by Heide Goody
“No one else came in?”
“Not until I arrived this morning.”
“The security guard people…?”
“Only patrol the outer fence.”
Michael swallowed the knot of emotions in his throat. “Um. Freddy?”
“Yes, Mr Michaels.”
“Do you know anything about a dog?”
“A dog?”
“A little Yorkshire Terrier.”
“You mean the one your friend brought in?”
Michael considered this. The creature was indeed the same breed as Twinkle. Miniscule, vaguely ratty, and looking like Jennifer Aniston on a bad hair day. However, this particular dog was hairier, perhaps a shade darker and – and this was critically important – not dead and mounted by an inexpert taxidermist.
“No,” said Michael simply. “Not that one. Freddy, I need you to get onto the sample suppliers. We are going to need replacements for …” Michael tried to look at the devastation with a dispassionate eye. “… units CY243 through to CZ004.”
“Okay, Mr Michaels.” Michael pulled the earpiece from his ear.
“Little A,” he said.
“Yes, Michael,” said the computer.
“Could you bring up the footage from the lab security cameras for last night?”
“Yes, Michael. Would you like milk with that?”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s all right,” said Little A. “We’re all human.”
Michael frowned. “Little A?”
“Wassup, Michael?”
“I asked you to show me the security footage from the lab cameras.”
“Uh-huh. And then what happened?”
“Could you show me the footage?”
“I could. I can do lots of things.”
“Little A.”
“I can bench press three hundred pounds and cook the world’s best omelette.”
“Little A.”
“You love my omelettes.”
“Run diagnostic checks on your own software. Check for viruses, spyware, and any indications that we’ve been hacked.”
“Right-o, sexy. One diagnostic check coming up. Hey, can anyone else smell smo…”
There was a snap of electricity, sparks flew from the laboratory computer and the liquids spilt across it steamed lightly. A second later, the lights went out.
Michael put his head in his hands and wept.
“Okay,” said Ben, very slowly and very loudly. “We are now in the park.”
“I’m blind, not deaf,” said Clovenhoof.
“I was trying to sound reassuring.”
Clovenhoof disentangled his arm from Ben’s grip. “You’re treating me like an old codger. I don’t need looking after.”
“You’re older than me, Jeremy …”
“You have no idea.”
“… and one day you will need to learn to accept help from others. Old age and infirmity gets us all in the end.”
“Want to bet?”
“Well, no offence, but you’ve left it too late to live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.”
“The last thing I’d want to do is leave a beautiful corpse. I can think of a thousand things I’d rather do with it.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I refuse to be measured by your standards.” Clovenhoof adjusted his sunglasses snootily and sniffed deeply. “Pond weed, pine sap, the faint aroma of week-old cider and tramp piss. We must be down by Keeper’s Pool.”
Ben was impressed and had to admit he was right.
“I have the nose of a stoat,” said Clovenhoof.
“Do stoats have a good sense of smell?”
“And the eyes of a stoat.”
“I don’t think you’ve got eyes at all at the moment.”
“And the ears of a stoat.”
“Yes?”
“Basically, I’ve got a stoat,” said Clovenhoof, taking the small stuffed animal out of his pocket.
“Be serious for just one minute!”
“I’ve been waiting all week to do that joke,” said Clovenhoof.
“You might be permanently blinded and any chance of restoring your sight might be dependent upon us finding whatever it was you put in that drink.”
Clovenhoof shrugged, unfazed, and pointed towards the nearby trees.
“I did most of my foraging in there.”
They had only take a few strides towards the woods when something caught Ben’s eye. “There’s a woman waving at you.”
“Waving at me?” said Clovenhoof. “Like I’m-mad-at-you-for-stealing-the-engine-out-of-my-mobility-scooter waving or come-hither-big-boy-I-need-you waving?”
“Neither,” said Ben. “Just waving. Looks like she knows you.”
“Not mad with me and doesn’t fancy me? That really narrows it down,” said Clovenhoof.
The woman, whose clothing was a mish-mash of the garish, the ethnic, and the cheap, and whose smile was bordering on trippy, hurried towards them, a young toddler perched on her waist and a child’s buggy before her in which a misshapen teddy bear was mostly buried underneath collected pine cones, twigs and leaves.
“Jeremy,” she said. “I thought it was you.”
“Oh, Sandra,” said Clovenhoof in realisation, “who indeed neither hates nor fancies me. How are you?”
“Very well. We’ve come down to the park to hug the trees and feed the birds. Jack-Jack loves the birds.”
“Well, he’s a man of the world, isn’t he?”
Clovenhoof bent down and tickled the teddy bear on the tummy.
“Er, Jeremy,” said Ben and nudged him in the ribs.
“You are funny,” said Sandra.
“Oh, he’s that,” said Ben.
“Jeremy kept us ladies at SCUM smiling,” she said to Ben.
“Scum?”
“Sutton Coldfield Union of Mums. You’re a friend of Jeremy’s?”
“More like a carer sometimes,” said Ben.
“I hope you were shocked as we were when they took his little girl from him,” said Sandra fervently.
“Oh, I had barely got over the shock of him having a baby girl in the first place,” said Ben honestly.
“It’s a sad business for certain, doubly so when it happens to a loving and responsible father.”
“Responsible,” said Ben thoughtfully.
“Responsible,” agreed the blind Clovenhoof.
“Listen, Jeremy,” said Sandra. “You can say no, perhaps recent events are still a bit too raw, but I wonder if you’d be willing to babysit Jack-Jack tonight? I’m meeting with some of the other mums to discuss our response to Mr Malarkey’s barbarian behaviour yesterday. Paul’s away at a conference in Newquay, and I’ve got no one else to ask.”
“Unfortunately, Jeremy’s been a bit ill recently,” said Ben.
“Be delighted to,” said Clovenhoof. “I do love children.”
He crouched down and addressed the bear.
“You and me will have a kick-ass evening, eh, Jimbo?”
“Funny, funny man,” said Sandra, genuinely amused. “I’ll text you later with the details.”
“Brilliant.” Clovenhoof took a Mars Bar out of his pocket and waggled it by his ear. “I’ll wait for your call. Now, you’ll have to excuse us. Ben and I have some urgent business in the bushes.”
Sandra gave Ben a mildly saucy, mildly embarrassed look.
“I will leave you two boys to it,” she said, and steered the buggy away.
“You’re a tit,” said Ben.
“What?”
“Not only did you make her think we’re a pair of old-timey gays out for a day’s cottaging, but you agreed to babysit for her when – and I cannot re-emphasise this enough – when you are clearly blind.”
“I think we can all see that I can compensate for the loss of one sense with my superb mastery of all the others,” said Clovenhoof. He turned decisively and marched into Keeper’s Pool.
“Mr Michaels.”
Michael stopped his mopping and tapped his earpiece.
“Yes, Freddy.”
“I’ve got the cat carrier you asked for.”
Michael looked at the Yorkshire Terrier who was currently sniffing around the base of a stool.
“Good.”
“And I also picked up a couple of cartons of BowWow.”
“Bow-what?”
“It’s dog food, Mr Michaels. The finest meats for that special dog in your life. I’m reading that off the label, but my friend, Chad, swears it’s true.”
“Fine,” said Michael.
“And there’s been a phone call for you,” said Freddy. “The boss wants to see you this evening.”
“Mrs Feckler?”
“No, the boss. The managing director.”
Michael had no idea who that even was. He had been hired through an agency and had only met with the overall project manager, Josie Feckler.
“I think he wants to talk about the doggy incident,” said Freddy.
“Well, who told him?” said Michael.
“Not me. I only mentioned it to Saqib when I asked for the replacement samples.”
Michael sighed wearily. He shook the towels in his hand at the dog.
