Black Rabbit Summer (23 page)

I nodded, wincing at the pain in my neck.

Campbell squatted down in front of me and stared into my eyes. ‘No more questions, all right? You don’t know anything. You didn’t see anything. And this never happened.’ He reached out his hand and gently lifted my chin. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

He let go of my chin, patted my cheek, then got up and walked away.

My neck started stiffening up quite badly as I walked back home along the lane, and every time I breathed in, I could hear a weird kind of scraping sound in my throat. My head was aching too, and I had lights in my eyes – little flashing lights, like tiny white stars. But apart from that – and considering what Campbell had just done to me – I didn’t actually feel too bad.

Not physically, anyway.

Mentally, I was falling apart.

I was scared, for one thing – and when I say scared, I mean
really
scared. Shaking-inside scared.
It’s all right
, I kept telling myself.
It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a delayed reaction, some kind of emotional aftershock… it’s perfectly natural to feel like this.
But it didn’t feel perfectly natural – it felt like I’d never feel normal again.

And I couldn’t think either. I just couldn’t seem to get anything straight in my mind. The thoughts were there – thoughts, memories, facts, feelings – but I couldn’t do anything with them. They wouldn’t keep still. They just kept buzzing around in my head, like a room full of flies, and every time I tried to grab hold of one, all I’d get was a handful of nothing.

I couldn’t reason.

I couldn’t
connect
anything.

I had flies in my head.

And lights in my eyes.

You don’t know anything. You didn’t see anything…

Next time I won’t let go.

The air was too hot to breathe.

When I reached the end of Back Lane and started crossing over to Hythe Street, I thought for a moment that the flashing lights in my eyes had suddenly gone into overdrive, and I wondered briefly if I was going to pass out again, but then I realized that the lights I was seeing now weren’t white, they were blue, and they weren’t the kind of lights that only I could see…

They were the flashing blue lights of police cars.

There were two of them, parked at the corner by the gate to the river, and as I crossed over St Leonard’s Road and started up Hythe Street, I could see more blue lights flashing further down the street. A uniformed PC was stringing crime-scene tape across the road, trying to keep back a growing crowd of onlookers, and there were other officers milling around the cars, talking on radios. I was vaguely aware of sirens wailing in the distance, and the faint chop-chop of a circling helicopter, but all I could really hear was the sound of my heart pounding in my chest as I pushed my way through the crowd and ducked under the crime-tape.

They’ve found Raymond
, I was thinking.
Oh God, they’ve found Raymond…

‘Hey!’ the PC shouted, hurrying towards me. ‘Hey,
you
!’

I ignored him and carried on walking. The gate to the river was open, marked off with crime-tape, and two crime-scene investigators in paper suits and overshoes were walking carefully along the edge of the path. As I neared the gate, the PC caught up with me, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me back.

‘Come on,’ he said gruffly. ‘Out.’

I tried pushing him away, but he was a pretty big guy, and as soon as I started struggling he just twisted my arm up around my back and began shoving me towards one of the police cars.

‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘just a minute –’

‘Shut up.’

‘No, you don’t understand –’

‘Mike!’ he yelled at one of his uniformed colleagues. ‘Get this kid out of here, will you?’

I saw Dad then. He was coming up the street from the direction of our house, his eyes taking everything in, and when he saw me being shoved around by this big PC, he immediately started running.

‘Hey!’ he shouted, waving his hand. ‘Hey, Diskin!’

The PC who was holding me looked in Dad’s direction.

‘What are you
doing
?’ Dad called out to him. ‘Let him
go
!’

‘Jeff?’ PC Diskin said as Dad came running up to him. ‘What are you –?’

‘Let him go,’ Dad said breathlessly.

‘But he was –’

‘He’s my son.’

‘Your son?’

As Dad nodded, Diskin loosened his grip on my arm.

Dad looked at me. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah…’

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Nothing… I was just –’

‘He was heading down there,’ Diskin told Dad, indicating the gate. ‘I had to stop him. I didn’t know –’

‘What’s going on anyway?’ Dad asked him, looking around. ‘Have they found something?’

