Nymphomation

  She would give no answer, she just beckoned them aboard.

  The bus was a double-decker, the bottom deck filled with a few desultory passengers, forever waiting for a trip that would never take place. A whining sound could be heard from above. A painful, drawn-out cry of pain that could never be calmed. ‘They found him an hour ago,’ said Mama Mole. She shook her head in anger. ‘While I was filling my…’ Nobody said a word as Joe and Daisy followed the old woman up the stairs.

  Eddie Irwell was laid out on the back seat, his once-impressive bulk now easily contained by the cramped quarters. Little Celia Hobart was resting her head on his chest, clinging to him, stroking his tangled dreads with one weak, unsteady hand. In the other, a trembling bird’s feather.

  ‘Celia…’ said Daisy.

  The cry came louder still from the young girl’s lips.

  ‘Come away, now…’

  ‘Go on, Celia,’ whispered Mama Mole. ‘You’re with friends. We’ll look after Eddie. I promise…’

  The drive back to Hackle’s house was a long, silent, rain-slashed, empty voyage. Joe had put a call through on his mobile, telling Hackle to get ready for visitors. Celia was squeezed between Daisy and Joe on the back seat. She couldn’t stop shivering.

  Daisy, Joe, Benny; none of them had anything positive to say, to the girl or to themselves. They each looked out at the rain, the city they had once loved, moving slowly away into the darkness. A few lonely cars passed by, a delivery van, a street-cleaning vehicle, the occasional taxi.

  Inspector Crawl received the message at half-two; his men were parked outside the house on Barlow Moor Road. He’d done the research, he knew who lived there: Professor Max Hackle, respected citizen. And so near the glorious HQ! The two cops on shadow-duty were of the opinion that at least five people were inside the house, maybe more. Crawl had enough.

  One hour ago he had closed the case on Edward Irwell, no fixed abode. In life as in death. Death by natural causes; a heart attack. The police pathologist had signed the warrant, co-signed by his own lying hand. Well and good. Well and bloody good.

  He rang the special number, direct line to Mr Million at the House of Chances. At least, he could wish he was speaking to the big boss of all chances. Most probably he wasn’t, but did it matter? His work would not go unrewarded. Loadsa lovelies! Aye, big piles of it.

  He gave away the information: the house, the occupants, the location of the lucky bleeder and the group who were trying to steal the people’s rightful winnings for themselves.

  ‘Do we move in now?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ The cold voice on the telephone, distorted.

  ‘Tomorrow, dawn raid?’

  ‘You have done well, Inspector. Please call off your men.’

  ‘You don’t want me to…’

  ‘We would prefer to deal with this ourselves.’

  ‘You won’t forget about me, will you?’

  ‘We never forget.’

  On Monday morning Crawl found his office stripped of all personal effects. No nameplate, no workload. Cases closed, or sent elsewhere. Nobody with a kind word or explanation. Even the photograph of his ex-wife had gone missing. A folder on his bare desk, containing the details of his new position.

  Not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  Monday. They won’t let me out. Can’t sleep, can’t dream, can’t make tears. Cuts on my arm where the strangers take their readings, and this morning they stole some of my hair. Telling me not to think about Eddie, but I’m disobeying them. Wandering around this house of strangers, writing this diary just to make the days go.

  Even that Daisy Love girl has nothing to say, no good words, just apologies. Stupid. Daisy is far happier talking to her father anyway, that’s obvious, even if they do argue from time to time. When her father isn’t falling over, that is. Dirty drunk. The smoky boy, Jazir, he’s OK when he comes round. He’s kinda crazy, so I like him. He doesn’t care like the others. Doesn’t try to be nice for instance. Makes me laugh. Shouldn’t be laughing, I know, but the feelings I get then are just like what Eddie used to bring, when he was…

  Stop that!

  It’s warm here. Got a bed of my own, a big soft thing. Reminds me of back home, seems like years ago already. They give me magazines to read and puzzles to do and a book I can write in, which is this. And they want me to hold their special dominoes all week because they think they can win that way, but I won’t do it, I drop them soon as they leave the room, ha ha. They can cook for me and cut into me and test me till I die, but I won’t play that game anymore. I have promised Eddie.

