Beneath The Skin Episode 9

His body was starting to settle, after the horrors of the basement. A final, almost imperceptible shudder ran through him. Breathe. Just breathe and let it go. He let his gaze wander along the base of the wall, making mental notes as he went. This would be the back wall of the basement, although most of it was below ground level, obviously. There were a couple of vented bricks there, and. . .a tiny window. He couldn’t remember seeing a window in the basement.

There definitely wasn’ t a window, because it was so damn dark. Was there a window in the locked inner sanctum, the place of stuffed kittens? He couldn’t recall, but he’d got the impression of wall-to-wall shelves.

He peered closer. The window was at knee-level. He stooped and wiped a circle with his hand, just as he’d done that first day, when he’d first come across Alys’s studio. He could see nothing but the kind of blank darkness that makes you want to pull away.

He turned his attention to the pipe again. The drain cover at the base of it was blocked with leaves and muck, which wouldn’t be helping the damp situation. He scraped it away with the side of his foot, encountering resistance.

The grate was spiked with bits of debris: leaves and stiff twigs, or were they bones? Little, brittle rat bones. And those weren’t leaves. It was vegetable matter of some kind. Peelings, perhaps. Onion skins? Who would be out here messing around with onions and whatever the hell all these bits were?

He wished he’d brought tools. He usually had a penknife about him but he must have left it in his room. He didn’t like being unprepared. Nor did he like to leave a job undone.

Little details bothered him; leaves and twigs, or whatever they were, blocking up the drains bothered him. Carefully, he began to prise up the cover.

He saw it happen in slow motion; felt the sickening crunch a split second before the heavy iron grid slammed down on his thumb, and then he was on his knees, cradling his hand against his gut; his body clenched tight against the pain.

Blood pulsed in the screwed-up darkness behind his eyelids. Something alarming and visceral took over: sand choking him, disembodied voices in the static. In his chest he felt the tell- tale throbbing heartbeat of the helicopter coming to get him.

The pain was so deep he couldn’t feel it any more, was riding above it, floating somewhere in the dust clouds and he heard them calling . . .

Robert. Robert!

They never called him Robert. That’s what brought him back. They never called him Robert, but there it was in a panicky kid’s voice. Robert! He dragged in a breath. Did he have sweets on him? They all wanted sweets, the kids. Or pens, or footballs. He squinted upwards, and the eyes staring down at him were blue. That jarred too, because he knew they should be brown.

“Robert, are you okay?” A hand jostled his shoulder, and he was suddenly back where there was no sand, no heat, no sound other than the screeching of the gulls. He came back to an ordinary grey granite afternoon, finding himself kneeling in the dirt like a prize idiot, hugging a bruised thumb.

“Does it hurt?” Blond hair, blue eyes, gazing at him in alarm. “No, bonnie lad. I’m fine. Just let me get up.”

Walt winced as he got clumsily to his feet. Every time this happened, it took longer to snap out of it, as if a part of his brain was still in that other land, unwilling to come back and fight this different kind of fight.

William was watching him silently. He raised a smile for the child’s benefit. “It’s all right, son, I just hurt me thumb.”

Carefully he unwrapped his fingers so they could both inspect the damage. William wrinkled his whole face, brow, nose, the lot, as he checked out the blackening nail and the swelling flesh. The digit was like a black grape, but luckily there was no blood.

“Ugh. Is it broken? Can you wiggle it?” “Yeah, I can wiggle it,” Walt declared without checking. He tucked the injured hand into his armpit. What was the lad doing here anyway? His system began to click back into gear.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?”

The youngster was dressed in civvies, faded jeans and a hoodie. “I was feeling sick this morning, so Mum left me with Mrs Petrauska when she went to work. I don’t really like Mrs Petrauska. Her eyes are too black and she smells of garlic, but she lets me watch David Dickinson. I like David Dickinson. ‘Cheap as chips.”’

“You’re weird.’ Walt eyed him suspiciously. “And you don’t look sick.”

“You do. Your face has gone white.” An awkward silence ensued. He didn’t know how to be around kids any more. He’d been used to short, frantic bursts of playtime with his niece and nephew, hyping them up with unsuitable presents and too much sugar until Natalie’s tight expression warned him off.

Mouse’s son was small for his age. What was he – seven, eight?

An ad man’s dream, the sort of blond cherub that could sell anything from sugar frosties to paint; a kind of golden child with two smiley parents, a Labrador puppy and a fishing rod.

But when you really looked at him you could see the tarnish; skin peeling where he’d chewed his lip, shadows under his eyes. He looked like a kid who’d stayed up late with one too many violent computer games.

He was watching Walt, waiting for some kind of adult exchange, and when it didn’t come, he seemed to make a decision. Gripping Walt by the wrist, he began to lead him back to the front of the building, carefully, as you would a docile but unpredictable bullock.

“Come on, I’ll get you a plaster.” Walt followed obligingly. He wanted to point out that a plaster probably wouldn’t cut it, but instead he said: “It’s okay. Alys is there. Shouldn’t you go back to Mrs Petrauska’s? She’ll be wondering where you are.”

William didn’t look round. “Alys doesn’t know where the plasters are.”

Of course she wouldn’t. Not babysitter material, Mouse had said.

More tomorrow.

Every time this happened, it took longer to snap out of it, as if a part of his brain was still in that other land

Beneath The Skin, by Sandra Ireland, is published by Polygon, £8.99. Her latest book, Sight Unseen, is out now.