Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (45 page)

He can't make his hands be steady as he's moving them over Valentine, stroking his hair and his burning red cheeks like he can wipe the handprints away, like they're paint. He's frightened and he hates it. Of course he does, nobody
likes
being scared, but there's something about this that feels so deeply, fundamentally
wrong
, and it's terrifying in a way he can't quite pinpoint.

Valentine shifts around on his lap, trying to get comfortable but not moving away. He just sits there and lets Lindsay touch him. He's got his sleeve in his mouth, sucking a dark damp patch into the blue fabric.

Valentine won't look at him no matter what he tries, not even when Lindsay speaks to him. "Why did you make me do that?"

"Cos I know you'll always stop when I ask you to," Valentine mumbles around his sleeve, staring at nothing, and Lindsay's stomach lurches again but he doesn't say anything because he can't think of anything right. He just licks his thumb and forefinger and starts trying to wipe flecks of drying semen out the kid's fringe and off his face, all the bits the tissues missed. It's hopeless, but it's something to do.

"You're a mess," he says, feeling wretched and a bit sick.

"In the head."

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"You're just a mess. Don't chew your sleeve, it's nasty." He takes Valentine's hand and begins rolling the sleeve up to his elbow so he can't get to it, taking his time to make the folds neat because it buys him a few more seconds before he has to speak again or look the kid in the eyes. It's okay when he finally does – Valentine doesn't look crazy any more, just really tired.

"Not sure London's right," he says, smiling like a ghost. "Can't live here if I'm gonna bump into
him
every time I turn a corner."

"We'll go anywhere." It's partly the guilt talking, and partly the genuine wish to see the kid happy. "Anywhere in the world, I don't care, we'll go anywhere you want."

"
Home
," he says immediately. "Back to Wales." He squirms at Lindsay's fingers through his hair, happy and drowsy. Lindsay's getting a dead leg where the kid's sitting on him, but he doesn't want to move him. "Can I have a sleep? Is that okay?"

"Anything

you

want."

"Sorry."

"Please don't. Please." He finds Valentine's hand and kisses his fingers in turn. "Sleep. I'll take you out later. Dinner. Or tomorrow. I'll buy you something."

"Can I have them boots we saw?"

"I was thinking more a car."

Valentine almost laughs. "Flash twat. You can't buy my happiness with expensive presents, you know."

"What if it's that '63 Corvette you keep banging on about?"

"Oh. Well, maybe you can, then."

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Valentine's been drawing on printer paper with his Crayolas, playing around and enthusiastically practicing what he's going to do before he actually makes a mark on the big beautiful white canvases Lindsay's bought for him. Of course he's left everything scattered on the coffee table, scrunched-up bits of paper all over the carpet like tumbleweeds and a little stack of finished ones held down at a corner with a tea mug and a note in purple felt tip that says "these ones 4 the fridge!!!" above a big smiley face. Lindsay gets down on his knees to start picking everything up, making sure the lids are all properly on the pens and dropping them back in the kid's box of drawing stuff, throwing the mistakes in the empty fireplace to burn later. Danny's there playing on the Nintendo, although he's got the game paused so he can watch. He's got a really weird expression on his face when Lindsay looks up and meets his eye.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No,

what?"

"He's like your kid, ain't he?"

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Very slight pause. "Shut up," Lindsay says, very calmly. "Don't be stupid."

"Colouring pens and stuff, though. You picking up after him. Fucking...

Magic Roundabout mug to drink his tea out of."

"So? You're playing MarioKart."

"Yeah, but I don't get in my jammies and go and sit on my girlfriend's knee all curled up like a cat like last night, do I?"

He can remember the slight change in the atmosphere when Valentine did that and he wanted to shove him away roughly and laugh it off, let the others jeer at the kid and maybe join in himself, but Valentine was so languid and warm and sleepy, and so natural about wanting this comforting contact, Lindsay couldn't do anything except kiss his hair and rub his hand over the kid's back, smoothly carrying on with the conversation as if the interruption never happened.

