Martyn Pig

by Kevin Brooks

  And I ran.

  On and on, running blindly through the snow, head down, legs pounding, heart racing, running like I’d never run before. On and on through the sand and the snow and the wind and the sand and the snow and the wind and the sand ... I lost all track of time. For all I knew, I could have been running for ever. I’d forgotten why I was running in the first place. Was I running away from something or running to something? It didn’t seem to matter. I was running, that’s all. Just running. Through the sand and the snow and the wind and the sand and the snow and the wind ... until eventually I felt solid ground beneath my feet.

  The steps.

  I hardly dared believe it. I stamped my feet, cautiously at first, then harder, grinning with mad delight at the reassuring clump of boots on concrete. Ha! Real, solid ground. Wonderful. Hard, shiftless. Concrete. Tarmac. A sensible surface. A surface made for walking. I grabbed hold of the handrail and pulled myself up the steps and on to the road.

  Here, everything was calm and quiet again. The sea was silent in the distance, the wind had dropped to a whisper, and the voice in my head had gone.

  I looked up at the sky. The snow had stopped. It was just a sky.

  I glanced back at the beach, but there was nothing to see. Just a grey-white haze. Nothing. Just a beach.

  I headed slowly up the coast road.

  The village was even more deserted than it had been when I’d arrived. No old women, no old boatman, no dog. It could have been a ghost village. Wet, dark, and deserted. I looked around for a shop. I needed food, a hot drink. A cup of tea and a Mars bar. But there was nothing. Everywhere was closed.

  I wished I’d never come here.

  The snow was already starting to melt on the road, oozing into the gutters like mashed potato swimming in gravy. I walked on through the mush up to the bus stop and sat down.

  Wet feet. Wet bum.

  Wet bus-stop bench.

  I settled down to wait for the bus.

  I didn’t know what time it was.

  It was time to go home, that’s what time it was.

  I remember it now. Most of it. I think. I remember the snow. I remember the cold, but I don’t remember the cold, because you can’t remember stuff like that, can you? Cold, pain, fear – you can’t remember feelings. You can remember the idea of something, you can remember that you were cold, you were in pain, you were afraid, but you can’t actually remember the feeling of it.

  It did happen, though.

  I’m sure it did.

  Believe it.

  Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t really care. I know what happened.

  The light was low as I stepped off the bus and hurried home through the sludge. It felt like early evening. I wondered if Alex had been round yet. Had I missed her?

  I should never have gone to the damned beach, it was a stupid idea in the first place. I should have stayed at home. Why did I go? What was I thinking of? Today was the day, the day. The day we planned to lose a body. And I go swanning off to the beach in the middle of a snowstorm. Good thinking, Martyn. Good idea. Very smart.

  My clothes were still wet, shrunk so tight to my body I had to fight to get the door key out of my trouser pocket. My fingers were all numb, too, white and wrinkled like I’d been lying in the bath too long.

  Inside, the house was cold. I turned on all the lights, peeled off my coat, pulled off my wet boots and socks and switched on the fire.

  Five past two, the clock said. Surely it was later than that? It must be wrong. I checked the clock in the kitchen. It was five past two. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I’d been gone for ages.

  Never mind.

  Forget it, I told myself. Forget the whole thing. Just start again, pretend the day’s just beginning.

  I put the kettle on, made myself a big mug of tea and got a packet of chocolate biscuits from the cupboard. Then I went upstairs and ran a bath. A hot, hot bath. As I undressed I noticed myself in the mirror. Bleached-white with a hint of blue. Red ears, red nose, watery eyes. I looked like a newborn baby.

  Blissfully, I sank down into the steaming hot water. The snow and the cold and the dirt and the bad memories just melted away. I gulped hot strong tea and munched chocolate biscuits. I turned the radio on. I peed and farted and grinned at the bubbles.

  I was home.

  Home is home, I suppose. No matter how much you hate it, you still need it. You need whatever you’re used to. You need security.

