The Bones of Summer (25 page)

Hope you're okay,
the note said.
It's 9:30 p.m. Julie and I are out for a quick drink. Back with Chinese & beer by 10:30. We'll get for you too. Drown our sorrows. Love and stuff and see you later. Maddy xxx

Craig smiled and glanced at his watch. Ten p.m. He'd slept as if he were dead. He had a thirst on him the size of Manhattan too.

In the kitchen, he drank the best part of two glasses of water and checked to see if there were any messages on his mobile. None from Paul, damn it. Not that he'd expected any. He just wanted to hear his fucking voice. Way too much to ask though; he knew it.

There was another message though. Not from a number he recognized. As he began to listen to it, the doorbell rang. The girls were back early. Must have forgotten their keys. As he made his way to the door, despite all that had happened and the fact he'd just been dumped, Craig's breath quickened as he listened to his phone message. It was from Pedro, the shoot director. He wanted to meet up. With Craig and his agent. Discuss another project. Hell, that would be so good. Maybe the day wasn't entirely shit then. He'd have to let his agent know. He'd have to....

He never got the chance to hear the end of the request. Because he opened the door and came face-to-face with someone in a mask. At the same time, something hard hit him with force on the side of his head. He was vaguely aware of trying to cry out but being unable to hear himself. Then he was falling and everything went dark.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

The sea was very rough. As if from a great distance, Craig wondered if the storm would ever subside. It was making his stomach churn and he thought he might have groaned. In his dream, he tried to hang on to the sides of the ship but his fingers kept slipping and he rolled across the deck. Opening his mouth to scream for help, nothing came out.

Something hard slapped him in the face and jolted him into wakefulness. The sea faded and instead he found himself looking at grubby white walls and rope.

“What...?” Craig didn't finish the question. A sudden lurch took him and he turned and vomited, feeling waves of nausea thudding in his head. The floor beneath him was tracked with mud and dust; it shimmered out of focus before coming back solid again.

He groaned. Sat up, leaning against the wall behind. He realized he was still moving, and could smell diesel, hear the roar of an engine. A car. He was in a car. Blinking, he stared around. No, it was bigger than that. A van.

Okay, a van. And one traveling somewhere. But what the bloody hell was he doing in it? He tried to stand up. He failed. Mainly because, as he realized for the first time, his feet were tied together. His hands too. Bloody hell.

Lying back down on the floor, thankfully not too close to his own vomit, his mouth pressed against God knew what kind of dirt, Craig tried to remember what had happened. The phone call, the doorbell. Someone in a mask. And then ... then here.

Bloody hell. Again. He had to do something. His head felt as if someone had launched a ruddy elephant at it. A quick search in his pockets revealed no phone. Well, he should have assumed that whoever had knocked him senseless and trussed him up like an old chicken would have removed his only means to call for help. Damn them.

His body bathed in sweat in spite of the chill in the van, he knelt upright and shuffled to the front, where the unknown driver would be. Then, banging his imprisoned fists on the cab wall, he shouted as loudly as he could.

"You bastard, what the fuck do you think you're doing? Let me out of here. Are you crazy? Come on then; show yourself, you fucking bastard."

He went on shouting until he heard the sound of muffled curses and the van screeched to a halt. He fell backward and scrabbled in the dirt again. The driver's door slammed shut, the engine still running. Two seconds later and the winter air came rushing into Craig's prison as the rear door was opened. He slammed himself forward, hoping to knock his captor over, though he had no real idea what he might do afterward. He simply wanted whoever it was to
feel some ruddy pain
.

It didn't work.

Because the man standing in the doorway swung something hard and strong at Craig's side and knocked him sideways, cursing. Pain ripped through his arm. Even as he fell, he registered the fact that they were on a main road or motorway and it was night.

“Do that again,” the man hissed, “and I'll use the bat on your head, not just on your shoulder.”

Even before the threat was finished, Craig already knew who it was.