"Fucking good job, too," he says now, nastily. "You'd squash the poor girl flat." Danny gives him the finger and goes back to his game.

That's when they hear the raised voice from upstairs.

"No, give him back.
Don't
. Please, just let me have him, leave him alone." Valentine. Lindsay's stomach does a flip and he feels sick. Ty says something, not loud enough to make out, then the kid's yelling, "
Lindsay
!" like he's screaming for his life, and Lindsay runs upstairs with Danny at his heels like a curious puppy. He follows the voices to his bedroom, and sees exactly what he'd feared, exactly what had made his insides turn over – Ty's got the toy monkey, holding it above the kid's head like a taunting playground bully, too high for him to reach when he tries to grab at it. Valentine's not crying but he's close; Lindsay knows the warning signs by now and the kid's breathing's gone all ragged and he's pink-cheeked and trembling.

"What the fuck's going on?"

"Lindsay, tell him."

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"What are you doing?"

"No toilet paper left in the bathroom," Ty says. He's not really paying attention to Lindsay, he's still watching Valentine and smirking slightly, waving the monkey in the air over his head. "Thought there might be some in yours but he was in there. Found his wee cuddly monkey, though. Might use this."

Danny sniggers at that, and Valentine's face twists up. He makes another grab, but Ty jerks the thing up higher so he misses by a mile.

"Please just give him back, he's
mine
."

"How old are you? My nine-year-old doesn't even sleep with cuddly toys any more."

"Good for her. I ain't hurting no one, he's just a toy monkey, give him back!"

"If

it's

just
a toy monkey why does it matter so much?"

"GIVE HIM BACK!"

"Philip," Lindsay says sharply, using his name on purpose to draw the kid's attention away from Ty and to himself. "Calm down."

"He's got Mister Bollo!"

"Give it back to him, come on. Stop playing silly bastards and get out of my bedroom, both of you. Don't you think we've got more important things to talk about?"

"Catch," Ty says, as if Lindsay never spoke. The monkey sails past him, into Danny's waiting hands. He pulls a face at it and chucks it back and Ty dangles it high over the kid's head again. Valentine just stands there helpless, looking from the monkey to Ty to Danny to Lindsay, and back to the monkey, and back to Lindsay. He's going to cry. His eyes are shining. Any second now he's going to break. Lindsay wants to throw up again.

"Give him back his stupid fucking monkey," he snaps. "We're meant to be planning. Grow up, all of you." He turns and shoves Danny out the way so he 367

C H A P T E R 3 2

can get to the door, expecting them to give up the taunt and follow after him, but he whips back round again when the kid spits out a string of foul swears and slams his fist into Ty's stomach, twice, hard. Ty doubles over, wheezing for breath, and the kid makes a grab at the monkey but Ty doesn't let go. He tries to wrench it back. Its arm comes off in his hand.

Nobody moves, for a single second that seems to stretch on forever, then Valentine's
screaming
, too hysterical even to cry, just screaming those swears again, and Lindsay grabs him tight and pulls his arms behind his back and holds them there because he thinks he's
actually
trying to commit murder.

"I'll kill you, you lousy fucking cunt, I swear to god I'm gonna fucking
kill
you, I'm-"

"Stop it," Lindsay says. He twists the kid's arms up behind his back until he gasps from the pain and shuts his mouth. Ty's managed to get himself upright and he's raring for a fight as well, blazing eyes and blazing cheeks and twisted sneering mouth, but Danny drags him over to the doorway and off down the hall and downstairs. Valentine starts to struggle again in Lindsay's grip until he tightens it, squeezing his wrists and forcing his arms even higher. "I said stop it."

He sounds so much calmer than he feels. It's always like this when he's so furious he can hardly think. "I can break your arms like twigs. Pull your joints right apart. Another couple of inches, that's all it'll take. Are you going to stop it?"

No answer, because Valentine finally bursts out crying. It's noisy, messy, scared, angry. He sounds so bewildered and so
broken
Lindsay wants to give up and join in, but he makes himself think of the other two downstairs because he knows it'll make him mad, and it works. He flings Valentine's arms down and pushes him at the bed.

