Keeping (13 page)

“Oh, come on! Lots of people do.” David cut a bacon rasher in half. “Bet if you plugged it into Google you’d see a shitload of links about people who’ve been stood up with no explanation.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Jesus, Conrad! Will you listen to yourself? Anyone would think you were a couple or something, like she should have told you where she’s gone, but bloody hell, she just knows you as some guy she serves breakfast to. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the way it is. Sounds to me like all the strong feelings are on your side anyway, so yeah, you
would
be expecting her to care and let you know where she’s gone. But look at it from her side. Let’s just say she doesn’t dig you as much as you dig her, right? You’re not important, she doesn’t
care
about you, so therefore, when she decided to take off or whatever the fuck she did, I bet you didn’t even figure in her thoughts.”
That should shut him up.

“Her neighbors haven’t heard her dog barking like it usually does.” Conrad gave a self-satisfied smile. “What do you think about
that?
”

David stared at him. Conrad had gone so far as to visit her house and speak to the fucking
neighbors?
“You
asked
them?”

“Yeah, I asked them. Someone’s got to give a shit!”

David sighed as though he was weary of Conrad’s worrying ways and shook his head. He was a man now. Everything would be okay.
Don’t take me back there. Don’t hurt me.
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that much. Not sure I’d be the same in your position.”

He had to find out more. Had to stop his mind splitting in two first, though. One half wanted to be David, and the other half wanted to be that man who took girls and did that weird shit.

Come on. Concentrate. Conrad might prove to be a pain in the arse if he pokes around asking any more questions.

“So tell me,” David said, “did you actually find anything out that would be useful to the police? They’re not going to listen to you with what you’ve got, you know.”

Conrad speared a sausage then bit off the end. He seemed to chew forever before answering. “Yeah. From what I gathered she was seen leaving her house that night with her dog. The night she was supposed to meet me. Seven-thirty on the dot, as always. She headed for the field just over there and someone else walking their dog saw her but couldn’t remember the exact time. Estimate is just before eight, he said.”

“You
spoke
to someone where she walks her
dog?
” David had failed to hide his surprise and kicked himself under the table.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Got cramp. Carry on.”

“That was a good one, David. You’re getting very adept at thinking on your feet. It won’t be long and you may well be able to do this sort of thing without my help. How would that be, hmm? Would you like going it alone?”

“Yeah, some bloke who comes in here,” Conrad said. “I nipped in yesterday afternoon once I remembered earwigging to a conversation she’d had with him. They’d talked about seeing one another while walking their dogs once. He comes in at three every day. You know the one? Bald with a penny-sized birthmark on his neck. Well.” Conrad played with his food. “I got this idea after I spoke to him. You know I said about those women?”

David’s head spun. “What women?”

“The ones that weirdo is taking. God, we talked about this yesterday!”

“Keep calm, David,”
Mr Clever said.
“Even if he says what you think he’s going to say, keep calm.”

“Yeah,” David said, relieved he’d sounded normal.

“I looked up some stuff online about The Weirdo, and the last two women he took he only kept for about two days each.”

Fuck.

“And?” David’s heart rate increased. He didn’t like it.
Don’t hurt me.

“And so I went to the stream last night.”

“You did
what?
” It had burst out before David had been able stop it.

“I know!” Conrad beamed. “Good idea, yeah?”

“Are you nuts? That bloke is dangerous, man.”

“He isn’t, David. Not yet.”

Conrad twitched his nose. “I found a dead dog. Stank, it did. Some bastard had sliced up its belly. All its insides hung out, like these big, dried-up sausages. Like the stuff in the butcher’s only desiccated. Really weird feeling, seeing that. Knowing it had been running about one minute chasing its ball and the next… Who would
do
something like that, eh?”

David didn’t know what to say. It felt like the contents of his body had seeped out and left him hollow. Like that dog. He stared at Conrad for a moment, gripping his knife and fork. Mr Clever hissed, giving him the nudge he needed to act normal. “You told the police about this, right? You didn’t just leave the dog there, did you?”

“Yep, told the police.”

