Danny Yates Must Die. Stephen Walker

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       three

      Lucy said hi.

      Danny woke, to find his flatmate sat doing piranha impressions by his bedside. The twenty-one-year-old wore a second-hand Bay City Rollers T-shirt. Beneath each Roller’s nose she’d marker penned a Hitler moustache. Fresh Faced Roller had two. Bad Hair Day Roller had three; one for his nose, one in place of each eyebrow. Roller Who’s Name No one Remembers had no moustache; Lucy’s pen had run out by then.

      Explaining to Danny who the Rollers were, she’d once named them as, Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, ‘A couple of others,’ and Madam Choulet. They wandered around Wimbledon Fortnight tidying things up when no one had asked them to, and were therefore like your mother. Danny’d always felt she’d got it wrong somewhere.

      She flicked a peanut in the air, mouth catching it, head stationary, her tongue clicking on contact. Cold, forward gazing eyes – and lower jaw jutting to catch each nut – gave the killer fish effect. But it was how he’d always seen her.

      ‘Fancy a peanut?’ she asked, not tipping her giant-size bag his way.

      ‘I’m allergic to peanuts,’ he said, still weak.

      ‘Oh, yeah.’ She chewed. ‘So you are. You’d’ve thought I’d have considered that before buying them you.’ She sounded as though she had.

      ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

      ‘Looks like a chip shop to me.’ Flick. Click.

      Groggy, he looked around at jade coloured walls, at doctors, nurses, trolleys, opened screens, closed screens and beds. A machine by his side blipped. A clear plastic tube fed purple liquid into his arm. This isn’t the hospital they usually take me to.’

      ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘This was your first calamity in the north west of town, so they brought you here. Congratulations, you’ve now had life or death surgery in each of Wheatley’s four big hospitals. How does it feel?’

      ‘Wheatley General?’ Again he looked around, this time seeing danger everywhere; behind those screens, in those beds, in that adjacent corridor which had no door to separate it from this recklessly open ward.

      ‘Yup.’ Lucy confirmed the location.

      ‘But this is Boggy Bill territory.’

      ‘Yeah,’ she snorted, the ring through her pointy nose glinting. ‘The laughs I’ve had over that video on those Sad but True shows.’

      ‘But what if he knows I’m here?’ Heart thumping, he sat up, throwing back the sheets. He looked at the floor for his shoes. His clothes, where had they put his clothes? ‘I’ve got to get out of here before …’

      ‘Lie down.’ She pushed him back down onto the bed then held him there, ‘You’re going nowhere till the doctor’s seen you.’

      ‘But …’ Again he tried to rise.

      And again she stopped him, either not understanding or not caring about the situation’s urgency. Hard grey eyes stared into his. She gave her, ‘Don’t argue with me, Daniel,’ look.

      He stopped resisting, and she reclaimed her seat, pulling it closer to his bed. It scraped over tiles, making a noise like a braking lorry. The ward’s other occupants looked at her then returned to their own concerns. She ignored them, retrieving the peanut bag from the floor, where she’d dropped it. And she asked, ‘Why would he come for you? I’m sorry to break the news to you but I’m sure there’s better people in this place to bump off.’

      ‘Like who?’

      ‘Like the Financial Director. If I was Boggy Bill, he’d be the first to go. Jesus, I’m not even Boggy Bill and I want to punch that bloke’s lights out. And is the Financial Director dead? No. He’s in the car park, walking his Dougal dog.’

      ‘But you’d like to punch everyone,’ said Danny. ‘Boggy Bill picks his targets with surgical precision, planning for months ahead, biding his time, awaiting the right moment to burst from the trees and grab you.’

      She frowned. ‘Boggy Bill does?’