Part 21 (1/2)

'Why there?' she said.

'Because that's where he is,' I said, grabbing my coat and flinging it over my shoulders. 'And he's with Dianne Dare.'

730 p.m.

I HAVE A DATE. EXCITING, ISN'T IT? THE FIRST I'VE HAD, IN fact, in years; in spite of my mother's high hopes and my a.n.a.lyst's optimism, I've never really been that interested in the opposite s.e.x. Even now, when I think of them, the first thing that comes into my mind is Leon, shouting - You little pervert! -- and the sound he made as he fell down the chimney. Of course I don't tell them that. Instead I please them with tales of my father; of the beatings he gave me and of his cruelty. It satisfies my a.n.a.lyst, and now I've even come to half-believe it myself, and to forget about Leon as he jumped the gully, his face freeze-faded to the comforting sepia of the distant past. It wasn't your fault. How many times during the days that followed did I hear those words? I was cold inside; racked by night terrors; rigid with grief and the fear of discovery. I believe that for a time I genuinely lost my mind; and I threw myself into my transformation with a desperate zeal, working steadily (with my mother's help) to eradicate every trace of the Pinchbeck that was.

Of course, that's all over now. Guilt, as my a.n.a.lyst says, is the natural response of the true victim. I have worked hard to eradicate that guilt, and I think that so far I have succeeded rather well. The therapy is working. Naturally, I don't plan to tell her the precise nature of this therapy of mine; but I do think she'll agree with me that my guilt complex is mostly cured.

One more job to do then, before the final catharsis.

One more glance in the mirror before I meet my bonfire date.

Looking good, Snyde. Looking good.

7.30 p.m.

IT USUALLY TAKES FIFTEEN MINUTES TO WALK FROM MY house to the munic.i.p.al park. We did it in five, the invisible finger urging me on. The mist had dropped; a thick corona surrounded the moon, and the fireworks that popped from time to time above us lit up the sky like sheet lightning.

'What time is it?'

'Seven thirty. They'll be lighting the bonfire any moment now.' I hurried on, skirting a group of small children dragging a guy on a trolley.

'Quid for the guy, Mester?'

In my day, it was pennies. We hurried on, Marlene and I, through a night that was rich with smoke and shot with sparklers. A magical night, bright as those of my childhood and scented with the dusk of autumn leaves.

'I'm not sure we should be doing this.' That was Marlene, sensible as ever. 'Shouldn't the police be dealing with this kind of thing?'

'D'you think they'd listen?'

'Maybe not. But I still think--'

'Listen, Marlene. I just want to see him. Talk to him. If I'm right, and Pinchbeck is Keane--'

'I can't believe it.'

'But if it is, then Miss Dare may be in danger.'

'If it is, you old fool, then you may be in danger.'

'Oh.' It actually hadn't crossed my mind.

'There'll be police at the gate,' she said reasonably. 'I'll have a quiet word with whoever's in charge while you see if you can find Dianne.' She smiled. 'And if you're wrong which I'm sure you are - we can all celebrate Bonfire Night together. All right?'

We hurried on.

We saw the glow from the road some time before we reached the park gates. A crowd had already gathered there; attendants posted at each entrance to hand out tickets, and beyond the gates there were more people - thousands of them -- a bristling ma.s.s of heads and faces.

Behind, the fire was already lit; soon it would be a tower of flame leaping at the sky. A guy, perched on a ruined armchair halfway up the pile appeared to dominate the scene like the Lord of Misrule.

'You'll never find them here,' said Marlene, seeing the crowd. It's too dark, and look at all these people--'

Sure enough, there were more people at tonight's bonfire I than even I had expected. Families, mostly; men carryIng children on their shoulders; teenagers in fancy dress; youngsters in alien antennae, waving neon wands and eating candyfloss. Beyond the bonfire was the funfair; arcade games, waltzers and shooting ranges; Hook-a-Duck and the Tower of Fear; roundabouts and the Wheel of Death.

'I'll find them,' I said. 'You just do your bit.'

On the other side of the clearing, almost out of sight in the low-lying mist, the firework display was about to start. A cordon of children lined the are a; beneath my feet, the gra.s.s was churned mud. All around me, a c.o.c.ktail of crowd noise, several kinds of fairground music and at our backs, the red pandemonium of the fire as the flames leaped and the stacked pallets exploded with the heat, one by one.

And now it began. There was a sudden scattered sound of applause followed by a - Whoooo! from the crowd as a double handful of rockets bloomed and burst, illuminating the mist in a sudden flashgun-flare of red and blue. I moved on, scanning the faces now illuminated in neon colours; my feet s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably in the mud; my throat harsh with gunpowder and antic.i.p.ation. It was surreal; the sky was in flames; the faces in the firelight looked like Renaissance demons, forked and p.r.o.nged.

