Chapter Twenty Three

A chapter featuring Adric. Happy 47th, Doctor Who... As ever, links to previous parts can be located here.


Adric felt for his bow tie on the bedside table only for his fingers to grasp dry, empty air.

"I'm not at home," he said groggily.

He tried to sit up, and gasped in pain. This reminded him about the incident with The Gang Who Must Not Be named, the gun, and the shower of broken glass that had mostly ended up implanted in various of his limbs.

"But," he said thoughtfully to the room, "this isn't the hospital either. That would be a bit lighter, and I could hear people coughing and making other ill noises from other rooms. And a nurse would have heard me talking by now, due to my lack of volume control, and they would have come through and told me to keep it down for goodness sake."

He considered.

"A nurse!" he remembered suddenly. "That nurse last night wasn't a real nurse! She was an un-nurse!”

Adric was flabbergasted that he hadn’t realized this right away. It was so obvious!

“She's orchestrated my removal from the hospital...” he pieced it together in his mind. “And she made sure Tim was out of the way before she did it! That means she must know something about his history and thought it wasn't worth the hassle of involving him. He always saves the day."

Adric allowed himself a minute or two for a brief montage of Tim running around battling things and selflessly saving people from mortal peril. For some reason the soundtrack was the Saturdays, whom he did not much care for. But on the plus side, Tim was wearing some rather delightfully figure hugging jeans.

However, now was not the time for introspection or even flights of fancy. It was time for action.

With difficulty, Adric sat up and swung his legs - perfectly honed from years of badminton - over the edge of the bed. His bare feet met cold linoleum with a grimace.

He stood up, wobbling slightly, and moved forward through the dark. His plan was to keep going until he found a wall - simple but effective, you'll probably agree, assuming that you’ve been paying attention. It worked for Nicky and Bracken, after all. They found the door almost instantly.

The only trouble in this particular case was that Adric still had a piece of glass from the accident in his left ear which the hospital had missed, and it was affecting his balance in the negative. He was favouring his left side, essentially walking not in a straight line, but a sharply curved one. The end result was that he went round and round in circles.

This would have looked hilarious to any guards observing him through the highly expensive night vision cameras installed in all the rooms, but fortunately for Adric's dignity they were all engaged elsewhere. Unfortunately for his health, all the circling made him so dizzy and confused that he eventually fell over, and lay in a hospital-gowned heap on the floor.

"Timothy," he whispered uselessly, before his eyes closed and he fell into darkness once more.

* * *

Timothy, the man himself, had not really left when the so called nurse had told him to. Years of questing had instilled in him a perpetual sense of suspicion – although he liked to call it curiosity - and mistrust of all authority figures. This sometimes got him into scrapes but on this occasion was well justified.

After apparently leaving, Tim hid behind the bins to see what the 'nurse' - 'if she's a nurse then I'm a hedgehog sailor,' thought Tim grimly - would do next.

Sure enough, she gave Adric a jag, failing to warn him beforehand or give him a sweetie afterward as a real nursing professional would have done. Another clue was the way she plunged the syringe – full of a highly suspect green liquid - into his side like a person more used to stabbing people up might do, rather than in the manner of one who is looking for a vein in an arm or other limb.

She was then joined by someone in two balaclavas (for extra mystery) who helped her lift Adric's ungainly frame into a waiting vehicle.

Tim was formulating a rescue plan when he felt warm breath on his ear, and turned to see three figures in black, all wearing the designated two balaclavas too.

"Who are you," he inquired, engaging them all in combat at once. Tim had learned some sweet martial arts moves on a quest involving a lot of Ming, he knew swordplay from a time travelling one where he'd met king Arthur, and he knew how to rumble from watching Westside Story 38 times.

"Who do you work for?" he continued, lightly maiming one of them in the arm.

The heavies failed to answer, even in quip format. They just kept coming at him, wordless and powerful.

"Alright," Tim said, "you lot are the strong but silent type. I can appreciate that. Not really my cup of tea, but whatever."

Without any of them realizing what was happening, he tied two of them together using their own shoelaces, which was his signature move.

"Your move, El Nombre," he said to the third and biggest guy.

El Nombre paused.

"How did you know my name?" he asked, which was arguably rather foolish given that it could have been a bluff, in which case he would have given away his identity for no reason.

"We've met before," Tim explained, "don't you remember? We teamed up with a dwarf to defeat an evil wizard who had taken over your village and forced your mother to marry him."

"Tim?!" El Nombre squawked incredulously, "oh my god, I totally did not recognise you! It's been what, five, six years? How have you been?"

"Oh you know, doing away," Tim replied. "What about you, you're on the side of evil now? What's going on there? You were a freedom fighter when I saw you last!"