  I almost didn’t hear the doorbell at first. With my head under the water and the radio on it was just a muffled brrrr. I sat up, turned off the radio and cocked my head to let the water out of my ears. This time it was clearer. Brrring. I jumped out, wrapped a towel round my waist and sped downstairs. Wet footprints trailed behind me on the carpet.

  ‘Alex!’ I said, opening the door.

  She looked me up and down, surprised. I tightened the towel, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

  ‘I was in the bath,’ I said, letting her in.

  She touched a finger to my face. ‘You’ve got chocolate on your chin.’

  I let go of the towel, wiped at my face, then grabbed the towel again as I felt it slip. Alex grinned. She was wearing an old fur hat with the earflaps hanging down, big fur boots and a long black coat. All lightly frosted with sleet.

  I shut the door.

  ‘Look at you,’ Alex said, removing her hat.

  I didn’t know what she meant. I felt uncomfortable. Standing there, half-naked and wet. I must have looked like a freshly plucked chicken, scrawny and pale, bony legs hanging out from beneath the towel like knotted strings. Pigeon-chested, too. I was a birdman. Birdboy.

  I slicked back my hair and it fell limply to one side. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I’d never stood half-naked in front of a girl before. Beneath the towel I felt ... vulnerable. I think that’s what I felt, anyway.

  ‘I’ll go and get dressed,’ I said. Alex laughed. ‘I think you’d better.’

  I was just zipping up my trousers when she waltzed into the bedroom pulling a couple of strappy-looking things from her bag.

  ‘I brought these,’ she said.

  What? I thought. Brought what? Don’t you ever knock before you come in? I could have been naked.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked, as she dangled whatever it was in my face.

  ‘Surgical masks,’ she explained. ‘To keep the smell out.’

  She put one on. It was one of those masks that surgeons wear when they’re operating.

  ‘See?’

  I was impressed. ‘Where did you get them from?’

  ‘Mum’s nursing stuff. I found them in her drawer. Here.’ She handed me one and I put it on, tying it at the back of my head. I looked in the mirror. Doctor Pig.

  ‘It suits you,’ Alex said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Covers up your face.’

  ‘Funny.’

  I went into the bathroom and got two pairs of rubber gloves from the cupboard under the sink, then went back into the bedroom and offered them to Alex.

  ‘Pink or yellow?’ I asked.

  She looked confused.

  ‘Fingerprints,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh.’

  I smiled. ‘The downfall of many a criminal mind.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, pink or yellow?’

  She took the yellow ones and we gloved up.

  ‘Where’s the car?’ I asked.

  She looked at her watch. ‘Mum’s not back yet. Another hour or so.’

  ‘That’s all right. We’ve got to get him downstairs yet, anyway.’

  She sighed. ‘Look, Martyn, are you sure about all of this? Isn’t there some other way—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘I’ve got it all worked out. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  Dad’s bedroom still smelled pretty rank, even with the masks on. There was a clamminess about the place – the bedclothes, the carpet, the air – everything felt cold and untouchable.
>
  I went to the bed, reached underneath and tugged out a sleeping bag. Green, nylon, smelly. I unrolled it and laid it out on the floor.

  ‘It zips up nearly all the way round,’ I said, showing her.

  She knelt down beside me. ‘There’s a gap at the top. His head’ll poke out.’

  I pulled a stapler from my back pocket, grinning. ‘Click click.’

  Alex still wasn’t happy. ‘What if they find him? The police. They could trace the sleeping bag back to you.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s never been used. Dad won it in a game of cards, years ago. He shoved it under the bed and forgot about it.’

  ‘A game of cards? How do you win a sleeping bag in a game of cards?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Anyway, it’s clean. Dirty, but clean, if you know what I mean. I know these things, Alex. I read murder mysteries.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do.’

  We stood up and studied each other. Masked-up and rubber-gloved. Alex looked good in the mask, mysterious. Her eyes glinted darkly.

  ‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Let’s get him dressed. Where did you put his shirt and jacket?’

  ‘I’ll get them.’ She went briskly over to the wardrobe and opened it. ‘White shirt?’

