Black Rabbit Summer (27 page)

He was smiling too.

And I was close to crying.

I almost told Barry to stop the tape then. I just couldn’t stand it. The images of Raymond and Stella, their smiles, their eyes… it was like looking at pictures of dead people.

∗

You know that feeling you get when someone’s died, and you see their photograph on the TV, or in the newspaper, and even though they were alive when the picture was taken, you somehow just
know
they’re not alive any more? Well, that’s how I felt as I sat there watching Raymond and Stella on the screen. There was just something about them – an emptiness, a lack of presence… something missing. Something that told me they weren’t here any more.

I felt as if I was watching ghosts.

And I didn’t want to watch ghosts.

But I knew DI Barry wasn’t going to stop the tape, and even if I closed my eyes, I’d still be able to hear it. And hearing it in the darkness of my head would probably only make it even worse. So I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t close my eyes, I just swallowed my tears and carried on watching.

The screen-Stella was kissing Raymond now… holding him close, planting her bright red lips on his cheek. But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were grinning at the camera. And as she kissed him again, smearing lipstick all over his face, I could see all the people around her smiling at each other, having a good laugh, watching the beauty playing with the beast…

Teasing him like a dog.

And Raymond was just going along with it – smiling at Stella, wide-eyed and excited, grinning while everyone laughed at him…

I still didn’t get it.

Raymond
wasn’t
stupid.

He
must
have known what was going on.

I watched, barely breathing now, as the camera panned away from Raymond and focused on a familiar-looking figure
shambling through the crowds towards Stella, and as my face appeared for the first time, and the two big security guys cut across the shot to block me off, I heard Mum take a startled breath.

I didn’t look at her.

I couldn’t.

My eyes were glued to the screen.

I could hear my screen-self calling out –
Raymond! Hey, Raymond!
– and although the camera didn’t show Raymond’s reaction, I remembered him grinning at me and raising his thumb. My voice sounded weird, like it was someone else’s voice, and as the camera zoomed in on me, I realized that I didn’t just
sound
pretty weird, I looked pretty weird as well. My eyes were bugged out, like two black marbles, barely blinking at all. I was sweating, pale, my muscles tense. And I understood now why the security guys had been so worried about me. I looked like something from hell.

It’s all right
, I heard myself telling them,
I’m a friend –

Get back.

I just want to –

Get BACK.

One of them put his hand on my shoulder, starting to force me back, and then Stella’s voice rang out.

It’s all right, Tony! He’s a friend. You can let him through.

Big Tony took his hand away and stepped to one side.

Hey, Pete!
Stella called out.
It IS Pete, isn’t it? Pete Boland?

I watched myself walking up to Stella and Raymond. The camera followed me. As I stopped in front of them, the camera drew back a bit, and now all three of us were in shot. Stella with her arm round Raymond’s shoulder, Raymond smiling at me…

Sorry about that, Pete
, Stella said, nodding at the security guy.
I didn’t know it was you.
She flicked back her perfect blonde hair and smiled at me again.
How are you, anyway? You look GREAT… God, I haven’t seen you for –

Raymond?
I said, looking into his eyes.
Are you OK?

He nodded.

Come on
, I told him.
Let’s get out of here.

Hold on
, Stella said to me,
what do you think you’re doing?

I just looked at her.

She glanced at Raymond, gave him a squeeze, then looked back at me.
Ray’s with me tonight
, she said with a smile.
I’m showing him how to have fun. You’re welcome to join us, if you want.

No, thanks.

Raymond was beginning to look uncomfortable now. I could see the growing fear in his eyes, the anxiety, the confusion. It was almost as if he’d only just realized where he was and what he was doing.

Come on, Raymond
, I said quietly.
I’ll buy you a hot dog.

He flicked a quick glance at Stella, then started to move away from her. She tightened her grip on his shoulder and pulled him back.

What’s the matter?
she said to him.
Don’t you LIKE me any more?

He grinned awkwardly at her.

She smiled at me.

It was at that point that I’d glanced at the guys with the camera and the microphone, and as I sat there watching myself now, it was a really disquieting experience. Just for a moment, as my eyes looked right at the camera, I was watching myself watching myself. The fairground Pete Boland; the interview-room Pete
Boland. Something white. Then and now. Something sad. Joined together. In and out of time…

And suddenly I was hearing Raymond’s voice in my head.
I mean, we don’t live in the past, do we? And we don’t live in the future. So that only leaves the present. But when’s the present? When IS now? How long does it last? A second, half a second… a millionth of a second? You can’t just be alive in a millionth of a second, can you? It doesn’t make sense.

None of it made any sense to me.

I turned my attention back to the screen and saw myself walking up to Stella and stopping right in front of her. I looked at her for a moment, then leaned forward and spoke quietly into her ear, so no one else could hear what I was saying.

And no one could.

‘Turn it up, Terry,’ DI Barry told Gallagher, leaning in towards the screen as Stella whispered back to me.

Gallagher pressed the volume control, but Stella had already stopped whispering to me, and the two of us were just standing there – Stella smiling coldly at me, while I just looked back at her. As I watched us watching each other – in a crackle of full-volume silence – I saw again the mocking emptiness in Stella’s joyless eyes. It was the look of a girl who truly believed she was the only worthwhile thing in the world.

After a second or two, the screen-Stella started speaking again, her voice booming out too loudly from the speakers.

YOU’RE GOING TO WISH YOU HADN’T DONE THIS.

AM I?
I heard myself roar.