"It was inevitable really," El Nombre explained, removing the top balaclava with a practiced flourish. "given the events that ensued after you left."

"But Micky Chinnigan was dead! The village was saved!"

"Wizard Chinnigan wasn't dead," El Nombre shook his head emphatically. "You may remember I made a joke about the fact that we never saw the body, so he would probably return, like in one of your soap operas."

"But he was in a burning building that exploded to the ground! It melted all our beards clean off! Nobody could survive that!"

"Well maybe he did an illusion and we only thought he was in there. Whatever happened, he certainly wasn’t dead.

He returned one day when I was at Market and burned my home to the ground, my wife and mother trapped inside. I still hear their dying screams as I returned on Joel, my aging donkey. If only he had gone faster, perhaps I might have saved them... But no, it is not the fault of Joel. He did all he could, helping carry the bucket of water to put out the flames like a trooper."

"Then what happened? Did you swear you would have your vengeance?"

"I did. But Chinnigan was long gone. His diabolical laughter echoed around the village for the rest of the night and much of the following day, but I could not follow the trail. It was fragmented into giggles and cackles that flew every which way on the autumn wind."

"So you became a mercenary?"

"I did."

"What better way to discover your evil doer than by networking with other evil doers yourself."

"Quite. I was not about to let him get away with his crime."

"So what happened then?"

"I knocked about doing petty work for a little while," El Nombre rumbled, "then I travelled north to Peru. I saw on Chilean Gumtree website that there was some mercenary work going on there. That is how I came to be with my current employers."

"The clan of the cape."

"I couldn’t possibly comment on the identity of my employer, señor."

"No," Tim agreed, "of course not."

They scuffed their feet against the ground awkwardly for a while, like young children in the school playground whose mums have told them they have to play together.

"So have you been instructed to fight to the death, or incapacitate, or what?"

“‘Despatch’ was the word used, if I remember correctly. ‘By any means necessary.’"

"I thought as much. What would you say to taking me alive? I'm rather interested in this clan of the cape, and if I'm not very much mistaken then they have taken my partner prisoner."

"Why?"

El Nombre clearly hadn’t clicked that the partner in question was the very person he himself was helping to kidnap.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Tim said, "but I would like to find out. You can kill me afterwards, if you like?"

"Its nothing personal," El Nombre asserted, "it's a contractual obligation merely."

"of course as a mercenary," Tim began,

"I can be as cut throat as I wish," El Nombre continued, "yes, I am aware of that. But I have my sense of honour to consider."

"You consider it honourable to kill an old friend for money?"

"I consider it honourable to finish the job I am paid to do."

"Surely the clan of the cape didn't say anything so specific as 'kill Timothy Mahogany-Barnes if you get the chance'? I would imagine their instructions to be a lot more vague. 'Despatch anyone who gets in our way by any means necessary,' or something like that.”

El Nombre looked uncomfortable.

“Well I mean technically I wasnt really in your way, was I? In fact I was rather out of your way. I was hiding behind a bin, for crying out loud."

"Spying on our highly secret activities," El Nombre pointed out.

"The natural response of the seasoned adventurer," Tim reasoned, "you must empathise with that?"

El Nombre studied him carefully.

"Oh what the hell," he said, "come on then, let me 'take you alive'. I can't promise you'll stay that way once we get there, though."

"No no, of course not," Tim grinned in elation, "cheers for this mate."

"Not at all," El Nombre replied, tying his hands behind his back with a loose knot.

"Taking this guy alive," he told one of his colleagues, manhandling Tim roughly into the back of a black car with tinted windows. "He took the others out. I think that certain members of the facility might like to extract that feeling of smugness to teach him a lesson."

El Nombre's companion grunted disinterested assent. He was thinking about the sausages he was going to have for his tea. He'd been looking forward to those sausages all day. Mmm, sausages.

Tim gave El a nod of thanks, and put his head down so as not to draw any more attention to himself than was necessary. Adric was in the car in front, and he couldn't afford not to be awake to see where they were going.

"Oh no you don't," El said gruffly, tying a blindfold around his eyes.

But it was made of chiffon, and Tim could see through.

“Thanks again mate,” he whispered, barely audible above the car’s 80 gigawatt engine.

“No problem,” El replied, without moving his lips or opening his mouth. “Now shut up.”

And so, as part of a convoy, Adric and Tim moved towards the mysterious facility where almost everyone else mentioned in the story was being held.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapters 1-15, should you be interested. Or deeply bored.

Al was in a quandary.

He didn’t know whether he should call Adric’s on/off boyfriend and get him to come to the hospital or not.

