“Are you all right?” he asked.
Elizabeth glanced at her husband. For the first time in thirty years, she realized that she had no idea what he was thinking. “I suppose so,” she said.
“Don’t be cross with me, old girl. I’m just trying to do what’s best for Craig.”
The two of them leaned down and picked up the kite. Twenty-five meters of cord hung across the jagged grass to the two handles and the boy at the other end. Suddenly he looked very small, compared to the enormous kite.
“Ready?” Arthur shouted.
“Let it go!” The boy’s voice barely reached them. He could have been a mile away.
“Good luck!”
Arthur and Elizabeth pushed upward at the same moment. In fact, they didn’t need to do anything very much. The wind seized hold of the Laserblade and almost ripped it out of their hands. The kite flew up as if it had exploded out of the ground. It was a quite beautiful sight, the brand-new colors standing out against the gray, stormy sky. The two cables soared up with it. Elizabeth gazed anxiously at the boy clinging on to the other end.
“It’s too strong for him,” she muttered.
“He’ll be fine,” Arthur replied.
And for a few seconds, he was right. Craig dug his heels in and struggled to keep the kite under control, pulling first one cable, then the other. He was leaning backward, shouting with pleasure, his fists pounding left and right as if he were fighting an invisible enemy. The kite was now high above him, dancing around his head. All Craig had to do was harness its power. Then he would be able to run forward and jump. Briefly, he would fly—just like the man he had seen at the beach.
There was only one problem. The man on the beach had been flying power kites for many years and his model had an aspect ratio of only 4.7 meters. In other words, it was one size smaller than Craig’s and—more to the point—the wind hadn’t been so strong that day. He had known what he was doing. Craig did not. He had barely read the instructions that came with the kite. Certainly, he had ignored the many warnings.
The first indication that something was wrong came when Craig’s happy cries became a wail of dismay. He seemed to be punching harder and harder, his entire body jerking, like a puppet in the grip of a mad puppeteer. He was slamming his heels into the soft ground, trying to anchor himself, leaning ever farther back, his arms stretched out high over his head.
“He’s losing control!” Elizabeth said.
“No. He’s having a high old time,” Arthur retorted.
“We should do something!”
“If he’s not happy, he can let go!”
In truth, there wasn’t much they could have done anyway. Craig was twenty-five meters away from them, the same distance as the kite above his head. He seemed to be swearing—at them or at the kite, they couldn’t say. And suddenly his feet left the ground. Craig had wanted to fly. He had been given his wish.
But only for a few moments. He must have risen three or four meters into the air, jerked off the ground by the kite. Unfortunately, he had no control. He slammed down again.
“Bravo!” Arthur shouted.
Elizabeth turned to him. “Arthur, you don’t understand!” she cried. “He’s not having fun. He’s completely out of control!”
“Nonsense!” Arthur waved a cheerful hand in Craig’s direction. “It reminds me of when I was young. I always loved kites.”
“But Craig isn’t loving this one . . .” Elizabeth broke off as Craig was jerked into the air again. This time he hung there a little longer and landed even harder.
“Wonderful!” Arthur shouted.
“I think he’s broken his ankle,” Elizabeth exclaimed.
It was true. Craig was howling. There had been a definite snap as he hit the ground and his left foot seemed to be pointing the wrong way. He was trying to hold himself up on just one leg. He was screaming now but his words were incoherent, swept away by the wind, which, if anything, seemed to have gotten stronger.
“You’re right,” Arthur muttered. “He’s hurt himself.” He put his hands up to his mouth, forming a sort of funnel. “Let go of the kite!” he shouted. “It doesn’t matter if we lose it. Just let go!”
But Craig seemed grimly determined to hang on, despite his injury. Still screaming, he was suddenly thrown forward and then, before anyone could do anything, he was being dragged at about twenty miles per hour, facedown, across the field.
“Let go!” Elizabeth called out. “Let go! Let go!”
