Black Rabbit Summer

  My head was emptying.

  The flies were leaving me.

  I don’t know where they went, but within half an hour or so I knew that most of them had gone. And when I looked inside myself, all that was left was a pair of simplified outlines – the outlines of two black flies. But they were on their own now, and they weren’t moving, so I could see them for what they really were.

  One of them was the memory of a sound, a voice… a voice on the telephone earlier that night. It was Eric’s voice, asking me if I thought the police would want to talk to us about Stella. And when I’d told him that they probably would, he’d said Yeah, they’ll have to, won’t they? We all knew her…

  We all knew her.

  Not, we all know her.

  We all knew her.

  The second thing left in my head was the memory of a scent, a perfume… a memory I’d already remembered but tried to forget. It was the perfume I’d smelled on Wes Campbell when he was choking the life out of me down at the gas towers, that darkly sweet scent that had made me wonder where I’d smelled it before… and now I knew where I’d smelled it before.

  It was the same perfume that Nic had been wearing on Saturday night.

  Nineteen

  Dad was right about the police turning up without any warning, but he was also right about John Kesey letting us know. So when the unmarked police car pulled up outside our house at ten o’clock the next morning, we’d not only been waiting for it for almost an hour, but we also knew who was in it and who was going to be questioning me at the station.

  As the doorbell rang, and Dad went to answer it, I went into the kitchen with Mum and we both sat down at the table.

  ‘Shouldn’t one of us be doing something?’ I said to her.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know… anything. Dad told us to act normally, didn’t he? Act as if we’re not expecting anyone.’ I looked at her, sitting rigidly opposite me, and I couldn’t help smiling. ‘We couldn’t look less normal if we tried.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ she said.

  I heard the front door closing then. Muttered voices in the hallway. Footsteps coming towards the kitchen…

  ‘Go on then,’ Mum whispered, ‘talk to me.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Anything… just pretend we’re having a chat.’

  ‘A chat?’

  She gave me a very false-looking chatty smile. ‘Yes, a chat… you know, a talk, a discussion.’

  I smiled at her. ‘What do you want to discuss?’

  Before she could answer, the kitchen door opened and Dad ushered two men inside. One of them was DI Barry, the other one was a younger man with a beaky nose and a mop of curly black hair.

  ‘I think you both know George Barry,’ Dad said to Mum and me.

  We both nodded.

  Barry nodded back.

  Dad gestured towards the younger man. ‘And this is DC Gallagher.’

  More nods.

  ‘They want to talk to Pete about Raymond,’ Dad explained to Mum. ‘He’ll have to go down to the station with them.’

  ‘Why?’ said Mum, looking at Barry. ‘Why can’t you talk to him here?’

  Barry looked at Dad.

  Dad said to Mum, ‘It’s all right, love. It’s just routine. They need to take Pete’s fingerprints and record the interview. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  Barry said, ‘You’re very welcome to accompany your son if you wish, Mrs Boland.’

  Mum looked at him. ‘Are you asking him to come with you? Or are you telling him?’

  Barry smiled wearily, like he’d heard it all before. ‘At this stage, we’re just asking.’ He looked at me for the first time then. ‘Is that OK with you, Peter?’

  I looked at Dad.

  He nodded.

  I looked back at Barry. ‘Have you found Raymond yet?’

  ‘We can talk about that at the station.’

  The street was pretty quiet when we left the house and followed Barry and Gallagher to their car. The top end of the road was still taped off, and the path to the river was quietly busy with search teams and CSIs calmly going about their business. Two police vans were parked outside Raymond’s house, and as I followed Mum into the back of DI Barry’s car, I saw a figure in protective clothing coming out of Raymond’s front door carrying a computer terminal in a clear plastic bag.

  The interview room at the police station wasn’t as stark and intimidating as the interview rooms you see on TV, but apart from that it looked pretty much the same: plain white walls, a dark carpet, a table, four chairs. There was a double-tape deck on a shelf in one corner, and a stack of video equipment on a table against the far wall.

  I was seated beside Mum, and Barry and Gallagher were sitting opposite us. As Gallagher turned on the tape recorder, and Barry started explaining all kinds of stuff about why I was here, and how I was free to leave at any time, I looked down at my freshly washed hands and rubbed at the traces of fingerprint ink that were still ingrained in my skin. They’d taken my fingerprints shortly after we’d arrived at the station. I could have refused, just as I could have refused to let them take a sample of my DNA, but they’d told me it was purely for purposes of elimination, and that it might help to speed up their enquiries about Raymond… so I didn’t really have much choice.

  I rubbed at the ink on my fingers again, staring at the faint patterns on my fingertips – the whorls and loops, the islands and ridges – and for a moment I saw them as contours on a map, and I felt as if I was way up in the sky, looking down at a landscape of mountains and hills…

  ‘Is that OK, Peter?’

  I looked up at DI Barry. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Do you understand what I’ve just been telling you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled tightly. ‘Well, let’s get started then.’

