Deathwatch (17 page)

She tugged her bag off her shoulders, to find her key. Where was it? Mrs Morris had reached the end of the street and disappeared from view. She couldn’t ring the doorbell as she didn’t want to disturb her mum. And her dad and Angus wouldn’t be back yet.

Where was her key? What if someone
was
following her? Where had the footsteps gone? She darted a glance back the way she’d come, towards the corner. Could she hear something? Was someone waiting there?

A sudden increase in the wind and rain battered her ears, drowning her ability to hear any other sounds.

Where
was her key? There! She grasped it, fumbling with the lock, opened the door, shouted, “I’m home!” and the relief she felt was enormous. She could have laughed, except that the cold feeling still shrivelled the skin on the back of her neck. She shivered as she looked back where she’d come from.

Silence. No – something. The scrunching of grit underfoot. And then, from round the corner of the wall, hurrying into the shadowy street, a figure came towards her.

Danny.

“DANNY!”

“Cat.”

Cat stepped through the front door. Her mum called from upstairs. “That you, Catty? Are you OK?”

“Course I’m OK. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Now she turned to Danny, who was still standing on the doorstep.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was following you.” His face stared out from under the dripping hood.

“Any
particular
reason?”

“I have to talk to you.”

“No, Danny, I don’t think so.”

“I do. I have to talk to you. Please.”

Maybe this sounded interesting. Was he going to tell her about Phiz? The flowers? Apologize for being a creep?

His eyes were serious. There was no jeering, no swagger in the way he looked at her. “Can I come in?”

She said nothing. She really didn’t want him to come in. At all. But … he did look serious. Kind of pleading. And she would be able to ask for the truth. Because that’s what she felt he was going to tell her. Otherwise why else would he be here?

“Please.”

Nodding, she turned and let him go past her into the house. “OK, but this had better be good.” She shut the door, took off her wet coat, hung it up. “Put your coat there.”

She called up the stairs as they went through the hall. “Mum, it’s OK – I’ve got a friend from school with me. Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Lovely! I’m parched.”

Cat led Danny towards the kitchen.

“Is your mum OK?”

“She’s fine. She’s off work for a while. Concussion. And she’s broken her wrist. Do you want some tea?” She started making it.

“If you are. Thanks. Does she know what happened? I heard she thought someone jumped out at her.”

“We don’t know. She hasn’t remembered any details. Do you want biscuits or something?” Without waiting for his reply she took a packet from the cupboard. Then went to the fridge and got the milk out. She felt him watching her, but it didn’t matter. Oddly. He was more uncomfortable than she was. “Milk? Sugar? Biscuit? We’ll take a tray to my mum and then we’ll go to my room. If it’s not too
princessy
for you.”

“I … I don’t think…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

After a short silence while she finished making the three mugs of tea, he followed her towards the stairs. Then he spoke again. “Look, I don’t want your mum to know I’m here.”

“Why?”

“Please.”

“But she knows nothing about you. She knows I went out with a Danny for a while but she doesn’t even know your second name, I don’t think.”

“But she might.”

“So what if she does?”

“It’s important. Trust me. Please.”

This was weird. Really weird. But then he always was. Weird insect boy. Why had she ever gone out with him?

“If you say so. Hold this.” They were on the landing now. She gave Danny the tray and took a mug from it, before going into her parents’ bedroom.

“Thanks, Catty. Lovely. You had a good day?” She was curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a rug, a book lying on the floor. Polly lay beside her, thwacking her tail on the carpet.

“Fine, thanks. You OK?”

“Kind of. Just tired. Dad fed Polly before he went out with Angus, in case you’re wondering why she didn’t come and pester you in the kitchen.”

“OK. Anyway, we’ll be upstairs.” She would have liked to stay and chat, tell her more, tell her properly, but…

She went back out onto the landing, where Danny was waiting.

“Come up then.” And she led the way. He’d been in her room before, of course. When he’d made the princess remarks. Well, he could think what he liked. She didn’t care.

