Plot reminder: After stealing a knife, Nathan is escorting his little brother home from school. In the belief that the second recipient may be a teenager, Sergeant Wye has met with the teaching staff at the local school. In an earlier chapter the English teacher Maureen Booth joined in with class laughter at Nathan's expense. The editor of the local newspaper, Heather Gilchrist, had the possibilty via secret correspondance to end the reign of terror but in the interests of sales chose that the murderer continue his terrible game. She has an obnoxious teenage daughter, Abigail.
~~~~~
When Nathan and Marcus finally made it home via the computer game shop there was a bundle of banknotes on the coffee table. Kevin must have made a couple of sales that afternoon. He and their mother were so zoned out neither batted an eyelid when Nathan reached down and helped himself to a twenty.
"Get you some Coco Pops," he promised Marcus, quickfooting it to the corner shop.
Once his brother was settled down on the floor in front of the TV with his bowl and spoon, he crept up the stairs to their room. His phone charged up again, the eye-popping world of internet porn was once more just a tap of the screen away...
There was a call he had to make first though. His contacts list not being the longest, it only took a moment to scroll through to Sophie. He would've spelt it Sofi, but she'd made a point of reading out the letters for him one by one.
"Nathan? Where were you today?"
They hadn't spoken for twenty-four hours or more. It was good to hear her voice again, like the first day of spring after a long cold winter. The sort of thing he should tell her out loud probably. Something held him back though. A whole lifetime of it. Of being held back.
"There was something I needed to sort out," he replied. Then: "Meet me later?"
"You're joking, right?"
He hadn't been, no. Far from it.
"Apart from the review of Polanski's Macbeth we're supposed to hand in tomorrow to Miss Booth-"
"The bitch."
"The bitch, yes."
He moved his right hand towards crotch. There was just something so hot about hearing Sophie Markham say the word bitch.
"Dad won't let me out his sight. Even picked me up from school today. First time in years."
He unzipped his fly, slipped hand inside. It was the way she pronounced her words. Wrapped her mouth around them, gave them their full dues. What it must be like to be brought up to say things the way they're meant to be said.
"Later then?" he suggested. "Usual place?"
"What? And get myself arrested? Yea, mum and dad would just love that."
The answer confused him a little. Risk getting in trouble with normal parents if you had them, this he could vaguely understand. Getting arrested though?
"Free country isn't it?"
"Not any more it seems. Haven't you heard Nathan? They've called a curfew."
But like so many others, the word was unknown to him. "A what?"
"A curfew. It means we can't be seen out after nine. Anyone under sixteen."
He lifted hand back out from under flies. This curfew thing, sounded like a pisser. A spanner in the works.
"There's something I need to tell you though."
"Tell me now, over the phone."
He paused for a moment. "Doesn't feel right. I need to tell you to your face."
"Tomorrow then, at school."
"Won't be in tomorrow neither." He winced, bracing himself for the earthquake that was about to erupt. "Done with school see."
"What?"
"I said I'm done with done with school, okay?" The bloody place had always seemed a waste of time. Particularly so now.
"But we talked about this Nathan. I can help you. Pass a couple of GCSEs and they'll let you do that sound engineering course at tecnical college."
He'd never realised just how heavy she could be. Worse than the teachers. Worse than Miss effing Booth.
"Lunchtime tomorrow. Meet you at the swings near school."
And with that he quickly swiped the call to an end before she had chance to refuse.
*
The list already numbered five by the time they got to class 4C. Five high-risk individuals who matched some or all of criteria the detective sergeant had a little earlier outlined. Though no-one wanted to admit it out loud, preferring instead much more euphemistic expressions, the bottom line was clear: these were pupils deemed to be potentially capable of murder.
As 4C's form teacher, all eyes had now turned to Maureen Booth.
"Well there's Edwardson I suppose..."
As with previous suggestions, it was greeted by a general murmur of discussion. The voice which cut over the chatter belonged to Lydia Collins.
"For those of you unacquainted, we're talking dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia."
"All the dys-es," commented Duncan Hinchcliffe.
"Disintetested. Disrespectful." This from the perenially tracksuited PE teacher Mike Treen.
A glare made clear Collins' lack of amusement. For Christ's sake, thought Maureen, they were only trying to lighten the mood a little. The Lord alone knew they were all a little strained. For someone whose lessons often resembled riot zones, the woman was quite intolerably pompous at times.
"His father left home several years ago," Collins continued, "started another family with someone else. Stepdad in and out of prison, low-level dope dealer. Mother as good as absent."
Though Maureen had of course herself been aware of Nathan's less than happy home situation, to hear it outlined so explicitly like that had a certain effect. She felt a prick of some emotion she vaguely recognised as guilt. The way she'd joined in with the general class laughter during first period the previous day. A dozen other minor acts of disrespect.
"He's got a little brother," Collins went on. "Someone he feels he has to protect, like the detective said."
Alan Peters turned to Maureen.
"Vulnerable enough to be added to the list you feel?"
She sighed, gave a sombre nod.
"Poor sod, yes."
*
As Kubič drove home that evening, the number of quickly scuttling figures he passed on the streets could have been counted on the fingers of one hand. Lights were out at the King's Head, the nearby kebab shop too. It felt almost as if the curfew had been extended to all, not just the under sixteens. Illogical really, he thought. If anything was going to happen it was just as likely to happen during daylight hours as under the cover of the night. Human nature, he supposed. What was that thing his grandfather used to say? V noci kazda kocka cerna. All cats are black at night.