She smiled.
YOU’VE GOT NO IDEA…

Gallagher pressed the volume control again, trying to turn it down, but he must have hit the wrong button or something,
because all at once the speakers in the interview room made a horrible crackling noise, and just for a moment the soundtrack became strangely distorted. The background noise of the fairground got louder and more muffled, booming dully like underwater explosions, and the babbling chatter of the crowds seemed to phase in and out of time, like some kind of weird choral nightmare. I watched, entranced, as the screen shimmered, the picture faded, the brightness dulled… and then suddenly the speakers crackled loudly again – a big crashing sound – and everything was back to normal. The music, the lights, the crowds, the rides…

Stella and Raymond.

I watched as she laughed and took her arm from his shoulder.
I was only looking after him for you
, she said to me.
You can have him back now.
She glanced at Raymond.
All right?

He nodded at her.

Go on, then
, she told him.
Go and get yourself a hot dog.

As I watched Raymond look at me, I suddenly felt really tired again. I was too hot, too sweaty. My body was aching all over, my head was buzzing with too much of everything. I wanted to reach out to the screen and say something to Raymond, something helpful and reassuring, but I knew it was pointless. He wasn’t there any more. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t here…

I watched myself step over and take Raymond by the arm. The camera stayed on us for a while as I quietly led him away, and then it lost interest in us, sweeping away over the crowds, blurring the lights against the dark sky, before finally re-focusing on Stella. She was staring after us, watching us go – her eyes cold, her mouth cruel and ugly, her jaw clenched tight.

Gallagher stopped the tape.

The silence was overwhelming for a few seconds, and all I
could do was stare at Stella’s face on the screen, frozen in its cruelty, and wonder what was inside her head at that moment. What was she thinking in that millionth of a second? What was I thinking? What was Raymond thinking?

‘What did you say to her?’ Barry said quietly.

I looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Stella… when you were whispering to her. What did you say?’

‘I told her to stop fucking about with Raymond.’

Barry nodded. ‘Is that what you thought she was doing – fucking about with him?’

‘I
know
that’s what she was doing.’ I looked at him. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean, you just saw her – she was playing with him, laughing at him…’

‘How do you think Raymond felt about that?’

‘He told me afterwards that he didn’t care. He said he knew she was taking the piss, but it didn’t really bother him.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

Barry shrugged. ‘It seemed to bother
you
quite a lot.’

‘So?’

He smiled. ‘I’m not criticizing you, Peter. I think you’re probably right – I think she
was
fucking him about. And I think you had every right to be angry about it. I would have been angry too. And if I was Raymond, I think I would have been
really
angry.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but you’re not Raymond, are you?’

He looked at me for a long time then, staring thoughtfully into my eyes, but I was too tired to do anything about it. I just looked back at him, letting him think whatever he wanted. Eventually he took a breath, looked down at the table, and almost
immediately looked back up at me again. ‘What did Stella say to you when you told her to stop fucking about with Raymond?’

‘ “Or else what?” ’

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s what she said –
Or else what?
’

‘What do you think she meant by that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you think she was threatening you?’

‘I didn’t think anything.’

Barry glanced across at the picture of Stella’s face still frozen on the screen. ‘She doesn’t look very happy, does she?’

I didn’t say anything.

Barry looked back at me. ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this before?’

‘I told my dad that I’d spoken to Stella.’

‘You didn’t tell him that you’d seen her with Raymond, though, did you? And you didn’t say anything about it when DS Kesey spoke to you either.’

‘Kesey never asked me about it.’

Barry shook his head. ‘Didn’t you think it might be important? Raymond’s missing, Stella’s missing, her clothes have been found, her
bloodstained
clothes… and you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t mention anything about meeting the two of them together at the fair because no one
asked
you?’ He stared accusingly at me. ‘It’s a pretty poor excuse, Peter.’

He was right, of course. It
was
a poor excuse, and there wasn’t much I could say to make it any better. So I didn’t say anything.

Barry stared at me for a second, then he did his looking-down-at-the-table-then-looking-up thing again. I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to achieve, but I guessed he knew what he was doing.

‘Had you been drinking?’ he asked me.

‘When?’

‘Before you met Stella.’

‘Yeah, a bit.’

‘How much is a bit?’

‘I don’t know… I suppose I was slightly drunk.’

Barry smiled. ‘Slightly drunk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about Raymond? Was he
slightly drunk
too?’

I shook my head. ‘He didn’t have much to drink.’

‘What about drugs?’ Barry said. ‘Did either of you take any drugs?’

I was acutely aware of Mum sitting beside me now, and I desperately wanted to say no –
no, of course we didn’t take any drugs, absolutely not
… but there was something about the way Barry was looking at me that made me think he already knew. He
knew
we’d been drinking, and he
knew
we’d been smoking dope too. And I really didn’t want to let him catch me out in any more lies.

So, forcing myself not to look at Mum, I said, ‘I had a couple of puffs on a joint, that’s all. But Raymond didn’t touch it.’

‘A couple of puffs?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nothing stronger?’

‘No.’

‘Who had the cannabis? I mean, where did it come from?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Was it yours?’

‘No.’

‘Whose was it then?’

‘I don’t know… one of the others must have brought it. I can’t remember.’

‘One of the others?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So that’d be either Paul Gilpin, Eric Leigh or Nicole Leigh? Is that right?’

I shrugged.

He looked at me, nodding his head. ‘All right… well, we’ll leave that there for now. But I think –’

‘Is this going to take much longer?’ Mum said suddenly.

Barry looked at her. ‘We’ve only just started, Mrs Boland.’

‘In that case, I think Pete needs a break. He’s had a tough time over the last few days, and he hasn’t been getting much sleep. Is there somewhere we can go for a cup of tea?’

Barry looked at me. ‘Do you want a break, Peter?’

There was nothing I wanted
more
than a break, but I knew that would mean talking to Mum about things, and I really didn’t feel like talking about those kinds of things right now.

‘I’m all right, Mum,’ I told her. ‘I’d rather just get it all over with, if that’s OK with you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you want them to get you a drink or something?’