The Death of the Elver Man (19 page)

Derek blinked at her, trying to read her expression, but she had her back to the light in the hall and her face was in deep shadow.

‘You’d never – you’d not dare!’

Iris leaned forwards and lowered her voice. ‘You listen to me Derek, I know you’s up to something, out all hours and coming back with that funny smell on you. You is up to no good and the last thing you need is the police sniffing around you, asking awkward questions. I don’t want to know nothin’, for it’s no business of mine. You leave me alone; you get out of my life and that’s the end of it. Far as they’s concerned I’ve not seen you nor heard of you since you was released and that’s how I want it to stay. But if you come near me again I’ll call it harassment and you’ll be a marked man. And one thing more – you stay away from my son. I don’t want you having nothing to do with Billy, you hear?’

‘You can’t do that! He’s my son too and I got rights,’ said Derek.

‘Reckon you should keep your voice down unless you want to wake a few more decent folk, have them peering round they curtains and wondering what’s going on,’ she said calmly.

‘You wouldn’t dare try to keep me away from Newt!’ Derek hissed.

‘Oh, I would. You killed Biff and I’m not having you
killing
Billy too. What you going to do anyway – try an’ visit him? Reckon they’d be right eager to let you in, ‘specially as you got no visiting order nor nothing. You leave him be, Derek. He’s no son of your’n now. I want my boy back and free of you and your kind.’

She went to close the door but Derek had his foot in the way.

‘Where’m I supposed to go then?’ he asked. ‘Is the middle of the night.’

‘You go where you been all those nights I needed some company,’ said Iris. ‘You go back there and stay away from me. Move your foot now, or I’ll make you.’

She pulled the door back to the limit of the chain and Derek hastily jerked his foot clear, staring at his wife until she closed the door in his face. He listened as she double locked the latch and pushed the bolts into place. He was still staring as the hall light went off and the house descended into
darkness
. Derek Johns’ life had turned to shit all around him and he couldn’t understand why. He just knew someone was to blame and they were going to pay for all this.

There was great excitement in the workshop the evening Eddie turned up pulling a trailer behind his car. Alex watched from the rest-room window as the whole workshop contingent, paddlers, assemblers and instructors alike, heaved and
wrestled
the raft out of the doors and on to the flat bed, securing it with canvas straps. There was a moment’s anxiety when it looked as if it were too large to get out of the door, but with some tilting and sliding and a great deal of swearing the raft
emerged into the evening sunlight in all its patchwork and multi-colour glory. There was a scuffling at her elbow and Lauren nudged her, a wicked grin on her face.

‘What was that poem we all used to learn at school,’ she said. ‘Something about going to sea in a sieve?’

‘The Jumblies,’ muttered Alex.

‘Yep, that’s it. Well, reckon you might be better off in a sieve. That thing looks a bit – well, amateurish.’

‘Looks bloody dangerous to me,’ said Alex. Eddie had spotted her at the window and was waving enthusiastically for her to go down and join them. As she walked across the room, trying not to appear too reluctant, she heard Lauren humming the ‘Funeral March’.

In the yard the workshop gang were showing off their handiwork to a group of the other clients, who crowded around, touching and peering as the raft was prepared for the short journey to the river.

‘Well,’ said Eddie, rubbing his hands together, ‘this is the acid test I suppose.’

Despite his smile she realized he was feeling nervous underneath, wondering what they could do if the raft didn’t handle right or – worst of all – didn’t float. She had a vision of the whole contraption tilting up and sliding gracefully into the muddy water, never to be seen again, and despite her reservations about the whole enterprise she found herself hoping it would be okay. Looking around her there was more energy and enthusiasm surrounding the raft than she’d seen since her arrival. This bunch really cared, they’d put in long hours and learnt new skills working as a group. She caught Eddie’s eye and a flash of understanding passed between them. If it would just float then somehow they’d make it work.

‘There you is,’ said Kevin, as he walked through the kitchen door. He held three dead rabbits in his hand, clutching them by their back legs as he flipped them on to the table.

‘Hang on now, let me get some paper down first,’ said Ada
crossly, but inside she was proud of her son’s ability to stalk and catch their dinner so well. Watching from the top
window
she’d marvelled at how silently he moved through the field, never losing sight of his target yet managing to remain hidden as he approached. His aim was something
miraculous
, she thought, as he seemed to fire the catapult without sighting, never needing a second shot. The rabbits fell one after another with no time to take fright and bolt, so fast could he fire, all in absolute silence.

