‘You was wrong, then,’ stated Gilbert Swinyard. (Being stuck up for by a kid like Gilbert Swinyard’s exactly the point of being in Spooks.) ‘Christ, Taylor! What happened to yer trousers?’
‘Stepped into…’ I gasped, still desperate for oxygen. ‘…Arthur Evesham’s bastard pond…’
Even Pete Redmarley smirked at that.
‘Then…’ I began laughing too. ‘…fell into Squelch’s compost heap…’
Pluto Noak jogged up. ‘Did he do it?’
‘Aye,’ said Gilbert Swinyard, ‘by the skin of his teeth.’
‘Just moments left, he had,’ said Grant Burch.
‘There were—’ I just stopped myself saluting Pluto Noak. ‘There was loads of people still around in their gardens.’
‘’Course there are. It ain’t dark yet. Knew you’d do it, though.’ Pluto Noak slapped my shoulder. (Dad did that when I learnt to dive, just the once.) ‘Knew it. A celebration is in order.’ Pluto Noak stuck his arse out, like he was sitting on a phantom motorbike. His right foot kicked it into life. As Pluto Noak’s hand revved up, this stunning Harley-Davidson fart roared out of his arse. Fraping up through four gears for three, five, ten seconds.
Us Spooks pissed ourselves.
The noise of a fence collapsing and a kid falling through glass carries a long way at twilight. Gilbert Swinyard’s joke about a baby in a microwave died on his lips. The other Spooks looked at me as if I’d know what the noise meant, which I did. ‘Blake’s greenhouse.’
‘Moran?’ Grant Burch sniggered. ‘He’s broken it?’
‘Fallen through it.’ (Burch’s snigger died.) ‘Ten, twelve foot.’
The bell-ringers now came swaying out of the Black Swan singing about a cat who crept into a crypt and crapped and crept out again.
‘Moron Moran,’ rhymed Pluto Noak. ‘Hide up yer warren.’
‘That dozy fuck-up,’ said Pete Redmarley. ‘I knew he was a mistake.’ He scowled at the other Spooks. ‘We didn’t need any new Spooks.’ (That meant me, too.) ‘Might as well invite Squelch in, next.’
‘Better be off, any road.’ Gilbert Swinyard got up. ‘All of us.’
A fact sunk a hook into me. If I’d fallen through Mr Blake’s greenhouse and not Moran, Moran wouldn’t be abandoning me to that psycho. He just wouldn’t.
Keep your fat trap shut, ordered Maggot.
‘Ploot?’
Pluto Noak and the Spooks turned round.
‘Isn’t anyone going to…’ (saying this was miles more difficult than running across people’s back gardens) ‘…make sure Moran’s’ (Hangman jammed ‘not hurt’) ‘I mean, what if he’s bust a leg or…cut to bits on glass?’
‘Blake’ll call an ambulance,’ said Grant Burch.
‘But shouldn’t we…y’know…’
‘No, Taylor.’ Pluto Noak looked thuggish now. ‘I do not know.’
‘That dildo knew our rules.’ Pete Redmarley spat. ‘Yer gets caught, yer on yer own. You go knockin’ on Blake’s door after this, Jason Taylor, and it’ll be what and why and who and the third fuckin’ degree and Spooks’ll get named and we ain’t havin’ that. We was here long before you ever set foot in this village.’
‘I wasn’t going to—’
‘Good.’ Cause Black Swan Green ain’t London or Richmond or wherever the fuck. Black Swan Green ain’t got space for secrets. You go knockin’ on Roger Blake’s door, we’ll know about it.’
The wind riffled the ten thousand pages of the oak tree.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I protested, ‘I just—’
‘You ain’t clapped eyes on Moran tonight.’ Pluto Noak jabbed a stubby finger at me. ‘You ain’t seen us. You ain’t heard of Spooks.’
‘Taylor,’ Grant Burch gave me my last warning, ‘go home, okay?’
So here I am, two doubled-back minutes later, eye to eye with Mr Blake’s door knocker, cacking myself. Mr Blake is shouting inside the house. He’s not bollocking Moran. He’s on the phone, shouting about an ambulance. As soon as Mr Blake hangs up the phone I’m going to bang this knocker till he lets me in. This is just the beginning. I realize something about all the suicides traipsing north, north, north to a nowhere place where the highlands melt into the sea.
It’s not a curse, or a punishment.
It’s what they want.
Solarium
‘OPEN UP! OPEN UP!’ holler door knockers. ‘OR I’LL BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!’ Bells’re shyer. Bells’re ‘Hello? Anyone home?’ The vicarage had a knocker and a bell and I’d tried both, but still nobody answered. I waited. Perhaps the vicar was putting his quill in his inkpot, huffing, ‘Gracious, three o’clock already?’ I pressed my ear to the door but the big old house gave nothing away. Sunshine flooded the thirsty lawn, flowers blazed, trees drowsed in the breeze. A dusty Volvo estate sat in the garage needing a wash and wax. (Volvos’re the only famous Swedish thing ’cept for ABBA.