by David Almond
Davie shrugs. He has to go, he has to see. He puts the pencils and the book into his sack, puts the sack on his back, and off they go.
Of course, lots of folk have heard by now that something’s going on down there. As they head across the square and down High Street, there’s lots of people doing the same. They’re frowning and whispering and shrugging.
One of Davie’s neighbors, a woman called Mrs. Keen from number six who used to be a teacher, stops him as he and Gosh hurry by.
“What’s going on, Davie?” she asks in a trembly voice.
Gosh knocks Davie with his elbow, telling him to tell her nowt.
“I don’t know,” Davie tells her. “Maybe it’s just nowt.”
She clicks her tongue.
“Don’t say nowt, Davie,” she says. “It’s so coarse. The word is nothing.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Keen,” says Davie. “I know that.”
And they walk on.
The old school hall’s through some gates just past the church. It’s been getting demolished for the past month or so. Good riddance to it, thinks Davie. Some of the most boring times of his life have happened in there. Prayer meetings and hymn practices and talks about the body and the soul and whether it’s a sin to think too much about girls. Unhappy, boring blokes in black telling kids to lift their souls up to the Lord and to tiptoe past the chasms that lead to Hell. God, how he hated all that stuff. Get rid of it all. Cart it away.
There’s a fire engine parked up on High Street. There’s a couple of police cars. There’s an ambulance inside the gates. There’s a massive policeman, PC Poole, standing by the gates telling people to keep back. Folk are talking in hushed voices. Nobody knows anything, but something must have got out because there’s whispering about death and murder and mayhem. Davie sees some kids he knows. Shona Doonan’s there, in a bright red dress. She’s from a family of singers and musicians, the Doonans. They sang some of Davie’s dad’s favorite songs in the Columba Club after the funeral. “Waters of Tyne.” “Felton Lonnen.” “Bonny at Morn.” Maybe it was her that he heard singing. She waves at him.
He waves shyly back. He looks up at the church that’s just a short walk away from here. He blinks, and he sees his dad’s coffin being carried in. He sees it being carried out. He sees the funeral cars, all the people dressed in black. He sees himself holding his mam’s arm. He sees her holding him.
“Howay, man, Davie.”
Gosh grabs Davie’s arm. He guides him through the crowd to PC Poole, who holds his hand out like he’s ordering traffic to stop. Gosh stoops under the hand, then stands on tiptoe and whispers to the policeman like he whispered to Davie.
“I’m the one that found the body,” he says.
Poole narrows his eyes.
“I’m the one that telt the sergeant about it,” Gosh says. “It’s Jimmy Killen, isn’t it?”
Poole says nowt. The crowd’s getting bigger. They’re pressing at the gate.
The policeman’s getting cross.
“Hold your horses!” he snaps at the crowd.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” says Gosh.
Davie and Gosh peer past the policeman. Gosh tells Davie that the ambulance is hiding the spot where the body is. Davie leans sideways trying to see, but he can’t. All he sees is rubble, no body.
“I think I know who might of done it,” says Gosh.
Poole narrows his eyes again.
“Done what?” he says.
“Committed the murder,” says Gosh. “It is a murder, isn’t it?”
Poole says nowt.
“It is,” says Gosh. “And I know who done it. Me mate does and all.”
Poole looks at Davie. He can feel he’s blushing.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “So mebbe you should let us through so we can have a word with the sergeant.”
Poole looks uncertain.
“Keep back, will you?” he says to the crowd. “Show a bit of order and respect.”
“You should,” says Gosh. “The killer could be miles away already.”
“Every minute counts,” says Davie.
He catches his breath. He hadn’t expected to say anything at all, but he finds he’s very pleased with himself.
Gosh is too.
“What Davie says is right,” he says.
“What if he’s already tracking down his next victim?” says Davie.
“What if he’s already killed again?” says Gosh.
The policeman glances back toward where the invisible sergeant is.
“OK,” he tells the two lads. “Go through.”
