‘No need to lose your temper, sir.’
The ‘sir’ was slurred: a parody of respect. Redman found his hand itching to hit this pus-filled adolescent. He was within a couple of feet of the door. Slape didn’t move aside.
‘Out of my way, Slape.’
‘Really, sir, there’s no way you can help him now. He’s gone.’
‘I said, out of my way.’
As he stepped forward to push Slape aside there was a click at navel-level and the bastard had a flick-knife pressed to Redman’s belly. The point bit the fat of his stomach.
‘There’s really no need to go after him, sir.’
‘What in God’s name are you doing, Slape?’
‘We’re just playing a game,’ he said through teeth gone grey.
‘There’s no real harm in it. Best leave well alone.’
The point of the knife had drawn blood. Warmly, it wended its way down into Redman’s groin. Slape was prepared to kill him; no doubt of that. Whatever this game was, Slape was having a little fun all of his own. Killing teacher, it was called. The knife was still being pressed, infinitesimally slowly, through the wall of Redman’s flesh. The little rivulet of blood had thickened into a stream.
‘Kevin likes to come out and play once in a while,’ said Slape.
‘Henessey?’
‘Yes, you like to call us by our second names, don’t you? That’s more manly isn’t it? That means we’re not children,
that means we’re men. Kevin isn’t quite a man though, you see sir. He’s never wanted to be a man. In fact, I think he hated the idea. You know why? (The knife divided muscle now, just gently). He thought once you were a man, you started to die: and Kevin used to say he’d never die.’
‘Never die.’ ‘Never.’
‘I want to meet him.’
‘Everybody does, sir. He’s charismatic. That’s the Doctor’s word for him: Charismatic.’
‘I want to meet this charismatic fellow.’
‘Soon.’
‘Now.’
‘I said soon.’
Redman took the knife-hand at the wrist so quickly Slape had no chance to press the weapon home. The adolescent’s response was slow, doped perhaps, and Redman had the better of him. The knife dropped from his hand as Redman’s grip tightened, the other hand took Slape in a strangle-hold, easily rounding his emaciated neck. Redman’s palm pressed on his assailant’s Adam’s apple, making him gargle.
‘Where’s Henessey? You take me to him.’
The eyes that looked down at Redman were slurred as his words, the irises pin-pricks.
‘Take me to him!’ Redman demanded.
Slape’s hand found Redman’s cut belly, and his fist jabbed the wound. Redman cursed, letting his hold slip, and Slape almost slid out of his grasp, but Redman drove his knee into the other’s groin, fast and sharp. Slape wanted to double up in agony, but the neck-hold prevented him. The knee rose again, harder. And again. Again.
Spontaneous tears ran down Slape’s face, coursing through the minefield of his boils.
‘I can hurt you twice as badly as you can hurt me,’ Redman said, ‘so if you want to go on doing this all night I’m happy as a sand-boy.’
Slape shook his head, grabbing his breath through his constricted windpipe in short, painful gasps.
‘You don’t want any more?’
Slape shook his head again. Redman let go of him, and flung him across the corridor against the wall. Whimpering with pain, his face crimped, he slid down the wall into a foetal position, hands between his legs.
‘Where’s Lacey?’
Slape had begun to shake; the words tumbled out. ‘Where d’you think? Kevin’s got him.’
‘Where’s Kevin?’
Slape looked up at Redman, puzzled.
‘Don’t you know?’
‘I wouldn’t ask if I did, would I?’
Slape seemed to pitch forward as he spoke, letting out a sigh of pain. Redman’s first thought was that the youth was collapsing, but Slape had other ideas. The knife was suddenly in his hand again, snatched from the floor, and Slape was driving it up towards Redman’s groin. He sidestepped the cut with a hair’s breadth to spare, and Slape was on his feet again, the pain forgotten. The knife slit the air back and forth, Slape hissing his intention through his teeth.
‘Kill you, pig. Kill you, pig.’