Itch

by Simon Mayo

  The Frenchman said, ‘I still think it might be nothing. But if it is something, it needs to be our something.’

  17

  THE COUSINS STOOD in the sandy waste and soil halfway up the spoil heap, with the body of Cake in front of them, and the radioactive rocks that had apparently killed him still half buried off to their left. Itch had finally placed his jacket over Cake’s head and shoulders. His arm was round Chloe, who was crying again.

  ‘We need to call for help, Itch,’ she said, her voice raised. ‘Who do you call when someone is already dead? Is it the undertakers?’

  Jack shook her head. ‘No, it must be 999. They can sort it out. Let’s just tell them what’s happened, Itch! Then it’s over to them.’ She took out her phone. ‘No signal, of course,’ she cried out in frustration.

  Itch checked his phone, said, ‘Same here,’ and stood up. ‘But before we call, what are we going to do with these rocks? We now have eight. I suppose we should take them.’

  ‘Hang on, Itch,’ said Jack. ‘Why can’t we just leave them all here? Come on, that’s got to be the right thing! This is about as remote as we’re going to get and there’s no one about. We can explain everything when we ring 999.’

  ‘But, Jack, you read Cake’s note! Don’t trust anyone, he said. The rocks are dangerous. If we leave them here, we don’t know who’ll find them. Flowerdew is still out there somewhere, remember!’ Itch was frustrated at having to explain this. ‘We have to make sure he doesn’t get them!’

  ‘Itch, no.’ Jack was pleading now. ‘I was scared of one, never mind eight. You saw what they did to Cake! Please – let’s leave them here. We’ll walk back into the village and call from there.’

  But Itch had made up his mind. ‘No – we just can’t leave these rocks. Not after they’ve already cost Cake his life. He was my friend, Jack! I can’t let him down now. I need to know what they are and why they are so important. Then maybe we can hand them over. Get them to Watkins, perhaps.’

  ‘Only maybe?’ said Jack. ‘Only perhaps? Come on, Itch, let’s—’

  Itch interrupted her. ‘Jack, listen! Cake specifically asked me to get rid of them, which I will, once I know how!’

  ‘Promise?’ said Jack wearily, suddenly in a hurry to finish this argument and get out of there.

  ‘Promise.’

  That seemed to be the end of it for now. Itch ran over to the blue parcel, and without any further comment from anyone he pulled it free from the ground. It was hot and heavy. It felt like there was something cooking inside. Cake had cut the apron to make the smallest package he could, but it was lead-lined, with the cable wrapped round most of it. However much protection the apron was giving them it was clear that the rocks were secure, and Itch had no intention of checking the contents. He pushed the bundle into the canvas bag.

  At the foot of the spoil heap, they all hovered near Cake’s body as if to say goodbye and pay their last respects. Jack and Chloe stood as Itch crouched down by Cake’s covered head. He was trying to think of something wise to say when a loud, angry voice bellowed across the mine:

  ‘WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’

  Itch, Chloe and Jack jumped up and swivelled round. Across the mine workings, by the largest spoil heap, stood two men and a woman. The man doing the shouting was short, barrel-chested; behind him stood a taller, older man in a cloth cap, and the woman – the one from the village shop. She was pointing at them.

  The Lofte cousins, already upset and wired by the death of their friend, were now flooded with fear, guilt and panic.

  This is bad, thought Itch, glancing from the adults to Cake’s body to their bags. And they’ll think we did it. ‘Go!’ he shouted, and he grabbed the bag and the rucksack and ran up the spoil heap.

  ‘Where?’ Jack followed Itch up the slope, taking the rucksack from him and pulling Chloe along behind her.

  ‘Just follow!’ yelled Itch as they scrambled over the top. The ridge crumbled under their feet and they half slid, half stumbled down the other side. There were two more spoil heaps off to the right, one to the left, and some more crumbling mine buildings and towers stretching off towards woodland about five hundred metres away. Itch focused on a network of engine houses and chimneys halfway between them and the woods. ‘There!’ he said, and took off across the open ground, avoiding the sand around the spoil heaps where their footprints would be all too visible.

