Jo frowned, then peered after Wesley. Sure enough, the dog had followed him, stuck tight to his heels through the swing doors and disappeared without even a cursory backward glance towards his master.
Doc was still busy reading
Hondo,
but he’d noticed. He closed the book, pushed it away, waved at Hooch, then did a finger-walking motion with his left hand. He seemed unperturbed by Dennis’s inconstancy. Hooch nodded, throwing his own book down onto the table and strolling off to grab his coat from the back of his chair.
Jo was watching Eileen, as she carefully assisted Patty in filling out his form. She glanced furtively around her, grabbed
Utah Blaine,
stood up –the book still in her hand –and slid it slowly –almost distractedly –down the fabric above her pocket. Good…
good…
The book was sliding in. It was slipping in, it was almost… it was very nearly…
Damn
She was just about home-free, when something stopped her. Or someone –
Shoes
– the bloody Geordie, of all people –had suddenly materialised behind her, his plump, dirty hand had slipped around her wrist and firmly wrested the book from her fingers.
‘That’s no way to go about things,’ he whispered softly, (his breath on her neck, the scratch of damp mohair on her wrist), ‘not in a small community like this. The Behindlings have a code of… well…’
He spoke louder, ‘I’m getting a couple of these out on loan. You can always borrow one later if you feel the need.’
He was already holding the hardback
Hondo
Doc’d been inspecting. He reached down and picked up Hooch’s paperback too. With
Utah Blaine
that made three books altogether.
Jo gave the paperback up without argument. She yanked a blue, knitted hat out of her pocket (as if this was actually all that she’d been intending to do in the first place) and pulled it over her head. ‘You know what?’ she asked, adjusting it around her ears. Shoes simply grinned at her.
‘I’d love a peek at
Hondo
when you’ve finished with it.’
‘Of course you would,’ Shoes continued to grin, stupidly (was he stupid? He
seemed
stupid) as he carried the three books with him up to the counter.
Eileen was still busy with the boy and his form, but she turned, very obligingly, to help him with them.
‘It’s me again, remember?’ Shoes beamed, handing three brand new library cards over. Pushing the books towards her.
‘So
that’s
what he was doing first thing,’ Doc muttered, pulling on his jacket as he strode past, ‘the canny bugger.’
Eileen took the books and reached over to grab her stamp. Her back was turned for the briefest of instants, but that was all it took Patty, up on his toes, his arm swinging over the counter, his fingers feeling, blindly, then clutching, then… then…
He scrabbled.
Jesus.
Eileen was obviously going to…
Jo kicked her chair. Very quickly. The small chair. Turned it over. Made a huge clattering racket. Attracted everyone’s attention. Pulled an agonised expression. Mimed
sorry.
Shrugged. Bent over. Righted the tiny chair again. Shoved it under the table with a firm, four-footed, rubber-padded
squeak.
Collected her six clues from the table-top, shoved them into her pocket, clamped her hands together. Strode towards the door; following Doc, following Hooch.
Just as she was pushing the door open, Patty jinked in speedily ahead of her, shooting through, chuckling, making her gasp at his guile, at his bare-faced…
She caught the door as it slammed back towards her, peered over her shoulder, saw Shoes following behind –the three books held securely –and paused, judiciously, still holding it there, until he
too was out and through and charging off –full blast, bare-toed –up the well-shod, densely-populated High Street ahead of her.
The house was a mess –it was
always
so –but Katherine Turpin knew exactly the scope of it; the subtle calibrations of disorder, the various proportions of clutter. In this respect –as in many others –she verged –hell, she
staggered –
on the systematically sluttish (only her bedroom was the exception. Her
boudoir
was pristine. But this room was her secret anomaly, her perverse aberration).
Katherine was
diligently
chaotic,
consistently
scruffy,
discerningly
squalid, because nothing –not any small thing –in that tiny, filthy, miserable little bungalow escaped the fine tooth-comb of her careful attentions.
