by Matt Whyman
‘What do I have to do to make a simple friend?’ he asked out loud, before sighing long and hard.
It was another beautiful day outside. With his window open, Ivan could hear cruisers out on the waterway and the chatter of sparrows in the trees. Sunshine slanted onto the floor tiles, creating a square of light in the gloom. Ivan wasn’t looking directly, but when something hurried across it he snapped upright in surprise.
‘Hey,’ he said aloud, and eased off the bed for a better look. At first he thought it was a cockroach, which prompted him to decide its days were numbered, only to spy the swish of a tail. Slowly, the boy dropped to his hands and knees. ‘Don’t be scared. Let me see you.’
Ivan held out his hand and stayed quite still. Then, from out of the shadows under his desk, a tiny whiskery snout emerged. When two black beady eyes caught the light, he knew exactly what he was facing.
‘Tinky Dinks!’ he declared under his breath. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding all along!’
The boy hadn’t lied when he said he’d played no part in the gerbil’s disappearance. Yes, he had opened up Kat’s wardrobe, searching for the source of the scrabbling. OK, so they’d gone to some lengths to hide it from him with the shoeboxes, but he’d had better things to do than pull it limb from limb. At the time, Ivan had bunked off school in order to plot how to get back at the three boys making his life a misery, and that’s exactly what he’d done. If anyone had left the cage open, Katya would’ve done so later that day, but nobody ever had a bad word to say about her.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, as the gerbil crept closer. Slowly, he got down on his knees. ‘You can trust me to take care of you.’
Ivan glanced at his bedroom door as a thought entered his mind. As far as Kat’s pre-school was concerned, she had returned Tinky Dinks from his weekend away. It would only complicate matters, he decided, if he produced the original. No doubt his mother would think he’d stashed the creature away as a means of tormenting his kid sister, which would only earn him more trouble.
‘That’s it. Come to Ivan,’ he whispered, before carefully shooting out both hands to catch Tinky Dinks before he could turn. ‘Oh, my pretty,’ he said, and created a gap between his thumbs for a peep at the captive creature. ‘What fun you’ll have with me!’
Titus Savage had spent his morning viewing apartments in a new condominium complex. He’d gone with a view to putting in an offer on one, hoping to build up his property business, and left feeling as empty as the rooms he had inspected. What made things worse was the number of mirrors that had been fitted. There had just been no escaping from himself and the extra pounds he’d started packing.
All in all it had been a low moment, and yet Titus decided to park his mood on pulling up outside the villa. Unlike Lev and Kiril, he didn’t feel the need to share his problems.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Angelica, before Titus had even closed the front door behind him. She was at the breakfast bar with Amanda, who looked equally rattled. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you!’
Titus checked his cell phone. He’d missed four calls from his wife, which was down to the fact that he’d set it to mute before viewing the apartment and then forgotten to restore the volume.
‘Did anyone else contact you?’ asked Amanda.
‘Nobody.’ Titus looked up from the screen. ‘What’s the emergency?’
It was unusual for him to see his wife this unsettled. In all the years of their marriage, she had always maintained calm in the face of a crisis. That time when he had delivered a body for a feast and the damn thing had started to twitch and groan? Angelica had simply tutted and reached for the meat cleaver without hesitation.
‘Titus,’ she said, and slipped from the stool to take a step towards him. ‘Who is Nikolai Zolotov?’
Blinking once on hearing the name, Titus took a moment to compose a response.
‘Has he left a message for me?’ he asked quietly.
‘You could say that.’ Amanda held her phone out accusingly. ‘Whoever this whack job is, he plans to make a meal of our entrails.’
‘Starting with your youngest daughter,’ said Angelica, sounding fragile all of a sudden.
‘And then working his way up through the family, including me, and finishing with you.’ Amanda glared accusingly at Titus. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke? I’m thinking it can’t be a genuine threat, because entrails are only good for a stock.’
