An Episode of Remnants.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this work has content some listeners may find distressing, including themes of war, violence, and grief. This episode contains:

Vague mentions and allusions to war

A child in mild emotional distress Scenes depicting gambling addiction, and the consequences of gambling addiction

A character in poor physical and mental health

Descriptions of guns and gunshots

Murder, and brief descriptions of injury and death

Transcript

THE APPRENTICE WAKES WITH A SUDDEN INTAKE OF BREATH. HE SNIFFLES AND SITS UP.

APPRENTICE
Sir?

THERE IS NO ANSWER

APPRENTICE
Hello, sir?

STILL NOTHING

APPRENTICE
Hmm. Suppose I’d better get on with it, hadn’t I?

THE APPRENTICE GETS TO HIS FEET.

APPRENTICE
Though, what, I don’t really… Hmm. Suppose I’ll just have a wander around, get my bearings? I’ve not really had chance to. Have I? Dunno. Well. Let’s have a little look about.

FOOTSTEPS.

MORE FOOTSTEPS

APPRENTICE
Right, what’s here then? Looks like, a music box, set of keys, an old brass whistle. What’s that? Is it supposed to be–

A BIG SNEEZE COUGHING

APPRENTICE
Fuck me, this place is dusty, innit?

SMALL, STRANGE SHUFFLING SOUNDS

APPRENTICE
What the– it’s moving! The dust, it, it’s moving, it–

SIR
Yes. They do that.

THE APPRENTICE SQUEAKS IN FRIGHT

SIR
Apologies. I did not mean to startle you.

APPRENTICE
Ha. Well. Sure. What was that you was saying?

SIR
Ah, yes. The dust. They move.

APPRENTICE
Right.

SIR
And left, too.

APPRENTICE
Well then.

SIR
I suppose so. They’re not very fast, but they manage.

APPRENTICE
What, sir?

SIR
Elaborate.

APPRENTICE
What do they manage?

SIR
Ah. Their tasks.

APPRENTICE
Oh. Right. What are those, then?

SIR
When a remnant is to be re-shelved, they take it.

APPRENTICE
Oh. Where?

SIR
Here. To the shelves.

APPRENTICE
So, you don’t do that yourself?

SIR
Of course not.

APPRENTICE
Right. Should I be doing that?

SIR
Re-shelving? I should think not. You don’t know how to sort them.

APPRENTICE
You could show me?

SIR
Is that what you want to be doing? Re-shelving?

APPRENTICE
Just. Maybe it’ll help, you know. Familiarise myself with stuff. Learn how it all works a bit better.

SIR
How would re-shelving achieve this?

APPRENTICE
Well, if I did that, all the remnants would be the one’s you’d picked to stay. Maybe then I’ll understand how you make those decisions.

SIR
Why would you need to do that?

APPRENTICE
Understand? Well. I. I need to know how you’re making your decisions so I can make my own.

SIR
Interesting proposition. That sounds as though you would not be making your own judgements at all.

APPRENTICE
I would, but I’d be making the right ones.

SIR
It is not about right or wrong.

BEAT

APPRENTICE
So what is it about?

SIR
Re-shelve or discard.

APPRENTICE
Oh, yeah I know, but–

SIR
It is about the choice.

APPRENTICE
But if I know what kinds of remnants you want to keep I’ll be able to–

SIR
In that case you would not be making your judgements. You’d be trying to make mine. And what’s the use in that?

APPRENTICE
But aren’t I your apprentice?

SIR
Aren’t you?

APPRENTICE
So don’t you need to teach me?

SIR
Need is not the operative word.

APPRENTICE
So what is?

SIR
You. You are the operative word. It is your judgements which matter.

APPRENTICE
But there must be some criteria, and I don’t mean you just. Show me some remnants and hope for the best, I mean you give me some way of–

SIR
The criteria is you.

APPRENTICE
Right. Right, this isn’t getting us anywhere, is it?

SIR
On the contrary.

APPRENTICE
What do you– oh. Where– where are we?!

SIR
Elsewhere.

APPRENTICE
Uh. Can we go back?

SIR
In ways that is inevitable. But why rush it.

APPRENTICE
Uh.

SIR
Fascinating.

MOVING FABRIC, FLUTTERING WINGS. THE FAINT CLINK OF A SMALL METAL CHAIN.

APPRENTICE
A pocket watch? It’s broken.

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
Should I?

SIR
Read it? I think so.

