working on it,’ Inspector Pearce said. ‘And as for Salim, when everyone’s calmed down, can you ask them if they would agree to us calling in the press?’
‘The press?’
‘Yes. If Salim’s picture gets into the news stories, somebody who’s seen him might come forward.’
Dad nodded. ‘I’ll ask them.’
‘Inspector Pearce,’ I said. My hand flapped. ‘Salim got a call on his mobile yesterday. At approximately ten fifty a.m. He said it was from “a friend calling from Manchester to say goodbye”.’
‘Did he? How interesting.’ She smiled at me, which meant she and I could be friends. ‘If only some of my officers had half your brains, Ted.’
Then she nodded and walked down the tiny garden path to where the police car was parked. Dad and I went back to the living room. Rashid was saying that the police had burst into his busy evening surgery last night and that all his patients must have thought he was another Dr Death, which was the name newspaper editors gave to a very evil doctor who killed dozens of his patients instead of making them better for no reason other than that he liked doing this. Aunt Gloria was clinging to a cushion as if she was about to throw it at him and saying that all he ever cared about was what other people thought about him. Mum was standing up and holding Kat by the elbow and ushering us back into the hallway.
She closed the living-room door behind her.
‘God Almighty. Let’s leave them to it,’ she said.
‘Let’s go get a pizza, for pity’s sake.’
So we did. Pity must have been pleased because we had four enormous pizzas at the pizza restaurant nearby. I had a Coca-Cola and Kat had Sprite and Mum had a beer and Dad had a bottle of sparkling water. Dad and I ate all of ours, and Mum and Kat swapped their last slice and left only bits of the crust, which meant that everybody had been extremely hungry. And over the meal we did not talk about Salim. I talked about thunderstorms and why they happen and Kat showed Dad how she had removed the silver nail polish from her hands and he said he was glad Cat-Woman had gone back to the moon. When we got back, Rashid and Aunt Gloria were sitting on the sofa together arm in arm. This puzzled me until I remembered what Mum says about Kat
and me having a love–hate relationship and I worked out that the same was true of Rashid and Aunt Gloria. Mum said to Rashid he was welcome to sleep on the couch if he wanted to and he said was she sure and she said she was and he said she was most kind and he would. And then Kat and I were told to go upstairs to bed, so we did.
TWENTY
Eavesdropping
Kat curled up on the lilo and went to sleep. The house went quiet.
Kat made a funny lapping noise, like a dog drinking water. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Salim, seeing his face with his lips turned up, fading in and out of the spokes of the London Eye. Then I remembered him saying I looked a cool dude and telling me that he got lonely. The boy on the slab. The boy on the train. Salim or not Salim.
I switched on the desk light. Kat didn’t wake. She just moaned and turned over.
I got my weather-system book off my desk and looked at the photo of Kat and me on the bridge, as taken by Salim. I don’t know much about photos, but I could see it was a good photo, not like the kind I take, because the lines around our faces were sharp, and we were exactly in the middle of the shot. A small strip of the Eye’s wheel came up from my shoulder, with seven of the thirty-two pods shining in the sunlight.
I put the photo back in its hiding place, between the chapters on cyclones and anticyclones. I thought. Cyclones go anti-clockwise. Anticyclones go clockwise. That’s if you’re in the northern hemisphere. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, it’s the other way round. It’s like water whirling down a plughole: in the northern hemisphere it whooshes anti-clockwise, in the south, clockwise. And I realized that the same is true
‘The press?’
‘Yes. If Salim’s picture gets into the news stories, somebody who’s seen him might come forward.’
Dad nodded. ‘I’ll ask them.’
‘Inspector Pearce,’ I said. My hand flapped. ‘Salim got a call on his mobile yesterday. At approximately ten fifty a.m. He said it was from “a friend calling from Manchester to say goodbye”.’
‘Did he? How interesting.’ She smiled at me, which meant she and I could be friends. ‘If only some of my officers had half your brains, Ted.’
Then she nodded and walked down the tiny garden path to where the police car was parked. Dad and I went back to the living room. Rashid was saying that the police had burst into his busy evening surgery last night and that all his patients must have thought he was another Dr Death, which was the name newspaper editors gave to a very evil doctor who killed dozens of his patients instead of making them better for no reason other than that he liked doing this. Aunt Gloria was clinging to a cushion as if she was about to throw it at him and saying that all he ever cared about was what other people thought about him. Mum was standing up and holding Kat by the elbow and ushering us back into the hallway.
She closed the living-room door behind her.
‘God Almighty. Let’s leave them to it,’ she said.
‘Let’s go get a pizza, for pity’s sake.’
So we did. Pity must have been pleased because we had four enormous pizzas at the pizza restaurant nearby. I had a Coca-Cola and Kat had Sprite and Mum had a beer and Dad had a bottle of sparkling water. Dad and I ate all of ours, and Mum and Kat swapped their last slice and left only bits of the crust, which meant that everybody had been extremely hungry. And over the meal we did not talk about Salim. I talked about thunderstorms and why they happen and Kat showed Dad how she had removed the silver nail polish from her hands and he said he was glad Cat-Woman had gone back to the moon. When we got back, Rashid and Aunt Gloria were sitting on the sofa together arm in arm. This puzzled me until I remembered what Mum says about Kat
and me having a love–hate relationship and I worked out that the same was true of Rashid and Aunt Gloria. Mum said to Rashid he was welcome to sleep on the couch if he wanted to and he said was she sure and she said she was and he said she was most kind and he would. And then Kat and I were told to go upstairs to bed, so we did.
TWENTY
Eavesdropping
Kat curled up on the lilo and went to sleep. The house went quiet.
Kat made a funny lapping noise, like a dog drinking water. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Salim, seeing his face with his lips turned up, fading in and out of the spokes of the London Eye. Then I remembered him saying I looked a cool dude and telling me that he got lonely. The boy on the slab. The boy on the train. Salim or not Salim.
I switched on the desk light. Kat didn’t wake. She just moaned and turned over.
I got my weather-system book off my desk and looked at the photo of Kat and me on the bridge, as taken by Salim. I don’t know much about photos, but I could see it was a good photo, not like the kind I take, because the lines around our faces were sharp, and we were exactly in the middle of the shot. A small strip of the Eye’s wheel came up from my shoulder, with seven of the thirty-two pods shining in the sunlight.
I put the photo back in its hiding place, between the chapters on cyclones and anticyclones. I thought. Cyclones go anti-clockwise. Anticyclones go clockwise. That’s if you’re in the northern hemisphere. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, it’s the other way round. It’s like water whirling down a plughole: in the northern hemisphere it whooshes anti-clockwise, in the south, clockwise. And I realized that the same is true
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