Finders Keepers (22 page)

‘The kidnapper?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what?’ said Rice, and took another sip. Encouraging Jonas to fill the gap.

‘I think …’ he started and then stopped. She nodded at him, letting him know she was ready to listen. He put his glass down and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, then took them out again. Nervous.

‘I mean, I can understand in one way.’

‘Understand what?’

‘His anger.’

Rice hid her surprise and sipped her wine while giving another supportive nod.

Jonas continued without further prodding. ‘People. You know.’

She thought that was all she was going to get, but then he sighed and went on.

‘They put their shopping in the boot, the satnavs under the seats. They hide their stereos in the glovebox. Then they leave their children on display like old umbrellas. I mean – their fucking
children
!’

She blinked in surprise. Jonas picked up his glass and took a mouthful of wine.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Not at all. I know what you mean.’

She was surprised to find that she actually did. Jonas was right, wasn’t he? If people’s Christmas presents had been pinched off the back seat instead of their children, she would have shaken her head and asked them what the hell else they had expected. She was pleased he’d trusted her enough to speak his mind. Plus, Jonas looked good when he got fired up like that. When he got
passionate
. The slightly distant expression he wore most of the time was replaced by a dark intensity. And he’d looked at her properly for the first time. She emptied her glass and felt the warmth of the wine relaxing her and making her feel that they had something in common, although she wasn’t quite sure yet what it was.

‘Shall we go in the other room?’ she said impulsively, then stood up and picked up the bottle before he could demur.

The front room was cold, despite the summer. It had the feel of a closed-up place. When Jonas turned on the light, she noticed the TV wasn’t even plugged in. This time
he
sat down while she stood. She replenished her glass and put the bottle on the mantelpiece beside a photo of Lucy Holly doing the garden. It seemed rude not to say anything about it.

‘She was very beautiful.’

Jonas nodded briefly but said nothing. She’d expected him to agree and expand. His unusual response made Rice feel self-conscious. It was all she could do to stop herself babbling – asking how he was coping alone, whether he’d thought of anyone new, all the clichéd crap.

To hide her discomfort she picked up a slim gold letter knife with an engraving of Weston pier on the handle, and studied it as if it held great interest for her.

He sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, glass held loosely, and watched her as she turned the little fake dagger over in her hands. She was conscious of his eyes on her and felt her stomach fluttering. So silly! Part of it was the wine – she knew. But part of it wasn’t. Absently, she ran a neatly clipped nail across the engraved hilt of the knife, and tiny brown flecks flaked from the shiny surface.

She wondered what he’d be like in bed. She doubted he’d had sex since his wife’s death. That would be exciting. Maybe moving, too. It was a very long time since Elizabeth Rice had had sex that was exciting and she wasn’t sure she’d
ever
been moved by it.

The idea and the wine made her bold. What did she have to lose? What did
either
of them have to lose?

She looked up to ask Jonas Holly if he’d like to take the bottle and the conversation upstairs.

It was only then that Rice realized that he wasn’t staring at her at all, but at the letter knife in her hand. He had a curious
expression
on his face – as if he’d woken suddenly, and in a strange place.

‘You OK?’ she said.

He got up and nodded and put down his wine before saying ‘Yes’ like a really bad liar.

Rice sighed and put the knife and her half-glass of wine back on the mantel.

She’d be driving tonight, after all.

MARK TRUMBULL HAD GIVEN
Davey the skateboard he’d bought from Lalo Bryant. It was a Renner Blood Tattoo, which Davey had denounced as ‘crap’.

‘I’ll have it if you don’t want it,’ said Shane, and having poured such scorn on it, Davey had been forced to surrender the deck.

Now Shane rode it down the street to the playing field in a series of erratic little skids and wobbling rolls, as Davey eyed him with a mixture of contempt and envy. ‘Have a go,’ said Shane. ‘It’s not that hard.’ Davey shook his head. He had Steven’s skateboard under his arm, but held on to it.

They reached the field at the edge of the village. The last house in the row had been boarded up for ages with a For Sale sign, and its side windows stared blindly across the gradually sloping field where the home team never seemed to have the advantage. Shane picked up his board and they set off across the yellowing grass.

Chantelle Cox was pushing her baby on a rusty swing, her hair
scraped
and parted to within an inch of its life and fastened on top of her head with the precision of an SAS kitbag.

‘Got a fag?’ Davey asked her.

‘No,’ she said, even though she was tipping a fresh one out of a soft pack.

He didn’t care. He didn’t smoke. It just sounded good.

They walked on past the skate ramp to the far edge of the field, where a narrow stream defined the border between the village and the steep yellow moor behind it. The lack of recent rain had left the stream sluggish and shallow.

Davey leaned out and dropped Steven’s skateboard into the water. It entered with a smacky little splash, sank below the surface and was carried only half a dozen yards before it nose-dived gently into the mud at the bottom. He was disappointed. He’d imagined the board being tossed and turned on white-water rapids all the way to Tiverton. Still, beggars can’t be choosers – as his mum had said when he’d asked for an Xbox for his birthday and got a second-hand PlayStation 2 with a wobbly lead that meant he could never save his high score.

‘What do you think he’ll do?’ asked Shane.

‘Don’t give a shit
what
he does. Serves him right.’

‘He’s going to kick your arse.’

‘I’d like to see him try,’ said Davey. Although really he’d rather
not
see Steven try. Steven’s grip on his arm had been unexpectedly strong, and he guessed he couldn’t outrun him either.

