‘No… leccy’s been cut off. Got the letter yesterday.’

‘Good job we’re moving on then, eh?’

Hod put his head back in his hands, sighed. ‘Gus, there’s nowhere far enough.’

Chapter 11

I’D DONE WORSE JOBS; Christ I had. But at least I got paid for them. Still, jannying at the uni was gonna get me close to the action. Figured the hardest part of the job would be convincing folk I really was on the staff. I knew Calder wasn’t happy about having me around, but he could hardly say no given the circumstances of his rector’s son’s recent demise.

I felt enormous relief to get the tweed jacket off, was like shedding a dead skin. The dustcoat seemed to be more my style; more my class of loser. Felt an atavistic pat of approval on my back – it was like getting down to honest graft, proper work, kind you got your hands dirty at. Always thought it beat desk-jockeying any day of the week.

Calder wasn’t best chuffed at my snooping around the campus in the guise of a janitor. He’d threatened to ‘raise the issue’ with Gillian; I’d told him I didn’t give two shits. A boy had been murdered on his watch and the man seemed more concerned with covering that up than finding any kind of justice. Sure, I could see why the mere fact of the matter wasn’t going to attract any positive PR for him, but there was a bigger issue here: his mother was closer to the money when she’d called it murder – I became more convinced of that with every passing hour. Call it gut instinct, or a nose for bullshit, whatever: my antennae were twitching for sure. I needed to get closer to the action, start pushing a few buttons, busting a few heads.

I looked around the doocot: lots of tin pails, heavy-duty mops, bottles of bleach in powder form and an assortment of paper hand-towels and loo rolls stacked to the ceiling. There was a few gardening tools: a rake, a fork and some fencing posts sat alongside tightly wrapped bales of barbed wire. The place smelled like a heavily disinfected public urinal and had just about the same appeal. The only relief from the smell came from the odd waft of turps. I was wondering who utilised the rusty kettle and dirty cups when the door opened.

‘Oh, aye… what’s your game?’ A gut-heavy twenty-something in a mustard-coloured dustcoat put wide eyes on me.

I played it safe: ‘Eh, I’m Gus… the new help.’

‘What fucking new help?’ He sounded far too well bred to be a janny; I wondered what his story was.

‘Mr Calder appointed me this morning.’

The bloke shook his head, took out a packet of smokes, Camel. ‘Nobody tells me bloody anything in this joint… Sorry, not much of a welcome. Got a bit of a start to see you in here.’

I took a tab, sparked up.

‘So, it’s Gus…’ he said. ‘I’m Stevo.’ He started to take off the dustcoat, empty the pockets: a box of kitchen matches, packet of Rizla skins, more smokes. He transferred the lot into a scruffy Reebok rucksack hanging on the back of the door. When he put the coat up I saw there was a giant ink stain under the breast pocket and filthy smears round the hip pockets; it didn’t faze him. One of the pockets had a paperback sticking out. I couldn’t see the title or author’s name.

‘Aye… Gus Dury, that’s me.’ I stuck out a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Stevo.’

He took a deep drag on his tab, eyeing me cautiously over thick glasses. He looked as if it hadn’t been long since he’d been a student himself. A hint of acne sat on his hairline; the look of optimism hadn’t yet been beaten out of him by reality. He took my hand, shook. ‘Well, be interesting to see how long you last here.’

‘That right?’

He laughed, then removed the paperback from his dustcoat pocket. It was Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. ‘Oh yes, we have what you might call a high staff turnover.’

‘Tough station, is it?’

His laughter increased in intensity and pitch; he fair roared. ‘It’s the cushiest number going. Trust me, you’ll be struggling with the boredom more than anything.’ He sat down in a skanky armchair that was lodged between the sink and the table, put his feet up and delved into the book. I was already beginning to like this guy.

‘Bit of a fan of Papa?’

He looked scoobied, as though he wasn’t expecting any kind of intellectual stimulation within these four walls. Could hardly blame him – like I looked Mensa material.

‘Erm, I’m just getting into it now… You read?’

Did I read?

‘Big time. Hem’s a favourite too. You got his best there.’

Stevo put down the book, started a long drag on his tab as he took me in. ‘You’ve read the works, have you then?’ He sounded disbelieving. I could have taken offence, but let it slide; he didn’t know me from Adam.

‘Every word. Even the poetry… and that’s a push. I go for the Yanks – Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck… even Salinger in his own way is a bit of a master.’

Stevo stood up, walked over to a rusting file cabinet, opened it and removed a little tin box. Inside was a block of, if I wasn’t mistaken, Moroccan rock. ‘Fancy a smoke?’

I smiled my widest. ‘Wouldn’t say no!’

He rolled out the biggest doober I’d seen in a long time; must have been a six-skinner. As we smoked I got his life story. Seemed, until last term, he’d been a student here. They’d had a raid on campus and found his stash. He’d been too fond of the Bob Hope to flush it away: big mistake. His parents were appalled, but sufficiently connected to get him suspended for one term, with a cushy little job thrown in. He even got to keep his room in the halls. The way he told it, the tale seemed nothing unusual to him. To me, it sounded like the worst kind of old-boy networking. You’re either part of that gig, or apart from it – and I was well and truly the latter. The whole trip boiled my piss. Smacked of superiority – just what this joint propagated.

‘This is some stuff, Stevo.’ Say what you will about students, they know good gear.

‘Oh yes… good toke, eh.’

I could see this helping me ease off the sauce. I’d tried speed once, but it had only made me even more jumpy. ‘Any more where that came from?’

He seemed to lose some colour from his cheeks, got antsy: ‘Erm, no… ‘

‘It’s okay, I’m not going to raid your stash there.’

He calmed. ‘No, it’s not that. Had some trouble with my dealer, that’s all.’

I could feel the hit taking hold, laughed out, ‘Oh, gotcha – he get turned over?’

Stevo stood up. He didn’t seem to see the funny side. ‘Something like that. Look, I should get off. You’re the night-man, and I don’t get any OT from that prick Calder.’

I waved away the hash smoke, said, ‘That Calder fellow’s a bit of a stuck-up old git, is he not?’

‘Calder!’ He spat the name out. ‘Total bastard more like.’

It didn’t take much to press him for more: ‘Oh aye?’

‘Got me kicked off the course. Could have swept it under the carpet but wouldn’t have been the thing to do for a mere pleb like me.’

It seemed to me Stevo had done okay. ‘What do you mean, mere pleb?’

He took another heavy blast on the joint. ‘Calder is part of, you might say, a cabal… I didn’t really notice until, well, recently, but there are some people in here could get away with murder and not even get their wrist slapped.’

I kept calm, slid the word out slowly: ‘Murder?’

He looked rattled, turned away and stubbed the joint. He didn’t say it, but I knew he wished he could retract his last statement. ‘I don’t mean literally. I just mean there’s a few in here more equal than others.’

This wasn’t the time to press him. ‘You going Orwell on me, Stevo?’

He came back to himself, laughed. ‘Oh, God no…’

‘Glad to hear it.’

I watched him put on his jacket, retrieve his rucksack from the ground. ‘Right, you cool with the rounds and what have you?’

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