Читать книгу The Crowmaster - Barry Hutchison - Страница 10

Chapter Four JOSEPH

‘Excuse me, can I get past?’

The mega-baby scowled at the question. ‘Why?’ ‘I need to see the ticket collector,’ I said with some urgency in my voice. The man-of-mystery didn’t seem to be bothering with anyone else’s tickets, and was instead walking casually along the train to where a sliding door led through to the next carriage.

With a sigh of annoyance and a grunt of effort, the obese man shifted his immense weight in the seat. His breath became laboured as he caught hold of the headrest in front of him and began to ease himself upright. Huge flaps of blubber wobbled below his arms like fleshy wings. His face contorted in effort as he pulled himself into a standing position.

I moved to pursue the ticket collector, but the bulk of my fellow passenger still blocked the aisle.

‘I’m up,’ he grunted. ‘Might as well go to the bog.’

I pushed my fist into my mouth to stop myself shouting in frustration. The toilets were in the same direction as I was trying to go, and there was no way of squeezing past the waddling beast of a man. I had no choice but to follow behind as he plodded his way along the train, his massive girth brushing against the seats on either side of the aisle.

He was too big even to see past. I hopped into the air a couple of times, but his height and the sheer expanse of his back stopped me seeing if the ticket collector was still in the carriage.

After what felt like a decade we arrived at the end of the compartment, where the aisle widened a little. I squeezed my way past the man and hit the control for the door. It slid open with a shhht and I hurried through. Behind me, the mega-baby forced his bulk through the door and stopped by the toilets.

‘If you’re not back,’ he managed to wheeze, though he sounded like the effort might kill him, ‘window seat’s mine.’

I nodded without looking back. My luggage was in a rack at the end of the train and I had left nothing in my seat. Now that I was free, I had no intention of going back to sit there.

I heard the toilet door close and lock, and tried hard not to imagine the horrors about to be unleashed inside that unsuspecting little room.

A glass door led into the next carriage. I could see right along that aisle and the next one, where the train ended. There was no sign of the ticket collector anywhere.

My hand was halfway to the button that would swish open the door when a voice to my right stopped me.

‘Looking for someone?’

I hadn’t noticed anyone standing in the little alcove where the exit door was, and my shock must’ve been visible on my face when I whipped round. The ticket collector gave a self-satisfied smirk, as if he’d been deliberately trying to surprise me.

‘You, actually,’ I said, recovering quickly.

He nodded and pushed back his hat, revealing a head that was almost – but not quite – as bald as the man-baby’s. ‘Well, you found me.’

The ticket collector was short and a little on the podgy side. He looked to be around sixty, but stood with the type of slouch usually reserved for teenagers. It rumpled his uniform and made it look two sizes too big. He smoothed the edges of his thick, bushy moustache while he waited for my reply.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, unable to come up with a less obvious question.

‘Ticket collector,’ he said with a smile. ‘Tickets, please. See?’

‘Who are you really?’

‘I told you, I’m a ticket collector,’ he insisted. ‘Always have been.’ I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept talking. ‘Just like I’m a policeman and always have been. And just like I will for ever be standing behind the curtain in your school canteen, waiting to untie you.’

I blinked slowly. ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘It’s OK,’ he chuckled, ‘it’s not easy to understand. It’ll be years before you figure it out. Forty-four, to be exact.’

My brow was knotted into a frown. I’d come looking for answers, but all I was getting was gobbledegook. ‘Right,’ I stumbled. ‘So… who are you?’

‘The ticket—’

‘What’s your name?’ I sighed, growing tired of this. The man across from me, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying every second.

‘I’ve got lots of names.’

I glared at him. ‘Pick one.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Kyle Alexander.’

‘That’s my name,’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ he said with a wink. ‘So it is. How about… Joseph?’

‘Joseph. Joseph what?’

‘Just Joseph will do for now,’ he smiled.

The door next to me slid open and a woman came through. She was about my mum’s age, and looked almost as strung-out as Mum had looked as she’d waved me goodbye. A boy of around three was in the woman’s arms. He fiddled with her long hair, not paying us the slightest bit of attention.

The woman gave us a faintly embarrassed smile as she made for the toilet door.

‘Out of order, love,’ Joseph announced. ‘Sorry. The one further along’s fine, though.’

A flicker of irritation flashed on the woman’s face, but she thanked him and carried on along the train.

‘Why did you tell her it’s out of order?’ I asked.

‘Because it will be in a minute,’ Joseph answered. I assumed he was anticipating a big clean-up job when the mega-baby finally emerged. ‘Now I need to get back to work,’ he told me. ‘Lots of tickets needing to be collected today. Was there anything else?’

I had too many questions to ask. They buzzed like a swarm of bees inside my head – one big collective noise that was almost impossible to break down into its component parts.

I fumbled for words. ‘Just… just… everything. What’s happening to me? What’s going on?’

‘Wow, straight for the biggies then,’ Joseph said, sucking in his cheeks. ‘What do you think is happening?’

‘I don’t know!’ I cried, launching into a full-scale rant. ‘That’s why I’m asking you. First my imaginary friend comes back and tries to kill me, then someone else’s appears and tries to do pretty much the exact same thing. I find out my dad’s actually my mum’s imaginary friend, and, I mean, I don’t even want to begin to think about how that’s even biologically possible. I’ve suddenly got these… these… powers, and now it’s like either they’re going crazy or I am, because everywhere I look I’m seeing Mr Mumbles or Caddie or… or…’

‘Or me?’

‘Right,’ I said, my tirade running out of steam. ‘Exactly. Or you.’

