“Where’s that friggin’ Austin?” the youth demanded.
“Never saw ’im,” Alistair said gamely. “Who are you? Aw, gerrof, don’t torture me.”
“Me?” said the youth. He breathed into Alistair’s putty face. “I’m his friggin’ probation officer.”
A month later, after Austin had been sent down—burglary, retail premises—the remnants of the gang had met to discuss their problem. They had to face the fact that their den was no longer secure; if they wanted to keep their skeleton, they would have to find a safer place for it.
“Can’t keep it at our house,” Karen said. “We’re moving. Anyway, if you had a box, my mum would look in it.”
Alistair thought. “She would if it was yours,” he said, after some effort.
“She would if it was yours too.”
“You can’t keep it at my house,” Sherwood said. “My mammy would pawn it.”
“Nar, you couldn’t pawn a skeleton.”
“She pawn anything. Or, come Friday night, start stewing, curry bones, mm-mm, delicious, old family recipe from Montego Bay.”
“You Rastafarian git,” Alistair murmured. “Your mammy goes down the chip shop, I’ve seen her.”
Karen giggled. “I bet Lizzie Blank would eat stewed bones. She used to eat everything Claire gave her when she was doing her cookery badge, and some of it was absolutely disgusting.”
“I wish you’d shut it,” Alistair grumbled. “And give me some peace while I’m trying to think.” He squatted, cradling his head between his hands. Suddenly he looked up, his features clearing. “Got it in one,” he said. “What a piece of fucking brilliance.”
“What? What is it?”
“Look, you know our lot. You know what they do. Sleep around, knock off old ladies, receiving stolen goods. But what’s the one thing they don’t do? Mess about with other people’s post.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, all right, suppose a letter come addressed to Dad. Mum would want to open it, she’d be tempted, she’d feel it around to see if there was anything inside it, but she wouldn’t actually open it, oh no, she’d be ashamed. After he’d come home and opened it, she’d sneak it away and read it, but that’s different, according to her.” He tapped his head. “That’s psychology, Sherwood.”
“So?”
“So, Lizzie Blank.”
“We had this daily,” Kari explained. “But she’s left.”
“So, we go down Fletcher’s, nick some brown paper and string, and we do up the bones in a nice parcel. Then we put her name on it, and our address, and leave it in our hall. Like it’s come through the post. Nobody’ll interfere with it.”
“But what when she comes?” Sherwood said. “She’ll take it away, open it up; oh my my!”
“She won’t collect it, dumbo, because she’s left, hasn’t she, she’ll never come back.”
“What when we move?”
“That’ll be weeks. Months.”
“But then Mum might throw it away.”
“Look, I can’t solve everything at one go, give us a chance. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“It sounds feasible,” Kari said cautiously.
“Could try it, man,” Sherwood said.
Alistair pointed to his chest. “Nobel Prize for Being a Clever Bugger.”
“Get the news this morning?” Miss Anaemia asked.
Hardly likely. Mr. K. looked up, fearful, his jaw sagging a little. Nothing came from his radio except strange blips and crackles, and police messages; even when he tuned into “Big Band Special” they were there again when he next switched on.
“There’s this man,” Miss Anaemia continued, seating herself by the kitchen range. “There’s this man knocked off his wife. He’s gone driving round the countryside, pretending to be somewhere else—”
“An alias, is an expression,” said Mr. K.
“Then he’s gone off to the Lake District and dumped her body in a deep lake, and ten years pass, and he thinks he’s got away with it. Then—guess what?”
“But I can’t guess,” Mr. K. said. “Secret murder come to light?”
“There are the police, looking for some other body completely, and what do they find? This chap’s wife, all preserved, just as good as when she went in. And if he’d rowed his boat out twenty feet further, she’d have gone into the deepest part of the lake and they’d never have found her at all.”
“For the want of a nail a shoe was lost,” Mr. K. observed.
“I don’t know about that, but now he’s in gaol. Horrible, innit? What do you think, Mrs. Wilmot?”
But Mrs. Wilmot had slipped off, melted away, as if into the wall.
