‘Yeah. Sorry, Gav. I’m supposed to meet these guys tonight. If I can’t give them anything . . .’ He put on his best expression of dread.
‘Okay. No time like the present, I suppose. I’ll go to the bank at lunchtime.’
‘Thanks. You don’t know how much this means to me. You’ve just saved me.’
Which wasn’t quite true. Three grand wasn’t enough. It didn’t take him close enough to the ten-grand target, and even that figure was one born from hope.
He needed more. And that meant he’d have to execute the second part of his plan.
The more dangerous part.
36
Daniel needed to talk.
He had tried with his mother at breakfast, after his dad had left for work, but she didn’t want to know. She’d almost screamed at him that she didn’t want to hear any more about it, and that he shouldn’t mention it to anyone, not a soul, do you hear me?
It was sealed tightly inside him, and its pressure was painful. He felt like a bottle of lemonade that had been shaken up, its contents desperate to explode.
He knew he couldn’t let it out, but he was hopeless at keeping secrets. Now he was terrified to say anything at all.
It made things difficult at the day centre. When the carers asked him questions, he responded with one-word answers – sometimes not even that, but instead a shrug or a nod or a grunt. Earlier, Mrs Collins had asked him if he wasn’t feeling well, and Laurence had said he was a miserable tosser, which he didn’t think was very nice. When he didn’t join in any of the group activities, they had allowed him to sit in a corner away from the others and do his own thing.
That thing was drawing.
He had spent hours on this picture. Or, rather, a sequence of pictures. A complete comic strip – his biggest project yet. He’d had to use the reverse side of a length of wallpaper to fit it all on.
Mrs Collins came over again, leaving everyone else watching a television programme.
‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said.
He didn’t want to answer, but it felt so rude. It might upset her.
‘Hello, Mrs Collins.’ There. That’s one, two, three words. Three whole words.
‘Do you feel like coming over and joining us?’
He looked across the room. Saw the transfixed faces bathed in the ghostly glow of the television. All except Laurence, who stared back and flipped up his middle finger.
Daniel returned his attention to his picture. ‘No, thank you.’
Three words again. She can’t get unhappy about that many words.
‘You’re very quiet today.’
Oh. She is upset. I don’t want to upset Mrs Collins. She’s too nice.
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
He tried to colour in, but he could feel her eyes on him, and it was making his crayon stray over the lines.
‘Come on. Come and watch the programme. It’s about animals in the snow. You like animals.’
He was sorely tempted. He did like animals. He particularly liked watching Arctic foxes pouncing on things beneath the snow.
‘Sometimes I do. But sometimes they bite.’
‘That’s true, but only when they need to eat. Or when they’re afraid.’
As she said this, she reached out her hand and placed it on Daniel’s forearm. It was breaking The Rule, but he didn’t mind. It felt so nice. It made him want to cry.
She said, ‘Has something happened, Daniel?’
Has something happened? He didn’t know where to begin. Didn’t know where to start with the tale of a man who got killed and chopped into tiny pieces and whose brother got angry and came after his family with a gun and asked for money and—
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said. Which wasn’t a lie, because he really didn’t want to tell that story. Not in words, anyway.
Pictures were a different matter.
‘All right,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘But if you change your mind, I’m always willing to listen. You know that, don’t you?’
He wanted to cry again.
‘Yes. Thank you, Mrs Collins.’
She laughed. ‘When are you ever going to start calling me Kim, like everyone else?’ She rubbed his arm a little, then stood up. ‘That’s a fantastic drawing, Daniel. Adam-9 again?’
He nodded, and as she walked away he sat back in his chair and looked down at his artwork.
