by Ally Kennen
“What?” I grip the banister for support.
“Crocodile, alligator, what’s the difference?”
She’s perfectly straight faced.
“Why?”
“It’s for school. I thought you might know.”
“How should I know?” I push past her and bolt myself in the bathroom. I sit on the bog and put my head in my hands.
What does she know?
I pick up a bottle of shampoo and read the label. Leaves your hair soft and manageable. Who gives a monkey’s? It seems crazy. Everything in here is mad and pointless. The bath mat, the soap. The curled up calendar that is two months out of date. All these things are so useless, so small, compared to the fact that there is a killer on the loose only a few miles away.
A crocodile’s jaws taper. Alligators have rounder, snub noses and they can live in colder climates, like North America. By rights, my boy ought to be dead. This country is supposed to be too cold for him. But he’s alive all right.
Crocodiles can’t chew. They aren’t built that way. What they do is take hold of you and roll and roll and thrash until you start to come apart. Then they swallow big chunks of you whole. So it’s not like a shark or a lion, where they’ll take bites out of you.
A crocodile will literally tear you apart.
I wake up trembling in the middle of the night. I won’t bore you with my nightmares. There are too many of them. I shut my eyes and fall into another.
S i x t e e n
I lie on my bed with a chest of drawers pulled up against the door. I don’t want anyone coming in. I’m too freaked out. I’ve been lying here for about three hours since breakfast, not doing anything, just thinking.
When my boy gets found, the Dam Man is going to work out where his tooth came from. I wish I hadn’t asked him about it. He’ll remember me.
But there’s nothing I can do. He’s way too big and dangerous for me to catch. But should I just sit here and wait until he kills somebody? Do I try and make my dad get me a gun? It’s his fault the thing escaped anyway. But how do I get close to him without putting myself in danger? How do I kill him without attracting any attention? And how do I get rid of his body? These aren’t new thoughts, you know. Even before he escaped I was wondering what I would do with him. But I’ve never come up with any proper answers. Well, none except the gun.
Remember number ten on my list? Murder.
Because that’s what it would be.
I put my pillow over my head. I like it here. It’s dark. I can’t hear anything. It’s warm. My face gets hot.
Something cuts through the silence and makes me jump, causing a spasm in my guts.
“Stephen, telephone.” Carol is shouting at me. I sit up and feel dizzy. I move the chest of drawers just enough so I can squeeze through. I walk downstairs acting like Mr Casual. The telephone is in the kitchen. This is also where most of the family hang out because there is a small TV and the fridge. This means I get no privacy at all. I never ring anyone anyway. I must be the only kid in the whole world who doesn’t have a mobile phone. I don’t see the point of them. Who would I want to talk to?
“Stephen.” It’s a voice with one hell of a sore throat.
The old bastard is still alive then.
“What do you want?” I ask. For some reason I am relieved to hear from him. I look round for Carol, expecting to see her settled at the kitchen table and ready to listen, but she’s not here.
“Why d’you leave me?”
I don’t bother to reply. I feel weary about the whole thing.
“You’ve got us in a right mess now, lad.”
I like that. I stay silent.
“We’re going to have to catch it.”
I decide to speak up. “I’m not bothered about him any more,” I lie. “You let him out. You deal with him.”
“No listen,” says my father. “I got someone who’s going to have it.”
“You told someone?”
If someone else knows, it makes it less of a burden on me.
“Stephen, listen. We got to catch him as soon as we can. He could do someone serious damage.”
Does he think I’m stupid?
“We got some ideas. We need a trap and some bait. Live bait.”
“You’re not using Malackie,” I say. I think I hear someone breathing and I look round, expecting to see Carol with a smug grin on her face. But there’s no one there, except Dudley who’s under the table, pretending to be asleep.
“We’ll get a sheep,” says my father. “But we need a cage.”
He says we need to deliver it to this place in Birmingham at the weekend. He also says we’re going to get a thousand pounds each.
