Paine opened his eyes and turned his attention back to me.
“You look unwell,” he said. “Sit, before you swoon into the swan. I don’t want to make a mistake and find that I have eaten you too…”
To be honest, I was pretty grateful for the chance to sit. I pulled a chair from the table, and waited.
Paine didn’t say anything for a while. He beckoned to one of the heavies and they held a whispered conversation. Then Paine focused back on me and his beady eyes seemed to have, deep within them, a sparkle of green light.
“So, I hear you’ve had … difficulties,” the big guy said.
“You hear right.”
“And you think that perhaps I have had something to do with these difficulties.”
“Let’s say I’ve been led to understand that you might be able to help me with a couple of issues.”
“Issues, issues, always issues. Life should be simple. But always issues.”
“Yeah, well, my issue is that I just got a medicine ball in the face.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Maybe you are. And maybe you’re not. Either way, it was your girl, Big D., who propelled it. And I know she’s just a dancing bear, and it’s you who’s blowing the bagpipes.”
“It seems that someone has a big mouth.”
Paine’s eyes drifted off into the distance, and I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt about Rat. I didn’t like the rodent, but I also didn’t want him stinking up my conscience like cat shit behind the curtains.
“Or maybe I’ve got big ears. It didn’t take a lot to figure it out.”
“Well, then, let us assume that your deduction is correct – purely for the sake of argument, of course. You understand that I run an organization – one that the hoi polloi term, impertinently, the Lardies.”
“Yeah, sure. You smuggle in junk food for you and the other fat kids. Big deal. And just so we’re clear, when I say ‘big deal’, I’m being sarcastic. What I mean is a deal so small you could fit it on a Ritz cracker.”
One of the heavies behind Paine growled and took a step towards me. The boss stopped him with a murmured, “Not now, Jethro. Play later.”
“You disgust me, Paine,” I said, not loudly, but clearly. Maybe I was trying to kick things off. I reckoned I could do some damage to Jethro and Tull, maybe even the boss himself, before they took me out. But Paine wasn’t easily riled.
“I provide a service. It’s simple economics. There is a need. I meet it. Hunger is a wolf that, in the absence of meatier sustenance, devours the soul. I feed the wolf, and save the soul.”
“Fascinating stuff. As an excuse for making serious money out of bun-running it takes some beating. But I know you’re cheek by jowl with the prefects in this. And anyone who lies down with a donkey wakes up smelling of ass.”
“Then you would know also that I have to tread more carefully than I might otherwise desire. My operations are intricate and delicate as a cobweb. There are connections, lines, patterns. There are powers stronger than my little operation. Powers that must be … appeased.”
“So, you’re just the sub-contractor,” I said. “Who’s the main guy? Who’s pushing the buttons?”
Paine shrugged. He could shrug just using his fat face.
“Were you not listening? I cannot tell you without jeopardizing everything I have built.”
I picked at a nail. “You don’t think I could cut a few of those silken lines?”
“I dare say you could cause a little damage. Before you were crushed. I promise you, this is a fight you cannot win. There is a hierarchy of power, a pyramid, and you are part of the base.”
Paine was a crook, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t deep. He was right about the power. But I wasn’t here to threaten. I was here to buy.
“You hungry?” I asked.
“The wolf never slumbers for long. The problem, of course, is novelty. There is so little left that I haven’t tried.”
“I think I may have something that could help you with that. Something … new.”
I had his attention.
“And you think to barter with me?”
“You’re a businessman. Let’s do some business.”
“Might I ask to see your … currency?”
I reached a hand into each blazer pocket. The heavies behind Paine sprang forward, like spooked hippos.
“Take it easy!” I said, and slowly drew out the two guinea pigs. “Forbidden flesh. Is anything sweeter?”
I put the two corpses on the tablecloth. The table now looked like a seventeenth-century Dutch still life.
“Do I see before me the school guinea pigs? Snuffy and…?”
“Sniffy.”
“Of course I’d heard on the grapevine that … well, so it’s true, you are the killer. Now it falls into place. I quite see why he … why it was thought desirable to have you eliminated. Funny, even though we all knew about your past … troubles, I’d never have guessed you had something like this in you.”
“You’ve no idea what I’ve got in me. But that doesn’t mean I killed these guys.”
Paine raised a sceptical eyebrow. I didn’t press the point any further. It might be useful to be mistaken for a rodent-slaying maniac.
“Ever eaten guinea pig?” I asked.
“No. But I am, naturally, aware that in parts of South America they are considered to be a delicacy.”
He couldn’t keep his eyes off the bodies. His upper lip was beaded with moisture. He had started to breathe more heavily.
“A name. Give me a name. That’s all I want, and then they’re yours any way you want them. Grilled, kebabed, guinea-pig sushi, whatever.”
Paine’s eyes darted back and forth between the meat and me. Then, suddenly, he clapped his hands. Instantly, the white-jacketed lackey he had pronged with his fork reappeared.
