Where Peacocks Scream

by Valerie Mendes

  At first he couldn’t open his eyes. His eyelids and lashes seemed to be gummed together. He couldn’t move any of the muscles of his face. Flakes of dried mud, dead leaves and mould clung to his lips. He stuck out his tongue and licked them. They tasted of disinfectant. His neck and legs felt stiff, as if they’d been wrenched into an awkward position and left there for too long. His hands had been tied behind his back with a metal chain. When he pulled and twisted, trying to get them free, the chain dug into his wrists, making him grimace with pain.

  He pulled his knees up to his chin. His clothes stank of dog shit… Patches of his jeans were stained with mud and leaves, as if he’d been pulled through a field. Yet he vaguely remembered climbing out of Phil’s shower and putting on clean stuff, scribbling a note for Chloe…

  What on earth had happened after that?

  His memory fizzled out.

  He tried to open his eyes again: first a fraction, then wider.

  He was sitting with his back to the wall on a bare wooden floor in a gloomy room he’d never seen before. It had long, filthy windows running from floor to ceiling. He craned his neck. All he could make out were dark clouds, full of thunder, moving fast across the sky. What time was it? Early afternoon?

  Daniel had no idea where he was or how he’d got here.

  But he could make a very good guess.

  The room felt damp and cold. In its original state it must have been a living room, with an open fireplace and chairs grouped around it. Now it was filled with junk. Packing cases, covered in dust and cobwebs, spilled partly wrapped contents onto the floor. Bundles of old newspapers, books and files choked the corners of the room. An upright piano huddled against an opposite wall, its lid open, its black keys grey with dirt, its white keys stained mustard yellow, like ancient teeth. A sofa, its cushions torn and mildewed, spewed its candy floss insides onto a rug, gaping more holes than wool. Fading lumps of wallpaper, ringed by damp stains, peeled off the walls.

  The door creaked open.

  Daniel held his breath.

  An old man clutching a chipped mug pushed into the room. The liquid in the mug steamed into the air. The man bent over the mug as if he found it heavy to carry. He had straggly white hair, a long grey beard, and glasses with heavy black frames. He wore a pair of baggy dungarees over a thick blue sweater, and muddy boots. He looked down at Daniel and grinned. One of his front teeth was missing… No, it wasn’t. It had been blacked out, to make it look as if there were a gap.

  Daniel gasped at the brilliance of the disguise. The man was almost unrecognisable.

  “Well, well, Danny-boy,” Jasper said. “You seem to have collected your scattered wits… Your kind old Uncle Frank has brought you something to drink.”

  Jasper undid the chain around Daniel’s hands and went on grinning.

  His breath stank of garlic and tobacco. He brandished a gleam of lethal-looking steel which he tucked back into the pocket of his dungarees.

  “If you’re thinking of making a dash for the door, think again… I’m very swift on my feet, in spite of this ropey disguise, and this knife is super sharp. I’d have you sprawling on the floor faster than you can say help.” Jasper gestured to the mug of tea. “Now drink this and we can have a nice cosy chat.”

  Daniel reached for the mug. His mouth felt so parched he could hardly speak.

  He managed to ask, “How did you get me here?”

  “In a wheelbarrow.”

  “What?”

  Suddenly Daniel remembered looking at Chloe as he wheeled her over the road, after the apple picking. He felt so lonely and sorry for himself, he longed for her so much, he almost started to cry, but he made himself swallow back the tears.

  Jasper settled himself heavily in the only decent chair in the room.

  “That new gardener of yours left some very convenient equipment all ready for me. Empty barrow, not locked away as it should have been. Sacks of leaves he’d collected during his virtuous sweepings, which he’d dumped at the end of your terrace… Marvellous. All I needed to do was shove some chloroform up your nose, bundle you into the wheelbarrow and pour a couple of sacks of leaves over you. Luckily for me, you’re small. Got myself togged up last night as a shambling pea-brained elderly gardener. Nobody bothered to look twice at me among the chaos of fire engines. I’m really brilliant at being invisible. Wheeled you over the Godstow Road to the allotments and through my back door. Hey presto. Mission accomplished.”