It was as if Craig hadn’t heard her. He was like a prisoner being tortured on the rack, his arms stretching out in front of him, his legs—with one foot dangling horribly—behind. The two old people could only watch as he was dragged diagonally across the field, thistles and stinging nettles whipping into his face.
“Where is he going?” Elizabeth wailed.
“He won’t get far,” Arthur observed. “There’s a fence ahead.”
In fact, there were two barbed-wire fences running parallel between the common land and the field below. Elizabeth was sure that Craig would get tangled up in the first of them and come to an abrupt, if painful, halt. But it seemed that the wind was playing tricks with him. At the last moment, it lifted the kite, which in turn yanked Craig off the ground. For a couple of seconds he was standing on his own two feet. Then he ran straight into the first barbed-wire fence.
Elizabeth and Arthur heard him scream as at least a dozen cruel metal spikes dug into Craig’s chest, belly and thighs. But at least he seemed to be pinned there. His ordeal was surely over.
“Let go of the kite!” Arthur yelled again.
But still Craig didn’t listen. He stood there, clinging to the handles, looking both ridiculous and hideous, his white shirt covered with grass stains, his arms and face already covered in stings and blisters. One of his eyes was closed. There was blood trickling from a gash on his head.
“We’d better go and help him,” Elizabeth said.
She was too late. A fresh blast of wind hit the kite and Craig was dragged over the first barbed-wire fence and then the second. The Reeds could only watch, horrified, as his clothes were torn off him. It was impossible to imagine what the wretched boy must be feeling, but his screams echoed all the way down to the coast and several people, out walking their dogs, stopped and looked around them, wondering what could be making such a horrible noise.
Somehow, incredibly, Craig cleared the second fence. But he had left most of his clothes behind him. His jeans, in twenty pieces, hung in tatters on the spikes. His shirt was just a bundle of rags. Even his boxers had been dragged off as he was carried forward. Wearing only baggy underpants, he was dragged across the second field. And worse things were to come.
“Watch out for the cattle!” Arthur shouted.
Craig was in no state to watch out for anything. There were about half a dozen cows and a single bull in the field, and he only became aware of them as he was thrown once more onto his face, landing slap in the middle of a freshly laid cow patty. Somehow he managed to stagger back to his feet. Now his entire body—his face, his chest, his thighs—was dripping with brown slime. And still the kite urged him on.
“Drop it!” Elizabeth screamed.
A couple of dog walkers had reached the edge of the field and were watching with undisguised horror.
Craig still refused to save himself.
He was running, stumbling with his broken foot, straight toward the herd. The bull saw him coming and lowered its head, two huge horns twisting toward him. Almost gleefully, the kite dragged Craig toward it. Elizabeth closed her eyes. She heard Craig scream as he was gored. The animal twisted its head. Craig continued past. His underpants were now hanging off one of the bull’s horns.
“Why won’t he let go of the kite?” she whimpered.
“It means too much to him,” Arthur replied. “He must be afraid of losing it.”
Craig was in the far distance now. He was getting smaller by the minute. All they could see were his back, his le
gs—now motionless—being dragged through the grass and his outstretched arms still clinging to the handles.
“I don’t like the look of those electricity pylons,” Arthur murmured.
Elizabeth looked up just in time to see Craig leave the ground completely, rising ten or even twenty meters into the air. And, sure enough, there was a pylon directly in front of him, carrying high-voltage electricity down toward Instow. The boy was flying right into it. There was no way he could avoid it.
Craig was little more than a speck in the distance when he hit the wire. At once there was a tremendous fizz and the boy was burned to a frazzle. For perhaps five seconds, all that was left of him was a black silhouette, a sort of statue made of ash. Then that fell apart and finally the kite came free, leaping cheerfully to one side and disappearing off beyond the trees. A shower of black dust tumbled back to the ground.
