loss of her own innocence, who would rather blame anyone but herself for her failings; and yes even for you, Sylvia, even though I crumble at the thought of your passing, I must be honest, you would spend your time looking for what wasn’t there, expecting to find truth and understanding to give meaning to our lives. You never stopped looking for that knight in armour that didn’t exist; worse, you tried to change me into your image of that knight and expressed crushing disappointment at what you perceived to be my lack of trying, but the truth, my darling Sylvia, was just too simple for you to understand. I wondered, sometimes, if you went looking for it elsewhere; I even wondered, if I’m completely honest, in some of my darker moments, whether you were having an affair with Mark, just because his brashness gave you something to marvel at, rather than the grey speck of dust that refused to shine, waiting for you at home.
Some will go down
Dredd’s mood was dark when he returned, alone. He could hardly even look me in the eye, as he yanked me to my feet and cuffed me again, the metal biting back into the angry wounds of earlier. He led me, holding on to the cuffs and dragging me faster than I could walk, through the poorly lit corridors back towards the surface. He was silent all the way, looking down and pulling me behind him as we passed empty corridors and closed doors. He left me in a small, empty room – stark and bare but at least it was over ground and didn’t smell – and shoved me to the ground before he pulled the heavy door closed behind him. I pulled myself up and stood unsteadily, holding myself against the wall. There was a small window breaking up one wall, it was closed and shuttered and gave no clue to the outside world. There were tattered posters on the walls saying things like Justice for One, Justice for All, written over a picture of what was probably a policeman pointing a gun at what was probably a dying criminal (shaved head, torn clothes, tattoos), with crowds cheering in the background. There was another that said To Defend And Serve, and below it a plain clothes policeman pointing a gun at the camera; it made me shiver despite the oppressive heat in the room. There was no choice but to stand and nothing to do except to wait, again, for hours, it seemed, as my dirty, bloody clothes became damp with sweat and the heat made me feel sick and dizzy. Then, at last, there were some noises behind the door and it opened up letting my first and last visitor in. I had, I think, expected to see some downbeat, state appointed solicitor slide through the door, ready to put up a token defence for whatever lowlife was kicked his way by the system, he and they unable to lift themselves to anything approaching decency. I had not expected to see the huge, looming figure of X staring in at me, and guiding me out with him into a somewhat larger and more brightly lit, if still bleak, room, a few steps away. Gratefully I sank into one of the cold metal chairs before I felt the chill; if the previous room had been overheated, this room seemed to be set at the temperature of a fridge, and my wet clothes turned immediately to ice and stuck to my body, making me start to shiver uncontrollably. X looked at me coolly, unfazed or not concerned about my discomfort as he sat opposite me and dropped a file onto the table that separated us.
Cold in here, isn’t it he said casually, and then, You look like shit, Sylvain, in a voice that suggested that he didn’t really care, didn’t care at all, but then he could hardly ignore my appearance. Then, tapping the table impatiently, he asked Well, you want to give me an explanation?
I’ve been framed I told him, I’ve been told there’s blood on my hands but it’s not my own. I need your help, I said, I need you to get me out of here, I need your power and your influence to help me. These policemen, they talk about justice, but they don’t care, they see me as an easy answer to their case, and they won’t listen to me. Look at me, I pleaded, look at me, I’m fading away, I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I won’t survive, not if I don’t get out. Please… I begged, please.
X put his hand up. Enough, stop. He tapped the folder in front of him. You really let me down, Sylvain. I put a lot of faith, and trust, in you. I even made you my Head of Security. Christ, I don’t know what I was on that day. I still can’t quite believe what you’ve done. I mean, they tell me… he sighed. Why Angel? She was such a lovely person, I thought you two got on. Why her, Sylvain? Why her?
