Campion's Choice

Jack crouched behind the steering wheel and trembled as he looked at the scene framed by the window. It was like watching television. In the sunlight Criel’s long, thin knife looked like a silver nail. Clamp’s eyes were wide with disbelief

’What the …’the teacher started to say.

Criel stabbed him in the shoulder. Clamp gasped in pain.

‘Right, two questions. Number one, where’s the bag and number two where is the coin?’

Criel held the knife up to Clamp’s eye.

‘What coin? What do you want?’

‘There were four coins. You kept one. Where is it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Maybe this will help jog your memory.’ Criel jabbed out and cut the man’s face. A thin line of blood trickled down his cheek.

‘Is this about the other day? The coins the kids found? I gave three away and put one in my bag,’ Clamp desperately tried to explain.

‘Where’s the bag?’

‘Over there. By my desk.’

The policewoman crossed the bedroom, all the time carefully watching the wounded man.

‘You came to our school ..’ Clamp began but Criel stopped his words with a wave of the knife.

She turned to look for the teacher’s school bag and walked straight into a wardrobe. The rickety piece of old furniture rocked sideways and up above a box began to slide. Suddenly there were cricket balls everywhere: a hail of used and new balls showered down on Criel.

The woman cursed angrily but finally found Clamp’s bag.

‘There’s no coin,’ she said as she emptied the bag.

‘That’s where I put it. What’s happening? Let me go. I thought you were a police officer ….’

Clamp’s protests were cut short by a fierce backhand slap across his face. He groaned.

‘Liar. Where is the coin?’

‘It should be in the bag,’ Clamp whimpered.

Jack made himself breathe. They couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away from the teacher and each of the man’s gasps sent a shudder of fear through his body.

‘Inspector Criel isn’t it? Please …’ Clamp begged.

‘Last chance. Where .. is .. the .. coin?’ Criel lowered the knife.

‘I don’t …’

With one quick movement Criel stabbed Clamp in the chest.

Jack’s mind raced. He had to do something. The ban liang. Think. He tried to focus but his thoughts were scattered. He grabbed the coin until it hurt.

The little car engine started and the Fiat edged forward in the garage. Jack’s heart almost stopped. Hearing the noise, Criel turned to stare out of the window.

For one second Jack was sure he would be spotted but then, seemingly out of thin air, Liam appeared in the house, behind Criel, in the bedroom, carrying a cricket bat.

Criel didn’t see it coming. Liam swung his makeshift weapon and the woman pitched forward, eyes closed, out cold.

All Jack could hear were Clamp’s moans. All he could see in the window was Liam, standing like a professional cricketer, holding a bat high in the air.

Ursula knocked a crate to one side and hurtled out of the carport towards the house. She burst through the back door and Jack was sure that, if it hadn’t been open, the woman would have ripped the door off its hinges.

‘Why did you start the car?’ Tia hissed in Jack’s ear.

He turned to shrug and deny everything but already she was scrabbling to follow the old woman. Jack let go of the bang liang and finally the car engine stopped.

They ran through the house to find the bedroom where Jack stopped at the threshold and looked at Tia.

‘I think we should stay here,’ he said.

‘And call the hospital or something?’ Tia asked.

Downstairs the front door opened. Jack listened to a heavy footfall coming through the house.

‘Where are you?’ a strange voice called just before a tall, grizzled man appeared in the hallway. He had a mobile phone clamped to his head. When he saw the two children he said brusquely, ‘Where’s Ursula?’

‘In there.’

Jack pointed towards Clamp’s bedroom. The newcomer headed in that direction and Jack and Tia followed. Liam was standing guard over the unconscious Criel. He was waving the bat from side to side, ready to use it again if necessary.

‘Who are you?’ Liam demanded at the sight of the stranger.

The man ignored him. He knelt over Clamp and gently pulled aside the white shirt, revealing the injuries. The dagger stuck out of Clamp’s chest.

‘This is Peter Mahan,’ Ursula said calmly as if making introductions at a tea party.

