Read Tell the Octopus, and other Short Stories Page 7

another gang. Without their ringleader, Conan, they would have gone back to spraying graffiti and playing Grand Theft Auto. The bodybuilder had crossed Ben’s path two years previously when he had been fit enough to fend him off. Now Ben wouldn’t have stood a chance. All he could do was keep looking over his shoulder and ensure he was safely in his bolthole before the streetlights were turned off. Conan might not have possessed a great intellect, but knew how to hold a grudge.

  Several nights passed, Ben snug in his secret hideaway and the others safely under a charity’s roof.

  As dawn broke one morning, Ben took his regular stroll along the walkway through the steam and out to view his secret kingdom on the far side of the derelict station. He felt uneasy. He didn’t know why. But that instinct for survival was finely honed and never ignored. He went back to the storeroom, rolled up his bedding and quickly left.

  Turning the corner from the university’s entrance were a student and older man. They headed to the storeroom door. Ben wondered why they were there so early in the morning and tried not to panic. What if they found out the padlock had been sabotaged and had it replaced? No more refuge for the night.

  He darted behind the bushes on the other side of the road and watched the couple enter the storeroom. At least leaving earlier than usual meant he hadn’t been caught.

  Then Ben’s worst nightmare appeared. His early-morning foreboding had also saved him from encountering Conan. The only reason the thug had for being there was because he had discovered Ben’s secret hideaway. Now the chance to sleep there again had really gone.

  Ben’s immediate instinct was to run and not come back. Then a sickening thought stopped him. It was dark in the storeroom. Conan wouldn’t have thought twice about beating up the elderly professor and his young female student if he believed that they were getting between him his quarry. There was no way to contact the police. Everywhere was deserted and the credit on Ben’s last mobile had expired months ago.

  Conan entered the storeroom.

  Ben pulled a metal strut from the ancient railings holding back the bushes and darted across the road.

  There were raised voices, and then a girl’s scream.

  Ben hurtled to the storeroom and threw the door wide like an emaciated fury. There was blood on the old man’s face after he had attempted to come between his student and Conan.

  The bodybuilder had the girl by the arm and would have struck her as well if Ben had not lashed out with the metal bar. Conan fell back. This gave Ben just enough time to open the inner door and dash through it, shouting obscenities over his shoulder to ensure that the thug chased him.

  The body builder charged like an enraged bull along the metal walkway and out of the other door.

  Ben was already running across the rusty bridge, over the trains being shunted out to their stations, and down to the derelict platform. He jumped onto the disused tracks and hid amongst the buddleia colonising them. Conan assumed he had dashed off into the wilderness beyond and loped along to the far end of the platform.

  Taking his chance, Ben jumped back up and onto the bridge. But Conan saw him leave his hiding place and charged after him. Ben’s intention had been to get inside and slam the door shut before he could reach it. By the time Conan had discovered a way round to the door of the storeroom, he and the other two would be well away. But one of Ben’s torn trainers snagged on a loose tread.

  He went sprawling.

  With a roar of triumph, Conan pounded his way across the bridge towards him.

  It shuddered dangerously.

  Suddenly Ben felt helping hands pulling him clear of the rickety structure as the bridge’s struts snapped.

  It turned turtle, pitching Conan onto the rails below. Dazed and disorientated, he managed to get to his feet and spin round just in time to see the carriages bearing down on him.

  The look of amazement on Conan’s face shortly before he was mangled by their wheels would live with Ben forever. The driver at the far end of the train may have felt a slight bump, but obviously wasn’t aware that he had struck anyone. Why would he have been? There was never anybody about at that time of day. He was even less aware of Ben, the professor and his student gazing down in horror at the bloody tangle of what had once been a bodybuilder.

  Their appalled silence continued until Ben’s sense of self-preservation kicked in. He ushered the professor and his student back inside.

  They had to decide what to do. Telling the police what had happened would have meant revealing the University’s illicit research into geothermal energy. The consequences would have been the loss of numerous grants at best, and prosecution at worst.

