“Would you like a drink? Some Village Black Label?”
“‘Black Label’?”
“Whisky. What passes for it.”
Routledge was very tired; what he wanted most of all was to lie down and close his eyes. “That’s very kind. But only if you’re having one.”
King rummaged about in a box by the wall and produced a bottle, about a third full, of what did indeed look like whisky. He then produced two glasses and poured Routledge a double measure.
“Water?”
“No thanks.”
“Here’s to you, Mr Routledge.”
Routledge saw that the words had been sincerely delivered, and was touched. The whisky was not as bad as he had expected. In fact, he had drunk worse in pubs on the mainland.
“Mr Thorne makes it,” King said. “He’s trying to get some juniper bushes on the go to try his hand at gin as well.”
“It’s very good.” The glass was shaped like the bottom half of a jamjar: which is exactly what Routledge now realized it was. “This is interesting,” he said. “How did you make the glasses?”
“Oh, Mr Ojukwu makes those. People give him jars or he gets them from the shore. He ties a loop of string round the jar, wherever he wants the height. The string’s soaked in paraffin, set fire to, and the glass weakens along that line. Then with a bit of careful tapping the joint breaks, and he grinds the edge down by hand.” Having as expeditiously as possible discharged the duty of imparting such mundane information, King took another sip and said: “You didn’t say whether you’d been to Old Town.”
“I was taken there against my will. But I did manage to avoid the lighthouse.” This was as close as Routledge thought he ought to come towards thanking King directly for having warned him about the two outsider towns.
“Would you prefer not talk about it?”
“To be honest, I’m just tired. I’ll tell you anything you want to know tomorrow.”
King downed the last of his whisky. “I’m pretty well knackered myself. I’ve got to be up early again tomorrow.” He took Routledge’s empty glass. “I won’t wake you up: you sleep on till, say, five fifteen. Have my alarm clock, and you’ll find a bit of breakfast on the table.”
2
“You’re a good boy, Obadiah Walker,” Martinson said.
“Got to help your mates,” Obie said.
Martinson winced again. He was bleeding more profusely now. The glistening prong of splintered bone, shocking in its stark, unnatural whiteness, was still protruding from the flesh of his left calf. “Holy Jesus, Obie, get it over with.”
Stretched out on his goatskin sofa, Martinson had so far borne his ordeal without complaint. Obie brought the lamp closer. Going by what he remembered from cowboy films on TV, he was trying to clean the wound before setting the break with splints and a length of old shirting; but he did not really know what he was doing. He had never seen a broken leg before, least of all anything like this.
The bone had been smashed rather than snapped. Martinson had been struck with a club and knocked down from the lighthouse gallery. Besides breaking his leg, the fall had left him concussed and with extensive heavy bruising, especially about the chest and left shoulder. The skin on his face had been badly grazed. In fact, he was in a mess. It was a miracle he had survived at all. He had lain on the asphalt, unconscious, for the whole afternoon before anyone had been able to reach him. The only reason he was alive now was that Peto had waved the white flag – not for Martinson’s sake, but because he had decided to give in to Houlihan’s demands. The fighting, for the moment, was over.
For Peto it had been a disaster. Besides a number of vicious skirmishes, there had been three pitched battles, the first of which, on Thursday afternoon, had been started by Houlihan. Then on Sunday, before the Old Town forces had been repulsed, Peto had tried to set fire to the lighthouse.
The final battle, today, had again taken place at the lighthouse. Lured there by Houlihan, Peto’s men had been ambushed and routed. Martinson and some others had tried to scale the tower, hoping to get their hands on Houlihan himself, but to no avail. No fewer than fifteen towners had been killed, bringing Peto’s losses since Thursday to twenty-seven, with many more injured. In addition Peto had been forced to give Houlihan his whole flock of goats, his binoculars, and, most humiliating of all, a hostage to good conduct in the form of his present catamite, the blue-eyed and fair-haired Desborough. What was already happening to Desborough at the lighthouse could be imagined all too well.
