The Amazing Brain of O C Longbotham

by Barbara Spencer

  ‘Don’t blame me. I didn’t say we were orphans,’ Kitty shot back. ‘That was down to you. I was happy with the car accident.’ She rounded on her brother. ‘Right, OC. Go out there and play chess. And win! And win fast. OK!’

  OC nodded. ‘That’s what I was going to do.’

  He disappeared off in the direction of his allotted table and sat down, his brain already revving up for a speedy start.

  Suddenly Cash realised that Kitty, despite her spiky behaviour, was invaluable for the success of their venture. ‘Tell you what, Kitty. Very glad you came.’

  As for OC, he was having a great day. The journey by train had been simply astonishing. He had been on an express train, seen dozens of trees and now he was playing chess. Pretty soon he made up his mind that he liked banging the knob on the clock even more than science and maths and tidying. It was a pity his opponents took such a long time. He watched them frowning and pulling faces, cleaning their glasses and blowing their noses, and wanted to lean across and show them which piece to move, to stop him swiping their king. Instead, he thought about trees. They filled his head with wonderful colours and shapes. He was so happy dreaming of trees that he failed to notice a very sneaky move from his opponent who, craftily, nudged his pawn forward a square with his elbow.

  OC went to play his next move, saw the pawn and said: ‘You have moved that pawn.’

  His opponent shook his head, insisting: ‘No way, kid, it’s been there all the time. You missed it.’

  OC looked round for his Filofax, before recalling that Cash was taking care of it while he played chess. He knew for definite the boy had cheated. He stared down at the arrangement of pieces. With the pawn at Queen 4 instead of Queen 3 he might lose the match, whereas before he’d been on line to win it in two moves.

  ‘I would have noticed,’ he said quite fearlessly, not he slightest bit overawed by the fact that his opponent was 20 centimetres taller and had started shaving.

  ‘Come on, kid, stop messing about. Face it. You made a mistake.’

  OC didn’t hear him, busily reading the instruction leaflet pinned to the table in front of him.

  OC raised his hand.

  His opponent gulped loudly.

  Cash spotted the stewards walking towards OC’s table, before he spotted OC’s raised hand. He stared round hoping Kitty and Anna had returned from shopping but couldn’t see them. Nervously, he started to fan himself with his programme.

  The older boy got his story in first. ‘The kid says my pawn was at Queen 3. He’s only saying that because I took his Queen.’

  The steward checked his list. ‘Philip isn’t it?’

  OC nodded.

  ‘You raised your hand. Did you make a mistake? It’s very easy to make a mistake.’

  Heads were beginning to turn in their direction but OC didn’t notice. Except that he didn’t remember doing it, this was a repeat of the time he lost his boat and had waded into the river to get it back. Only now he wanted to win his game and hit the bell on the clock.

  ‘I don’t make mistakes,’ he said, quite loudly. ‘My brain doesn’t allow me to. Black moved the pawn to Queen 3 on his second move. It hasn’t moved since. Have you a piece of paper?’

  The steward handed him a sheet from his clipboard.

  OC began writing. Two minutes later he handed the sheet to the steward. It was filled with extraordinary things like:

  in very neat handwriting.

  That’s how we played this game.’ He said. ‘It will be checkmate in two moves.’

  He then wrote:

  The steward checked the list and handed it to his colleague, who looked at it for a moment. Then he eyed OC.* After that he had another word with his colleague before showing the sheet to OC’s opponent.

  ‘I think it was you that made the mistake, young man.’

  ‘I could have sworn,’ OC’s opponent began.

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ the steward said firmly. ‘It’s just lost you the game.’

  Toppling the black king, he moved away taking OC with him.

  By twelve o’clock OC had run out of people to play. And the organisers had received complaints from most of the people he had played, all of them moaning that OC played so fast it had put them off.*

  ‘It’s not fair,’ they grumbled. ‘We were rushed into making mistakes.’

  ‘Well done,’ the organisers said. ‘Come back at two. Hopefully, we will have sorted the backlog by then.’

