Barry Hutchison - The Crowmaster

‘Nice view.’

The huge man in the seat next to me was leaning into my space, admiring the scenery as it whizzed by the window. His face was red and sweaty, as if he’d just completed a marathon. He was completely bald, and as he breathed I could detect a definite whiff of milk. Stick him in a giant nappy and you could have passed him off as the world’s largest baby.

I quickly pushed the thought away. The last thing I needed was for that mental picture to become a reality too.

‘Yeah, it’s nice,’ I replied, looking out at the fields.

‘See the little birdies?’ he asked, jabbing a podgy finger against the window. ‘Pretty.’

Ignoring the urge to point out to him that he wasn’t talking to a three-year-old, I followed his finger. A large flock of black birds was flying parallel to the train, about thirty or so metres away. They moved as one, all soaring in perfect time together, as if taking part in some carefully orchestrated dance.

‘How are they keeping up?’ I mumbled, not really expecting an answer. ‘We must be doing eighty miles an hour.’

‘They’re crows,’ he said, as if that somehow explained things.

‘Are crows that fast?’

He made a sound like air escaping from a balloon. SSSS-SS-SS . It took me a moment to recognise the sound as laughter. ‘Them ones are.’

I kept watching the crows. I doubted they could keep up this pace for long. Any second I expected them to fall back and be left behind by the train, but they remained level for several minutes. If anything, they seemed to be pulling ahead a little, although I couldn’t be certain of that.

‘Where you off to?’ The man-baby’s voice was close by my ear and I gave a little jump of fright. We were so close he must have felt my sudden jerk, but he didn’t let on if he did.

‘Glasgow,’ I said, not wanting to give away too much information.

‘Big city,’ he said. Every word he spoke seemed to make him more and more breathless. I realised that was why he used as few of them as possible. If a sentence had more than four words in it he had to stop for air halfway through. ‘Shopping?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Young lad. On his own. Big city,’ the man wheezed. ‘Dangerous.’

‘I’ll be meeting friends,’ I lied. I was keeping my gaze pointed out of the window, hoping he’d take the hint.

‘Yes. You will be.’

I turned to face him, struggling against the bulk of his arms. ‘Sorry? What did you say?’

‘I’m sure you will be,’ he panted. ‘Meeting friends, I mean.’ His mouth folded into a gummy smile and I realised for the first time that he had no teeth. Maybe he really was the world’s biggest baby.

‘Tickets, please.’

I was glad the ticket collector chose that moment to appear. Anything to save me from having to talk to the weirdo next to me.

I felt like a circus contortionist as I tried to squeeze my hand down between the man and me so I could reach into my pocket. He must have realised what I was trying to do, but he made no attempt to make things easier. Bad baby . I thought, and I couldn’t help but smile.

My ticket was a little crumpled when I finally managed to haul it from my pocket. I straightened it out as best I could before holding it up for the ticket collector.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘it got a bit squashed.’

‘No problem,’ the collector said. He clipped a hole in the ticket, then handed it back to me. As I reached out to take it I almost yelped with surprise. The ticket collector turned and moved along the aisle, but not before I caught sight of his face and realised who he was.

I’d seen him three times before. Once in the police station when I’d been chased by Mr Mumbles, then twice at the school when I’d faced Caddie and Raggy Maggie. I had no idea who he was, but as I watched him move along the train I knew one thing for certain.

I was going to find out.

Chapter FourJOSEPH

‘Excuse me, can I get past?’

The mega-baby scowled at the question. ‘Why?’ ‘I need to see the ticket collector,’ I said with some urgency in my voice. The man-of-mystery didn’t seem to be bothering with anyone else’s tickets, and was instead walking casually along the train to where a sliding door led through to the next carriage.

With a sigh of annoyance and a grunt of effort, the obese man shifted his immense weight in the seat. His breath became laboured as he caught hold of the headrest in front of him and began to ease himself upright. Huge flaps of blubber wobbled below his arms like fleshy wings. His face contorted in effort as he pulled himself into a standing position.

I moved to pursue the ticket collector, but the bulk of my fellow passenger still blocked the aisle.

‘I’m up,’ he grunted. ‘Might as well go to the bog.’

I pushed my fist into my mouth to stop myself shouting in frustration. The toilets were in the same direction as I was trying to go, and there was no way of squeezing past the waddling beast of a man. I had no choice but to follow behind as he plodded his way along the train, his massive girth brushing against the seats on either side of the aisle.

He was too big even to see past. I hopped into the air a couple of times, but his height and the sheer expanse of his back stopped me seeing if the ticket collector was still in the carriage.

After what felt like a decade we arrived at the end of the compartment, where the aisle widened a little. I squeezed my way past the man and hit the control for the door. It slid open with a shhht and I hurried through. Behind me, the mega-baby forced his bulk through the door and stopped by the toilets.

‘If you’re not back,’ he managed to wheeze, though he sounded like the effort might kill him, ‘window seat’s mine.’

I nodded without looking back. My luggage was in a rack at the end of the train and I had left nothing in my seat. Now that I was free, I had no intention of going back to sit there.

I heard the toilet door close and lock, and tried hard not to imagine the horrors about to be unleashed inside that unsuspecting little room.

A glass door led into the next carriage. I could see right along that aisle and the next one, where the train ended. There was no sign of the ticket collector anywhere.

My hand was halfway to the button that would swish open the door when a voice to my right stopped me.

‘Looking for someone?’

I hadn’t noticed anyone standing in the little alcove where the exit door was, and my shock must’ve been visible on my face when I whipped round. The ticket collector gave a self-satisfied smirk, as if he’d been deliberately trying to surprise me.

‘You, actually,’ I said, recovering quickly.

He nodded and pushed back his hat, revealing a head that was almost – but not quite – as bald as the man-baby’s. ‘Well, you found me.’

The ticket collector was short and a little on the podgy side. He looked to be around sixty, but stood with the type of slouch usually reserved for teenagers. It rumpled his uniform and made it look two sizes too big. He smoothed the edges of his thick, bushy moustache while he waited for my reply.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, unable to come up with a less obvious question.

‘Ticket collector,’ he said with a smile. ‘ Tickets, please . See?’

‘Who are you really ?’

‘I told you, I’m a ticket collector,’ he insisted. ‘Always have been.’ I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept talking. ‘Just like I’m a policeman and always have been. And just like I will for ever be standing behind the curtain in your school canteen, waiting to untie you.’

I blinked slowly. ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘You’ve lost me.’