They trudged back across the grass to the ramp, where Shane dropped the deck that had briefly belonged to Davey, and started to push himself tentatively up one side of the half-pipe. Almost immediately the board skidded away from him and he fell heavily on to his elbow. He clutched it and groaned.

‘Shit bollocks shit and bollocks!’

‘Thought you said it wasn’t hard?’

‘Shut up.’

Seeing Shane fail on the board made Davey feel better
disposed
towards him, and he helped him to his feet, hoping that was the end of it. But Shane simply retrieved the board and tried again.

Davey sighed and went to sit on a swing to watch Shane. He hadn’t been on the swings for years. The last time, his feet hadn’t even reached the ground. Now the toes of his trainers dragged through the dust as he pushed himself gently to and fro.

The toddler in the baby swing beside him kept looking at him and saying something he didn’t understand.

‘He likes you,’ said Chantelle Cox.

‘Yeah?’ Davey didn’t care for babies, but hearing that this one liked him still made him feel good.

‘His name’s Jake,’ she offered, although he hadn’t asked.

Jake reached out a chubby hand towards him and pitched forward in the rubber-coated cradle.

‘Hold on, mate,’ Davey advised, and took the child’s hand and replaced it on the chain. Jake laughed and Davey couldn’t help smiling back.

There was a rattle and a thump and a yelp of pain and Davey turned to see Shane lying face up, back arched, rubbing his backside.

‘Nice one!’ he called.

‘Piss off,’ Shane groaned back.

‘Only place to play now,’ said Chantelle, waving her cigarette vaguely at the field behind Davey.

‘Why?’ He didn’t understand.

‘’Cos of the kidnapper, of course! Got to stay near people and places, see? Can’t go off on the moor or anything now.’

‘We do,’ said Davey with a shrug. ‘We go everywhere.’

‘Well, you be careful,’ she said, ‘or he’ll have you too.’

‘Nah, there’s two of us. We’d kick his butt.’

‘Took those two girls off the bus, didn’t he?’

‘Two
girls
,’ Davey pointed out.

‘I’m just saying, that’s all.’

He only grunted a reply. Chantelle Cox was OK, but she was
only
as old as Steven and she was acting like she was his mother or something.

Chantelle hauled Jake out of the swing, which was his cue to turn from a happy, chuckling toddler into a screaming red ball of fury. Davey actually winced at the volume, but Chantelle didn’t seem to notice, even though it was happening right next to her face as she bundled the baby into his pushchair.

She straightened up. ‘Going now,’ she said.

‘Right then.’

She shook another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. She took a long drag, then impulsively handed it to a surprised Davey.

‘Bye then,’ she said.

‘See ya,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

He didn’t even know how to hold it. He touched it to his lips and was surprised to feel the little core of heat at the filter tip. He sucked tentatively and blew the smoke out of his mouth without inhaling. It tasted rubbish. Still, it was a lit cigarette and it made him feel ten years older. He swung lazily, puffing the smoke out of his mouth almost before it had got in there.

He could still hear the baby wailing as Chantelle Cox disappeared. He thought about the kidnapper stealing Jake and having to put up with that terrible noise. If he was the kidnapper he’d bring him back in a heartbeat. Chantelle Cox sometimes probably
wished
Jake would be kidnapped when he was making that noise.

The notion hit him like lightning.

‘
Hey!
’ he said. He threw the cigarette into the dust at his feet, hopped off the swing and hurried over to the ramp.

‘What?’ said Shane, stumbling off the deck and pretending he’d meant to. He turned to Davey, who was wide-eyed with his own sudden genius.

‘
What?
’ said Shane again – more excited this time.

‘I know where we can get all the money we’ll ever need.’

‘Bloody brilliant!’ said Shane. ‘Where?’

‘The reward money, idiot! Ten thousand pounds for finding those kids!’

Shane’s mouth dropped open in excitement, then snapped shut again in a reality check. His rolling eyes said this plan was too speculative, even for him. He picked his deck up. ‘But
everyone
’s looking for them. How are
we
gonna find them?’

‘
We
catch the
kidnapper
!’

‘How?’ said Shane.

Davey could hardly bear to tell. His idea was so simple and yet so outrageous that he didn’t want to say it out loud. He kept running through it in his head in case he had missed anything. He didn’t want Shane poking a big hole in his plan the moment he told him. But at the same time, he was
bursting
to tell his friend.

‘
How
can we catch him?’ Shane asked insistently.

Davey grinned and mimed an angler reeling in a catch.

‘Like a fish.’

THE MOMENT DAVEY
had told him the truth about where they’d found the money, Steven had known who it belonged to.

Strictly speaking, he supposed it belonged to
him
.

But really it still belonged to Lucy Holly.

She had given it to him the night she’d died. With the split on her lip still fresh and her eyes still red from crying, she’d fetched a tin from the back of the cupboard and taken out a wodge of bound notes. She’d handed them to him as if she would never need money again.

Then she’d hugged him goodbye.

As he’d walked home in the blizzard he’d thrown the money into the wind. No doubt the rest of it – around £500, he’d guessed – was still in the hedges and fields close to the joined cottages of Mr Holly and Mrs Paddon.

Steven had never once thought of going back to retrieve it – even when he’d wanted the motorbike – and the thought of Mark Trumbull spending it now on cider and
Beaver Patrol
had made him shake with anger.

Maybe he should have explained these things to Davey. But how could he open
that
can of worms? So instead Steven had lain on his bed and listened to his mother lay into Davey for breaking the door and saying ‘Fuck’ in the house. He’d felt bad about it, but he’d had no option.