Crow Boy (14 page)

He went to follow the others through the doorway but a hand came out of the darkness and pushed him hard in the chest, making him reel back a step or two. His first thought was that The Doctor had somehow managed to pursue him across time, but then he saw the fat, smiling face of his enemy, Stuart Gillies stepping out of the shadows, followed by two of his cronies.

‘Aren't you forgetting something, Manky?' he asked. ‘You and me have some business to settle before we head back to school.'

Eighteen

Tom shook his head as he realised that even here, in the real world, trouble was hard to evade. But at the same time, he felt incredibly relieved. After all, Gillies was just a bully. Stand up to him and he'd melt away like a snowflake in a microwave. Or at least, that's what Shona had told him.

‘What's the matter, Manky?' asked Gillies mockingly. ‘You look scared.'

‘I'm not,' Tom told him, and was vaguely surprised to realise that this was absolutely true. After everything he'd been through in the seventeenth century, Gillies and his pathetic friends didn't bother him one little bit. ‘I'd need a reason to be scared, wouldn't I?' he said. ‘And you're just pathetic.'

Gillies was surprised enough to take a step backwards. ‘You . . . what did you say?'

‘What's the matter?' asked Tom. ‘Hard of hearing? If you think I'm scared of a total loser like you then think again.' He paused for a moment then smiled. ‘I have to congratulate you though.'

‘On what?' grunted Gillies, looking completely baffled.

‘On coming all the way down to this dark, spooky place without your special blanket.'

Gillies reddened. ‘What . . . what are you talking about?' he snarled.

‘Oh, don't your mates
know
about that?' asked Tom, innocently. He turned to look at the cronies, who had stopped grinning and were now looking uncertain. ‘Stuart has this little blanket; he's had it since he was a baby. He can't go to sleep without it.'

Gillies looked horrified. ‘That's not true!' he protested.

‘Oh, but it is, Stuart. Have you never told your mates about it?'

Gillies pushed Tom hard in the chest. ‘Shut up!' he cried.

‘Oh yeah, I nearly forgot.' Tom grinned maliciously. ‘He sucks his thumb too. His mum's dead worried about it. Taken him to see a doctor and everything.'

Gillie's chubby face was now crimson. ‘I told you to shut up!' he cried. He rushed forward and threw a wild punch at Tom's face, but he ducked easily under it, grabbed the extended arm and twisted it around behind Gillies' back. Then he pulled hard upwards and Gillies gave a kind of yelp, before dropping to his knees with a bellow of pain. Tom leaned closer to speak directly into Gillies' ear. ‘Tell them it's true.'

‘Will not,' grunted Gillies, so Tom pulled harder on the arm. He glanced around at Gillies' comrades but not one of them was making a move to help him. They were just standing there, open-mouthed.

‘Say it,' snarled Tom.

Gillies shook his head defiantly

‘Say it!' repeated Tom, increasing the pressure. ‘Tell them what you do.'

‘I . . . I sleep with a special blanket,' whispered Gillies.

‘Louder!'

‘I sleep with a special blanket!'

‘Good. And what else?'

‘Please, I . . .'

‘SAY IT!'

‘I suck ma thumb!'

‘Good,' said Tom. ‘Well done.' He released Gillies' arm and put a foot against his back and pushed forward. Gillies collapsed face down on the floor, blubbering, then rolled over onto his back. Tom looked around at the others. ‘Anyone else?' he asked brightly. There were no takers. They were all staring down at Gillies in dismay.

‘Right then,' said Tom. He stared down at Gillies, who looked somehow pathetic, and he actually felt a wave of pity for the boy, to be so humiliated in front of his friends. Against all his better judgement, Tom reached out a hand to help him to his feet. Gillies shook his head at first, but Tom kept his hand there and after a few moments Gillies gave in and reached up to accept help . . . but the hand that clamped itself around Tom's hand was not Gillies' hand. It was gloved and it was pulling at him with incredible power, yanking him clean off his feet and down onto the ground.

He rolled onto his back and peered up into darkness, expecting to see the stone roof of the Close above him – but somehow he was back in the open air. It was night time and a handful of stars twinkled in the narrow strip of black sky beyond the rooftops. He was lying on the cobbled street again, beside the coach in which, only a few minutes earlier, or so it seemed, The Doctor had been strangling the life out of him. But that had happened in broad daylight and now it was dark, so hours must have passed since then. Tom felt bone-tired and thirsty, and badly in need of a hot bath – and, now he thought of it – his clothes seemed to have an unpleasant smoky smell about them. He lay there, confused, trying to remember, and The Doctor's unmasked face moved into view, gazing down at him without a shred of pity.