  “So this is your house?”

  Daniel sniffed at the tea, not sure whether to drink it. Jasper could have drugged it with anything.

  “I rent it,” Jasper said abruptly. “I needed a shabby, anonymous base near The Riverside… You can drink that without worrying, by the way. It’s only Tetley, pure and simple. Does exactly what it says on the tin.”

  Daniel took a few enormous gulps. It tasted like nectar.

  “Would you mind telling me what the hell this is about? Why you spent months stalking me? Why you tried to burn down our pub? Why you kidnapped me?”

  “You’ve got no idea, then?” Jasper leered at him. “Your dear mother never spilled the beans.”

  “What are you talking about? What beans?”

  “She never told you I might be your father.”

  Daniel spluttered into the liquid, which went up his nose and stung his eyes. The mug slithered from his hand, dribbled its remaining contents over the floor.

  He said, “Don’t talk filthy rubbish.”

  “Dear me!” Jasper gave a short, sharp laugh. “Does the prospect offend you that much?” He picked up the empty mug. “Look what a mess you’ve made in this beautifully clean and tidy room… Would you like some more?”

  “No,” Daniel growled, “but I’d like you to explain what you’ve just said.”

  “But of course, Danny-boy, I’d be delighted… Your mother – my dear Emma – and I, we’re old flames. We had a passionate affair, must be thirteen, fourteen years ago now. Oh, yes! I really thought she was the one! Properly smitten I was. She was working in that pub on Regent’s Park Road… The prettiest barmaid for miles around… We got together, Emma and I, whenever she had time off.”

  Daniel flushed with rage. Mum had told him she’d ‘met Frank once or twice’, not that the two of them had been lovers! No wonder she’d said nothing to Dad…

  “I’d just left the Navy… A life on the ocean wave is all very well when you’re a youngster and want to see the world, but after a bit it begins to pall. Mind you, life on board ship can teach you lots of useful tricks if you’re clever enough to learn them. One of the sailors, a close friend of mine, was a brilliant mimic. He used to entertain the troops on winter evenings. I became his stoodge. He taught me the art of disguise: false noses, wigs, hair dyes, what to wear. How to change outfits, head to toe, in three minutes flat. It’s been most useful on many occasions, I can tell you.”

  Daniel frowned. He almost blurted out, “I’m sure it has!” but he held his tongue. He made no reference to Jasper’s passports. He hoped against hope that Jasper still had no idea he’d found them.

  Jasper rambled on. “But when the ship’s captain gets to be younger than you are and still expects to boss you around, I reckon you should cut your losses and get out. Anyway, I wanted to strike up on my own. I was desperate to go to the USA, start my own business. Make a lot of money on the stock market, by fair means or foul.

  “I asked Emma to go with me, but she turned me down. A certain Ralph Williams had joined the pub as its manager… I always thought he was a bit of a dunderhead, but Emma took a shine to him. I told her she’d made the wrong choice, that I’d come back for her when I’d made my millions… And so I did.”

  Daniel glared at Jasper. “How did you manage to track her down?”

  “Oh, that was the weirdest thing… The pub in Lond
on told me she’d got married and moved to Oxford. When I heard where she’d gone, you could have knocked me down with a feather.” Jasper leered. “A peacock’s feather. Talk about coincidence.”

  He took off his spectacles, smeared them with his fingertips and rubbed his nose. “I was born in The Riverside, see? In that same bedroom of yours. It was only a house then, not a pub. I loved the place more than I can say.

  “The idyll didn’t last. When I was ten, my father had an accident at work. Treated shamefully, he was. They said it was his own fault, that he’d been drinking. He lost his job, no compensation. Couldn’t afford the rent. They kicked him out, him and Mother and me. I nearly went mad with the anger of it, the humiliation. I vowed that one day I’d come back, not just to rent the place, but as its owner.” Jasper squinted across at Daniel. “And I nearly made it, didn’t I?”