She’d been blessed (but was it a blessing?) with the hunter’s round eye; the eyes of a merlin (could see a vole skulking at fifty metres) –the keen nose of the shrew (the shrill voice too, if ever she needed it, although crueller in content than tone, by a margin) fine, feline ears (could actually
move
them –like a cat does –but only if she concentrated, hard, at a party –to illustrate her versatility –although she was rarely, if ever, socially busy), and the
sharpest
incisors for killing and chewing.
‘Fuck and
double-fuck.
’
Katherine slammed the front door behind her, growling like an old scooter-motor, and threw down the bike –still folded –her arms aching horribly. It was
twelve
fucking
fifty-three.
She’d had to walk the best part of it after the Southend turn-off (so a lorry carrying baby food or yoghurt or UHT –or something suitably
sloppy –
finally took pity on her after forty long minutes standing by the roadside, absolutely freezing her bloody arse off, and did her the
great honour of carrying her that far. But no further. And after?
Nothing).
There’d been fog. It’d been
icy.
And the bike was portable but
bugger me,
it was heavy. Had little wheels to the rear –like the kind you got on a supermarket trolley; just as stiff and stupid and clumsy –and a strap you were intended to pull it by, but to pull it meant stooping at a ridiculous angle, ricking your back, straining your knees, so she’d picked it up and carried it instead, all the long, hard trog back into bloodless Canvey.
Saw that twat who worked in the Lambeth Café. The miserable shit. Drove straight past her. She’d been at school with him. And the local sports injury chappie in his pathetic little van. And Mr and Mrs Sullivan from two doors down.
Two doors.
The snivelling…
She sniffed the air. The air smelled
hmmmn.
The air smelled… Good stilton. Old hay. Something queer and… queer. Something
mouldering.
She glanced around her. Peach schnapps bottles. In the hallway. They’d been moved. Shoved up against the wall. One bag had tipped over, leaving schnapps remnants on the parquet.
She sidled through like a ghost at the feast: like a vengeful spectre whose bones had been disturbed in an ancient cemetery… The living room.
Aha!
Her cushions on the sofa. They’d been adjusted. And the embroidered throw on the chair’d been straightened. And dear Mr Tiger’s fur (how
could
they?) had been smoothed down, smoothed
back,
all neat and straight and shiny and tidy.
Urgh.
He was de-scruffy. He was slick and tame and glossy as a pussy. Not dear, emery-board-furred Mr Angry Tiger. Not lovely, familiar,
dear Mr…
Katherine scuffed the tiger’s spine with the heel of her hand, delicately, like she was tenderly rubbing a big kitten’s belly. Okay. What else? The net curtains (she’d noticed while walking up the path –no, before then, even; all the way over from the other side of the stupid
street,
Goddammit) had been yanked out of kilter. They were skewwhiff. Not at all as she liked them. Not at
all
as she arranged them herself, in general.
Oh
yes.
And the inevitable trail of sawdust. She’d seen that too. Had glared at it, briefly, before finding her key and unlocking the front door.
The distinctive angle of the hydrangea…
Katherine’s grey-blue eyes glimmered. She pushed her aching shoulders back, ominously. She had been
invaded.
Indubitably. And by the look of the cushions –set straight, puffed out, propped up –Gentle Teddy had been here; with his pale ginger hair, his fiddling fingers, his throat-clearing, his stooped back, his nervousness, his
neatness.
The sawdust? She grimaced.
Dewi.
Dewi outside, peering in furtively at this pale-hearted invader.
Yes. A picture formed in her head. She scowled (still not entirely content with the shape of it), her calcimine eyes casually resting on the well-packed shelf behind the TV.
Hang on. Something distinctly amiss there… A vacancy. She focussed. Two mango-stone creatures staring straight back at her; clay-nosed, wire-legged, beady-eyed, unblinking. Gap between them. The middle one. Where was he? Where could the
middle
mango one be?
Katherine stalked over and gazed down behind the TV, just in case there’d been a faller. Nope. Retrieved a dried azalea –dust-splattered –a small dice she’d been looking for, an old two pence coin and a copy of the special
TV Times
edition of
The Tomorrow People’s
children’s adventure series (‘Based on the exciting Thames Television programme…’), its spine broken, its pages bent over. She kissed the cover. ‘
Starring Mr Nick Young as John
…’
And there was his picture.
Ahhh.
She tossed the book and the azalea onto the sofa, slipped the dice and the coin into her jacket pocket, turned, no longer smiling, her eyes scouring the room.
It was then that she saw it.
Huh?
She quickly circumnavigated the sofa and padded towards it. This
thing
on her work table. This
thing
unfamiliar. She drew closer. Her eyes nicked off to the left, instinctively (her sand, the neat heap, depleted. Pressed flat. Something…)
Lamb’s tail.
Wuh?
Good
God –
out of nowhere –and then there, in the sand (the
two things interrelating, corresponding, unifying,
merging,
with a brainstorming rapidity), the word, the
scribbling…
Now what…?
The word
… a… n…
No (She adjusted her angle, squinting)…
… a…
No…
c… u…
Uh…
c… u… n…
C-u-n-t? In a strange joined-up style of writing.
Cuntí
Could it be?
In
sand?
A
lamb’s
tail?
Katherine Turpin grabbed the tail, marched smartly through the bungalow and into the rear lean-to to check up on her chinchilla –
Phew
– she breathed a sharp sigh of relief. Bron was
fine.
He was asleep in the corner, nose twitching. Apparently none the worse for anything. She picked up the cage, anyway (not without some difficulty –it was as wide as it was heavy), lugged it through to the kitchen and placed it squarely onto the free-standing butcher’s block –for
security –
stepped back and inspected it (was as satisfied as she could be), then went and ransacked one of the cupboards in search of liquor.
Ah yes,
The comfort of the…
She located a Special Edition litre bottle
(perfect
for this kind of emergency), twisted her hands around it, shuddered. Unscrewed the top and took a huge, deep
glug
(tossing the lid with furious aplomb over her shoulder so that it hit the wall and landed –rotating, maddeningly –on the counter), then stalked back towards the front door, swishing the tail rhythmically in her right hand like a cheerleader’s baton (or a magician’s wand, or a duellist’s sword, or a long cheese finger at a tediously second-rate social occasion), the schnapps bottle still in her other, the wave of warm air in her wake creaking with profanities as she slammed the heavy door emphatically shut –
whack! –
behind her.
Poor Dewi, clumping heavily down his verandah steps, toolbag in hand, head in the clouds, planning the quickest and most efficient route for his upcoming journey (he’d missed one job already –he was late for another –but she was
home
now, wasn’t she?) glancing up, distractedly, to observe Katherine Turpin –the focus of all his concern, the core of his being, the centre of everything –quietly
incandescent
with… with… (was it rage? Could it possibly be?) standing in his pathway. She was blocking him. She was tiny.
‘You have been in my garden again,’ she murmured, her deep voice purring like a lawn-mower. Dewi considered responding (but how? To deny? To affirm?) then didn’t bother. Katherine was plainly not in the mood for listening (was she ever, honestly? Did she
ever
listen?). She was waving something at him. Something white and yielding.
He focussed in on it, frowning slightly. Then she swatted him with it, savagely. She hit his chin. It didn’t hurt. It was woolly.
‘Just
leave,
’ she spoke slowly and quietly, enunciating cleanly, ‘my damn hydrangea
alone
Dewi Edwards. Do you hear me? You mad, you
monolithic,
you fucking crazy
wooden-hearted
fool? You
dust
creature. You
maniac.
Do you hear?
Stay out of my garden!
Do you understand?
Stay out
of it you stupid, lumpen, snail-trail-leaving piece of crap,
damn you.
You pest. You
silly…
you soft-brained, huge-handed, imbecilic, interfering, tomato-munching simple-minded clod of a man…’
She paused. ‘…
damn you,
’ she repeated, slightly losing her thrust, in conclusion, but not caring.