The Cartographer by Peter Twohig Page A

backs of the small factories that fronted onto the street further over. Some factories came right up to the lane, and had a rail sticking out of the side, for hauling things in through a door high up in the wall. Others had back yards full of junk. I made a mental note to investigate these yards one day — I’d been avoiding them, as junkyards usually have dogs in them, large ones that aredeliberately starved by their drunken owners and allowed to smell kids’ hats.
    Further down the lane I came to a grove of peppercorn trees leaning over old fences and I knew I was back behind houses. Houses have far less glamour about them than factories, there’s no doubt about it, but they have something else: true mystery. In someone’s house you can’t find out what things do or why they are there just by asking. Unlike the men who work in factories, adults in houses do not welcome kids, and don’t want to explain why their houses are the way they are. You have to find out these things by yourself, and that means you have to explore.
    When I came to an intersecting lane at the bottom of the hill, I sat on a crate and took out my notebook. I recorded my progress, and had a breather. The intersecting lane had no name, but it had a shallow drain in the centre filled to overflowing with fast-moving water, much more water than could be accounted for by the drizzly rain. I went upstream and came to a corrugated-iron gate with a three-inch space underneath, through which a wide wash of water gracefully laminated the grey stones and tumbled into the central drain outside.
    The gate opened easily, revealing a small green Bedford van that looked familiar. Behind it was the back door of the place and from under it flowed the water. I opened the door and immediately my shoes were drenched. I whispered Shit! to myself and pressed on into the passage on the other side. The floor had a long red carpet, which was soaked. Slowly I walked upstream, expecting to come to a burst water pipe, because water pipes were always bursting around our part of town.
    It was impossible to tell whether I was in somebody’s home or a business of some sort. The whole place had a rough, grimy look about it, and the doors off the passage were all closed. I followed the water towards a side room and opened the door. Inside was a laundry and toilet and lying on the floor was a man. The laundry tap had been turned on, and the sink plugged, and water was flowing over the top in a glassy ribbon. I stepped over the man, turned the tap off and pulled out the plug.
    The man was old and looked like he was made of papier-mâché. He was wearing a striped long-sleeved shirt, and had expandable silver bracelets on his upper arms. His glasses had slipped and were sitting on his face at an odd angle. It was Mr Garnet, who delivered our groceries. Once he’d let me sit in his van.
    At first I thought he was dead and that the murderer might have killed him, too. I nearly passed out with fright when it dawned on me that he might have started killing people who knew me, to find out where I lived.
    So I nearly laughed out loud when I saw that Mr Garnet was not dead at all, but had something wrong with him, though he seemed to be in one piece. He looked at me without speaking, and though I tried to help him up, he was too heavy. So I went out the front door and asked the bloke in the shop next door to ring for an ambulance. Then I went back to Old Man Garnet, and told him what I’d done, but he couldn’t say anything. Not like him at all.
    I liked Mr Garnet because he had tips for everyone. For me it was kids’ tips. One time he told me that the way to keep bubble gum soft was to put it in malt. I managed to keep my next bubble gum alive for a month, then one morning I looked in the jar and it had turned to mush, and Mum threw the lot out.
    For Mum it was cooking tips — Mr G must have known she needed them like bullies need kids to