“It’s me.”
Damn. He’d forgotten that his nephew was coming round this evening. He’d forgotten to get his favourite biscuits in. Never mind, he must have something suitable in his kitchen for a nearly fifteen-year-old boy, and his nephew could help him choose his next insect. He liked that.
“Come up, Danny.”
He smiles. His insect collection would soon have a new addition.
CHAPTER 19
ATHLETICS
SATURDAY morning. Almost the end of September and an autumn chill in the air. Athletics club – training, not a competition this week. Thursday and Friday were best forgotten, thought Cat. On the other hand, Marcus seemed to have got rid of the virus. Without her parents discovering that she’d been on Phiz. She’d found the disks that Ailsa had mentioned and had put them back without problem.
What Marcus did to her laptop had involved her losing all the documents. He had taken it back to this thing he and Ailsa had called “factory settings”. Bit like having a new machine, they said. Except that I lose everything on it, she had replied, grimly.
Not that she wasn’t grateful. She was extremely grateful, and told them so. With the virus gone, she could make a fresh start. And yes, she’d lost a few bits of work, but she could do them again. All her photos were on Phiz and her music on her iPod, so that hadn’t been a problem. And she had her older files on the one back-up disk she’d done after that warning at the start of the year.
So a couple of rows and mild punishments for mislaid work. She’d live. Punishments were nothing more than an irritation. No one died.
She’d been back on Phiz and found her pages. Everything was fine. No spiders. No one watching her. And she wasn’t worried about that any more; because she wouldn’t be so stupid next time.
Things were looking up. She hadn’t particularly wanted to come to training today, but she had. Too difficult to get out of, and since Ailsa was playing in a hockey match and Bethan was baby-sitting for her sister, her friends weren’t going to be doing anything without her so she wasn’t so bothered.
She decided to run well, please her coach. Here he was now, coming towards her. She finished tightening the laces of her running shoes. Stood up and smiled at him.
Ex-army, he was. And you could kind of tell: something about the bullet-head, the steel eyes, the muscles like iron. A voice that could fire across the stadium with ease. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of him.
“Catriona, hope you’re ready to put major effort in today? Get those personal bests upped, eh? We need some times to qualify for the next competition.”
“Yes, Mr T.” she replied.
“Now, I have a whole new training plan to get you started on. You were rubbish the other week. Not even trying, young lady. You need to be pushed to the next level. So I want to work on some specific muscle groups, get you in the gym for an extra hour maybe, and also get some nutritional changes. Your swimming coach wants to up the ante too: build some more muscle…”
“But I don’t have time for more training.” Her heart sank. And she had quite enough muscle already, as far as she was concerned. She didn’t want to be some hulking giantess, and that was the trouble with too much swimming.
“Hold on – I’m not talking about more time, not yet. Don’t want to overdo it at your age. No, I mean an hour in the gym instead of part of your Saturday training. It’ll be worth it, I promise. You’re worth it, Catriona McPherson. You could be the best, you know – and I’ve said that before but maybe it needs to be said again. You could be one of Scotland’s stars. If you tried. Really tried.”
She used to like it when her coach talked like this. Dreams of distant glory had tasted good. In some ways they still did, but they were definitely losing their sweetness.
On the track, she joined the others in their warm-up activities. She didn’t chat to them much. It wasn’t easy to. There was an atmosphere. She was the club star, and there was a tinge of jealousy in their attitudes to her. When the coach singled her out, as he so often did, she could feel the others closing in and shutting her out. She hadn’t minded much before: these weren’t her friends.
Not being friends with them had made her perform better. It gave her an edge. If they had been friends she might have sometimes held herself back to let them feel better. Probably her coach knew this. She wouldn’t be surprised if he even cultivated the edginess between them.
The next half hour passed with Cat focusing on doing exactly what she was told. Praise came often. “Good stuff, Catriona!” he said at the end of each task he chose to set her. Whatever her doubts, as soon as she actually started running, and winning, she revelled in the power and strength it gave her.
Then something happened to throw her concentration away. She was halfway round the track, practising a race strategy for the 1500 metres. She was trying to follow the coach’s instructions to the letter, despite the fact that she really wanted to run flat out and lead the field the whole way round.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure watching. From the stand, about halfway up. A man, in a heavy coat against the cold. For one strange small moment she was reminded of a film she’d once seen about some Russian spy: he’d stood just like that, in this heavy black coat, collar turned up, binoculars in his hands. People weren’t meant to be able to watch training sessions, not without permission, though if someone was using the squash court or something then they could pretty easily find their way to the trackside without being questioned.
Then the man took the binoculars down and pulled a notebook from his pocket. At that point, she realized she’d seen him before. He was the man who’d been watching her at the biathlon competition. She was sure, even at a distance. There was something about his coat and the way he stood.
He lifted the binoculars back to his face.
The coach was striding towards him.
CHAPTER 20
CHIPS
SHE ran faster round the track, ignoring the intended strategy. If he was a rival coach watching her, she would make sure she ran as impressively as possible. Not that she wanted to move to another club, of course, but if she was being watched, she wanted to shine. Purely for the feeling. She passed all the other runners. She was not supposed to be passing them yet, but since the coach wasn’t watching it hardly mattered. As long as she looked like a winner to whoever was watching.
The coach was running up the steps. In a few moments, she would have gone round the bend in the track and would no longer be able to see them well. Cat ran faster, now leaving everyone behind. But the man had slipped away.
She ran towards the finishing line, easily beating everyone else. But her coach had barely noticed. He came hurrying towards her now, down the steps. The man had disappeared.
“Who was that?” she asked as her coach came up to her.
“Well run, everyone,” he said, tersely. “Catriona, good, good.” He obviously hadn’t been looking because she knew she hadn’t followed instructions.
“But who was it? I think I’ve seen him before. Maybe.”
“Where?”
“At the competition the other week. There was a man watching then. I think it was the same one – same kind of coat anyway.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
The others looked at her, at each other, at their coach. What was going on?
“I don’t know. I forgot. I didn’t think it was important. Who is he?”
“If you see him again, let me know.”
One of the girls spoke. “Is he a pervert or something?”
“Don’t be silly, Tessa!”
“How do you know he’s not?” asked one of the boys.
“He’s probably working for a rival club.” He looked at Cat. As though he was about to say something else. But he turned away.
“Right, you lot, round the track again. Connor, Liam, Max, Tessa, get to the blocks and practise sprint starts. Catriona, Rory – to the gym with me. The rest of you, carry on
with your programme.”
Cat looked back at the stands as she walked towards the gym. The man was still nowhere to be seen.
For the rest of the session, Cat could do nothing wrong. Mr Turner seemed to lavish praise upon her, stayed close to her, gave her all the attention any potential star might need. Well, that was fine. No complaints. And the nutritional stuff – she didn’t much like the sound of extra egg white, and she would certainly ignore anything about wholemeal pasta because everyone knew that wholemeal pasta was disgusting, but otherwise it was mostly about eating more of certain things rather than less, and she liked vegetables and fruit anyway, so that was OK. And he didn’t say anything about not eating chocolate.
As she left the changing-rooms, ready to get the bus home, Mr Turner was there.
“Everything OK, Catriona?” A small frown darkened his forehead.
“Yes, fine, thanks. It was good.” Which was true. She felt good. She made as though to go towards the bus stop.
“Getting there, definitely getting there. Don’t want to push it too hard though. Not yet. Plenty of time for that. Listen, that man, the one who was watching.”
“What?”
“Well, just keep an eye out, OK? I mean, don’t speak to him or anything. If he speaks to you, you know the score: don’t get into conversation. And tell me.”
“Do you think he’s from another club?”
“Probably. Or not, I can’t be sure. You know there are dodgy people around, whatever I said earlier. You should mention it to your parents and I’ll bring it up with the management committee here on Monday. Just to be on the safe side. Procedures and all that. And I’ll get the staff to be more vigilant about people coming to the trackside. But my guess is I already scared him off today, whoever he is. So all I’m saying is keep your eyes open.”
“Yeah, OK.”
“And if he’s from a rival club and if he poaches you, I’ll kill him and gouge his eyes out! Followed shortly after by you. After I’ve dropped you in boiling lead. Got that?”
“Yes, Coach!”
And she went home on the bus, spirits higher. She wasn’t bothered by Mr Turner’s fears about her being watched by a rival coach. She was flattered. Sport was a kind of performance and performers need an audience.
She wouldn’t mention the man to her parents. No point. They’d only worry. And what was there to worry about? And if she did mention it, they couldn’t do anything. Except accompany her everywhere. Great.
Definitely best leave it. The rival coach could look all he wanted. Anyway, she had plans, didn’t she? And rivalry between clubs didn’t feature in them.
Cat got off the bus at her usual stop and began to walk the few hundred yards home. The sun had come out and a strong breeze was washing the clouds away. Passing the chippy, she had a sudden urge for chips. She went in.
“Chips, please. With salt.” Training plans and nutritional regimes were all very well, but normal people like chips.
As she waited, mouth watering at the smell, she looked out of the window. A Blooms van was passing, a woman driving it. Cat cringed at the memory of that huge and horrible spider. She still didn’t know who’d sent the flowers. Probably never would.
CHAPTER 21
THE INSECT MAN
THREE weeks have passed since that terrible day in the school science laboratory. It is October now, the light shrinking, sun sinking. The shadows venture further every day, creeping over the city. Professor Bryden has, as expected, lost his job. To be accurate, he has left his job voluntarily. He has simply not returned. Why would he? To be spoken to patronizingly by someone less than half his age, who would no doubt have told him, again, just why his behaviour at the school had been so “inappropriate”? No. No, thank you.
The professor wipes his eyes. The air is cold against his skin, a sudden frost in the air. Leaves are curling and dropping from the trees in the hospital grounds, he notices, though he doesn’t care much. He has never liked this time of year. Things coming to an end, insects entering a dead phase. In the old days, he had used this time to go to warmer countries, on research expeditions with his wife. But they were the very old days and now he is elderly and he can do nothing like that now. He is not old, not really, but he feels it. Suddenly.