  Tuesday. Tried to escape today but all the doors are locked, and the windows, and they keep watching me. Watching and being watched. They think they’re testing me, but really I’m testing them. Ha ha.

  Why did Eddie cheat on me? Getting himself killed like that, where was the fairness? Wasn’t that the worst cheating he’d ever done, getting himself killed? I know this is wrong, thinking like this, but who cares what I think any more? Not me. Not me.

  Been through nearly every room in the house by now. Pretty boring. These adults, they’re supposed to all be in some big gang together, but mostly all they do is argue with each other, or else kiss each other, sometimes at the same time! Very strange. Daisy and Jazir, they must be in love. Making a world for themselves, no-one else allowed. And Sweet Benny and that horrible Joe, I saw them two kissing as well. Urgh! Sure, some of the brethren did that kind of yucky stuff, but Joe and Benny kiss like it’s a job to do, like housework or something. And they started arguing! Is this what having a home does to you?

  I have decided that I shall never have a home. It is much better that way.

  If I can only get out of here. If they would only let off watching me every second of every day. If they don’t let me go to Eddie’s funeral…I will tear this house down and steal all the numbers from their precious computers, you see if I don’t. This I swear.

  Wednesday. This afternoon I followed Mr Hackle and Mr Love downstairs to the cellar, where they argued for an hour, walking round and round a lot of corridors and messing about with computers. I kept to the shadows until they went back upstairs, just like a spy, I was! Then I made some of my own wanderings. Never been down there before, and it was OK down there because I got lost. It was nice getting lost, like in that maze me and my sister went to in that big garden, last summer, was it? First time I’ve thought about her in ages. Why is it nice getting lost sometimes?

  Then Mr Hackle came back down, but this time with the horrible Joe. They were kissing each other as well! And Benny came down too, but they didn’t see him, and he saw them kissing. So many kisses, it was like a kissing-go-round!

  None of them saw me because I was very clever. I followed Benny out and I’m pretty sure he was crying. Stupid, being an adult. I have decided never to become one, not ever. This I swear.

  Thursday. Today is Eddie’s funeral. They had better bloody well let me go!

  Thursday found Hackle and Jimmy Love visiting Susan Prentice. There were three to choose from; a waitress, a lawyer or a junior-school teacher. The first was easy; a pair of MegaBreakfast Whoomphies ordered from a bedraggled woman with ‘Susan P: Here to Deliver!’ on her badge and skin as greasy as the slop she served them.

  The second was more difficult; they had to make an appointment to see her. Apparently, she had a ‘window’ free that morning, of approximately nine minutes. ‘Sounds promising,’ reckoned Jimmy. ‘She always was a stickler for precision.’ Hackle wasn’t so sure, but when sat down in front of this impressive woman, concocting some cover story, he was tempted to distraction. There was a resemblance. They were trying to remember a woman neither of them had seen for eighteen years, and time can play evil tricks, witness Jimmy’s hair and Max’s suits. It was Jimmy that settled it, by asking Ms Prentice if the numbers five and zero meant anything to her?

  Blank. Not a flicker.

  The last was difficult because the headmaster of the school in question absolu
tely refused them permission to enter the premises. Too many weirdos, he explained, for too few children. Of course not, no way could he give out home telephone numbers, but yes, there was no law against ringing the staffroom during the lunch hour, if she was there. And could he have their names please, just for security purposes…

  ‘Jesus Bone!’ cried Jimmy, when Hackle got off the mobile. ‘It was never like this in our day. Fucking Fort Knox, isn’t it? And you gave our names.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I have?’

  ‘He’s gonna tell her who we are, maybe she won’t want to see us.’

  Hackle shrugged; he was getting used to Jimmy’s rough-and-ready soul and his language slurred out of a bottle of something. The drunkard even suggested they wait in the car, outside the school gates till lunchtime, just in case she made a run for it. Hackle, of course, thought this preposterous, and that they couldn’t afford to be arrested for perversity at this stage in the game.

  The school was in Droylsden, the same one they had gone to as kids, where the story begins. Does it start to end here? Is this the strange recursive loop, eating its own tail? Or else another blank score, another chance happening in the chain of playing? Just waiting there, opposite, in the Maverick Café, was the hardest time.

