Emily surveyed the crowd that had gathered at the cemetery for Nate Field’s funeral. She couldn’t believe it was Friday again and already a week ago that Nate was murdered.
As always when someone young died, a lot of people had come to pay their last respects. There seemed to be quite a few younger people and she wondered if they were old classmates of Nate.
Jacob nudged her with his elbow. ‘Look, Kenneth is here. I wonder if he has been officially released yet.’
‘I suppose so,’ Emily said. She looked at the man, who stood silently at his son’s grave. ‘They wouldn’t let him go to the funeral if he was still under arrest, would they?’
‘If he was ever under arrest. Perhaps they just took him to the station yesterday to cool off a bit.’
‘Well, I don’t think McDermott would let him go to a funeral of a person he’s suspected to have murdered.’
They looked on in silence. Emily could feel Trevor and Mike wriggling about in the pocket of her hoody. This reminded her of a funeral not so long ago, where she was accused of being a rat whisperer. She smiled to herself. It was a good thing that Priscilla wasn’t here today.
‘There’s McDermott and Abe,’ she said, as her eye fell on the two officers of the law. They stood back a bit, like them, and watched the crowd. Abe caught her eye and smiled. She gave him a quick nod with her head.
She let her eyes roam the crowd some more. On the opposite side of the grave were the Bandonis. Lorenzo Sr and his wife, who had her arm around Sam’s shoulders. Tears ran down the young girl’s face. Lorenzo Jr and Gianni both looked on unmoved, but she guessed that somewhere deep down, they were also sad. Especially Gianni, as he had lost his friend.
Patrizia had also joined the Bandonis, although she stood a little bit separate from them.
‘I wonder how Patrizia fits into all of this,’ Jacob said, as if reading her mind. ‘I would love to talk to her some more.’
Emily nodded. ‘That is of course, if Colleen has anything to do with this or not. I can’t imagine Patrizia having anything to do with Nate’s death.’
‘Talking of Colleen,’ Jacob said, giving her another nudge. ‘She’s here.’ He nodded with his head and Emily saw the woman standing behind some gravestones, clearly separating herself from the rest of the mourners.
‘Why is she here?’ Emily said. ‘She didn’t know Nate, did she?’
Jacob shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
‘This is odd. If she really is stalking the Bandonis, this is a strange place to do it.’ Emily shivered. ‘I don’t trust her.’
Jacob looked at her and smiled. ‘She’s allowed to teach children, so she can’t be that bad.’
‘Perhaps, but there’s something not right about her. I can feel it in my gut.’
‘Now you sound like a grumpy old policeman.’
Emily glared at Jacob. ‘You think that because I’m young I can’t have a bad feeling about something?’ She crossed her arms and looked at the crowd some more. Stupid old professor. He didn’t know her at all.
Her eyes fell on Sam again, who was now taking a handful of soil and throwing it into the grave. Then the Bandonis walked off, revealing Spencer Peacock, who had been standing behind them.
‘Wait a minute.’ Emily grabbed Jacob by the arm. ‘I had totally forgotten about it, but the other day Sam actually started telling me something about Spencer.’
Jacob stared at her, his eyebrows raised.
‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘It was Spencer she was talking about, but then she got interrupted and we never went back to the subject.’
‘When was this?’
‘Umm… on Wednesday afternoon, when Liz and I took her for a walk. Colleen joined us and freaked us all out.’ Emily stared at Spencer, who was now walking away from the grave, wiping his hand on a handkerchief. ‘Could it have had something to do with the fight between Spencer and Kenneth yesterday?’
‘We need to talk to Sam,’ Jacob said and started walking fast to catch up with the Bandonis.
‘Wait.’ Emily and Jacob watched as Patrizia turned round and had a quick word with Colleen. Whatever Patrizia had said to her, the blood drained from Colleen’s face. Then she walked off without looking back.
As Patrizia joined the Bandonis again, Sam spotted Emily and Jacob and came walking up to them.
‘Can I have a word with you?’ she said, her eyes still moist.
‘Of course,’ Jacob said. He indicated with his hand. ‘Let’s go this way.’
The three of them turned into a path that led deeper into the cemetery. Emily wondered what Sam wanted to tell them.
After turning a corner, the other mourners disappeared from view. Sam stopped to face them.
‘I have not been totally honest,’ she said, wringing a hanky in her hands. ‘I should have told you before.’
She looked at the ground and Emily and Jacob waited in silence for her to continue.
‘About two years ago, I saw…’ Sam sighed. ‘I saw Spencer and Nate together. They were kissing.’
