Black Rabbit Summer

  It was just TV.

  It wasn’t real.

  Nothing felt real any more.

  Even this, I realized, taking Eric’s phone out of my pocket, even this doesn’t feel quite so real as I thought. It’s just a lump of plastic, a handful of stuff that goes beep beep beep…

  But it was all I had.

  And I knew I had to see what it could tell me.

  I flipped it open and turned it on… and then I quickly turned it off again as Dad knocked on my door and walked in.

  Mum must have already told him how the police interview had gone, because the first thing Dad did was try to explain why DI Barry had been so hard on me.

  ‘I’m not apologizing for him,’ he said, ‘and I’m not trying to say that, underneath it all, he’s a really nice guy. Because he’s not. He’s a cold-hearted bastard, always has been, and personally I can’t stand the man. But he’s good at his job. He knows what he’s doing. And he gets results. So whatever you think of him, Pete, however he made you feel today, try not to take it to heart, OK? It’s just how it has to be done.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I mean, if it had been me on the other side of the table, I would have been just as hard on you as Barry was.’

  I grinned at him. ‘Mum wouldn’t have let you.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed, nodding thoughtfully. ‘I probably could have outwitted her though.’

  ‘You think so?’

  He smiled at me, which made me feel pretty good, and I think I realized then that there was something about these recent little chats of ours that I was beginning to enjoy. I mean, I’m not saying that we hadn’t talked like this before, because we had, but Dad was usually so busy most of the time, or so tired, that he couldn’t always spend as much time with me as he’d like. Now, though… well, now it was different. Now we had time. And it felt kind of nice – just me and my dad, sitting in my room, talking quietly in the fading light of the evening sun…

  It was good.

  Like it should be.

  It was just such a shame that it’d taken something so bad to bring us together.

  ‘They brought in quite a few people for questioning today,’ Dad told me. ‘Some of Stella’s friends, her security men, the guys who made the film…’ He looked at me. ‘Do you know where Paul Gilpin is, by the way?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He wasn’t at home when they went round to bring him in. Apparently, no one’s been home all day, and no one knows where Paul is. Any ideas?’

  I shook my head. ‘He could be anywhere… I mean, you know what Pauly’s like – he’s always out and about somewhere…’

  Dad nodded. ‘Well, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. But if he doesn’t show up soon, it’s only going to make things worse for him. So if you hear anything…’

  ‘I don’t really know him that well any more, Dad. I mean, we don’t hang around together like we used to.’

  ‘What about Eric and Nicole? Are they still friends with him?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Dad nodded again. ‘They were interviewed today – Eric and Nicole.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. We saw them on the way out of the station. Did they have anything interesting to say?’

  ‘I’m not sure about Eric… John Kesey wasn’t involved in his interview, and he hasn’t heard the tape yet, but he was in on the interview with Nicole.’ Dad looked at me. ‘John hasn’t had time to tell me everything yet, and it seems as if Nicole was fairly vague about a lot of things anyway, but she remembers being with you in the den.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I mumbled, slightly embarrassed. ‘I think she’d had a few drinks before I got there… I mean, she seemed all right at the time, but I suppose she was fairly…’

  ‘Vague?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I grinned.

  ‘And what about you?’ he said. ‘How “vague” were you?’

  I sighed. ‘Come on, Dad… I’ve already been through all this with Mum.’

  ‘I know.’ He gave me a stern look then, and I guessed Mum had told him about the dope and everything, and from the look on his face I thought he was going to start lecturing me about it. But, surprisingly, he didn’t.

  ‘Did you drink any of the tequila?’ he asked me.

  I looked at him. ‘How do you know –?’

  ‘Your den in Back Lane was searched yesterday morning,’ he told me. ‘Forensics have been analysing all the stuff you left behind.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Bottles, cigarette ends, spliffs, condoms…’ Dad shook his head at me. ‘Christ, Pete, what the hell was going on in there?’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds, Dad. It was just…’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘I don’t know… it was just stuff, you know?’

  He stared at me. ‘What about the tequila? Did you drink any of it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just answer the question, Pete.’

  ‘I had a bit, yeah.’

  ‘Whose was it?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it matters.’

  ‘Why?’

  He leaned forward in his chair and looked me in the eye. ‘Forensics have identified traces of a drug called TCI in the tequila. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘No,’ I said quietly.

  ‘It’s a synthetic hallucinogen, a phenethylamine, the same group of drugs as Ecstasy. It’s not all that common yet, but it’s starting to become popular at raves and nightclubs. It’s sometimes known as “glitter” or “ice”. Other people call it “juice”.’

  ‘Juice?’ I said.

  As Dad nodded his head, Pauly’s grinning face suddenly flashed into my mind. I could see him laughing, lighting a cigarette… I could hear the echo of his voice calling out to me in the den… Joooooseeee!

  I looked at Dad. ‘This TCI stuff was in the tequila?’

  He nodded again. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No… Christ, I wouldn’t have touched it if I’d known. I thought it was just tequila.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. Forensics think the TCI was probably mixed into the tequila as a powder. You can get it as tablet, apparently, but it’s usually sold as a sparkling white powder.’