  I nodded. She passed me the shirt.

  ‘And jacket.’

  I took the jacket from her, a grimy black thing. ‘Hold on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought he was wearing his other one?’

  ‘What? What other one?’

  ‘The brown one.’

  ‘Which brown one?’

  I looked at her. ‘He’s got two jackets. This one, and a mucky old brown one. I’m sure he was wearing the brown one. Have another look in the wardrobe, see if it’s there.’

  She hesitated. ‘What does it matter? I mean, it doesn’t make any difference which jacket he’s wearing, does it? Who’s going to know?’

  ‘Well, I suppose. It’s just ... I like to get the details right. It makes me feel—’

  ‘That’s the jacket he was wearing, Martyn. I remember it. OK? Now, let’s get this finished.’ She shut the wardrobe and passed me Dad’s shoes and socks. I was about to say something else about the jacket, but the look on her face said don’t-you-dare, so I didn’t.

  After I’d got him dressed I unzipped the sleeping bag and laid it out next to the bed. Then I crossed to the other side of the bed and removed the duvet. Dad just lay there: mute, blind, unquestioning, pale, bloodless, dead. He seemed to have shrunk. Skin hung loosely from his frame, like the skin of a 100-year-old man. I imagined the skeleton beneath the covering of skin. Brittle white bones, calcium. Joined in all the right places, as if by magic.

  Using a damp cloth I wiped all the make-up from his face. Underneath, his skin was the colour of wet newspaper.

  Then I stooped, gripped the edge of the mattress and lifted. I didn’t think he was going to move at first, I thought he was somehow stuck to the mattress. But then he began to roll. I raised the mattress higher and he fell to the floor with a dead thump.

  Ouch, I thought.

  I positioned him on top of the sleeping bag then crouched down and took his hand in mine. His body wasn’t stiff any more, but his hand felt hard and unforgiving, just as it had when he was alive. It was a hand I’d never really seen, not up close. I didn’t know it. All it had ever been to me was something I got hit with. I stared at the lines and contours in the skin, the whorls on the fingertips, the hard, dirty fingernails, the stiff black hairs on the backs of his fingers. The skin was dirty, stained with dust. A small white scar at the base of the thumb stood out bright against the grey skin. On the middle finger of his right hand a dull gold ring was embedded into the flesh. I wondered where it was from. Was it a gift? Who gave it to him? Mum?

  I dug into my pocket and brought out the envelope containing the hairs and the cigarette end I’d collected from the kitchen floor. Carefully, I lodged some of Dean’s hairs under one of Dad’s fingernails, wrapping the long ends round the tip of his finger to help keep them in place. That should do it.

  I crossed his arms over his chest.

  I up-ended the envelope and scattered the rest of the hairs and the cigarette end into the bag, then zipped it up. Zip zip zip. I tightened the drawstring and tied it off then whipped out the stapler and stapled shut the top of the bag with a nice straight line of staples. Chickchick chickchick chickchick.

  Gone.

  I’d never see him again.

  I stared down at the big green nylon cocoon and wondered if I ought to feel something. Anything.

  But I didn’t. There was nothing there.

  ‘Might as well get him downstairs,’ I said. ‘You take that end.’

  The nylon material hissed on the carpet as we dragged the bag out of the bedroom, into the hallway and then across to the top of the stairs where we stopped to catch our breath.

  ‘Heavy,’ panted Alex.

  I nodded, sucking in air.

  The bottom of the stairs looked a long way away, a long way down.

  ‘There’s not much point in carrying him down,’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘Suppose not.’

  I moved down a couple of stairs, turned and grabbed the end of the sleeping bag, took a deep breath and tugged. The bag slid slowly over the edge of the top stair, and stopped. Jammed.

  ‘Give it a push,’ I said.

  Alex bent down and pushed from behind while I reached over and grabbed a handful of nylon and pulled. The bag bent in the middle as I pulled it up into a sitting position.

  ‘And again,’ I said.

  She pushed, I pulled. The bag moved forward, tottered for a second, then suddenly lurched towards me.

