Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 11

by Maxim Jakubowski

  I never saw him again. I just went to school and stayed home at night. There were too many Deads around, and it disturbed me. They blundered into the garden at night and followed me to the shops and fell down the steps of public lavs and floated past in the river looking confused and sad. One day I knew there would be more Deads walking around than the living.

  My parents didn’t seem bothered by any of this. They carried on with their jobs as if everything was normal. People had stopped caring or even noticing. My world was gently rotting apart just like the Deads. So I forgot about Grandpa being taken away and people coming back. I erased them from my mind and just got on with my schoolwork. I put away my Deadwatch, and stuck to the house rules. But they came back to haunt me in a different way.

  I got an idea that something was wrong when I was summoned to Mrs Bleeker’s office. Mrs Bleeker is our Deputy Headmistress, and she’s kind of pyramid-shaped and has really yellow skin so we call her Angry Bird, after the one you can make go really fast. She teaches Spanish and Metalwork, which is a really off combination unless you’re thinking of becoming a welder in Madrid.

  I waited until her light switched from red to green, then knocked on the door.

  “All right, you don’t have to knock it down, Alfie, come in and sit over there.” She gestured to a really low purple beanbag on the other side of her desk. I dropped down into it and knew I wouldn’t be able to get out easily again. She had me where she wanted me.

  “Alfie.” She leaned forward on her elbows and wedged her fingers together under her chins, looking concerned. “I thought we should have a little talk.”

  “Have I done something wrong?”

  “Well, it rather depends on how we define the word wrong. Your mother tells me . . .” Oh shit, I thought, she’d been talking to my mother? “. . . that you have a rather overactive imagination. And of course, this can be a very good thing. Our finest poets and artists have wonderful imaginations that allow them to see the world in all sorts of new ways. But there is a time and place for everything, and we have to be very careful that it doesn’t cross over into our ordinary lives. Because then it starts to look as if we’re telling lies, and if people think you’re telling lies, they won’t be able to trust you. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  What the flying flick was she on about? I wracked my brains trying to imagine what my mum had said to Bleach-head Bleeker.

  “She explained to me how very upset you were when your grandfather was taken away to Sunnymead.”

  I still couldn’t see where old Bleacher was going with her case. She took off her glasses and tiredly rubbed the top of her nose. “Is this where you first got the idea? Or did it come from the films you and Tracy Mullen watched?”

  I widened my eyes, stuck out my lip and gave her a blank look. I was trying to tell her I had no clue about what she was asking.

  Mrs Bleeker leaned so far forward that the desk creaked in protest. “When did you first get this notion into your head that the dead could come back to life?”

  “It isn’t a ‘notion’. It’s the truth.”

  “Alfie, Mr Al-Fhazhi tells me you’re one of his best pupils.” Mr Al-Fhazhi was my English teacher. Al-Fhazhi is the English version of his name, which is unpronounceable. He’s an exiled Iraqi and he’s really cool. Simon Waters’s parents complained about a man from Iraq teaching English, and they can’t even string a sentence together in their own language without swearing.

  Bleach-Brain checked the notes on her desk, tapping them with her pencil. “He says you have a highly developed sense of imagination and that your essays are first-rate. But you must be able to distinguish what is real and what is made up. Or,” her eyes narrowed suspiciously, “are you just making things up to cause mischief?”

  “No!”

  “Then why have you been going around telling so many lies? I believe you told your friends you were arrested for murdering a dead man on a bus.” Even she must have noticed how bonkers that sounded. “When in actual fact a passing policeman happened to see a poor old man slip and fall off the bus as the doors opened.”

  “No, he was a Dead—”

  “And that you told people your grandfather was dead . . .”

  “He is!”

  “No, Alfie, he is not.” She shook her head sadly. “He had a stroke and was taken to a special nursing home because your mother couldn’t care for him at home.”

  “No, if Mum had done that she would have told me. She would have taken me to see him.”

