Hugh Fleetwood

Brothers

Serpent's Tail, 1999.

Joey decided as an experiment that, instead of hovering over Paul, as he had on the previous occasions they had come alone together to the park, he would let the boy get on with it by himself...Paul seemed to react not at all; he seemed not to notice he had been abandoned. Instead, he just squatted down amidst the swans and geese and ducks, with his plastic bag full of breadcrumbs, as if he were finally in his element...

Lulled by a false sense of security, Joey becomes absorbed in his book; when he looks up again the boy has disappeared.

He gazed at the geese and swans still pecking crumbs off the ground as if they were hiding Paul; he looked through the birds, out into the lake, as if expecting to see that someone had offered the boy a ride in a row-boat. Then, seeing no-one, he jumped to his feet and rushed forward: to flap the birds away and make sure that they were not concealing anyone...

Eventually the boy is discovered, sitting on a bench and chatting to a sinister figure from Joey's past. For a moment he feels 'blind with hate...'

I sort of in one movement grabbed Paul, lifted him into the air and held him. And then, then I could see again. I was standing in Regent's Park with an angelic-looking child in my arms, and there were people all around, and - and it was all normal again, just a regular afternoon...it all seemed so normal that looking at Timmy I couldn't ever believe that he had any evil designs on Paul