“D-Dad?” he stammered. But then the shutting of the door locked him into darkness again.

As Craig tried to get a grip on what the hell was going on, the van was revved into gear, and the journey continued. But to where?

He wasn't to find out for some hours. From the length of the ride, he guessed they were heading back to Devon, though he had no idea what time it might be. His watch was gone. That was just a guess though; the fact that there were no windows along with the darkness itself both served to muddle him and, for all he knew, they could well be driving to Scotland. But his father was a creature of routine, or had been. Whatever he was planning, he would do on his home ground.

In the meantime, Craig's throat was gasping for water and, worse, he was aching for a pee. He held out for as long as he could, then with a sigh crawled over to the far end of the van, gritted his teeth and got on with it. Luckily he managed to avoid the worst of the splash-back. At least when his father finally decided to stop and he had another chance to fight, he wouldn't be distracted by other issues.

All that didn't cure his thirst though. Not that thirst was the greatest problem right now. He made his way to the door. Leaning as far back as possible so he was less likely to fall headlong onto the road if he managed to get the ruddy door open, he slammed the handle up and down for a few moments and then gave the whole damn thing a few shoves. No luck. Why couldn't his father have chosen to kidnap him in some old banger rather than one with truly lockable doors? All those years on the farm working in vehicles that were one step away from falling apart entirely and now the bugger had to go and choose one that was state-of-the-art. Bloody typical.

After several other goes, he decided to call it a day. For the moment. Maybe the best thing was to wait to be released and then fight back. His head had begun to ache in earnest. He'd have to try to stay awake, be prepared for his chance when it came. Funny how the thought of tackling his father made his head throb harder. Fractured images reared up but he could make no sense of them. Probably a good thing. Besides, he'd never been able to make any sense of anything to do with his father. No use starting now.

In spite of his plan to keep awake, it was the silence of the engine that woke him from an unsettled doze. For a moment, he thought he might be sick again, but he swallowed the feeling down.

He heard footsteps on gravel by the side of the van and tensed himself for action. The door swung open. With a grunt, Craig launched himself at his father's frame. He never got there. Something heavy slammed down once more onto his shoulder and he fell to the ground outside with a cry. As he tried to at least get to his feet, he realized that he was looking at the barrel of a rifle aimed at his head.

“Jesus
Christ
.”

His father shoved the rifle at Craig's chest and he fell backward again. At the corner of his vision, he could just make out the shapes of outbuildings and the distant hulk of a tractor, trees. He'd been right, then. They were back on the farm.

“Don't you
ever
take the Lord's name in vain,” his father spat, each word inhabiting its own small universe and accompanied by another jab with the gun. “Do you hear me?”

Craig bit back the natural response and tried to breathe slowly. “Yes, I hear you. I'm sorry.”

No answer. His father was standing near the open back door of the van now and for a moment he glanced inside before turning his attention back to Craig. “Have you dirtied yourself in there?
Have you?
”

“Y-yes. Yes, I have. I couldn't help it.”

“You sinner.”

With a deliberation so measured that Craig couldn't quite believe he was doing it, his father raised the rifle and brought it crashing down on his head.

Once again everything went black.

The ache in his arms woke him. It felt as if his muscles were being impossibly stretched, and he could taste bile at the back of his throat. His head throbbed and his left eye felt sticky.

“Wh-what?”

“Shut up,” somebody hissed, and it took Craig a moment to recognize the voice. “Shut up, or the Lord will
make
you shut up.”

It was his father. Remembering all that had happened, Craig opened his eyes and tried to keep his breathing steady. He couldn't see much, but he could make out the barn door in front of him, and something metallic and cold behind, touching his back. The coldness seeped in through his shirt and seemed to spread throughout his whole body. Twisting his head to try to see what it was made the bile rise to his mouth and he had to gag and spit it away, but he'd already understood by then where he was.

