and whimpering amid the engine oil, and after a few years Carl also lost his taste for him. Steven had started smoking on the sly and tearing photos of Debbie Harry and Jilly Johnson out of the News of the World to Sellotape on the wall. One morning Carl had woken up and found the pile of part-worn tyres in the garage burnt to a cinder from one of Steven's carelessly dropped cigarettes. He'd cracked the boy's nose open for that. He didn't have a child's body any more and was showing signs of growing up and now Carl prowled the house losing his temper every five minutes, if not with him then with anything he encountered: with Tracey, with the cars in the garage, with the Borstal boys. Steven was a young teenager now, an overgrown child in cancer-shop trousers whom Carl didn't fancy and didn't have the ingenuity or energy to get rid of. He started locking him in his room at night with a slop bucket and nothing else. 'It's for your own good, you little fucker.'
Tracey was pleased at last it seemed that Steven had reached the end of his useful life. But then one day, by chance, Carl discovered that Steven had been doing the work of the Borstal boys. While they sat back with their plastic bottles of cider and watched, it was Steven who was lugging the piles of car windows etched with vehicle identification numbers into the trees to smash. It was Steven who was doing the work with the angle-grinder, removing chassis numbers or cutting panels out. It was Steven who was growing bigger and more muscular and skilled around the garage. He couldn't string a sentence together but he could weld a plate over a chassis number in seconds. A light seemed to come on in Carl's head. If Steven could do the Borstal boys' jobs then, 'What the fuck am I doing wasting me gin and Silk Cuts?' Before long he had set him to work he became a little grease monkey, filling and beating and grinding and 'I don't even have to find him a mask for the re sprays Carl said. 'He don't know any better. Absolutely pukka.' Now any Borstal boy who couldn't help Carl in the bedroom was redundant, and the caravan stood empty for long periods of time.
Then suddenly, out of the blue, Steven said Penderecki's name. That really made Carl sit up and pay attention: 'What d'you say?' He glared at him from over the News of the World. 'What was that?'
'AhhhBan.'
'Whassat?' Carl looked up at his sister, standing there biting her nails and pulling a face. 'Whatsee say?'
'I don't fucking know, do I?'
'Iibaaan.'
'Fuck me.' Carl crumpled the newspaper and jumped up. 'He said Ivan. Didn't you? Didn't you say Ivan?'
'Unnng!' Steven tugged his head back and his hands jerked up under his chin. 'Ung.'
'What's Ivan?' Tracey said. 'His name?'
'Nah that's Penderecki's name, isn't it?'
'Uh-hh.' He jerked his head back, his claw hand flailing under his chin. He had odd, wandering irises, which skittered across the top of his eyes like windblown leaves across a lake.
'Say it again. Who broke your head, eh?' Silence. 'Come on, you stupid little shit, who done your head? Was it Penderecki?'
Silence.
'Come on was it Penderecki what broke your head?'
A sudden jerking and rolling of his eyes. 'Ung!'
'Who?'
'BBeMBe – rrrrr-kki '
'That's it!' Carl was amazed. 'And who helped you? Eh? Who helped you after? Was it me? Was it Carl?'
'Ung – ungV He jerked his head and rolled his eyes. That meant yes. Carl sat down on the sofa with an odd look of revelation in his eyes.
'That Polish piece of shit!' He slammed his fist into his palm and Tracey shrank back a little, not sure what was coming next. 'I've got him, that piece of shit.'
The way Carl explained it to her, that Penderecki was getting old, slowly drying up, becoming inactive, losing all interest in little boys and forgetting he had anything at all between his legs, that there was some leverage to be had here, that he, Carl, could drop hints about what really happened to the boy and soon have Penderecki eating out of his hands, it all made sense to Tracey in a way. He'd have a place to crash in London whenever he needed it, he'd have Penderecki's contacts if he wanted them, he'd have a second place to stash his collection of tapes if things got dodgy at the garage.
'Or if I have to go away for some reason. He'll guard them with his fucking life if he knows what's good for him.' Carl was in a good mood now. 'So, Tracey, you ain't to talk about who Steven is, right? If Ivan ever turns up here for some reason, don't you never let on -if there's talking to be done it'll be me does it.'
So Steven became part of the house and they got used to him wandering around. He had a favourite hat a knitted Manchester United bobble hat that he wore pulled down over his forehead: 'Bobah', he called it, no one knew why. If he was separated from Bobah he would cry so when she was feeling spiteful Tracey hid it from him until she had managed to get him curled up on the kitchen floor in tears. Afterwards he never seemed to bear any resentment towards her, he seemed to forget about it almost as quickly as it had happened. In fact, Tracey realized that he didn't have much of a memory for anything that had happened since he came to Norfolk. He craved chocolate and got fat on Caramel bars; over the years he had crushes on Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Britney Spears. When Carl wasn't around Tracey tormented Steven. She made him clean the house, and would sit on the sofa painting her toes, listening to him in the hallway, ringing out each task he did: 'Duh-ddinnn, now,' he'd warble. That meant dusting. 'Hooooberiinnnn' (Hoovering) or simply: 'Kerneaninnn, now' (cleaning).
'What do you put up with him for? He's a fucking mong. Why you hanging on to him?'
'Tracey, it's none of your fucking business.'
But she thought it was her business she was savvy enough to know that Carl wasn't telling her something about the boy. She felt sure that there was something else about Steven. Maybe Steven meant something to someone important and if she knew anything about Carl there was probably money involved somewhere along the line.
And so it went. When Carl died Tracey was left to deal with 'her brother'. She'd entertained some ideas about approaching Penderecki she turned the idea around for hours as she sat watching Ricki Lake and marching through her supply of Silk Cut. But then DI Caffery had knocked on the door and everything had fallen into place. Now she saw why Carl had clung to the boy there was money involved. Just what she'd always thought. She wasn't the slow-thinking mule Carl said she was, after all.
The first thing she decided to do was find somewhere to put Steven she didn't want Caffery coming back and finding him pottering around the house clutching a duster and grinning idiotically. So yesterday she had put him in the Datsun 'Look, you can bring Bobah too,' and taken him out to the caravan at the top of the quarry. 'Later I'll bring Britney.'
'Bwidney '
'I'll bring her over too. I promise.'
And she did. She brought all of his Britney posters and his one Britney tape and the Walkman Carl had given him four Christmases ago, and settled him down with some Caramel bars and Cokes, padlocked the caravan and stood outside in the rain, smoking a cigarette and watching the cars go by on the road with their headlights on, thinking that she was very brave and very clever. And today, back at the caravan, on the day that Caffery was due to come up the A12 with the money, she was feeling even braver. It was sunny and clear. She paused briefly outside the caravan to spit on the ground. She had to find a way of establishing that 'Steven' was indeed the same boy Caffery wanted. Inside he was warbling along to a song 'ooopsh, ah did id ug-ed.' Britney fucking Spears. The only tape he had and he never seemed to tire of listening to it. Over and over again, and still he didn't know the words. She unlocked the padlock and went in. The curtains were wet with condensation and the caravan stank of mildew.
'Listen, Steven.' She put down the bucket and sat on the bunk next to him, lifting one of his earphones. 'Steven
He grinned at her, flopping his head back and forward. 'Traith '
She smiled, trying to look patient. 'Look.' She took the headphones off and rested them on the bed, switching the Sony to the off position. 'I've got something I want to ask you. OK?'
He paused for a moment thinking about this, his eyes skittering around, his hands moving one over the other.
'I said OK?'
He seemed to focus. He nodded hard, so hard that his heels knocked against the floor. 'Kay.'