  ‘What does it do to you?’ I said, remembering the powder I’d seen in Pauly’s drawer.

  ‘It’s a powerful psychedelic. The effects usually come on within about an hour of taking it, and they can last for anything up to ten hours.’

  ‘What kind of effects?’

  ‘Heightened stimulation, hallucinations, increased sensitivity to visual images, smells, tastes… and, depending on the dose, and how you react to the drug, you might experience all kinds of other things. Nausea, anxiety, stomach pains, headaches, depression…’ Dad paused, taking a deep breath, keeping his eyes fixed worriedly on mine. ‘Did you feel anything like that?’

  It was hard to concentrate now. My mind was racing with all kinds of mixed-up emotions – shock, anger, realization, relief… and I was strangely relieved. If Pauly had drugged the tequila, and I didn’t doubt that he had, then that would explain everything – all the weirdness, the visions, the voices, the madness inside my head…

  It wasn’t madness; it was drugs.

  But I didn’t really want to share that relief with Dad, because I didn’t think he’d find it very relieving. So I lied.

  ‘I don’t think I felt anything particularly strange,’ I told him. ‘I mean, I was pretty drunk, I suppose, and I felt a bit sick and dizzy a couple of times, but that’s about it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Dad said.

  I nodded. ‘It was the first time I’ve ever tasted tequila, and I didn’t really like it that much. I only had a tiny little sip.’

  ‘What about the others? Did they drink a lot of it?’

  I pictured Nicole in the den, taking constant little sips from the bottle, and Pauly, glugging it down like a maniac…

  ‘Pete?’ Dad said.

  ‘Yeah, sorry… I can’t
really remember if the others were drinking it or not. I’m pretty sure Raymond didn’t have any.’

  ‘Well, someone must have drunk it,’ Dad said. ‘The bottle was almost empty. Are you sure you can’t remember who brought it?’

  I shook my head. ‘It was just there… I didn’t see where it came from. And it was almost empty the first time I saw it anyway, so maybe there wasn’t much in it to start with.’

  ‘Maybe not… but it was still a ridiculously stupid thing to do. Whoever did it – and it has to be one of you… you do realize that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘One of your so-called friends tried to poison you, Pete. It’s as serious as that. So if you’re trying to cover up for them –’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’d better not be. And I want you to tell me immediately if you start feeling anything strange, anything at all. This TCI stuff can carry on affecting you for weeks after you take it. It can make you feel ill, depressed, it can give you flashbacks…’ He looked at me. ‘Do you know what a flashback is?’

  ‘Like a memory of something?’

  ‘It’s more than a memory. It’s when you experience the full effects of a psychedelic drug again without actually taking it. You might suddenly start hallucinating, seeing things, hearing things, imagining things… so, if anything like that happens, if you start feeling weird or sick or anything, I want you to tell me straight away. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good.’

  I looked at him. ‘Have Eric and Nic been told about this?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not? Shouldn’t they be warned?’

  Dad looked at me. ‘What makes you think that one of them didn’t spike the tequila? Or both of them.’

  ‘Nicole wouldn’t do anything like that.’

  ‘No? What about Eric? Or Pauly? And Raymond can’t be ruled out either –’

  ‘Raymond doesn’t know anything about drugs.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘I know him, Dad. I’ve known him for years. I probably know him better than anyone.’

  ‘Did you know he was spying on Nicole that night?’

  I had to feign surprise for a while then as Dad told me about Nic’s encounter with Raymond at Luke’s trailer. He didn’t go into as much detail as Nic had, and I guessed he was trying to spare me from whatever embarrassment I might have felt. I’m not sure if he understood why I might be embarrassed, but I suppose it was pretty obvious that there was a good chance I would be. My childhood ‘girlfriend’ had got hopelessly drunk and spent the night with a casual fairground worker who she’d only just met, and that was after she’d tried to seduce me just a few hours earlier…

  There had to be something there to embarrass me.

  And I suppose, in a way, there was.

  But it was an oddly distant kind of embarrassment, and I don’t think there was any bitterness attached to it. I didn’t think Nic had done anything wrong. I didn’t blame her for anything. I just felt a little bit sorry for her.

  When Dad had finished telling me what happened, I asked him what he thought it all meant.

  ‘Well, they need to corroborate Nic’s story first, which means bringing in Luke Kemp for questioning, and at the moment they don’t know where he is. And then there’s the question of Nic’s reliability as a witness, given the state she was in. Particularly if it turns out that she’d been drinking the spiked tequila. But even if she is telling the truth, and her story checks out, I’m not sure it’s going to help Raymond that much.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He was watching them, Pete. He was peeping through the window in the middle of the night, watching them doing… well, whatever they were doing.’

  ‘I think he was just watching out for Nic,’ I said. ‘You know, like keeping an eye out for her, making sure she was OK.’

