He reached the front door without seeming to have crossed the hall. The door flew inwards, hit the wall. Something shattered. He didn’t look back, and yet he had a memory of the man in the doorway, mouth crooked, one hand bleeding.
He ran off down the street. The houses all looked the same. He had no idea where he was. An old lady came up the road towards him, but he was worried she might be the gran. He tore past her, as fast as he could go. He thought he heard the motorbike start up. Quick. Hide. He found a dustbin round the back of someone’s house and climbed inside. Luckily, it was almost empty. It still stank, though. When he opened the lid again, it was dark, and the streetlights had come on. Standing on the pavement, he hesitated. Tried to guess which way was home. His stomach twisted, and he did some diarrhoea. All down one leg. All runny. He stood there in his shorts, not knowing what to do.
Some time went by. A woman turned the corner with a shopping bag. She wanted to take him home and clean him up, but he said he wasn’t allowed to go into strangers’ houses. He asked if she could telephone his parents and tell them where he was. He recited his number for her, the number he had learned by heart, then he stood out on the street and waited.
When he saw them drive up in the car, he thought how innocent they looked. It was as if he was the parent and they were the children. He felt they needed to be protected. The fact that he had diarrhoea was useful because it gave them all something to talk about. He never told his parents the real story about that day. Not then, not ever. When they asked him what he was doing in Hattersley, he said he’d got on the wrong bus.
“Then you were scared,” his mother said, “because you didn’t know where you were.”
He looked at her gratefully. “Yes,” he said, and he was relieved that she had taken on the burden of thinking up a lie. He wasn’t sure he could have done it on his own.
“Yes, I was scared,” he said.
“You were lost,” his mother said.
He nodded. He bit his bottom lip. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”
Trevor wiped his face with one hand, then reached for his wine. “I was in that house.” Unable to believe it, he shook his head, then glanced across at Billy. “The black hair. It was a wig, you see?” The skin on his face seemed to have tightened. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand,” Billy said, though he wasn’t quite sure how to react.
Trevor finished his drink, but held on to the empty glass. “I’ve only told three people in my life,” he said. “My brother, my wife — and now you.”
Billy was staring at the carpet, but he could feel Trevor’s eyes on him. Did Trevor expect something from him? If so, what? And why had Trevor told him, anyway? Because they’d got drunk together? Because he was a policeman? Because, once upon a time, they had been friends?
The silence lasted. Billy felt hot. Leaning sideways, he looked at the radiator on the wall. The dial was set to 5. He turned it down to 2.
“When did all this happen?” he asked eventually.
“Nineteen sixty-four,” Trevor said. “November.”
A child had been murdered at around that time, Billy thought, though he couldn’t remember which one.
“I still think about that little boy,” Trevor said, “you know, the boy who wasn’t found.”
Billy nodded.
“I think of him lying in that lonely place,” Trevor said. “I just hope someone finds him one day. I’d hate to think he just stayed up there for ever, on the moors.”
He fell silent again.
“Most of all, though, I feel guilty,” he went on after a while, looking down into his empty glass. “Nothing happened to me. I got away.”
“You were lucky—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Trevor said, cutting in with a kind of savagery. “I’m linked to them for ever, those children. The ones with the names we all know. Sometimes it’s like I can sense their presence — somewhere near by…”
Billy watched as Trevor slowly lowered his face into his hands and began to cry again. There was another level to Trevor’s guilt, he realised. Not only had Trevor survived, but he had also kept the fact of his survival to himself. If he had told his parents what had happened — the woman in the white car, the man on the motorbike — if he had identified the house, it was possible that lives could have been saved. Billy rather hoped this thought hadn’t occurred to Trevor. It would be hard for him to bear.
Now Trevor had started crying, he couldn’t stop. He was hunched over, only his hands separating his forehead from his knees. Billy sat beside him on the bed and put an arm round his shoulders. Trevor’s body felt rigid, as though every muscle had been stretched to breaking-point.
Then, little by little, his breathing deepened. He had cried himself to sleep, just as a child might. Billy still had his arm round Trevor, though Trevor was leaning against him now. Trevor smelled of deodorant and alcohol. Once or twice, he jerked so violently that Billy was afraid they might both be thrown to the floor.
The next time Billy glanced at the clock on the TV, it said two twenty-five. He must have dozed off for a while. Trevor was facing away from him now, lying across the bottom of the bed, the soles of his shoes pressed against Billy’s thigh. One of his hands was curled into a fist and held close to his mouth. Billy did a quick calculation in his head. Northampton was still a good two hours’ drive away, and he was due in court at ten. He would have to be up by seven — at the latest.
He took off Trevor’s shoes and socks, then his trousers, and shifted him until he was lengthways on the bed. Trevor still hadn’t stirred. Billy couldn’t help noticing that Trevor’s legs were smooth and white, and utterly without hair. Somehow this seemed in keeping with the story he had told, the horror he had so narrowly escaped. Gently, Billy drew the covers over him.
Ssshh…fast asleep.
Although he very much doubted that Trevor would wake, he still didn’t feel he could leave. Not after what he’d heard. Switching off the lights, he loosened his tie and dropped into the chair by the window. It was a small modern armchair, with a low back, but he had slept in more uncomfortable places. Through the curtains behind him came a dim glow, citrus yellow, and Trevor’s story came with it — the bare mattress, the camera, the dirty magazines. Billy emptied his mind, then folded his hands over his stomach and shut his eyes. In the sealed hush of the hotel room, he could hear Trevor’s breathing, deep and ragged.
He woke what felt like moments later to see Trevor standing in front of the tall, thin mirror near the door. Though it was still dark, the spill of light from the bathroom allowed him to watch Trevor as he tied his tie. Trevor was wearing a suit and humming quietly to himself. He behaved as if he was on his own in the room.
Billy yawned and stretched, making more noise than was strictly necessary.
“I can’t sleep sitting up,” Trevor said. “I can never sleep on planes, for instance.”
“In my job you get used to it.” Billy yawned again. “What’s the time?”
“Nearly seven.”
Billy stood up and parted the curtains. The sky was a dull grey-blue. He could just make out a smooth grass bank and the section of main road that lay beyond. “I’m going back to my room,” he said. “I need a shower.”