Chapter 2. Occurrence in the train

Sunday wasn't much better. The guys didn't turn up in the morning, as they were supposed to do. They didn't turn up after lunch either. The walk with Sunny was cancelled again. There were no problems with Sunny. She's smooth-tempered and easily understands everything.

My problem was Brian. He isn't smooth-tempered at all. That morning he woke up in high spirit. After breakfast he started asking why I was staying at home instead of hanging out with my friends. Then he and Mum decided to go out with their friends, and he insisted that I go with them. I lied that couldn't go because I had a lot of homework to do. It worked and, to my great relief, an hour later he and Mum went away with Adam and Jonathon in tow.

I made a cup of hot chocolate and a big sandwich, and settled down in the living room, waiting for the guys. I waited on and on, but they didn't turn up. Gradually I was starting to worry. At three o'clock Sunny joined me and we waited together. We called Nick's cell phone several times, but he was out of range.

At six o'clock we finally heard the doorbell ring. I opened the door and my jaw dropped. Zane, Elmo and even Nick looked terrible. They looked incredibly tired, their clothes were wrinkled and dirty, there were dark bags under their eyes. Elmo had a black eye, which was awfully swollen. A huge dark purple bruise covered his cheek under the eye.

'What's… the matter?' I babbled, stepping aside to let them come in.

'Elmo, who did it?' Sunny anxiously looked at his black eye.

'Fucking fans,' Elmo stammered. 'At the stadium.'

'It was his own fault,' Nick grumbled. 'How hopeless you are if you stand among fans of a football team and root for the opposing team.'

'I didn't mean it,' Elmo confessed. 'I don't understand anything in this stupid game. And when that guy from the opposing team scored that goal into our goalposts, I really thought that our team did it.'

'Oh I see,' Sunny giggled.

'And then was that corpse,' Elmo went on.

'What corpse?' I stared at him.

'Male corpse,' Elmo replied.

'At the stadium?' Sunny opened her eyes wide.

'No,' Nick waved his hand. 'How would a corpse get at a stadium?'

'The corpse was in the train,' Zane Quistok put in.

'He was sitting next to me,' Nick wrinkled his nose.

'He paid money for us and then we talked to him,' Zane said. 'He said that he also always rooted for this football team.'

'Who?' Sunny and I chorused.

'The corpse,' Zane replied gravely.

'Maybe it's a nickname,' Sunny suggested, turning to me. 'Like Sailor or something.'

'No, it was the real corpse,' Nick grumbled. 'A dead guy. I should have thought twice before listening to you,' he glanced crossly at Quistok. 'You always cause troubles for anyone.'

'Hang on,' I shook my head. 'I didn't get it. How could you talk with a corpse?'

'When we talked to him, he wasn't the corpse yet,' Elmo replied.

'Okay,' Sunny held her hands up. 'Listen. Why don't you go to the bathroom, wash face and hands, and change your clothes. Then you'll feel better and tell us everything what happened.'

Half an hour later all we were sitting in my kitchen. Nick, Zane and Elmo had washed their faces, changed into clean clothes, which they had left in the storeroom and combed their hair. I, meanwhile, had made five cups of coffee and a pile of sandwiches. Sunny had inspected Elmo's eye and given him some ice, wrapped in a tea towel. Then she'd called Liz. Ten minutes later Liz was sitting at the table with us, looking anxiously at Elmo's black eye.

The three guys had calmed down by that time and managed more or less clearly to tell what had happened to them.

###

They reached Melbourne without troubles. Sailor-Quistok plan worked very well. When the train carried them into Melbourne, Quistok importantly pointed out that this time his estimations had been done perfectly. Nick and Elmo agreed with him.

Anyway, they arrived at the stadium about half an hour before the game. So the freakiest fans from Sailor's team had some time to chatter with fans of the opposing football team. A couple of times, to Nick and Elmo's horror, this exchange of abuse was about to turn into a fight. But Sailor, who didn't want to have problems with the police, successfully prevented fights between fans of both teams.

