Owning Jacob - SA

Chapter fifteen

It was only because of a sleepless night that Ben found out that Kale was keeping Jacob from school.

Insomnia had never been something that had troubled him before Sarah’s death. Since then, though, and especially in the last few weeks, he was beginning to become familiar with its company. He’d fallen asleep when he went to bed but woken just after three, suddenly wide awake — a feat he wished he could achieve as painlessly at a more humane hour. There had been no reason for it, no noises or disturbance he could blame, but sleep was suddenly as far away as if he’d been up for ages. He’d lain watching the luminous digits of the clock radio beside the bed counting off the night’s passage with silent, infinitesimally slow beats. Sleeplessness, he’d found, distorted time more than the acid he’d tried at university. He would wait for one minute to lick into another. The numerals were an electronic cage that time seemed wantonly to wind in and out of, cramming more and more of itself into each sixty seconds until Ben became convinced that the clock had stopped. Then the numbers would change, and he would watch and wait again.

His mind began to run like an automated cinema projector, throwing up images that the dark had kitted out with spikes and poison. He reviewed his bravado in the pub and saw it was juvenile. It had been a ridiculous posture, a bluster to hide the fact that he daren’t do anything where it mattered, with Kale. He replayed their encounters and felt shamed. He had backed down at every one. In the daylight he could tell himself that Kale was a trained soldier, used to violence, that he was unbalanced and provoking him would be suicidal. But the darkness stripped those rationalisations away.

The uncushioned truth was that he was scared of him.

He remembered a street fight he had seen when he was a student. A group of men had been arguing outside a pub, and as Ben had crossed to the other side of the road to avoid them the argument had suddenly exploded. He saw one man drop to his knees and have his head kicked like a football. The dull crack of his skull hitting the pavement had been audible even across the street, and as the fight spilled into the road Ben had hurried away from the sight of someone jumping with both feet on the fallen man’s head.

He never heard anything about the fight afterwards, but he’d felt sick, sure he’d watched a man being killed. He’d hated himself for not doing anything, just as he hated himself now.

You’re a fucking coward. He visualised the scene again, only this time with Kale as the attacker, and himself the figure on the floor. As he stared at the bedroom ceiling he felt a four-o’-clock-in-the-morning certainty that there wasn’t going to be any amicable ending between them. The soldier had slipped whatever restraints checked most people. If Ben kept on trying to see Jacob, sooner or later something would snap when there wasn’t anyone around to intervene.

If that happened, Ben knew Kale wouldn’t stop until he was dead.

At six o’clock he threw back the quilt and got up. It was still dark outside. He turned on the lights and tried to shrug off the disjointed feeling that still hung over him. He showered, treating himself to longer than usual, and under the hot needles he immediately began to feel tired. He was tempted to go back to bed, but he knew if he did he’d feel worse than ever when it came to getting up again in an hour or two’s time.

He went downstairs, switched on the radio and set some coffee percolating. Jacob used to like morning TV, but Ben couldn’t bear to listen to it now. He ate a bowl of cereal standing by the kitchen window while he waited for the toast.

There was a faint paleness in the sky, but not enough to suggest that daylight was on its way. He put his dish in the bowl and spread sunflower margarine on the toast. Sarah had weaned him off butter and he still felt guilty if he spread anything remotely cholesterol-friendly on his bread.

By the time he’d finished breakfast it was almost seven.

He had to be at the studio later that morning for the day’s shoot, a fashion piece for a magazine. But he still had time to kill. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. The salt and pepper mills lay exactly where he’d left them the night before. At the far end of the table was a ring from the coffee mug he’d almost knocked over the previous morning. He’d meant to wipe it up but had forgotten. The stain would stay there until he did something about it. He looked around the kitchen. Everything in it would remain exactly as it was now, unless he made it otherwise. There was no one to scold him for not washing the dishes, no one to move a chair out of place, to disturb a single spoon except him.

It struck him with a painful clarity how alone he was.

He wondered why he didn’t move to somewhere smaller. The house was far too big for him, and the empty rooms only reminded him of what he’d lost. He felt no sentimental attachment to it. It was part of the life he’d had with Sarah, but that life had ended. It made more sense to sell it and buy a flat, big enough to have a darkroom, not so big that felt lost in it. Time to move on, cut his losses and get on with building a new life instead of living in the shadows of the old.

So why don’t you?

He couldn’t answer that. Any more than he could explain why he had held on to the old toys and clothes of Jacob’s that the Kales hadn’t wanted instead of getting rid of them as he had Sarah’s belongings. He knew that the two issues were connected, but he wasn’t ready yet to face up to them.

Not at seven o’clock in the morning.

Make that five past, he thought, glancing at the clock.

Hours yet before he had to be at the studio. Fuck it.

He went upstairs to get dressed.

It had grudgingly lightened when he set off for Tunford, as though the day felt as unenthusiastic about starting as he did. He turned on the car heater full to drive away the chill as he set off. With luck he’d miss the heaviest of the rush-hour traffic and shave something off the one-and-a-half-hour run.

He would have three-quarters of an hour there at best, and might just catch the Kales at breakfast. He knew there was no real point to the journey, but the town had become his magnetic north. He swung to it automatically when there was no other draw on his attention.

