5
Nobody spoke as they left the burial behind, dispersing through the village, eyes to the ground, soiled hands hidden in winter coats. The further Nugget and Lynne Storrie walked, the more the footfalls of the others faded. Turning onto the driveway to their home, they could hear Bru’s whimpering cutting into the quiet of the night and see him waiting in the light that leaked beneath the door.
‘Shit,’ said Nugget, ‘listen to him. He must be wondering what he’s done wrong. I don’t think he’s ever been locked in on his own before, has he?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Lynne. She gave Nugget a raised-eyebrow look. ‘That’s not like you at all. Why did you?’
‘I didn’t want him following us. He’s still a puppy really.’
‘Wise move, Nug. Especially after what happened. He’d be digging him up again.’
‘Ugh, Lynne. Jeez.’
Nugget unlocked the door. He opened it carefully so as not to catch Bru’s claws, scratching at the gap. Lynne went past him into the house as Bru jumped up to greet him, licking his unshaven neck and jawline, causing Nugget to laugh and push him away, back to the floor. When he stood up from stroking the dog, Lynne threw his mailbag at him and he was forced to take a step back to catch it. He looked at it, he looked at Bru; he looked at her.
‘Lynne?’
‘Well, you know what you need to do,’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
His eyes widened.
‘Really? You think I should go now, so soon?’
‘Why not? He won’t be going home any more, will he?’
‘But …’ He shifted, discomfited by Lynne’s request. ‘Don’t you feel bad, even a little bit?’
‘Nug, I feel poor, a lot.’
‘But.’
‘No buts,’ she said, sliding open the frosted-glass door on the dresser, revealing their drink store. She dropped a half-bottle of whisky into the bag. ‘You’ve been pushing those packages through his door for years now.’
The packages were always the same size and weight. Occasionally the envelopes changed colour, when a packet had been finished maybe, or when the sender couldn’t lay his hands on his usual supply. The postmark was rarely the same, coming from all over the country. It was obvious what they contained; so obvious that one time Nugget had opened one to check. He had found a slim bale of banknotes wrapped in a piece of paper, plain save for the line ‘Buy a good thing’ and the swirl of an S in the bottom right corner.
The moment Nugget knew, his behaviour changed. He was first into the depot, waiting for the van. He kept the packages secret from the other two postmen. They were delighted, coming in every day to a pre-sorted route. Nugget rejoiced when the office was downsized and, due to his impressive work regime, he became the sole full-time postman for the village.
‘You know it’s there,’ said Lynne. ‘What if someone else knows about it?’
‘Nobody else knows; how could they?’
‘We can’t be sure.’
When Lynne and Nugget had been away on a rare visit to Lynne’s family two years ago, the substitute postman had handled one of the envelopes. Suspecting what it was and being tempted, he’d taken it to the tavern rather than post it. He was pondering the likelihood of getting away with it while he drank when the barman caught him unawares. When asked outright, the postman told him, ‘I think it’s money.’ The barman felt the envelope out of curiosity. On seeing the address, he dropped it instantly. The substitute had no option but to deliver.
Upon his return, Nugget played dumb, as curious as the barman. He managed to shift attention by being annoyed at the substitute bringing somebody’s private mail into the tavern. The barman agreed and conversation moved on. But Lynne was right. It was at the back of some minds. Sooner or later, others would come for it.
‘Just in case,’ he said. ‘I should get there first.’
Lynne was pleased.
‘Go and get it,’ she said, patting the bag.
He was still watching her hand when it stopped and he knew she was staring at him.
‘Doesn’t it feel disrespectful to you?’ he said. ‘So soon?’
‘Was there any respect in the killing and the burying?’
Bru’s claws clicked on the linoleum floor.
‘You think it’s wise, though? Really?’
‘Oh please, tonight of all nights, show me some of the old Nugget.’ She softened her voice as her hand crept up his leg and cupped his crotch. ‘Some of the old spunk.’ Her filthy smile spread wide in response to his grin. ‘You still got it in you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘You’re still the guy, the one who told me he was going to be somebody, aren’t you? The guy I’ll do anything for when he gets back?’
She zithered her thumbnail up his zip and felt the throb behind it lurch as he groaned.
‘Anything?’
‘When you get back. Plus things you haven’t even dreamt of. You my guy?’
‘Absofuckinlutely.’
His tongue was thick and his throat dry as he spoke to the dog.
‘What do you think, Bru, you want to go?’
Bru wagged his tail. Bru always wagged his tail.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘something to keep you going.’
Nugget opened his mouth and took the tablets, but he couldn’t swallow them and needed help from the bottle to get them down, one gulp for each. He put the bottle back into the bag and kissed Lynne, before leaning down to run his hand across the patch of smooth fur on Bru’s head.
‘Come on then, boy.’
Hints of retriever and collie dwelt beneath the overwhelming blanket of red setter, shaggy-haired and bright orange, that followed Nugget back outside. Lynne watched until the night consumed them.
Nobody commented on John Cutter holding on to the makeshift club. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had; it was his. Besides, the other thing filled their minds. He held it low, in the shadow of his leg, as they left the school grounds. He wanted to inspect the blood on the branch; take pleasure from its darkening and soaking into the wood. After skirting the corner of the marsh and re-entering the town, they put distance between each other, their shameful silence compounding the space as they divided, each to their own, each to their home.
When Cutter stepped inside his house and closed the door, he was still shaking. The heavy end of the club vibrated with its own life as it swung, barely an inch from the floor. He had done a good thing. Yet nobody had thanked him. Not even a pat. He leant back against the door as he calmed. He regretted his tears, knowing that people would think he had weakened at last, that he had broken, that the boy had beaten him after all. Far from it: he had done it for her. He wanted to tell her what had happened, what he had done. He wanted her to be proud and glad. He wanted her to laugh. He could hear her telling him how brave he was, how strong. He could almost see her.
He didn’t want to let go of the club, satisfying in his hand, smooth and appropriate. He walked across to his bed and sat, sinking into it. He placed the club across his knees as he stared at the central stairwell. An internal obelisk, it dominated and obstructed every domestic view.
He lifted his hand from the heavy end of the club. His palm was tacky with the boy’s blood. A bone fragment the size of a small diamond lay in the crease. He examined the point of impact, an indentation in the wood. A fingertip sat in it comfortably. He pushed, spreading the pad of his finger to fill the dent completely, forcing out a circumference thread of drying blood. He unglued his finger. What remained was an almost perfect print, the contact swirls dominant and overlaying the fine grain.
John Cutter approved.
‘Guilty, John. And about time too.’
He crossed to the fire and placed the club on the mantelpiece as a fisherman would display a whale’s bone, an acquired trophy from a great adventure.
> Seven years earlier
Early riser Jean Ritt, slender, bespectacled and compulsively tidy, was cleaning out Sparkle’s stall in the stable. Jean was the only girl in the class who had her own pony.
Wheeling the barrow of manure across the yard, she tilted her head to one side, trying not to inhale the sickly-sweet vapours. She set the barrow down, adjusted her grip and tipped, adding Sparkle’s shit to the constantly rotting mass that was warm enough to melt the snow. Returning to the stall, she took her pencil and crossed off the day on the calendar pinned to the wall. Working backwards from the coming spring, each day was numbered. The cross on this November morning meant it was only one hundred and twenty more days until she would be allowed to ride Sparkle to school again. Once the snowdrops had died and daffodils had fully established the season, she would clop through the village each weekday morning, her bobbed hair bouncing beneath her riding helmet. Just outside the gates of the school she would tether Sparkle so he could spend the day cropping fresh new grass at the edge of the marsh. At dinnertime, during those first warming weeks, some of the children, mostly girls, would rush out to feed him apples, sugar lumps and leftover scraps of their packed lunches, tentative and trying not to snatch their hands away as the pony took the offerings, his big rubbery lips tickling their palms held flat as plates in presentation.
Last spring, Sparkle had bridled at Dog Evans’ extended hand. Dog had stared at the melting chocolate he had offered before throwing it hard at the pony. Sparkle reared back, jerking hard, wrong-footing Jean. Only her grip on the reins saved her from falling. Dog laughed as he pointed at Jean, attached to the skittish beast, trying to calm it. As she brought it under control, he lunged and wiped his hand down its neck, leaving a sticky brown smear. Stepping back from this small victory, he noticed the pony’s growing erection. He pointed once more, drawing it to the attention of the others.
‘Dirty pony,’ he said.
He backed away as the other children stared at the penis.
‘He’s not dirty,’ said Jean.
‘Dirty,’ Dog said before heading back to school, happy with his mischief, the pony disgraced in front of the class.
One morning soon thereafter, Jean found Sparkle bleeding from a cut to his neck. Her parents and the stable owner explained it away as an accident, even though a thorough check of the stables for nails or broken planks and the like revealed nothing. She called the police, forcing Mr Cutter to investigate. When he said Dog Evans had been in bed all night and his parents were upset that she had accused their son of harming an animal, Jean’s parents had been embarrassed and made Jean feel bad. But Jenny Cutter, Jean’s friend, told her that she had heard her father talking to her mother. Mr Cutter said he could smell horse on the boy and was sure it was him had done the cutting.
By this time, persuaded by Dog, the rest of the class had found fault with Sparkle’s bad breath, the flies that crawled over him, the big hairs that sprouted from his muzzle, the saliva that dripped from his bit and the regular defecation. Between classes Jean found herself alone with her pony. She would mount Sparkle, stroke his mane and sing cowboy songs to him as she walked him around the edge of the marsh. She turned him at the bottom of the driveway to the Evans’ house. She no longer waved to Mrs Evans if she was there, choosing instead to look back to the school and wave to Jenny, who was always watching. Then she would walk him back to the school: over and over, Jean and Sparkle, until the bell rang, announcing the end of the dinner break.
Jean would sit next to Jenny, who would twitch her nose at the equine smell and ask her, ‘How was your ride?’ Jean would reply, ‘Good.’
That morning Jean forked fresh hay onto the floor of Sparkle’s stall and put feed in his basket. After splashing clean water into the chipped Belfast sink, she checked everything was up to her usual standard. She adjusted the calendar, quickly gave Sparkle’s mane a comb and stroked his white blaze, from forehead to muzzle. Even though it was her, he quivered as she ran her fingertips over the line of the wound, halfway healed but clear in the mind.
When Jean turned the corner at Munson’s newsagents an hour later, Jenny Cutter was running across the road to meet Alice Corggie. Jean could tell by the way she was moving that she was flustered. Jenny was a tall girl, gangly and uncertain, like a newborn foal.
‘I ran all the way,’ said Jenny. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘You’re not,’ said Jean. ‘I’m just here myself.’
‘Only a wee bit anyway,’ said Alice. ‘Not that it makes much difference to me.’
Jean and Jenny glanced at each other then stared at Alice, waiting. They were familiar enough with her to know not to ask. She was special enough as it was.
‘I’m afraid I won’t be walking with you today,’ said Alice.
‘Why?’
‘I’m waiting for Jonny.’
Jean took a step closer to her. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘He’s going to walk me to school.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the way?’
‘All the way.’
‘Because of what Dog did yesterday?’
‘Not only that.’
Jenny put the end of her ponytail in her mouth and chewed her hair while she smiled, every one of her teeth on show, unable to keep still.
‘Stop that,’ said Jean. ‘Why are you nervous? That’s what you do when you’re nervous.’
‘Sorry.’ Jenny took the ponytail out of her mouth but kept turning it around her fingers. ‘I’m not.’ She took a shallow breath, ‘I’m excited. You are so lucky, Alice.’
Jean nodded. ‘He’s gorgeous.’
There was a moment’s mutual agreement before they turned as one, breathing arrested by the slushy drag of approaching feet. It was Norrie Storrie, who came around the corner, head down, blowing clouds of hot air through his fingers. The girls looked at each other and burst into a fit of giggling, their hands covering their lower faces. Norrie looked up at them and paused. Still giggling, Jean Ritt and Jenny Cutter left Alice Corggie, moving down from street light to street light towards school.
When Norrie Storrie walked past Alice with his empty delivery bag flapping, she pushed the tip of her tongue out at him. He sensed the teasing in her eyes and was blushing when he entered Munson’s.
6
Adrenalin, amphetamine and alcohol sped through Nugget as he sat observing the house. His right leg bounced. His left knee supported his left elbow, chin in the palm of his hand as he forced the stumps of fingernails over his lower incisors, gnawing them clean. He took a sip from the bottle. The rough blend stripped another layer off his windpipe, scalded his stomach and burned along the fuse-wire of his veins to his extremities. Goosebumps crackled across his scalp like fire through stubble after harvest and his face prickled with nervous perspiration. He screwed the lid back on and bagged the bottle. Patting Bru a couple of times, he stood and they approached the dead boy’s home.
His hand shook. The discoloured brass of the back door handle chattered in its casing like clockwork teeth when he gripped it.
‘Fuck.’
Letting go, he glowered at his curled fingers as if they had dropped the golden apple.
He took a step back from the Evans’ house and looked away. Marsh water caught the moon and the village feigned sleep. His nose ran. He wiped his sleeve across his face, snorted the slimy remains into the back of his throat and spat them onto the porch floor. The two upper panels of the door glared at him. Nugget willed himself not to think of the house as a living thing.
‘Glass and timber,’ he said, nodding, rocking from heel to ball, ‘glass and timber.’
He scooped the half-bottle from the mailbag. He sucked a mouthful out, then another. He took a breath, held it, released it slowly. Stepping forward, he fingertipped the handle. His touch was steady. He grasped,
turned and pushed in one withheld breath. The door stopped after a few inches and he collided with it comic-book style, the slapstick impact splitting the skin above his eye. He straightened himself quickly as he surveyed for anybody who might have seen. It was quiet and still. A barn owl ghosted by. Bru was motionless.
Exploring the cut, his fingertips came away wet, and he could feel the wetness trickling through his eyebrow.
‘Shit. Nugget, come on, get a grip, man.’
Bru whined.
‘Shh, boy, keep that down.’ He crouched and held the dog’s head in his hands, his blood streaking its fur. ‘You don’t want them all to hear, do you? Don’t you want your share? Steak every day; think about that. All for a little shush. Steak every day, my goodness, sounds good to me.’
Untangling a used handkerchief from his pocket, he applied pressure to the wound as he pushed against the door again, using his scrawny body to steadily increase the force. There was some give before it stopped once more.
‘What’s your thoughts, Bru, winter damp?’
With the door partially open, he edged his head into the gap to try and see inside, but snapped back as he inhaled the interior smells that seeped out. The rank cloud of bad air wrapped itself around him and slammed him against the wall as he gagged at the stench of butchery and cooking, or maybe rendering. Bru hunkered down behind his master’s heels and laid his head on his front paws. Nugget pushed himself off the wall, shook his head to clear it.
‘Come on, boy, let’s get this thing done; go home rich.’
When he thought he could handle the smell, he took a few steps back before throwing himself at the door. He shouldered it open enough to be able to get in, scuffing a rough rainbow into the grain of the floor. He saw it was wedged on paper. Hovering between moonlight and the interior, he peered in, trying to make sense of the room. Taking his head torch from his pocket, he turned it on and held it high. It lit upon a flotilla of tiny origami boats in a column about a foot wide, sailing away from him across the floor towards the pale light of the rear window. Bending down to pick one up, he realised it was currency, crisp and clean. The boats were banknotes, identically folded and carefully positioned.
The Wrong Child Page 4