Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

I have, writing now from the Old Curiosity Shop and awaiting another visit from dear, excitable Mr Quilp, who is finding me a bit of a handful, only one or two details to add. The next day, the funeral, was a big laugh. It was the last day of Little Nell, that brilliant creation the world had come to love. The vicar was in church, and the schoolmaster, the Old Bachelor, the gravedigger and Grandad assembled in our cottage to carry the coffin to the churchyard. As they were heaving it up on to their shoulders the schoolmaster said, in his typically spiritless tone of voice:

“I’m sure Little Nell is already there, at home in Paradise, chanting with the heavenly choir.”

“I’d lay you ten pounds at whatever odds you choose to name that she’s up there now, singing along with them other angels, lungs fit to bust,” said Grandad, winking towards the bedroom door, where I was surveying the delicious scene through the keyhole and barely suppressing my roars of laughter.

I laugh when I think of that now. We made such fools of them all, Grandad and I. Putty in our hands, that’s what they were. I long to have Mr Quilp helpless like the yokels, also putty in my hands. Already he is mad with jealousy every time I look at a London swell, which is fairly often, because they’re on every street corner. But I must go very slowly. I have so much to learn from Mr Quilp about crime, about gaining the upper hand over the fools around me. I learned a lot from Fagin, but I could not use my sex with him, for obvious reasons. With Quilp I can use my sex to get from him every jot and tittle he knows. I said to him two evenings ago I needed above all to learn, and he was my chosen master, the one who would lead me up the path to my being Europe’s Queen of Crime. “Wait till I see you next time,” said my dear Quilp. “I’ll give you a lesson as’ll last you a lifetime.”

I think that’s him. Those are his uneven steps on the stairs. I can’t wait to see his delicious deformed body. His hands are on the doorkn-

Here the creator of Little Nell fell silent for ever.

His name was Johnny Seven.

You think the name is weird, you should have seen his eyes. They were real blue and bright, like the eyes on some kind of light-up action figure. First time I saw him, there was this silence, like that part in a western when the stranger walks into the saloon. The new kid was thin and not very tall, with longish fair hair. He had a tiny rip in the left elbow of his jacket, like his folks were on welfare or something. Pretty neat jacket, all the same. He sure didn’t carry himself like he was on welfare.

We were all sitting down, waiting for the teacher to show. For a few moments, Johnny boy hung around in the doorway of the classroom like he’d rather be somewhere else. But then Griff came up behind him, put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder and steered him right in. “This is Jonathan Severn and I’m sure you’d all like to welcome him.”

Griff wasn’t even our real teacher. He was some fucked up old man who they brought in when the real teachers were sick. He probably should have been in an old people’s home. He was always telling us things that weren’t suitable for middle school kids to know, like what the Germans did to the Jews in the war. Once he gave us all paper and crayons and asked us to draw a Martian pancake. The point was that no one knew what a Martian pancake looked like, so everybody had to use their imaginations. I drew a car crash with bodies on the road and blood everywhere. Griff said to me: “That isn’t a Martian pancake.” I said: “How the fuck do you know?” so he sent me to the Vice Principal.

It was unlucky for Johnny Seven that the first teacher he met was this senile old guy who wasn’t even his real teacher. When Griff asked us all to welcome Johnny, no one did. So Johnny just stood there, hanging his head like he found the whole situation humiliating. He walked over to the only free desk, some of the girls smiling at him, then he sat down, not really looking at anyone, eyes straight ahead. Griff launched straight into his dull old routine. “Johnny, maybe you have an opinion about what took place today?”

“Took place where?” said Johnny. No sir, no nothing.

I laughed. Griff shot me a look that said shut the fuck up.

“You’re from New Jersey and you really don’t know what happened?” Griff just wasn’t buying this.

Johnny shook his head, real steady and slow. The way he did it, you could tell he knew exactly what had happened that day. Griff knew it too. Suddenly there was this electric feeling in the air. Something different was happening. Everyone could feel it. Griff was doing what teachers always do. He was holding up a hoop for good little boys and girls to jump through. But the new kid just wasn’t playing.

Griff looked around the class. “Anyone?”

Bugaski put up his hand. Bugaski always put up his hand whether he knew the answer or not, just so it looked like he was making an effort. Bugaski’s report card probably says “This kid has got a name like one guy sticking it to another guy, he’s practically a vegetable, but he sure as hell can wave his arm in the air.”

“Sir!” said Bugaski.

At first, Griffiths ignored him.

“Sir, sir!” said Bugaski, wriggling and pleading like he was about to hatch a monster turd. “Sir, was it Bob Hope?”

“No,” said Griff. “Come on. The news today. Someone must know. Anyone?”

Blank fuckin’ faces.

“Come on. Something happened to someone associated with this state.”

Anne Marie held her hand in the air. I like her, she’s so nice you hardly even notice she’s a whale. “Somebody Davies,” she said.

“Hallelujah,” said Griff. Real sarcastic. “That’s close enough. Jack David. He was executed this morning. Anyone know why?”

“Was he a poor black guy that never did anyone any harm?” I said.

“Be quiet, Newton,” said Griff. He turned back to Anne Marie. “Maybe you could tell us?”

“He blew up a library.”

“Blew up a library?” said Warren Sherman, real shocked. “Really? They executed a guy just for blowing up a library?”

Griff sneered. “It had people in it, Sherman.”

Even so…

This is how fucked up Griff was. I complained to the Vice Principal about him but she never listened. He should have been teaching us about algebra or some shit. Instead, he asked us whether we thought the US government having the power to kill one of its own citizens was good or bad. Bugaski put up his hand as usual and said, “Sir, sir, is it a good thing, sir?”

Griffiths kind of sighed. “Bugaski, this is not a quiz.”

I said: “If you ask me, it’s a terrible example to set to children.”

“But no one’s asking you, Newton,” said Griffiths.

As well as being senile, Griff was a Christian. He was one of those weird Christians who hates the whole human race. He once told us wars were terrible things, but they were useful for keeping down the excess population. Guy like that, would he count murderers as excess population? I guess he would.

Kirsten Wells, dumb but gorgeous, held up her hand. “If Jack David didn’t want to die for his crime, he shouldn’t have planted the bomb in the first place.”

Wow. Great fuckin point, Kirsten. A real sizzler.

Griff gave a nod, just to humour her. He was probably thinking he had to stay on the right side of her, in case the bomb went off and him and Kirsten were the last two people left alive. Dumb or not, a girl who looked like Kirsten could be pretty useful in a post-nuclear situation.

My dad already explained why Jack David did it but I wasn’t really listening. It was something to do with protesting about the government. All I know is the whole senate ganged up on this guy. It wasn’t just a state crime, it was something called a federal crime, which means you’ve insulted the whole of America. Like saying, “Fuck off America.”