  For the first ten minutes or so, everything was pretty straightforward. DI Barry asked me what happened on Saturday night, I started telling him, and DC Gallagher wrote it all down. Every now and then, Barry would stop me briefly and ask me to clarify something – what time it was, or some little detail about something – but most of the time he didn’t say anything at all. He just sat there, staring at me, listening intently to my every word.

  But then, just after I’d told him about seeing Tom Noyce, and how Raymond had seemed to know him, Barry suddenly asked me a question I wasn’t expecting.

  ‘Tell me about Raymond,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Barry smiled at me. ‘You’ve known him a long time?’

  ‘Yeah, since we were kids.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, how would you describe him?’

  I shrugged. ‘Shortish, dark hair –’

  ‘No,’ said Barry. ‘I don’t mean physically, I mean what kind of person is he?’

  ‘What kind of person?’

  Barry nodded. ‘Is he quiet? Noisy? Shy? Sociable? Does he get on well with other people?’

  ‘He’s pretty quiet,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t say he’s all that sociable.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know, he’s just a bit…’

  ‘A bit what?’

  I looked at Mum.

  She said to Barry, ‘Raymond’s always been a bit of a –’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Boland,’ Barry said, holding up his hand. ‘I’d rather hear it from Peter, if you don’t mind.’ He smiled quickly at her, then looked back at me again. ‘You were saying?’

  I stared at him for a moment, annoyed by his patronizing smile, but then I remembered what Dad had told me – stay calm – and I took a deep breath and carried on. ‘Raymond’s just a bit different,’ I told Barry. ‘He’s had a lot of problems, I suppose –’

  ‘What kind of problems?’

  ‘Bullying, problems at home… that kind o
f stuff.’

  ‘Would you say he’s an introvert?’

  ‘I suppose so, but not in a –’

  ‘Has he got a temper?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he ever shown any odd behaviour?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything out of the ordinary…’

  ‘We all do strange things now and then.’

  Barry smiled. ‘That’s true. But this isn’t about us, is it? This is about Raymond. Has he ever been violent at all?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Never.’

  ‘He’s never retaliated to any bullying or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Just answer the question, please. Does Raymond have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Has he ever had a girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s not gay –’

  ‘Girlfriend then.’

  ‘I already told you. I don’t know if he’s ever had a girlfriend or not.’

  Barry frowned. ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘A close friend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, surely you’d know if he’d ever had a girlfriend or not?’

  ‘He doesn’t tell me everything.’

  ‘Does he tell you what he thinks about things?’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Girls, sex…’ He smiled. ‘The usual kind of things that boys talk about.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Mum butted in, ‘but is all this really necessary?’

  Barry looked at her. ‘I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, but surely –’

  ‘Please, Mrs Boland,’ he said, holding up his hand again. ‘I understand your concerns, but would you please let Peter answer my questions?’

  Mum shook her head, showing her displeasure, but she kept any further thoughts to herself.

  Barry turned back to me again. ‘Look, Peter,’ he said, ‘I’m just trying to build up a picture of Raymond’s character. His personality. Do you understand? If I can get inside his head –’

  ‘I know exactly what you’re doing,’ I told him. ‘You’re trying to find out if Raymond is some kind of twisted pervert or something. You want to know if he’s fucked-up enough to go crazy and –’

  ‘Pete!’ Mum snapped. ‘There’s no need for that!’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘I know you’re upset,’ she said sternly, ‘but there’s no need for language like that.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said sulkily, staring at Barry. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? That’s what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘I’m just trying to do my job, Peter,’ he said. ‘That’s all. I need to find out if Raymond’s disappearance has anything to do with Stella’s.’

  ‘Yeah, but what if it hasn’t?’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case –’

  ‘You’re not even considering it, are you? You’re just assuming that Raymond’s got something to do with whatever’s happened to Stella.’

  ‘We’re not assuming anything –’

  ‘No?’

  Barry just stared at me for a while then, his eyes cold and hard, and it was pretty obvious that he was getting pissed off with me. I was questioning his integrity. I was accusing him of jumping to conclusions. I was being a pain in the arse. And he didn’t like it at all.

  ‘All right, Terry,’ he said quietly to DC Gallagher. ‘I think we’d better take a look at the tape.’

  I watched curiously as Gallagher took a video tape from a bag at his feet and took it over to the VCR. He slotted it in, picked up a remote, and came back over to the table. I looked at Barry. His face showed nothing, but there was something in his eyes that made me think I was about to see something that I’d prefer not to see.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what it was.

