“What the fuck are you doing?” he says.
Tom shivers and feels a cold trickling in his nerves and tendons, and he feels sick. It’s fear.
“Sorry,” he says, stepping back, but there’s laughter again as another hand presses at his back and pushes harder. Tom trips and crashes into Edwin face-to-face. Naked.
“Get off me, fucking fairy!” cries Edwin. He’s angry, but Tom can see the anger in his eyes is mixed with fear.
“He fancies you, Ed . . . ,” says a voice.
“You shouldn’t let him touch you like that,” says another.
“Yeah, people will get ideas about you two!”
The steam is now curling up around them. Edwin’s fist seems to come out of nowhere and hits Tom in the jaw. His head snaps back and smashes into the tiled wall. The pain is intense, and he slides down the wall and lands on the concrete floor, hitting his tailbone with a sickening thud. There’s a thin line of blood where he hit the tiles.
Tom looks up. Edwin’s face is a mix of hatred and terror. Tom tries to get up, but it hurts; he’s numb.
“Get up, you fucking queer!” someone shouts. Getting up would be the thing to do. It would restore order. Getting up would be the mannish thing to do. Tom can see that lying on the ground makes them angrier.
Hormones raging. Looking for a fight. He hears his father’s voice in that moment before the attack: “Whatever happens in a fight, you must stay on your feet, even if you get the shit kicked out of you. Never let them knock you to the ground or you’ll be finished.”
The full force of a punch slams his head against the concrete and shatters his front teeth. A foot kicks him in the guts. Edwin reaches down and grabs at his ankles, and he’s dragged naked along the concrete floor. Hot water, fists, and feet raining down on him.
He remembers Mr. Pike’s part in all this. The glimpse of his red face at the end of the showers. The wild-eyed look of excitement at what’s happening. He does nothing and watches as the steam and the rest of the boys swarm over Tom, kicking, punching, stomping.
Tom didn’t know how long he had zoned out. When he looked down, he was in the shower cubicle next to the bath. He was washing and scrubbing at his skin. He ran his fingers over the left side of his rib cage, where there was a long, thick scar. The bruises and broken bones had all healed, but where Edwin had stomped on his rib cage, causing the bones to break and push through his skin, there would always be a scar.
Tom dried off and stepped out of the shower. From under the sink, he took out a set of white hazmat coveralls, long white socks, latex gloves, a bottle of antibacterial hand soap, and a scrubbing brush with a long wooden handle.
He placed them neatly in a pile on the chair by the bath and dressed in the socks and then in the hazmat suit, pulling the hood up over his head and adjusting the face mask so that only his eyes were showing through. Then he pulled on the latex gloves.
The large bath was now two-thirds full. Tom was glad for the fog on the mirror. He still couldn’t look at himself. He came back to the bedroom and carefully untied Hayden’s legs and unlocked the handcuffs on his wrists. He picked him up and carried him to the bathroom, where he gently placed him into the bathtub.
There was a fresh set of clothes waiting for Hayden after his bath. When the police found him—eventually found him, if at all—it would be impossible to gather DNA evidence.
Tom was planning to tuck him neatly away.
16
Kate and Tristan arrived at Shelley Morden’s house at two p.m. the next day. Eleven Park Street was a pebble-dashed terrace house on a sloping hill looking out over Exeter. The street was quiet, and the path in front of the gate was covered with chalk drawings and hopscotch grids.
The door was opened by a small, plump lady who looked to be in her midthirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and oversize red-framed glasses. She had an open, smiley face and soft brown eyes, and when she welcomed them inside, there was a tinge of Birmingham in her accent. Music came floating out behind her from a kids’ TV show, a song about counting to ten. Kate noticed she had a Chinese symbol tattoo on her wrist, and her fingers were adorned with silver rings, two of which were set with large amber stones. “I was about to put the kettle on, if you’d like a cup of tea?” she said.
“Thank you,” said Kate.
“Lovely,” said Tristan.
There was a large antique sideboard in the hallway with a spotted mirror. The shelves were filled with secondhand books, and a row of naked Barbie dolls were propped up against the books. They were all in stages of undress with hopelessly tangled hair, and one had a shaved head.