Nothing had yet been said, but Peto’s loss of face had been so great that Obie wondered how long it would be before his leadership was called into question. There was no sign that Peto was planning to launch the revenge attack that alone could restore him in the opinion of his men.
Martinson, however, had only enhanced his reputation, especially through the lunacy and daring of today’s attack on Houlihan’s quarters. If Martinson hadn’t been injured, and if he held ambitions in that direction, Peto might eventually have had a serious rival to contend with.
Such matters exercised Obie only so far as his own safety was concerned. He had become identified as one of Peto’s council, and although that had been at Peto’s instigation rather than his own, he had readily accepted the advantages and benefits the position had conferred. By so doing he knew he had earned himself grudge in certain quarters of the town. If Peto fell he might be in trouble, for he could not go to Houlihan.
Alone perhaps at Old Town, Obie had detected a pattern in Martinson’s behaviour during the fighting. On several occasions Martinson had fudged or disregarded orders which, if carried out, might have had severe consequences for the lighthouse settlement and the generality of its inhabitants. His disobedience may even have cost Peto victory. Martinson, it seemed to Obie, had been pursuing a private purpose. To the exclusion of all else he had been trying to get his hands on Houlihan himself, with the secondary goal of wiping out certain members of the brain gang which had contributed so much to Houlihan’s strength and success.
Obie was beginning to wonder what Martinson was up to. It could no longer be assumed that he was unambitious. But if he were simply planning to take over from Peto there would have been a showdown, or a straightforward murder, in the time-honoured way, followed by a reshuffling of power inside the Town. No: he was after something larger. Obie had always known he was mad; now he suspected him of the deep capacity for cunning and foresight which psychopaths often possessed.
For if Martinson had succeeded in killing Houlihan and his closest supporters, might he not then have turned on Peto? And afterwards, in the flux of two leaderless communities, might he not have advanced himself as the leader of all?
Until now Obie had imagined that, as far as it was possible to be so on the island of Sert, Martinson was reasonably content with his lot. One or two remarks he had made, at long intervals, about the Village had led Obie to believe that Martinson’s resentment of Franks went rather further than most people’s. But this evening Obie had remembered that Franks, like Martinson himself, had come over on the first boat. The two men had been at Dartmoor together, and had, for a time, been on friendly terms. Yet there was no suggestion that Martinson had ever been asked to join the Village. Indeed, Martinson had been instrumental in starting the war between Franks and Barratt that had led ultimately to its foundation.
Franks had only survived this long because his opponents were in disarray. United – under Martinson, for example – they could make life in the Village much less cosy. They might even get the helicopter back.
Obie took a third bowl of boiling seawater from the fire and soaked a fresh pad of shirting. He had used seawater for its disinfectant properties: there was nothing else, not even the whisky the cowboys always seemed to use. As he dabbed at Martinson’s raw flesh, Obie prayed that Peto would remain for a while longer yet. With Martinson out of action, the way was open for Dave Nackett or Dog or one of the other hard men to issue a challenge. Whichever of those won the
contest, Obie could expect unpleasantness or worse. The way things looked tonight, Peto would go eventually. If he had to have a successor, Obie wanted it to be Martinson.
That was the reason Obie was here now. The other blokes had merely dumped Martinson in his hut after the battle. Because he was in bad odour with Peto, no one had wanted to take the initiative to help him.
“I finished cleanin’ it now, Jim. I got all the bits out.”
“Good. That’s good, me old mate.”
“I’m goin’ to have a go at settin’ it. Hold on tight.”
“Did I say you was a good boy, Obie? All the boys in this town, you’re the only one what gives a toss.”
“Florence Nightingale, that’s me.”
He made the first tentative approach towards reducing the alarming angle at which the leg was bent, and for the first time Martinson gave a low groan, which, as Obie slowly increased the pressure, intensified and became a horrible shout of pain.
