Page 41 of Tell No One
“Yeah, well like I said, I wasn’t keen on the way things were going.”
“Why did you quit the house where you were living?”
“I got sacked for trying to keep the twenty quid you gave me. I didn’t have money for the rent. I didn’t get paid for the…pony show.”
“Then you should have come back for your money. Or waited for someone to bring it.”
“You scared me. I like my balls just where they are. I’d rather keep them than wait for a thousand pounds that might not come.”
“It was all acting. I wouldn’t have castrated you.”
Tag put a tremor in his voice. “How was I supposed to know that? You’re bloody scary.”
Delaney made a wind-up the call motion with his finger.
“Come and play again and we’ll give you an extra two thousand,” the Master said.
“I’ll think about it and maybe I’ll be in touch.”
The Master laughed and cut him off.
“Did I mess up?” Tag asked.
“No. Hand over the SIM card and destroy the phone.”
Tag went outside, picked up a rock from the side of the garden and smashed it down on the phone. When it was in pieces, he took it back in to show Delaney.I’ve been good, look! I do as I’m told, sometimes.
“Go to the bottom of the garden and chuck the bits into a hedge.”
“Okay.”
Tag went through the French doors, jumped off the deck and headed down the lawn. Had he just been stupid? Should he have told Delaney to fuck off, then fucked off himself? No one knew where he was. Even if the Master was able to locate him via the phone, it wasn’t to an actual house or anything was it? Just to the nearest mast. But Tag felt better now the phone didn’t work.
If he told the police any of this, he wouldn’t be believed. It sounded as if he’d made it all up. No one cared about him and the police definitely wouldn’t. Tag felt as if something was twisting his heart. A bit of messing around, no matter how good it was, did not make a relationship, especially with a bloke like Delaney. Tag had told him he could look after himself, but the truth was, under these circumstances, he couldn’t. This was way out of his comfort zone.
He threw some bits of the phone into a bed of nettles on the left of the garden, the rest into the bottom of the hedge on the right. Then he stood with his hands in his pockets and looked out over the wire fence into the field. He thought it was wheat, though Tag was a city boy. He gave a shaky exhalation. He was quick thinking, brighter than most people thought, but he had to just go with the flow for the time being.
Back at the house, Delaney had put the steaks in a heavy-looking pan and they were spitting and sizzling.
“How do you want yours?” he asked.
“Cooked.”
Delaney sighed.
“No blood, okay?” Tag said. “Want me to lay the table?”
“Go ahead. You’ve found out where everything is.”
“Were you watching me the whole time?”
“Not the whole time.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“Fair enough.” Neither did he. Tag laid the table.
