by Steven Dunne
824 words
By Kyle Kennedy
Kyle checked through the text and saved it on to his pen drive. He lay back on his bed and flicked at a remote. He was bare-chested, his skinny frame glistening in the evening heat. Music drifted out of the speakers mounted at each corner of the room — The Smiths. He looked down at the pasty, almost white flesh on his puny torso and pulled on a T-shirt in disgust then gazed at the cloudless sky, the same sky the girls at Hanging Rock must have been looking at. He could hear the faint muffle of outdoor life continuing elsewhere even though his window was firmly closed against it.
His favourite song started to play — ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ — and he began to sing along. He nodded wistfully when Morrissey sang about the possibility of being run over by a ten-ton truck and that to die beside his lover in such a way would be a privilege. Kyle dug into his skintight jeans and pulled out a crumpled and dirty piece of paper. Unfolding it, he read the handwritten text.
Jake finished his hundredth sit-up and fell back on to the floor panting. He sat up and rolled over to do his press-ups when he noticed his mobile flashing. It was Kyle. Jake sat on his bed and looked at the sweat dotting his brow in the wardrobe mirror.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s Kyle.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Jake. I’m outside.’
With phone in hand, Jake looked out into the dark sultry night. Kyle was at the front gate waving at him. ‘It’s late, Kyle.’
‘I’ve got something for you. To thank you for this morning.’
‘This morning?’ asked Jake, though he knew very well what Kyle meant.
‘When Wilson went for me at college. You stopped him hitting me.’
Jake smiled. ‘Oh, that.’
‘Can you come down? I’d knock on the door but I don’t think your dad likes me much.’
‘Wait there.’ A minute later, Jake had slipped through the kitchen and out of the back door. He came round the corner of the house and walked towards Kyle, who pulled his hood down and watched Jake’s panther-like steps.
Kyle grinned sheepishly. ‘Hi, Jake.’
‘Kyle.’ Jake nodded back. There was a brief silence. ‘Well?’
‘Well, it’s my eighteenth tomorrow.’
‘Happy Birthday.’
‘Thanks.’ Kyle hesitated.
‘Hope you’re getting a new hoodie.’
‘Sorry?’
Jake smiled to diminish any insult. ‘That G-Star thing you’re wearing. You ever take it off?’
‘It depends,’ said Kyle mysteriously.
Jake stiffened. ‘Was there something else?’
‘My mum’s going away for the weekend with Daddy Warbucks — Uncle Len. He’s kind of her boyfriend.’
‘I know him,’ said Jake. ‘That old fart who dresses like Eminem.’
Kyle giggled and Jake reluctantly laughed with him. ‘I know. A pensioner in a tracksuit. That’s so not right on so many levels. Well, I’m having a few people round — not many, just a handful.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘I don’t have a block full of friends.’ Jake’s expression remained sombre so Kyle said his piece. ‘About nine o’clock. Only if you want, of course. And no present, just presence.’ Kyle laughed, embarrassed at his own pun.
Jake stared at him, making no attempt to reply. Finally he squirrelled a glance at Kyle’s hand. ‘You said you had something for me.’
‘Right.’ Kyle handed over a pen drive, a CD case and a rolled-up poster. ‘I’ve done that film review for Media Studies. I thought you might like to borrow it — you know, get some ideas for your own essay.’ Jake kept his eyes on Kyle then unrolled the poster. ‘It’s Morrissey from The Smiths. Greatest Living Englishman,’ Kyle looked around and laughed shyly, ‘far as I’m concerned. And I burned you a Smiths CD — you know, just to thank you.’ Kyle nervously rested one plimsolled foot on the other. He looked about twelve to Jake with his short crop and pale girlish features. Not even a suggestion of facial hair.
‘You didn’t have to. But thanks.’
Kyle took his hands out of his pockets and looked up into Jake’s face but Jake had turned away.
‘Was there anything else?’ he said coldly.
Kyle looked at the ground. ‘A ten-ton truck would be nice.’ He pulled his hood back up and walked away into the night.
‘What does that mean?’ shouted Jake after him.
