For a moment, Mariam was completely dumbstruck.  “What?”

“If you go to the police, I’ll just say you did it,” said Gavin.

If Mariam had been thinking clearly, she’d probably have decided that this was an empty threat.  She’d probably have considered that she had an alibi for last night, and Gavin didn’t.  She’d probably have considered that Gavin had more of a motive than she did, and that the murder weapon, whatever and wherever it was, probably had his fingerprints all over it.  But she didn’t have time to think about any of that until later.  Right now, the only thing on her mind was sheer, boiling-hot rage.

I was going to help you, you ungrateful little twat!

She thought she saw something change in his face, as if he’d heard the words that had just come out of his mouth and realised how they sounded.  She didn’t have much time to notice it, though.  There was a pile of books on the nearest surface, big hardbacks that you could use to crush insects, and with one long arc of her arm Mariam swept them up and hurled them at Gavin’s chest.  It didn’t knock him to his knees like she’d hoped, but it did make him stumble back a couple of steps so she could push past him and run out into the maze of bookshelves.

She ran, zig-zagging through the shop so she’d be harder to catch, dodging the little dips in the floor, jumping over the unexpected steps that came out of nowhere, but Gavin wasn’t trying to catch up with her at all.  He must have run in a straight line, because as soon as Mariam was within sight of the front door, she saw him standing there.  She shrunk back behind the shelves, hoping he hadn’t spotted her.

He flicked the latch closed so that no more customers could get in, then turned around and held something in the air.  “Mariam!” he called out, “I’ve got my dad’s lighter!”  His hands shook as he held it, but he managed to press the button and summon up a tiny, two-second flame.  Even that was far too much of a risk in a building full of dry paper and dead ends, though, so Mariam stepped out to face him. Maybe she could talk some sense into him after all.

“What do you want, Gavin?”  Her voice came out calmer than she’d expected.  A low, grumbly, I’m-sick-of-this kind of voice, as if he was a small kid throwing a hissy-fit instead of a teenager threatening to burn down a shop.

“I told you,” he said, and she could tell he was clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, “I want to go away and start over.  Somewhere else.”

“And you’re going to start your new life by burning your only friend to death?”

“Shut up!” he screamed, eyes screwed up tight, “Shut up!”

“Why did you think any of this was a good idea, Gavin?  You could have…”

He lunged at her.  Despite herself, she took a step back- Gavin might not have been the most physically intimidating person, but if he could break his father’s neck then he could probably do some serious damage to her as well.  But before she knew what had happened, her foot missed the ground and she tipped all the way over, falling and hitting her elbow on the floor.  She’d tripped over one of those unexpected steps.

Gavin saw what happened and tried to keep his balance, but he was leaning too far forward to do it.  He stumbled and threw out a hand, landing on top of Mariam’s legs.  The lighter, still flickering, fell sideways, into the nearest bookshelf.

For a moment, they both stared, mesmerised, as the books began to glow and darken, consumed by the flames.

Mariam was the first to snap out of it.  She shoved Gavin away, got to her feet, and ran.  She was going in the opposite direction to the door, but as long as it got her away from the fire, that was OK.  She could circle round and get to it that way.  This place was a bloody maze, but she’d been working here for five months.  She knew her way around.

*

Mariam ended up making that anonymous phone call after all.  She told the fire brigade that she’d seen smoke coming out of Swordpoint Books just off the High Street, and it looked pretty bad.  She hadn’t bothered to say any more than that- Gavin would have to explain it when they got there.  She hadn’t seen him come out, but she’d left the front door open for him.  He’d be fine.

She left the phonebox as soon as she’d hung up, just in case they did manage to trace it and sent someone along to catch the caller in the act.  From here, it was just a short walk to her house.  Her clothes still smelt of smoke, but her parents would still be at work and her siblings never noticed much.  When word got around about the fire at Swordpoint Books, she’d just say it had started after she left.  It was past closing time anyway.

Mariam hoped the fire brigade would assume that Mr Bridger had died in the fire.  She might not have liked Gavin much anymore, but… well, everyone deserved a new start.  As long as he didn’t try to drag her name into this, she’d keep quiet about it.

Swordpoint Books had been like nowhere else on Earth.  When you thought about it, that was probably a good thing.

