The Hunted, page 9
‘I said I didn’t want to play! I didn’t want to play! You’re not allowed to play!’
‘Something wrong?’
Mrs Weaver had returned. The camera was in her hand. ‘Something wrong, Paul?’
‘He was cheating.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He was cheating.’
‘I don’t think I was, actually—’
‘You were! Don’t contradict me! You’re just rented! This is my house!’
Tarrin coloured. His hands balled into fists. He leaned over, his face close to Paul’s face, his mouth by his ear.
‘Don’t you talk to me like that. You say that again, I’ll kill you.’
He whispered it so that Mrs Weaver wouldn’t hear. But Paul heard. His eyes narrowed and he glared back. For a second Tarrin thought that he was going to spit in his face. ‘You spit at me I’ll spit right back.’
‘Is something the matter, boys?
Mrs Weaver walked forwards, an uncertain smile on her face. She had no experience of this, of quarrelling children. She didn’t know how to deal with this at all.
‘How about playing a different game?’ she suggested. ‘How about a go on the climbing frame and the slide? Why don’t you show him how to climb up the climbing frame, Paul?’
‘I know how to climb up a climbing frame,’ Tarrin muttered.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing. That would be nice.’
‘Go on, Paul. Go on.’
Paul seemed pretty proud of his climbing prowess. He went up first while Mrs Weaver pointed the camera at him. But when Tarrin shinned up after him with equal ease, suddenly his climbing skills didn’t seem quite so outstanding after all.
Maybe all these talents, which he had been told and persuaded to believe were so special by his parents – the parents of an only child, and the only family on the street – were quite ordinary abilities after all.
After the climbing frame, they threw a ball to each other from separate ends of the garden. Things were OK as long as Mrs Weaver was there, at least they were tolerable, but when she went back into the house to see if the cake was ready for cutting, or, if not, how much longer it would be, the game immediately ended.
‘Aren’t you going to throw it back?’
Paul didn’t even answer him. He took up a tennis racket and began to hit the ball against the wall of the house. Tarrin stood and watched for a time and then picked up a racket himself.
‘I didn’t say you could play.’
Tarrin threw the racket down on the path.
‘That cost money.’
‘So?’
‘Pick it up.’
Tarrin didn’t move.
‘I said pick it up.’
Tarrin folded his arms.
‘Do as I tell you. You’re only rented. I own you. For two hours. So pick it up.’
‘Pick it up yourself.’
Paul raised his racket and swiped at Tarrin’s head. Tarrin felt a stinging blow against his ear and the side of his face.
‘Ow!’
Before he could think or even stop himself, he retaliated. He struck out with his fist and punched the boy back, in the same place, on the jaw, just below his ear.
‘Ahhhhh!’
The cry was out of all proportion to the injury, but Paul sank to the ground, holding his face.
‘Ahh! Ahh!’
Mrs Weaver ran from the house. ‘What is it, Paul? What is it?’
‘He hit me. He hit me. The hired boy. He hit me!’
Mrs Weaver nearly dropped the camera. She stood staring at Tarrin, as if he were a dog turned unexpectedly vicious. She took a step backwards towards the house.
‘Mr Deet! Mr Deet! Mr Deet! Come quick! It’s your boy!’
Deet appeared in seconds, still chewing and swallowing, cake crumbs around his mouth.
‘What is it, ma’am? What is it?’
‘He hit him! He hit my son!’
Deet didn’t really know what to do either. ‘Hit him? What did he do that for?’
‘It’s all right, Mother.’
It was Paul who spoke. They stared at him, wondering what he was going to say. What other outrages had been committed?
‘I hit him first.’
He seemed proud. Proud to have started the fight and equally proud to have received as good as he had given. He actually grinned at them all.
‘I hit him first. Right, Tarrin?’
As surprised as the adults, Tarrin nodded, wondering what could be the catch. ‘That’s right. Right.’
‘We were only playing – right? And it went a bit too far.’
‘Right.’
