by Gary Kittle
‘Tell me this, Richard, hand on heart: if I offered you my blessing to go and fuck her, would you really turn it down?’
He stiffened but kept his mouth shut.
‘I asked you a question. If I said I was OK about it?’
‘Well,’ Richard glared at his wife, before turning for the door. ‘Are you?’
Fiona gave a disgusted huff from beneath her veil. But her husband was gone.
‘For all I know, you already have.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘If I keep this up much longer I’ll get arrested,’ Dan thought, the following morning.
He’d been hovering around the front of the school since a quarter to eight. It was now approaching half past. Parents came and went without paying him too much attention generally; but his real problem was the lollypop man, who had arrived just after eight o’clock. Twenty-odd minutes later the lollypop man was watching his every move; and for good reason, too: Dan was searching for the boy he had seen the afternoon before. Doubtless if he were challenged by the police Jenkins could get him off the hook, but by then his chance would have gone.
At eight twenty-nine he caught sight of the boy approaching with his mother at the far end of the road, and quickly integrated himself into a queue at the bus stop. The lollypop man was still glaring at him, but the mother gave no sign of having noticed him. The boy, too, acted normally. His trick yesterday afternoon had obviously worked, otherwise the boy might have been kept back from school. So all he had to do now was wait for the mother to re-emerge from the school and follow her back to wherever she lived. If she really was the woman from the ransom picture, of course.
A bus stopped, and the waiting passengers got on. When it pulled away, leaving Dan standing alone, he saw that the lollypop man was talking earnestly to a man in his fifties. Both looked his way as they spoke. Dan gazed back up the road, pretending to look at a wrist watch he didn’t have. The man talking to the lollypop man appeared to be psyching himself up for a confrontation. No sign of the mother still. Perhaps she was talking to another mother inside? But no, there she was, Dan saw with relief.
Crossing the road immediately to avoid the two watching do-gooders, Dan paced himself at a distance of about two hundred meters behind the woman. He desperately tried to notice something atypical in her clothing or gait; but of course she looked just like every other woman in a black burqa. His only hope of not losing her was if she went straight home.
She skirted the edge of the park, heading west. That was good. She was travelling away from the bigger shops. She didn’t look back; which indicated she didn’t suspect being followed. Her pace was efficient, but unhurried. Most women had given up work in the months following the outbreak. Those that persevered were able to do so only in all female environments. The university recruitment rates for female students had likewise fallen through the floor. There were public health issues to think about, was the official line. The jihadists must have been laughing their heads off.
At the next set of traffic lights, however, the woman abruptly turned away from the road and disappeared into a newish looking single storey building. Dan studied the board outside. It was a health centre. He needed to wait again, but even if her appointment was running late she wouldn’t be any longer than half an hour, surely?
‘So what are you going to do now?’
The voice was softly-spoken and very close to his ear. Dan started to turn his head to reply, but something hard jabbed into his ribs. ‘Don’t,’ the voice hissed. ‘Let’s go for a walk. Don’t speak. Don’t look around. Move.’ Another prod set his feet moving forward.
He briefly considered swinging an elbow behind him in the hope that it would make contact with a nose or a cheek bone, but thought better of it. The really irritating thing was that he had his gun on him still.
‘Stop here at the corner.’ Dan heard the man send off a text. ‘Now look back from where you’ve just come.’
The man behind him skilfully kept himself out of Dan’s field of vision as he did as he was told. A woman stepped out of the health centre and turned to look their way.
‘See? We’re in control. Not you. Us. Understand?’
Dan tried to remain calm, but the hard object pressing through his jacket set his nerves jangling. The whole thing was a set up. His feeble attempt to avoid detection yesterday afternoon had failed. He was the prey all along, lulled into the false confidence of a would-be predator. A hand rested on his shoulder and gently pushed him away.
‘Where are we going?’ Dan asked, daring to speak for the first time.
