Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil by Christopher Brookmyre

Author:Christopher Brookmyre [Brookmyre, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Mystery & Detective, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316730112
Publisher: Abacus
Published: 2006-05-25T03:00:00+00:00

Primary Four

61 Virginis

The Most Amazing Thing Ever to Happen at St Elizabeth’s

Okay, so there’s something seems not quite right as Scot approaches the lines. Just a feeling he gets as he walks up, something not ringing true in what he has glimpsed, so he looks more directly at the double doors and the steps in front. Aye, definitely something the matter. It doesn’t sound quite normal, either. There’s always a bit of a racket from so many voices blethering and shrieking, but just now it’s heightened, giddy even. Everybody’s standing back from the foot of the stairs; like, a yard or two back. Normally the folk at the front will be standing on the steps and giving it king-of-the-castle right until the second the teachers come. And even more normal would be for two of those playing king-of-the-castle to be either Joanne and Alison or Carol and Michelle.

The four of them are there, of course. The bell’s gone, are you daft? But it looks as if…no, it definitely is the case that they’re each trying to get behind the other, trying to wrong-foot their opponents like players in the penalty box waiting on a corner.

As he gets close he can hear them speak. Instead of the usual goading, gloating, accusation and recrimination, there’s a giggly, mischievous tone to it.

“After you.”

“No, we’re always first. About time we let you have a shot.”

“Nonsense, we insist.”

There’s much the same carry-on under way in the other lines, so it can’t be some new game just between that daft wee quartet.

There’s not many boys arrived yet, most of them still squeezing out the last few drops of a game of Colditz, but he sees Colin, who had cried off early to go to the bogs. He looks kind of dazed, in a bit of a dwam, or like he might be about to spew.

“Awright, Col?” Scot asks.

“Hiya,” he says, not very sure.

“Whit’s goin on?”

Before Colin can answer, Joanne turns on her heel, her super-powered lugs pricked up to zero-in on a chance to break some news.

“There’s a jobbie in the corridor,” she announces, with the kind of relish you normally only see on the face of Nicholas Parsons when he reveals that somebody’s won a motor.

“Shite,” Scot says doubtfully.

“Aye, exactly.” Joanne beams. “Just inside the double doors.”

Scot looks ahead. He can’t see a jobbie, but the unprecedented gap between the forming lines and the steps is convincing enough.

“Did you see it?” he asks.

“Aye, it’s mingin,” says Joanne. “Aw skittery an everythin.”

“You see it, Colin?”

Colin gives him a white-faced look that fairly answers the question.

“Is there a dug in the school, then?” Scot enquires. Jai Maloney’s mental red setter has rampaged through the playground on several terrifying occasions, and it only seems a matter of time before it gets indoors.

But Joanne now looks like the lucky contestant has bagged the motorboat as well. “Naw. It was Harry Fenwick.”

“What, he just dropped his troosers and did it?” Scot asks scornfully. The name she has given is the obvious guess if she didn’t really know the truth.

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