Cut To The Bone (18 page)

The greedy git. This was double what he’d already coughed up for the Lisa story.

Miss Udder ordered Patel to face the front. And how quickly the creep obeyed while the pig, now less composed, continued.
             

"The second mystery concerns the late Mr. Malcolm Wheeler who was recently rehoused in number 5, Gorse Way. His murder was beyond callous, and we’re now searching for the knife used in the vicious attack."

A derisive chorus rose up, and the Head's mouth twitched in disapproval. However the pig wasn’t finished. "Although he was on the Sex Offenders’ Register, he'd done nothing wrong since moving to Scrub End."

Nothing wrong
? 

"Did they lift his dick?" Dared a fourth-former. "I would have." 

"Dirty old perv," laughed another.

"That’s enough!" The Head intervened. “Let's please show some respect for the dead and to Constable Jarvis, shall we? And may I remind you all how you can put your Good Citizens’ lessons into practice by being co-operative and trustworthy. We’re living in difficult times. As we saw all too clearly yesterday."

Bollocks.
 

Louis pulled a face. He'd got other priorities, including warning off Patel and keeping a low profile. 

*

Afterwards, while the senior staff and Jarvis processed off the stage and into the wings, the hall also slowly emptied of pupils and staff. Louis caught up with his blackmailer outside the toilets. 

"I don’t have forty fucking quid,” he snapped.

"You live in Meadow Hill, right?"

"So do you."

"Your parents just got a new Discovery, right?"

Louis edged towards him, his eyes hardening. The way he’d said ‘parents’ hadn’t helped.

"You're frigging jealous, 'cos your lot make sandwiches all day and drive some clapped-out old crate…"

"No way am I jealous of you."

"What d'you mean?"

Patel smiled two rows of dazzling teeth.

"I've a real Mum and Dad. Oh, and it was me who found your blazer by Black Dog Brook last Saturday. And I've got the key that was in it. So, I'll have the dough by the 14th if that's OK with you. Week tomorrow, yeah? Don't forget."

With that, he bounded away.

Louis tried looking cool, but inside he was churning, imagining Patel also sliding into the mud of Black Dog Brook, begging for mercy...

"Want me to sort him out?" Nick Weaver interrupted, making Louis jump. A can of Pepsi at his lips. Dark dribbles staining his chin.

"I can handle it, thanks."

"Seen Lakey around?" The other boy then asked as he downed the last of his drink and belched.

Louis' heart stopped.

"No. Why?"

"Owes me seventy quid."

Louis tried to hide his surprise. "You'll be lucky."

"I'd fucking better be. He's been snorting for free since Whitsun."

Weaver dropped the can onto his boot and kicked it down the corridor while Louis hefted his satchel on to his shoulder, still unnerved by these recent encounters and their implications. 

*

The next lesson was music, and once Mrs Barber had taken the register, she asked Louis to give a solo demonstration on the school's latest violin. He chose a Bach Partita and played as if the rest of his life depended on it.

23

Incipient thunder growled in the north as Louis left the Gents in the shopping mall, his head still wet from repeated applications of neat hydrogen peroxide; his blazer’s shoulders bearing a fall of light brown hair.  As he trekked home past Greythorn Wood and over the narrowest loop of Black Dog Brook, his dyed head began to lighten to an electric brightness, enough to make a passing crust on a mobility scooter turn to stare.

"Nosey old cripple," Louis snarled at him, then, when all was clear, he leaned over the steel barrier erected to prevent cars careering down into the brook's filth and spotted a police cordon threaded between the trees. His pulse quickened, matching his pace into the Meadow Hill development. Just then, his bedroom sanctuary too far away.

"Louis? Is that you?" The Fawn was waiting.

Course it is, you stupid cow
...

"Whatever have you done to your hair?”

"Felt like a change."

He flinched as she ran a hand over his cropped, yellow head. Her mouth open as she did so. He overtook her into the kitchen, where the week's groceries lay heaped up on the table like some weird Harvest Festival. Most prominent were purple lambs' livers sliding under their transparent lids. Chicken breasts, pinkly luminous, and a mysterious mound of mussels reeking of twats. Presumably all stuff for her latest diet with nothing remotely tempting like moorhen meat on offer.

"Is it to assert yourself?” she quizzed some more. “You're not being bullied again?" She opened the fridge door to insert a bumper-sized Lite margarine and a low- calorie pizza whose topping resembled a frozen battlefield.

Louis grimaced.

"No. Just having to cough up forty quid, or else..."

He tore open the crisps’ bag and crammed its contents into his mouth. Darshan Patel's traitorous words lodged in his mind. But no way could he mention him, or let on about his own stupidity.

"Hang on a minute. Who set this up?" She reached for her BlackBerry on the worktop. "Tell me."

Then something snapped.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Phoning Constable Jarvis.”

That did it.

He leapt on her, both hands round her throat, tight enough to cut off her breath. Crisps fell to the floor, disintegrating underfoot.

"You stupid bitch! Can't you see that'd only make it worse for me at school? You don’t know the half of it." His grip loosened, leaving crimson indents in her flesh. She looked stunned, fearful. "But that's how it is," he hissed in her ear. "Very secret."

"Have you any idea what it costs to send you to North Barton? Have you?" She rubbed her neck making it look worse.

"Not my choice."

"It's all of my research grant, plus half your father's salary."

"He's not my fucking father, and one of the wanks at school said at least he'd got a real Mum and Dad, not like me.” For the moment, sly Darshan Patel would have to stay anonymous. “ So what did that mean?"  His eyes bored through her. "Aren't you even my mother?"

