Pike, page 3
“You promise.”
“I promise.”
“OK, go and get out of them clothes. You smell like frog shite.”
That made me and Kenny laugh, and my dad joined in.
“There’s enough hot water for a bath,” he said, and off I went.
Nine
I had a nice long soak in the bath, and it gave me the chance to work out a plan. My first idea was to go back tonight, or early tomorrow, and swim out to get the Rolex. I didn’t love the thought of it, but with no Tina climbing all over me, I reckoned I could do it.
But my dad had made me promise, and in a way it was a relief. I was scared of what was in the water, scared I’d get tangled, pulled down. And now it wasn’t just the giant pike that haunted the pond, but the spirit of dead Mick Bowen too.
So I had to think up another way to get the watch. A boat would be perfect, but I didn’t have a boat.
Then I had a brainwave. We had a blow-up mattress thing – what do you call it? A lilo – that we’d got on holiday in Spain when I was a little kid. I remembered that holiday. It was hot and the sky was blue for ever. My mum was there, and Dad, and Kenny.
But there was no point thinking about that. My mum was gone, and Jenny was OK. Better than OK.
The point was that the lilo floated, and I could use it to get out to the hand and the arm and the watch.
So after my bath I got dressed in clean clothes (Jenny put stuff in the washing machine to make our clothes go soft and fluffy), and then I went out to the shed. It was jammed up with rubbish – boxes full of old toys from when we were kids, and magazines, and wires that you couldn’t imagine ever connected up to anything.
The lilo was up on a shelf at the back. When we were little, me and Kenny used to get it down and dive on and off it in the garden. Kenny called it our bouncy castle.
But we hadn’t done that for years.
It was dusty as heck up there on the shelf, and there were the empty husks of bluebottles and wasps and other stuff I didn’t want to think about. A photo. A key from some other house. A letter.
Sometimes with bad things it’s a good idea to think about them. When you think about them, you can make them better. But some things you just shouldn’t think about at all.
So I dragged the lilo down, choking and spluttering from the dust and the cobwebs and the Kodak memories.
The lilo was blue on one side and red on the other. There was a grimy nozzle that you blew into. I wiped it and my fingers came away grey and furry. So then I spat on it and wiped it again on my jeans. Then I started to blow into it, and after what seemed like a long time the blue and red plastic started to swell.
An excited voice came from behind me. “Are we doing bouncy castle?”
Kenny.
I should have shut the stupid shed door.
“No, Kenny,” I said. “I’m just, er …”
And then, I don’t know why, but I told him. Maybe it was those old sad things I’d seen and those old sad thoughts I’d had. It would have been more sensible to pick up Dad’s old hammer off the floor and hit myself over the head with it. But that’s the thing about being a person – you do dumb-ass stuff the whole time.
“The thing is, Kenny, when I was out there, saving Tina, I saw something—”
“A pike?” he said. “A duck? A—”
He would have gone on shouting out random words for half an hour if I hadn’t interrupted him.
“No, Kenny. I saw a dead man in the water.”
“A dead man …” Kenny said. His face was yellow in the light of the bare hanging bulb.
And then questions came thick and fast into his head and out of his mouth.
“How do you know he was dead?”
“What did he die of?”
“Did he die of drowning?”
“Did he get eaten by pikes?”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know,” I said, which answered all Kenny’s questions together.
And then I went on, like the idiot that I am. “I mean, I might know who he was. Because I saw his watch. A gold Rolex. It would be worth more than our house. And I thought we could get the watch, sell it and give the money to Dad. Then we wouldn’t be poor any more, and Dad could buy stuff he needs, and we could go on holiday.”
There was something else in the back of my mind, something I hadn’t let myself think. If my dad was rich, then my mum might come back. One of the reasons that I hadn’t let myself think this was that it felt like a betrayal of Jenny, who’d been really kind to us.
Kenny had been thinking while I was talking.
“It’s that Mick Bowen, isn’t it?” he said. “Jezbo’s dad. Is he dead, then? Is it him for definite?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he’s the only person around here with a watch like that, and he’s disappeared.”
“Did the bad people get him?” Kenny asked.
“He was the bad people,” I said.
“I mean really, really bad people?”
“Yeah, I think maybe they did,” I said. “That or he just fell in.”
But I knew he hadn’t just fallen in.
“You can’t do that,” Kenny said after a pause. “It’s stealing.”
“It’s not really stealing, Kenny,” I said. “He’s dead. And he owes us anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because he got our dad into trouble.”
I could see Kenny was worried by all this. He knew it was wrong, but he trusted me, and he always thought whatever I said was right.
“All we’re going to do, Kenny, is get the watch off Mick Bowen,” I said. “Then we can tell the police. We can phone them in a funny voice, so we won’t get into trouble. They’ll find him and get him out of the pond. We’ll be heroes, sort of, but you can’t tell anyone.” I knew that would do the trick.
“Heroes,” Kenny said. “OK. Can we play bouncy castle now?”
I looked at the half-full lilo. “No, this is to use as a boat to float out to get the watch.”
