Finders Keepers полностью

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.

So when Steven came home from school and found his skateboard was missing, there was no doubt in his mind who had taken it.

‘DAVEY!’

He banged through his brother’s bedroom door. Davey wasn’t there, so Steven searched the room. It was in its usual chaotic state, and looked no worse after he’d spent fifteen minutes turning it upside down and inside out, but at least he was sure his skateboard was not there.

He searched the back garden, making threats inside his head to kill Davey if he had left it out to be warped by dew or rain. Inside the coal bunker, behind the bins, under the wigwams of beans that he and Uncle Jude planted each spring. He even took a careful garden fork to the compost heap, just in case Davey had buried it there among the dirt and weeds and potato peelings. He’d kill him if he had. The skateboard had Bones Swiss bearings and had cost him £95 – and he only earned twelve quid a week.

Nothing.

‘Little shit!’ he shouted, and didn’t even say sorry to Mr Randall when his head popped up over the garden fence.

Steven ran back through the house, yelling for his brother.

‘What’s wrong?’ shouted his mother from upstairs. ‘He’s at Shane’s house!’

Steven knew that wasn’t true.

He slammed the front door behind him.

Davey saw Steven coming at the exact same moment that Shane managed to perform his first turn at the lip of the ramp without falling.

‘Yes!’ shouted Shane, with his fists in the air, and promptly fell off.

‘Shit!’ said Davey and jumped off the swing before it had stopped, giving himself a running start across the football field.

Just as he’d suspected, Steven was faster. And worse than that, Steven was angry. Angrier than Davey had ever seen him. Shane shouted something from behind him, but he didn’t know what. Davey had never been scared of Steven, but all that changed in an instant. For the first time in his short life, Davey experienced complete and utter regret. He’d thought he was being so clever. He’d thought he was getting Steven back but good. Now he realized that all he had been doing was signing his own death warrant, and fear speeded him so much that for a brief moment he actually thought he might outrun his brother.

He raced away from the village and towards the stile at the far edge of the field, arms pumping, knees flashing, but twenty yards off, he knew he’d never make it. He threw a desperate look over his shoulder and yelped at how close Steven was.

He stopped and turned – hands out defensively.

‘I’m sorry!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t hit me!’

Steven ran right through him, knocking him backwards straight off his feet, and landing on top of him with a force that made Davey howl.

‘Where is it?! Where is it, you little shit?’ He drew back his clenched fist.

Davey covered his face with raised arms. ‘Don’t hurt me, Stevie! I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!’

Steven hesitated, straddling his brother’s chest.

‘Where is it?’ he yelled again.

‘In the river!’ shouted a panicky Shane from beside them. ‘It’s in the river!’

‘Fuck!’ Steven got to his feet, dragging Davey up with him by the front of his T-shirt and one skinny arm. ‘Show me,’ he said, and started to haul his brother towards the stream at the edge of the field.

‘I don’t know, Stevie …’

Steven half pushed, half dragged Davey to the top of the steep, bramble-strewn bank. ‘Show me!’ he demanded again.

They followed the stream – Davey stumbling and twisting in Steven’s grip, trying not to cry.

‘There,’ he pointed.

Through the shallow water, Steven saw the tail of his skateboard sticking out of the mud and was seized with new fury.

‘Go get it!’ he told Davey, and shoved him hard down the bank. Davey tumbled through the thorns and the prickles and skidded into the water with a solid splash.

‘Shit,’ said Shane.