∗ ∗ ∗
Sleep was a long time in coming. No sooner had it arrived than Routledge awoke, sweating, from a nightmare involving the man he had shot.
He thought he must have shouted himself awake, but the darkness inside the shack was utterly still. King, in the far corner, was, as before, breathing regularly and deeply, fast asleep.
Routledge was afraid of going back there, to the place he had so vividly inhabited just now, the silvery vista of rock and unreal sea, the bracken stretching for ever up the hill. Most of all he was afraid of seeing those features again, or hearing the name Karen, uttered in the mocking voice of her lover.
The silence was being punctured steadily, relentlessly, by the officious ticking of King’s clock. Between each tick came a slight noise of springs, and beneath this, underlying the heavy silence of the night, came the faintest and most distant sound of breaking waves. Lying there, wearing only his underpants and shirt, vainly trying to ignore both the musty smell of the blankets and the acrid, indefinable, salt-laden smell which permeated every corner of the shack; vainly trying to get comfortable on the lumpy stuffing of which his mattress was made, his thoughts still resonant with the mild inflection of King’s voice and the man’s shabby, threadbare, and essentially pathetic appearance, Routledge was again overcome by the feeling of disbelief which had been with him since his arrival on Sert, and which had beset him with even greater force since his entry to the Village. This could not be true: like everything that had happened since the moment the police had knocked on his front door, it was impossible. Impossible that he would not wake up tomorrow in his own bed, read the paper, eat breakfast, catch the train and go to the site or the office. That he would not come home again for supper, walking from the station portico to his house, avoiding as always the shorter route along a footpath illuminated by swan-necked street lamps striving to hold back the night. The lamp standards painted that obnoxious Metropolitan Railway green and their broad shades lined with grimy white enamel. Despite the wire grids, many of the bulbs were smashed and there were extensive intervals in the line of light. Behind the diamond-mesh fence, much holed and damaged by trespassers, lay an overgrown embankment almost buried under tin cans, sweet wrappers, hamburger boxes, plastic sacks of builders’ rubble. It was there that her body had been found. “Good evening, sir.” The flash of a warrant card: and the nightmare had begun.
It was true that Routledge had spoken to her on the train. The witnesses said he had tried to pick her up. Not so. She had spoken first, a pleasant young woman, girl, sitting beside him in a navy blue raincoat, wearing sensible black shoes. Not overtly pretty, but sexually attractive just the same. Would he mind opening the window? The heating was on full blast. He had complied. A short conversation had ensued, a few empty exchanges. She ended it by asking him for his copy of the Daily Mail. He had finished with it; she said she was planning to follow the serialized diet, but had been unable to get today’s edition. Routledge gave it to her. It was Louise’s paper. He had only brought it to read on the train coming home. Then at Harrow-on-the-Hill a window seat on the opposite side of the carriage had become vacant. She had taken it, sat looking out into the rainy October night, at the passing lights of streets, houses, factories.
She had remained there at each stop while the carriage had slowly emptied. Northwood Hills. Northwood. Moor Park. And it was true, God help him, that he had fantasized about inviting her back. Louise and Christopher had gone to her parents’ house for the half-term holiday. That was why he had taken the Mail as well as his usual Times. This was Friday night: an empty weekend had stretched before him. But even as the thought had entered his mind he had known it to be nonsense. He had never tried anything like that; probably never would.
At Rickmansworth he had perforce followed her along the platform. She had given in her ticket; he, just behind her, had shown his season-ticket. Leaving the portico, he had turned right. She had turned left, towards the footpath. He had never set eyes on her again.
Because Louise was not there to switch on the porch light, the front of the house was in darkness. The York stone steps up to the front path were always slippery: now they were also strewn with wet leaves. On the second step he missed his footing and fell, letting out an oath of surprise. He came down awkwardly, hitting his elbow and wrist, tearing open the skin on his left knee.