“Where did you find it? The dog?”

“This end of the stream, where the bald guy said he’d last seen her.”

David went cold. He wondered whether Cheryl was as cold. Whether, if he went back and touched her she’d freeze his fingers. Whether she’d understand from where she was in home-home, why he’d chosen her. Maybe he ought to do that next time. Tell them why they were there—but he didn’t know why himself.

“Yes you do, David.”

“What time was that?” Why hadn’t Mr Clever warned him about Conrad before now? Why had he let them meet and make David think he could have a friend only to have that friend taken away when something like this happened? He’d never abducted a man before, had never felt the need, but he might have to do that now. Snatch Conrad and make him go home-home.

David’s head felt like it was going to burst. There was too much information inside it, things from back then and things from now, all vying for his immediate attention. And he couldn’t cope with both parts of himself, not at the same time. It sent him doolally.

“About eight. I didn’t get home until after midnight, though. They wanted a statement, the police, and I swear they thought I had something to do with it at first. This detective asked questions about what I’d been doing, and I thought it was to trip me up, get me to admit something I hadn’t done—admit to being
him
.” Conrad shuddered. “Like anyone would want to be him. That man’s sick in the head.”

I didn’t like it when you said that.

“But in the end they didn’t,” Conrad said. “Think it was me, I mean.”

“How come? What changed their mind?”

“That copper, Langham, he spoke to me. His associate got information from what I can gather—that thought shit he does—that proves I’m not involved.”

“What kind of information?” David hoped he’d just sounded interested, your average nosy parker.

Conrad shifted in his seat as though excited. “He didn’t say, probably confidential, but the rozzers who spoke to me after him
did
say if The Weirdo has her, they’ll find her—and him.”

* * * *

David knew he was having a dream but couldn’t pull himself out of it. It was one of those weird dreams where you’re conscious of reality yet the world in which you’re currently standing seems just as real, just as vivid. He knew he was in bed, could feel the sheets wrapped around his legs like bonds, tightening their grip until the blood in his veins there pumped and pounded, threatening to burst through his skin. Knew he’d stumbled out of Morrison’s shitting himself, frightened that his two selfs were merging and he was unable to figure out how to deal with it. Knew he’d reached his flat breathless, light-headed, heart bashing about in there like no one’s business, his thoughts of him cleaning traces of Cheryl from his place going out of the window, his bed the only thing he’d wanted. Sleep to make it all go away. And Sally to cuddle.

He hadn’t even written in his diary, and maybe that was why he stood in the living room of his childhood home in his dream now, the velvet sofa opposite against the back wall, his mother sitting on it, staring at him with those muddy brown eyes of hers. If he’d written out his thoughts this wouldn’t be happening, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He was trapped, his conscious-self pushing to wake up but his dream self, his
kid
self, rooted to the spot by her unwavering glare.

What have I done now? Why am I here? I haven’t been here for ages, since I started meeting the women. Everything was okay. Why now? What’s happened to make it different?

“Why couldn’t you have been a girl, David?” Mother asked.

Not that. Please, not that…

“Why couldn’t I have had my little corn-blonde, green-eyed princess?”

She had her legs crossed, one perfect, slim pin dangling over the other. She bounced the top one, the flesh of her calf barely spreading as it met the shin below. Her bleached blonde hair was that corn color she so wanted David to have. His father’s black had diluted her original brunette, producing a shade on their child that made him an inbetweener—not brown, not black, something that didn’t fit into either category. Rather like himself. He was inbetween everywhere, a boy who wanted to be a girl but with no real desire or gene to allow him to be female. He was a boy, with boy things on his mind—climbing trees, playing marbles in the dirt, kicking a football about—yet he’d been given that doll for his fifth birthday and was expected to wear dresses when he was at home.

There’s something wrong with that, I know it, but I can’t tell her, can’t explain it to her because everything’s just so messy, so fuzzy. And she wouldn’t understand.

“I don’t know,” he said, his usual, standard answer. He clenched his small fists at his sides, staring back at her with an adult mind from a child’s body.