  Ben knew that nothing much would happen if he told them about Conan. The police were aware that he wanted to kill him and it would be plausible he died attempting to do it. Ben would either spend several nights in a warm cell with full board, or they would shake his hand.

  Despite being convinced that the young man knew what he was doing, the other two were reluctant to leave him to shoulder the responsibility of what had happened. But Ben insisted: his life was already screwed up, there was no point in the same thing happening to the student, so the professor handed Ben his card with instructions to call him.

  After the professor and his student had returned to the University, he picked the eraser from the padlock, pulled the door of the storeroom to, put the shackle through the hasp and snapped it shut. His knapsack and bedding were well hidden in the bushes opposite and he could retrieve them at any time.

  Ben followed the perimeter of the University’s grounds, back to the sidings and derelict station. The bridge was now hanging precariously from a couple of loose bolts over where Conan’s body lay. Ben scrambled down the crumbling wall it was attached to and ran along the track to attract the attention of the driver shunting the last passenger carriages from their overnight berth. He frantically gabbled out that the bridge had collapsed and there was a body on the track. Within minutes the yard was locked down. Nothing moved until the railway police arrived.

  Ben’s explanation that Conan had been chasing him seemed plausible enough - it was unlikely to have been the other way round. He didn’t even need to spend a night in a cell which, given that he had lost his regular spot, was inconvenient. However, after hearing what had happened, his companions in the hostel were only too willing to have him join them. With Conan gone they could safely move back to the underpass.

  Ben had been through so many institutions during his early life, he had never expected much. The engineering apprenticeship was the most he had ever expected to achieve before fate intervened, and he hadn’t anticipated anything more than a thank you when he did find a phone to call the professor. Those who have never had much expect little and have nothing to lose. But Ben did not count on the professor rating his IQ above average. So much so that, after explaining their geothermal drilling project to the young man, the professor managed to procure a grant for him to work with his legitimate research group. Despite Ben’s early training as an engineer, his skills were far from university standard, and he expected the job to be sweeping floors or cleaning condensation from the walls of the secret research chamber. But his brain had not been addled by drugs or booze and his prospects turned to be more promising. Best of all was having a warm bed for the night.

  The Changeling

  There was not much that could be said to the mother whose newborn had just died in her arms. Yet the ancient, upright man visiting her had sparkling eyes that expressed more than words.

  The small stranger lifted a slender hand.

  Life returned to the frail infant. Her fair wisps of hair took on the colour of flame and an otherworldly beauty pervaded the baby’s features.

  “How did you do that?” whispered Emma. “The doctors said there was no hope.”

  “She will now be with you for 12 years and a day. Bring her to me before that birthday.”

  Emma and Todd were so elated at having a child survive after so many
stillbirths they did not worry about the implications of the pact they had just made. There was something of a holy man in this mysterious hospital visitor’s demeanour and honeyed tone of voice. They did not doubt him for one moment, let alone question how he had performed the miracle that flew in the face of medical diagnosis

  “Do not lose this.” The small man held up a golden card. “On it is the address you must bring her to. Be sure that it is on the date inscribed on the reverse.”

  Todd took the card and put it in his wallet, and then turned to hold the daughter he thought he would never have. “Hello Gingie.”

  Neither he, nor Emma, noticed the diminutive magician leave as enigmatically as he had appeared.

  There was a lawn on the roof. In fact, the roof was the lawn.

  It had been freshly mown and its cut grass fragrance filled the sunken courtyard. The pond at its centre was alive with croaking frogs. The underground house was totally concealed from the road. No one would have known that it was there without directions. The conversation going on inside was also secret, apparently not for the ears of an inquisitive 12-year-old.

  Gingie didn’t mind. That was the way with adults after all. As soon as something important cropped up, it had to be kept from you at all costs. It made her wonder why she was there. By the furtive glances at her from the nearby window she