Cut To The Bone Read online

  "Ouch."

  "One two three..."

  "The police aren't ruling out a connection between the paedophile's murder and that boy's disappearance," The Fawn interrupted between sips of her coffee. "They're supposed to be dredging Black Dog Brook on Monday."

  Louis faltered and Dave turned to frown at her.

  "Could you please not do that while he's trying to play. Honestly woman, I sometimes wonder where you leave your brain."

  She reddened and duly lowered her head as the piece continued. Louis' playing was stronger now, the old confidence returning. His yellow head cocked the way the old Barb had shown him. His fingers numb to the pain.

  "Bravo. Well done!" Jacquie clapped too long when he'd finished. "He'll be the star of the show, won't he?"

  "Indeed." But The Maggot stared at the keyboard, his pasta supper still untouched. Louis noticed his hands shaking, the vein in his neck pulsing. Maybe a breakdown was on the way. He hoped so. Robert Smithson said his Mum had one of those last year. He still kept stumm about it, but all the Grubs knew the score. There was something almost cool about having a parent in a rubber room. Yeah, thought Louis. He liked it.

  With his instrument back in its case, he promised The Fawn he'd go shopping with her in the morning for the soirêe’s grub and booze. On his way to bed, he grinned at his reflection in the landing mirror, already imagining himself in that imposing, dark blue uniform.

  *

  Despite being wrapped up in foil and secreted inside gauged-out oblongs from two old hymn books, the moorhens' feet and rabbits’ noses were making his bedroom pong. Normally these mementoes would have joined the rest of the collection in his little houndstooth Secrets’ box, and the reality of Patel possessing its little key, triggered fresh panic like an electric current, heating his blood.

  He felt like one of those sardines in oil which The Fawn sometimes dished up saying that vitamin B2 warded off scurvy. His arms stuck to his sides, his balls burnt red between his thighs and splashing them with cold water made no difference.

  Once on the bed, it being far too hot for pyjamas or to get under the duvet, he propped his laptop on his knees and accessed Professor Renshaw's site for an unhurried look.

  Page 53. CAESAREAN SECTION.

  Beneath this heading were those same three photographs from which Miss Udder had obviously made her diagrams. Their colour was gross - just like his dreams. He thought of stuff from R.E. So this was where Original Sin began. No great surprise, given the unholy muck, the truly revolting imagery.

  1. The foetus curled up in peaceful ignorance.

  2. A white-gloved hand with a scalpel on its way.

  Louis peered at the flayed sections of flesh shown in gruesome detail. He'd always enjoyed the detail of medical illustration, especially of the eye and nose and but this was something else. Its high definition drawing him in, so it was as if he himself was back inside that dark, pulpy place. Him in that picture waiting to be born.

  He suddenly wished Toys R Us sold pregnant dolls so he could experiment with the nifty little knife…

  3. The lifting out and cutting of the cord - pink and wet like the innards of a run-over cat. The mother's welcoming arms. The procreators' joyful smiles.

  Had anyone smiled at him like that? he wondered, and doubted it. So there his brief empathy ended. That particular photo meant nothing, adding to his sense of exclusion.

  He glanced down at his navel then reached for one of The Fawn's make-up mirrors nicked from her drawer. One side was for enlarging, presumably to zap the blackheads round her nose. He angled it over his stomach and gaped in amazement. The remains of his umbilicus was a truly weird thing. Moist and smooth like the underside of a snail. Curled in on itself, hiding secrets he had to know.

  OK, he'd often picked at it, surprised so much stuff got stuck down there. Once, he'd found a dead midge settled in the deepest bit and had carried it to his sink then peed the little black corpse to oblivion down the plughole. Now however, his navel looked remarkably clean and new. Like a baby's in fact.

  To think this little pit of flesh had once been tied to her, The Fawn. That his body was full of her blood, for Professor Renshaw stated as much. That was a step too fucking far.

