Pseudology

PART THREE: ad quod damnum (Seventeen)

EDITED

It was the eve of the 9th of January, 2000, and Adrian had been sixteen for nearly two days. He didn’t seem any different to anyone else- he hadn’t grown for a few months, and he didn’t look physically older- but Adrian had felt something change as soon as the clock had struck thirty one minutes past one in the morning on the 7th.

He was sitting at his desk as the rain hammered down, the dim light of the yellow light bulb falling onto his face. He’d been pouring over a piece of paper since lessons had finished, trying to remember… trying to remember the little details of his mother’s death.

Adrian had figured out that if he took some of the cocaine when he felt a Going Wrong moment or a moment of severe stress, like remembering his mother’s death, he would be much calmer. So calm, in fact, that he could remember the smaller, harder to think about details of the events that he was trying to remember, and over the last two months, Adrian had become obsessed with trying to find his mother’s killer. To fulfil his outdated vow… and the cocaine was helping.

His hair was getting too long; he noticed it as he swept it from his face idly, the scratching of the ink pen on thick, white paper catching all of his senses. There was a pile of Physics and History homework on his bed that he hadn’t done yet but none of that mattered- he just had to get some ideas down. He needed to organise all of his thoughts; there were so many of them that it was becoming difficult to think logically. Morton had started to notice last time he’d come to see him after dinner; erratic thinking and nervous twitching was too obvious, so Adrian had decided that calming himself down was the only option. He needed to calm down.Writing down all of his thoughts which were tied to the murderer (and taking a small amount of cocaine) helped…

It helped a lot.

It wasn’t as though any of his friends actually minded that he was alone most of the time. Christopher, who had slowly grown further away from the group over the past year was now befriending the calmer, more serious boys who Adrian had always admired. Martin; caring, loving, gentle Martin, was watching Adrian from afar, whilst Andrew, the popular sportsman, only came to Adrian when he wanted a buzz of energy. He only ever came to him when he wanted some of the small white powder which Adrian kept in his old sports shoes under his bed, but Adrian didn’t really think about his social connections, not when he had a killer to catch!

He smirked to himself as he finalised his list. He blew on the ink and re-read;

London. Killer not local. Find DI who was in charge of the case- find records. Devise a plan to do this- selling, drugs, careful, illegal. NEW Scotland Yard (important) -> use school trip.

He had a feeling his plan was finally going to work.

II

They were lined up outside the main building of the school, adjusting heavy raincoats over their school uniforms as the water drizzled from the sky.

Adrian, standing next to Martin, could feel the pressure of his notepad against his trousers as they moved onto the bus, a pen gripped in his hands, ready to think of more ways in which he could aid his own cause. They were finally going to London on a school trip, and now was his time. He could use the trip to find out more information; where was New Scotland Yard? How easy was it to get in? How would you find the suspects? Did they even have a file of information, or was it going to be useless? Adrian needed ALL of the information he could gather before he embarked on his quest… if it all went wrong, he’d be in serious trouble.

“Looking forward to it?” Martin asked Adrian as they sat down near the back of the bus. He shrugged.

“Yes, I s’pose I am.”