To Catch a Rabbit (28 page)

A line of sunlight was visible under the door of the garage. He wanted to shout again, but who would hear him? He listened. There was something there, something moving. It might have been a leaf or a bit of plastic, blowing up against the door, blocking out the light intermittently. Or an animal; Sean thought he could hear a snuffling sound. He whistled, as quietly as he could manage, and the thing stopped moving. He whistled again louder this time and this time he could hear the thing whining.

‘Ruby?’ No need to shout. Thank God dogs have sharp hearing. She barked. He was sure it was her. ‘Ruby! Good girl. Is he with you? Is Declan there?’

She barked again and must have stood on her hind legs; he could hear her claws scratching against the metal. Someone tried the handle, and then he heard a voice.

‘Who’s put a padlock on here?’ It was a woman. He thought it could be the boy’s mother and he tried to remember her voice, it sounded familiar, but perhaps older than Declan’s mum.

‘Hey!’ He risked shouting now. ‘Can you get me out of here?’

‘Someone in there?’ She knocked against the door.

‘Yes, can you open it?’

‘No, I can’t. Someone’s put a new lock on. Cheeky buggers. It’s ours, is this garage.’

‘Call the police. Please.’

There was silence for a few seconds. ‘Bloody hell. I’m out of credit. Hang on, there’s someone coming.’

Sean wriggled as hard as he could. There was some give in the tape but it was cutting into his wrists. He wanted to shout out that having no credit didn’t matter; she could still get the emergency services if she dialled 999, but it was too late. The sound of a car engine filled the space outside the garage. There were voices but he couldn’t hear what was being said. Then the door was opening. The first thing he saw was three different pairs of shoes and the dog’s four paws. A pair of Nike trainers moved first. The big leather shoes and the pink plastic clogs stayed where they were.

‘Bloody hell, Barry!’ It was the woman again. ‘Get him out of my garage. I told you what you wanted to know, now I want nothing more to do with it.’

‘Don’t you worry Carole, he’s coming with us. We’re going to take him to see your friend Johnny Mac.’

Carole. The one with the spicy crisps and knock-off tee shirts. The one who Maureen thought was her friend. Shit. The door was wide open now and Stubbs was on him. He willed the dog to defend him, to bite Stubbs’s hand as he pressed the blade of the flick knife against Sean’s neck. He could feel her sniffing his feet. Stupid animal. This wasn’t a game.

‘Get him in the car,’ he heard Burger say.

Stubbs shoved him forward but the tape binding his ankles made him stumble, pins and needles stabbing up through his legs. From the bottom of the tape across his eyes, he could see the light was brighter for a moment and they were outside. He caught a glimpse of blue paint on metal before he was pushed down on to a gritty carpet. The sour milk smell was overpowering and he guessed he was in the rear foot-well of Burger’s car. Someone was following him in, then the door slammed and he felt a weight on his back. Two feet had him firmly pressed to the floor.

Sean couldn’t tell how far they’d come, but it was the best part of a Michael Jackson album. There was something under his hip which crumpled as his weight shifted. He couldn’t tell if it was a newspaper or a discarded food wrapper. There were straight stretches when it felt like they were doing a reasonable speed, and then they were on slower, winding roads where the motion threw him against the metal undercarriage of the driver’s seat. He could feel the heels of Stubbs’s trainers digging into the side of his legs, as the evil sod tapped his feet, singing along in a weed-cracked voice.

‘
You wanna be starting something
!
Great song this, club remix version, fucking brilliant.’

Then the feet got carried away, dancing over his curled-up body. A foot landed with a sharp crack on Sean’s elbow. The pain seared up his arm and he whimpered. Burger turned the music up louder. Lee was laughing and singing. Sean caught a whiff of something that smelled like newly cut hay. The feet paused and there was lighter fuel in the air. Then the music stopped.

‘What the fuck?’ Stubbs whined.

‘I’ve told you, you little bastard, don’t smoke that crap in my car.’

‘Uncle Barry? It don’t matter now. You ain’t still a copper.’

‘Gives me asthma. Just have a fag like a normal person, can’t you?’