The End

They opened the shop.  Customers came in and wandered about, becoming little more than rustling noises in distant aisles until they emerged with something to buy.  Money went into the till.  And around once an hour, Mariam found herself standing by the break room door, as if she’d been drawn back by a magnet.

It was locked- she knew that because she’d tried it.  She was pretty sure the keys were in one of the drawers of the front desk, but she hadn’t checked.  Gavin had been behind the desk most of today, and he’d want to know what she was up to.

What was she up to, anyway?  When she’d tried the doorknob, she’d told herself that she was just checking to make sure that customers couldn’t wander in, but that wasn’t true.  The actual reason, as simple as it was ghoulish, was that Mariam wanted to see the body.  Not out of morbid fascination (at least, she didn’t think so), but because, until she saw it, she wouldn’t completely believe it was there.  The longer the day went on, the more she felt as if she was having a dream, one of those weird ones where nothing worked the way it should and you woke up feeling really uneasy without knowing why.  Actually seeing the damn thing might be enough to shock her back into reality.  Until then, part of her would suspect that Gavin was playing an elaborate, tasteless joke on her.

It was half an hour before closing time when Mariam saw her chance.  A customer went up to Gavin and asked him to help her find the newest Maeve Binchy, and as soon as they were out of sight, Mariam went behind the desk and opened the drawer.  Sure enough, there, lying on top of all the paper and debris, was a ring of keys.

Instead of going straight to the break room, she palmed the keys and waited behind the desk for a few minutes.  Gavin would have fewer questions about why she was standing behind the desk than about why she was sneaking about behind the desk.  This way, she was just making sure it wasn’t unmanned.  When Gavin came back, he gave her a grateful smile, and she came out from behind the desk, supposedly stepping aside so that he could go back.  She didn’t run for the break room door.  She walked along at a professional clip, as if she’d been asked to sort out an issue on the other side of the shop.

The door was shabby, blue, and completely unassuming.  There was no strange smell, there was no sinister vibe, there was no disturbing background music.  Mariam had it open before she even had time to prepare for it.

Mr Bridger was in there, alright.

He could almost have just been sleeping in his chair.  Almost, because Mariam found it hard to imagine him being this silent even when he was asleep.  She’d thought that seeing the body would be the thing to bring her back to Earth, but now she was here, it was the silence that did it.  He was definitely dead.  He’d never have been that quiet if he was alive.

Gavin hadn’t covered up his face, and Mariam didn’t dare to look directly at it.  She took a step forward, looking for a cloth or a blanket or something, and she saw something out of the corner of her eye.  There was something wrong with Mr Bridger’s neck.

She went round to the back of the chair, and looked properly.  His head was slumped to one side.  No, not just slumped- bent.  As if it had suddenly…

As if someone had…

Gavin.

Of course he had.  Why wouldn’t he?  He’d probably wanted to do it for years.  And no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell anyone his dad was dead.  Why had he even told her?  Why hadn’t he just run off last night?  Wasn’t there money in the till from yesterday?  There must have been!  Why had…?

Mariam took a deep breath.  She crouched down and looked at the floor, trying to feel less light-headed.  They were going to have to work something out.  They couldn’t just leave him here- someone would find him and work out what had happened.  They had to…  Mariam didn’t know what they had to do, but they needed to work it out as soon as possible.

She straightened up, and saw Gavin standing in the doorway.

She met his eyes.  For a moment, neither of them said anything.  Once again, Mariam tried to work out the one perfect thing to say.  She might have actually managed it this time, if Gavin hadn’t spoken first.

“I’ll just say you did it,” he said.

(To Be Concluded)

At school the next day, all Mariam could think about was her shift that afternoon.

“He’ll be in a better mood then,” Gavin had said, but better than what?  Better than flinging two yards of steel across the room?  Better than almost stabbing his son through the wrists with fifty rusty nails?  There were a lot of things that were better than the way Mr Bridger had behaved yesterday that were still pretty damn horrible in their own right.  The way Mr Bridger behaved every other day, for a start.

