A Funeral for an Owl Read online

  Jim found that it was possible to smile. “Think he’s just an old man now, do you?”

  “I dunno who he is! He’s too stinky to be a guardian angel.”

  That was the second time Shamayal had mentioned angels: there might be hope.

  “He can definitely handle hisself. You can be so weird that people give you respect. I kinda got what you said about him being happy.” Shamayal shook his head. “Fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone so happy! He aksed a lot of questions. I thought he was being disrespectful at first, but I think he was just…” The boy shrugged, as if what he was about to propose was inconceivable. “I dunno. Interested or somethink.”

  “Tell him something and he’ll never forget it.” As he spoke, it struck Jim that Bins constructed his world from facts the way he constructed his world from possessions. They made him feel secure.

  “Right, right. I might go back. Check up on him, you know?” The boy nodded. “You should come with me. He thinks very highly of you. That’s what he said, anyhow.”

  Jim wondered what other facts Bins had told him. “I don’t go back.”

  “‘Cept that’s not strictly true, is it, Sir? What about the night before last?”

  “That was an exception.”

  “You’re within shootin’ distance.”

  Jim recalled he used to say ‘spitting distance’. But the boy still hadn’t explained why he was there. “Have you been home yet, Shamayal?”

  “Nah. My dad would kill me if I turned up looking like this.” He was doing a very good job of trying to look casual. “Thought I’d keep my head down, you know.”

  Jim didn’t need to ask what that meant. “Won’t he worry?”

  “Doubt it. My dad only cares about one person, f’ you know what I mean.”

  “But he must have tried to call?”

  “Every time he buys me a new mobile, I tell him the Ralegh Boyz jacked it, dun I?” Shamayal looked pleased with himself. “He don’t really bovver me no more.”

  Jim had read A Kestrel for a Knave many times over since he first watched Kes with his mother, and the fact that people could have children and then neglect them never became easier to stomach. Finding he was welling up, he turned towards the fridge, asking, “Have you eaten?”

  But Shamayal had seen him. “You act like it’s bad, Sir. But I can’t tell you if it’s good or bad. It’s jus’ my life, right? Right?”

  “Right.” His face fixed, Jim managed a smile.

  “I’m only here because I thought we had a deal. But if it’s too awkward -”

  “No. I’m glad you thought of me. We should get something on that eye.” He wrapped a bag of frozen peas in a clean tea towel, and had Shamayal hold it to his face. “So, what would you like to do?”

  “If you don’t mind, Sir, I’d like to see what you get up to.”

  Jim followed the boy the short distance to the living room. “X-Box,” he nodded, referring to the boy’s previous visit.

  “No! I fought you could show me what that twitchin’ is all about.”

  It dawned on Jim: Bins must have told him.

  As if reading his mind the boy said, “Bins mentioned some stuff. But I fought it would be easier if you just showed me.”

  “Showed you what?”

  “Kay, straight up.” He nodded at the photograph on the wall. “I want to hear the story ‘bout that owl.”

  CHAPTER 13: AYISHA - 2010 - ST HELIER HOSPITAL

  The receptionist behind the monitor at the H.D.U. was new; young enough for Ayisha to think of her as a girl. “I’m sorry, but Jim Stevens doesn’t appear to be with us anymore.”

  Feeling her legs threaten to give way, breath coming fast, Ayisha managed to ask, “What do you mean, not with you?”

  The girl glanced up, clearly unnerved.

  Ayisha gripped the counter. “Is he… you mean…?” But she couldn’t bring herself to finish the question logic demanded.

  “I can see that he was here, but -” The receptionist tapped away at the keyboard, looking at the screen for answers. “Why don’t you take a seat. I’ll make a few calls.”

  Ayisha perched on an uninviting chair. Opposite her, unmistakably, leaning against the mint green wall of the corridor was the disinfecting equipment used to spray down the walls of the wards. She heard a toilet flush followed by an explosion of air from a hand dryer. A man emerged wiping his hands on the trouser pockets of his boiler suit, whistling softly. He slung the canister over his shoulder as if it was weightless. Feeling she might be sick, Ayisha put her head between her knees and stayed in that position until, apparently proud of her detective-work, the girl cheerfully announced she had tracked Jim down. He had been moved.

