Finders Keepers

Now he and Charlie Peach were in the same world. That made his already uneasy stomach feel still more sour.

‘Who’s he?’ demanded Charlie, waggling a finger through the diamonds.

Steven looked down and sucked in his breath.

In the cage between them lay Jonas Holly – a bruise painting one eye as black as a pirate’s patch, and a three-foot chain leading from the metal hoop on his collar to a small brass padlock fed through the fence that separated him from Charlie.

Jonas Holly was a victim – just like him.

All the rules Steven had lived by for eighteen long months changed in an instant and he felt dizzy with the adjustment. What did it mean? If Jonas hadn’t kidnapped the children, then had he still killed his wife? Steven felt the two notions warring within him. He’d been almost sure of both those things, and now his own eyes were telling him that at least one of them was not true.

He thought of the woods. The memories came in disjointed flashes – the smooth-faced man trying to heave a limp body on to the back seat of the old Ford; Davey’s red shoulder just visible in the open boot; the fear of moving towards danger instead of away from it, the way his gut churned at him not to …

His brother in his arms – warm, and waking too loudly.

Ssssssh!

Davey hadn’t shushed. Instead he’d shouted and lashed out and caught Steven a stunning blow on the nose. Steven sighed. It wasn’t Davey’s fault; he hadn’t known what he was doing.

‘Where’s Davey?’ he said to no one.

‘Who’s Davey?’ said Jess.

Steven looked both ways through the wire and did not see his brother. He had made it! He smiled inside – then thought of Davey falling into his mother’s arms instead of him, and his face tingled with imminent tears.

‘Who’s he?’ Charlie asked again, more forcefully, still wiggling a finger at Jonas Holly.

‘He’s a policeman,’ said Steven.

‘Oh,’ said Charlie. ‘Do you know “Ten Green Bottles”?’ He started to sing it without waiting for an answer.

‘Mr Holly?’ said Steven tentatively, but the man did not move. Steven frowned at his long flat body clad only in shorts. His abdomen was a shallow dish between his ribs and his hip bones, containing thick red scars that crawled and twisted across his pale skin like some strange delicacy that might require chopsticks.

The marks a killer had made.

‘I feel sick,’ Steven said again, and turned away.

* * *

When he wasn’t robbing banks, Davey had often fantasized about being a cop. As part of those fantasies he’d also imagined interrogating a suspect. In his fertile young mind – fed by television – chairs were scraped across concrete floors, fists were banged on Formica tables, and interviews were conducted in an atmosphere of such loud intensity that spittle landed on the used coffee cups between the adversaries.

So when Dr Evans asked if he felt up to speaking to the police, Davey – despite having passed a restless night at North Devon Hospital – was excited.

At first.

He’d imagined a cop who looked like Will Smith in Men In Black. Cool, wearing shades and a sharp suit, with a gun in his sock and a watch shaped like a Dairylea slice. The reality was more like being quizzed by his maths teacher, Mr Harris, who picked his nose when he thought no one was looking.

DI Reynolds asked the same boring questions over and over again, and wrote everything down in a little notebook. Then he flipped the pages of that notebook back and forth before he asked his next question. It made him seem like he’d lost his memory. Davey had told him three times that he hadn’t seen the face of the man who had snatched him, and yet he kept asking about him, but in another way – as if he could trap Davey into remembering who it was.

‘Did you see him coming?’

‘No. I told you that already. He came up behind me.’

‘Tell me about the car.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘What colour was it?’

‘I told you.’

‘Can you tell me again?’

‘Dark. Blue or black. Or green maybe.’

‘Was the man wearing anything on his hands?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Did he tie your hands or mouth at any time?’

‘No.’

‘Not with rope?’

‘No.’

‘Or tape of any kind?’

‘No!’

‘But you did see Constable Holly?’

‘Yes, when they dragged me out from under the car.’

‘They dragged you?’

‘Someone dragged me. I was backwards.’

‘But Mr Holly and this smooth man were two different people?’

Davey rolled his eyes and didn’t bother answering.

Lettie gave him a look. ‘Don’t be rude, Davey,’

‘Yes,’ sang Davey. ‘They were two different people.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I dunno. I was all … whirly.’

‘And then you remember being in the boot—’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s when you saw Steven.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what happened then?’

Davey hesitated. There were things he couldn’t remember. Lots of them. But there were other things he could remember that he’d rather not tell. Specially not with his mother and Dr Evans hovering anxiously at the foot of his bed, listening to everything. His mother clutched the metal rail with both hands, as if DI Reynolds might carry him and his bed off, just for a laugh.

He remembered being jostled and opening his eyes to see Steven’s face so close …

‘Ssssssh!’

‘What? Go away.’

‘Davey, shush!’

Hands under his shoulders and knees, lifting him out of the boot of the car; the sky and the treetops above him, and sweat rolling off a spiky fringe.

His feet hitting the ground.

‘Go AWAY! I’ll tell my brother!’

‘Davey, shut up! It’s me. Ssssssh!’

But he hadn’t shushed. He could remember that. With shame coating his innards like hot syrup, Davey remembered fighting instead – fighting Steven! Waving his fists blindly and shouting so loud that it echoed. He couldn’t remember what. He’d connected with one fist. Hard. And then he’d just run – all wobbly and tumbly and knee- scrapey through the stumps and the ferns.