Black Rain Falling by Jacob Ross

Author:Jacob Ross [Ross, Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780751574425
Google: 6WyHDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0751574449
Publisher: Sphere
Published: 2020-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

36

I sat at my kitchen worktop, pulled out the books I picked up in Jana Ray’s bedroom. He’d desecrated mine. Not only had he wrecked the covers, he’d had a field day scribbling and drawing all over the pages. A line of stickmen climbing up a gradient with boxes ten times their size ran across the bottom margin of the inside cover. On the adjacent page were what looked like six badly drawn electric fans turned upside down, with the same number above each one. I couldn’t bear to look any more. Jana Ray’s own book was in perfect condition. ‘Sonuvabitch,’ I breathed and tossed the thing aside.

What the hell did he want with a book on growing plants without soil, anyway?

I fed a Chronixx CD into my player, mixed myself a mild rum cocktail and settled down to Jana Ray’s Hydroponics: Principles and Practice.

There was a whole section in there, heavily annotated, on plant genetics and a type of marijuana named kush. On the last few pages were two columns of tightly written script about medical marijuana and techniques for extracting marijuana oil. When I closed the book, I had a reasonable idea of what Jana Ray had been up to and if my conclusions were correct, that youngfella was a liar and a genius.

Miss Stanislaus was right, I didn’t know Jana Ray at all.

At five o’clock, I changed into a pair of cargo trousers with oversized pockets, a thick cotton shirt, a heavy pair of boots. I retrieved my Remington, hefted the weapon in my hand and hesitated over it. I’d never had a relationship with this thing – not like Malan, for whom a gun was an appendage. He’d told me once that he felt naked without the big Sig Sauer sitting against his body. Miss Stanislaus’s Ruger – I wondered if she was getting on any better with the Glock – was like a deadly piece of jewellery that she would never leave her house without.

A gun in my hand felt heavier than its weight. It threw me out of myself. In my mind, it was the thing that killed my mother. It was never what I reached for first to save myself. I unhooked my heavy leather belt from the bedroom door and threaded it through my trousers.

Night had begun to dust Old Hope valley. I’d packed my knapsack with my tools, a few tins of sardines, biscuits, a pack of candles, a multi-tool knife, a litre of tap water, an exercise mat that would serve as a mattress and Jana Ray’s thermo-hygrometer. My Remington R1 was in the hood of my bag.

I parked two miles down from the village and walked to Jana Ray’s place. I lit a couple of candles, sat on the floor, paging through his school texts, my ears trained on the darkness out there – so thick, the night felt like a living, breathing presence. A couple of times, I raised my head at the thud of footsteps on the path below.

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