‘Run. Run for your life, Rory.’ We take off running along the road, just hoping for a gap to appear that we can jump through into a field and away from the black car, but there’s no gaps.
The man in the black car opens the door and sends out the dorm boys, who come running and pin us down. They smell of chocolate and crisps and are mad wild with the excitement of it all.
‘Get off, y’bastards!’ I shout. I can hear Rory shouting too, but I can’t make out the words.
They put us in the car and drive away. It’s dark now, properly dark. I get a dead arm every time I move and every time I try to talk to Rory. The boys are yelling and jumping about, and it’s burning hot inside the car, so much that a window has to be opened.
‘Shut it,’ says the driver man. I know him from before – I recognise the pig eyes. After a while, once the messing stops, the man says, ‘Have some pop with your pals.’ I say no but Rory takes one and I tell him, ‘No, it’s poison.’ I remember the last time I had the pop, the woozy feeling and the sickness. I want to let Rory home to his mam, because I know where the man with the pig eyes will take us.
‘Donal, where are we?’ says Rory in a whisper.
‘Shhhh . . . we’ll get leathered.’
‘I have to go. My mam will be mad.’
‘Rory, keep quiet. We’ll find a chance and run away. I promise, I promise you that.’
The car goes up hill again, then down and turns and turns again, and I think this must be the twistiest, windiest road in the world ever. There’s a light up ahead now; when we get nearer I see it’s on a house, like a farm. The car stops with a jerk.
‘Here we are, kiddies!’ says the man with pig eyes. ‘In you go now, to the party.’
I see Rory looking at me when the man says party, and I want to tell him ‘no, no, it’s not that sort of party’ but he walks in with the others and doesn’t say a word.
Inside the lights are low and there’s all kinds of cakes about the place. It’s hot with the great, big roaring fire, and there’s lots of men with ties and suits and shiny buckles on their belts. I get caught up in the rush through the door, and then there’s a sound of boys shouting and more music, and I wonder where Rory is so I call out to him, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
‘Rory . . . Rory . . .’ I say.
‘Calm your ardour!’ says a man with yellow teeth and a cigarette between his fingers. He’s old and has white hair flattened to the top of his head, but his shirt is open to the waist, and I can see his braces over his belly.
‘Rory . . . where are you?’ I yell out.
He doesn’t reply, and I start to run about the house looking for him. I open the closed doors, and a man says something in a posh voice, and then I try another door, but there’s only a boy lying on the floor crying. I say ‘Rory’ again and again, but I get no reply – and then I hear a scream, and I know at once the sound of that voice.
He’s behind a patchy blue door, upstairs at the end of the landing where the carpet has started to wear away. I rush to the door but it’s stuck, and I have to heave and push and throw myself about to get it open, but when I get inside I see Rory in the corner with his satchel up over his face.
He’s crying and roaring out for his mam, but the man is only shouting back and slapping him on the side of the head when he can reach him. The man is tall, bigger than Rory by a mile, and he’s swaying about with the drink in him.
‘Get away! Leave him,’ I say.
‘Who the hell . . .’
I run at him with my fists flying, and I hit him in the stomach, but the man pushes me out of the way. I run again and he kicks out, but his trousers fall and his leg catches in the roll of the fabric. He sways for a moment, and then he knocks Rory to the floor. Rory stays down, he doesn’t move and I wonder is he even breathing. I run over and his eyes are closed, but he coughs and splutters a little and I know he’s fine.
‘Come on, Rory, we have to go!’ I try to pick him up, so we can run away, but he’s too heavy, and then I feel someone lifting me and I’m pushed again, and I’m flying to the bed.
I see the man coming for me. His eyes are wide and his nose is bloody. He throws himself on top of me and puts his hands on my neck. I try to kick him, but my legs are pinned.
I try to hit out, but my arms are stuck fast.
I look to the floor and see Rory and I try to say, ‘Run, Rory,’ but I can’t even move my lips now.
I see him, my best friend, just lying there. And I start to cry. The tears are cold on my warm cheeks but they don’t last for long.
37
At Alloway Place the traffic lights changed, allowing the cars backed up Miller Road to cross the detectives’ path. Valentine checked the clock on the dashboard and began to feel the familiar tightness of tension in his shoulders. There was anger in there too, the kind that was hard to suppress, but he knew he would have to batten it down if he was to get anywhere with Fallon.
The trail of cars halted in the middle of the road as the lights changed again – it looked like they were going nowhere fast.