The Facts of Life and Death (18 page)

There was no answer to that, so Maggie took Em’s hand and yanked her off down the path. Em started bawling – as usual – waddling after her sister with her muddy nappy showing under her dirty pink skirt.

As she watched them go, Ruby felt a flutter of excitement in her tummy. She clambered awkwardly over the stile and dropped down on the other – new – side.

She looked over her shoulder. She was only inches beyond the stile, but the little clearing already looked much smaller.

She turned and walked away from it.

With every step her confidence grew. She was doing it! She was over the stile and walking on the coastal path. If she kept going she would end up in Clovelly! If she wanted to she could go and find Granpa and Nanna’s door. They’d be so impressed by how she’d walked all the way by herself. They’d have tea and biscuits – not fruit – and then she’d walk back again and Mummy would never even
know.

Ruby steadied the guns in her pockets and started to swagger. Up ahead she heard twigs and small branches snapping, but her own footsteps were silent in the mud.

The curve up ahead was the perfect place for an ambush.

She jogged towards it on tiptoe, careful not to make a sound. Then she dropped to her knees and inched forward until she could see around the thick hazel and ferns.

After the corner, the path straightened out and ran for another fifteen yards before turning to the right again.

Nobody was on it.

Ruby stood up, a little confused. But she had heard someone coming! Maggie had too. And the path was the only—

The back of her neck prickled as she saw a brief flash through the trees to her left. Heard the rustle of undergrowth.

Ruby held her breath and her right hand dropped to her gun.

There was no path there. Nothing but close-grown forest and ferns, and brambles that sent out runners in long, tripping loops. But something was moving through the dark woods – down the hill towards the village. Towards her.

The killer.

Ruby’s mouth went dry.

She turned and looked back at the stile and the clearing beyond. It seemed to be a lot further than thirty yards now. Could she make it?

Her legs decided for her.

She ran.

She almost wished she hadn’t. Running made everything more frightening. The thirty-yard dash; the scramble over the stile, banging her knees and falling on her hands; slipping and sliding down the muddy track into the village, now on her feet, now on her bottom. Ruby’s ears were filled with the sound of her own heart and lungs. Once she turned and saw something big between the trees. Not the boys, and not on the path. Something big was very close to catching her.

She thought she could hear it breathing.

Ruby’s chest burned for air. She wasn’t going to make it home. She wasn’t going to make it into the village.

The Bear Den!

She tumbled inside, headfirst and frantic, then reached up awkwardly and slammed the little door shut behind her.

It was utterly black and instantly cold. The dirt floor was lower than the pathway, and had turned to mud.

Shock hit Ruby hard and she started to shake and then sob. The dark took the sound and wrapped it around her like a thick marshmallow echo.

She had to stay quiet. She had to hold on.

She put her hands to her guns, but they had fallen out of her pockets, so instead she drew her knees up and clenched her fists at her chest, shivering.

It smelled. It smelled so bad.

Something brushed against her leg and she slapped it away. What was in here with her? She told herself:
Nothing, don’t be silly
.

She froze as she heard footsteps outside. Someone approaching, breathing in short, angry bursts. A chain rattled and she thought of the pedlar under the hearth, all bones and revenge.

Something stopped – right outside the door.

Ruby clamped her hand over her mouth. Her hot tears pooled along the edge of her finger as she looked up at the blackness where she knew the door to be. She had nowhere to go – nowhere else to hide. If she made a sound now, she’d be found. The something touched her leg again, and the smallest shriek escaped her.

Then there was an endless silence where she couldn’t even hear the beating of her own heart.

The door opened.

And a bear lunged through it. Lunged at the child who had invaded its home. Huge and snarling, its white teeth shining against its blood-red tongue—

Ruby screamed and screamed and screamed.

Long after she knew it was a dog.

Long after she could see it was attached to a policeman.

There were four dogs searching for the body of Jody Reeves. Two big German shepherds and two brown and white spaniels.

Ruby watched them from the front window, wrapped in a blanket and drinking sweet tea with a custard-cream chaser. Mummy had left the tin on the wide sill, so she could have as many as she wanted, but she’d been on this one for ages.

The dog that had scared her so badly was called Sabre. His handler had tried to get Ruby to shake his paw, to show her what a nice dog he was. Sabre had waved his paw again and again, but she had only cried and clutched at Mummy’s waist, while Maggie and Em and Chris and Adam stood in a worried knot along with the rest of the village, who’d run to see the hoo-ha.

She could see Sabre now, coming up the slipway, head down, ears pricked, bushy tail swinging. She hated him for scaring her so. She shivered for the hundredth time as she recaptured the fear for just a split second. That was plenty.

Once they’d come out of the forest, the dogs had moved through the village like panting, wagging pinballs, zigzagging their way up and down the lane and along the banks of the stream, and between the houses and around the cars. The men had told Mummy they were heading towards Westward Ho! and meeting another team that had started from there.

Now they passed the front gate and Mummy and Ruby went to the kitchen window to watch them clamber up the slippery steps of the Peppercombe path.

Just as the last dog and handler disappeared, the front door burst open and Daddy shouted ‘Ruby!’ and Ruby cried all over again while he hugged her and asked if she was OK and checked her hands, as if for injury. Then he hugged her again while Mummy rubbed her back.

And even through the crying, Ruby thought:
This is how it used to be. All of us together.
And she stayed there as long as she could, feeling loved and safe.

Mummy ruined it by saying, ‘What’s that
smell
?’

‘What smell?’

They stepped away from each other and Ruby sniffed. There
was
a smell. It burned the back of her throat and made her eyes water, the way the limekilns did.

Mummy gasped at the muck on the carpet.