“You never know anything much, David. If you’d have been a girl you’d have known so much more. Girls are so
clever.
”

No they’re not. If they were, they wouldn’t get taken. I wouldn’t be able to do what I’ve done. I proved it, didn’t I? Proved that girls aren’t clever?

Best not to say anything in response to her statement. If he argued she’d win. Always had in the past, so why would her being in his dream be any different?

“Where’s Sally, David?” She went on without waiting for him to answer. “That’s what I would have called you if you’d been a girl.”

He inwardly shrugged—couldn’t do it outright because she’d smack him for it. Smacks hurt, didn’t they? His skin was always so sore afterwards, on fire, the site of her strike a handprint of heat. Sometimes he couldn’t sit, had to lean over onto his other arse cheek, his pants chafing over it—God, it brought tears to his eyes every time. He resisted shrugging again, wanting to make the movement as a way of telling himself it didn’t matter, that her words didn’t hurt and weren’t true. But she didn’t like shruggers. His father did it a lot and it drove her mad, she said—or yelled—depending on her mood. She smacked him sometimes too, right across the face, and once her sharp fingernails had brushed his father’s eyeball and he’d had trouble seeing properly for weeks. David understood the pain of that. Those fingernails regularly bit into the soft skin of his underarm as she dragged him along, heading for the stairs and his room where she’d do more than smack him with her hand.

“You need to take good care of that dolly, David. She cost a lot of money.”

Mother smiled, lips free of color—eyelids and cheeks the same. She didn’t wear makeup—didn’t need it she was so beautiful. Yet she was ugly to David, her perfect features nothing but horrendous to look upon. Dad said she hadn’t always been like this, that she’d changed when David had been born. And David wasn’t to take that to heart, all right? It wasn’t his fault, it was his mother’s. And as much as his father had tried to stand up to her on David’s behalf, most of the time he’d just sat back and let it all happen because he could never win. Never.

The ‘Sally in the Fire’ incident was a time when David…when he’d become well and truly lost. When his father, as an anchor, had been cruelly taken away.

“I’m not letting him have that doll anymore, Lisabeth! He’s a damn boy, not a bloody girl. Get over it!”

Sally sailed from Dad’s hand and into the fire, her round-eyed gaze changing to narrow as her eyelids had begun to close, begun to melt. David lunged forward, knowing he had to take good care of Sally like his mother had told him. Knowing if he didn’t save her he’d have no one left—no one to cuddle at night or talk to when things got too bad—and Mother would belt him for not looking after Sally even though it was his father who had thrown her there.

“You fucking bastard.” Mother sailed across the room much like Sally had, launching into Dad and knocking him onto the sofa, flapping her hands, raining those evil smacks down on him.

David rolled Sally, made the flames go away, and blew on her cheeks until the plastic cooled and she didn’t look so squidgy anymore.

Mother smacked on until Dad didn’t move any longer, and she said something about a goddamned heart attack.

Mother brought him out of his reverie with a sharp clearing of her throat. He blinked to rid himself of the images in his mind, to dissolve the film of tears.

“You’re a little bastard, David, and I’m tired of you now. Go away.”

The room faded around him but the hurt didn’t. It flared brighter than it had before, always did, the pain becoming more intense every time he saw her in his dreams. She lived in his head, inside his body, still directing everything he did and said, although he did a good job of shutting her out these days. Or had, until now.

As he walked backwards out of that living room, feeling the pull of consciousness tugging at his back like he tugged Sally’s musical cord, he thought about the newspaper and whether Cheryl’s discovery would get better coverage. If it did, at least someone was taking more notice. At least someone cared enough about him to tell the country a little of what he’d done. At least he’d be known as being clever.

Chapter Ten

Langham looked around the packed incident room. The night shift had stayed on for the meeting—easier to bring everyone up to date that way—and Oliver had gone to work at the newspaper. Those who had gone home yesterday and returned this morning looked refreshed and ready to go. Their schedules would be busy, and what Langham had in mind meant the majority of them might need to do overtime. He’d possibly need a double team to make this go off without a hitch.