Robin Jarvis-Jax 01 Dancing Jax (4 page)

Martin shook his head and chuckled. Barry’s main love had always been rugby. He had even played for Felixstowe in his youth. In their early years at the school, he would often appear on Monday morning with a curious, curler-shaped bandage in his hair or a black eye or scabby, scraped forehead where a boot had trodden on him. That was another reason the kids respected him, that and the way he used to fling wooden-backed board rubbers at the heads of the lads who weren’t paying attention in his classes. Yes, you could actually do that sort of thing back then and not be sacked or put on some sort of register – and so his legend had grown. Nowadays though, Barry Milligan was resembling the shape of the ball more and more.

Martin lifted the mug of steaming black coffee to his lips when he realised Barry was regarding him curiously. He mentally classified this expression as
Do yourself a favour, you lowlife – and tell us what we want to know.

Then Barry said, “If the kids here ever found out about your religion, Martin, and what you were into, they’d make your life unbearable and eat you for breakfast.”

Martin grinned. He knew Barry was right. He blew on his coffee and glanced out of the window.

“Hell!” he shouted, slamming the mug on the side and rushing for the door.

It only took an instant for Barry to clock what was happening before he too rushed from the staff-room.

Outside, Emma and her friends were kicking and punching Sandra Dixon.

Chapter 4

T
he Jockey: that tittuping mischief-maker in caramel colours, he who rides all at Court and makes them chase in circles for his impish glee. Not even the Ismus escapes his naughty, wayward pranks. Though they beat him, flail him and lock him in the tower gaol, this toffee-toned trickster always springs back, ripe and ready for more games and wicked japes. Tiptoe by, lest he set his jaunty cap at you and sets your dance a-spinning for his fun.

S
ANDRA HAD STAYED
late to do her homework in the library. It was easier there than at home, with her two younger brothers arguing all the time and cranking their music up to deafening levels to spite each other. Besides, she liked being surrounded by the books and the glow of computer screens that weren’t displaying high-speed chases or shooting bullets at marauding zombies.

When Miss Hopwood, the librarian, turned the screens off and announced it was time to leave, Sandra and the other six members of the after-school homework club packed their bags and filed outside.

She was an intelligent, quiet girl who didn’t make friends easily. Throughout most of her school life her best friend had been Debbie Gaskill. They had gone everywhere together. They were both tall and willowy and had often been mistaken for sisters. They shared the same interests and had never quarrelled once. But last term Debbie’s father had been promoted and the family had been compelled to move to Leicester. So now Sandra found herself alone. Of course, she stayed in touch with Debbie via Facebook and texting; they spoke once or twice a week and visits were planned – but it wasn’t the same.

Sandra threw herself into her studies even more and ignored the jibes from some of the other pupils. She enjoyed maths and English and was good at French, so what? They enjoyed reading Heat and squealing at celebrities displaying cellulite or with spotty foreheads and wearing clothes that were a size too small.

As she passed through the school gates, she only became aware of Emma, Keeley and Ashleigh when they spoke to her.

“Miss 94 Per Cent!” Emma said in a taunting jeer.

“Miss Brown Nose!” added Keeley. “It’s right up Baxter’s behind.”

Ashleigh made a slurping sound behind her teeth.

“Don’t you get sick of sucking up all the time, you freak?” Emma asked, as the girls began to circle her.

Sandra tried to ignore them and walk on, but they weren’t about to let that happen. They were just warming up.

“You keep them cow eyes off Conor Westlake,” Keeley ordered. “You listening?”

“Yeah,” Ashleigh chimed in. “He’s not interested in a stuck-up drip like you so back off.”

Sandra couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Conor Westlake?” she laughed. “What are you on about?”

“Don’t give me that!” Emma screamed in her face. “I saw you two today. You was throwing yourself at him, flirting with him in front of everyone. Getting him to blow kisses!”

“Slapper!” Ashleigh taunted in agreement. “You got nothing he wants!” Emma continued, jabbing a finger in the girl’s face. “So jog on, you skinny munter!”

“Minger!” Ashleigh contributed.

“There’s no way anyone wants to bounce on a bag of antlers like you!”

Sandra stopped walking and, with a cool dignity that maddened the girls even more, said, “Conor Westlake has never read a book in his life that he hasn’t coloured in. He’s almost as retarded as the three of you, so why on earth would I…?”

Before she could finish the sentence, an incensed Emma had thumped her in the stomach and Sandra had crumpled to the ground. Then they laid into her.

Conor Westlake was brimming with resentment. At that moment he despised Mr Baxter with all his young heart. Because of that miserable old maths teacher he had missed the first half of the game, by which time it was too late and their team couldn’t hope to recover from the beating the other school was giving them. He had stormed off the field as soon as the whistle blew and grabbed his stuff from the changing room.

Still in his kit, the boy stomped towards the gates, the studs of his boots clacking over the tarmac path. When he heard the shrieks and squawks of Emma and her friends, he snapped out of his brooding resentment and stared at them for a moment, wondering why they were kicking a large coat on the floor. Then he realised that coat was really another girl and he raced forward.

“Hoy!” he bawled. “Get off her!”

Emma and the others looked up and glared at him, snarling like young lionesses over a carcass.

“Here’s lover boy!” Keeley spat at him.

Emma would have lunged at him as well, but it was then that Mr Baxter and the Head came rushing from the school.

The girls screamed abuse and ran off, leaving Conor shaking his head at them and Sandra quailing on the ground, clutching her sides and stomach.

“You all right?” he asked, kneeling down.

Sandra turned an ashen, angry face on him and only then did he realise who he had saved. “Stay away from me!” she yelled. “Don’t you touch me!”

“I didn’t do nothing!” he exclaimed. “Ungrateful cow! I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Get off me!” she cried.

The thunderous voice of Barry Milligan interrupted them. “Westlake!” he hollered furiously. “Outside my office, now!”

“But I didn’t do…”

“I said now!” the Head shouted, his face turning purple.

Conor took a last, confused but angry look at Sandra and stormed back into the school.

“How bad is it?” Martin was asking the girl. “Can you move?”

Sandra nodded, but she was trembling.

“Get her inside,” Barry said. “She’s in shock.”

“She needs an ambulance,” Martin answered. “She shouldn’t be moved till they’ve had a look at her.”

The girl brushed his hands away and, with a grimace, raised herself off the ground. “I’m all right,” she told them as she picked herself up. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s a police matter,” the Head corrected her.

And then a new sound made all three of them turn. Behind the main school building, on the football field, there were furious shrieks and shouts and wild screaming. A pitched battle between the two teams and their supporters was under way.

“It’s a war zone, this place,” Martin muttered. “These kids are out of control.”

The next hour was a bit of a blur. Martin had helped Sandra into the staffroom and made her a cup of sweet tea, then called her parents to come and collect her. Meanwhile Barry had run to the field to see what was going on there.

Martin had been right. It really was a war zone. Douggy Wynn and the games teacher from the other school stood on the sidelines, powerless to stop the violence. They blew their whistles and tried to pull fighting groups apart, but it was no use. About forty kids were engaged in a fierce confrontation. Barry looked on in shock and disgust. This was pure animal savagery.

Here and there around the field, stunned parents were watching and at least one of them had already called the police because soon a siren could be heard racing down the main road.

Some of the kids scarpered at the sound, but others were locked in combat and were oblivious to the blaring wail that grew steadily louder and closer.

“What a bloody mess,” Barry said.

Two police cars turned up at the gates and the caretaker had been on the ball enough to open the barrier so they drove straight on to the field. Seven boys were arrested, two of them in their torn kits. The others pelted away.

Barry was in a cold rage and, if there was any space not filled with anger, it was topped up with shame. When he spoke to the police officers, he could see they held him, as Head, partly responsible. It was no comfort to discover that only three of the arrested lads belonged to his school. Then both of those emotions turned to shock when a police officer showed him the four-inch knife she had found on one of the boys.

“We’ve never had anything like this before,” he said.

