The Traitor Game Read online

  He closed his eyes and brought his hands up to his face, clasped, like his wrists were tied together. That last term at the comp he used to come home and sit like this for hours, not moving. You pretended you were made of stone. You just sat. And sometimes you went into a sort of trance and the pain receded. It wasn’t like Evgard, it didn’t make you feel better; it just made you feel less. Sitting there now, Michael felt like he’d never moved. He’d been there, sitting like that, since he got home from the comp that last evening. He thought, I will never, never let this happen to me again.

  In the end he made himself move. He got up, knelt by the box, and reached for the key to his padlock, tugging at the chain round his neck so hard it bit into his skin. Normally he liked knowing it was there, feeling the small weight of it under his shirt, knowing it meant Evgard was there, safe, in a box in his room. Now it made him wince. God, how childish . . . At least Francis didn’t know about that. Francis just kept his key in his pocket, with the loose change and paper clips and cigarette lighter.

  He unlocked his padlock, and stared at the other one. It looked pretty sturdy. He pulled at it, not expecting it to give. He didn’t think he could pick the lock, either. He went downstairs and got a hammer out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Then he went back to his room, turned the box on its side, so the padlock was facing up, and he bashed it and bashed it with the hammer until he was out of breath and the box was dented and the padlock was lying open on the carpet. He didn’t give himself time to assess the damage. He pulled out the Book and the piles of papers, heaping them recklessly on the floor, not caring if they got creased or trodden on. They looked pathetic, like old school notes that he hadn’t got round to throwing away. Even the Book looked tatty and amateurish in its green binding. He’d been proud of that cover. He’d thought it made the Book look more official, somehow. And Francis had spent hours on the endpapers. Or at least he’d said he had. He probably knocked them up in a few minutes on the Friday night, just so he could play Michael along. Michael remembered how he’d bent over them, saying, ‘Wow, Francis, these are fantastic. Seriously, they’re brilliant . . .’

  At the time he thought Francis looked sort of evasive, like he was really pleased but trying to be casual about it. But really he must just have been looking shifty. There must have been moments, Michael thought, when Francis actually felt sorry for him, the way you’d feel a kind of pity for a slug you were about to drop salt on. Especially if the slug was so dim, so completely dense and useless that it looked up at you enthusiastically and told you how wonderful you were. Michael could still hear how Francis had said, ‘For you, Thompson, anything . . .’ in that kind of flippant way he had. Michael had grinned and flicked two fingers up at him amiably. Now he felt a pulse of anger so pure and cold it was almost enjoyable.

  He kicked the papers into a rough stack. He opened his bag and got out the envelope Francis had given him, only that morning. Was it really only that morning? He slid out a few sheets of paper and spread them out on the floor. A star-map, with names for the constellations in Evgard. The front elevation of Arcaster Cathedral. A battle-map for the Glacies campaign – which, Michael thought automatically, was conducted by the White Company in the Long Winter, the only time in Evgard’s history that the Mereish occupied Arcaster. He stared at the detail, the tiny notes in Francis’s cramped block capitals, the careful colours. All that effort. A treacherous tentacle of disbelief and hope uncurled in his stomach. Maybe – somehow – he’d got it wrong. Maybe Francis had just mentioned it to someone, without meaning to take the piss. Maybe if Michael just asked him . . .

  No. If he asked, of course Francis would deny it. And repeat the conversation to his mates, afterwards. He just asked point blank – and then when I said no, he actually believed me. I mean, how thick can he be?

  But he could find out some other way. If Francis had just told someone without thinking, then he wouldn’t bother to hide it from Michael. He’d say, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, I met this girl at the wedding, and I said something facetious to her about Arcaster . . . what, someone actually wrote you an anonymous note? Oh bollocks, sorry, she must have told someone else . . . Don’t worry about it, though, I didn’t say anything incriminating.’ He’d laugh at Michael, for letting it get to him. He’d reach across and ruffle his hair or something, teasing him. ‘What, you thought I’d completely set you up? Jesus, Thompson, what kind of person do you think I am?’ Michael found himself smiling into empty air, reassured, like Francis was actually there in front of him. But he wasn’t.

