The Rule

by David Jackson

  Suzy’s head was still turned to the side, but there was a discernible tremble in her lower lip.

  ‘Where the hell is he with those ciggies?’ she said. ‘I’m gasping here.’

  Hannah watched her for a few seconds, allowing her words to percolate further into Suzy’s brain. If the woman could see sense, if she could just allow herself to step back and see the danger she was in . . .

  And then there was a movement in the corner of Hannah’s eye. At another doorway, leading to the kitchen.

  She was standing there, as pretty as a field of flowers. Only eight years old. A sunshine smile that seemed to fill the room with bird-song. She was wearing her school uniform: bottle-green sweater, black skirt, shiny black shoes, and white socks pulled up tight and precisely aligned below her kneecaps. As always, a lock of her hair had escaped to coil between her eyes.

  And then she was gone, retreating into the depths of the kitchen.

  Hannah stood, moved towards the kitchen. She couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Hey!’ Suzy said. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Hannah heard the voice but couldn’t stop. From behind her came further protestations from Suzy, then words from Marcel as he tried to hold the woman back. It was all just background noise to Hannah now.

  The kitchen was empty. The back door was open, admitting a broad wedge of warm September sunshine, but there was no sign of anyone in the garden.

  Hannah surveyed the room. Finger-stained cupboards, one absent its door. The washing machine thrumming its motor and sloshing its contents. A basin full of soapy water. A precarious mountain of dishes on the draining board . . .

  The voices grew louder. Shane pounded downstairs again and joined the commotion. Marcel had his hands full back there.

  She took a step closer to the sink . . .

  Something winked at her. A brief glint of brilliance. Like a light-bulb moment. Hannah could almost hear the ding in her head.

  Yes. There. Evidently, Suzy had been washing the dishes when they’d arrived. Hannah remembered her drying her hands on that grubby towel. And in preparation for the task, she had removed her ring.

  It rested on a window ledge above the sink. Rose gold, with a bulbous central blue stone surrounded by smaller white gems. Exactly as she had seen it in the crime reports.

  This ring had belonged to Tommy Glover’s fiancée, before he hacked it from her hand.

  Tommy had been here.

  A rush of movement behind her.

  She whirled to see Suzy racing out of the back door and across the garden. Hannah threw the ring down and took up the chase.

  ‘Marcel!’ she yelled.

  She dashed outside but could see that Suzy had already reached the fence and was pulling a couple of the panels aside to duck through. Hannah sprinted through the tall weeds, hurdled over a broken lawnmower. When she reached the dilapidated fence, she looked back to see that Marcel had been tackled to the ground by Shane, and was now wrestling with him. She debated whether to go back and help, decided against it. She had confidence that Marcel could handle himself.

  She pushed through the hole in the fence, then barged through dense shrubbery that seemed intent on clawing her back. She was unprepared for the steep slope that met her on the other side. She lost her footing, rolled down the bank, slammed hard onto a pathway and felt sharp-edged stones cutting into her knees and shins.

  ‘Shit!’

  She clambered to her feet. Saw the blood oozing from the puncture wounds on her legs. She fought through the pain and started running again. Ahead, Suzy was widening the gap, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere she could go. To her left were the steep, slippery, grassy banks bordering the rear of a long row of houses, and to her right was a tall wire fence closing off access to a railway line. Another section of fencing ran perpendicular to it in the distance, terminating the path.

  Jesus, Hannah thought. For a chain-smoker in her late thirties, that woman can move!

  As she picked up the pace, her mind began to make sense of the situation. She realised that Tommy had been visiting Suzy via this route to her rear fence, and that was why he had never been picked up by surveillance officers stationed on the road at the front. Perhaps Suzy was heading towards him now, to warn him off. Or perhaps she knew that she was in deep shit herself. Was it Tommy’s idea to bring his fiancée’s ring to Suzy, or had she insisted that he do it to prove his devotion?