The voice behind him chuckled. ‘To see about a girl, of course.’
Chapter Fourteen
Dan noticed how dilapidated the three storey building looked. The windows hadn’t been cleaned for years and most of the exterior paintwork was flaking. There were piles of rubbish everywhere, and a smell that betrayed rising damp, blocked pipes and rat droppings. He noticed how all the windows on the first and second floors had been whitewashed over from the inside. It looked like the perfect hideout: hidden in plain sight.
They approached from the rear via a stained wooden door. Inside, Dan saw they were in a kitchen that hadn’t been used for maybe a decade. The male voice whispered in his ear: ‘Tea or coffee?’
After which point everything went black and silent for a while.
When he came to he was alone in a bare room tied to a chair. He could see the sky through the windows, so they had obviously taken him to the top floor. No one was going to see him, even if he could somehow shuffle himself and his chair across the bare wooden boards. The door opened suddenly, and he realised that it was probably footsteps on the stairs outside that had roused him back to consciousness.
The woman in the yellow and orange burqa strode in and stood by the window, staring out. ‘So, it was you,’ Dan congratulated himself sarcastically. Three men wearing ski masks followed her inside and formed a crescent around him. Dan was reminded of the old I.R.A. punishment squads; not a pleasant recollection.
The woman cleared her throat and turned his way. ‘You followed me.’
Dan was about to answer when one of the masked men beat him to it: ‘But actually it was us following you.’
‘I wasn’t talking to him. I was talking to you,’ snapped the woman.
‘It was a precaution, darling. And one I think you’ll agree was worth taking.’
The woman rocked from foot to foot. Her body language reminded him of a boiling kettle. He seemed to be at the centre of some sort of feud. ‘Did you two know about this?’
‘I did, obviously,’ answered one of them. Dan recognised his voice as belonging to the man who had accosted him outside the health centre.
‘Nobody told me,’ grumbled the third man.
The first man, whose use of the word ‘darling’ indicated a closer relationship with the woman, wandered over to her with his hands outstretched in a conciliatory gesture. She turned away immediately to glare at the dirty glass overlooking the town below. The first man turned back to his two male confederates. ‘You all know now. That’s all that matters.’
The third man was not to be so easily assuaged, however. ‘Yes, but it’s always me that’s kept in the dark.’
‘You were centre stage last time round, remember?’ said the first man, who Dan was already thinking of as the leader. ‘But there isn’t time for this now. OK? In case you hadn’t noticed we have a guest with us.’
‘Another guest,’ the woman corrected.
‘I don’t get it,’ the third man moaned.
‘Yes. I think you’ll need to spell it out for all of us,’ the woman huffed. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
The woman’s husband - possibly - took a breath. ‘They nearly had us in the park. It stood to reason they might try again,’ he began patiently. ‘We assume they know nothing. But they’re professionals. They might have uncovered something.’
‘What? That we’re not professionals?’
The
leader looked uncomfortably at the woman before continuing with a nod in Dan’s direction. ‘And it seems like they have.’
Dan took some long, slow inhalations. He was a sitting duck here, and he had no cause to believe that Jenkins was lying about there being no back up to call upon. But no one knew he was here, even. Things looked bleak. His only hope was to keep his head above water and not talk himself into a stronger current, he realised. It might even give him an edge.
More than that, it might save his life.
Chapter Fifteen
Gareth strolled over to Dan’s chair. ‘He hasn’t got much to say for himself.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Richard. ‘Like I said, they’re professionals.’
Gareth lowered his hidden face level with Dan’s. ‘I bet I could make him talk.’
‘So,’ Fiona barked. ‘Thanks to you, we have another complication to manage.’
‘No,’ Richard replied. ‘Thanks to me we have an extra piece of insurance.’
‘Why couldn’t we just have given him the slip?’ Fiona grumbled.
‘Like I said: extra insurance.’
‘I think you’re trying to be too clever,’ said Jamie.