Keane was among them somewhere, I thought. But even that certainty had begun to fade, to be replaced by an unfamiliar self-doubt. I thought of myself pursuing the Sunnybankers, old legs giving way as the jeering boys escaped over the fence. I thought of Pooley and his friends, and of my collapse in the Lower Corridor, outside the Head's office. I thought of Pat Bishop saying; you're slowing down, and young Bevans - not so young now, I suppose and the small but constant pressure of the invisible finger within. At sixty-five, I told myself, how long can I expect to keep up the pretence? My Century had never seemed further away -- and beyond it, I could see nothing but dark.

Ten minutes in, and I knew it was hopeless. As well try to empty a bathtub with a spoon as try to find anyone in this chaos. From the corner of my eye I could just see Marlene, some hundred yards or so away, talking earnestly with a hara.s.sed-looking young police officer.

The Community Bonfire is a bad night for our local constabulary. Fights, accidents and casual thefts are rife; under cover of darkness and the holiday crowd almost anything is possible. Still, Marlene looked to be doing her best. As I watched, the hara.s.sed young officer spoke into his walkie-talkie; then a swatch of crowd pulled across the pair of them, hiding them both from sight.

By this time I was beginning to feel quite peculiar. Perhaps the fire; perhaps the belated effect of the mulled wine. In any case I was glad to move away from the heat for a while. Nearer the trees it was cooler and darker, there was less noise, and the invisible finger seemed inclined to move on, leaving me a little breathless, but otherwise fine.

The mist had settled lower, made eerily luminous by the fireworks, like the inside of a Chinese lantern. Through it now almost every young man appeared to be Keane. On each occasion, however, it turned out to be some other young man, sharp-faced and with a dark fringe, who glanced t me oddly before turning back to his wife (girlfriend, child). Still, I was sure he was there. The instinct, perhaps, of a man who has spent the last thirty-three years of his life checking doors for flour-bombs and desktops for graffiti. He was here somewhere. I could feel it.

Thirty minutes in, and the fireworks were almost over. As always they'd kept the best till last, a bouquet of rockets and fountains and spinning wheels that made starry night from the thickest fog. A curtain of brilliant light descended, and for a time I was almost blinded, fumbling my way through the ma.s.s of people. My right leg ached; and there was a st.i.tch running all the way down my right-hand side, as if something there had begun to unravel, gently releasing stuffing, like the seam on a very old teddy bear.

And then, suddenly in that apocalyptic light I saw Miss Dare; standing alone, some distance from the crowd. At first I thought I'd made a mistake; but then she turned, her face, half hidden beneath a red beret, still lit in garish shades of blue and green.

For a moment the image of her stirred some powerful memory in me, some urgent sense of terrible danger, and I began to run towards her, feet slipping in the soapy mud.

'Miss Dare! Where's Keane?'

She was wearing a trim red coat that matched her beret, her black hair tucked neatly behind her ears. She smiled quizzically as I arrived, panting, at her side.

'Keane?' she said. 'He had to go.'

Friday, 5th November 8.30 p.m.

I HAVE TO ADMIT I WAS QUITE NONPLUSSED. I D BEEN SO SURE Keane would be with her that I stared at her stupidly without a word, watching the coloured shadows flicker across her pale face and listening to the giant beat of my old heart in the darkness. 'Is anything wrong?'

'No,' I said. 'Just an old fool playing detective, that's all.'

She smiled.

Above and around me, the last rockets flared again. Rainforest green this time; a pleasing colour that made Martians of the faces that turned to watch. The blue I found slightly unnerving, like the blue lights of an ambulance, and the red-- Once more, something that was not quite a memory rose to the surface and dived again. Something about se lights; the colours; the way they had shone against neone's face-- 'Mr Straitley,' she said gently. 'You don't look well.'

As a matter of fact I'd felt better; but that was the smoke ind the heat of the fire. More important to me was the young woman standing at my side; a young woman who all my instincts told me might still be in danger.

'Listen, Dianne,' I said, taking her arm. 'I think there's something you need to know.'

And so I began. With the notebook at first; then with Mole; with Pinchbeck; with the deaths of Leon Mitch.e.l.l and John Snyde. It was all circ.u.mstantial when viewed piece by piece; but the more I thought and spoke about it, the more I could see a picture emerging.

He'd told me himself he'd been a Sunnybank boy. Imagine what that must have been for someone like Keane. A smart kid; a reader; a bit of a rebel. The staff would have disliked him almost as much as the pupils did. I could see him now, a sullen, solitary boy, hating his school, hating his contemporaries, making his life in the fantasy world.