“Take these to the chef. Have them skinned and gutted. This one here, I want raw and finely sliced, carpaccio style, dressed in olive oil and a little lemon juice and basil. The other, I want roasted with fennel and sweet potatoes. And tell Chef to keep the heads for stock.”
The lackey reached for the guinea pigs. I grabbed his arm, and looked at the boss.
“That name.”
Paine hesitated, licked his lips, and then said, “The Dwarf.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BACK TO THE SHANK
THE Dwarf. Why did it have to be the Dwarf?
I squeezed out of the room, past Hobnob, with the words pinging and echoing in my head like a cry of pain in an underpass. I’d asked for a candle and been handed a stick of dynamite.
Did Paine mean that the Dwarf was the killer? Or just that he had answers, that he was another of the arrows leading me to the end. To my end…
The Dwarf had lurked in the collective unconscious of the school for a long time. He was the spectre haunting our half-forgotten memories and dreams. And like all the ghouls and terrors of the unconscious, he was there because we’d repressed him. Well, I was going to have to un-repress him. I was the scared child who would have to climb out from the protecting bed covers and confront the beast in the wardrobe. I shivered at the thought.
But not for long, because a new problem presented itself. Presented itself in the sense of grabbing me around the neck and throwing me down on the hard floor.
Funt and Bosola. Waiting for me out in the corridor.
“Hello, scrote-head,” said Bosola. “You are in some serious, serious shtick now.”
“Do you even know what shtick means?” I asked, looking up his nose from my position on the floor.
“Well it ain’t good,” he sneered. “And, like I said, you’re in it.”
And then he did something unexpected. Given how predictable he was, you really didn’t expect the unexpected from Bosola. What he did was to levitate. Funt joined him, six inches off the floor. Neat trick, I thought, even if they had a little help. The help was supplied by Hobnob, who had a collar in each hand. He was a slick mover
for a big guy, and had materialized soundlessly behind the two thugs.
“Get off, you fat fruit,” yelped Bosola. “This is Shank business.”
Hobnob banged their heads together in a friendly sort of a way. “If I put you down, you play nice. Johnny’s a friend of mine.”
Then he dropped them.
All three of us got off the floor together.
“Thanks, Hob,” I said.
“Old times’ sake. And remember,” he added, looking at Bosola and Funt, “play nice.” Then he turned to me again. “One more thing, Middleton…”
“Yeah?”
“The Dwarf.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s a trick. The Dwarf, he’ll—”
“I’ve no choice. Either I find out who’s behind all this or I’m finished.”
Hobnob stared at me. His face was a blank canvas showing no emotion, which made it tempting to paint something on there. Pity? Sympathy? Understanding? Or, like everyone else, did he just think I was a psycho?
“In that case,” he said finally, “you’ll need to know something.”
“What?”
“His real name. It might just save you.”
Then he whispered the name in my ear.
“OK, you two fairies,” said Bosola, “enough of the heavy petting. Let’s go before the blimp gets himself a puncture.”
He patted the inside pocket of his blazer. The suggestion was plain enough. Hobnob stared him down.
“It’s cool, Hob,” I said, and began walking all by myself towards the Shank’s office. After a second or so the prefects followed.
“Hey, wait for us,” said Funt. “We was told to drag you. We’re supposed to… I mean you aren’t meant to—”
“Shut up,” said Bosola.
They were still scuttling behind me when I reached the Shank’s office. I knocked and went straight in. Bosola followed right behind, and made a point of grabbing me, so we half fell through the doorway together.
“Got him, like you asked, Chief,” Bosola panted. “I—”
“How dare you burst in here like this,” said the Shank, hurriedly putting something away in his desk. It might have been a bottle.
“But he … but I…”
“Just get out. No, not you, Middleton. You stay right where you are.”
The Shank contemplated me like a vivisectionist. The malice flowed out of him like dry ice from a beaker in the chemistry lab, and something inside me seriously considered shivering.
Then it began:
“Where are they, Middleton?”
“What? The treasures of El Dorado? The hopes and dreams of your youth? The heroes of yesteryear? Your car keys? I give up. Try the Internet.”
“You know very well what I mean. The guinea pigs – where are they?”
“Not in their cage? Don’t tell me they tunnelled out? Well on their way to Switzerland now, I should guess, if their papers are in order.”
“I’m going to try one more time. If I get a similarly flippant answer, you are going to spend an hour in the sick bay with our friends Funt and Bosola, ably supported by as many other prefects as it takes to make sure that you are … comfortable. Do I make myself clear?”
“As the Pope’s conscience.”
“So, where are the guinea pigs?”
“I have no idea.”
It’s always easier to lie when you’re telling the truth. I genuinely didn’t know which part of Paine’s digestive tract Sniffy and Snuffy would have reached by now. Stomach? Small intestine? Large intestine? Who could say?
The Shank drilled a hole in my skull and had a quick look around. Then he glanced down at the papers on his desk.
