Fifty Fifty (27 page)

After an impossibly long time, the birds started to sing. Gil lay in bed, his undamaged hand tucked under his pillow. At last he heard the small sounds that meant someone else
in the house was getting up – the click of the bathroom door and the toilet flushing and the hot water tank in Gil’s cupboard hissing as it filled up. He waited, listening, until he was
sure that Mum and Dad had both got up and gone downstairs. Then he slid out of bed slowly. He struggled out of his stained jeans and stuffed them into the drawer under his bed. He found some pyjama
bottoms and changed his hoodie for a clean T-shirt.

Then he touched the side of his hand. It was sore, but he couldn’t see any blood leaking through the dressing. Slowly Gil began to unwrap the bandage until he could see the cotton wool
underneath. There was a lot of blood but it didn’t look fresh any more. All the cotton wool balls except one fell away. The last one was stuck in the cut, and he had to use a pair of scissors
to snip away the fibres. When he had finished there was a hole over a centimetre long in the side of his hand, matted with hairs from the cotton wool. Gil slipped out to the bathroom and searched
for a plaster that would cover the cut without looking too dramatic. He looked at the T-shirt in the bath. Oh yes, nose bleed. He would wander downstairs as if it was a normal Sunday morning, and
then . . .

Gil gazed at his face in the mirror. The blood looked unconvincing, splattered in all the wrong places for a nose bleed. What was he going to do when he got downstairs and saw Mum and Dad? There
had been a phone call for Dad in the middle of the night. It could only have been about the raid on the labs. Of course Gil would pretend to be surprised when Dad broke the news, but what if Dad
saw through him? What if he started to probe for information?
You set this up, didn’t you? Come on, Gil, I’m not stupid. Tell me what you’ve been up to.
Even yesterday Dad
had been on the brink of working out who Jude was. This morning it would be blindingly obvious that Gil was involved somehow. How could Dad miss it?

He began to wash the dried blood off his face with one hand.

When Gil finally forced himself to go down to the kitchen he found Mum and Dad sitting quietly at the table drinking tea and coffee. It was only half past eight, but they were both dressed, and
they looked up as Gil came in stretching and yawning strenuously as if he’d just woken up. But he saw Dad’s face and stopped at once. Dad looked as if he’d been in a fight. There
were puffy circles under his eyes and his dark hair fell limply away from his forehead. For the first time Gil noticed it was streaked with grey.

‘Hello, Gil,’ Mum said. ‘Did you sleep OK?’

Gil gave up his play-acting and slid on to an empty chair.

‘Uh – not so well, actually,’ he said.

‘Did the phone disturb you?’

‘No, I had a nose bleed. What happened with the phone?’

For a dreadful moment Gil thought Dad was going to cry. Mum put a hand on Dad’s arm and spoke for him.

‘It was the police,’ she said. ‘They phoned about three o’clock this morning. There’s been a raid on the labs and the research animals have been stolen.’

Gil waited for Dad to say something, but he gazed deep into his coffee and said nothing at all.

‘Oh,’ Gil said at last. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes,’ said Dad, thinly. ‘I bet you are.’

Gil flinched. It was like being stung by a wasp. Mum leant forwards, her face full of concern, and gave Dad’s arm a little shake.

‘Come on, Matt,’ she said. ‘I know you had a terrible row yesterday and we’re all in shock, but —’

‘No,’ said Dad. He shook his head. ‘Gil doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a stuff about my research. He probably thinks this is the best news he’s had in ages.
Don’t you?’ He flashed a bitter look at Gil.

Gil looked away.

‘Don’t you?’ repeated Dad. ‘In fact, I don’t suppose this raid has even come as much of a surprise to you, has it?’

Gil felt sick. Dad suspected him. This was exactly what he’d dreaded.

‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Dad,’ he said.

‘Matt,’ said Mum. ‘What on earth are you suggesting?’

‘Work it out, Rachel,’ said Dad. Gil had never heard him sound so cruel. ‘Use your intelligence.’