The sleepless night had made him gritty-eyed and irritable. He yawned as he moved into the motorway’s inside lane for the Tunford exit There were flashing red lights up ahead. The slip road was walled off by a line of orange cones, clustered with workmen and earth-shifting machinery.

“Fucking great.”

He could still get to Tunford from the next junction but it would take longer, cutting into the time he could spend there. His mood deteriorated with each mile, and dropped still lower after he took the next turnoff and found there were no road signs. He consulted the map. He would have to come in from the opposite direction to usual, joining the road that linked Tunford and the next town at the halfway point. Tossing the map on to the seat in disgust, he set off again, sure now that Kale and Jacob would have left by the time he arrived.

Although Sandra would still be there, perhaps still in bed.

Ben had never seen her getting up.

It took him ten minutes to reach the connecting road. He pulled up at a give-way sign, waiting for a gap in the traffic.

One of the cars approaching was a rusting Ford Escort. That’s like Kale’s, he thought, a moment before he recognised Kale himself behind the wheel. Jacob was next to him.

The car shot by in a blat of exhaust. He briefly considered the possibility that Kale might be taking his son to school, but somehow he knew he wasn’t. There was a fleeting regret that he wouldn’t see Sandra getting up after all, then he flicked the indicator the other way and went after them.

He hung back, keeping other cars in between himself and the Escort as he followed. He was already certain where they were going even before the scrapyard’s barbed-wire-topped wall came into sight. He drove past after Kale’s car had disappeared inside, then made a tight U-turn and parked a little further down the road.

From there he could see anything that came in or out of the tall gates. He felt a tight anger at himself for not realising sooner what Kale was doing. All this time he’d never given a thought to the fact that when Kale was at work, Jacob wasn’t around either. He remembered the smudges and oil stains he’d noticed on Jacob’s clothes and wondered how he could have been so stupid. He should have known that Kale didn’t want anything coming between him and his son. Including school.

Still watching the gates, Ben took out his mobile and found the number of Jacob’s social worker from his address book. A woman told him that Carlisle hadn’t arrived yet. He rang off and tried ten minutes later, then ten minutes after that, ignoring the woman’s growing irritation until finally Carlisle himself answered. The social worker sounded wary. So you fucking should.

The question boiled out of him. “Jacob’s been missing school, hasn’t he?”

There was a hesitation. “Who’s told you that?”

“Never mind who’s told me. It’s true, isn’t it?” Ben counted to three before the social worker answered.

“There has been some problem about attendance, but—”

“Some ‘problem’? He isn’t going, is he?”

“Mr Murray, I don’t—”

“Is he?”

Again there was a pause. “The situation is being monitored.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly that. And I don’t think there’s any call for being abusive.”

Ben took a deep breath. “I apologise.” He waited until the desire to scream at the man faded. “How long’s this been going on?”

“That’s something I really can’t discuss.”

“Look, if you don’t tell me I’ll ask the school myself!”

“I’m afraid I’m not—”

“Has he been at all since he’s been living with Kale? He hasn’t, has he?”

He could hear Carlisle’s reluctance. “Er... well, actually no, I don’t believe he has.”

Ben didn’t trust himself to speak.

“There’s been some confusion over whether or not Jacob’s been well enough to attend,” Carlisle said, defensive now. “Mr and Mrs Kale — well, Mrs Kale, really — claims that he has a virus. We’ve warned them that we need to see a doctor’s certificate, and that it’s illegal to keep Jacob off school without one.”

And I bet that made a lot of difference. Ben stared across the road at the scrapyard. “Kale’s been taking him to work with him. That’s why he isn’t at school, not because he’s got a ‘virus’.”

“How do you know?” The officiousness had crept back into the social worker’s voice. He sounded more annoyed than anything.

“Because I’m outside the yard now. They’re still in there, if you want to check yourself.”

“You’ve actually seen them?”

“That’s right.”

He could sense Carlisle trying to juggle this information into an acceptable package. “Perhaps there’s no one to look after him at home.”

Ben’s patience ran out. “Oh, for God’s sake. If he’s well enough to go to a scrapyard, he’s well enough to go to school! There’s nothing wrong with him! Kale just doesn’t want him to go!”

“I’m sorry, Mr Murray, but I can’t see how you can be such an expert on Mr Kale’s motives. And even if he has taken Jacob to work today—”

“He has.”

“—even if he has, we can’t jump to conclusions on the basis of an isolated occurrence.”

“Of course it isn’t isolated! His wife’s been feeding you this ‘virus’ crap to keep you off his back, and you’re letting him get away with it!”

“We’re not letting him get away with anything, Mr Murray—”

“Then why don’t you do something?”

“If it’s felt there’s a need then we will, but a heavy-handed approach isn’t going to help, and we don’t feel it’s currently called for. It’s an extremely sensitive case, and we don’t want to be seen to be—”

“Don’t want to be seen? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? You’re frightened of getting bad press!”

Carlisle’s voice had a quaver of suppressed anger. “I don’t need telling how to do my job, thank you, Mr Murray. And if you don’t mind I’d like to get on with it now.”

“Are you going to do anything about Kale?”

