by Frank Tayell
“Sure. Protective uncle. Awful jobs.”
“Meetings like this aren’t dangerous,” Davis said. “The worse that’ll happen is that they discover who we are and kick us out. Any real danger will be with the people waiting outside. If it happens, we’re going to run. Not fight, see? And we’re not going to make any arrests. We’re after information, remember?”
“About Pine, and what someone might want to blackmail him with. Yes.”
There were a couple of women by the door to the supermarket.
“They haven’t started,” one said, before returning to an animated conversation about what someone’s boyfriend had said about someone else’s wife. Ruth pulled the door open, more convinced than ever that whatever this night would bring, it wasn’t going to bring them closer to Emmitt.
The old man was sitting at a small table just inside the door. A candle-lamp hung above his head, positioned to illuminate a sheet of paper.
“Good. You came, and who’s this?”
“I’m her uncle,” Davis said. “An old man invites her to an abandoned supermarket, and I’m not likely to let her come alone.”
“We’re all friends here, brother,” the old man said.
“Brother, is it?”
“On whom can we rely but each other?” the old man asked.
“A very good question,” Davis said. “When’s the meeting start?”
“In about five minutes. If you could add your name and address to the list.”
“What for?” Ruth asked.
“So we can make sure you vote come election time,” the old man said. “It doesn’t matter to us for whom you cast your ballot, just that you do.”
Davis shrugged and wrote down a name. Ruth did the same, copying the sergeant’s surname. The page was only half full.
“It’s a smaller turnout than we were expecting,” the old man said. “It’s the weather, I suppose. You might as well go in.” He pointed toward a set of doors, both of which had wooden panels covering the broken glass.
“After you,” Davis said, pulling the door open.
Ruth stepped through it and into a corridor. At the end was a single candle. Something was— There was a sudden deafening bang. A gunshot. She turned around. She saw Davis. He was lying on the ground. Blood gushed from a massive wound in his head. The old man stood by the doors, a pistol in his hand, a calculating look in his eye.
Ruth reached for the weapon holstered at her back. There was an arm on her shoulder, a stinging sensation on her neck. Everything went dark.
Chapter 12
The Crypt
Ruth forced her eyes open. Everything was bright. Her mouth was dry and her brain thudded against her skull. Slowly, her vision cleared. She was in a long cavernous room filled with brick pillars and dark shadows.
She tried to raise a hand to her throbbing temples, but couldn’t move her arms. It took a moment to remember how to do it, but she tilted her head and looked down. She was sitting in a chair. Tied to a chair, her brain corrected. She tried kicking her feet, but they too were bound. Everything came back. Davis had been shot by the old man. He’d seemed so nice, so— No! She shook her head in an attempt to dispel the wave of self-pity. Breathe in, breathe out, she told herself. In. Out. In. Out. Focus. She was a prisoner. They’d killed Davis. They would kill her. She had to escape.
She stretched and strained, first her arms, and then her legs, and then both together. There was a little give in the ropes, but not enough. She tried pushing down with her feet and pulling with her arms at the same time. The chair creaked, but it didn’t break.
Relax. Count to ten.
Who had done this? Emmitt, presumably. But who else? The old man. What about the two women who’d been outside the supermarket? Probably. No. No more assumptions. From now on she only wanted facts. Ten seconds were up. She strained against her ropes, gritting her teeth as the cord bit into flesh. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. Pain finally forced her to stop.
Try again, she told herself. In a moment, came the silent reply. The old man, the two women. Who else? There had been someone else. Someone behind her, someone who’d… what? Drugged her? She vaguely recalled a stinging sensation in the back of her neck. A syringe? Almost certainly. So there were four of them, and Emmitt had had between six and ten at the ambush site. Good, she was getting somewhere. Or was she?
