What Came Before He Shot Her (62 page)

Joel smothered the protest that he wanted to give. This was nothing, he told himself. This was just proving to the Blade that he had the bottle to gut something out.

His hands felt clammy, so he rubbed them along the sides of his trousers. He remembered what he’d made out from the wall of the tomb just before he dropped down to its interior base. He steeled himself to the sight of a body, telling himself it was dead, long gone, and improperly buried, and that was all. But he’d never really seen a body before, not one that was out in the open, exposed to the elements, decomposing, with rotting flesh, grinning teeth, and worms eating out its eyeballs.

The thought of that body just behind him somewhere made Joel’s lips quiver. He became aware that his own body was shivering from head to toe, and he understood that in this place the cold of the night intensified because of the damp stone walls around him. Like Dorothy in Oz, he thought of home. He thought of his aunt, his brother, his sister, his bed, eating dinner around the table in the kitchen and watching a cartoon video with Toby afterwards. But then he made himself stop such thoughts because his eyes were filling. He was acting like someone who couldn’t bloody even
cope
, he thought. He remembered how easily Cal had appeared to climb out of the tomb and he understood that he wasn’t trapped in this place.

He didn’t have to do something for which he might get into trouble with the law. All he had to do was wait, and he surely had the bottle to do that.

Thus reassured, he made himself take an action. Since he couldn’t exactly stand there forever with his face to the wall simply because he shared space with a body, he forced himself to turn and confront it. He pivoted with his eyes squeezed shut. He balled his fists and slowly raised his eyelids.

Adjusted to the darkness, his eyes picked out what they hadn’t been able to see earlier. The body was missing a nose; part of its cheek was caved in. The rest of it was dressed in some sort of flowing gown whose folds surged through the fallen leaves. All of it was white: the body itself, the head of hair upon it, the hands folded on the abdomen, the gown that clothed it. It was merely stone, Joel realised, an internal effigy that decorated the tomb.

At one end of this, he saw that a tartan blanket was folded over the effigy’s feet. It bore no leaves, which meant it had been placed there recently, and probably for him. He picked it up and beneath it found two bottles of water and two packaged sandwiches. He’d be there for a while.

He unfolded the blanket and wound it around his shoulders. He boosted himself up to the legs of the effigy and settled in for a lengthy stay.

CAL DIDN’T RETURN for Joel that night. Nor did he return the next day. The hours crawled by and the low winter sun never once warmed the inside of Joel’s place of waiting. Still, he remained. He was invested at this point. While it was true that he was cold and—despite the sandwiches—growing hungrier by the minute, that more than once he’d had to relieve himself in a corner beneath a pile of rotting leaves, that he’d barely dozed off during the night and every sound had startled him into wakefulness, he told himself that a payoff was coming and the payoff would make this waiting worthwhile.

He started to doubt this on the second night. He began to think that the Blade meant him to die in Kensal Green Cemetery. He understood how easily that could happen: He was in a tomb already; it hadn’t been opened in years and probably
wouldn’t
be opened again. He and Cal had come to the spot in near darkness, and if anyone had seen them sauntering along in the direction of the entrance to the cemetery, what would they have thought of it? There were many places they could have been heading: the underground station, a superstore across the canal, even all the way to Wormwood Scrubs.

He considered climbing out at this point. When he examined the interior walls of the tomb, he saw that it would be easy enough for him to scale the ten feet. But the list of what-ifs that accompanied the idea of departure stopped him. What if he climbed out just at the moment Cal was coming for him? What if the Blade was nearby, watching and waiting, and saw his disgrace? What if he was seen by a groundsman or a security man? What if he was collared and hauled into the Harrow Road police station again?

As to his family and the what-ifs they were conjuring up as this second night approached, he did not think of that. His aunt, his brother, and his sister were merely blips on the screen of his consciousness.

The second night passed slowly. It was terribly cold, and a soft rain fell. It became a long and windy rain that soaked his blanket, which in turn soaked his school trousers. He had only his anorak left as protection from the weather, but it would be useless by morning if the rain did not cease, and Joel knew that.

The sky was turning light when he finally heard the sounds he’d been waiting for: the swooshing of cypress branches and the sucking noise of trainers falling on saturated ground. Then Cal’s voice came softly, “You there, blood?”

