The Death of the Elver Man (9 page)

‘No boy, there – look, just there by them reeds – see him now?’

Young Derek trembled, opening his eyes wide and
searching
frantically for the elusive fish. He was rocked forwards by a slap on the back of his head.

‘You’m not trying you goddam little fool. Plain as day he is!’

A tiny bubble rose to the surface, several feet behind where Derek had been looking and suddenly he spotted the pike.

‘I see him,’ he shouted. ‘There – just down there sort of hidden.’ With a flick of its tail the fish was gone. This time Derek saw stars as the blow nearly toppled him into the stream.

‘Shut up you idjut! We want them fish here, not the
bastard
river wardens. Get up now, we’ve best be off though I’m minded to leave you here.’ Young Derek staggered after his father, head still spinning as he tripped and stumbled along a path so faint only his father could see it.

‘Quiet now. Can’t you do nothin’ right? You’re a bloody liability you are boy. Don’t know why I bother with you, I really don’t.’

Derek cringed away, dreading what was to come next. They continued down the path away from the water as his father muttered, ‘I dunno, seems to me I lost the wrong son. You’re not a patch on your brother and you never will be …’

However often he’d heard them, those words always made Young Derek want to cry.

‘So Mr Pike, you lazy bastard, you down there then?’
whispered
Derek as he leaned over the rickety bridge. The reeds were thick and luxurious around the old wooden pilings and the canal ran a little shallower a few yards in each direction. Sunlight cut through the murk lighting up the water on each side but it was dark in the shadow of the bridge. It was the perfect hunting ground for pike, the arch-predator of the river. Floating almost motionless in the deep shade, superbly camouflaged amongst the dappled water and armed with size, strength and fearsome teeth, this was the most hated and feared inhabitant of the river. Fishermen yearned for the glory of a big catch but shied away from the pike’s vicious bite. Many of the locals wouldn’t touch the flesh swearing it was unclean. Pike were, after all, notoriously unfussy about what they ate. Lurking in the shadows with ever-open mouths they would grab whatever came close – fish, bird or
amphibian
, dead or alive, they weren’t picky. They seized their prey in an almost unbreakable grasp because their teeth aligned in opposite directions. They would wait until the catch
weakened
before using their hard, rough tongues to twist the meal round lengthways, stripping flesh from bones as they did so. Smaller victims could be swallowed whole.

Derek opened the newspaper parcel he was holding and
lifted out one of the strips of meat he’d prepared the previous evening. It glistened pink in the morning sun and he felt a brief spasm of nausea, ruthlessly suppressed. Leaning
carefully
over the flimsy rail he dropped it into the water just by the reeds. Nothing. He waited for a moment and then tried another piece. The water flowed smoothly on, undisturbed.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. It had been a great idea, one of his best. Hell, he’d dreamed about chopping up his father and feeding him to the pike when he’d been a boy. So much for
childhood
ambition. Suddenly there was a tiny ripple, against the flow of the river. He moved slowly, careful to avoid casting a shadow on the water. A single bubble rose to the surface and a great grin stretched Derek Johns’ face as he peeled the next titbit from the parcel and tossed it into the reeds. There was no mistaking it this time. He glimpsed the sharp snout and dorsal fin of a pike as it snatched at the meat, pulling it out of sight in a second. Derek was cautious, not
wanting
to startle the fish away and he took it gently, dropping the pieces one at a time and always a little away from one another. There were several pike down there he reckoned and good news spread fast along the river. Such a rich source of easy food would bring more of them in the coming days. Yes, he was a right lazy bastard was Mr Pike and he’d wait under the bridge for his dinner to fall into his mouth rather than go elsewhere and hunt if he had a choice. Derek screwed up the empty paper and hurried back to the cottage where a lot more preparation was waiting, for tomorrow. Below the bridge the water frothed and churned for a few minutes and then all was still as the pike waited, their rapacious eyes
glittering
in the darkness.

‘Fuck off!’

‘Brian, come on …’

‘I don’t know nothing.’

