Landon Worthington, Chandler Delcade, Pamela Mercurio, Alexa James, and Corbyn McConnell were lined up in front of Greg’s desk in a shuffling approximation of stillness. Whether they were shuffling from guilt or the cold, time had yet to tell. Greg had turned off the borrowed heater and cracked open a window. Inside his classroom, it was close to freezing. Not that Greg cared. Contrary to the stereotype, he rather liked the cold. And he wanted the kids to be as uncomfortable as possible. In a different world, he’d have had them all attached to electrodes, their feet sopping with water.
He pushed the image away. Even Demetrius Freedman might draw the line at that.
The Mirny and Vostok were displayed prominently on his desk, their violated sides facing the students in a silent reproach. The kids’ eyes repeatedly skittered away from what was written there, only to drift back moments later. A small torture. At least for the innocent ones.
Andrea Velasquez, too, was staring at the defaced vessels. Her eyes skittered not at all. They took everything in, her face a mask of disapproval. If she stole an occasional glance at the children, it was brief and less than friendly. She was rocking gently back and forth, cradling the black mass of Sanchez in her arms. The cat, at least, seemed entirely unperturbed by the situation. Its baleful green eyes were firmly closed, a soft purr brushing gently against the custodian’s warmth.
Greg fought down the urge to sneeze. He scratched at the underside of his eye patch instead.
‘You can all see why you’re here, I assume?’
‘It wasn’t me, sir!’ Landon Worthington protested, his eyes dangerously bright. ‘I’d never do something like that.’
‘Well, one of you did. Either alone or with the knowledge of the rest of you. So: who did this?’
The only response was a long, awkward silence.
‘Last chance, ladies and gentlemen.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Chandler Delcade said, hotly. ‘It wasn’t like that when I left.’ The other children nodded in earnest agreement.
Greg sighed.
‘Do any of you know what’s taught in this classroom?’ he asked.
‘Russian?’ Pamela Mercurio ventured, beneath a raised hand. There was an eagerness to please in her expression, a desperate desire not to be associated with the words that were staring her in the face.
‘Yes, Miss Mercurio. Russian.’
Greg, who had been leaning against the wall by his whiteboard, stood fully upright.
‘Funny fellows, the Russians. Not many resources, not like we have here. But what they lack in stuff, they make up for in other ways.’ He allowed the apparent good nature to leach from his face, replaced by a lazy, predatory smile. The sort of smile he’d used before, in abandoned basements, or broken-down huts with the rain pounding on a corrugated iron roof, uncaring insects buzzing against naked light bulbs. Landon, Corbyn, and Pamela looked absolutely terrified. He dialed it back a bit. These were kids, after all. Not his usual stock in trade.
‘The Russian politsiya – the police – can’t afford lie detectors. Did you know that?’
There was a puzzled shaking of heads.
‘Do you know what they use instead?’
‘No, sir,’ Landon said.
‘Cats, Mr Worthington. They use cats.’
Five worried pairs of eyes swiveled toward Sanchez, still asleep, still purring softly in Andrea’s arms.
‘Cats hate getting wet, they just hate it. So much so, that if your hand is even a little bit sweatier than normal, they react very badly. Lie detectors do exactly the same thing, actually. They detect elevated levels of sweat on the human body. Because liars sweat just a tiny bit more than someone telling the truth. A human being would never notice the difference. But a lie detector does. And so does a cat. If you’re lying about something and you stroke a cat, he’s ninety-nine percent certain to detect it the moment you touch his fur. So, unless you’re one of the world’s best liars, he’s going to catch you. Understand?’
The children all nodded, mouths hanging open, eyes wide.
‘Good. Because one after the other, you are going to stroke Sanchez here while uttering the words, “I did not vandalize Mr Abimbola’s property”. Got that?’
‘Y-yes, sir.’
‘Terrific. Let’s begin, shall we?’
One after the other, with various degrees of hesitation, the children stepped forward and stroked Calderhill Academy’s semi-feral cat. Sanchez took it all with surprising good humor. Only once, when petted by Alexa James, did he emit anything approaching a meow.
‘I didn’t do it, sir!’ she protested. ‘Honest to God, I didn’t!’
‘Let’s leave God out of this,’ Greg said, coldly. ‘Next.’
Next and last was Chandler Delcade.
‘I did not vandalize Mr Abimbola’s property.’
Sanchez allowed the boy to pet him without any sort of reaction. Chandler grinned with the relief of the acquitted.
‘See, sir,’ he said. ‘I told you I didn’t do it. It must have been someone else.’ He stole a quick glance at Alexa.
‘Maybe so. But then again, I’d like to see your hands. All of you. Palms up, please.’
Expressions of bemusement were replaced by gasps as the children turned their palms up for inspection.
