Read Online Behindlings by Nicola Barker - Free Book Online

Hooch quizzed.
    ‘Katherine
Turpin.
’
    ‘Turpin?’
    ‘As in
Dick,
’ Doc said.
    ‘It rings a bell, Doc,’ Hooch muttered, glancing sideways at Jo for the first time, as if supremely protective of the information he was gleaning. He suddenly lowered his voice, presumably hoping to encourage Doc to do the same, ‘And the connection?’
    ‘The walks book,’ Doc announced, sounding justly proud of his coup, ‘the section on Canvey. All that crazy stuff about boundaries. I never understood a word of it…’ he chuckled, ‘nor did Wes himself, more than likely. But this is where she lives. That much I am sure of.’
    Hooch chewed on the end of his finger for a moment, frowning, then suddenly his monolithic mien brightened. ‘Of
course,
’ he squeaked, jabbing his biro into the air with a quite savage delight, ‘of course of
course.
You mean
Katherine.
You mean
the
KatherineTurpin. What on earth was I thinking? You mean Katherine the
whore…
’
    Hooch proclaimed this slanderous defamation with all the uninhibited joy of a miserly man who unexpectedly finds his long-lost gold cap tucked inside a three-week-old carton of pasta salad.
    ‘
Sssh!
’
    Even Doc had the good grace to seem embarrassed by Hooch’s complete want of delicacy. Dewi and the kid were currently well within earshot, standing on the opposite kerb, impatiently waiting for a van to pass. He scowled, quickly pushing his pager into his coat pocket –as if to free his hands for something (combat, possibly) –but then held them limply by his sides, open, loose.
    They crossed the road. Dewi roughly yanked Patty up onto the grass verge in front of them. ‘Is the boy with you?’ he asked Doc, proffering the child, who dangled as weakly in Dewi’s huge grip as a faded old bathrobe on a big, brass doorknob.
    ‘The boy?
Mine?
Good Lord, no,’ Doc exclaimed, lifting his hands and smiling as if this was possibly the most preposterous supposition he had ever yet been party to.
    The boy,
his?
    Patty stared up at Doc, unblinking, his head yanked sideways by Dewi’s tight grip. He was just a boy. He had no agenda. There was nothing unspoken or sly or resentful in his gaze. But even so, almost out of nowhere, Doc’s smile suddenly faltered. His hands froze, mid-air. His lips twisted. Because he had indeed been the father of a son, once.
    A father. This strangely alien yet acutely painful notion hit him like a karate kick. Two kicks. In the kidneys. It winded him. How on earth could he have forgotten? Even passingly. His own flesh and blood, his
boy,
dead. A too short life, curtailed, emptied, drained, exhausted…
    Doc’s loose hands clenched, just briefly, as if he was seriously considering doing something wild and magnificent –venting his rage. Perhaps calling death or fate or destiny to task. Going five rounds with the bastards.
Pulping
them –but then they unclenched again and hung inertly.
    Dewi didn’t notice Doc’s distress. It was all much too subtle. He was far too irritable. He turned to Jo. ‘What about you?’ he asked,then paused for a moment to inspect her face more closely. He had mistaken her for a boy, possibly a brother. But she was a girl, and as if to prove it categorically, a fierce blush –like two clumsily upended measures of sweet cherry brandy –slowly stained the impeccable cream cotton tablecloth of her soft complexion.
    Jo shrugged, burning inside, burning outside, utterly mortified, yet still silently mesmerised by the layers of dust which –close up –coated Dewi’s features and hung above either eyebrow like precarious hunks of soft, pale honeycomb.
    ‘Why should the kid belong to anybody?’ Hooch butted in –observing Doc’s temporary state of disquiet and feeling bad for him. ‘Why can’t he simply be here under his own steam?’
    Dewi loosened his grip on the child –he couldn’t be much past eleven, at best, Jo calculated –and slowly drew closer to Hooch. Soon he stood only inches from him. He was a