Of course there was an inquest. Arthur Reed was seriously reprimanded for buying a fourteen-year-old boy a kite which he couldn’t possibly have controlled. But he was able to argue in court that he had suggested a smaller kite and that Craig had refused to listen. His schoolteachers and some of the local shopkeepers also testified, and the coroner had to agree that Craig had really brought his terrible end upon himself.
Most significantly, the dog walkers and several other people who had been out on the common that day appeared as witnesses. They had all heard the Reeds urging the boy to let go of the kite. For some reason, he had refused to listen to them. His death, as prolonged and as painful as it had been, was entirely his own fault.
Or so they all thought.
But perhaps it was just as well that none of them had been with Arthur Reed when he got home that day. He had been quite alone when he had gone upstairs to his bedroom so nobody had seen him glance over his shoulder to make sure that Elizabeth was out of sight. And nobody knew anything about the tube of superglue that had been in his pocket when he took Craig out to fly the kite and that had come out only once, when he had leaned down to examine the handles.
The tube of glue was still there, but it was almost empty now.
Arthur dropped it into the drawer beside his bed, then went back downstairs to the kitchen, where Elizabeth was waiting and made them both a nice cup of tea.
THE X TRAIN
The Johnsons had never been to New York. They didn’t want to go there—and why should they? Anything they wanted to buy they could find in Dallas or Houston, and if they needed a vacation, there was always Hawaii. Five days in New York in the middle of the summer would mean humidity and traffic, expensive food and even more expensive hotel rooms that would probably be far too small. Then there were the New Yorkers themselves . . . fast and unfriendly, if not downright rude. And too many of them! How could so many people live in so little space?
But the vacation was a gift and it was a difficult one to refuse. Herb Johnson was a lawyer, a senior partner in a medium-sized firm that specialized in corporate litigation. One of his clients, a company called TexChem based in San Antonio, was being prosecuted by the EPA after it had been caught dumping twenty thousand gallons of toxic waste in a local river. A guilty verdict would have destroyed them. The publicity alone would have been as lethal as the chemical cocktail that had poisoned every fish for five miles in both directions.
Herb had gotten them off. He and his team had worked around the clock for three months, but it was his own performance in the courtroom that had finally won the day. He had ridiculed the prosecution, intimidated the witnesses, undermined the evidence and enchanted the jury. His closing argument was a masterpiece: a mixture of straight-talking, sarcasm and persuasiveness, with just a little venom thrown in. By the time he had finished talking, a guilty verdict was about as likely as a UFO crashlanding onto the courthouse roof.
The CEO of TexChem was delighted. As it happened, he knew Herb Johnson personally. The two men played golf together. And a couple of days after the verdict, he arrived at Herb’s office.
“Herb, you did a great job!” he announced. “And I want to find a way to thank you personally.”
“There’s no need for that, Hank . . . ,” Herb began.
“No. I know how much work you put into this, burning the candle at both ends. You need a rest, and I’m going to pay for it. How would you and your family like a long weekend in New York City?”
“Well . . .”
“I’m going to fly the three of you out. You, Tammy and that sweet girl of yours. What’s her name?”
“Madison.”
“I have shares in a hotel—the Wilmott on Sixth Avenue. I’m going to tell them to give you the executive suite. And you should see a show while you’re there. Just pick one and I’ll arrange the tickets.”
“Honestly, Hank . . .”
“Don’t thank me. Don’t mention it. It’s nothing less than you deserve!”
The trouble was that Herb Johnson didn’t dare argue with the CEO of TexChem, who was the sort of man who, once he had made his mind up about something, wouldn’t budge an inch. He remembered a time, after a game of golf, when Hank had offered to buy a round of beers for his best friend—a man named Joe. Joe had protested in a friendly sort of way and as a result the two men hadn’t spoken again for seventeen years. Hank had a violent temper. Even as a witness during the trial, he had scowled at the judge to such an extent that Herb had been nervous the entire case might actually be lost.
