’

  Kesey smiled at him. ‘No trouble, Jeff. Thanks for being so good about it.’

  ‘Are you going back to the station now?’

  ‘Not yet… I’ve got a few more people to see.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What about you?’ Kesey said.

  Dad shrugged. ‘Back on at six tonight. Paperwork, reports, you know… anything to keep me out of the way.’

  ‘Why don’t you just take some leave?’

  ‘I need the money. There’s no overtime when you’re on leave.’

  ‘Right…’

  They carried on chatting as Dad ushered Kesey out of the room, and it sounded friendly enough, but I could tell they were both feeling a bit awkward, and I guessed it had to be pretty hard for them: Dad having to stand back and let Kesey get on with it; Kesey having to get tough with his close friend’s son…

  It was an awkward situation.

  And I got the feeling that it wasn’t going to get any better.

  Dad didn’t say much to me after Kesey had left. I knew that he wanted to talk to me, but I think he thought that I’d had enough for now. And he was tired too, almost dead on his feet.

  ‘I’m going to get a couple of hours’ sleep,’ he told me. ‘If that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘And I think you ought to try and get some sleep too,’ he said. ‘You look shattered.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll wake you up around midday, and then we’ll talk.’

  ‘Right.’

  He looked at me, trying to concentrate, trying to work out what he wanted to say… but he couldn’t get hold of it. Whatever it was, he just couldn’t do it. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze.

  ‘See you in a couple of hours,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘See you, Dad.’

  I watched him as he shuffled wearily out of the room, and I listened as he climbed the stairs. I heard him open the bedroom door, then quietly close it, and I could just make out the faint mutter of voices as he started talking to Mum. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I guessed they were talking about me.

  I went upstairs to my bedroom, making sure that Mum and Dad heard me, then I quietly tiptoed back down again, crept out the back door, got my bike out of the garden shed, and quietly wheeled it round the back of the house and out on to the street.

  Fifteen

  The Greenwell Estate is a maze of flat roads and granite-grey houses that all look the same. It’s a place where seven-year-old kids throw rocks at passing cars, and twelve-year-old kids rule the streets. It’s a place where dogs are weapons, not pets, and cats are there to be killed. It’s a place where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone knows if you don’t live there. And if you don’t live there, or if you don’t know anyone who lives there, you’d better not hang around there too long.

  The hard streets were almost deserted as I pedalled up into the heart of the estate, but that didn’t mean there was no one around. It just meant that I couldn’t see them. I could feel them watching me, though, as
I rode on through the sullen grey heat – past scraps of playing fields, dog-shit paths, lock-up garages, burned-out cars, roads that didn’t go anywhere…

  The sun was beating down.

  The estate was cold.

  The nowhere eyes were everywhere.

  Pauly Gilpin’s house was a pebble-dashed grey thing at the end of a street full of pebble-dashed grey things. It had dirty windows, a shit-coloured door, and a scabby front yard of cracked concrete and weeds. I got off my bike, wheeled it up to the front door, and leaned it against the wall.

  I rang the bell and waited.

  It felt really strange, being at Pauly’s place. It felt as if it ought to be familiar, but it wasn’t. And as I stood there waiting, staring at the paint-peeled door, I found myself thinking about the past again, about the times when Pauly and the rest of us used to hang around together, and it suddenly occurred to me that we’d hardly ever gone round to Pauly’s place back then. In fact, as far as I could remember, I’d only ever been there twice before. And even then, I hadn’t been invited inside.

  But that was a lifetime ago…

  When Pauly finally opened the door, he had the same unmasked look about him that I’d seen when he was alone at the fair – the lostness, the loneliness, the darkness. He was barefoot and bare-chested, dressed only in jeans, and I guessed he’d only just woken up. His hair was uncombed, his eyes were heavy, and it took him a few seconds to recognize me.

  ‘Pete?’ he said, blinking and rubbing his eyes. ‘Hey… what’re you doing here?’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ I told him.

  ‘Yeah?’ He was looking over my shoulder now, his eyes instinctively scanning the streets. ‘You should have called first,’ he said, still not looking at me. ‘I was just about to go out –’

  ‘Have the police spoken to you yet?’ I asked him.

  His eyes suddenly focused on me. ‘What?’

  ‘The police – have they been in touch with you yet?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Oh, right… Stella. Yeah, I saw it on the news.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t believe it…’

  There was no sense of real disbelief in his words, they were just words – the kind of things you say when you’re expected to say something. The look of puzzlement on his face didn’t seem too genuine either.

  ‘Why’d the cops want to speak to me?’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about Stella –’