Dark Waters(19)

Mam stood between her sons and the reporter. ‘Be on your way. You’ll not get a story here this night.’

He did though. The next day there was a piece about the award, and the brawl. It also said the McCanns were not available for comment.

More trouble from Mungo, and his mother wasn’t any help.

‘They can send you the award. You don’t have to go,’ she said.

Added to everything else, winter rushed back with a vengeance, and the nights were once again bone-crushingly cold.

Col remembered Klaus in one of the air-raid shelters up by the loch. He’d be freezing, and probably hungry.

He sat by the fire after tea one night toasting his toes, and exhausted after another tirade from Mungo about the story in the paper. His mother had gone off to her bingo, but Col couldn’t stop thinking about Klaus.

He could still smell his mother’s broth, still feel its warmth in his stomach. I bet Klaus could fair go some of that broth, he thought.

Mungo would never know. Col knew now he would never risk Mungo following him, or finding out about Klaus.

He didn’t want to leave the fire, but at least, he consoled himself, he had the fire to look forward to when he came home.

He filled a flask with soup, stuffed some bread in a bag and, as an afterthought, an old duvet his mother was always planning to take to the homeless hostel in town.

As he made his way up towards the loch, Col worried about how he would find Klaus. But he needn’t have. Klaus found him, as he stood once more transfixed at the spot where he had saved Dominic – all the fears, all the terror rushing back at him.

‘I’m mad to come here,’ he told Klaus. ‘When I come here, I’m back in that water again. Freezing, and frightened and …’ He shivered.

‘Then why did you come?’ Klaus asked.

He looked even paler, Col thought. Paler, thinner, and more unkempt.

In answer, Col shoved the bag with the duvet and the flask in it at him. ‘Here, I brought you these. It’s one blinkin’ cold night.’

Klaus sounded puzzled. ‘You brought me this? Why?’

He didn’t know why. He couldn’t answer that. It wasn’t like him. He shrugged. ‘Maybe I lost my brain when I fell in that loch.’

‘Maybe you found yourself,’ Klaus said in a soft voice.

‘Don’t talk wet,’ Col groaned.

Klaus smiled. ‘You’re not a bit like your brother.’

Col jumped angrily to his defence. ‘Don’t you say a word about my brother. He’s the best.’

‘He hates my kind,’ Klaus reminded him.

‘Why should he no’? You come here. Take our jobs, live off us. Why don’t you just go back to your own country?’

He heard himself repeating exactly what he always heard Mungo saying.

‘I want to, Col. You don’t know how much I want to,’ Klaus said.

‘So, why don’t you?’

Klaus shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his anorak and shivered. Col saw fear in his face, and thought he understood why.

‘You’re frightened they wouldn’t send you home. They’d put you in jail. Is that it?’ Col thought of him in his cold, dungeon hideaway. ‘Even jail’s got to be better than this.’

Klaus shook his head. ‘Not jail, Col. I’ve never done anything wrong in my life. I only wanted to make money for my family.’

‘But, you can’t stay here for ever.’

‘I don’t want to,’ Klaus said. His face brightened. ‘Maybe you can help me get home.’

That made Col laugh. ‘Me? I can’t even help myself. I’ve not got any money.’

‘You helped Dominic and you didn’t have any money.’

Col laughed. ‘Jump in the loch then, and I’ll fish you out.’

Klaus managed a faint smile. He was a foreigner, Col thought. Probably didn’t share his sense of humour.

Klaus took him to the shelter where he was hiding out. It was dirty and damp and icy cold. Klaus wrapped himself in the duvet and told Col all about himself, the village where he came from, all about his family. His mother, who laughed a lot. His sisters, one who wanted to marry and have plenty of babies, and the other who wanted a career and beautiful clothes like the models she saw in tattered magazines.

‘They want a good life, Col. Like everyone else in the world.’ It seemed to Col that he told him every detail about his life. So long, Col thought, since he’d talked to anyone about it, and had anyone to listen. And Col told him about the award, and the trip to London.

‘Why don’t you go?’ Klaus asked him. ‘It would be an adventure.’

‘That’s what my teacher says. But I can’t. Mungo wouldn’t like it. My mother wouldn’t come with me. And I’m not going with them by myself.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to go.’