But Klaus didn’t cry. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and he looked at Col and said with real fervour, ‘I still want to go back home, but I don’t know how. I can’t trust anyone. When you ran into that icy water and you saved the little boy, you risked your life. You gave me back my hope, Col, that there is still decency somewhere. I know I can trust you.’
Col’s breath clouded the cold air in nervous bursts. He’d done that?
‘You’ve come across Mungo before. That’s how you know about us.’ Col knew it suddenly. Mungo and his mates roaming the area, ready to do battle with anyone who was different. Klaus the foreigner would fit that perfectly.
‘I had been warned to watch out for him. Yes,’ he answered softly.
‘How do you live?’ Col asked, trying to imagine how it would be with no friends, no money, no food.
Klaus seemed to take a long time to answer.
‘Some of the farmers around here give me work, no questions asked. I sleep anywhere.’ He gestured across the loch. ‘The old air-raid shelters around there are good hiding places.’
‘You live there?’ Col screwed up his face in disgust. The old wartime shelters, embedded in the moorland, where the townspeople used to take shelter during the Blitz, were manky, smelly places. ‘You better be careful. Everybody knows about them. They’ll find you eventually.’
Klaus smiled. His teeth were small and white and even, except the front ones were broken. Not many dentists in Latvia. Not a lot of time to think about your teeth, Col supposed. ‘I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.’
Col stood up to go. ‘I’m not worried. You’re not my problem.’
Klaus only smiled again. ‘You know, maybe that day you didn’t just save Dominic’s life. Maybe you were sent to help me too.’
* * *
Col wandered home in the icy darkness. He’d never go back to the loch again, he decided. He knew he couldn’t. Not with Klaus there. If Mungo ever discovered there was an illegal immigrant sleeping rough there, Col didn’t even want to think about what he would do.
In that moment he knew Klaus was right. He wouldn’t tell his brother about him. It wouldn’t be a lie. He would never lie to his brother. He’d only hold it back, for Mungo’s own good. Mungo would only get himself into trouble if he knew.
At least, he told himself that was the reason.
Mrs Macann, who lived down the street from Col, was opening her front door as he passed.
His family didn’t talk to the Macanns. They were no relation, the names were not even spelt the same, but Mrs Macann and Col’s mother had more than one stormy argument because of that. Mrs Macann had even removed the nameplate from her door because of the number of visits the police made to her house thinking she was ‘one of them McCanns’. Consequently, there was a long-time feud between the two families. And Mungo took every opportunity of breaking the odd window in her house, scraping keys across her car as it stood parked at their front door, of doing any irritating little thing he could think of to ensure the bad feeling remained.
Col began to hurry past her. Didn’t want an argument.
‘Col?’ she shouted after him.
He stopped and turned defiantly. He was expecting to be blamed for something, or warned about something, or asked to pass on some insult to his mother. He put on his surly I’m a McCann expression. ‘Aye? What do you want?’
‘I just wanted to tell ye … that was a wonderful thing you done, son. Wonderful.’
Col thought she was taking the mickey. But she went on, ‘The whole street thinks the same thing. They might not say it – with your brother you don’t know how it might be taken – but … the whole street thinks it was wonderful.’
Then she was gone. Her door closed softly. He was alone on the dark street with only a mangy dog for company, barking in some alley.
The whole street was proud of him, and his class, and Mrs Holden, and …
What was happening?
Chapter Ten
Col had never been so nervous in his life, and he was annoyed at himself for feeling like that. After all, he was only going to the Sampsons’ house for a meal. They’d been inviting him for almost a fortnight – Dominic phoning him up, pleading with him. Inviting his mother too. Her answer was immediate.
‘Me? Go to their house? Not on your life. And I’d advise you to steer well clear of them, Col. I know they mean well, but …’
She let the ‘but’ drift off. Col understood what she meant – Mungo didn’t want him to go. Mungo wanted the whole drama to be put firmly in the past where it belonged. The Sampsons lived in a different world. A world Col could never fit into.