Chapter 3 (The Mysterious Man)
It was late when Lilly opened her eyes again. She had been woken up by the sound of raised voices downstairs. It was nothing new, but the voice she had heard raised was her fathers, and the voice answering back was one she recognised.
She opened the bedroom door and looked down the stairs. Her father was standing at the door, refusing to let someone in. It was the same man she had seen the other year. He wore the same black suit, but this time his eyes were filled with fury.
“I’ve told you before, mate, she’s fine, but if you don’t up it soon then she won’t be here much longer,” said her father.
“You do not threaten me,” said the bearded man.
“Listen, pal, you come and go. You check up, make sure things are alright, but you don’t have to live with her constant tantrums.”
“Have you ever thought to include her in your lives instead of shunting her to the side?”
“She doesn’t wanna get involved in what we do,” said her dad.
“No,” said the man, “maybe she doesn’t.”
“So it’s your choice. You either pay us more, or she’s gone.”
The man looked angry, but then raised his head and looked at her father. “Are you threatening me, Mr Galloway?”
“Just a friendly bit of advice, Mr Magister.”
The man - Mr Magister - continued to stare up at her father. “You will do exactly as I say, Mr Galloway.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You will do as I say,” he said, a little more forcefully this time.
Lilly bit her bottom lip. If this man got on the wrong side of her dad, then he’d kill him.
“I will not do as you say. Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”
“You will do as I say. You will obey me.”
That’s a weird thing to say, thought Lilly.
“I will…not obey you,” said her Dad, a little confused in his delivery.
“You will obey me. Obey me,” said the man, his teeth gritted tightly together and staring at her father.
Lilly watched on with wide eyes, expecting the punch…which never came.
“I…will obey,” said her dad.
“You will continue to look after Lilly for the same price as I have always paid you. I will continue to make regular visits and when the time is right she will join me. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said her father slowly. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” said the man. He rubbed his hands together. “Thank you for your time, Mr Galloway. I shall be seeing you again.”
Mr Magister walked away and Lilly’s dad closed the door and returned to the living room.
Lilly sat there for a few minutes contemplating what she had just witnessed. It was something like hypnotism. Had that man, Mr Magister, really hypnotised her father?
The next morning Lilly got up for school and made her way downstairs. Her dad was sat at the kitchen table reading a paper and tucking into four rounds of jam on toast. She got herself a bowl of cornflakes and sat down opposite him.
He looked up at her and then back down.
“Dad,” she said, slowly, “who was that man who was round last night?”
He looked up at her and frowned. “What were you doing up?”
“He was angry,” said Lilly. “I heard you shouting.”
“You stay in your room next time. Do you hear me?”
“He was talking about me,” said Lilly. “Why is he paying you?”
“You shut up now, Lilly. Remember what happened last time you went on and on?”
“Yeah, you locked me in my room,” said Lilly. “So who is he?”
“What’s going on?” said Andrea, wandering into the kitchen, yawning.
“Magister was round last night and Lilly overheard us arguing.”
“You should keep out of it, Lilly,” said Andrea, sitting down next to her. “If you know what’s good for you.”
“What’s good for me?” said Lilly. “What’s good for me is not being stuck in this house with you lot.”
“This is your home, Lilly,” said her dad.
“Yeah,” laughed Andrea. “You aren’t getting your letter for Hogwarts, sweetheart.”
“This is a nightmare,” she said holding her head in her hands.
“You’re not leaving,” said her dad.
“Why? Because Magister is paying you to keep me? Why? If you hate me so much, why?”
“We don’t hate you,” said Andrea. “We just don’t like you.”
“I’m getting out of here,” said Lilly, getting up and grabbing her school bag.
“You will make sure you’re back after school, Lilly,” said her dad, holding up a finger as a warning to her.
“Maybe,” she said.
“You will be!” shouted her dad.
Lilly didn’t answer back, she got out of the kitchen as fast as she could, grabbed her coat and then slammed the door behind her.
It was late morning and her and Craig were sat at the back of a derelict warehouse, looking up at the sky and resting their heads on their schoolbags. Neither of them had gone to school that day. Lilly didn’t care anymore. She had no future. She knew that.
Craig turned to her. “Happy birthday by the way.”
“Cheers,” said Lilly. “But it’s just another year.”
“Not every day you turn 15.”
“I wish I didn’t turn anything any more,” said Lilly.
“You don’t really think that, do you?” said Craig, frowning.
“I don’t know,” said Lilly. “I hate it here. I hate the estate, I hate my family, I hate all the thugs around here. And then there’s that Mr Magister.”
“Ah yeah, I looked that up,” said Craig, going into his bag and flicking to the back of his exercise book. “It’s Latin for teacher or master.”
