by Rufus Offor
Under the floorboards he also found a passport. It had a picture of a person in it that looked a bit like him but without the thick caking of dirt and bruises that had covered him over the past week, it appeared that his name was Justin Stain. The taunting name of Justin Pain came back to him and made him wince; the gunshot wound in his leg ached at the recollection.
Other words came to him, sparked by vaguely familiar surroundings; “Boss”, “Edinburgh”. The word Edinburgh felt safe. He didn’t know what the word meant but it definitely felt like something that should be explored. The word Boss felt a little less safe but still felt better than anything that he’d been experiencing since his memory problems had started in the hospital.
After getting to a hotel, convincing them that he wasn’t a tramp, cleaning himself up and buying new clothes, he bought himself a dictionary to find the definition of some of the words that had popped into his mind. The word boss didn’t do much other than tell him that he had a superior. The word Edinburgh was a bit more useful. He found that it was a city in a country that he couldn’t remember called Scotland. If nothing else, at least he had some sort of destination to head for. Maybe more would come to him as he made his way there.
Not wanting to risk travel on an airline, they felt a little too exposed and his fear of capture was still very potent, he managed to get passage on a cargo freighter heading for Dover in the south of England. The long journey began to clear his mind. He had time to rest and gather himself but, due to his sleeping rough for a week, his wounds started to bother him. Some of his cuts had turned bad and his knee was a point of burning hell. A fever crept up on him. He started waking in the night in his featureless metal cabin, shaking violently, disoriented, his forehead leaking boiling saline solution onto his cold and clammy skin. He endured horrific hallucinations. The man in the grey/brown suit filled his tiny cabin, the dirty fabric of his clothes made up the walls, his vicious grimacing face appeared in front of him, misty yet solid, following his line of vision so that everywhere he looked the enforcer of his torment filled his eyes and mind. It was cold, hard and full of malice. His wounds burned at the sight of him.
Outside his cabin storms started battering the ship. Inside his cabin the storms pummelled his nerves to breaking point, throwing sickness into the pot along with his physical pain, fever and madness. Death would’ve been a welcome break. The ship’s doctor did the best he could but he was a booze hound and could barely see straight. He did little but ply Justin with cheap nasty vodka, dehydrating him even further and increasing his agonies.
By some unforeseen miracle his fever broke and he started entering the realms of coherent reality. By the time they reached Dover he could stand upright and hobble along on his decimated leg. Before he left the ship he raided the doctor’s medical bay while he was passed out nursing a bottle of vodka, and stole a hefty supply of morphine to quell the burning agony in his limbs and body. He was still feverish when he stole a car in Dover but the hallucinations had mercifully subsided and the fever was considerably milder than on his nightmare cruise. He bought a road map of Britain in a service station and headed north. His memories seeping back into his mind gently as he went.
The Boss, he had to find the man called The Boss and tell him something very important. If only he could remember what it was.
‘So Mr Stain,’ scowled the Boss, ‘why aren’t you in Singapore?’ he asked as a henchman brought Justin a large glass of brandy.
Justin recounted his tale to the Boss as Peter listened in. The Sphere agents all went back to work.
Once he’d finished the Boss started quizzing him ‘Have you managed to remember what it what that you had to tell me?’
‘It was Mr Winkle sir, I remembered while I was throwing up in a service station just outside Knutsford,’ his speech was slurred and his voice was pure gravel,’ he attacked us. I didn’t know that he was AWOL sir, but I remember him taking his hat off for a moment while he was torturing me, I remember now, at least I think I do, it’s all so jumbled, in my beaten delirious state, and I don’t know how, maybe it was the training, but I managed to put one of those miniscule tracking devices in his hat, you know, the ones that change colour when they attach to something so that they can’t be seen. The chameleon tracker... yes... that’s the one!’
The Bosses eyes went wide with excitement for a second and then squinted, he wanted to play his cards close to his chest and didn’t want to show how near orgasmic he was about the revelation. He sat up a little, fighting to control himself.