“You do now, Sir,” the stern young policewoman informed him. “This could have been a lot worse than it was. There could have been a fatal stabbing here today. We’re going to need you and everyone else to make witness statements about this incident.”

Barry nodded then he remembered Sandra Dixon. “There was another incident, just before this,” he said. “One of our girls was beaten up outside the gates by three other girls. I was just about to call you about that.”

“Not a good day for this place, is it, Sir?” the policewoman said judgementally.

Barry Milligan had to agree with her.

Quarter to seven on a Friday night and Martin was still stuck in school. He’d called Carol, his partner, to warn her he was going to be late and give her a brief sketch of events, but she was incensed about something else. The bank had been on to her, or she had been on to the bank… either way she was livid. Martin was not in the mood to listen to her woes on top of everything else so he was relieved when Barry Milligan came into the staffroom and he could make his excuses and ring off.

“Tell me what else could go wrong today?” the Head barked, making a beeline for the kettle. “It’s a bloody asylum this place! The governors are going to love this.”

“Was anyone hurt on the field?” Martin asked.

“Busted noses and fat lips mostly. We was dead lucky it wasn’t worse. A knife, for God’s sake! A sodding knife!”

“It wasn’t one of our lads though.”

“Doesn’t matter whose it was, I’m not having that kind of thing anywhere near my school. I knew it’d happen here one day, but not so soon. This isn’t an inner city.”

“We still have gangs and hoodies and joyriders round here though.”

“Yes, well – just wait till Monday morning!”

“What do you mean?”

“Had a word with the police. They’re going to set up a knife arch at the gate first thing. If any of our lot are bringing knives in, we’ll know about it.”

Martin shook his head. “I remember when the most dangerous thing you’d find in a kid’s bag was a spud gun.”

“God, I miss those days,” the Head sighed. “It’s the feminisation of education, that’s what’s brought this on. And too much government interference, trying out each new trendy idea instead of leaving us to do our jobs properly. Just look what we’ve ended up with – a bloody chaotic shambles and kids armed to the teeth, thinking they’re gangsters.”

Martin wasn’t going to enter into that debate, even though he agreed with him.

“So how did it kick off?” he asked.

“More bloody oiling,” Barry told him.

Martin understood. Oiling was the latest unpleasant method of attacking someone in Felixstowe. Martin knew several people who had been oiled, his partner’s mother for one. It had been a terrifying and upsetting experience for her. Bottles of vegetable oil were cheaper than boxes of eggs and the oil itself was messier and smellier and more difficult to get out of clothes. A jumbo, 3-litre container was only a few quid and could be decanted into empty sports drink bottles, the type with the pull-up nozzle that could squirt several metres. Such small bottles could also be carried very discreetly in the large pockets of a fleece or a hoody. Gangs would steam through a crowded street and douse their selected victim with the stuff. It was disgusting. The situation had grown so bad that the police had advised local supermarkets not to sell vegetable oil to anyone under the age of eighteen.

“By the way,” he said. “Sandra’s mother came while you were with the police. She’s taken her to casualty to be checked over, but said she’ll be in touch.”

“I bet she will,” Barry grunted. “I don’t blame her. Those three girls are going to get a visit tonight from the law. They already had a word with that Conor lad.”

“Oh,” Martin said. “Sandra told me he had nothing to do with it.”

Barry shrugged. “Well, they’ve taken a statement anyway. This coffee really is foul muck, isn’t it? You know what I need right now? About half a dozen pints. I’m going to swill this bloody awful day away – you joining me?”

Martin declined. Barry spent too many hours in The Half Moon in Walton. That and his devotion to rugby were what had driven his wife away two years ago. She had taken the Labrador with her too. Barry missed the dog far more than her.

At ten past seven, Martin Baxter finally sat in his car. As he drove out of the school, he tried to close his mind to the traumas of the day. No one, especially him, suspected that much worse was yet to come. This weekend was going to be the turning point in the lives of everyone. At long last the world was going to learn about Dancing Jacks and it would never be the same again.