So, as Nick and Zane said, the journey would have been great and funny, if it hadn't been for Elmo, who confused everything and in the middle of the game started to root for the opposing team. To Elmo's unhappiness, it was the third goal of the opposing team, and the score became three to one.

As soon as Elmo admired the "beautiful goal", he instantly got punched in the eye by one of the fans. Sailor meddled immediately, of course. Actually it saved Elmo from more serious injuries. But when the opposing team scored another goal, Sailor advised Elmo to go as far as possible away from the stadium, otherwise he wasn't sure that Elmo would leave the stadium on his own.

He didn't have to ask twice. The next moment Elmo rushed to the exit so fast, that Nick and Zane could scarcely keep up with him.

'If he wasn't in such a hurry, everything'd be okay,' Zane shrugged.

'If I wasn't in such a hurry, I would be dead now,' Elmo objected.

'Oh, come on! Nothing would happen to you,' Nick drawled. 'At worst you'd receive another black eye. So what? There was no reason to run so fast.'

'I didn't ask you to run with me,' Elmo snapped. 'You could stay at the stadium.'

'And leave you alone in the strange city?' Nick raised one eyebrow. Elmo didn't answer.

'So Nick and I raced after Elmo,' Zane went on telling. 'And we left my plan with the timetable of trains for the way back in Sailor's bag.'

'Oh, I think I understood,' Liz said in a low voice.

'Me too,' Sunny looked at the travelers with sympathy.

But as it turned out we didn't imagine how much they had to go through. The main problem was that the plan of this journey summed up the experience of two outstanding personalities – Zane Quistok and his friend Sailor. Quistok worked out the analytical part of the plan. Sailor put his vast experience and knowledge of life into this plan.

Before the game they'd arranged to meet at the train station. But because of Elmo's fast running, Quistok forgot to clarify the time and place of the meeting. He remembered about it much later. While Sailor and his friends were at the game, Nick, Zane and Elmo decided to walk around Melbourne. Then they paid almost all their money for lunch in a cafe. Only after that they remembered that they hadn't determined when they should be at the train station.

The situation got worse, when they realized that none of them knew how to link with Sailor or other fans. As it turned out Sailor lived next door to Quistok, so Zane didn't know Sailor's phone number, because they never spoke by phone.

'Don't worry,' Quistok kept saying. 'Don't forget that Sailor and I worked out this plan together. Now we should go to the train station. I can assure you that as soon as I glance at the timetable of trains, I'll remember anything.'

Nick and Elmo weren't so sure. Now they both cursed themselves that let Quistok draw them into it. Elmo suggested that Nick should call home and ask his parents to take them from Melbourne, but Nick positively refused to call. I couldn't blame him. I could imagine how Mr Kontellis would react if he knew that his son was in a strange city, instead of hiking with school. And for the same reason Nick forbade Elmo and Zane to call their parents. In the end they decided to leave this variant for emergency.

They rushed to the train station. Quistok was right in one thing. The timetable of local trains refreshed his memory.

'This is our train!' he said cheerfully, pointing at the line on the timetable. 'But we missed it. This train has already gone.'

'Oh, great,' Elmo muttered.

'Don't make a fuss,' Quistok didn't seem to worry. 'Look here. The next train leaves in ten minutes. Hurry up! We can't miss it!'

They quickly found the train and burst into it. As soon as they settled down in vacant seats, Elmo started whingeing that his black eye needed emergency medical care, which he couldn't receive because of Quistok. And after all if it hadn't been for Quistok, he, Elmo, would have been sitting on a soft divan in his home, watching TV with his absolutely healthy eyes.

I don't know how long Elmo would have whinged about his black eye, if Zane hadn't noticed that the train swept past the station, where they had to get off and take another train. So they had to get off at the next station and go back on another train, which was late.

Then the guys, trembling with cold and fear, spent more than four hours at an empty old station in the company of a very dirty, homeless old man and his dog, which had a proud name Zeus. Though, as Nick pointed out, they were almost glad that that old guy was there. At least when he was near, they weren't so scared of horrible squeals, which were coming from the nearest copse.

