‘How the hell could you have let him do that, Oz?’ she shouted at me. I just stood there like I had when I was a kid, when she had me in a corner, knowing that a smart answer — or like now, any answer — was the short route to a smack in the mouth.
It’s at times like those that you find out who your real friends are. ‘But Mum,’ said Jonathan, without the slightest sign of flinching, ‘you did the same thing yourself the day that Colin got shut in the cellar.’
She glared at him, but he stood his ground. ‘God,’ she gasped, eventually, ‘you two! You’re like peas from the same pod, so you are.’ Then, to my great relief, she smiled. ‘And you’re right too, son. There’s no holding that wee so-and-so when he’s determined to do something.’
Thankfully Colin’s skull wasn’t fractured; nothing was broken other than his shoulder, which was reassembled under anaesthetic and immobilised. Partly because of his concussion, and partly to give the delicate bones a chance to knit, the casualty registrar decided to keep him in hospital in Dundee for a few days, and decreed that school was out for at least a fortnight. Ellie was worried about work at first, but that problem was solved by a single telephone call to our stepmother, who had retired from teaching a year earlier. She volunteered at once to look after the convalescent Colin, and to keep him up with his school work as well.
‘Can I stay off too, if Grandma Mary’s coming?’ Jonathan asked. ‘She could teach me as well.’
‘Don’t push your luck, wee man,’ I whispered to him.
Back in St Andrews I called in at the police office. The duty sergeant knew about the incident; he told me that the janitor had been interviewed and had insisted that after he had cleaned the Dungeon, he had put the grille back in place as usual. None of the bystanders were any help; not one of them had noticed the Dungeon or had seen Colin near it.
‘As far as we’re concerned, sir,’ the uniformed policeman told me, ‘the incident is closed. If your sister wants to sue Historic Scotland, that’s up to her, but we cannae help her. Are you sure your wee nephew didn’t move that cover himself?’
‘We’ll ask him when he’s well enough,’ I said. ‘But unless he’s been doing a lot of weight training for a six-year-old, there’s not a chance.’
That evening I really did insist that there was to be no cooking. Ellie put up not a moment’s argument, and Jonathan chose the takeaways, which inevitably meant pizzas, with chips on the side. We maintained a certain standard though, by eating at the table rather than from trays.
‘What do you think, Oz?’ Ellen asked me, at last. ‘Do you think the people at the Castle are lying?’
I shook my head. ‘Not for a minute. The sergeant told me that he knows the janitor well, and that he would vouch for him personally. There’s only one person who can tell us what happened. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to ask him.’
Chapter 28
I hate seeing children in hospital; I hated the experience as a child too. It only happened once, after I fell out of a tree and broke my arm, but I still remember how lonely I felt, lying there sleepless in the half-light of that crowded old ward, listening to other kids crying.
For my nephew Colin, though, everything in life is an adventure. When we went in to visit him next morning, there he was, sitting on his bed with his back to a mound of pillows, wearing the Winnie the Pooh pyjamas which we had bought him the day before, happy as a Piglet in excrement, and eyeing up everything that was going on around him in the small ward.
His left arm was bound securely to his chest, and the graze on his temple looked less vivid, although it was surrounded by a big dark bruise.
‘Hello, Mum,’ he said as we approached the bed. ‘Hello Uncle Oz. Hello Auntie Prim.’ He gave the three of us a superior look, as if he was enjoying his wounded soldier status, and was determined to make the most of it. Yet, to my surprise he ignored his brother.
Ellen leaned down and kissed him, taking care not to touch his broken shoulder. ‘How are you, my wee man?’ she asked, laying a bag of assorted chocolate miniatures in his lap. Prim put a bag of apples beside it, and I gave him a new Game Boy, winning Most Favoured status in that instant.
‘I’m all right, Mum,’ he answered, proud and brave. ‘My shoulder doesn’t hurt. They give me pills for it, and last night they gave me something to make me sleep.’
‘The nurses look nice,’ Jonathan ventured. Colin shot him a look of pure disdain. There was to be only one centre of attraction, I guessed.
I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘About yesterday, son,’ I began. ‘Tell me, how did you manage to get the cover off the Dungeon?’
He looked at me as if I was daft. ‘The cover was off, Uncle Oz. I never touched it.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ I asked gently.
‘Yes,’ he protested. ‘It was there beside it.’
‘Did you see anyone take it off?’
He shook his head, then winced, from a flash of pain in his shoulder. ‘Leave it for now, Oz,’ said Prim.
‘No, I can’t,’ I told her. ‘This wee rogue was in my care yesterday. I need to know everything that happened. And I’ll tell you this: if that sergeant’s been covering up for his pal the janitor, I’m going to have him.’
I turned back to my nephew. ‘Come on, Colin. Tell me how you got down there. Did you try to drop in the way I did? Was the Dungeon deeper than you thought? Look, it’s okay; I’m not going to be angry with you. I brought you a Game Boy, didn’t I?’
He smiled at me, but it was fleeting and uncertain. ‘I tripped up,’ he whispered.
Something was wrong with that picture. I couldn’t help it; I frowned at him. ‘What did you trip over, Collie? It’s all smooth around the Dungeon. I looked around the edge, there was no ground scuffed up or anything.’
‘My lace was undone. I tripped on that.’
‘That sounds likely enough, Oz,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m always chasing after him to do his laces.’
I ignored her. ‘No you didn’t, son. Your laces were tied tight. I did them myself, remember, and when I found you I checked to make sure they were still secure. Then later, in the ambulance, I undid them and took your trainers off. There’s something you’re not telling me. Isn’t there?’
He looked at his lap, and picked up the Game Boy. I took it from him. ‘Not until you tell me, Colin.’
His face had gone white, making the bruise on his temple seem even more vivid. As I stared down at him he glanced at his brother. ‘Jonny shoved me,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’ Ellen and I spoke together.
‘It was Jonathan. He pushed me in.’
‘No!’ my older nephew protested, his knowing eyes suddenly frightened. ‘Uncle Oz. .’
I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay, son, it’s okay.’ I looked back at his brother. ‘Colin, Jonathan was with me all the time. He didn’t push you. What on earth made you think it was him?’
‘He’s mad at me.’
‘Why’s he mad at you?’
‘Because I started a fight at the school wi’ a bigger boy. He was bashing me and Jonny saw him and bashed him up, and a teacher saw him and he got lines to do, and he was mad at me. .’ The wee chap’s voice tailed off, and a big tear ran from his right eye down his cheek. I looked at my sister, and she at me; Colin had described an identical incident from our own primary schooldays. Ellie was the best fighter in the school.
‘I can well understand him being mad at you,’ she told her son, ‘but he didn’t push you into that Dungeon.’
‘But somebody did, Colin?’ I asked. ‘Is that what happened? ’
He nodded, then winced again. ‘Yes, I was standing on the edge of the Dungeon, trying to see in, and I felt a hand in the middle of my back, and then someone shoved me. I remember falling, but I don’t remember anything after that, till you and Jonathan and the ambulance man.’