Young, Gifted and Deadly

by William Stafford

  Title Page

  YOUNG, GIFTED AND DEADLY

  A Brough and Miller investigation

  William Stafford

  Book Eight from the Brough and Miller Series

  Publisher Information

  Young, Gifted and Deadly

  Published in 2016

  by AG Books

  Copyright © 2016 William Stafford

  The right of William Stafford to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  1.

  “I don’t think we should be doing this after dark.”

  Callum Phillips hung back. The others, Logger, Dogger and Bonk, were already squeezing through the gap in the railings. Years of use had created a space, a distortion in the otherwise vertical plane. It was a bit like those pictures, Callum thought, the ones I can never see.

  “I knew it was a fucking mistake, bringing him,” Logger spat in the general direction of Callum’s smart black shoes. “Fucking pussy.”

  “Don’t be like that, Log,” said Dogger. “Cal’s all right. Besides, we need him, don’t we?”

  Logger scowled. There was no arguing with that. Callum Phillips might be a fucking pussy but he was also Priory High School’s shit-hot computer whizz kid. He was king of the nerds. Not that his I.T. skills would be called upon that evening. But soon. They wouldn’t be bringing him into their intimate circle if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. There was too much at stake.

  “Actually,” the shit-hot whizz kid was still dithering, “I think I’ll just go home. I can get a bus around the corner.”

  Logger sneered. Typical, said that sneer. Just what you’d expect from a kid whose parents were actually married - to each other! And who owned the house they lived in and had a car each and went on skiing holidays instead of having Christmas at home in Dedley like normal people.

  Logger’s was a very eloquent sneer.

  “Come on, Cal,” Dogger urged. It was a matter of pride to him. He had spent half a term sidling up to the nerd, telling him dirty jokes (most of which Callum didn’t get - nor, to tell the truth, did Dogger) in exchange for help with his Maths homework. Dogger had taken to sitting near Callum during Lunch and making him laugh in the school’s library by holding up crude and rudimentary caricatures of the teaching staff. He had got into the habit of walking the bespectacled boffin to his bus stop.

  Shit; it was like they were friends or something.

  Callum shrugged. An apology. He turned his back on the fence and found himself face to fist with Bonk’s right hand. Bonk didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

  “Er-” said Callum, looking to Dogger for assistance.

  “Get through that cowin’ fence now!” Logger commanded.

  “It’s all right, Cal,” Dogger offered a weak smile. “We do this all the time.”

  He went through the gap and came back out again to demonstrate how easy it was.

  “Now!” Logger insisted. Callum stepped lively; he didn’t want a fleck of the older boy’s spittle to land on his blazer. He followed Dogger through the gap. “Get a move on!” Logger snapped. “Look at him. Thinks he’s going to fucking Narnia. Specky twat.”

  He gave the specky twat a shove in the small of his back. “What’s he wearing his uniform for? Didn’t you tell him to wear a hoodie, Dog?”

  Callum answered for himself. “I told my mum I was meeting some school chums and she asked where, and so I said at the school. She made me put on a clean shirt.”

  The other boys stared at him.

  “You said what?” Logger’s blood was beginning to boil. “You told your mom you was coming here?”

  “I’m not in the habit of lying to my parents.”

  “Fucking hell,” said Dogger.

  “You’ve got more than one shirt?” said Bonk.

  “Where’s your fucking hoodie?” Logger stabbed the specky twat’s striped tie with his finger.

  “I don’t have one,” said Callum. “Sorry.”

  This was the most incredible revelation. A fourteen-year-old boy who didn’t have a hooded jacket?

  “Did you lose it?” said Bonk, his square face cragged with pity.

  “I told you this was a fucking mistake,” said Logger. “How’s he expected to be a Monk without a hoodie?”

  “A what?” Callum’s eyes blinked behind his prescription lenses.

  “He can get one when he passes the test,” hissed Dogger.

  Callum brightened. “Test? Is it written?”

  “Fuck me,” said Logger. “Should’ve let him fuck off home.”

  The three hooded youths frogmarched Callum away from the fence and across the playing field. Callum cringed at every step, concerned about the mud caking his best school shoes but he deemed it prudent not to let his discomfort show on his face. Not that they were paying him much attention. Dogger would cast an occasional glance over his shoulder while Logger and Bonk brought up the rear. They arrived at a row of bushes that ran along another, much shorter fence, the dividing line between the school field and the municipal car park beyond.

  “Here we are,” Dogger announced, coming to a halt. Callum looked around. Ahead, the yellow sodium glare of the car park lighting revealed an empty lot; behind, only the security lights of the school buildings. The school overlooked the field from an embankment. It loomed dark against the evening sky - like a haunted house on a cliff, thought Callum. The boys had skirted the farthest edge of the field in order not to trigger the full blare of the lights and be frozen in brightness like cartoon characters escaping from prison.

