Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  ‘No. Of course not. I checked these files to find the appropriate history. What I discovered was that one file, an incident report, of all things, was missing.’

  ‘What was the incident number?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I’m going to remember less and less as the days go by, so you must remember this for me.’

  She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

  ‘I will, Mary. I promise.’

  ‘I don’t even know if this is important or not. And if it is important, I don’t really understand why. But you must know it and you must find out what it means. I’ve had a strange feeling about this right from the beginning. There’s something wrong about him.’

  ‘About who?’

  ‘Richard Shanti.’

  ‘The Ice Pick?’

  ‘Yes. He’s not who he says he is.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘He isn’t townsfolk.’

  ‘He has no rightful status? How do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know how I know. It’s just something about him that isn’t right. Him and his daughters too.’

  ‘To revoke the status of a man like that…well, you must know how bad that would be for people’s perceptions.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I do. I understand fully. But I have this sense of dread, Your Grace. Of something terrible to befall Abyrne and all its townsfolk. Whatever it is has something to do with Richard Shanti.’

  The Grand Bishop sat back for a few moments as if deciding something. She watched him carefully.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether to worry you with this in your condition but as things stand, well…I think you ought to know. The town no longer has power. Someone destroyed the gas facility. All our gas reserves are gone.’

  ‘Dear Father. Who was it?’

  ‘It could only be John Collins. Even Magnus isn’t insane enough to go to war with Welfare in quite such a self-destructive way. Though, he too seems to be…’

  ‘Be what?’

  ‘He’s not himself. The power of his position has corrupted him.’

  There was something he wasn’t telling her but she didn’t push for it.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t told Magnus of course, but every available Parson is out searching the Derelict Quarter for Prophet John and his hideout. We have to find him before Magnus and make this a religious crusade. The lack of power might even work in our favour to re-establish the supremacy of the Welfare and cause the townsfolk to put God before everything else as we all did in the old days.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for restoration of the old ways, for the Meat Baron to be a man who respected the Welfare, the Grand Bishop and his God. With a pious man watching over the herds of the Chosen, all things would be different. One question troubled her still.

  ‘How is it possible for records to be taken from the archive? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Have you?’

  ‘Well,’ the Grand Bishop let go of her hand and massaged some tension from his own neck. ‘Seeing as we’re revealing hidden things today, I’ll tell you. As far as I know, it’s only happened once. No one knows which record was taken – it was only a rumour, you see. But, as you must be aware, the only person who would be able to take a record and dispose of it would be a Parson. There was such a Parson a long time ago. He was old when I was a novice. His name was Pilkins.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He disappeared.’

  ‘Where to? Why?’

  ‘No one really knows. He was investigating something, as you have been, and found facts he couldn’t deal with. He should have gone to the Grand Bishop of the time but he didn’t. He fled into the Derelict Quarter to live out his life beyond God’s care and without the comforts of the Book of Giving. As far as I know he died out there. No one ever saw him again.’

  ‘Do you think it could have been the record I’m looking for that he took?’

  ‘It’s the only thing that fits.’

  ‘But we’ll never know what that incident was, will we?’

  ‘No. I don’t see how we can ever know that.’

  The Parson took his hand and squeezed it with what little strength she had.

  ‘You must find Shanti. Bring him in. Find him and make sure he’s kept out of trouble. Don’t let him disappear like Collins.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  As Magnus stood over Barney Bernard’s body, he was panting. The man had not been reduced to the level of the Chosen in the normal way. He was, however, dead.

  Magnus had made Bruno strap Bernard down without even dipping him first. While Bruno collected the survivors of the night shift that hadn’t been killed by the blasts and fire, Magnus paced up and down, his rage gathering, muttering to himself.

  ‘No one’s fucking listening to me. No one’s got any respect any more. This is fucking Magnus. This is THE Magnus of the town. Magnus is the fucking town. Not the fucking Welfare. Not the fucking workers. Not the fucking Chosen. Abyrne is my town. I am the town. This fucking town is Magnus now. Fuck it. Fuck the Book of Giving. Fuck the Gut Psalter. Fuck the wanking, pissing Bish and his poncy pissing Parsons.’

  A sweat broke on his forehead. He shook his head as if to clear it. His beard and hair scattered rancid droplets. The night shift arrived, bound into a chain. Awkwardly, they descended the stairs followed by Bruno and two other guards. When they saw the state Magnus was in they backed up against the wall. Magnus grabbed a larynx splitter off the rack of tools. It was no more than a scalpel, tiny in his meaty fist.

  He held it up like the tip of a finger and walked along the line of gas workers.

  ‘Poncy pissing Parsons. Poncy pissing workers.’ He shook the knife in their faces. ‘A poncy pissing town. That’s what this place is. And you…’ He pointed at each of them. ‘You fucking, useless, scum-eating shirkers. You’re the worst of the lot.’

  He plunged the scalpel into the nearest man’s eye. The scream filled the basement chamber. The other workers went pale. Bernard’s piss pattered loudly from the slab to the floor. The wounded man held his breached socket, trying to hold in the jellymeat of his eye. He screamed louder the more he understood his wound. There’d been a crunch of bone. Magnus had pierced not only the orbit but the bony socket itself. The man still lived, in the knowledge that Magnus had pierced through to his brain.