Pamela Mercurio ran a confused finger across the palm of her right hand. The palm was smeared black, stained like a coal miner’s. The same black that now attached itself to the tip of her roving finger.
‘It’s charcoal,’ Greg explained. ‘Or, as Mr Freedman would no doubt describe it, activated carbon. I’m afraid I powdered the cat with it. Sanchez is already black, obviously, so he’s the perfect place to hide it. You picked it up when you stroked him.’ His eyes ran down the line of hands. ‘Except for you, Mr Delcade. Your hands are completely clean, I see.’ A red flush was spreading across the boy’s cheeks. ‘You, of course, only pretended to stroke the cat. Because you knew you were lying about the whole thing. Care to explain why?’
Chandler’s face had gone completely red. He stared down at his shoes, unable to look Greg in the eye.
‘I thought it would be funny,’ he mumbled.
‘I think you missed a word at the end of that sentence, son. Funny, what?’
‘Funny … sir.’
‘And your friends, here. Stood back and watched you do it, did they?’
‘No, sir. No one saw me do it.’
Greg wasn’t sure he believed him. But one confession would have to do.
‘Right, then. Thanks to Mr Delcade, here, the rest of you are off the hook. You, Chandler, will see me after school tomorrow. And don’t expect to be leaving any time soon. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. And Chandler?’
‘Sir?’
‘Why would you want to advertise to the world that you can’t spell?’
‘Sir?’ Chandler wasn’t the only one looking confused.
Greg tapped the side of the Vostok, his finger resting on the scratched racial slur.
‘The word has one “g” not two. It’s Latin: niger. It means “black”. If you can’t spell it, don’t use it. All this does is mark you out as a knuckle-dragging illiterate. Now, get out of here.’
The children fled. As the door closed behind them, Andrea let out a low whistle.
‘Wow. Never seen that before.’
‘Nor will you again, I suspect.’ Greg allowed himself a small smile. ‘It’s a one-shot trick. By this time tomorrow, it’ll be all around the school. No one’s going to fall for Señor Sanchez twice.’
‘But what would you have done if they’d all stroked the cat?’
‘Punished them all, I suppose.’ He walked across the room to the open window and closed it. Sanchez, fully awake now, insisted on being released. Andrea bent down and deposited him gently on the floor. She stood up again, brushing flecks of charcoal from her chest.
‘I’m sorry about your coat,’ Greg said. ‘I’ll pay for the cleaning.’
‘Nah, no worries. It’ll brush off easy enough. Anyway, it was worth it to see the expression on the little prick’s face.’
Sanchez was pawing at the classroom door, desperate to roam free. Greg was happy to accommodate him. The beast was no doubt shedding dander by the bucket load. Scratching absent-mindedly at his eye patch, he opened the door just as quickly as he could.
And found himself face to face with Vernon Szymanski. The custodian pushed past him without so much as an ‘excuse me’.
‘There you are,’ he said to Andrea. ‘Been looking all over for ya. School ain’t paying ya to goof off.’
‘She was helping me with something,’ Greg said.
‘Course she was. But whatever you people was up to ain’t more important than the girl doing her job.’
It was difficult to know if Vernon Szymanski was sixty or six hundred. He looked old, but it was entirely possible (to use a phrase Greg had once heard at an American consulate) that he’d been rode hard and put up wet. His body was thin and slightly stooped, with a small but prominent gut. It bulged against the black-and-gold Penguins jacket he was wearing against the cold. A matching hat concealed a pink desert of scalp, and worn jeans hung loosely over legs that had withered away with age. Rheumy, slightly bulging eyes stared crossly at his assistant.
‘I need you to get back down to the basement and fix the furnace.’
‘That’s not my job, Vern.’
‘But can you fix it? I thought Mexicans could fix anything for a couple of bucks and a taco.’
‘Vernon!’ Greg interjected.
Szymanski’s response was an unrepentant cackle.
‘It’s just friendly banter, Mr Abimboo. No harm in it. Girl knows I’m kidding, dontcha girl? But you can fix it, right?’
Andrea managed to both nod in agreement and roll her eyes at the same time.
‘What happened to the contractors?’
‘They can’t make it, they say. Not till tomorrow, anyways, and maybe not even then. Lazy fucking bastards – ’scuse my French. If this ain’t fixed by tomorrow morning, principal’ll be writing us both pink slips. This needs doing, and it needs doing tonight.’
Andrea headed for the door, shaking her head.
‘I can’t, Vern. Fixing it’s gonna take hours and I got class tonight.’
‘There’s overtime in it,’ Vernon said, following her out.
‘I just told you, I can’t.’
‘Aw, c’mon!’
‘No, man. No means no.’
‘No, it don’t. It means maybe …’