Half of it was fear, the not knowing what would happen this afternoon and whether she’d be able to deal with it.  The other half was Gavin.  Her mind kept going back to it, the way he’d looked at the floor instead of at her.  The night stretching out ahead of him, dark and empty, with nothing to do but pray that his father’s path didn’t cross his before morning.  There was a sour, aching knowledge of how unfair this was.  Gavin was a good person, but he’d been given that dark, empty night anyway.  It was wrong, so wrong that it made the whole universe seem out of joint.  Mariam would have given just about anything to put it right.

As she turned onto the side road near the High Street, Mariam steeled herself for something unpleasant.  She didn’t expect to see Gavin sitting on the kerb just outside Swordpoint Books, waiting for her.  In the shop window, the shutters were down and the “closed” sign was up.

“Gavin?” she called out, “What’s going on?”

He leapt to his feet as soon as he saw her.  “Thank God you’re here.”  He put a hand on her upper arm to guide her into the shop.  “Quick, come in.”

Mariam held up a hand, and took a good look at him.  He was pale, much more so than usual, with big shadows under his eyes.  He hadn’t looked this shaken when she’d last seen him.  And what could possibly have happened that was worse than what had happened yesterday?  “Gavin, seriously, what’s going on?”

His eyes darted from side to side.  “I can’t tell you out here.  Let’s go into the shop.”  He opened the door and stood aside for her to go in.

She could tell there was something wrong as soon as Gavin closed the door behind them.  It was completely silent.  No smoker’s coughs, no low, grumbling breaths, no loud smacks of the lips.  No sound out here, and no sound from behind the door of the break room.  It was as if every trace of Mr Bridger had departed from Swordpoint Books.

“He’s dead,” said Gavin, “I found him in the break room this morning.”

Mariam stared at him.  It’s a joke, she thought, It’s got to be.  “What?  How?”

Gavin shrugged.  “Heart attack?  A stroke, maybe?”

“Didn’t the doctors say?”  Mariam hadn’t moved from the spot since they’d got inside.  Part of her thought she should step forward and pull him into a hug- if any other friend of hers had told her their dad had died, she’d have done that before asking stupid questions- but another part thought that would be the most hypocritical thing she could possibly do.  She’d probably wished Mr Bridger dead fifty times last night.

Gavin didn’t reply.  He just looked at her, face completely blank.

“Well?  Didn’t they?”  But even before she said it, Mariam was pretty sure she knew what the answer was going to be.

“I haven’t told anyone,” Gavin said quietly, “He’s still in there.”

There were two or three sets of shelves in between them and the break room door, but Mariam looked in that direction anyway, as if she thought its new ghastly aura was going to penetrate through everything else.  Mr Bridger was dead.  There was a dead body in this building, less than twenty yards away.  Mariam should have been scared, or disgusted, or something other than vaguely cold and queasy.  She swallowed as sharply as she could.  “Why not?”  It came out as a whisper.  She wasn’t sure if she’d meant it to.

Gavin held his arms out helplessly.  “I don’t know.”

“Well… we’ll do it now, OK?”  Mariam felt in her coat pockets for her dad’s old phone- he’d given it to her a couple of months ago, for emergencies.  “Do you know what number we need to call?  I guess 999 wouldn’t be…”

Gavin’s hand shot out and rested on Mariam’s wrist.

She stopped looking.  “What?”

“Please don’t.  Not yet.”

Mariam took her hands out of her pockets.  “Gavin, someone needs to…”

“Yeah, but… I don’t want to be here when they do.”  He took in a long breath.  “This is my only chance to get away.”

Once again, Mariam looked in the direction of the break room door, and she thought about what was behind it.  They couldn’t just leave it like that.  They couldn’t.  But here was Gavin, with his big blue eyes boring into her, begging her to hear him out.

“Whoever comes to collect him is going to take one look at me and call Social Services,” said Gavin, “And the next thing you know, they’ll put me in a foster home halfway across the country.  I’ll have to start all over again with nothing.”

“Well, what’s the alternative?” asked Mariam, still whispering, “We can’t leave him there forever.”

Gavin shook his head.  “Not forever.  Just for today.  I need a little money and a little head start.  That’s all I’m asking for.”

Mariam shook her head.  She was completely lost here.