  “She tried to tell you, but you didn’t want to listen. She said you can visit him whenever you want, but the trips must be specially arranged in advance.”

  I wanted to explain about the Deads in the park and everything else, but knew now that she would never believe me. My mum had grassed on me about the horror films I’d watched, and Bleach-Brain thought it had affected my imagination.

  “I’m not going to ask you about what you consider to be the truth, Alfie. You know what’s real and what’s made up. I know that some boys have big imaginations, and that sometimes their imaginations run away with them. But did you never stop to think about the hurt it might cause? Your mother is very upset. You can’t go around telling everyone that the dead are coming back to life. This is a very serious matter that could affect your future here. Come and see me tomorrow afternoon – I’ll have decided what to do by then.”

  I left her office very confused, because there were things I was sure about. An old man really did fall off the bus. There really is an old film called Dawn of the Dead. My granddad really has lost his mind and lives in a place full of dried-up people. But maybe some of the rest got sort of exaggerated.

  I got into the same sort of trouble when I told my sister Lucy’s stupid boyfriend that she had been attacked by bees and was so disfigured that she couldn’t see him for six weeks.

  Track was waiting for me on the wall of the sports ground after school. I told her what had happened with the Bleach-Monster, and she decided that we were both right. “Everyone exaggerates,” she said, dropping into step beside me. “Facebook, TV, movies, our families, everyone. It’s not your fault. Leave this to me.”

  The next day I went to see Mrs Bleeker again. I felt sure I was going to be kicked out of school, but Track had promised me it would be okay. And she was right.

  “Your classmate Tracy Mullen came to see me, to explain about your creative assignments.”

  What creative assignments? She must have meant the books we drew together and the diaries we kept.

  “Tracy explained how you were looking at everything around you and exaggerating what you saw, in order to write about it.”

  “Well I suppose so,” I said. “I mean, I thought they were Deads, but I guess they’re just old. See, to someone my age, older people are kind of dead because they’re so wrinkly and move around at tortoise-speed.”

  “I think you need to have more respect for your seniors . . .”

  “It’s not like I don’t respect them, Miss, I guess it’s just the way the old and the Deads look so alike. That and the smell.”

  “Even if you think that, Alfie, I really don’t think you should say it out loud. I want to make a deal with you. If you promise not to keep pretending to other people that these ideas are real, Mr Al-Fhazhi and I will set you some special writing assignments, where you can really use your imagination to the fullest, and maybe we’ll be able to put this special talent of yours to good use. How about that?”

  Some deal. I struggled out of the Bleacher’s purple beanbag and left her office with piles of extra schoolwork, and a warning not to infect anyone else with my weird made-up ideas. But Mrs Bleeker and Mr Al-Fhazhi thought that my creativity shouldn’t be stifled.

  Maybe you’d be happier if this story ended with me and Track fighting off armies of the Deads, but that wouldn’t be very believable, would it? And besides, you’ve seen that in movies like, only a quintillion times before.

  I thought about it carefully
, and what I realized was this; my life is pretty boring, but there are things in it that interest me, and I’d like more of them. So I think maybe I wish them into existence, and they become real. That is, they’re real to me, but not to adults. And maybe that’s what being a kid is all about, having adventures that are bigger than real life because you can add the missing ingredient; your imagination. And adults can’t access that stuff after a certain age because they have to think about work and bills and getting chewing gum off the back seat of the car.

  Besides, I’ve discovered something else that’s going on, and this is weirder than the Deads.

  There’s a new kid in our class called Tony Maroney, and he looks like a hungry wolf. He’s the tallest kid in the class by about a foot – it looks like he’s been kept back a year. He has thick, low hair that’s so black it almost looks dark blue, and by the end of every day he needs a shave. He keeps so still and quiet in class that everyone is afraid of him. See, by keeping really still and not saying anything he makes you do all the work, and so kids who cross him go into long panicky explanations about why they do things, and he just stares at them in dead silence, and they lose their nerve even more until they say something stupid, and then they’re doomed.