  Daniel grimaced. “You very nearly did.”

  “My plan was: first the island. Buy that up, make a huge success of it. Then I’d have bought The Riverside, peacocks and all. But your mother made it clear she wasn’t prepared to leave Ralph for me, though I tried very hard on several occasions to persuade her… She might even have been able to prove that you’re my son. Dear Ralph would have been out on his ear, just as I’d been out on mine… ”

  Jasper took a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and smeared his forehead with it. He made another stab at cleaning his spectacles.

  “Revenge. They say it’s a dish best eaten cold. And I’d so nearly swallowed the lot, your family and all. I watched you mucking about in the boatyard, spending the summer with your little fishing rod, sculling on the wonderful river, happy as a sand-boy.” Jasper choked. “That’s the kind of childhood I should have had. That’s what they took away from me. If I couldn’t have it, I decided I’d burn the place down so that nobody could.”

  “You realise you could have killed us, don’t you?” Daniel’s hands and feet felt cold as ice. “You put a jinx on us with the peacock feathers, stole the tank of petrol, dismantled the fire alarms—”

  “Look.” Jasper pushed his spectacles onto his face, stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket. He’d flushed a nasty purple. “I’m sick of listening to your high and mighty talk. I promise to leave you alone if you help me. I can’t say fairer than that.”

  Daniel said reluctantly, “So what do you want me to do?”

  “If I let you go now, this very minute, I want you to run over the road and find Phil. Organise a boat for me. On the stroke of midnight, I’ll be standing in the boatyard with this bag of money.”

  Jasper stood up and reached behind the sofa. He pulled out an old leather bag, kicked it across the floor towards Daniel. It squatted on the floorboards like a giant frog.

  “In there is £5,000 in crisp pink £50 notes. If you do what I ask, that’ll be your reward. Yours and Phil’s. You can split it between you.”

  Daniel flushed. “We don’t want your dirty money.”

  “Oh, but I think you do. If you help me get away, you can have the money along with my promise that in future, I’ll leave you and your ‘parents’ – if that’s what they really are – alone. If you don’t help me, if the police arrest me and I’m sent to prison, I can promise I’ll never stop pestering you. Got lots of contacts, me, inside prison and out. It’s just that at the moment I don’t know anyone who can do me any favours on the river… It’s a very closed community, it takes time to build a network you can trust. I’ve been concentrating on other areas… The brewery and so forth…

  “That’s history now as far as I’m concerned. They’ve given me a right run-around and they can go to hell and back in a handcart… But if you put me inside, I swear you and your family will never be able to sleep easy in your beds, not in a million years.”

  Jasper’s grey eyes flickered at Daniel from behind the heavy spectacles.

  “That money represents my freedom – and yours. What’s your decision now?”

  Daniel thought, The man’s a lunatic but he’s dangerous. I need to get as much information from him as I can. Keep him sweet. Smile. Make sure he releases me. Agree to anything and get the hell out of this room.

  He said, “So what exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Get me a boat… Go and see that boatman chum of yours. Get him to organise everything. At midnight tonight, I want a narrowboat I can manage to live in for a couple of weeks without anyone finding me. Food on board, all mod cons. Enough to last me until the fuss has died down. Until the airport police have forgotten about me and I can get abroad.

  “On the dot of midnight, I’ll be standing in the boatyard with this bag.” Jasper leaned across and zipped it open. He pulled out a handful of notes. “See? It’s all here, waiting for you and Phil, every penny. You can drive me up river in one of those launches of yours, until we get to the narrowboat. Then you can let me climb on board and watch me disappear. No police, nobody else involved. You must promise total secrecy.”

  Jasper stood up. He took a menacing step towards Daniel.

