Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [63]
Tommy worked out an elaborate system from which he never deviated. After all, this was justice, not revenge. Bad behaviour towards him was translated into specific procedures. Tommy never kept notes because notes can be discovered. Instead he kept all the details in his head. The things the girls did to him each day and the corresponding things he would do to the animals each night. The acid or the glass rods, sometimes the bunsen burners. If the behaviour of the girls was sufficiently nasty he might be forced to use his scalpels.
There was no shortage of animals. Tommy was the sixth form honour student and he was allowed to place orders for the biology lab. Only he knew exactly how many rats, hamsters, guinea pigs or rabbits were in the school at any given time. Where they went and what happened to them was purely his responsibility.
If people had discovered what he was doing they would have been sickened by it, Tommy knew that. But it wasn’t his fault. It was the girls’ fault. After all, they made him tense and unhappy. In a sense, they were doing it to the animals, not him. If they just behaved decently towards him he wouldn’t need to pursue his system of natural justice.
As he grew older, Tommy’s acne faded and he became a handsome young man. The girls’ behaviour towards him underwent a superficial alteration. Sometimes they would smile at him or strike up a conversation, perhaps praise him for an essay he had written or a scholastic prize he’d won.
But Tommy could see through their deceit. He knew the malice and pettiness that was concealed beneath their smiles. And the punishments had to continue. It was harsh, but fair. And the grim justice of it gave him pleasure.
Tommy was a well‐adjusted, happy teenager. His only worry was what to do when he left school and the supply of animals became problematical.
But of course, in the end he’d landed on his feet.
Tommy stood at the window of the animal storage unit watching Pam and Maxine disappear into the big farmhouse. On the circular drive two cars had already arrived, bearing the clients from the pharmaceutical company. They were all going to be laughing around the big table soon, eating a huge meal and drinking vintage wine. Tommy felt a rising wave of hatred for the lot of them, but most of all for his big sister.
There was a time when Tommy wouldn’t have known how to cope with this rage. But not now. Now Tommy was a balanced individual. He knew exactly what to do.
He glanced up at the security camera mounted high on one wall. It was of the kind used in banks and it had been installed because of the drugs stored in this building. A stipulation by the insurance company. A screen back in the big farmhouse enabled you to keep an eye on anyone going through to the drugs store. It would also let Pam check on whether Tommy had taken the animals across to the labs. And he wouldn’t put it past his sister to do exactly that.
But Tommy had no intention of going through the lengthy procedure of logging in the new animals at the lab. Not just yet.
Tommy got the three cats and one of the dogs – not the black bitch, Sean had a use for her – and loaded their cages onto the trolley. He switched on its electric motor, grabbed the trolley’s handle and trundled it towards the glass door. The trolley moved with maddening slowness as he pushed through the glass door into the room where the drugs trial was being conducted.
The two girls and the man were strapped into their chairs facing the video camera. They didn’t seem to notice Tommy but, considering the dose of the drug they’d received, that was hardly surprising.
There was a strong smell of sweat in the room, though, and an even stronger smell of some kind of perfume or aftershave. It was an odd smell. It reminded Tommy of a box of liquorice candies he’d once left lying on the window‐sill in the sun until they’d melted into a black, aromatic mess. The