  Barry nodded at Gallagher. Gallagher pointed the remote at the VCR and pressed play. As the screen flickered into life, I recognized the images immediately: Stella at the fair, her laughing face, Nicole looking grim in the background. It was the same piece of film that Sky News had been showing over the last few days, only this time it had sound. I could hear Stella’s laughter, the crash and boom of the rides in the background, the music, the crowds, excited voices…

  ‘I’m sure you’ve seen all this before,’ Barry commented. ‘The footage was shot by an independent film-maker called Jonathan Lomax. He’s been making a documentary about Stella over the last few months, travelling around with her, filming her wherever she goes… you know the kind of thing.’ He paused for a moment, looking at the screen, watching the bit where Stella blanked Nic, then he turned back to me and continued. ‘Unfortunately for us, Mr Lomax has been busy selling his film to the TV companies, so it’s taken us a while to persuade him to let us see the rest of it.’ Barry gave me a look. ‘We’ve persuaded him now, though. And it’s proved very interesting.’ He nodded at Gallagher. Gallagher hit the fast-forward button, and I watched in hopeless silence as the blur of images sped inevitably towards my meeting with Stella and Raymond.

  Mum looked at me. ‘Do you know what this is about, Pete?’

  I shrugged, unable to speak.

  I heard a click as Gallagher stopped the tape, then another as he pressed play again. The film started playing, the soundtrack filled the room, and for the next five minutes or so, no one said anything. We all just sat there, watching and listening as the fairground lights flashed, the music blared, the drums crashed… and after a while, I began to feel that I was back there again. I could feel it all again, thumping away in my heart – people screaming, sirens wailing, everything spinning… whirling wheels, stars and spaceships, thousands of faces, a million booming voices swirling around in the air – HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! EVERYONE’S A WINNER!… IT’S C-C-C-C-CRAZEEE! – the lights burning my eyes, the crash of the rides rolling and ripping all around me – TERMINATOR! METEOR! TWISTER! FUN HOUSE! – throwing out madness into the night…

  The film rolled on.

  It was hard to distinguish Stella at first. There were so many people – pushing and shoving, laughing and shouting – and the camera was jiggling around all over the place, jerking and zooming, moving in and out of focus… but then a close-up of Stella’s face suddenly appeared, and the camera panned out, and all at once I could see her quite clearly. Bouncing along, smiling and waving, surrounded by her entourage and crowds of curious onlookers. She had her arm round Raymond’s shoulder, and now she was hugging him, talking to him, smiling her bright white smile at him.

  He was smiling too.

  And I was close to crying.

  I almost told Barry to stop the tape then. I just couldn’t stand it. The images of Raymond and Stella, their smiles, their eyes… it was like looking at pictures of dead people.

  ∗

  You know that feeling you get when someone’s died, and you see their photograph on the TV, or in the newspaper, and even though they were alive when the picture was taken, you somehow just know they’re not alive any more? Well, that’s how I felt as I sat there watching Raymond and Stella on the screen. There was just something about them – an emptiness, a lack of presence… something missing. Something that told me they weren’t here any more.

  I felt as if I was watching ghosts.

  And I didn’t want to watch ghosts.

  But I knew DI Barry wasn’t going to stop the tape, and even if I closed my eyes, I’d still be able to hear it. And hearing it in the darkness of my head would probably only make it even worse. So I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t close my eyes, I just swallowed my tears and carried on watching.

  The screen-Stella was kissing Raymond now… holding him close, planting her bright red lips on his cheek. But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were grinning at the camera
. And as she kissed him again, smearing lipstick all over his face, I could see all the people around her smiling at each other, having a good laugh, watching the beauty playing with the beast…

  Teasing him like a dog.

  And Raymond was just going along with it – smiling at Stella, wide-eyed and excited, grinning while everyone laughed at him…

  I still didn’t get it.

  Raymond wasn’t stupid.

  He must have known what was going on.

  I watched, barely breathing now, as the camera panned away from Raymond and focused on a familiar-looking figure shambling through the crowds towards Stella, and as my face appeared for the first time, and the two big security guys cut across the shot to block me off, I heard Mum take a startled breath.

  I didn’t look at her.

  I couldn’t.

  My eyes were glued to the screen.

  I could hear my screen-self calling out – Raymond! Hey, Raymond! – and although the camera didn’t show Raymond’s reaction, I remembered him grinning at me and raising his thumb. My voice sounded weird, like it was someone else’s voice, and as the camera zoomed in on me, I realized that I didn’t just sound pretty weird, I looked pretty weird as well. My eyes were bugged out, like two black marbles, barely blinking at all. I was sweating, pale, my muscles tense. And I understood now why the security guys had been so worried about me. I looked like something from hell.

  It’s all right, I heard myself telling them, I’m a friend –

  Get back.

  I just want to –

  Get BACK.

  One of them put his hand on my shoulder, starting to force me back, and then Stella’s voice rang out.

  It’s all right, Tony! He’s a friend. You can let him through.

  Big Tony took his hand away and stepped to one side.

  Hey, Pete! Stella called out. It IS Pete, isn’t it? Pete Boland?

  I watched myself walking up to Stella and Raymond. The camera followed me. As I stopped in front of them, the camera drew back a bit, and now all three of us were in shot. Stella with her arm round Raymond’s shoulder, Raymond smiling at me…