  He closed down his laptop, swung his legs over the mattress edge and slipped into her bedroom for the red nail varnish she kept for rare evenings out. With his task finished, he padded downstairs to the lounge where they both sat apart, staring at the widescreen TV. David Attenborough had popped through some tropical foliage to end that particular episode, when Louis stood in the doorway and coughed - his throat was oddly dry.

  "Look," he said.

  And they did. Just as the ten o’clock news was just beginning.

  "Good God!" The Maggot blinked. "What in Hell’s name are you up to now?"

  "Thinking about being born." Making light of what had plagued him for as long as he could remember. "I mean, did I come out head first, feet first or like this? He tapped the vivid line. "I really need to know, you two... I'm not joking."

  Dave reached for the TV controls and turned down a report from Helmund Province, where several British Army soldiers had driven over a roadside bomb. The Fawn began to cry. Her face puffing up like one of those Easter buns he'd been forced to bake in Year 7.

  The Maggott half-turned towards him.

  "It's a personal and private thing, Louis. You'll understand one day. Now can we please leave it at that? Go and clean that stuff off your stomach."

  "But Miss Udder, I mean, Miss Underwood told me she was born the same way as Julius Caesar. How come she can talk to me about it and you two can't?" His voice rose another octave even though it had broken just before Easter. "I get nightmares. I keep seeing this bloody knife going chyk, chyk, chyk, slicing through skin. I can remember – as if it's happening around me. Why?"

  "See on the screen there," The Maggot pointed the remote at a grieving British mother whom Louis found repulsive. "This is real suffering. Real pain, and I'm going to say it, son..."

  "I'm not your son."

  "You don't seem to have enough to think about these days."

  The Fawn looked up with surprise then resignation. Dave was on top form now. There was no stopping him.

  "Permission to breathe?" Louis challenged him. No way would they see him weaken.

  "You only think about yourself," The Maggot turned up the volume. "It's not healthy. Year nine's not so far away, then you'll have to pull your finger out."

  "Where's my parcel?"

  "You must be joking."

  "And my mobile?"

  The laugh unforgettable.

  Louis rushed from the room, banging the lounge door shut with such force that the chandeliers danced from their sockets, and one of The Fawn's rubbish watercolours tilted on its hook in the hall.

  He sat with his back to his bedroom door and lifted the leather-sheathed knife from its plywood box. He studied the perfect handle, the pointed blade, sharp as ice on his skin. How sweetly it sat in his hand, still underused, but just feeling it, empowered him all over again.

  He stood up, holding his breath, focussing - just like when that pervert in the woods had riled him up, then, with a huge lunge at his bed, tore into its Space Odyssey duvet, thinking flesh, pregnant flesh, leaving two gaping slits from which flew a galaxy of small, white feathers. They clung to his Fuzzy Felt scalp, his vest his sweat, until he was completely covered. They blinded his eyes, impaired his breathing, and when he screamed, one fluttered into his mouth to touch his tonsils...

  He was sick, twice. Choking, choking, gagging air...

  "Louis?"

  Footstep
s thumping on the stairs before his bedroom door was pushed open. Next, a finger down his gullet clearing the airway.

  "Get an ambulance, Dave. Quick!"

  "There's no need. He's breathing fine now."

  "You won't even do that, will you?” Screamed The Fawn. “So I bloody will."

  "I don't think so." He was in the room behind her, gripping her arm tight. "Imagine the gossip. My job, everything. Look, he's in no danger. Just needs to calm down. And by the way," he probed the damaged duvet with a forefinger, "see he pays for a new one out of his pocket money."

  "You bastard," she sniffed, pulling away to scrape feathers off Louis' body then stamping them into the waste paper basket. "That's all you care about. Your bloody job, your this, your that..."

  "What do you bring to the pot, then? Piddling about with research that no-one could give a flying fuck about."

  Louis blinked. The Maggot effing and blinding. That was a new one.

  "Supposing Louis was dying?" she yelled at him. "Would that make you move a muscle?"