  This was what Cash had been hoping for. Speeding out of the building with OC at his side, he pulled the map out of the pocket on his chair. He had memorised how to get to the place the night before, although it was entirely possible Birmingham Council had moved streets around since Google had printed the map.

  ‘Where are we going?’ OC asked.

  ‘Not far,’ said Cash. ‘I’ve a bit of business to attend to. Remember I told you.’

  ‘No, but I remember we came on a train and saw some trees.’

  The streets they were walking down were filled with dark buildings, like books in a dusty second-hand bookshop; very large, very old and very solid-looking books covered with brown leather. Above the glittering windows, occupied by famous brand names, were old-fashioned offices with very small windows, badly in need of cleaning. Here, loads of people made bags of money for the tax-man and the people of Birmingham. Yet all that could be seen of them at street level was a neat doorway, with a small brass plaque pinned to the door.

  Behind these again, in even narrower streets, in derelict buildings where rents were cheap and no one asked questions, were pawn brokers with iron grilles over their windows, a massage parlour with a fortune-teller on the first floor, and a betting shop, where men spent all day studying the newspaper and losing pots of money on horses.

  In one of these narrow streets, next to a Chinese restaurant with steamed up windows, was a gym. Not a modern gym attached to a leisure complex, with bright lights and running machines, this was a seedy-looking establishment with a single strip light over the door, announcing Jim’s Gym. It was here that Cash was heading.

  Being a gym in the back streets of Birmingham, it didn’t have a disabled access. Cash had foreseen this and handed the doorman a card, written in such elegant copper-plate writing, it would easily have won first prize in a competition.

  The card said:

  The doorman, not being able to read, was extremely impressed and hurried inside.

  ‘A kid in a wheelchair wants to see you, boss.’

  Jim Bowie’s real name definitely wasn’t Bowie and probably not Jim either. Most likely, he had been born Fred Smith or something similar and had changed it, because Jim Bowie sounded better. He was usually to be found seated behind a large mahogany desk, puffing away at a cigar. He was also rarely alone. With him were two or three other men, their faces hidden behind newspapers, only their legs and feet showing. When they did put down their newspapers to grab a beer, they all possessed the squashed-up faces of old-boxers; cauliflower ears, mauled noses, their eye-lids drooping down below mangled eyebrows crisscrossed by a row of stitches. No use as boxers any longer, they were tremendously helpful as fetchers-and-carriers, bodyguards and general muscle – in case any of Jim Bowie’s visitors needed throwing out.

  Jim Bowie glanced up. ‘What sort’a kid?’

  ‘Smart dresser. Probably collectin’.’

  Jim jerked his head. ‘Tell ’im to come in.’

  ‘Okay, boss.’

  The doorman, also an ex-boxer, returned to the entrance, where he carefully helped the chair up the three steps into the gym.

  It was an odd sort of place, totally different from anything OC had ever experienced before. Dimly lit, a string of light bulbs covered with white plastic shades hung down from a high ceiling. Whenever the outside door opened, they swung backwards and forwards on their long cords like a trapeze artist. The walls had once been green but over the years paint had flaked off exposing large areas coloured beige. At least, the top half of t
he wall was beige, the bottom half was covered with multi-coloured posters of fighters and fight programmes.

  In one corner stood a water cooler and along both sides of the room, long wooden benches that might have come from a primary school. Here, several men were sprawled out, towels round their shoulders, mopping at their sweaty faces. Others worked the punch bag rhythmically, tapping it with alternate fists, while the centre of the room was taken up by a full-sized boxing ring, red and white ropes strung between its corner-posts. Two boxers were sparring, lurching about and throwing an occasional punch. Wearing identical t-shirts, Lycra shorts and soft-laced boots, the only way you could tell them apart was by their helmets. Red and blue. OC’s brain saw all of this. It also noticed their trainer, wearing baggy-grey joggers and carrying a bucket. Leaning on the ropes, he called out instructions to the boxers.