“Fat lot of good that does,” said Lilly glumly.
Craig looked crestfallen.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Thank you.”
“It’s alright,” said Craig. “What do you reckon he wants? Why do you think he’s paying for your family to look after you? That doesn’t sound right, does it?”
“No. Why would a family have to pay for them to look after their own daughter.”
Craig sighed. “Your dad’ll kill you when he finds out you’re not at school.”
“So will your parents,” said Lilly.
“Hey,” said Craig, “my parents aren’t back till six tonight. Do you fancy coming round? There’ll be no one there. At least we can get warm.”
“Yeah, alright,” said Lilly, smiling. She liked Craig. He wasn’t the brightest button in the sewing basket, but he had a good heart. If there was anyone in this world she could trust and confide in then it was Craig.
The two of them grabbed their bags and made their way to his house.
Lilly drained her glass of orange juice and then leaned back against the wall. The two of them were sat crossed-legged on the bed and had been playing on Craig’s Nintendo. Super Mario 3 was about the only game he’d managed to save from being taken away by Colin Dunlop. Basically Colin had sold them to him, but what Colin - in his infinite wisdom - had failed to do was tell him that he wanted them back - and Craig wouldn’t be getting his money back either.
Luckily he’d managed to get Mario 3 for his birthday - the only present last year - and had kept quiet about it. If Colin had known he’d owned it it would surely go the way of every game her ever owned.
“Want another drink?” said Craig, putting down the control pad.
“Nah. I’ve had three already. I’ll burst.”
He looked at her and then jumped off the bed and went into his bedside cabinet.
Craig’s house wasn’t much to look at, but it was a damn sight better than where she came from. It was only a few streets down, but, as poor as Craig’s parents apparently were, they at least tried to look after him. They had a heart.
“What are you after?” said Lilly, curious.
“This,” said Craig, bringing out an old, thin cardboard box. He blew the dust off it and opened the lid. Inside was, to Lilly’s horror, a dagger with a jewelled sheath over the blade.
“Jesus, Craig, where did you find that!?”
“It was my granddad’s during the war,” said Craig. He touched the edge of the sheath and then looked at her. “It’s very, very sharp.”
He handed it over to Lilly who looked down at it nervously, as if it was about to fall from her hands and stab her in the legs. “It’s got a swastika on it,” she said, running her finger along the small, black and white swastika emblazed at the top of the handle.
“Well, yeah, it didn’t originally belong to my granddad. He got into a fight with a Nazi soldier and…well, let’s just say I’m here, which means my granddad won. He took the knife.”
“And your parents just let you keep it up here, do they?”
“They don’t know it’s in here. They think it’s still up in the loft with the other junk.”
She handed it back to him. “I’ve gotta ask you, Craig, what exactly do you need with a 1940’s knife?”
“Protection,” said Craig. “The first time Colin Dunlop came for me I thought I’d better start protecting myself. I went into the loft and took the knife down.”
“But it’s been sat in your bedside cabinet,” said Lilly, looking down at it disdainfully.
“I was too scared to carry it about with me.” He handed it back to her. “It’s yours.”
“I don’t want it!” she said, edging away a little bit.
“You need it more than I do.”
“I am not going to stab someone to death!” said Lilly, abhorred at Craig’s insistence. As much as she hated her family she wasn’t about to start murdering each of them.
“It’s not for stabbing!” he said, shocked. “It’s for self defence. If you pulled this out when one of your family - or that Mr Magister - started on you they’d think again.”
“I don’t know, Craig,” she said, shaking her head and still looking at the knife.
“Please, just take it. You need to protect yourself from them. Please.”
That night Lilly returned home just in time to see Mr Magister leaving her house again. She remained hidden behind the wall and watched as her dad closed the door. Her eyes followed Magister as he calmly walked down the street and then turned the corner.
She wanted some answers. She hefted her school bag onto her shoulder and quickly ran after him, all the time looking around her and trying to keep in the shadows between the patches of orange street light that illuminated the pavement.
She turned the corner and saw him disappear into an alley way. She waited until the coast was clear and then made after him.
When she turned into the alleyway he was nowhere to be seen, and it was a dead end. A mattress with it’s springs sticking out, dirty bed sheets, a few wooden pallets and a small, battered children’s Wendy house was all that she could see.
Where the bloody hell did he go? thought Lilly.
And then she heard it. The same sound she had heard last year when she had seen Magister that night. The same rushing and whooshing sound filled the air and slowly, to Lilly’s utter surprise, the Wendy house disappeared into thin air.
Lilly dropped her bag on the floor and stared at the space, open mouthed. She walked over to where the Wendy house had been. There was nothing but a patch of dry ground.
“What the hell…?” was all that Lilly could manage.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment