Finders Keepers полностью

‘Mr Holly?’ said Steven tentatively, but the man did not move. Steven frowned at his long flat body clad only in shorts. His abdomen was a shallow dish between his ribs and his hip bones, containing thick red scars that crawled and twisted across his pale skin like some strange delicacy that might require chopsticks.

The marks a killer had made.

‘I feel sick,’ Steven said again, and turned away.

When he wasn’t robbing banks, Davey had often fantasized about being a cop. As part of those fantasies he’d also imagined interrogating a suspect. In his fertile young mind – fed by television – chairs were scraped across concrete floors, fists were banged on Formica tables, and interviews were conducted in an atmosphere of such loud intensity that spittle landed on the used coffee cups between the adversaries.

So when Dr Evans asked if he felt up to speaking to the police, Davey – despite having passed a restless night at North Devon Hospital – was excited.

At first.

He’d imagined a cop who looked like Will Smith in Men In Black. Cool, wearing shades and a sharp suit, with a gun in his sock and a watch shaped like a Dairylea slice. The reality was more like being quizzed by his maths teacher, Mr Harris, who picked his nose when he thought no one was looking.

DI Reynolds asked the same boring questions over and over again, and wrote everything down in a little notebook. Then he flipped the pages of that notebook back and forth before he asked his next question. It made him seem like he’d lost his memory. Davey had told him three times that he hadn’t seen the face of the man who had snatched him, and yet he kept asking about him, but in another way – as if he could trap Davey into remembering who it was.

‘Did you see him coming?’

‘No. I told you that already. He came up behind me.’

‘Tell me about the car.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘What colour was it?’

‘I told you.’

‘Can you tell me again?’

‘Dark. Blue or black. Or green maybe.’

‘Was the man wearing anything on his hands?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Did he tie your hands or mouth at any time?’

‘No.’

‘Not with rope?’

‘No.’

‘Or tape of any kind?’

‘No!’

‘But you did see Constable Holly?’

‘Yes, when they dragged me out from under the car.’

‘They dragged you?’

‘Someone dragged me. I was backwards.’

‘But Mr Holly and this smooth man were two different people?’

Davey rolled his eyes and didn’t bother answering.

Lettie gave him a look. ‘Don’t be rude, Davey,’

‘Yes,’ sang Davey. ‘They were two different people.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I dunno. I was all … whirly.’

‘And then you remember being in the boot—’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s when you saw Steven.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what happened then?’

Davey hesitated. There were things he couldn’t remember. Lots of them. But there were other things he could remember that he’d rather not tell. Specially not with his mother and Dr Evans hovering anxiously at the foot of his bed, listening to everything. His mother clutched the metal rail with both hands, as if DI Reynolds might carry him and his bed off, just for a laugh.

He remembered being jostled and opening his eyes to see Steven’s face so close …

‘Ssssssh!’

‘What? Go away.’

‘Davey, shush!’

Hands under his shoulders and knees, lifting him out of the boot of the car; the sky and the treetops above him, and sweat rolling off a spiky fringe.

His feet hitting the ground.

‘Go AWAY! I’ll tell my brother!’

‘Davey, shut up! It’s me. Ssssssh!’

But he hadn’t shushed. He could remember that. With shame coating his innards like hot syrup, Davey remembered fighting instead – fighting Steven! Waving his fists blindly and shouting so loud that it echoed. He couldn’t remember what. He’d connected with one fist. Hard. And then he’d just run – all wobbly and tumbly and knee-scrapey through the stumps and the ferns.

He hadn’t even looked back …

‘Yes?’ said DI Reynolds.

‘And he helped me out and we ran away.’

‘And where was Mr Holly while you were running away?’

‘Dunno.’ Davey shrugged.

‘And where was the other man?’

‘Dunno.’

A tiny, elderly Pakistani woman pushed a filthy mop shaped like a V into the ward and past the end of his bed while nodding into a mobile phone, and Davey longed for a life like that, where he didn’t have to think, and nobody asked him difficult questions.

‘They just let you run away? Didn’t try to catch you?’

‘I ran fast,’ said Davey. Then, without prompting, he added hurriedly, ‘Steven was right behind me; he must have got lost or something.’

DI Reynolds said nothing but flipped back several pages, clicking his pen and making a small tu-tu-tu sound through his pursed lips, like a tiny train.