They walk past the ambulance. There’s a driver at the wheel reading the Daily Mirror and smoking a cigarette, dead calm, like a murder happens every day in these parts. There’s a lass sitting beside him who must be a nurse. Behind the ambulance there’s the sergeant and old Dr. Drummond and daft Father Noone. Davie sees most of the body now: legs in jeans, black winklepicker boots, a green checky Levi’s shirt. Davie’s seen Jimmy walking round wearing that. He’d love one just like it for himself. He starts wondering what’ll happen to the shirt now that Jimmy’s dead. There’s a splash of blood on it, bright red against the green. Davie wonders if the bloodstains will wash off. The priest’s kneeling there as well. He’s bobbing back and forward as he prays, and between the bobs Davie sees the face. Yes, definitely Jimmy Killen. The priest’s got a little crucifix in his hand, and he’s pressing it on Jimmy’s brow and muttering something low and gentle.
Davie stares. He’s never seen anybody dead before. His mam said he could go to see his dad in the chapel of rest if he wanted to, but he couldn’t do it. Jimmy just looks like he did in life, not much different at all.
“It’s you,” says the sergeant to Gosh.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “And this is me mate, Davie.”
“What’s he got to do with it all?”
“He knows who the killer is.”
The doctor and sergeant both goggle at Davie.
Davie can’t look at them because now he can see the knife, lying on the rubble next to Jimmy’s chest. There’s blood on it, on the blade and the handle.
“I telt you,” says Gosh.
The priest doesn’t stop muttering. His lips are close to Jimmy’s ear.
“So who’s the killer?” says the doctor.
“Zorro Craig,” Davie finds himself saying.
“Zorro Craig!” says the doctor.
“How do you know that?” says the sarge.
Davie stares at Jimmy’s face again. It’s pale and still. It’s like Jimmy’s just asleep.
The sarge asks Davie again.
“Gosh told me,” says Davie.
“And how do you know?” says the sarge.
“’Cos Jimmy’s a Killen and Zorro is a Craig. They’re a bunch of animals and they’ve always been at war, haven’t they? And them two were the worst of all.”
“But we cannot jump to —” starts the sarge.
“I heard him saying it when he was six years old,” says Gosh. “‘Aa’m ganna kill ye, Killen.’”
The doctor and the sergeant stare at Gosh in wonder.
“You heard it and all, didn’t you, Davie?” says Gosh.
“Aye,” mutters Davie. “We were all pretty mental back then.”
“Aye, but it . . . intensified,” says Gosh. “I heard him just last week in Holly Hill Park. Last Tuesday, it was. ‘Ye’ll get what’s comin,’ he says. ‘Killen, aa’m ganna send ye to yer grave.’”
“Bliddy hell,” says the sarge. “And why would he say something like that last Tuesday?”
“Dunno,” says Gosh. “It’s what enemies do. I think this time it was something about a lass.”
“About a lass?” says the sarge.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “It’s usually lasses, isn’t it? Like in ancient times.”
“What?” says the sarge. “Which lass?”
Gosh shrugs.
“Dunno,” he says.
He turns to Davie.
&
nbsp; “Do you know?” he says.
“Me?” says Davie.
“I think they both had lots of lasses,” says Gosh. “But mebbe this time it was doomed love.”
Davie looks at Gosh. What the hell’s he on about?
The doctor mutters something.
“Eh?” says the sarge.
“I said the human condition is a vessel of great mystery,” says the doctor.
“You’re right there, doc,” says the sarge.
The priest stops his muttering. He presses his thumb onto Jimmy’s brow. He says, “Amen.”
He stands up and looks like he’s come out of some dream. There’s gray plaster dust all over his black clothes.
“I have done what I can,” he says. “I’m sure the lad’s sins will be forgiven.” He says the same thing that he said about Davie’s dad. “I’m sure God will have prepared a place for him.”
For Jimmy Killen? Davie wants to say, but he doesn’t.