Eric sounds surprised when I call him. Maybe he thought I wasn’t going to come back. Maybe that’s true, but I noticed something in his workshop last time that might help me. I go there in the afternoon. I still feel weird, like I’m asleep.
I step into the workshop and see it at once. It’s a rectangular metal frame about fourteen by four feet and stands against the back wall. Propped against it are panels, like gates.
“My latest project,” says Eric, watching me. “It’s for my girlfriend’s ferrets.”
“But it’s massive,” I say.
“She’s got five,” he says. “And they need a lot of space. She doesn’t have to feel guilty about not giving them enough exercise.”
Eric tells me he has to finish welding the panels, then attach chicken wire so they don’t escape.
“It’s pretty heavy-duty for the job,” admits Eric. “But they’d gnaw through wood, and this will last for ever.”
I like the sound of that. Something that lasts for ever.
Eric wipes his hands on his apron and asks me to find his calculator so I go next door to the office. There are three cash boxes on the shelf; a black one, a red one and a blue one. They are all locked.
I take the calculator back to Eric. He says he’s having a bad day. One of his customers has complained about some rust on a gate he made six years ago. Also he can’t get the forge hot enough because the fan isn’t working properly. He puts the finishing swirls on a garden gate strut using a gas torch and a pair of pliers.
I spend the afternoon sweeping the floor and Eric shows me how to use the linisher machine to make curves in wall brackets. He’s impressed how quickly I suss it out. But it’s pretty easy really. Anyone could do it. I like standing with my earphones on in the middle of a shower of sparks. I feel safe in the fire. I like the way, although the sparks burn so bright and orange, they don’t hurt when they land on my skin. It’s like magic.
*
I abandon the meat factory and go down to Eric’s every day. After the third day there’s a pattern. In the mornings I have to do a load of donkey work, like moving steel rods from the delivery van, carting coke, cleaning the tools, going on delivery and fittings with him, stuff like that. Sometimes he even makes me walk Dog. I think he only does it to get me out of his face for half an hour. I don’t mind. But in the afternoons he lets me help him with metalworking. He has shown me how to do basic welding and I’m helping him put together his girlfriend’s ferret cage. If I mess up the welding on a joint, I melt it down and start all over again. My hands have been scorched several times and I’ve got a heat blister on my thumb. I’ve set fire to my hair too. Hair burns really fast. I never realized. The fire just pours up your head and you haven’t got a chance to do anything. I shaved my head that night. I look a lot like Selby now. Let’s hope I don’t turn out like him, eh? Carol took one look at my hair and told me I looked a lot better. I didn’t know what to say. She is behaving very strangely. She hasn’t accused me of nicking anything, or tried to wind me up for ages. I expect she’s glad I’m leaving.
Eric asks me about where I am going after the Reynolds’s. He makes a face when I tell him St Mark’
s, but doesn’t say anything. What he does say is that I can keep coming back here even when I’m at St Mark’s.
It’s nice to be wanted.
Eric has a radio playing most of the day. More Orchard FM. While he is out of the workshop I turn the radio off. I don’t want to hear the news. When I go to buy us cakes, I avoid looking at the headlines on the newspapers. I know it is just a matter of time. And it’s all my fault. I realize I ought to try and feed the crocodile. But I haven’t got any money to buy meat and, since I left the factory, the supply of chickens has run out. Besides, how would I do it? You can’t just float a dead pig on the surface of a reservoir.
Have you seen that crazy Australian bloke on the telly? You know, the one who jumps on the back of massive maneaters and puts his hands over their eyes to calm them down? I could do with him, couldn’t I? Hungry saltie, cruising the waves in an English reservoir? That bloke would be flying over in his helicopter in an instant, and take my boy off to some zoo, or release him in the wild. I quite like that idea. That’s a fantasy. But there’s information on this bloke’s web site about how to build a crocodile trap! Can you believe it? Do they seriously think anyone is going to build one? Well, I am grateful anyway. It talks about hinges and doors and bait. It talks about night vision glasses and the waiting game.