“If I get fired for this, I’m going to put you in a sack and throw you in the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal.”
“But I have so much to live for,” said Freddy.
“Ah-ha!” declared Ben loudly.
Clovenhoof leapt to his feet.
“What is it?”
“I think I have your culprit. Oh my.”
Clovenhoof walked over to the dining table, tripping over a ruck in the rug but turning it into a pirouette to make it look like he had intended to do it all along. Gorky smoothed out the ruffled carpet behind him.
“Hit me with it, Kitchen. Which plant poisoned me?”
Ben’s hands ran over the plant samples that he had laid out neatly and methodically on the table.
“Frankly, there’s plenty of things here that aren’t great for you. You were pretty much drinking fermented grass. However, this one is of particular interest…”
Clovenhoof shrugged.
“I assume you’re pointing at something,” he said. “But, you know, still blind.”
Ben picked up a sprig of tightly clustered variegated leaves and consulted his smartphone.
“Euphorbia helioscopia.”
“A foreigner, eh?” said Clovenhoof. “One of them Latin types.”
“Sun spurge,” said Ben. “Its sap can cause skin irritation, inflammation and the seed oils are a powerful purgative. This website says that one, er, individual ate some and indeed went blind.”
“But he recovered?”
Ben read and then nodded.
“After a course of anti-inflammatory drugs from the vet, sight was eventually restored.”
“Vet?”
“Um,” said Ben. “I’m reading this off a horse care website.”
“Stupid horse,” said Clovenhoof. “What was it doing eating poisonous plants?”
“Because that’s so much worse than making an alcoholic drink from it,” said Ben sarcastically.
Clovenhoof dusted his hands together.
“Well, that’s one mystery solved. Now, babysitting.”
“What? I’ve just told you you’ve ingested something that would blind a shire horse and you think you’re still okay to look after other people’s children!”
“What’s the issue? It’s not like little Jazbo is going to run out on me. Even blinded, I’m faster than a two-year-old.”
“And how are you going to get there? And, before you ask, I’m not taking you.”
“Gorky will take me.”
Gorky, who was tidying up around the sofa and eating the occasional food crumb he discovered, made a questioning noise.
“You’ve got to walk to Penns Lane,” said Ben. “And – I don’t believe I’m having to point this out – monkeys can’t read house numbers.”
Clovenhoof huffed.
“Don’t you go telling me what my monkey can and can’t do. If we set off now, we’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.”
An hour and a half later, Clovenhoof knocked on another door. He smoothed his hands over the door.
“Well, at least this one isn’t a shed or portaloo,” he said, giving a stern glare at where he assumed Gorky to be. “Or an old door propped up next to a skip. You had me waiting at least ten minutes for someone to answer that.”
The door opened.
“Jeremy. I thought we said six o’clock.”
“Running a little late, Sandra. That’s all.”
Jeremy couldn’t see that rare expression on Sandra’s face, the expression of an incurably nice person who knows they should be really angry but just doesn’t know how.
“You could have phoned,” she said.
Jeremy held up the Mars Bar.
“It seems to be out of charge.”
“Well, you’re here,” she said, “and I am incredibly late. Good news is Jack-Jack is already in bed and fast asleep. Help yourself to anything you like in the house. I’ll be back by eight, nine at the latest.”
Sandra squeezed past him.
“Call me if there’s any problem!”
Clovenhoof waved her off. He actually waved at a hedge, but the hedge didn’t bother to correct him.
“Right, Gorky,” he said, feeling his way into the house. “You heard the lady. We can help ourselves to anything in the house. Loose change, jewellery, portable valuables. Let’s get to it.”
Michael attempted calming breathing exercises all the way from his flat to the address in Wylde Green, Sutton Coldfield’s suburban neighbour. He wasn’t sure they were working. Over a dinner that Michael was too stressed to eat, Andy had given him a little pep talk. Andy worked as a personal trainer and his pep talks were invariably of a “you can do it if you try hard enough and you work that butt” nature. Michael would have preferred something more philosophical and consoling, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
The address he’d been given was for one of the grandly proportioned houses on Penns Lane. Clearly, the ARC Research Company paid its top people well. Michael couldn’t imagine that he’d be joining their ranks any time soon.
