Black Rabbit Summer

by Kevin Brooks

  The sky was clear and starry black, and for the first time in days there was a slight chill to the air. I turned and gazed out over the darkness. Where was Saturday night now? I wondered. Where had it gone? Where were all the laughing faces, the streaming crowds, the dodgems and the teddy bears and the whirling wheels? Where was Raymond? Where was the past? Where was –?

  I sensed something then – a soundless movement.

  Right behind me.

  A quiet breath, the whisper of a presence…

  ‘Raymond?’ I muttered, turning round.

  Despite the hope in my voice, I don’t think I really believed it was Raymond, but there was still something inside me that died a small death when instead of seeing Raymond I saw the tall figure of Tom Noyce in front of me. He was standing very close, still and pale in his grubby white boiler suit, his eyebrow studs and his lip ring glinting dully in the night. His icy blue eyes looked down at me through a tangle of dirty blond dreadlocks.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  His voice was a gentle growl.

  ‘I’m Pete Boland,’ I told him. ‘I’m a friend of –’

  ‘What do you want?’

  I looked up at him, wondering briefly how a man so tall and with so much hair could creep up behind me without making a sound.

  ‘What do you want?’ he repeated.

  ‘Tell your mother I’m here,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’ll know why.’

  He stared at me for a long time then, and as I gazed back at him, looking into those cold blue eyes, I tried to imagine if he was capable of having blood on his hands. I thought I could sense something about him, a vague impression that had something to do with life and death… but there wasn’t anything malicious about it. It was more of a down-to-earth kind of feeling, a practical acceptance that life depends upon death. Animals eat animals. Life has to be taken. Blood has to be spilled.

  I could imagine Tom Noyce catching a fish or killing a chicken, but that was as far as it went.

  ‘Come on,’ he said simply, turning round and heading off towards one of the trailers. ‘She’s waiting for you.’

  Twenty-four

  I suppose I was expecting Lottie Noyce to look exactly the same as Madame Baptiste – the same thick braid of dark brown hair, coiled into a bun on her head, the same old-fashioned brown woollen dress, buttoned up tightly to her neck. But, of course, that was Madame Baptiste the fortune-teller. And Lottie Noyce wasn’t Madame Baptiste. She was just Lottie Noyce: a middle-aged woman with long brown hair, wearing a plain black T-shirt and jeans, sitting at a table at the back of the trailer, drinking tea and smoking a handrolled cigarette.

  That’s all she was.

  Just a middle-aged woman smoking a cigarette.

  But as Tom Noyce showed me into the trailer, and Lottie just sat there, gazing calmly at me through a cloud of bluish-grey smoke, I still found it hard to take my eyes off her.

  ‘Come in, please,’ she said, beckoning me over.

  The trailer rocked slightly as I crossed over to the table. Pale light glowed from a tall pewter lamp stand in the corner, and the air seemed to shimmer in the light. Lottie was sitting with her back to a curtained window, and as I settled myself down at the small and flimsy table, I could feel her watching me, just like she’d watched me before – studying me, reading me, searching me for secrets.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked, smiling at me.

  ‘No thanks,’ I told her.

  I glanced over at Tom. He was standing at the other end of the trailer in a cramped little kitchen area. He wasn’t doing anything – just standing there, leaning casually against a fridge, quietly keeping an eye on me. The fridge looked ancient. In fact, as I gazed briefly around the trailer, I realized that almost everything around me looked ancient. The pots and pans hanging on the walls, the sparse and simple furniture, the china ornaments, the varnished shells, the primitive paintings in crude wooden frames… it all looked like something from another age.

  ‘There’s juice if you’d prefer,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Orange juice, pineapple…’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  She nodded, puffing on her cigarette, and I saw her glance down at a pack of playing cards on the table. They looked the same as the cards she’d used on Saturday night – plain, dark red, no pictures or patterns. Lottie breathed out a long stream of smoke.

  ‘So, Peter,’ she said, smiling at me again, ‘what can I do for you?’

  I looked at her, not sure what to say. I mean, what could I say? A porcelain rabbit told me to come and see you. He thinks you know what happened to Raymond. He thinks you know his fate. And he thinks you know why Stella’s blood was found on your son’s caravan.

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Lottie said gently. ‘I know how hard this is for you. I know how you feel about your friend.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She nodded. ‘You know I do. That’s why you’re here.’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ I said. ‘All I’m trying to do is find out what happened to Raymond. I just want to know if you know anything, that’s all. I mean, if you really know anything.’

  ‘What do you mean by really?’

  I looked at her. ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  She stared back at me for a while without saying anything, then she smiled quietly to herself and stubbed out her cigarette in a small metal ashtray. ‘It’s not all deceit, Peter,’ she said quietly. ‘The cards mean nothing, of course – they’re just part of the show. Some people like to believe in them, just as some people like to believe in gods and devils and miraculous stories.’ She paused for a moment, staring thoughtfully into space, then she shook her head, dismissing whatever it was she was thinking about, and went on. ‘But I do know things, Peter. No matter what you believe or disbelieve, I can see things that other people can’t see. It’s how I make my living. It’s how I make people believe in me.’