“We’ll look into it. Goodbye.”

“Hang on—!” Ben began, but Carlisle had already hung up. “Bastard!”

There was a crack of plastic as Ben struck the phone against the dashboard. He subsided, then smashed it down twice more, each time harder, and flung it on to the passenger seat. He stared through the windscreen, incensed.

He visualised walking into Carlisle’s office, kicking his desk over, banging the man’s head against the wall until it was bloodied and crushed.

Then he thought about Kale, and considered walking into the scrapyard to face him. He imagined knocking him down, incapacitating him with a kick to his crippled knee, towering victoriously over his beaten figure, but even his anger wasn’t enough to make that seem credible. With a cold breath of realism his temper was snuffed out and left him back in the car, impotent and bleak.

Brooding, he glared at the gates.

It was the rumble of his stomach that roused him. He stirred, stiff and uncomfortable. The rumble came again. It occurred to him that he was hungry, and with that realisation he suddenly remembered what he should be doing.

Oh Christ, he thought, the shoot!

He looked at his watch, swore, and reached for his mobile.

The sight of it lying smashed on the seat next to him was like a smug chastisement. He tried it anyway. Dead. He threw it down and scrambled to start the ignition. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

There was an irate blare of horn as he shot out into the road. He ignored it and tore back the way he’d come, praying for a phone box. But there was nothing except fields and fences.

He reached the junction where he’d seen Kale’s car, decided to go into Tunford to find a phone and changed his mind at the last moment, raking the corner in a squeal of rubber. The car vibrated as he hammered down the outside lane. He was making good time until he neared London, where the traffic thickened to the consistency of sludge.

When he reached the studio there were no parking spaces, and he had to meander further and further away before he found one.

He ran back to the building and pounded up the stairs.

He was breathless and sweating as he burst through the door, the apology ready on his lips. Zoe looked up from where she was sitting reading a magazine. There was no one else in the room.

He stood in the doorway, panting. “Where are they?” Zoe went back to the magazine, idly flicking over the page. “Gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“They didn’t say. Somewhere there’s a photographer, I expect.”

“Fuck.” He sagged against the door. “Couldn’t you have told them to wait?”

She flung the magazine down and jumped up. “What the fuck do you think I did? It’s half past fucking two, Ben! Where the hell have you been?”

He closed the door. “I got delayed.”

“Delayed? Well, that’s just fucking great! You get delayed, so I have to make excuses, get yelled at over the phone by the fucking photo editor — who, by the way, says he’s going to bill you for the models’ time — and look like a fucking idiot because I don’t have a clue where you are! You weren’t at your flat, I couldn’t get you on your mobile! I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do?”

His throat ached. He wiped the sweat from his mouth. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I, Ben.” She raised her hand, let it fall as though abandoning whatever else she had been going to say. “I mean, what the fuck’s the matter with you lately? It isn’t just today. All I seem to be doing is apologising and making excuses for you. You’re turning up late, you’re forgetting things. You don’t even concentrate when you’re on a shoot! You just don’t seem to give a shit any more!”

“Look I know I fucked up, I’ve apologised, let’s forget about it.”

“No, let’s not!” she flared. “I’ve been ignoring it for weeks! I’m getting sick of it!”

“Well, fuck off, then — nobody’s making you stay!”

Her face went white. She stared at him, then went to where her coat was hanging.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said.

She ignored him, picked up her bag from the sofa.

“I didn’t mean it, all right?”

She went around him to the door.

“Zoe...” He put his hand on her arm. She shrugged it off, not looking at him. “Look, come on...” He reached for her again.

“Don’t touch me, you bastard!” Her mouth was set and trembling. He could see that her eyes were wet.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you fucking shouldn’t.”

“Can I move away from the door now, or are you still going to walk out?”

She moved back into the room. She dropped her bag on the sofa and stood in front of him, waiting sullenly.

Ben ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it from where it was stuck to his forehead. It had taken it weeks to grow back after he’d had it cropped. “I know I’ve been a bit unreliable lately...” Zoe gave a snort. “...and I know it’s given you a hard time. It’s just that I’ve had a lot on my mind, and there’s a few personal things I need to sort out. But I promise I’ll try and get my shit together in future, okay?”

She looked at him, unimpressed. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on! You suddenly start carrying a big bastard of a telephoto lens around with you, you’re never at home, you’re always turning up late and rushing off somewhere. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to guess what you’re doing.”

And you thought you were being so subtle.

To give himself time he took off his coat and hung it up. Underneath, his shirt was plastered to his back. He pulled it away from his skin.

“They don’t deserve to have him.”

Zoe didn’t bother to ask who he was talking about. “It’s a bit late to decide that, isn’t it? I’m sorry, and everything, but they’ve got him. You’re just going to have to live with it.”

Ben shook his head.

“So what good is spying on them with a telephoto lens going to do?”

He didn’t answer.

“Fucking hell, Ben, can’t you see you’re getting obsessed? And while you’re playing at peeping Tom your career’s going down the fucking tubes!”

“It’s not that bad,” he said, stung, but he wasn’t sure which part he was denying. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“Isn’t it? And what’s it going to achieve?”

“I want him back.”

It was the first time he had admitted it, even to himself.

