He heard a laugh then, a deep, rumbling chuckle as his teammate, Braun, a big, burly eighteen-year-old, and the one who was of the impression that boys belonged with their mothers, stalked over the crest, so large that to Kiki’s eyes he actually blocked out the sun.
‘What are you doing?’ Braun asked, still laughing.
‘I … I don’t know what happened…’ Kiki moved his eyes from the gun to the smoking wreckage of the plane in the distance. ‘I didn’t do it!’
Braun laughed on, doubled over now, pointing a finger at the younger boy. And Kiki caught on, seeing the glint of triumph in the bigger boy’s eyes.
Kiki gasped, felt his skinny legs begin to shake beneath him. ‘You shot the plane down!’
And it made sense, Braun shot his man down because Kiki was that much of a threat. Or Braun was that much of a psychopath. Braun would do anything to prove that he was the bigger man, but shooting a plane down, their own, not an enemy plane, was the work of a monster.
Kiki’s body reacted before he even got his brain in gear. How many times in his life had he been laughed at and ridiculed by people bigger than him? Not just his father or his brother, but those at school, those who played football and wrestled in the corridors, and drank beer and foul-tasting spirits before they were even in their teens. It was them that he saw in his mind’s eye; the way they acted when they saw him sitting in the sunshine on a bench with his book; it was his brother, walking past him, smacking the book out of Kiki’s hands when Kiki was so engrossed in his novel he hadn’t even heard his brother’s heavy footfall. And it was his father in front of him now, and Kiki could see him, rolling his eyes, huffing out a barely concealed sigh of impatience, throwing Kiki a disappointed look at finding him scribbling yet another fable.
Fairy tales, his father called them. Fairy tales from a fairy.
Remembering that particular incident and his father’s description of him was all that Kiki needed for the red mist in his mind to explode into a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Righting the rocket launcher, he darted behind it, looked through the optical sight and saw Braun looming large in front of him. Kiki flicked the safety and squeezed the trigger properly; firmly this time and with meaning. At the roar of the gun Kiki let go and clapped his hands over his ears. He just had time to see the ragged red fulmination as Braun’s chest opened and he was lifted up, over and away, landing heavily yards away in the flattened scrubland.
Now who was the soldier?
Now his father would see him.
Now his father would take notice of him.
Up in the big manor house Graham was in his element. First he served his guests his best wine, one bought on his most recent visit to Italy. He wanted his guests to see what he had, materialistically, before he showed them his masterpiece. He wanted his guests, these officials from the museum, to understand that he knew the worth of everything, so they wouldn’t try to dupe him. So first he led them around his home, making sure they saw the original ‘Whistler’s Mother’ painting, and the authentic Cora Sun-Drop Diamond on display in his library, set off nicely by the four walls that were lined with first editions. He didn’t read the first editions; he wasn’t much of a reader at all. For him, the exterior was important, much more so than the content.
‘And your family, do they appreciate all of these…?’ the slightly snooty museum curator asked.
Graham faltered, felt the usual disappointment swim over him at her question. Did his family appreciate it? Hmm, well, his wife continually bemoaned the fact that he wouldn’t let her hire a cleaner, due to his fear that the priceless artefacts that adorned their home might be damaged. His youngest son had no regard for the antiques and valuables, preferring to stay out of the house and make up meaningless prose to act out in the vast gardens of the property. His oldest son was his only hope; if truth be told, he was Graham’s own Hope Diamond. There was a connection between Graham and his eldest child, a meeting of the minds that didn’t exist between him and his wife or his youngest boy. In Graham’s professional world, he got whatever he wanted and discarded what he didn’t. He applied the same principle to his home life too, which meant he rarely had any interaction with his youngest son. It made no difference; his youngest boy didn’t need anyone, as long as he had his goddamn books and bloody one-man plays.
‘Shall we move on to the pièce de résistance, then?’ Graham held his hand out, allowing his visitors to move down the stairs in front of him. ‘Now, the piece I’m about to show you, and that I want to go on display in the Imperial War Museum, is in full working—’
They halted in the lobby at the sound of the explosion, quizzically glanced at each other, hands shooting out to clutch the highly polished banister as the house rocked on its very foundations. Graham replayed it in his mind, the whole house had bloody moved!
‘W-what was that?’ The curator’s eyes were wild as she flicked her head from side to side and up to the ceiling before staring down at the floor, probably expecting it to open up and reveal a large chasm. ‘Was it an earthquake?’
Leaving his guests in the lobby, Graham ran through the house, out of the rear doors that opened up to the manicured lawn and gardens beyond, and raced to the newly constructed barn. He pulled up short and felt his hands go to his head and tug at his hair as he surveyed the sight that greeted him.
‘What are you DOING?’ Graham roared.
His youngest son looked over the top of the rocket launcher, eyes flat and cold as his gaze settled on his father.
‘I’m destroying the enemy, Dad.’ Kiki smiled, but like his eyes, his expression was flat and cold.
