Rob looked away, to the spot from where we had thrown the body.
After a moment he sat on the ground, leaning back on his hands. He stared into the water for a long time. “No one’s ever going to hear this, right?”
“Not until the year 2000.”
“Yeah right. Give me the mike.” He flapped his hand at me and I leaned over and handed him the recorder.
Rob lit a cigarette and then spoke into the microphone. “This is the confession of Rob Irwin. In August 1976 I killed Tom Willis. We got into an argument and I hit him on the head with a chunk of shale. Me and George here then dragged him up the side of the quarry and threw him over the edge...” He pulled on his cigarette. “By the time you hear this I will be dead. Suicide. I can live with the guilt of Tom’s murder, but I could not go to prison. So, by the time you get to hear this...” His voice broke and he hung his head.
My whole body felt cold, chips of ice floated in my veins.
I ordered another drink and thought of that final day in the quarry. In many ways it haunted me far more than the day of the actual murder. My young heart, already cramped with guilt, was twisted beyond all recognition as we delivered our suicide notes on that day by the dead water of the pond.
As I grew older I began to feel more comfortable with myself, the twin demons of alcohol and guilt becoming the thuggish guardians of my soul, exuberant bouncers that kept the public at arm’s length.
My life had been an endless series of temporary postings to increasingly desperate locations, the only constant an expiry date handed to me one day in an abandoned quarry.
Rob had a different story to telclass="underline" he had escaped the past and made full use of his time on the planet. As well as successfully riding the software wave, he had been married for over fifteen years and had two healthy children. I had not seen much of him over the years as he had moved to London immediately after leaving college, but we had always met up for a beer on his increasingly infrequent trips back home. It was over five years now since I had last seen him.
It was almost noon. The sun slanted through the dirty window to my left and lit the polished wood of the bar with a grainy light. The drink in my hand burned liquid gold. I looked at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar, at the eyes that were like dead candle wicks behind green glass, dead from lack of air. I thought about the murder and how both Rob and I had handled it, about how Rob had somehow transferred the whole stinking burden onto me. For a long time it had filled me with physical pain, a pain so deep that I could only communicate it through drunken threats and violence. But there was always something inside me that not even physical violence could release, the simple need for revenge.
The call came on a bright morning in December.
I was sitting at my kitchen table watching the neighbours’ cat chewing on a bird, my fingers knotted around a mug of coffee, when the phone started to ring. I was carrying a whisky hangover and thought about leaving it to ring and going back to bed, but there was urgency in the tone, as if it may be bad news. I picked up on the fifth ring.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, familiar. I felt my heart step up a beat.
“Yes?” Hesitant. I reached across the table for a cigarette.
“Is that George? George Lowell?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said with a note of finality in my voice, as if by guessing my name the caller had discovered my secret.
“I’m sorry. Have I called at a bad time?” She sounded hurt.
“No, no. Now’s fine. I’m just a little...” I waved my cigarette in the air.
“All right, well...” She gave a nervous laugh. “I’ll start again, shall I?” Another laugh. “I don’t know if you remember me... Claire Wish?”
My mind rewound furiously. Half remembered scenes. “Sorry,
I shouldn’t have expected you...”
I sensed the faint echo of a missed heartbeat.
“Red hair and skinny legs?” I said.
I heard her laugh again, a gentle, innocent sound this time. “Well, not so skinny now... but, yeah, the hair’s still red.”
I walked over to the cooker and lit the cigarette from the gas ring. “What can I do for you?” I said. I looked out of the window and saw that the cat had gone, leaving the torn carcass of the bird in the middle of the lawn.
Suddenly I was gripped by panic.
“Well, do you remember the time capsule we buried...”
My blood ran cold.
“...in the fourth year? At school,” she added helpfully.
I couldn’t speak. I nodded and hoped she could see me.
“They can’t dig it up.”
Kaleidoscopic images of the murder flashed before my eyes, moving in and out of focus. Into focus: an iron fist breaking a face of stone.
“They...” I began to feel dizzy.
“You remember they planted it near that row of cherry trees?”
“Go on,” I managed. My voice was hoarse. I pulled out a chair and sat down, took a sip of coffee.
“Well, they buried it too near. Too near the trees. The roots have grown over the box.”
“They can’t dig it up? They can’t dig up the tree?”
“No, that’s right... Well, they reckon nobody’s going to remember what was in the capsule anyway. Or the exact spot where it was buried...”
I felt my heart start to beat again. I struggled to bring everything under control. “So they’re not going to dig it up, that’s what you’re saying? The whole thing’s off?”
“Yes and no.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re going to bury another capsule.”
“And dig that one up instead?”
“Brilliant, isn’t it?”
“And where do I come in?” I felt a smile break on my face.
“Well, I’ve been given the job of recreating the whole thing. I’ve had a new capsule made up, so now I’m just asking a few people — discreetly, mind you — if they’ve got anything I can use.”
“I don’t know. I’d have to have a look around. Can I get back to you?”
“Sure.”
I took her number and promised to call back later.
My mind was reeling. Was this a sick joke? Had they already dug up the capsule and found the tape? I headed for the loft.
I spent the next couple of days choking on clouds of dust, cold sweat beading my face, until eventually I hauled a cardboard box down into the kitchen and hefted it onto the table. I had stuck things in the box as I came across them, but now I looked at them more closely.
There were items from before and after the murder: a copy of the Mirfield Reporter with a picture of the school cross country team on the front page, silver medalists in the Yorkshire Schools; a ticket stub from a Be Bop Deluxe concert at St George’s Hall in Bradford; my old school tie; a few singles, now scratched, covers torn, from punk bands long forgotten; a couple of music magazines, including a local fanzine.
I felt a great weight lift off my chest as I realised that these innocent items were going to erase over twenty years of fear.
But as I began to put the things back in the box, I was filled with a deep sense of dread. Something drew my attention to the window. The wind was blowing the apple tree in the back garden around so that its branches seemed to be pointing at me, jabbing accusing fingers. A strong gust threw a branch against the window and as it scratched across the glass I heard the ghost of Tom Willis whisper to me.
The bar was now full. A cloud of voices hung in the air, voices that spoke of emotions I had denied myself for so long. I heard laughter as if it was my native tongue and not the language of my neighbours.
The door opened and in the mirror I saw a man in a black leather car coat enter the bar. He moved his head as if looking around, but his eyes had the dark impenetrability of sunglasses. A spider web of burst veins was tattooed across his face and his belly pushed at his shirt.