  OC was so absorbed in this wonderful discovery that, for a moment or two, he forgot to follow Cash. He stood motionless, his head slowly revolving to take in the whole room, like a close-circuit television camera that arcs slowly round in a semi-circle, an expression of total delight on his face. He was just about to walk up to the trainer and ask if he could have a go at boxing, when Cash called to him.

  Disappointed, he followed Cash into the office, really, really wishing he could have had a go at boxing and wear a red helmet. He was so busy thinking about all this, he didn’t take much notice of the office or the people in it.

  ‘Hey, kid, so you collectin’?’ Jim Bowie spoke in that gravelly sort of voice that people who smoke cigars – a lot – end up getting.

  Cash smiled. ‘Very good of you to see me, Mr Bowie. I’ve read a great deal about you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘My name’s Cash Harris and this is my friend Philip.’

  OC looked up and smiled. That’s when he noticed the knife on the wall above Jim Bowie’s head. He wasn’t to know but it was a genuine replica of the one the real Jim Bowie had carried, when he was fighting Indians in Texas. From where he was standing, it looked very big and very sharp.

  Jim Bowie followed his gaze. ‘You like my knife?’

  OC nodded.

  ‘It’s ’ad lots of use, ain’t it fellas?’

  The big men, with the squashed noses and cauliflower ears, looked up from their newspapers and chuckled. ‘Yes, Boss.’*

  Cash coughed. To be truthful he was the teensiest-bit nervous. There was a lot riding on this meeting. ‘As I said, I have been reading all about you, Mr Bowie. You have an impressive CV.’

  ‘Impressive what?’ yelled one of the bodyguards, leaping to his feet.

  ‘Curriculum Vitae – it means experience and history,’ explained Cash in rather a hurry.

  The bodyguard tilted his chin, as much to say: okay then but watch it, and sat down again.

  ‘Where’je’ get all this?’

  From the Internet, sir. You are indeed very famous. Almost as famous as the Kray twins.’

  ‘Who’s them, Boss?’

  ‘Before your time, Ringo.’ Jim Bowie shook his head slowly from side-to-side. ‘You’re pretty cool yourself, kid. So what can I do for you?’

  ‘I wish to become an apprentice villain and work for you.’

  The ex-boxers lowered their newspapers and peered over them in astonishment.

  Cash continued. ’I only want to work for the best, Mr Bowie – and you are most definitely considered to be the best. The police are convinced you are the brains behind several important robberies in the last ten years, such as the Beverley Mills job, the HBOS bank of Wokingham plus all the current bank jobs up and down the country. All are unsolved because, in every case, evidence and witnesses have gone missing, so nothing’s ever stuck. Very impressive, Mr Bowie. Very impressive indeed.’

  Cash had been working in secret on his crime-syndicate accent for quite a while now, but this was the first time he’d used it in public and he thought it sounded pretty cool.

  Jim Bowie choked on his cigar and had to have his back banged by Ringo. When Ringo was boxing professionally, he was so used to thumping things hard, he almost smashed his boss’s head into the desk in front of him.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jim Bowie snarled. ‘You’ve got the wrong man, sonny. First, all those articles you read on the H’Internet – well, they ain’t about me. I’m just a boxing promoter. Second, even if they were true, which they ain’t, I don’t take on apprentices. This ain’t a garidge.’

  ‘But, Mr Bowie. I really admire the things you’ve done – it’s a staggering achievement for one man and I want you to teach me. I especially want to learn how you laundered all that money. The police say millions are still missing.’

  ‘You say all this is on the H’Internet.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Cash responded modestly. ‘I hacked into the police computer and studied their files. They’re amazing. You wouldn’t regret it, Mr Bowie,’ Cash smiled his most winning smile. ‘I’m a fast learner and I don’t come empty-handed. No disrespect to these men …’ He indicated the squashy-nosed bodyguards, ‘but they don’t exactly cut the mustard.’* Cash tried another term he’d read in his book about American Gangsters, hoping it would impress. ‘I’m already a brilliant forger. I know the money-markets backwards and am up-to-date on ways to launder money safely. Best of all, who’s ever going to suspect a kid?’