When she switched on the light, the bulb went. “Damn!” Well, she wasn’t going downstairs to get a bulb and, to be honest, darkness was preferable to bright light just now. She switched on her bedside lamp and lit some of the many candles in the fire-grate and on the mantelpiece. One she put on the window ledge, the shutters open. She didn’t really need to light so many but the more she lit, the longer she put off whatever Danny was going to say. She did want to know, but she also didn’t. Lighting candles was a lot easier.

She glanced out of the window, barely noticing the lights of other windows through the rain-streaked glass.

Cat sat on the bed, looking down. Danny sat cross-legged on the floor. She brushed her damp hair, straightening the rain-curled bits.

“So what is it you want to say?”

“I … well, I don’t know… It’s…” He hesitated.

“You’re not making much sense, you know.”

“I know.” He was picking at the little bits of skin round his fingernails. She noticed that his hand seemed completely healed. He wasn’t looking at her. There was a smell of wet clothes, unpleasant.

“It’s about my brother.”

“Your
brother
? I didn’t even know you had one.”

“He’s older than me. Much older. He left home ages ago. He’s … ill. He dropped out. Cannabis and stuff. Actually, he was expelled, if you must know. Mum and Dad tried to help him, but now…” Danny turned away, but not before she’d seen his mouth tremble. This was embarrassing. The darkness and flickering lights made everything even more unreal.

“What, Danny?”

“He has schizophrenia.”

THE
word smashed into her mind, shocking in the half-dark. Shocking anywhere. A terrible word.

Danny continued. “But he takes pills that work really well.” He looked at her, his face bright. “He isn’t locked away or anything – he’s not that bad. We have an uncle who lives near here and David is staying with him. My parents aren’t coping well but our uncle is not so close, not as … I don’t know, not as sad. It makes Mum and Dad really cut up to see David. It’s horrible then.”

Cat didn’t know what to say. Something choked inside her. What would it be like to have a brother like that? What would that do to her parents?

“Look, Danny, I’m sorry about your brother but … what has this got to do with me?”

“He’s not dangerous, honestly. He wouldn’t do anything. He’s never hurt anyone. You hear about schizophrenics hurting people, but his pills are really good. And Uncle Walter makes sure he takes them.”

“Danny, just a minute – what’s this got to do with me?”

“Because of Phiz. I think it was him.”

“What?” She stared at him. It took a few seconds for her to work out what he meant. “Your brother was the spider guy on Phiz? God, that’s totally creepy! I had a schizophrenic watching me on the internet? Sorry,” she added when she saw his face.

“And how do you know about the Phiz stuff anyway?” she asked.

“After you said that thing at fencing, I asked around and one of my friends had heard one of your friends talking about it.”

Great. So everyone knew. “But why would your brother do that?”

“Because of us.”

“Us?”

“I was so angry. When you dumped me. Well, you treated me like rubbish, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Sorry. But you weren’t exactly perfect yourself. You grossed me out with your insects, you slagged me off for having more money than you, you… Look, OK, I’m sorry. OK? I am. I know the way I did it wasn’t great.”

“No, it wasn’t. But yeah, I’m sorry too. Anyway, the point is I was mad at you. And I told David all about it. He wasn’t ill then. This was months ago. He was great. I’m sorry, but we used to have ‘Let’s slag Cat off again’ sessions. Come on!” he said when he saw her about to speak. “I bet you do the same with your friends.”

She was silent.

“Anyway, then he got ill. It happened quite suddenly, though Mum and Dad said there were signs earlier. And he started obsessing about what a cow you were. He was way over the top in some of the things he said. My uncle helped calm him down. But he was still ill. Then when I heard someone was doing that to you on Phiz, I guessed it was him. I asked him and he denied it, but I didn’t believe him. It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’d been talking about getting back at you. But actually I didn’t think it would do any harm. All he could do was scare you. And that was fine by me – I was still mad at you. So I left it.”

“So he knew all the details about me because you’d told him?”

“Sorry. But if you think about it, the details are on your open profile anyway. Your hobbies and everything. Not exactly a secret, is it? That’s why I don’t do that stuff.”