They were very much off at the moment, due to an altercation in the lighting section of Ikea that Adric had mentioned in passing but refused to go into. But they were bound to get back together eventually, either from habit or a sense of duty or a fear that this relationship was the best either of them was ever going to do. And surely being in hospital bleeding all over the place after a drive by shooting counted as extenuating circumstances, break or no break.

Adric’s other half was a highly strung organic sous chef named Timothy. He played the violin badly, and classical guitar reasonably well, and he had aspirations of becoming a gentleman farmer one day. Al had never met him, but they had talked over the phone a few times.

He looked up the number on Adric’s phone and went for it, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble later.

Timothy was at the hospital almost literally in the blink of an eye.

He was dishevelled, which was unlike him – not that Al knew that, having never met him in real life before.

“Hello,” he said, sticking out a hand to shake, “you must be Aloysius. I’m Tim.”

“Sorry to meet you under these circumstances,” Al said, shaking obediently.

“Oh well, not to worry.” He awarded a penetrating look, and Al noticed that his eyes were a sharp, tinkling azure green. He’d never seen such a colour in nature before.

“Thanks for getting in touch,” he was saying, “I really appreciate it. Adric would be too stubborn to ask the hospital to call.”

“That’s OK,” Al said, flushing slightly as he realised how intently he had been examining the other man’s eyes.

“So where is he?”

Aloysius led him down a corridor, up a few floors, left, right and so on. They didn’t pass many people along the way, as Timothy observed.

“Quiet tonight, isn’t it,” was how he put it.

Al nodded shyly.

When they reached his room, Adric was sitting up in bed, wincing dramatically.

On seeing Timothy he paled slightly, then gave him the beginnings of a quavering smile. He raised an eyebrow at Al, who looked away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh fine,” he said robustly, “just a few stitches and a bit of blood loss.”

“Eight hundred and seventeen stitches,” said a passing nurse, sticking her head round the door to get a better look at Tim’s piercing optical equipment, “and about twelve pints of blood.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Adric whispered conspiratorially. “Nurses, eh.”

“She isn’t exaggerating,” Al corrected him, “there was a lot of glass.”

Tim sat down on the bed beside Adric. He didn’t seem to be listening.

“Were you… working?” Adric asked him, suddenly serious.

“Always,” Tim replied, smiling sadly. His eyes weren’t smiling though. And that made him look more sad than he would have done if he hadn’t smiled in the first place.

“I think I was onto a lead, but it’s only a hunch really.”

“Um, I guess I should be going now,” Al said, loath to intrude but concerned it would be rude of him not to say goodbye.

“No,” Tim said, “please stay. I don’t want to leave Adric alone.”

“Why,” Al said, puzzled, “are you going somewhere?”

Tim looked pained.

“He has to,” Adric said understandingly, “he’s been working on this quest for absolute ages.”

“Quest?” Al asked incredulously. “Like, quest in the sense of searching for holy grails and slaying dragons?”

“That’s the general idea,” Tim said, “although dragons are all but extinct now so the remaining ones have gone into hiding.”

“That’s lies,” Al said without thinking.

“Heh, you’ve gone native,” chuckled Adric, descending into a horrendous coughing fit that sounded as though he wouldn’t stop until he produced at least one lung.

“I can’t leave your side when you’re like this,” Tim said, “I’ll have to find the amulet another day.”

“But the trail will go cold,” Adric said, “What if you miss your chance? The prophecy said-”

“The prophecy can go hang,” Tim spat angrily, “I’m sick of all these damned prophets going on about how I’m the only one to do this that and the next thing. Twenty years this has been going on and what have I got to show for it?”

“You’ve got me,” Adric said bravely, taking Tim’s hand.

“Yes, but I met you at book group, not as part of some ridiculous jaunt halfway across the world in search of some ancient cursed object that some masked crazy person wants to use for evil.”

“I was at one of the climactic showdowns,” Adric said, wanting to be involved.

“Yes dear, you were,” Tim relented. “And you were only passed out for about two thirds of it.”

“I fought a centaur,” Adric told Aloysius proudly, “I hit him ever so hard with a baseball bat.” His face fell. “But then he shot me with a bow and arrow. How is it that I’m still alive, Tim?”

“The wiccan priestess brought you back using a spell,” Tim sighed as though he’d been through this several times. “But in return she took parts of your brain that are used to retain information, which is why you now forget things all the time and had to give up your job as an investigatory journalist. You always forgot what you’d learned before you could write any of it down.”

“Oh yes,” Adric lied, “I remember you telling me.”

“Anyway,” Tim said, “it’s probably a false lead anyway. The amulet thing.”

“What does this prophecy actually say?” Al enquired curiously. “Like the actual verbatim words.”

“Ice and wind and fire and rain… yadda yadda… man of average good looks and fair of hair… must destroy the amulet to defeat the maiden fair.”