"Nasty little brat, I should wash your mouth out with soap. You'll stay there until you've calmed down, do you hear me?"

"Good, cos I'd rather be fucking
dead
than be in a room with him, anyway!" He's still got the monkey in his hands, and now the loose arm that Ty

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chucked onto the bed when Danny dragged him off, and he's holding them together as if he can fix the torn stitches by willpower alone.

Lindsay knows he shouldn't, but he can't help himself. He feels spiteful when he's scared and angry, he wants to stick the knife in and twist and twist until the kid's gone insane from the pain. "It's
just a toy monkey
, remember?

Grow up."

Ty's pacing the living room when Lindsay goes downstairs. Danny's sitting uneasily on the sofa, moving like he's going to get up to stop him every time Ty gets too close to the door, until Lindsay closes it and leans against it, like an extra defence, and breathes out a long, slow sigh.

"I've told you before,
don't
wind him up."

"The fuck do you mean, don't wind him up? I'll tell you what, that's the last punch the wee twat's
ever
gonna throw in his life. I swear to Christ, if I had my gun-"

"But you don't," Lindsay interrupts. Still so calm, at least on the outside.

"Lend

me

yours."

"Don't think so."

"He's been nothing but trouble from the start." Not exactly true, that.

The two of them usually get on well enough. They dance around each other warily, they trade insults and argue every time they're in the same place for too long, but the kid's been to the pub with him to watch the football because Lindsay said he'd rather disembowel himself with a rusty trowel, and Ty's phoned him up loads of times before because the girls specifically requested him as a babysitter. He was as shocked as Lindsay when he found out just how good an artist Valentine was, and they bonded over their love of Rossetti and Waterhouse and came up with several half-baked plans for thefts and forgeries.

They get on perfectly well, when they try. They just occasionally remember how deeply they hate each other's guts, and then it's fireworks.

"You tormented him to tears. Good for you. Now
leave it
." Lindsay 369

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watches him for a minute to make sure he's not going to try going back upstairs to wring the kid's neck, then crosses the room to the cabinet where the drinks are and rummages through the bottles to find his best whiskey and pour three glasses. Ty's slightly mollified. He's easy like that.

"You were always saying you were gonna shoot him," he mutters, but it's kind of half-hearted. "Stupid fucking little tit, he needs a bullet in his head.

What do you keep him round for, anyway?"

Because he makes me laugh. Because, fuck knows why, he adores me.

Because he needs somebody to look after him and nobody else knows how.

Because everything about us is wrong and I never ever want to be right. Because
I wake up in the morning and see him sleeping next to me with his stupid dyed
hair and his stupid painted nails and his stupid toy monkey and I remember I
love him so much I don't know what to do, I love him I love him I LOVE HIM.

Lindsay sips his whiskey, and taps the glass against his breastbone.

"Because when he sucks, your cock ends up here." The other two howl in disgust and Danny lobs a cushion at him, but something in the air between them seems to have eased.

It doesn't last – moments later, the peace is shattered by an odd metallic crashing sound somewhere outside. Lindsay puts down his glass and hurries through the kitchen and out the back door to investigate, desperately hoping some stranger's had a car accident on the road at the bottom of the cliff but really knowing exactly what it is, even before he sees the kid there, bright-eyed and bright-cheeked in wild fury. He's holding a hammer from the toolbox in the garage, and he's crashing it down on Ty's brand new car, methodically cracking all the windows and smashing massive chips and dents into the body.

It's the first time in a long time Lindsay's seen the other two genuinely speechless. He's not sure whether he and Danny together would be strong enough to hold Ty back if he went in for the kill now, so he takes advantage of their absolute shock before they gather themselves; he manages to grab Valentine's arm out the air without getting his skull cracked open, wrench the hammer out of his grip and throw it onto the lawn, drag him into the kitchen,

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pick up the spare keys for the kid's Ferrari, and go back outside and slam the door behind himself, all in the space of five seconds.