I persuade Eric to put the door of the ferret cage at one end on big hinges. I say it will be easy to attach to a shed or hutch that way. I say it means if one of the ferrets gets ill, his girlfriend can get right in to fetch it out. Eric listens to me. He adapts the cage according to my ideas. I like that.
They have set a day for my transfer into the hostel. Today is Tuesday and next Monday, Mindy says she’ll meet me in her office ready to accompany me over to St Mark’s. She’s offered to come and pick me up from the Reynolds’s and Jimmy says he’ll drive me. But I’ve got my own car. What do I need a lift for? They are probably just trying to make sure I really leave.
Now they have set a date for my leaving I look at the house with different eyes.
I sit eating my shepherd’s pie with Robert and Carol in front of the telly. It’s raining outside. Robert is telling me a joke about a bicycle and a woman’s arse. Carol is giving me sneaky looks while she pretends to watch the telly. In the kitchen, Jimmy and Verity sit at the table and chat. They’ve given up trying to make us all sit with them. My room seems different. There’s my telly and Xbox. There’s the new rug Verity got for me after Robert tipped a bottle of ink over the carpet. I can see the garden from the window. The swing moves gently, the rain splashing off the empty seat.
Verity gave me a tenner last autumn to plant five hundred daffodil bulbs and they are all coming up. I look at my bed. I wonder who will sleep in it next. Who will find the drawings behind the headboard? What will the Reynoldses say about me when I have gone?
*
On Wednesday I go and see Eric and work on the cage.
Eric says he has to go out this morning but I am welcome to stay and work “as long as I don’t set the place on fire”. I give him a look when he says that. I wonder if he is referring to the village hall. But he looks miles away. He’s tense, distracted.
I’m having trouble with the cage. I’ve got to join three bits of metal together and there isn’t enough space. I turn off the radio so I can concentrate better. I remember there’s a new set of welding rods in the office so I go in to get them. The red cash box is wide open on the desk. It is stuffed full of twenties. I look round. Dog wags at me from his basket.
Eric isn’t exactly rich, but he has enough. He rents a big house on the outskirts of town. He’s got his truck and is saving up to go snowboarding in Canada with his mates. I look at the money. How handy would a couple of those notes be? The temptation is killing me. But Eric has been cool with me. I pick up the wad of money. I feel the thickness of the bundle and listen to the crackle of paper. He wouldn’t miss one or two, would he? Something catches my eye in the bottom of the tin. It is a plastic key ring. It has a picture of a pirate on it and says “Jamaica Inn”.
The spare keys to Eric’s truck.
So you’ll be pleased to hear that I don’t steal one penny from Eric. I put the money back, collect the welding rods and return to work on my cage.
No, I don’t nick the cash. It feels too tight. Eric is all right. It would be like thieving from your mate.
This doesn’t stop me borrowing his truck.
S e v e n t e e n
I have a weakness for cars, all sorts. I like sporty ones, classics, especially Jags. I even like new stuff that most people hate. Like BMW Minis and the new VW Beetle. I’d love to nick one of those Smart cars. Just to see how fast it would go. Selby would be up for that. Me and him used to fix ourselves up with something on a Friday night, hot-wire it and floor the hell out of it, just to see how fast it would go. There’s this road outside town. It’s really straight and one night, me and Selby got up to 113 mph in this Peugeot 305. Brilliant. Selby was driving, of course. I hardly ever got to drive. He’s five years older than me.
We didn’t get caught that night. Actually we didn’t get caught most nights. Selby is a good driver. We kept our heads down, until we reached the straight that is. A lot of kids we know, they’d burn the car out when they’d finished with it. Me and Selby did that a couple of times, but after a while it felt like a waste. I like cars too much to burn them. I like French cars best. That’s why I’ve got me this old Renault 5. It’s not the flashiest ride, but it’s reliable. Sound like an old man, don’t I?