He wasn't immune to an irrational distrust of the dark himself too of course. Not only did he double lock the door of his flat and slide the bolt firmly across, but he also took the completely unnecessary measure of wedging a chair under the handle. He smiled darkly at the sheer folly of it: if someone of murderous intents were somehow to come barging through, at least the bastard would trip over first.
Someone of murderous intent... Yes, there would be a few of those around, wouldn't there? Ex-cons he'd helped put away, victims who'd never received justice. People with grievances real or perceived who would put the name Joe Kubič somewhere near the top of their homicidal wish list.
Unsettled by the thought - unsettled by a day of reading through harrowing autopsy reports, of banging his head into an investigative brick wall - he reached for his Gibson J-35, pressed his fingers to its strings. He didn't play anything in particular, just a few elaborated scales. Made it sound the way he felt. Minor chords. Shades of grey.
People had told him he was good; people who knew what they were talking about. It was a talent he'd inherited from his father, and he in turn from his father. A talent he'd passed on to his own son.
Kde je cesky je muzikant.
He who is Czech is a musician.
Something else his grandfather used to say.
He could still remember the first lesson he'd given Danny. Five years old, Christmas morning, wrapping paper strewn all around. The mini guitar Santa Claus had brought had been held awkwardly at first, distrustingly. Then came the first sweetly struck E chord... That look of thrilled surprise on the boy's face, like someone had shown him the doorway to a new and previously unsuspected world. "Did you hear it daddy?" Then again, boom! - a dramatic major E. "Did you hear it? Did you hear it?"
It was true what they said: you don't know what you've got until it's gone.
Whilst the fingers of his right hand brushed and plucked, those of his left constantly reshaped, gently pressed, his torso bobbing like a moored boat to the rise and fall. As a teenager a guitar had been the only drug he'd needed. By the time he'd hit his thirties, it just hadn't been quite enough any more...
What if Wye was onto something, he wondered? What if the second recipient was just just some poor rag of a kid around Danny's age? Not an orphan, but parentless just the same. Stupid and brave and untethered enough to actually go through with it.
What would that kid need? His weapon. What would be his means?
Not a gun, no. Ravensby wasn't London. It wasn't Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow. Guns were like dragons - they existed only in fantastical, faraway lands.
Poison then? Something readily available in every broom cupboard, on every garage shelf. Problematic to administer though. Time-consuming to take hold.
A knife. It had to be a knife.
One small enough to stow up a sleeve. Hide down a sock, under the bridge of a foot.
Sharp though. Lethally so.
*
Abigail Gilchrist glanced up from her smartphone, watched perplexed from the sofa as her mother poured herself another wine over in the kitchen. It wasn't unusual to see her have a glass or two in the evening, decompress from the stress of work. That particular evening though, she'd pratically drained an entire bottle.
"Becoming an alky now then as well?"
She was sixteen and the product of a broken home. As such, aggressive insults were her default setting. Were her right. She was simply incapable of a harmless enquiry like 'everything okay mum?'
By way of reply, her mother gave a casual shrug. "Tough day at work."
This supposed psychopath everyone was freaking out about no doubt. Abigail for one hoped it was all true what they said about him - that he was a criminal genius, a master of disguise, some kind of all-seeing eye. It would be entertaining at least. A town like Ravensby, Jesus, you could die just by living.
"As well as what, anyway?" her mother wanted to know.
"Eh?" Abigail actually craned her neck over the back of settee so her mother could see the full creased up what-the-hell-you-on-about facial effect.
"You said you hoped I wasn't becoming an alcoholic as well. As well as what, I'm asking?"
"Oh, nothing." She smiled sardonically. Provocatively.
Her mother tipped back her neck, drained her glass. Filled it right back up again.
"And if I actually did become an alcoholic, would you care?"
"Be funny, that's all." This the most cutting reply that came into Abigail's head.
There was a resigned sigh, the glass raised as if making a toast.
"Might as well get off my face then."
*
It wasn't exactly snoring, but was more than just breathing. Nathan always knew when his brother had dropped off. There was a lightness to the sound. A contentedness. He'd given up on today and was floating off to tomorrow. Daft bugger was still young enough to think it might be better.
There was another sound too. A sharp, repetitive click.
His right thumb flicked the blade open, ran lightly along the edge, then pushed it back closed again.
Click-click.
His eyes stared up towards the ceiling. Thinking about nothing. Thinking about everything.
Like for example that documentary Miss Collins had shown them last week. Something about human reproduction. Everyone giggling and making jokes, carrying on like they were all experts on sex. He'd been paying attention though. All those sperm swimming along like little white tadpoles. It was strange to think of it, but that's what came out. So small you couldn't see them, so many you couldn't count them. A crazy sort of race with the woman's egg as the finish line.
He'd wanted to ask Miss Collins something but had known everyone would've just laughed like they always did. Chowdury, Attley, Kubič, all those. What he'd wanted to ask was what if it had been a different sperm that had reached his mother's egg first? Would he still be half of who he was? Only maybe smarter. Less cursed.
His thumb ran once more along the edge of the blade. Flicked it closed again.
Click-click...
~~~~~
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