  They could hear the three adults shouting on the other side of the heap. From where they had been when they started yelling, they had a lot of ground to make up – at least a thousand metres, Itch thought. They then had to climb or go round the spoil heap. Itch wanted to make it to the buildings before they crested or rounded the heap. That meant going at a flat-out sprint.

  Itch ran with the heavy canvas bag in his right hand, with no time to swap it to his left. Jack had Itch’s rucksack over her shoulders and Chloe running alongside. Jack could run faster than Chloe, but instinctively she settled at a slower pace, not wanting to let her young cousin fall behind. The ground was uneven, peppered with loose rocks and slate. They were terrified of slipping as they covered the ground between the last spoil heap and the mine buildings. All three of them stumbled many times, Jack twisting her ankle in one particularly deep hole, but they managed to stay on their feet.

  About one hundred metres out Itch chanced a glance back over his shoulder. Jack and Chloe were at least a hundred and fifty metres behind him and it looked as though Chloe had a stitch as she was clasping a hand to her side. Her eyes were as screwed up as her running would allow – she was grimacing with pain. Itch reached the first wall, dropping the bag down on the other side of it. He then sprinted back to the others, grabbing his sister’s hand. The three of them hurtled towards the cover of the wall. The shouts from the adults behind them were getting louder – their pursuers would come into sight at any second. Just a few more metres …

  They threw themselves over the wall, Itch banging his head on the lead pipe in the bag, and the girls landing on top of each other. They lay motionless, gasping for breath, and as flat up against the wall as they thought was safe. It had crumbled to just over a metre high and looked as though it could collapse at any moment. They lay in the rubble, panting. Knowing that they had to do so as silently as possible made their recovery long and painful. Itch felt the back of his head: it throbbed and he was sure it was bleeding again.

  The voices were coming ever closer, and Itch knew that they couldn’t stay there for long. He pointed towards the nearest building – a tall, thin, three-walled ruin which had originally housed a shaft pumping engine. There was an empty doorway facing them, but they would have to cross open ground to reach it.

  They could now identify two voices – a man’s and a woman’s. Peering through a crack in the wall, Jack saw that the older man was missing; presumably he had stayed with Cake’s body. The short man and the woman from the shop had split up: the woman was walking up another heap and the man was heading towards their hiding place.

  ‘He’s coming this way!’ hissed Jack.

  Lying behind the wall, they could hear the man and the woman calling to each other. He was encouraging her but she sounded scared.

  The man had stopped about five hundred metres away, and had turned back to face his companion on the spoil heap. While he was shouting to her, Itch nodded at Chloe and she crawled out from behind the wall and set off towards the engine house.

  ‘Faster!’ whispered Itch. The man might turn round again at any moment – but Chloe had disappeared through the doorway.

  Itch realized that the man was reassuring the woman:

  ‘You’re doing fine, Mary – but careful near the top!’ She called something back, and he was silent for a while. Then they heard him call, ‘Hold on!’ and he ran off. Itch and Jack took their chance: they both crawled as fast as the rubble, the rucksack and the bag would allow, across the gap into the engine house.

  Chloe was wide-eyed with fear. She was sittin
g curled up tightly with her arms around her knees, looking smaller than Itch could remember. She looked eight or nine years old again. He and Jack dived into the corner next to her and Jack hugged her terrified cousin.

  The three sides of the building gave them cover from the pair on the spoil heap, but between them and the woods that marked the edge of the old mine lay another two hundred metres of open ground, with only the last chimney for cover. It looked a very long way away.

  Behind them, they heard a distant call. Jack edged her way towards a crack in the brickwork. Peering through, she saw the head and shoulders of the older man at the top of the spoil heap where they had found Cake. He was waving his phone around.

  ‘It’s the old guy. I think he’s got a signal for his mobile! He’s calling the others.’