Alex took a deep breath and struggled to control her
temper
. Brian was in one of his more challenging moods and not inclined towards altruism. She stared at him as he sat hunched up in a chair below the top window. He was almost curled
up, arms around his knees and with his head down. His hair hung over to one side, unwashed and greasy with just a hint of the red dye he had used a couple of weeks ago. Then he’d had it up in a Mohican and his whole demeanour had been strong, positive and surprisingly receptive. She wondered if there might be some correlation between the hair and Brian’s mood. Which influenced the other? she mused. Did he take more care of his appearance when he was feeling good or, like a juvenile Samson, did his personality wither away if his hair drooped?

‘I ‘ent saying nothing to no-one. Don’t know nothing,’ he repeated.

‘Look, I know you’re worried about the river wardens but maybe we can sort something out. This is a big thing, Brian. Kevin could be charged with murder and you could be the only person who can save him.’

Brian snorted, but finally lifted his head a little. She could just see his eyes as they caught the light in the shadows.

‘Maybe’s no good. Maybe’s weasel talk, just to get me to give myself up. Well, you just forget it ’cos I don’t know nothing and I’m not saying nothing’.

Alex was almost overcome by a wave of absolute fury. For an instant she felt dizzy and she was aware of the sound of her heart beating thunderously in her ears. She wanted to fling herself over the desk, grab Brian by the throat and choke the selfish, stupid little … She was saved by the sound of phone ringing on her desk and she snatched at it, nearly knocking the receiver off the side of her desk.

‘Yes?’ she demanded. There was a moment’s silence before Alison’s hurt voice answered.

‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something
important
.’

Alex took a deep breath and forced herself to speak more calmly. ‘No, sorry Alison. What can I do for you?’

‘I’ve a message from Garry, about your meeting at three this afternoon.’

Alex opened her mouth to protest her ignorance. Surely she wouldn’t forget something like that – meetings with Garry
weighed heavy on her consciousness, sometimes to the extent of generating surreal and disturbing dreams.

‘I put it in your diary,’ came Alison’s smug voice. ‘Anyway, he has another meeting so he wants to move you up to 2.45. In his office,’ she added unnecessarily.

In the diary. Alex groaned as she rummaged through the debris strewn across her desk. The diary, her ‘shared’
document
and the only one she allowed Alison to touch, was under a pile of unfinished case notes. So was her dictaphone, she noted with surprise. Well, she’d been looking for that for a few days now. She glanced up and realized Brian was still watching her from the chair.

‘Oh, go on, bugger off.’ She waved her hand at him dismissively.

Brian got up and made for the door, his feet dragging as if the effort was just too much for him.

‘Same time next week,’ she called as he lugged the door open and shuffled into the corridor.

‘Don’t see why. Don’t seem worth the effort,’ he muttered. Alex was on her feet and had him by the collar before the door could close behind him.

‘Now you listen to me,’ she said, resisting the temptation to shake him like a rat, ‘I can file the papers today and have you up in court by Monday. Do you want to go back to
Pucklechurch
? Because that’s where you’re going if you don’t start working with me.’

Brian flopped forwards in her grasp, his mouth open in surprise. She caught a faint odour on his breath, sweetish and slightly acidic, and as she turned him round to face the light she saw a faint rash, a smattering of tiny red sores around his mouth and nose.

‘Oh you bloody little fool,’ she said, dropping him back into his chair. Brian slumped back, his head lolling to the left as if seeking support from the wall. No wonder he was so unresponsive, Alex thought, as she stared at him. He was probably still ‘glued’.

‘Well can I go then or what?’ muttered Brian.

There was no point in talking to him when he was in this state and there was always the danger of an aggressive response, especially when ‘glueys’ were on the way down. Alex stepped back and gestured to the door.

‘Go on. But … Brian?’ He stopped and looked at her, suspicion in every line of his face. ‘I want you to come back tomorrow, about 11am. And I want you to be sober,
understand
? No natch, no glue, no nothing. Or I’ll breach you tomorrow afternoon.’

He slammed the door behind him and she heard his steps thump down the main staircase, slightly unsteady as he lurched under the influence of the solvent. Shit, she thought, glue! That’s all we need down here. She turned to her bookshelf seeking guidance and caught sight of the clock. Five minutes to the meeting with Garry, she thought, and she still had no idea what it was about. Which could be considered the lesser of two evils, she wondered, going in unprepared or spending five minutes with Alison trying to get something useful out of her? It was a close call but after a moment she sighed and pushed the door open, heading down the stairs after Brian.