‘Now Mr Stain, I want you to think very carefully about this, I know your tired, I know you’ve been through a lot but this is something that you have to be very sure of. What frequency did the device use?’
‘Um…’ Justin’s eyes were near closing. He had the look of a man that could die if he strained his mind too much. One thought was all there was between him and oblivion but the Boss couldn’t afford to let this lead go, ‘I…. um…… I’m sorry sir, its just, well, I’m so very tired sir, everything hurts, I can’t remember.’
‘Damn it man!’ hissed the Boss through clenched teeth, ‘think!’
‘It might come back sir, can’t remember, its all so vague, can’t think, sorry sir, so tired, so much pain, haven’t slept right for weeks…. Sorry sir!’ His speech was guttural and raw; he could barely string sentences together.
‘Christ!’ muttered the Boss under his breath and shaking his head slightly as it dipped down. He sat up after a moment turning his head away, accepting the situation and trying to figure out what to do next. They all sat silent as The Boss thought, the clamber of activity continuing around them but with les fervour. The Sphere agents were trying to appear nonchalant while they listened in to the revelations. The brandy warmed him slightly but didn’t help his state of alertness.
Peter looked over at Justin; he was a human train wreck. His leg looked like it was going to drop off. It was obviously gangrenous. The smell said as much. He stank, his face swollen and looked like there were a number of ill tended fractures around his face and skull. He was sweating a thick salty liquid, was pale, panting desperately like a geriatric after a fun run. Peter saw no threat there.
Peter spent most of his life assessing the possibility of threats to him from others; he didn’t trust his own mother. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if he trusted himself.
The Boss’ face changed slightly. It was barely visible but Peter recognised the odd barely perceptible twitch in his left eyebrow. It meant that the Boss had a plan. It meant that he’d devised a way to turn the situation to his advantage. Peter loved watching while the Boss birthed a new and twisted plan from the rubble of a dire situation. He loved watching the way his spiteful brain turned the world upside down and forged it into to something more agreeable to him. He made the world do what he wanted it to.
The Boss turned to Justin, ‘You’re a damn clod Stain!’ Justin looked more that a little dumbstruck by this, ‘you’re a fool and an imbecile!’
‘But sir I…. I don’t…. I didn’t….’
‘What bloody use are you? Eh?’
‘But….’ Justin looked down at his body to make sure that the gangrenous cuts and bruises weren’t just a figment of his imagination, ‘…..I don’t….’
‘Shut up!’ ordered the Boss
‘What’s he doing?’ thought Peter to himself excitedly. He watched the exchange eagerly. He loved seeing the Boss work in these sort of situations. He loved trying to second-guess what he was up to. Most of the time he could guess, but this one had him stumped. He barely repressed a grin.
‘A tracking device of that calibre is of absolutely no bloody use without the frequency, you may as well have dropped a peanut into his hat you moron! You’d have saved yourself and the rest of us a whole pile of trouble if you’d just died on that bloody rooftop in Singapore!’
Peter couldn’t hide it anymore. He smiled widely in anticipation, with each new plot that The Boss hatched, Peter learned just th
at little bit more. Soon he’d have enough knowledge to topple The Boss from power and have the Sphere of Influence at his beck and call. He was enjoying watching Stain suffer too. They had crossed swords before and there was no love loss between them. Last time they’d met they’d almost killed each other. Peter was enjoying every moment of the man’s torment with gusto.
‘And yet,’ continued The Boss, ‘You have shown a certain degree of competency, but I can’t let your failure go unpunished.’
If it was possible for Justin’s will to live sink further, it would have done, but it wasn’t, so it didn’t.
‘Here comes the punch line.’ Thought Peter enthusiastically, smiling widely and staring menacingly at Justin.