APPRENTICE
Hmm, alright, I’ll, uh… it’s. Sort of a nice weight in my hand, and if I lift it to my ear, I can almost hear it ticking—

WHOOSH. THE SOUNDS OF A BUSY LOBBY AREA.

Marcus stares between the legs of the stegosaurus. Its reconstructed bones are dark, almost black. He knows they’re not the real bones; they’re stone grown into the void where bone once was, a memory calcified in the dirt. He wants to reach out and run his hand along them, feel that near-tree-bark texture on the surface, map each ridge with his fingertips.

Next to him, his mother snaps her pocket watch shut. ‘Come on, Marcus,’ she says, steering him by the shoulder. As they walked away he took a last glance at the dinosaur.

His mother sits him on a wooden chair before disappearing behind a small door with ‘Staff Only’ written on it. This hallway of the museum was dark and didn’t have much to look at but the dark green tiles and the patterned wood floor. It reminded Marcus of the flooring in the houses his mother cleaned for work.

This is why they’ve come today; a cleaning job at the museum. As cleaning jobs go, Marcus thought this was the most exciting one anyone could possibly get.

When the interview is done, Marcus’ mother emerges with a smile. Marcus grins back. They leave the museum hand in hand.

‘Will you get to dust the specimens?’ he asks.

His mother laughs at him. ‘I don’t know. Maybe!’ she says.

WHOOSH. THE GENTLE, COMFORTING HUM OF A LARGE, QUIET ROOM.

Marcus sits crosslegged in the museum lobby, lost in the back and forth motion of his pencil as he picks out the edges of the diplodocus’ femur from the blank page of his sketchbook.

There’s a clunk, and Marcus is plunged into near-perfect darkness at once. ‘Hello?’ he calls.

One of the janitors shouts down from the balcony: ‘Sorry Marcus, I need to lock up early tonight. Private meetings happening upstairs. Something to do with the war. They don’t want anyone lurking about.’

Marcus sighs. ‘That’s alright,’ he says. He closes his sketchbook.

He tucked the sketchbook under his arm and stalks through the dark museum halls, past specimen jars and hunks of rock, until he finds his mother polishing a model of Saturn’s rings.

‘Can I help?’ Marcus asks.

His mother nods and hands him one of her cotton rags. He sets to removing dust from between the delicate details in the rings.

‘Do you think I can be a paleontologist when I grow up?’

‘If you work very hard in school,’ she says. ‘Maybe you could be.’

Marcus smiles.

WHOOSH. THE SOUNDS OF A BUSY TRAIN PLATFORM; OLD ENGINES CHUFFING; PEOPLE CHATTERING; TROLLEYS RATTLING BY

Marcus sniffles and rubs his nose on his sleeve.

‘Use your hanky,’ says his mother, straightening the hem on his jacket.

Marcus blinks and more fat tears roll down his cheeks.

‘There now, it won’t be long. I’ll come and see you in a few weeks! It’s only a couple of hours on the train,’ his mother says, her own eyes growing teary.

‘But what about school?’

‘School?’

Marcus nods. ‘If I don’t do good, I’ll never been an archeologist, and—’

His mother cuts him off, flinging her arms around him with a laugh. She smothers him with a hundred tiny kisses. ‘Marcus, darling, there will be school in the countryside, too, and you’ll do just as brilliantly there as you have here.’

She smoothes Marcus’ cheeks. ‘My big brave boy,’ she says. She pats the tag tied around the top button of his pea coat. ‘I love you so much. I will see you very soon.’

The conductor blows on his whistle and calls all the evacuees onto the train proper. Marcus follows the crowds through the little door. He crams himself into a compartment. It’s rammed with children, all scrabbling to get to the window to wave to their parents on the platform as they pull away. Between the flailing arms and jumping bodies, Marcus catches only a glimpse of his mother, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief as she peers from window to window, trying to see Marcus looking out.

‘Mama!’ he calls out, but his voice is lost in the chaos of the other children, the slow chug, chug, chug of the train’s engine as it begins to pull away.

Marcus sniffles, bouncing on his feet, trying to push past the other children, but to no avail. By the time he gets to the glass, it’s too late. The platform is gone, replaced by the brick walled backsides of a hundred London flats, and they’re off and away from the city for the first time in Marcus’ life.

WHOOSH. THE SOUNDS OF THE SEASIDE ON A WINDY DAY.

