‘Damon!’ he yells and I snap out of my trance. He doesn’t see me slip the scissors into my pocket. I do as he orders, and Dad lifts the boy under his arms before we place him on the path.
‘I need you to call for help,’ he says.
‘Why can’t you?’
He is in tears and his hands are trembling. ‘I’m still on parole and the van isn’t insured. I’ll be straight back inside. Please, go and find someone. Tell them you found him like this. Don’t say we moved him, or anything at all about me. You promise?’
I nod and Dad looks nervously around him. ‘I need to go,’ he says and he starts back towards his van, then turns to look at me. ‘I’m sorry. I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around.’ Then he hurries the rest of the way to the van, pulls away and vanishes as quickly as he appeared. It’s only when he leaves that I spot a silver cigarette lighter that has fallen from hispocket. I pick it up and keep it for myself – my solitary possession of my dad’s.
Now it’s only Callum and me. I stand over his body, regarding him. My fury has died down and I see him for what he is. Skin and bones and a heart that no longer beats. He is not a threat to me. There are no obvious injuries to his body, with the exception of an angular elbow. It looks as if he is asleep. But then his eyes suddenly open and I jump.
‘I need help,’ he groans between laboured breaths. ‘I can’t move my legs.’
‘I’ll go get help,’ I say. I’m about to start running when he speaks again.
‘You called him Dad.’
My stomach clenches. ‘It was an accident,’ I say. ‘He didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘You did this together. I’m going to tell the police.’
‘No, please don’t,’ I say, panicked. ‘I’ll find help. I can make it right.’
‘You’ll never see Mum again,’ he manages to taunt while still struggling for breath. He cannot help himself. Even like this, when his life is in my hands, he is taunting me.
‘She loves me,’ I argue.
‘No she doesn’t. Nobody does.’
No, no, no, I think. I cannot let this happen again. Because if I raise the alarm and he is right, I’ll be alone. I’ll lose everything to him. I will not let him ruin my life any more than he has.
So I lower myself on to him, pressing into his stomach and further constricting his ability to breathe. And for the first time since I’ve known him, he is scared of me.
‘Get off,’ he wheezes.
Then I take the handkerchief he’s humiliated me for using and thrust it into his mouth and deep down the back of his throat.Now too weak to fight me off, he begins choking on the cloth. His expression switches from panic, to imploring me to stop and spare him. But I can’t – I won’t – risk losing everything because of him.
Finally, the boy’s eyes glaze over and the fight leaves his body.
I have murdered Callum Baird.
Chapter 74
Damon
By the time I get home to the flat, the anger that consumed me has vanished, leaving behind it a frightened schoolboy. Callum is late returning home, but Mum isn’t worried. He is rarely punctual. Then later, when swarms of police descend below the flats, and white tents are erected and sniffer dogs are deployed, Mum joins the other neighbours downstairs to find out what’s happening. Word-of-mouth spreads, and Callum’s name is mentioned.
The fallout begins.
His dad is driving his truck back from Estonia when the police contact him. My distraught mum breaks the news to me as we await Lloyd’s return, then she holds me tightly as we cry in each other’s arms – her tears for the loss of a boy she cared about, mine in gratitude for having Mum to myself again. I play the part of the grieving friend well, asking all the right questions, becoming upset when necessary, accepting sympathy from schoolteachers and whoever else offers it.
I know what I have done to Callum is wrong. But he was terrible and bent on my destruction, and it has given me the outcome I wanted. So was it really so awful?
In the days that follow, I devote all my attention to my devastated mum, ensuring she eats regularly and rests. I field visits from worried friends and make the police family liaison officer cups of tea when he comes round. He tells me a witness claims to have seen a boy matching my description chasing another child at the time of Callum’s death. But he says the man is alcohol-dependent, so can’t be relied upon. Weeks on from the discovery of Callum’s body, I will hear that man shouting over the balcony at me, ‘I know what I saw! They didn’t listen, but I know!’
For the most part, it’s only Mum and me for the first time in ages. It’s like old times. Even Maud is nowhere to be seen.
Dad appears one morning shortly after breakfast. Mum allows him in and he tells her how sorry he is. His stubble looks prickly and his hair greasy, like he hasn’t washed it or shaved in days. He and I make eye contact several times but it’s never only us together. We say nothing about what happened. About what I am allowing him to believe he did. I keep my hand in my pocket, balling the handkerchief in my palm. In the other I clutch Dad’s cigarette lighter.