Chapter 5

J
IM
H
OWIE
’
S TATTOO
and piercing parlour, INK-XS, was tucked away off the Port of Felixstowe Road. It was a small place, but not too seedy. It was split into two halves: the back part was where the inking was done, behind a shoulder-height partition, and the front was for customers to wait in and browse the designs pinned to the walls and in the three folders on a low table. There was also a knackered sofa, which came in very handy for the squeamish ones who fainted when they felt the needle or glimpsed the blood. At the rear of the building was a monotonous vista of huge sea containers. They were dwarfed by the massive cranes straddling the horizon, which always reminded Howie of steel dinosaurs. Appropriate enough for the stark tundra of the largest container port in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe.

Howie was a big-bellied man in his thirties, with a square-cut, gingery beard, shaved head and enough tattoos on his fleshy body to reupholster that old sofa. He sported two piercings in his lower lip, another through his septum and one more through his right eyebrow.

Looking around at his shop, he moaned as Tommo and Miller hauled another of those large wooden crates through the door.

“Hey, c’mon,” he complained. “That’s five of them now. How many of these things are there?”

“Just one more,” Tommo told him. “If you’d give us a hand, you’d have seen that yourself. These aren’t filled with fresh air, you know; we could do with the extra manpower.”

Howie waved the suggestion aside. “I’m an artist, man,” he declared. “I can’t risk damaging these delicate instruments with a load of splinters.”

Miller and Tommo shoved the fifth crate alongside the others they had fetched from the van and leaned on it to catch their breaths and rest their aching muscles. It had taken two long trips from the strange, ugly house to Howie’s shop to bring all six crates over, to say nothing of the struggle hoisting them up from that cellar. Jezza had been insistent though.

“It’s time for them to leave home,” he had said, “and make their way in the world.”

“I can barely squeeze by them!” Howie grouched. “Just for tonight, capiche? I can’t have these blocking my shop. I’ve got a business to run – and don’t tell me what’s in them, I don’t want to know, but how hot is it? We talking tepid or scalding? If the filth come sniffing around, you’re not dropping me in it. You got that? I’ll tell them exactly who it belongs to – or doesn’t.”

“Peace, brother,” Jezza’s voice interrupted as he came in. “This is… legit merchandise.”

Howie raised his eyes heavenward. “Like the Blu-ray players you stashed here last month?” he asked. “Yeah, they was so bona fide they burned a hole in the lino!”

Jezza ran his hands along the edge of one of the crates. “I’m done with all that,” he announced. “The old life is over, no more hooky gear. I’ve got a better, higher purpose now – and if you’re a good little bunny, you can come with me. The door of destiny has just swung open and I’m inviting you to step through it.”

“Hallelujah!” Howie mocked. “He done seen the light!”

Jezza’s eyes glinted at him and he showed his crooked smile. “You couldn’t be further from the truth, Mr Tattoo Man,” he said.

Miller shifted uneasily and glanced at Tommo.

“Bring in the last box,” Jezza told them. “I want Howie to see what he’s storing for me.”

“An’ we want to see what we’ve been busting our guts over,” Miller said.

“Less of the guts, please,” Tommo pleaded. “Come on. Let’s go get the last Alexander.”

“The last what?”

“I’m wasted here,” Tommo sighed.

The three of them returned to the yard where the VW was parked, leaving a puzzled Howie scratching his beard. He’d never seen Jezza behave like this before.

“He’s been like that since we went into that vile house,” Shiela spoke from the doorway. “It’s weird, like… oh, I dunno – like it’s him, but it isn’t.”

Howie looked at her. “What happened in that place then?” he asked. “No one’s said.”

The girl frowned then shrugged it off. “Mad stuff,” she finally answered. “I freaked out big style and so did Miller – but Jezza…”

“What?”

“I wish I knew – or maybe I don’t.”

“Are you all on something? Nobody’s making sense.”

“Wait till you see what else we found,” she said. “What’s still back there – in the manky conservatory.”

“Mind your backs!” Tommo called, lumbering in, carrying the final crate with Miller. “There! That’s the lot. Now my gaseous friend’s innards here are rumbling like Krakatoa so we’d better get some food in him. Come on, Methane Maker, let’s…”

Their exit was barred by Jezza. He was standing in the doorway, eyes gleaming.

“We haven’t finished yet, boys,” he said, removing the loose lid from the last crate and reaching inside. “This is only the beginning. You have no idea of the incredible honour you’ve been granted. You’re here, right at the start of everything. We’ve each been chosen and should be on our knees in gratitude. Take a breath and look around you. Remember this momentous night. The whole world is about to change and this is the last time you’ll see it like it was.”

A look of panic flashed over Howie’s face. “Bloody hell!” he cried. “You’ve never got guns in them boxes?”

Jezza laughed as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

“What then?” Howie demanded. “Bombs or something? You’re out of your greasy mind and way out of your league! You’re crazy!”

Jezza continued to laugh. It was a horrible, throat-rattling sound. Shiela clutched at the collar of her denim jacket. The voice she heard was not his.

Then he slammed his palm on the side of the crate and the laugh subsided to a dry chuckle.

“Guns and bombs have been tried,” he said in a far-off kind of way. “Tried and failed, tried and failed, time and again. That’s not how to do it. Wars are finite. They blaze for a few years and it’s fantastic and showy and spectacularly loud and operatic. Then suddenly peace breaks out like a rash and you’re back where you started and you have to foment it all over again. War doesn’t work. It unites more than it destroys.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Howie demanded.

Before the others could answer, Jezza flashed his teeth in a wide grin and threw something at him.

Howie ducked and jumped out of the way, half expecting it to be a hand grenade. This was lunacy.

The thing landed at his feet and he peered down at it warily. When he saw what the thing actually was, he thought it even stranger than if it had been an explosive.

“A book?” he exclaimed incredulously.

“It’s time for you all to have one,” Jezza said solemnly, his voice recognisably him once again. “Take them, cherish them… coddle them.”

He passed the copies around. Only Shiela had seen the book already, but she stared at it with the same fascination as the first time.

“Dancing Jacks,” Howie read. “Where did you get a load of second-hand kids’ books from? And what for?”

Jezza was relishing the looks on their faces as they turned the book over in their hands. They had no idea what they were holding.

Shiela flicked through the slightly musty pages, the occasional illustrations skimming before her eyes. There was a faint, almost inaudible sound as the leaves parted after being pressed together so long. It was like a soft, dry kiss between the ink and the paper.

“They’re not second-hand,” Jezza said. “Not one of them has ever been owned, not a single one has ever had eager eyes scan its pages. The moment they were printed and bound, they were packed away. They haven’t seen daylight or felt a human touch for seventy-five years. They’ve never been read. They’re fresh as virgins and just as ripe and anxious to be treasured and explored.”

“First editions then,” Howie said. “How much are they worth?”

“Everything,” came the cryptic answer.

“Who’s this Austerly Fellows?” Howie asked, reading out the author’s name. “Never heard of him.”

“Not many have… yet,” Jezza replied with the hint of a smile. “But they will. His name will ring out at last. We promise.”

“Is this all that’s in them boxes?” Tommo grumbled in disbelief – hugely disappointed. “Is this what I’ve broke my back for all afternoon? The way you was talking, I thought it was the family silver or something. I thought we was going to be minted.”

Jezza took out a book for himself and opened it at the first page. “This is worth far more than silver,” he guaranteed, the cream-coloured paper reflecting up into his eyes and making them unusually bright. “All things will be as dross beside this. We’ve waited a long time, but now our words are ready to be heard, to seep into the mind and smite the heart.”

“Riiiiiiight,” Tommo said. “So aren’t we going back to gut that house?”

“Not to gut it, no. Besides, we don’t need to now.”

“I was never one for reading,” Miller said dismissively. He put the book down and took out his mobile to order a curry.

