Black Rabbit Summer

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah…’

  He nodded slowly, giving me a long hard look. It was one of those looks that you just have to sit there and take. So that’s what I did. I just sat there, holding his gaze, hoping he couldn’t see – or didn’t want to see – the lies in my eyes.

  ‘Well, all right,’ he said after a while, ‘but I think you’d better have a chat with your mum about things… try to put her mind at rest.’

  ‘Yeah, I will.’

  He paused for a moment, gazing thoughtfully around my room, but I could tell he wasn’t really looking at anything. He was just preparing himself, thinking about what he was going to say next. I guessed it was going to be something to do with Saturday night, something to do with Raymond or Stella, but when he finally got round to focusing on me again, there was something in his eyes that told me I was only partly right.

  And I was.

  ‘You don’t think much of John Kesey, do you?’ he said.

  I stared at him, slightly taken aback, not sure what to say.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Dad said. ‘I’m used to people not liking John. Your mother can’t stand the sight of him.’ He smiled at me. ‘You don’t have to pretend to like him just because he’s my friend.’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t really know him well enough to like him or not.’

  ‘But you probably don’t like what you do know about him, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, shrugging again. ‘I mean, I don’t really see what difference it makes.’

  Dad smiled. ‘John’s a good copper, Pete. He’s a good man, and he’s been a really good friend to me over the years. I’m not saying he’s perfect or anything… I mean, he’s got his problems. Well, one problem, really. He drinks too much.’ Dad looked at me. ‘Most of the time it doesn’t stop him from doing his job, but sometimes… well, sometimes he needs a bit of help. You know, he needs looking after.’

  ‘Is that why Mum doesn’t like him?’

  Dad nodded. ‘She doesn’t think he’s worth it. She thinks I’m putting my job at risk.’

  Neither of us said anything for a while then. Dad just sat there, deep in thought, and I stared blankly at the flickering light of the mute TV. The sun had gone down now, and the sky outside was fading from twilight to dark. The room was dim. The TV was bright. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The faces, the people, the colours, the shapes…

  It was all meaningless.

  ‘Listen, Pete,’ Dad said, ‘the reason I’m telling you all this –’

  ‘You don’t have to explain, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  I looked at him. His face glowed eerily in the TV light, and just for a moment – a strange little moment – he was suddenly someone else, someone I’d never seen before. He was still my dad, but I didn’t seem to know him any more. It was kind of scary for a second or two, but as I rubbed my eyes and stared at him, the light from the TV shimmered and brightened and the non-Dad instantly morphed back into Dad again.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked me. ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded.

  He looked carefully at me. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’

  He carried on looking at me for a while, his eyes full of doubt, but there was nothing for him to see any more. I wasn’t rubbing my eyes, I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there. I was just sitting on my bed, looking slightly tired, waiting for him to go on. There was nothing wrong with me.

  ‘All right, listen,’ he said eventually. ‘The first thing you need to understand is that John Kesey really is just trying to help you. I mean, he might be doing it for me, because he thinks he owes me, and he might be cutting a few corners to do it… but that’s the way it goes sometimes. You do whatever’s necessary. You have to do what you think is right.’ He smiled at me. ‘You can trust him, Pete. That’s all I’m saying. He wants to help you, he wants to help both of us.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see how –’

  ‘Just listen to me a minute,’ Dad said. ‘OK? Just listen…’ He sighed. ‘Look, I’m a police officer, Pete. It’s my job to stop the bad stuff happening. And when it does happen, it’s my job to find out who did it and make sure they can’t do it again.’ He leaned forward and looked intently at me. ‘That’s what I do, Pete. And I do it because… well, I do it because I really believe in it. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s more than just a job, you know… it’s something special. It’s something that means something to me.’ He paused for a moment, looking down at the floor, then he took a deep breath and looked back up at me. ‘But I’m your dad too, Pete. You’re my son. And that means more to me than anything else in the world.’

  We looked at each other then, neither of us knowing what to say – both of us feeling stupidly embarrassed. But it was OK – we didn’t have to say anything else. We just had to look at each other.

  It was still kind of hard for us, though, and after a moment or two, Dad sniffed a couple of times and cleared his throat, and I just kind of nodded a bit, as if I was somehow agreeing with him.

  ‘So, anyway,’ he said, trying to sound casual again, ‘I suppose all I’m trying to say is… well, you know… I’m just trying to explain where I am in all this, or maybe where I’d like to be.’ He shook his head and grinned at me. ‘I’m probably not doing a very good job of it, though, am I?’

  ‘You’re doing all right,’ I told him.

  He paused for a moment, a quick smile of gratitude, then he carried on. ‘I just want to know what happened, Pete. It’s as simple as that really. I want to find out what’s happened to Raymond and Stella. And, as a police officer, I know you could help me to do that. Even if you don’t think you know anything useful, you were there. You were with Raymond. You know him. And you know Stella too. And you also know people who know them both.’ He looked at me. ‘If I was part of this investigation, you’d be the first person I’d want to talk to.’

  ‘But you’re not part of the investigation,’ I said quietly.

  ‘No, I’m not. But I know what’s going to happen. I know how it all works. And I know they’re going to be looking really closely at you. And, as your dad, there’s no way I’m going to let that happen without giving you as much help as I can.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘We tell each other what we know.’

  ‘But I thought you said –?’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m not supposed to talk to you about Raymond and Stella. But, like I said before, sometimes you just have to do what’s necessary. You have to do what you think is right.’

  ‘Right for who?’

  ‘For me, for you, for your mum… for Raymond and Stella…’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t just sit back and not do anything, Pete. It’s all too close to me. It means too much.’

  ‘Yeah, but what can you do?’ I said. ‘I mean, if you can’t get involved in the case, and you don’t know what’s going on –’

  ‘I do know what’s going on.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘John’s been keeping me up to date. I know exactly what’s going on, and as soon as anything else happens, I’ll know that too. And so will you.’

  ‘Me?’

  Dad nodded. ‘If you want to know… I’ll tell you.’

  ‘But isn’t that –?’

  ‘Inappropriate? Yes, it’s totally inappropriate. And if you want to tell me anything, and I pass that on to John, that’s going to be totally inappropriate too. And if anyone finds out, we’re all going to be in big trouble. But I’m willing to take that risk if you are.’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ he said simply. ‘I believe in what I do.’ He looked at me. ‘And you’re my son, and I believe in you too.’

  For the next hour or so, Dad told me everything he knew about the investigation so far. Stella’s clothes, he explained, the clothe
s she’d been wearing at the fair, were being forensically examined right now, and the bloodstains had already been matched to her blood type. Further tests for DNA and any other traces would take a while longer. The police were still searching all around the riverbank, he told me, checking out the woods and the bank and all the little pathways, and a team of divers had begun a painstaking search of the river itself, but there was still no sign of a body. Officially, the police were still keeping an open mind, and the case was still being treated as a missing persons enquiry, but it was generally assumed that it was only a matter of time before Stella’s body showed up.

  ‘What about Raymond?’ I said. ‘Is he still being treated as just a missing person?’

  Dad looked at me. ‘I know it’s hard for you, Pete, but you’re going to have to start accepting that Raymond’s disappearance can’t simply be dismissed as a coincidence. He’s missing, Stella’s missing, they were both at the fair –’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said sarcastically. ‘So Raymond must have killed her.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘No, but that’s what everyone’s going to think.’

  ‘We have to take everything into consideration, Pete. If Raymond’s unbalanced –’

  ‘He’s not unbalanced. He’s no more unbalanced than I am.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘His home’s a mess, his parents are a mess, he’s been bullied and troubled all his life.’ Dad looked at me. ‘You might be going through a difficult time at the moment, Pete, but whatever your problems are, they’re nothing compared to Raymond’s right now. He should have been given some help a long time ago.’

  ‘I helped him.’

  ‘Yeah, I know you did… you helped him because he’s got problems.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ I admitted, ‘he’s got a few problems. But that doesn’t mean he’s done anything wrong.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean he hasn’t either. People with problems can do all kinds of things. Believe me, Pete, I’ve seen the evidence. I know what a troubled mind can do to a person.’

  I thought about that for a while, trying to imagine Raymond’s state of mind, and what it could do to him, what it could make him do… and I was surprised to find that I could imagine it. I could see him doing dark things, bad things, wrong things… but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t Raymond – it was an imaginary Raymond. A nightmare Raymond. And I didn’t want him in my head.

  I ran my hand over my face, wiping my mind clean, and turned to Dad. ‘Have the police got anything that actually links Raymond with Stella?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. But they’re going to be searching his house, looking into his background, seeing if they can find anything. They’ve already started examining the dead rabbit and the hutch and everything. It’s all a bit of a mess down there after the rain, so they probably won’t find much in the way of footprints or anything, but they might get something from the rabbit –’

  ‘I left my rucksack there,’ I said, suddenly remembering.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My rucksack… I left it in Raymond’s shed before we went to the fair.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  Dad sighed. ‘Why did you leave your rucksack in Raymond’s shed? What was in it?’

  ‘The bottle of wine,’ I said, feeling pretty stupid. ‘You know, the one I stole from you… I put it in the rucksack so Mum wouldn’t see it when I left.’

  Dad grinned. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t miss it?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose…’

  He nodded. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Not really…’ I looked at him. ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

  He smiled at me. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  It doesn’t matter.

  The whispered echo came from the top of the chest of drawers.

  ‘What?’ I muttered, glancing over at the porcelain rabbit.

  ‘What?’ said Dad.

  I looked at him. ‘What?’

  He stared at the rabbit for a moment, then turned back to me. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing… I thought I heard something, that’s all. A mouse or something… behind the chest of drawers.’

  Dad’s eyes narrowed as he glanced over at the rabbit again, and I could see a germ of suspicion growing in his eyes.

  ‘Where did they find Stella’s clothes?’ I said, trying to distract him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stella’s clothes… Dad?’