  She couldn’t see the short man and the shop woman, but Itch could if he scrambled over to look through a crack in the other wall. Being careful not to dislodge any of the larger bricks or pieces of broken slate that now formed most of the floor of this building, he crabbed his way over to the crack that was nearest to him.

  ‘They’re climbing down,’ he reported. ‘Now they’re looking over here!’ Itch ducked just in case, even though he was sure they couldn’t see him. After a few seconds of quiet he peered out again. ‘They’re running back to the old guy. I guess he’s called the police, and wants them there. Hang on … he’s stopped.’

  The short man had stopped at the foot of the spoil heap and turned round, cupping his hands to his mouth. ‘WE HAVE CALLED THE POLICE AND THEY ARE ON THEIR WAY. YOU WON’T GET FAR. THAT MAN IS DEAD! I’LL REMEMBER YOUR FACES!’ The woman was calling him, and he turned and ran round the spoil heap.

  ‘Itch! They think we killed Cake!’ said Jack. Chloe started to cry again and Itch crept over to crouch next to her.

  ‘Listen, Chloe. They might think we killed Cake, but no one else will. The uranium, or whatever this is, killed Cake. Radiation poisoning is easy to diagnose. He didn’t protect himself until it was too late – everyone will realize that.’

  She nodded, reassured. ‘I know that. But they sound pretty mad.’

  It was silent in the old mine and Itch looked out towards the woods. ‘We need to make it to the trees and then get back to the road.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Away from here,’ said Itch. ‘We’ll make for that chimney first. Even if they see us, we’ll be too far away. They’re old.’ He smiled at Chloe and got a weak smile back. He picked up the canvas bag and Jack hoisted the rucksack.

  They were about to set off when Chloe cried, ‘Itch – your jacket! You left it!’

  Itch stiffened and sucked air through his teeth. He knew he had left his jacket; that had seemed the decent thing to do – they couldn’t have left Cake uncovered. That wasn’t what worried him.

  ‘Please tell me your name isn’t in it,’ said Jack.

  Itch said nothing. His mother had written his name on the back of the collar as he had lost his previous one on a school non-uniform day.

  ‘Oh, help,’ said Jack. ‘We’d better get going.’

  Itch checked that it was clear, and nodded. All three of them dashed out together towards the chimney. Like the others it was more or less intact and covered in ivy, but was slightly shorter than the rest. It was fatter too and so was wide enough for all three of them to hide behind. They reached it in twenty seconds and stood behind each other, with Jack looking ahead to the woods, now just about a hundred metres away. There was no sign of the adults; all was quiet.

  ‘Let’s just go for it,’ said Itch, and they headed for the trees.

  Gradually the loose stones and slate gave way to earth and grass. They crashed into the trees and bushes and threw themselves down, expecting to hear shouts, but none came. They lay still for what seemed like an age, then Itch turned to the others and smiled. ‘Made it!’

  They crawled through to where the trees were dense enough to hide them. When they couldn’t see the mine workings any more Itch called a halt.

  They sat with their backs against the tree trunks, facing a small clearing. A few early evening rays of sun made it through the leaves so they cast long shadows in front of them. They could hear faint traffic noise from the road they had left barely an hour before. They were all breathing heavily and drenched in sweat.

  Itch knew his head was bleeding again and there was a steady throb from the back of his skull. He closed his eyes. He desperately needed to think. Where now, then? Instead of getting rid of his radioactive rock, he had ended up with eight. They were sealed, in a way, but he had no idea how effectively. It was more than possible that all three of them were subject to dangerous levels of radioactivity right now. Chucking the pieces of rock away or handing them in was very tempting – but couldn’t he do better than that? He had read, collected, researched and obsessed about the elements for years – he should know what to do. Jack and Chloe were sitting with their eyes closed as they got their breath back, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

  Itch stared at the canvas bag. The first rock had already sent Flowerdew crazy, but then he was clearly convinced that this substance was extraordinary – extraordinary enough to finish his career at the CA. Itch tried to remember all the other elements that had been found in uranium ore. He thought he remembered copper – but that wouldn’t have produced such a hysterical reaction from Flowerdew. He guessed it must be gold, silver or platinum – something of extreme value. They wouldn’t explain the high radiation count, but it just had to be something that could change the fortunes of the discoverer for ever.

