The League of Sharks (2 page)

On 14 December, hailstones pelted the walls and windows, thunder roared across the heavens and lightning lit up the ocean, which could be seen from the Doyle house perched, as it was, on a high cliff looking westward.

Despite their hostile relationship, Ambeline was still just a little girl and looked to her parents and her big brother for comfort and protection. For some reason, that night, it was Junk's bed she crawled into when the storm scared her. Junk half woke as Ambeline shook his shoulder.

‘Can I get in your bed?' she asked in a jittery little voice. Junk didn't answer. He just moved a few inches to
the left, giving her room to climb in next to him. Ambeline fidgeted and turned as she snuggled in next to her brother and went back to sleep. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her head and it made her feel safe.

*

Some hours later, Junk was woken by a draught. His nose and ears were icy cold. He glanced up, eyes fighting not to open but being forced to give in. He saw that his window was wide open. The storm had eased some, but it was still raining hard and water was coming in. His plum-coloured curtains were drenched, making them look black. Junk looked down at Ambeline, fast asleep next to him, clutching Hup with a thumb in her mouth. He climbed over her and padded to the window. The wind was strong and it took all his strength to force it closed.

As he turned to get back into bed, he registered a movement out of the corner of his eye. His brain was still computing the information, only just managing to reach the conclusion that someone else was in the room, when he was hit from behind and went down hard, striking his head on the wooden corner of his bed. A cut opened up and blood haemorrhaged into his eyes. He pressed his hand against his eyebrow, stemming the flow. The room was moving, spinning. Someone stepped over him. Someone big. Very, very big.

It was a man, but he was an unusual shape. His head almost reached the ceiling. That meant he was nearly three metres tall. His shoulders were massively broad. In
fact, it was hard to say where his shoulders ended and his neck began. His body was top-heavy. His legs were skinny in comparison. As he stood over the bed, looking down at Ambeline, lying there, still asleep and oblivious, a prolonged burst of lightning flashed outside and Junk saw the man in fleshed-out detail. Man might have been the wrong word. His mouth was wide and thin: a red slit stretching around the bottom part of his smooth face. His brow ran into his wide nose. His eyes were very large and set further back than was normal. The one on the left was milky and useless. A deep, jagged X-shaped scar criss-crossed it. His skin had a silver hue, though possibly that was from the lightning. There wasn't one hair visible on his body and he was soaking wet, presumably from the storm outside. Rivulets of water ran down his smooth skin.

His clothes seemed to be fashioned from a farrago of threadbare animal skins held in place by leather straps. It made Junk think of a Viking.

The man's arms were just a little too short for his huge body. His hands were wide and flat. He had five fingers and a thumb on each and when he stretched them out they slotted together leaving almost no gaps.

His chest was covered but his arms were bare. There were tattoos all over his skin and one in particular caught Junk's eye. It was on the upper portion of his left arm. It was black and stood out in relief: five stars circling a shark's fin cutting through the sea.

The man turned his head to look at Junk with his
good eye, which was black and reflective like polished onyx. He grinned. His wide mouth curled into an unnerving rictus and he hissed. Junk's head cleared and he pulled back. He wanted to cry out but his vocal cords weren't working.

The man turned his attention to Ambeline. He scooped her up in one of his paddle-like hands. This wrenched her from sleep and she looked around, getting her bearings. Her gaze settled on the stranger holding her and she screamed.

*

Dominic Doyle was awake in a second and out of bed. He raced out of his room and hurried to his daughter's room. He expected to have to soothe his young child back to sleep after a bad dream. He entered Ambeline's princess-themed boudoir and sat on the bed, moving stuffed toys and dolls. It took him a moment to realize that his daughter was not in her bed.

*

In Junk's room the giant silver man reached the window in three large ungainly strides. Ambeline was struggling in his grasp. With his free hand he slammed the window open.

Junk struggled to his feet and ran at the intruder. The giant batted him away with a flick of his wrist. His very touch opened up a series of small cuts on Junk's cheek. He watched as the stranger jumped from the window.