‘How’d you do it, so easy like?’ she asked, as they sat at the table skinning one rabbit and cleaning the other two for the Saturday market.

Kevin shrugged, not really interested. ‘Dunno. Just makes sense when I look – seems I just know the angle. Reckon I’ve always been able to do it. Remember when I was at school?’ He glanced at his mother and back to his work. ‘Some days I took on other boys, see how many cans we could knock off the fence. Always wondered why they was so slow, why they kept missing all the time. Got a girt bit of pocket money off the big lads in bets some days.’ He grinned at her happily and she found herself smiling back at him. They bent to their task and soon there was a rich stew bubbling in a pot on the stove and the other rabbits were trussed and hung in the tiny back lobby ready for market.

‘Tell you what,’ said Ada. ‘There’s some sorrel out front, all fresh and ready for eating. You remember what that looks like?’ When Kevin nodded she said, ‘Go get me a bunch now and I’ll make a bit of a salad.’

She wandered out to the garden and pulled a few chives, picked a small lettuce and lifted a few carrot thinnings before turning back to the house. As she walked through the door she gave a shriek and almost dropped the vegetables at the sight of Kevin staggering into the kitchen holding an
enormous
fish.

‘What the hell is that you got, boy?’ she asked.

‘Found ‘un on the doorstep,’ said Kevin, dropping the
monster
on to the table with a thud. ‘Girt heavy bugger an’ all.’

They stared at the fish for a moment before Kevin stated the obvious. ‘Got no head, mind.’

Ada placed her vegetables by the sink and stepped over to peer at the fish. ‘Damn good job too,’ she said. ‘Is a pike, monster pike this ‘un. They got real sharp teeth, vicious mouths all going different ways. Can cut off a finger even if they’s dead.’ She poked at the body tentatively and shook her head. ‘Get him off my table now. I don’t want that in my kitchen.’

Kevin pulled a face. ‘Is lovely and fresh. Why not try a fillet eh Mum? I never seen one this big – reckon could be really tasty.’

Ada turned her back and lifted the lid from the pot on the stove.

‘We’m not touching it, ‘she said firmly. ‘Firstly, ’tis a pike and they’s not clean fish. They eat any old kind of rubbish, frogs and birds and filth from the drains. Don’t know what’s in there and I’m not fancying it.’ Kevin opened his mouth to argue and she swung round, fixing him with a glare.

‘Besides, we don’t know where he’s come from. Big ol’ fish like that, worth something in the market I reckon. What’s it doing on my doorstep? No, you take him out and find a ditch and you bury him. I don’t want to be smelling him as he rots neither.’ She stirred the pot and the rich aroma of rabbit stew wove around the kitchen.

Kevin sighed and began to haul the pike off the table,
grazing
his hand on the sharp scales as he lifted it. He dropped it again and rubbed at his palm. ‘Maybe is a message,’ he said.

Ada took a cloth and rubbed at his injured hand. ‘What you talking about, message?’ she said crossly.

‘Like in that film, means something like “sleeps with the fish”. Saying you drowned someone or something.’

‘You don’t half talk some nonsense sometimes. What film anyway – when did you ever see a film like that?’

Kevin was struggling with the pike again. ‘In the picture house in town – me and Newt went one day. Was a good film but long and a bit nasty in places.’

Ada slammed the big spoon from the pot down on the table. ‘You was too young to be seeing films like that! What was you – thirteen?’

Kevin looked stubborn. ‘Fourteen,’ he said. ‘Was the
second
time round it was on and all the boys from the class went. Manager didn’t say nothing, just let Newt buy tickets for us all.’

Ada snorted. ‘Newt Johns! Well, he’s safe away at the moment and
he’s
not getting out in a hurry. Reckon there’s no good coming from any of the Johns clan so you stay away from them all.’

‘I like Newt,’ said Kevin, as he disappeared out of the door, the pike draped over his shoulder. ‘He was always good to I. Was Biff that was the bad’n.’

Ada watched as he made his way across the stream at the bottom of the garden and picked a path towards the main drain. Kevin was growing up and his experiences in Bristol had hardened him. She was afraid for him but she knew she couldn’t protect him from the world much longer.

