by Chris Hawley
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE STONE BENCH
It was Monday morning and Dad had just left for work. For Mum it was washing day, ‘come rain or come shine,’ as the song goes. No matter what the weather, to my mother, Monday was the day one washed one’s clothes, and that was all there was to it.
I was just about to get ready to go to the library when my mobile phone rang. I clicked the green button. The number was not one in my directory.
’Hello!’ I said.
‘Meet me at the stone bench opposite Barclays Bank at 10 o’clock sharp. Come alone. Is it clear?’ It was a man’s voice.
‘Who are you?’
‘Never mind who I am, just come, that’s all.’ The phone went dead as he disconnected.
‘Who the hell….!’ I looked at the phone and noted the number. I saved it under the name ‘anonymous caller,’ Then I decided I’d got the word wrong and I changed it. I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to figure it out. I didn’t much like the sound of his voice. Should I go or just ignore it? It sounded like something important. If I didn’t go, would he do something to me? At least if I went, I would know what it was about and I could decide what to do. There was nothing much he could do to me in the middle of the town. I decided to go. I looked at my mobile clock. It was just 9.30. It would take me ten minutes to get there.
I couldn’t sit still, I was too nervous. I paced up and down the room, trying to work out who the mystery caller could be and what he wanted from me. I went to the cupboard drawer where I kept the bubble. It was there. It gave me some comfort to know that I could take it out, inflate it and be with Michu in no time at all. I closed the drawer and in doing so, my eye saw something odd. The clothes that normally sat neatly in a pile on the shelf were all in a messy heap. At first I couldn’t see anything missing and then it hit me like a blow from a sledge hammer. My Martian tunic had gone! I searched the heap and then the other places where I may have put it, but it was nowhere to be seen. I called my mum and she came to look but the tunic had gone. Who could have taken it?
With these thoughts crowding my mind, I set off for my meeting with the anonymous caller.
It was cloudy and windy, one of those August days that normally coincide with the bank holiday weekend. I zipped up my windcheater and walked quickly into the centre of the town. Gusts of wind blew pieces of paper in circles like miniature hurricanes. The scene was like any other Monday morning, the shops preparing for a busy week, not that August was their best month of the year, with many people taking their holidays by the sea. I passed Marks & Spenser’s and some girls setting up a window display waved to me. I lifted my hand in a half-hearted attempt at politeness. I had other things on my mind. Little did they know what I was going through. How could they?
The 15th Century stone courthouse stood in the centre of the market place. I passed between its columns and crossed the road. The clock above Barclays Bank told me I was five minutes late for my appointment. I crossed the street in the direction of the stone bench where I was to meet the stranger. As I drew near I could see a middle aged man in a raincoat sitting on the bench looking in my direction. He was a large man, with a big belly protruding from the open coat. He had longish brown hair which he had attempted to comb over the bald patch on top of his head. The wind tugged gaily at the hair. He held a mobile phone in his other hand. He straightened up as I came near to him and tried to smooth his hair back across his head. He gave me a stern look to let me know this was a serious business.
I came near the bench and as I did so he raised the phone and took my photograph. I stood in front of him expectantly.
‘Sit down Bill,’ he said in a gruff voice.
I sat beside him and waited for him to speak. How did he know my name? I looked across and saw a neighbour of ours go into the bank through the revolving door. Each of us has our own little slices of life, I thought.
‘I’ll get straight to the point, Bill. Do you want to be rich?’
It was the last question I could have expected.
‘Well, I suppose everyone could do with some extra cash.’ It was the first thing that came into my head and I was ashamed of saying it.
‘Of course they could! And you and me could be filthy rich, just like that,’ and he clicked his fingers. A thin smile crossed his lips.
I was trying to work out how I was going to become rich in partnership with this scruffy, middle aged man.
‘Information, Bill, information!’ he licked his lips and ran his hand through his long hair. ‘In this modern world information is money and the more valuable the information is, the more it is worth and the more it is worth the richer we get.’
‘What information? Why do you talk in riddles?’
‘I will tell you. You are in possession of information that could make us both rich if we play our cards right, Get me?’
‘No idea what you’re talking about! Why don’t you leave me alone?’
‘Because, Bill, you want to be rich as much as I do, that’s why.’
‘Money is not everything,’ I said.
‘I agree with you there, but what money can buy is everything, nice big house, flashy car to run the girlfriend around in, holidays in Greece just soaking up the sun and sipping cocktails, following the team to the European Cup and so on.’
I was disgusted at the way in which he idolised all the material things in life.. But what information was he talking about? Then I began to see where he was leading and I didn’t like it one bit. The neighbour came out of the bank and crossed the road. As she passed the stone bench, she gave a nod and a smile and went into the newsagent’s.
The man was speaking again. ‘One of the hottest questions of modern times is……. what?’ He paused and turned sideways to face me. He looked straight at me with his brown eyes and I looked away.
‘I’ll tell you, Bill, the question that everyone wants to know. The one who has the answer to the question will be rich and famous overnight. Do you want to know?’
‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,’ I said, but I knew exactly what the question was.
‘Is there extraterrestrial life!? That’s the question everyone is asking, Bill.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ I asked hopelessly.
‘Everything, Bill, everything!’
‘Look, I don’t know why you asked me to come here but I have many things to do. I can’t waste my time here.’ I was getting very frustrated.
‘I am an ambitious man, but here I am, stuck here in this God-forsaken hole of a place, working my guts out for a second-class local rag, with no chance of promotion. I want to hit the big time, work for The Times for a bit, make my name and then retire in luxury. Not a bad dream, Bill, is it?’
This story rings a bell in my head, I thought. But he was speaking again.