Unable to put off the inevitable, he walked up the brick-paved driveway and rang the doorbell. As he waited for it to be answered, he mentally lined up his excuses. Sadly, most of them involved pinning the whole dog incident on Freddy, and this without any evidence whatsoever.
The door opened. Michael stared.
“Mr Malarkey?”
“Michael,” said the church leader, taking his hand and pumping it furiously. “And it’s Chip. Everyone knows Chip.”
Chip Malarkey was dressed in his suit trousers and shirt, but his sleeves were rolled up, the top three buttons on his shirt were undone, and his hands (and now Michael’s too, he realised) were covered in dark engine grease. Chip laughed at Michael.
“The look on your face,” he grinned. “Chip Malarkey? Construction magnate, church founder, and tech-industry boss? Do I amaze you, Michael?”
Michael mouthed silently for a moment.
“You do, Chip. You do,” he said honestly.
“Fingers in pies. That’s me. Fingers in pies,” said Chip. “Well, come in. I’ll make a cuppa. I’m afraid we’re drinking out of paper cups until I get a new dishwasher.”
“Oh, dear,” said Michael, stepping into the house and a hallway covered in dirty footprints. “What happened to your old one?”
“Left me, didn’t she?” said Chip.
“Oh. I see. I’m sorry.”
For a moment, Chip sagged, as though the weight of the entire world rested on him.
“It’s a fallen world, Michael, my friend.” And then again, almost inaudibly. “A fallen world.”
Clovenhoof sat in a deep armchair in what he took to be the living room, Jack-Jack’s baby monitor on a table beside him. There was, he d
iscovered after a thorough tactile exploration of the room, no television for him to watch (or at least listen to) and, despite sending the monkey back three times to check, no valuables for them to steal.
“That’s what I hate about the bloody middle classes,” said Clovenhoof. “They’re all doctors and solicitors and high-paid academics, but they insist on living like the Amish. Give me a working class home any day, with a TV in every room, and more expensive gadgets and doodads than you could fit in your swag bag.”
Gorky screeched.
“No, he’s asleep,” said Clovenhoof. “It would be nice, I know, but if having Beelzebelle taught me anything it would be that, well, if it taught me anything it would be that the faces babies pull while pooping are just hilarious. But if it’s taught me two things, the other would be that if a baby’s asleep, you let it sleep.”
Gorky made a disappointed noise.
“We’ll just have to entertain ourselves. We could play a game of Which Orifice Did That Come From? Or maybe Book-Slam Finger Roulette?”
Gorky spat at him.
“You could groom me for nits.”
Gorky humphed in his squeaky capuchin way.
“Or I could groom you.”
With no real enthusiasm, Gorky climbed up onto Clovenhoof’s knee and presented him with his back.
Michael followed Chip past a dining room, where the components of a stripped down car engine were laid out across the now ripped and oil-smudged tablecloth, and into a kitchen cluttered with piles of dirty crockery. Chip pulled out a kettle from among the pots and pans, and filled it at the sink.
“Let me ask you a question,” said Chip.
“Ask away,” said Michael.
“What is a man?”
“A man?”
Chip put the kettle on.
“You and me. Men. What are we?”
Michael wasn’t willing to chance a guess.
“I don’t know.”
“We’re builders, Michael.” He held out his stubby but powerful-looking hands. “We make things. We dream. We construct. We add things to this world.”
Michael didn’t really consider himself a builder, except in the abstract sense. He devised systems and constructed computer programs, but actual manual work…? The one time he had tried to assemble a flat-pack coffee table, it had resulted in a nasty little Allen key injury and a late night trip to Accident and Emergency.