‘Are you accusing Gil of being involved in this somehow?’

‘That’s exactly right, yes.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Yeah, Dad,’ said Gil, trying to sound defiant. ‘Where’s your evidence?’

‘Oh, there’ll be evidence,’ said Dad. ‘The police will find evidence.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better go and get my head together. They’ll be here soon
to interview me.’

‘Matt,’ said Mum. ‘Stop.’ There was a tone in her voice that Gil hadn’t heard for a long time. Dad stopped at once, looking taken aback. ‘Be very, very
careful,’ said Mum. ‘Do you understand me?’

Dad stood still, his face completely expressionless. After a few seconds he turned towards the door, but Mum made a tiny noise that stopped him again in his tracks.

‘I need to know that you’ve heard me, Matt,’ said Mum. She wasn’t asking him, she was telling him, although Gil wasn’t at all clear exactly
what
she was
telling him. Then, abruptly, Dad nodded and left, and at the same time Mum got up and went to fill the kettle. The sudden silence in the kitchen was suffocating. Gil slumped forwards over the table
and waited helplessly for Mum to ask him the inevitable questions.
What’s going on, then? Is Dad right, that you’re mixed up in this?
He toyed with different answers, ways of
bluffing his way through it. As he went over it all in his mind he began to imagine it was not Mum asking the questions, but the police. He knew with absolute certainty that if he came under
suspicion the police wouldn’t let him off the way they had the last time. This wasn’t littering in a public park. This was a serious crime with serious consequences. He’d never be
able to get away with it. Gradually the secret began to weigh him down. The longer Mum asked no questions, the more desperate Gil became to confess. He felt as if he might explode with the
pressure.

At last he heard the clink of a teacup on the table and the creak of a chair.

‘What a mess,’ Mum said from somewhere near him. ‘I mean, I thought things were a mess yesterday, but this . . .’

Gil didn’t dare to raise his head. He feared his face would tell her everything. He waited in agony for Mum to speak again.

‘Do you hate me, Gil?’ she said quietly.

Gil sat up in astonishment. It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. ‘What?’ he said.

Mum was pale and serious, but she was not crying. ‘For hiding so many things from you,’ she said.

‘No, of course not, but . . .’

‘You hate Dad,’ said Mum.

Gil said nothing.

‘We made all the decisions together,’ said Mum. ‘We tried to do the right thing. Now it’s obvious we got some of it badly wrong. But we both have to take responsibility
for that. It’s not just Dad’s fault.’

Was she asking him to forgive Dad? Gil didn’t think he could do it. And anyway, Dad probably hated him now, after what he had done. Gil opened his mouth without any clear idea of what he
was going to say, but to his relief Mum carried on talking.

‘I’m not asking for any kind of confession,’ said Mum. ‘I appreciate I don’t have such a great track record on being trusted right now. I just need to know that,
whatever’s been going on, it’s going to stop.’

‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘I promise.’ It was the easiest promise he had ever made.

Mum nodded. ‘Please forgive me,’ she said. ‘I’ve made things very hard for you.’

‘I just —’ Gil swallowed. ‘I just don’t want you to be ill, Mum.’

‘No,’ said Mum. ‘Well, I may not be. And if I am, at least now it’s something we can face together, and that gives me hope.’

Gil felt the pressure in his chest begin to build again, the warning of the storm approaching. He did not want to be with Mum when it broke. ‘I’m just going to —’ he
said, vaguely, pushing the chair back.

‘Of course,’ Mum said. ‘See you later.’

Gil hurried back to the safety of his room and shut the door firmly behind him. As he battled to bring his breathing under control he wondered when the police would arrive and how much they
already knew. A thought dawned on him, and he went and retrieved the old mobile phone from the back of the drawer under the bed. Then he sat and looked at it for a while before he got up the
courage to call Jude’s number.

It rang for a long time and then cut to voicemail. Gil rang off, prepared a brief message in his head and tried again. After two rings it was answered.

‘Yes?’