His father had tied him up. He'd knocked Craig out, and tied him to the hooks on the barn wall. He was hanging from them now, his arms feeling as if they'd be torn from their sockets at any moment, and his feet dangling only a few precious inches from the ground. The south barn, he thought; that was nearest to the van when his father knocked him out. And that's where they were now, though what good that realization might do him, Craig didn't know.

The more important question was: What was his father going to do?

If he wanted Craig to be quiet, then he could only assume that he had something to say. And would say it when he was ready. No earlier and no later. How Craig remembered that trait from his youth. While he waited, he glanced around. From the subtle hint of light coming through the high window, he imagined it must be nearly dawn. He must only just have been tied up here though, as surely the pressure on his arms would have jolted him awake at once. He couldn't have been here long.

The man with him began to hum. Something which sounded like a hymn. Instantly, Craig was fully alert, though he couldn't have said why. Flashes of what might have been memory filled his head, all of it more of a confused jumble than before. His mother. Sunlight. Something red. The dripping tap. The sound of breathing. Then it was gone and there was nothing in his thoughts at all. Simply a terrible blankness. The humming became higher-pitched, and Craig squeezed his eyes shut, trying to scrabble as quietly as possible with his legs for some kind of hold on the wall behind him. Something that might ease the pain. Just for a moment or two.

“Stop that.” His father spoke roughly, in between the wild humming. “The pain will heal you. Stop giving yourself pleasure. Pleasure leads to sin.”

“Oh yeah,” Craig replied before he could think better of it. “And you don't care for pleasure, do you? So what were you doing with that prostitute in London when you weren't spying on me?”

The effort of that little speech cost him dearly as he struggled for breath. It cost him dearly in other ways too. His father took two strides toward him and tugged at his feet. Craig screamed and blacked out for a few moments. When he came to, he realized he'd pissed himself and the pain in his arms was almost unbearable. At the same time, his father was talking, words that made no sense but which were terrifyingly familiar.

“You're a sinner, you need to be shown the right way, you've been a rebel all along, God has told me to punish you, I've tried to save you all these years, I tried to show you right from wrong but you've always been a sinner, sick you are, sick, and now the Lord has showed me what to do, now I must obey Him.”

His father said the same things over and over again, and all Craig could do was listen. Without wanting to, he was transported to his boyhood all over again, the years in between fading away as if they had been nothing.

* * * *

He was just six. At home after school. It was spring, he remembered. Not long before his mother left them. He'd waved goodbye to the friend's parent who had given him a lift. Then he'd gone into the house, dragging his schoolbag behind him, and accidentally knocked the Nativity statue off the hall table and onto the floor. There'd been a dull thud and a splintering sound and the donkey had been broken off from the manger and rolled across the carpet.

Daniel froze. His bag slipped from his hand and he glanced at the office door on his left. At the same time, the living room door opened and his mother stood, framed by the light. He stared dumbly at her and a shadow of concern flitted across her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever words she might have been intending to say were never spoken.

His father came out of the office and stood before them both. His eyes were shadowed and his hair brushed back.

“What's that noise? Can't you keep quiet while I'm trying to pray?”

“I'm sorry,” Daniel mumbled. “I didn't mean to....”

“Didn't mean to ... what?” Mr. Clutton interrupted, a frown creasing his forehead. “What have you done now?”

“It's nothing, James,” his mother began to say, as she stepped between his father and the broken statue. “Danny's just home from school, that's all. Why can't you leave our son alone?”

Daniel sent a brief glance of gratitude in her direction, his heart thumping fast. Thankfully his father didn't see. Maybe, he thought, maybe he'd got away with it. This time.

“Don't speak to me like that—it's not the Lord's will,” his father said. “You know that. Besides, the boy's making too much noise. Hasn't he learnt any manners at school?”

His father turned to go back into the office, but then hesitated. Something must have caught his eye.

Daniel followed his gaze and felt himself begin to shake as he realized that his mother's swift action hadn't managed to hide the donkey, which was now lying a foot or so away, staring blindly upward. He felt tears prickle at the corner of his eye and fought to control them.