  “What now?” Callum directed the question at Dogger, the most amenable of the trio.

  “We wait,” said Dogger, his face alive with a delightful secret.

  “We wait; you watch,” said Logger, evidently in on the secret.

  “Yeah,” added Bonk.

  “Watch what?” said Callum. Despite his misgivings, he was keen to impress the uncouth youths; Dogger was the closest thing Callum had to a friend.

  “Ssh!” said Dogger, raising a finger to his lips.

  “You’ll see,” said Logger, with undertones of menace.

  “Yeah,” said Bonk.

  “But first, give’s your phone.” Logger held out his hand.

  “I will do no such thing!” Callum cried. There are limits.

  “Give’s it! There’s no selfies allowed.”

  “You’ll get it back,” Dogger encouraged. “He’ll get it back, won’t he, Log?”

  “Yeah,” said Bonk. He took a step closer to Callum, who took a step back, only to have a branch of a bush poke him in the blazer.

  “All right!” He took out his smartphone and handed it to Dogger, who whistled in appreciation.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “You must be loaded,” said Logger, as though accusing the specky twat of rancid flatulence.

  “Actually, I paid for that myself,” said Callum. “From my paper round.”

  “Christ,” said Logger. “Your p
arents must be minge-bags.”

  “They are not!” said Callum, despite being uncertain of the epithet.

  “I had a paper round,” Bonk reminisced wistfully.

  “Just wait here,” said Dogger. “And crouch down a bit in case you can be seen from the car park.”

  The three moved off.

  “Where are you going?” Callum called after them.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Logger yelled back.

  “We’ll just be over there,” Dogger waved vaguely at shadows. “On the steps.”

  Callum nodded. He couldn’t see them but he knew where they were; the flight of concrete stairs with a handrail that bisected the embankment and permitted access to the playing field - an alternative to the sliding-down-the-grass-on-your-arse method imposed on Year 7s by bullies.

  Within seconds, Callum felt totally alone. He stamped his feet, dreading to think of the state of his shoes, and squatted. He wobbled and feared his trousers might come into contact with the mud. He stood up again, making the concession of hunching his shoulders and bending forward from the waist.

  What am I supposed to be watching?

  A car trundled along the road beyond the car park but did not stop.

  Mum’s going to kill me. I should cut across the car park and double back to the bus stop. No. Those three would kill me. Well, Logger certainly would.

  I just hope this isn’t going to take long.

  And then it happened.

  2.

  Thirty-two inches!

  Detective Inspector David Brough was depressed. He looped the tape measure around his naked waist again and checked it a second time. There was no error.

  Thirty-two inches.

  All his adult life, he had been a snake-hipped twenty-eight. Last year, it had crept up to thirty and now, all of a sudden, another couple of inches had been added to his bulk.

  I’m like a whale, he wailed!

  Fat, fat bastard. He glowered at his reflection on the wardrobe door. He turned sideways - oh, God! That looked worse! Never mind a muffin-top, I’ve got the whole fucking cake shop in there.

  It turns out middle-age spread is not a medieval margarine.

  At my time of life, he reflected - oh, God! I am ANCIENT as well as ENORMOUS! - the metabolism slows. That’s science. Biology. He’d read it in a magazine for healthy men. The sobering article had marred his appreciation of the photographs of shirtless hunks with oiled and groomed torsos. Manscaping, they called it. Oscar was into all of that. Oh, God, Oscar - if he sees me all bloated and hideous like this, he’ll-

  As if summoned, Brough’s laptop trilled. An incoming video call. Brough let out a yelp and threw on his dressing gown. He jumped onto the bed and opened the device.

  “Hey!” the famous, familiar face grinned at him. Other people all over the world recognised that handsome face from cinema screens, billboards, gossip magazines, and the sides of buses, but to David Brough it was the face of his boyfriend, his largely absentee boyfriend.

  It was still unfathomably surreal. A Hollywood superstar hooked up with a detective in dreary old Dedley of all places. They had met a couple of years back when Oscar Buzz had come to town to film a big-screen adaptation of some dreadful and defunct soap opera. Since then, the work had been non-stop. It turns out being out in the movie business was no bar to employment after all. Although, the focus was always on Oscar’s drop-dead good looks and action-hero physique. The gossip rags were queasy about his sexuality and so they left Brough alone.

  Which suits me, Brough considered. What didn’t suit him were the extended periods of separation, the forced absences ameliorated only by Skype calls and filthy snapchats.

  “You OK, hon?” Oscar Buzz peered at his webcam.

  “Yes!” said Brough, a little too quickly.

  “Good,” said Oscar. “Don’t have much time. You ready?”

  Somewhere across the globe, in his trailer, Oscar Buzz took off his trousers.

  “Um, actually,” Brough wrapped his dressing gown tighter. “Can’t we just talk? Be a nice change.”

  “Um...” Oscar looked disappointed. “OK. You talk, I’ll get busy.”