Joel, crouching in the inadequate shelter of the damaged slate roof, got to his feet with a grunt. “Here, bred,” he said.

“Have it knocked good, den. You make it out okay?”

Joel wasn’t sure, but he said that he could. Hunger made him dizzy, and cold made him clumsy. It would, he thought, be a sodding hell of a thing if he broke his neck trying to get out of this place.

He tried several times. He had success on his fourth attempt. By that time, Cal had climbed the wall and was straddling the top, extending a hand to him. But Joel wouldn’t take it, so close was he to passing the Blade’s test completely. He wanted Cal Hancock to carry a message back to Mr. Stanley Hynds: He did it all, and he did it by himself.

He lifted his leg over the wall and straddled it, mimicking Cal’s posture there although, unlike Cal, he was forced to cling to the stones like a shipwreck survivor. He said, “You tell him, mon,” before he was out of strength. He toppled from the top of the wall to the ground.

Cal hopped down and helped him to his feet. “Okay?” he asked earnestly. “Noise goin down ’bout where you been.”

Joel squinted at Cal, with his head feeling weak. He said, “You rampin, mon?”

“Hell no. I been by your drum and there’s been cops wiv your aunt.

I ’spect you in for it when you get home.”

“Shit.” Of all things, Joel hadn’t thought of this. He said, “I got to get home. When c’n I talk to the Blade, den?”

“He ain’t takin your part wiv the cops. On your own f’r dat, blood.”

“’S not what I meant. I got to talk to him ’bout dis bloke needs sorting.”

“He’ll sort him when he’s ready,” Cal said.

“Hey!” Joel protested. “Di’n’t I just—”

“Don’t work like dat.” Cal led Joel through the cypresses then, and along the muddy path towards the cemetery’s central lane. There, he took a moment to clean the bottom of his trainers on a spot in the tarmac where the fallen leaves had blown away during the night. He looked around—in the manner of a man searching for eavesdroppers—

and said in a low voice and without looking up from his shoes, “You c’n stop dis, bred. You got dat power.”

“Stop what?” Joel asked.

“Blood, he mean you
harm
. Y’unnerstan?”

“Who? The Blade? Cal, I gave him the flick knife. And you weren’t there when we talked. We got t’ings sorted between us. We’re cool.”

“He don’t sort t’ings, spee. He i’n’t like dat.”

“He was straight wiv me. Like I said, you weren’t there. And anyways, I done what he asked. He c’n see I’m straight wiv him. We c’n go on.”

Cal, whose eyes had been cast down on his shoes during this, raised his head. He said, “Where ’xactly you t’ink you’re going? The Blade sort dis bloke, you
owe
him, y’unnerstan? You got family, bred. Whyn’t you t’ink ’bout dem?”

“Dat’s what I
am
doing,” Joel protested. “Wha’ you t’ink I’m doin dis for?”

“Dat’s a question you best start asking,” Cal returned. “What you t’ink
he
doin dis for?”

When he made the turn into Edenham Way, Joel saw that Dix D’Court’s car was parked in front of his aunt’s house. He was cold, wet, tired, and hungry, and all he wanted was to fall into bed, which made his ability to fast-talk his way through the coming encounters sadly reduced. He took a moment to duck behind a wheelie bin and there he stayed for several more minutes, trying to work out what he was going to say to his aunt when he finally faced her. The truth would hardly do.

He thought at first that he might stay there behind the bin until Kendra left the house to go to work for the day, which would be sooner rather than later. She’d have to get Toby off to his school and Ness would be off as well, which would leave the house empty at that point, since Dix surely wouldn’t hang about once Kendra was gone. Joel would have the day, then, to cook up something . . . if only he managed to wait.

But waiting was exactly what Joel was not able to do. Seven minutes behind the wheelie bin was enough time to tell him he could remain outside in the cold no longer. He eased his way out and trudged to the front door. He hauled himself up the four steps like a dead man walking.

He used his key on the lock, but this was enough noise to alert his family. The door jerked open. He expected to see his aunt there, furious and ready to pounce, but it was Ness who had her hand on the knob and Ness whose body blocked his path. She took one look at him and said over her shoulder, “Aunt Ken, the lit’l sod’s home.” And then to Joel, “You in for it, mon. We got cops callin round, we got school on the phone, we got Social Services involved. Where you
been
,

’xactly?” And then in a lower voice, “Joel, you dopin up or summick?”