‘Fuck.’

Another kick to Sean’s side. The road surface got worse. Bumping over stones and potholes, it felt like a rough track. And then they stopped.

‘What’s the plan, Uncle Barry?’

‘Shut it. Pigs have big ears.’

‘We could put him in a pigpen. Eh, Uncle Barry, how do you stop a pig squealing?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Slit its throat.’ Click. The flick knife. ‘We could just leave him here. Middle of the yard. Job done.’

The engine cut out. It was windy outside. Sean could feel the car shifting slightly. He moved his head and realised that the corner of the tape had caught on the carpet. Slowly, slowly, he turned his head. The tape began to peel off his face like a sticking plaster, tugging at his skin.

‘Lee, you’re a twat. Now stay here, and don’t move.’ Burger opened the driver’s door. ‘I’m going to see if I can find that ginger bastard. Let him ask the questions.’

‘Don’t know why you take orders off him,’ Stubbs whined, ‘after the way he’s treated Mam, robbing girls off her and that.’

‘Shut it,’ Burger growled and slammed the door shut.

The smell of skunk again and the rustle of a cigarette paper. Stubbs just couldn’t help himself. Sean waited until he heard the lighter. The metal lid rattled back and the flint caught. It had to be a two-hand job. This was his chance. He clenched his stomach muscles and pulled himself up and round. The tape flapped off one eye. It was caught in his eyebrow on the other side, but he could see enough. Stubbs stared over the fat joint in his mouth. As the flame caught and smoke billowed between them, Sean brought his head down on Stubbs’s nose. He felt a sting on his cheek as the burning end fell to the floor. Then he remembered the knife. It was on the seat next to Stubbs, whose hands were free while Sean’s were still taped at the wrists. He rolled sideways and sat on it. Stubbs’s hands came up to his throat and gripped tight, squeezing his windpipe. He could feel the knife blade; it must have slit through his trousers and cold metal touched the back of his thigh. He prayed it would stay flat against him - if it punctured the skin it could hit an artery - but it was almost impossible, he was struggling for air, trying to twist out of Stubbs’s grasp. His eyes were stinging and the car was filling with smoke. The newspaper Sean had been lying on was now alight and a crisp packet began to singe and crumple. The hands fell from his neck and the door flew open. Before it could slam shut again Sean threw himself at the gap and slid out on to wet, muddy concrete. Stubbs aimed a kick at him, then turned and ran. Sean tried to stand but he had no feeling in his taped-up legs. He held his breath and rolled over and over, as fast as he could manage, away from the burning car.

A little girl with a halo of white blonde hair was looking down at him, her eyes wide in astonishment. Sean had come to a stop against a wall. Something hard dug into his shoulder blade. When he twisted his head he could see that the girl was sitting on a concrete step in front of a green door. The sharp thing in his back was the corner of the step. He moved a little and heard the tape tear. With a few wriggling twists, he loosened it enough to free his arms and push himself up to a sitting position. The car was about fifty feet away, clouds of smoke billowing inside and flames sneaking out through the sunroof. He could hear raised voices coming from around the side of the building. He pulled his wrists down over the corner of the step and felt the tape beginning to tear and spilt, then, with his hands free, he started on the tape round his ankles.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘Playing a game.’

‘What game?’

‘Hide and seek. Where’s a good place to hide?’

She looked at him and sucked her finger. ‘Umm, let me think.’

The voices were getting louder.

‘What’s through that door?’ He tried to keep his voice level; he didn’t want to scare her. ‘Why don’t we hide in there?’

‘Is that car on fire?’ She sounded quite matter-of-fact; as if burning cars were an everyday feature of life. Perhaps she was like Declan and watched too much TV.

‘We’d better go inside, hadn’t we? In case we get hurt.’

He was up the steps and turning the door handle when he clearly heard Burger’s voice shouting an obscenity and Stubbs’s whine in response. To his relief the little girl stepped cautiously through the door. He slipped in behind her, slammed it shut and pushed a bolt across the top. His pulse thundered in his ears.

‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ he babbled, more to himself than to the child. There was a bolted door between him and Stubbs, between him and Burger. He was safe for now; he hadn’t died.

‘Mister?’ 

He turned round. They were in some sort of barn or cowshed. One side was taken up with farm vehicles. He identified a rusting John Deere tractor and something that might have been a plough. There was a newer tractor too, a great big thing with a glass cab and wheels as high as Sean was tall. Behind it, covered with a blue plastic tarpaulin, was a rectangular box-shaped trailer and beyond that, a dusty green car. The glass windows, high up under the roof, cast a hazy light over a series of stalls. Low walls, topped off with metal railings, divided each space into a fifteen-foot square. But there weren’t any cows. In each section, there was a mattress and a sleeping bag. Some had a blanket or a neat pile of clothes; others were surrounded by cardboard boxes or brightly covered plastic bags. The girl was holding his hand very tightly.

‘Mister,’ she whispered. ‘Uncle Johnny says I’m not allowed in here on my own.’

‘Well, you’re not on you own. I’m here. My name’s Sean and it’s okay, I’m a policeman. What’s your name?’

‘Holly Holroyd and I’ve got a fierce dog called Marvin and a rabbit called Frank, but when Mummy and Uncle Johnny get married I’m going to be called something else but I can’t remember what it is.’

Sean had a pretty good idea that it was Mackenzie.

‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ Sean said gently. ‘At a place with lots of stone angels?’

‘Heaven. Where my Daddy is.’

She was moving away from him now, along a track where once the slurry from the cows must have collected. It was like a little concrete lane between the stalls. She stopped and when he caught up with her, he found her staring at a bundle on a mattress. The bundle had a face. Two eyes opened and a black woman with neatly braided hair was looking up at them. Sean crouched down to get a closer look.

‘Hello.’ The little girl said. ‘Who are you?’

‘Please,’ the woman said to Sean, her voice thick with tiredness, ‘don’t tell Mr Mackenzie I am here. The baby makes me sick so I cannot go to work.’

Her voice sounded African, some place like that. She struggled to sit up and as her sleeping bag dropped, Sean could see she was heavily pregnant.

‘What’s going on?’ Sean said. ‘You should be indoors.’

Holly was exploring the few possessions around the woman’s mattress. She picked up a magazine and sat down, cross-legged, turning the pages. Sean crouched on the cold floor and tried to unwrap the tape that was still sticking his left arm to his torso. He winced from the pain in his elbow, where Stubbs had stamped on him in the car.

‘Let me look. In my own country I was a nurse.’

The woman’s fingers moved swiftly, tearing the tape in small movements that caused much less pain than his own jerky attempts. Then she rolled up his sleeve and whistled at the state of his elbow. It was swollen and tinged with a blue-black bruise.

‘Man, someone hurt you. Have you been fighting?’

‘Bit of a one-sided fight.’

‘What does that say?’ Holly said, pointing at a picture in the magazine of some C-list celebrity in a tiara. ‘Is she a princess?’

‘I don’t know. The magazine belongs to my daughter.’ There was a catch in the woman’s voice. She looked from Holly back to his elbow and blinked hard. ‘Right now, what are we going to do with this mess? Bind it I think, then you need to see a doctor for real, young man.’

She pulled his sleeve down and used the discarded tape to fashion a bandage, which held his arm stiff, the elbow slightly bent. He almost laughed, he had an Action Man with an arm like that when he was little. He remembered being upset that he couldn’t afford the one with the proper moving joints.

From somewhere outside the barn, the shouting reached a peak. A massive bang punched the air and sucked out all the sound. When Sean could hear again, glass was raining down around them. He threw himself across the girl and the woman, ignoring the shrieking pain in his arm.

He was sitting with his back to the woman, while she picked glass out of his hair and told him her story in a soft voice, which rose and fell in a rhythm designed to smooth the fear out of the three of them, but especially the child. Her name was Florence Moyo and she lived here with her husband, who was out with the others at a bacon factory. They wouldn’t be back until late and she was worried about the glass, which had spread over their beds and possessions.