The Dark Inside (26 page)

When he reached the top, he hooked his feet into the latticework of scaffolding to hold himself steady. And then he drew out the old woman’s leather pouch from his greatcoat pocket and
ripped it open, scattering the seeds and pebbles and tiny bones. He listened to their musical sounds as they bounced off the scaffolding and when it was quiet again he threw away the pouch,
watching it through the air until he lost sight of it.

The bright lights were burning the top of his head and his cheeks and his lips, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes. All around him was the dark, trying to touch him, but the lights kept it
back as they hummed and shone. Down below him, Webster could see a small crowd of people.

He tried to look for James, but it was impossible to pick him out. But he knew the boy would be all right. He had made James promise to be braver than he could ever hope to be, reminding him
over and over what the vicar had told them in the church. And then Webster had apologized. For not being as brave as James had wanted him to be.

He drew out the battered old bottle of water from his greatcoat pocket and unscrewed the top. He drank until it was empty and the plastic sides bowed, and then he screwed the top back on and
hurled it into the dark.

Then he closed his eyes.

He imagined the heat on his face was the sun in a foreign, war-torn land. And in the dark inside him he saw that little girl hanging by her neck from the branch of the tree. He kept staring, and
slowly the dark began to warp and became something else. It was the wall in the bedroom of the old house where he had first met James, which the boy had painted black, and on which he’d
chalked up all his ambitions for the future. And the heat on Webster’s face became the sun shining in through the big bay windows as he remembered sitting on the sofa in that bedroom, staring
at the wall and smiling.

And under the lights Webster felt himself smiling again, for he had never been so grateful to know a person and see their hopes and dreams.

As he pushed himself off, he was weightless. The wind took away his breath.

He opened his eyes, flung back his head and stared up into the lights above him, the dark beyond them growing smaller and smaller as he fell.

When his greatcoat flapped and flew up around his ears, he lost sight of the dark forever.

James stood in the kitchen. His stepfather was sitting at the table, staring at him. In front of him lay a newspaper with a picture of James on the front page and a
headline:

It was the first time they had been alone in the house since James had been found at the fair. There had been police and doctors in the hospital, and then reporters and social
workers when James had finally returned home. And they had all done their jobs. And now here they were.

The two of them.

James and his stepfather.

Together again.

In Timpston.

‘You didn’t say anything to anyone?’ asked his stepfather.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t want to. I thoug—’

‘What?’

‘That things might be different now.’

A tiny muscle flickered in the corner of the man’s mouth and James wondered if his stepfather was trying to tell him something had changed, but couldn’t find the words. But, before
he could say anything to try and help, the man gave up staring at him and grunted, and turned the newspaper over and looked out of the window.

Neither of them spoke for a long time, but James was expecting something to happen at any moment. There were heartbeats in his wrists. His skin was paper-thin. So when his stepfather stood up
suddenly, scraping back the chair, and walked towards him, James was ready. But, instead of cowering or moving away, he stood tall, looking straight up into his stepfather’s eyes, just as
Webster had told him to do.

‘I forgive you,’ he said quietly.

‘You’ve got that the wrong way round,’ growled the man and slapped the table top beside him.

James wobbled. He swallowed down the ringing in his ears. And he kept standing tall, remembering the instructions Webster had whispered before leaving him surrounded by the people at the fair,
with their murmurs and their gasps, as they had crowded him like cattle. He heard those last three words again.

Don’t be scared.

‘I forgive you for everything you’ve done.’

His stepfather’s head jerked to the right as if he had been slapped across the jaw.

‘What did you say?’

‘For everything you’ve done and what you’re doing now.’

The man curled his fingers into a fist and raised it.

Don’t be scared.

‘I forgive you for what happened to Mum,’ said James, choking on his tears. ‘I forgive you. I do. And I’m sorry too, for everything I’ve ever said.’

His stepfather’s fist trembled as if some great force was attempting to break it apart. Looking down at the boy, he tried to say something, but the words caught in his chest and all he set
loose was a whimper.

James’s eyes seemed to swallow him whole.

Don’t be scared.

‘I forgive you,’ whispered James again. And each word was made of steel. And his stepfather shrank beneath their weight as though unable to bear them, his knees buckling, his
shoulders hunching, and his arms tucking in and folding across his chest.

He whispered something and James bent closer to hear. And, when the man repeated it and reached out and held his hand, James nodded gently and whispered something back.

He stood awkwardly over the sobbing man, recalling what the vicar had told him and Webster in the church that day.

The best and the simplest way to defeat dark and evil things is through love.

And he glanced up, out of the window, remembering the first time he had met Webster, and saw the house still there, sitting like a boulder on the hill.

And then he had to look away.

James walked up the hill towards the house. It was nothing more than a grey stone lump of a building with a rotten roof, and crumbling walls, and ceilings fogged with cobwebs.
But he wanted to be alone there, with his dreams and ideas, which he knew were chalked up on the black painted wall in the biggest of the bedrooms.

As he began remembering everything he had ever written there, he drew out the newspaper cutting, which no one had been allowed to take from him, and his hand shook as he stared at the picture of
himself. And then he tore the cutting into strips and threw them away into the wind. He wondered if anyone else might be watching. And he smiled in case they were and they were smiling too.

When he reached the rotten back door, which had once been white and full of glass, he dragged it open and ran straight through the kitchen, then up the wooden staircase, and arrived breathless
on the landing. He waited as he caught his breath, remembering the first time he had seen Webster sitting on the old sofa, looking at the wall, and then he tried hard to think of all the good
things that had happened after that.

His heart prickled as he walked into the bedroom and saw the empty seat and the dent in the cushions, so he looked away, staring up at the writing on the wall.

Something caught his eye immediately, written in a different hand in the bottom left-hand corner.

James read it over and over until he heard Webster speaking the words, as if the man was close by in a place the boy couldn’t see. And then he took a tissue from his
pocket and ran it up and down the wall, erasing everything he had ever written there, leaving only the words that Webster had written.

Chalk dust swirled. It made him cough and his eyes itch. And he walked to the big bay windows, and prised one open and breathed in the warm, clean air.

As he looked out, he noticed for the very first time that the trees, which had grown up in the fields and the hedges in the distance, had done so without the hand of man. And, as he looked down
on to the grass verges on either side of the lane, looping down around the hill, he knew the plants there would die and then grow up again according to a story far older than anything imagined and
written down in books.

Turning back to look at the wall, he stopped when he noticed a single flower growing by his foot, snaking up out of a spot where the floorboards met the wall. He knelt down in front of it,
wondering how long ago the seed must have snagged and taken root.

The red oval petals were arranged perfectly in a ring, each one overlapping the other, radiating from a pimpled yellow centre crusted with pollen.

Its fine white hairs prickled his fingers as he grasped the slim green stem.

Staring into the delicate face of the flower, his hand began to shake as he sensed a whole host of mysteries contained there that he could never hope to understand. Letting go, he closed his
eyes and was amazed at what he discovered as he stared into the dark inside him. For it was full of the same mysteries too.

And James could not remember a time when he had ever noticed such a thing before.

Writing this book has taught me that an author does not create a novel alone and I would like to thank everybody who has helped me along the way.

In particular I would like to thank Clare George for all her guidance as well as Ahmad Abu-el-ata, Marilyn Denbigh, Bella Honess Roe, Joe Marriott, Felicity Notley, Stephanie Smith, Shelley
Instone, Emma Timpany and Olly Wicken who provided me with their valuable thoughts and comments.

This book would not have been possible without Madeleine Milburn, who works so hard, believing in the words I write and encouraging others to believe in them too.

I am indebted to my editor, Jane Griffiths, for all her patience and input and to all at Simon & Schuster, especially Ingrid Selberg, Kat McKenna, Laura Hough, Elisa Offord and to Paul
Coomey for all his hard work creating the cover.

In addition I must say thank you to all those who have supported me during the writing of this book - The Queen Street Writers, Telltales, Dave Couch, Angus and Hester Macdonald, Nick Roe,
Priscilla Short and Matt Wheeler.

Thank you too to my Aunt and Uncle and of course to my Mum and my two sisters whose love has been so important.