  He thought, I have to be careful about this. He couldn’t be obvious. He’d plan it, so Francis wouldn’t know what he was doing. He’d be cool and calm and calculating. He’d give Francis a chance to prove his innocence. He just had to think of it as a game, that was all. He’d play Francis’s game. And he’d win. After all, he said to himself, now I have the advantage, because he doesn’t know I know. Now I know what to look for, I can watch him betray himself. He won’t fool me any longer.

  He picked up the pieces of paper on the floor. He made himself put them on top of the others, with the Book, back in the box. He’d have to think of a way to explain having broken Francis’s padlock. An accident? Yeah, right . . . But then, why would Francis be suspicious? He wasn’t exactly going to think, Ah, of course, Michael must have found out I’d been taking the piss all along, he must have attacked my padlock frenziedly with a hammer.

  Although if that does occur to him . . . Shut up, Thompson, you’ll think of something.

  Michael closed the box carefully, making sure he didn’t crush the papers on top. He thought vaguely, I must look at that star-map properly before Saturday, or Francis might get suspicious. He sat down at his desk and started to doodle on a bit of paper. He had to think out his strategy. The game plan. He was on his own now. He found himself drawing squares of black and white, like a draughtboard. He thought, It’s just like a chess problem. It’s just a game.

  All the time he could feel the hurt, the misery, just waiting to kick in. He tried to fight it off, but it kept pushing at him. Francis wasn’t really his mate – Francis was screwing him over . . . He gritted his teeth and bent over his bit of paper: writing as if it could make him feel better. As if it could change something.

  .

  Michael had never been a good liar. His mum was: she made up elaborate, meticulous stories, just for the hell of it, it seemed to Michael. A few weeks after he left the comp he’d heard her on the phone, turning down a dinner invitation. ‘And then we had to have the builders in . . .’ she’d said, and he stopped at the top of the stairs, intrigued. ‘No – the underpinning had gone completely – the outside wall, of course . . .’ Builders? Outside wall? Michael thought to himself, Christ, can we have had builders here and I didn’t notice? He turned to go upstairs again. His mum said, ‘Yes, I know, they say they can burrow through anything, given time. No no, not English moles, some kind of African species, they import them for fur, but then those awful animal rights people . . .’ She was winding the phone wire round and round her hand. Michael watched it coil and uncoil endlessly, like she was trying to break it. ‘Yes, much larger. Carnivorous, of course . . . yes, well, next door’s cat went missing, and I can’t help worrying that . . . thank you, that’s sweet of you, but you can’t help feeling . . .’ She nodded, like she was talking to someone face to face. Then she glanced up and saw Michael. Her face didn’t change. She said, ‘Michael’s having the time of his life, of course. Trying to catch one . . . yes, the adolescent male instincts . . . Oh well, hopefully by that time they’ll have . . . yes. Well, have a lovely evening, so sorry I couldn’t . . .’ She laughed, with a sort of brittle note in her voice. ‘Circumstances beyond our control, yes. Well. Hope to see you soon.’

  She put the phone down and looked up at Michael. He wanted to laugh. No. He wanted to want to laugh. But he couldn’t. She stared at him for a long time. She said flatly, ‘I have to do something I enjoy.’ Then she turned away.
>
  And Francis. Francis came out with all sorts of excuses at school. ‘Sorry, one of my little sisters put it in the washing machine.’ ‘Sorry, my little brother threw a tantrum and trashed our room, and it got ripped.’ ‘Sorry, my father went on a bit of a crusade and threw any books by non-Catholic authors out of the window.’ He judged it perfectly, the combination of embarrassment and simplicity, the glint of humour, like he knew what he was saying was funny but what could he do? And even afterwards, when Michael teased him, asking why didn’t he just say the dog ate it, he’d look at Michael straight-faced. ‘What am I supposed to say? It’s true.’ And only the eyes – slightly too wide, slightly too innocent – gave it away. Michael admired that. It took a kind of bravery to choose a lie and stick to it. It was like you were standing up to the world, saying, Hey, you know what, I’ve got a version I like better. Michael was a rubbish liar, normally. He mumbled and blushed and contradicted himself. Even the simplest things. He could conceal things, that was easy; he could hide cuts and bruises and blood on his clothes, he knew how to keep secrets. He could keep secrets for the Olympics. But actual sorry-I’ve-left-my-locker-key-at-home stuff – that was different. He didn’t know why. It just was.