  “No, I mean-”

  “Oh, yeah, baby. I love it when you’re all assertive.”

  “Oscar, please!”

  “Submissive too. Works for me!”

  “Oscar Buzz! Stop wanking and listen to me!”

  Oscar paused. “What?”

  “Hands where I can see them.”

  “What?”

  “Now!”

  “Jeez.” Oscar waved his hands at the webcam. “Satisfied? ’Cause I sure ain’t.”

  “It’s just that we never talk. There’s got to be more to us than long-distance wanking.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Everything! When am I going to see you?”

  “You can see me now.”

  “I mean in the flesh, not just in the buff.”

  “I don’t know, baby. Schedule’s pretty tight. Know what else is pretty tight?” He put a finger in his mouth to wet it.

  “Oh, don’t! Don’t do that!”

  Oscar removed the finger and put it somewhere else. His blue eyes widened as it went in.

  “I’m terminating this call,” Brough warned.

  “Oh, come on! I got two minutes tops. At least give me a flash of what I’m missing.”

  Brough crossed his arms. “Not in the mood.”

  Oscar glanced away. There was knocking at his trailer door. Brough heard him say “I’ll be right out.”

  “Time’s up, baby,” Oscar smiled sadly. “I’ll call you tonight. Which is tomorrow morning for you, I guess.” He kissed his finger - a different finger! - and it grew to fill the screen. “Love you,” he said.

  The screen went blank.

  Brough slammed the laptop shut.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  He crawled under the covers. He would sleep in his dressing gown; he didn’t want to risk glimpsing his ginormous belly again.

  ***

  Logger, Dogger and Bonk watched from behind the privet hedge that separated the Phillipses’ front garden from the pavement. A light came on in a first floor window - Callum’s parents’ bedroom, presumably - and then the hall light. The youths crouched lower as the front door opened and they heard Mrs Phillips let out a cry of alarm and concern, quickly followed by the thud of her son falling face first onto the doormat.

  “Callum! Baby!” Mrs Phillips stooped.

  “...Mum...” Callum’s voice was quiet, distant.

  Logger slapped Dogger and signalled with a jerk of his head that they should move on. Dogger repeated the gestures to Bonk. Like a trio of crabs performing a vaudeville song, they crawled along until they were clear of the Phillipses’. Logger stood up straight.

  “Another fucking mistake.”

  “How’d you mean?” said Dogger, also straightening.

  “Bringing him here. What if we was seen?”

  “We weren’t,” said Dogger. They strolled briskly away from Callum’s street.

  “Did you give him his phone back?”

  “Yes, I gave him his phone back.”

  “What a pussy!” Logger marvelled. “Do you remember when you saw it, Dog? Didn’t send you all funny, did it?”

  “Not like that, no.” Dogger’s recollection of his own initiation into The Monks had taken on the qualities of a low-budget student horror film in his imagination. “I could tell it was fake from the start.”

  “Yeah, course you could,” Logger was scornful.

  “I shit me pants!” declared Bonk. The others came to a halt and stared at him. “I did!” Bonk asserted. “When I saw him floating across that field like t
hat, all glowing, like, I damn near shat myself inside out.”

  “Unlikely,” said Dogger.

  “And you can stop fucking crawling now,” said Logger.

  ***

  “Hmf?” Detective Sergeant Melanie Miller pawed at her phone, holding it the wrong way up to her ear while simultaneously propping herself up on her elbow. “David?” she half-whispered, half-yawned.

  “Oh, good, Miller,” Brough’s voice blared. “You’re still up.”

  Miller rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “What’s up? Is it a murder?”

  “Well,” said Brough, “It is a death, I suppose.”

  Miller sat up in bed, suddenly more alert. “Who?”

  “The death of my youth,” Brough groaned melodramatically.

  Not this again, thought Miller. “What was his name, this youth of yours?”

  “You’re not funny, Miller. I mean my salad days, during which I genuinely did put away a shitload of salad, and yet I’ve still ballooned up like a - a - well, a balloon.”

  “You’re not a balloon,” was Miller’s flat reassurance. Honestly. The times she’d had to soothe Brough’s ruffled vanity. He was getting worse lately. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “You mean ‘May I’,” Brough corrected automatically.

  “Well, may I?”

  “In a bit. Listen, it’s not you I want anyway. It’s Darren I’m after.”

  “Well, you can’t have him. He’s with me now. And most definitely straight, I can tell you.”

  “There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. I tried his number but it’s no longer available or something.”

  “Um, yes; there was some mix-up with his direct debits.”

  “So, is he? With you, I mean. As in present, beside you, right this very minute?”

  “Yes...”

  “Put him on.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Wake him up.”

  “No!”

  “Give him a poke - perhaps I should rephrase that.”

  “I’ll do no such thing. It’s late. I’m tired. He’s tired. We’re all tired. And you - you should be getting your beauty sleep.”