Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [118]
He thudded past George Cowley and Daniel, who were standing by the Land Rover, and while he didn’t need even to go near them, he did anyway, just so he could shove that limp-wrist Daniel out of the way. George yelled, “Just you bloody— ”
“Fuck you!” Tim cut in. He needed, he wanted, he had to find something because everything was cresting inside of him, his very blood was cresting and he knew if he didn’t find something, his head would explode and the blood and the brains would surge out of him and while that didn’t matter a whit he didn’t want it to be this way and there was Kaveh calling his name, telling him to stop telling him to wait only that was the last thing he’d ever do: wait for Kaveh Mehran.
Around the side of the pub and through a garden and there was Bryan Beck. On the stream the village ducks floated and on the opposite bank wild mallards rooted through the heavy-topped grass for slugs or worms or whatever the hell it was that they ate and oh God how he wanted to feel one of them all of them crushed beneath his fist or his feet it didn’t matter just to have something die die die.
Tim was in the water without knowing he was in the water. The ducks scattered. He flailed at them. Shouting was coming from every direction and some of it he realised was coming from him and then he was grabbed. Strong arms came round him and a voice in his ear said, “No. You mustn’t. You don’t mean to. It’s all right.”
And goddamn, it was the bumboy himself, the limp wrist, the queer. He had his arms and his hands on Tim and he was holding him God he was actually holding him touching him the filth the filth the filth.
“Get away!” Tim shrieked. He fought. Kaveh held on harder.
“Tim. Stop!” Kaveh cried. “You don’t mean to do this. Come away. Quickly.”
They wrestled in the water like two greased monkeys till Tim squirmed away and Kaveh fell back. He landed on his bum and the frigid water was up to his waist and he was struggling to get back to his feet and Tim felt such triumph because what he wanted was the stupid git struggling, he wanted to show him, he wanted to prove—
“I’m not a butt fucker,” he screamed. “Keep your fucking hands off me. You hear me? Find someone else.”
Kaveh watched him. He was breathing hard and so was Tim, but something came over his face and what it was not was what Tim wanted it to be, which was hurt, devastation, destruction.
Kaveh said, “Of course you’re not, Tim. Did you think you might be?”
“Shut up!” Tim yelled in reply. He turned and ran.
He left Kaveh sitting in Bryan Beck, water to his waist, watching him run.
GREAT URSWICK
CUMBRIA
Manette had managed to get the tent raised by herself. It hadn’t been easy and although she had always been excessively competent when it came to anything that required her to follow instructions, she hadn’t done her usual perfect job with erecting the poles and the canvas, not to mention plunging the stakes into the ground, so she reckoned the whole thing would collapse on her. But she crawled inside anyway and sat Buddhalike in the opening, facing the pond at the bottom of the garden.
Freddie had knocked on her bathroom door and said he needed to speak with her. She’d said of course and could he give her a few minutes. She was just… whatever. He hurriedly said absolutely as if the last thing he wanted to know was what she was doing in the bathroom and who could blame him, really. There were some forms of intimacy that were far too intimate.
She hadn’t been doing anything. She’d been killing time. She’d sensed something was going on with Freddie when they’d met at the coffeemaker midmorning. She’d come down from her room; he’d come in from outside and since he’d entered wearing what he’d been wearing the previous day, she knew he’d spent the night with Sarah. Wily one, that Sarah, Manette reckoned. She knew a gem when she saw it.
So when Freddie asked to speak with her, she reckoned the boom was going to fall.