Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

The 'football cure' was Fanthorpe's pet project. Bill Fanthorpe's idea was that it helped to socialize seriously detached psychotics — to play as a team — and it gave them a reward when they scored a goal, helping with low self-esteem. Moreover, the exercise kept down the weight of the patients: so many of the mentally ill were fat.

'Hi, Bill.'

The doctor smiled; he was wearing shorts maybe three sizes too large.

'I saw your articles in the Telegraph. Extraordinary story. The Basque murders!'

'Yes…It is rather odd. Anyway, ah, how's Tim, is he…?'

Bill was still panting from the football.

'He's…OK. We had some fitting last week but this week it's not been so bad. Not so bad at all. Tackle that man!'

The psychiatrist tutted as the opposing forward slipped a ridiculously poor tackle, and slotted an easy goal. The goal was an easy score because the goalkeeper was sitting on the ground with his eyes shut.

Simon repressed the desire to laugh. But if he didn't laugh he might cry. That was his brother out there: the plump schizophrenic in his early forties mumbling in the corner, by the flag. The knife-attacker. There was a security guard loitering at the far end of the pitch. Simon guessed he was probably armed — this was a secure asylum.

The referee blew his whistle.

'Three-two!' said Bill, excitedly. 'That's great, good good. Let me go and get Tim.'

Half of Simon wanted to slip away right now. He'd done his duty and seen Tim — if only from a distance — and he could say his brother was alive and now he could quit, and go back to his son and the au pair and his wife and pretend that Tim didn't exist, pretend that Simon's whole family didn't have this same mad blood in their genes, pretend that the father didn't look briefly at the son at least once a day and think…Do you? Will you? What have you inherited?

'Simon?'

Tim looked very pleased to see his sibling; Simon hugged his brother. Tim's heavy white thighs looked oddly vulnerable in his blue nylon soccer shorts.

'You look good, Timothy. How are you?'

'Oh, good, good good, excellent game, isn't it!' Tim was grinning impetuously.

Simon checked his brother's face; the hair was greyer, the cheeks were even fatter and yet Tim never seemed to really age. Did madness keep you young? Or maybe it was his image of Tim that was frozen in his own mind: the image of Tim with a knife in his hand, hacking at Mum, in the bedroom. All the blood. Pints of blood.

'You played very well,' said the journalist again, trying not to hate his older brother. It's not his fault.

'Oh yes. Very good sporting chances. Are you here long there is a…yes. Ah yes doubtless. Yes.'

They both made a proper effort to chat, but sentences defeated Tim at every turn, and within a few minutes the dialogue had dwindled. Tim's attention had wandered elsewhere: gone a-blackberrying. Simon knew the distracted and pained expression all too well: his brother was hearing his voices. There were little roils of anxiety about his features, tics and blinks. Tim was trying to keep smiling but he was hearing things, all those confusing orders.

The pity welled in his brotherly heart, pity and hatred and love all at once. The sadness was drenching. He wanted to go; Tim would be here the rest of his life.

'OK, Tim, I have to go now.'

Tim offered a reproachful stare.

'Not long then? Didn't stay too long we must be busy. Busy as ever. Yes busy until…'

'Tim?'

'I'm busy too working of course. Excellent…inside the system.'

'Tim, listen. Dad sends his love.'

Tim's eyes seemed to mist with grief, standing here in the mild autumn sun by the lunatic asylum. Was his brother, appallingly, going to cry?

'Simon…?'

'Tim.'

'Rather, you know, doubtless, Mother and Father in South Africa. Simon. I…I…I made something. For you.'

'Sorry?'

Bill Fanthorpe had wandered over and was observing them from a couple of yards away.

Tim reached in the pocket of his nylon shorts. And pulled out a small object, crudely carved from wood.

'Gusty. Awfully fun. Remember Gusty remember him? I made a dog hope you like it.'

The younger brother examined the miniature wooden toy. He understood now. When they were kids, the family had owned a springer spaniel, Augustus — 'Gusty'. Simon and Tim had spent hours and days, entire holidays, playing with Gusty, going for rambles on the Heath. Running down sunny beaches.

It was a symbol of happier times, before the darkness of Tim's schizophrenia.

'Thank you, Tim. Thank you…very much.'

He had an urge to throw the stupid toy into the bushes. He also wanted to cherish the object, fiercely. There was an unbearable poignancy in the toy's small, pathetic crudeness.

Bill Fanthorpe stepped closer. 'Tim was doing craftwork. Thought you might like it…'

'Yes,' said Simon. 'It's lovely. Thanks.'

Bill stepped back; the journalist hugged his brother one more time — and then Tim beamed his mad wide anxious smile and the younger sibling got the usual horrible sense that his brother resembled his own boy, Conor — it was the same smile, the very same smile.

Girding himself, Simon resisted the urge to sprint down the lane; he shook hands with Fanthorpe, and slowly walked to the car. And as he walked back to the car he felt his soul keening with grief. He still held the little toy in his hand. He took out his wallet and slipped the toy inside, next to the clasp of hair he kept: from when Conor was a baby.

The sadness was so intense that he was relieved to make it to the car — and relieved to be stuck in traffic thirty minutes later; stuck in the eternal gridlock of the North Circular. The reliability of this horrible congestion was somehow soothing. So utterly predictable.

His car had been stationary ten minutes, spattered by some September drizzle, when his phone rang.

It was Edith Tait.

She told him she had just had an enormous surprise. She was mentioned in Julie Charpentier's will.

This didn't seem so surprising. Staring at the car in front, he asked the old woman to explain.

'It's the amount, Mister Quinn, the actual sum. I called the police fella to tell him, but he wasn't in…so, well, I thought you might like tae know. So I tried you.'

Simon changed a gear, his car moved forward three inches.

'Go on. How much?'

'Well now.' Edith laughed, self-consciously. 'It's a wee bit embarrassing.'

'Edith?'

The Scots lady drew a breath, then answered.

'Julie left me half a million pounds.'

The weather was worsening. Swathes of sour rainfall swept across the stalled and angry traffic.

Amy was phoning Jose, from the end of the breakfast terrace. David watched: her animated gestures, the way her blonde hair was harped by the freshening breeze. He could tell by the frown on her face that the conversation was odd, or difficult. She sat down. He leaned across.

'What did Jose say? Did you ask him about my parents? Is this all about my parents?'

Amy laid the phone on the table. 'Well…it was very difficult to work out. He was rambling, almost incoherent. Worse than when you showed him the map.'

'And…?'

'He said we had to get away. That Miguel was extremely dangerous. He also said not to trust the police. As I thought. And he said Miguel was probably coming after us.'

David growled his impatience.

'Is that all? We know that.'

'Yes. But he also seemed…odd.' Amy set her cardiganned elbows on the tablecloth, which was strewn with golden flakes of croissant. 'Jose told me he was leaving. Going into hiding.'

'Jose? Why?'

Her shrug expressed perplexity. 'No idea. But he was scared.'

'Of Miguel?'

'Perhaps. The police. Wish I knew.'