Finders Keepers

sleep, but then she was not Steven’s mother.

Ten times a day, Nan would cover Lettie’s hand with hers and say, ‘God will take care of him.’ And Lettie would swear and make a cup of tea, or nod and burst into fresh tears.

Steven’s Uncle Jude came often. He weeded the garden and brought in shopping and left with the unopened bills. He sat on the sofa with his arm around Lettie, and kissed Nan’s cheek when he arrived and when he left. Em gathered he was the kind of uncle who slept with your mother – not the kind you were related to by blood.

Davey got himself up and he made himself toast. He did his homework and made his own sandwiches and left the house quietly – sometimes before Lettie and Nan were even out of bed. Em usually passed him on his way to school, but when she tried to ask whether he was OK, Davey avoided her eyes and sidled around her. When Shane came round now, they made little noise, and Davey quickly tired of the PlayStation. At the ramp, Em had seen Davey frowning while Shane skated. It was as though Davey had become an older person swapped into a boy’s body, and Em imagined that somewhere in this universe or the next, there might be a middle-aged woman wondering why her husband had suddenly become obsessed with Grand Theft Auto and laughed at his own farts.

Em cooked and washed up, she cleaned the bathroom. She answered the door to the doctor or reporters or police or neighbours with flowers and cakes, and she made sure there was always change for the electricity meter. The Piper Parents came round and Em made tea for everyone while they broke down in relays.

While her own family wouldn’t acknowledge her loss, nobody here questioned it. It was assumed.

She learned to ignore the photographers calling her name as she arrived each day, and to say ‘No comment, thanks’ to reporters who asked outrageous questions to try to provoke her. ‘Are you and Steven lovers?’, ‘Are you pregnant?’, ‘Do you pray for Steven?’, ‘Do you think he’s dead?’.

School was a forgotten past and her own home was a mere interruption to her industrious vigil. Sometimes she went upstairs and lay on Steven’s bed and thought about being there together. How scared she’d been; how excited. It was hard to remember, when being there now was just so sad. Sometimes she went through his things. She pulled on the Liverpool shirt with his name on the back; she didn’t know why he kept it, it was way too small for him. She went through his school bag and read his essays – neatly written and neatly constructed. She browsed his odd collection of books – Five Have Plenty of Fun, The Cucumber Pony and The Methodology of Serial Killing. Talking animals and psychopaths nestling side by side on the shelf.

Sometimes Lettie and Nan mentioned Uncle Billy – the boy whose picture was in Steven’s room.

He hadn’t been hit by a car; he had been murdered.

At first Em was angry that Steven had lied to her. But by asking nothing and listening to everything, she learned the family’s story. A story of loss, terror and survival. A story where Steven had very nearly been a victim, but was instead the hero, and which made sense of his bookshelf. It made her own family’s stories – a great- grandfather’s medal on the beaches, an aunt who’d met the Queen – seem hopelessly humdrum.

For no reason she could have verbalized, Em had always believed Steven was special.

In his absence she learned how right she was.

* * *

Steven came out of sleep through a rushing tunnel of noise and fear. He awoke sitting bolt upright, with one hand clutching his chest like an old man having an attack.

The screaming was coming from Charlie Peach. Usually so calm and easygoing, Charlie was hurling himself around his cage in a blind panic.

Even Jonas Holly was watching Charlie – his eyes wide and wary.

Charlie knew he was making a fuss and that making a fuss was a bad thing to do, but for once he didn’t care. He covered his ears, squeezed shut his eyes and tried to run away from the sound, hurling himself blindly against the mesh of his cage, staggering back to his feet and running headlong into the wire once more. Again and again, his mouth wide, hardly drawing breath between raw, high-pitched howls.

‘No meat! No meat!’

Steven pointed at the bones in Charlie’s cage and tried to draw his attention. ‘There’s your meat, Charlie. It’s OK. It’s right there.’

Charlie was too upset to hear him.

The huntsman ran down the walkway with the flatbed trolley rumbling and clunking before him, and fumbled for the key – his green woollen gloves making it harder than usual. Pressed by the stocking, his face was as blank as always, but his body gave away his urgency.

He strode into the kennel and Charlie shrank back on his bed. The huntsman grabbed him, and Charlie kicked and flailed.

‘Leave him alone!’ Steven hammered his fist against the chain link. ‘Bastard!’

Jonas scrambled to his feet, although the short chain jerked him back to his knees at once. He hooked his fingers through the fence and watched.

Everything went quiet very fast. One moment Charlie was screaming and struggling, the next the huntsman was hauling his limp body from the kennel with his green hand over the boy’s mouth and nose.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Steven yelled. ‘Leave him alone!’

The huntsman ignored him. In a series of jerks – and with a strength that belied his stature – he dumped Charlie on to the trolley, then hurried him up the walkway and around the corner.

Steven turned to Jess. ‘What happened? Did you see what happened?’

She stared at him, her lower lip trembling.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Helicopter,’ said Jess.

It was only then that Steven heard the noise. It was distant but it was unmistakable. He rushed to the front of his cage to peer up through the gap in the roof.

‘They’re looking for us!’ said Steven excitedly.

The other children didn’t move.

‘Yes,’ said Jess Took dully. In the cage at the end, Pete Knox started to cry, which set Maisie off.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Steven, but before anyone could answer, the huntsman came back.

He took Jess next. She shrieked and tried to cover her face but he easily pushed her hands aside and clapped his glove over her nose and mouth. She went limp.

Then the others, one by one.

Pete kicked and howled and then succumbed like a kitten in a bucket of water. Steven shouted his name even after he disappeared from view – one arm dangling off the trolley. He fought panic.

The helicopter was closer now. The sound of the blades came to him in waves. It was criss-crossing the moor. Searching. For them.

‘One, two, three – Help!’ he shouted. ‘One, two, three!’ Maisie and Kylie just looked at him.

He had to give the helicopter a sign. He looked about his cage desperately. There was nothing to use. Steven gripped the top of the gate and hauled himself up. He pushed his head through the gap where the huntsman dropped the meat, swearing as his right ear tore. He tried to get his arm through as well, but couldn’t. His shoulder was too lumpy. He pulled his head back down, scraping his bloody ear again, then waved his right hand in the air until the fingers of his left gave way and he fell back to the floor.

‘Don’t! You’ll make him angry.’

Steven turned on Jonas Holly. The policeman hugged his knees to his chest, visibly trembling, his eyes huge and full of tears. Steven slapped the fence between them, making Jonas flinch.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ yelled Steven. ‘Get up and fight, you baby!’

Jonas closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears.

Steven kicked the fence once more, then turned around. The huntsman was right there – his green hand already reaching for him. Steven threw an arm up but he was too late.

There was barely a struggle. The fumes filled his head and he staggered and scraped his knees. He tried to get up and the huntsman helped him.

Helped him to his traitor’s feet.

Helped him on to the trolley and rolled him up the walkway and through the big shed to the flesh room.