Kyle turned, a wistful smile on his face. ‘When you listen to the CD you’ll know. Track nine.’
Rusty walked slowly along the pavement, his eyes glued to the glow of his camcorder. What a result. Becky Blake dancing for him, stripping for him. Forget Animal House starring John Belushi and directed by John Landis. This was no American frat-house comedy, this was. . this was. . Body Double. That’s it. Brian de Palma’s remake of Vertigo starring Melanie Griffith as the erotic dancer, performing her dance of death for the hapless Peeping Tom in a nearby apartment.
Rusty grinned at the playback. Becky had seen him, he was sure. Cry for help? Goddamn right. He was so engrossed in the image of Becky’s naked body that he didn’t hear the noise from behind until it was too late. At the last minute the whirring of a bicycle registered and he turned in time to catch a flash of steel descending towards his neck. He screamed in shock and pain and fell to the ground, clutching at the wound.
As he hit the ground he tried to keep hold of the camcorder but it fell from his grasp and rolled along the pavement, coming to a stop with the lens facing him. As the blood trickled through Rusty’s fingers, clamped to his neck, he tried to right himself but caught sight of the camcorder as he did so. The red light was on.
Ignoring his injury, he reached out a bloodied hand towards the lens just out of reach. A second later, he slumped down to the hard pavement with a rasping sigh, and lay motionless while the camcorder continued to store his image.
‘What was that little pooftah doing outside?’
Jake turned at the foot of the stairs to face his father sprawled out on the living-room sofa, beer can perched on his belly. Jake wondered whether to pretend he hadn’t heard and just bound up the stairs.
‘I asked you a question,’ growled his dad.
‘His name is Kyle.’
‘Yeah, that gay boy. Poor Steve Kennedy’s lad,’ retorted his father, unable to turn his face away from the TV. ‘What did he want?’
‘Leave him alone,’ his mother said. ‘They’re friends. Kyle’s a nice lad.’
‘That right, Jake?’ hollered his father, a mocking edge in his tone. ‘Are you and that shirt-lifter friends?’
‘Malcolm. I don’t want to hear that sort of talk in my house.’
Jake turned away and shouted back from the bottom stair, ‘He’s in my Media Studies group. We sometimes swap essays.’
‘Essays, my arse,’ his father shouted back. ‘Just mind you don’t catch nothing.’
Jake started up the stairs. ‘Why don’t you have another beer, Dad? You still sound half-sober.’
‘You cheeky little bastard,’ bellowed his father, stirring himself.
‘I wish,’ Jake hollered back from his bedroom door.
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘That’s enough, Malcolm. Sit back down. I’m trying to watch this.’
Malcolm McKenzie sank blearily back to the warmth of the sofa. ‘Cheeky little fucker’s cruising for a bruising,’ he muttered under his beer breath.
Jake fed the CD into his music centre and pressed 9 on the remote. A grubby scrap of paper fell out of the blank case, which he stooped to pick up and unfold. It was a handwritten track list. Track 9 was called ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. He turned the paper over. There were childlike drawings of unknown yellow flowers around the margins and a small poem in the middle which Jake read aloud.
Morrissey,
you should have died when you was younger,
For you then, we would have hungered,
We would have seen
some flowers then
And never seen your like again!!!!!
It was signed KK aged 13.
Jake listened carefully to the song until he heard the reference to a ten-ton truck. He skipped the song back to listen again.
Jake ejected the disc and sat in silence. The song was a love letter and Kyle Kennedy had given it to him. A moment later he carefully picked up the unfolded track list and tore it into tiny pieces. Then he picked up the CD and case and headed downstairs.
‘Going out, Jake?’ shouted his mother from the armchair. She was a small nervous woman with a birdlike way of moving her head. Jake’s drink-befuddled father was on the sofa snoring and the TV was turned up to drown out the noise.
Jake smiled reassuringly at her as he zipped his tracksuit. ‘I’m going for a run, Mum.’
‘At this time? I was just going up.’ On my own was left unsaid.