He looks at the air above the body like he expects to see Jimmy’s soul floating there, like he expects to see it rising from the demolition site and into the wide clear sky.
The sarge takes a little black notebook and pencil out of his pocket. He opens the book and starts to write, then stops. He frowns.
“This is all happening a bit too quick for me,” he says.
Tears are gathering in his eyes. His lips are trembling.
“I wish it wasn’t happening at all,” he says.
“Strange events can take place anywhere, sergeant,” Davie finds himself saying.
“And who knows what can fester in the human heart?” says Gosh.
Davie stares at him. Where the hell did Gosh learn to say something like that?
The priest steps off the rubble and some of it slips, and Jimmy’s body lurches sideways. The sergeant gasps in horror. For a moment Davie expects everything, Jimmy’s body, rubble and all, to collapse into the dark, dingy cellars that he knows exist just below. But it doesn’t. Everything settles into place again.
The sergeant blows his breath out.
He looks just like a little boy dressed up in policemen’s clothes.
“Top brass from Newcastle are on their way,” he says.
He takes his helmet off and sweat trickles down from his forehead.
“They’ll know what to do,” he says.
“They’ll probably want to talk to you, lad,” he says to Gosh. “And mebbe to you as well,” he says to Davie.
Davie looks toward the crowd at the gates. They’re dying to get in to see. He waves at Shona again and she waves back. She’s really bonny. He’d never properly noticed before.
There’s a siren somewhere in the distance.
“That must be them,” says the sarge. “Thank God for that.”
“What do we do about Jimmy?” says Davie.
“That’s not for you to think about,” says the sarge. “He can’t be moved, not till there’s instructions from the top.”
The sun’s shining bright on Jimmy Killen. It’s getting hotter. How soon till a body starts to rot, till it starts to stink? Davie looks past the church and over the rooftops toward the hills at the top of town. It’s all a bit stupid. It’s like the whole town’s come to look at a poor body lying in the dust. He’s bored with it already. He wants to get away. He wants to be free. He’s thinking of wandering up that way, going up to the top and over the top and carrying on into the sunlit distance all alone. Maybe that’s the way that Zorro Craig went after he killed Jimmy, if he did kill Jimmy. It’d make sense. There’s so much space over there, so many places to run and hide. Places you could hide forever if you really wanted to. That’s where Davie will head for.
The doctor’s holding Gosh’s face and looking into his eyes.
“How are you feeling, young man?” he says.
Gosh shrugs.
“Champion,” he says.
“Do you need me?” says Davie to the sarge.
“Need you?”
“To give evidence or anything?”
“Anyone who knew the lad will be questioned, I expect.”
“Can I go?”
“Go?” says Gosh. “Where you bliddy going?”
“Nowhere,” Davie tells him. “Just wandering.”
“Wandering? But, Davie, man.”
Davie shrugs. He knows Gosh won’t want to come with him. He’ll want to stay here where the excitement is.
“Mebbe I’ll catch up with Zorro Craig,” says Davie. “Mebbe I’ll hunt him down and bring him back to justice.”
The sergeant grunts.
“Don’t you think of that,” he says. “That’s a job for the professionals, lad.”
The doctor catches Davie’s arm as he turns away.
“And you?” he says. “Are you champion as well, young man?”
Davie doesn’t answer. He’s known this kind and ancient doctor for as long as he can remember. He can recall the feeling of his fingers as he tapped Davie’s chest, the coldness of the stethoscope above his heart, the gentle tap on his cheek, the gentle voice that told his mam she had herself a fine, strong little lad. And he can recall the day of his dad’s death. The doctor stood in the living room with his black bag in his hand and murmured to Davie’s mam that he was so sorry, that there was nothing anybody could have done. Then he opened the door to step out, and Davie saw black-clad Father Noone coming along the street, already heading toward his home.
“Are you?” says the doctor again.
“Aye,” Davie says. “I’m champion, Dr. Drummond, thanks.”