  ‘What kinds of things can you see?’ I asked.

  She looked at me. ‘Simple things… like the sleeplessness in your eyes, the fresh cut on your chin, the very faint bruising round your neck –’

  ‘What about Raymond?’ I said. ‘What did you see in him?’

  She smiled. ‘I saw traces of black rabbit fur on the shoulder of his jacket.’

  ‘And what did that tell you?’

  ‘That he had a black rabbit… and that he was in the habit of holding it close to him.’ She shrugged. ‘And that told me how much his rabbit meant to him, which for a boy of his age… well, it suggests a certain way of life, a certain set of emotions.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘It’s all about perception, Peter – and perception can be trained just like anything else. You can teach yourself how to observe, how to ask the right questions, how to deduce… and after a while, these things become second nature. You’re not even aware of what you’re doing most of the time. You see things, hear things, smell things… and without even thinking about it, you just add them all up and something inside you tells you what they probably mean.’ She smiled. ‘All you have to do then is tell people what they want to hear.’

  ‘Is that what you did with Raymond?’ I said. ‘I mean, is that all you were doing – telling him what he wanted to hear?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered, suddenly realizing the stupidity of my question. ‘I just thought…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, all that stuff you told Raymond about his kindness, his selflessness –’

  ‘Simple observations and deductions, nothing more.’

  ‘And the stuff about life and death –’

  ‘Life and death comes to us all.’

  ‘But you were talking about somebody dying –’

  ‘Raymond was talking about somebody dying. Not me.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But w
hat about at the end, when Raymond was leaving and you came up to me and told me to look after him. You told me to take care. You told me to take him home. Why did you do that?’

  She hesitated then, and there was something in her eyes – a look, a feeling – that made me wonder if all she was doing was telling me what I wanted to hear. She knew I didn’t believe in magical powers or mysterious insights, and she was simply trying to convince me that I was right. That it was all a scam, that it was just a show… that I was right not to believe in things that aren’t real.

  And I knew that I was right.

  But I wanted to be wrong.

  ‘Do you ever get feelings you don’t understand?’ Lottie asked me.

  ‘Like what?’

  She looked at me. ‘Like when you’re going to see someone, and you don’t know whether they’re at home or not, but when you get to their house and knock on their door… you somehow just know if they’re there or not. And you know that your feeling is right.’

  ‘You can trust it,’ I said quietly.

  She nodded. ‘I felt something like that about Raymond, something I trusted but didn’t understand, something that went beyond what my perceptions were telling me. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it didn’t feel good. Something was going to happen to him. Or he was going to do something…’

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’ I asked bluntly.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think he hurt anyone.’

  ‘What about Stella Ross? Do you know what happened to her?’

  Lottie glanced over at her son. He hadn’t moved, he was still just standing there, leaning casually against the fridge. ‘Tom doesn’t know anything about Stella Ross,’ Lottie said, turning back to me. ‘He didn’t even know who she was until the police started questioning him.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting –’

  ‘I know you weren’t.’

  ‘I just thought you might have seen something, you know…’

  ‘I’ve already answered all the policemen’s questions.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’ve told them everything.’

  She smiled. ‘You think I know more than I’m telling?’

  ‘I don’t know… you told me just now that you can see things that other people can’t see.’ I looked at her. ‘I don’t suppose you told the police that, did you?’

  She shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t have listened.’ She looked at me. ‘Why haven’t you told them everything?’

  ‘I don’t know… I just…’

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Anything… fear is often a motivation for lying.’

  ‘Fear of what?’

  ‘Whatever it is you’re frightened of.’

  I thought about that for a moment, wondering about all my fears – physical, mental, emotional, invisible – trying to work out if any of them could be the motivation behind all my lies… but it was too much to think about. Too scary to think about.

  I looked at Lottie. ‘Why didn’t you tell the police everything?’

  She shrugged. ‘Like I said, they wouldn’t have listened. Why would they listen to someone like me?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ I told her.

  She smiled at me again, idly shuffling the cards in her hand. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in the power of the cards?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But you believe in me?’

  ‘I don’t know. You haven’t told me anything yet.’

  ‘I can only tell you what I think.’

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, I just looked at her, trying to read her eyes, trying to work out what she was all about… but I couldn’t do it. Her eyes were like mirrors. All I could see in them was a study of myself.

  ‘Go on then,’ I said to her. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  ‘I think this is all about love,’ she said.

  ‘Love?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s a heartless business.’

  As Lottie began telling me what she’d seen that night, and what she thought it might mean, I noticed that the pack of playing cards never left her hands. She didn’t do anything with them at first – she didn’t even seem to be aware that she was holding them. They were just there, in her hands, almost as if they were part of her. Which I suppose, in a way, they were.