  Although he’s English, Tony grew up in Sicily, which is an island off the coast of Italy where the Mafia comes from. I know this is true because Mum heard about it from the man who painted his uncle’s bathroom. Tony has cold blue eyes like chips of iceberg, and wiry black hairs on the backs of his hands. He’s supposed to be eleven but looks about eighteen. Even the teachers watch him warily, as though he might do something terrible behind their backs.

  Me and Track have finally figured out his secret. We know what he is; he’s a werewolf, and we think there’s a nest of them living under the school gymnasium, and he’s the king of them. He didn’t start in our class until after the full moon, so we’re waiting for the next one before we strike. Last night I melted my gran’s silver crucifix into a ball on the cooker hob (we ruined the saucepan, so I had to hide it in the garden), and now we have to find something to fire it from. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

  Meanwhile, I’m filling in my secret blog. I’ve moved on from the Deads. The werewolf thing is going to take up all my time. Mrs Bleeker said imagination is a wonderful thing, so it needs a capital “I”. And there are other words that need capitals, like Real and Strange and True and Brave.

  I’m young, I can make anything happen.

  The Hotline

  Dreda Say Mitchell

  Rukshana Malik wasn’t angry when she was passed over for promotion at the London bank where she worked. It was true that Sarah, the successful candidate, wasn’t as well qualified. It was also true that she was a bit younger, but Rukshana didn’t want to draw any conclusions from that. After the selection process was over, her manager had given her a debriefing in which he explained that it had been a very close thing and that Rukshana still had a very bright future with the company – after all, she was only twenty-nine. He also suggested that the next time a position came up, she should go to him so he could prep her with some interview practice. Rukshana liked Jeff; he was a great boss. So she was disappointed and a bit puzzled, but she wasn’t angry.

  Her family was, though. They suspected that the reason she hadn’t been given the promotion was that she was a Muslim who wore a headscarf. Her sister, Farah, asked, “This girl who got the job, what does she look like?”

  “Well, she’s young and blonde . . .”

  “And very good looking, I imagine?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Oh, wake up, Rocky.” Farah waved her hands in the air. She was wearing her pale blue soft leather gloves with the fancy fringe at the end and the three white buttons on the tops, one of her newest fashion accessories.

  “It’s not like that; they have strict policies on race, religion, gender, and the rest of it.”

  Her sister sighed and shook her head with pity. Sometimes it was easy for her to forget that Rukshana was the older of the two, and an outsider could be forgiven for not realizing they were related at all. Farah wore her faith lightly, dressed in Western clothes, and was a party girl with dark brown eyes that flashed and sparkled like her gold jewellery.

  The following week, Rukshana was called away from her desk to see a guy from Personnel. As soon as he told her that she was a highly valued member of the staff and a key member of the team, she knew what was coming, and sure enough she was right. He went on, “Unfortunately, in today’s harsh financial climate, tough decisions have to be taken . . .”

  Rukshana was let go, but she still wasn’t angry. She was handed a letter that included a nice payoff and a glowing reference, and all her co-workers said that they were sorry to see her leave. But she was nonetheless let go. She was in tears as she cleared her desk and didn’t see an angry Jeff appear from his office.

  “Is this true, what I’ve heard?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is outrageous. I’m going up to Personnel, they’re not getting away with this.” He started walking toward the elevator.

  She grabbed his arm and dragged him back. “Please, don’t. It’s all right, honestly.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He stormed off, and she didn’t see him again before she left. Farah was equally angry when Rukshana told her what had happened. “You should sue the bastards.”

  “For what?”

  “Like Marlon Brando said in The Wild One, ‘Whaddya got?’ There’s race, religion, gender – sue them for all three. Make them pay. Drag their arses through the courts, embarrass them in public, chuck dirt at them and make them wish they’d never heard your name.”

  “It’s not worth it.”

  Farah was genuinely baffled. “What’s the matter with you, Rocky? Why aren’t you angry? I’d be fizzing if people treated me like that.”

  “I’m just not angry.”

  And it was true – she wasn’t. She was upset, scared, shocked, and confused. London could be a tough city at the best of times, and when you had no job and bills to pay, it was a very frightening place indeed. But she still wasn’t angry.

  That evening she got a call from Kelly, her best friend at the bank. “Rukshana, I can’t believe they’ve done this to you. You’ve got to get them back.”

  Not another person telling her to sue . . .

  “You can’t take an employer to court for letting you go. That’s not how it works.”

  “I’m not talking about the bank. I’m talking about Jeff and that bitch Sarah.”

  Confused, Rukshana answered, “It’s got nothing to do with Jeff and even less to do with Sarah.”

  There was a long silence before Kelly said, “Oh, of course, maybe you don’t know . . .”

  “What don’t I know?”

  “About Jeff and Sarah. About them having a bit of slap-and-tickle.”

  Rukshana was horrified. “They’re not having an affair. He’s married with kids; he’s got a photo of them on his desk, he’s always going on about his family.”

  “Oh, Rukshana, puh-leeze – you can’t be that naive. They’re carrying on, everyone at the bank knows that.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Kelly hesitated. “Well, people didn’t like to tell you gossip, what with you being a Muslim and everything – they thought you wouldn’t like it.”

  Rukshana was disgusted. She loved gossip. Kelly went on to tell Rukshana what everyone knew. “It’s been going on for months. They think it’s a big secret, but of course everyone knows. That’s why he fixed it for her to get the job, to keep her sweet. Then he advised Personnel to get rid of you, so in case you sued them about missing the promotion, they could say you were just bitter because you’d been fired. That’s what everyone’s saying happened.”

  “That’s what everyone’s saying?”

  “That’s what everyone’s saying. He was on your interview panel, wasn’t he? He goes up to Personnel every
five minutes, doesn’t he? Every lunchtime at noon, Jeff and Sarah meet up. He goes out and waits a couple of streets away, and then five minutes later she follows and they get a cab to some Holiday Inn, where they do their dirty business. Then at two o’clock on the dot, he comes back, and five minutes later, she arrives on her own so no one will guess that they’re at it. I mean, can you imagine? It’d take a lot more than a promotion to persuade me to shag that fat ugly bastard. Talk about lie back and think of England. Rukshana? You’ve gone very quiet. Are you still there?”

  Rukshana was still there. She was just very, very angry.

  Rukshana didn’t do anything the following day because she was still too angry; she wanted a clear head when she decided what to do next. Twenty-four hours later she was still too angry but had decided to ring a couple of lawyers anyway to see if she had a case against the bank. They were a bit sceptical but thought she might be able to do something on discrimination grounds. They were less sure about Kelly’s preferred option, that Rukshana sue Jeff for being a lying, cheating, disloyal, fat ugly bastard who’d taken her job away. Rukshana was glad the lawyers didn’t advise that. She didn’t want to sue anyone; that wasn’t what she was after.

  She couldn’t relax. The only person in the house during the day was her granddad. He was in his eighties. He got a little confused sometimes, but on other occasions he was very sharp. Whatever – she didn’t feel like chatting. She tried doing a little housework to calm down. That didn’t help, but she did it anyway. In Farah’s room, she picked up the clothes her sister had scattered around after she’d come in from a party the previous night. Rukshana held a miniskirt against her hips; it really was immodestly short. A few months ago, their cousin had come from Pakistan to visit and had shared a room with Farah; what a culture shock it must have been for her. Their cousin refused to leave the house without wearing a burka, so when she went out, she was covered in black, only her eyes visible to the outside world. When she returned to Pakistan, she’d left one of her burkas behind, and it was still sitting on a shelf, possibly meant to serve as a reproach to her wayward cousin. Rukshana picked it up.