He walks off.
“Don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” says the doctor.
Davie keeps on walking. It’s like he’s being lifted out of himself, like he’s coming to life.
As he passes PC Poole and twists his way through the crowd, folk keep trying to get the answers from him.
“Is it true?” some of them say.
“Is what true?”
“That there’s a body? That there’s been a murder?”
Davie says he can’t say nowt.
They name some names and one or two of them even name Jimmy Killen, but Davie’s face doesn’t flicker.
“A murder!” someone gasps. “Here, in Little Felling!”
“The telly’ll be here. All the papers!”
“It happens, even in places like this.”
“Why shouldn’t it happen here? The world is a strange and wicked place.”
Davie keeps on moving.
“Is it true?” they keep on asking.
“The world is weird,” Davie says. “And who knows what festers in the human heart?”
He passes close to Shona. She touches his arm and comes in close.
Her red dress is bright as fire in the sunlight.
“Did you see it?” she says.
“See what?”
“The body, Davie! You did, didn’t you?”
“Aye,” he answers.
“What was it like? Was it scary? Could you look upon it?”
She’s got such a sweet and lovely voice, like she’s singing even when she’s talking, even when she’s asking about things like this.
“Was it you singing?” he asks her.
“When?”
“Just this morning. Just a little while ago.”
“I’m always singing, Davie.”
She shrugs.
“So it could have been,” she says.
His mind goes back to the Columba Club, after the funeral, when the guests were leaving. He’d asked her how the hell she could sing so well.
She’d shrugged and smiled.
“It just pours out of me, Davie,” she said. “It just pours out of all of us, the way that songs pour out of birds.”
She touched his arm.
“I’m so sorry about your dad,” she said.
He’d thanked her for that.
“It could pour out of anyone,” she said as he turned back to his mam. “It could pour out of you, Davie, if
you found a way to let it.”
She’s so lovely. Her blue eyes are so bright. He tells her the body was strange, that it was amazing, that it seemed to be only sleeping, still alive. She listens, and he imagines staying here with her, watching everything along with her, then walking away from this place with her at dusk, holding her hand, going far into the distance, filled with excitement, but he tells himself he must keep moving.
“I’ve got to go, Shona,” he says.
“I could come with you,” she says softly. “If you’d like me to.”
He almost says yes, but he says no.
“I’m not even sure where I’m going,” he says.
“Ah, well. Mebbe we’ll see each other when you get back.”
“Aye. I hope so.”
He walks away.
Mrs. Keen’s there, hovering. She’s on tiptoes and her eyes are wide and scared and excited.
“What is the truth, Davie?” she says as he passes by.
Davie shrugs.
“I can’t say nowt, Mrs. Keen.”
She’s about to say something back, but suddenly there’s screaming and sobbing, and here’s Jimmy Killen’s mother with a policewoman coming down High Street.
“Jimmy!” she sobs as the policewoman guides her toward the crowd and toward her dead son beyond. “Jimmy! My little Jimmy!”
So that’s it. The truth is out.
And now here’s the top brass from Newcastle, big blokes in black uniforms, squashed into a little blue police car with a blue light flashing on its roof.
Davie heads up High Street past all the shops. Everybody else is streaming down. Shopkeepers are gathering together in their doorways, gossiping. Jack Hall the newsagent is clambering about in his front window, putting stuff in a rack: American cop magazines, murder mysteries, Batman comics. Joe Wiffen’s writing in white on his window: BROWN ALE AND MCEWAN’S EXPORT AT NOCKDOWN PRICES ASK INSIDE.
Already some of the shops are shut and the owners are heading to the murder scene.
Davie’s suddenly hungry. Luckily, Molly Myers hasn’t closed the pork shop doors.
Davie goes inside and buys a pork pie.
“You been down there, son?” Molly asks.
“Aye,” says Davie.
“What’s the info? Any clues?”
He may as well tell her now.
“Jimmy Killen’s been killed,” he says.