‘Sorry we got you outside and got you worried for nothing.’
‘But your head . . .’
‘I’m all right, Mum. He’s all right too. Aren’t you?’
‘Sure, sure, I’m all right.’
‘Well, I really don’t know, Mr Deet.’
‘Boys, ma’am. Messing around. Boys’ll be boys. Same the world over. Get ’em together, they start messing around and rough-housing. Don’t know what they’re doing. All part of the fun of it, I’d say. Part of the birthday fun.’
But as he spoke, Deet gave Tarrin a sour, recriminating look, quite the reverse of what he was saying.
‘Well, I don’t know . . .’
‘Boys’ll be boys, ma’am. Take my word on that.’
‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’
‘We’re OK, Mum. Come on, Tarrin. You want to play on the tennis court?’
‘I might beat you,’ Tarrin said in a low voice. ‘What then?’
‘You won’t beat me. I’m good at it.’
He was right. Tarrin didn’t beat him. The game was a draw. But winning or losing no longer mattered. The fight had broken the ice between them. All that mattered was to play.
Deet returned to the kitchen. Mrs Weaver filmed the tennis match, then took the boys in for drinks and cake. The birthday cake was cut in the kitchen and they all sang Happy Birthday – Maria, Mrs Weaver, Tarrin and even Deet. He sang loud and lusty and slightly off-key.
When the time came to go, Tarrin asked if he could use the bathroom, and he was directed upstairs to one on the landing. He used the bathroom, washed his hands and then, as he made to go back downstairs, he happened to glance through an open door into one of the bedrooms.
He saw temptation there.
It was Mrs Weaver’s bag. It lay open upon the bed. In the bag was her purse, which was open too, and plainly visible inside it were folded banknotes. She must have filled Deet’s envelope from this wad of ready cash, to pay him for the hire of Tarrin for the afternoon, and then had left the bag on the bed.
Tarrin hesitated. He didn’t want to steal, but what choice did he have? How else could he ever pay for a DNA trace?
And they had so much here, so much.
While all he needed was five hundred.
Tarrin went into the bedroom. He could hear voices downstairs. Deet and Mrs Weaver talking about boys being boys, and her saying that she had got some good footage on the video camera and that maybe we should all do this again, and Deet agreeing – as of course he would, for it meant more money.
The thick, heavy carpets swallowed the sound of his steps. Tarrin came to the bed. He reached out and took the purse. There was a roll of eight, maybe ten, 500-unit notes. She’d never miss one. Not one. Never.
He peeled one away, put the roll back into the purse and thrust the stolen money deep into his pocket.
Deet’s voice called up the stairs.
‘What you doing up there, kid? You taking a bath or something?’
He hurriedly left the room and walked out into the corridor just as Maria appeared on the landing, carrying a basket of laundry. He couldn’t be sure if she had seen him come out of the room or not, but he acted as if she hadn’t – confident and unabashed – and he went on down the stairs.
‘Well, there he is now. We’d best be on our way. So what do you say, Tarrin?’
‘Thank you, Mrs Weaver. Thank you for having me.’
‘Our pleasure, Tarrin. Thank you for being here.’
The boys didn’t shake hands, but they nodded to each other.
‘Bye, Paul.’
‘Bye.’
‘How’s the ear?’
‘It’s OK. See you again maybe.’
‘Yeah. Great. Happy birthday.’
‘Thanks.’
Then they were back out in the street and Deet was hurrying Tarrin along as he looked around for a taxi.
‘Come on, kid, we’re behind now. I didn’t know she was wanting two hours. It’s screwed up everybody’s appointments. I had to rearrange it all. We’ll be working till seven in the evening now.’
We, Deet? We’ll be working?
‘Come on, kid. Cab over there. Taxi!’
They got in. Deet gave the driver the next address and settled back into his seat.
‘So what did you punch him in the ear for?’
‘He hit me first. You heard him. He said so. I was provoked, Deet, defending myself.’
