first said no, she sat in the garage reading Harry Potter till nearly midnight in an attempt to frighten him into submission. Then she let herself in through the front door. At first, it seemed her efforts had been wasted: Archie wasn't even home. Cerys was, though: she smacked Skunk hard on the backside and said, Don't you dare do that again, you selfish little bitch. You think about your father. All he ever does is put you kids first. She shook Skunk hard by the shoulders, then gave her another smack. Skunk was sent to bed, sobbing. Cerys then texted Archie to tell him his daughter had turned up safe. Ten minutes later, Archie pulled up in the driveway. After phoning around Skunk's schoolmates to see if she was with any of them, he had been driving around Hedge End in an effort to find her. Now he went straight up to her bedroom. He didn't turn her light on, but Skunk heard him climbing the stairs and saw his silhouette in the doorway. He said, very gently, ‘Skunk.’
She said, ‘Go away. Leave me alone. I hate you. I want my mummy.’
‘Don't say that, little darling.’
Skunk immediately regretted using her mother to upset her father. She lay very still, very quiet.
Archie remained in the doorway a long time, then gently pulled the door shut. The next day was a Saturday. He took Skunk into Southampton and bought her a brand-new mobile phone with a camera and Internet connection on the solemn understanding she wouldn't bankrupt the household by sending texts or making unnecessary phone calls to premium-rate chatlines. She hugged him very tightly and said, I don't really hate you, Daddy. He laughed and said he knew. Then he drove her home.
By the time they pulled into Drummond Square, Skunk had used her brand-spanking-new car-charger to charge her brand-spanking-new mobile enough to call Jed on his pathetic-stone-age mobile that only sent texts and made phone calls. She said, ‘You'll never guess what I got.’
‘Not a video phone?’
‘No.’ Skunk wanted to say ‘It's better than a video phone’, but it wasn't, so she couldn't. She felt suddenly deflated. Then she saw something that brightened her mood. ‘Broken Buckley's back.’
He was sitting in the back of his father's car. He had his hands in his lap. He was resting his head against the back of the driver's seat. He was refusing to move.
‘Please, Rick,’ Mr Buckley was saying. ‘Please. Just come inside.’
‘Not until it's dark.’
‘Dark? But it's only 11 a.m.’
‘Not until it's dark.’
Mr Buckley scratched his head. He stepped away from the car. Mrs Buckley watched from the kitchen window. When Mr Buckley raised his arms in exasperation, she had to turn away. Mr Buckley went inside. Broken Buckley lifted his head from the back of the driver's seat, took a look around him, then put his head forward once again. Jed said in Skunk's ear, ‘No he isn't.’
‘Yes he is. He's sitting in the back of Mr Buckley's car.’
There was the muffled sound of movement. Skunk looked up at her bedroom window. Jed was staring down.
‘See.’
‘Yeah,’ Jed admitted. ‘He is.’
A hand rested on Skunk's shoulder. ‘Inside,’ Archie ordered.
She ended the call to save credit and hurried on into the house. Then she ran up to her bedroom. From here, she and Jed watched as Archie crossed the square and knocked on the Buckleys' front door. Mr Buckley answered. He had been on the phone trying to get through to social services. He desperately wanted to talk to someone about his son's behaviour during the car journey home. After Mr Buckley had picked him up, Broken had insisted on walking from the secure unit to Mr Buckley's car under the cover of Mr Buckley's coat. Once inside the car he had barked baffling instructions at his father such as, turn left here, stop at these lights, don't go round that corner. Mr Buckley had ignored him. Broken had then put on his seat belt and said, He's going to find me. Mr Buckley had said, Who's going to find you? to which Broken had said, I can't say in case you tell him. Mr Buckley had sighed. Then he had felt a sudden jarring sensation in the centre of his back. He had looked in the rear-view mirror and seen his son had taken off his seat belt and was pushing his head into the driver's seat. Neither of them had talked again until Mr Buckley pulled up on the drive and Broken refused to get out.
Now Mr Buckley stood in his hallway and tried every telephone number he'd been given by the social worker who'd contacted him last Wednesday and told him Rick was well enough to come home. Each number was engaged. As Mr Buckley dialled the first one over again, the doorbell rang. Hoping his son had changed his mind about staying in the car until it was dark, Mr Buckley rushed to open the door. Archie stood on the doorstep.
‘You OK, Dave?’
Mr Buckley felt his cheeks redden. ‘Oh yes, fine, fine.’
‘You sure?’
Mr Buckley looked at Archie Cunningham. He thought, Archie, I know you mean well, but there's nothing you can do, so why don't you leave me alone?
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Everything's fine.’
Archie Cunningham looked at Mr Buckley. He thought, Jesus, I know I mean well, but there's nothing I can do, I wish I'd just left this alone.
He said, ‘Well, OK. But if there's anything I can do, we're only across the square.’
‘Thanks, Archie. You're a pal.’
Archie nodded and made his way back home. As he walked past Mr Buckley's car he ducked his head a little. ‘Hi, Rick. Good to see you home.’
Broken Buckley shivered and covered his face up. Archie kept on walking. Jed and Skunk stayed at Skunk's bedroom window for the next twenty minutes, but when nothing of interest happened they went to Jed's room and played Xbox. As Skunk's Obi-Wan Kenobi slaughtered Jed's Darth Vader, Jed whispered, as an aside, ‘Sleep with your windows locked tonight, Skunk.’
She glanced at him then back at the light-sabre battle before her. ‘What? Why?’
‘Broken's back,’ he told her. ‘Who knows what'll happen.’
‘Why should anything happen?’
‘He's an axe-murderer-psycho-killer, remember.’
‘No he isn't.’
‘Yes he is.’
‘No he isn't. The police never came out and put tents up. The Oswalds came back from the seaside. Broken Buckley never killed anyone.’
‘Yes he did,’ Jed insisted. ‘But he's the worst kind of axe-murderer-psycho-killer there is, Skunk – the type who only kills people he doesn't know, like the Yorkshire Ripper, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or Dennis Nilsen. It took the police ages to catch them, yet Dr Crippen only murdered his wife and they caught him before he could cross the Atlantic.’
Skunk took another look at Jed. He kept staring at the screen. He talked quietly, with total belief.
‘I reckon the police have been questioning Broken about tons of missing people, but they can't pin anything on him, so they've had to let him go, even though they know he's an axe-murderer-psycho-killer. The problem is, Skunk, now Broken knows they're on to him, he's going to start getting reckless. That's why you need to watch out. Your bedroom window's virtually opposite his room.’
Skunk was openly staring at Jed now. Her stomach felt greasy and empty.
‘You think he's likely to kill me?’
‘More than likely. In The Silence of the Lambs, the killer started with a woman who lived over the road. He weighed her body down with stones so she wouldn't be the one the police found first. It took Jodie Foster nearly two hours to figure that one out, and then only with the help of another axe-murderer-psycho-killer.’ Jed had seen The Silence of the Lambs when Archie got drunk one night and forgot to send him to bed.
Now Skunk's throat was dry and her hands felt sweaty. She hadn't looked at