He didn’t answer, and there was no need, for the door was jerked more fully open and there Kendra stood. She was still dressed in the clothing she’d had on two days ago. Red rimmed her eyes, and bruised flesh half-mooned beneath them. Like Ness, she cried out, “Where you
been
? What’s been . . . Who’ve you been . . . ,” and then she simply wept. It was a release of pent-up stress, but as Joel had never seen his aunt cry before this, he did not know what to make of it.

She grabbed him and hugged him fiercely, but the hug turned into fists beating against his back, although with all the force of a hum-mingbird’s heartbeat.

Over her shoulder, Joel saw Toby come out of the kitchen in his cowboy pyjamas, clattering across the lino in his cowboy boots. Beyond him, Dix D’Court stood in the centre of that room, his face expres-sionless. He watched for a moment before he came to the door and gently disengaged Kendra from Joel. He turned her to him and took her into his arms, giving Joel a disgusted shake of the head before he led Kendra in the direction of the stairs. Before he mounted them, he said to Ness, “Best phone the cops and tell ’em he’s back.”

Ness shot the front door home and went to the phone to make the call. She left Joel where he was, experiencing a form of solitary confi nement that he hadn’t expected, one that he found far worse than being left in a tomb for two nights. It felt unfair to him that he was being treated like some sort of pariah instead of being welcomed home with celebration and relief. He wanted to say, D’you lot
know
what I been through for you?

Toby inadvertently added to Joel’s sense of indignation. He said unnecessarily, “Dix come back, Joel. Aunt Ken phoned him up to help when you di’n’t come home cos she thought you might’ve been wiv him at the gym or summick. Ivan said he di’n’t know where you were—”

“What? She rang Ivan?”

“She rang ever’one. It was late when she phoned Ivan. She thought he took you to a film or summick but he say no. Den she thought you got in trouble wiv the cops, so she phoned dem. Af ’er dat, she thought maybe dat bloke Neal set ’pon you an’—”

“Okay. Shut up,” Joel said.

“But I wanted—”

“Hey. I said shut up. I don’t care. Shut up.”

Toby’s eyes filled. This was a Joel he did not know. He came to him and tugged on the sleeve of his anorak, saying, “You got wet. You wan’

to change your clothes, innit. I got a jersey from the charity shop when Aunt Ken come to school to fetch me an’ you c’n borrow—”

“Shut up shut up shut
up
!” Joel pushed Toby to one side. He went through to the kitchen. Toby ran for the stairs with a sob. Joel hated himself for having hurt his brother’s feelings, but he also hated Toby for being so dim that he couldn’t take an order without having to be shouted at.

Ness was completing her phone call as Joel went to the kitchen table and slumped into a chair, pillowing his head into his crossed arms, which he folded upon a mass of tabloids that lay open on the table’s surface. He wanted only to be left alone. He didn’t understand why everyone was re
act
ing so much, as if he’d committed the crime of the century when Ness had been out all night more than once without coming home to a scene like this. He told himself that the lot of them were acting like he’d faked his own suicide or something.

Ness said to his bowed head, “You really done it, blood.” She lit a cigarette, and the acrid scent of sulfur from the match and then from the burning tobacco came to Joel and made his stomach churn. “Fabia Bender stopped by, talkin ’bout time to send you some place to be sorted out ’fore you
really
get into trouble. Cops went crawlin through ev’ry room like we murdered you. Some detective even went and tried to get some sense out of Mum, innit. I say dis: When you shit, mon, you do it like an elephant. So where you been?”

Joel shook his head, but he didn’t raise it. He said, “Why’d she go off the nut?”

“You ain’t
heard
?”

At this Joel wearily raised his head. Ness came to the table, cigarette dangling from her lips, and gestured for him to move his arms from the tabloids. She closed one of them—it was the
Mirror
—and she flipped it so that its front page faced him. “Have a look at dis,” she said. “Aunt Ken thought . . . Well, I ’xpect you got brains enough to sort it out.”

Joel dropped his gaze from his sister to the tabloid. “Another Body”