Seeing my outstretched hand, he gave his head a little shake, frowned and hid the book behind his folded arms.
‘I said give it to me.’
He shook his head more slowly this time, uncertain about what he should do. I held my foot over his soldiers.
‘Give, Hanny,’ I said and he looked at me and then slowly brought it over, nudging me aside and kneeling down to resume his game.
I sat on the bed and looked inside the envelope. There were dozens and dozens of ten pound notes, and in amongst the money was a list of names
Hale. Parry. Parkinson. Collier.
‘You shouldn’t have taken this, Hanny,’ I said. ‘You got your watch back, didn’t you? Why did you have to take this as well?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Christ, Hanny,’ I said, grasping him by the arm and showing him. ‘There must be thousands of pounds here.’
He caught the tone of my voice and sat against the bed and put his head in his hands.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘You’re going to take this back. I’m not getting the blame. Whatever they want to do to you, I’ll let them.’
It was a cruel thing to say, I know, but Hanny deserved to feel as worried as I was, especially after what Clement had said. He went to put on his gorilla mask and I let him. It would do him good to be frightened. He had to learn to deal with the consequences of the things he did. I wasn’t going to be around to look after him forever. I mean, it was inevitable we would drift apart. University, career, marriage, mortgage, children. Even though they seemed unimaginable then, I was certain that, even without necessarily desiring them, I would receive these sacraments of adulthood sooner or later. They were as predictable as aging. It was just what happened in life. Wasn’t that so?
Hanny lay down and after glancing at me once or twice for some sympathy he went still and didn’t wake even when the door banged open downstairs a while later.
***
Going out onto the landing, I heard someone sobbing and Monro’s claws skittering on the tiles. People went rushing out to see what was going on. I quickly stuffed the money back into the book and shoved it under my pillow.
Miss Bunce was sitting on the bottom step, crying and gasping, several hands rubbing her back, trying to coax out of her what was wrong. Mummer stood with her arms folded. David was nowhere to be seen.
‘It was horrible,’ Miss Bunce said.
‘What was?’ Mrs Belderboss asked.
Miss Bunce waved her hand towards the darkness and blubbed again.
‘Where’s David?’ Mr Belderboss said, moving to the open door.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just ran. I thought he was behind me.’
‘Did you get lost or something, dear?’ Mrs Belderboss said.
‘No.’
‘Did you and David fall out?’
‘No, no,’ Miss Bunce snapped. ‘It wasn’t that at all.’
‘Well where is he then?’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
‘I’m sure he won’t be far away,’ said Father Bernard, gesturing for Farther and I to put on our coats. ‘We’ll go and look for him.’
We left the commotion in the house and walked up the lane to the field gate, where a smaller path cut through the grass to the wood. Monro charged off ahead and as we got further Father Bernard whistled for him and we heard him come bungling out of the darkness to appear on top of a pile of stones to our right, daft with the run, his tongue hanging over his teeth, sending out little puffs of breath.
‘Good lad, Monro,’ said Father Bernard, ruffling his ears.
We stopped for a moment and then Father Bernard called David’s name.
Nothing. Only the wind through the wood and a blackbird twittering in the darkness.
We climbed a little further and then stopped again at the tree line, our torch beams shaking and crossing, catching the eyes of animals just before they bolted. Father Bernard called out again and Monro went off, lumbering into the gloom. When we caught up with him, he was sniffing around David, who had heard Father Bernard and come to meet us.
‘David?’ said Father Bernard. ‘Is everything alright? Joan’s in a terrible state.’
‘It’s this way,’ he said. ‘In the trees over there.’
‘What is?’ said Father Bernard.
‘A man’s hanged himself, I think.’
‘Jesus,’ said Farther, then apologised to Father Bernard.
‘Show me where,’ said Father Bernard.
‘I’m sorry, Father,’ said David. ‘Monro just slipped his lead and he was off before we could catch him. He obviously got the smell of it.’
‘Show me where, David,’ said Father Bernard again.
But David shook his head.
‘I’d rather not,’ he said.
‘Alright,’ said Father Bernard. ‘You go back to the house and make sure Joan’s alright.’
‘Should I call the police?’ he asked.
‘You can’t. There’s no phone,’ said Farther.
David looked distressed.
‘Look,’ said Father Bernard. ‘I’ll see what’s what and if we need to fetch the police, I’ll drive to Little Hagby, alright? There’s a pay phone in the pub.’
David nodded and took the torch Farther offered him and went back down the field to Moorings.
Father Bernard watched him go, and then turned to look at the trees. ‘Come on, then,’ he said quietly. ‘And Tonto, you shut your eyes if I tell you to, is that clear?’
‘Yes, Father.’
The dark of the wood was absolute. Even with the torches we tripped over roots and caught our feet on brambles. Farther slipped and fell into a mire of foetid leaves and mud. We helped him out and went on, with one beam trained on the floor and the other scanning the trees, which moved to and fro in the wind and made a noise like rain. Some had been beaten down by storms and lay like the spines of dinosaurs, rotting into the ground or leaning heavily against the living. Others had fallen but not died and searching for the daylight again had grown serpently along the ground.
There was no easy way through. Every turn took us to a fresh tangle of branches that were impossible to part without being scratched and snagged.
In the dark, the woods seemed boundless and every sound carried a long way, from our boots breaking down the branches that had fallen between the trees to the noise of something thrashing through the undergrowth deep in the wood.
‘Deer,’ said Father Bernard when we stopped to listen.
‘I hope so,’ said Farther.
The crashing came again, sending a wood pigeon blundering through the trees nearest to us.
‘It must be,’ said Father Bernard. ‘They can be noisy buggers sometimes.’
‘Won’t they bother about Monro?’ said Farther.
‘No,’ said Father Bernard.
‘I thought deer didn’t get on with dogs.’
‘They’d be long gone before that lummox got anywhere near them,’ Father Bernard replied.
‘Where is he, anyway?’ said Farther, roving his torchbeam across the trees.
Monro’s barks echoed around the wood and it was impossible to tell which way he had gone. Father Bernard whistled for him and there was a great deal of rustling and when Monro barked again it sounded as if he was much closer and directly over to our left. He, of course, could slip under the branches and nose through the bracken, but for us the way was blocked and we skirted around the limbs and brambles until Farther spotted a gap where the undergrowth had been trodden down by David and Miss Bunce as they chased Monro earlier.
Yet they hadn’t been the only ones to have come this way. There were beer cans in the undergrowth and the damp smell of an old fire hung about the place, stirred with the dungy odour of cooked meat.
We came to a clearing and there was indeed a pile of burnt logs, white with ash and heaped with the remains of some animal. At first I thought it might still be alive, as its skin seemed to be moving, but as I stepped closer I could see that it merely crawled with flies and beetles foraging in its belly.