‘I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy,’ he explained. His mum nodded then looked at her husband without expression. Jake followed her gaze. He managed a watery smile. ‘Anything good on?’
His mother looked at him for longer than felt comfortable. ‘I’ve no idea.’
Jake turned away and opened the front door. ‘I won’t be long.’ He jogged out into the warm night.
Jake turned left on to Western Road and continued to jog powerfully towards the new houses before turning on to Brisbane Road. He kept his eyes peeled for Kyle. He knew roughly where he lived with his mother. Kyle’s father had left them a few years ago because of the shame of having a gay son. Although Kyle’s sexuality had only become blatant over the last couple of years in college, likely his parents would have known sooner. And Kyle’s dad hadn’t hung around to listen to behind-the-hand whispers.
After her husband’s departure, Jake knew Kyle’s mum had been forced to cope as a single parent, on a mixture of benefits and the bits of maintenance she could squeeze out of Kyle’s dad, as well as the odd bit of cash-in-hand work serving at a stall in the Eagle Centre. The years of scrimping and saving had not been kind to Mrs Kennedy and she seemed old and worn out for her age, like his own mum. At least things were looking up for them moneywise. Leonard Poole, a pensioner with a big car, had been taking an interest in her for a year or so. There was a twenty-year age gap — Poole was about sixty — but he seemed to have plenty of money. ‘Daddy Warbucks.’ Jake laughed in spite of his mood. ‘Good one.’
Ten minutes later, Jake slowed to a walk and put his hands on his hips, feeling the pleasant rush of adrenalin in his system. ‘Maybe he’s gone to a gay bar,’ he panted, his eyes narrowing. Was there even such a thing in Derby? He’d heard rumours but he’d never seen any obvious faggots in the city. Just Kyle. Still, there had to be other faggots, didn’t there? Because the secret existence of gayness dominated his and every other young male’s life on the estate. Anything not quite right was gay. Anything morally dubious was gay. Bad situations were gay. If it rained in summer it was gay. Boring lessons were gay. Even a slow computer was gay. Gay was a byword for everything that was wrong in the world.
Jake prepared to jog again as he turned down a sharp dip in the road. He stopped when he heard a noise, a shout from somewhere. He walked towards it. There was a gap in the houses and a path next to a stream cut through towards open ground where residents walked their dogs on nearby fields.
Another shout now, only louder, followed by a laugh. He reached the path and headed down through the trees into the darkness. In a patch of moonlit ground stood Kyle, his back against a large tree, held at the throat by the podgy hand of Wilson Woodrow. Three of Wilson’s mates stood around laughing, smoking and filming on their camera phones.
Kyle saw Jake before the others did, his frightened eyes blinking in relief. He couldn’t speak because Wilson’s hand was squeezing his throat. A little blood seeped from his mouth. Wilson grinned at Kyle’s terror then followed his tearful gaze of relief. He stopped grinning and let his hand fall when he saw Jake. The others turned too and mobile cameras were lowered.
‘Hi, Jake,’ said Wilson, holding up a placatory hand. ‘We were just having a little fun with your girlfriend.’ Jake stiffened. His eyes dwelled on the blood in Kyle’s mouth. ‘Oh, it’s not what you think, Jake. That was an accident.’ Wilson laughed and looked around at his amused crew. ‘I was just looking at the cut, when you arrived. To see if I could fix it.’
Kyle, now freed, pushed past Wilson and stood before Jake, tears streaming down his face. ‘Jake! I knew you’d come.’
Wilson and his friends stood ready to run despite their superior numbers.
Jake reached into his pocket and fished out The Smiths CD given to him by Kyle. He tossed it on the ground. ‘There’s your CD, Faggot. Pick it up and get out of here while you still can.’ He waited for Kyle to escape but instead of running, Kyle stood frozen. He glanced down at the CD case then up into Jake’s eyes. The sobbing had stopped but the look of desolation on his face was far, far worse, as though someone had reached deep into his being and ripped out his heart and soul.
For what seemed an eternity, Kyle held Jake’s gaze, then ignoring the CD on the ground, he turned to face Wilson, took a deep breath and walked back towards him.
