Davey let him think. In the meantime he looked around Steven’s bedroom. It was smaller than the one they used to share, and darker, too. He wondered why Steven preferred it when he could almost certainly have pulled rank and demanded the big room. This one had blue curtains and a new carpet. For years – when they were not allowed in here because of Uncle Billy being dead and all – there was an ugly brown carpet on the floor, but a while back Nan had bought this one. It was pale blue and so cheap and thin that in places Davey could make out the shape of the uneven floorboards underneath, but it was still better.
Uncle Billy’s stuff was no longer here. There used to be a Lego thing gathering dust on the floor, a few tattered paperbacks on the shelf, and a photo of Billy on the bedside table. Only the photo was still there, but up high on the bookshelf, almost hidden behind some Batman action figures that Davey used to covet. Now Steven’s things filled the room: socks balled up behind the door; his iPod on the bedside table; his skateboard leaning against the wardrobe.
Davey wasn’t allowed to touch Steven’s stuff generally, but he’d had a go on the skateboard when Steven had first bought it. He’d thought he’d be great on it – it looked pretty simple and Steven was encouraging – but in fact he’d been hopeless. Steven had persevered despite falls, but Davey had quickly lost patience with pain, and rejected the skateboard, the ramp and Steven himself as a big waste of time. As time had gone on and Steven had got better and better – and further and further beyond him – Davey’s animosity towards the skateboard had grown. He’d infected Shane and a few other uncoordinated classmates with his disdain, and ‘bloody skater’ had become a stock insult, whether their target partook or not.
‘What were you doing up the hill? You’re not allowed to go to Springer Farm.’
It wasn’t what Davey had been expecting and he had no pat answer for his brother, so he said he hadn’t been to Springer Farm.
Once more, Steven seemed to know he was lying. ‘If you go up there again I’ll tell Mum on you.’
‘It’s only an old ruin. Nobody cares.’
‘You don’t understand. Going up there is dangerous.’
Davey rolled his eyes. ‘OK, Granny.’
Steven grabbed his upper arm so hard and so fast that Davey yelped. ‘I’m serious! Don’t go up that hill, OK?’
Davey twisted away from him. ‘OK! Shit. I said OK, didn’t I?’ He rubbed his arm. ‘You going to get our money back or not?’
‘Yes,’ said Steven quietly.
‘Really?’ said Davey suspiciously.
Steven didn’t answer – just got off the bed and pulled on his trainers.
Mark Trumbull was reading Beaver Patrol in the bus shelter when Steven Lamb walked up to him and snatched it out of his hands.
‘Hey!’ he said and stood up. He was two years younger than Steven, but only a bit shorter and far heavier – and he wasn’t used to taking shit from anyone.
‘Where’s the money?’ said Steven coldly.
‘What money?’ said Mark Trumbull. ‘Gimme back my magazine.’
‘I’m Davey Lamb’s brother.’
‘Yeah? So what?’
‘So where’s the money?’ said Steven again.
‘I haven’t got his money. Gimme back my magazine.’
Steven looked down at the magazine for the first time and then back at Mark Trumbull.
‘I know where you live,’ he said, and started walking.
‘No you fucking don’t.’
‘Number seventy-two.’
Mark Trumbull hurried after him. His right hand was in a fist, but he wasn’t sure whether he should actually hit Davey’s brother or not. Some vague notion he’d picked up about Steven Lamb from the collective consciousness of school made him unusually cautious. ‘You gimme my magazine or I’ll fuck you up, shithead.’
Steven Lamb said nothing and kept walking. Mark Trumbull looked nervously up the street. His house was only fifty yards away and his parents were home.
‘Hey!’ he said angrily and clutched the back of Steven’s T-shirt.
Steven turned and slapped him so hard with the rolled-up copy of Beaver Patrol that Mark Trumbull staggered off the pavement and into the road, clutching the side of his head.
Steven kept walking.
He was at the front door.
‘Where’s the money?’
Mark Trumbull stood a few feet away – panic-stricken. He didn’t know how to stop Steven knocking. Maybe he was bluffing. He’d never knock.
Steven knocked. ‘Where’s the money?’ he said again.
‘Shit! Here!’ hissed Mark Trumbull. ‘Here! Just don’t… Just come away from the bloody door! Here!’ He dug in his jeans pockets and shoved money at Steven – crumpled notes, and coins spilling on to the pavement.
‘It’s not all here,’ said Steven.
‘I spent some. That’s all there is. I swear. I fucking swear!’ Mark Trumbull was sweating and almost weeping with panic. Steven wasn’t moving away from the front door of his house. Why wasn’t he moving away?
Steven glanced at the magazine. ‘What else did you buy?’
‘Some cider. Another magazine. A skateboard. Please, mate…’
‘Bring the skateboard to school tomorrow and give it to Davey.’
‘OK! I will. I swear. Please…!’
The door opened and Mark Trumbull’s mother stood there, looking irritated.
‘Yes, what?’ she said to Steven, then noticed her son. ‘What’s going on, Mark?’
The bully looked pleadingly at Steven Lamb, who handed Mark Trumbull’s mother the curled copy of Beaver Patrol and walked away.
As he approached home, Davey and Shane were waiting on the doorstep.
‘Did you get it?’ Davey yelled from twenty houses away.
Davey asked three more times before Steven pushed past him and Shane, went inside and up to his bedroom, and shut the door.
‘He didn’t get it,’ said Shane flatly, and followed Davey inside.
Davey slapped the bedroom door with the flat of his hand. ‘Steven! Did you get it?’
‘What’s all the noise up there?’ said Nan from the front room. ‘I’m watching the War.’
After a brief pause, Steven opened the door. ‘I got what was left of it. About sixty quid.’
Davey and Shane exchanged shrugs.
‘That’s better than nothing,’ said Shane. ‘Thanks, Steven.’
‘You’re awesome, bro!’ said Davey. ‘Where is it then?’
‘It’s not yours.’
‘It is ours!’ Davey flared immediately.
‘You found it. That doesn’t mean it’s yours,’ said Steven. ‘Mark Trumbull owes you a skateboard. If he doesn’t give it to you tomorrow, let me know.’ He closed the door again and turned the key in the lock.
Shane was open-mouthed with injustice, while the anger rose higher and higher in Davey. He kicked the door.
‘Bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I don’t want a skateboard! I want my fucking money!’
He kicked the door three more times – hard enough to splinter the wood around the lock.
Davey was so angry with his brother that he never even heard Lettie coming up the stairs. Shane stepped swiftly aside, so she could get a clear run at her younger son.
22
ONLY TWO OF the three people on the list Elizabeth Rice had given Jonas actually lived within the force area. The third, Stanley Cotton, lived in Cumbria. Jonas had been to the Lakes once as a boy and was mystified by the idea that anyone who lived there would bother coming all the way to Exmoor on holiday.