‘Get up,' he said, in the croaking voice that Tom had already learned to despise. ‘You were next to useless. You'll do better tomorrow or you'll suffer the consequences.'

Tom stumbled wearily upright to see that Douglas was approaching from the rear of the coach, still carrying the ever-present brazier, the coals now burned out. He set it down for a moment.

‘Good work today, Douglas,' said The Doctor, pressing a coin into his hand.

Douglas nodded, but he seemed worried. ‘Thank you, sir,' he said. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I'm not sure the boy's cut out to be a stickman. It's a hard enough task for a grown man, let alone a youngster.'

‘You let me worry about that,' The Doctor advised him. ‘Practice makes perfect and we'll make a stickman of him yet. I'll see you tomorrow at the Four Talons, the usual time.'

‘Very good, sir.' Douglas picked up his brazier and trudged away, evidently reluctant to push his employer any further on the subject. Tom wondered what The Doctor had made him do while he was ‘gone' and was also relieved that he didn't seem to remember any of it. The stickman, he knew, was the man who handled the hot poker. Even the thought of it made him feel queasy. Had he been made to cauterise buboes on other less affluent victims of the plague? He hoped not, but the smell of his clothes suggested otherwise.

‘Right,' said The Doctor. He flicked a coin up to the coachman with familiar ease. ‘Pick me up tomorrow morning at eight.' The coachman nodded and cracked his whip above the heads of his horses. They lurched forward and the coach rattled away along the cobbled street. The Doctor grabbed Tom's collar and frogmarched him towards the big, dark outline of his house. Through a soot-grimed window, in the dim glow of an oil lamp, Tom could see Mother's glum features staring hopefully out into the night. The Doctor threw open the door and strode into the hallway, pushing Tom ahead of him.

‘Mother!' he roared. ‘I am returned with great news. Today has been a red letter day!'

She came shuffling out into the hallway, holding the lantern in front of her. ‘I thought I heard a coach,' she observed. ‘You're late.' Tom could tell from her voice that she'd been drinking again.

‘Aye,' said The Doctor, pulling off his leather cape and hanging it on its peg. ‘There were three cases of contagion in the Close to deal with before I could even think about getting away. And yon one was no great shakes with a hot poker, neither.' He pointed at Tom. ‘Couldn't stop his hands from trembling.'

Mother threw Tom a contemptuous look, and shook her head as though there was no hope for him. ‘I told you he was dead weight,' she said.

‘Never mind that!' said The Doctor. ‘Wait till you see how well I've done for us.' They went through into the kitchen. The Doctor pulled a bulging purse from his pocket and slammed it down onto the table. ‘There's fifty shillings to begin with,' he announced.

Fifty
? Tom did the simple sum in his head. So that was twenty from Lord Kelvin and ten from each of the other three patients. Not a bad day's haul for somebody who wasn't even a real doctor.

Mother set down the lantern on the table and opened the drawstring of the purse, as though she didn't believe him. She shook some coins out onto her hand and rattled them between her fingers. ‘Fifty shillings,' she murmured. ‘Of course, we'll have to give a share of this to McLeish, but even so, that's . . .'

‘Nothing,' interrupted The Doctor, triumphantly. ‘A mere trifle. For I have this day made an arrangement with none other than Lord Kelvin himself, to let him have the Sassenach pills for the sum of . . . one thousand Scottish pounds.'

Mother let out a gasp and sat down heavily in a chair. ‘No!' she cried. ‘You're jesting with me!' She reached for her mug and gulped down a mouthful of gin.

‘Mother, I'm telling you what happened. The money's ours just as soon as his Lordship's granddaughter recovers from the plague.'

Mother looked worried. ‘She
will
recover?' she croaked.

‘Of course she will, in a matter of a few days. Rest assured. And, as it's a deal that I made without McLeish's knowledge, there'll be no need to give him a cut. It will all be ours. Think, Mother! We'll be able to leave this cesspit and take lodgings in a good house in the city. We'll have fine clothes and good food and . . . maybe even servants.'

‘Servants?'

‘Aye, why not? When that new consignment of pills arrives from England, we'll be set up for life!' He reached out to her, pulled her up out of the chair and the two of them danced a weird little jig of sheer delight.

Tom stood there and watched them in weary silence. He realised in that moment that although the two of them were undoubtedly evil, still, they had powerful reasons for acting the way they did. The desire to escape the awful poverty in which they were trying to survive must be the strongest motivator of all. But it didn't excuse their behaviour, not one bit. He moved to a chair and slumped in to it.