  Jimmy laughed at the rogue chances. ‘At least we get to eat something halfway decent, eh Max?’ Hackle, however, was deeply affected by the sight of the old school. He had not wanted to come here, he had wanted to send Joe instead, but Jimmy had persuaded him that she’d need to see familiar faces. Both of them were secretly glad they’d been refused entry; that would’ve been torture.

  ‘What if it’s not her, Max?’ asked Jimmy, with a mouthful. ‘What then?’

  ‘What if it is,’ answered Hackle, taking little nibbles.

  ‘Yeah. What then?’ Jimmy leered at Max.

  ‘It’s Malthorpe we’re after, remember,’ Max responded. ‘We just want some answers. You’re not to push it, OK?’

  ‘Max? Push what? What’s to push?’

  ‘I know what happened between you two.’

  ‘You did? I mean, did you?’

  ‘Even Malthorpe knew.’

  ‘He didn’t mind?’

  ‘He was out of it by then.’

  ‘Yeah, sailing his own dream. Nasty piece of shit, don’t know why you put up with him.’

  ‘Well, he was…’

  ‘Don’t tell me, the double-six.’

  ‘I don’t want anything personal going on, that’s all.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘Here they come…’

  Here they came, the kids, running from the doors to play and skip and jump and make fun and beat each other up and flirt and twist away like spinning tops, chasing after blurbflies.

  ‘Wow! Max…that was us, remember?’

  ‘Was it?’

  Hackle was ringing the school’s number, asking for the staffroom. The conversation lasted ten seconds.

  ‘She’s coming over?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘She’s coming.’

  Five minutes later a woman entered the café. She had a blurb on her shoulder, quite tame and inert. The woman nodded to the waiter, asked if it was OK to bring it in. The waiter said, ‘No problem, Susie.’

  No problem, it was her. The same confident walk, the power to turn heads. Well dressed, well preserved, putting Jimmy and Max to shame.

  ‘Wow!’ whispered Jimmy.

  Hackle nudged him under the table and got up to greet the woman. ‘Susan! So good of you to see us. I know you’re busy. Please…’

  Susan sat down.

  ‘I know you’ll remember Jimmy. Jimmy Love?’

  She nodded at Jimmy. ‘Of course. Five-Four, wasn’t it?’

  Jimmy smiled and took out the bone from round his neck.

  ‘I lost mine years ago.’

  ‘Well…would you like to eat?’ Hackle asked.

  ‘Thank you, no. I must get back soon, work to mark. Isn’t that right, Edna?’ She stroked the blurb on her shoulder.

  ‘Edna?’ said Jimmy, smiling at her. ‘Pray tell…’

  ‘Educational Net Agent. A tremendous help, and, of course, the children love her to bits. Teacher’s pet, aren’t you? Fortunately, educational methods have moved on since we were young.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ said Max. ‘I have seen the results of the past year. They are nowhere near to our standard.’

  ‘That was a fluke year, Maximus. As you well know. If you take my results over the last ten years, believe me, I have made improvements. But no more of the past; this is about the AnnoDominoes, I suppose?’

  ‘You’ve noticed, then?’ asked Hackle.

  ‘It is difficult not to. The children all have toy bones. They can’t wait to be old enough to gamble. It saddens me, but what can I do?’

  Jimmy offered her a forkful of his pie, gladly refused. ‘Max here had you down certain as Cookie Luck,’ he told her, stuffing his face.

  ‘I am a little too old, and dancing was never my forte.’

  ‘What about Malthorpe as Mr Million? Paul, eh? How does that grab you?’

  ‘It doesn’t. Malthorpe hasn’t the balls to do that.’

  ‘Whoa! Turnabout city, or what?’

  Hackle shoved his quarter-finished food aside. ‘Susan, we just need to find Malthorpe, that’s all. Ask him some questions. Are you…that is…’

  ‘Are you still shagging, the prof’s trying to say.’

  ‘Jimmy! Please…Susan…I am sorry…’

  ‘Don’t apologize. Five-Four always was a crude young man.’

  ‘What? Me? Compared to Paul Malthorpe. Come on…I was—’

  ‘No.’ Susan stood up. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come here.’

  ‘Susan…’ Hackle was up now, trying to reason with her. ‘We mean no harm.’

  ‘I live a quiet life these days.’