  ‘SHUT UP,’ screamed Magnus. ‘SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.’

  He plunged the scalpel into the man’s face again and again until he sank to the floor taking the next man with him and the next man in the line halfway. Still the worker screamed. Each stab was a punch with a small blade at the end of it, not doing enough damage to kill, only enough to hurt him and cut him deep.

  ‘SHUT UP. SHUT UP.’

  Magnus aimed his blows into the man’s neck and soon inflicted the right kind of damage.

  Through red bubbles the man found words.

  ‘Stop it. You’re killing me.’

  But Magnus only stabbed him faster and harder, aiming around his hands and between his fingers every time the man tried to protect himself. He kept stabbing long after the man had stopped moving and pleading. And all the time his mouth ran off his frustrations.

  ‘Useless, useless, useless. Look at you. Not even good enough for meat, are you, eh? I could have hired women that would have done a better job than you. I will not let this town go under. I will not let that…that freak do this to me. I’m Magnus. I’m the fucking Meat Baron. I run this fucking place.’

  He left the scalpel protruding from the man’s other eye and straightened up. From the tool rack he selected the largest cleaver and hefted its weight in his hand. He walked up to the line of tied workers.

  ‘What was this man’s name?’

  No one spoke.

  ‘Bruno? His name please.’

  ‘Uh, that would be…Lee, sir.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, Lee had it the easy way.’ He walked over to the slab w
here Bernard lay. The man wiggled beneath the leather straps and farted wetly. ‘Now, Bernard here was in charge of my gas facility last night when it was infiltrated and destroyed. This town may not have electricity for many years to come as a result. We may never be able to fix it. And all the gas we stored there for running trucks and keeping the chains running at MMP and all the other things we use it for, all that reserve is gone. And it’s Bernard’s fault. The Welfare states that such an infringement is cause for immediate revocation of status. But I say fuck that. Fuck the Welfare. This man’s not good enough to feed this town. I wouldn’t touch the primest cut off his filthy bones. And nor will anyone else. Because I will…

  He raised the cleaver and brought it down.

  ‘NOT.’

  He hoisted it up, bloody. Slammed it down.

  ‘TOLERATE.’

  He worked it free, lifted it, hammered it down.

  ‘USELESS.’

  And again.

  ‘PISSING.’

  Again.

  ‘SCABBY.’

  Up. Down.

  Words. Insults. Metal parting flesh, chewing bone.

  And on.

  And.

  On.

  Which was why, as Magnus stood over Bernard’s body, he was panting.

  Nineteen

  Sometimes Bruno studied his own hands to see if they were trembling. He did this now as he stood outside Magnus’s bathroom. He was sure he could see some kind of vibration, at least in the very tips of his fingers, but he knew he could have been imagining it – morbidly willing it upon himself. So many townsfolk had the Shakes these days. If it wasn’t his imagination then it was…better not to think about it.

  From inside the bathroom he could hear splashing and Magnus’s curses interspersed by giggles and cries of pain from his two maids. He’d gone in there to remove the blood that had dried onto his hands and hair and beard. By the sound of it, now that he was clean, he’d found other things to do in the bath.

  Bruno had been standing there waiting for a long time. He’d come to announce an important visitor – still waiting in the downstairs drawing room – and Magnus had said he’d be right out. Bruno had never minded waiting in the past but these days he found it harder and harder to stand or sit and do nothing while Magnus did whatever it was he did behind closed doors. A change was coming; Bruno could sense it in everything that was taking place.

  Magnus’s gruntings seemed to reach their conclusion. Bruno knocked on the door again.

  ‘Sir, he’s still down there.’

  ‘All bloody right, Bruno. I’m coming.’

  The door was unbolted from inside and the two maids left, both of them avoiding Bruno’s eyes and one of them still crying. A few moments later Magnus appeared in his dressing gown and slippers with his long hair dark and dripping. He wore a towel around his shoulders to catch the water.

  Magnus started to shuffle along the hallway and Bruno followed. From behind Bruno was able to study his master a little. The man had shrunk unless he was imagining that too. He looked unsteady on his feet and Bruno was sure it wasn’t due to his bath-time fun.

  ‘What does he want anyway?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Says it’s important. Said you’d want to know about it.’

  Magnus descended the stair using the banister for support. Bruno had never seen him do that before. Bruno followed until they were in the downstairs hall.

  ‘Do you still need me, sir?’

  ‘No, Bruno. You piss off for a game of cards or whatever.

  I’ll call when I want you.’

  Bruno turned to walk away. When he heard the door of the drawing room close behind Magnus, he crept back and stood with his ear to the wood. Magnus was no more polite with the doctor than he was with anyone else.

  ‘What’s so bloody important it can’t wait until tomorrow, eh, Fellows?’

  There was a pause and Bruno imagined Doctor Fellows taking in what he saw of Magnus and making an on the spot diagnosis. He’d realise there was no need to take offence in Magnus’s manner because soon enough his primary services would be required. For now, though, this was all about Fellows’s secondary function.

