Tom Murphy Chapter 2

That week I worked for the Mayor. That first night, I slipped behind the annexe and tapped as ordered. The door swung open. The Mayor appeared more rushed and nervous even than a landlord collecting rent. He led me through pitch black corridors into his office. There under a pale light, he handed me some keys. His beady blue eyes drilled into me as fiercely as a preying hawk, and his voice took on a cutting saw tone.

These are duplicates of the Mayor's keys, he whispered.
When the good citizens of our fair city are fast asleep safe in their homes, you will be my eyes and hands.
The city's little secrets are for you, boy, to ferret out.
Take these keys with you when you return to your home, and guard them from prying eyes with your life.
Stay here now and wait in my office. When the time is right, you know more about this than me, enter down this corridor.

He gave me precise instructions how I was to navigate my way with these keys into a certain room, unlock the office safe, and remove certain folders.

I had to remove a few sheets from the folders. These sheets had written over them certain cryptic words and figures. I would return the folders and everything else exactly as I had found them. I would leave the sheets in his bottom office drawer hidden inside his ledger book. Then I would lock the office drawer, sneak out of the annexe door, and return straight home. If a policeman spoke to me, I would make up any excuse I liked, but I must never bring up the Mayor's name.

At this point, said the Mayor,
you are to lie low for the rest of the week. Only then will you return to my office to receive your wage.
Should you do everything to my satisfaction, I will pay you, out of my own pocket, another pound.

Until then my heart had been jumping and my head swimming at this lonely and dangerous vocation. But at the words– another pound, all I could feel was itchy palms. All I could see was a treasure trove.

Should you actually be caught by the constabulary, tell them you are working for Mr McLean who as employed you as an office boy as an act of public charity.
You broke and entered the Council Chambers with stolen keys to look for money.
The Magistrate is a good friend of mine, and we will see that you are let off with a mild birching by the court.

The Mayor looked down at me firmly.

I assume you are used to that.

I lied convincingly. Dad was rough. When suffering ‘on the wagon’, he sometimes did pick me up and throw me like I was a piece of crockery. Mostly, however, he just threw the crockery. As he was then ‘off the wagon’, he always missed. My older cousin had been birched by the court. His defiant later words had filled me with horror. I had taken little notice of the few faint welts. It was the indignity of one's bare bum hoisted up to the swishing birch of policemen. I had to be philosophical and remember the words of my old headmaster. Even the most challenging and rewarding tasks had their bad parts.

When I order you, you will return these sheets to their proper folders and collect another pound note, concluded the Mayor.

My mind raced again with dreams of instant wealth. It was at this moment that a very strange thing happened. The Mayor waved into the dark far end of his office. A figure, that had been inert on a dark leather sofa, suddenly got up and moved towards us. I jumped back in alarm. It was a man whom I recognised from the billiard hall. I had stood outside looking in the hall, too shy with my boyish figure to enter.

I remembered him in the noisy tobacco-foggy crowd because he somehow always shone with a beaming good cheer. His clothes were so cut he might have been born in them and washed them like a cat. At this moment, even he seemed a little ill-at-ease beneath his wide smile.

The Mayor introduced us as Thomas Murphy and John Wood. I recalled everyone – with much merriment – calling him ‘Wormwood’. He appeared to take that in great spirit.

John Wood is my nephew, said the Mayor.
You may as well know about him now. He is at present homeless, and as he is family, he is for a short while sleeping in the mayoral office.

Don't worry, said Wormwood.
These dirty tricks are only what Uncle does in the office.
My lips are sealed.

He gave the Mayor a mischievous wink.

The Mayor's face did not even give its faint crack. They both wished me well. When the Mayor wasn't looking, Wormwood poked his tongue at me in a very peculiar way. They sneaked out the door. I lay down on Wormwood's couch to have a few winks, and wait till the midnight hour cast the city into sleep.

I suddenly thought, Where is Wormwood sleeping tonight?

I did all as instructed. I glanced at the cryptic sheets. They remained a mystery except that I saw figures of thousands of pounds. I slipped away through the silent city to my home. Even my family could not be roused.

I spent the rest of the week on my back in the boys' room, reading back magazine copies of Biggles. I resolved to turn over a new leaf and be as alert and upright as the famous aviator. I was, in my street, that rare wonderful thing, a working man. Dad and the rest of my family were, as I expected, indifferent to my departure from Tech, my employment and my present idleness. I wasn't cadging from them, and therefore must have made a step up and was all right in the world.