with pain and urging her on with promises of pies, cream, cheese, milk, plates of fishes, bread, cake, mountains of food, the softest beds – wealth she could hardly imagine.
At last they arrived at the new hiding place, and she half tipped Siggy out of the trolley and watched him crawl on his belly down the stairs into the boiler room. She knew all his tales of wealth were just fantasy, but they still fascinated her. Well, you never knew. She'd rescued him, hadn't she? Half starved herself to keep him alive. She deserved a reward. All she had ever known was the grind of poverty. She didn't know what it was like to have enough, but she'd love the chance to try.
The old pig woman followed her patient down the concrete steps and sat on the floor next to him, panting like a dog. Melanie was old, tired and unwell. Under her thick rags she was as thin as sticks. The journey from the slum where she lived to the new hiding place, pushing the heavy burden of the spoilt ganglord, had exhausted her.
For a while, the only sound down there was their ragged breathing. Siggy was exhausted, too, but he was also furious -a sure sign he was getting his strength back. If he hadn't been tied to his bed in Melanie's basement, he would have already been a great deal stronger than he was. Despite what he thought, he had been eating by far the better of the two. Melanie was still a heap on the floor, gasping for breath, by the time he had recovered and rooted around in her pinny pocket for food. Inside he found a lump of old bread, hard as wood.
'I can't live on this!' he exclaimed. He gnawed at the crust. 'What about that soup? You used to give me thick soup. Where's that gone?'
The old woman looked steadily at him. She had no idea what to do with him anymore. Who was going to buy a human slave with the wars re-starting? And look at him, poor dear! He still needed so much more caring for!
'When you're better you can go and help yourself…' she began.
'On this stuff? You expect me to get better on this? You'll have to do better than this, darling.'
Siggy sat with his bread, gnawing at it and trying to softenit with spit. In a few minutes, Melanie got to her feet and climbed up the stairs to her trolley to fetch a length of rope. She wanted to tie him up again, but Siggy brushed her aside. He wasn't going to be treated like a dog by an old pig!
Outside, pale grey was showing through the door to the boiler room: dawn. Melanie sighed and made her way back to the top of the stairs. Siggy was hissing with rage and fear. He watched her crawl slowly up the stairs and shouted after her, 'You bring me some decent food next time if you want me to pay you properly. You hear?'
Melanie nodded slowly, and disappeared into the darkness. Outside, he could hear her rattling at the door as she fixed the padlock to it. He crawled over to the heap of cushions and rags she left for a bed, and fell straight to sleep.
He woke up hours later and lay there, trying to remember where he was. He was aching in every fibre. He lifted his arms. They were free. He sat up, then tried to stand. Took a couple of steps. The boiler room was cold and dark, but at least he was free to move about.
Spatters and stripes of light dotted the darkness. There was the door, marked by lines of pale light around the frame. The sun must be shining outside; he could see a little sunbeam coming in through the keyhole, turning the dust into specks of gold. Painfully, Siggy crawled up the steps to try it, but the door was firmly locked.
Over to one side were a few more cracks of light, and he crawled towards this on all fours, like a great pale beetle. This light was coming through a little door made of heavy metal. Feeling round he found a handle, stuck fast. He leaned on it, but his weight did nothing.
Groping about the rubbly floor he soon found a brick. It was hard to hold it in his bandaged hands, but he lifted it up and banged down on the handle, which moved a fraction. Ten more blows and the lever shot free. Siggy heaved on the door and it swung open, and the light flooded in.
He had to turn his head away at first, it was so bright. It was the first time he'd seen daylight in a month. As soon as his eyes could take it, he poked his head in and peered inside, twisting his head to look up. There was a smell of damp soot.
Siggy had his head inside an old incinerator. Once, long ago, the school had burned rubbish here to help to heat the water. At the back of the fire chamber some bricks had fallen away, revealing the throat of a tall brick chimney. The light flooded down. Siggy lay on his back and looked up at a circle of free, open sky.
It was a way out. The chimney was broken off halfway up. It was wide enough to allow a man to pass through it, but not so wide that he couldn't brace his back and feet on the sides. If he'd had the strength, Siggy would certainly have been able to climb up it.
If he had the strength…
Siggy lay there for a long time, watching the blue sky overhead and smelling the fresh air, mixed in with the sooty smell. He had the freedom now to exercise and get his strength back. Old Melanie could be up to anything – who knew? – but with luck, the old sow would start bringing him food that would build his strength up.
So there was a chance he could escape. Unlike Signy, Siggy never contemplated suicide. He knew Signy lived. He had to find out what had happened to her.
Siggy crawled back into the boiler room. Melanie had left him a few bottles of water as well as the bread, and he ate and drank before he continued exploring his prison. He went right round the walls, and then began a curious crawl round the floor, patting the rubbish he found and rubbing it on the ground. After several pauses for rest, he found what he was looking for.
A good deal of rubbish had been thrown or fallen down the stairs over the years. Siggy couldn't see in this light, and he couldn't feel with his bandaged hands, so he had to rub the rubbish on the ground to hear what it was. Whenever he heard the rattle of glass he'd scoop it up and carry it to the light of the chimney to have a proper look. He had to do this nine or ten times before he found what he wanted: a broken fragment of mirror.
It was dusty and cracked and spotted, but it was enough. Siggy lay on his stomach in the ancient ashes and rubbed at it and spat on it until it shone as well as it was ever going to. Then, awkwardly, in his big fat cotton hands, he held it so that he got a glimpse of his face.
For over a minute he lay there, twisting the mirror and staring, before he dropped it and crawled back out. He made his way on all fours to the pile of rags Melanie had left him for a bed, and cried himself to sleep.
40
Siggy
When I woke up for the second time down in the old school, I got straight on with it. So I'd lost my face, so what? I'd lost everything else as well, that was the least of it. I just thought, so that's the end of my sex life, and then I made myself crawl up and down the steps twice.
It was only ten steps, but it was agony. Afterwards I just lay there gasping. Compared to what I'd been doing lately, going up and down the stairs was like a bloody marathon. And then the hunger came back, worse than ever.
I kept thinking, Signy, Signy. I had to find out what had happened to Signy.
It was that kept me going. I could have gone the other way when I thought about what had happened – my father, my brothers. To tell you the truth, if I'd had Conor down there with me, I'd have been capable of anything… anything. But what good would that do? Bring Val back to life? Get me Ben stamping the floor and clapping, or Hadrian turning up with some new plan for breaking out of London? You can call me weak if you like, but revenge never helped anyone.
And I thought of other things in the long dark hours. I thought of the knife Odin gave me, hanging now by Conor's side. Why had he given me such a present, only to let this happen? And that started me thinking that maybe this game wasn't over yet.
Meanwhile… food. I'd been hungry enough before and let's face it, lying flat on your back doesn't give you much of an appetite. Now that I was moving about I was ravenous. When I wasn't exercising I lay on the rags dreaming about food. The banquets my father used to give! That roast camel! The mountains of potatoes, the custards like bathtubs! It was infuriating to be so weak that I had to depend on old Melanie. If only I had an ounce of strength back I'd be out there, doing it for myself.
All I had to look forward to was her next visit. On the way here I'd been telling her how much money I had stashed away, and of course the greedy old sow was lapping it up -just lapping it up. Yeah, I knew what she wanted – me, on a plate, with a side dish of French fries. Of course, she was too greedy and stupid to team up with