  ‘She’s respected in the community,’ sneered Jimmy. ‘That’s a fact.’

  ‘I have no idea where Malthorpe is. Listen carefully, please. We split up some two years after the…after the thing with Georgie. I hear he went to London, I don’t know.’

  ‘She’s hiding something. Max.’ Jimmy’s eyes, holding her tight.

  ‘Will you keep quiet! Susan…’

  Hackle grabbed her arm. Susan whispered something evil, and the blurb took off from her shoulder, sting extended. ‘A punishable offence, obviously,’ said Jimmy. ‘Max, I do believe you’re about to get the strap.’

  Hackle sat down. Susan called the blurb back to its perch. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to, Max,’ she said, ‘but it’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Jimmy, ‘Max here wants to destroy the dominoes.’

  ‘This is because of Paul, right? About what happened? Forget it. I have. And life is far better for it. We made a mistake, we have paid for it. Now it’s over.’

  ‘It’s not over,’ said Max. ‘The bones are dangerous, Susan. The nymphomation. You know what could happen—’

  ‘Max wants to reopen the maze,’ said Jimmy. ‘He wants to go back in—’

  ‘Who will you kill this time?’

  ‘That won’t happen,’ said Hackle. ‘We will be careful…’

  ‘It’s the only way, Susan. Unless we find Malthorpe…’

  Susan sneered at them both. ‘I’d wish you luck, if luck had anything to do with it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I must go now.’

  Jimmy turned to Max. ‘I was just wondering, Max…’

  ‘Yes, Jimmy?’

  ‘About how Susan’s headmaster would react to certain rumours…’

  ‘Certain rumours, Jimmy?’

  ‘Certain rumours about his prized teacher being involved in a murder.’

  ‘He wouldn’t believe you,’ said Susan. ‘He knows me.’

  ‘Not half as much as we do,’ said Max.

  Susan looked through the window, over the road to where the children were playing. She turned back to the table. ‘I saw Malthorpe about ten years a
go. He’d come back to Manchester, full of plans. He wanted to involve me in those plans.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say, unless I agreed to join him. He had a new lover.’

  ‘Anyone we know?’ asked Jimmy.

  Susan laughed. ‘I think you do. Miss Sayer.’

  ‘Miss Sayer?’ Jimmy couldn’t believe it. ‘But she’d be…’

  ‘Yes. She’d be old. I gave up on Paul’s desires long ago.’ Susan smiled at the two men, satisfied at having shocked them. She turned to leave. ‘I would appreciate no further contact. Thank you.’

  Max and Jimmy sat in silence for a few moments, each deep in their own thoughts. ‘Bloody hell,’ said Jimmy, finally. ‘Miss Sayer would have been at least sixty-five. How could he?’

  Max wasn’t listening, his eyes and mind following the still-attractive junior-school teacher across the road, back to school…

  Beginnings, endings. As Max and Jimmy made their way back to Manchester, DJ Dopejack was visiting a friend in the medical department. It was his first visit to the university that week; the rest of the days spent in his room, tunnelling further and further through the defences of AnnoDomino. He was fired up, loaded with the DNA of his target, a hacker’s dream. Already he had peeled back layers, revealing hidden connections between the bones and the burgers and the cops and the town hall. All the connections uncovered, but no inroads to the real secrets: how to fucking win!

  Dopejack had a hard-on for beating the odds; not just against the bones, but against Hackle and his dumbo crew and especially that Jazir Spicebreath Malik. DJ gone loco, lonely and wolf-like; yeah, this was the thrill.

  To this end he was working on another tack, one too simple for the stupid, clever bastards that Hackle employed. You had to be simple to win this game, that was the insight. X-ray the bones, who had thought of that before now? One fresh domino, purchased only that morning, and a dead bone from last week; comparison test. Before and after playing the game.

  It took an hour for the friend to come back with the various sheets. Fuzzy knowledge at best, but shapes discernible. Through X-ray eyes: before losing, a series of plates showing the domino magnified and darkly transparent, a small patch of deeper darkness inside, perhaps one inch long, that moved from plate to plate in a constricted dance. After losing: the same shape, the same constricted dance from plate to plate. Interesting; the numbers died, the insides didn’t. What did that mean? Studying these maps of bone, Dopejack felt a hard slap on his shoulder. Turning round…