Jack couldn’t turn away. He watched in amazement as Mahan placed his large hands over the wound. He must be a doctor, he thought.

It was a surprise when Ursula tried to stop the man.

‘Anax. Not in front of the children!’

Jack wondered if he heard the name right. Anax? But she just introduced him as Peter Mahan. What kind of name was Anax?

‘There’s no time,’ Mahan said, waving a hand to brush away the woman’s concerns. He knelt down and placed his hand back on Clamps chest. Jack saw that he wore a ring of gold, studded with three bright diamonds. The trio of gems glinted in the late evening sun.

‘Mister Clamp is dead. He’s not breathing,’ Liam shouted struggling to keep his voice under control.

‘He’s not dead. Be quiet,’ Mahan said coolly.

The room felt silent. It was a stifling evening and Jack felt his clothes sticking to his skin. He wanted to turn away but couldn’t drag his eyes from Clamp’s lifeless body.

Mahan’s face turned white as, with a steady hand, he drew the blade gently out of the ribcage.

‘What are you doing?’ Tia asked in a tiny frightened voice.

Mahan moved his hands lightly from side to side. It seemed to take forever. Seconds ticked into minutes and still the man crouched over Clamp’s body. Finally he rose and stepped unsteadily back, sagging with exhaustion against the bright purple flowered wallpaper. Jack thought he looked like a man returning from battle.

When he turned back the first sight of Clamp made him lightheaded.

The wounds had disappeared. The blood had disappeared. Even the tear made by the knife in the white, frilly dancing shirt had disappeared.

Jack thought he was going mad.

After catching his breath Mahan moved slowly over to the unconscious Criel. He picked her up, dragged her across the floor and propped her against the garish wallpaper. Like a priest baptising a baby he placed a hand lightly on the policewoman’s head.

‘Anax. Be careful,’ Ursula said.

‘Do you think I want to do this? If you want to help, put Clamp on the bed,’ Mahan ordered. For a man who looked like he’d run a marathon his voice was still firm and strong.

Liam let go of the cricket bat, which clattered on the wooden floor and skidded beneath the bed.

‘Liam, can you help me get Mister Clamp onto his bed?’ Ursula asked. Liam nodded stupidly and, whilst Mahan knelt over Criel, Ursula and Liam dragged the heavy weight of Clamp over to the king-sized wooden bed.

Mahan remained bent over Criel, rocking from side to side. He mumbled strange words. Try as hard as he might, and leaning as close as he dare, Jack could make no sense from the sounds other than one whispered phrase.

‘There were no coins.’

Jack touched the ban liang. He could have sworn that, as he did this, the diamonds on Mahan’s ring flashed.

‘Enough,’ Mahan said. Jack expected him to stand but instead, like a hedgehog or armadillo, the tall man slowly curled up on the floor, his body a tight, perfect ball.

Ursula bent down to his side and Jack heard the man say firmly, ‘Put the policewoman back in her car. Get the kids in the ambulance. We all need to get out of here.’

Ursula nodded, turned and, this time unaided, she hoisted Criel upright. Jack and Liam half moved to help but she waved them away and somehow she frogmarched the unconscious policewoman down the hall.

How does that work, Jack thought as he watched. How does an old lady pick up the dead weight of an unconscious person like it’s no more than a feather filled pillow?

‘Make some tea,’ Mahan said to Tia.

‘What?’ Tia asked.

‘Tea. Make tea. Then we’ll leave,’ Mahan said. All the time he spoke he stayed kneeling, curled on the floor like someone about to perform a forward roll.

It was just after six o’clock when Tia, Liam and Jack finally left Clamp’s house. They came out into the road to join Ursula and walked back towards the pink Range Rover. On the way they walked past Criel’s Jaguar where the policewoman appeared to be sleeping peacefully at the wheel of her car.

‘The Range Rover can make its own way home,’ Ursula murmured, as they walked past her pink car. The old lady was scanning the road from top to bottom.

‘Where is Mister Mahan?’ Jack asked.

‘He’s in the back of the ambulance,’ Ursula replied.

‘Who is he and why did you call him Anax?’ Liam wanted to know.

‘Peter is a surgeon. Anax is his other name.’

When they reached the ambulance, Ursula opened the rear doors a fraction.

‘Get in,’ she said.

‘But …’ Liam began.

‘Please. You said that Criel wasn’t working alone. You saw what just happened. For your own safety we need to get into the ambulance and get out of here. We can talk later.’

With prods and pushes Ursula hurried them into the ambulance. Jack was the last to stumble aboard. He looked around, unable to believe the smells and sights that were normally reserved for a medical emergency.

Seconds later, with Peter Mahan strapped to a hospital stretcher, the ambulance shuddered to life and then began to pick up. Mahan, or Anax, or whatever his name was, was barely breathing. He looked like a cadaver. It was like being in the back of a hearse.

The only thing to be heard, above the engine nose, was the occasional shuffling of feet. Liam was the first to speak.

‘Where do you think we are?’

Jack got up to peer out of the side window.

‘I think we’re heading out of Cambridge. There’s a signpost,’ he said as the ambulance changed direction. Off balance he almost fell on Mahan but finally managed to scrabble back to the window.

‘The signpost has gone. I’m not sure where we are. Hold on. We’re coming up to a village sign.’ This time he braced himself, grabbing a hanging leather strap to make sure he kept his footing.

‘It’s Hanston,’ he said.

‘Hanston?’

‘Yeah. It’s a small village. I have an Aunt who used to live just up the road. We used to drive through here when I was little.’

The ambulance screeched to a sudden halt. Jack lost his grip. He sprawled over the body on the stretcher.

‘Ewwww!’ Get off him!’ Tia screeched.

‘Do you think I want to be on him?’ Jack snapped back.

He was climbing off Mahan when the back doors opened and Ursula stood there, with perhaps a dozen men and women who all peered anxiously inside the cabin at the unmoving figure strapped to the stretcher. Jack had half expected to be met by medical staff but these people looked like a collection of concerned neighbours turning out to do a good deed.

The group of adults jumped aboard, grabbed the stretcher and without a word headed off in the direction of some dilapidated buildings.

With the back of the ambulance open Jack could see Hanston School. The building looked like a cross between a museum and a Victorian shoe factory with rows and rows of windows muddled up with towers and strangely shaped spires. Jack had a clear memory, of being six or seven, and driving past that school, one afternoon on the way to see Aunt Joan. It was just as pupils were coming out of the large oak doors in their purple coats. For years afterwards, he thought that kids in Hanston went to school in a castle.

Ursula’s eye-wateringly pink Range Rover was already parked in the school’s driveway.

How, Jack thought, did that get there?

Liam moved to step down from the ambulance into the early evening heat but four burly men came forward to block his way. Liam edged back. He sat on the tailgate and began to coolly swing his legs. Clearly the men were there to guard them.

They all wore rings like Peter Mahan.

Tia, Jack and Liam waited patiently until Ursula finally returned. She nodded some kind of order to the men, who disappeared down the streets of Hanston and then she sat, on the tailgate of the ambulance, next to Liam. She looked exhausted. She spoke and sounded weary, her voice was brittle, almost breaking.

’That was awful. I’m so sorry you had to see any of that. It’s my fault.

‘How is it your fault?’ Tia asked. She sat close to the shoulder of the old lady.

Ursula waved a hand in the air as if she were trying to swat away questions.

‘The main thing is, you’re safe, for now. I believe everything you’ve told me and, in the future, we will do everything we can to help you. And you will be protected. I want someone to stay with each of you, in your houses, tonight. I thought maybe Max could stay with Liam, Rashpal with Tia and Elvis could go with Jack?’

‘Forget it. I’ll go home alone. People are only allowed into my house for one thing,’ Liam said bluntly.

‘What’s that?’ Ursula asked.

‘To buy drugs.’