The One Safe Place (8 page)

"Miss, rugby practice."

"You certainly will if you continue to behave like that. And the rest of you will be spending another half an hour in my company unless we have absolute silence. Absolute, Bold, do you understand the word?"

"Yes, mermiss."

Marshall was afraid she would take exception to being called some kind of sea creature, but she was busy darting her gaze about in search of potential movement. "For your homework tonight," she said, "I want you to collect at least six examples of crimes from the paper and write how you would deal with them."

Perhaps she was hoping for groans rather than the few muffled coughs she provoked. "Very well, in rows," she said at last, and scrutinised each as they marched out, so that Marshall didn't quite believe he'd escaped until he was in the corridor.

Tom Bold caught up with him. "Cow. Would you have to purr put up with that in America?"

"Never did have," Marshall said, walking fast to leave the incident behind, past the gymnasium booming with footfalls and down the stone steps into the schoolyard full of boys chasing or pummelling each other or huddling together or swinging their schoolbags or dashing for the gates. Every boy was uniformed, the aspect of British school life Marshall had least expected: white shirt, striped tie that wasn't supposed to be removed or even slackened until you were in your own house, grey trousers and socks which were also required to be grey, black shoes and black blazer which had commenced soaking up the sunlight the moment he emerged from the building. His first sight of all that uniformity had made him feel he'd tricked himself into attending the kind of school George S. would have picked for him, but it was mostly better than that.

Just now, however, Tom Bold mightn't have agreed. "I mean, though, cur cow. Cur keeping us late for no reason and making me miss my burr bus. My mother worries if I'm her home late."

"Can't you ring her?"

"Only got enough to get her home."

"I'll lend you the money," Marshall offered, and had found a twenty-pence piece like a dime with its rim bevelled septagonal when Billy Heathcote strode up, shrugging at the shoulder straps of his bag to free his brawny arms. "I didn't like that, Travis."

"Yeah, she was pretty—"

"Not her, you. You."

"Anything special about me you want to discuss?"

"My dad says it's people like you and your dad got him beat up."

"Where does he get off saying that when he hasn't met either of us?"

"He wouldn't want to, either. It's like Lewie was saying, people who run down the police."

"Someone tried to run my dad down with a car."

Billy Heathcote stared as if he was doing his best to regard that as an insult, then noticed the coin in Marshall's hand. "What's that for? Paying Bold protection?"

"Just trying to help."

"We don't need your kind of help round here. Another time don't try and do my talking for me. I can talk for myself. I'm not Burr Burr Bold."

Red patches broke out on Tom's face at once. "Less of that," he said, and took a deep breath, "Heathcote."

"What'd you say, Bold? Nobody heard you."

"I sir sir—"

"That's right, you call me sir."

"I didn't sir—"

"Well, if you didn't, Bold, I'll let you off this time."

Tom's face was wholly red with effort and rage now. He shoved Heathcote's chest hard, and Marshall had a sense of being trapped in an invisible tunnel, at the other end of which he'd spoken up for Heathcote in the classroom, or perhaps it led farther back. Where would it end? With Tom going home with a bloody nose and his mother in hysterics? "Wait up, guys," he said, and stepped between them. "Listen, Billy—"

Heathcote punched him in the collarbone, and Bold grabbed him by the upper arms and heaved him out of the way, which hurt more than the punch had. "Hey, that was me, Tom. I thought you needed to make a call."

Heathcote projected a laugh. "I can just see Bold trying to fur fur fur fur—"

Bold ran at him and pushed him over. Heathcote fell as flat on his back on the concrete as his schoolbag would allow, and Marshall heard a crack of plastic in the bag. If that hadn't guaranteed a fight, the gathering circle of boys would have. As Heathcote flung himself upright and dragged at his shoulder straps Bold shook off his own bag, and Marshall left them to it. He was only just out of the circle when he heard the first thumps and grunts followed by shouts of encouragement from the spectators, and all the sounds continued as he walked fast out of the schoolyard.

He'd reached the end of the railings, opposite a row of houses which resembled a red-brick concertina which had just been squeezed of a note, when he heard a teacher roaring. He thought of going back to explain how the fight had started, but teachers who roared were the same the world over—impervious to explanation. A motorcycle the length of a sports car, with one of his schoolmates perched behind the rider, took off along Bushy Road, snarling like a big cat and leaving a trace of the snarl behind to turn into the protracted drumroll which announced how an airliner was mounting the blue sky, and life was a stream of surprises again, not dammed by the past. Even Mrs. Lewis's homework seemed as though it might be some fun.

The outpouring of monochrome uniforms from Bushy Road was diluted by the crowd on the main road, except where it pooled at bus stops. A wave of it fell back noisily as a half-empty double-decker bus sped past a stop without slowing. Marshall waited for the red stick figures on a set of traffic lights to turn green and adopt a walking stance while peeping like toy birds, and crossed to a newsagent's. Perhaps because they read so many books, his parents only ever bought a Sunday newspaper, and this late in the week the current issue was lost to the recycling bin outside the nearest Safeway store. Marshall bought a local paper once several Indian children had finished disagreeing over which bubble gum to buy, and walked along the Wilmslow Road.

Walking home from school instead of having to be driven miles beside the Everglades felt especially British. He inhaled the aromas of Indian restaurants and grocery stores piled with every color of pepper, and resisted the displays of pink and green Indian fudge and sweets shaped like pretzels, though the sight of them filled his mouth with the memory of syrup. He dodged around a group of Muslim women, their hair concealed by white silk scarves, and into Victoria Park.

Only the stone posts remained of the gates which a book in his father's shop said had barred the lower orders from the Victorian estate after dark, and now they stood at the centre of a broad plot of grass surrounded by a circle of houses which the British called a circus. Marshall dumped his schoolbag on a bench facing the posts and a facsimile of an old toll notice, and unfolded the newspaper.

MANCHESTER CUSTOMS SEIZE "BIGGEST COCAINE HAUL EVER." SHOOTING OF THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD DRUG-RELATED, SAY POLICE. EIGHTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD PENSIONER TIED UP IN OWN FLAT THEN RAPED. "PRISON RIOT WAS INEVITABLE"—
GOVERNOR. WIFE KILLS HUSBAND AFTER THREE YEARS OF TORTURE. WIDOW WHOSE HUSBAND DIED IN CUSTODY RECEIVES RECORD AWARD FROM POLICE...

He'd collected enough material right there, Marshall thought, but he continued turning pages until he reached the story he knew.

MANCHESTER BOOKSELLER THREATENED WITH GUN. Mr. Donald Travis, formerly of Florida, was threatened with a handgun in Fallowfield last Friday during an altercation about driving... Police have issued the following description of the assailant: about 6 feet tall, heavily built, unshaven, bloodshot eyes, sallow complexion, partly shaven head... The drawing of him was even uglier, a cartoon for everyone to hate on sight, glaring at Marshall like an outlaw trapped by a Wanted poster in an Italian Western. Marshall folded the paper so that anyone he met would see it, and ducked one shoulder through a strap of his bag to walk home.

Presumably Victoria Park became Fallowfield where the grounds of houses turned into mere gardens and the houses split amoeba-like into pairs. Trees mopped the sidewalks with shadows as a breeze ruffled the upstanding hairs at the back of his head, reminding him to tame them once he arrived home. He turned right by a house the same colours as his uniform, and right again where a large russet dog of several breeds started to bark as it threw itself against a jangling gate. "Only me, Loper," Marshall said, and patted its smooth head as Mrs. Satterthwaite, who designed costumes for the theater, called the dog into the porch.

Two hundred yards around the corner the street came to a dead end, and one of the white houses which ended it was home. A magpie like a fragment of a piebald house was perched on the second-floor railings, first floor if you were British, but as Marshall approached it clattered into the sky, leaving the street deserted except for several large cars lazing in the sunlight. He unlatched the gate and went up the jigsaw of a path between the flower beds where he and his parents had each put in one new plant, though his seemed determined to keep its flowers to itself. He was resting the newspaper and his schoolbag against the oak door while he inserted the first of his keys when he heard a car door slam behind him. "Hey, lad," a man said, closer to him than the slam had sounded. "Yes, you. Hey, you, lad."

