The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

Got tired of you? Chucked you out? Couldn’t wait to see the back of you?’

‘They’re dead,’ said Army.

‘So are mine, so what?’ said the big boy. ‘Expect us to feel sorry for you?’

Army pulled a face but said nothing.

‘I never had none,’ said Dennis. ‘You’re better off without them.’

‘You must have had parents, dickhead!’ said the big one.

‘Yeah, they took one look at him and threw up. Chucked him in the canal as a baby, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Dennis flushed; then pulled himself together.

‘Shut your fat face, Robinson. At least I’m not in here ’cos my parents can’t stand the bloody sight of me.’

That shut the big one up, for a while.

The soup had vanished, not a drop remained. A boy came running down the line like a sprinter grabbing the baton for the relay race, collected all the soup plates, and disappeared.

Another kid rolled up a double-decker steel trolley, began unloading dinner plates, and set a meal down before each boy. Dennis and Army were at the end of the table, the bottom of the heap. They received their food last, and it would be the smallest and least appetising portions.

Army peered down at it. One thin slice of curling cheese. One browned pickled onion. One slice of margarined bread. One red apple. One tiny scone containing two dried sultanas, and all scattered on a warm heatproof olive green plate.

Army glanced across at Dennis.

His head was down, and he was eating fast like a dog. Occasionally he glanced up, as if imagining one of the bigger beasts might steal his tea. He didn’t say a word; none of them did, not while they were eating. Army ate his meal in silence. Left the pickled onion. He noticed he wasn’t the only one to do that.

Dennis had already finished.

‘Don’t you want that?’ he said, staring across the table, glaring at the unwanted food.

‘No,’ said Army. ‘I don’t.’

Dennis’s hand shot across the table and scooped up the foul smelling article. Threw it in his mouth like a gobstopper. Chewed it hard through an open mouth. Grinned and breathed across the table. The stench was vile. Army turned to his right and glanced up the table. He counted twenty boys on either side. Forty identical empty olive green plates. Not a morsel remained. Even the ripe onions had gone. It had taken less than ten minutes.

‘Is that it?’ said Army.

‘Yep,’ said Dennis, ‘Nothing else till breakfast, ’cept the cocoa of course, but don’t drink that if you wet the bed. Gilligan goes crazy if you wet the bed.’

‘Are you a bed wetter?’ scowled Robinson, eager to get involved again. ‘You look like a bed wetter to me.’

‘No,’ said Army, ‘are you?’

Robinson flushed.

Dennis giggled behind his hand.

Mr Hancock appeared at the end of the table, his hands in the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers. He smelt of stale adult, swayed back and forth a couple of times and said, ‘Ah, there you are, Shelbourne.’

‘Ooh, Shelbourne, is it?’ said Robinson. ‘Born in a shell, were we? Come to think of it you look like a crab.’

Several of the others laughed. Even Mr Hancock smirked.

Dennis didn’t laugh.

Then Mr Hancock said, ‘All right, all right, Robinson, that’s enough of the jocularity. Have you finished your tea?’

The boys glanced at their clean plates.

‘Looks that way,’ said Robinson.

Two others tittered.

‘Yes, well, if you have, Shelbourne, follow me, I need to talk to you about one or two things.’

Army slipped from the end of the bench and stood up and made to follow Mr Hancock, then glanced back at the table. The boy opposite Robinson was staring at him, grinning stupidly, making gestures with his fingers, one hand, finger and thumb making a circle, the other hand, index finger, pushed in out of the circle, time and again. Army had no idea what that meant.

He didn’t want to know either.

THEY SKIPPED UP THE stone stairs to the third floor to Mr Hancock’s office, a small room with a tiny window that looked out over the back gardens, with a fine view of the bins and the waste food receptacles. The window was open, introducing an aroma of stale bin. Hancock didn’t appear to notice.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

Army sat in the plain dining chair set before the desk.

‘You won’t be going to King’s, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Oh, but...’

‘No buts, Armitage. We can’t lay on transport for one boy to travel to Chester and back every day.’

Army linked his fingers in front of him and stared down at his hands.

‘I will arrange for you to go to the local comprehensive. You’ll be with all the others. It’s for the best.’

Army said nothing.

‘And erm, I have another disappointment for you, the dancing classes will have to be cancelled.’

Army said nothing. Pulled his fingers tighter and tighter, as if trying to pull them from their sockets.

‘Don’t do that, boy!’

Army stopped.

Said nothing.

Pouted and looked up and across the desk.

‘I have one bit of good news for you,’ said Hancock. ‘I understand you are a bit of a singer?’

Army said nothing and nodded.

‘Good, well, I’ve arranged for you to join the choir at the local parish church. You’ll find out all about that come Sunday.’

Army still said nothing, just nodded again.

‘Any questions?’

Army shook his head.

‘Good, that’s the spirit. Well, run along and find Swallow; he’ll show you where you sleep.’

Army said nothing.

Stood up and ran outside.

THE DORMITORY HOUSED eighty boys; it was one section of the juniors, the normals, as they were known. The non-normals slept on the floor upstairs, which was a nuisance because when they were at their most agitated at full moon, they would leap around and scream and keep the normals awake.

The dorm was a long narrow room with forty beds on either side, the beds having large numbers affixed to the top of the metal headboard, in case anyone forgot who they were, and where they slept. The numbers were more necessary upstairs. Dennis was docked in eighteen, Army given the only vacant berth, twenty,