The Facts of Life and Death (20 page)

Pans were a feature of the Burrows. They took mud samples from two more before it started to rain hard and King decided they had enough for Mike Crew to make a reasonable comparison with the soil between Frannie Hatton’s teeth.

They got back in the car.

‘You can take those samples down to Mike Crew tomorrow,’ said King.

Calvin made the outraged face of a fourteen-year-old boy and she added cheerfully, ‘Isn’t the chain of command wonderful?’

She put the car into gear and pulled off the gravel on to the narrow road.

Calvin looked out of the window at the wet grass and mud-pans slowly filling with sandy brown rainwater, and sighed deeply.

‘Getting cold feet about the wedding?’ said King, not unkindly.

‘No, no, no,’ Calvin said. ‘Yes.’

King laughed, but he didn’t, and she stopped.

‘It’s just that it’s all happening very fast.’ He made what felt like a ridiculous face and waved his hands to show he was totally OK with it all. ‘Very
exciting
, you know? Bit of a blur.’

He laughed awkwardly. King cleared her throat but said nothing. That was his invitation to say nothing too.

But instead, after a minute or so, he said something.

‘It’s just that everything feels different. People aren’t the same.’

‘You mean Shirley’s not the same?’

‘Yeah. Suddenly she’s not about
us
any more. She’s all about the wedding and the honeymoon and all the children we’re going to have.’

King raised her eyebrows and said,
‘All
the children?’

Calvin nodded. ‘Three. Rosie, Charlotte and Digby.’

‘Digby?
’ laughed King. ‘Bloody hell, Calvin! Get out now, while you still can!’

Calvin opened his mouth to tell her that Shirley had wanted Algie, and he’d got it reduced to Digby on appeal, but he was suddenly flung forward so hard in his seat that the inertia reel belt jammed against his shoulder and he braced his hands against the dashboard.

The Volvo fishtailed a little, then lurched to a stop.

‘Get out!’ said King.

‘What?’

‘Get out of the car! Out!’ And she poked him in the arm.

Confused and a little worried, Calvin opened his door. He didn’t move fast enough for King. She poked him twice more in the back as he went, shouting, ‘Out! Out!’

He did, then took a few paces before turning to face the car.

King got out of the driver’s side, looking flushed. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘Those marks on Frannie Hatton’s arm and back – they’re in the places they’d be if someone was poking her to get her out of a car!’

Calvin frowned and touched his arm where her forefinger had first landed. There would be a little bruise there, for sure – even through his jacket. And the two on his back were lower than the marks on Frannie, but then, he was a lot taller.

‘Get out
!’ said King. ‘That’s what made me think of it. But Frannie didn’t want to get out – she must’ve known that something bad was going to happen. So he poked her with his finger and the nails left those short, curved bruises.’

She was pacing with excitement.

Calvin frowned.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said instantly.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘a man doesn’t
poke.
A man
pushes.’

King stared at him, then jerked a thumb at the car. ‘OK, you get in the driver’s seat and push me out. Let me see.’

He did, and she saw. He sat behind the wheel and shoved her out with his spread fingertips and the heel of his hand. He didn’t poke.

‘And even if he did poke,’ he said, staring at his forefinger, ‘men don’t have nails long enough to leave marks like the ones on Frannie Hatton.’

King grimaced and said, ‘You’re right.’

‘And Katie Squire noticed that his nails were quite bitten,’ said Calvin. ‘It’s in the report.’

‘You’re right again. Bollocks.’ She sat back down in the passenger seat.

That made three times Calvin had been right in the past two minutes. He was
never
right about swatches.

‘Maybe it was a gun,’ said King.

‘Seriously?’ said Calvin. This was Devon; now and then a farmer sawed his granddad’s shotgun in half so that he could put the end of it in his mouth, but criminal guns – handguns – were still mercifully few and far between.

But King said, ‘Yes, seriously. The bit at the front. The barrel—’

‘The muzzle,’ he supplied.

‘Yes, the muzzle. That would leave a little curved bruise.’ She made her fingers into a gun and poked him slowly three times in the shoulder. ‘Would – ’nt – it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it would.’ Then he paused cautiously and added, ‘But none of the girls who escaped mentioned a gun.’