Wilson grinned but confusion quickly flooded his face. What was the faggot doing? Kyle walked to within six inches of Wilson, smiled a bloody smile and touched his arm with a delicate hand. ‘Hello, handsome.’
Wilson landed a haymaker on the left side of Kyle’s head and he collapsed like a house of cards. ‘Fucking queer.’ His friends made to close in around the prostrate form but Wilson held up a hand to halt them. ‘No. That’s what he wants — the fucking perv likes it. I’m gettin’ away from this freak.’ Wilson stomped off, assuming the mantle of the injured party, his mute entourage trailing in his wake. ‘All yours, McKenzie,’ he hissed, making sure he gave Jake a wide berth. ‘I’m going to get me some mature poontang,’ he said, hitching at his crotch to make his meaning clear. ‘Get the taste of gayness out of my mouth.’ His friends sniggered their approval.
Jake watched them leave, laughing, shouting and texting others about their triumph. Then he turned back to Kyle. From a pocket, Jake pulled a small hand flannel which he used to wipe sweat from his face when he jogged. He ran down to the nearby stream and dunked the flannel into the cold water then ran back to Kyle, who was trying to sit up. Jake nursed his lolling head on to his knee and dabbed the blood from his mouth. He then wiped Kyle’s brow, and the cold water revived him. ‘Are you all right?’
Kyle’s dark cow eyes opened and his long lashes fluttered as he focused. For a split second he made to smile then his face paled and he sat up. ‘Get off me,’ he muttered groggily.
‘Kyle, you’re-’
‘Get off me.’ Kyle squirmed unsteadily to his feet. ‘Don’t touch me.’ He righted himself and managed to stand then staggered away towards the darkness of the fields, pushing past Jake’s outstretched hands.
‘Kyle!’ shouted Jake after him.
Kyle lurched out of sight, sobbing. ‘Leave me alone, you bastard. I hate you.’
Seven
Friday, 20 May
Brook and Noble arrived at the shiny new mortuary in the Royal Derby Hospital complex at nine the next morning and headed straight for the Post Mortem Suite. When they arrived, Dr Habib was already finishing work on the dead man and was preparing to remove his gown and mask while an assistant took the final photographs.
Habib was a short chubby Asian man with soft brown eyes blinking behind thick round glasses. His face was wrinkle-free, despite advanced age, his hair, sticking out from under his surgical cap, was reddish-brown save for a few strands of grey that hadn’t seen sufficient henna.
After he stuffed mask and gown into a hazard bin, he muttered an instruction to his assistant who set down the camera and laid out the deceased’s hands, palm up, and ready to roll on the fingerprint ink. When Brook and Noble entered the lab, fiddling with surgical masks, they ventured no further than the freezers
.
Habib grinned when he spotted them. ‘Inspector Brook. And Sergeant Noble also. Nice to see you. Just finishing up.’
‘You got an early start,’ said Brook.
‘It’s a lot quicker without clothes to bag and organs to remove,’ said Habib. ‘And we’ve got a backlog to work off.’
‘What have you got for us?’ interrupted Brook, fearing a lecture on excessive workload — Habib’s favourite topic of conversation.
Habib paused, wondering whether Brook should be made aware of how much he had on his plate, then decided against it. ‘More questions than answers at this stage, I fear. A tricky case — but very interesting.’ He smiled warmly at his assistant who walked over to them, camera in hand. ‘Gentlemen,’ Habib gushed towards the detectives. ‘Can I introduce Dr Ann Petty?’
‘Detectives,’ she said through her surgical mask. Brook caught a glimpse of her green eyes as she ran them briefly up and down, first Brook’s then Noble’s frame before returning to her work. The two detectives pretended not to notice. This wasn’t a come-on but a reflex they’d noticed in every pathologist, undertaker or mortician they’d ever had dealings with. Without being aware of it, the technicians of death always ran an experienced eye over new acquaintances, to estimate their weight and assess how their corpses might present on a cold steel trolley. ‘Slab happy’ was the phrase Noble had coined to describe it.