“This morning I received a note suggesting that I would find something interesting in a certain locker. When I went to check, I found you adjacent to the locker in question, with a look on your face that exceeded even your generally high background level of guilt. Shortly afterwards, I was informed that the school guinea pigs were not in their cage. Despite your well-known problems, Middleton, I am told that you are not a stupid boy. So why don’t you use that brain of yours and tell me what deductions you would draw from those facts?”
It was my turn to pause. I tried to get everything straight, but the inside of my head was like a washing machine, with the animals, the people, the places churning in a mush of grey suds. By a huge effort of will, I made it stop, and sorted through the laundry.
“I’d say it was a set-up. Whoever nabbed the pigs tried to plant them on some patsy. A patsy with the initials J. M. But either they were too dumb to get it right, or the guys they put on the job were too dumb.”
“And why would anyone want to implicate you in this? You don’t think that smacks of paranoia?” The Shank’s tone softened a little and he added, “We’ve been here before, John.”
“Sure. The eternal recurrence.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just something someone said… But it’s not paranoia when they’re really trying to get you.”
Again the Shank bored into me. Again he found nothing but an empty space.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, Middleton, but I know you’re at the heart of it. Turn your pockets out.”
“What, you think I’d be walking about with dead guinea pigs in my pockets?”
“Just do what I say.”
I flapped and slapped, showing the Shank I was clean. He didn’t notice the couple of white hairs that fluttered down to the carpet.
“Proves nothing,” he said. “You could have dumped the bodies anywhere.”
“That would be the smart move.”
The Shank rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked and sounded tired.
“Today is Wednesday. At 12 p.m. on Friday I will be holding an all-school assembly. If this situation has been cleared up by then, the purpose of the assembly will be to wish the Drama Club the very best of luck with the performances of The Wizard of Oz. If no resolution has occurred, then the school will hear that the performances, scheduled for the following Friday and Saturday nights, have been cancelled because of you. I derive no pleasure, no pleasure whatsoever, from this.”
“I bet,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean that something stinks here. There’s something corrupt and rotten, and the rottenness goes down to the core.”
“Get out of here, Middleton.”
“I’m gone.”
As I was leaving I heard what sounded like a click. It was the Shank’s brain changing gear.
“Wait, dead. You said ‘dead’. How do you know the guinea pigs are dead?”
For once I was stumped. I cursed myself for being such a dumb-ass.
“Just a guess. Based on the pattern.”
“The pattern?”
“Yeah, you know, like the picture of the skull on a death’s-head moth. The pattern of stuff dying.”
And I got out of there while that one was still rolling around in his cerebral cortex.
At the end of the staff corridor, I almost bumped into Hart. My head was still back in the Shank’s office, or I’d have checked out where he was going. As it was, we both raised our chins in greeting, and then I was lost in the churning humanity of the school, as one lesson ended and the next began.
I know I should have tried to make my move on the Dwarf, but somehow the rest of the day contracted into a point, consumed itself, vanished. My mind was a black hole sucking in everything, matter, light, even time.
Things only snapped back into focus as I trudged out of school that afternoon. Every kid was being frisked at the gates. When I was through, I looked back to see Paine getting patted down by a nervous prefect. He beamed beatifically at me, gave a little tinkling wave like Oliver Hardy, then put his hand to his mouth, as if he’d just let slip an accidental burp.
A guinea-pig-flavoured burp.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SOME ADVICE FROM THE CAT
THE house was still empty. I checked the phone for messages. Just one. I hit play.
“Meds!”
That was it. Nothing more. My mum’s voice had an edge of hysteria. Nothing new there. Crazy school, crazy home. I was the sane centre of a mad world.
I picked up the dispenser from the top of the fridge and gave it a rattle. I was two days behind now. I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to take all the ones I’d missed. Or would that OD me? I could call my shrink… But the thing is, I felt good. Well, OK, not that good, but not crazy. The shrink had said that sometimes it’s a one-off, what happened to me. Sometimes… Anyway, taking pills when you don’t need them, that has to be nuts, doesn’t it?
I went to the bathroom and stared at my face in the mirror. There were black smudges under my eyes, but apart from that my face was as colourless as a meal of boiled fish in white sauce.
Tough day.
I went into my room and fell onto the bed. I didn’t even take my shoes off. There was something nagging at the outer rim of my consciousness. Something I was supposed to do. Or not do. The Dwarf. My pills. Other things. I rested my eyes for a few seconds. When I opened them again, two hours had slipped by. I had a taste like burnt hair in my mouth and the feeling that someone had taken out my brain and replaced it with scrunched-up aluminium foil.
I brushed my teeth and then went down to the kitchen and ate a can of peaches. That helped. It always helps. The house was eerily quiet. It was something more than just the absence of noise. The silence felt like an actual presence, something that had flowed like an inert gas into the rooms. The thought of the stifling gas made my throat tighten, and I knew that there was only one place to go.
Up on the roof, I waited for Cat to come.
I knew she would.
“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm,” she said.
I opened the sardines. She poked her nose quickly in and out.
“Not hungry tonight?”
“Already ate. Been checking out the neighbourhood. That old lady at number 14…”
Hello Darkness Page 8