Marshall turned the key in the mortise lock as he looked over his shoulder. A man was gripping the gate with both hands and pressing his stomach against it. Below his red eyes his face was a mass of stubble and spreading flesh. "Can I help you?" Marshall said as he thought his parents would have.

The man jabbed a fist at Marshall and stuck a finger out of it. "What the fuck you think you're doing with that?"

Was he accusing Marshall of having his keys? He sounded drunk, in which case he shouldn't have been driving the black Peugeot which was parked outside the house. Marshall glanced away from him in order to insert the Yale key, and came face to face with the identikit picture which he appeared to be posting on the door. "That's right, take a fucking good look," the man shouted. "Don't you tell me that's me."

The key scraped across the circular plate of the lock and dug into the wood. Surely someone would want to know what was going on, the man was making so much noise and taking so much time about it. "I'll have him for saying I look like that," he shouted ponderously, and Marshall heard the gate clang against the garden wall. "Donald Fucking Travis Booksell. When's he home?"

He wasn't close enough yet to prevent Marshall from unlocking the door if he did so at once. That wasn't his hand on the nape of Marshall's neck, only nerves. Marshall forced himself to slow down for the second it took him to locate the slot in the plate and slide in the key before withdrawing it the fraction of an inch that would allow it to turn without a struggle. It turned, and the newspaper face grimaced with the crumpling of the page as he shoved at the door with it, and felt breath stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. "Get in, lad, don't muck about," the man muttered. "We'll wait for him."

The door yielded less than a foot and stuck, wedged by the day's mail. Marshall could slam it, dodge around the man, cry for help)—except that as he pulled the door toward him, fingers dug into his shoulder and a fist like a veined knobbly hammer was thrust into the gap between door and frame. "Don't fuck with me, lad, less you want a kicking," the man said, and used Marshall to shove the door wide.

The vestibule was more spacious than two phone booths, but now it felt small and dark. The impact with his knees and right shoulder seemed to have knocked his mind out of his body, because all he could think was that he was somewhere else, this wasn't happening to him. A line from a movie began to repeat itself in his head: "If you have to defend yourself, make sure there's no comeback." He found himself trying to identify the film as the fingers continued to dig into the junction of his neck and left shoulder. Then the man let go and nudged Marshall forward with his torso and kicked the door behind them before stooping to rummage through the mail. "Leave them alone," Marshall protested in a voice which trailed off in panic.

The man let the envelopes scatter from his thick fingers tipped with grime and raised his head. His gaze stayed low, resting on a famine relief envelope which had remained in his hand. A secretive grin took its time about shaping his mouth, then he stared at Marshall and flung away the envelope. "What's this, a fucking waiting room? Get it open, lad."

All at once Marshall could think again. Opening the inner door would set off the alarm, which could be silenced only by a key on the ring which was still dangling from the outside lock. The man shoved him at the door to bump it open, and the house immediately started to wail.

The man kicked the door so wide the hinges creaked. He glared at the three closed stripped-pine doors, at the staircase with its polished banisters rising from the broad hall. Spit flew out of his mouth instead of the expected word, then, "Kill it, you little—"

Marshall was squeezing the newspaper and the straps of his bag so hard they felt indistinguishable. "You made me leave the keys in the door."

"The fuck I did." The man was shaking his head like an animal as though to rid his ears of the wail of the alarm. He pulled the door open, and Marshall lunged. A hand which smelled of sweat and motor oil closed over his face and threw him back into the house, and he heard the keys being snatched. "Pretty fucking clever, I don't think," the man said, letting go of him.

"I only wanted to switch it off," Marshall pleaded, hating himself and the sound of his voice.

"Aye, and I'm Reverend Chief Constable of Manchester." The man was jerking the keys on the ring as if that would separate the one he needed. Any second now the alarm would go off, a bell outside and a siren to impale the eardrums of anyone in the house. The man would cover his ears, and then Marshall would—

The siren raised its howl, and the man saw the control panel beneath it on the staircase. He stalked at it, apparently intending to wrench the metal box off the wood, though that would only make it impossible to quell the alarm. Then he shook a key forward and jammed it into the slot in the panel.