“Let’s open up the shop this afternoon.  We’ll get customers.  With any luck, someone’ll buy something expensive.  And after closing time, we can split the money from the till, and I’ll be gone.  Off to wherever I want.”  A wistful look crossed his face.  “Then after a couple of hours, you can call the police and give them an anonymous tip.  That way, he’ll still get found.”

Mariam wanted to say something sensible, but her brain wouldn’t cooperate.  All she could think was, That might actually work.  She’d use the payphone at the end of the road- that way they couldn’t trace her number- and she’d tell them that there was a weird smell coming from Swordpoint Books.  Or that she thought she’d seen intruders.  Or…

“But where are you going to go?” she asked Gavin.

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Away from here.”  For a moment, the words You could come with me hung in the air, unspoken, and Mariam honestly didn’t know how she’d have replied to that.  She had a family.  They’d miss her.

But he hadn’t said it yet, so she didn’t have to think about it right now.  “OK,” she said, looking him in the eye, “We can open up the shop.  Just for the afternoon.”

A relieved smile broke out on Gavin’s face.  Before Mariam knew what was going on, he stepped forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

(To Be Continued)

(Like “Isaac vs the Swimming Pool,” I previously posted an early part of this and then never got round to posting the rest.  Mainly because I never got round to writing the rest.  So here it is now.)

April 2002

Swordpoint Books was on one of the little roads leading off the High Street, and it was like nowhere else on Earth.  It seemed to be a series of narrow paths leading through a maze of shelves, all shiny steel and well over six-foot high, so if you were at one end of the shop and your friends were at another, you’d have to rely on the sound of each other’s voices to find each other.  Add in the unexpected steps and slopes placed at random intervals along the aisles, and the place was a blatant safety hazard in about a dozen different ways.

Not that Mariam cared.  Mr Bridger could have released a man-eating tiger into the Romance section, and Mariam would just have barricaded herself into Sci Fi/Fantasy and carried on reading.  And that was just as well, because she could definitely picture Mr Bridger doing that.

Mariam had had five months to get used to the acoustics of Swordpoint Books, so she could tell that Mr Bridger was three aisles away.  Far enough not to panic, but too close to risk picking up an interesting book from the shelf and flicking through it.  You weren’t really in trouble until he got to your aisle, because all you could see over the bookshelves was the top of people’s heads, and that was if you were lucky (and tall).  That meant that you couldn’t see him coming, either, but that was OK because Mr Bridger was one of the noisiest men Mariam had ever met.  No matter where he was in the store, you could hear him move around- the grumpy stamp of his feet, the heavy, snarling breathing, the occasional smack of his lips as he looked at something and thought.  He was like a minotaur moving through his own stainless-steel labyrinth.

Two aisles away, Mariam heard him pounce on Gavin.  “Just what do you think you’re playing at?”

Gavin’s voice was gentle, hesitant, and at least fifteen decibels quieter.  “Look, if you’re talking about the displays, I just thought…”

“Where’s my paper, Gavin?  The one that was on the front desk??”

“Um…”

“It’s a simple enough question, Gavin.  Where’s.  My.  Paper?”

There was a lot of staff turnover at Swordpoint Books.  People would apply, start work, realise that they weren’t being paid enough to put up with Mr Bridger, and quit.  Usually within two weeks, although the record was half an hour.  Only Mariam and Gavin stayed.  Mariam because there were six kids in her house, and she was pretty sure the only thing stopping both her parents from working themselves into an early grave was the fact that the oldest three earned enough to buy most of their own school supplies.  Gavin because he was just plain stuck.  She was pretty sure he didn’t even get paid.

“Dad, listen…  It was two days old, it had been in the exact same place since yesterday…”

“I didn’t ask you how old it was, Gavin.  I asked where it was.”

“Last week you got mad at me for not keeping the front desk tidy…”

“I didn’t ask you what happened last week!” Mr Bridger screamed.  Mariam could practically hear the spit spraying out all over poor Gavin’s face.  “I asked you what happened to my fucking paper!”

It was an odd thing about Mr Bridger- no matter how angry and out of-control he seemed, he always managed to save the swearwords for when he really wanted to scare you.  Anyway, Mariam couldn’t stop herself.  “I threw it out,” she called, as calm as possible while still being loud enough for Mr Bridger to hear her.