  ‘At the river,’ he said, still studying the rabbit.

  ‘Yeah, I know… but whereabouts at the river?’

  He finally tore his eyes away from the rabbit and turned back to me. ‘They were in some bushes at the foot of the bank, just behind that caravan.’

  ‘By the caravan?’

  He nodded. ‘There was some blood on the caravan too. At the back… on the same side as the bushes. Forensics are checking it out. The caravan’s being searched and they’re questioning the owner.’

  ‘Raymond knows him,’ I said, sitting up straight.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy who lives in the caravan… we saw him at the top of the street on Saturday night when we were going to the fair. He was coming over the gate. Raymond nodded at him, you know… like he knew him. And the guy nodded back. When I asked Raymond who he was, he said he didn’t know, he’d just seen him down at the river a few times.’

  ‘His name’s Tom Noyce,’ Dad told me. ‘He was taken in for questioning earlier today. His mother works at the fairground. She’s a fortune-teller –’

  ‘She’s a what?’

  ‘A fortune-teller. You know… Tarot cards, crystal balls, all that kind of stuff. She calls herself Madame Baptiste, but her real name’s Lottie Noyce. As far as we can tell, her son helps her out sometimes, and he seems to travel around with the rest of the fairground, but for some reason he always parks his caravan away from the other vehicles…’

  I tried to listen as Dad carried on talking, but my head was filling up with flies again. Disconnected flies, flies of connection, old flies and new flies. The old flies were still there, buzzing away like crazy – Campbell and Pauly, Pauly and Eric, Eric and Campbell, Stella and Raymond, Nicole and me – but now there was a whole bunch of new ones too. Tom Noyce and Raymond, Tom and his mother, Lottie Noyce, Madame Baptiste, Raymond and Madame Baptiste…

  It’s your fate, Raymond.

  Life is not life without death.

  The Ace of Spades…

  Flies.

  ‘Pete?’

  I couldn’t connect anything.

  ‘Pete?’

  There were too many flies.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Pete?’

  I looked at Dad. ‘What?’

  ‘I said I’ll let John Kesey know about Raymond and Tom Noyce. John’s not involved in Noyce’s questioning himself, but he’ll find a way to pass on the information without letting anyone know that it came from us.’ He looked at me. ‘Was that the only time you saw Tom Noyce on Saturday?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You didn’t see him at the fair?’

  I shook my head. ‘Do you think he’s got something to do with it?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  His mother, probably, I thought to myself. His mother probably knows.

  But I didn’t say anything.

  I didn’t really say anything at all after that, I just listened as Dad tried to tell me what to expect over the next few days. John Kesey hadn’t been able to give him any details yet, but they were both pretty sure that at some point soon the police were going to start taking witness statements, and that I was probably going to be one of the first on their list.

  ‘They’ll want to talk to everyone who was with Raymond that night,’ Dad explained, ‘and everyone who was with Stella too. It’ll be a formal interview this time, so they’ll take you down to the station, and they’ll want you to give t
hem a written statement. I’ve talked to your mum about it, and she’s going to be with you –’

  ‘Can’t I go on my own?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you can’t,’ Dad said firmly. ‘You have to have someone with you, and I can’t do it, so that leaves either a solicitor or your mum. And at this stage I’d rather keep solicitors out of it. So your mum’s going with you, whether you like it or not. OK?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose…’

  ‘John’s going to try and let me know when they decide to take you in, but he might not be in a position to find out.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s complicated… I mean, they might give us prior notice, but it’s an unusual situation, and although I’m not supposed to be discussing things with you, they probably know that I am, so they might just turn up without any warning. That’s why I’m telling you all this now.’

  He went on to explain what would happen in the interview – how they’d talk to me, what kinds of things they’d ask, what I should do. Apparently, all I had to do was stay calm and tell the truth, and everything would be OK.

  Nothing to worry about.

  No problems at all.

  Simple as that.

  Just tell the truth…

  And everything would be OK.

  It was too hot to sleep that night, and as I lay in bed trying to think about things – trying to work out why everything wasn’t so simple – I kept feeling drawn to the porcelain rabbit on my chest of drawers. Every time I looked over at it, I could see its eyes shimmering in the darkness, and the air seemed to whisper with the coming of a voice… and every time I looked away again, the soundless whispering stopped. I didn’t know what to do. If I closed my eyes, I saw bad things – dark things, mind things, confusing pictures, flashing lights – but if I kept my eyes open, I started seeing other things – fairground lights, carousels, rabbit heads, giants. And all the time, somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear the sound of flies.

  I lay still, soaking up the heat of the night, and I imagined myself burning. I spread out my arms, imagining the heat, and I imagined my pores opening up and the sweat pouring out of me, and I imagined the flies in my head pouring out with it… and I knew it was all ridiculous – lying there in the middle of the night, spread out on the bed like a sweat-soaked Jesus – but the longer I lay there, the less ridiculous it seemed, and after a while I began to feel something happening.