She stretched the ropes again, this time trying to hold out for thirty seconds. It was slowly dawning that any deductions she might make, no matter how accurate they were, wouldn’t save her. They’d killed Davis. They’d kill her. A wave of despair gripped her. She tried kicking her feet, but they were bound too tight. She yelled. She screamed. She stopped, listening as the unanswered echoes faded away. Echoes. Where was she? She grappled with the question to drown out the siren song of fear.
It wasn’t a supermarket. At least she didn’t think so. The room was large. Really it was too large to be called a room. Brick pillars were spaced ten feet apart, and she could count twelve of them. Two feet wide at the base, tapering upwards to a vaulted ceiling made of similar crumbling red masonry. No, it was a crypt, or maybe the wine cellar of some remote country house. Did it matter? Yes, she told herself, as she gave the ropes another experimental tug. Even if all she could do was process what lay before her eyes, it was better than meekly waiting for her fate. Eyes? And then she saw the thing that you never notice because without it you can’t. Light. It was coming from the base of the pillars. Not candles, but electric lights, with cables snaking across the floor toward… but she couldn’t see where they went. But electricity meant they were near the city. Or near a power station. Could she have been unconscious long enough for them to take her to somewhere in Wales or Scotland? No. Her mouth was dry, but she wasn’t overcome with thirst. She couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few hours. Not much longer than it must have taken for them to bring her from the supermarket to here. But where was that?
She turned her head left and right, searching for some window hidden in a dark recess. There wasn’t one. As she moved her head, the sharp pain retreated into a dull ache, and her mind cleared. No, there wasn’t a window, but against one wall were a stack of metal containers, the kind she’d seen used for storing water. Was that important? Probably not. She turned her head again, and this time saw what had been almost in front of her all the time.
The chair was next to a table. Around it were four chairs made of the same polished wood. In the middle of the table was a carving of a blocky ‘r’. She strained again, this time alternating left and right, left and right, trying to rock the chair over. As she shifted her shoulders, she looked down. The chair was bolted to the floor. From the dust around the metal bracket, it looked like it had been done very recently. Then she realised. The chair matched those four other seats around the table. Five chairs. She craned her head, looking at the table once more. There was no inscription, but if the chair had been on the other side, the carving would look like a backward ‘L’.
Five chairs. Five stars separating each word in that hated inscription. Did that mean there were five conspirators? Emmitt, Wallace, Donal, and two others. Who? She had a feeling that she’d soon find out.
She heard the footsteps first. They came from behind. Ruth forced herself to stare straight ahead. The footsteps stopped. Ruth gritted her teeth, waiting.
“You’re awake. Good.” It was a woman’s voice. Ruth played the three words over and over, trying to think if she’d heard them before. She was sure she hadn’t.
“Good,” the woman said again. She stepped into view. She was an inch above average height, with cropped white-gold hair and an expressionless, unlined face. It reminded Ruth of those pictures she’d seen in old-world magazines, of the models holding up a bottle of perfume or wearing some absurdly impractical fashions. Those faces were chosen because they wouldn’t distract from what was being sold. It was a face that people wouldn’t notice.
“I’ve seen you before,” Ruth said.
“Indeed,” the woman said. A carefully plucked eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. “Where?”
“At the meeting in the pub. You were in the doorway when Rupert Pine came onto the stage.”
The woman’s lips curled into a smile absent of any kindness. “Ah, yes. Dear Rupert.” The smile vanished. “My name is Eve. Of course that isn’t really my name, but in the hours to come I will find it easier if you have a name to call me.” In her hands was a thick leather case. She laid it on the table. Slowly, she unzipped it. “Please pay attention. You are in the crypt of a church two miles from the nearest dwelling. No matter how loudly you scream, the only people who can hear you will not come to your aid. There is one exit from this crypt. It is locked. Beyond it are my people. I have some questions. You will answer them. You won’t lie. Ah, I can see you don’t believe me. You will.”
The woman opened the case. It was filled with metal instruments. Some long. Some thin. Most looked sharp.