And so when Herb returned home that evening, he knew that there was no way out of the weekend trip.
“I’m home!” he shouted as he entered the house in Plano, a suburb just outside of Dallas.
“Dinner in five!” his wife called back from the kitchen.
And that night, over grilled ribs, curly fries, coleslaw and oven-baked beans, Herb told his family the news. He already had the dates of the trip. They would be flying in just three weeks. The hotel was booked, the tickets to Mamma Mia! already purchased.
“Honestly, honey. I’m not sure we need to go to New York,” his wife protested. She was a small, round woman with horn-rimmed glasses that hung on a loop around her neck and hair that changed color every few months, none of which looked even remotely natural.
His daughter was more vocal. “I’m not going!” she exclaimed.
“Madison . . . ,” Herb began.
“Daddy, I’ve got a party that weekend. Everyone’s going to be there.”
Parties were important to Madison. She was in her second year at the Margaret P. Rutherford School for Girls, one of the most expensive and exclusive educational establishments in the state. If you didn’t have a steady boyfriend by the time you were sixteen, you might as well admit that you were . . . well, a freak. And of course, parties were where you met them. Madison had set her eyes on Charlie Meyer, a jock who lived a few streets away. Charlie was the quarterback for his high school football team and he was a dead ringer for the actor Robert Pattinson, though without the vampire teeth. He would be there. It was out of the question that she could miss it.
“Why can’t Hank just send us a case of champagne or something?” Tammy suggested. She glanced nervously at her daughter, who was on the edge of tears.
“It’s all been arranged,” Herb insisted. “I know it’s not something we particularly want to do as a family. But there was no way out of it. This is my job. I can’t afford to offend Hank. This is my career we’re talking about! We’re just going to have to go. And let’s look on the bright side. It’s all free. It’s only five days. Maybe we’ll have a good time.”
But none of them were smiling as, three weeks later, they disembarked from the plane at JFK. Even the first-class seats hadn’t lifted their spirits. Tammy was tightlipped. Madison was plugged into her iPod, her eyes focused on her feet. Even Herb looked crumpled and defeated after the long flight. He was wearing a white suit with two gold buckles, one fastening his tie and the other his belt. Like Tammy, he was very short and he was a little overweight. In fact, Madison was the only slim one in the family,
towering over her parents, which somehow gave the impression that, although she was only fifteen, she was the one in charge.
There was a chauffeur waiting for them at the arrivals hall and a limousine parked outside, but still the family refused to cheer up. They trooped out as if they were heading for prison rather than a long weekend in one of the most exciting cities in the world.
The Wilmott Hotel was at the very southern end of Sixth Avenue, next to the neighborhood known as SoHo—and this disappointed them too. They would have much rather been close to Times Square with its big stores, fancy hotels and bright neon lights. The Wilmott was an old-fashioned place—all pillars and potted plants—with a doorman in a frock coat and top hat and everyone in suits with WH printed on the lapels. True to his word, the CEO of TexChem had booked the family into the executive suite on the eighteenth floor. They had a living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. But the wallpaper was faded, the view—across six lanes of traffic—hardly spectacular, and the beds were both smaller and less comfortable than the ones they had left at home.
I H8 NEW YRK, Madison texted to her best friend, Chelsea, before they had even taken the elevator back down for dinner. I AM SO BORED!
MISS U, Chelsea texted back. WILL C CHARLIE FRIDAY. SO LAME U CAN’T B THERE!
Thinking of Charlie made Madison all the more miserable. Worse still, she wondered why Chelsea had mentioned him. What would her friend get up to, knowing she wouldn’t be there?
The family ate dinner together in the hotel restaurant. The food was good, but the Johnsons didn’t enjoy the service: the waiters who kept sidling up to the table to check that everything was all right or to refill their water or to wipe away the crumbs. All in all, they would have preferred to have been left alone. But at the end of the meal, Herb made a speech. He could see the way the weekend was going and he knew he had to cheer them up.