‘Well, next time don’t retaliate. It’s bad for business. Just walk away, or do like the man said and turn the other cheek.’
Tarrin said nothing. He looked out of the window at the passing cars. He slipped his hand into his pocket to make sure that the 500-unit note was there. It was. He would have loved to have taken it out and looked at it. But Deet would have seen it then, and have asked where it had come from, and would have soon figured it out, even if Tarrin refused to tell him, and he would have given Tarrin a lecture on the morality of stealing.
Then he would have taken the note from him, put it into his own pocket and kept it for himself.
They drove on across town. Tarrin kept thinking of Paul’s life, his house, his family, his safe and settled environment, and could not help but to compare it with his own.
Then he thought of Maria, Mrs Weaver’s cook and housekeeper, and how, as he and Deet had walked away, he had looked back at the house, only to see her staring after them, looking down at them from a bedroom window, with the basket of laundry in her arms
Deet slid across the seat, so that he could talk to Tarrin in confidence.
‘You know, kid,’ he said, ‘you know I’m always looking out for you, don’t you?’
‘Sure, Deet, sure.’
‘But I’m never content with things as they are. You know that too, kid?’
‘Yes, Deet. If you say.’
‘I’m always planning, always scheming, always thinking two moves ahead.’
‘Right.’
‘Which is what I’m doing now, kid. Plans for the future, I’m talking about. You and me. And it’s your future I’m thinking of, kid. Yours more than anything and what’s going to become of you when you get too old to be a kid any more. Plans, plans, plans.’
‘Right, Deet.’
‘So you hold the faith, kid. No matter how weird things might get and how strange they might become, you have faith in your uncle Deet. He’ll always be there for you – right?’
‘Right.’
‘I’d tell you more only I can’t, because the fact of you even knowing could be all wrong and dangerous for you. Right?’
Tarrin had no idea what Deet was talking about and wasn’t even sure that Deet did. He just liked the sound of his own voice sometimes and the drone of his own thoughts.
‘Right, Deet. Right.’
‘You’ll see, kid. All in good time.’ Deet tapped his head with his forefinger, like he had Einstein in there. ‘I’m planning here. I’m planning.’
‘OK, Deet. Thanks for telling me.’
‘Just keeping you in the picture.’
They drove the rest of the way in silence, Tarrin thinking that more than ever and more than anything he needed to get away from Deet. Yet where was he to go?
In a world almost without children, where could he hide?
Tarrin didn’t like it when Deet talked about what he was planning. Deet’s plans usually meant pleasure and reward for one person, and one person only. And unpleasantness and trouble for everyone else.
‘You didn’t need to hit him though,’ Deet said later, still brooding over the fight.
‘He hit me first, Deet.’
‘Bad for business,’ Deet said. ‘Maybe he did, but it’s bad for business. Hitting the customers, kid, it’s just not businesslike. It simply ain’t professional.’
The Match
Deet bought a takeaway pizza on their way back to the motel that evening.
‘Got one with some vegetables on it,’ he said. ‘Looking out for your health, see, kid.’
He was some nutritionist all right.
They sat and ate in silence. While Tarrin was getting some water to wash it down, Deet went to his room and rifled through the stack of Edu-Packs. He came back with one entitled History and threw it down on the bed.
‘As it’s late, don’t worry about it too much,’ he said. ‘Maybe do just half an hour. Education’s OK, kid, but it’ll only take you so far. Look at me and where I’ve got today, and I don’t know much history. Nor much physics nor chemistry either. But I’ll tell you what I do know, kid – which side the bread is buttered on. As long as you know that, you’ll be OK. You’ve got to work out which side the bread’s buttered on and how to apply the jam. Because there’s people out there with all sorts of education who can make all kinds of fancy things. But they can’t all make money, kid. And it’s the only thing worth making. And if anyone tells you otherwise, ask them how they propose to live without it. So you listen to your uncle Deet, now. You’ll find it’s an education in itself.’
Yes, Tarrin thought, maybe it is too. But he didn’t think it in quite the way Deet intended.
