The Scribbler Iain Maitland (good books to read txt) 📖

similar, I mean apart from your …” He stopped speaking as the slow brother put his fingers to his cheek. “How did it happen?”

The slow brother breathed out heavily and thought for a minute, searching for a long-ago, well-rehearsed answer that he could barely now remember. “It was a fire … I got burned … Father …”

“Okay, yes … and is your father still here … or does he have his feet up enjoying a well-deserved rest from cutting Christmas trees? Perhaps he’s Father Christmas, is he?” The man with the hat laughed, to show he was being friendly.

“No-oo.” The slow brother searched again for the words he was supposed to say. “Father left us … a long time ago now …” His words drifted away.

There was another silence, longer this time.

The slow brother thinking, searching for what to say next.

The man with the bobble hat waiting for him to speak, to say what they would be doing.

“You hate twelve-year-olds. You said that.”

“Me? My work, do you mean? Oh yes, I hate twelve-year-olds all right … but, you know, what can you do in this day and age? They’re everywhere. Fuck them, that’s what I say.”

The man with the bobble hat smiled at the slow brother.

Bemused again at the response, a sullen and angry expression across his face. Half-face, he thought to himself. The man with the bobble hat turned away to look back down at the row of trees.

And then the slow brother raised his axe and moved towards the man. 16. THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER, AFTERNOON

“No!”

The smart brother, appearing by the row of trees and seeing the slow brother raising his axe, shouted at the top of his voice.

The slow brother dropped the axe, startled.

The man with the hat stumbled forward in shock, falling to his knees. “Shit, you could have had my head off.”

The smart brother was upon them straightaway. Handing out tools the slow brother had forgotten to take with him. Smoothing over the incident, saying the slow brother was always keen to fell the first tree of a new row … was clumsy … couldn’t really be trusted. You know how it is. But, hey ho, no harm done.

“You must never turn your back on him!” A jovial comment.

“No, I’ll be more careful in future.” The mistaken belief that this was sheer clumsiness, nothing more – no sense of the intent to kill.

“He’ll give you a centre-parting if you’re not careful!”

Laughter, a sudden sense of relief. And then the smart brother was sending the man with the bobble hat back down to help the other men while he stayed behind. The brothers watched as the man with the hat walked away.

One angry, the other suddenly shame-faced.

The man with the hat turned and smiled as he disappeared out of view. A cheery wave. No harm done. And now the two brothers were alone.

“What were you doing? I saw you go. Could tell something was wrong. What is it? It looked like you were going to kill him.”

The slow brother dropped his head, would not speak.

“By God, you were, you were going to kill him … for Christ’s sake, why?”

The slow brother raised his head, looked to be on the brink of tears.

The smart brother moved forward, touching arms, leaning his head forward. The slow brother responded, and they stood there, heads bowed close together, their arms on each other.

“He is a bad man. He hates children. He said he does things to them. He said the f word.”

“I can’t believe … I don’t … what did he say to you? Tell me. His exact words. Word for word. Can you remember?”

“He said, I go out and … fuck children … that was this morning. He just said, kids are everywhere … Fuck them, that is what I say. He talked like Father.”

The smart brother stood back and looked at his brother. “You must have mis … why would he say that, why would he say such things to you like that? Out of the blue. You only just met. It’s just words. He’s trying to be funny. Be friends. That’s all.”

“He is a bad man.”

A shake of the head, disbelief, frustration, maybe relief too.

“Yes, but I mean, he’d not say these things to you. A stranger.”

“You said we are heroes. We are super-heroes and we destroy bad men who hurt children. Like Father. You said … you said we are super-heroes.”

“We are.” He shook his head in exasperation. “We do. But we can’t do it here. If you had killed him here, now, what would we have done when his family came knocking on the door … and then the police. What would Mother say … we are her best boys, remember?”

“Best boys, yes, we are,” he replied, almost absent-mindedly. “We are her best boys.”

Another shake of the head, a realisation of how close that was.

The slow brother sat down on the ground and reached for the box of matches and the tin of roll-up cigarettes in his pocket. Hands shaking, he eventually lit a cigarette before passing the box and tin over.

The smart brother lit a cigarette too, leaning his head back and blowing smoke out loudly, something close to a sigh. “You’ll be the death of me, really you will,” he laughed.

The slow brother looked across. “He said he has two children who look like twins. And he must hurt them. We have to stop him before he hurts them again.”

“If he is a bad man … if … I’ll find out … we will, but not here, not now. I’ll get his name and find out more about him. Where he lives. What he does. And then, if he is bad, one night, next week, next month, when no one will think of him ever being here, I’ll go and find him. And then I’ll do it.”

“Can I come too? I could help,” the slow brother said.

The smart brother shook his head. “No, I’ve told you before. How many times? You can’t.