The three of them ruminated.

“Average looks and fair of hair,” Al pondered.

Tim and Adric looked at Al, with his average to good looks and his fair hair.

They looked at one another.

They got sidetracked from the point at hand whilst gazing into one another’s eyes. The altercation in Ikea was long forgotten now.

They looked back at Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe, the secretly aristocratic library assistant.

“Hold on a second,” Adric said slowly, as though a thought was dawning on his brain, “that description isn’t necessarily just of you, Tim. If anything, you have amazing good looks.”

“You do have the most enchanting eyes,” Al agreed. “Although I prefer Bracken’s.”

“Oh well, each to their own,” Tim shrugged charmingly.

“What was I saying?” Adric asked. He had decided to milk this newly introduced ‘forgetful’ character trait for all it was worth whilst he was still in the scene.

“You were saying that I could probably be the guy in the prophecy,” Al said, “as could hundreds of other young men across the globe.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim agreed, “you totally could. I was never specifically named in this one. I guess I just assumed it would be me because usually they come to the door with my full name and address and everything.”

“So,” Al said patiently, “do you want me to find this amulet thing for you so that you can stay here and look after Adric?”

“I WOULD LIKE YOU TO STAY,” Adric whispered in caps lock, temporarily remembering he had another weird character defining thing that wasn’t really working out so well, namely the volume control issue mentioned in previous chapters.

“Tell me what I have to do,” Al said, “I’m not busy tonight anyway.” He looked out of the window, which he had just noticed. The moon was almost full and the sky was made of purple.

“It’s all in the scroll,” Tim said, “if you’re sure you’re up for it. I feel kind of bacd just letting you go off and do this… have you ever been on a quest before?”

Al thought back.

“Yeah,” he said, “I have. Once rode across Surrey on horseback to locate a special brand of plant food for our gardener, who I loved like he was my own father.”

“Were you successful?”

“I was.”

“Was there peril involved?”

“There was some mild peril. I wasn’t very good with horses, there was a chance that the shop on the other side of Surrey wouldn’t even have the stuff… there were risks, certainly. Maybe not the sort of thing you’re used to, but I can think on my feet at any rate.”

“Not all of my quests involve monsters and certain death,” Tim said comfortingly. “I’ve had a few mundane ones. Everybody has to start somewhere.”

“But this one will have danger?”

“Probably.”

Al steeled himself with a deep breath, and took the scroll from Tim. It was made from ancient yellow parchment and the remains of a heavy green wax seal still clung to it like little bits of green wax stuck on paper.

“Right then,” he said bravely, “I guess I’ll be off.”

“Thanks for doing this,” Tim said genuinely, “we really appreciate it.”

“Yes, thank you,” Adric added. “I’ll cover for you at work tomorrow.”

“You aren’t going back to work tomorrow?” Tim said, shocked.

“I’m the only one who has all the keys.”

“Well I’ll take them along and pass them to whoever is covering for you.”

“I dunno, with two people off it’ll just be the part timer and she might not even come in once the gossip about today has done the rounds. It will have escalated to the point where she probably thinks we’re both dead. Actually, where’s my mobile? You still got it Al?”

Al handed it over.

“There see, she’s texted her condolences about my death to whoever inherited my phone. She wants to know when the funeral is.”

Al rolled his eyes.

“Text her back and tell her,” Tim suggested with a conspiratorial wink. “Then tomorrow you can ring her up pretending to be your own ghost. It’ll be hilarious.”

“That’s a bit mean,” Adric said thoughtfully. “And she’s got a bad back.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything,” Tim replied.

“She doesn’t anyway,” Al interjected, “she’s faking it. Can’t you tell? When it’s quiet and people aren’t looking at her she stands up straight and even does a little bit of ballroom dancing.”

“No way!” Adric appeared to be genuinely shocked.

“His memory problem,” Tim surmised wisely, “it’s a blessing and a curse.”

“OK,” Al said, “well I guess I’d better get on with it. I’ll ring you in the morning to let you know how its all going.”

“That would be lovely. We are completely rooting for you,” Tim said enthusiastically, “and here’s a little leather pouch of magical fairy dust for luck.”

“Are you taking the mickey?”

“Are you the part timer?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

Al did not find this argument especially comforting, but by this point in time he was very tired and hungry and just wanted to get out of the hospital. He’d check out the contents of the pouch later on, in conjunction with the scroll and preferably after some chips.

For want of a better exit, he saluted them, and marched stiffly out of the room.

They didn’t say anything for a while.

“Why did you never question the prophecy before?” Adric asked. “Haven’t you been searching for that amulet for two years now?”