‘Now,' roared The Doctor, breaking away from Mother. ‘Bring food and drink. Open that good bottle of brandy I've been saving.'

‘And the boy?'

‘Aye, give him something. Not too much, mind. We don't want to spoil him, do we?'

Mother shuffled away to the other end of the kitchen and busied herself preparing a meal as The Doctor sat himself at the table and gloatingly counted out his coins. After a little while, he became aware of Tom watching him and he looked up.

‘What are you staring at?' he muttered. ‘I don't like you looking at me.'

Tom shrugged. ‘I was just thinking,' he said. ‘What if your mother's right? What if Annie doesn't get better? What if she dies?'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. ‘Why would she?' he said. ‘The girl at the orphanage made a full recovery.'

Tom nodded. ‘That doesn't mean that Annie will,' he said. ‘Antibiotics don't work for everyone, you know.'

‘It will work,' said The Doctor. ‘It
must
work.' He was trying to sound confident but Tom could see by his expression that he was disturbed by the idea. He glared at Tom. ‘Why didn't you mention this before?'

‘You never asked,' said Tom, enjoying the brief sense of power he got from messing around with The Doctor's expectations. ‘I'd say they work around . . . sixty percent of the time.' He didn't know this for a fact; he was just pulling The Doctor's chain and delighting at the results.

‘Sixty percent,' muttered The Doctor. ‘Well, it's still better odds than the old method,' he said.

Mother shuffled to the table with a tray containing a bottle of brandy for The Doctor and a mug of scummy-looking water for Tom. The Doctor grabbed the bottle, uncorked it and took a greedy swig from its contents. He gasped and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Tom meanwhile took a cautious sip from the mug. The water tasted vile but he was parched and needed to drink something to keep himself going. Mother also set down two tin plates of meat. The Doctor's plate was piled high, while Tom's portion was smaller than his clenched fist. He regarded it dismally. The meat was grey and rotten, what looked like the last scraps of skin and gristle, pulled from a days-old carcass. As he stared down at it, he saw something moving. He reached down gingerly with his finger and thumb and pulled out a wriggling maggot.

‘Oh, that's mingin'!' he exclaimed. ‘I'm not eating this.'

The Doctor stared at him. ‘Oh yes you are,' he growled.

‘No way!' protested Tom. ‘It's got maggots in it.'

‘So?' shrieked Mother. ‘That's good food, that is. The best money can buy.'

‘
You
eat it then,' said Tom. ‘It's not fit for the pigs.'

The Doctor reacted as though Tom had just struck her. ‘How dare you say that to my mother?' he said. ‘You ungrateful wretch!'

Tom pointed at The Doctor's plate. ‘There's nothing wriggling around in your food,' he said. ‘Why don't you swap with me if it's so great?'

‘Eat it,' said The Doctor, coldly, getting to his feet.

Tom shook his head. ‘I'm not hungry,' he insisted. ‘You can't make me.'

The Doctor came slowly around the table, his eyes burning into Tom's.

‘Last time,' he said. ‘Are you going to eat your food or not?'

‘No,' said Tom. ‘And you can't–'

The Doctor's hand was at the back of his head and he was pushed, face down, into the plate of meat. It was plastered into his eyes and up his nose. He struggled frantically, unable to breathe, while The Doctor's voice roared from somewhere behind him. ‘Who do you think you are?' he bellowed. ‘Coming into my house and telling my mother that her food is unfit for pigs! Think yourself lucky that I haven't taken the cane to you!'

He grabbed a handful of Tom's hair and pulled him backwards, hard, tipping up the chair and sending him sprawling onto the bare earth floor. Tom lay there, gasping for breath, wiping the stinking meat from his eyes on the sleeve of his blazer.

‘Well,' said The Doctor, looming threateningly over him, ‘since our guest isn't in the mood to take refreshment, I'd best show him to his quarters.' He reached down, grabbed the lapel of Tom's blazer and pulled him upright. Then he dragged him out of the kitchen and back into the hall. If Tom had expected to be shown a room, he was disappointed. The Doctor stopped at the wooden enclosure. It was filled with straw, the kind of thing where a large dog or some other animal might have slept. There was a metal-barred door across the front, which opened when The Doctor pulled at it. He flung Tom carelessly inside and slammed the bars shut again. Tom struggled to turn around, the roof too low for him to even kneel upright. He managed to twist around until his nose was up against the bars. There was a rasping sound as The Doctor slid home a bolt, somewhere that Tom couldn't see. The Doctor leaned closer, his expression one of mocking triumph.