In the Bag by Jim Carrington Page B

hair, looks at the picture on his phone again and then back at me. ‘Fuck!’ he says, kicking at the floor. ‘Did I touch it as well? Are my prints on it?’
    I shrug. ‘I don’t remember much from Saturday night. I don’t know.’
    ‘You haven’t got any pictures on your phone?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I haven’t looked.’
    ‘Fucking well look now, then,’ he says.
    I get my phone out of my pocket. Rabbit comes and stands at my shoulder. And sure enough, when I open up my pictures, there’s one of him wearing my shades and holding the gun, pointing it at the lens.
    He kind of wheels away as soon as he sees it. He kicks at the fence. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’
    Neither of us says anything for a second. I keep flicking through the photos on my phone. There’s another one of Rabbit smoking a spliff, with a handful of money.
    Rabbit takes a long, deep breath and then blows it out slowly. It’s ages before he finally speaks. ‘This is serious.’
    ‘I know.’
    He shakes his head like he can’t take all this in. ‘My prints’ll be all over the gun.’
    I nod. ‘Both our prints are on it.’
    ‘Did you say that you didn’t find it till Saturday afternoon?’
    ‘Yeah. When I heard the phone ringing I checked through the bag and found it.’
    ‘So does Joe know?’
    I shake my head. ‘No. And I don’t intend to tell him. He’d freak out.’
    ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Rabbit says. ‘Course he’d freak out.’
    ‘He’d go straight to the police,’ I say.
    ‘Yeah?’ Rabbit says. ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad plan.’
    I shake my head. ‘No way.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because me and Joe have already spent some of the money. Because me and you have already smoked some of the weed. Because it’s gonna look a bit weird that we found the bag on Friday and waited until now to hand it in . . .’
    Rabbit doesn’t say anything. He looks at the ground, where the grass has been worn away by the feet of all us smokers, at the fag ends. It feels like hours before he looks back up at me. ‘In that case, we need to get rid of it,’ he says.
    ‘What? Sell it?’
    He shakes his head, looks at me like I’m mad. ‘No. Get rid of it. Hide it somewhere where it’s never gonna get found.’
    ‘Like where?’
    ‘I don’t know. Throw it in the sea or something.’
    ‘Throw it in the sea? How we gonna do that? The sea’s ten miles away.’
    In the distance, I hear the school bell going for the start of registration.
    ‘Well, what about the woods, then?’ he says. ‘We could bury it.’
    ‘That’s better. That could work. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ I say. ‘No one else can know this.’
    Rabbit nods. He doesn’t look at me. He seems stressed and angry.
    ‘I’ll cut you in on the money if you want. A hundred quid?’
    Rabbit looks at me now. There’s something in his eyes, as though he’s deciding whether he’s gonna hit me or not. ‘I don’t want anything to do with the money,’ he says. ‘I just want that gun to go away and never be found.’
    ‘Course.’
    ‘I’ll come over to yours after school,’ Rabbit says.
     
    As soon as I get home, I go straight to my wardrobe and take everything out. I hold the gun in my hands, turning it round and round, staring at it for ages, wondering who it used to belong to. Whether it’s killed anyone. And I feel creeped out by the thought that the object I’m holding might have ended someone’s life. So I check the safety catch is on and put it back in the bag. I lie on my bed.
    From downstairs, I hear the door knocker. I run down the stairs two at a time. I pause before I open the front door and I realise how nervous I feel, how serious this situation is. Rabbit is standing on the step. He doesn’t smile as I answer the door; he doesn’t even say hello. He walks into the house without saying a word, a weird mix of fear and determination on his face. I close the door behind him. And then we stand in the hallway, looking at each