  Itch was sure Cake had realized that something weird was going on. He carefully took out the torn piece of paper that Jack had retrieved from the bundle and re-read it: I’ve never seen anything like it … You need to get rid of them … these rocks are dangerous … don’t trust anyone … He folded it away again. How could you get rid of dangerous rocks, especially if you couldn’t trust anyone?

  His head was really throbbing now – he needed more painkillers. He checked his phone – there was a weak signal, but who should he call? His mum, dad and brother were all at home, but what would they say? Ring the police, hand in the rocks and come home, probably. He knew that was the sensible thing to do; Jack and certainly Chloe would be happier with that. But again he thought: I can do better than that. I’m an element hunter, I have extra ordinary elements. Deal with it.

  He would text his mum to explain that he and Chloe had been delayed, and Jack could text her dad. The parents wouldn’t like it, but it would buy them some time before they started worrying.

  As if reading his mind, Chloe asked, ‘Shouldn’t we be getting back? Or calling home?’

  Jack looked at her phone. ‘I said I’d be home for dinner. We do need to tell someone what’s happened – that we didn’t kill Cake.’

  Itch nodded. Very soon the paramedics and police would be arriving and things would get tricky. ‘Agreed. Let’s ring when we’re on the bus. I want to get away from here first.’

  18

  IT TOOK THEM twenty minutes to make their way through the woods to the road. When they were near the bus stop, Itch and Chloe hung back in the trees while Jack, a few metres further on, stood near enough to the road to look out for a bus. They were nervous and impatient to get away, but the Saturday evening bus service meant that it was another half-hour before one came along. Jack hailed it, and the others all ran towards the bus stop, arriving just in time for the driver to see them and stop. The bus was nearly full, but they found three seats together at the back, stowing the rucksack and canvas bag underneath.

  The journey back took longer as the bus made more stops, but they still didn’t have much time to decide on their next move. As if to underline the urgency of the situation, a police car rushed past them, lights flashing, presumably on its way to the spoil heap. They decided to call 999 using Itch’s phone – the police would read his name on the jacket soon enough.

  Itch d
id the talking – he was allowed to speak without interruption. Everyone knew all calls were recorded.

  ‘Hello. We have just left the mine at St Haven. We found the body of a man called Cake. He was our friend. We think he was killed by radiation. He had some rocks, you see … Anyway, we were chased by some people who think we did it but we didn’t.’ He hesitated briefly, wondering if there was anything else he should add. ‘We’ll call again,’ he said and hung up.

  No one on the bus seemed to be paying them any attention. The combination of headphones, magazines and mobile phones meant that the passengers were immersed in their own world, which suited the cousins just fine. Even so, Itch spoke quietly, and Chloe and Jack leaned in to catch his words.

  ‘I’ve tried to hand my rock over twice – the first time at school, but Flowerdew stopped it, and the second time today. Now we’ve ended up with seven more instead. We probably only have one more go at this before they are taken from us by people who really shouldn’t have them. My original plan was to give them to Mr Watkins, and I think that’s still the best idea. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘If we can find him, yes. But it’s Saturday evening, Itch. Where’s he going to be?’ Jack whispered. ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  Itch shook his head. ‘No, that’s just it. But there’s that show at school tonight – the Year Tens, I think. They were selling tickets – remember, Jack? Mr Watkins goes to everything. He’s bound to be there. We need to get him out of the hall and explain what’s happened.’

  Jack and Chloe both nodded. ‘OK, let’s do that,’ said Chloe. ‘But what if he’s not there …? What then?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Itch. ‘How about giving the rocks to Paul, Potts and Campbell just to see what happens?’ They all grinned, their mood lighter. It felt good to have a plan.