He ran to the iron gates. His feet were wet and sore. No one was around, just cars swishing up and down the road through the rain. He shoved Jack inside his coat and climbed up, jamming his toes in the gaps in the ironwork.
When he got to the top it looked as if the ground had shrunk. He hesitated then began to climb down the other side. He slipped – no grip – and the leg of his jeans caught on a spike, leaving him hanging there upside down, Jack scrabbling with her paws and scratching his face. He swore, unhooked himself and dropped.
He got up, hopping and swearing. “Jesus wet, Jesus wet,” he said, because he’d twisted his ankle and his mum used to say it when things got twisted. And it was raining and he was soaking wet just like Jesus.
He looked around the park. There was no moon and away from the streetlights the ground quickly went black until it met the light from the big white house. He made for a small clump of trees next to the house, limping still. It was drier under the branches for a while but then he felt the rain beginning to work its way down through the gaps in the leaves and he ran over to the pointy porch at the front of the house. He read the sign above the glass doors.
IMP…ER…IAL WAR MUS…EUM
He’d been to a museum once. Trips at school were free if you were poor, but after the first couple, he’d started losing the teachers’ letters.
He had a good look now, through the glass doors, for free. Inside the museum, hanging down from the ceiling on wires, was an old plane that looked like it had been stuck together from bits and pieces off the street. The tank underneath it looked real though, made of metal and bashed about like it had been in a proper war. And there was a rocket too, the top bit with the men in it that came back down to earth, like the end of a giant blunt pencil.
Bully shook the glass doors. They were too thick to break and though it was dry here under the porch, he didn’t feel safe in the light, so he went to hide out of sight under the artillery guns sticking out of the lawn.
He crouched down by the breach where the shells went in and where it was dry. Jack started licking at his shins. His twisted ankle felt numb now. He looked at the other one with his lighter. There was blood on one of his trainers, leaking out of him somewhere. He let Jack lick it off until he remembered the rat that had been in her mouth, then he pulled his foot away.
He examined the round breach above his head, much bigger than his head. These were big, big guns. Pity they were pointing north instead of south. He could knock out his old flat easy from here, even though it was six or seven miles away, take out the whole block – Phil and her and it – with just a couple of shells. Because each gun took a shell that was as big as a grown man, each barrel was maybe 15 to 20 inches across … the calibre, that’s what it was called. And old guns were measured in inches and new guns were measured in millimetres. Phil had taught him that; the sizes and proper names for things that killed you. And big guns were called howitzers and cannons, and fired shells, but little guns fired bullets and they were called rounds. And bombs were IEDs. And anything coming at you was incoming… And you’d better duck, otherwise you were—
He suddenly panicked that his ticket was getting wet and unzipped the little pocket inside his jacket and took it out. It was still in one piece but the top of it was damp. He cried out when it tore a little. He needed a better, safer place to hide it. His hoodie didn’t have a zip pocket and his jeans were wet.
He hooked out the family bag of crisps he’d taken from the flat and finished them off. Then he turned the packet foil-side out, cut a patch out of it and wrapped the ticket up. That would keep it dry but where was he going to hide it? He didn’t fancy stuffing it up his bum like they did in prison. He couldn’t see how that worked anyway because what happened when you had to go? What about if he shoved it in his ear hole? But he didn’t like things in his ears. He’d had a beetle in there once when he was little and no one believed him until it uncurled itself the next day and flew out. He didn’t have any big holes in his teeth to jam it in, they were all filled. And it was no good poking it up his nose either because he had a cold and it was runny. He was always picking it anyway.
While he had a think, he let Jack crawl inside his coat like it was a tent. He rubbed her head and her dog tag jingle-jangled. It was a shame it was just solid metal and didn’t open up like some of his mum’s jewellery did. He felt round her collar. It had been getting tight, pinching her because it was for a puppy, until Bully cut another notch in it. He took it off and had a closer look at it with his lighter. It was basically two strips of leather sewn together. He got his penknife out and started unpicking the stitching with the shorter blade. It was a tricky job. He kept missing the stitches and burning his fingers on the lighter – and the stitches were so tiny, like cutting up fleas, but he managed to work the blade in between the leather and open up a gap.
He folded the crisp packet up until it was about the size of the end of his little fingernail and prodded it in with his metal spoon. He couldn’t sew it together but he always had gum on him and he chewed up an old piece and stoppered the hole. Once that stuff set, it was like concrete. He’d seen the men in high-vis blasting it off the pavements on the Strand.
He put Jack’s collar back on. Her fur was nearly the same colour as the collar. He rubbed a bit of dirt and grease from his coat into the chewing-gum to make it look more like the leather. Jack licked his face.
“You’re a million-dollar dog now,” he said, stroking her head. And then in the darkness he felt her ears go back, like she was a bat dog.
He flicked his lighter on to see what she was thinking. She was listening to something… Something Bully couldn’t hear yet but when he saw her eyes go very still, he knew what it was.
It was the sound of a dog, after them, following the invisible trail they had laid. Someone must have taken his bedding as scent for their dog. And a trained dog could follow their scent, chase their smell all round London for at least a day.