‘Have you made any progress with Mr Hinton yet?’ asked Garry. It was clearly a rhetorical question. Garry made it his business to know where his officers were at all times and without the sterling, and occasionally devious, support of Lauren, Alex found herself increasingly under scrutiny. She sat up straight in the chair and clicked her pen as she opened her diary. A few minutes before, she’d reached the reception area to find Alison gone – out on some nebulous errand
no-one
could quite recall. She had stood for an instant, feeling like a complete fool, but just as she was turning away she’d heard Lauren’s voice from the side office.

‘Don’t forget your diary. You might want to show the appointment you’ve booked in for Hinton. The one you made for this afternoon … after Brian.’

Alex had leant as far over the counter as she could but
Lauren
was out of sight, tucked away safely in her new room.

‘Thanks,’ Alex had called. There had been no reply, and the rest of the office staff had been busy, heads bent over files or typewriters. It was only when she was half-way up the stairs again that she had stopped and wondered how Lauren came to be so closely acquainted with her schedule. Now she gave silent thanks to Lauren, the amazing ever-vigilant
Lauren
and her timely hint.

‘He’s been very elusive when I’ve gone out on my evening visits,’ she said, flipping through the diary and stopping at several points as if consulting the document for exact times and days. ‘I thought I’d try him this afternoon. I had some clients in earlier and also this meeting, but hopefully I’ll be early enough to meet up with him this time.’

Garry stared at her, his eyes sharp with suspicion. For a moment she thought he was going to reach out to check the diary and she forced herself to relax, letting the book flop open on to her lap. He couldn’t resist a quick glance at the upside-down page, now with her appointments set out in neat print, in ink: ‘3.30pm – A.M. Hinton (home visit)’ he read.

‘Very well. It is most important we make contact with this man, you do understand this don’t you?’ She felt herself
nodding
like a fool.

‘It would be most unfortunate,
most
unfortunate if we found ourselves in a position of having to breach this
particular
gentleman. I have instructions from head office to ensure he is able to complete any business he has in the area as soon as possible so he can be safely on his way.’

Alex was privately of the opinion it would be close to impossible to breach him, seeing as Andrew Michael Hinton didn’t exist outside of the probation file bearing his name; he probably had no matching criminal record anymore, and
no-one
seemed to have seen him since his somewhat
insubstantial
materialization onto her case-load two weeks ago. Mr Hinton, she suspected, could probably get away with
murder
at this point, providing he took minimal precautions and wore gloves. It was not a comforting thought.

‘He may be a little elusive,’ continued Garry, ‘but this sort of case is just one of the many challenges of our work. Real probation work.’ He warmed to his theme and Alex sat with a sinking heart, recognizing the opening paragraph of his ‘inspire and encourage’ lecture. She’d sat through a bit of it at her interview, she’d had the whole thing at induction, and she’d dozed through several versions in various meetings over the past eight months.

‘I’m sorry, Garry, but I really need to go if I’m to make contact with Mr Hinton,’ she said, trying to inject just the right amount of regret into her voice. Garry stopped in
mid-sentence
, blinking at her. He was not used to being
interrupted
so abruptly, but he could hardly reprimand her for doing what she’d been told to do.

‘Of course. Yes, go on. Let me know how you get on,’ he added as the door closed behind her. He sat for an instant staring at the door, his eyes half closed as he pondered the problem that was Alex Hastings. He stood, unfolding his long length from behind his desk and stepped over to the window, a beautiful mullioned relic from the original
building
. He could see the whole car park from here, across to the sheds, where he hoped to establish workshops and a day centre for the clients, and down on to the front door. Here he could observe the comings and goings of staff and clients, mentally ticking them off on a long list and noting any
irregularities
. He had already spotted Alison’s premature departure and had a note in his diary to talk to her about it. As he watched, Alex appeared, coat flying and bag slung carelessly over her shoulder. She turned to latch the door behind her, dropped her keys, snatched them up, dropped them again and finally managed to get down the steps without tripping. Really, he thought as she fumbled with the lock to her car, she was an absolute shambles sometimes. Yet there was a good mind in there somewhere, insightful, smart and even occasional flashes of brilliance. It would be a shame if she failed
her
probationary year.