So when the train, warm and shining with lights, finally arrived at the station, Nick, Elmo and Zane felt incredible relief. But they were completely behind schedule. At the time when they were supposed to be home, they were getting on a train hundreds of miles from Raven Hill.

'Ugh,' Quistok breathed out, leaning back in his seat. 'It's the last train. Soon we'll be at home.'

'Don't say like that,' Elmo muttered, feeling his swollen eye. 'I noticed that it's always a big mistake to say that everything will be okay, because things immediately get worse.'

There were a lot of empty seats in the carriage. The three guys sat down into seats and stared out the window. They all were terribly hungry, thirsty and tired. Exhausted by two sleepless nights, they soon fell asleep, rocking with the movement of the train, and woke up only when someone started to shake Zane's shoulder.

'Mmm? Have we arrived?' he asked sleepily.

'Arrived,' a rude voice answered him. 'Give me your tickets.'

Elmo, Nick and Zane immediately became wide awake. They sat bolt upright and stared at each other. They managed not to pay for tickets in previous trains. In some trains they'd managed to convince ticket inspectors to let them stay in train, telling the sob story of their journey, or they were as unnoticeable as possible and ticket collectors just went by, or something else. But now it looked as if their luck turned away from them again.

'I'm sorry, but we're in trouble,' Nick said very politely, turning his charm on. 'We don't have tickets, but we can explain…'

'If you don't have tickets, you must pay a fine,' the ticket inspector rudely broke him off.

'We don't have money about us,' Nick mumbled, losing his confidence.

'If you don't have tickets and don't have money to pay a fine, you'll continue this conversation in the police station,' the ticket collector said severely.

'But listen,' Zane tried to object, 'we've got real problems. We were left in a strange city without money and …'

'I don't care,' the collector interrupted him indifferently. 'That's not my problem. You're here and you must pay a fee. If you can't, you'll be explaining this to the police.'

'Hey, why are you so cruel?' there was a gentle voice from the opposite seat. The guys looked up and saw two good-dressed men. One of them, with a moustache and big eyes was smiling friendly. 'Don't you see that these three boys don't look like homeless hooligans?' he went on. 'How do you know what could happened to them, maybe they say the truth. You must be sympathetic to people who got into troubles.'

'If I was sympathetic to every ticketless teenager, I would have been already sacked,' the ticket inspector grumbled. 'So?' he turned to the boys again. 'Pay money or I'm calling the guard,' he pulled out a walkie-talkie from his pocket.

'But we don't have money,' Quistok cried in desperation. 'Please, don't call the guard!'

The two men in the opposite seat glanced at each other. 'I'll pay for them,' said the one with the moustache, pulling out his wallet. The second man grinned and also pulled out a wallet. They paid the fine for three disastrous-travelers.

'Thank you very much,' Elmo, Nick and Zane heartily thanked them as soon as the grim ticket collector went away.

'Never mind,' the man with the moustache grinned, tucking his wallet back into his jacket. 'I also was in your funny age. By the way, my name is Sam.'

'Sam…?' Elmo repeated, thinking that it would be impolite to call this imposing man just Sam.

'Just Sam,' the man smiled. 'I don't like this "Mr" stuff.'

'My name is John,' the second man smiled. He was taller and stockier than Sam. 'Hey, what happened to your eye?' he glanced at Elmo's swollen eye.

'At the football game,' Elmo said briefly.

'Please, don't remind him,' Quistok pleaded. 'He's been whingeing about his black eye since he received it. But it was his fault! He went to root for the one football team and suddenly started to root for the opposing team.'

'It's very bad, mate,' Sam grinned, shaking his head. 'Oh, I also like football.'

'Excuse me,' Quistok faltered. 'Um…all what we said is truth. And…um…do you have something to eat? We didn't eat anything since last afternoon.'

John laughed. Then he pulled out a big paper bag and a bottle of mineral water from his bag, and handed them to Quistok. The paper bag was full of sandwiches. 'Dig in!' he said cheerfully.

He didn't have to ask twice. The three guys pounced on the sandwiches. Even Nick forgot about his coolness and self-conceit. While they were chewing, the two men told them some things about themselves.

Sam was from a little village and was going to Raven Hill to visit his friends. John lived somewhere on the outskirts of Raven Hill. He had his own pigeon house, which he inherited from his grandfather. He grew messenger pigeons and just fancy pigeons there.

The guys in their turn told how they went to root for a football team with other fans and accidently lost in the city, and now were going back home on their own. The two men laughed a lot, listening to them.

'Oh, God!' John groaned. 'You're so funny, guys. Okay,' he sighed, standing up and pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. 'I'll leave you for a smoke. I'll be back soon.'

'I'm with you,' Sam nodded and looked at the boys. 'Can you watch our bags if we leave them here?'

'Sure,' Zane nodded.

The two men went towards the exit of the carriage, gaily talking and laughing. Nick, Elmo and Zane finished off the sandwiches, put napkins and other trash away and started looking out the window. Several minutes later John came back and sat down in his seat.

'Sam met his friends in another carriage,' he explained. 'He said that he'd come back in ten minutes.'

But Sam didn't return in ten minutes. He didn't come back in twenty minutes either. Another quarter of an hour passed, then half an hour; a few minutes more, Sam still didn't come back. John went to smoke again, hoping to find him, but returned alone.

'It's weird,' he said, sitting down next to Elmo. 'He isn't in the smoking area or in the next carriage. I wonder where he can be.'

'His things are here,' Zane pointed at Sam's big bag. 'He couldn't get off without them, could he?'

'Maybe he went with his friends into another carriage?' Elmo suggested.

At that moment a ticket inspector and a guard walked hastily past them. They both looked anxious and talked something to each other in low voices.

'I don't like it,' John looked grimly after them.

'All what I care about is reach Raven Hill,' Nick grumbled.

'Don't worry, we'll soon be there,' Zane whispered.

'You're always in a hurry with conclusions,' Elmo muttered, carefully feeling his swollen eye. 'It's getting more and more swollen,' he complained.

'Don't start it again,' Zane groaned. 'Soon you'll be at home and…'

He broke off, because at that moment the ticket inspector, accompanied with two policemen, came into the carriage and came up to them.

'Where's your mate, who was sitting here?' the ticket collector asked a question.

'He went to smoke about an hour ago,' John replied. 'Is something wrong?'

'Come with me, please,' the ticket collector asked instead of answering. Then he glanced at Nick. 'You look older than your friends,' he said. 'Come with us, too, please.'

'No,' Elmo and Zane protested instantly. 'We'll go all together.'

'Stay here,' a policeman said flatly. 'Your mate will come back soon.'

He took Nick's arm and led him towards the exit of the carriage. John shrugged and followed them. They went through two carriages and stopped at one of the first seats. 'Take a look, please,' the policeman asked.

Nick looked to where he was pointed. Sam, crouched, was lying still on the seat.

'Is it your mate?' the policeman asked. John nodded silently.

'Is he…dead?' Nick babbled. The policeman nodded.

'What happened?' John asked in a low voice. 'Was he murdered?'

'We can't say for sure yet,' the policeman shook his head. 'There're no signs of any sort of struggle. Maybe he had a heart attack. Do you know something about his health?'

'A heart attack?' Nick couldn't take his eyes off still Sam.

'Yeah,' the ticket inspector nodded. 'Life is unpredictable, sonny. Now you're alive, but the next moment you might be already dead.'

Nick stared at him.

'Take the boy away from here,' the policeman said firmly.

The ticket inspector dragged Nick back to Elmo and Zane, leaving John talking with the policemen. Nick sat down in his seat, staring blankly into space.

'What happened?' Elmo and Zane asked in unison.

'S-sam… he is…' Nick babbled, looking down at his feet.

'What happened to Sam?' Quistok started to worry.

'He is dead, this Sam,' the ticket inspector said. 'Probably he had a heart attack.'

John and one of the policemen came up to them. The train began to slow down. It was coming to a station. John started putting his things into his bag. He did it in complete silence.