  “Moved?” Ayisha heard herself ask, laughing at this previously unentertained possibility.

  “Yes. He’s in B3.”

  She stood, undergoing the swiftest of transitions from euphoria to anger. “In future, you might want to choose your words more carefully!”

  After losing herself in the maze of corridors, all of which led straight back to the main entrance, on the brink of frustrated tears, Ayisha asked a porter for directions. Now, another uniformed receptionist continued angrily tapping away behind her computer. Despite the technology, the workstation was in disarray with a surprising quantity of yellow Post-It notes and a rainforest of paperwork.

  “When you’ve finished,” Ayisha said, trying to convey an impression of patience she didn’t feel. Having been convinced, however briefly, that Jim was dead, she would not trust that there hadn’t been a mistake until she saw the evidence.

  “I never finish. Go right ahead.”

  “I’m looking for Jim Stevens.” Ayisha expected to undergo a repeat quiz about her medical history and receive a sternly-worded reminder about infection control.

  The nurse angled her head towards a whiteboard. “You’ve found him.” Jim’s name and bed number was there, scrawled crookedly in black marker by someone less accustomed to writing upright than Ayisha. I’ve found him. The nurse’s hands finally paused, but it was only so that she could waltz her wheeled chair towards the whirring printer and grab another wad of paper. She seemed surprised to find Ayisha still standing there. “That way.” The nurse dismissed her, not remotely concerned that she might be a journalist.

  In stark contrast to H.D.U., B Ward was a bustling place. Still disorientated, Ayisha passed through a corridor crowded with abandoned equipment, feeling her tension increase at the sound of an inhuman groan, which a group of gossiping nurses (most of them overweight) seemed capable of ignoring. She passed a shuffling patient pushing his own IV drip on its wheeled stand. No one enquired what she was doing there or thought to offer assistance. She located room 3 and, at the sight of Jim lying asleep on an elevated cot, gripped the doorframe, breathing properly for what felt like the first time in half an hour. She paused to survey Jim’s surroundings, her senses assaulted by the gaudy curtains; the smells of disinfectant and decay that went hand in hand with sickness. It was difficult to imagine a more depressing or a less restful environment. She reminded herself to get round to looking into the cost of BUPA.

  Approaching the narrow metal-framed bed, at the sight of the simple sheet and woven blanket tucked tightly round his chest, hospital corners was the phrase that came to mind. But of course it would, she mocked herself. The tubes had gone from Jim’s nose. Ayisha removed the newspaper from the visitor’s chair and perched awkwardly. The ward heated to the point of oppressiveness, she loosened her linen jacket, knocking an elbow against the bed-frame.

  Jim opened his eyes, focused and clear. “You’re back,” he said.

  “And you’re awake,” she replied, laughing with relief. Today she would get her life back!

  “I am now.”

  “Perhaps ‘conscious’ is what I should have said.” Lightheaded, unable to stop smiling, she observed, “You look so much better. I can hardly believe it!”

  “I feel as if someone’s been rummaging round
in my insides,” Jim grumbled, the effort of speaking making him breathless; to be expected for someone with a lung injury, Ayisha knew.

  “They wouldn’t have moved you unless they were happy with your progress.”

  “Have wheels, will travel: that’s my new motto. So, how do you like my new home?”

  Ayisha looked around her, trying to give the impression that she hadn’t already completed a damning mental appraisal. She took in more detail this time: signs that patients had set up camp with a few smuggled possessions; newspapers and paperbacks; the ubiquitous bunches of grapes; bottles of lemon barley water, energy drinks. There was nothing on Jim’s bedside cabinet or on his wheeled table, save for a covered water jug and a plastic tumbler. She could hardly say that, in Jim’s position, she would be climbing the walls. “It’s a step in the right direction,” she said. “And it won’t be for long.”

  Jim’s smile was accompanied by a doubtful snort.

  Conversation meant competing with an unending drone of news and sport and constant comings and goings.

  “Huh?” His head jolted slightly as if she had woken him.

  Ayisha had been warned that Jim might have difficulty concentrating. “I was asking whether the police have been back to see you?” She was tempted to pull the curtains around the bed so that his view of the television, bracketed at ceiling height, would be interrupted.

  “Have they!” He lowered his voice and nodded. “The nurses here put up quite a fight. That one -”

  Twisting her neck, Ayisha saw two uniformed backs.

  “The one on your right? She can be quite fierce.”

  As wide as a house, she looked it. Ayisha made a mental note not to get on the wrong side of her. “So, what did they have to say?”

  “They think it was a brother protecting his sister’s honour.”

  Whether she wanted him to or not, Ayisha imagined! “Don’t tell me. The boy was the wrong colour.”

  “Or something.”

  Ayisha grasped the issue, nodding. “Wrong religion.” Brought up a Muslim, she had since found her own way, free from the constraints of family. But her parents had long-since adopted Britain as their home and, as time marched on, it seemed (although she had yet to put her theory to the test) any boyfriend would be welcomed into their home. “From the number of knives recovered, it looks as if it was planned.”

  Jim shook his head. “Coincidence. The brother wasn’t one of ours.”

  Ayisha recoiled. “Surely the percentage of kids carrying knives can’t be as high as one in five?”

  “Twenty per cent’s not bad. According to the kids I speak to, it’s nearer fifty.”

  “What good will Mr Peel’s wand do if that’s what we’re up against?” She winced at her turn of phrase, embarrassed as Jim snorted in lieu of a laugh. “His detector wand!”

  How to deal with teachers’ increased powers of search had been another cause of staffroom contention.

  “The cost is prohibitive,” Mr Peel had cautioned the majority who favoured the installation of a detection arch, something every student would pass through. “And I would need volunteers…” His eyes traced a semicircle and Ayisha was one of those who had averted hers.

  A shout came: “I didn’t apply for a job as a bouncer!”

  After several abortive attempts on Mr Peel’s part to broker any semblance of order, Mr Baker had taken it on himself to roar: “SHUT IT, ALL OF YOU!”

  Aside from a single piqued, “Well!” the room’s occupants were stupefied into silence. The Head appeared momentarily dazed. “Quite unnecessary, Mr Baker, but thank you nonetheless. Right, the decision is this: a wand.” For a moment, relief was palpable. Optimists shrugged their coats on, fumbled for handsets, checked text messages. “Not so fast! We still need to agree a system of checking.”

  A collective groan had subsided into resignation.

  “How about every twentieth pupil through the door?”

  “What? And let the ones we suspect traipse straight past?”

  “I can see it now!” Mr Baker threw up his hands. “Accusations of violations of human rights, racism, sexism - and homophobia, no doubt.”

  Although every suggestion was met with derision, this new crescendo lacked the same energy as before. Mr Peel raised his voice and was heard. “I’m not asking anyone here to conduct searches. For that we’d need suspicion.”

  This was the new regime Ayisha would be returning to in the autumn. “What about their target?” she asked Jim. “I assume he was a pupil.”

  “His was the one name I could give them. Christian Knoll, would you believe?”

  She recalled a quietly spoken boy, blond, unexceptional. “How appropriate!”

  “They haven’t found him. Yet.”

  Jim’s meaning clear, goose-bumps prickled Ayisha’s scalp. Being found would mean the police were too late.

  He shook his head, an expression of hopelessness. “A press conference is going to be shown tonight on BBC London, I’m told.”

  The scary thing, Ayisha reflected, was that the disappearance of a teenage boy wouldn’t normally receive television coverage. It was only the McCann’s ongoing battle with the Portuguese authorities that had kept the disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine newsworthy for three years. Sixteen-year-olds, boys especially, had a tendency to slip between the cracks. For Christian, it was only his association with Jim - hailed a hero - that had elevated his importance. “And not one of the other kids saw anything?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure I’d speak up if I were in their shoes.”

  “Why does no one trust the police?” Ayisha aired her frustration.

  “Because once they’ve caught the guy with the knife, you’re left to fend for yourself.”

  She acknowledged she was out of her depth. “Am I the only one who doesn’t understand how this works?”

  “Gangs are like family. You hurt one of them, it’s personal.”

