His costume feels soft like skin. It fits just right. It’s funny being Bravo. He sits behind Super in the car and they go round and round to the top of the car park. Super lifts him on his shoulders and they ride down in the elevator. A girl is dressed like a witch. She shakes her broomstick at Marcus. On the next floor they have to crush up tight because a vampire and a fairy squeeze in beside them with their mammies and daddies. The vampire looks at Marcus and says, ‘That’s Bravo, Mum,’ as if he’s seen a real plink, and Marcus knows he has the best costume of all.
Super says, ‘Enjoy the Hallowe’en party, children,’ when the elevator stops and they go out into the street.
The bookshop has balloons like a rainbow over the door and is full of pretend plinks. Some have real costumes and others have masks that the woman in the shop gives them. She shakes Super’s hand and says, ‘The kids are so excited. They’re looking forward to hearing you reading from your new book.’
Super holds Marcus’s hand tight so he doesn’t get lost. Emma from school is here. Marcus wants to say ‘Hi’ but Super whispers that the secret has to last just a little while longer. Emma puts on a Plucky mask. When Marcus looks again he can’t make her out from the other Pluckys.
Super reads his new book. It’s brill. A man with big glasses shouts, ‘Let’s hear it for Super Plink,’ and the children clap and jump and scream.
This is Super’s last plink book. That’s a secret so he can’t tell Emma or all the other children in case they get sad. It makes Marcus sad too. But Super says books live forever, especially favourite books, that they live on and on, even after their authors grow old and die.
A girl points at Marcus and laughs when Super lifts him up on his shoulders again and says, ‘Time to go home to Plinkertown Hall.’
A big fire is burning in a field. Marcus can see the flames from the car window. Monsters are jumping around the flames. Last year Mammy bought white stuff and made him a ghost costume but Marcus said, ‘No! No! No! I’m Super Plink!’
He wants to see the fire. They climb up a hill into the field and there’s a river and a mountain and bushes that look like trolls. A monster with bug eyes and a guitar stops playing music and shouts, ‘Wow! That’s some Spiderman threads you and your son are wearing, my man.’
The monsters are still jumping and shouting when they go home to Plinkertown Hall. Marcus takes off his Bravo costume. He has hot chocolate with marshmallows and cleans his teeth before going to bed. Hero will sleep with him tonight. Tomorrow night it will be Gutsy’s turn, then Super’s. But Marcus is not sure he’ll still be in Plinkertown Hall then because Super, the real super plink, says seven days will end it all.
He looks out the window after Super hugs him goodnight. There’s no robber in the apple garden. Just Super, staring at the sky. It’s red. Like all the flames of the bonfire are burning in the clouds.
Fireworks explode and set the dogs barking. Bonfires blaze, sirens shriek, the sound faint but insistent. Children, demanding tricks or treats, don’t call at Shearwater. That’s where the real horror lies and only the police have access to the tragedy within.
Lar is sleeping, drugged with whiskey and a sleeping tablet, when Amanda leaves the house by the back door. She climbs down to the private path that wends its way to the beach below and serves as a short-cut to the harbour. Soon, the waves will wash away her footprints, but it is not enough, not nearly enough. There is a rip tide gathering and it’s going to pull her under.
Lar bought the boatyard at the height of the property boom and had planned to build apartments on the site. Luxurious apartments with a view of the sea, they would have fetched a prime price. Then the crash came and the boatyard has been derelict ever since.
Hunter is waiting for her. Impossible to believe she once enjoyed hiding with him in shadows. The abandoned hull of a boat cradles the night and the moon glows over a rusting anchor that lies outside the empty boatyard offices. The interior light flashes on when he opens the passenger door.
‘The last thing we should do is meet like this.’ Amanda slides in beside him. ‘Why are you exposing me to such a risk?’
‘I had to talk to you and the phone is too risky.’ His fingernails sound like castanets against the steering wheel. ‘What have you told the guards?’
‘Nothing. You?’
He draws in his breath, then exhales loudly. ‘I’ve been questioned but I’m in the clear. No one in the force has any reason to associate us. That’s the way it will stay, as long as you don’t break. You’ve very vulnerable—’
‘Vulnerable?’ she cries. ‘I’m distraught! My son is missing, I’ve no idea if he’s alive or dead and all you care about is your own skin. Have you any information about this tip-off – can you tell me anything?’
‘From what I’ve been able to find out, it was a text. Untraceable.’
‘It came from Karl Lawson.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘He’s taken my son. I’m sure it’s him.’
‘Why would he—’
‘He must have discovered you were my source. He’s been planting information about me in the media and that anonymous tip-off is his doing.’
‘You’re not making sense, Amanda. Last I heard, he was wasted. Homeless. How could he possibly take your son and hide him. There’s nothing in the investigation to suggest—’
‘There’s nothing in the investigation period.’ She begins to wail, hands to her head like a madwoman who knows no one is listening to her.
‘Stop it, Amanda. Stop it.’ He grabs her arms, shakes her into silence. ‘You’re obsessed with that man. You believed he was responsible for those hoaxes—’
‘It’s him. Marcus is missing for a reason.’ Why does he not recognise the obvious? ‘Revenge. It makes sense. We all played our part in ruining him. This is his way of getting back at us and you—’
‘Us?’ His heated denial silences her. ‘Speak for yourself. I’d good reason to suspect Lawson was guilty—’
He is startled by a flash outside the car window. It comes again. Lightning-fast. Hunter curses and covers his face. It’s too late. They hear it then: thunder roaring – or is it the exhaust on a motorbike gaining thrust? The sound is already fading into the dark and Amanda’s hand is unsteady as she fumbles for the door handle. The car has become too small for both of them. As the interior light switches on again, she observes his stunned expression.
‘Sylvia mustn’t know.’ He grabs her arm again, grinds the words at her. ‘If the worst happens, admit we had some contact during the Constance Lawson search but admit nothing else.’
Without replying, she tears herself from him and runs across the beach. The rocks are slippery, strewn with seaweed that squelches underfoot like flatulent frogspawn. Her feet sink into wet sand. She is awake, yet in the grip of a familiar nightmare. The one that traps her in slow motion as she tries to move forward and push herself towards safety. But this is not a dream and she is able to move swiftly across the empty beach.