He felt a superstitious unease at having finally voiced the hope, as though now the gods, providence and pure shitty luck would conspire against it.

Zoe seemed about to argue further, but then abruptly gave up. She flopped down on to the sofa. “I just hope you know what you’re fucking doing.”

So do I.

Ben went to the fridge and poured himself a glass of water. Zoe watched him, worriedly chewing a nail. “Is there anything I can do?”

The offer touched him. “Thanks, but you’ve put up with enough already.”

She nodded, but still seemed abstracted. “Can I ask a favour, then?”

“Yeah, sure. What?”

“The shoot tomorrow. Do you mind if I don’t stick around after I’ve helped you set it up?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said, eager to appease. He refilled the glass. “Have you got something else on?”

She studied her bitten fingernail. “Not really. It’s just that Daniel’s one of the models, and I’d rather not see him.” She gave a shrug that was meant to be unconcerned. “We had a big row last week.”

It took a few seconds for him to realise what she was talking about. The model who had given Zoe a lift home from the shoot on the beach had been called Daniel. Ben hadn’t known he was involved in the next day’s shoot — or if he had he’d forgotten. He’d even less idea that Zoe had continued seeing him.

I really have been losing touch, he thought.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how it goes.” She stood up and stretched, affecting indifference. “Things don’t always turn out how we’d like, do they?”

Ben drank the water and pretended he hadn’t heard.

Kale propped the car door on top of the wrecked bonnet, manoeuvred it until it balanced, studied it, then shifted it slightly. He picked up another, unrecognisable car part and placed that with it, going through the same careful process before he was apparently satisfied. They were part of a selection of new parts he must have gathered over the previous week.

It had become too dark in the evening for him to do much when he arrived home at night, but each weekend he would still be out in the garden, arranging his recent additions with all the care of a stamp collector gumming in a Penny Black.

A few feet away, Jacob sat in his usual place on the car seat, a thick duffel coat buttoned up to his chin as he tilted and spun a puzzle block. His father’s sole concession to the weather was that he now wore track-suit bottoms instead of shorts. The breath from the two of them misted in the cold air, exhaust from biological engines.

Ben cupped his hands and blew into them without taking his eye from the images in the viewfinder. It was, without a doubt, fucking freezing. The chill cut through the woollen hat that he wore pulled down over his ears and the fleece-lined Gore-Tex coat. His fingers were numb from handling the camera, but gloves would have been too cumbersome to work in. He rubbed the tip of his nose and considered having another coffee. He was eking out his flask, knowing that once it was gone there would be nothing to warm him until he was back in the car. The long-term view won. He thrust his hands into his coat pockets instead.

“Come on, do something,” he said to the magnified figure of Kale. But Kale typically showed no inclination of obliging. He continued his rearranging with the same painstaking deliberation as ever, moving the tortured pieces of metal around as if seeing how they would fit. Ben felt something almost work its way from his subconscious.

He grabbed for it, but it was gone. He sighed impatiently as Kale moved the battered car door from the position he’d seemed happy with five minutes before, and carried it to another part of the garden.

“It’s just scrap,” he muttered. “As if it matters.”

He shifted his attention to the house. Kale and Jacob had already been in the garden when he arrived, but there was no sign of Sandra.

Judging by the drawn bedroom curtains she still hadn’t got up. Ben hoped the idle bitch was enjoying her lie-in. He’d spoken to her the night before, taping the conversation as a matter of course as he reminded her that it was his weekend for contact with Jacob again. She’d replied that Jacob’s cold had flared up, but neither of them made any pretence that the lie was anything other than a formality. Their tone had been quite bantering. Flirtatious, almost. When Ben had put the phone down he’d had a hard-on.

He stared at the closed curtains, willing her to open them.

They remained drawn. Fuck it, he thought.

He sat back from the camera and reached for the Thermos flask. The hot steam from the coffee condensed on his cheeks as he cupped his hands around the plastic cup, huddling himself around it. The air was damp and smoky. A crow caw-cawed from somewhere nearby, but other than that the woods seemed to have shut down. In the last week the autumn colours had given way to the dripping blacks and browns of winter, a time of year and colour scheme that Ben found depressing at the best of times, let alone when he had to sit out in it. The small oaks that formed his den were stripped bare except for a few dead leaves that still clung to them like early Christmas ornaments.

He no longer felt invisible in them, although the branches themselves overlapped so densely that he doubted that anyone could see him from more than a few feet away. But it gave an added insecurity to the time he spent in the woods, and on those occasions when he heard other people in them he wouldn’t dare move until he was sure they’d gone.

He took a king-sized Snickers bar from his pocket and tore it open. The chocolate was hard and brittle with cold. He took another drink of coffee to wash it down and found that it had already turned tepid.

“Piss,” he said. He drank it anyway and ate half the Snickers. The rest he put back in his pocket before looking through the viewfinder again. The curtains remained resolutely shut.

He tilted the camera so he could see Jacob and Kale in the garden again. Kale had started the balletic movements of his warm-up routine. Ben watched him stretch and twist without interest.

He had seen it all countless times, but still not caught him doing anything else that threatened Jacob. He no longer really believed that he would. The single incident he’d witnessed seemed like something even Kale wouldn’t be reckless enough to try more than once.

He didn’t let himself consider why, in that case, he continued watching them.

Since he’d discovered that Kale and Jacob spent their days together at the scrapyard, surrounded by the crushed and wrecked remains of cars, Ben’s entire perspective had somehow altered. Some of it he could put down to jealousy and anger that Kale was selfishly spending so much time with his son. But the apparent obliviousness they displayed towards each other in the garden now seemed to him more like an acute familiarity, each so conscious of the other’s presence that it was taken for granted. There were times when he could almost believe that Jacob’s tireless absorption with his puzzles and Kale’s behaviour were somehow linked, their apparently separate tasks both working towards the same obscure end.

Then he’d remind himself that Jacob was autistic and Kale had one foot in the funhouse, and wonder if his own sanity wasn’t flapping in the wind.

He sat back and blew on his hands again, bored. A flutter of movement showed on the first floor of the house. He looked through the camera and felt animation return as the bedroom curtains were jerked back. Sandra Kale squinted against the daylight and quickly turned away. Ben expected her to leave the room, but she went to the bed and sat on its edge, rubbing her temples. He grinned. Heavy night, was it?

He quickly slipped the polarising filter on to the lens and refocused. The inside of the bedroom opened up to him. Sandra’s hair was dishevelled, the dark roots forming a ragged dark line down the centre of her scalp. The grubby bathrobe was belted loosely around her waist. It fell open as she pushed her hands back through her hair, revealing a breast and nipple. When she lowered her arms the breast remained carelessly exposed. His finger pressed reflexively on the shutter release as she stood up wearily and the robe hung open, affording him a quick glimpse of her navel and the tuft of black hair at her crotch before she turned and went out.

The small frosted panel of the bathroom window became yellow as the light was switched on. Ben waited, only dimly aware of the touch of the camera’s icy case on his fingers. The bedroom. Go back to the bedroom.

The bathroom light winked out. The bedroom door opened and Sandra reappeared. Her hair was wet, slicked straight back on her head like an otter pelt, the chemical blond now darkened to a metallic sheen. Her face looked both younger and less formed without its covering of make-up. She hadn’t bothered to fasten the bathrobe, and now she slipped it off. Her nipples were erect. He wondered if she’d had a shower, and his guess was confirmed a moment later when she used the bathrobe to dry her back. Dropping it on the bed she opened a drawer in the dressing table and rummaged around.

Without taking anything from it she impatiently pushed it shut and picked up a white scrap of cloth from the floor. It was a pair of pants. She gave them a quick shake before stepping into them. The stretch marks stood out like scars on her pale stomach.

She put on a bra, also from the floor, then pulled on a pair of tight jeans. With a wiggle of her hips she hitched up the waistband and fastened the zip with a swift tug. She took a cream-coloured sweater from the back of a chair, pulling it over her head as she walked out.

He continued to watch the bedroom until it became obvious she wasn’t coming back. He straightened, becoming conscious of the erection trapped painfully in his jeans. Trying to dismiss the now familiar, vaguely soiled feeling that watching her gave him, he manoeuvred until he was more comfortable and took the Snickers bar from his pocket. Biting into it, he idly looked down the hill towards the house. The diminutive figures of Kale and Jacob were still in the garden.

Kale was holding the engine over Jacob’s head.

Ben took in the strained stance, the way the weight was seesawing in Kale’s hands, and the chocolate turned to clay in his mouth. He dived for the camera, fumbling at it with cold and clumsy fingers.

“Oh, please, please, please,” he breathed, not sure if he was pleading for Jacob’s safety or enough time to photograph what was happening.

The garden swung dizzyingly across the viewfinder, then Kale and Jacob came into sight. He hastily adjusted the focus and changed the exposure as the engine slowly wobbled higher in what had to be the final lift. The filter was still on the lens but there was nothing he could do about that. As the tendons stood out in Kale’s neck and his mouth opened in a silent grimace, Ben switched on the motor and pressed the shutter release, praying there would be enough film left.

The camera began to whirr a second before Kale twisted to one side and dropped the weight. It thumped down beside Jacob, and in the same instant the film came to an end and started to rewind.

How much did I get? Enough? He didn’t know. He quickly snatched the filter from the lens and changed the film, then ran off half of it while Kale was still doubled over. He made sure the lump of metal embedded next to Jacob was included in each frame.

Kale straightened and began to limp away. Ben slumped back. He realised he still had a mouthful of semi-masticated chocolate. He spat it out. The rest of the Snickers bar lay at his feet where it had fallen out of the wrapper. He looked at the plastic film container in his hand and gave it a little shake to reassure himself.

Jesus.

He’d nearly missed it. All this time, all those weeks, and when it finally happened he almost hadn’t noticed. He’d been too busy watching a woman take her clothes off.

You pathetic bastard.

Over the top of the camera he saw the once again reduced figure of Kale going into the shed. Ben knew that when he came out he would go over to Jacob and deliver another of his monologues. There was a hint of movement in the kitchen window that would be Sandra Kale, doing whatever. Even through the bitter taste of self-contempt, Ben felt his curiosity piqued, felt himself drawn to bend forward and peer through the viewfinder again, to involve himself vicariously in their lives. Deliberately, he removed the lens from the camera.

