SCOUT

by Sanjiv Lingard

  It was like being violated.

  I staggered towards the side of the hill, drawn onward by his craving. Like a big cat on the African plain, he had selected his quarry - the smallest, the one who was not part of a group. The straggler.

  When the children had finished their ride, they raced back up. It was a tiresome task and, as ride after ride was repeated, little legs became tired.

  The man watched them without mercy. I was trapped inside a mind that had no concept of tenderness or love. He did not look upon this child as you or I would – as someone to protect and nurture. He wanted only to use and destroy.

  It took all my nerve to stay within that dark place.

  I followed his tracks, though they were invisible under the fresh snow. Covered in white, beneath was such fetid corruption that I felt sick to the stomach.

  At this spot he had approached Daniel. I could almost hear him say:

  “Look, it’s a long way back up. I’ll show you a shortcut.”

  Now I could sense the boy. Daniel was tired, yet determined to carry on. The cold had chilled him to the bone, but he wanted to be with the big boys crashing at speed down Hickory Hill.

  With relief, he let the man pull him on his sledge.

  Don’t go! I wanted to shout. But, of course, it was too late.

  The man’s thoughts became opaque. I was thankful to drop him and take up Daniel’s trail.

  The boy’s head drooped with exhaustion. He gripped the plastic rim of the sledge, steadying himself against the gentle undulation of the snow. The adrenalin of sliding down the hill had drained away, and his eyelids grew heavy. It had been a long day, and it was good to have an adult take care of him.

  I didn’t get a picture, exactly, because I cannot see through other people’s eyes. But I could tell that Daniel trusted this man. He was a figure of authority, like a teacher or a crossing guard. This was a category of adult whose role was to encourage and protect.

  And it was good to have a free ride!

  The trail led not up the hill but towards the street. At some point Daniel had noticed that the shouts of the children had diminished behind him, but the man pulling the sledge reassured him, putting on speed to keep him entertained.

  Only as they approached the fence did the boy begin to realise that something was wrong. The man was pulling him too fast. They were leaving the field, not riding to the top. Daniel wanted to get off, gripping the sledge as it rocketed over the rough ground.

  He was scared.

  The pull was relentless. The sledge surfed over a hidden ridge, and Daniel tumbled into the snow.

  Cold!

  The ice knocked the breath from him. A strong arm pulled him from the snowy blanket. The boy struggled for air. He needed his inhaler. Mom had told him not to go out on the snow without his inhaler. But the big boys would laugh if he stopped to squirt medicine in his mouth, so he had left it in his bag, piled amongst others at the top of the hill.

  Daniel wanted the soft hush of the inhaler and the relief that it brought. My lungs felt tight just as his did. I could hardly breathe as I followed his path. Though his lungs were paralysed, Daniel had tried to cry out.

  Smack!

  Daniel was slapped on the cheek to shut him up. I had tasted that cracked palm once before. It was a leather glove, smelling of meat.

  A door slammed in Daniel’s face. He was trapped.

  I rested against the fence, gasping for air. All I saw was Daniel in the dark, buried alive.

  When a gloved hand touched my shoulder, I screamed.

  “Oh God! Molly!” I shouted, and hugged the small woman.

  She helped me into the warmth of her Crown Vic. She had managed to ditch the TV crew and had circled Hickory Hill to meet me. She opened a steaming flask and poured coffee laden with sugar. Sweetness coursed through my veins, banishing the cold.

  “Did you find it?” she asked.

  “It’s him! It’s the same man who took Marcus.”

  “Oh Christ!” she said, thumping the dashboard. “I knew it! What else did you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But they drove off?”

  “He took Daniel in a van, I think – not a car, unless it was blacked-out inside. Took him from right here.”

  “And can you follow him?”

  I nodded, gulping the rest of the coffee, knowing that I had an endless night ahead of me.

  “But I’ll need help,” I said.