‘Well that’s something no one’s going to accuse you of, is it?’ Gareth laughed.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Gareth’s laughter intensified. ‘Need I say more?’
Jamie squared up to Gareth, fists clenched. ‘I’m telling you I don’t like it. This whole business gets dodgier by the day. The girl’s an immigrant, sure. Who cares? But this bloke’s some kind of Government agent and we’ve abducted him.’
‘You don’t really think this makes any difference to the amount of trouble we’re in, do you?’
‘What did you mean by ‘insurance’?’ Fiona asked. ‘Given what’s at stake here, this little foot soldier is very much expendable.’
The man in the chair straightened.
‘Looks like both sides have their liabilities,’ Gareth said, close to Jamie’s ear.
‘You’re the one who’s led them right to our door!’
‘I was doing my job to the letter!’
‘Knock it off, the pair of you,’ Richard shouted.
Fiona raised her hands to the heavens. ‘And this is your team, right?’
As Gareth tried to turn away, Jamie grabbed his arm and within two seconds a rather half-hearted tussle developed. Richard quickly intervened and tried pushing the two combatants in opposite directions, like a wrestling referee. Gareth found the whole thing hilarious, which only served to heighten Jamie’s fury. He swung a fist and more through luck than accuracy landed a blow to the side of Gareth’s head.
Gareth cursed and digging his fingers into Jamie’s ski mask he twisted the skin violently to the right. Jamie screamed and tried to pull away, but only succeeded in causing all three men to lose their balance. The group lurched viciously towards the man tied to the chair, who turned his face away instinctively; but at the last minute Richard dropped his shoulder, regaining his own balance and pushing Gareth back upright in the process. Jamie, meanwhile, staggered past the chair-bound hostage and sunk to one knee with a grunt.
All three were panting heavily, but Gareth was still grinning wildly. Fiona stood with hands on hips, shaking her head like an exasperated parent.
‘You’re lucky he was here to save you, Coco!’
Jamie got to his feet and pointed a finger at his adversary. ‘Screw you, Gareth!’
The three men froze momentarily before slowly turning towards their new hostage.
Fiona stepped forward to join them, still shaking her head.
‘Now we have another complication, don’t you think?’ she said, glaring up into her husband’s hidden face. ‘Unless you still think it’s extra insurance? Darling.’
Chapter Sixteen
Scientists gave the disease a polysyllabic, three-word name that didn’t catch the public’s imagination, even as an acronym. After a few months the name ‘Foedus’ started appearing in the media and stuck with the persistency of the disease itself. Apparently, it was a Latin word used to describe something dirty and unhygienic. For most people Foedus was simply the malady that turned wives, sisters and mothers into objects of revulsion. But for the politicians it meant that the War on Terror was being lost and the victors weren’t taking prisoners.
Richard glanced at the wall clock. Eleven A.M. By this time tomorrow, he had told Fiona, they could be on the continent, heading for Zurich. The Swiss clinic had allegedly performed near miracles on some women. And the Swiss weren’t bad at banking either, Richard smiled to himself.
‘I wish I could see the funny side,’ Fiona said. She had her back to him and the lower part of her face uncovered, so she could smoke a cigarette. ‘When, Richard?’
‘Within the next two hours. Like I promised.’
‘He has one of our names, thanks to those cowboys.’
‘I don’t care about Gareth; I care about you and Ben. As long as they still trust me and do as they’re told, who cares?’
‘So how will it be done?’
‘Leave that to me.’ She started to protest. ‘Really, Fiona; it’s for the best.’
‘So I have to trust you, like Gareth and Jamie. And if it all goes wrong, am I expendable, too?’
‘I told you,’ Richard sighed. ‘This has always been about us.’
‘Prove it,’ Fiona said, taking a long drag on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out extravagantly ‘Prove that it’s still about us.’
‘What? How?’
‘Look at me.’
Richard gulped hard. ‘I am looking at you.’