  And then Hannah realised something else. A short distance in front of Suzy was an opening in the fence – a pedestrian level crossing to the other side of the tracks. Hannah could see the bright warning lights flashing.

  And she could hear the train.

  It was coming up behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Still at some distance, but it was probably going at a hell of a speed. She looked again at Suzy and the crossing, performed some crude mental calculations. Decided that it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Don’t do it, Suzy. You won’t make it.

  She found some acceleration. Her heart was pounding, her lungs were ready to burst, her legs were burning, but still she ran.

  Suzy looked back. Saw Hannah and the train. Carried out her own instant risk assessment.

  No, Suzy. Please. It’s too dangerous.

  Hannah heard the train roaring up behind her, the sudden ear-splitting two-tone blare of its horn, and she kept her eyes focused on Suzy, kept willing her not to attempt it because No Suzy, you won’t make in time, you’re too late, and then there was a rush of wind and thunderous noise and the sight of Suzy jinking to her right, onto the level crossing, and all that Hannah could do was collapse against the fence, her fingers clutching the wire as she stared at the blur of darkness rocketing past her, praying with all her might that Suzy had made it across that track, that she would soon be seen running in the distance and flipping two fingers up to her pursuer, because that would be so much better than the alternative.

  But then the train was gone.

  And so was Suzy. What remained of her was now scattered far and wide.

  Hannah slid down the fence. She threw her head back and let out a howl of anguish. When she dropped her chin again and blinked away the mist of tears, she yearned to be proved wrong, to be shown that Suzy had evaded both capture and death.

  Suzy wasn’t there.

  Somebody else was, though.

  Standing to attention atop a small hillock, stiff and proud in her new school uniform.

  1

  The hiss of the bus doors made Daniel Timpson look up from his comic. He peered through the grimy window to check where he was. The journey home took in a total of ten bus stops. This was number eight. He had to be careful about his count, because sometimes drivers skipped a stop if nobody wanted to get on or off.

  ‘I thought you’d gone to sleep.’

  Daniel turned to the woman sitting next to him. He thought she looked very old. Maybe more than a hundred. She’d probably die soon. He hoped she didn’t die on the bus.

  ‘I don’t sleep on the bus,’ he told her. ‘I might miss my stop if I do that.’

  She smiled. She had a nice smile, but it made him wonder if her teeth were real.

  ‘Very wise,’ she said. ‘I only mention it because you haven’t moved an inch for the past few minutes. You seem very engrossed in your comic.’

  This puzzled Daniel. He didn’t know what engrossed meant, but he knew that a thing was horrible if it was gross, so why would he be reading something horrible?

  ‘It’s about Adam-9,’ he told her.

  ‘Adam-9? Is he a superhero?’

  ‘Not really. He’s a secret agent. That’s him.’ He pointed to a figure in his comic.

  ‘What’s so secret about him?’

  ‘Well, nobody knows what he looks like.’

  ‘Oh. Now I’m confused.’ She touched a withered finger to his comic, and he hoped that she didn’t put old-person germs on it. ‘Doesn’t he look like that?’

  Daniel wasn’t surprise
d she was confused. Old people could get very muddled.

  ‘No. He puts on rubber masks that make him look like other people. He can look like anyone. Maybe even you if he had a really wrinkly mask.’

  She laughed, and he didn’t know why.

  He continued: ‘So nobody knows what he really looks like, and Adam-9 is just his call sign, so nobody knows his real name either.’

  ‘Gosh, he is secretive, isn’t he? But he doesn’t have any special powers?’

  ‘No. But he does have a special briefcase with lots of special gadgets in it.’

  The woman moved her skeletal digit to Daniel’s own briefcase on his lap. ‘A bit like this one, I imagine.’

  He stared at her. How did she know? Was she an enemy spy?

  No, he decided. She was just old, and old people are very wise. Like owls.

