In the Bag (14 page)

‘Hello, Joe,’ says Ash’s mum. ‘You’re early.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘Is Ash up?’

Ash’s mum shakes her head and opens the door wider. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Go on up, though. Maybe you can shift him.’

I climb the stairs and knock on Ash’s door.

‘What?’ he shouts.

‘It’s me. Joe. Let me in.’

There’s no answer, but a few seconds later the door opens and Ash peers round it. He’s wearing his dressing gown. His hair’s all over the place, like he’s just got out of bed.

‘What do you want?’ he says. ‘It’s half bloody seven.’

I squeeze past him into his room and go and sit on his drum stool. ‘Can I use your computer for a second?’

Ash looks at me, confused as hell. ‘Yeah. Why?’

I don’t answer. I just grab his laptop, switch it on and find the news story about the body and the car. I turn it round so Ash can see it properly. He walks over and leans in as he reads. The colour drains from his face.

‘Shit,’ he says.

I nod my head. I thought I’d feel better when I’d shown it to Ash. A problem shared is a problem halved, or whatever they say. But I don’t feel better. I feel sick and nervous and guilty as hell. I feel like I’m drowning.

Ash doesn’t say anything. He just stares into space, thinking, trying to take it all in.

‘What do you think we should do?’

Ash shrugs and shakes his head. ‘Shit!’

‘We need to do something. We . . .’ I say. But I stop cos I don’t know what we need to do. It’s not the kind of thing they teach you in school, is it?

‘Christ,’ Ash says. ‘We’ve got the bag. We saw the car. I don’t believe this.’

I nod. The guilty knot in my stomach tightens.

‘I wonder if Rabbit’s seen this,’ Ash says.

I’m confused. ‘What? Why?’

Ash stares at me for a minute with his mouth open, looking guilty. He glances away from me and runs his hand through his hair. ‘I fucked up, Joe,’ he says. ‘Rabbit knows what happened on Friday night.’

‘What? How?’

Ash takes a deep breath. He looks down at the carpet. ‘It was Saturday night,’ he says. ‘Rabbit came round. We got drunk. And I let it slip by accident.’

I don’t say anything. I don’t even move. I can feel the veins in my temple, throbbing, painful, like they’re about to explode. I turn away from Ash, start pacing round his room. I can’t believe he’s telling me this. What the fuck? If he’s told Rabbit, who’s to say that he hasn’t told other people as well? And what about Rabbit? He might have told someone else. Jesus. Loads of people could know by now. The whole story could be going around Fayrewood.

‘You dickhead,’ I say. I want to shake him. I want to punch his bloody lights out. I want to shout at him and let him know what a stupid, irresponsible little twat he’s been. ‘You stupid bloody dickhead!’

Ash doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even look at me. He just looks down at his dressing gown and shakes his head.

‘Rabbit could have told anyone,’ I say. ‘Someone could have told the police . . .’

‘Sorry,’ Ash says. ‘What more can I say? I can’t do anything about it now, can I? We’ve just got to deal with it. And Rabbit’s not gonna tell anyone, is he? He’s not stupid.’

I snort. ‘
You
bloody told someone!’

‘Yeah,’ Ash says. ‘I know. Sorry.’

I sigh, sit down on the drum stool again. ‘What does Rabbit know?’

Ash takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t know exactly. We were drunk,’ he says quietly.

‘You’ve talked to him since then, though, haven’t you?’

Ash nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says. He looks right at me. ‘I told him about what happened, how we found the car and the bag, how it was full of money.’

I put my head in my hands. And I think.

‘I told him there was only five hundred quid in the bag, though. I offered to cut him in on it, to make sure that he didn’t tell anyone else. But he wasn’t interested in the money.’

I sit and stare into space, trying to work out what all this means. Does it mean that whoever had the bag got killed because of the bag? Did the man who died in the fire steal the bag from someone? Cos if he did, does that mean that someone’s looking for the bag right now? That they might kill me and Ash for it?