‘I know,’ said King. ‘Although he could’ve had a Howitzer and Becky Cobb probably wouldn’t have noticed.’

‘And if he
did
have a gun, why didn’t he just shoot Frannie Hatton?’

‘Noise?’ shrugged King. ‘Or maybe she tried to run and he caught her and lost control of the situation or himself. Or he dropped the gun. Or she knocked it out of his hand and he had to improvise. Maybe it jammed. Or it’s traceable. Or he only needed it as a threat and never intended to use it. Could have been lots of reasons.’

Calvin nodded. They all seemed obvious now that DCI King had said them.

‘Or maybe he just likes the intimacy of suffocation,’ she added more slowly.

Calvin frowned at her.

‘You imagine it,’ King went on. ‘Putting your hands around somebody’s throat or holding them face-down in mud or sand or water. Feeling them fight and then weaken and finally give up and die.’

Calvin did imagine it.

‘You’d literally hold a life in your hands,’ said the DCI bleakly.

‘Yeah,’ nodded Calvin, and – almost unconsciously – his hands gripped the steering wheel in front of him, and squeezed so tight that his knuckles went white. ‘You’d really have everything under
control
.’

DCI King gave him a serious look.

‘Jesus, Calvin. Just tell Shirley to slow the fuck down, will you? Nobody has to die.’

RUBY WATCHED THE
sea a hundred feet below. The tide was on the turn and the deep green water slid quietly up against the cliffs and then just hung around with nothing to do until the next swell came along.

She hadn’t been to the haunted house since that last time with Adam. She’d been nervous of the flagstone in the hearth. But now the thought of the swing and the stile and the dark woods that hemmed the Clovelly pathway made her
more
nervous.

Her nose was pressed against the floorboard. It smelled of rot. Now and then she moved her eye and put her nose to the hole instead, to breathe the sea air. Now and then she got a whiff of kelp and dankness that reminded her of the muddy paddock, devoid of horses.

She thought of the horseshoe on Miss Sharpe’s charm bracelet tinkling as she tapped her finger on the page of her diary.

Where did you hear that word, Ruby?

I don’t know, Miss. On the bus, I think.

Do you know what it means?

No, Miss.

Well, it’s not a nice word, Ruby. Don’t use it, OK?

I wasn’t going to, Miss.

Good.

Ruby was a bit confused. She’d heard Daddy use that word, and it couldn’t be
that
bad because then she’d been asked to wait after class, and then Miss Sharpe hadn’t been angry with her at all. She had asked her about the swing and the paddock and Adam, and if everything was all right at home. Ruby had said,
Yes, Miss
because the house was fine apart from the damp patches and the bathroom window. She hadn’t got a clue why Miss Sharpe wanted to know about their home. Grown-ups often said confusing stuff.

Then Miss Sharpe had said,
You know you can always come and tell me things, Ruby.

Yes, Miss.

Even secret things.

Yes, Miss.

Miss Sharpe had put her head on one side as if she was waiting for something. Ruby didn’t know what.

I have a secret. Do you want to hear it?

OK, Miss.

Well
. . .
I have a pet rabbit called Harvey, and sometimes I talk to him just like he’s another person!

Ruby had smiled because Miss Sharpe had smiled, but she didn’t see why talking to a rabbit like a person was such a big deal. She talked to Lucky all the time and he was made of plastic. It was like some grown-ups didn’t know the difference between games and reality.

Do you have any secrets, Ruby?

No, Miss.

That was a lie, too. But what was the point of
having
secrets if you were going to tell them to the first person who asked? Then they weren’t secrets any more.

She did wish she had a rabbit though.

A sharp crack close to her ear made Ruby jump.

‘Shit,’ said Adam. ‘I was trying to creep up on you.’ He lifted his foot carefully and the floor creaked back into place.

They both made the same alarmed face, and then laughed.

Adam sat cross-legged beside his own hole, like an Eskimo going fishing.

‘You OK?’ he said.

He meant after yesterday, Ruby knew, but for some reason she didn’t feel embarrassed, even though he’d seen her cry.

‘Yeah,’ she said.

‘It didn’t bite you, did it?’

‘No.’

‘They’re trained not to bite,’ he said. ‘Not until the policeman says so. We had a demonstration at school.’