“Beyond the Silvering Sea,” Jezza began, “within thirteen green, girdling hills, lies the wondrous Kingdom of the Dawn Prince…”

The others exchanged embarrassed glances as he read aloud. What was he doing? They each felt uncomfortable. It was a peculiar situation and Tommo almost giggled. It was so bizarre and silly – and so totally out of character for Jezza.

“And the Dawn Prince went into exile,” he continued, “vowing to return to the Castle of Mooncaster only when he deemed his subjects worthy of his golden majesty.”

Tommo found the matching page in his copy. Almost without realising, he began to follow the words as they were read out, his lips moving with Jezza’s as he spoke them.

“But who would rule in the Lord’s stead?” Jezza uttered. “Who would keep the knights and nobles, the Jacks and jostling Under Kings in order?”

Howie lowered his eyes to the book in his hands. Jezza’s voice seemed to be spinning slowly around him and the words were beating to the rhythm of his heart. There was reassurance here – a cosiness he had not felt since… he could not remember. It was an inviting, nostalgic sensation: back to when large hands scooped him up and held him close, when sweet lips kissed his grazed knee, when perfect comfort was a favourite blanket with a silken edge and a sucked corner. He felt warm and loved and safe. Within his rusty beard, his own lips began to move like Tommo’s.

“So forward stepped the Holy Enchanter,” Jezza read, his face alive and alight, “the one thereafter named the Ismus. Only he could command the quarrelling Court and bring order to the squabbling subjects whilst the Dawn Prince remained in exile. Yet first he must endure the Great Ordeal to prove himself…”

Shiela stared in mute disbelief at Howie and Tommo. Then she saw that Miller had retrieved his copy and was nodding in time to the tempo of the words.

“Stop it!” she cried suddenly, snapping her book shut.

“Stop it!” Jezza’s reading ceased and he lifted his gaze to her. His eyes narrowed and a gleam went out in them.

“Call Dave,” he instructed Miller, without releasing Shiela from his glance. “Say I want him here by eight tonight, no excuses. And get Tesco Charlie as well – tell him to bring his lorry. Don’t fail me.”

Miller and the others were blinking and rubbing their foreheads as if rousing from sleep. They closed their books reluctantly.

“Er… sure,” Miller said, pulling out his Nokia once more. “How about Manda and Queenie?”

“Why not,” Jezza replied. “Let’s make a party of it. You can do that on the way, Big Man. We’ve got one more thing to collect from that house this evening.”

“I’m not going back there,” Shiela stated. “It’ll be dark.”

Jezza turned back to her, his face impassive. “I don’t need you,” he said. “I’m taking Howie and Miller this time.”

“I’m not doing any heavy work,” Howie refused.

“Don’t worry, Leonardo, your lily-white handies won’t come to any harm.”

“What about me?” Tommo asked.

“You make yourself useful,” Jezza told him. “Get some cans and anything else you can lift. Those girls are too tight to bring anything.”

“But I’m skint!”

“Howie, give him cash.”

“Why me?” the tattooist cried.

Jezza grinned at him. “Cos we’re in your emporium,” he said. “And you’ll have had a busy day, raking in the readies from the witless drones who come in here wanting to copy whatever mass-market pap idol has been hyped to them this week, only to have them regret it once that particular scrap of ephemera has stopped flashing in the pan. Then there’s the tribal squiggles or bands of barbed wire smothering their pimply skin because they think it makes them look hard and macho or mysterious and more interesting than they really are. Why don’t you simply scribe ‘I’m a mindless sheep’ on their foreheads while you’re at it?”

“Pack that in,” Howie warned. He didn’t mind when Jezza pontificated, but not when he slagged off his clientele and, by extension, himself. Although… he suddenly recalled the nineteen-year-old upon whose back he had once inked, in the early days of his shop, a group portrait of the members of Hear’Say, only for her to return eight months later to ask if there was any chance he could go over it and make them look like the boys of Blue instead. At the time Howie had somehow managed to control himself and politely told her that, as Blue consisted of one person less than Hear’Say, it would be impossible. As soon as she had left in a dissatisfied strop, however, he had almost made himself sick with laughter.