Marcus peers around the other children waiting on the station platform, clutching his notebook in his hand. It’s early summer and the little town in Devon he’d been evacuated too was in full bloom, a sea of green leading down to the actual sea. It had been two months since his mother had last visited, and he had grown almost an inch since then. He knew because the little boy he was staying in measured them both every morning against the doorpost to the barn.

Marcus’ mother steps off the train. She smiles, eager to hear about all of Marcus’ adventures. ‘There’s a brook down the back of the cow fields I’d not been to last time I saw you. Johnny showed me! There’s ducks and dragonflies and even little lizards.’ in his sketchbook he pointed to his drawings of each of them.

‘Most important though, you have to come to the beach, mother! There are these rocks there, and if you hit them with a mallet they come apart in sheets, and there are fossils inside!’

‘Fossils?!’ his mother asks. ‘How delightful!’

‘Just like the ones at the museum,’ says Marcus.

‘Oh, you’d be frantic if you saw the place,’ his mother says, tiredly. ‘They’ve been storing all these crates in there. When I was a little girl during the last war, they did everything they could to keep the place open to the public. This time they’ve had no respect for it’s value to the community.’

‘What are they keeping there?’

Marcus’s mother shrugs. ‘I don’t know, I’m not smart like you, I can’t work it out.’

Marcus frowns. ‘You are smart like me.’

His mother smiles and pats his head. ‘You’re a sweet boy, Marcus.’

They walk together down from the train station to the beach. They buy sandwiches from a little stand on the promenade and eat them sitting on the steps down to the sand. When they finish, Marcus springs up, eager to show his mother the flat rocks, picking up some already broken ones to show the fossils inside.

‘They found a labyrinthodont here, you know!’ his mother tells him as they walk.

As the sun begins to set, they return to the train station. On the platform, Marcus rights his mother’s coat as she’d righted his before he first left to come to Devon. He kisses her cheek before she got on the train. As it pulls away from the station, Marcus chases it, and his mother on the other side of the window of her compartment. Marcus runs and waves until he runs out of platform and the train speeds away towards the setting sun.

WHOOSH. THE RATTLE OF TRAINS TRUNDLING PAST NEARBY.

Marcus rearranges the jumpers on his suitcase again. It doesn’t not matter how he lays things; there still isn’t enough stuff in there to stop it all rattling around. He takes everything out again, places his books at the bottom, his nice shoes on top of them, then his jumpers, then trousers and shirts. There will be a sizeable gap at the top, but at least this way he’s less likely to have the thing falling over on the train.

‘Packing still?’ his mother says from the doorway. She’s holding two steaming mugs of tea. Marcus accepts one gladly into his hands, relishing the near-scalding heat of the ceramic on his palms. A train rattled past on the overground line outside Marcus’ window, rattling the glass and making ripples appear on his tea’s surface.

‘I’m sure you won’t miss that,’ says his mother.

‘Actually, when I went to Devon in the war, I really did, you know. Turns out if you live next to a railway all your life, living anywhere else is awfully quiet.’

Marcus’ mother hums. ‘I suppose that’s why you always wanted to come with me to the museum; you after a bit of quiet.’

Marcus shrugs. He couldn’t remember if that was true. ‘I think I just liked it there.’

His mother smiles. ‘You did. My little scientist. I’m so proud of you.’

Marcus laughs thinly. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself; I might yet fail spectacularly.’

‘At least it would be spectacular. A grant to study at Cambridge, for my son.’ His mother sighed and shook her head. ‘It’d be unbelievable if I didn’t know how hard you’d worked. You deserve this, Marcus.’

Marcus smiles nervously and sips his tea.

WHOOSH. THE SOUND OF BIRDS AND CRICKETS, EVENING IN THE COUNTRYSIDE.

Marcus adjusts his lapels. His tuxedo isn’t quite the perfect fit, and he’s certain everyone else is going to notice. The jacket is a little long in the arms and he’s had to pin the waistband so the trousers hang right. He looks in the mirror and fusses at his bowtie.

He tries to think about what his mother would say about him in this moment; his first end of year ball at Cambridge. When he spoke to her on the phone, she told him how proud she was. She even sent money in the post to help pay to rent the very tuxedo he’s currently fussing over. It arrives in a little box, tucked down the side of what Marcus at first assumed was an ordinary ball of socks, but when he lifted it out, it was too heavy. Nestled in the centre was his mother’s pocket watch.

