Pecking Order (26 page)

'Yeah, I told you he did. He was in Three Para, Operation Musketeer. Three Para killed a load of the enemy and I reckon he potted three. Probably using a Vickers machine gun.'

'And before the soldier, you successfully completed another operation, didn't you?'

'Yeah,' said Rubble proudly. 'Some old woman. Sleeping in her wheelchair she was.'

Clare glanced at the newspaper report again to recheck the facts. 'Could you see that from outside her house?'

'Yeah, through the window.'

'But how could you see into her bedroom? Did you have a ladder?'

'No, she slept in the front room. It was a bungalow. I just looked through a gap in the curtains.'

Clare was still unsure of how genuine the caller was. 'So the project you're working on,' she probed. 'Who is the man giving you the money?'

‘That's what I'm ringing you about.’ Rubble said impatiently. ‘When will he pay me? He owes me for the first two - the other night's was dead already.'

'Other night’s?’ Clare whispered, unsure if she wanted to hear what was coming.

'She had drowned. Didn't need to inject her, I gave him back the syringe. Full.'

Clare felt information shifting in her head. Connections were being formed, but she didn't quite know what they were leading to. 'You're saying the same man picked you up last night?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And he took you to a house to put another woman to sleep?'

‘That's right.'

'So what do you mean by saying that she had drowned?'

‘In her bath. She'd been sick in her bed - the man said she had a disease.'

Is he talking about Patricia? Clare thought. Surely he couldn’t be. 'What did she look like? This one from the other night.'

'Little. She was very little.'

Clare realised she was staring at Patricia's photo on the front of the paper: and she was talking to a local caller. 'You're just looking at
The Manchester Evening News
.'

Rubble registered the doubt in her voice, and was keen to impress her with the truth. 'You mean on the front of the paper? Yeah, that's her photo. But I saw her in the bath. I was meant to put her to sleep.'

Clare went silent. She tried to think clearly, determined to expose him as a sick hoaxer. 'So, if you saw her in the bath, tell me about her.’

'How do you mean?'

Aware Patricia would have been naked, Clare tried to think of a distinguishing feature. 'Tell me about her feet.’

‘Her feet?’

‘Her toenails.'

'They were painted.'

'What colour?'

'Purple.'

Clare's stomach lurched and a wave of nausea washed over her. 'The same colour as her fingernails?'

'Her fingernails weren't painted.'

Clare took a deep breath. 'This man, he drove you to her house, so you could, could ... '

‘Put her to sleep. Like the other two. But now he says I'm to be rested.' He couldn't hold the question in any longer. 'When will my next job be?'

The walls of the cubicle seemed to be closing in around her. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. 'To tell you that I need to know more about this man. Describe him to me, please.'

Rubble weighed up the command. As long as he didn't mention his code-name it would be OK, he concluded. 'He's very tall and thin. And he has a beard, it’s - '

‘What colour is his beard?'

'Dark brown, but with bits of grey in it.'

'What else? I need more details.'

‘He has big brown glasses and stares a lot.'

'Big brown glasses? You mean like the old NHS ones?'

'What?' said Rubble.

‘The frames: are they thick and brown?'

‘Yeah.'

An image of Eric appeared in Clare's head. She began biting her lower lip, mind racing. ‘These missions, they sound really interesting. What has he employed you to do?'

'It's a secret Government project. It's all to do with youth and agers.'

‘Youth and agers?'

‘Yeah, that's what he said.'

Clare thought hard. The phrase obviously wasn't right. It was as if Rubble was parroting back a word he had misheard.

‘When will my next job be?’ Rubble whined.

‘Wait – I am looking at the charts.’ Eyes still closed, she said the words over and over in her mind, speeding it up and softening the pronunciation. 'Rubble, do you think the man said the project was about euthanasia? Is that the word he used?'

At the other end of the line Rubble ground his knuckles against his brow. 'I don't know. Maybe. I just want you to tell me when he'll call again.'

The pips sounded.

'Have you any more money?' Clare asked urgently.