Titus drew breath to deny all knowledge, only to let the air from his lungs in a long sigh.
‘I didn’t tell you because I saw no reason to be concerned,’ he said eventually. ‘This changes the situation a little.’
‘A little?’ Angelica invited her husband to sit with them at the breakfast bar. ‘We don’t keep secrets in this house, Titus.’
‘We are the secret,’ Amanda added.
‘So,’ Angelica continued. ‘This man … ’
Even as he shared what he knew, Titus was at pains to stress that they shouldn’t feel under direct threat. He’d said exactly the same thing to Lev and Kiril when they’d summoned him to the clubhouse. Nikolai Zolotov, the money launderer whose bar Titus had shut down, was ranting at them from way out in Russia. OK, so the man had tracked down their contact details, but that was very different from doing the same thing in person. It was all sound and fury. They should just ignore it, he told them. Block the number and get on with their lives.
Angelica and Amanda listened closely to what Titus had to say. Even before he had finished, however, it was quite clear that he hadn’t come close to making them feel comfortable.
‘Believe me,’ he said, as if to take responsibility for the situation, ‘had I known the Crankbait was a front for a criminal’s business interests, I would’ve acted a little differently. The last thing we need in our lives is trouble.’
Titus didn’t need to remind them why the family always maintained a low profile, but it was enough to prompt Angelica to press him further about the nature of the threats.
‘He was very specific about wanting to eat your family alive,’ she pointed out. ‘Is he, you know, like us?’
‘No,’ said Titus quickly, and held up his palms to back it up. ‘Far from it!’
‘But he claims to devour people,’ said Amanda. ‘That makes him a cannibal in my book.’
That word. It wasn’t something Titus ever liked to hear out loud. In his view, it described the kind of animal under discussion, not the resurrection and refinement of ancient dining habits that his family had come to pursue over the years.
‘We celebrate life through feasts,’ he told them. ‘This man turns on his own to strike fear into his enemies.’
‘Well, it’s worked,’ said Angelica. ‘He threatened my babies.’
‘And it sounded to me like he meant every word,’ Amanda pointed out. ‘He’s coming for us.’
‘We should call the cops.’ Angelica tapped the table as she said this. ‘Tell them everything we know.’
‘Out of the question,’ growled Titus. ‘Involving the law at any level could cause us all manner of difficulties. We’re above that, Angelica. I can handle this.’
In a bid to escape her glare, Titus turned his attention from his wife to the kitchen window. Beyond the lawn and the jetty, which had warped a little in the heat, sunlight turned every ripple on the inlet into glitter. Jupiter was a paradise. Nikolai Zolotov sounded like hell on earth. Even if it was just a madman howling from the wilderness, his calls had cast a shadow of uncertainty and unease over the Savage home.
‘You have to do something,’ he heard Angelica say. ‘We can’t just hope he’ll go away.’
A rowing boat caught Titus’s attention just then, with a single oarsman at the helm. He was moving against the current, making slow but steady progress. Watching the man throw himself into the crossing, Titus considered his position.
‘Let’s put everything we have into this challenge,’ he told them, thinking out loud. ‘It was me who shut down the sal
oon bar, and got us into this. I say we reopen the doors.’
‘Really?’ Amanda sounded shocked, drawing Titus from the window. ‘With the same … entertainment as before?’
‘I can’t believe you took on a job like that,’ Angelica muttered at her. ‘Not that I condone the way Titus reacted when he discovered what the work involved.’
‘I’m proposing a very different business plan,’ Titus continued, rising to his feet now. All of a sudden, what he had in mind stirred a feeling in him that he had lost sight of some time ago. It was a drive to succeed, just like that oarsman out on the water. Reaching for his phone, the volume enabled this time, he punched in a number and prepared to update his two friends. Angelica, meanwhile, simply stared at her husband in utter surprise. As he waited for the call to connect, Titus Savage covered the mouthpiece and said: ‘Consider the place to be under new management.’
