killed him, then smashed his body to pieces, and the jury decided that I had. Wes was found dead in his cell in the middle of the trial.”
“I remember that.”
“I heard people shouting I should do the same thing. A policeman even said it to me. I don’t even know if Wes killed himself or someone did it for him. I don’t think Wes was the type to commit suicide, so…”
“What do you think happened to your brother?”
“I don’t know. Twelve years to think about it, and I still don’t know. In my most hopeful moments, and they don’t happen very often, I think he’s still alive and my dad misidentified him. But I know how unlikely that is.
“My best guess is that Wes saw Ru outside the school, was still pissed off with me for not giving him a blow job, and unseen by the camera, lured my brother to the mill. Wes knew Bela was missing. Ru had fastened a picture outside school. Maybe Wes told him he’d seen her. When Wes got Ru there, he might have tried to get him to do what I wouldn’t, then hit him. Kept hitting him. Maybe Wes’s father tried to get me blamed, knowing Wes did it. I’ll never know. That’s…hard, the not knowing. They said one blow killed Ru. That was some comfort, that he didn’t suffer, but…” Ink put a hand over his mouth and rubbed his face.
“It all seems a bit…flimsy.”
“It was, but they made it fit. Guilty beyond reasonable doubt. My PE teacher even came to court and said how I’d tried to blackmail him, how desperate I was to leave school that afternoon. That did me no favours. I think my dad not being on my side made people wonder.”
“You don’t think your dad might have done it?”
“No. He had an alibi and he adored Ru.”
“Then some random stranger?”
Ink shrugged. “The case is closed. No one cares. Ru is dead. Wes is dead. No one’s going to come forward and say they did it.”
“Now tell me why you’re running?”
“I was given a new identity the moment the trial was over. Thirteen-year-old Killian Byrne was made fifteen years old. No one was supposed to know my new name or where I was serving my sentence. They cut my hair, dyed it blond, gave me clear glasses to wear, and a new history. I was kept apart from the others locked up. I’d been made into a different person inside and out, as far as they could manage, but they were still careful about my security and I had to be careful too. Once I’d changed enough physically that I could be in general circulation, I was sent to another YOI with a criminal record of grievous bodily harm.
“I chose my name. I argued about that. They wanted me to have something ordinary like John or James. One fight that I won, but they thought I’d made a mistake, that I shouldn’t have a name that was so distinctive. Ink stands for I Never Killed. That’s Bela, Ru’s crow tattooed on my back. As far as I know, she was never seen again. The words on my back mean the same thing. Níor mharaigh mé mo dheartháir riamh. I never killed my brother. I couldn’t find anyone who knew Shelta, the traveller’s language, so Irish Gaelic was the next best thing. I want the truth to stay with me in death.”
He looked at Tay.
“Jesus, Ink. How did you cope? How did you survive?”
“With the help of my imagination. I relived happy memories of me and Ru, such as when we made kites and flew them, or when we rode our father’s carousel, or how we made dens in the garden. When it hurt too much to think of my brother, or to contemplate the life I had, I made up worlds of my own that were nothing like the world we live in. My imagination offered me the chance to escape, though it was also a sort of cancer, letting me hope when there was no hope. I’d always written stories, now I did it all the time, scribbled in notebooks for hour after hour. I was afraid, angry, hated everyone, but for a long while I clung to the hope that someone would realise a mistake had been made. I suppose I’ve given up on that now. Well, maybe I cherish the tiny flame that still flickers, but I know nothing will change. I’ve accepted that.”
Tay