  But the next day, when he went back to school, it felt like someone else had taken over. It was like Michael’s whole body was just a mask that someone else had put on, and the real Michael was actually lurking, disembodied, at arm’s length, wondering what had happened. Because he was good, this new guy, whoever he was. He could offer Francis a cigarette and say casually, ‘Oh yeah, I bought them yesterday on the way home. I just couldn’t face History, so I skived off.’ He could lean back – what was the word? insouciantly – against a tree, playing idly with his cigarette lighter.

  ‘I thought you were ill,’ Francis said.

  The real Michael would have said, ‘No, no, we had a timed essay in History and I didn’t fancy it, and I thought, you know, why not just bunk it, and, yeah, I hope you weren’t worried or anything when I wasn’t around in the afternoon . . .’ And by that time his face would be scarlet and Francis would know he was up to something. But this new character shrugged. ‘No. Just couldn’t be bothered to come back.’

  ‘Right.’ Francis glanced at him sideways. But there was nothing to see on Michael’s face. His expression was artless and innocent. Michael flicked his ash on to the mud and ground it into a grey smear with his toe, not meeting Francis’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ Michael said, judging it perfectly, as though he’d really only just thought of it, ‘my mum’s having people round on Saturday, so I thought we could go into Canterbury for the day. I want to go to the cathedral anyway, and otherwise she might get me to have lunch with them.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  It wasn’t unheard of for Michael to suggest going somewhere else. Mostly it was London – to the Science Museum (although that was Francis’s idea), the National Portrait Gallery, where they spent hours picking out faces and matching them to people from Evgard, the Tower (of course), and once to the London Dungeon, where they chased each other round the exhibits like kids and argued about the torture chamber in the castle at Arcaster. That had been the day Michael came up with the idea for the Judas floor, and Francis borrowed a bit of paper from someone on the train home and sketched a design for the great floor at Calston, shading in the tiles you could tread on safely. That day when Michael got home he’d found blood on his arm and couldn’t work out where it had come from. It had taken him ten minutes to realise it must be fake blood from one of the exhibits, that somehow he’d got on himself by mistake. He’d looked at the smear of red on his skin and thought, I’m not sure I want to wash this off.

  Even now he knew the pattern of the Calston floor, knew it by heart, and the simpler versions of it they had at Than’s Lynn and Arcaster. He could walk them blindfolded. Except that they didn’t exist.

  ‘Great. We’ll go to the cathedral, then.’ He threw his cigarette away. It was only half smoked but he didn’t feel like finishing it. He thought, Good. That’s the first move.

  They walked back up to the school buildings. A day ago the silence would have been companionable. Now Michael felt like he was behind glass, watching Francis through a one-way mirror. He was in control. He thought, If we see Shitley I won’t wait for Francis, I’ll just keep on walking. But they didn’t.

  Francis turned his head to watch some kids trying to swarm up a tree. One boy was already in the branches, swinging his legs idly at the others’ faces. He said, still looking away, ‘Why Canterbury?’

  Michael shrugged. Because that’s where they murdered Thomas à Becket. Because it’s the nearest thing I’ve got to somewhere that looks like Evgard. Because in the cathedral in Than’s Lynn they still have trial by ordeal. He said, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  They didn’t say anything else. They went up the stairs to the fifth-form corridor in silence. Francis had his head lowered and his hands in his pockets; when he passed Luke coming the other way he didn’t say anything, just nodded curtly. Michael wondered vaguely why Luke seemed to follow Francis around. Philip didn’t. Philip ignored Francis when they went past each other in the corridors, so that it had taken a while for Michael to click that the skinny little boy with the red hair was actually another one of Francis’s brothers. He ignored Michael, too, which was fine. Anything was better than the way Luke glowered at him, like Michael was personally responsible for – well, for something unpleasant. As he caught Luke’s eye he felt a sudden flash of unease. Of course. Bent Dick. The kid Shitley had . . . In Luke’s class. But now that seemed a long way away.