Diskin hesitated. ‘I’m not sure… we were told, you know…’

‘What? You were told not to tell me?’

The PC shrugged. ‘You’d better talk to the DI.’

Dad looked at Diskin for a moment, then he just nodded. ‘Where is he?’

‘I think he’s still down at the river.’

‘Is Kesey with him?’

‘I think so, yeah.’

Dad nodded. ‘All right… thanks, Ross.’

Diskin smiled awkwardly. ‘Yeah… look, I’m sorry about this, Jeff. But you know how it is…’

‘Yeah,’ Dad said. ‘I know how it is.’ He turned to me. ‘Come on, Pete, let’s get you home.’

But we didn’t go home just then. As PC Diskin went back to controlling the onlookers – who’d now been joined by a crowd of press reporters and TV crews – Dad led me off to a relatively quiet spot just behind one of the police cars. We were still inside the taped-off area – which I could see now was blocking off the street in both directions – and I could tell from the looks that Dad was getting from his colleagues that they all knew he wasn’t supposed to be here, but none of them actually said anything.

‘What’s happening, Dad?’ I said, rubbing my neck. ‘What have they found? Is it Raymond?’

‘I don’t know… I’ve only just woken up. I don’t know any more than you do.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you all right? Did Diskin hurt you?’

‘No,’ I told him. ‘I’ve just got a bit of a stiff neck.’

Dad looked at me. ‘I thought you were supposed to be in your room?’

‘I couldn’t sleep… I went for a walk.’

‘Where?’

I shrugged. ‘Nowhere… I was just walking…’

He shook his head. ‘You’re really starting to annoy me, Pete. I mean, look at all this…’ He waved his hand around. ‘This is serious stuff – police, press, TV people… and you’re part of it, Pete. You’re
part
of it, for Christ’s sake. You can’t just keep wandering off on your own all the time –’

‘Jeff?’

We both looked up at the sound of Dad’s name, and I saw two men coming towards us from the direction of the gate. One of them was John Kesey, and I guessed the other one – an older man with a reddened face – was Dad’s DI, George Barry. Both of them were wearing suits, and they were both sweating hard in the afternoon sun. As they came up and stopped in front of us, Kesey gave Dad a friendly nod, but DI Barry just glared at him.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Jeff?’ he said sternly. ‘I thought we’d agreed –’

‘I live here, sir,’ Dad told him calmly. ‘My house is just down the street. I didn’t know this had anything to do with the investigation. I just saw all the commotion and came out to see what was happening.’

‘I see,’ said Barry.

‘What
is
happening?’ Dad asked Kesey.

‘You don’t need to know,’ Barry said before Kesey could answer.

As Kesey shrugged, half-smiling at Dad, I saw Barry glance at me.

‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked Dad.

‘Nothing,’ Dad sighed. ‘He was just trying to get back home.’

‘Well, get him out of here, for Christ’s sake.’ Barry shook his
head. ‘Come
on
, Jeff, you know we can’t afford to mess this up. Go on home… now. Both of you.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Dad.

He nodded at Kesey, and I saw a quick look pass between them, then he put his hand on my shoulder and led me away. As we ducked under the crime-tape and started edging our way through the crowd, I could see cameras flashing from across the street. I could see people watching us too. Neighbours, strangers, TV reporters. But I didn’t really take any notice of them. I was too busy staring at the police car parked outside Raymond’s house.

As soon as we got back home, Dad made a quick call on his mobile, then he told me to go and wait in the living room.

‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Just do it, will you?’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

As I went into the living room, I heard him go into the kitchen and start talking to Mum, and then I heard his mobile ring. I listened for a while, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying, so I crossed over to the window and tried to see what was going on at Raymond’s instead. I couldn’t see all of his house from here, and most of the curtains were closed anyway, but I could see that the police car was still there.

I didn’t know what that meant. Were the police just talking to his parents? Were they questioning them? Or were they giving them the bad news about what they’d just found at the river?

I didn’t want to believe that.

I couldn’t.

Christ, I couldn’t even
think
about it.

I took a deep breath and rubbed the moisture from my eyes.

God…

I breathed in again, trying to steady myself… and suddenly something came to me. A smell… something in the air… something that reminded me of something. I sniffed again. Flowers. There was a vase of flowers on the window sill. I leaned down and breathed in their scent. No, that wasn’t it… it wasn’t the
smell
of the flowers that reminded me of something, it was just the
memory
of smelling… smelling something else.

Smelling darkness.

That was it.

That darkly sweet scent that I’d smelled on Wes Campbell…

That was it.

I’d just remembered where I’d smelled it before.

The living-room door opened then, and I turned to see Dad and John Kesey coming in. I quickly wiped my eyes again and moved away from the window.

‘It’s all right, Pete,’ Dad said, noticing the look in my eyes. ‘It’s not Raymond. John’s just filled me in on what they’ve found at the river, and at the moment it doesn’t look as if it’s got anything to do with Raymond.’

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

It’s not Raymond.

But the relief didn’t last very long.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked Dad.

‘Sorry?’

‘You said that
at the moment
it doesn’t look as if what they’ve found has got anything to do with Raymond.’ I looked at him. ‘What have they found?’

Dad hesitated, glancing at Kesey.

‘You might as well tell him,’ Kesey said. ‘It’ll be all over the news soon anyway.’

Dad thought about it for a moment, then nodded. ‘All right,’ he said wearily. ‘But you have to realize that this is all unofficial, Pete. John shouldn’t be here, and neither of us should be telling you anything. So, if anyone asks…’

‘Yeah, I know. This never happened.’

‘Right.’

We all sat down then – me and John Kesey on the settee, and Dad in the armchair.

‘A couple of hours ago,’ Dad said to me, ‘the police got a call from an old man about something he’d found by the river. He was walking his dog, apparently, and the dog went after a rabbit, and when it came out of the bushes it had a bloodstained shirt in its mouth.’

‘Shit,’ I breathed.

‘Anyway,’ Dad went on, ‘this old chap called the police, and they sent some officers round to take a look… and they found some other things.’

‘What kind of things?’

Dad looked at Kesey.

‘Clothing,’ Kesey said. ‘A pair of denim shorts, some underwear, a pair of black boots –’

‘That’s what
Stella
was wearing.’

‘Yeah, we know,’ Kesey told me. ‘Her parents have already identified the clothing as hers.’

‘What about Stella?’ I said. ‘I mean, is she –?’

‘There’s no sign of her, so far,’ Kesey said. ‘We’ve got dozens of people down there now. They’re scouring the whole area inch by inch. If she’s down there, we’ll find her.’

I looked at Dad for a moment, then turned back to Kesey, and for the first time I wondered what he was doing here. If he wasn’t
supposed
to be here, and he wasn’t
supposed
to be
telling us stuff that we weren’t meant to know… then why
was
he here?

‘Listen, Pete,’ he said sombrely, shifting in his seat to face me. ‘I know this is all a bit confusing for you at the moment, but if there’s anything you haven’t told us yet, and I mean anything at
all
… well, now’s the time to get it off your chest. Before things get too serious.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘No one knows I’m here, OK? No one knows I’m talking to you. So anything you tell me now is strictly off the record. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Not really, no.’

He sighed. ‘All I’m trying to say is – if you
know
something, anything, that can help me find out what happened, I can use it now without making it official. As long as we get the right result, no one’s going to care where I got the information from.’ He looked at me. ‘I can keep you out of it, Pete. But you have to help me, and you have to do it now. We’re not investigating a murder yet, but things aren’t looking too good. And once it all starts kicking off… well, there won’t be much I can do for you then.’

‘Why do you want to keep me out of it?’

‘Why?’ he said, frowning at me. ‘Why do you
think
? I’ve known your dad for years, that’s
why.
We’re friends, we look after each other. That’s what friends
do.
’ He stared at me, narrowing his eyes. ‘And you’re not
guilty
of anything, are you, Pete? I think you probably
know
something, but the only thing you’re guilty of is keeping it quiet.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘You tell me.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you scared of something?’

‘What?’