Death of a Bovver Boy Read Free Page B

us all, I am forced to seek some form of additional remuneration.’
    â€˜Coaching?’ suggested Carolus.
    â€˜Not necessarily coaching, but adding to our numbers one or two young paying guests whose parents want to give them a healthy seaside holiday.’
    â€˜Good heavens!’ Carolus could not repress the exclamation.
    â€˜We have discovered that catering for increased numbers is comparatively economical. In a word, it pays.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜At first we agreed to limit the scheme to boys at the school whose parents found it inconvenient to keep them during the summer holidays. But lately we have found that parents from what the Head calls more plebeian backgrounds are those most able to afford to take advantage of the scheme. In the year we went to Kingsgate we had as a paying guest the son of a foreman in the All-Purpose Plastics Works at Hartington. His name was Carver.’
    â€˜You’re not going to tell me that it was the boy whom Stick found dead on the Boxley Road?’
    â€˜Unless I am very much mistaken…’ Hollingbourne’s tone made clear the near impossibility of this. ‘It wasthe same youth. In that case I advise you to have nothing to do with his death.’
    â€˜But why not? It seems quite an interesting case.’
    â€˜Interesting? Interesting? The boy was a dangerous schizophrenic. He induced my children to enter a cave in the cliffside and lit a fire in the entrance to imprison them there.’
    â€˜All of them?’ Carolus asked.
    â€˜Except the two smallest mites. They were fortunately with their mother. Had it not been for another family who heard my children screaming I shudder to think what might have happened. But that’s not all. He discovered a wardrobe dealer’s shop in Kingsgate and having pilfered the best part of the family wardrobe he sold it and spent the proceeds on going to the cinema at times when I usually organized games on the beach for us all.’
    â€˜I used to do that,’ commented Carolus.
    â€˜He was rebellious and rude to my wife and even took advantage of my own holiday spirit to steal the light cigars I sometimes allow myself.’
    â€˜Whiffs?’
    â€˜That is their trade name. He was, in fact, a thoroughly unsatisfactory boy from start to finish of the holidays.’
    â€˜Oh. He stayed with you to the finish?’
    â€˜No,’ said Hollingbourne gravely. ‘He ran away. That is partly why I thought you should know something of the young wretch. He ran away during the night, or rather in the very early morning, and I had to report it to the police. Most disagreeable. We had never had any trouble of this kind before. They found him…’ Hollingbourne paused before bringing out his punch line … ‘They found him in London. In the West End. He was living on his…’ another pausewhich Carolus would like to have filled, then a concluding ‘wits’, from Hollingbourne.
    â€˜How old was he then?’
    â€˜Under fourteen years. A born delinquent. It horrifies me to think that he associated with my children. I feared for a long time that his influence might have proved corrupting. One of the girls, the wife told me at the time, used language that she can only have learned from him.’
    â€˜What did she say?’
    â€˜It wasn’t so much the words she used. Children often use unpleasant words without understanding them. It was her whole manner towards her mother and me. Fortunately shortly afterwards she became a tennis enthusiast, playing in several competitions, and this seems to have given her a healthier interest. But you see the dangers when a young scoundrel of that sort enters a decent household?’
    â€˜You haven’t seen him since, of course?’
    â€˜Certainly not. I told his father to keep him away, explaining the anxiety he had caused us.’
    â€˜What did his father say?’ asked Carolus