  Ayisha balked at this reference. Her knowledge of gangs started and ended with those Gary Glitter lyrics and, let’s face it, no one played him at their parties any more. The view that, provided you don’t go looking for trouble it won’t find you, had served her in good stead. She avoided eye contact with people she didn’t know and booked her cab home before going out for the evening. Of course, there was that unfortunate young woman who, caught in cross-fire at the Urban Music Awards, was only saved by her under-wired bra, but she was an exception. Aside from the underwear angle, that was why the story had made headlines. Ayisha wondered now if she’d been living on Planet Wiltshire. “And the girl?”

  The corners of Jim’s mouth stretched into a wry smile.

  “No, don’t tell me: no one’s talking.” She caught sight of a hanging coil of plastic tubing on the wall behind Jim’s bed, the purpose of which she doubted she wanted to know. Remembering she mustn’t tire him, her mind racing ahead to the questions still unasked, she decided on a breather. “Before I forget.” Ayisha raised the carrier bag from her lap into Jim’s eye-line. “The hospital’s website said not to bring fruit or flowers…”

  Straining, Jim managed to lift his head half an inch. “Is that a bar of Green and Blacks? You’re a saint.”

  She deposited the chocolate on the table, as if it were his compliment she wished to distance herself from. Jim might revise his opinion of saintliness if he knew she’d been masquerading as his wife. “Hardly!” Suddenly Ayisha was acutely embarrassed by the intimacies she had shared without Jim’s knowledge. The facts she had accumulated: the length of his eyelashes; the patterns his stubble grew in. What had been intended as small kindnesses now seemed selfish and contrived, all leading up to the point when she could demand answers.

  “To be honest, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. The first time I woke up it was my dad. God knows how they tracked him down!”

  This was the first cue Jim had handed her. It wasn’t too far a stretch for Ayisha to say, “I can help you out there. It was your friend, Shamayal.
” Jim’s eyebrows jumped inwards. They both knew she wasn’t referring to the boy’s role as assistant first aider. “He’s very worried about you, by all accounts.”

  “Go ahead. Ask me.”

  Jim’s expression was so open that Ayisha was confident he was about to allay her fears. “Ask you what?”

  “I found him wandering around in the early hours, so I did what any reasonable person would do: I gave him a lift home. But when I saw what he had to face there -” Jim broke off and raised his eyebrows, indicating that he was singularly unimpressed. “His father - when he’s there at all - is drunk. And violent at that.”

  An explosion of laughter from the nurses’ station seemed particularly inappropriate at this juncture. Ayisha found herself glaring in the direction of the door. “Where’s his mother?”

  Anger twitched at the corners of Jim’s mouth. “Gone.”

  “And the rest of his family?”

  “He’s never met any other family. His parents left everything behind when they came to the UK.” His hand was at his throat. “Could you pour me some -?” Jim broke off coughing and pointed to the water jug.

  “So,” she prompted, settling back down. “You’ve been assigned as his mentor.”

  He responded to her suggestion by taking a sip.

  “If you haven’t, tell me you reported it, please!”

  Very slowly, he shook his head.

  “How could you not?” Aware that the scary nurse’s neck had twisted towards her, Ayisha felt like the child carried mid-tantrum from the mosque. She offered an apologetic smile, assurance that she was aware of the Polite Notice asking visitors to keep noise levels to a minimum. But she could feel her own shaking as she leant closer, hissing, “I’ve put my neck on the line for you!”

  Jim’s response was one of confusion: “How have you done that?”

  “How?” Ayisha checked her volume. “I’ll tell you how! Shamayal made a disclosure to me and I - I didn’t act on it because I thought...” She realised that her rage might appear unjustifiable to Jim, but something inside her wanted to scream, Don’t you understand? I thought you were going to die! Even today, less than an hour ago, she had thought this. Sitting on a chair in a hospital corridor, Ayisha had begun to mourn, and then the light-headedness, the euphoria. What had she done? Each of the wasted moments when she might have acted! Her walk across the quad; Mr Peel’s concerned eyes; hand-delivering her incomplete report. She would lose her job - they both would. But Jim had brought this on himself.