  He opened his locker, noticing the weird new precision in his movements. It was a strange feeling, like he was playing chess or something, bringing each piece into play. He looked at his timetable the way he thought an actor would look at something on stage, without actually seeing it. He knew Francis wasn’t watching – he could feel it in the back of his neck – but all the same he grimaced, as though Chemistry first thing was all he had on his mind. He got out his books. He put his lunch on top of his exercise books. He pulled out the bit of folded paper wedged under the locker door. When he unfolded it his hand was completely steady, like something dead. His name wasn’t on it this time, he saw.

  I’VE SEEN EVGARD.

  He felt the impact of it in his bones, the way you’d feel sound if you were deaf. Distant, not painful, but inside you somewhere. He folded it again; looked up; saw that Francis was going through the files in his bag, muttering, ‘Double Chemistry, French, double English, lunch . . .’ He hadn’t seen anything.

  Without thinking – as though some instinct had taken over – Michael reached over and slid the note underneath the door of Francis’s locker. Then he drew his hand back, surprised at himself. Suddenly he was breathless, excited, like a chess master who’s made a risky move. He packed his books into his bag swiftly and said, ‘Just gonna get a coffee . . .’

  Francis glanced up and nodded. ‘RS, Latin . . .’

  Michael stopped halfway down the stairs, his hands fumbling at his shoelaces. He saw Francis open his locker and take the note out, frowning. Michael felt his throat tighten. Francis’s expression made him go cold. Not surprised. Not panicked, like Michael had been. Not knocked backwards by the unexpectedness, the betrayal of it. Not confused or worried. Just – annoyed. Pissed off. Like someone had trodden on his toe. Or like someone had got the wrong locker.

  Francis screwed up the note. He threw it, with a flick of his wrist, and it fell in a little parabola into the exact centre of the bin. He glanced around briefly. But by then Michael was running down the stairs, trying to cling to the behind-glass untouchable sensation, feeling anger batter against him like a huge moth.

  All that day he kept seeing it in his mind’s eye. Francis’s face. I’VE SEEN EVGARD. That look of, Jesus, can’t they do better than this? For God’s sake, guys, it’s the locker next to this one . . . And his hand taking aim, an
d the curve of the ball of paper falling into the bin. The way it dropped expertly into the middle, precisely on target.

  .

  .

  Five

  He should have known then. He should have believed what his eyes were telling him. He should have thought, OK, Thompson, now you know. Stop mucking around. He should have confronted Francis with I KNOW WHERE ARCASTER IS, looked into his eyes, watched it all fall into place. It was stupid to keep wondering, to keep scrutinising Francis as though he still wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t help it. The uncertainty sat in his stomach like a hollow ball; he couldn’t get rid of it. It was like there was a treacherous little voice that kept on and on at him, insidiously, saying, Maybe, maybe not, maybe . . . And he had to be certain.

  So he didn’t do anything. He let the other Michael keep going. He let the adrenalin of it carry him through the day like a skateboard, because it was exciting, in a weird, sick, black way, like standing at the top of a tower, wondering if you were going to fall. And the other Michael was loving it; he was getting high on hatred like a drug, enjoying it. The other Michael had it all worked out in his head, like a battle, with Canterbury Cathedral in the middle of it like a fortress. He could see it all as a tactical exercise, a sort of logical problem, that you could win or lose. Michael was grateful for that; he knew if he let himself feel it he’d go to pieces. He imagined himself inside the walls of the cathedral: safe, powerful, ready to trap Francis, to get the truth out of him. Come Saturday, he’d be sure. Then he’d decide what to do – but not till then. All that week he held himself apart, steady, untouchable. Cold. He stuck to the routine, because that was all he had. He didn’t dare to wonder, what if, what if Francis was, if he had . . . because what would he do? He could live like this, in limbo, for a week – but after that? He found himself looking round at the other kids in his class. Dave Murray, Dan Holdstock, James Kenner. They were OK. But they were Francis’s friends. They might have been the ones he showed Evgard to. They might have been laughing at Michael for months. He could survive on his own, he knew that, and in a strange sort of way he was thankful for it. He wouldn’t die. But he was scared, shit-scared, of the loneliness. Jesus, if only he’d never been friends with Francis. If he’d had any sense at all he would never have let Francis get close to him. The voice in his head said, Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .