.’
‘I know what Sy means,’ Pig had said. ‘June Norton thought I was a rotten son for not kissing my mother goodbye.’
‘Appearances can be deceiving,’ Ralph agreed.
‘Jack knows what he saw,’ Roger said.
All together for once at a restaurant opposite Swindon Station because it was Ralph’s birthday and she’d been missing them so badly and wished for no present more than a real
reunion.
So she’d been there to observe the hardness in Jack’s eyes when he talked about ‘taking care of her’ himself, had caught a responding flicker of excitement in
Roger’s, and had realized that they were both out of her control.
Had recognized, too, that this was yet another opportunity to detach herself.
An opportunity she had not, of course, taken.
They had talked through the plan carefully, then left it to Ralph to work out the details and dovetail them with the Beast’s movements.
The daughter, she learned, travelled each weekday by train to work in Reading, which meant there was nothing more complex to take care of than choosing the right place, rehearsing split-second
timing and – with witnesses and CCTV on site – paying careful attention to their own disguises.
They decided to play the game on a Thursday afternoon, just after the daughter had alighted from her train at Newbury Station. Three of them moving into position as she and her
fellow passengers crossed over the stepped footbridge and started down to the opposite side and station exit. As the Beast began her descent of the final twelve steps, Jack slipped into place
beside the young man just in front of her, gave him a furtive but hard shove, then stepped neatly away as the man fell with a cry to the stone platform below.
‘
She
pushed him!’ Pig had shouted, pointing to the Beast. ‘Stop her!’
‘I didn’t
touch
him!’ the young woman protested in shock.
‘Call the police,’ Roger yelled, knowing that Simon – just outside the station – was already doing exactly that; then, as Pig melted into the throng on the platform, made
a grab for the woman’s arm. ‘Someone help me
hold
her!’
An elderly man, cheeks rosy with outrage, and a young female backpacker hurried forward to lend a hand, while a cluster of passengers gathered around the fallen man.
‘This is
ridiculous
,’ the Beast told the official. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Roger saw a uniformed official moving quickly towards the steps.
Releasing the Beast, she stepped back, passed unhindered through the small crowd, and went quietly on her way.
‘Was the young man all right?’ Ralph had asked later.
None of the four knew for sure, had been too focused, they said, on the Beast.
Ralph had scoured the
Reading Evening Post
every day for the next week and the
Newbury Weekly News
after that, certain that if he had been badly injured it would have merited
mention. It pained her to think of an innocent man’s suffering, brought back her own grim times after her accident, pricked at her conscience.
It relieved her just a little to find that she still had a conscience.
She wondered sometimes if the others ever thought about the novel that had sparked off their games, if any of them were aware that there were certain points of comparison between the evolving
nastiness of their own adult games and that old tale of children becoming savages. She supposed they did not dwell on it any more and was, she thought, glad of that.
Bad enough that she noted similarities and was chilled by them.
And exhilarated too, of course.
She had, by then, come to accept that sickness in herself.
* * *
T he great and irrevocable change had come with the Mitcham game.
More complicated and, ultimately, much more violent than any of them, even Jack, had intended it to be.
Alan Mitcham had been Simon’s beast. A teacher at the primary school where she worked as a teaching assistant.
‘He has no business being a teacher,’ she’d said, fiery
‘I know what Sy means,’ Pig had said. ‘June Norton thought I was a rotten son for not kissing my mother goodbye.’
‘Appearances can be deceiving,’ Ralph agreed.
‘Jack knows what he saw,’ Roger said.
All together for once at a restaurant opposite Swindon Station because it was Ralph’s birthday and she’d been missing them so badly and wished for no present more than a real
reunion.
So she’d been there to observe the hardness in Jack’s eyes when he talked about ‘taking care of her’ himself, had caught a responding flicker of excitement in
Roger’s, and had realized that they were both out of her control.
Had recognized, too, that this was yet another opportunity to detach herself.
An opportunity she had not, of course, taken.
They had talked through the plan carefully, then left it to Ralph to work out the details and dovetail them with the Beast’s movements.
The daughter, she learned, travelled each weekday by train to work in Reading, which meant there was nothing more complex to take care of than choosing the right place, rehearsing split-second
timing and – with witnesses and CCTV on site – paying careful attention to their own disguises.
They decided to play the game on a Thursday afternoon, just after the daughter had alighted from her train at Newbury Station. Three of them moving into position as she and her
fellow passengers crossed over the stepped footbridge and started down to the opposite side and station exit. As the Beast began her descent of the final twelve steps, Jack slipped into place
beside the young man just in front of her, gave him a furtive but hard shove, then stepped neatly away as the man fell with a cry to the stone platform below.
‘
She
pushed him!’ Pig had shouted, pointing to the Beast. ‘Stop her!’
‘I didn’t
touch
him!’ the young woman protested in shock.
‘Call the police,’ Roger yelled, knowing that Simon – just outside the station – was already doing exactly that; then, as Pig melted into the throng on the platform, made
a grab for the woman’s arm. ‘Someone help me
hold
her!’
An elderly man, cheeks rosy with outrage, and a young female backpacker hurried forward to lend a hand, while a cluster of passengers gathered around the fallen man.
‘This is
ridiculous
,’ the Beast told the official. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Roger saw a uniformed official moving quickly towards the steps.
Releasing the Beast, she stepped back, passed unhindered through the small crowd, and went quietly on her way.
‘Was the young man all right?’ Ralph had asked later.
None of the four knew for sure, had been too focused, they said, on the Beast.
Ralph had scoured the
Reading Evening Post
every day for the next week and the
Newbury Weekly News
after that, certain that if he had been badly injured it would have merited
mention. It pained her to think of an innocent man’s suffering, brought back her own grim times after her accident, pricked at her conscience.
It relieved her just a little to find that she still had a conscience.
She wondered sometimes if the others ever thought about the novel that had sparked off their games, if any of them were aware that there were certain points of comparison between the evolving
nastiness of their own adult games and that old tale of children becoming savages. She supposed they did not dwell on it any more and was, she thought, glad of that.
Bad enough that she noted similarities and was chilled by them.
And exhilarated too, of course.
She had, by then, come to accept that sickness in herself.
* * *
T he great and irrevocable change had come with the Mitcham game.
More complicated and, ultimately, much more violent than any of them, even Jack, had intended it to be.
Alan Mitcham had been Simon’s beast. A teacher at the primary school where she worked as a teaching assistant.
‘He has no business being a teacher,’ she’d said, fiery
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