He walked to the window. The snow had begun.
“I wonder how many he left?” Holly asked.
“Enough to know that one would make it,” Quayle replied. They were walking around the path towards the bottom end of the main field. A group of girls in tracksuits were wandering back from the swimming pool, hair wet and eyes red from the chlorine. It was mid-afternoon and the warmth was soporific. Holly trailed her jacket over her shoulder and Sergi, the bodyguard, had his unzipped all the way as usual. He didn’t seem to notice the temperature.
“Do you think it’s there? After all… all the killing. In the scoreboard. Just sitting there?”
“Why not?” he replied, thinking it better be, because I am running out of ideas.
The search of the chess club had been fruitless. Every book had been opened and shaken out, every box or cupboard emptied, wall units shifted. They had found two half full packets of cigarettes, a small pile of mildly pornographic magazines, a long empty sherry bottle, numerous sweet wrappers, newspapers dating back to 1969 – and, behind one cupboard unit, an ancient fountain pen. But that was all. Short of ripping up the floorboards, and that wasn’t Teddy Morton’s style, they had done the job well. Quayle had even climbed up into the ceiling through an inspection hatch and searched the dark corners of the roof, reciting the word ‘board’ and applying it wherever possible. Chess board, chopping board, milk board, black board… scoreboard, scoreboard! Stupid prick, he cursed himself, the fucking scoreboard! He used to sit there. Scoreboard for the cricket. Play up, play up and play the game. One on the board for the blues!
Five minutes later they were almost there.
“That’s it,” he said, pointing to the edge of the field.
The board’s display area was raised above ground level with a small scorer’s shelter behind it. Taking the four steps at the rear, they pushed their way through the rickety lock on the old wooden door. Inside it smelt of dust and dryness, and two old chairs sat empty before the closed up viewing ports. In here, it was dark, the only light coming in through chinks in the walls. Quayle looked around until he saw the shuttered window at the rear and the skylight hatch. When open they would provide ample light for the scorers, who would sit bent over their pads with sharpened pencils in hand, calling to the runner who would change the scores on the display itself. Lifting the shutter over the window, he propped it open with a length of broomstick and light streamed in, a golden shaft that highlighted the dust in the still air. The wall’s interior surface was bare timber, the skeleton showing the clap-boarding on the exterior. The other two walls were panelled, one containing a soft-board notice area. On its surface was a stern message to keep the place tidy, and a list of the season’s fixtures. A series of photocopied pages from a rulebook took up the remaining space.
Shrugging, he began running his hands over the high edges of the frame.
“Sergi, have a look on top will you?” he asked.
The soldier nodded and, taking a jump, pushed the top hatch open and hauled himself up onto the roof.
It was Quayle who found it. He had worked his way around the walls until he was at the noticeboard, and there he saw that a screw had been loosened. The others were countersunk all the way in, but this one had been unscrewed and then replaced. Some bored kid with a Swiss army knife could have done it, he thought to himself. Better have a look anyway.
Sergi popped his head through the hatch.
“A teacher’s coming,” he said.
Quayle looked at Holly. “Do you have a nail file in your bag?”
“No,” she said, immediately beginning to rummage about in it, “but I have a bottle opener on a key ring. Will that help?”
“Let’s have it,” he replied, “it may do.”
She handed him the key ring but, as he put its edge to the screw, a man appeared in the doorway.
“Can I help you?” he asked frostily. He was wearing a track suit and fingering the whistle around his neck like he was about to blow it for a foul.
“No thanks,” Quayle replied, putting his weight behind the turn. “Not unless you have a screw driver.”
“What?” he demanded. “Now, see here! Who are you people?” They weren’t behaving like parents at all. “What do you want?”
“I’m looking for something,” Quayle replied reasonably.
“What?” the fellow demanded.
“I won’t know until I find it.”
At that exact moment, the screw came clear. Quayle caught it in one hand and, taking the sharpened end of the opener, prised the board back. Then, risking the spiders and other things that might have been resident inside, he slipped his hand inside, thinking: scoreboard, one on the board for the blues, notice board in the scoreboard, it’s got to fucking be here…
“I insist you stop at once and leave the grounds – or I shall inform the authorities!” The hand on the whistle was becoming agitated, but Quayle ignored him and bent awkwardly, trying to slide his arm further behind the board.
The teacher stepped forward and, as he did so Sergi, came through the hatch like a ninja, dropping to his feet inches before the startled man’s eyes. “Go back and play with the children, da?”
Quayle touched something. His eyes lit up. He withdrew his hand slowly, the prize gripped gingerly between his fingers.