  Louis listened intently. The No Reply was worse than any hit, and a tear crept from each of his closed eyes. Then he realised the knife and its box still lay some distance apart on the bed and tried to reach them, but The Maggot beat him to it. Jacquie gasped as he held the weapon aloft then turned it over in his white hands, sniffing the blade.

  "How did you get hold of this?"

  "Over to you."

  "Meaning?"

  “Guess.”

  "You could be charged with possessing a dangerous weapon."

  "It's yours. Stop trying to set me up."

  "How dare you! "

  With that, he struck Louis round the head. Not once but twice, then another for good measure, worse than before, while the punch bag stayed silent storing things up for later. But not quite.

  "You nicked it from that craft shop in the Mall. I bloody saw you,” Louis retorted finally. “I also want my 'phone and that uniform. "

  Dave kicked him hard on his thigh as Jacquie went over and pulled his bedroom window shut. But too late. Frau Zeller was already at her post by the shared fence, looking up, as if having heard every word.

  24

  Saturday. Or rather, Soirée Day and, instead of accompanying The Fawn into the Mall, Louis tore open the parcel she'd left at the end of his bed. He examined every smallest detail of the constable's uniform, undoing and doing up the jacket's buttons, trying on the helmet and the black, fake-leather shoes. Each discovery brought a rush of blood down below and, during the half hour in which The Fawn and The Maggot prepared to leave the house, three ejaculations into his washbasin left him drained and stumbling for his bed.

  He slept in until eleven, dreaming not of uniforms, but of huge, grey swans shedding their feathers with one single sinuous shake from beak to tail. Of feathers looming closer and closer until he saw the end of each quill shaft had been dipped in blood.

  It was the front doorbell which woke him from the nightmare. Once, twice, then a third time, each ring more insistent, followed by thudding on the oak-stained resin. He crept out of bed, hurting everywhere, especially his head, made worse by the blinding streak of light between his curtains. The damaged duvet had gone and in its place lay The Fawn's tartan car rug, smelling of grass. He suddenly realised as no-one was answering the din. That he was alone in the house.

  He craned through the banisters to see a dark, human shape behind the door's patterned glass. He retreated into The Fawn's bedroom at the front to sneak a look down at the porch.

  Fuck.

  In the Discovery’s place stood a yellow and blue chequered cop car, and he saw the top of Derek Jarvis's helmet as he rang the bell and thudded yet again.

  Louis backed away from the window and froze until all was quiet, save for the sound of receding footsteps. He missed Jarvis's questioning glance back at the house as if convinced someone was still inside. Also his annoyance as he reversed his vehicle down to the Zellers, letting the engine idle.

  Frau Zeller glanced up from trimming her miniature Leylandii by the front door. "Ja?"

  "Are the Perelmans around?" The constable kept looking at number 14. "I've tried their bell, but no reply."

  She came over to his open window, blocking out the sun. Her armpit odour overpowering.

  "They left at ten this morning. Plenty to do for their musical evening, I shouldn't wonder."

  "And the boy. Him too?"

  "Louis Claus? No. I'm sure of it, but can I take a message?" She shielded her eyes to watch the Patel's white van judder out of its garage. The Pakistani boy in the passenger seat waved as it passed, but was ignored.

  "Thanks,” said Jarvis. “I'll try later."

  "Incidentally, officer," Frau Zeller added. "I did hear something very odd coming from the Perelman's house last night. The boy's bedroom judging by the curtains."

  "Really?" Jarvis fiddled with his two-way trying to connect with HQ. He still had Ditch Hollow and Downside to cover.

  She nodded. “Shouting, screaming. Not very nice at all, and the ‘knife’ word was used. Dr. Perelman was accusing his son of having one, but the boy insisted it was his instead."

  "I'll make a note. Thanks Mrs Zeller."

  “It’s Frau.”

  “My apologies.”

  With that, he slipped into gear and, nodding to the workmen who were adding two replacement concrete globes to the entrance pillars, swung left into North Barton Road.

  *

  Ten Waitrose bags - not Tesco this time - and the frozen party nibbles were already softening in the heat. The rank smell of a stale sea filled the kitchen as Dave and Jacquie unpacked without speaking. In fact, the whole shopping expedition had been in silence, and when he'd caught sight of Carla Kennedy with Greg Willis choosing wine at the far end of the store, his misery had deepened.

  However, he reassured himself that in just a few hours she'd be in his house, her scent filling it, her lovely feet on his parquet floor, and that oh-so-touchable hair waiting for his eager fingers...

  "What about Louis?" Jacquie asked, arranging smoked salmon and anchovy canapés on a paper doylie, realising they might be the last things people wanted to eat on a hot evening.

  "What about him?"

  "Aren't you going to run through his pieces again?"

  “He's fine, no thanks to you interrupting. Except for his hair, of course. Damned nonsense."

  "It's not what you think."

  "Oh, really?" Dave threw her a look of scorn, then left her to it. Forty minutes later, strains of him trilling through a Nocturne reached the kitchen - just then the most irritating sounds in the world.

  Jacquie placed the pungent anchovies on to minute squares of rice bread, then sniffed them. It would be a real ‘do’ to remember if everyone got the runs, she thought, surveying the feast as Dave’s playing grew louder. And what sweet justice should the Maestro himself be the first to succumb…

  The doorbell’s ring interrupted her traitorous thought.

  "Can you get it?" He yelled over the noise.

  She hesitated by the front door where two shadowy shapes were waiting, then opened it enough to see not only Constable Jarvis but a short, thin woman with red, frizzy hair, black leggings and Doc Marten's boots. Her soiled puffa jacket added to the effect of poverty and neglect. Behind her, a young girl and an even younger boy sat in the back of the police car.

  "Yes?" Jacquie barked to disguise her nerves.

  "Mrs Perelman," the officer began reasonably, nevertheless nudging his toecap forwards to prevent the door closing. "Is Louis at home? It's just that Mrs Martin
and myself would like a little chat with him, if we may."

  Martin? She recognised the woman's name. The same as in the newspaper. Blood left her face.

  "Chat? Why? He's not done anything..."

  "Purely to eliminate him from our enquiries into Jez's disappearance."

  "I don't believe this." Aware more than ever of the neurotic Nocturne spilling out into the air behind her. "And did you have to park outside our house?"

  "Yes, and to reassure you, we're speaking to every lad within a six mile radius of Scrub End who was late for school and might have called on Jez Martin last Monday morning. It’ll be a long haul, especially as most kids are skipping classes after exams."

  "That's absurd. My son leaves here at eight every morning because Assembly's at half past, and if he does miss any lessons, it's due to his tummy. Besides, he knows never ever to go into the Scrub End Estate. It's far too dangerous."

  The red-haired woman was about to protest, but Jarvis hadn't finished.

  "Mrs Perelman. For whatever reason, your son missed registration, assembly, double Games and Design Technology. I believe his Head of Year's already informed you?"

  "Yes. But we happen to believe our son in this matter. He had to visit the W.C. Do you want more details?"

  The other woman's intense blue eyes followed her every move.

  "Let's just see him, can we?" Rita Martin said getting to the point. "We’ve not yet come across anyone like the boy who called himself Pete Brown. Although Jez said he was his ‘mate’ at school, he never replied when I asked which class he was in. Cheeky too, mind, when he did speak to me." Her eyes suddenly narrowed at Jacquie.

  "Your kid got a mobile?"

  "I'm not answering any more without a solicitor present."

  "And a Canon EOS camera?"

  "Why?"

  Jarvis coughed, then carefully chose his words.

  "We've no proof any actual prints exist, but apparently this particular camera was recently used to take some indecent photos of Mrs Martin’s young daughter.” He indicated the police car. “She remembers it being black with its lens sticking out. Also the words ‘Canon EOS."