The Boss tossed Justin a small revolver. He fumbled with it for a moment and let it fall on his lap. He stared at it and his heart sank. ‘So this is it,’ he thought, ‘this is how I’m to be rewarded for my pains. I’ve to end it all by my own hand.’ He knew that he wouldn’t be able to point it at The Boss and fire before the Sphere agents gunned him down. He only had one choice left, to stand against his executioner or to just lie down and die. He wasn’t the sort to just lie down and die without a fight.
‘Am I to shoot myself then?’ he asked, just to be sure.
‘No,’ said the Boss, ’I want you to kill Peter!’
Peter took a moment to register what had just been said. He was still grinning and rubbing his hands together, waiting for Justin to put a bullet in his own head. The words filtered through into his realisation but he still didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation. He had been waiting for the Boss to deliver a punch line and when it came, he found that he didn’t quite understand the joke.
‘I don’t get it.’ He said, still smiling and looking at The Boss as if he was going to explain the joke.
The Boss looked at Justin. Justin understood completely as soon as the words had slipped casually from the Bosses mouth. Even in his battered and exhausted state, he understood what was happening.
The Boss was replacing Peter.
The final realisation hit Peter like a cold wet fish slapping him in the face. ‘What?.. Hey, wait a minute, that can’t be right!’ he said, as if he were watching a play and the actors had messed up their lines.
Justin felt something strange well up inside, a feeling he hadn’t felt or could remember feeling for far too long.
He was happy.
Without any hesitation he grabbed the gun from his lap, swung it round and spattered Peter’s head across the room.
He slumped back, gleeful as Peter’s lifeless body slumped back into its chair.
‘Welcome aboard son.’ Said the Boss with a smirk of victory. ‘Now lets get you cleaned up and rested. It looks like you’ll have to loose your leg, but we’ll get you a shiny new bionic one as a replacement. We want you in top form if your going to remember what frequency that tracking device operates on now aren’t we.’
‘Thank you sir.’ Justin’s pleasure washed over him like a flood, rendering him deeply unconscious. He slept the fathomless dreamless sleep of a man who’d found his place in the world.
Chapter 24
George and the Chavs
It’d been a while since George had met his new bodyguard and he was finding it all just a little bit tedious. Not that he didn’t appreciate the way that she’d stopped a group of five people from beating him to within an inch of his life and, quite probably, beyond. No, he did appreciate that, the thing that was getting on his nerves was the way that she saw fit to give rambling self-commentary of everything that she did and thought. She was driving him to distraction.
He’d followed Shoop’s instructions and gone to meet his new protector but things had got a little sticky.
The sun was edging its way into the sky and there was a thick condensed mist lying on the ground. It only reached up to George’s chest and made the world look half drowned in milk. As he waited his mind wandered back to a vision of Elizabeth Taylor submerged in Asses milk in a movie. He clung to the image for a while and when he came round he blushed a little, even though there was no one around, to find a semi-erection in his trousers. He desperately tried to think of un-sexy things; potatoes, really fat naked women, really fat naked men, Margaret Thatcher shaving her legs but was disturbed to find that picturing Baroness Thatcher scratching at her hairy chicken legs with a triple bladed, moisture bringing lady razor only made matters worse. The little general was at full attention!
‘Damn it!’ he said out loud, trying to push his protruding phallus back in with his hands, wincing and crumpling his body with the effort, ‘I had no idea I felt that way about Thatcher and shaving!’ he thought to himself and made a mental note to try thinking about it again later when he was somewhere more private.
Suddenly, some moronic laughter drifted into his ears from the near distance, it seemed to be heading his way. His phallus flopped like a fat man from a diving board.
He was meeting his bodyguard outside Fettes College, one of the UK’s most prestigious schools, the halls of the damn thing gaggled with princes and the offspring of oil barons and millionaires. The main building looked like a fictitious castle from a Disney cartoon, only it was made of stone, not plastic.
George waited outside the main gates that looked out over a large grassed area that constituted a public park, the milky mist hiding the green grass. Through the mist George could make out some shadowy figures moving in his direction.