And if we took it to the police, what would happen then? Would they even know that we spent some of the money? Would they know that we found it on Friday night and we’ve had it all that time cos we were gonna keep it? Would they care? I have no idea.

All of a sudden, Ash gets up. He marches over to his wardrobe and gets some clothes out, starts pulling them on in a hurry. Some jeans, a T-shirt, a hoodie.

‘What are you doing?’ I say. ‘It’s a school day.’

Ash stops, his foot still in mid-air as he pulls on a sock. ‘Fuck school,’ he says. ‘We’re not going today.’

I just stare at him. I’ve never skived off school in my life. But right now, that’s the least of my worries.

Ash pulls his other sock on, then grabs some trainers off the floor and pulls them on as well. ‘We’re gonna do something about this,’ he says. ‘We’re gonna sort this out once and for all. I’ll phone Rabbit.’

I nod my head, even though my stomach feels like something’s got a tight hold on it, squeezing it.

Ten minutes later we’re riding through the woods. Ash is on his new bike and I’m on one of his old ones. It’s started raining lightly. The sky above the treetops is slate grey.

We cycle without a word, heading right through the woods, back to the Old House, to the bag. It’s only a few hours since we were here.

There’s a problem with this, of course. My sister, Kate. She’s going to notice that I’m not at the bus stop. She’s hardly likely to keep quiet either. She won’t tell the teachers – she’s not that stupid. But she’ll drop it into conversation in front of Mum and Dad, you can bet. There’s nothing I can do about that right now, though.

We stay well away from where we found the car last Friday, just in case the police are there, in case they’re investigating where the car crashed.

By the time we get close to the Old House, it’s really starting to piss down with rain. We jump off the bikes and wheel them into the undergrowth, throw them to the ground and run towards the Old House. Ash leads the way, his hood pulled up over his head.

He pulls the piece of boarding covering the door out of the way so we can get inside and then puts it back in its place behind us. He takes his hood down and sighs. He goes straight through to the room on the left, walks up to the chimney and pulls the bag down and out. A load of soot and dust comes with it and lands in the fireplace and on the floor. Ash carries the bag over to the table and puts it down. He opens it and checks the money is still there. Which it is. He looks up at me and nods.

‘We should get rid of it,’ I say. ‘Once and for all.’

Ash looks back at me. He doesn’t say anything right away, like he’s thinking about something. Eventually he nods his head and says, ‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right.’

He opens the end pocket of the bag and takes a mobile out.

‘Whose mobile is that?’ I say.

He shrugs. ‘It was in the bag when we found it,’ he says.

I stare at the mobile. I think back to last Friday night. There definitely wasn’t a phone in the bag. Not that I saw.

‘It wasn’t,’ I say. ‘I’d remember.’

Ash stares at the phone. ‘I found it in the end pocket of the bag the other day,’ he says.

‘
And you didn’t tell me?’

He shakes his head and shrugs. ‘Didn’t think it was important.’

I snort with laughter. Not important! How dare he not tell me? We’re in this together.

‘Sorry,’ he says quietly. ‘I fucked up. Again.’

‘Too right,’ I say. ‘We could have traced who the bag belonged to using the phone. We could have taken it to the police. You dick.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s pay as you go. Can’t trace that.’

I shake my head in disbelief.

Ash doesn’t say anything or even look at me. He switches the phone on and stares at it. But as he’s doing it, there’s a noise from outside – branches breaking. Someone’s near. Ash chucks the phone back into the bag and stashes the bag under the table.

‘Get down, Joe,’ he says.

So I do. He picks up a wooden chair and goes and stands near the doorway with it raised above his head. I keep down and watch him.

And then there’s the sound of the panel covering the entrance to the Old House being shifted, and the whole place momentarily gets lighter.

‘Jesus!’ says a voice. Rabbit. ‘I’m soaked.’

Ash breathes a big sigh of relief and lets the chair fall to the floor. I get up and dust myself off just in time to see Rabbit come through into the room. He’s looking serious.

‘What’s this about?’ Rabbit says. He pulls up a chair and sits down.

Ash goes over to the table and picks the bag up from underneath it, places it back on the table. Then he sits down. ‘Did you see the news this morning?’ he asks.

Rabbit shakes his head. Suddenly he looks worried, anxious. ‘No, why?’

Ash explains the whole thing. And as he does, Rabbit looks more and more anxious.

‘Oh fuck,’ he says, when Ash has finished.

We both nod at him.

As we all sit in silence, I start feeling angry. Not with Rabbit. It’s not his fault he got caught up in this. But with Ash. Because I trusted him. We were supposed to keep this a secret. We were supposed to be honest with each other. And in the space of a week he’s gone and blabbed to Rabbit, and kept the fact that there was a phone in the bag to himself. I have an urge to go over and smack him in the face and then walk out of here. I should leave him to deal with this shitty situation. I feel angry enough to do it. But I don’t. I close my eyes for a couple of seconds and let the anger pass.

When I reopen my eyes, I look over at Rabbit, sitting, chewing his lip, nervous. ‘This is some real messed-up business,’ he says to no one in particular.

Ash takes the mobile phone back out of the bag. He turns it round and round in his hands, staring into space.

We all sit, thinking, staring at the floor, at the walls. There are empty, faded cans and wrappers on the floor. I look up from the floor, at Rabbit. There’s something that needs to be said before we can get any further. Before I can trust Rabbit. Only I don’t want to have to ask it. I look over at Ash. He’s just sitting there, turning the phone over and over in his hand. He’s not gonna ask it. So I compose myself and then I open my mouth.

‘Rabbit,’ I start.

They both look over at me.

‘There’s something I need to know.’

Rabbit nods, like he knows what I’m gonna say.

‘Have you told anyone else about this?’

‘Course I fucking haven’t,’ he says. ‘I’m not stupid.’

There’s a pause for a second. Outside, a bird calls.

‘You haven’t let anything slip?’

Rabbit shakes his head.

‘Cos it’s easy to let things slip.’ I look over at Ash.

Ash flashes back a look that’s says, ‘
Fuck off
.’

Rabbit stands up. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Do you think I wanna be in this situation? Do you think I wanted to incriminate myself, to leave my fingerprints on –’

‘Shut up,’ Ash says, cutting Rabbit off. He’s standing up too now, looking angry.

Rabbit stares over at Ash. There’s a weird look between the two of them, one which I don’t understand. Something’s going on here. Something I want to know about.

They keep staring at each other. Neither of them looks away. There’s a tension in the air, like before a fight. Eventually, Rabbit shakes his head, sighs and sits back down. Ash sits back down too.

‘What was all that about?’ I say. And I look from Rabbit to Ash.

They both keep their heads down, not wanting to look at me.

‘Nothing,’ Ash says. ‘Just leave it, Joe. Rabbit’s just being a dick.’

Still neither of them looks at me. ‘It’s obviously something,’ I say. ‘Tell me.’

Ash shakes his head. ‘Leave it.’

And it’s silent again.

Then, slowly, Rabbit looks up. He looks over at Ash. ‘We should tell him.’

Ash stares at Rabbit like he’s totally lost it. Like he’s deciding whether or not to go and lamp him one.

‘What?’ I say. ‘Tell me what?’

Ash doesn’t even look at me. He stares at Rabbit like he wants to kick his head in. ‘I said, “Leave it”,’ he says.

‘Why?’ Rabbit says.

‘Cos . . .’ Ash begins. ‘Cos . . . he won’t be able to handle it.’

That makes my blood boil. I can’t believe he’s talking about me like that when I’m here in the room. ‘I won’t be able to handle what?’ I say.

Ash doesn’t answer me. He’s still staring at Rabbit in the gloom.

‘He should know,’ Rabbit says.

Ash shakes his head. ‘No! I’m gonna smack you in the mouth in a minute, Rabbit. Change the subject!’