‘You and me,’ Mr. Moore continued calmly. ‘We understand each other, don’t we?’ Bradley stared blankly, the only reply he dared make.
Moore sniggered: ‘Or did he kick his own head in?’ Bradley’s lower lip started to quiver. ‘Ah, so we do understand each other, then? Good. Because frankly I’m skint and from what I’ve seen your daddy’s doing all right for himself. Right?’
Bradley nodded slowly, unable now to keep his head from rising and falling like a puppet’s. ‘I like your attitude, Brad! You should take note of this, Gordon. Bradley here is demonstrating how a dutiful son should behave. You’d save yourself a lot of ‘inconvenience’ if you could be a bit more like your friend here.’
Moore turned his attention back to Bradley. ‘He’s a bit of a div, though, isn’t he, Brad? Let’s be honest.’ He looked over at the tearful figure of Gordon, who shuffled beneath his stooped shoulders as if his bruises were weighing him down.
‘But he’ll learn his lesson sooner or later; won’t you, Gordon?’ Moore suddenly growled. Gordon mumbled something that Brad guessed was a Yes, Dad. Moore snorted in disgust then took a deep breath.
‘I was sorry to hear about your mother, Brad.’ But he sounded anything but to Bradley. ‘It’s not right, that. Someone should pay.’
Bradley looked up into the mean looming face above. ‘The person responsible, I mean.’ Moore’s disquieting leer returned. ‘Got your mobile?’ he winked. ‘I think it’s time we sent that person a message, don’t you?’
Chapter Eighteen
It was a quarter to six when Chris got home from work and the house was empty. Two iron fists immediately began pummeling his skull and chest. He snatched his mobile from his pocket when the message alert sounded and stared at the envelope icon like it was the black spot in Treasure Island, his thumb hovering above the keypad. The message was from Bradley:
CHECK THE CAR.
OK. So the message came from Bradley’s mobile. But that didn’t mean it was Brad that had sent it – which in turn sent his mind spiraling into a maelstrom of dark possibilities. Fear paralysed his resolve. A second message arrived:
CHECK THE CAR.
An image jumped into his mind of Bradley trussed up on the tarmac in front of the BMW, handbrake off, driver’s door gaping, and the wind coaxing it down the road’s slight incline, the front tires nudging the boy’s body and starting to squeeze.
Chris bolted for the door, a primitive protectiveness galvanising him at last. To his relief the car was still where he’d left it, with nothing in front of it but litter. The mobile was still in his hand. When it vibrated he nearly dropped it.
come to the industrial estate. griffin
rd. hole in the fence. thru the woods.
railway hut. don’t keep me waiting.
‘It’s a trap,’ Chris warned himself as he turned back towards the house. He stripped quickly out of his work clothes. He’d need a good pair of boots, a proper coat, and the heavy duty torch that might have more than one use, if he got the chance. It was frustrating that he couldn’t risk carrying a shovel through the streets, but that torch could do serious damage.
Moore had crossed a line, and whatever it took Chris was through being a victim.
Chapter Nineteen
The high fence running along the periphery of the industrial estate seemed to be holding the darkness beyond at bay. When the torch batteries had last been replaced was anyone’s guess. Chris tried to swallow, but the golf ball was back. The last text message had been predictable: he wasn’t after coins anymore. Maybe he was watching Chris now from the trees ahead. It was never going to be a case of just handing the cash over with a no-hard-feelings handshake. The maximum amount he could withdraw on his three cards was bulging in his inside jacket pocket. His fingers tightened around the torch.
It took him several minutes to spot the tear in the wire. Crouching down he pulled at the corner of fencing and it peeled up easily. Chris slithered through, the damp making both knees ache. The wind fingered the foliage around him. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head and listen out for any unusual sounds. The electric hum from the warehouses was surprisingly loud. He waited for the hoot of an owl, the cry of a fox, the snap of a twig underfoot. But whatever lay ahead was waiting patiently for him to make the first move.
