C.J. Skuse - The Deviants

‘No way!’ said Max, the smile wiped off his face. ‘My dad would never forgive me.’

Corey looked confused so I filled him in. ‘It was because of Rose that they recorded an open verdict at Jessica’s inquest. Rose insisted she saw her walk in front of the bus. On purpose,’ I added, quietly.

‘Stupid cow,’ Max grumbled. ‘Mum’ll go loopy if she knows we’ve even thought of going out there.’

‘It’s unlikely Rosie picked up Mort anyway,’ I told Corey. ‘I vote we go back to yours.’

‘No! Please, we have to try. Missing animals always end up there.’

‘Corey, come on, be logical. Rosie never comes into town any more.’

‘But we’ve tried everywhere else. Please?’ This time, he was brimming tears, his eyes all huge behind his glasses. Going to Whitehouse Farm meant nudging a hornets’ nest, as I knew perfectly well, but I couldn’t talk him out of it. He seemed desperate.

‘Fine, we’ll go out to Rosie’s,’ I sighed. Max made an outraged noise at once. ‘We won’t stay long. Your parents won’t ever know we were there. You can drive us, can’t you?’

‘Uh, no,’ he scoffed. ‘My car’s only two months old. Some of the roads out that way are just dirt tracks.’

‘There’s a bus to Cloud that stops twice a day at the bottom of our road,’ Corey said. ‘I’ve seen it on the timetable. There’s one at lunch and one back at teatime. I’ll pay.’

‘Damn right you will,’ said Max.

Just then, a car rolled along the seafront and came to a stop next to us. The driver’s window rolled down. It was Neil, in his glimmering midnight-blue Jaguar.

‘Alright, son?’ He beamed, showing teeth whiter than the seagull slime on his windscreen. He always looked uglier, each time I saw him, despite the amount of surgery he’d had to fix his nose. Max beamed back at him, loping over to the car and leaning against the door frame.

‘Alright, Dad? What time’s the guy coming to pick it up?’

A Renault Clio beeped behind. Lazily, Neil threw a rude hand gesture as it overtook, gunning its engine.

‘About six he said, give or take. Got a brand new Porsche coming in a couple of weeks.’ He was telling me, more than anyone else.

‘What are you going to do till then?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer. Max had told me.

‘Garage is providing a hire car. Mercedes Sport. Just to tide me over. You coming round to see the Porsche when it arrives? Jo’s going to do a lunch. Get all the family over.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, unenthusiastically. ‘That’ll be nice.’

‘Good. What you up to now, then?’

Max spun Neil a yarn about how we were all going into town to look at some new phone as Corey hung back with me and we wandered over to the sea wall to watch the tide vomiting up clumps of seaweed and lager cans, leaving a trail of foamy spit on the steps.

‘He hasn’t changed then,’ said Corey.

‘Nope.’ I smiled. ‘Still a knob head.’

‘Do they still live in that massive bungalow overlooking the bay? The one that backs onto the dunes with the big black gates…’

‘… and panoramic views of Brynstan Bay and outdoor pool and three en suites and gold taps. JoNeille.’

Corey laughed. ‘Jo and Neil. How corny? I always envied Max though, having a garden that backed onto the beach. Well, the dunes, anyway. Ours backs onto a dog toilet.’

‘Don’t be fooled, Corey. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing. It’s just this stupid quote Dad’s got framed in his study.’

‘Max’ll inherit all that when they croak, won’t he?’

‘He’s not interested in the money,’ I said. ‘Not really. Max would be happier working for a living, I know he would. He just hasn’t got any incentive to at the moment. He’s certainly not arsed about all the businesses, the arcades and the garden centre and that.’

‘He owns the Pier now, doesn’t he?’

A salty breeze stung my eyes. ‘Yep. Yet another Rittman Inc property. It’s like a cancer in this town.’

‘Doesn’t Greenland sponsor your running? He can’t be that much of a knob head.’

‘Oh he is, believe me. And it’s only while I’m winning. He’s still a twat.’

‘Huge twat,’ Corey added.

‘Colossal.’

‘Mammoth.’

‘Gargantuan.’

‘Humungulous!’

We were laughing by the time Neil sped off down the seafront and Max returned to us.

‘What are you two giggling about?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Come on, we’ve got a cat to find.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, flinging an arm around me. ‘And a serial killer to ask about it.’

*

I don’t know why I didn’t try harder to talk Corey out of going to Whitehouse Farm. Maybe a part of me wanted to go back. A pretty sadistic part. Maybe I wanted to be reminded of a place I used to go as a child, before everything went wrong. I don’t know, I really don’t.

But anyway, we took the lunchtime bus to Cloud, the tiny village on the outskirts of Brynstan, where ‘Roadkill Rosie’ lived. It had been a while since any of us had been out there – Fallon had been the only reason. We’d befriended her in primary school, on the basis that she would do anything for a dare; ‘Don’t Dare Fallon’ became one of our catchphrases. Take your knickers off and throw them at that windscreen. Jump off Devil’s Rocks. Steal a Chocolate Orange. Flick a chip at that policeman. Go past the preaching Christians on the corner of the High Street singing that song about blow jobs. She’d do it all. She had no fear. She was also the kindest person I’d ever met.

The bus ride was endless, just like tomorrow seems like next year when you’re a kid. I drifted into a daydream of the past. We were in the lounge at JoNeille – me, Max, Fallon, Corey and Zane – and we’d made a den out of the dining chairs, with some king size bed sheets draped over the top. All around the inside were sofa cushions, and in the middle we’d got ourselves a midnight feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, crisps, Haribos and cans of cherry Tango. Suddenly, a head parted the flimsy wall, giving a terrible cry.

‘Wooooaoaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhh!’

‘Argh! Jessica, don’t scare us like that!’

‘Ha! What are you lot doing in here?’

‘Dad said we could make a den and sleep in here tonight.’

‘Have they gone out?’

‘Yeah. Some dinner dance thing. Where have you been?’

‘Just out, Beaky Boy.’

‘Can you tell us a story, Jess?’

‘Oh, not another story, Ella.’

‘Yeah, please, Jess. Tell us a really scary one.’

‘You can’t handle a scary one, Zane. We had to call your mum when I read you some Silence of the Lambs , remember?’

‘I won’t cry this time, I promise. Please.’

‘OK. Give me an idea, then, and I’ll tell you a scary story about it.’

‘Ummm…’

‘Cats!’

‘Cats? All right, then, Corey, cats it is. Hmm. Well, OK. There’s this Edgar Allan Poe story called ‘The Black Cat’. Have I told you that one before?’

‘No. Tell us now!’

‘OK, well, a long time ago, there once was this man who lived in this house with his wife and their cat—’

‘What was the cat called?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe Claude or something. Yeah, Claude. Anyway, Claude was black, black as night, and the couple who owned him loved him very much. Then, as time went on, the man started to drink way more than he should—’

‘Was he sad about something?’