  ‘A bit,’ he said. He went on to explain that Adam-9 carried his briefcase everywhere, and that it was the most amazing briefcase that had ever been made. He told her that it didn’t just hold his disguises and other useful stuff, but that it could also do really clever things, because the top of the handle could flip up and show buttons and dials, and one of the buttons made it fire knockout darts, while another made panels slide out from the briefcase to turn it into a bulletproof shield. And in last week’s story on TV (because Adam-9 isn’t only in comics), Adam-9 was thrown out of a plane, and it looked like he was going to die, but he didn’t die because by pressing the right button on his briefcase he made it release a parachute.

  What Daniel didn’t admit to the old lady was that his own briefcase didn’t do any of that stuff. It didn’t even have buttons on the handle. But he could pretend it did. His mum had wanted him to have a backpack or a sports bag like everyone else, but he’d insisted. It was the briefcase or nothing. So they had gone shopping and looked at every single case in town before deciding on the one that most looked like Adam-9’s. This was it, and that was why it was special.

  The bus doors hissed again.

  ‘Oh,’ Daniel said. ‘I have to get up now and wait for the next stop.’

  ‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘it’s been a pleasure talking to you, young man, but I wouldn’t want you to miss your stop.’

  ‘Thank you. Don’t miss your stop either. Old people can forget things. My nan used to forget everything. She used to fart a lot, too.’

  The woman laughed again, but Daniel didn’t know why.

  When it came time for him to alight, he made sure to thank the bus driver. He always made a point of doing so. ‘Politeness costs nothing,’ his mother always told him. That, and ‘Manners maketh the man.’ He never understood why she said maketh instead of make, but he knew she was right. More often than not, his courteous behaviour provoked a smile, and that made him happy.

  At the bus stop he looked around to make sure his mother wasn’t there. He had informed her many, many times that he was perfectly capable of getting home by himself now, but she often turned up nonetheless. Sometimes she would lurk in the shadows of a shop doorway and then follow him at a discreet distance, like a spy. Like Adam-9.

  He turned off the busy main street and onto Marlborough Road. Home was only a short walk from here. A few minutes, although he didn’t know exactly how many. He wasn’t very good at telling the time. He was good at drawing pictures, though. Today he had drawn a picture of Adam-9 destroying a missile, and Mrs Collins had said it was AMAZING and put a gold star on it, that’s how good he was at drawing. And when she did that, he felt he should say something nice back to her, so he told her that the spot on her nose looked a lot better and that she was wearing a pretty bra today, and Mrs Collins smiled and went red, probably because they were such nice compliments, and she hurried away with one hand on her nose and the other pulling together the top of her shirt.

  He was looking forward to getting home and telling his mother all about his wonderful day, and what Mrs Collins had said. He was also looking forward to his tea, which tonight would be chicken nuggets and chips and two slices of bread and butter, and he’d have a diet cola with it because diet meant it didn’t make you fat. Then he’d have ice cream with strawberries, and he’d have five strawberries because he was supposed to have Five A Day. That was his Friday night meal. Not the Friday after next, though, because that Friday would be his birthday, and on that day his diet would go out of the window and he’d have his favourite chippy meal of all time, which was steak pie with chips and gravy, and then his mum would bring out a Colin the Caterpillar cake, because that was his favourite cake of all time.

  Halfway down Marlborough Road he crossed over. That was because he could see the Dirty Man sitting on his front step. Daniel called him that because he didn’t know his real name and because his hands and clothes were always dirty, like he’d been working in a coal mine or down a sewer. It wasn’t the dirt that made Daniel cross the road, but the fact that the Dirty Man owned a dog that ran out at anyone who got too near the house, and it would yap and try to bite their ankles. Daniel didn’t like angry dogs like that, so he crossed the road and then crossed back again a few yards farther along.

  At the end of Marlborough Road, he turned right onto Pickford Avenue. Mrs Romford was in front of her house, polishing the letter box on her front door. Usually when she was out like this, it was to wash her car, but today it was to polish the letter box.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Romford,’ he said, being polite.