“Oh at least,” Tim admitted. “I don’t know, I just assumed it was me. It has been me, so many times. Although certainly none of the other signs of destiny have been in place for this one – I was starting to wonder. But if the prophecy is really talking about Al, he’ll have it sorted by the end of the night probably.”

“I’ll still let him have the day off work though.”

“Oh yeah, quite right.”

They smiled at each other and held hands and gazed out of the window into the moonlight. It looked like it was going to be a nice night.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapters 1 - 12 in order can be located by clicking here.


Back in the library, you might remember that Aloysius had finished a flashback detailing certain points of his history heretofore unknown to us, with no regard for continuity or tenses.

The teenage girl had removed herself and her Gucci knock off shoulder bag from the counter, but this was less on his say-so and more because of events outside his control. In point of fact, if we were to be brutally honest, it was pretty much down to the drive by shooting that was going down.

You might think that libraries are quiet places, populated mainly by the very young (whose mothers need to escape the house, just for a bit), the very old (who need to escape the house, just for a bit) and students (who have missed the essay deadline and now have to do some frenzied last minute reading – just for a bit).

It is possible, too, that you may have a vague childhood memory of being asked to keep the noise down in your local library as you coloured in your Asterix picture with a particularly squeaky crayon, or turned the pages of your Sweet Valley Twins book too loudly.

This is not that sort of library.

The library of which we speak is at the centre of a community the bulk of whom are quite close to the poverty line. It is well used, but largely as a meeting place almost exclusively by the children and young people who have got themselves banned from the nearby community centre. Except of course when they are at school, at which point the aforementioned mums with under fives and older people rush in with shining eyes to pick up the latest Lee Child bestseller.

Anyway, there are a lot of kids and young persons milling about the place, and most of them are in gangs. Although I hasten to add that this is not in the way that the Secret Seven were a gang - these kids don't set out to solve mysteries. Some might be the perpetrators of mysteries, but they aren't really too excited by the prospect of finding and solving hidden clues, or unmasking criminals. After all, who wants to shop their own dad?

What makes them gang material is something of a pack instinct. They're pretty into defining themselves against who they are not, within the context of loosely defined geographical boundaries. Gangs are generally named for the couple of streets their members live on, and Thor help you if you try to say that ‘Mayfield’ isn’t big enough to constitute an area on its own and that if anything its part of the larger constituency of Newington. That’s actually a made up example, the gang around that bit is known as the EH8 Crew. I’ve seen it written on lamp posts in permanent marker.

If you aren't interested in being in the gang you are a tramp, reviled by most and treated with suspicion. As such the library, standing as it does between the stomping grounds of several gangs (and one or two groups of mates who like each other but have no official gang affiliations) can be the scene of some pretty fraught meetings.

This was one of those occasions.

The rain had come back on, so the building was busy - full of hyperactive, damp young people aged 7-17. They were mostly engaged in various non-traditional library activities that are the norm in this modern technological age - checking their social networking sites, playing on games consoles, making figures out of paper mâché, and beating the crap out of each other when they thought nobody was looking.

Aloysius has recovered from that odd, stream of consciousness style flash back – the one he had in front of a bemused girl who wanted to borrow change for the vending machine, or vendor as it is known.

Outside, the street was deserted.

"You didn't actually give her your own money," Adric asked in dismay in a way that was more a statement than a question.

He didn't get any further, because the glass in the front door made a cracking sound and the place erupted with the overexcited, e-numbered shrieks of a metric gaggle and a half of young persons.

Everyone in the building gathered round, in spite of Adric's protestations that there might be broken glass and danger underfoot. There was a small, round hole in the glass window of the door, and cracks spread out from its centre, like a beautiful spider web. Had it been frost, Adric would have taken a photograph on his phone to use as the library Christmas card.

"As soon as someone touches that, it's going tae go," the teenager who had borrowed money from Al proclaimed, tempting fate to some extent.

Al shook his head at her, wondering if she had done it on purpose or was yet to understand the contrary nature of younglings.

"Everyone away from the door NOW," Adric boomed, choosing the correct vocal volume for the occasion for a change.

Slightly cowed, the metric gaggle and a half of kids did as they were told. Adric knew he had only seconds to act before they were all back though, pressing their fingers against the fissures in the glass like they were the cast of Jackass.

"Al," he said, "call the window fixer guy. The number's in the diary.”

He cleared his throat, in a taking charge of the situation sort of a way. “Small child," he continued, directing his attention towards a small child with a gleam on his cufflinks, "pass me that cardboard box and some sellotape."

The child did, and Adric set about flattening the box so he could cover the damage with it until such time as the window fixer – or glazier – came to sort it out properly.

This was the point at which a small purple nova drove past, and someone in the passenger side wound down the window and produced a gun.