  “Are you going to do that for me, Danny-boy? I’m sure I can depend on you as if you were my own dear honourable flesh and blood… Come on. You’re a bright enough penny for my collection. You know what’s what and who’s who. I’m sick to death of this faffing about and I’m running out of time. I want a straight answer and I want it now. Is it yes or no?”

  It’s Times Like These

  Jasper opened the back door for him and Daniel shot out.

  It wasn’t until he’d stumbled along the side of the allotments, across the Godstow Road and into the boatyard driveway, that he began to shake with fear – and with triumphant relief. The monster had let him go unharmed. Just like Dad’s accident, it could have been so much worse…

  For the second time that day, Daniel’s legs almost buckled beneath him. It was as if he’d kept all the rage and terror bottled up inside him until the moment of his release. Now he let them out. His breath came in short, sharp stabs. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Hot tears flooded his eyes.

  Angry with himself, he brushed the tears away. The last thing he wanted when he found Phil was to be crying like a baby.

  He slowed to a walk and tried to control his breathing. He glanced through the trees at The Riverside. The fire engines and the gawping crowd had gone but the area had been securely taped off. Three large vans stood in the car park. Men trudged in and out of the pub with pin-boards, making notes. The business of assessing the damage to the kitchen had obviously begun.

  There were no signs of Mum or Dad.

  Daniel tried to remember what had happened. Phil must have told them he’d go straight to school. They would have assumed he’d been there all day. He hoped the school had assumed he’d stayed at home. Joshua had probably sent him a hundred frantic texts.

  One of the peacocks screamed.

  The sound seared through Daniel’s mind, jolting him into action.

  He picked up speed. He ran down to the boathouses, praying that Phil would be there on his own…

  “You stink to high heaven,” Phil said, his face white with anxiety.

  “I can’t help it.” Daniel’s voice wobbled. He’d poured out the story as they stood together in the boatyard. “There must have been dog poo in the leaves Jasper threw all over me. It’s smeared all over my jeans.”

  “You’d better take them off. That set of clothes you left in the bathroom. I put them through the washing machine and the drier for you.” They walked towards Phil’s bungalow. “Your mobile’s safely on the kitchen table, together with your watch.”

  He gripped Daniel’s arm.

  “You know what we should do, don’t you, Dan? Ring the police. Tell them where Jasper is. Tell them exactly how he’s treated you. Fraud, deception, arson, kidnapping… We’ve got enough against him to launch a battleship—”

 
“No.” Daniel clenched his fists. “There’s something else you need to know. Jasper says he had an affair with Mum in London, before she met my dad. He says he might be my real father.”

  “God Almighty!” Phil sucked in his breath. “And you believe him?”

  “I can’t prove he’s talking rubbish, can I? Not without asking Mum. She’s probably still in a terrible state after the fire. I can hardly march up to her and ask… And I promised Jasper I’d help him get away. I know you’ll think this sounds crazy, but in a funny way I almost feel sorry for him.”

  Phil stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard… The man has plagued the life out of you for months, he tried to kill you in your bed—”

  “Yes, but I understand so many things about him now. His vendetta… It wasn’t against me personally. It was against anybody who’d taken over the house where he was born… The place he’d always thought of as his.”

  “That may explain his behaviour,” Phil said slowly. “It in no way excuses it.”

  “But I promised him, Phil. If I turn him in to the police now, he’s going to make our lives a misery.” Daniel shook with exhaustion. “Do you know anybody with a boat, who wouldn’t mind lending it out for a few days?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really want us to go along with Jasper’s plan.”

  “I want us to get him on that boat and watch him steer away. Then we’ve got him captive. Then we can ring the police and let them know where he is.”

  “And your conscience will be clear.”

  “Exactly.” They stood at the front door of the bungalow. “Please, Phil.”

  “And what about that dirty money?”

  “We can pretend to accept it… Then, when Jasper’s safely on board his narrowboat, I’ll throw it back at him. That way, if I haven’t accepted his bribe, I’m free to do what I want. There’ll be nothing to stop me going to the police.”