Steel leered at him. ‘Are you shagging her yet?’
‘God, you’ve got a one-track mind, haven’t you?’ He shifted in his seat. ‘Anyway, I barely know the woman. “Brown Van”?’
‘Well what are you hanging about for — go see her! You were meant to sort out that poor wee dog’s funeral, you lazy sod.’
‘When? I’ve been running about after you all day!’ Honestly. ‘Wait, is it “Battered Van”? The one over there that looks like they dropped it off a building?’
‘About time you got that.’ She gave her fake cigarette a couple of puffs. ‘Your turn.’
‘... but then I got home from work one morning and Lisa had broken every mug in the house, stabbed the fridge with an eight-inch carving knife, and ran off with my whole CD collection.’
‘Pfff...’ Steel slumped a bit further. ‘Wish I hadn’t asked now. Your love life’s rubbish.’
Tufty turned in his seat. ‘We could talk about something else then. How about black holes?’
‘That a kinky euphemism?’
‘No, listen: particles and antiparticles pop out of the quantum foam from time to time, right? Say it’s an electron and a positron — normally they annihilate each other, but Stephen Hawking says—’
‘Tufty, you—’
‘—if it happens near a black hole’s event horizon and the electron escapes, but the positron falls in, then—’
‘Tufty!’
‘—the positron’s negative mass actually gobbles up a teeny bit of the black hole so it’ll eventually evaporate. Course that depends on no other matter falling into— Ow!’
Then she hit him again. Right in the arm. And not a soft tap either: a full-on thump.
‘Ow!’ He rubbed at the stingy patch. ‘Stop it!’
‘I changed my mind. No physics. Go back to blethering on about your sodding love life. Only try to put a bit of spice into it, eh? I want at least a few vicarious thrills before you bore me to death.’
‘... sick all down her front. She didn’t want to speak to me after that.’ He shrugged. ‘And then I went out with Hannah for three weeks. Now she was naughty.’
Very, very naughty.
In all the right places.
And once on the top deck of a night-bus to Glasgow.
A warm smile spread across his face.
Steel poked him. ‘Hoy!’
‘Sorry. “Bendy Bus”?’
‘You’re supposed to be sharing the dirty bits. And no.’
‘But her dad got done for drink-driving and suddenly every police officer was a “fascist bast”—’
She hit him. Again. Hard.
‘Cut it out!’
‘Shut up, you idiot.’ She pointed through the windscreen.
A shadowy figure, all dressed in black with a rucksack on its back, crept out from behind the recycling bins. Ninja style. Assuming the ninja had a cold head, going by the massive black woolly hat she was wearing.
Ninja Rucksack Woman took a quick look left and right, but either Steel’s car was parked in exactly the right place to be invisible or the Ninja was an idiot, because she crept across to the low wall separating the back of the library from the community centre. Hopped over it and did some more creeping to a red-painted door.
Another quick check, then she pulled a small crowbar out of her rucksack. A sharp thump at the lock and she slipped inside, closing the door behind her.
Steel fiddled her seat upright again. ‘Well, I was hoping for something a bit more drug-dealerish, but it’ll do.’
She climbed out of the car and closed the door without a sound. Looked in at Tufty with a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh...’ Then tiptoed to the wall, clambered over it and flattened herself against the bricks beside the jemmied door. Like something off of Scooby-Doo.
Woman was insane.
Ah well. Might as well.
He got out and wandered over. Swung his legs over the handrail and stood beside her, hands in his pockets. ‘So far we’ve got “malicious mischief”, “housebreaking with intent to steal”, and violation of the Civic Government — Scotland — Act 1982: Section Fifty-Eight, Part One, AKA: “going equipped”.’
‘Shhh!’ Steel stuck a finger to her lips again, whispering out, ‘Will you shut up?’
She eased the jemmied door open and sneaked inside.
He scuffed in after her into a narrow corridor with raw breeze-block walls. A stack of cleaning supplies made it narrower still.
Another door at the end opened on a much fancier corridor, one with carpet on the floor and proper walls with framed posters and things. ‘YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO YOUR COMMUNITY!’, ‘MUMS’ BUMS & TUMS CLASSES AVAILABLE NOW!!!’, ‘TOGETHER, WE CAN DO ANYTHING!’ Doors on either side.
Steel pointed.
Down at the far end, one of them swung shut on its slow closing arm thing, cutting off rubbery scraping sounds. Like a MASSIVE cat was sharpening its claws inside.
They crept over and peered through the glass panel into some sort of coffee lounge full of plastic chairs and little tables. A couple of highchairs. And a serving hatch off to one side with a teeny kitchen behind the counter. Notice boards covered in kids’ drawings.
Ninja Rucksack Woman had dragged a stack of chairs away from the wall, which explained the scraping noises, and now she stood in front of it — rucksack at her feet — spray-painting words across the breeze-blocks in big drippy red letters: ‘MRS BROCKWELL IS A FAT STUPID COW!’
Poor Mrs Brockwell.
Tufty eased into the room.
The Ninja graffiti artist stood back to examine her work. Then added an extra exclamation mark and underlined ‘COW’ three times.
Steel made a loud, ‘Er-h’r’m!’ noise. ‘No’ exactly Van Gogh, is it?’
Ninja Rucksack Woman froze.
‘Yoo-hoo!’ Steel waved. ‘You do know we can see you?’
A whispered word floated through the silence. ‘Shite...’ Then she was off: snatching up her rucksack and sprinting for the only other exit, still holding the can of red spray paint.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ And Tufty was after her.
She leapt a row of tables with a parkour-style flip. Landed and pulled the rucksack onto her back as part of the same fluid movement. Not so much as a pause for breath.
Very cool.
Tufty hurdled the tables, sending a couple of plastic chairs clattering. She battered out through the exit, but he was right behind her, shoving into a big room with rows and rows of plastic seats arranged facing a projector screen.
She went charging through them, cutting diagonally across the room, heading straight for the curtains that made up one corner. The wake she left behind was right out of a medieval battle film — overturned plastic chairs with their metal legs pointing out in all directions like spears, waiting to skewer an unsuspecting Tufty.
Yeah, not risking that.
He went round the outside instead. Further to go, but a lot less chance of being impaled.
She yanked back one of the curtains, exposing an emergency exit. Grabbed the metal bar just as Tufty snatched a handful of rucksack.
‘You’re going nowhere!’
The door must’ve opened far enough to trip the circuit, because a shrill wailing alarm blared out of hidden speakers somewhere. Loud enough to melt bone.
‘GET OFF ME!’ Ninja Rucksack Woman swung around.
Up close, from the front, she didn’t really look like a parkour kind of person. She looked like someone’s mum: middle-aged, glasses, her hair escaping from beneath that black woolly hat in bouncy brown curls. Teeth bared. ‘GRRRRRRAH!’ She whipped the spray can in her hand up and pressed the button.
A hissing mist of bright red exploded in Tufty’s face. ‘AAAAAAAARGH!’ Got his eyes clenched shut in time, but not his mouth. Now everything tasted of chemicals and turpentine.