Almost in slow motion – which would be quite helpful if this was a film that needed to be fifty thousand seconds long, but unfortunately slowing things down doesn’t pad out one’s word count in the same way – Adric threw himself to the floor, pushing the small child out of the way as he went.

The pane of glass exploded behind him as the drive by took a turn for the more. Sparkling shards flew everywhere, cutting Adric’s favourite bow tie to shrebbons and lodging painfully in various parts of his arms, legs, torso and so on.

Blood happened.

“Ow,” he said, decisively.

“You touched that wee laddie,” said one of the teenagers, presumably referring to Adric’s daring rescue of the small child from being the one to get covered in broken glass. “That means you’re gay and a paedo. GAYDO. He should sue you. Hear that wee man? You should sue.”

The small child smiled obligingly, and stuffed an entire mars bar in his mouth sideways.

Adric took that as a sign he was undecided.

With a groan, he got to his feet. There was glass in his shoes.

“Right,” he said, “I think we’re going to need to close early today.”

“What do you mean,” Smokey Jones said smugly, “it’s already quarter past five!”

Adric groaned again, in frustration and pain and vowels.

“That means I’ve missed my bus. And it’s poker night tonight! Rubbish. They won’t let me play if I’m late.”

Al raised an eyebrow.

“I play with accountants, what can I say,” he shrugged apologetically.

“OK, everyone out the fire exit way,” he announced to the room, switching the lights off to emphasise his point. “Anyone who does the ‘we’re no leaving, hide and seek’ crap tonight will be locked in until we open up tomorrow. I will not be returning from my flat at the other end of town to let you out, and my telephone will be switched off specifically so my boss can’t make me.”

It was unnecessary to go into this detail, however, as most of the kids were itching to get out and see if the drive by guys were still around.

Unconfirmed rumours circulating amongst the young people implied that it was Jimmy Bob’s youngest brother, Bobby Jim, who had been driving the purple nova, and one of his mates from The Gang Who Must Not Be Named that had done the shooting.

The Gang Who Must Not Be Named were the arch nemesis gang of Smokey Jones’s gang, who were called the Snider Boys. The reason these two were nemeses was because they were the only gangs in the whole of Edinburgh not named according to the geographical criteria laid out by the author previously. They were vying for the headlines in the Evening News, but as yet had been pipped to the post on several occasions by other, worst gangs from other parts of the city. If only they tried to work together to out-gang all those other gangs, imagine what they could achieve.

But instead they fought with one another, and whenever The Gang Who Must Not Be Named heard that any of the Snider Boys was at the library, they headed down to enact some form of justice. Often there were fisticuffs in the car park, and wars of words happened almost daily, but it was comparatively rare that the building or its inhabitants were brought into the furore.

Adric speculated that the kid with the gun was probably new to The Gang Who Must Not Be Named, and that once the full effect of his initial militant stance had been smacked out of him by an indignant parent, things would go back to normal. The teenage girl with the knock off bag, meanwhile, proclaimed the mysterious gunman totally mint by the way, even though she hadn’t seen his actual face, which might be covered in pustules or anything like that. Love takes people in that way, sometimes.

Al swept up the broken glass as if in a dream, and taped the cardboard onto the door frame without saying a word. He was looking broody, Adric felt, and not in the way that meant he wanted to have a baby.

Ironically enough, one of the things Al had been brooding about was the possibility of finding and helping with the looking after someone else’s lost baby.

IT WAS BRACKEN.

It’s OK, Reader, I don’t expect you to follow the complexity of this plot all by your onesie.

“Shall we go for a pint?” He asked Adric, suddenly and uncharacteristically.

“I’d love to,” Adric replied, “but I think I had better go to the hospital first. I seem to have lost quite a lot of blood.”

And then he fainted.

Chapter Six

Bracken sat in the hospital waiting room with Nigella propped up against her shoulder. A cursory glance by an attending paramedic had determined that the injury looked worse than it actually was, and so they had been told to sit and wait their turn. The police hadn’t been very interested in bringing charges, so had given them all a warning not to be so bloody stupid and then gone off to attend a stand off with a lone gunman in Dalry.

Nige had a damp bar towel pressed against the welt in her side, and was mainly conscious, but she wasn’t giving much good chat. It felt to Bracken as though they had been sitting there for an eternity before eventually they were summoned through to see a doctor.

“Needs stitches,” the aforementioned doctor said, “about five of ‘em.”

He was a big burly ex-colonel of a man, with twinkling blue eyes and an enormous auburn moustache that curled out at the ends. His doctor coat was made of tweed, which Bracken was fairly sure was not the norm, and he wore a deerstalker hat, which she felt could not have been regulation doctor-wear. He looked at her, suddenly serious.