Later, his boy, Kiki, would come to life long enough to babble senselessly to his mother – something he had made up about travelling to bloody America, of all places, somewhere on the Appalachian Trail; a fighting camp, nonsense about being a child soldier, something about an enemy plane that turned out not to be the enemy. Graham listened to this from behind the door, but when he shifted his weight the child heard and stopped talking. From that point on he wouldn’t speak again. The boy had travelled too far, further than the Appalachian Trail that he thought he’d gone to. He had been on his own mystery tour, to a place far beyond the sky, past even the boundaries of space. Kiki had gone so far, there was no coming back.
There would be talk of conditions: mental, schizophrenic, emotional; ‘emotionally stunted by his father’s apparent distaste’ was one label Graham heard. After that, he wouldn’t listen again.
In any other situation Graham would have shrugged, thrown some money at the problem and turned his attention back to his eldest son. His worthy son.
But.
And time and time again, as the months, years and decades wore on, he would return to the moment that turned his heart into ice and his life into nothingness.
He surveyed the scene of devastation that was once the gardens of the property he was so proud of. Graham swallowed, sucked in by his son’s glare, the fading sunlight bouncing shadows off the barn as Graham moved slowly towards his son and the rocket launcher. The question was on the tip of his tongue, but Graham was afraid to ask it. He knew the answer, because the rising smoke from over the laurel hedge and the strong, metallic scent of blood told him, quite clearly.
Too clearly.
Still he asked, and even as he spoke the words, he knew they would likely be the last words that he would ever utter to his youngest son.
‘Where’s your brother, son?’ asked Graham as he approached. ‘Where’s Braun?’
Mystery Tour
Judith Cutler
‘EVENT CANCELLED!’
The Books Bizarre had done very well for a small independent bookshop in a small Midlands town. Very well indeed. The bow-fronted window carried a huge display of the visiting author’s books; the space was dominated by the newly published one the event was meant to promote, but there was also a pleasing selection from her backlist. And the proprietor – the displeasure and disappointment on his face clea
r for all to see – was snatching every last one out of sight so viciously I feared for their bindings.
His displeasure and disappointment were matched by mine.
They were my newly published books and it was my publicity event: what on earth was going on?
At last, in response to my frantic knocking, Mr Spear unlocked the front door. ‘Can’t you read?’ he growled. ‘Tonight’s off. Kaput. Finished before it began. All those cakes her fans baked. All that wine I bought. And the bloody woman turns up half an hour before the event’s due to kick off and says she can’t do it. Not so much as a sorry. That’s the last of her books I’ll touch.’
‘Who turned up?’
‘The author. The audience were just starting to trickle in.’
‘Are you still expecting more?’
Mr Spear looked at me as if I was crazy, but checked his watch nevertheless. ‘There should be another fifteen – maybe twenty. She’s popular with my customers. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’m the author and I definitely did not cancel. But I’d dearly like to know who did.’
He picked up one of my books and scrutinised the author photo. Then he peered at me. ‘This looks like you. It was taken a few years back, maybe, but then you all do that, try to pass yourselves off as twenty years younger, don’t you? It’s the same on dating sites,’ he added, bitter with experience, no doubt. ‘But the woman that came – she looked just like this. Glasses, that’s the only difference.’ He jabbed the photo. Nonetheless he removed the handwritten sign from the window, making prissy little gestures to remove the sticky tape from his fingers. ‘Come in and sort yourself out, then,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I’d better make a few phone calls and see if we can get folk back.’
I smiled my thanks and took off my coat.
Trips like this are part of a writer’s life cycle: you think; you write the book; you edit it; you watch it go through the whole publication process; to promote it, you tour willing bookshops and grateful, ailing libraries – I had four to visit in the next five days. But this cancellation was the first time anything so strange had happened to me.
‘I know you checked in, madam,’ said the handsome Polish receptionist, as, back at the King’s Head Hotel, I asked for my key. I was still fizzing with adrenaline after a delightful evening with almost all the readers Mr Spears had organised. ‘But you checked out almost immediately, didn’t you? So we gave someone else your room. Sorry.’
Perhaps it was his accent that prevented the last word from sounding sincere.
‘But my case is still in the room.’ Did I sound angry or upset?
He shook his head implacably. ‘You took your case with you.’
‘I didn’t. I left it there. Safe and secure in your keeping.’
‘But I saw you. With my own eyes.’ He fiddled with the computer; as far as he was concerned the matter was over.
It wasn’t.
‘How did this person gain access to my room? You keep all the keys behind you.’ I pointed.
His eyes showed a gratifying flicker of anxiety. ‘Did you have anything precious in the case?’
‘The manuscript of my latest novel, for one thing.’
He pointed at the notice clearly visible over his other shoulder; it declared that all valuables had to be deposited for safe-keeping with the receptionist.
‘Surely that refers to jewellery and money. This was half a ream of paper. Hardly the sort of thing anyone would want to steal.’
His immaculate if accented English cracked. ‘I call manager.’
‘Good – or I will call the police.’
To be fair, the hotel’s interior CCTV footage of the woman carrying my suitcase did show someone remarkably like me, but younger and sporting glasses, as Mr Spears had said. Where my middle-aged double chin would have been, a scarf was elegantly but strategically tied. Her hair was covered with the sort of a woolly hat with a huge pompom one needed youthful chutzpah to carry off. Whereas I wore a quilted jacket complete with fur-lined hood, she sported a body warmer over a striped top.
I asked for, but was denied, a still from the footage. Actually, I also asked for another room for the night, but it seemed they had none spare. When, seeing my mounting anger, they phoned round all the neighbouring hotels, B&Bs and even grotty pubs, the answer was the same: no room at the inn.
At least I wasn’t pregnant and I had a car, not a plodding donkey.
Except I hadn’t got a car anymore. The passenger door hung off its hinges; the windscreen was smashed. A small suitcase smouldered beside it until someone found a fire extinguisher.
The security cameras that should have recorded every movement had been vandalised. Police? This time of night there weren’t any local officers to tackle the situation. Eventually a rapid-response car arrived, despatched from the nearest city. But the two weary officers could make no obvious sense of the evening’s events. They promised forensic support, whatever that might mean. In the warmth of the hotel, they reran the CCTV footage I’d already seen, pleading with me to recall some long-lost daughter whom I’d offended. Eventually, however, their conclusion was much the same as mine: someone really didn’t like me, did they?
It seemed a lot more people didn’t like me when I arrived at my agent’s office the following day – my agent in particular. ‘How dare you cancel all these talks and visits without consulting me – or at least letting me know. Plymouth; Exeter; Portsmouth…’ Marion snarled a litany of libraries and bookshops I’d let down. ‘It’s so unprofessional.’
‘It isn’t quite like that,’ I said, once I could get a word in. ‘It seems someone is out to destroy my reputation and my property. Maybe even my life, Marion,’ I added, since that was what the cheerier officer had pointed out. Despite my phlegmatic exterior, my voice wobbled. ‘Meanwhile, before I explain, let’s undo the damage that this person’s inflicted – let’s get in touch with everyone who’s complained to you, and reassure any other people you think might be after my skin.’
‘You should take down your Twitter account. And your Facebook page. No, don’t look first. You won’t like what you see.’ She looked at me more closely. ‘Are you ill, or something? You look as if you slept in your clothes.’ She smoothed her immaculate jacket.
‘I did. In a station café. My car was vandalised, you see. And I couldn’t phone because my battery was flat and my charger, with the rest of the things in my case, went up in flames. Including the manuscript I promised you. However,’ I said, digging in my bag, ‘they didn’t get this. You know I believe in belt and braces. Well, it’s here on my memory stick. We can print it out now. I don’t want my publishers to think I’m going to let them down, too.’
‘They already do. Your editor was screaming down the phone to me just before you arrived. I’ll download the file and send it straight off.’
I watched, my knuckles white as they gripped her desk: ‘What if whoever it is has managed to corrupt not just my life but also my computer?’ No. All looked well.
Marion smiled. ‘This is good. I just want to keep on reading,’ she said. ‘But I’ll save that pleasure for later.’
‘Indulge me,’ I said. ‘Print it. Then save it under a different name. Just in case someone tries to hack your computer.’
She shook her head. ‘How would they know I’m your agent?’
‘I dedicated my last book to you, remember? And I bet, even as we speak, whoever this woman is will be hacking my computer, too. Please just do as I ask,’ I begged. ‘Now!’
She rolled her eyes, but she did set the printer going, and I watched with satisfaction as the words poured out. Yes! Everything down to the last colon was there.
Turning to her with a relieved smile I added, ‘Now, just to please me, update your firewall. The moment you’ve forwarded it to the publisher. You never know…’
Marion sent me off to shop for a phone charger and new clothes before taking me out to lunch. Plus make-up, of course, and some hairspray – I looked as if I re
ally had been tearing my hair out. She also forced an extra-strong cocktail down my throat as we waited for our table. There was something else she had to tell me, wasn’t there?
‘As you predicted, my website and yours have both been hacked,’ she said the moment we sat down. ‘My geek’s working on mine even as we speak. You need to alert yours too. Here, use my phone.’
I did as I was told.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘tell me whom you’ve offended. Because they’re having a field day with their revenge. I’ve got back to all the libraries; the publicity people at your publisher’s are already working on the bookshops scheduled for the rest of your tour. But you should see what their Twitter’s picking up, too. Or rather, you shouldn’t.’
‘Maybe if I did,’ I said, valiant on gin and a lot of other things, ‘I could work out who’s doing it.’
‘You should leave that to the police,’ Marion declared, confiscating my wine glass and giving me a tumbler of water.
‘But I write crime,’ I objected. ‘Shouldn’t that give me an insight or two?’
Her look sobered me up. ‘Maybe criminals read your books: that’s where they’ve got their insight or two.’
‘Only into the politics of medieval Italy. In any case, you don’t do something like this just because you object to someone’s books, surely. This feels much more personal.’
‘Someone you’ve snubbed on LinkedIn or Facebook? Someone annoyed by one of your tweets?’
‘That would make someone tetchy, even turn them into a troll, but it wouldn’t drive them to such a wide-ranging campaign, surely. Even now I don’t know what’s happened at home; I came straight here from the Midlands. The train fare cost me almost as much as last year’s royalties.’
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