18
As a soldier during the siege of Leningrad, Oleg Savage slept with one eye open. At least, that’s what he told his grandchildren, on account of the rumour that some desperate souls were turning on their own kind for sustenance. Yes, Oleg was among that small band that had crossed the line, but still he couldn’t afford to drop his guard. After the war, so he said, he made up for such vigilance by sleeping very deeply indeed. As he grew older and his hearing diminished, he found it even easier to slumber through until morning without being disturbed.
It meant Oleg didn’t stir that night at the sound of the ambulance siren approaching the nursing home. Nor was he roused by the red and blue lights that flashed across the wall of his room for several minutes.
Waking naturally at nine, as was his habit, Oleg rose feeling refreshed and ready for breakfast with Priscilla on the lawn. While the other residents of the Fallen Pine preferred to eat indoors before gathering dust in the sunroom, Oleg was pleased to find a companion who still had such hunger for life. His first real kiss with her had only happened recently. It had also gone much further than he could’ve imagined. They’d been out on the porch, enjoying the sunshine, and without word the magnetic attraction between the couple just drew them together. Quite simply, the years fell away for them both. It was a close, fumbling encounter like neither of them had experienced for decades, and proved to be both exhilarating and exhausting.
It also meant that when Oleg left his room he did so whistling contentedly to himself.
With his stick in hand, he made his way to the terrace. Priscilla was an early riser, so it was unusual for him not to see her waiting there. As he shuffled towards his chair, the creak of the conservatory door behind him prompted him to turn. On finding his nurse, Vince, standing with his hands clasped and a pensive, awkward look on his face, Oleg lost his appetite in a heartbeat.
‘I’m afraid she won’t be joining you this morning,’ he said solemnly.
‘Has she … moved on?’ asked Oleg, feeling weak and dizzy all of a sudden. The old man was used to learning that residents had passed away, but this was sounding like news that threatened to overwhelm him. Not only did Oleg fear that their moment of passion on the porch might’ve killed Priscilla, but he couldn’t begin to imagine what the remains of his life without her would be like.
‘Easy there.’ Vince responded by hurrying to his assistance. He was a broad-shouldered individual and easily supported Oleg with one hand under his arm. ‘Priscilla’s at the medical centre, under observation. She had a moment, and no doubt there’ll be more, but for now she’s stable.’
Oleg peered up at the big man, looking like a small boy in the care of his father.
‘Will she be home?’
‘Oh, you know Priscilla. She’s a fighter.’ Vince sounded brighter than was natural for the guy. ‘And no doubt you’ll be spoiling her when she returns, eh?’
Oleg extended his gaze to the empty chairs and the table. He nodded to himself, seemingly transported for a moment.
‘A feast,’ he said to himself with a note of frustration, as if this was something that couldn’t happen soon enough.
‘Sounds good,’ said Vince, and chuckled at the old man as he blinked back to his senses. ‘Want me to order in supplies? Bagels? Donuts? You name it, buddy.’
‘I’ve got it covered,’ Oleg told him, and moved to stand without help. ‘My family know what I like on my plate.’
Even by his standards, Ivan Savage had endured a miserable morning at school. With football practice that afternoon, he had shown up with his kit bag and every intention of taking part. Bryce, Chad and Ryan had spotted him at his locker, and that’s when the trouble began. Now, every time the teacher turned to the whiteboard, someone would flick stuff at him, but Ivan had become immune to that. It was the threats he couldn’t ignore, passed to him on strips of paper.
Despite the promise that he would suffer real pain if he dared to show his face on the pitch, Ivan couldn’t resist a small smile. Just before lunch break, he even dared to return the messages with the spelling mistakes and grammar corrected in red biro.
‘Are you asking to be slaughtered?’ growled Bryce, after the bell had sounded. Ivan hadn’t even left his chair before the kid came across and pinned him to it. He could smell onion rings on Bryce’s breath, which made him wonder what his mother fed him to start the day. ‘I swear to God, new girl, if I see you on the field, I will finish you!’