Not thinking, just moving on instinct, Junk pulled himself up and followed. The thing, the creature, the
giant with Ambeline in its grasp was running towards the cliff-top. Without hesitation, Junk threw himself out of the window.

His bedroom was on the second floor. He landed on a small pitched roof, which was wet from the rain, and slid down it, picking up speed until he was spat off the edge, landing hard on the waterlogged ground below. Immediately he was on his feet, staggering and slipping but in pursuit.

*

Half a minute after Junk went out of the window, the door to his bedroom burst open and Dominic charged in. He saw instantly that the room was empty. He rushed to the open window in time to catch a shadowy glimpse of Junk rushing away.

‘JUNK!' Dominic yelled at the top of his lungs. The storm was too dense for him to see the giant carrying Ambeline. He turned just as Janice entered the room.

‘What's going on?' she asked. She looked at the vacant bed. ‘Where are the children?'

*

On the cliff-top, Junk was running as hard as he could. He was frozen to the bone but ignored the pain coursing through him. He ran after the giant whose long legs were carrying Ambeline away at twice the speed Junk could go. Ambeline was screaming. She could see Junk behind her in the distance.

‘JUNK! NO! I WANT MUMMY!' she cried.

*

At the house, Janice and Dominic came out of the front door. Their daughter's terrified screams were carried to them on the wind.

‘JUNK! STOP!' Dominic ran as fast as he could; Janice too, trying to keep up.

*

The giant, hairless, silver-skinned man reached the edge of the cliff and stopped. Ambeline was struggling in his arms, desperate to get away. The man looked back and saw Junk drawing closer. Junk stopped. He held out his hand.

‘Ambeline!'

The little girl, her wet hair matted against her scalp, reached out to her big brother, her knight.

‘Junk! Help me!'

Junk charged at the man. ‘Give her to me!' he shouted. The man kicked at him, knocking him to the ground. He stood over him, one of his massive feet stomping down on Junk's chest, pushing him into the mud and pinning him there.

‘Fatoocha mammacoola charla,' he said, and grinned. Junk saw rows of small triangular teeth in his thin, wide mouth. And with that, the giant turned and started running.

‘NO!' shouted Junk, but he was powerless. He watched as the man sailed out over the cliff-edge, still clutching Ambeline. She was screaming and reaching out for Junk. He scrambled after them in time to see Ambeline and her abductor enter the tumultuous waters
thirty metres below. They disappeared below the surface. Junk watched but they didn't come up again.

‘JUNK!' He turned to see his father appearing out of the thick grey rain, his mother close behind. Junk pointed over the cliff.

‘He took her! He took her, Da! They went over!'

Dominic Doyle looked down at the waves crashing against the rocks below and let out a horrendous roar of anguish. Janice Doyle caught up and Dominic had to hold her back from the edge.

‘Where is she?' wailed Janice. ‘WHERE'S MY BABY?' She followed her husband's gaze down to the angry water below. Then, slowly, they both turned to look at Junk. ‘What have you done?' said his mother.

Junk started to shake his head. ‘What? No! There was a man. A giant. He took her.' But the words might as well have been snatched by the wind. As long as he lived, Junk would never forget that moment. His mother looked at him, looked back over the cliff and then back at him, her eyes boring into him with hatred.

Junk Doyle was twelve years old when his mother stopped loving him.

In the days that followed, Junk was interviewed and questioned by a succession of men and women in suits and uniforms. He could tell they all thought he had thrown Ambeline off the cliff. No one believed his story. Sure there were things that didn't quite add up, the strange cuts on Junk's cheek for one thing, but no one believed in the existence of a giant, silver, hairless child-snatcher. Clearly there was another explanation: maybe Ambeline's tiny little fingernails, desperately trying to defend herself against him, he overheard one of them saying to his colleague.

*

He didn't care about any of them or what they thought. There was only one person whose opinion mattered. His mother hadn't spoken to him apart from a few cursory, strained words here and there. She made sure they were never alone together. Every time she left a room as Junk entered, his stomach would twist itself round and round and he could feel the tears gurgling up in his throat, desperate to burst out in a burning wail of anguish. But
he stopped himself. Choked them back. Swallowed them down. Into that black pit deep inside him. Sometimes the blackness would seep out and it would fill his body with emptiness. It was torture. Like he was drowning from the inside out, until that moment when he was completely empty or completely full, depending on your point of view. And then, he was nothing. Everything was blank. He was sure this was what death would be like.