Joseph nodded thoughtfully, his eyes studying the smooth lines of the train’s ceiling. He gave a final nod and turned back to me.

‘Yep,’ he said.

I waited expectantly for him to continue. ‘Yep what?’

‘Yep,’ Joseph said, ‘that’s pretty much what’s happening to you. Couldn’t have put it better myself. You hit the nail right on the head.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me—’

‘What, that’s it?’ I spat. ‘You’re not going to tell me anything else?’

‘I think you’ll do a fine job of figuring it out all by yourself.’

He tipped his hat towards me and made for the door that led to the next carriage. I watched him, dumbstruck.

‘I thought you could help me,’ I told him. ‘I thought that was why you were here.’

He paused at the door. For a long moment there was no sound but the clackety-clack of the train on the track. When Joseph finally spoke, the lightness was gone from his voice.

‘I am helping you, Kyle,’ he said. ‘I’m doing everything I can.’

‘Not from where I’m standing.’

He turned round and straightened from his slouch. There was an intensity to his expression that seemed to change the entire shape of his face.

‘You think so?’ he asked, his voice flat and emotionless. He nodded towards the door to the toilet cubicle. ‘Look in there.’

‘What?’ I gasped. ‘No way! There’s someone in there.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes! I saw him go in. Couldn’t exactly miss him.’

‘There’s a window,’ Joseph said.

I snorted. ‘What, are you saying he’s climbed out? That guy?’

One of Joseph’s eyebrows raised so high it almost disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. ‘I’m not saying he went anywhere.’

Joseph took a pace forward and swiped a credit-card sized piece of plastic across the face of the door control button. The light around the switch blinked from an occupied red to a vacant green. ‘Go on,’ he urged, stepping away. ‘Open it.’

I looked from the door to Joseph and back again, my mouth flapping open and closed like a fish out of water. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘You say I’m not helping you. That I’m doing nothing. I’ll show you,’ Joseph said. There was an authority to his voice I’d never heard before, even when he’d been dressed as the policeman. The bumbling oaf persona had slipped away, revealing a much more commanding presence lurking behind it. ‘Open the door,’ he said. ‘Open the door and see how I help you.’

‘By showing me fat people on the toilet?’ I muttered, but I was already staring at the circle of green. Already knowing I was going to do it. Already reaching for the button.

The door clicked off the catch as my finger brushed over the switch. The toilet door didn’t slide sideways like the others and I had to give it a push to start it swinging inwards.

The smell that rushed out to meet me stung my eyes and caught in my throat. My gag reflex kicked in and I had to pull my jumper up over my nose and mouth to stop myself throwing up.

As the door swung all the way open I felt my whole body go rigid. The sight I had expected to see when I opened the toilet door had been bad enough. The sight that did greet me was worse. Beyond worse.

Way, way beyond.

What was left of the mega-baby lay twisted on the floor, the vast flapping limbs contorted into impossible positions, the head bent awkwardly sideways, as if his neck was made of rubber.

He was slumped on the lino like a big wobbly blob. There was no rigidity to him. Nothing solid. It was as if something had crawled inside him and devoured every one of his bones. All that remained was a mound of blubbery skin. It swayed hypnotically with the movement of the train.

The man’s mouth was wide open, but his eyes were wider. They looked beyond me, devoid of life, but pleading for… I don’t know. Mercy or dignity or something.

There wasn’t a spot of blood anywhere on the floor or the walls. A broken window was the only sign of a struggle. The hole in the glass would have been too small even for me to fit through, so I didn’t know how it fitted in with the rest of the grisly scene.

My eyes met with his again, and I suddenly felt very ashamed for thinking so badly of the poor guy. I stood there, transfixed by the man’s mushy remains, until Joseph reached forward and swung the door closed.

I blinked, the spell broken. ‘He’s… he’s… dead,’ I whispered.

Joseph swiped his card across the door control button and the lock blinked red. ‘Well spotted,’ he said. ‘What gave it away?’

‘What did you do to him?’ I asked, missing the sarcasm completely.

‘Me? Nothing. I’ve been standing here with you. Nothing to do with me.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Long story,’ Joseph said. ‘And one you’re probably best not knowing for the moment. I’ll clean it up. I’ll take care of it. That’s what I do. That’s how I help you, Kyle. I tidy things away. I tie up the loose ends.’

I nodded, my eyes still fixed on the door. I couldn’t get the sight of the man’s remains out of my head. I think I muttered ‘OK’, but I couldn’t say for certain.

‘Go back to your seat,’ Joseph told me. ‘Try to act natural. You’ll be in Glasgow before you know it.’

I nodded again, too numb to do much else. The door to my left slid open and Joseph gave me a nudge to start me moving along the aisle.

Just before I started to walk, he put a hand on my shoulder. He may have been a small man, but his grip was like steel. ‘One thing you should ask yourself,’ he said, his voice quiet so no one else would hear. ‘Did that man die after he went into the toilet, or before?’

The hand withdrew from my shoulder and I stood in the mouth of the aisle, waiting for the sentence to filter properly through to my brain.

‘After,’ I frowned, turning on the spot. ‘I saw him walk…’

I left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air. The area around me was empty. Joseph had pulled his usual disappearing trick.

I skulked along the aisle back to my seat. I kept my gaze on the floor, avoiding all eye contact for fear of somehow giving away what I’d just seen. As I walked, all I could hear was Joseph’s final question, repeating over and over again in my head like the steady clattering rhythm of the train on the tracks.

Of course he’d died after going into the toilet. I’d watched him walk in. But the way Joseph asked the question, and the fact he’d even asked it at all, made me wonder if he knew something about the man-baby that I didn’t.