  She looked up and smiled and said, ‘Oh, hello, Daniel. How are you today?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. I’m having chicken nuggets and chips tonight. Not chippy chips. Frozen chips. I’ll have chippy chips when it’s my birthday, which is very soon.’

  ‘That’s nice. How’s your father?’

  Mrs Romford was always asking about his dad. He didn’t know why, because she saw him often enough. She was always taking her car into his dad’s garage. The last time it was because one of the seats was making a funny squeak, and the time before that it was because one of the wipers wasn’t cleaning the windscreen properly. When his dad said Mrs Romford was his best customer, Daniel’s mum said it wasn’t only her car she was looking to get serviced. Daniel didn’t know what that meant.

  ‘My dad’s fine, thank you. He said to tell you something.’

  Mrs Romford suddenly perked up. She got to her feet, still clutching her cloth and can of Brasso.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

  Daniel put a finger to his chin as he tried to recall the exact words. ‘He said, “Tell Mrs Romford that if she ever needs anything lubricating or pumping up, I’m her man.”’

  Mrs Romford suddenly emitted a deep-throated chuckle, which startled Daniel. The remark had seemed so ordinary at the time, although he had wondered why his mum had jabbed her elbow into his dad’s ribcage.

  When she had finished laughing, Mrs Romford pointed with her oily rag and said, ‘You look very smart with that briefcase.’

  Daniel raised the briefcase in the air, offering her a better view. ‘I use it every day. It’s special.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ she replied, clearly spellbound.

  He hoped she wouldn’t ask him why it was so special, because then he would have to answer, and he had already gone through all that with the old lady on the bus.

  ‘I’m going home now,’ he told her. ‘My mum will be waiting. She gets worried if I’m late.’

  ‘You do that, Daniel. Tell your dad I’ll see him soon.’

  Daniel nodded. Then, feeling the need to pass a compliment, he said, ‘I’ll bet the postman will enjoy putting his package into your lovely letter box.’

  Mrs Romford exploded into laughter again. Through her tears she barely managed to get out the words, ‘Like father, like son.’

  Daniel didn’t know why she was saying that, or what she found so hilarious, so he waved goodbye and moved on.

  The flats loomed into view. Twelve storeys high. Daniel lived on the top floor. There was a lift, but unless he was with someone els
e he always took the stairs because it was healthier. And because the lift usually stank of wee. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to wee in a lift unless they were trapped in there for a long, long time.

  A gang of boys came around a corner, heading towards Daniel. They were on the opposite side of the road at first, but then they saw him and crossed over. He told himself not to worry.

  The boys were dressed in school uniform. They carried backpacks and sports bags rather than briefcases. One of them was bouncing a football on the pavement. The steady banging echoed off the buildings and made Daniel feel a little uneasy. He felt even more unsettled when the boys spread out to block his route.

  ‘Where you going?’ said the lad with the ball.

  Daniel pointed. ‘Home. I live there. 1204 Erskine Court.’

  The boy grinned, and his mates sniggered.

  ‘Why’ve you got a briefcase? Are you a bank manager or something?’

  The laughter grew more intense. Another boy said, ‘Maybe he’s the prime minister.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said the first. ‘Are you our leader? Are you going to save the country?’

  ‘No. I—’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘D-D-Daniel.’

  ‘Duh-Duh Daniel? That’s a funny name. Well, Duh-Duh, what’s in the briefcase?’

  ‘Yeah, Dodo,’ said a voice behind him. ‘What’s in the case?’

  Daniel turned to face the new interrogator, and the ball hit him on the back of the head. He whirled back to face the group’s leader.

  ‘Sorry about that, Doo-Doo. My hands slipped. Anyway, you were about to tell us what’s in the briefcase.’

  ‘My lunchbox,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s empty now. I ate all my sandwiches and my fruit and my biscuits at lunchtime. Oh, and my picture is in there too. I drew a picture, and Mrs Collins gave me a gold star. I’m going to show it to my mum.’

  There was another splutter from behind, and again when Daniel turned, the ball was bounced off his head.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s not nice.’