His mind is numbed. That will be the pills working away in his brain, softening it. Changing him. The doctor had been confident, the doctor who’d prescribed them. She’d said the pills would take a while but that they would help.
He does feel numb. He has almost lost his anger. Almost. Still it rises in his throat sometimes, especially when he thinks of that silly girl.
He’s seen her once since that day. He was on his bike when he saw her walking along the street with a couple of her school friends and going into her house.
She’ll have forgotten him by now. Does she know what has happened to him? Will the silly girl understand or care? What does she know about worry, with her easy family and house with its glossy black door and probably a cleaner to polish the brass letterbox?
At first, he’d thought of trying to teach her a lesson. Somehow. And he’d even had some ideas. Then he’d become ill. Quite suddenly. It had started in the bus queue when he’d seen (though he accepts now that it was not really there) a rare beetle climbing through the blue hair of the woman in front of him. And for the rest of that day he’d kept seeing interesting specimens in unlikely places, until he’d seen an exceptionally beautiful example of a Mesotopus tarandus in Waitrose, its shiny black shell quite the glossiest of any stag beetle he’d ever met. But he doesn’t want to think about that. It had been very embarrassing. A doctor had been called … but, no, he will not think about this again. It was a temporary loss of control, caused by panic.
Anyway, now he cares less about teaching the silly girl a lesson. Is that the pills, taking the edge off his anger? In that case, he’d rather not take the pills. He’d rather feel his anger in the raw. Because at least anger is real, not this fluffy soft nothingness, this feeling of being wrapped in bedclothes while the world spins by without him.
On the other hand, is he really angry with her now? Could he perhaps forgive her? He almost smiles at that. But smiling is somewhat beyond him now. It’s the pills. They take away anger and they take away smiling.
He walks through the hospital grounds, towards the low building where the consulting room waits. He hesitates before walking up the ramp to the door. There is the geranium on the reception windowsill. He’d seen a beautiful caterpillar on it when he’d been there before, but he had not told the doctor woman that, in case she either moved it or told him it wasn’t really there. There is the non-smoking sign. There through the frosted glass is the fuzzy shape of the grey-haired receptionist, a woman who annoys him quite considerably. The way she looks at him with a gentle pity and makes cheery conversation for which he has no appetite at all.
He really doesn’t want to go in. This numb feeling is all very well. But he does not see the point of it. He still sees insects where logically he knows they could not be. But why should that bother anyone? He likes insects, after all, so it is not a problem. Seeing insects should not be treated as a symptom of illness. It doesn’t harm anyone and he enjoys it. He would be fine if people would leave him alone. He could control himself in Waitrose, he knows. He would not make a habit of frightening customers and embarrassing himself.
But he would like to be allowed to feel.
There, for example, just sitting on his shoe, its extraordinarily long antennae drifting lazily on a breeze, is a golden leaf-rolling cricket. And there – look! – on his hand as he holds it out and brings it close to his face, is a black and white damselfly, Megaloprepus coerulatus. He gazes at it, turning his hand this way and that to see every facet of its impossible beauty.
No, he does not want to lose this. And maybe soon the pills will take this away as well. Not his anger but his reason for being. His insects.
He looks at his watch. Looks at the receptionist’s fuzzy he
ad one more time and turns on his heel. Walks quickly away, though not towards his home. He has something to do. He has made a decision.
As he walks off, he stops one more time. Well, he has to. Because in his haste to act on his new decision, he almost steps on an insect. It is walking across the pavement in front of him, towards the road. Now it begins to cross the road, away from him. Brown, speckly, short legs, short antennae, long body. He stops to watch, his mind taking in only its shape and beauty.
An engine. Car. Fast. Too fast.
He darts into the road and scoops the insect out of the way, holding it against his body, shaking his fist at the car as it speeds by bellowing its horn.
He is glad, of course, to have saved this insect. Small as it is, though not defenceless. The most successful animals on earth, as the museum had used to say. His museum.
He puts the insect gently in his pocket before going on his way. First, though, he murmurs its name. He always finds the names of insects to be calming, more calming than any pill that the doctor could have prescribed to him.
“Xestobium rufovillosum.” The deathwatch beetle. For one of two reasons: because it taps during the silent watch over a dying person or because it is able to predict death. We believe what we wish, he muses to himself.
CHAPTER 22
LOSING CONTROL
JUST after five weeks since the terrible day in the science lab, and Cat’s life had settled into normality. And the Danny thing seemed to have faded. Not that she was speaking to him, just that their paths had crossed less. He’d missed fencing this week and had been off school for a few days with some illness. Presumably.
It was towards the end of October, after the holiday week, and the air was sometimes crisp and bright, the ground scrunchy with frost-rimmed leaves, and sometimes dank, sodden, with wet mist clogging the air. Training continued whatever the weather – it just went indoors if necessary. But leaving the house in the damp dark to go swimming was harder than usual and she steeled herself to do it every time, especially during the holiday when half her friends were in sunny places and the rest were sleeping late in the mornings. That Tuesday, she’d pleaded a headache and her mum had let her miss the evening swimming session. She’d stayed cosy in her room and messed around on the internet. Feeling guilty. But mostly cosy.
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