Borstal Slags (16 page)

‘Powers, Sam? Do I look like Superman to you? Am I wearing my underpants on the outside, mmm?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m just Nelson the barman, the local colour, a bit of comic relief serving coppers in a pub.’

‘You’re more than that!’ Sam insisted. ‘I saw it for myself!’

‘Yes, you saw. And, yes, I
am
more than just a barman, Sam – I’m a great deal more – but like you I got a job to do and rules to play by and a
very
big boss, bigger even than your DCI, who I’ve got to keep happy. So in this place, and in this time, as far as you are concerned I’m just the all-singin’, all-dancin’, pint-pullin’
Jee-may-kahn
.’

‘You broke cover to speak to me this evening.’

‘Broke cover?’ For a moment, Nelson turned the words over in his mind. Then a broad smile spread across his face. ‘“Broke cover”! Yes, that’s a good, policeman-ish phrase. I like that! I “broke cover”, and spoke to my friend Sam, revealing more than I’ve ever revealed before!’

He laughed to himself, but Sam was deadly serious.

‘You broke cover once, Nelson, now break cover again. Use what power you have. Help me save Annie. Help me face what’s out there.’

‘I’m not here to carry your burden for you,’ said Nelson gently. ‘That’s for you and you alone. It’s the rules, Sam, and I’ll say no more about it. Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed out there.’

‘Then I can – I can
die
here?’

‘Well of course, Sam! Just the same way you could in your old life. You’re as much flesh and blood as you ever were. Cut yourself – you’ll bleed. So will everyone else round here.’

‘And what would happen if I – if I died here? What would happen, Nelson? Where would I go?’

‘Don’t think about that.’

‘But – but I have to know what—’

‘Be strong! It’s the future that matters, Sam.
Your
future. Yours and Annie’s. Because you two have a future, if you can reach it. You can be happy together. It’s possible. It’s all very possible.’

‘But not guaranteed.’

Nelson looked at him wordlessly for a moment, and then, very subtly, shook his head, just once.

‘But if I can stop this Gould …’ Sam went on, gripping the edge of the bar. ‘If I can stop him and get rid of him, then there really is a life for me and Annie? We can be together? Where will we go – to that place you just showed me? That place full of light?’

‘Oh, that!’ laughed Nelson. ‘Sam, that’s just the porch. It’s much nicer once you get through the front door. Man, you should see the living room with the minibar!’ His eyes sparkled for a moment, then his face became grave. ‘But you’ve got a lot to do before all that, Sam. And I can’t say if you’ll manage it or not. There’s everything to play for. Nothing’s guaranteed. But if you and Annie make it through intact – if you defeat what’s out there, and survive that confrontation – well then …’ He edged the solitary pork scratching along the bar until it nestled against the bottle of Johnnie Walker. ‘Don’t forget this, Sam. Don’t forget the whisky.’

‘And is it worth it?’ Sam asked. ‘Is it worth all this effort, all this pain?’

‘Is it
worth
it, Sam?’

Nelson smiled – a huge, broad, genuine smile – and set two small glasses on the bar, side by side.

‘Let’s see for ourselves, eh?’ he winked, and twisted the cap off the whisky bottle.

Nelson sent Sam on his way, out into the night, pleasantly pissed and more at ease with himself and the universe than he had been in a long, long time. The turmoil of his mind was gone. All those unanswerable questions about reality and unreality, life and death, had receded.

I am flesh and blood – I am here in this city – I have a job to do, and I have a future with Annie. That’s enough.

As he wended his way through the damp, dark streets, heading for home, Sam imagined that he could still feel the comforting glow of the Railway Arms about him, the reassuring presence of Nelson warming him like a camp fire. Patiently, knowingly, Nelson had listened to his clumsy attempts to explain the extraordinary events of that day, the sudden and horrifying lurch back through time that had occurred to him while he was inspecting the punishment block at Friar’s Brook. Anyone else would have made Sam feel like a babbling lunatic – but Nelson merely nodded sagely.

‘What did it all mean, Nelson? Why did it happen?’

