go down. Coal mines, copper mines, gold mines. The correct possessive pronoun is mine. I’m sick and tired telling you that. I might as well talk to a brick wall.’
Noddy exasperated him much as Percy had exasperated Miss Elginbrod half a dozen years earlier. He couldn’t help picking on Noddy, the boy pulled at him like a magnet. He pushed him into the corner with his face against the wall, and snorted at him, ‘Hum! Hm! Mann! Some man!’
And then he said, as he had said so often before, for Noddy had an ugly face with a broad flat nose and a scowl like Beethoven’s, ‘You’re no more like a man than a monkey.’
He stood behind the boy, turning the note over and over. It seemed real all right. He was taken by a sudden anger that this unwashed urchin should have ten bob in the middle of the month when he himself hadn’t much more.
‘There’s something fishy about this and I’m going to find out what it is. Where did you get it?’
‘Found it,’ said Noddy, over his shoulder.
‘Where?’ Jasper asked, caressing his blue chin between thumb and forefinger.
‘Forget,’ Noddy said in a half-hearted whisper.
Jasper brought the headmaster into it. Mr Daunders was an experienced man. He had a talent for questioning pupils who were found with more money than they could reasonably be expected to have. The school was full of midgie-rakers, petty thieves, pickpockets, raiders of their mothers’ lean purse, breakers of gas-meters, milk-round embezzlers, robbers of weans sent on a shopping errand. What else could you expect in a Glasgow slum where the buildings had been condemned thirty years ago and were still standing as warrens where smalltime criminals pro- liferated?
‘Leave him to me,’ he told Jasper. ‘I’ll get to the bottom of this.’
So Noddy stood on the strip of carpet in front of the headmaster’s desk, and the headmaster sat behind the desk and played with a bone paper-knife. The offending ten- shilling note flat in front of him, Mr Daunders looked calmly and benignly at the suspect. He saw an undersized boy wearing a ragged grey jersey and torn jeans tucked into a pair of wellingtons, a flattened, frightened dirty face and dark eyes as uncommunicative as the eyes of a wild animal.
‘That’s far too much money for a wee boy like you to be carrying about,’ he began pleasantly. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Mamurrer,’ Noddy mumbled.
‘Your mother gave you it?’ Mr Daunders interpreted. Noddy nodded.
‘Why?’ said Mr Daunders.
‘Go a message,’ said Noddy.
‘What were you to get?’
Mr Daunders asked.
‘Forget,’ said Noddy.
‘I see,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘And where were you to go for this message?’
‘Doh-no,’ said Noddy.
‘I see,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘Your mother gave you ten shillings to get something you’ve forgotten in a shop you don’t know. That’s not a very good answer, young man. Now just tell me the truth.’
‘Muncle gay me it,’ Noddy offered.
‘Why?’ asked Mr Daunders.
‘For ma birthday,’ said Noddy.
‘I see,’ said Mr Daunders. He drew open a card-index box at his right hand, flicked to Mann, Nicholas and took out the card. ‘And when did your uncle give you this rather generous birthday present?’
‘Lass night,’ said Noddy.
‘I see,’ said Mr Daunders. He waved the index card gently. ‘And can you tell me why your uncle should give you ten shillings for your birthday last night when your birthday was five months ago?’
Noddy couldn’t. He said nothing.
‘Did he forget about you for five months?’ Mr Daunders asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Noddy whispered respectfully. Mr Daunders sighed.
‘No, I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth yet,’ he said sadly. ‘Now I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m not saying you stole this money, I’m not saying a thing against you. I just don’t believe you’re telling me the whole truth. I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t make inquiries when a boy is found playing in class with a ten-shilling note he can’t explain how he got.’
Noddy clenched his toes inside his wellingtons and said nothing.
‘All right,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘Suppose it was your uncle. Is that your father’s brother or your mother’s brother?’
‘Ma murrer’s,’ said Noddy. He hadn’t seen his father for a couple of years. His mother always visited Barlinnie alone.
‘I see,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘Then what you’re saying is that Mr Mann gave you ten shillings for your birthday five months late. Well, better late than never. Is that right?’
Noddy granted the point with another nod.
‘You’re sure?’ Mr Daunders asked. ‘Quite sure?’ Noddy nodded.
‘But how could he be Mr Mann if he’s your mother’s brother?’ Mr Daunders asked softly.
The soil on Noddy’s plain cheeks was irrigated by two parallel streams.
‘Ah now, there’s no use crying,’ said Mr Daunders, a forefinger raised. ‘You tell the truth and you’ll have no need to cry. Once you tell me the truth you’ll have nothing to worry about.’
Noddy thrust one hand into the pocket of his jeans to grope for the other ten-shillings note and draw comfort through his finger tips from the touch of it.
‘Come, come,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘You don’t stand before your headmaster with your hand in your pocket. Stand up straight with your hands by your side.’
Then he saw something dart through Noddy’s alien eyes, a passing fear, a swift alarm, and the hand seemed unwilling to come out of the pocket. He saw he had missed a move.
‘Turn out your pockets,’ he said. ‘Let me see just what else you’re hiding.’
He sighed and tutted over the second ten-shilling note and put it on top of the first.
‘And who gave you this one?’ he asked wearily.
‘Ma murrer,’ said Noddy.
‘To get messages?’ Mr Daunders suggested.
Noddy agreed in his usual way.
‘And she gave you the other one too?’ Mr Daunders prompted. ‘Not your uncle, your mother. Your mother gave you them both?’
Noddy nodded.
‘But she’d already given you one ten-shilling note to get messages. Why did she give you two?’
‘Case Ah loast wan,’ Noddy tried bravely.
‘No’, said Mr Daunders. ‘That won’t do, Nicholas. I’m not saying you stole this money. But I don’t think you’re telling me the truth.’
‘Please sir, si truth,’ Noddy wept.
The interrogation went on from six minutes past eleven till seventeen minutes past twelve. But Noddy wouldn’t say Savage’s name, or Percy’s, or mention the cellar. He was bound by his oath, and he was more afraid of the consequences of breaking it than of Mr Daunders. If his arms were paralysed and withered and shrivelled and dropped off like the leaves from the trees in autumn he would never be able to play the piano. He might as well be dead as have no arms. Nothing Mr Daunders could do would be as bad as losing his arms. He prayed to El to give him strength and he called out to Percy in the lonely darkness of his soul, and he gave nothing away. Mr Daunders tied him