It never lasted long enough. Sound would be the first thing to invade the emptiness. The ticking of a clock. Rain against the windowpane. His father hammering in his workshop. Or his mother crying, the door to her bedroom closed and locked or, even if it was wide open, closed and locked to him.

*

His father blamed him just as much as anyone else did but forced himself not to show it. He tried to be normal with Junk. Not like nothing had happened, but he would hold him a lot. His big hands on Junk's shoulders. Ruffling his son's hair. Just like he always had. Except it was completely different, and Junk knew it. It was a pantomime. A show. He knew his father was just going through the motions. Mimicking actions he had done hundreds, thousands of times before. He loved him for doing it, but hated it every time he touched him. Every touch was agony. Junk smothered that pain too. ‘Com-part-mental-ized it,' as one of the suits had said. Not to him, of course. Very few people said anything directly to him, apart from the
endless questions that they didn't want the real answers to.

*

Murroughtoohy was a small enough town that by the very next day absolutely everyone knew what had happened. Whatever friends Junk thought he had before didn't call. He knew it was probably their parents rather than them, but as time passed he felt more and more alone. He didn't know a single person on the face of the planet who didn't think he was a murderer.

*

It all came to an end eleven days after Ambeline's death. Christmas Day. Junk woke to the sound of his mother crying. This was no longer unusual. She was in a rage again, he could hear. She was breaking things. It didn't seem to matter what any more. She would vent her fury on anything. A few days earlier he had seen her attack the Christmas tree. It was a bizarre sight. A grown woman wrestling on the ground with a massive tree covered in red and gold decorations. The tree fought back. Its needles scratched and cut her, as did the jagged edges of the shattered baubles, but she didn't even seem to notice the blood. She ripped and pulled and kicked at that tree until its spine was broken and it was suffering in sap-stained agony, thinking, What did I do? I'm just a tree!

Junk got out of bed and edged out on to the landing. The noise was louder out here. He could see lights on downstairs. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. He thought his mother was probably going twelve
rounds with the turkey: knocking the stuffing out of it. Literally.

As he descended the intricately carved staircase, built by his father, he glanced out of the window and saw lights on in the workshop in the back garden. He hesitated. His father was in there, not downstairs, not somewhere in the house, somewhere where he could help. Junk looked back up the stairs and knew he should turn round and go back to bed, even if he wasn't going to be able to sleep. Whatever he did, he should not even contemplate going down to the kitchen. His mother didn't want to see him, and it would only make things worse.

Slowly he continued to descend. The commotion coming from the kitchen stopped as Junk reached the foot of the stairs and he wondered if his mother had heard him coming.

The hallway was in darkness. The rectangle of light coming from the kitchen seemed somehow brighter than usual.
Go back now
, Junk said to himself in his head.
Turn round. Go through that door and everything changes
. He wanted so badly to stop and turn round and go back to his bedroom, but for some reason he didn't. He drew closer and closer to the kitchen. Until he stepped through the doorway, into the light.

*

Everything was broken. Everything. Plates and cups and glasses and dishes were smashed. Cutlery was bent. The shade covering the fluorescent strip light had been bashed free, which was why the light seemed brighter than usual.
All the cupboards had been wrenched from the walls. The tall, wide fridge-freezer had been tipped forward, snagging against the overhang opposite. The doors hung open and all the contents had rained out from within and collected in a large jammy, milky, chutney-y mishmash on the ground.

Junk's mother was sitting, head bowed, in the middle of the room. She was covered from head to toe in flour. It looked as if she had been baking and the bread had fought back. Rivulets of ketchup spread out around her. There was an unopened tin of peaches embedded in the partition wall leading to the utility room. A variety of cereals littered the floor: Weetabix oozed Marmite next to bran flakes peppered with pasta shapes.