But, I don’t… I don’t understand. I didn’t even know Angel, I had never met her before and then I desperately needed something to stop sucking myself in to an ever-darker place, as I looked in horror at X. What if this was more than just a mistake, more than just police brutality, more than just the cleverness of my old friend. What if this was a conspiracy, people closing ranks around Mark, or whoever he actually was, and finding in me a handy scapegoat to destroy at their whim. And you, too, you would also walk down this road for him and not for me, and I realised that whatever I said it wouldn’t make any difference, not for him, not now. My voice came out as low and broken I tried hard for you. I was always loyal, and this brought a grin to X’s face.
Yeah, well, you know, Sylvain, some people would say that theft of some rather confidential equipment and of our most experimental drug whilst being Head of Security would challenge the concept of loyalty…. Yeah, I know. We had to take Miss Makepeace in and have a long chat to her. She’s a remarkably tough lady. Or she was, at least.
You hurt Beryl…? and X looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I’m sorry, Sylvain, you are completely losing me here. You have murdered, what, four people, and you’re concerned that our methods with Miss Makepeace may have been a little rough?
I didn’t… I started, but what was the point.
In any case, X continued, Miss Makepeace lived the life, she knew what the risks were. And she was brave right up until the point that… well, enough said. I admit, though, I do respect her for protecting you, I value loyalty, courage and friendship. Unlike you, it would seem…. He waited, offering me time to answer and to defend myself but there was really nothing to say. X sighed and picked up the file from the table, opened it and looked through the contents.
Frankly he started, I’m sorely tempted to walk away from the whole sorry mess, and allow the wheels of justice to turn. But, of course, as you are aware, working for our organisation affords you certain privileges, one of which is a certain conditional immunity, which I am, to an extent at least, obliged to respect. And we have a need, and the solution, therefore, is an expedient one, although it makes me sick to my stomach that you’re not held to account for what you have done. Your wife! Your wife…
I couldn’t look X in the eye, even though what he was saying was a lie, I still felt damaged, degraded, dragged down – I felt sullied by the implication of it, and he seemed so sincere, it made me realise that he probably didn’t know the truth himself, he was probably just another pawn in the game, only slightly bigger and slightly more powerful than me. And I wondered whether it could actually be Mark, behind the scenes, pulling the strings, indulging in a serial killer fantasy behind the façade of husband and lawyer. It started to click in my mind – that would make sense, how he knew Angel and how he could seemingly manipulate things so easily. It would also, I thought, explain Beryl’s cryptic comment that he was somehow not what he seemed and of course, his desire to stop her. And where he failed, he used the machinery of the organisation to succeed. I saw Beryl’s face and it made me feel a little sick, I hoped to God they hadn’t subjected her to the same kinds of…
You work for Mark, don’t you, you work for him… I whispered; I saw a flicker in X’s eyes and I knew I had got it right before he recovered and banged the file down on the table.
What are you talking about, Sylvain? Mark? Mark who?
You know… I said quietly, Mark… Mark Forth… and he sank back into his chair and let his arms fall to his sides, and for a second I thought this was a prelude to an admission but of course he was too clever.
Mark Forth, he said wearily, was just a lawyer. True, he didn’t work for that company, whatever it was called, that was just a cover. I think that got Miss Makepeace’s radar twitching, but, to be honest, she wa
s off on the wrong track with that one. It was nothing more than that. He wasn’t a super spy, he wasn’t deep undercover, he was our lawyer… X even laughed sourly, not that we really need one when you think about what those bastards at G get up to without batting an eyelid. But there you go, that’s bureaucracy for you.
But… I didn’t know, how could I not know?
Why the hell should you know, Sylvain? Seriously? You were just another engineer, it’s not like you were important, or anything. And anyway… when we employed him, we found out that he knew you, and, well, we all know how touchy you get, so we thought it best not to inform you. Conflict of interest, that sort of crap. Yeah, I worked with him a little. Yeah, he knew us, he probably even knew Angel, a bit, but that was it, Jones. Nothing else. I gather he’s at the centre of your morbid fantasy, but you’re going to have to stop twisting this into something it’s not. You killed him, along with the rest. I’ve seen the evidence. Get over it, Sylvain, accept it. X sighed deeply. Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I should ask them to put you back in the cells. Maybe I should…
No!
An Innocent Man Page 36