Marcus puts his hand over the pocket on his chest the watch is now hidden in, its brass chain gleaming with polish against his jacket.

He smooths his hand over his sandy hair, takes another short breath, and heads out.

It’s an evening of handshakes, champagne and congratulations. As the day blurs late night to early morning, Tommy, who has been Marcus’ closest course mate, bounds over to him. Tommy is blisteringly good looking, the kind of handsome that Marcus finds it difficult to look at for too long. He’s the closest Marcus has to a friend at Cambridge, and they’ve hardly seen each other outside of lectures and field trips.

Marcus doesn’t go out much. Over the year, he’s had garnered a reputation for being bookish and studious because of this, but in reality, it’s just because he doesn’t have the funds. His scholarship covers his living quarters, and just about left him enough to live on, but that was all.

‘If you’re not turning in yet, Darius and Julian have a house in town,’ says Tommy. ‘They’ve plenty of slosh. We can play some cards.’ He grabs Marcus’ shoulder and gives him a hearty shake. ‘You’ve two months with no course work, surely if there’s a night to let loose, it’s this one?’

Marcus finds himself smiling. Tommy’s hand on his shoulder is warm, radiating through his jacket and shirt. He follows him out into Cambridge city proper.

When they arrive at Darius’ and Julian’s house, Marcus’ stomach drops. The walls are panelled in dark wood, the lighting warm, low and expensive. The shelves are crammed with old books and small statuettes.

As Tommy and Marcus walk in, there is already a gaggle of boys sitting at a small round table in the corner. One of them glances up; Darius. ‘Ah, Tommo,’ he says. ‘Shall I deal you in?’

‘Please,’ said Tommy, squeezing into a chair.

‘And you?’ Darius asks Marcus.

Marcus nods and sits down between them.

Over the table, there’s hung a wooden plaque displaying a revolver made of gold. The barrel was acid etched in a delicate pattern, the handle made of dark, polished wood, inlaid with yet more gold in the swirling patterns of plants and flowers.

Julian notices Marcus staring. ‘We won’t shoot you. It’s a display piece. Daddy jammed a bullet in there in 1913 and it hasn’t fired since.’

It takes a couple of hands for Marcus to really get the hang of poker though he knows the rules already. They play loud and raucous.

Marcus is far from the worst at the table. Tommy is terrible, but he’s not the worst at the table. He’s a thousand pounds down by the end of the evening, but that’s half as much as what Darius has lost.

It does not strike Marcus that they’re playing with real money until someone presses two hundred and eight pounds into his hand, just after dawn.

‘Good show,’ Julian tells him. ‘Come again.’

Marcus stares at the money in his hand. It’s the most he’s ever held at once. ‘I will!’ he says, with a grin.

WHOOSH. THE SOUNDS OF A BUSY CAFE;

Marcus’ second year at Cambridge is very different to his first. Tuesdays and Thursdays he plays poker with Tommy at Darius’ and Julian’s place. He gets good at it; very good. So good he’s able to stop tutoring high school students and is able to send money back to his mother in London.

He doesn’t always win. Some mornings, he’s walking home, and after he’s waved off Tommy and started down the path to his own rooms, his knees start to turn to jelly. It’s so easy when he’s in Tommy and the others’ company to get lost in the rhythm of the game, to pile more and more chips on the table, to bid higher and higher. He loves that they laugh and jeer when he bids high. He loves his new velvet smoking jacket. He loves smoking out of the cracked window in Tommy’s rooms as they catch up on their essays together over whiskey drunk right from the bottle.

When he visits his mother, she fusses over his jacket, blushes when he offers to take her out to tea.

The moment they sit down in the Savoy, she starts fidgeting. She keeps glancing around like she’s expecting someone.

‘What is it?’ Marcus asks.

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Do you want to leave?’

His mother adjusts her skirts. ‘That woman is wearing Chanel,’ she says.

Marcus glances over at the fine pink suit worn by the woman his mother has glanced at. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘This dress is made from your old bedroom curtains,’ says Marcus’ mother.

Marcus blinks. ‘So?’

His mother giggles, turning pinker still. ‘I’m not sure places like this are meant for the likes of me,’ she says.

Marcus glances about. He gets to his feet, offering his mother his hand. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘If you feel you need Chanel, I will get you Chanel.’

His mother laughs. ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m not joking,’ says Marcus. ‘Come on. Let me treat you.’

His mother frowns. ‘Marcus. You can’t afford this.’

Marcus shakes his head. ‘I can.’

His mother purses her lips. ‘No, darling. You keep your money. I’m fine as I am. Tell me all the exciting things you’ve been learning about! Have you seen any new fossils since we last spoke?’

Marcus feels oddly wounded.

When he returns to Cambridge, he orders a bottle of Chanel No.5. to be delivered to his mother’ flat.

WHOOSH.

Marcus is woken at three in the afternoon by his academic advisor. He’s missed four days at the dig site, has not handed anything in for weeks that might indicate he’s still working towards his doctorate. Once the advisor has roused him, he shuffles into his messy kitchen to make a cup of tea which he hopes will stave of his hangover.

He’s nodding off at his little kitchen table when Tommy raps his knuckles on the window over the sink. He’s sun-kissed and glorious, the ends of his deep brunette hair turned the colour of honey from spending weeks on the beach. The sight of him makes Marcus’ stomach drop, but there’s no way he can turn him away.

In the messy kitchen, Tommy takes off his sunglasses and unbuttons his navy jacket to sit at the table.

‘We’re off to Tuscany next week. Dary’s uncle’s lending us his house, says we can take the yacht out too, if we promise not to get too much bolly on the deck as he’s just had it waxed.’

Marcus nods stiffly.

‘Sorry, old man, are you ill?’

In truth Marcus cannot tell if he’s ill or not. The flat is smaller than the one he’d looked at first, but a particularly bad week meant he was deep into his overdraft by the time it came to signing the contract. Even with this place the letting agent had been unsure whether he could allow Marcus to move in. After some elaborate story about the bank not letting his mother sign for him, Tommy had agreed to put his own name on the contract as Marcus’ guarantor.

‘You should come to Tuscany. You look like you need the sunshine.’

Marcus thought longingly of it for a moment and ran his hand over his face. There is mould growing in his bathroom which he thinks is the cause of his cough. ‘Yes, yes, but I’m too busy.’

Tommy sighed. ‘Some things never really change! Ah well. Oh, whilst I’m here, there seems to have been some mix up with the bank. They rang my dad, apparently they’ve not been getting your checks?’

‘Oh dear,’ says Marcus. ‘How odd.’

‘Probably something to do with what happened with your mum’s bank. It’s foreign, isn’t it? That’s why she couldn’t guarantee the flat.’

‘Yes,’ Marcus squeaks. ‘Yes, that’s probably it. I withdraw cash tomorrow and sort it out.’

‘Smashing,’ said Tommy, with a blistering grin. ‘Just thought I’d give you a heads up about it before I sign all the forms.’

‘The forms?’ says Marcus

‘Yes, you know, to cover what you owe? I’m staying with Darius until we leave for Tuscany. If you could get the cash to me by the evening that’d be perfect. You could squeeze in a round or two of cards when you stop by, if you’re game.’

Tommy gets to his feet.

Dread coils in Marcus’ stomach.

Last night he’d almost had enough to cover it all, plus another three months. But then his lucky streak had ended and he’d gone home owing Darius another thirty grand.

At the time it didn’t feel too bad. ‘Bad luck, old chum,’ they said to him, patting his shoulders. They bought him another whiskey and ruffled his hair and started talking about their plans for the summer. They were all such easy company, made it easy for Marcus to fall in with them, match their pace. Until he got home and lay in his rickety single bed, he’d felt like it mattered as little to him as it did to them to lose so much money in an evening.

Marcus had already asked his mother for help too many times. He knew she didn’t have much left in the bank, that she was working extra hours cleaning houses around her job at the museum just to help him pay his bills. He was grateful, of course he was, but she was getting older. He didn’t like to think of her working so much, especially not when he knew how much work cleaning really was.

In the end, he decides he’ll have to come clean, he’ll have to tell Tommy his bank account has been empty for months, that he’s ten grand down to Julian and’s no way to pay him back, that he’s just spent a winter with no heating so he can afford to buy himself bread, that he’s been working at the local bar and tutoring students around his degree, and he still can’t afford the repayments on the loan he took out to cover the debt he built up over their skiing trip to Austria over winter the year before.

But if he did that he’d have to admit it was all fake.

Marcus heads to Dary and Julian’s for five o’clock.

On the doorstep, he checks his pocket watch. It’s a Friday, so when Tommy answers the door, he’s alone. ‘Dary and July are having dinner with Archie at the inn.’

‘Oh, of course,’ says Marcus, like this isn’t exactly why he’d chosen this precise moment to arrive. ‘But you hate the food there,’ says Marcus. ‘I remember.’

He puts a bottle of Bollinger down on the coffee table.

‘That’s right,’ says Tommy.

Tommy is wearing a patterned silk smoking jacket. It’s expensive, but it’s Marcus’ least favourite of Tommy’s collection. The red washes him out.

‘Shall we have the bolly now?’ says Marcus.

‘I’ll grab us some glasses,’ says Tommy. He goes to the kitchen.

Marcus hurries over to the poker table. He pulls the gun down from the display. When Tommy walks in, he points it at him.

Tommy slows his pace a little. ‘What’s this?’ he says.

‘I can’t pay you, Tommy,’ says Marcus.

‘What?’

‘The money, I don’t have it,’ he says.

Tommy frowns. He sets the glasses down. ‘I can wait a few more days, it’s not—’

‘No, I don’t have it, I’m not going to have it. Not ever.’

Tommy looks supremely confused. He lifts the champagne, pops open the bottle. The fizz rises and splatters onto the carpet. ‘Damn,’ says Tommy, and then he fills two glasses.

‘What are you doing?’ says Marcus.

‘Don’t you want any?’

‘No, I– Tommy! I’m threatening you!’

‘That gun doesn’t fire.’

Marcus narrows his eyes. ‘We don’t know that.’

‘Marcus. Sit down, have a drink. We can work all of this out.’

There is a very loud bang, like the cork has burst out of another bottle of champagne somewhere in the house. In that same moment, the bottle in Tommy’s hand bursts, bubbles pouring down all at once, foaming and splattering over Tommy’s trousers.

‘What?’ says Marcus.

Tommy is still holding the neck of the champagne bottle. His nostrils are quivering. He’s blinking rapidly. He takes a couple of stumbling steps backward and drops the bottle neck to the ground. A little dribble of red runs from the corner of Tommy’s mouth, and he drops to the ground too.

Marcus drops the gun in his hand like it is on fire. He rushes to Tommy’s side. His eyes are searching back and forth across the room. Marcus sits at his side, calls his name, but he’s not sure Tommy can hear him.

Then, Tommy stops squirming. Dead.

Horror mounts in Marcus’ chest.

‘What do I do. What do I do?!’ he says this over and over. He takes out his pocket watch. Ten past five. He looks at Tommy again. ‘I shot him,’ he says. ‘Fuck. Oh fuck.’

WHOOSH. A BUSY STREET.

Marcus considers, again, writing to his mother. He doesn’t know what he’ll say. How could he even begin to explain all of this? He’s been in this tiny French town for three weeks. He’s almost run out of money. He’s taken a job cleaning at a big, fancy hotel, the kind of place Tommy would have checked in to. When he first arrived, Marcus considered using all the cash he had on him to spend a few nights there, but thought better of it.

It’s been three months since he shot Tommy. First, he went to Paris. He did alright, playing poker at high tables, but then the news hit of Tommy’s death. People suspected a robbery gone wrong, at first, but two days later, Marcus saw his own picture in the paper.

Next, Marcus thought he’d try to get across the pond to America, heading along the coast to Le Havre. He heard his mother on the radio there, though. She said how disappointed she was. How ashamed of what Marcus had done, more ashamed still that he seemed to have run away.

Marcus got very drunk, after that. He bet his tickets out of France and everything he had, and lost it all.

Then he walked down the coast, on foot. At the next town, he sold his pocket watch, but it was enough for a bus across the border. He’s been picking his way from city to city ever since. He doesn’t really have a plan. In fact, he has begun to assume he’ll die before he ever thinks of one.

And he has begun to not mind this idea.

Three weeks ago, though, when he arrived in this town, there was some kind of celebration going on. They turned out to be scholars working at the site of an Ancient Roman villa. Marcus walked up, chatted to some of the people working the site. The site was private, but a real treasure, from what Marcus could tell. They’d just secured funding which might allow them to open the museum to the public within a few years.

Marcus’ french wasn’t brilliant, but it was passable enough that he could convey his interest. One of the men running the museum said he’d see what he could do about getting Marcus involved in some digs, if he wanted. They ask his name. Marcus tells them it’s Tommy.

WHOOSH. THE BEACH AT NIGHT, WITH GENTLY LAPPING WAVES.