  “I’ll do what I can, but this has to remain unofficial. They’ll lock us up if we tell ‘em. This is between you and me, Scout.”

  I told her what I needed.

  “Okay. I’ll make the call,” she said, flicking on her cell.

  “One other thing, Molly,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “D’you think he could still be alive? The killer from 1985?”

  Her eyes flared.

  “From way-back-when?” she asked. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because I think I heard it. I couldn’t tell the tune, or how it was played, but I heard music. As the man was waiting at the bottom of the hill, calculating, taking his pick, there was music – not in a key, or even in a rhythm – just disconnected notes. Just as Eileen had done all those years ago, I heard it too. I heard the music.”

  Chapter 35

  Molly made the call from outside the patrol car, so I’m not sure what she said, but within ten minutes a familiar shape came creeping up the snow-covered road. It was Mike’s Prius. I suppose that Sergeant Maguire had pulled rank, ordering her son to drop whatever it was that jocks did with themselves, and drive out to meet us.

  And pick up Moyheddin and his bike on the way.

  “Listen, guys,” Molly told us as we gathered together. “I can’t stay with you. If the TV crew gets wind of it they’ll be all over us. But when you get close, give me the call.”

  Night had fallen, and the three of us swapped a worried look as Molly fetched an extra parka from the back of her cruiser.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m warm enough.”

  “Take it,” she said. “One of you will need it.”

  She was hoping that we found Daniel alive. She wanted him wrapped up warm and brought home safe. We watched Molly drive back to where ‘WXRK’ were shooting a spot for the News At Six. Their bright lights shone on the porcelain curve of Hickory Hill.

  “So it’s down to us, then,” said Mike, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Team Scout.”

  I didn’t smile at his lame attempt at a locker-room pep talk. If this were a soccer match, then it was the equivalent of facing off the champions at the World Cup Final but with only one player on the team – me.

  “Let’s do this thing!” he said. “Anything you want, Scout - you got it.”

  “I’ll need the bike.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to tell me why,” he said, struggling to pull the bike from the rear hatch.

  “Careful!” shouted Moy, anxious that the front fork didn’t bend as Mike wrenched it from the car.

  “Careful? The damn thing’s leaked oil on the carpet!”

  “It doesn’t leak oil,” explained Moy. “Because I have not oiled it. That is mud, or possibly dogshit.”

  Mike looked in horror at the interior of his Prius.

  “Send the cleaning bill to your mom,” I said, straddling the bike.

  “What d’you need the bike for anyway?” asked Mike.

  “First of all, I’m gonna check out if it still works. Thanks for keeping it in top condition, Moy.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I stood on the pedals, but they refused to turn. Locked solid by a week in the snow, nothing moved as I stood up and tried to use my weight to shift the rusted gears. Standing on a stationary bike is not to be recommended. I teetered for a mome
nt and then tipped over.

  “Whoa!” shouted Mike, catching me before I could fall. I grimaced as I extricated myself from his arms. I could have done with him catching me outside O’Casey’s Tavern.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Moyheddin, pulling the bike from between my legs. “This has happened before. I can fix it.”

  “Please – will someone tell me what’s going on? How’re we gonna use the bike?” demanded Mike, his voice fraying.

  “All will be revealed, soccer-boy,” I said, enjoying the chance to torment him.

  Moyheddin cursed in Arabic and kicked the knot of rusted metal between the wheels.

  “That’s really gonna help,” I said. “Very scientific.”

  “It’s engineering, not science,” he explained, working his fingers into the tight brown mess behind the pedals. “The front derailleur is stuck, forcing the chain between the rings. It is simply a matter of extracting the chain.”

  His hand was pinched by metal as he tugged. He cursed again – I’ve discovered that most Arabic curses are based on improper relations with a sister.

  “It’s fixed,” he said, rubbing his hands in snow to ease the pain.