Kenny grinned. “Pirates,” he said.
“Yeah, just like pirates.”
Ten
Kenny looked at the lilo. “It’s not very pumped up, is it?” he said.
He was right. I blew in some more. Then Kenny had a go. Then I had another go. Any time we seemed to be getting there, it would go saggy again.
“I think it’s got a hole in it,” Kenny said.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I said, which made Kenny laugh.
“No shit, Sherlock. No shit, Sherlock,” he repeated, getting the sound of it into his head.
I scrunched up the lilo and threw it down in the corner of the shed. Kenny looked at it there, sad and useless. I don’t know if he was remembering things, too …
“We need a boat,” he said. “A good boat. Not one with a hole.”
“Yeah, but Kenny, this isn’t the seaside. There’s not even a canoe in this town.”
“We could make one.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Make a boat. That’s easy, isn’t it?”
Kenny didn’t really get it when you were sarky. He always thought you meant what you said, like he did.
“Not a boat with sides,” he said. “A flat boat. What do you call it …?”
“A raft,” I said.
As I said it, I started to get a bit excited. I remembered a film I saw on the telly about some men who sailed across the ocean on a raft they made out of wood. Kon-Tiki, it was called. I’d wanted to make my own raft then, but I never did. I might have collected some sticks or something, but that was as far as I got.
I shook my head. “We haven’t got any wood. Anyway, it’d take too long to make. Someone else is bound to find the bod— to find the watch.”
“Like that man who was there,” Kenny said, and I remembered him, the man in the hood with the face at once blank and full of pain. “The bad man.”
When Kenny said “the bad man” I thought about the other bad men who might have killed Mick Bowen. Was the man who’d crept up behind Kenny linked to Mick? Had he killed him? He didn’t look much like a Russian gangster. But maybe he was just some loser they’d got to watch over the body, to let them know if anyone found it.
All this should have made me think it was time to back off, to make that call to the police. But instead it just made me want to work faster.
“I know where there’s some wood,” Kenny said. “And it already looks a bit like a boat.”
“What are you on about, Kenny?”
“I can’t remember what they call it,” Kenny said. “Plates or something. In the factory.”
I stared at Kenny while I tried to work out what the hell he was getting at. Wood like a boat … factory … Then it pinged.
Pallets! The yard in front of the Bacon Factory was full of old wooden pallets – planks nailed into squares for shifting things on forklift trucks. Kenny was right. The pallets were basically rafts and they were exactly where we needed them – next door to the pond. Perfect. Except …
There were two problems with the pallets in the Bacon Factory. One was the big fence topped with razor wire that you’d have to get them over.
Well, one thing I’ve learned in my life is that there’s always a way over a fence.
Two was the security guard and his dog.
The factory might be empty, but they still had security checking it. The guard wasn’t there all day or anything, but he would turn up in his van at random times. I’d heard that if kids were mucking about in the Bacon Factory when the guard turned up, he’d set his dog on them. I don’t know if it was always the same guard, or the same dog, but that’s how the story went. The dog was called Zoltan, and it was some kind of killer dog, fast and black. Everyone said that all its teeth were fangs, and if it got hold of you then you were dead.
Anyway, I knew some kids that Zoltan caught and he didn’t kill them, but they always told the same story. Not to adults – to the other kids. They said the guard gave you a choice – you could let him kick the crap out of you, or he’d get the police. That would mean you’d have a criminal record and probably get expelled from school.
One kid was supposed to have said, “Yeah, and then I’d end up with a shit job, like you.” And the guard let mad Zoltan run out to the end of his lead, snarling and barking and gnashing his fangs. The dog didn’t get close enough to bite the kid, but it was close enough for the kid to mess his pants. Or so everyone said. And after that the guard made the kid kneel on the ground while he slapped him about, gave him a dead arm and kicked his arse.
Anyway, it might all have been bullshit, but that’s what they said, and I didn’t fancy it.
“What about the guard, and that dog Zoltan?” I said, half to myself.
“You need to distract them,” Kenny said.
“What?” I didn’t even know that Kenny knew a word like “distract”.
“Like in school, when you want to eat sweets in class,” Kenny said. “Kylie says, ‘Miss, look out of the window, there’s a rainbow,’ and you put your sweets in your gob. Then you have to give one of your sweets to Kylie at break.”
Normally I’d have taken the chance to tease Kenny about this girl Kylie, to say he fancied her and that sort of thing. But I didn’t have time today.
“OK,” I said. “What do we do to distract the guard?”
Kenny puffed out his cheeks and waved his arms in a wide circle, and then he went, “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!”
Eleven
“Kenny, this is the maddest thing we’ve ever done.”
It was 9 p.m. and pitch black. Except, that is, for the floodlights around the Bacon Factory. There was the main building, which was made out of red brick, and then three or four smaller buildings, which were made of concrete.
It all looked a bit like a prisoner-of-war camp in an old film. Except we weren’t trying to escape, we were trying to get in.
Kenny grinned.
He was grinning because of what was in the box.
We were crouching in some bushes not far from the road that led up to the gates of the factory.
“Right, Kenny,” I said. “Tell me the plan one more time.”
Kenny closed his eyes to help him remember, and he made his voice go serious. He knew I wouldn’t let him do this unless he was sensible. And he wanted to do it very much indeed.
“I have to wait here in case the man comes,” Kenny said. “If he does, then I run round to the other side of the Bacon Factory, and I set them off. The man and his dog will go and see what it is. Then I run back here as fast as I can, in case you need help with the wooden thing. Then we go and hide it in the bushes.”
He opened his eyes and smiled, proud of himself.
“And you’ll be bloody careful?” I said.
“Bloody bloody bloody careful,” he replied.
Kenny had his box, but I’d brought something too. It was a strip of mouldy old carpet – something else I’d found in the shed. I jogged with it now towards the fence.
The fence was maybe two metres tall, and perhaps I could have got over it, if it hadn’t been for the razor wire at the top. It was like barbed wire, but instead of spikes it had these little blades. They were sharp enough to slice you up – like bacon.
Hence the carpet. I managed to hurl the strip up, so it draped over the razor wire. Then I took a massive run-up and got one arm up over it. I really wished the carpet was wider – if I put my hands a few centimetres either side, I’d be going home without any fingers.
But there was no chance to think. One arm, then the other arm, then my leg, and then I was over.
That was when I heard the noise of the guard’s van. I had to act fast. No way did I want that dog Zoltan tearing the arse out of my trousers before that thug beat me up.
“Go on – run!” I yelled at Kenny.
He sprinted off along the fence. He needed to be quick to get round to the other side of the Bacon Factory and get set up.
The van backed up to the gates. The guard got out and opened the gate with a big bunch of keys. There was no sign yet of the dog, and I hoped he was sick or maybe retired. The guard got back in the van, drove in the gates, parked, and locked up again. Then he opened the back doors and out jumped the devil dog.
I’d seen it before, but under the lights of the Bacon Factory it looked more evil than ever, with its giant tongue lolling out of its mouth like a demon.
The guard started to walk over to the main factory building. Sometimes I could see him, and sometimes he disappeared behind one of the smaller buildings.
I cursed myself for being such an idiot. Worse, for getting Kenny involved in this madness. I’d even let him talk me into letting him do the most dangerous part …
“I’ve done it loads of times with Samit,” he’d said.
Kenny’s mate Samit’s uncle had a shop that sold them, and Samit always nicked a few, so he had a massive store of them, and him and Kenny used to go off to any secret bit of wasteland and—
A white line of fire soared into the sky on the far side of the factory. It rose in an arc, perfect, beautiful, and then burst into a flower with orange and yellow petals. I sighed, the way you always do when the first firework goes up.
I also cursed. Kenny wasn’t supposed to fire any rockets. It was meant to be low-down fireworks, plus bangers. He was supposed to set them up, light them and get back here. I hoped he hadn’t stayed to watch the stupid rocket head for the stars.
Then I saw it – a huge golden glow – and a split second later I heard the sound. It was a proper booooooooooooom like Kenny had said. At almost the same moment I heard the dog go mental and knew I had to act. Now or never.
Twelve
There were more bangs and fizzes as the fireworks went off, then a couple more rockets zoomed up from the patch of glowing brightness behind the factory.
I prayed Kenny was all right, and wouldn’t get caught by the blast or burned by a rocket going off the wrong way. I strained to see him, but the brightness of the floodlights made everything outside the gates too dark.
And then I heard his feet pounding towards me along the edge of the fence. I could also hear the glee – hear it in his very breath. A second later his big smiling face was pressing against the diamond shapes in the wire.
“Did you see, did you see?” he hissed.
“Bloody idiot,” I said. “How many fireworks did you use?”
“All of them,” he said. “And I put one in the box and lit it and then …”
“Yeah,” I said. “Wait here. Do not move.”
I ran over and grabbed a pallet. It was as wide as my arms, and hard to carry. It didn’t seem too heavy, for the first few steps. But soon my arms started to hurt, and then, because I was holding it in front of me and running sort of blind behind it, I stumbled and fell. My knee crunched right through one of the planks and I landed with all the weight on my fingers. I would have done a fair bit of screaming if I hadn’t had to be quiet.
Would it work as a raft with the broken plank? Maybe, maybe not. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I ran back and picked up another. I was more careful this time, running with it held sort of to the side so I could see where I was going.
Just before I reached the fence I heard something that made my heart stop.
Barking.
Distant.
Getting louder.
“Quick, Nicky,” Kenny said. “Zoltan’s coming. He’s going to get you.”
“Bloody shut the heck up,” I said, a bit harder than I should have.
Bark, bark.
Closer.
And then a shout, a human shout.
“Stand back, Kenny,” I yelled, and then I heaved the pallet with all my might over the fence. It landed on the top, tottered for a moment, and then I jumped up and tipped it over, like a basketball player doing a slam dunk.