‘No you’re not.’ She had already turned her head a little, so that he could make out a little of the lunar profile that had once been an attractive face. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me.’
‘Fiona. I can’t. You know I can’t.’
‘Can’t or won’t, Richard?’ She threw the butt of her cigarette carelessly on the floor.
‘OK.’ Richard took a deep breath, knowing that if Fiona started interfering it could wreck the whole scheme.
With the smoky air still stuck in his lungs he watched as his wife turned and showed him what she looked like for the first time in months. The disease hadn’t stopped its relentless consumption of skin and underlying tissues. It hadn’t even slowed down. Her nose was almost completely gone. The right ear was heading for the same fate. Even her lips were hard to discern amongst the scabs and abscesses.
Richard stared deep into Fiona’s eyes and forbade himself to look at the surrounding sockets. But even so the slimy red craters and protruding growths forced their way into his peripheral vision. Something greasy was sliding up his throat. He forced it back down, hard. ‘You can trust me,’ he managed.
‘Thank you.’ Fiona closed her eyes, the eyelids scarred and pockmarked, and with relief Richard was able to look away as she finally covered her face back up.
‘You’ll need to prepare the girl,’ Richard ordered. ‘She hasn’t washed for two days.’
‘And our other guest?’
‘The not-so-secret agent?’ Richard sniffed. ‘Leave him to me.’
Still the memory of Fiona’s half-ruined face intruded into his thoughts.
‘You won’t hurt him?’
‘Of course not.’ Richard’s expression hardened. ‘He won’t feel a thing.’
Chapter Seventeen
Dan was still tied to the chair in the top floor room where his captors had left him. He tried to find reasons for optimism. Firstly, these were not, after all, a bunch of desperate, cold-blooded career criminals. Their earlier fight indicated these were strictly opportunists, or ‘chancers’, as his father used to say. On the other hand, hearing that one of them was called Gareth had changed everything, he knew. If he wasn’t a liability to them beforehand he certainly was now.
So the sound of feet climbing the stairs set his nerves jingling straight away. What happened next was far from wha
t he’d expected, however.
The door opened and a large furled umbrella poked through and was opened. Whoever was holding it proceeded to use it to hide behind as they strode urgently up to Dan and bopped down behind him. Dan felt the rope around his wrists and forearms pulled left and right. Was he being rescued here? If so, why the umbrella?
The figure pulled something from his sleeve and held it out to the side for Dan to see. The face of the blade was stained and scored, but the edge looked keen enough. Dan was powerless to do anything but keep rock still as the figure squatted behind him with the knife. A split second later he felt the ropes tying him to the chair sag. The visitor tucked the loose ends of the rope back up behind Dan’s back, and then backed out of the room with his umbrella still open. In what seemed like only seconds Dan was alone again, listening as hurried footfalls dwindled into the bowels of the house, where somewhere a door slammed shut.
‘Now what?’ Dan asked the bare room.
A few minutes later he heard footsteps coming back up again. But these were different, heavier and more measured. This time his visitor wore the familiar ski mask. He was carrying a large shopping bag with the company’s logo adorning the side. He stared at Dan for a second before placing the bag, which looked very heavy, onto the floor.
‘How much have they told you?’
Dan knew who he was talking to straight away. This man, unlike the other two, was no fool. If Dan tried to be too clever he might get on the leader’s wrong side, a position hard to climb out of. On the other hand, it might be advisable for him to keep at least some of his cards close to his chest. He decided to play those cards one move at a time.
‘You have a girl. You say she’s immune. You want money for her.’
‘Go on.’
‘What I don’t understand is why you’ve got me.’ Dan tried a bit of humour. ‘I’m a bloke, remember. We’re all immune.’
‘Do you think we should have killed you? Is that what you’re saying?’ The leader stared at him. When Dan made no reply he continued. ‘Did they tell you how I convinced them to take me seriously?’