  ‘As soon as Raymond came into the tent that night,’ she told me, ‘I knew there was something different about him. And I could tell by the way he was looking at things that he thought he knew something about fortune-telling. I wasn’t sure if he believed in it or not, but I sensed that he knew what to expect.’ She looked at me. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Raymond’s always liked reading, and he reads about all kinds of weird stuff. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew a bit about fortune-telling.’

  She nodded. ‘He knew what the cards are meant to symbolize. That’s why I didn’t manipulate them for his reading.’ She smiled at me. ‘I usually just pick out the cards that fit in with what I’m getting from the person in front of me, but with Raymond… well, I just thought it’d be interesting to see what happened without any help from me.’

  ‘Is that why you were so surprised when you saw his cards?’

  ‘Yes… they were very dark cards. Darker than I’d ever choose to select. And even though I know they’re just cards, and I know there’s nothing in them…’ She glanced at the cards in her hand. ‘They’re just bits of patterned card, numbers and shapes and colours… they’re just tools. They can be whatever you want them to be.’ She slowly turned over the top card of the pack and placed it face up on the table. ‘The Queen of Spades,’ she said. ‘The woman with come-to-bed eyes.’ She turned over another card. ‘The Queen of Hearts. A woman with purpose.’ She looked at me. ‘I saw Stella Ross after you and Raymond had left that night. She walked past my tent, parading herself like a queen, surrounded by all her servants and worshippers. I never saw her again.’

  ‘What did you think of her?’

  Lottie closed her eyes. ‘She wants to be adored, but she despises those who adore her. She’s insecure, self-obsessed, vengeful, bitter. She likes to play cruel games. She likes to manipulate people.’

  ‘You got all that from one brief look at her?’

  Lottie smiled. ‘We’re all sorcerers, Peter. We all live in a wonderland of marvel and beauty if we did but know it.’

  ‘What?’ I frowned.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, opening her eyes and grinning at me. ‘I spend most of my life talking crap – it’s hard to break the habit.’

  ‘Right. So you didn’t see Stella again that night?’

  ‘No. But, as I told you before, I am very good at reading people, and I did get the impression from her that her overriding desire was to have what she couldn’t have.’ She looked at me. ‘Just like the boy you were sitting with on the bench later on.’

  ‘Pauly?’

  She turned over a card: the Four of Diamonds. ‘Intoxication,’ she said simply. ‘His face is dulled with drink and drugs.’ Another card. ‘The Two of Spades. He loves an illusion.’ Another card. ‘The Seven of Spades, the fascination of the moth to the flame.’ She looked at me. ‘He too wanted what he couldn’t have.’

  ‘Who – Pauly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What couldn’t he have?’

  She narrowed her eyes, thinking about it. ‘Well, at first I thought that the object of his desire was one of the two lovers he was watching, that he wanted one of them, and that it angered him to see them together. But after a while I realized there was more to it than that. I think there was something else he wanted –’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said, getting confused. ‘Are we still talking about Pauly here?’

  She nodded. ‘The boy on the bench. You watched him for a while, and then you went over and sat down next to him.’

  ‘Right… so who were these two lovers he was watching?�
��

  ‘The same ones that you were watching.’

  I looked at her in disbelief. ‘You mean Eric and Campbell?’

  ‘I don’t know their names – one of them was the brother of the girl you know, the other one was an older boy with a slightly crooked mouth.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I muttered. ‘Eric Leigh and Wes Campbell. But they’re not…’

  Lovers, I was going to say. They’re not lovers. But all at once a whole load of stuff started popping and crackling inside my head – the sound of everything coming together – and suddenly it all seemed so obvious. Eric and Wes Campbell: together at the fairground, together at Eric’s house, together in his bedroom…

  Eric and Campbell were together.

  That’s why Campbell had warned me off.

  That’s why Eric had lied to me about where he’d been all night… he’d been with Wes Campbell.

  They were together.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Lottie asked me.

  ‘No… well, I know that Eric’s gay –’

  ‘He’s the brother?’

  ‘Yeah, I mean everyone knows about Eric. He came out years ago. But Wes Campbell…?’ I looked at her. ‘Are you sure about him?’

  She nodded. ‘The way they were looking at each other, the way they were standing together, their closeness, their intimacy… of course, they were both doing their best to disguise it.’ She paused, looking at me. ‘The older boy… Wes Campbell, is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There’s no doubt that he loves the brother, but he loves himself too much to show it.’ She turned over a card. ‘The Two of Diamonds… he fears that his love will meet with disapproval and suspicion.’

  ‘Christ,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Wes Campbell… shit. I can’t believe it.’ I looked at Lottie. ‘I mean, I’m not saying… you know, I’m not saying that guys like Wes Campbell can’t be gay or anything, it’s just… well, it’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all.’