It seemed to have worked.  There was a short pause, and then the stamping footsteps started up again, coming closer and closer until Mr Bridger appeared at the end of Mariam’s aisle.  He was a man who seemed to be all reds and yellows- red cheeks, yellow teeth, red strawberry nose, yellow whites in his eyes, red bags under his eyes, yellowing shirt that Mariam suspected he’d been wearing for the last three days.  “Who the fuck told you to throw it out?”

Mariam took a deep breath.  “Like Gavin said, it was just last week you told us to keep the desk tidy…”

“You threw out my paper.”  Mr Bridger was bearing down on her now, his cheese-and-cigarettes breath wafting in her face.  “My property.”

Mariam looked up at him, not daring to move a muscle.  “Yes.”

“That’s what you do in your house, then?  Help ourselves to other people’s things?”

“We throw out newspapers when they’re two days old, yes.”  Mr Bridger was always speculating about what they did in her house.  Among her people.

Mr Bridger stared at her, still treating her to wafts of his breath, but he didn’t do anything.  And what can you do? thought Mariam, Sack me?  Not a chance.  You wouldn’t be able to scream at me anymore if you did.  Of course, if she was Gavin, he’d have already made a dark remark about discussing the matter very carefully after closing time, but she wasn’t Gavin, and that was why it was better for her to take the blame.

“Well, we’re not in your house now,” he said eventually, “I’m paying you to be here.  You owe me respect.”

Mariam said nothing.

“You agree with me, then?” he said, a little louder, “You owe me respect?”

“Yes,” said Mariam.

For a moment, she was worried he was going to make her repeat the words back to him, just to be sure, but instead he backed off and disappeared into the aisles beyond.  Mariam waited until his footsteps were a safe distance away, then went to find Gavin.

He was backed up against a row of reference books, hunched over in an attempt to make himself look smaller.  Gavin was only an inch or two shorter than his father, but at times like this, he seemed about half his size.  “You didn’t need to do that,” he murmured.

“It was that or listen to him screech at you for the next hour,” said Mariam, keeping her voice quiet enough to stay within this aisle, where Mr Bridger couldn’t catch it.

Gavin breathed in, set his mouth in a straight line, and looked away from Mariam.  He knew she was right.

Mariam and Gavin went to different schools, on different sides of town.  If it hadn’t been for Swordpoint Books, they’d never have met, so there was at least one good reason to put up with Mr Bridger.  Mariam didn’t have much patience for the boys at her school- most of them thought that drawing cartoon willies on their desks was the last word in humour- but you could have an actual conversation with Gavin.  Usually either about books or how much they hated Mr Bridger, but they were conversations, and Mariam felt better for having them.  Gavin was her friend.  And friends didn’t let friends get bollocked by their dads just for throwing away old newspapers.

They heard the door to the break room creak open, then shut. They relaxed a little.  Mr Bridger had gone off to sulk and smoke a whole packet of Silk Cut.

“He just left it out so he could pick a fight over it,” said Mariam.

“Of course,” said Gavin, “Even he doesn’t take three days to read the Sun.”

“Maybe he was just really attached to Thursday’s Page Three girl.”

Gavin made a face.

Mariam stood against the bookcase next to him.  Their eyes met, and they both let out an exaggerated, exasperated sigh.  “The working life,” said Gavin.

Mariam shrugged.  “My mum says that your first job should be as crappy as possible.  That way, for the rest of your life, you appreciate the jobs that aren’t.”

“If I even get to have another job,” grumbled Gavin, “Knowing Dad, I’ll still be working here in ten years’ time.”  He sighed.  “He’s already told me I needn’t think he’s paying for university for me.”

“So you’ll get a loan.  That’s what most people do.”  She was about to suggest that Gavin get in touch with his mother and ask her to help out with his fees, but stopped herself just in time.  The former Mrs Bridger had run off with a guy from her job eight years ago, and if she hadn’t bothered to take Gavin with her (at least for long enough to drop him off with a family member who screamed less), then it was probably too much to expect her to fork out a few thousand pounds for him now.

Gavin laughed.  “Nothing’s ever impossible for you, is it, Mariam?”

She patted him on the shoulder.  “Won’t be impossible for you, either.  You’ll see.”

They heard the front door open, and Gavin moved off towards the desk in case the customer needed help.  But before he disappeared around the corner, he looked over his shoulder and gave Mariam a grin that made her feel warm all over.

*

Mariam’s Monday afternoon shift was going pretty well until one of the shelves collapsed.  She was on the other side of the shop when it happened, but she heard the bang loud and clear.  She was pretty sure that if she’d looked over the top of the shelves at that moment, she’d have seen a massive cloud of dust escaping into the air.

It was honestly a miracle that that particular shelf had stayed up as long as it had- it looked like someone had been stuffing the thickest hardbacks they could find into it for the last five years.  When Mariam got there, most of the aisle was covered with books, as if they’d burst out on their own in a bid for freedom, scattering far and wide.  And on top of one of the bigger piles was a shiny little bit of metal, looking sorry for itself.

Naturally, Mr Bridger had looked for any reason he possibly could to blame Mariam and Gavin for the collapse.  They should have noticed that it was getting too full.  They should have rushed to hold it in as soon as it started to break.  They should have kept the whole thing together with their until-now-undiscovered telekinetic powers.  Even Mr Bridger had to admit defeat eventually, though, and he told Gavin and Mariam to pick up the books while he tried to work out how to fix the shelf.  Mariam watched out of the corner of her eye as he rotated it in his hands, tried to jam it back in, gave up, and started the whole thing over again, swearing under his breath the whole time.

Eventually, he turned it around one more time, then crouched down and began loading it up with books.  Once he was done, he got to his feet, holding the now-full shelf out lengthways.  “Gavin!  Come and get the other end!”

Gavin stood up and reached out to catch the other end of the shelf as Mr Bridger swung it towards him… then flinched away at the last moment, causing Mr Bridger to stumble and the books to fall back down to the floor.

Mr Bridger looked at him in disbelief.  “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Gavin?”

“Dad, it’s covered in rusty nails!”  Gavin pointed, and Mariam saw what he meant.  It wasn’t just the nails hanging out of the shelf, either- that whole end looked like one big piece of sharp, jagged metal.  There might have been a way to grab hold of it without hurting yourself, but no way would Gavin have worked it out in the time his dad had given him.

“I told you to catch the other end,” snarled Mr Bridger, “I expect you to catch the other end!”

“They’d have gone right into my hand!  Look!”

Mr Bridger roared, and flung the broken shelf across the room.  It hit a shelf in the next aisle, and stuck there, its loose nails tearing grooves in a couple of the thicker books.  His right hand free, he raised it above his head as he turned on Gavin.

Without even thinking about it, Mariam stepped in between them.

Mr Bridger froze, his hand still raised.  Go on, hit me, thought Mariam, I dare you.  The moment my mum sees me with a black eye, you’ll be as good as dead.

Mr Bridger lowered his hand.  His face was screwed up in disappointment and frustration- Mariam thought he looked like a constipated pig.  “That’s what I get for hiring from fucking Al Qaeda,” he said, and stormed off down the aisles.  After a moment or two, Mariam heard the break room door slam behind him.

“You should go,” said Gavin, looking at the floor.

“Oh, come on.”  Mariam put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off.  “At least let me help you pick the rest of these up,” she said, gesturing to the piles of books still on the floor.

“No.  Trust me, it’ll be better if you…”  Gavin took a long, snuffling breath, and looked up at Mariam.  His eyes didn’t look red, but Mariam was still pretty sure she knew why he’d been looking at the floor.  “I’ll handle this.  I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, yeah?”

Mariam hesitated for a moment, then decided to say what was on her mind.  “If you wanted to stay at mine tonight…”

“No.”  Gavin was looking at the floor again.  “I’d just have to come back here again afterwards, wouldn’t I?”

There were so many things Mariam wanted to say, but most of the words seemed to die in her throat.  “It’s not right, Gavin.  You don’t deserve this.”

Gavin shook his head.  “Please, Mariam, just…  I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?  He’ll be in a better mood then.”

Mariam wanted to say something, the one perfect thing to convince him to come with her or at least let her stay to help, but that perfect thing probably didn’t exist at all, so she left.  She’d never felt so powerless in her whole life.

(To Be Continued)