The Winter Man

by Perry Bhandal

Jeanette threw a dinner party for Manjit Khansa and their children. It was a wonderful night filled with laughter. The children all decided they wanted to stay at Jeanette’s but there was no room, they all pointed to the bare floor but Jeanette would not have it, it was too hard. It was then that Khansa brought in the red, intricately flowered rug and lay it in the middle of the room. It had come all the way from India. She remembered the smell of it first as alien as the odors that had met her when she first arrived in this block. Alien no more, for these were the smells of home.

  Jeanette looked up at the clock that sat on top of the television. It was late and the restaurant would re-open tomorrow and she needed to be there early.

  With a deep sigh and to the sound of creaking joints she pushed herself off the armchair and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. She ditched her clothes in the laundry basket, wrapped the white toweling gown around her, tied the belt at the front and walked back into the living room, her nose wrinkling at the faint smell of something rotten.

  A hand clasped itself over her mouth killing her scream.

  In the middle of the room, both hands held behind his back and with a big smile on his face stood Franco.

  ‘Hello, Janine.’

  The scream died in her throat, the chemical-soaked rag clamped across absorbed it along with her consciousness.

  Janine came round with a jerk, her head snapping back involuntarily trying to put as much distance as possible from the unbearable ammonium smelling-salts under her nose. That was all she was able to move, though; the rest of her was bound to her armchair. She laboured to take in air through her nose, her mouth gagged.

  Through blurry eyes she saw Franco put the smelling salts back in his pocket and settle back on the sofa opposite her. Beside him her little Pierre, also bound and gagged. Her heart twisted in her chest and for a moment she felt as if she was going to throw up. She fought the nausea down with the unbearable sadness that cracked her soul; she had failed him, her little baby. She looked into his little eyes, wide, like a rabbit’s, full of fear. A stream of tears fell from her face and even the gag was not enough to stifle a wretched moan of despair.

  A slight movement caught her eye and she saw that there was someone else in the room. Her eyes widened as she took him in.

  He was all wrong. He had all the things that made a man in the right places, but he looked wrong all the same, like a man with too many joints.

  The cut of his tailored black suit was expensive, his shoes were brand new and spit-polished shiny, his crisp white shirt, although buttoned up to the neck, still left enough of a gap for Janine’s hand, he was so skinny. He looked like a dead man dressed up for a wake, the pallor of his skin, the bloodless lips, the wasted frame, only this one was walking, a walking cadaver. His receding hair was slicked back and she could make out pitted and scarred skin visible between the greasy strands. But his eyes were an incongruity. Clear and bright blue.

  Other objects resolved themselves around the room, a camera on a tripod and a large white light on a stand, like those found in television studios.

  On her dining table, the table that she shared with her little boy was an open case; there were things in the case, they were all shiny and sharp. Janine jerked her gaze at Franco and mumbled urgently behind her gag.

  Franco looked over to the other man. He considered for a moment and then nodded his head slightly as if giving permission.

  Franco got up and walked over to her. He bent down and whispered in her ear.

  ‘You make a sound and that little nigger is dead, you unnerstan’ me?’

  Janine nodded quickly.

  Franco removed the gag. Behind him the man folded his stick-like arms and perched himself on the edge of the table. His glittering eyes seemed to suck the light from the room.

  Janine coughed clearing her throat. When she spoke it was with a trembling high-pitched voice.

  ‘Franco, please don’t do this...,’ she pleaded. ‘Look, I’ll come back, I’ll start working again, make all the money back that I took from you. Please don’t hurt him....’ The words tumbled desperately from her mouth, dashing meaninglessly over Franco’s ears. Even as she spoke, she knew it was no use, but she continued nonetheless, hoping that perhaps that he heard something, that something would pierce, resonate, ring, and open a path in his mind, a future possibility that appealed to him and would make him see that there was a value to her life, something that he could exploit, make money with, that she had a future value greater than what he had in his pocket now, a simple financial comparison appealing to his greed that for her and her son meant the difference between life and death.

  ‘I...I... still have most of the money left, it’s in the toilet behind the cistern, I used the same hiding place as you did, baby. Go-on, look, it’s there.’

  Franco just stood and looked at her, an almost pitiful look on his face as she begged.

  ‘Please, baby, I’ll work hard, make lots of money. I’ve kept in shape, I look good, please, if you hurt me, then you’ll make no money right, no-one wants damaged goods, right?’

  Franco smiled faintly at this.

  ‘That’s what you’d think...,’ he said more to himself than her.

  ‘What, what...what are you talking about...?’ she entreated, her eyes flicking between the camera and the man sat on the edge of the table.

  ‘I’m sorry, Janine, I’m just not in the whoring business anymore...I found something that pays a whole lot more....’

  Franco picked up the gag again and something in Janine realised she was going to die. All she could do now was to save her son.

  ‘He’s yours, Franco.’

  ‘I know that,’ he replied as he moved to push it into her mouth

  ‘No, No...I mean he’s yours.’

  Franco stopped, the gag held in mid-air, his mouth slightly open. Then he smiled at her.

  ‘You’re good, I’ll give you that, but then again you always were.’

  ‘Look in his eyes and you’ll know, pl…,’ and he stuffed the gag back in.

  Franco turned to look behind at the man and then back to Janine.

  ‘This is...a friend, you belong to him now....’

  He sat back on the sofa as the man skipped lightly off the edge of the table and watched as he prepared to go about his work. There was once a part of him that would have just wanted to walk out of here, a part of him that jarred against what he was about to see, a feeling deep within him that refused to be ignored. There was something very wrong with the man that bent and checked Janine’s pulse, opened her gown and checked her heartbeat. When he had entered into Franco’s life, eternal night had come with him.

  He had wanted disposable people. He paid extremely well and Franco had been more than happy to oblige. He had known his own regulars to go too far on occasion and Franco had learnt what needed to be done to clear up after their excesses. Now this man only wanted expendable so it was just a case of making it the norm as opposed to the exception. Franco knew many expendable people that no-one would miss.

  However, this man’s appetite and the appetites of the people he served seemed without limit and the number and frequency of his requests increased to a point where even he was now hard pushed to satisfy.

  Franco was a bad man, he always had been. He had left the corpses of men in his wake as he steered a course towards the riches and power that all of his kind sought. He had killed, methodically and with purpose as part of his business dealings, arbitrarily and whimsically when he just didn’t like the look of someone.

  But this one was different from any he had met. Not many men scared Franco, but he did. His instincts had told him to keep his distance from this strange creature. Why, then, had he asked him what he did with all the men, women, boys, girls and babies that he provided him with? He did not know. That part buried deep within him still regretted it. He had expected to be told to mind his own business, but instead he was handed a videotape. That night, so long ago now, he had
sat in his living room and entered a world that he had only thought might exist, a world beyond his, beyond the handshakes, suitcases of money, and vans full of people driving off into the distance. Until now he had been separated from this world, cut off from it, land-bound, unwilling to step into the vessels that took the expendable across the blackness to their far-off destinations. By pressing ‘play’, he had done just that, he had made the journey alongside them to their final destination.

  Shadows scurried here and there around him as he sat unable to tear his eyes away from the television. The images and colours changed, slowly the blacks and browns gave way to red and the screams gave way to small wet sodden sounds. Through cold involuntary tears, and against a background of white noise and static that signaled the end of the tape, he entered a world that he would rather not have. In the carved up faces of the young and innocent Franco saw his own reflected; what he had initially reviled, he grew to like. Since then he had seen many first-hand, and on a few occasions had even taken part. Over time he could no longer hear the small voice of protest.

  Franco looked down at the little boy sitting next to him. His face stained with tears, his terrified eyes locked on his mother’s, not knowing what was happening to him, pulling helplessly against his bonds, not understanding the world that he was being introduced to. The little boy looked up at Franco, tears dripping freely from the corners of both eyes. Brown eyes, beautiful eyes, his eyes.

  From far, far away, Franco thought he could hear a voice.

  A little voice.

  A protesting voice.

  The man switched on the light, bathing Janine in harsh brightness, and then started the video camera.

  Janine’s eyes tracked him as he put on a plastic tunic like surgeons wore in hospital. Taking a syringe from the case, he approached and injected her with a clear liquid in the arm. Janine felt the tension drain from her and her head loll forward as all her muscular control faded. The man took a roll of tape and secured her lolling head back against the sofa headrest. Then ungagged her. She could not move a muscle but could feel every touch.

  Franco marveled at this drug, Ketamine, that could do this. The man stood back and fished out an antique watch from his waistcoat pocket. It glinted in the harsh light as he stood there unblinking, counting seconds, tick, tock, tick, tock.

  Streets away, an old man tugged at his dog’s leash, pulling him away from the small dried turd that he was sniffing at. ‘Cmon, Pepe, cmon’. A flash caught his eye and he turned to look at a bright square of light in the middle of the apartment block in the distance. The old man lingered, wondering why on earth someone would want such a bright light. Then it flickered as if someone had passed in front of it and then was bright again. The old man shivered, despite the warmth, and hurried home, away from the light.

  Pierre watched the scary man pick a shiny thing from his case and walk to stand beside his mummy. He stooped slightly and brought the silver thing close to her face. He could see the end was really sharp, he could see it was a knife. Mummy had told him not to play with knives because they were dangerous and he could cut himself.

  Pierre’s and Janine’s eyes locked for a moment and in them he saw the look of love, helpless, unconditional love, for the last time in his life.

  The man placed the edge of the knife against his mummy’s ear with the tenderness of a lover’s caress. He paused for a moment, closing his eyes, and sighed as if in prayer, then he opened them and pushed and everything became red.

  Franco looked at the small child and the eyes that looked so familiar. The man in the gown had done his work. It was amazing how much blood the human body held. Much of it had soaked into the armchair that the ruined body of Janine sat in. The rest had pooled on the floor and spread, like wings of blood.

  The air was thick with the smell of iron. The man looked to Franco and gestured to the little boy sitting beside him as if to say he was ready for his next subject.

  Franco looked from the man to Pierre and back to the man. The eyes in this little boy were identical to his own.

  Franco shook his head and got up.

  ‘Finish up. We’re done here.’

  ‘The agreement was for two. A woman and child,’ the man said in a strained whispery voice, as if the words struggled to make it past his throat.

  Franco turned to face him. He gave him his hardest ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare. The man did not seem to notice.

  ‘Promises have been made. People are expecting two,’ he continued.

  ‘I’ll find another kid for you, not this one.’

  The man looked like he was going to argue for a moment, then the blank look returned.

  ‘It took you long enough to find these. You perhaps no longer have access to the supply that I need,’ he replied

  He stripped off the gown and the surgical gloves, placing them in a small plastic bag.

  ‘The way you’ve been going through them is that any fucking surprise?’ argued Franco.

  The Man toggled a switch on the video recorder and watched the screen for a few moments, nodding with satisfaction.

  ‘Maybe it is time to move on.’

  Franco ignored him and turned to the little Pierre who still sat looking at the wrecked form of his mother. He turned his face to look at him and removed the gag.

  ‘You’re mine now,’ he said as he undid the bindings on his feet and arms. Behind Franco the man approached silently and draped something thin and shiny over his head and pulled. Pierre watched as the garrote slid into Franco’s throat with a gasp. Franco pushed back and they fell hard onto the floor, his weight winding the man. As they struggled amidst sounds of choking and spurts of Franco’s arterial blood, little Pierre reached up and opened the front door. He turned to take one last look at his mother and then stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Pierre looked across the hall to the door of the flat belonging to their neighbours Manjit and Khansa. His mother had always told him he should go to them if he ever got in trouble or needed help.

  Pierre waddled down the stairs, taking them one at a time. When he got to the bottom he heard a sound and looked up. At the top was the man looking at him.

  Pierre ran as fast as his little legs would carry him, out of the block entrance around the corner and into the alleyway. He found a dark corner and sat down, pulling rubbish over him and making himself as small as possible. He waited.

  He tried to calm his breathing. If he was quiet and did not move the man may not find him. He did not want the man to do to him what he did to his mother. He tried to remember his mother’s face, but he could not. All he could see now was a red thing.

  The light from the streetlamps penetrated only a few feet before surrendering to the shadows. Into that stepped the man.

  He moved silently, scanning this way and that, looking for him.

  Pierre sat still in the dark, his little breaths silent. Pierre could see the scary man, he was standing in the middle of the alleyway straight across from him, looking from one side to the other, slowly, over and over. At one point he stopped, looking directly at Pierre, his eyes glittering. Then he turned and walked away.

  Pierre did not want to move, he was too scared. Slowly his eyes began to drop and close. In his dreams, he ran from red things, red things with open arms that wanted to catch him.

  A little boy fell asleep.

  When the refuse collectors found him in the morning, it was not a little boy that awoke but a soul beyond repair. Pierre had been lost to the abyss. What remained was something else.

  The newspapers reported a brief story, of a woman attacked and killed in her home, survived by a child. The child was placed into the care of the state. The killer or killers remained at large.

  Pierre’s abuse began during his first week in the children’s home: sodomised, beaten, made to indulge in all manner of sex acts with men and other children. For a time it became a way of life.

  It was whilst being pounded from behind by his sixteen-stone carer
that the revelation came to him. For four years he had endured the worst kind of abuse that could be imagined. He was alive because he did not complain. Others had and they had disappeared, never to be heard from again. He had become a vessel into which was dumped the sexual gratification of others. The ones that liked him call him Chicken Jack; a nickname acquired from a certain technique in which he had become proficient. He had been fucked every which way but loose. But he had not surrendered. He had watched and he had learnt, learnt how to avoid the beatings, how to please his masters, how to hide his true feelings and how to lie expertly. In that dark place he came to know the nature of men, their desires, their capacities, their weaknesses.

  The headmaster looked up as a fifteen-year old Chicken Jack placed the stills of a fat man and the two boys he was sodomising on his desk. The headmaster recognised himself in the photographs. Chicken pressed a button on a tape recorder and the wood paneled and richly furnished office filled with the sound of him grunting with gravelly exclamations of love. A soundtrack to the images he held in his hands, occasionally punctuated by winces of pain from two children who otherwise remained silent throughout his exertions.

  His florid features looked as if they were going to melt, the colour rose so quickly in them. The tips of his forefingers and thumbs were white with pressure as he held the images. The tape finished and Chicken pressed the stop button with a click.

  Slowly the colour returned to his fingers as if draining from his face. He listened to Chicken as he talked, as he told him what would be set in motion if anything happened to him, that unless he made a phone call to a very special number every day these pictures and everything else would be released to the media and the police at the same time.

  The police did not worry the headmaster, the media did.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked finally, when Chicken had stopped talking.

  He expected a series of ultimatums centred around the stopping of all abuse. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Chicken wanted money. The abuse was not only to continue but increase as paying patrons were sought and acquired.