The voice was so curt Gil couldn’t be sure it was Jude, but he could not risk saying Jude’s name aloud in the house.

‘It’s Gil,’ he said.

‘I know that.’ Jude was clearly not going to make this any easier.

‘I think Dad’s worked it out,’ Gil said.

He waited.

‘Thanks for the tip-off,’ said the crisp voice on the other end. ‘Just get rid of the phone, eh?’

Then he was gone.

A few seconds later, the doorbell trilled downstairs. Gil raked through the junk in his drawer until he found a pair of scissors, all the while listening to Mum as she opened
the door, greeted someone and took them down the corridor to Dad’s study. With the scissors Gil prised the plastic covers off the phone and took out the sim card and the battery. He snipped
the sim card in quarters and then began methodically to destroy the keypad and the screen with the point of a blade. As pieces of the phone fell apart he collected them carefully and put them in a
pile on his desk. It was weirdly calming.

If Dad tells the police . . .

He tried not to think about it. The work of dismantling the phone absorbed him for some time but when his mind swung round to the thought again, it had changed subtly.

When Dad tells the police . . .

It’s all right,
Gil told himself.
Jude will get away. He’s not stupid. He’s done this kind of thing before.
But that was not the only thing there was to worry
about. Gil’s hands started to shake so much he could no longer hold the scissors. He swept up the bits of the phone and wrapped them in a carrier bag which he stuffed in his backpack. Then he
got unsteadily to his feet. It was the suspense that was unbearable. If he just went down and told the police everything perhaps it would be a relief.

But he was only halfway down the stairs before the study door opened and the voices spilled out into the corridor. Gil froze, his resolve draining away.

‘Well, thank you very much, Dr Walker.’ The voice made the hair stand up on the back of Gil’s neck. There was something horribly familiar about it. ‘We’ll make sure
we keep you informed.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dad’s voice.

They were coming towards the bottom of the stairs and Gil tried to work out why he recognised the voice. Then he remembered. It was the policeman who had picked him up in the park when
he’d first met Jude. Gil turned to run back upstairs, but it was too late.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t the ASBO boy,’ said the policeman. ‘I hope you’ve been behaving yourself.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Gil said faintly, leaning back against the wall.

‘We scared some sense into you, then.’

‘Uh . . .’

The policeman stood eyeing Gil up and down triumphantly. He seemed reluctant to move on. Any minute now, and he would put two and two together. He would say,
Hang on a mo. You were with that
bloke in the park, weren’t you? That troublemaker, Jude. We know all about Jude. So what have you been up to, then?
Behind the policeman Gil could see Dad frowning. The game was up. Maybe
he should just put his wrists out for the handcuffs now.

‘And just as well, from what your dad’s told us,’ said the policeman cheerfully.‘It’s a good job we stopped you getting mixed up with that animal rights bloke, eh?
Could have been nasty.’

‘What?’ Gil didn’t understand. What had Dad said? Gil saw Dad’s frown deepen. ‘But it was . . .’

‘Gil,’ said Dad. ‘Go and sit in the kitchen, please.’

‘But . . .’

‘Kitchen.’ Dad tilted his head sideways. ‘Go on.’

Gil slid down to the foot of the stairs and retreated towards the kitchen. Behind him he heard the policeman again.

‘What’s up with him? He looks as if he’s seen a ghost.’

‘Well, we’ve all had a bad night,’ said Dad smoothly.

They moved slowly in the direction of the front door.

When he stumbled into the kitchen Gil could tell from Mum’s expression that he must look terrible. She didn’t say anything, but she came and put a hand on his shoulder as he fell
into a chair. Then they waited together while the policeman chatted on the doorstep and Dad said ‘Thank you. Yes, of course. Thank you,’ over and over again, trying to end the
conversation.

Then there was the click of the front door shutting and after a moment Dad appeared.

Gil was too scared to look at him. He was in turmoil. What had Dad told the police? He must have told them something. The policeman seemed to know about the connection with Jude. What was Dad up
to? Was he just stringing things out to make it as unpleasant for Gil as possible?