He packed everything away, then stood up and folded the stool. He looked around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. The nest of flattened grass he had made for himself looked as familiar as home.

He wouldn’t be going back.

The coffee and adrenalin had worked on his bladder.

Leaving his bag and the lens by the oaks, he moved a few feet away to urinate. His piss steamed like yellow acid on the dead grass. He shook off the last drops and was zipping up his fly when a barking shape exploded from the undergrowth behind him.

For an instant he thought it was Kale’s bull terrier, but the dog was smaller and white, a Jack Russell cross. It set up a hysterical yapping and snarling, prancing just out of kicking range as he sank back against a tree with relief.

“Bess! Get here!”

Two men were walking through the trees towards him. I never looked, he thought, his relief turning cold. The first time I didn’t check to see if the woods were clear...

The dog’s barks subsided to low grumbles as it trotted away. “Sorry about that, pal,” said the man who had shouted. He gave the still-growling dog a nudge with his foot. “Quiet!”

Ben fought the urge to look over at where his camera equipment was half hidden by the oaks. The film of Kale and Jacob was amongst it. He managed a smile. “It’s okay. Just frightened me half to death.”

“She’s a noisy little bugger,” the man agreed, and Ben felt a lightening of hope as he began to turn away. But his companion didn’t move. He was staring at Ben.

“This is the bloke who told Willie Jackson to fuck off in the pub,” he said. “The one who had John’s kid.”

The wood’s silence pressed in on them. Ben could feel the smile stiffen on his face, but couldn’t seem to let go of it.

The man who’d recognised him was short and sallow-skinned, with pinched, rattish features. Ben couldn’t remember seeing him in the pub, but then he hadn’t taken much notice. Off to one side, the Jack Russell was bouncing and snuffling through the wet grass.

Its owner had stopped. He was older than the other man, in his fifties but with the burly look of a manual worker about him. He glanced towards the Kales’ house, visible at the bottom of the hill. His face was stony as he looked back at Ben. “What you doing here?”

“It’s a public wood, isn’t it?” Out of the corner of his eye Ben saw the dog heading towards his den.

“He asked what you’re fucking doing here,” the small man said, enunciating the words slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot.

Ben could hear the dog nosing around by the oaks. He tried to summon the reckless anger that had possessed him in the pub, but it wouldn’t come. “I’m going for a walk, okay?”

“Not round here it fucking isn’t.”

The small man’s fists were clenched. They were as undersized as he was, like knotted lumps of bone. He took an eager step forward, but the other’s voice checked him.

“All right, Mick.”

The small man turned, angrily. “Is it fuck all right! What’s he doing in our fucking woods?”

“He isn’t doing anything. He’s going.” Without taking his eyes from Ben, he jerked his head in the direction of the road. “Go on. Fuck off.”

Ben hesitated. The dog yapped from within the oaks, then the branches thrashed and it reappeared, shedding drops of water as it sprang through the tall grass. “Okay, I’m going.”

Rotting acorns crunched like marbles under his boots as he began to walk away, planning to wait nearby and come back for his gear later. He’d only gone a few paces when the small man stepped in front of him.

“You’re not fucking going anywhere.”

“Mick,” the older man warned.

“He’s taking the fucking piss coming round here!”

“It’s not your problem, Mick. It’s John’s business, not ours.”

“So let’s take the cunt down and let John sort him!”

Ben’s mouth had gone dry. “Look, I’ll just go, okay? I’m not going to come back.”

The small man’s grin was almost a snarl. “Dead fucking right you’re not.”

An impulse to run crossed Ben’s mind, but that seemed too abject even for him. The older man considered, then gave a short nod. The one called Mick reached out to give Ben a shove.

Ben knocked his hand away. “Keep your fucking hands to yourself.”

The man’s grin disappeared, but before he could respond the older one moved between them. “All right, come on.”

Ben thought about the film waiting in the bag. Without a word he turned and set off down the hill, leading them away from the vulnerable roll of celluloid.

The hillside was slippery with mud, dotted with scrubby patches of briar and bramble. They had to skirt around them, cutting diagonally across the slope, and when they reached the track at the bottom Kale’s house was out of sight. Ben walked ahead of his escort. His mind seemed to have slipped out of gear, so that he coasted along in neutral without taking in what was happening. Once he looked back up towards the woods. They seemed a long way away, and completely unfamiliar. He couldn’t pick out the spot where he’d spent so many days watching.

He was at the other end of the lens now.

Ahead, he could make out the tall wire fence at the bottom of Kale’s garden. From this angle the scrap metal formed a screen that blocked out any view of what lay on the other side.

As he drew closer he could hear Kale’s voice.

Ben wondered at what point he’d come out of the shed.

“...in everything. Everything locks in,” Kale was saying, invisible beyond the wall of wreckage.

Ben pictured him squatting next to Jacob, looking earnestly at him. He slowed, listening.

“We can’t see it, but it’s only a matter of looking, looking in the right place, looking hard enough. And once you’ve seen it, seen the pattern—”

“John!” The small man slapped his hand against the wire fence, rattling it. “John! Got somebody to see you!”

Kale’s voice broke off. They waited by the gate, still unable to see much of the garden.

Ben felt the slipping gears inside him spin loosely, felt an almost out-of-body detachment.

There was a noise and then the bull terrier bounded over the lowest point of the scrap pile. The fence shook as the dog hit it. It stood on its hind legs against the mesh, growling. Then Kale appeared, and Ben suddenly spiralled back into the here and now of himself.

They looked at each other over the metal wreckage.

“Found him sneaking about in the woods, John,” the small man said, barely containing his excitement. “Thought you’d want to see him.”

Kale didn’t say anything. His bad knee made him ungainly as he stepped through a gap in the scrap pile, taking a bunch of keys from the pocket of his track-suit bottoms. He was red-faced, the fleecy cotton of his sweat shirt dark with perspiration. He unlocked the gate and swung it open.

The bull terrier shot through. Ben tensed but it was more interested in the Jack Russell. The smaller dog had its ears flattened and its tail curled between its legs as the other sniffed at it. As if at some signal they bolted off together into the long grass.

“Bess!” the older man shouted after them.

“She’ll be all right,” Kale said, looking at Ben.

But Ben had moved to see through the gap to where Jacob was sitting in the car seat. A mangled car radiator and hubcap lay on the floor in front of him like a sacrifice.

“Jacob!” The boy looked up, blankly, and something inside Ben’s chest felt like it was being crushed. Oh, God, he doesn’t even remember me.

Then Jacob’s face split into a smile.

He pushed himself off the car seat and began running down the garden. Ben made to go through the gate but the breath was suddenly jolted from him as Kale hit his breastbone with the heel of his hand. He staggered back. Jacob stopped dead, his smile vanishing.

“I told you not to come here again,” Kale said.

Ben tried not to show how winded he was. “I’ve got a right to see him.”

“You’ve got no rights.”

“What about him? Doesn’t he have any?”

“I’ll decide what’s right for him.”

“Like keeping him away from school, you mean?”

Kale stared back without blinking. “He’s my boy. Nobody’s going to tell me what to do with him.”

Before Ben could say anything else there was another sound from the garden. He turned and saw Sandra Kale picking her way across the scrap. She was wearing the clothes he’d seen her put on earlier. It seemed like weeks ago. She stopped at the gate.

“All right, Sandra?” the small man said, leering.

She ignored him, looked briefly at Ben, then fixed her attention on her husband.

“What’s going on?”

“Take Steven inside,” Kale told her.

“Why?”

“Take him inside.”

“For Christ’s sake, John—”

“Now.”

Her cheeks flushed, then she turned and roughly grabbed hold of Jacob’s hand. Jacob grunted and pulled against her.

“Nonononono!”

She took no notice, dragging him squealing towards the house. She lifted him up the steps by his wrist before slamming the door.

Ben faced Kale. He shook, but from anger now rather than fear. “You don’t give a shit about what’s best for him, do you? You’re only bothered about yourself!”

Kale started towards him.

“Look, John, don’t do anything stupid,” the older man said, half-heartedly, but Kale took no notice.

Ben automatically stepped back and hated himself for it.

Fuck this, he thought, and swung at Kale’s head.

Kale deflected the punch effortlessly. He clamped a hand just above Ben’s elbow, thrust his other under his outstretched arm, and Ben felt himself swung weightlessly against the fence. The wire gouged his face as he smashed into it, then his arm was jerked between his shoulders and pain exploded in his lower back as something rammed into his kidneys.

It pistoned into him twice more, and if he hadn’t emptied his bladder in the woods it would have emptied itself then. It hurt so much his cry strangled in his throat, but there was no respite before he was yanked round. He had a glimpse of Kale, impassive even now, and then a fist drove into him just below his ribcage.

It felt as if his heart had stopped. He doubled up, saw Kale’s knee fill his vision, and there was a burst of light and pain.

Images of sky and ground wheeled about him. From far away there was an impact of landing. He felt soil beneath his fingers, then a sensation of being lifted.

Dark shapes came between him and the grey light above. A heavy shock seemed to shatter his face, then he was falling back. He heard the crack of his skull breaking as the man outside the pub landed on it with both feet. He lay on the pavement, brain, membrane and blood seeping through the splits in his head. He could feel them with his fingers, wide and deep and cold, full of pebbles and dirt, rutted with the patterns of bicycle wheels.

People were shouting nearby. His lungs surged against the pain in his chest, sucked in air, and as though that had cleared a blockage he rolled over and vomited. There was blood in it. He put his hand to his nose. It felt odd. His mouth was swollen and bloody. The voices were still shouting.

He looked and saw that Sandra Kale had both arms around Kale’s chest and was straining to push him back. The older of the two men who’d brought Ben down was hovering beside them, one hand on Kale’s shoulder in token restraint. The small man’s face was lit with excitement as he watched.

“Leave him, John, do you want to fucking kill him?” Sandra was yelling. “Just let him go — you’ve done enough!”

“Move.” Kale’s eyes were fixed on Ben.

“What, so you can show everybody how fucking hard you are? Do you think anybody fucking cares?”

With a sudden twist he pushed her aside. She fell against one of the support posts, shaking the entire fence.

“Come on, John, enough’s enough,” the older man said, but he made no attempt to stop him.

Ben tried to get up but everything swung around. There was no strength in any of his limbs. Kale gripped the front of his coat in both hands and lifted him half off the ground.

“Next time I’ll kill you.”

Kale let him drop. Ben fought the wave of nausea the movement caused. Kale turned towards his wife. She was clinging to the fencepost, bleeding from a graze on her cheek. He levelled a finger at her.

“Don’t ever get in my way again.”

He limped back into the garden. Sandra Kale wiped her cheek and stared at the blood smeared on her hand.

“You all right, Sandra?” asked the older man.

She didn’t look at him. “What do you think?”

Unsteadily, she pushed herself off the fence and followed her husband.

There was a whoop from the small man. “Fucking hell! Eh? Fucking hell.” His eyes were feverish as they fixed on Ben. “Bet you won’t fucking come round here again, cunt, will you?”

He came forwards, fists balled. Ben tried to push himself to his feet.

“Leave him, Mick.”

The small man turned in surprise. “Why? Come on, Bri—”

“I said fucking leave him!”

He walked over to Ben and took a large handkerchief from his pocket. He held it out. “I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

Ben knocked his hand away. He felt like crying. “What the fuck did you think he was going to do?”

The man stood there for a moment, then put the handkerchief away and went to the edge of the track. He gave a sharp whistle. “Bess!” There was a rustling in the bushes further up the track. The Jack Russell emerged and ran towards him, tongue flapping in a dog grin. It trotted at his heels as he began walking back down the track. The small man followed sullenly a few steps behind.

For the first time Ben noticed the faces peering over fences and walls along the line of houses. One by one they disappeared, absolving themselves of any involvement.

He climbed to his feet. He felt sick and weak. He leaned against the fence. His mouth and nose were swollen. Several teeth were loose. He probed them, testing them with his tongue, rubbing his bruised stomach. He turned to spit blood, and saw he wasn’t alone after all.

The bull terrier was watching from the other side of the track. Ben looked around for something to defend himself with — a stick, anything. There was nothing. He risked a glance at the dog again. A low rumbling came from its throat. Slowly, he pushed himself off the fence, not making eye contact with it. He took a hesitant step.

It came for him.

He fell back against the fence, lashing out with his feet in an attempt to keep it away from his groin and body. The bull terrier made a noise like an unoiled buzz-saw as it caught his foot in its mouth and shook it. Ben gripped the wire mesh to keep from falling, arms spread out across it in a posture of crucifixion. His foot felt as if it were in a vice. The dog’s teeth pierced the thick leather of his boot. It let go of his foot when he stamped at its head, but slashed its teeth across his calf, tearing cloth and muscle. He heard shouts and saw the two men running back towards him. The Jack Russell bitch raced ahead of them. It ran up to the fence, barking excitedly, and the bull terrier rounded on it. The smaller dog yelped as it was bowled on to its back.

“Get off, you bastard!” the older man yelled as he pounded up. He tried to kick the dog away as the Jack Russell’s screams grew more hysterical.

Then Kale was there. He pushed the other man to one side and grabbed hold of the bull terrier’s studded collar. It gave a hacking cough as he yanked it back, holding it so only its hind feet were on the floor. It made another lunge for the smaller dog but he cuffed it across its head and gave it a single, violent shake. Gasping, it subsided, its muzzle shiny and wet.

“Oh, Christ, oh, Christ,” the older man moaned, going down on his knees. The little dog was spasming on the floor, its white coat matted from the blood that pumped from its throat and stomach. “Oh, look at her, look at her!”

He slid his hands under it and held it to his chest. It twitched spastically, smearing his coat as he tried to staunch the wounds with the same handkerchief he’d offered Ben.

“Your fucking dog, John! I’ll kill it! I’ll fucking kill it!”

Kale still held the bull terrier by its collar. It wheezed for breath, but the frenzy had gone out of it. He looked without expression at the Jack Russell, then turned and thrust his dog towards the gate.

“In.” The dog ran into the garden, stubby tail wagging. Kale followed it.

The Jack Russell’s spasms were dying down. Its owner was crying. “Did you hear what I said?” he shouted into the garden. “I’ll have it! I’ll fucking...!”

An explosion sent a cloud of birds clattering into the air. Ben and the two men froze, stunned, as its echoes died away. The small man, no longer smiling, ran to the fence and stared inside.

“Oh fuck! Oh fucking hell!”

Ben hobbled over, desperately trying to see over the scrap.

The bull terrier lay in the centre of the garden. Most of its head was blown away. One of its legs twitched, then was still. Kale stood over it with a shotgun.

“Fucking hell, John, you shouldn’t have just shot him!” The small man sounded appalled.

Kale cracked open the shotgun and let a shell fall from one of its chambers. “It’s my dog. I’ll do what I like.”

He looked at Ben as he spoke. Then he snapped the gun closed and limped back towards the house.

“Bastard,” the older man said, weeping over the motionless dog in his arms. He was covered in blood and shit. “Bastard.”

The smaller man took his arm. “Come on, Brian.”

They set off down the track.

Ben waited until they were well ahead before he followed them.