'You three take your things, too,' the policeman said to Elmo, Zane and Nick. 'You'll have to get off at this station and tell everything what you know about this man in the police station.'

'But we can't,' Nick groaned. 'We must be at home by now! We can't get off here!'

'I'm sorry, but you have to. You're witnesses, so we must interrogate you,' the policeman said. 'Don't worry, soon you'll be released to go home.'

'But we actually…' Elmo wanted to say that no one of them could say anything about Sam, because they'd known him for less than an hour.

'Come on,' the policeman took Elmo's hand and led him down the aisle. Nick and Zane had no choice but to follow them. John was going grimly behind them.

They all got off the train. Two other policemen carried a stretcher, covered with a white cloth. Nick, Zane and Elmo tried not to look at it. The policeman, not letting go of Elmo's hand, led him, Zane and Nick to the guard room of the train station. John was led to another room. The policeman left Nick, Zane and Elmo in the guard's room and went out. The three guys sat down at the desk, not knowing what to say and what to do.

'Listen,' Zane whispered. 'Don't tell them your real names.'

'Are you mad?' Nick and Elmo stared at him.

'Everything will be okay,' Zane whispered urgently. 'We don't have documents about us. They'll never know if we lie.'

Elmo shook his head disapprovingly. 'No, I won't lie,' he hissed. 'We can't lie to the police!'

Nick nervously ran his fingers through his hair. His head didn't work properly because of all these events which had landed on them in so short a space of time. But he clearly understood that if his parents learnt how their beloved son spent this weekend, they would resort to drastic repressive measures for certain, so he completely didn't want to tell his own name either.

'So,' another policeman came in and sat down at the desk, facing them. 'What can you say about this man?'

'Nothing,' the guys shook their heads. 'We met him in the train about an hour before his death. That's all.'

'Okay,' the policeman opened the notepad. 'Now,' he pointed at Zane. 'Let's start from you. What's your name?'

Zane was silent.

'I'm waiting,' the policeman looked up at him.

'Simon Luper,' Zane answered after a long pause.

'Address?' the policeman went on.

Zane dictated Simon's address, telephone number and even the post code.

'Now your turn,' the policeman pointed in Nick's direction.

'Brent Howe,' Nick said.

'Address?' the policeman demanded.

'Um…my address is…' babbled Nick, who never knew Brent's address.

'Raven Hill Road, 85,' Zane put in.

'Right,' Nick nodded with relief.

'Good,' the policeman nodded. 'You?' he glanced at Elmo.

'Tom,' Elmo said unexpectedly to himself. 'Tom Moysten,' and he dictated my address and telephone number.

'Why were you in the train without money and tickets?' the policeman asked severely.

'We were in Melbourne with our friends,' Zane replied. 'Then we accidently lost the others and had to go home on our own. But never mind! We're okay. We called our parents. They know about us.'

'Okay, if you say so,' the policeman nodded. 'So, this Sam. How did you get acquainted with him?'

The interrogation lasted for about an hour. Zane, Nick and Elmo honestly told everything what they knew about Sam and his friend John. Finally the policeman closed the notepad and said that they would call them if they needed to know something else. Then Nick, Zane and Elmo were put in a car and were driven to Raven Hill, where they ran straight to my place.

###

'Why the hell did you tell them my name,' I exclaimed indignantly when they finished telling their story.

'I don't know,' Elmo shrugged. 'It just happened. We didn't want the police to call our parents.'

'Aha, you didn't want,' I retorted. 'But you think that they can call here, don't you? Couldn't you say another name? Why mine? Don't you understand that if Brian has a call from the police, he'll haul me over the coals?'

'Tom, I'm sure that they won't call,' Sunny put in gently. 'What for? The guys didn't know this Sam. What else can they say to them?'

'He was a good man, this Sam,' Zane sighed. 'I feel sorry for him.'

'Me too,' Liz whispered, her eyes glistening with tears.

'I'm going home,' Nick stood up. 'I don't want to discuss anything else right now. I'm beat.'

The others also stood up to go. It was quite late already.