'No,' Rubble complained. 'That's it.'

Frantically Clare scrabbled in her bag, searching for some thing to write with. 'Rubble, where do you live?' Her fingers closed round a pencil. 'What is your number?'

'Number? I only have a code-name.'

'Telephone number! From where you're calling me.' The tip of her pencil was pressed against the paper.

‘Dunno,' said Rubble, staring at the meaningless writing on the noticeboard in the booth. 'When will I get the money?'

'Where do you live!'

Rubble paused, surprised by the sharpness in her voice. 'On the egg farm at ... '

The line went dead.

'Shit!' hissed Clare. The point of her pencil snapped. She sat back, needing time to think. After hitting 'call-wrap-up', she put both elbows on the table, intertwined her fingers and pressed them hard against her mouth.

The description fitted Eric perfectly. She went over all her recent dealings with him; how she had been sitting in his office when he had received a call on a mobile phone. The look of panic on his face went it began to ring. Rubble was calling the 'Girl Next Door' line, so he couldn't be that far away. Just before he was cut off, he said he worked on an egg farm. Eric had been scouting round local farms trying to arrange a new module on the ethics of modern day farming. She remembered him shutting his office door in her face. The feather! The feather that had scooted across the floor to her feet.

She looked down at her cardigan, it was the same one she'd been wearing that day. The same one she wore most days and, of course, the feather was now gone. It must have dropped off and drifted away, completely unnoticed. Now the caller had also disappeared back into the phone system, the feather was her only scrap of evidence.

She would have to try and find it. She remembered that, after pushing its end into the front of her cardigan, she had headed straight to the coffee room in Patricia's side of the department to pin up her other poster about the protest march. The only possible chance of finding it was if the feather had fallen off in the coffee room; she knew the cleaners hardly ever bothered vacuuming right under the seats.

She logged off and swept all her things into the canvas shoulder bag. Then she got up and made her way quickly between the box-like cubicles to Brian's office.

'Hi Brian. I'm sorry, something really important has come up. I've had to log off early. Can I make up the hours on my next shift?'

Brian's face showed only concern. "Course you can, sweetie. You go and sort out whatever it is.'

As the cab pulled up she could see a couple of lights on in Patricia's half of the department. She strode through the foyer, waving hello to the night-watchman and then waiting impatiently as the ancient lift slowly descended to the ground floor. Eventually the squeak of the wheels grew louder and the panel above the door chimed. As soon as the doors parted she got in and started stabbing the button for the fourth floor. With a slow and unquestioning obedience that somehow reminded her of an elderly butler, the lift closed its doors and began to laboriously climb once again.

On the fourth floor she turned right, into Pat's department and walked up the corridor to the coffee room, all the while scanning the floor in the hope the feather might be lying unnoticed next to the skirting board. The coffee room itself was dark and empty, so she flicked the switch and stood in the doorway as the strip lights came to life with a series of faint plinks.

The ashtrays were half full, a few dirty cups on the tables. A copy of the
Big Issue
and yesterday's
Guardian
on the table in the top corner. Clare spotted a Rizla on the floor and her hopes were raised; perhaps with it being so close to the end of term, the cleaners hadn't been in at all.

She walked round the low coffee table to where she'd pinned up the poster for the demo. It was now partially covered by an
Amnesty International
notice about human rights abuses being committed against women in the Sudan.

Down on her hands and knees, she began searching under the thickly padded seats. The shadows were too dark for her to see anything. Back on her feet, she picked up the small table in the corner of the room and noisily placed it on the coffee table. Then she pushed the padded chair that had been next to it into the gap she’d created. In this way, she was able to drag each of the chairs along and look between them. The odd drawing pin, a paper clip; but no feather.

'Looking for something?'

The voice behind made her jump. She turned around to see Julian leaning in the doorway, an inquisitive half-smile on his face.

Clare tried not to show her irritation, but the hand she raised to her cropped hair betrayed her emotion. 'Just something I may have dropped in here a few days ago. The cleaners have probably swept it away by now.' His expression was only riling her further so she turned to the seats themselves, wondering whether the cushions would come out.

