Finders Keepers

tight and cold.

Had he been rescued? Was this what it was like to be strapped into a cradle and airlifted across the moor? Cold, cold air and the blades clattering overhead?

But something that was not fresh air stank so badly that his stomach rolled and his mouth filled with thin saliva. He tried to spit and found that he was gagged. He panicked for a moment, and struggled as he worked to swallow without choking. Some of whatever was wrapped tightly around him yielded, some was hard and sharp. His knees were drawn up; he couldn’t feel his left leg at all. When he turned his face half an inch one way or the other he felt something slimy press against his cheek. He thought his left leg must be trapped under him and he guessed he was upright, although whatever his right foot was pressing against was far from solid.

Steven had a sudden mental image of a chrysalis hanging from a twig and felt his bowels contract sharply. He’d been captured by a giant insect, bound in sticky thread, and could only wait helplessly to be liquefied and sucked out through a sharp proboscis—

Proboscis was a good word.

That thought calmed him. Brought him back from the edge of panic. Allowed him to become aware of his own breathing again and to work on bringing it under control.

Yes, he was hanging up inside something disgusting, but a giant insect was major bollocks. He wasn’t a child; he mustn’t let childish fears stop him thinking straight. As his breathing slowed, he became aware once more of the stink that surrounded him. It was the same stink that came from the bones Jonas Holly never ate. That were left to lie in the sun for the flies to shit on …

He was inside meat.

Instantly he knew he was right. This was why Charlie had screamed about meat. This was what had scared him so. Steven had seen the huntsman skin the animals – the shaggy Exmoor pony, the cow with the empty eyes. He’d seen him drag the pink-and-grey carcasses through the dark door at the back of the big shed. He’d heard the clank of chains and the brief sounds of an electric winch.

Meat.

That was what he’d become.

What they’d all become.

The kennels were empty. Reynolds saw that with his own eyes, and the little grey screen was proof. There were only two bright blobs of warmth below them, and one was in the shape of the man standing over a water trough in the yard, leaning on a pole and squinting up into the sunshine. The other was an intensely white star in a small building near by.

Unwilling to shout loudly enough to make himself heard, Reynolds leaned between the seats and jabbed a finger at the white point on the screen.

‘Incinerator!’ Lee hollered into his ear.

Reynolds nodded and sat back.

Slowly the man below them raised a hand in greeting, and Tuckshop returned a half-wave, half-salute, like a fighter pilot in a black-and-white war film.

As the helicopter tilted away from the Blacklands hunt kennels, Reynolds did the same – and felt like the guardian of the entire world.

42

IT’S TRUE, THOUGHT Lettie Lamb. We’re all cursed.

She had never believed in curses; curses were for old folk and stupid people. But here, lying in a fast-cooling bath, watching condensation drip off the peeling ceiling, she could find no more logical reason for the miseries visited on her family than that which the Sunday Mirror had proposed.

Steven was gone.

Lettie’s mouth distorted with sudden emotion and she squeezed her eyes shut to stop herself crying. Crying helped nobody. She’d learned that a long, long time ago.

She waited until her breathing was normal again, concentrating on her breasts, which sat like little islands on the water – the warm meniscus of the tide rising and falling on the beaches of pale skin, where faint blue rivers ran from the puckered peaks.

He’d been gone for a week and just today her mother had put down her knitting and walked to the front window. She’d stood in her old place – the one she’d worn bare over the twenty years when she’d waited for Billy to come home. Jude had replaced the carpet. Not all of it, but that piece in the window. It wasn’t a perfect match with the rest of the room but it was close enough. Now the thought of her mother wearing a new path to the window to wait for Steven made Lettie shiver. Would she follow in time, however hard she tried to resist? Would the pair of them wear out the carpet together, lumbering back and forth like buffalo at a watering hole? Would Davey suffer the way she had suffered when Billy had gone?

Was Steven suffering now? Or was he already dead?

This time her mouth would not obey her when she tried to pull it back into shape. This time her tears reheated the water around her temples.

She thought of all the times she’d snapped at him; all the times she’d been unfair; all the times she’d taken Davey’s side for no reason other than that Davey was adorable and ‘You’re the oldest. You should know better.’

She thought of the time she’d slapped his face.

I can’t, thought Lettie. I can’t do this. It hurts too much.

She had to stop thinking. Thinking of Steven was like having a head full of thorns.

I’m cursed.

And suddenly – the revelation: all of the bad things had happened on her watch. Maybe all that was needed was to take herself out of the equation. The ultimate horror required the ultimate sacrifice. If it didn’t actually help Steven, at least she wouldn’t be around to know about it. Stopping everything meant stopping the agony of thinking about him every second of the day. It all made sense. A kind of sense. Sense enough for now.

Lettie opened her eyes. Without turning her head, she thought about what was in the bathroom that she might use.

Not much.

The water itself was tempting – just a tilt of the head would cover her face – but she guessed it would be almost impossible without something to keep her under while she drowned. There was the razor she used to shave her legs when Jude stayed over. It was a white Bic safety razor, and the blades were firmly encased in plastic that defied removal. Jude used an electric one that pushed his skin about his face in stubbled wavelets.

Lettie had a sudden bright memory of the razor her father had used. A steel-headed Gillette that held a proper blade in a canopy so smooth and shiny that it tempted tiny hands to pick it up and gaze into it like a mirror. He’d had a brush too, with coarse bristles that were black at the bottom and white at the tips. She and Billy used to squabble for the right to stir the solid shaving soap into a thick cream of suds and paint it on their father’s face with ‘the badger’. That’s what they’d called it, she remembered now with a pang. Then they’d watch in awed silence as the Gillette left broad, smooth trails through the snowy lather on her father’s tanned face.

She could smell her father now – that clean soapy smell of his cheek and his chin, and the Old Spice she’d bought him relentlessly for every birthday and every Christmas until he’d died when she was ten.

Cursed.

Someone pounded on the door and Lettie jolted upright with a splash, gripping the side of the bath with both hands, ready to leap out of it, scared of why.

Was he found?

Was he dead?

Was this the moment when her life shattered into a million pieces or started slowly to mend? She could feel her heart beating against the cold plastic of the tub in excitement and terror.

‘What is it?’ she croaked.