‘Unless I get there first.’ Ryan slapped the back of Ivan’s head as he passed, while Chad chose to kick the chair from underneath him.
‘Steer clear, you hear?’ Bryce jabbed a finger at the boy on the floor, the creases on his forehead perfectly aligned with the front of his buzz cut. ‘Stay out of the way or pay the price!’
Throughout, Ivan remained quite calm. He looked on, as the three boys headed for the corridor, with no sign of distress whatsoever. Alone in the classroom, with everyone else on their way to lunch, he picked himself up along with his chair and sat down again. He only had to consider his plan for payback to feel tranquil. For in the right time and place, the boy would have something to offer them that they could not resist. Food, Ivan had realised, would seal their fate.
Until then, he reminded himself as he fished around in his school bag, he could call upon his first true friend. Crystal was a nice girl, but a little too tactile, and also in a different form to him. Ivan had someone in mind who could be with him every minute of the day, even through the tough times.
‘Easy now, Tinky Dinks. Out you come.’ At moments such as this, when Ivan felt the need for company, he could console himself with the little gerbil he then lifted onto his lap. He stroked the creature from head to tail a couple of times, sensing the delicate bones just beneath its skin. As he did so, the boy remained oblivious to the chatter and shrieks of the pupils out in the corridor. It felt good, if only briefly, to escape from the school environment in this way. The moment also served to highlight just how alienated he had become at the hands of three individuals. ‘Oh, they’ll suffer,’ he said, as if Tinky Dinks himself had just asked him what he had planned. ‘They’ve picked on the boy who bites back.’
Ivan lifted the gerbil level with his face, observing the creature’s tiny nose twitch, and then cupped it with both hands in his lap. Bryce, Ryan and Chad would live to regret the day they singled him out. Even if they welcomed him to training with open arms, it was too late for forgiveness. They would soon know who they had been messing with, he assured himself, feeling tense all of a sudden, and then the tears would fall.
‘Ivan … Ivan!’
It wasn’t just the sound of Crystal’s voice from the classroom door that stirred him, but the squeak of alarm from Tinky Dinks as the space between the boy’s palms constricted.
‘You probably shouldn’t be seen with me,’ he told her, hurriedly returning the gerbil to the bag before it came into her line of sight.
‘I know,’ said Crystal. ‘You’re social Kryptonite.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Ivan looked across
the classroom at her, just as she broke into a smile. Crystal was wearing an emerald headband. Her hair still sprung out wildly at the back, however. From where the boy was sitting, she could’ve been illuminated by a ginger halo.
‘I like your hair,’ he heard himself saying. ‘It’s like … like a stained-glass window.’
Ivan stopped himself as Crystal’s expression, hovered somewhere between outright offence and amusement.
‘It’s gone a little crazy today,’ she said next, and dismissed his comment with a shake of her head. ‘Anyway, are you coming for lunch?’
‘Thanks, but we’re good.’
‘We?’ Crystal looked around, which brought Ivan upright in his chair. ‘Is that you and your imaginary friend?’
‘Something like that,’ he replied, well aware that the folds of his bag were pulsing from time to time.
Crystal caught his eye. It was beginning to dawn on him that she really hadn’t been made to show an interest in him as a dare. In a way, this made Ivan feel even more uncomfortable.
‘OK, suit yourself,’ she said with a shrug, ‘but maybe I’ll catch up with you when school’s out? I promised Grandma I’d help her repaint the porch, but I’m sure she won’t mind if I’m a little late. We could walk home together again?’
‘It’s football practice this afternoon,’ said Ivan, a little too abruptly for his liking.
Crystal’s smile seemed to freeze at this.
‘Is that wise?’ she asked. ‘I mean, is it safe?’
‘Oh, I’ll survive.’ Ivan pushed the bag under his desk with one foot. ‘It’s the others who need to watch out for me.’