‘What was it?' said Julian. 'Something you'd pinned on your cardigan perhaps?' He glanced meaningfully at her chest.

Clare immediately crossed her arms. 'Yeah it was ...' So he knew what she was looking for. She considered whether to go along with the game or just ask him outright if he had the feather.

But Julian couldn't resist playing his trump card straight away. 'It wasn't a rather pretty rust-coloured feather, by any chance?'

'It was. Have you got it?'

He pushed himself upright and, with a little flick of his eyes and turn of his head, announced, as if speaking to a careless child, 'Come with me.'

He set off to his office just down the corridor and Clare, quickly weighing up her options, could only follow. Once inside Julian went straight to the CD player in the corner of the room and pressed play.
The Violent Femmes
came on, urgent folksy guitar riffs filling the room. He paused and Clare could tell he was waiting for her to give his choice of music her approval. Seeing the whisky bottle and plastic cup on his desk, she hesitated in the doorway. She caught sight of a pair of binoculars in the top drawer.

'Come in, come in,' he casually instructed, crossing the small room towards her.

She took one step inside and he pushed the door shut. 'Sit down and chill Clare, you seem stressed out.'

'Look Julian, I am pretty stressed, actually. Do you have the feather or not?'

'Yeah, yeah. It's somewhere round here. But I was wanting to have a little chat with you.' He gestured towards the chair and she reluctantly sat. Perching himself on the edge of the desk, one foot almost brushing her knee, he continued. 'I'll square with you. I know Pat had all but offered you a position in the department next year. The big question is this; what will you do now?'

'What do you mean?' Clare answered coldly.

'Well, I presume any application you were about to submit will now be judged the same as all the others we receive once the position is advertised.'

She noted his use of the word we.

'It's going to attract a lot of interest too - with or without Patricia running the place.'

'And?'

Julian brushed at an invisible speck on his corduroys. 'I'd be more than happy to give you a ...' he looked up into her eyes, ' ... a personal recommendation. I think working with you would be a real pleasure.'

Below the sleeves of her cardigan Clare could feel the hairs on her forearms standing on end.

'Well, if I do apply for any position and, if recommendations are an accepted part of the process, that would be great. Cheers. But at the moment Julian I really need that feather back.'

Julian made a clucking noise against the roof of his mouth. He slid off his desk and meandered over to the bookshelf. Unwilling to look round and give him the pleasure of an audience, Clare sat stiffly in the chair staring straight ahead. The whisky bottle was, she noticed, half empty.

The tip of the feather was drawn down the side of her neck and played across her ear. Immediately she leaned back, angling her head to look up. Julian twirled it back and forth between a finger and thumb. 'This what you're looking for?'

Standing up, Clare had to push the seat back to create some space between the two of them. She held out a hand. 'Thanks Julian.'

He held it up to his face and brushed it against his lips. 'Want to show me what you use it for?'

His eyes had lowered slightly and, staring at her breasts, he stepped forward to re-close the gap between them.

Clare brought her knee hard up into his groin.

With a breathless 'guh' he doubled over, one hand grabbing the corner of his desk, feather skittering across the surface. She snatched it and ran straight for the door. Once it was open she risked a glance back. Julian was in exactly the same position; his other hand clutched tightly between his legs.

In the corner of the room the CD carried on playing, banjo-tight vocals angrily straining. I guess it's something to do with luck, but I've waited my whole life for just one -

She slammed the door shut behind her.

Eric sat back in the armchair. Waiting in the chancellor's outer office again, this time his mood was altogether different. The rhythm the typist was tapping out on her keyboard seemed upbeat, triumphant almost. He looked at the paintings of previous chancellors crowding the walls around him and met each man's eyes in turn, defiance shining in his own. But then his eyes lighted on a portrait of a portly gentleman, cheeks and nose touched with red. The similarity to Bert was unmistakable and Eric abruptly lowered his eyes, unable to meet the old man's unblinking gaze.