“Where did all this happen? What computer did he use? Does he have his own?”

“No, he can’t afford one. Or maybe he uses Uncle Walter’s when he’s round there.”

“So this uncle knows all about me too, does he? Really great.”

“Sorry. But he’s OK, really. I wouldn’t talk to Mum and Dad about that stuff, but he’s OK. They don’t get on with Uncle Walter but even they’re glad he’s helping David. I’m not really supposed to go round there as much as I do, but Uncle Walter’s interesting. And now David’s there, there’s even more reason … he’s my brother.”

“Listen, your brother may be ill and I obviously feel sorry for him and all that, but do you realize what he’s done? He wrecked my computer with a virus for a start. I lost a whole load of work and he freaked me out.”

“You’ll think this is mad but this stuff has been going round my head – ever since your mum fell off her bike near the psych hospital and I heard maybe someone had jumped out at her. People started talking about how it might have been a mental patient and I just … freaked. He’d been chucked out of the hospital that day. It could have been him! It’s really stupid because I know David wouldn’t do anything like—”

“
How
do you know? Don’t people with schizophrenia have voices that make them do things?” Cat didn’t know what to think. It was a horrible idea, really horrible, to think that David – or anyone – might have attacked her mum. On purpose. Her mum had almost managed to convince herself that she’d been imagining that someone jumped out at her; it had been too weird, too horrible to believe. Better to believe it was an accident. But now…

Danny was talking. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I’m really worried it might have been him but if I say something and it’s not… It would wreck him to be questioned by the police and how would he prove he was innocent? It could end up being a real mess and it would be my fault.”

“Have you told your mum and dad?”

“No. I wanted to, but I bottled it. They’ve been worried enough about him already. We don’t know anyone was involved, do we? I mean all that stuff at school about being attacked by … by a mentally ill person, that was just rumour. But I hated it, Cat. It really scared me.”

“And you didn’t come into school.”

“No, I couldn’t. I said I was ill.”

He still picked at his fingers.

“Stop doing that, Danny.”

He looked up. “Sorry.”

“Stop saying… Oh, forget it.”

They sat without speaking, while the rain hurled itself against the window, the thin claws of branches scraping on the glass. In the draught, the candles swayed.

A sudden thought hit her. The accident: her mum had been riding her bike, wearing
her
helmet, and in the place where Cat would normally have been at more or less that time. She’d already thought that it
could
easily have been her instead. But what if it was
meant
to be her instead?

It was possible: Danny’s brother, a mental patient, was apparently out to get her. She felt cold. Her thoughts were tangled, leading nowhere.

And, she realized, with horror, her timetable had been on Phiz until recently. David would know she cycled after hockey, would perhaps have watched her before, but would not have known that on this occasion it would be her mum and not her.

Not sure if she should say anything or not, she hesitated. Struggled to find the right words to express such an absurd fear. When she did find the words, she could see the fear reflected in Danny’s eyes.

“No! He wouldn’t! He couldn’t!”

“How do you know? You can’t be sure.”

“We
have
to go and see my uncle. He’ll know what to do. He looks after David – he might even have been with him that evening. He must have been. That was the day David was discharged from the hospital! He
was
with my uncle.”

Cat didn’t know what to think. She wished her dad was home. She peered at her watch. No, he’d be ages yet.

Danny continued. “We should go and see him, Cat. Ask him. Please! I need to know.”

“But what if we meet your brother?”

“I’ll be there and so will my uncle. There’s nothing to be worried about. I’m sure David didn’t do it but, please, Cat. I feel … bad. I really need to know.”

This couldn’t be happening. Stuff like this just didn’t happen, not in real life. She should get a grip. There was no real evidence that anyone had attacked her mum – she’d probably just fallen off her bike, knocked askew by a pothole or loose stone or something. Even faulty brakes would be better than this.

“No, let’s wait for my dad. You can stay here till he comes back with Angus. Why don’t you phone your parents and tell them where you are?”