‘Yeah?’ Ruby was surprised. The only demonstration
her
school ever had was a policewoman with ladders in her tights showing them how to ride a bicycle.

‘Yeah, this bloke had a big padded suit on and when the policeman told the dog to bite his arm, he bit his arm, and when he said to bite his leg, he bit his leg. But the dog only did that when he was told. Otherwise he just barked. Those dogs are so well trained.’

‘I hate them,’ said Ruby.

Adam nodded. ‘Yeah, I’d hate them too if one trapped me in the Bear Den.’

He leaned sideways on to his elbow, and then rolled on to his tummy beside Ruby and put his eye to the hole.

There were hardly waves, and no foam at all.

‘It’s rubbish today,’ said Adam against the wood.

‘I know.’

But they watched it anyway.

‘How’s Lucky?’ said Adam.

‘He’s fine,’ said Ruby.

‘Did you get carrots?’

‘No, a potato.’

‘A potato?’

‘Mmm.’ Ruby was sorry she hadn’t got carrots now. Adam had told her to and it would have been funny. ‘It’s like a boulder,’ she explained.

‘That’s funny too,’ said Adam.

Their feet touched.

‘Sorry,’ said Adam.

‘’S OK,’ said Ruby. Then she giggled and nudged him back.

‘Hey!’

They wrestled gently with their ankles for a bit, never taking their eyes from the holes in the planking. Then Adam leaned over and nudged her shoulder with his.

‘Ow!’

He looked up. ‘Did I hurt you?’

She looked up too. ‘No.’

They laughed.

When they put their eyes back to the floor, their shoulders remained touching. Ruby’s eyes were on the sea but her whole mind seemed to be thinking about Adam’s shoulder touching hers. She could feel his warmth right through their T-shirts.

The sea was dead dull but they kept looking at it anyway.

Ruby wanted to thank Adam. She wasn’t sure why. For Lucky, or for saying he’d have been afraid of the dog too, or just for lying beside her so they could watch the sea together.

But talking would have been too loud, so she didn’t.

Her elbows started to hurt. She should get up and give them a rest. But she lay there instead, pressing Adam’s shoulder with hers.

‘My dad’s got a girlfriend,’ said Adam.

Ruby looked over at him. ‘What?’

Adam didn’t take his eye from the hole in the floor. ‘My dad’s got a girlfriend. I heard my mum telling my gran on the phone.’

Ruby stared at Adam’s ear. The outer edge of it was very red. Was it always so red? She wasn’t sure.

‘Who’s his girlfriend?’ she said, dreading the answer.

Adam rolled on to his side so they were facing each other, but he stared at the floor between them, picking at it with his fingernail. There was a crack there where he’d trodden just now, and a jagged edge. ‘Somebody in London, I think. He’s always there.’

Ruby wasn’t sure what to say. She was relieved to hear that it wasn’t Mummy, but she felt sorry for Adam.

‘That’s horrible,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ nodded Adam. ‘He’s a bastard.’

Ruby was shocked to hear Adam use that word about his own father. He must
really
hate him.

‘Is he going to leave you?’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Adam. ‘I’m not even supposed to know about it. Nobody knows I know.’

‘Does Chris know?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Ruby picked at the crack too, so they were doing it together. The wood was so rotten it was easy to pull bits off, even with their fingers.

‘Who will you live with if they get a divorce?’

‘I don’t know.’ Adam shrugged. ‘With my mum, probably.’

‘Yes, mostly the kids stay with the mummies,’ said Ruby with some authority. ‘That’s what all the kids at school do.’

Adam nodded and said, ‘Yeah.’

He worried the wood angrily with his fingernail until Ruby touched his hand.

He looked up at her.

Then he kissed her.

It took her by surprise, but she only drew back a little tiny bit. She kept her eyes open and so did Adam as his mouth touched hers like electricity. For a second she saw herself reflected in his pupils.

Then they heard Chris banging into the haunted house, crunching something underfoot and saying, ‘Shitting bollocks to that,’ and Adam rolled over and put his eye to the floor once again.

‘Adam!’

‘What?’

‘Tea.’

‘OK.’

He sighed and knelt up and said, ‘Bye, Ruby.’

Ruby got up and went to the window and watched Adam and Chris and the dogs all the way down the hill to their house.

CALVIN BRIDGE WAS
exhausted.