The Unmaking Of Ellie Rook Episode 50

Ilook at Mum. “What about Shel?” she asks. Mum picks nervously at the feathers on Shelby’s hat. “I put these in his hatband. I’ve been feeding the crows out in the woods and they bring me little presents. Sticks, stones, feathers.”

“Buttons.” I remember my little black visitor in the sitting room, with his message of hope.

“One thing at a time. We’ll get you to a safe place and then we’ll worry about Shel. Come on, let’s go get your tent and stuff.”

As plans go, it’s a precarious one. It will mean walking into the lion’s den. And asking my mother to face up to her worst nightmare.

It’s almost dark by the time we turn into the yard. My stomach is tying itself in knots as I nose the Fiesta between the Range Rover and Offshore Dave’s van.

What is Dave still doing here? The security lights snap on and the vacant plot of Shelby’s caravan shocks me all over again.

The yard seems desolate. I cut the engine but neither of us wants to move. River reaches for the door handle with deliberate slowness.

“If this doesn’t work...”

“It will work.”

Fear

I refuse to dwell on any other outcome. “Grit your teeth. We walk in, let him say what he’s got to say and I’ll take it from there.”

We step out into puddles of soapy water. Offshore Dave has been hosing away the evidence and the two vehicles are glistening down to their tyre treads. So that’s why he’s here.

An orange glow spills from the kitchen window, and I experience the familiar squeeze of fear as I imagine Dad waiting for us.

He’s probably having his supper – a ham sandwich, perhaps. I wonder if he found the mustard.

River pauses with his hand on the back door. Everything is changing, and it’s hard for him.

I forget sometimes how young he is. Dad treats him like a man, expects him to behave like a man, and yet he’s still a teenager.

At 15, you don’t want to have to think about your parents’ relationship. You live in a different world – you close your bedroom door, stick on some loud music and zone out. I’ve been there. But it comes at a price.

We enter, resisting the urge to cling to each other – the babes in the woods.

Dad is sitting at the table in his usual place. He’s tinkering with a vintage Bakelite radio, its innards spilling out over an old copy of the Press and Journal.

Offshore Dave is sipping something from my mother’s Wallace and Gromit mug. Judging by the hip flask beside his elbow, it’s not just coffee.

His boots have left gouts of muck beneath the table and no one has bothered to pick up the broken china.

We venture in. I fill the kettle; River sits down and takes off his boots. Eventually, Dad glances up, screwdriver posed as delicately as a chopstick.

“Where have you been?”

Trick question

Is it a trick question? Does he know? Maybe Piotr didn’t manage to disable the software in time.

The thought of him observing our frantic drive to the caravan makes me feel sick. When neither of us replies, he tries a different tack.

“When were you going to tell me?” River and I glance at each other. My mouth goes dry, making it difficult to speak.

“Tell you what?”

He places the screwdriver down on the paper. His hands are obscured slightly by the radio case, but I can see he’s sorting through the bits – the springs and screws, tubes and wires. It looks like he’s assembling a homemade bomb.

“When I started to clean this up, I was puzzled by a black component peeking over this transformer on the left. In the scheme of things, it didn’t seem to fit.”

He scratches his beard. “It puzzled me. When I turned the set over and traced the wiring, I discovered it was the power supply rectifier!”

He grins at Dave, who grins back, even though he hasn’t a clue what a rectifier is.

“Rectifiers of this vintage are often unreliable, so...” Dad sorts through some more parts.

“I’ve decided to replace it with a modern silicon diode. Ah – here’s what I’m looking for!”

With a flourish, he produces a black feather. Pinched between finger and thumb, he holds it up to the light.

I’m transfixed by its blue-black glint. River tries to catch my eye, but I can’t look away.

“Just get to the point,” I whisper. “The point being,” he says, “a little detective work and attention to detail sheds light on most things.”

I can hear the ticking of the clock; Dave slurping his coffee.

My insides have turned to slush. “Shelby Smith appears to have acquired feathers in his cap that he never had before.”

Flourish

He peers closely at the object in his fingers. “Crow feathers, to be exact. Now, I can’t imagine Shelby Smith making an Easter bonnet out of that tatty old fedora, can you, Offshore?”

Dave shakes his head and chortles through closed lips. Dad smiles slowly.

“So, naturally, I’m wondering who did this. Who might put a feather or two in his cap?”

I bite my lip. I’m a rabbit with a hawk circling above. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“No. But this does.”

With a magical flourish, Dad produces Mum’s scarf. The red one with the owls on it. “Lying on the seat in his caravan.”

They say time stands still when you’ve had a shock, but I can still hear that damn clock ticking.

Dave’s smirk hovers above the mug; the feather rotates through 360 degrees and flutters to the ground as Dad gets to his feet.

An orange glow spills from the window, and I experience the familiar squeeze of fear as I imagine Dad waiting for us

More tomorrow.

Copyright Sandra Ireland 2019, extracted from The Unmaking Of Ellie Rook, published by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd, at £8.99.