  “Come on, guys. Don’t leave me hanging like this!” pleaded Mike as I straddled the bike once more and pushed down with all my might. Moyheddin had loosened the pedals, but it was stuck in a high gear. I had to stand to make the wheels move at all, the tyres biting into the soft upper layer of the snow. I wobbled across the road more or less in control.

  I could follow the trail, but it would be hard going.

  *

  Mike and Moyheddin kept pace, like one of those Secret Service details you see on a presidential walkabout. Being a hybrid, the car crept as silently as a ghost. The only sound was the scrunch of its tyres and the squeak of my pedals, as regular as a mouse on a wheel.

  Just as we cleared the town limits, snow started to fall from the black sky. My shadow was projected by the high beam of the Prius into the dancing snowflakes. Mike’s hazard lights pulsed orange, adding a disco vibe to the scene.

  A snowplough roared past, grit spinning from a hopper at the rear. I turned my face away as the salt sprayed like lead shot against my leg. After that, there was little traffic. Occasionally a pickup would roar in the opposite direction, heading into town. They were the wise ones, we the fools.

  I could only imagine the conversation in the car behind. Moyheddin and Mike had not met until tonight. Moy, always the diplomat, would want to ease the rift between me and Mike. Perhaps he would tell Mike what I had seen outside O’Casey’s Tavern? Moy is the only person I know who could have single-handedly arranged the détente at Dinkel’s bakery. It is not every day that an octogenarian Jew would trust his ‘schmearing’ to a gay Saudi of Syrian extraction. Those guys in the Middle East could learn a lesson from Moyheddin and Mr Dinkel. For one thing, there would a lot more bread in the world.

  What I was most worried about was the appearance of my ass. Mike and Moy had been staring at it for the past hour, and I could feel where my parka had ridden up as I hunched forward against the cold air. I know guys. I know what they think about even if they don’t say it out loud. Moyheddin was loyal, but I wondered if he would join Mike in a discussion about my booty.

  *

  The road branched south, skirting the town and heading to the interstate. It was easy enough to keep hold of the trail, because with each minute Daniel became more terrified.

  What would happen if I came across his death? I wondered. Would my heart stop in sympathy with his?

  I shivered with the thought of it.

  At this point in his journey, the boy had been alive and desperate to escape. He understood enough of his predicament to know that he had been taken by a bad man, and that he could no longer trust anything the man said or did.

  And there was that damn music.

  It came in snatches, as if heard through a metal bulkhead, wafting in and out above the roar of a diesel engine. As I pedalled, I tried to concentrate on the tune; but the more I reached for it, the more it slipped from my grasp.

  It was like the time Eileen took me to see Depeche Mode at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. Frontotemporal dementia had already started its harvest, but I was the only one who had guessed that anything was wrong. Grant Park wasn’t really the best place to take a ten-year-old. I was too short to see the band, and too large to sit on Eileen’s shoulders. Every so often Eileen would wander off, forgetting that I was with her. The rock music was so loud that she couldn’t hear me calling her name. Luckily I knew how to keep her within reach.

  When we came home, my head was ringing. When I closed my eyes to sleep, a formless tune coalesced in the space between my ears. A melody would take form, and then collapse like a wave on the shore. Behind it would appear another snatch of music, equally meaningless.

  The roar of metal drowned it out.

  I had only a moment to realise that the steel cliff face of a semi-truck’s grill was about to smash me to the ground. It thundered towards me, preceded by a cushion of frozen air. Cutting around the slow-moving Prius, the truck driver was in such haste that he ignored the hazard lights. The truck slid back into the right-hand lane, and I was all but invisible beneath the towering carapace of his engine.

  The air buffeted me aside. A moment later, fourteen wheels shot like an express through the space where my bike had been. By then, the wash from the truck had picked me up and tossed me into a snowdrift.

  “Jesus Christ!” shouted Mike, running from the car. Moyheddin hurled an Arab curse at the truck driver, his sister and generations of his family to come.

  And then strong arms took me, and he kicked the bike out of the way, plucking me from my icy mattress to hold me tight.