  ‘Quite a lot, Magnus. Quite the sort of thing that absolutely cannot wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I hear it.’

  The doctor cleared his throat. Hesitation? Embarrassment?

  ‘I’m trebling my fee for this.’

  Magnus let out a genuine laugh.

  ‘Treble? For the hearsay of a quack?’

  ‘I want them delivered to my chambers tonight.’

  Someone sat heavily in a chair making it creak. Bruno guessed it was Magnus; his legs betraying him.

  ‘I don’t think Bob Torrance is going to like losing three bullocks in a single day, Doc.’

  ‘Take it or leave it, Magnus. This information is going to save or destroy you depending only on whether you hear it or not.’

  ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t take you round the back and cut the information out of you.’

  ‘Because it’ll be the last time you’ll ever use me and I know for a fact you’ve got no one else in a trusted position like mine.’

  Bruno could hear the slight tremor in the doctor’s voice. He must have had something pretty solid to be bargaining like this with Magnus. Or perhaps he sensed Magnus’s weakness. His approaching downfall. He heard a sigh from Magnus.

  ‘All right, Doc, you can have your toys but only if, at the end of our meeting, I feel satisfied that what you’ve told me is worth it.’

  Bruno heard the other man take a seat.

  ‘I’ve been doing a nursing job over at the Cathedral.’

  There was excitement in Magnus’s too-quick response.

  ‘The Grand Bishop?’

  ‘No, Magnus, not him. Give me a chance. There’s a Parson he must think rather highly of.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Male or female?’

  ‘Female.’

  ‘Hm. That’s a surprise.’

  ‘She’s got the Shakes and the canker. Serious case. She won’t last much longer. Anyway, the Grand Bishop called me in specially and told me to spare no expense in treating her sickness. Turns out she’s been doing some kind of investigation and she’s found some irregularities. An incident record is missing from the archive. To listen to them it sounds like it must be a serious infringement.’

  Bruno heard the sound of a cheroot being lit which was a sign that Magnus was already losing patience with the doctor’s story. Might mean his boss would have reason for a second bath.

  ‘I trust all this waffle is leading somewhere juicy, Doc.’

  ‘I’m getting to it. The individual the Parson was investigating is one of your top men. Richard Shanti. Ice Pick Rick. His whole family, in fact, going back through generations.’

  ‘They’ve been a great line of stockmen. So what?’

  ‘So, whoever made that record disappear from his father’s file was covering up a crime or the allusion to a crime so serious that no one could ever be allowed to read it or hear of it. It’s of such concern to the Welfare that they’re going to bring Shanti in for questioning.’

  ‘They can’t do that. He’s my best stunner. With the power down we need him now more than ever.’

  ‘Magnus.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re comparing him to Prophet John. John Col–’

  ‘I know who you’re bloody talking about,’ Magnus shouted. ‘What’s the connection?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they don’t know either. Whatever information Shanti has, you need to get it before they do. And you’ve got better access to him so it shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  There was a silence in the room that Bruno couldn’t decipher. He considered moving away from the door and down to his quarters but he couldn’t let it go like this.

  ‘I’m not really sure this is worth three bullocks, Doc.’

  ‘I’m not finished. I’ve saved the best part.’


  ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘The Grand Bishop has every Parson he can spare out searching for Prophet John. He intends to get to him before you and make an example of him. A religious example, if you know what I mean. He wants to use the destruction of Prophet John to re-establish religious control over the town. He wants you, and the Meat Barons of the future to be the lapdogs of the Welfare like it was in the old days.’

  Bruno had heard enough to know that Magnus might explode out of the room at any moment. He slipped away down the hall.

  Behind him he heard the rants and screams of his master. The man sounded more like an animal every day.

  Parson Mary Simonson was dying and she knew it very well.

  In the small white convalescent room, she sat up in the cot and leaned her head back against the whitewashed wall. The Grand Bishop had been extremely kind. In the end she felt his reasons were more of a salve to his own guilt than they were out of compassion for her. Still, she was grateful for his care.

  Doctor Fellows had come to see her at least twice a day and she had taken his meals and remedies patiently, though not without nausea. She knew the doctor meant well but she also knew that she was beyond his powers to heal. She could have lain comfortably there – comfortable, were it not for the pain in her abdomen and the jitters that now rattled inside her very bones – and let death come for her in its own time but that was not how she wanted it to end. One last time she wanted to be outside, about the town, anywhere but in that room.

  There had been a lot of time to think while she’d lain there, sleeping, dreaming, imagining. She thought a lot about Parson Pilkins and what kind of man he might have been. She thought too about what it was he had discovered that was so dangerous or offensive or secret that he had removed it from the archives. But she had no access to records or witnesses or any other source of information and so she merely lay there and wondered.

  Her mind scouted where her body could not. She imagined. She let herself fly above the landscape of all she knew to look for patterns on the ground. She swooped and upturned artefacts of memory. In facing her own death, she thought about the deaths of others, of all deaths. Her inner wanderings took her to unexpected grottos of peace and caverns of terror. She considered the nature of truth for the first time and was crushed by how little she knew.