Waking that morning, the idea had appealed to Derek’s sense of humour. He’d watched his pike colony grow from a few fish to a swarming, seething mass of hunger and there was something about their strength, their casual ferocity that he found fascinating. Often he would linger on the bridge and peer into the water to see his fish fight over their meal. They were not naturally shoal fish and as more arrived some of the originals, the smaller and weaker specimens, disappeared – probably down the throats of the larger arrivals. He
developed
favourites amongst them, identifying them by their scars or patches of colouring. There were two in particular, monsters both, that he watched for, two big, speckled boss pike that moved with the speed and grace but struck at the meat or any small fish foolish enough to get in their way with deadly force. He was driving down a back road late one evening when he spotted a jumble of fishing gear left on the porch of a rental cottage. Derek had no qualms about taking
from the visitors, the grockles who swarmed over the area in the warmer months, pushing up the rents and paying the new, exorbitant fees for fishing licenses. He stopped the car a bit down the road, crept back and made off with the rod, a good size net and a box of assorted hooks and lures.

Back in the tumbledown cottage he now called home, Derek sorted through his haul the next morning. The rod looked strong enough and there was some decent line. He reckoned he’d need at least a 25 lb line to have a chance at one of the bigger fish, and some decent hooks too. At the bottom of the box he uncovered some trebles, barbed
three-pronged
beauties that he fixed to the wire rig. Reluctantly he went to the freezer and rummaged around inside until he found a joint with a decent chunk of meat on it, stripped the bone and slammed the lid down again. He opened the back door to clear the smell out, kicking the ancient freezer as he went past it.

‘Girt useless bloody thing,’ he muttered, breathing through his mouth as he assembled the dead bait that had once been Frank Mallory. One hook up at the top, one just slipped into the side of the bait, two bards protruding near the bottom and he was ready. It was a cool day with cloud cover and low mist over the water, which would make it easier for him to avoid the wardens. Not that they came out here often but it would be just his luck to run into one of them, him with no licence and his special bait. Best steer clear of them all, he thought, as he walked down the path and over the bridge.

There was a good thicket of scrubby hawthorn surrounded by willows a bit down the bank and he settled himself there, hidden from all but the most determined eyes. He cast his bait carefully and watched it drift towards the reeds where the pike waited. Nothing on the first cast nor the second so he set his rod on its stand and leaned over the bank, sprinkling a few scraps from a bag in his pocket. As they reached the edge of the reeds he saw the tell-tale ripple on the water and a moment later there was a flash of scales and the pieces were
gone, snatched and consumed in one movement. He waited a minute and sprinkled a few more. This time they vanished closer to him, a few yards downstream from the bridge. Derek grinned to himself. He could afford to be patient – it was worth waiting for just the right fish, he reckoned.
Gradually
he teased the pike until it was within easy reach of him and he checked his dead bait before casting once more, a
little
upstream so the meat floated gently towards the waiting fish. The speed of the strike almost wrenched the rod from his hands and he wondered as he played the line out if it would hold. Then the thrill of the contest drove everything else from his mind as he and the pike fought to the death.

It was a close contest between two determined and
predatory
members of their species, but Derek was bigger and stronger and had the initiative. He waited half a minute after the bait had been taken before beginning to wind in the line, and the pike was hooked, the barbs pulling him slowly but inexorably towards the bank. First the fish thrashed,
shaking
his great head in an attempt to free it, then he dived, dragging the line against the rough bottom of the canal in an attempt to break it. Surfacing downstream from his
tormentor
, he rose up almost straight, tail walking on the surface, pulling and jerking with all his might as he set his 20 pounds against Derek’s aching arms and burning hands. Again he dived, twisting and squirming as he tried to snap the line that held him. Derek hung on though his hands were scraped raw and blisters began to bloom on his palms and fingers. Sweat broke out on his face and trickled down into his eyes but he dare not let go of the rod to wipe it away. He let out a
little
more line, let the pike run and then slowly brought him back again. The third time the fish broke the surface and tried to tail-walk away Derek almost lost him. They had been fighting for almost twenty minutes and Derek was at his limit. He could not believe the pike’s stamina, its burning determination to break free. Gritting his teeth he set his heels in the mud of the bank and began to pull once more, easing the fish closer and closer to the bank until suddenly it was
within reach. Derek swung the net round and trapped it,
lifting
it clear of the water.