Marcus is cleaning the museum displays. In these quiet moments after the scattered public visitors have all gone home for the day, he thinks of his mother. It’s been about a decade since he saw her. He wonders if she’s okay. What she thinks of him, now.

Marcus finishes dusting and closes the cabinet. He jumps out of his skin when he sees the reflection of a young man standing just behind him. Marcus turns. ‘I’m so sorry. The museum is closed for the night. You can come back in the morning.’

The young man smiles. He’s extraordinarily good looking, with wide brown eyes and warm, tanned skin. ‘Sorry,’ he says.

‘I can’t quite place your accent,’ says Marcus.

The man laughs. ‘Ah, yes. I grew up Italy, but I’ve lived all over. My mother travelled a lot for work.’

‘What did she do?’ says Marcus.

The man smiles oddly. ‘She was an art dealer,’ he says. ‘She was from here, actually.’

‘Oh,’ says Marcus.

‘Your accent is easy to place; south of England, right?’

‘London,’ says Marcus.

‘Ah,’ says the man. ‘Right. I should head out.’

‘Are you staying at the hotel?’ asks Marcus. ‘I live nearby. I can give you a ride.’

The man looks Marcus up and down, evaluating something. He holds out his hand. ‘I’m Benoit,’ he says.

‘Tommy,’ says Marcus. When they shake hands, Benoit’s grip is firm and steady. He keeps a hold of Marcus’ fingers just a moment too long.

They walk out to the car, chattering about the museum, and about Benoit’s mother. ‘She always said she was from Paris. I don’t know why; this place is beautiful.’

Marcus looks out over the bay. ‘Yes, it really is.’

‘So are you, Tommy,’ says Benoit.

Marcus scoffs. He turns to retort but Benoit is right there, and he kisses Marcus hard and deep, pressing him against the side of the car.

Benoit’s mouth is hot and eager. It is the first time Marcus has ever kissed a man. He thinks about Tommy, about the champagne, about the gun.

‘Wait, wait,’ says Marcus into Benoit’s lips.

‘What?’ says Benoit, hands on Marcus’ back.

Marcus looks at Benoit for a moment, and in that moment the whole weight of everything hangs between them. He thinks, bafflingly, he wants to tell this man, who is clearly fresh into adulthood, everything. He wants to tell him he’s not Tommy, that Tommy is dead, that he shot him and ran, that he’s a disappointment to his mother. That he’s been on the run.

But he doesn’t say any of that. Instead he pulls away, lets Benoit get into his car, and drives him to the hotel.

‘Do you want to come up to my room?’ Benoit asks when they get there.

Marcus laughs, but the sound is edged with sadness. ‘Oh, no. I’m far too old for that kind of thing.’

Benoit cracks a wicked smile. ‘No such thing,’ he says, but he gets out of the car without pressing this further.

Marcus sits and watches him walk into the lobby.

He drives away, past his house, down the coast. He pulls up the car at a viewing point a mile or so out of town. The view is beautiful, the town lit and twinkling like gold catching along the shore. Marcus leans against his car bonnet. He thinks about Benoit. He thinks about Tommy. He thinks about his mother.

After a while, another car pulls up beside Marcus’. He takes that as his cue to leave. He takes one last look at the darkness of the ocean, unfurling ahead of him.

He hears something, like a bottle of champagne being shattered. The ocean seems to glitter with lights. He goes to rub his eyes, but oddly, he cannot move his arms. He can hear ticking. It must be his pocket watch. He thinks of the note his mother sent along with it, for his very first end of term ball. She was so proud of him then. So proud.

WHOOSH

APPRENTICE
He died. He didn’t even know it was happening. He was… hit over the head. Someone killed him?

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
That woman, the art forger. She was killed too.

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
The boy with the rat traps, he killed his dog, he was gonna kill his nanny. It’s… murderers and victims?

SIR
They are amongst them.

APPRENTICE
So, it’s not about that.

SIR
Who is to say it is about anything?

APPRENTICE
You. Me. The fact you’re giving these to me.

SIR
Ah.

APPRENTICE
I don’t understand.

SIR
That much is clear, at least.

APPRENTICE
Why won’t you help me?

SIR
That’s not what I do.

APPRENTICE
So what do you do?

SIR
This.

APPRENTICE
And what is this?

SIR
Exactly.

APPRENTICE
Oh you’re infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.

MOVEMENT, FOOTSTEPS.

SIR
Where are you going?

APPRENTICE
Away, for a bit.

SIR
So be it.

[END]

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