Chris slowly picked his way along an ill-used path, using his arms and feet to navigate, the unlit torch held upright to protect his face. He stumbled twice, nearly falling full length the second time. A branch slapped the side of his head and cold, dirty water ran down his neck. He forced himself onward, deeper into the uncertain dark.
A train approached at speed and he watched as its lights weaved through the cut below. He emerged from the undergrowth just in time to see the last few carriages bobbing along the line like an escaped fairground attraction. He wondered if any of those commuters imagined they were being watched, that a dramatic scene was about to be enacted high above them? He’d only relied on the torch beam twice and briefly, but surely that would have been enough to announce his arrival. The hairs at the back of his neck stirred in the breeze.
He thought he heard the rumble of another train, but it was only the sound of his heart. The dark taunted him with its hidden secrets. Chris pointed the torch forward, his thumb jabbing at the switch, and the beam splashed through the wet leaves. But he was still alone. He stealthily approached the concrete hut ahead, torch beam sweeping the ground like a mine detector.
Chris stopped at the threshold, his torchlight bouncing off the tin sheets crudely covering the entrance. He listened intently but the fear had suddenly left him; whatever the trap, he was well and truly in it. His only hope was that he might get in at least one good crack with the torch or swing of his boot.
Knocking away the improvised door with a clatter, he advanced into the hut. His torch beam swept left and right, expecting to find a leering kidnapper with one strong hand on a tearfully cheeked Bradley – or worse. But there was only crap furniture and a lot of dirt and litter. Any minute now he’s going to get the better of you again… Chris stood upright, the truth giggling at him from each of the four dank corners.
Chris turned and ran. He pictured his front gate still swinging in the wind where someone had left it open moments earlier. A fresh message arrived on his phone; he didn’t bother to look.
Bradley had a front door key; which meant if Moore had the boy’s mobile then he had the key too. Branches snipped at his exposed cheeks, his torch beam bouncing up and down like a horse’s head as he dashed through the undergrowth. Somewhere to his right a fox screamed, as if to mock him. You’re out of your depth, sucker! And all he could do now, he realised, was plead, beg, piss himself; give Moore all the money and promise more - anything that would spare Bradley pain and suffering. Suck up to him.
Suck up to him and hope he didn’t blow.
Chapter Twenty
Bradley slipped out of his damp coat - safe at last. But that wasn’t how he felt. Whatever he had expected Mr. Moore to be like it was nothing so apparently ‘normal’ as the man he met in Gordon’s house. Yet beneath that cheery mask something terrible lurked, just as he’d foreseen in the photograph hanging in Gordon’s den. And the fact that Moore Senior had just casually let him go made Bradley’s situation seem worse rather than better.
‘And then all you have to do,’ Mr. Moore had explained, ‘is to sit down in front of your telly and wait for Daddy to come back home like a good little boy.’
Screw that; he hadn’t broken away from one tyrant to allow another to take his place. So long as what Moore wanted coincided with what he wanted there was no need to rock the boat yet, however. But he couldn’t let himself end up with Moore alone again. That way, when Bradley disobeyed his orders, it would be his father that Moore went after. Staring at the blank TV screen Bradley grinned at the prospect of playing one adult off against the other.
He heard raised voices from the street and his breath caught in his ches
t. What if Moore got really pissed off, and went too far? Wasn’t a bad parent better than none at all? Gordon had got the rough deal in that regard. A ludicrous idea jumped into his mind that with his real parents out the way Mr. Moore might even try to adopt him. Panic overwhelmed him like a power cut. Did he really believe he could go through with this so-called plan? And what was his long term goal, to become an orphan? He pictured Gordon’s injuries, his father’s stiffened back at the roller skating rink, his wing mirror dangling by a wire, and his heart rate accelerated. Someone outside laughed and the two voices receded into the distance, leaving him alone again. Dad would be home any minute, according to Moore. He had arranged everything, apparently. Was that part of Bradley’s plan, too?
Suddenly he pictured a swimming pool and remembered the day his parents had dragged him out of the deep end when he was six; Mum scowling and Dad growling, ‘Know your limits, boy’. They’d always looked out for him, even when they weren’t getting on. If Dad disappeared too, what then? He heard a key rattle in the lock and had to fight the urge to bolt straight into his father’s arms, but his body felt lifeless.