‘I know things about you that you don’t know I know.’
More riddles.
‘What d’you know about me, then?’
‘Shall I tell you?’
I wished he would get on with it and I could go off to the library and get some peace.
‘Sonia has told me about you.’ I stiffened and I turned to him.
‘Sonia?’ The penny dropped. ‘Of course, you are her father, aren’t you? The rat! She’s told you about me.’ I was angry. ‘But its all lies! It’s all nonsense!’
‘Is it Bill? Are you sure?’
‘Look Mr……Mr.’
‘Smith, Albert Smith.’
‘Look Mr. Smith, it’s all a game, entertainment for the holidays.’
He smiled a wicked smile and straightened up, passing his hand across his head.
‘Don’t kid me, Bill.’
‘So what did the rat tell you about me?’
‘Sonia? Hey, that’s my daughter you’re talking about.’
‘What did she tell you,’ I repeated, more loudly this time.
‘You’ll know soon enough. The point is, even if you don’t want to be rich, I do.
I’m not getting any younger. My wife left me last year for another man. I live now with my daughter and she means everything to me. I want her to have the best in life, not to waste her days in that pit of a library, humping dusty books around. She’s worth more than that.’ He sounded bitter at the way life had treated him. At that moment I felt pity for the man, as much as he disgusted me.
‘You see, Bill? I need a break and this is going to be it. I can’t let it go: I may never have another chance.’
‘I can’t help you. I told you it’s all a game.’
He reached into the left pocket of his grey, shabby trousers and pulled out a small object, which he held up in front of my face.
‘Flash drive, Bill. It contains some explosive material.’
I was puzzled. What could the flash drive contain?
‘Michu must be a prize girl, Bill.’
‘I was stunned! I was completely speechless! How could he know about Michu? It wasn’t possible. I never mentioned her name to Sonia.
‘You should never leave personal letters on your computer, Bill. Always turn it off and use a password. That way, people like me can’t read your love letters.’
I flushed red with anger.
‘But, how did you get into my room?’
‘On Friday, Sonia told me about you. She sounded as though she liked you. She said you had a passion for Mars and wanted to read as much as you could about it. She said you showed her the picture of your girlfriend and she thought she looked a bit odd, kind of ghostlike.’
‘So what? What does that mean?’ I said angrily.
‘Sonia said you wanted to take her to Mars. She actually believed you. Sonia has always been a dreamer.’
‘Just a joke!’
‘Well, I got thinking and I thought to myself, this sounds interesting. Of course I also like to know the boys my daughter makes friends with, so I followed you on your way home from the library on Saturday. I found out where you lived.’
‘Sneaky,’ I said to him.
‘Then on Saturday night Sonia told me you’d taken her to MacDonald’s for lunch with some friends. She said you behaved very strangely when the boys started to make fun of your ghostly girlfriend. It was then she told me she had this funny feeling the girl was from Mars.’
‘Nonsense, Michu is a normal girl.’
He held up the flash drive again. I went through in my mind the letter I had typed to Michu on Sunday morning. What had I said? I knew then that the man before me had information that directly linked me with Mars. I had said many things in that letter about my visit. But I could still deny it. I could still insist it was all a game. He was speaking again in that nasty, gruff voice.
‘The grey clothes could end up being just the proof I need, if my hunch turns out to be right. I suppose they belong to your Martian girl and she left them behind when she went back home.’ His mouth widened into a thin smile.
I stared at him in horror. ‘You stole my things! I’ll go straight to the police!’
‘I don’t think so, Bill,’
‘How did you get in?’
‘I was coming to that. I wanted to pay you a friendly visit on Sunday afternoon, you know, just to meet Sonia’s friend. Your mother answered the door. I introduced myself as a Mr. Tomlinson. I said I knew her husband and her son, Bill. She told me you were both out. That was the break I needed. I said I had some news about a relation of hers. She offered me some tea and while she went to the kitchen to make it, I nipped upstairs and had a quick look in your room. It was my lucky day. I never expected to strike it rich. A letter to your Martian girlfriend and a suit that I had a feeling was not made on this Earth. The only thing I didn’t find was the photograph. Where have you hidden it?’
‘You’re a crook and a thief!’ I cried.
‘No Bill, just smart. I’m a reporter and reporters need to be smart. Only the smart ones get the stories, isn’t that right? I’m telling you, I’m not cut out to slave for a two bit local newspaper that’s not good enough to wrap your fish and chips in,’ he said bitterly. ‘Anyway, back to the story, so I was just coming down the stairs when your mother came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of tea things. She went into the sitting room. I waited at the top of the stairs. She came out again and went back to the kitchen. I took the chance and slipped out of the front door.
I put my head in my hands. Mum never told me about it, probably because she felt foolish. It obviously never occurred to her that he might have gone upstairs to my room. She must have puzzled about his sudden disappearance.
‘Now Bill. The results of the forensic tests on the material will be ready tomorrow. I’ll give you till Wednesday to make up your mind, if you want to be rich with me or not. I am going for it and there’s nothing going to stop me. Understand?’
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.
‘That depends on you, my friend,’ he said, pronouncing the last word in an unfriendly way. He smiled again a sickly smile. ‘Do you want to see your letter to your girlfriend on the front page on Thursday morning? Think of the scandal!’ He grinned.
‘You can’t do that!’ I cried.
‘I told you, Bill. It depends on you. Wednesday, same time, same place. I’ll bring the results of the tests.’
I understood.
He got up and walked slowly up the High Street, without a backward glance, the tails of his raincoat flapping in the wind. I watched him for some time and then I went off in the other direction. I had no stomach for the library that day. I would not be responsible for my actions if I were to meet Sonia, the RAT!