  There was a loud guffaw from Ringo, who appeared to have elected himself chief bodyguard. ‘We don’t hire kids in wheelchairs.’

  Jim Bowie glared and studied the end of his cigar, which had been splattered on the desk top. He opened a box and selected a new one. Taking his time to clip off the end he lit it, blowing a cloud of smoke across the room. He leaned back in his chair.

  ‘You seem to know one hell-of-a-lot about me, kid?’ he said, the expression on his face rather like that of a hungry boa constrictor. ‘So, who put you up to it?’

  OC, who had been happily gazing at the knife on the wall, stared round the room. Even he could feel that the friendly atmosphere had just hurried out of the door. ‘I am playing chess at the Town Hall,’ he said, his tone mega-bright in the menace of that room. ‘I have already played twelve games and won all of them, except game number six when my opponent retired. Would you like to know how many moves it took?’ He smiled innocently at the big man behind the desk and continued, ‘The first game took me five moves, the second eight, the third nineteen …’

  OC continued talking, detailing the number of moves it took him to win every one of his twelve games. When he finished, he started on the number of moves it took him to win the games in the previous tournament. Perhaps it was fortunate OC had only played in two tournaments, otherwise he would have been talking till Christmas. Everyone’s eyes began to glaze and the bossman’s thoughts rapidly changed to: If I don’t get rid of this kid, I’ll go screaming mad.

  ‘Get lost, kid. If I see you round ’ere again …’ He pointed with his cigar at the knife.

  Cash didn’t hear the threat; he was too busy watching his dreams crumble into ashes.

  They didn’t want him. They didn’t want the Cash, the greatest criminal mastermind of the twenty-first century. He’d even bought a new suit for the occasion.

  OC didn’t hear the threat either. He was too busy thinking about boxing. He smiled. ‘If my friend Cash can’t become an apprentice villain and help you to rob a bank, can I become an apprentice boxer? I think I would like to do that, almost as much as playing chess.’

  A spluttering noise came from behind the desk! Noticing the threat level heading for the stratosphere, Cash hurriedly pressed reverse on his chair. The chair spun round, humming its way across the gym, a reluctant OC helping it down the three steps into the street and to safety, disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to stay long enough to try out as a boxer.

  If the journey from the town hall had been cheerful and happy, their return trip was the opposite. With his dreams shattered, Cash rolled his chair through the narrow alleyways, not bothering to look where they were hea
ded. Even his precious chair developed a squeak in one of its wheels as if it too felt miserable. He was so immersed in his own thoughts that he totally forgot OC couldn’t be trusted to find his way through strange streets. It was not until he noticed they had gone up and down the same street three times that he broke his silence.

  ‘That’s it then.’ He directed his chair across a pedestrian crossing. ‘They’ve had their chance. We’re never, never, going to talk to that Jim Bowie again. You hear me, Philip?’

  ‘Yes,’ said OC, remembering to look both ways before they crossed the road.

  A minute or so later, Cash repeated the same words. This time they were heading towards New Street. ‘That’s it then. They’ve had their chance. We’re never, never, never going to talk to that Jim Bowie again. You hear me, Philip?’

  And that was all Cash said, over and over again, illustrating quite clearly the devastating effect the brush-off had had on him. Suddenly the whole of Cash’s life had crash-landed, like a cricket ball through a greenhouse roof. His dreams from a child, everything he’d worked for – ended. Even his exploits in secondary school seemed worthless. What was the point of anything any more, he might as well go straight.

  They arrived back at the Town Hall to discover OC had made it to the next round – Session 2. Even that didn’t cheer Cash up. Nor did the delicious buffet. While OC tucked in, Cash stared vacantly, his index finger permanently pressed on the swivel button, spinning his chair round and round in circles, like a merry-go-round without the merry. So distraught was he that he didn’t even notice when, at just after seven thirty, OC was declared the winner and presented with a cheque for five hundred pounds.