She counted to three as if to compose herself then crammed a lump of cottage cheese into a Plexiglas compartment inside the fridge door.

"Course I am." She slammed it shut. "You shouldn't listen to everybody. It's not good for you."

"Neither's this crap I'm in. There's at least three others who'll have to get their hands on the dough by next Saturday."

"This is unheard of..."

"Promise you won't say anything to the school?"

"If I don't, then your father will. This threat can’t go unchecked."

"Then I'm dead."

*

The Hair issue was ignored all evening, and Louis decided to broach his All Important Question in the morning before The Fawn set off for the Open University.   

The Maggot had returned from work in a foul mood and straightaway changed into vest and shorts to rehearse the Moonlight Sonata for the
soirée
. His Weight Watcher's oven meal perched untouched on top of the Yamaha piano.

Something's pissed him off big time, thought Louis deciding not to mention his missing mobile, checking him over for any further clues of infidelity. Watching him turn the sheet music with no interest at all. Maybe his bit on the side was keeping her legs closed, and when The Maggot wasn't looking, he even sneaked upstairs to check out his underwear in the laundry basket. To sniff round the fly of his trousers folded over the chair in his bedroom. But nothing doing, and Louis had to admit a certain disappointment. He was going to need as much bargaining power as he could get. And Knowledge is Power, he reminded himself.

*

The trouble with all the Meadow Hill crusts, was that they lived a sick lie. Why Gunther Zeller was probably busy on a sex-chat line, while the Patels behind their re-painted windows, harboured someone about to screw him for every last penny and more.

"A parcel arrived at my office today." The Maggot said, continuing with the Chopin as Louis returned to the lounge. "And fifteen pounds has come off my Tesco credit card. Can you explain that?"

Louis gripped the top of the nearest armchair. So, the uniform had arrived!

"It's for my career. To help me feel the part," he said, suppressing his excitement.

"Which is?"

"A copper." He’d almost said ‘pig.’

The Maggot gave him a sideways glance as his fingers spanned the keys.

"You
are
full of surprises."

"When can I have it?"

"Later. If you behave yourself."

“And my phone?”

“That too.”

"So what d'you want me to play?" Louis asked as the Chopin ended, when really, he wanted to remove that fucking, superior head from its shoulders. 

The Maggot stared at him blankly.

"You said I was to perform."

"Right. Yes." He rummaged amongst the score sheets piled on the floor alongside. "Let's try the Bach."

Louis read the details at the top of the sheet.

"Easy-peasy. Did that in school today."

"But not too fast. And by the way, son, next time, ask permission before using my credit card. Can you remember that?"

Son…

The Fawn brought in a coffee and the day’s
Gazette
for herself, then moved to the chair furthest away from the piano. As Louis was pulling his violin from its case, he caught sight of the local newspaper’s front page. This time, Jez Martin was the banner headline plus a colour photo, with news of the dead pervert a close second.

The tuning session went all wrong and both adults winced.

Louis tried again. The strings suddenly felt like razors under his fingertips.

"Ouch."

"One two three..."

"The police aren't ruling out a connection between the paedophile's murder and that boy's disappearance," The Fawn interrupted between sips of her coffee. "They're supposed to be dredging Black Dog Brook on Monday."

Louis faltered and Dave turned to frown at her.

"Could you please not do that while he's trying to play. Honestly woman, I sometimes wonder where you leave your brain."

She reddened and duly lowered her head as the piece continued. Louis' playing was stronger now, the old confidence returning. His yellow head cocked the way the old Barb had shown him. His fingers numb to the pain.

"Bravo. Well done!" Jacquie clapped too long when he'd finished. "He'll be the star of the show, won't he?"

"Indeed." But The Maggot stared at the keyboard, his pasta supper still untouched. Louis noticed his hands shaking, the vein in his neck pulsing. Maybe a breakdown was on the way. He hoped so. Robert Smithson said his Mum had one of those last year. He still kept stumm about it, but all the Grubs knew the score. There was something almost cool about having a parent in a rubber room. Yeah, thought Louis. He liked it.

With his instrument back in its case, he promised The Fawn he'd go shopping with her in the morning for the
soirêe
’s grub and booze. On his way to bed, he grinned at his reflection in the landing mirror, already imagining himself in that imposing, dark blue uniform.

*

Despite being wrapped up in foil and secreted inside gauged-out oblongs from two old hymn books, the moorhens' feet and rabbits’ noses were making his bedroom pong. Normally these mementoes would have joined the rest of the collection in his little houndstooth Secrets’ box, and the reality of Patel possessing its little key, triggered fresh panic like an electric current, heating his blood.

He felt like one of those sardines in oil which The Fawn sometimes dished up saying that vitamin B2 warded off scurvy. His arms stuck to his sides, his balls burnt red between his thighs and splashing them with cold water made no difference.

Once on the bed, it being far too hot for pyjamas or to get under the duvet, he propped his laptop on his knees and accessed Professor Renshaw's site for an unhurried look.

Page 53. CAESAREAN SECTION.

Beneath this heading were those same three photographs from which Miss Udder had obviously made her diagrams. Their colour was gross - just like his dreams. He thought of stuff from R.E. So this was where Original Sin began. No great surprise, given the unholy muck, the truly revolting imagery.

1. The foetus curled up in peaceful ignorance. 

2. A white-gloved hand with a scalpel on its way.

Louis peered at the flayed sections of flesh shown in gruesome detail. He'd always enjoyed the detail of medical illustration, especially of the eye and nose and but this was something else. Its high definition drawing him in, so it was as if he himself was back inside that dark, pulpy place. Him in that picture waiting to be born.