Eric drives this flatbed Bedford truck. It’s pretty shit. It’s only got four gears. Can you believe it? But it’s the only way I can think of to get the cage to the reservoir.
I’m painting the main frame of the cage with black metallic paint when Eric comes back. He’s got me a beef pasty, a can of Coke and a packet of crisps.
“It’s coming on,” he says and settles in a wheelbarrow full of rubbish to eat his pasty. He swings his legs. I think he’s amused. “Never seen a ferret cage like it, though.”
He sniggers and pings the wet metal. “I hope she likes it ’cos it’s going to last a very, very long time.”
I wonder why he is in such a good mood. This morning he was pretty uptight.
He takes a massive bite of his pasty and leans over to examine the joints on the cage. The effort nearly topples him out of the wheelbarrow.
“You’ve got pretty good at this,” he says.
I am so surprised I stop painting. I thought I’d messed it all right up. There are dribbles of dried metal everywhere and untidy bulges.
“Thanks,” I say. I feel embarrassed and move round to paint the other side.
“Want to learn more?” he asks. “And get paid for it?”
“Eh?” I stop working and turn to face him.
“I’ve been to the bank this morning,” he says. “And they’ve approved my loan. I can afford to take someone on, part-time. Interested?”
I don’t know what to say. I just stand and look at him, running my fingers over the serrated edges of his truck keys in my pocket.
“I can give you six pounds an hour to start with. It can go up once you’ve been here a few months and learned a few things.” Eric climbs out of the wheelbarrow, balls his pasty wrapper and chucks it at the bin. “Twenty hours a week. I know it’s not much, but it’s all I can afford at the moment.” He looks at me quizzically. “So?”
“Yeah,” I say. I grin. “Thanks.”
Stupid bugger, aren’t I? As if he’s going to hire me after nicking his truck.
Later, I drive to the reservoir car park. I sit in my car a long time before I finally get out. The evenings are getting lighter now but low fog hangs over the water. My boy could be anywhere, behind that hedge, underneath that scrub. He could be just beneath the surface of the water. It’s been six days since he broke out and there has been nothing on the news: no s
tories of missing fishermen or decapitated walkers. No sightings of crocodiles lying on the banks. There’s a small, hungry part of me that hopes he has died and that the shock of his new territory has finished him off. But I know this is wishful thinking.
I walk out over the dam and look into the deep water. A line of buoys bob on the surface. I feel safer up here. There is a fifteen-foot drop and a wall of concrete between me and him. But I know he is under there somewhere, watching and waiting. I know he is growing hungry.
There are footsteps behind me.
“We’re closing,” says a voice. It’s the Dam Man. Not again. I can’t believe it. Why is he suddenly here all the time? He looks at me curiously. “Well, if it isn’t Danny Slater,” he says. He sounds sarcastic and I nod at him and turn back to the water.
“Have you lost something?” The Dam Man leans his elbows next to mine. “Where’s that dog of yours?”
I shrug. “Gave him away,” I say.
The Dam Man sighs.
“There have been some funny-looking blokes hanging around here recently,” he says. “Not from round here. You want to look out for yourself.”
I wonder if he is referring to my father. Has he been back?
“I don’t suppose you know anything about them?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve got to go,” I say.
But I don’t drive home. Instead, I park the car in the lay-by further up the road and crawl through the hedge. I walk down through the field. It is getting pretty dark now. Crocodiles hunt at night. If I had any sense, I would get in the car and go home. But something is making me go on. I have to see the broken water cage to make it sink in that it really has happened and that he really has escaped. Before I get to the fence I crouch in the wet grass and give myself a few minutes. The air smells different, like clothes drying over a radiator. It’s April. The water in the reservoir will be warming up. I nearly shit myself when I see something large and dark move at the bottom of the field. But it is quickly followed by another shape. I shine my torch and realize it is cows. They haven’t been here all winter.