‘Kissing?’ Jacob said.
Sam nodded. ‘But then Nate pushed Spencer away.’
‘Where was this, Sam?’ Emily said, touching her friend’s arm.
‘I happened to walk past Field’s Watches & Clocks and glanced in. They were in the back and didn’t see me. I quickly walked on.’
Jacob cleared his throat. ‘Do you mean to say that Spencer is into younger men? But he’s married?’
‘Holy cow, Jacob,’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You sound like a fossil when you say things like that.’ Jacob glared at her, but she didn’t care and continued. ‘The fact that Spencer is married might very well be a front for him actually being gay. Perhaps he wants to keep it a secret, or maybe he’s even in denial about it himself.’
Jacob now rolled his eyes at Emily. ‘I know all that. But I’ve known Spencer all my life and never even thought he might be gay.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He always was a bit camp, but not every camp man is gay.’
‘You should know.’
‘I’m not camp.’
‘Well… sometimes…’
Jacob glared at Emily again, then turned to Sam. ‘Do you think Nate was gay himself?’
Sam stared at Jacob.
‘Was what you saw before or after Nate harassing you during the street party,’ Jacob continued.
‘Before.’ Sam looked at her shoes.
‘Then perhaps Nate harassing you had something to do with Spencer harassing him? Perhaps Nate wanted to compensate as he felt uncomfortable about his own sexuality?’
‘No,’ Sam said, tugging at a strand of her hair, her face as white as a sheet. ‘Of course he wasn’t gay. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.’
They watched as Sam walked back along the path.
Jacob sighed. ‘That girl is still hiding things from us.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right.’ Emily pulled one of her rats out of her pocket and stroked his soft fur. She hated being suspicious of her friend, but something didn’t add up here.
It had been a trying morning so far. The five of us were huddled behind our boxes, while an almost constant stream of paper clips and pencils came down on our heads. One of the pencils had hit me in the shoulder with the pointy end, and it was now somewhat stiff and painful to move.
About halfway through the morning Victor’s reinforcements had arrived and so far they had performed a number of attacks. Luckily, we had managed to fend them off, but only by the skin of our teeth.
‘What are they trying to do with this bombardment of paper clips?’ Vinnie said. He pushed his back into one of the boxes and kicked a paper clip out of the way. ‘Making us stark raving mad?’
‘Well, if they do, it’s working,’ I said. ‘I’m getting heartily sick of it.’ I watched as Gus and Daisy kept on going with their counter attack, shooting paper clip after paper clip in the direction of the Bambini’s box. They had found the perfect way to load a paper clip and shoot it in one smooth motion, making Daisy’s catapult our most formidable weapon.
‘Take that one, you flea-ridden fur balls,’ Gus yelled, shooting another paper clip.
‘It would be handy if we had another catapult,’ Leo said, chucking a pencil at the Bambini’s entrenchment with all his might.
‘Perhaps,’ I said, sticking my nose around the box and pulling it back when a paper clip came whizzing by. ‘But it’s too dangerous to build one now. What we actually need is reinforcements ourselves.’
‘Yes,’ Gus yelled. ‘Where is that Rat Squad?’
‘Did somebody say our name?’ a deep voice came from behind us. I turned around to see a whole bunch of very burly rats make their way into the front room.
‘Charlie!’ Daisy yelled and she ran up to the lead rat, touching her nose to his. ‘We’re so glad you’re here. Come meet the others.’
Daisy led the large rat in our direction. He was huge, even bigger than Vinnie, and his muscles rippled under his fur. He had a permanent bald spot on his right shoulder, but that didn’t make him look any less impressive.
‘Paddy, Vinnie, this is my brother Charlie,’ Daisy said.
‘Hey,’ I said, as more paper clips rained down on us. ‘We’re so glad you guys could make it.’
Charlie looked at the paper clips and pencils. ‘You’ve got a bit of a situation here, I see.’
‘We do indeed.’
Another burly rat joined us.
‘This is Roger,’ Charlie said. ‘My right-hand rat. How much more ammunition do the Mob have?’
‘Well, I think we just keep exchanging stuff,’ I said. ‘Everything they bombard us with, we shoot back at them again.’
‘Hmm… Sounds like they don’t really have a plan either, so we will have to come up with a good one.’
Charlie’s words stung me a bit as it wasn’t as if we hadn’t tried, but I could see his point. We needed a seriously good plan and a lot more rats.
‘How many rats do they have?’ Roger said.
I shrugged. ‘We’re not entirely sure. They started off with just the three of them, but they probably got about ten to fifteen extra rats overnight.’
‘There’s twelve of us in the Rat Squad,’ Charlie said. ‘So with you guys, we’re seventeen in total. Looks like we’re pretty even numbered.’ He plucked at the fur on his chest. ‘What about just trying a surprise attack and overrunning them by force?’
Roger nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan, boss.’ He looked at Vinnie and me. ‘You guys up for that?’
‘Anything is better than this constant barrage of paper clips,’ Vinnie said, as another one hit him on the head. ‘I’m itching to get my paws on those mangy fleabags.’
‘Right,’ Charlie said. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. You guys keep chucking everything you’ve got at the Mob to distract them. The Rat Squad will split up and attack the enemy from two sides and hopefully surprise them.’ He made a pincer movement with his arms. ‘Then after we’ve overrun them, you guys can join us to finish them off. Good idea?’
‘Sounds great to me,’ I said, secretly glad that I wasn’t in the group that surprised the Mob. Let’s face it, strong and healthy as Vinnie and I still were, we were middle-aged rats. Compared to us most of the Rat Squad had only just left the safety of their mother’s digs. Only Gus was closer to our age.
Before we knew it, Charlie had updated the rest of his squad and with a quick nod of his head, let us know they were going in.
As Leo, Gus and Daisy kept up the barrage of paper clips, Vinnie and I split up to keep an eye on the proceedings from the sides of our defences. We both had a large stack of ammunition at our disposal in case something went wrong.
I watched as Roger led his group of squaddies down the wall, below the windows, sneaking up on the Mob. They were halfway down when suddenly a group of Mafiosi, led by Dino, appeared from nowhere and pounced on them. In an instant there was nothing but a writhing mass of fur, claws and teeth. I stared at it, hoping to find out who was winning.
Then from the corner of my eye, I saw Sal and his Mafiosi attacking Charlie and his rats, who on the other side of the room, attempted to sneak past the kitchen to get behind the Bambini defences.
A panic rose up inside me, making my scalp prickle. What if the Mafiosi were too strong for Roger and Charlie? I guess they could overrun us all, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. Reaching behind me, I grabbed any ammo I could find. Erasers, pencils, paper clips, I chucked it all at the Mafiosi under the windows, hoping it distracted them enough for the Rat Squad to get the upper hand.
Charlie in the meantime changed his tactics and led a charge diagonally across the no man’s land between the two defences. Undeterred by a barrage of paper clips being chucked at them from behind enemy lines, Charlie and the Rat Squad reached Victor’s box.
Seeing this, both Dino and Sal shouted for a retreat to help their brother, but Victor himself put a stop to that.
‘Stay where you are!’ he yelled. ‘And get those runty cousins of mine!’
Before I knew what was happening, the Mafiosi near the kitchen wall stopped chasing Charlie and ran straight at Gus, Daisy and Vinnie, who also had upped their game and were not only shooting paper clips, but also chucking all available ammunition at the Mob.
‘Watch out!’ I yelled, but knew it was too late.
Despite Vinnie being overrun by the Mafiosi and lying on his back, he kept valiantly chucking erasers at them. Gus and Daisy had no other choice but to abandon their catapult. Being chased behind our defences they still managed to keep ahead of the teeth and claws of the Mob.
The Mafiosi that had remained behind Victor’s box now appeared and attacked Charlie and his rats in no man’s land.
Meanwhile under the windows, Roger and his rats were still in a serious battle with Dino and the Mafiosi. It seemed that Leo and I were the only ones not being attacked, but that didn’t last long.
Leo, behind our defences, had kept himself busy gathering up the ammunition that the Mafiosi had thrown at us, and now came running from behind our boxes, in hot pursuit by Sal and two of his Mafiosi. One of them nipped Leo in the heels and he screeched.
Then I realised they were coming right at me!
‘Get out of here, Paddy,’ Leo yelled and I started running. With Leo close behind me, we crossed no man’s land, then ducked behind our boxes again, where mayhem had ensued as Vinnie, Gus and Daisy were now surrounded by Mafiosi.
They tried defending a small patch of ground, but the Mafiosi kept encroaching on them. Dino manoeuvred himself closer to Daisy, trying to get hold of her arm. She bit him in the paw and then poked him in the stomach with the sharp end of a pencil.
Still being chased by the Mafiosi, Leo ducked into the back room to escape and I followed him in. Before we knew it we were out of the old building and into the car park with the Mob hot on our tails. What were we to do now?