‘Let me ask
you
a question,’ Nelson had said. ‘Did you see something today – an object, perhaps just a very small one – that attracted your attention, made you feel … odd in some way?’

‘Yes. A watch. A gold-plated fob watch with a chain. It was in House Master McClintock’s jacket pocket.’

‘A watch,’ Nelson mused thoughtfully. ‘Mmm. And when you saw it, how did it make you feel?’

‘Sick.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. Disturbed. Uncomfortable. I hated it the moment I clapped eyes on it. And I mean
really
hated it, Nelson. What does it mean?’

For a moment, Nelson’s face was drawn and serious, his thoughts turned inward. And then he suddenly became aware of Sam again, grinned, and refilled both their drinks.

‘We’ll talk about it another time,’ he said, raising his glass in a toast. ‘There’s only so much you can be expected to deal with it in one day, Sam!’

‘That watch – was it connected to what happened to me? Was it the reason I started seeing things in the past, things though McClintock’s eyes?’

‘Yes, it was the reason for it.’

‘Why? What does it
mean
?’

‘Drink up, Sam, and clear your mind of troubles.’

But Sam had become insistent: ‘It’s because of that watch that I saw into the past, isn’t it? I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘I said drink up, Sam.’

‘That watch is a physical link to the past. I’m guessing pretty close to the truth, yes? It’s a link to something that happened with McClintock and Annie’s father ten years ago – and it’s a link so strong that I sensed it at once, and it let me actually glimpse those events first hand!’

Nelson clanged the bell hanging over the bar. ‘Time, gentlemen.’

Something in Nelson’s manner, some invisible, indefinable aura about him – kindly, gentle, but strong – made Sam obey. To demand more answers and explanations suddenly felt impertinent, as if Nelson were a superior officer who far outranked him.

And, in a way, I think that’s
exactly
what he is.

Sam was loath to leave the warm snug of the Arms and the mysterious and reassuring presence of its landlord. ‘No chance of a lock-in tonight, Nelson?’

‘Home and bed for you, Mr CID,’ Nelson told him. ‘Get some kip. You need it.’

‘But we’ll talk further, another time? You know, about – well, about …’

‘Sure. Just do me one favour, Sam. Don’t go blabbing about our little chat here tonight. Best to keep it private, between the two of us. What happens in the Railway Arms
stays
in the Railway Arms, you hear me?’

Sam had paused, thought about it, then nodded. ‘I hear you, Nelson.’ And then, in the doorway, he had looked back and added, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ Nelson had replied. ‘Safe home, Sam.’

I don’t know who that man is – or if he’s even a ‘man’ at all – but I do know he’s a friend. A real friend. And that’s enough, too.

When he got back to his flat, Sam’s head was buzzing, but not with the booze. He felt curiously sober, given how much scotch Nelson had poured down his neck. What intoxicated him at the moment were visions and dreams, glimpses of some vaster reality than he could comprehend, and hopes of a future beyond what his imagination could conceive.

‘I’m happy,’ he said to himself. And he grinned. ‘I’m actually really, bloody happy!’

Happy – and ravenous. He raided the kitchen, toasting himself a mountain of Mother’s Pride and smothering it with Marmite. And, because he was still officially a bachelor, and therefore was perfectly at liberty to behave like one, he washed it all down with a couple of brown ales from fridge.

He was just on his third bottle when, from the hallway outside his front door, came the one voice he most longed to hear: ‘You awake in there? It’s the girl of your dreams, Sam – and I’ve got something special for you!’

His heart leapt, and he instinctively went to open the door – then hesitated. He was officially off sick with the flu. That would be what the Guv would tell everyone, and that’s what Sam wanted them to think, even Annie. Especially Annie. How could he explain that he had suffered a momentary existential breakdown brought on by too much involuntary time travel? He didn’t want anyone looking at him sideways, whispering behind his back, diagnosing him over coffee in the canteen. It was the stuff of wildfire rumours.

‘You can’t come in, Annie,’ Sam called back.

‘Oh aye? And what’s her name?’