And Jack knew it too. And she was telling Bully now, showing her cleverness the only way she knew how, growling and whining, asking Bully: Do we fight or run away? Because someone was coming for them, coming for his millions with a dog, and from the way Jack’s eyes were beading up she knew which dog, too. Bully caught sight of the notch torn out of her ear: Janks. Janks was here, looking to tax Bully of everything he had.
Jack snapped at the darkness. And this time Bully just about heard the tail end of a howl. It was coming, he thought, from behind the back of the house, another gate on the other side of the park. He licked his first finger and held it up to the air… Not much wind but maybe enough to take their scent in the wrong direction. He didn’t think he could outrun them now, not with his ankle this bad.
He scanned the park. Never get caught on open ground… All he could see were black blobs, litter bins dotted about – he could maybe just about fit in one, doubled up with Jack, pull some rubbish over their heads. Instinctively, though, he knew they needed to find higher ground.
He ran to the trees. He tried to jump up to reach the lowest branch. He didn’t miss it by much but when he landed his ankle collapsed under him and he knew it wouldn’t take another fall. He tried climbing then, wrapping his arms around the trunk, but his foot kept letting him down. Even if he got up the tree and dragged Jack up … even if they got up the tree, the dog would find them, because any old dog would know they were up there. Even if they went right to the top, Janks’s dog would see him in between the branches and the leaves, no matter how dark it was.
That thought gave him half an idea. He took his coat off. He fumbled about with numb fingers and got his phone out, and his penknife and Jack’s lead. He tied the lead around his neck because his pockets were too small. He heard another howl, the sound getting closer. He panicked and threw his coat up into the branches as high as he could with whatever else was left in his pockets. And as it left his hand he felt a small emptiness open up inside his head that told him he’d forgotten something… His card! His
mum’s card. He tried jumping up to get it back but it was too late. He smacked the back of his neck. How stupid he was! But he had to go now. And he took off his trainers and balled up his socks and threw them back towards the war museum, and then his phone too because the screen was smashed in and leaking grey and black. No good to him any more. He threw all his stuff as far away as he could, like a false trail. That might mess things up for a while. The rain might be thinning out his real tracks, he thought, as he limped back to the guns to crouch underneath them.
He knew that hiding under the guns was a bad place to be but he didn’t know where else to go. He couldn’t think, couldn’t get the dots to join up inside his head. The sharper sound of the dog barking snapped Bully’s head back into the steel breach – the dog somewhere inside the park now – his last line of defence gone.
Panic is a killer … takes your head off as neat as a round…
“Come on…” he said, slapping his ears. “Come on…”
Then he got the other half of his idea.
He got out from underneath the guns and stood up. He could just about see the outline of the two barrels tapering off into the darkness. If he could climb up there and go right to the end of the barrel, then even if he couldn’t get away, it was at least a position he could defend.
The first thing he did was stash Jack inside his hoodie, tucking his top in like his mum used to do to him when he was little. “Stay,” he said, clambering up onto the gun, struggling with Jack’s weight on his front – like carrying a four-legged baby.
The angle of elevation was steeper than it looked from the ground but he managed to stand up on the barrel. The metal was cold under his feet, and his ankle started to hurt again without his shoes. It wasn’t as wide as he’d thought and he had to sidestep, balancing with his arms like he was one of those street performers messing about for money.
He’d been higher up than this before; much, much higher, on the roof of their old block of flats. He’d gone up there one day to see what it was like looking all that way down without anything to hold on to. He wasn’t frightened then, not in the way he was now, in the dark, in the rain, where looking down was all around him. He tried not to look down, but couldn’t help it. The ground kept tugging at his head. And when he did, he slipped and fell.
He threw his arms wide and caught the barrel but hit his jaw against Jack’s skull and she snapped at him, caught him on the ear. But Bully didn’t care for a few long seconds. And he put his face to the metal and hugged it almost harder than he’d hugged anything or anyone in his life. And though he was squashing Jack against the barrel, and she was wriggling out onto the gun, he couldn’t move, couldn’t go any further…
Jack got her head out from under his and licked his ear, whimpering, thinking she had done something wrong and this was her punishment, being stuck up here, squashed inside Bully’s hoodie.
“All right … all right…” he whispered. “Shh. Shut it… All right… All right…” He gave his dog some air, let go a little, took his face away from the barrel and she stopped struggling.
He slowly raised his head and then sat up. He could see the lights from the road and the cars and the buildings speckling in the rain. He realized it was no good being up here if Janks found him, no way he could defend himself just sitting on the barrel. He would fall off. There was only one place left to go when he got to the end: inside the gun.
He could hear a pit bull clearly now, though he could not risk turning round to look back at the museum. And it was a pit bull, he was sure of it; less echo to its bark, more bite, as if that was the only thing going through its head. He pushed forward with his knees, getting into a rhythm, still hugging the barrel until he felt the steel lip of the mouth.
