‘Can I help you?’ he asked carefully.
But the man said nothing. He simply stared at Nicholas, fighting a smile and winning. The look on his face was. . what? Desperate? Starved? Haunted?
Yes. Haunted.
The man finally spoke. ‘Nicholas.’
Nicholas blinked. The voice was distantly familiar. Then the little smile bobbed again on the man’s lips, a brave boat in drowning seas, and years fell away. Nicholas recognised a face he’d never seen as a man. It was a face he literally used to look up to. A Boye boy.
‘Gavin?’
Gavin grinned. It was a skull’s rictus.
‘Wow. Gavin. You look. .’ Nicholas put out his hand. Gavin looked at it as if he’d never seen an outstretched hand before. After an uncomfortable pause, Nicholas let it fall. ‘Right. Um. Listen, do. . will you come in?’
The smile sank away and the years slipped back onto Gavin’s face like the tide returning. He shook his head, and his gaze on Nicholas was unblinking. He was big, easily six-two, and Nicholas suspected he could move fast.
‘How are you? How are your parents?’
Gavin didn’t answer. Instead, he looked slowly over his left shoulder and then over his right. Above pine trees in a distant park, a dozen or so crows wheeled and dipped in the grey sky like windblown black ash. Gavin’s movements sent a sudden chill flood through Nicholas’s testicles.
‘Woods,’ said Gavin.
Nicholas stopped breathing. Pins and needles pricked the soles of his bare feet and his neck pimpled cold. He could see past Gavin’s shoulders that the street was empty, not another soul in sight.
‘You’re up pretty early.’ Nicholas wanted it to sound casual, but the words came out cracked, his mouth suddenly dry as sand. ‘Do you want to do this another time? Come over for dinner? Suzette’s up visiting.’
Gavin shook his head slowly, once. Nicholas noticed that he carried in one hand something wrapped in a black garbage bag.
‘I was told you were back,’ said Gavin. His voice was soft. Dreamy. He nodded, as if a subtle milestone had been met.
Nicholas found it hard to drag his gaze back up to Gavin’s face; it was like looking at the sun, painful and dangerous. Gavin was unhooked, a boat adrift in rapids and rushing for the falls — but still afloat.
‘Yeah. I’m back. What’s in the bag, Gavin?’ But Nicholas thought he already knew.
Gavin twisted his head, as if he hadn’t heard the question. He was casting back in time. Remembering. He smiled — another death’s-head grin. ‘You know, Mum had tutors for us both. Tris really didn’t need one. Mum only got him one so that I wouldn’t feel stupid.’
‘You’re a smart guy, Gavin. You were never stupid.’
‘Tris. .’ said Gavin fondly, his voice drifting far away. ‘Trissy was the smart one.’
Nicholas watched the big man stand there, his eyes decades away.
That instant, Gavin’s eyes flicked and locked on Nicholas’s. A task remembered. ‘I have a message,’ he said.
In a motion so fast and fluid that Nicholas could hardly register it, Gavin pulled a gun from the bag. It was a hunting rifle, sawn off so short that the ragged cut sectioned through the front of its walnut stock. The severed barrel was ugly and raw as an eye socket.
Gavin cradled the gun easily in his hands so its rough snout pointed at Nicholas’s midriff.
‘A message,’ said Nicholas, his mouth suddenly full of saliva, his empty cold-jelly stomach threatening to erupt. ‘From who?’
Gavin watched him a long moment. Nicholas thought it was like staring into an insect’s eyes — there was nothing human there. Gavin shrugged again and shook his head as if to say,
And suddenly the cold jelly was gone from Nicholas’s gut. In its place was a warm, new idea.
He looked up to Gavin’s eyes. They were brimming full, and his patchy cheeks were wet.
‘Tris loved you coming over. Saturdays. Cheese sandwiches. Watching
Nicholas nodded. The two men looked at each other a long moment. A calm statement formed in Nicholas’s mind.
‘It’s okay, Gavin.’
Gavin nodded. With a practised hand, he drew back the gun’s bolt and chambered a round. The street was still. No one had an inkling that in a few heartbeats, a man was going to die.
Nicholas suddenly realised his fingers in his pocket had curled around something — wood beads and stone. The necklace Suzette had given him.
Gavin cocked his head. His eyes lost their sharp focus. His lips trembled. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that Nicholas wasn’t sure he heard right.
‘The message is: He touched the bird. But it should have been you.’
Gavin put the sawn barrel under his own jaw and pulled the trigger. The CRACK was sudden and as visceral as a lightning strike. Nicholas jumped.
The crows wheeling in the sky galvanised and took flight. Gavin was still standing. His lower jaw was mostly gone. He shook his head stupidly and the flaps of skin and white bone shook like a chicken’s wattle. He shrugged, and his cheeks lifted the broken flesh — a macabre, embarrassed smile at his error. He swiftly reloaded, put the gun deep under his chin.
‘Gavin-’
CRACK. This time, the top of his head seemed to levitate slightly. He crumpled to the ground like a dressing gown that had missed its hook. The gun clattered on the stoop.
In the next street over, a dog began barking. To the south, the grey sky became a curtain of slate where rain was falling.
Nicholas watched Gavin’s body for a moment, then let himself fold to sit on the front step. A packet of John Player Specials poked out of the dead man’s jacket pocket. Nicholas leaned forward and pulled it out. Then he fished in the pocket again, found a lighter.
‘Nicholas?!’
Two pairs of bare feet rushed down the hall towards him. Nicholas lit a cigarette. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I got the door.’
‘Oh my goodness. .’ whispered Katharine.
‘Who is it?’ asked Suzette. Her face was as white as paper.
‘Gavin Boye.’ He sucked in lungfuls of smoke. His hands shook. ‘He was a smoker.’
‘Oh my goodness.’
Nicholas fought the urge to cough. He could feel his sister and mother standing, staring. ‘Maybe phone someone?’ he suggested.