Although the school and the park were in a fairly well to do area on the outskirts of the city, it shared a boarder with one of Edinburgh’s less savoury suburbs. The inhabitants of said suburb sometimes wandered into the park in the more unsociable hours of the day to drink cheap and nasty cider out of huge plastic bottles and partake in some of the not so legal intoxicants. They wore the uniform of the Chav and weren’t pleasant people to bump into at any time of the day. The early hours found them at their most dangerous and intoxicated.
For those without prior knowledge of the creature known as the “Chav”, here is a definition as noted in a well-respected encyclopaedia:
“CHAV: A slang term which has been in wide use throughout the United Kingdom since 2004. It refers to a sub cultural stereotype of a person with fashions such as flashy “bling” jewellery and counterfeit designer clothes or sportswear, of uneducated, uncultured, impoverished background, a tendency to congregate around places such as fast food outlets, bus stops or other shopping areas, and a culture of anti-social behaviour.”
Certain Chavs are more dangerous than others. The sort of Chav that is still drunk from the night before at 8.30 in the morning and, as a result, hasn’t got any cash, is very dangerous indeed. One Chav on his own could possibly be managed, but there appeared to be five of them staggering out of the milky mist, heading straight for George.
‘Oh Jesus!’ said George, ‘this is the last bloody thing I need!’
He scanned around looking for a place to hide before they caught sight of him. He started heading back to his car, it was only twenty feet away, if he could only make it there and duck down behind it before….
‘HERE……PAL!’ It was the fighting call of the lesser-spotted Scottish Chavite and struck fear into all those who heard it. He’d been spotted!
‘Shit!’ muttered George under his breath. There was nothing he could do now, they had him in there wavering, alcohol and drug soaked sights and weren’t about to let him get away until they were satisfied. Hot blood shot around nervously under George’s pasty skin and his hard light disguise.
The Chavs all dressed in the standard cheap, carrier bag like tracksuits with the bottom of the trouser legs tucked into their dirtied white socks. They had imitation Burberry baseball caps and scarves, presumably bought form the back of one truck or another, and the standard gold sovereign rings. To those who know the sight, there are few things more terrifying and visually repugnant. To be prey to these reprobates is a deeply felt fear of anyone with even the slightest mo
dicum of taste. Their appearance gives them the advantage of never being caught for their crimes, as they all look exactly the same, repulsively ridiculous clothes, skinny scrapping physiques, low foreheads and freakishly nasal voices that spit threats at every turn.
It’s widely regarded that you can rarely tell if a Chav is saying hello as politely as he can or threatening to kill you.
If George decided to run they’d give chase and he was no match for a gaggle of youths that were highly trained in pursuing terrified people. Chavs are dim but incredibly swift, be it running after people or running away from police or security guards in low quality super markets. The blood and adrenaline from the chase would demand violence. Running would surely lead to his doom. He would have to take his chances and hope that they were the lesser-known sort of Chav; the friendly Chav. ‘Stranger things have happened!’ Thought George and froze on the spot, waiting for them to reach him.
‘Here Pal! Y’awright Pal-eh?’ slurred the Chav leader.
‘Waz wi’ the getup man?’ Asked another of the pack. George realised that he was still wearing a disguise. The elastic band on his arm projected the image of a lab technician, complete with white coat and an array of different coloured ballpoint pens in the chest pocket. The vision of a man of science to these cretins was much akin to the sight of a transvestite black man to a right wing white supremacist; a red flag to a bull.
‘I’m doomed!’ Thought George gloomily
Hyena like laughter spattered out of the staggering morons. The leader appeared to be the one who was administering the remnants of their cheap cider. He had a huge plastic bottle dangling from his digits in a blue carrier bag; another bottle was being enthusiastically slurped on by one of his clan. They wore the Chav clan tartan of Burberry, which was ironic, as Scottish Chavs invariably hated anything even vaguely English but had chosen the only English tartan in existence. George momentarily wondered if the troop knew of this irony but then realised that it was unlikely that they’d ever ventured to use the word irony, let alone know how it made fools of them all.