The money Tarrin had taken was burning a hole in his pocket. He was conscious of it there all the time, seeming to radiate its own heat. He was frightened that it might fall out, or that he might accidentally pull it out, or, worse, that Deet’s mobe would ring and it would be Mrs Weaver, calling him, saying, ‘I’m sorry to ring you, Mr Deet, and I really don’t intend for this to be taken the wrong way at all, but after you and Tarrin left this afternoon, I went up to my bedroom and looked in my purse and there seemed to be a sum of money missing. And I remembered that your boy had been upstairs on his own briefly, and Maria said that she had seen him standing by the door of the bedroom, and so I just wondered . . .’
But it didn’t ring. It remained mercifully silent.
Go out, Deet.
He willed him to go.
Go out, Deet. Run your hand across your lips, like you always do, and say, ‘Mouth seems a little dry tonight, boy. Whistle seems a bit dry too. Better go out and wet it a while, I reckon. So you be good now and keep the door latched, and don’t open it to anyone, no matter how respectable they look through the spyhole, because it could all too well be a Kiddernapper. You hear me now?’
Say it, Deet. Say it and do it and then go. And as you go, say, ‘Don’t go staying up too late now, kid, or watching TV or playing on the computer there. Just finish your studying and then twenty minutes in front of the screen and then wash and brush and into bed. OK, kid? OK? And if I don’t see you later, then I’ll see you in the morning. And by the way, I’m thinking of us moving on soon, kid. It’s time to move on. It’s all worked out for a while round here. We’ll find another town in a day or so. A good kid’s always wanted somewhere. A good kid will never go begging.’
Say it, Deet. Say it and do it and go.
Deet stood, almost as if responding to nothing other than the force of Tarrin’s wishes. He ran his hand across his lips –
‘Mouth seems a little dry tonight, kid . . .’
Ten minutes later Deet was washed, changed and ready to go.
‘Keep the door shut tight, remember.’
‘I know, Deet. The Kiddernappers.’
‘They’re around, kid. Believe me. They might not always look the part. But they’re around.’
At last, Deet was gone.
Tarrin waited. He gave him a minute. One, two, three. He gave him five. Deet didn’t come back. Then he took the money out and held it to the light.
Five hundred. It would pay for it all. The blood or saliva test, the DNA analysis, the match with all other database DNA profiles.
It would buy him the information. It might buy him the name and address and the whereabouts of his family, their area of origin, his place of birth. Knowledge and information – more precious to him than any amount of money.
Money isn’t everything, Deet. Not at all. In some ways, it’s the least.
It was dark now and Tarrin hadn’t been out at night on his own ever. He’d never once been allowed out alone in the darkness.
Watch out, watch out.
There’s a Kiddernapper about.
Was there? Was it true? Or was it just grown-ups making you scared with their own fears?
Only one way to find out.
Tarrin laced his trainers and then found the room key. There were two. Deet had taken the other one with him. The key was plastic, the size of a credit card, with a magnetic strip on the back.
What if Deet got back before he did?
No. He’d be gone for hours. He’d be in a pool hall somewhere, putting his money on the side of the pool table, wanting to play the winner of the game that was going on. Or he’d be in a bar, telling the waitress that she should be in motion pictures and letting her believe that, somehow, he could get her there, right where she truly belonged.
Say he’d forgotten something though. And he came back. Just as Tarrin was leaving. He’d need to have a story ready, about thinking he’d seen something, or hearing a suspicious noise.
Tarrin gave him another five minutes. But Deet didn’t return. So he undid the security chain, peered along the corridor and saw no one. He let the door close silently behind him, then he made his way to the motel entrance and slipped out into the night.
Kinane stood and stretched himself and went to the window. It was dark out, but the night was fine, warm and even a little humid.
He decided to go out and take the air, and then, when he had walked for a time, buy himself a meal somewhere, maybe in some small Italian place. He liked Italian food, always had. Not too spicy but always flavoursome.