“Will it take long,” she asked, disconcerted. “The stitching?”

“Well that depends,” he replied, “how good’s your sewing?”

“My – aren’t you going to do it?” she queried, as he burst into peals of raucous belly laughter. The tweed trembled like an ocean in the breeze.

“Of course I’m not old gel,” he said, “the nurse will manage. Honestly, the look on your face. That joke always works on children but it’s much better when I get an adult with it. How’s your sewing, heh heh. Funny every time.”

The nurse who was silently cleaning Nigella’s wound with alcoholic swabs grimaced and shook her head.

“Geeta always finds it funny, don’t you Geeta,” he continued, apparently having not seen the face.

“Every time, Doctor Maxwell,” she said pleasantly. “It’s the-“

“-Looks on their faces that does it, eh?”

Bracken got the impression that Geeta was rather accustomed to being interrupted by the tweedy behemoth. He looked about six foot five, and that was in his stockinged feet. Again, Bracken was compelled to fight what she assumed must be her ignorant, stereotypical view of how doctors dressed.

“Righty ho,” he said, “terribly nice to meet you but I must trot on. There’s a rather ill lady I must go and visit over on one of the wards. I used to know her husband back in the day so I wish to ensure she is being well looked after. No ruddy hospital food, for a start.”

Geeta looked at him strangely, but did not voice whatever she was thinking, presumably in the interests of patient confidentiality.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Geeta told Bracken, after he was gone, “he literally does that to everyone. Some of us were thinking about buying him a joke book for secret Santa last Christmas but somehow his wife got wind of it and banned us. Apparently he’d had one before and it was nearly the end of their marriage. He kept mixing up the punch lines and offending their posh friends.”

“How the other half live,” groaned Nigella from the trolley she had been bleeding on till Geeta sorted her out.

“You need to be quiet and have lots of rest,” Geeta informed her, slipping out of gossip mode and into calm professionalism without a fuss.

“I feel sick,” Nigella mumbled in response.

“That’s probably the pain killers. Here,” she said, producing a cardboard tray, “you can do it in this. And you can lie down here for a while but we don’t have any beds so I think your pal is going to have to try and organize you a lift somehow.”

“Thanks,” she said, vomiting politely.

“No problem,” Geeta said, removing herself to go and rescue other patients from the unwanted humour of Doctor Maxwell.

“Right well I’ll go and see about getting us hame, will I,” Bracken said brightly.

“Nah, stay with me a bit.”

Bracken perched awkwardly on the trolley, holding her cousin’s hand.

“Wasn’t quite the night you had in mind eh Nige,” she said softly.

“Not quite,” she agreed, “but at least I never went hame wi Jimmy Bob.”

“I so knew you were going to do that! That’s pure shan by the way Nige, he’s no worth it.”

“Aye ah ken,” she said sleepily. “Just sometimes ah get lonely, but.”

Her dark eyes closed.

“Aye,” Bracken said wistfully, “ken wit ye mean.”

Nigella gave a long, throaty snore.

“Right,” Bracken whispered, creeping slowly out of the room, “lets see about getting a lift.”

There didn’t seem to be any pay phones about, so she went outside and switched on her mobile. There was no reception.

“Sake,” she cursed, her mind racing to think of a back up plan.

“No reception?” Asked a voice from the shadows.

Bracken turned to see that it belonged to a woman, with long wavy hair and intelligent eyes.

“Nut,” she replied, “have you noticed whether there’s any payphones in there?”

“They’re out of order,” the woman said, “but here, you can use mine. I get free minutes anyway.”

“Oh, I couldn’t use up your minutes,” Bracken said, coming over all Miss Jean Brodie in the presence of such a classy bird.

“Not at all,” the benevolent stranger replied, “I insist.”

“Thanks,” Bracken said gratefully, punching in her aunt’s mobile number.

The aunt was asleep in front of late night poker, having had a bottle and a half of wine to herself, and failed to hear her phone singing Justin Bieber’s modern classic, the one that goes ‘Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh!’

“Nae answer,” she said, as her aunt dreamed she was on a date with Bieber’s older, talented brother, “I’ll have tae try a cab.”

“Go ahead,” the Samaritan replied.

Bracken duly used the woman’s free minutes to book a taxi, then handed her phone back awkwardly.

“Thank you so much,” she said, “I dunno what I would have done.”

“No problem,” the woman said.

“So, what are you in for?” Bracken asked. “Are you visiting someone?”

“Yeah,” the woman said after a pause that was just slightly too long. “My… boyfriend’s mother just took ill suddenly so I brought them to the hospital. He can’t drive, and I can, so it made sense. She’s just with the doctor now but I didn’t want to crowd them.”

“That’s awful,” Bracken said, “do you think she’ll be alright?”

