‘I saw a sea-cow,’ said one, ‘dead in the water for a week who looked like that.’ He prodded him with his feet.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Cale.
‘You killed him,’ protested the man.
‘Leave him alone.’
‘Who are you to give us orders?’
That, thought Cale, is a good question.
‘Because I’m the one who knows what to do next.’
Some of the men in the room were stupid, others intelligent and ambitious, but Cale’s assertion threw them badly. It was not that Cale had the answer, because really he had no idea what to do next. His advantage over them lay in realizing that what to do next was the only thing that mattered.
‘How many of you can write?’
Three of the fifteen men slowly put up their hands.
‘Have any of you worked for General Butt-Naked?’
Two hands went up.
‘Peanut Butter?’
Three hands.
‘I want the three of you that can write to set down everything you know on paper. If the rest of you have anything to add then say so.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be back in three hours. Lock the door behind me and don’t let anyone in or out. If the news of Kitty’s death gets around, you know what that means.’ Then he walked out, full of purpose and clarity. At any moment he expected to be stopped, to be asked the obvious two questions that he couldn’t answer. But no one said anything. He was out of the door and down the stairs to the most welcoming sound he had ever heard: the lock turning behind him.
Feeling sicker with every step, Cale had gone to IdrisPukke on his way to find Vague Henri and Kleist. The relief on IdrisPukke’s face was evident even to Cale, wretched and angry with him as he was; it was the look of a man who’d come to feel he’d done something dreadful but which had turned out all right in the end. Cale told him what had happened and asked him to come with him to see the boys and send someone for a doctor.
It was not easy to astonish IdrisPukke and for the first few minutes of the walk he was silent, then just as they were about to enter the digs, IdrisPukke took Cale’s arm and stopped him.
‘What was it like?’
‘It was a bad do. I can’t say it wasn’t. I don’t feel sorry for Kitty – he got what he deserved – but when I was walking to you after I got out I understood something about why he wanted to make the world afraid of him. What were his choices? Make his living in a freak show with the geek who eats frogs or the boneless wonder? Depend on the kindness of others? Don’t get me wrong, though – I wasn’t thinking that when I bashed his brains out.’
‘I feel I’ve let you down,’ said IdrisPukke. Cale said nothing at first, thinking about what he said. This had all been Vague Henri’s and Kleist’s fault. IdrisPukke had been pretty good to them all, ever since he’d met them, for no very good reason. Cale had asked him to cheat on his brother. But something had been pecking in his soul – even though he couldn’t see why, he agreed that IdrisPukke had in some way been disloyal to him.
‘No. No, you didn’t,’ he said. And they moved on.
Just from the brief glimpse he’d had of them in the house he knew the boys were in bad nick. Now he was able to look them over properly they looked even worse. Kleist was unable to speak his mouth was so swollen. The little fingers on both their left hands had been broken along with the thumbs. Cale told them Kitty was dead.
‘Was it slow?’ said Vague Henri.
‘As slow as you like.’
When the doctor arrived he cleaned them up carefully; it was painful stuff. Except for their faces and hands most of the damage was bruising. Kleist kept spitting blood and the doctor quietly worried to them that there might be a haemorrhage inside. ‘If he starts shitting blood, call me at once.’ Still not altogether down from the Phedra and Morphine, Cale could not help but admire that the stitching of Vague Henri’s face from the wound of the year before had held up nicely. But Kleist didn’t seem all there and kept drifting in and out.
‘Kitty,’ he mumbled.
‘Kitty’s dead.’
‘Kitty,’ he mumbled again, and kept on till he passed out completely.
The doctor put Vague Henri to sleep with a mixture of Valerian and Poppy Oil and Cale and IdrisPukke watched over them.
‘What will you do with them, Kitty’s people, now?’
Cale seemed surprised.
‘Nothing. Let them rot.’
‘There’s too much money and power at stake just to let it go.’
‘You have it then.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
‘You don’t need my say-so.’
IdrisPukke detected the sourness. He did not blame him – he was ashamed of his refusal to help in the rescue of Vague Henri and Kleist but this was too important an opportunity to pass up. An empire of sorts was going begging.
‘I thought I’d send for Cadbury,’ IdrisPukke said. ‘He’ll know the SP on everything Kitty was up to.’
‘I think you’ll make a lovely couple,’ said Cale. And with that he went to sleep.
It did indeed turn out to be a great match, if not one made in heaven. Criminal scum are often sentimental about their mothers but, in general, this is the furthest extent of their loyalty. Outsiders almost by definition, they aren’t usually moved by the idea of innate rank, social order or hierarchy, except when it’s imposed by the continuous threat of violence. Where there are beggars there can never be a king resting easy with his crown.
IdrisPukke surrounded Kitty’s house to prevent the occupants from leaving. He didn’t want a fuss and told them he was waiting for Cadbury to arrive to sort everything out. He also promised to raise their bonus to five hundred dollars. The following morning Cadbury arrived, having been halted during his flight to Oxyrinchus, still amazed by the news of Kitty’s death. Though there was no general affection for Cadbury among those inside the house, he was at least familiar to them and had a reputation for being smart. By now they needed a saviour and the changeover from Kitty the Hare to IdrisPukke and Cadbury was so quick that in barely a week Kitty was already passing into the myth in which he most naturally belonged. From now on, stories would be told about him by mothers sweetly threatening their children to be good or Kitty the Hare would come for them. Then these same children in their later years would scare their younger siblings with blood-curdling accounts of the deformed Kitty wielding a chain and a saw over hapless maids doomed to being dismembered and eaten; and then, as the years passed, his reputation reached the Celts in the east, where they transformed him into a friendly old hare selling pegs and telling ghost stories for a penny a go.
17
As the swellings went down and the bruises came out in purples and browns, Vague Henri became almost ecstatically cheerful. Kleist not so – he seemed to have been struck hard by the events in Kitty’s house. He slept a lot and wouldn’t talk much when he was awake. They thought it best to leave him alone, that he’d come out of it in his own time. Once Vague Henri was up to walking he and Cale went for a stroll along the Promenade des Bastions and watched the girls in their spring dresses forgetting the dreadful rumours of war that were in the air, and the two boys forgot along with them. They bought chocolate cake bursting with cream and Cale tormented Vague Henri by breaking off pieces and almost feeding him but then putting the cake in his own mouth.
On the bandstand a dozen musicians played ‘I’ve Got a Luverly Bunch of Coconuts’, that spring’s most popular song. A group of girls of about the same age as the boys scolded Cale and took the cake away and began feeding the boy with the bandaged hands as if he was a baby. And he loved it.