‘Brad? Brad, are you here? Brad!’ The voice was breathless.
The faces of those he supposed to be part of his plan danced before him: leering, laughing and pointing their fingers at him. He felt hot and the room turned red around the edges. He thought he heard a police siren approaching in the distance and saw himself tearing up floorboards, desperate to move the body in order to protect his father.
‘Bradley! Bradley!’ Someone was shaking him roughly by the arms, dragging him upright, but he couldn’t take his mind’s eye from the summerhouse floor. The loose board was free, but the space beneath…
‘Bradley, please!’
The living room swam back into focus and there was Dad, his eyes wide with terror, his features weighed down by stress and worry. His hair would turn grey after this little drama. They might have to move house, change their names, God knew what else. But none of that mattered because Bradley knew she was alive. Yes, she had left and he didn’t know why. Yes, his father was not perfect and had driven her away. But none of that mattered. He felt older, suddenly aware of what adults meant when they said ‘tired’ but weren’t sleepy.
The panic grabbed his throat and squeezed. Bradley buried his face in his father’s chest just as he had years earlier by the side of that swimming pool. ‘Oh, Dad!’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘One more time should do it for Haynes.’ Bradley’s father was not the first. ‘He’ll cough up and I can get your step-mum off my back.’
If only she knew. But she must suspect something, Gordon decided. Dad hadn’t had a proper job in years.
What came next was the part of his existence Gordon hated most, the part with the Polaroid camera. The beatings he could take, but this final humiliation was what really got to him. He could lie to himself about everything else but that. Gordon was still his flesh and blood, after all. That should have counted for something.
It all seemed so long ago now, when he and Dad found themselves living in the old house, alone. Not that Gordon’s mother was dead, of course – unlike Bradley’s; though perhaps she’d suspected she might end up that way what with Gerry Moore’s fondness for using his fists. So she ran, and although Gordon was old enough to understand why, he still cried himself to sleep at night remembering that his mum had apparently saved her own skin and left him to it. There was some contact in the weeks that followed – perhaps she did try? - but Mr. Moore had something over his mother that kept her at arm’s length, something unspoken but which set Gerry into fits of spiteful laughter whenever she phoned. He’d be in high spirits after that; jolly even. But sooner or later Gerry Moore’s mood would change and he’d start getting itchy fists again.
He remembered that day his father asked casually from behind his newspaper: ‘Gordon, are you ever bullied at school?’ He replied in the negative and watched as the paper was lowered and a smirking face asked: ‘Why not?’
Gordon stared wide-eyed at the Polaroid camera. One day he would be big enough, strong enough to say no. But how long would that take, another five years, more? It was hard sometimes to recall a life that didn’t involve this role his father had created for him. A knot tightened in his stomach. Five years might as well have been fifty the good it would do him.
‘Come on,’ his father sighed like a man losing patience with a dog that refused to heel. ‘You should know the drill by now.’
The drill: a good way to describe his life, that. Gordon pulled down his trousers, leaving them bunched around his ankles and tried to think about something else as the camera clicked and whirred into life. The camera moved in closer, whirring a second time. The exposures were carefully laid on the arm of the sofa. When there were four his father chuckled: ‘One more for luck, partner.’
Goose flesh broke out over his body. In spite of his apparent frailty that body was far from broken; but what of his spirit? No one really liked him, especially his step mum and the evil sisters who made every effort to make his home life hell behind the adults’ backs. His father turned away towards the door, blackmail pictures in hand.
They would find their way to the Haynes’ letterbox one at a time. Like the Polaroid camera, he always sent them the old fashioned way - ‘Because I used to be a postman, see?’ He never sent a note; the pictures told their own story: Look what your son did to mine… Sometimes it would take two or three to do the trick. Wanna go to the police? Be my guest. And while I’m being questioned I can mention your little secret in the garden. But if his dad really believed Bradley’s mother was buried under the summerhouse why was he backing off now? Did even monsters sometimes meet their match?
