The Rabbit Hunter

91

As he chops the shallots, Rex can feel how sore the fingertips of his left hand are from playing the guitar.

‘Why would you say you aren’t wanted?’ he asks tentatively, brushing the chopped onion into a saucepan.

‘Because you’re always talking about how we have to try to get through three weeks together,’ Sammy explains.

Rex scrapes the knife against the edge of the pan, looks at the wide blade, then rinses it in the sink.

‘I don’t mean that I have to put up with you when I say that,’ he says. ‘I mean... I’m pleading with you to put up with me.’

‘Doesn’t feel like it,’ his son says in a thick voice.

‘I’ve never seen Rex as happy as he is now,’ DJ points out as he peels the asparagus.

‘Dad, do you remember last time I was supposed to stay with you?’ Sammy asks. ‘Do you remember that?’

Rex looks at his son, his glistening eyes, sensitive face and thin shoulders. He realises that what he’s about to say isn’t going to be good, but he still wants him to keep going.

‘No, I don’t remember,’ he replies honestly.

‘I was ten years old, and I was so happy. I told all my friends about my dad, and how I was going to live with you in the middle of the city, and how we were going to eat at your restaurant every night.’

Sammy’s voice breaks, he lowers his face and tries to calm down. Rex wishes he could go over and hug him, but doesn’t dare.

‘Sammy... I don’t know what to say, I don’t remember that,’ he says quietly.

‘No,’ Sammy replies. ‘Because you changed your mind when you saw I hadn’t cut my hair.’

‘That’s not true,’ he says.

‘I had long hair, and you kept making a fuss, saying I should get it cut, but I didn’t, and... when I got to your house...’

Sammy’s eyes fill with tears, his face turns red and his lips swell. Rex takes the saucepan off the heat and wipes his hands on his apron.

‘Sammy,’ he says. ‘Now I know what you’re talking about, and it had nothing to do with your hair. Look, it was like this... when your mum brought you, I was so drunk I couldn’t stand up. There was no way she could leave you with me.’

‘No,’ Sammy sniffs, turning his face away.

‘That was when I lived on Drottning Street,’ Rex says. ‘I remember I was lying on the kitchen floor, and I remember you. You were wearing red plimsolls and you had that little cardboard suitcase that...’

He trails off as the realisation spreads through his chest.

‘But you thought it was your hair,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Of course you did.’

He walks around the kitchen counter and tries to hug Sammy, but his son pulls away.

‘Forgive me,’ Rex says, and gently brushes Sammy’s long fringe away from his face. ‘Forgive me, Sammy.’

DJ slips a Modiodal pill in his mouth and swallows. He doesn’t know how he’s going to be affected emotionally by everything that’s going on. It wouldn’t be good if he suddenly fell asleep on the floor.

He cuts the peeled asparagus stems into slices, saves the tops and then tips the rest into a pan of water.

He’s thinking that he can’t be a hunter right now, that he’s going to have to be DJ the friend for a little while longer.

There’s no hurry. Everything is happening at a perfect pace, in the perfect order.

He remembers his mum showing him a school photograph, with all the students gathered in front of the huge main building. The eyes of nine of them had been pricked out, and the tenth wasn’t on the picture because he was the groundskeeper. He remembers his mother’s trembling hand precisely, and the way the light from the lamp on the table shone through the holes in the paper, like an unfamiliar constellation.

‘I can take care of myself,’ Sammy says in a subdued voice. ‘Don’t you get that yet?’

‘But I’m responsible for you while you’re here... and the way things are looking right now, I don’t think I should go to Norrland with DJ.’

‘We can postpone the meeting,’ DJ says, putting the vegetable knife down on the chopping board. ‘I can call the investors.’

Rex shoots him a look of gratitude.

DJ smiles and thinks about how he’s going to kill him: Rex is going to have to crawl down the hallway in the hotel with his back sliced open until he shoots him in the back of the neck.

Rex squeezes some lime juice into the pan, and Sammy gets the cream from the fridge.

‘I don’t need babysitting,’ Sammy says. ‘It may look like I do, but I’m fine.’

‘I just don’t want you to be on your own,’ Rex replies as he starts to peel the shrimp.

‘You’ve been dreaming about going up there and going hunting,’ Sammy smiles, pretending to aim a rifle. ‘Bang, bang... Bambi’s dead.’

‘It’s just business,’ Rex replies.

‘And I’m ruining it,’ Sammy says.

‘You could come up to the wilds of Norrland with us,’ DJ suggests, imagining a bleeding rabbit crawling across the floor while what’s left of its paws lie on the workbench.

‘Dad doesn’t want that,’ Sammy replies quietly.

‘Of course I do!’ Rex protests, rinsing his hands.

‘No, you don’t,’ Sammy says.

Rex blends the soup together, flash-fries the fat buds of asparagus and grabs the bowl of peeled shrimp.

‘It would be great,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘We could make food for the investors, Sammy, and I promise, you’ll love the scenery up there.’

‘But I can’t kill animals.’

‘Neither can I,’ Rex says.

‘Maybe you’ll find out you’ve got it in you, when it comes down to it,’ DJ says, trying to force the sound of his mother’s screams from his head.

Only two of the rapists have been hard to kill. One because he knew it would lead to a lot of media attention and a large police operation, and the other because he lives in Washington DC and had been heavily protected by Blackwater for many years.

His plan was so ingenious that no one could have spotted it before it was too late.

He knew that Teddy Johnson would attend the Foreign Minister’s funeral.

But he had to entice him at exactly the right time, before he found out that any of his other old friends from the Rabbit Hole had died, otherwise he would suspect a trap.

And then it wouldn’t have made any difference what bait the hunter had set at the back of the rabbit cage.

But he had walked into the trap, and DJ had managed to give Rex the slip in the crowded church. He made sure he sat on the balcony, close to the stairs, with Sammy off to his right. During one particularly rousing hymn they threw little balls of paper at Rex.

DJ snuck out of the service, and managed to get up to the top of the tower on Kungs Street ten minutes before the priest’s closing words. He knew that the chaos after Teddy Johnson was shot would hide the fact that he had disappeared. People would be running around screaming. It would take hours before the three of them found each other again, back at Rex’s flat.

A .300 Win Mag was the obvious weapon of choice. He usually follows his gut feeling when it comes to choosing a weapon.

When he killed the Foreign Minister he had chosen a pistol with a silencer, because he knew all too well that no matter how carefully you prepare and plan and map your victim’s routines, there are always things you can’t foresee.

He had been there twice before he broke in to identify the locations of the alarms and cameras and to check the security routines. But unlike most people, a man in the Foreign Minister’s position could very easily have had armed bodyguards in the house.

The Rabbit Hunter would have preferred to slit his wrists in the bath, but after the prostitute managed to free herself and raise the alarm, he didn’t want to take any risks.

There were three reasons to kill the Foreign Minister while he had a prostitute tied to his bed. The first was that he knew his victim only arranged that sort of encounter when the rest of his family were away.

The second was that the Foreign Minister always got rid of his bodyguards before he saw a prostitute.

The third was that the prostitute increased the likelihood that the circumstances surrounding the Foreign Minister’s death would be hushed up.

DJ smiles at Rex as they sit down at the table, but inside him his mother screams in terror as the rabbits slip out of the trap. They panic as they try to escape the shovel he’s using to hit them with.