The police called on Saturday evening. Apparently they had traced him by using the newspaper. It had been found near the body, among the scattered contents of her shoulder-bag. On the margin of the front page, with a distinctive violet felt-tip pen, the newsagent had scribbled 44, the number of his house.
There were two of them, detectives in raincoats. The younger one was the more suspicious. In the hall he craned his head, looking into the kitchen, where Routledge had just been eating baked beans and the sink was full of washing-up. Would he account for his movements on Friday evening? How had he managed to bruise his hand and wrist? Could they see the clothes he had worn on Friday?
He reacted badly. He had always feared the police, especially since the notorious Whiting case, and especially since the start of the Government’s vigorous new drive to improve the figures for violent crime and hence its own figures at the polls. He said he wanted his solicitor present. The older detective said there was no need for that, they just wanted to eliminate him from their inquiries. Their inquiries into what? They were not at liberty to say. Would he be at home for the rest of the weekend? Not planning to leave the district?
On the local television news that night he saw what it was all about. Her picture was shown, an unsmiling passport photo taken in a booth. She was called Jacqueline Lister. She had been raped and strangled.
After the broadcast he rang the police station and said he felt he ought to make a statement. He did not take his solicitor.
Then on Monday the police were on the train, interviewing the commuters. One of the chief witnesses for the prosecution, a woman who had been sitting opposite, said he had been leering at the girl. That was the word she used in court. Two other passengers came forward to denounce the lecher. But this was nothing, a mere foretaste of the forensic evidence. First, the copy of the Daily Mail, incontrovertibly his, which none of the keen-eyed witnesses had seen him giving to the girl. Then his injuries and the damage to his trousers and sleeve. Then the seminal fluid was matched to his own comparatively uncommon blood group. And finally, the genetic typing of the sperms was declared to be identical to his own.
This last piece of evidence, which even Routledge’s counsel did not believe had been fabricated, was the hammer blow. Beside it his previous good character counted for nothing. Nor did the variable quality of the testimony of the witnesses from the train. The jury, which Routledge had had ample time to study, was composed of an all-too-representative cross-section of his peers. A gormless youth in a windcheater, wearing a digital watch which bleeped every hour, on the hour. An Asian woman who could scarcely speak English, let alone understand the evidence. The foreperson, so called, was a mi
ddle-aged housewife who seemed to regard the proceedings as an entertainment devised solely to give her an opportunity to display her wardrobe, consisting of a variety of suits from high street multiples. In one of these, green velvet and beige, she had stood up to deliver the verdict.
Have you reached a unanimous verdict? No. Then have you reached a majority verdict? Yes. What is it? We all think he’s guilty.
Condemned by a panel of illiterates. But the judge was not illiterate. And he was scrupulously fair. Especially to poor student nurses who were raped and strangled while walking home to their lodgings.
In the end, only Louise believed; and, on one visiting day at Exeter, just after the failure of the final appeal, he began to fear that even her support might eventually crumble.
“Louise,” he breathed, drifting unwillingly at long last towards sleep, “Louise.” He did not care what happened to him, as long as he was not separated from her, or from Christopher. If there was a God up there, which there wasn’t, why was it that he worked so hard to identify whatever thing a man dreaded most, and, having identified it, why did he always, always, vindictively succeed in making that very thing come to pass?
3
When the alarm clock rang Routledge took a moment to realize where he was.
The inside of the shack was in semi-darkness; there were no proper windows, only two shutters covering apertures in the wall. King had gone, leaving his cot neatly covered with blankets. It was almost five fifteen.
Routledge briefly heard voices nearby, and then they were still. The sound of a barrow being pushed over shale. Chickens some way off. Gulls overhead. Distant laughter. The wind. The barrow again.
From his bed he examined the ceiling, the pillars, the walls and floor, King’s pitiful collection of furniture and belongings. His eye took in the crude sideboard, equipped with a washing-up bowl and an enamel jug, which served the shack as a bathroom. And King seemed to occupy a position of some responsibility: what would Routledge’s own living quarters eventually be like?
The Penal Colony Page 12