‘Where the hell have you
been
, John?’

‘Must’ve been tar on the beach,’ Daddy said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Take your shoes off! It’s all over the carpet!’

Mummy got the bucket from outside the back door, making a lot of angry noise with it. She started scrubbing, then she looked at the clock. ‘I have to be at work in twenty minutes!’

‘I said I’m sorry, didn’t I?’ said Daddy. ‘I was worried about Ruby. That idiot Tim Braund told me she’d had her hand ripped half off!’

‘I thought it was a bear,’ said Ruby, welling up at just the memory, but nobody looked at her.

Mummy threw the sponge in the bucket and dumped them both in the kitchen sink with a clatter. ‘He’s not an idiot. She wasn’t bitten, but she was very frightened.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you mean, what do I mean?’

‘You said he’s not an idiot.’ Daddy followed her to the kitchen. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing! I just meant he was mistaken. That doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. That’s all. It’s not important.’

‘It’s important to me.’

Ruby watched them anxiously.

She knew why Mr Braund wasn’t an idiot. As Mummy had led her home, shaking and crying, Mr Braund had seen her fingers, stained bright red with nail polish.

Did it bite her?
he’d yelled.

She’s OK
, Mummy had called as they’d hurried up the hill.
She’s OK.

Then, while Ruby had stood and sobbed, Mummy had got cotton wool and something from under the sink and scrubbed her fingers and nails until they were clean and sore and smelled like decorating.

Mummy tried to leave the kitchen, but Daddy filled the doorway.

‘Just tell me what you meant,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’

‘Nothing!
I just
said
it.’ Mummy ran her hands through her hair and then put them on her hips. She looked at the wall. ‘John. Please. I need to get changed and I need a lift to work or I’m going to be late.’

He stared at her. She stared at the wall. And Ruby stared at both of them.

Finally Daddy stepped aside.

Mummy brushed past him, then opened the little white door and ran upstairs.

Daddy glared at the door as if he could still see her through the yellowing paint.

Ruby stood on the spider rug, unsure of what to do. She hugged the blanket closer to her. She’d like to go upstairs to bed, but following Mummy upstairs might look like she was taking her side.

Daddy turned to her. ‘You all right, Rubes?’

She nodded.

‘Good,’ he said, then he whispered, ‘I’ll get some biscuits and something to drink. Why don’t you go and put Panda to bed?’

They were going on a posse.

Ruby screwed up her face. The fear of the Bear Den was still fresh in her mind. It was too easy to revisit. To relive how quickly she’d turned from a swaggering cowboy into a scared little girl – and from that to a screaming baby, unable to stop crying even when Adam was standing right there with his father, watching her.

She wasn’t in the mood to hunt down a killer.

‘I’m so tired,’ she said. ‘Because of the dog and all the running and everything. Can you go? And I’ll come the next time?’

She was letting him down, she could see it on his face.

‘You scared, Rubes?’

‘No!’

‘It’s OK if you’re scared. You can tell me.’

‘I’m
not.
I’m
tired.
’ She’d battled so hard to get Daddy to allow her to go with him. What if he thought she was just a silly scaredy-cat girl now? He might never take her on another posse.

Or anywhere.

Daddy sat on the sofa and patted the cushion beside him. She sat down and leaned into the space under his arm that seemed to fit her so well.

‘You know how I got these scars, Rubes?’

‘You were bit by a dog,’ said Ruby. ‘Mummy told me.’

‘Did she?’ said Daddy. He stroked the scar that ran through his eyebrow and stared thoughtfully at the table.

‘Did it hurt?’ she breathed.

‘Hurt like billy-o,’ said Daddy.

‘Did you cry?’

‘Like a baby. Much harder than you cried today. And I was
scared
.’

‘Did the police take the dog away?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, it was my own fault. I was always winding the dog up. My mother always said it would bite me one day.’

‘Oh.’ Ruby nodded. ‘But I didn’t do
anything
to the police dog.’ He laughed without smiling. ‘You can’t trust the police, Rubes! They’re always out to get you – even the dogs.’

Daddy took her hand. There was a tiny speck of red at the base of her left thumbnail, but he didn’t notice.

‘The point is, I
understand
about being scared, you see, Rubes? But when that dog bit me, you know what I did?’

‘What?’

‘I got back on the horse.’

Ruby pricked up her ears. ‘What horse?’

‘When you fall off a horse, you have to get straight back on, or else you might start worrying about falling off again, and then you’d
never
get back on. See?’

Ruby nodded.

She could hear Mummy starting down the stairs.

‘So,’ Daddy said in his cowboy voice, ‘you all set for the posse, Deputy?’

Ruby hesitated.

‘Next time,’ she said. ‘I’ll get back on the horse next time.’

IT WAS A DARK
and stormy night and the last bus was late. Or Becky Cobb had missed it. She was so drunk she kept forgetting which was most likely.

She frowned at the watch Jordan had given her for her eighteenth birthday, and saw that it had stopped. She shook her wrist and it started again. It really was a piece of shit, but how could she not wear it? He’d only want to know where it was if she didn’t. It was a fake Rolex he’d got in Morocco for
Asda price
and it looked great – apart from the green mark it left around her wrist – but when it came to telling the time it was as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Becky shivered. Seizures Palace was always hot – warmed by the sheer number of bodies on the dance floor and crowding the bar – so Becky was wearing long black boots, a micro-miniskirt and a pink polo-neck sweater that was all neck and barely any sweater, because it showed off her belly ring. It was her latest acquisition and therefore demanded to be displayed, whatever the cost to her health. Now the warmth of other bodies was wearing off fast and she rubbed her arms and looked up and down Bideford Quay, as though she could conjure a bus out of thin air.