  “Scout? You okay?” It was Mike – I was weightless in his arms. His face just inches from mine.

  “Did the truck hit you?”

  I shook my head. Stunned, but not hurt. Snow melted from my hair and slid down my back.

  “This is crazy!” muttered Mike, as he carried me to his car. He shouted for Moy to open the hatch, and he laid me on top of whatever it was that the bike had deposited. The boys, being soft, had the heater cranked to the max. The inside of the Prius was as hot as a Turkish bathhouse.

  As soon as I hit the deck my left leg flared in brilliant agony. I shrieked and dug my fingers into Mike’s shoulder. His head hit the roof. Moyheddin leant in from the passenger seat.

  “What is it? What’s the matter? Has she broken her leg?” he asked in machine-gun succession.

  Mike shook his head.

  “How can you know that?!” I screamed, my calf juddering in a tortured palsy.

  Bunched up against the rear tailgate, Mike bent over my foot and slipped off my wet trainer. Oh God – ‘My Little Pony’ socks! In pink! They were Eileen’s, grabbed at random this morning. Well, I didn’t know that I would end the day being undressed by Mike Forrester.

  Mike plucked off the damp sock, grabbed my foot and bent it back on itself.

  “Push!” he shouted.

  “I’m not having a freakin’ baby!” I shouted back.

  “You’ve got cramp – it’s the build-up of unwanted lactic acid in the muscle.”

  “I know what cramp is!” I shouted back, the pain already beginning to ease as he cradled my burning calf muscle and pushed my foot back.

  Oh, such pleasant relief.

  “Moyheddin,” called Mike. “Look under the seats; there’ll be a Coke or something down there.”

  A can popped open, and Moy leant over to pour a sweet, medicinal drink into my mouth. I spat it out.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “Pirate Brew. All the goodness of a soda, habibti, but with extra caffeine.”

  I propped myself up, took the can from Moyheddin and drank it down in one draught. At th
e other end, Mike was nursing my leg back to health.

  “Cramp’s a bitch,” said Mike. “The cold brings it on.”

  Now that the pain was receding, I was beginning to enjoy Mike touching my leg, feeling his palm hold the sole of my aching foot. His thumbs rolled around the ball of my foot, no doubt to encourage the circulation, but it felt for all the world like a massage.

  Who says feet aren’t sexy?

  Mike leant my foot on his thigh and rolled the cuff of my jeans past my injured calf and up to the knee.

  “Hey – no higher!” I warned, but wishing that he would.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  I nodded, drinking in the caffeine and the sight of my naked leg resting on his. Mike fumbled in a first-aid bag and took out an aerosol spray.

  “How come the medical knowledge?” I asked.

  “Part soccer field, and partly my work at Mercy. This week I’ve been helping out in the ER.”

  “No shit?” Now it was my turn to sound like Tyler Drift.

  “It’s an analgesic,” he explained as he sprayed. “Pretty good for a sports injury.”

  I turned my ankle around and about. The burning poker that had so recently been embedded in my muscle had been extinguished.

  “I think you’ve done the trick,” I said, reaching for my trainer.

  “Wait! You can’t go back out there.”

  “I don’t have any option.”

  “You’ve just injured your leg and narrowly missed being turned into hamburger by a thirty-ton truck. I think the least we could do is call for help.”

  “Who’s gonna come?” And then I turned to my Saudi friend. “Moyheddin?” I asked. “Can you check the bike?”

  Moy ducked out of the door.

  “This is just ass about face,” fumed Mike. “Why didn’t you tell me you could track from a bike? I could’ve helped you. We could’ve got one with proper tyres and with gears that work - not that piece of shit.”

  “That’s my friend’s bike you’re talking about,” I said, sliding out of the car.

  “Scout!” he shouted, banging his head on the door frame as he struggled to follow. Mike tumbled forward onto the snow. By the time he rolled to his feet I was already on the bike.