The Hiding Place(43)

“You walk him up here a lot?”

“I suppose.”

“Many other people walk up here?”

“A few.”

The words “blood” and “stone” come to mind.

“I hear some of the kids from school hang around here too.”

“Some of them.”

“When I was a kid, we used to do that. We’d look for ways into the old shafts.”

“Must have been a long time ago.”

“It was. Thanks for rubbing it in.”

She doesn’t smile. “Why haven’t you called Mum?”

“I don’t need a cleaner right now. Sorry.”

“Okay.”

She turns to go. I realize I am missing an opportunity.

“Wait.”

She looks back.

“Your mum—she cleaned the cottage for Mrs. Morton?”

“Yeah.”

“So she knew her?”

“Not really.”

“But she must have spoken to her?”

“Mrs. Morton kept herself to herself.”

“Your mum never mentioned Mrs. Morton acting oddly—seeming upset, disturbed?”

A shrug.

“I heard Ben went missing. You think he ran away?”

Another shrug. I try one last time.

“Was Ben one of the kids who came up here? Did they find something? Maybe a tunnel, a cave?”

“You should call Mum.”

“I told you, I don’t—” Then I catch myself. “If I call your mum, will she talk to me?”

She stares at me. “She charges ten pounds an hour. Fifty pounds for a deep clean.”

I get the drift. “Right. I’ll bear it in mind.”

The dog edges toward my boots again. Lauren gives it a little tug on the lead. It wrinkles its gray muzzle at her.

“He must be pretty old,” I say.

“Mum says he should be dead.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, she does.” She turns. “I have to go.”

“See you then!” I call after her.

She doesn’t return the farewell, but as she walks away I hear her murmur, almost to herself: “You’re in the wrong place.”

Weird doesn’t really cover it.


—



A white van is parked outside the cottage when I get back. There’s a picture of a large tap on the back. I make a wild guess that it belongs to a plumber. Bearing in mind my current bathroom issues, this would be fortuitous. If I had called a plumber.

As I draw closer my worst fears are confirmed. The name on the side reads: Fletcher & Sons Plumbing and Heating. I watch as the doors swing open. Unwise Hair climbs out of one side. Another figure, less familiar these days, climbs out of the driver’s side. He spits yellow phlegm on the ground.

“Thorney. Fuck me. Never thought I’d see you back here.”

I can’t say the same. I always knew Fletch would never leave. Some kids, you just do. It’s not that they don’t want to move somewhere else. It’s just that the thought that there is somewhere else has never even occurred to them.

“What can I say?” I hold out my arms. “I missed the warm welcome.”

Fletch looks me up and down. “You’ve not changed.”

Again, I can’t say the same. If the years have not been kind to any of us, they’ve been really hard on Nick Fletcher. Always a blunt-faced youth—one of those kids who probably looked old even in nappies—he has lost the sinewy muscle that once made him such a formidable bouncer for Hurst. Now, he is thin to the point of skeletal. His shorn hair is a dirty nicotine yellow and his face is crisscrossed with deep creases that only illness or a lifetime of drinking and smoking can carve.

He walks up to me, Unwise Hair lurking behind in a way that I presume is supposed to be menacing but just makes him look a bit constipated. I note the swollen look of his nose and bruises beneath both eyes. Gloria. I wonder if his brother is still nursing his injured shoulder. I feel a sliver of satisfaction.

Fletch himself has the gait of a man—not dissimilar to me—battling some kind of pain or stiffness in his joints. Arthritis, maybe? The malformed knuckles of his hands are a further giveaway. I guess pounding heads takes its toll after a while.

As he draws nearer I can smell him. Juicy Fruit and cigarettes. All Fletch ever smelled of was Juicy Fruit and cigarettes. Perhaps he hasn’t changed that much.

“You’re not wanted here, Thorney. Why don’t you do everyone a favor and fuck off back to whatever shitty stone you crawled out from.”

“Wow. That was a long sentence for you. A bit clichéd. A slight mix of adjectives and verbs, but not bad.”

His face darkens. Unwise Hair lumbers forward. I can sense the barely contained violence. He’s not just ready to beat the crap out of me. He’s eager for it. Slavering like a dog eyeing a juicy bone.

Like father, like son. Fletch always preferred to punch first and ask questions later. He didn’t need an excuse to hurt someone, but Hurst helpfully gave him one. Fletch enjoyed smashing teeth and blacking eyes. He was a mean and dirty little fighter. And he didn’t give in. I’d seen him take on bigger lads than himself and wear them down with sheer viciousness and persistence. If Hurst hadn’t held his leash, I think, even then, he could have easily beaten someone to death.