Free Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks

mean? Put him where?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Anywhere. A river, lake, in the woods. A gravel pit.’
    A long silence.
    Then:
‘You are joking, aren’t you? I mean, even if you did put him somewhere, someone’s bound to find him sooner or later.’
    â€˜Probably.’
    â€˜So what’s the point?’
    â€˜He’s a drunk, Alex. Was a drunk. It wasn’t unusual for him to go off drinking for days at a time and not come back.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So all we have to do is get rid of the body somewhere, then, in a day or two, I’ll call the police and tell them Dad’s been missing since Wednesday. I’ll just say he went out in the evening and never came back. Even if they do find him, they won’t suspect me, will they? I’m just a kid …’
    I reached across the table and pressed the
Stop
button.
    â€˜There’s plenty more,’ said Dean. Cigarette smoke trailed languidly from his wide nostrils.
    I looked across at Alex, standing by the window with her head bowed.
    â€˜Alex?’
    She looked up, sad eyes glistening. ‘He bugged my bag.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜A listening device. From the Gadget Shop. He put it in my bag. Yesterday. He taped us talking … everything.’ She was close to tears.
    â€˜Everything?’
    She nodded.
    Dean reached into his pocket and dropped a little electronic, buggy thing on the table – black plastic, about the size of a 5p coin, with a tiny metal grill on one side. ‘It’s got a range of two miles,’ he said, ‘I linked up the receiver to a cassette machine.’ He picked up the bug and turned it over in his hand, smiling a self-satisfied smile. ‘Good, eh?’
    â€˜Why?’ I asked him.
    He stared at me across the table. There was something unsettling in his eyes. Something unbalanced.
    â€˜Why?’ he repeated. ‘I was curious, that’s why. You and Alex and your cosy little night-time
chats
. I just wondered what you got up to, that’s all. Know what I mean?’ He turned to Alex. ‘You wouldn’t tell me about your little Pigman, would you, Al?’
    â€˜It’s none of your business, Dean, you don’t
own
me.’
    He tapped the tape recorder and laughed. ‘I do now.’
    â€˜What do you want?’ I asked him.
    He put the tape recorder in his pocket, stood up, and drew on his cigarette. ‘All in good time, Piggy.’
    He was tall, nearly six feet, but stooped, as if his head weighed too much. I watched him straighten out his ponytail.
    â€˜Where’s the body?’ he asked.
    â€˜In the front room.’
    â€˜Show me.’ The corner of his mouth twitched as he spoke, the tiniest of tics, and his left eyelid fluttered in reaction.
    I led him into the front room and stepped aside to let him see.
    He nodded at the shape beneath the sheet. ‘Is that it?’
    â€˜You want a look?’
    He rubbed nervously at his jaw. ‘You do it. Lift the sheet.’
    â€˜Scared?’
    â€˜Listen, Pig,’ he hissed, jabbing a long-nailed finger at me. ‘You do what I tell you and you just
might
get out of this in one piece. But you mess me about …’ He tapped the tape recorder in his pocket. ‘You mess me about and you’ll end up in the shit. Get it? And her, too. In the shit.’ He sniffed. ‘All right?’
    I said nothing.
    â€˜Lift the sheet,’ he said.
    I walked across to the fireplace, bent down and lifted a corner of the sheet. A pale dead head stared up at the ceiling. The black hair was dry and dull now, the sheen of oil dried, evaporated, gone. It wasn’t Dad any more, it wasn’t even a person. It was just a dead thing, just a thing. I glanced at Dean. His pasty face was even pastier than usual, toneless and sallow. Even Dad looked healthier than that. A secret smile flickered in my mind as I squatted there. Look at him, I thought, he’s