But something was covering the end. It made a plasticky thwacking noise, like a sheet of tarpaulin covering the back of a truck, and though he hit it with his fist, there was no give in it. He tried to pull it off but it was tied on with a metal rope looped around the barrel’s end. And it was too late to get back down. The barking was louder, keener, the dog getting a real taste for his scent now, getting closer and closer. And voices! He could hear men shouting directions. He took out his penknife, opened the big blade up and slashed at the thick plastic two, three times, putting all his effort into pulling the blade through the material.
He went feet first, with Jack’s paws round his neck, clinging on, then scrabbling, trying to get out. Bully couldn’t blame her, felt as if he was being swallowed alive himself – and he began to struggle too. And then he was stuck.
He held his breath. Half in, half out of the barrel, he had a split-second horror of the dog getting up here and taking chunks out of him, as easy as ice cream. He frantically twisted sideways, skinning his hips, the widest part of him, but wedging himself tighter in, trying to keep a hold of Jack.
“Calm it! Calm it down,” he whispered. But he wasn’t calm. He wasn’t calming it down. What could he do? He had to be thinner! He had to make himself the right calibre. How could he do that? He let go his breath and felt a bit of give in the little bit of fat and skin between his insides and the barrel. And he slipped; he moved just a little… He let out more breath, emptied his lungs, pushed out his spare air and shifted one side of his body down at an angle, collapsing it like a cardboard box. And then right down he went inside the barrel.
When he got to his shoulders he wondered how he was going to stop them sliding all the way down? And he was having to think off the top of his head and to shh Jack, and keep himself from slipping down. He tapped Jack on her muzzle, telling her to cut it out, and felt the lead still round his neck. And with one hand he pulled it off and opened up the large metal hook on it and jammed it over the metal rope around the rim. And like a climber going into a cave, he lowered himself and Jack right down inside the gun.
Instantly his world went out. He lay there, arms stretched above his head, blinking in the darkness but seeing nothing. He could hear everything though, even louder inside the barrel: the creaking wet lead, Jack panting ever so quick, and louder than everything, the voice inside his head telling him to get out, to get out.
And then a man’s voice crept down the barrel, one that he knew, putting the shudders into him, the words seesawing up and down, shouting and giving orders.
“All-right … list-en! You check the bins while I have a look round here.”
“What’s he gunna be doing in a bin!”
“Just do what I say,” said Janks.
Bully pushed his ear flat against the cold steel of the bore, and against the splatter of the rain he could hear the other voice still complaining, asking questions, and he realized there were just two men.
“Here, Janks! Over ’ere! Here’s his coat … and his shoes. And a mobile. He’s up that tree!”
But the pit bull whined like it knew better and then the whine deepened into a howl, and Bully thought he could hear it straining at the lead, the scent of the chase thick as soup in its mouth now because it knew where they were.
Still, though, Bully begged his plan to work. Maybe when they saw he wasn’t up the tree they’d think he’d made a run for it. He twisted a little, shivering on the end of the dog lead because he was encased inside a couple of hundred tonnes of cold steel.
Plink! What was that? Plink … plink… His last little bit of shrapnel rolling away. He had a hole in his jeans. Never much money in them to lose. He couldn’t get to his pocket; had to lie there like he was tied up and listen… Plink … plink … plink… And he knew that even in the rain, Janks’s dog would be hearing it too.
He kept very, very still. Sweat and rain dribbled and mixed down his back. Then he heard a different noise, not metal on metal but a living, skittering, scratching sound … something coming up the barrel! And he thought of all those films he’d seen with aliens and insects hatching out of the darkness. There it was again! He couldn’t look down but put his chin to his chest and felt Jack’s nose twitch against his neck. And Jack made th
e quietest bark she had – a little cough – like in class at school, getting a message across without the teacher turning round, and Bully understood what it was then: Janks’s dog was on the gun.
He got ready with his knife still in his left hand. He waited. The rain was making his grip slip on the lead and he twisted it around his wrist so he could still stab the pit bull’s snout with his other hand.
“What’s ’e doing up there, Janks?” shouted the other man. He sounded miserable and angry. “What’s ’e doing? Look at ’im… Just look at ’im! What’s gone wrong with ’im!”
The scratching stopped. A yelp, thinning, falling… And the man laughing, mean and hollow. The dog had slipped and hit the ground, that’s what it was! The dog had slipped and fallen off the barrel! And the man was laughing at that and making fun of Janks’s dog.
“I mean, look at ’im, Janks! Look at ’im… What is this, Janks? A wind-up? I mean, this is turnin’ into a joke.”
“You think I’m a joke?”
“No, Janks… Not you, that dog of yours. And all this.”
“Come here and say it then.”
“No, come on, Janks. I’m just sayin’…”
For three or four of Bully’s breaths it was quiet outside the gun, as if everything had been said. And then he heard the two men begin to threaten each other, grunts and yells bursting out between their words, so that Bully couldn’t tell exactly what was happening until he heard a sound that very few men will ever make more than once in their lives.
In and around London, in the first hours of the morning, mobile phones lit up with a screenshot of a boy and his dog. And a message:
Lottery Boy Page 7