  ‘Watch out!’

  I jumped to one side just in time to watch it tumble past me and clatter down the stairs – clump clomp clomp clomp clumpclump clump clompclump kathump. It landed at the bottom of the stairs in a heap.

  From the front room window I watched a fine sleet slanting down into the street. Alex’s mum had returned ten minutes ago, I’d seen her driving past. Alex had rung her to check what time she was going out. Six o’clock. We had another hour.

  Alex lay stretched out on the settee sucking an orange. ‘How are we going to get him in the car?’ she asked.

  It was a good question. The sort of question a good murder mystery writer ought to have an answer to. I didn’t have a clue.

  ‘Martyn?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How are we going to get him in the car?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.

  How would it be done in a story? I racked my brains, trying to remember if I’d ever read anything similar. The only thing I could think of was a story about a man who’d murdered his wife and hid the body in the woods, but that was out in the wilds somewhere, in America, a log cabin or something, up in the mountains, somewhere deserted. This was slightly different. A terraced house in a cramped side-street in a nosy neighbourhood.

  ‘At least it’s dark,’ Alex said.

  I gazed through the window. Sleet shone in the glare of the streetlamp across the road. It’s never dark round here, I thought. There’s lights everywhere you look. Streetlights, bright white security lights, car headlamps, so much light you can hardly see the stars at night.

  ‘We’ll just have to take a chance,’ I said. ‘Bring the car up as close to the door as possible then bundle him in quick and hope that no one sees.’

  ‘Hope that no one sees?’ Alex repeated incredulously.

  ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea?’

  She leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Her hair was tied back, and beneath it her neck was pale and slender, like a sleek white tube. As she reached around to adjust her ponytail I suddenly thought of Dean. An image of his pudgy face floated into my mind. Slack features, loose mouth, lizard eyes, stupid hair. Dean ... I hadn’t forgotten about him, I’d just put him to one side for the moment. One thing at a time. Tha
t’s the way to do it. One thing at a time. Once this business was over I’d get back to Dean. Oh yes.

  I wondered what Alex thought of him now? How did she feel about what he’d done? Angry? Humiliated? Embarrassed? It was impossible to tell with Alex. She liked to keep her emotions to herself.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  She sat up and wiped her fingers on a tissue. ‘I can’t think of anything.’

  I smiled. ‘We’ll just have to take a chance, then, won’t we?’

  It doesn’t really matter, I thought, as I dragged the bagged Dad to the front door and waited for Alex to bring the car round. If someone sees us, they see us. If they don’t, they don’t. That’s all there is to it. It’s that mysterious tune again, the invisible piper. He plays, we dance – what happens, happens.

  I still had the rubber gloves on, but not the mask. I thought that might be just a bit too suspicious. Over the rubber gloves I wore another pair of woolly fingerless ones. I also wore my old parka, with its fur-lined hood, a thick jumper, woolly hat, boots and long thick socks. I’d had more than enough of being cold and wet today, thank you very much.

  I heard Alex starting up the car down the road. It whined, chugged for a bit, then coughed and died. She tried it again – urrurrurr ... urrurrurr ... urrurrurreeow ... then silence. Why couldn’t her mum have a proper car? Something Japanese. Something that worked properly. I cringed as the whining started up again, but this time, after a couple of seconds, the engine roared into life. Well, not roared, exactly, but it started. Alex revved up the engine, pumping it like a maniac, keeping it going, then I heard a crunching sound as she looked for the right gear, followed by the squeak of the handbrake, then more revving, more crunching ... why did she have to make so much noise?

  A couple of minutes later I heard the car pull up outside the front door. Handbrake on, engine idling. I opened the door and there it was – Dad’s hearse: a dirty old van covered in rust and coughing out smoke.

  It seemed strangely appropriate.

  Alex was standing by the open back doors. In her snow-covered fur hat and big fur boots she looked like an eskimo. Eskimo Alex.

  ‘Do you think there’s enough room,’ she shouted out over the noise of the engine.