‘She’s called influenza and I’m in bed with her right now. I’m on the sick, Annie. At home until I recover. Guv’s orders.’

‘You got the flu?’ she called in to him. ‘Poor Sam! Let me in, I’ll play nursey.’

‘I’m contagious.’ And, to prove it, he coughed theatrically.

‘Flippin’ heck, Sam, you sound like you’re at death’s door!’

‘Death’s door. Yes, you could say that.’

‘Oh
please
, Sam, open the door. I won’t breathe in or nothing. It’s really, really important!’

He couldn’t resist. Sam turned the latch. There she was, in her beige overcoat and sensible outdoor boots. She beamed at him, her face flushed and excited.

‘You don’t look too bad to me,’ she said.

‘And you look like the cat who stole the cream.’

‘I
feel
like it, too!’

She bustled in, throwing off her coat to reveal her muted paisley blouse and brown, chevron-patterned skirt.

‘I’ve cracked it!’ she grinned, pulling a couple of sheets of paper from her handbag and waving them in his face. ‘I can’t believe it, Sam! I’ve only gone and cracked it! I’m so excited! If you weren’t snotty and contagious, I’d give you the biggest snog you’ve ever had!’

Sam inwardly cursed his cover story. Why hadn’t he made up something about putting his back out instead?

‘I’ve made sense of it!’ Annie beamed.

‘Made sense of what?’

‘The letter! The one from Andy Coren! I
knew
there was something iffy about it. And I was right! I was bloody right, Sam!’

‘There
was
a secret message in it?’

Annie nodded vigorously.

‘And you’ve cracked it?’

Annie nodded even
more
vigorously.

‘You’re kidding me.’

Annie shook her head, most vigorously of all.

Sam grinned. ‘Hit me with it!’

‘Right! Look at this!’ She thrust the crumpled, bloodstained letter at him. ‘This is the original, right? Strangely worded, mentions a nonexistent vet in Lidden Street – but, other than that, innocent enough. Right?’

‘Right.’ Sam perused the letter closely. ‘I still can’t see anything.’

‘No, you can’t. And for ages, neither could I. I was going over it and over it, not getting any joy. I started to wonder if I was just driving myself potty over nothing. Anyway, as you can see, the original’s getting pretty tatty. So, I decided to make a copy of it on that new Xerox machine and use that to work from instead.’

‘And?’

‘See for yourself.’

Annie proudly shoved a sheet of photocopier paper at him. Sam looked it over.

‘I still don’t see anything,’ he said. ‘It’s just a copy of the letter.’

‘Yes, but look! The Xerox sweeps a powerful light over what it copies – and that light shows up all sorts of marks and imperfections on the original. See how all the little rips and indentations show up as black speckles?’

‘Yes. But I still don’t—’

‘Look at the individual letters! Here, and here, and here and here …!’

She pointed, and Sam looked. His eyes slowly widened.

‘There are tiny marks beneath certain letters,’ Sam said.

‘Pinpricks.’ Annie grinned. ‘We’d have seen ’em straightaway if we’d thought to hold the letter up to the light! The pinpricks mark out a series of individual letters. Put them letters in order and you get
this
!’

She thrust a sheet of foolscap at him. On it, in her neat, schoolgirlish handwriting, it said, ‘OLDFRIDGEGERTRUDEFRIDAY’.

And then, beneath it, ‘OLD – FRIDGE – GERTRUDE – FRIDAY’.

‘So this is how Andy Coren arranged his escape plans with his brother on the outside!’ Sam said. ‘They used a code. And
you
cracked it! Annie, you’re a genius!’

‘A genius? Me? Oh, no, no, no,’ Annie simpered. ‘Well – maybe just a bit.’

‘You’re a bloody marvel!’

He threw his arms around her, but she ducked away from him before he could land a kiss.

‘I don’t want your germs!’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course. My germs.’ Confounded, Sam turned his attention back to the letter. ‘Andy Coren was a regular Houdini, escaping from one borstal after another. And this explains it. He must have had this code worked out with his brother all along. Derek could be there on the outside, helping him escape. They could communicate freely, right under the noses of the screws.’