“Hard to say, really,” the stranger said, somewhat strangely. There was a lump in her voice, Bracken assumed because she was upset, and yet… there was a metallic tang to it, as though the emotion was a little less visceral than it was calculated.

“I should go and find them really. Hope your cousin is OK.”

“Thanks,” Bracken said, “and thanks again for letting me use your phone. Life saver!”

The Samaritan smiled thinly, and shimmied back into the hospital.

Bracken crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders, which had gone goosepimply in the November air. She looked up, and was pleased to be able to see stars from this part of the city. Usually clouds, or reflections from street lamps blocked them from view around where Bracken lived. Or other times, the ceiling got in the way.

‘Better go and get Nige,’ she thought to herself with a sigh. Then, ‘how did that lassie ken I was here wi ma cousin?’

She shivered. There was something not quite right about that beautiful stranger. She said the right things but it was as though her heart was separate from the process. Bracken, an altogether more emotional being, found this hard to relate to.

But it hardly mattered, she thought. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to see the girl again. Although, she had seemed sort of familiar, now she came to think of it. She thought that she recognized the eyes in particular, hard and cold, observing her strangely. Maybe she was on telly or something.

Bracken walked back through the automatic doors, and was blinded momentarily by the lights.

“You alright love,” a passing man in a nurse’s uniform enquired.

“Yeah thanks,” Bracken replied. “Just going to pick up my friend.”

“Mr Nightingale,” Geeta squeaked, appearing at his shoulder, “just why are you wearing one of our uniforms? You’re supposed to be visiting your wife, not stealing hospital supplies.”

“She was asleep,” he said, “all that labour stuff tired her out, and someone took the baby off me and put it elsewhere. I got bored waiting for her to wake up, and when I went to look for the baby I got told to go back and sit with her. So I thought I’d do some investigating, but first I had to find a cunning disguise.”

“Someone’s been watching too much Diagnosis Murder,” Geeta said, meaning Mr Nightingale. “I’m going to write a strongly worded email to Dick Van Dyke about encouraging farcical detective shenanigans in a medical environment. It’s deeply annoying and very unprofessional.”

“I’m going to get Nige now,” Bracken excused herself. “Thanks for all your help, Geeta. Good luck with your shenanigans, Mr Nightingale.”

“What a nice girl,” Mr Nightingale observed as she clopped off down the corridor, dressed as she still was in her tallest clubbing heels.

“Yes,” said Geeta, “although something of a tragic figure I feel. Hope things turn out alright for her in the end.”

“Well, there’s just under forty thousand words to go before we find that out,” he replied. “So I’d better carry on my investigations, just in case she needs me for a subplot?”

Geeta shook her head.

“This is high romance, not Scooby Doo. Go back to your wife, she’ll be livid if she wakes up and you’re not there.”

“Fair point.”

“And take off that uniform,” she added, “I don’t want you getting yourself into a comedy situation where you have to treat someone. This is an NHS hospital, not Carry On Doctor.”

Meanwhile, Bracken was trying to wake Nigella, who was out cold.

“I can’t believe they went ahead and gave you painkillers knowing you’d been drinking,” Bracken said.

“Urg,” went Nigella, incoherently.

Bracken looked about her, hands on hips, thinking.

In the corner of the room, there was a fold up wheelchair with no seat and a yellow post-it note inscribed ‘goosed – do not use’.

She considered for a moment.

“Sod it,” she decided, “we’re only going to the door.”

She unfolded the chair, and laid the bloody bar towel across where the seat should be, knotting it around the frame. She then put it as close to the trolley as possible and tried to maneuver her cousin on to it. Nigella unhelpfully flopped about like an enormous rag doll the whole time, which made the operation a lot more difficult.

“Wish I had someone here to help,” Bracken wished out loud, impotently. Nobody came.

Eventually she managed to get Nigella into a sitting position, and with one arm under her legs and another around her back, she lifted from the knees and finally got her cousin into the chair. Nige’s head lolled dangerously.

‘Hope her neck’s alright,’ Bracken thought. She had seen medical dramas, and was vaguely aware that you had to be careful of people’s necks.

Then she carefully took the brake off, and wheeled her sleeping cousin towards the door.

Up ahead in the waiting area she could see the voluptuous hair of the phone Samaritan, who was trying to console a companion whose face Bracken could not make out. It tumbled down her slim line back like a shiny waterfall, just as if she was in a herbal essences advert.

As they got closer, Bracken was about to say hello, when two things happened.

First, Nigella woke up for just long enough to be sick all down herself, which meant that the taxi driver was not going to allow them into his cab.

Second, Bracken managed to identify the beautiful stranger’s companion – presumably the boyfriend whose mother was ill.

It was Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe.