Screen Savers

Chapter 28

I hate seeing children in hospital; I hated the experience as a child too. It only happened once, after I fell out of a tree and broke my arm, but I still remember how lonely I felt, lying there sleepless in the half-light of that crowded old ward, listening to other kids crying.

For my nephew Colin, though, everything in life is an adventure. When we went in to visit him next morning, there he was, sitting on his bed with his back to a mound of pillows, wearing the Winnie the Pooh pyjamas which we had bought him the day before, happy as a Piglet in excrement, and eyeing up everything that was going on around him in the small ward.

His left arm was bound securely to his chest, and the graze on his temple looked less vivid, although it was surrounded by a big dark bruise.

‘Hello, Mum,’ he said as we approached the bed. ‘Hello Uncle Oz. Hello Auntie Prim.’ He gave the three of us a superior look, as if he was enjoying his wounded soldier status, and was determined to make the most of it. Yet, to my surprise he ignored his brother.

Ellen leaned down and kissed him, taking care not to touch his broken shoulder. ‘How are you, my wee man?’ she asked, laying a bag of assorted chocolate miniatures in his lap. Prim put a bag of apples beside it, and I gave him a new Game Boy, winning Most Favoured status in that instant.

‘I’m all right, Mum,’ he answered, proud and brave. ‘My shoulder doesn’t hurt. They give me pills for it, and last night they gave me something to make me sleep.’

‘The nurses look nice,’ Jonathan ventured. Colin shot him a look of pure disdain. There was to be only one centre of attraction, I guessed.

I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘About yesterday, son,’ I began. ‘Tell me, how did you manage to get the cover off the Dungeon?’

He looked at me as if I was daft. ‘The cover was off, Uncle Oz. I never touched it.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ I asked gently.

‘Yes,’ he protested. ‘It was there beside it.’

‘Did you see anyone take it off?’

He shook his head, then winced, from a flash of pain in his shoulder. ‘Leave it for now, Oz,’ said Prim.

‘No, I can’t,’ I told her. ‘This wee rogue was in my care yesterday. I need to know everything that happened. And I’ll tell you this: if that sergeant’s been covering up for his pal the janitor, I’m going to have him.’

I turned back to my nephew. ‘Come on, Colin. Tell me how you got down there. Did you try to drop in the way I did? Was the Dungeon deeper than you thought? Look, it’s okay; I’m not going to be angry with you. I brought you a Game Boy, didn’t I?’

He smiled at me, but it was fleeting and uncertain. ‘I tripped up,’ he whispered.

Something was wrong with that picture. I couldn’t help it; I frowned at him. ‘What did you trip over, Collie? It’s all smooth around the Dungeon. I looked around the edge, there was no ground scuffed up or anything.’

‘My lace was undone. I tripped on that.’

‘That sounds likely enough, Oz,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m always chasing after him to do his laces.’

I ignored her. ‘No you didn’t, son. Your laces were tied tight. I did them myself, remember, and when I found you I checked to make sure they were still secure. Then later, in the ambulance, I undid them and took your trainers off. There’s something you’re not telling me. Isn’t there?’

He looked at his lap, and picked up the Game Boy. I took it from him. ‘Not until you tell me, Colin.’

His face had gone white, making the bruise on his temple seem even more vivid. As I stared down at him he glanced at his brother. ‘Jonny shoved me,’ he mumbled.

‘What?’ Ellen and I spoke together.

‘It was Jonathan. He pushed me in.’

‘No!’ my older nephew protested, his knowing eyes suddenly frightened. ‘Uncle Oz. .’

I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay, son, it’s okay.’ I looked back at his brother. ‘Colin, Jonathan was with me all the time. He didn’t push you. What on earth made you think it was him?’

‘He’s mad at me.’

‘Why’s he mad at you?’

‘Because I started a fight at the school wi’ a bigger boy. He was bashing me and Jonny saw him and bashed him up, and a teacher saw him and he got lines to do, and he was mad at me. .’ The wee chap’s voice tailed off, and a big tear ran from his right eye down his cheek. I looked at my sister, and she at me; Colin had described an identical incident from our own primary schooldays. Ellie was the best fighter in the school.

‘I can well understand him being mad at you,’ she told her son, ‘but he didn’t push you into that Dungeon.’

‘But somebody did, Colin?’ I asked. ‘Is that what happened? ’

He nodded, then winced again. ‘Yes, I was standing on the edge of the Dungeon, trying to see in, and I felt a hand in the middle of my back, and then someone shoved me. I remember falling, but I don’t remember anything after that, till you and Jonathan and the ambulance man.’

‘Before then,’ I asked him. ‘Did you see anyone?’

‘Just an old man and an old woman, but they were on the other side of that green bit. I didn’t see anybody else.’

‘But you’re sure someone pushed you?’

‘Yes,’ he said, firmly. I gave him back the Game Boy.

‘You might have to tell this to the police, wee man. I’m going to see them as soon as we get back to St Andrews. I promise you, when we catch this character, he’ll be for a dungeon himself — for a lot longer than you.’