Chapter Nineteen

Coming back at last, Christy was changed. The boy knew it. He was different, after what he’d seen and done in the man’s house. His childhood had gone from him in the course of that long, dark, unforgettable afternoon when he and Harry Clewe had killed and dismembered the windsurfer.

And for Harry, the girl was different. Christine had grown up. She was more like a woman. She looked at him levelly, with cool, still eyes. Once, he’d exerted the bullying dominance of a rude man over a frightened child. But now, Christine began to exert a kind of authority over him: the authority that a desirable woman can wield over the man who desires her. Harry saw in her eyes that she knew what he’d dreamed, that she knew what he wanted . . .

For the boy, it was still a game. He could feel the power he had over the man. But it was a dangerous game he was playing.

Again he heard the tinkling from the locked bedroom. That afternoon, he and Harry had walked along the foreshore with the dogs, and the man had bagged a mallard. They’d eaten the duck in front of the fire, sharing the meat with Gog and Magog, and, all that time, even when the gun had barked with the same explosive bark it had made when the boy had shot the windsurfer from the landing window, neither the man nor the boy had said anything about what had happened. The subject was out of bounds.

After the meal, Christy took the greasy plates to the bathroom, leaving Harry and the dogs by the fire. Along the corridor, he could hear the tinkling, like ice or glass, from the bedroom whose door he’d tried once before; so he left the plates in the bathroom, tiptoed down the corridor, knelt at the door, turned the handle to confirm that it was still locked, and he peeped through the keyhole. Nothing . . . only the tinkling and a draught of stale, cold air.

Suddenly, Harry was there behind him. Christy whirled round and stood up, but by then the man had grabbed him by the hair and raised his hook as though he would hit him with it. But Harry didn’t hit the boy. He didn’t bang Christy’s head on the door. He didn’t shout, although his face was swollen with anger. Because Christy simply smiled at him.

‘Don’t hit me, Mr Clewe,’ the boy said. He looked levelly at the man’s bulging, bloodshot eyes. He licked his lips and smiled, until slowly, very slowly, Harry lowered his hook and let go of the hair he’d been holding. And then it was Christy who raised a hand and stroked the swollen, panting, purple face which loomed above him.

‘Don’t hit me, Mr Clewe,’ he said, so softly that Harry could barely hear the words. ‘You don’t want me to go and tell anyone you’ve hit me, do you? You don’t want me to tell anyone anything, do you?’

He stroked Harry’s face until the swelling and the redness were gone.

In such a way, the boy exerted his influence, although he still hadn’t seen the room that the man guarded so fiercely. It was a week before Christmas. Every day they walked and shot and cooked and ate together. They shared the childlike fun they’d had before, fishing in the flooded hallway, scavenging the beach, feast­ing on crumpets and fruitcake at the fireside. One afternoon, in a bout of glorious silliness, they sat in the Daimler, the man at the wheel, the boy affecting to fix his face in the mirror inside the glove compartment, and they pretended to go driving. The car didn’t move, it hadn’t moved for years; but they whooped and squealed, lurching and swaying as Harry swung the splendid machine through imaginary bends; they shook their fists at imaginary road hogs; they gestured grandly as though the world had paused to watch them go by . . . Harry would glance at the figure beside him, the latest in a succession of mystifying females who’d complicated the adult years of his life.

Yes, for Harry, the girl Christine had become a young woman. So that, urgently, uncontrollably, he felt a rising of desire for her.

Sensing the man’s eyes on him, Christy looked back. The look lengthened. They reappraised one another. There was a sense of anticipation, as though they knew that, sooner or later, their relationship would alter again, reach a critical point and change completely. But neither of them knew when or how it might happen.

For the time being, bonded by their murderous secret, the man and the boy maintained a fragile, wary union, each afraid of what the other might do or say. In the shortest days and the darkest nights of a wild winter, when the house was filled with wrecking waves and a booming gale, Harry crouched in front of his fire. He stared at the flames. He remembered the touch of Christine’s fingers on his face. And he started to plan something special for Christmas.