  ‘Well, maybe,’ Dad said, shaking his head. ‘But I don’t think anyone else is going to see it like that. They’re just going to see a mixed-up kid who gets his kicks by watching people have sex. They’re going to think he was sick and frustrated, and then he got chased away, and maybe that made him even him more frustrated, so maybe he turned his attention to someone else.’

  ‘Or maybe Luke didn’t just chase him away,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe he caught him.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Dad said. ‘And if that’s the case, he’ll have left some trace in his trailer, which forensics will match up with Raymond. But Nicole said he wasn’t gone for very long, and she didn’t see any signs of a struggle when he came back.’

  ‘But if Raymond was at the trailer, doesn’t that mean he couldn’t have done anything to Stella?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘It all depends on the timing. Nicole isn’t sure what time she saw Raymond, and the pathologist is still working on the exact time of… I mean, until all the reports are in…’ Dad hesitated for a moment then. His eyes flicked away from mine, and he seemed to think about something for a second before quickly looking back at me. ‘They think the car had something to do with it.’

  ‘What car?’

  ‘The burned-out car at the river. It’s possible that Stella was driven down to the river that night, and then the car was torched to get rid of any evidence. It’s being checked, but there’s not much chance of finding anything. They’re still checking Tom Noyce’s caravan too –’

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ I said.

  Dad stared at me.

  I looked back at him. ‘That’s what you were talking about just now – the pathologist’s report, the exact time of death. They’ve found her body, haven’t they?’

  Dad didn’t say anything, he just carried on staring at me, but I knew I was right. I could tell by the sound of his silence.

  ‘When did they find her?’ I asked him.

  He sighed. ‘Early this morning… in the river. About a hundred metres downstream.’

  ‘Shit…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pete. I didn’t want you to find out like this, but the investigation team are trying to keep it quiet for as long as possible, and I promised John Kesey I wouldn’t tell anyone.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Stella’s parents have been informed, and they’ve agreed not to go public yet, so it’s imperative that you don’t tell anyone either. All right? Not a word to anyone. Because as soon as this gets out, there’s going to be absolute chaos, and that’s going to make it almost impossible for the police to do their job.’

  ‘How did she die?’ I asked quietly.

  Dad looked at me. ‘Do you promise to keep quiet about this?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He nodded. ‘Well, at the moment, the cause of death seems to be a head injury. The autopsy isn’t conclusive yet – they’re still waiting for the outcome of some more tests – but the only apparent injury she suffered was the wound to her head.’

  ‘What about her clothes? I mean, was she… you know…?’

  ‘No, she wasn’t sexually assaulted. Her body was naked, but there were no signs of assault.’

  The full horror of what we were talking about suddenly sank in then, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so empty and dark. I think it was the words ‘naked’ and ‘body’ that did it. Those two simple words had somehow managed to strip away the frail illusion that Stella was still alive. Even when I’d seen her on the video tape, and I’d got the feeling that I was looking at a ghost, there’d still been something inside me that wasn’t willing to accept the reality of her death. But now… well, now she was nothing but a naked body. A dead naked body. Pale and white, cold and lifeless.

  I could smell dark water.

  I shuddered.

  I could feel myself shrinking, my senses fading, and I just wanted to sit there and do nothing. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to listen, I didn’t want to do anything… but I could already hear Dad talking to me, asking me if I was feeling OK, and I knew that I was listening, because I could hear myself telling him
not to worry, that it was just a bit of a shock, that I was fine…

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  My voice sounded a long way away, and it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me.

  ‘What about Tom Noyce?’ it said. ‘Is he still a suspect?’

  ‘Well, he’s been questioned, and they’re still taking his caravan apart, but apart from Stella’s blood on the outside, they haven’t found anything of interest yet. His mother has given him an alibi for most of the night anyway. He’s been released for now, but they might want to talk to him again.’

  ‘I suppose they still think that Raymond did it, do they?’

  ‘You can’t blame them, Pete. Everything’s pointing that way. They’ve even found pictures of her on his computer. Photographs, film clips –’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ I heard the distant-Pete say. ‘Everyone I know has seen those pictures on the Internet. I’ve seen them, everyone at school has seen them, including most of the teachers. You’ve probably seen them too.’

  ‘I haven’t seen them,’ Dad said prudishly.

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t go to school with her, did you? I mean, come on, Dad… if you went to school with a good-looking girl and you found out there were naked pictures of her on the Internet, wouldn’t you be just a little bit curious?’

  ‘That’s not the point –’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  My voice was becoming more and more distant now. I could still hear it, and it wasn’t actually getting any quieter, it just seemed to be moving further away from me. And for a while then, as Dad and I carried on talking, I was totally unaware of what we were talking about. I was deep down inside myself, thinking – without thinking – of other things. My thoughts were raw and black.

  Pauly.

  Powder.

  Why?

  Phone.

  When?

  Who?

  Stella.

  Naked.

  Body.

  Dead.

  Stella.

  Naked.

  Body.

  Dead.

  Rabbit.

  Pebble.

  Raymond.

  Dead.

  I don’t know what made me come back to myself, but when I did – emerging quite suddenly, my head thick and dull – Dad was still talking to me, but I had no idea what he was talking about.