‘You disgust me,’ his father sneered. ‘Get dressed and go help your mum in the kitchen.’ A horrifying image sprang into Gordon’s mind: the next photo shoot in six months’ time, but this time with his step-mother and –sisters watching on; watching, pointing and laughing.
The living room door slammed shut, leaving Gordon alone with his bruises and the promise of more to come. He wasn’t sure he was even growing like his classmates – one more reason for them to ridicule him at break time. As he got older things could surely only get worse, wherever he turned, so maybe getting older wasn’t a good idea. Apart from his misery what else was there to lose?
Pulling up his trousers and wincing at his various aches and pains, Gordon made a decision. It settled over him as easily as his oversized shirt. There was a sensation of lightness that had nothing to do with his weight, and he felt warmer than he had in months; taller even, as if the lost growth had suddenly returned all at once.
He closed his eyes and smiled, for his decision promised him the one thing he craved above all else: No more photos.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bradley stopped crying at last. ‘I started this. It’s all my fault.’
‘No. You mustn’t say that!’
Yes, this whole nightmare had started with Bradley’s bullying of Gordon Moore whilst he and Tess had been busy dismantling their marriage. But that was both their faults. If he was going to salvage anything from this mess Chris knew he would have to be honest with himself firstly. Any fool could act macho, but being a real man – and a real dad - was a lot more painful.
‘What are we going to do, Dad?’
‘We do as we’re told, son.’ Bradley started to protest, but Chris held up his hand. ‘And pray that’s the end of it.’
Because this was all part of a well-practiced scam, he realised. Moore knew exactly which buttons to press and in which order, the one marked ‘male pride’ being the prime reason for his not going to the police right at the start. It was child’s play.
‘What about Mum?’
Chris screwed his eyes shut. ‘I need a drink.’
Bradley struggled up from the sofa. ‘I’ll get it.’
Chris wondered what it was he would be told to do, but he didn’t ha
ve to try too hard. Moore had had his fun, and now he was moving in for what he’d been after all along. He knew when he woke up there would be a note through his letterbox or under the windscreen wiper of his car asking for money.
The only thing he struggled to comprehend was how Moore had manipulated his own son into getting bullied in the first place - unless, of course, the boy was in on it, too. Chris must have zoned out for a few minutes because Bradley seemed to have re-entered the room with a steaming mug instantaneously. Chris smiled. Tea was not what he’d meant by ‘a drink’. The boy looked worn out. He dreaded the outcome of his forthcoming confession, but realised there was no way to avoid it.
Bradley put the tea down on the table and slumped back into the sofa. Chris joined him there, stroking the hair from his eyes. ‘Bradley, there’s something I need to tell you.’
‘It’s all right,’ the boy sighed. ‘I know you were telling me the truth about Mum now.’
‘No. I need to tell you the whole truth, Bradley. And it’s not something I’m very proud of.’ Chris took a breath. ‘You see… I have hidden something from you, something important.’
Bradley stared at him for a second, brow furrowed suddenly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It is about your Mum,’ Chris began. ‘Your mother has been writing to you... from Auntie Roz’s’ Chris forced himself to hold Bradley’s gaze, like it was a form of penance. Guilt seemed to puncture his heart like a stiletto blade; no sign of bleeding but a fatal wound nonetheless. ‘I kept those letters from you.’
‘But I thought…’
‘And I hid them under the floor of the summerhouse.’
Bradley just stared at the carpet for nearly a minute. Did he look relieved?
‘Is she all right?’
‘I don’t know. I never opened them.’ As if that made any difference. But to his great surprise it seemed to.
‘I knew she wouldn’t just forget about me.’
‘I’m so sorry, Bradley. I could never have imagined things would turn out this way.’ But all actions had consequences. That was what fathers were supposed to teach their sons, not vice versa.
Bradley looked down into his lap, as if weighing up how to react. Tears? Foul language? Violence? But when he looked up it was with the cruelest weapon of all: a look of total disappointment.