“Do you have a coin in there?” Ruth asked.
“A coin?” she asked, running a hand along the steel tools.
“Five chairs. Five stars. Where’s the truth?” Ruth asked.
“Ah, you mean like this?” Eve reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver disc. “Where indeed is the truth? I think we will find it today.”
“So there are five of you?” Ruth asked, her eyes watching the woman’s hand as it played across the tools.
“It’s a nice number, don’t you think?” the woman replied.
“You, Emmitt, Donal, Wallace. Who’s the fifth?”
The woman smiled. “I think it’s time I asked you some of my questions.” She pulled out a long slender needle.
“I won’t tell you anything,” Ruth said.
“Everyone says that. They are always wrong,” the woman said. She held the needle up in front of Ruth’s eyes. It was ten inches long, barely a centimetre wide, tapering to a fine point at one end and a bulbous tip at the other.
“This will hurt,” she said and walked behind Ruth.
There was a tug, then the sound of material tearing as Ruth felt the shirt ripped from her back.
“I am fascinated by the human body,” the woman said. Ruth shivered as she felt the woman run a finger down, then up her spine, and then along her shoulder blade. “A person can be beaten for days and yet hold onto that spark of self. Yet with the smallest of pressures, they can experience pain beyond their worst fears.”
There was a brief stinging sensation, a moment absent of all feeling, and then a sea of agony unlike anything Ruth had ever known. She screamed. The pain didn’t stop. It went on for eternity. And then it was over.
“That was ten seconds,” Eve said, “of one, small, precise pressure. So much easier than beating you, and far tidier than extracting your fingernails. Now, listen.”
Ruth gasped for breath, and then gritted her teeth, trying to prevent those gasps from turning into sobs. Her body was slick with sweat and shivering with the memory of that agonising pain.
“Listen,” the woman said again. “Do you hear it? There is nothing. No footsteps. No calls of concerned passers-by. Do you understand? You are alone. Perhaps you don’t understand.”
There was the touch of metal against skin, and the pain began again. Ruth tried not to scream. She gritted her teeth, counting slowly in her head. She reached eight before it became too much, and a tormented wail erupted from her throat.
“There,” the woman said, as the pain ceased. “If I want you to scream, you will. If I want you to stop, you will. You are here to answer questions. I already know some of the answers. How much you suffer depends entirely on how truthful you are. What is your name?”
Ruth shook her head. If she answered the easy questions, then she’d answer all of them.
The pain began again.
“That was ten seconds,” the woman said. “What is your name?”
“Ruth. Ruth Deering,” Ruth sobbed.
There was more pain.
“What is your name?”
“Ruth—”
More pain.
“It is a simple question. Answer truthfully and it will stop. What is your name?”
“Ru—”
Pain.
“Your name?”
“I… I’ve always been called Ruth Deering,” she said.
“That is closer to the truth, but it is not entirely accurate, is it?” Eve said. The needle ran along her back, then up and down her spine. “A nerve bundle beneath your shoulder blades is one thing. Imagine what I could do with your spine.”
“I’ve been called Ruth Deering for as long as I can remember,” Ruth said.
“Good. Better. How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Ruth replied automatically. The needle plunged into her back. Ruth screamed.
“How old are you?” the woman asked.
“Not eighteen. I don’t know. I lied about my age to get into the police. Seventeen probably. Somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. Maybe older. I don’t know!”
The torturer walked in front of the chair and looked at Ruth more closely. “Interesting,” she said. “Where do you live?”
Strike a match, Ruth thought, remembering what Mitchell had said. Try to fix something good in your mind so that when you’re surrounded by darkness, you can remember the light. If this wasn’t the darkest of moments, she didn’t know what was. She tried to focus on the day she and Mitchell picked apples, on Maggie’s face at Christmas, of anything other than the agonising present. She couldn’t. The pain cut through it all. The only thing she could see were the flagstones in front of her.
The questions went on. Ruth answered them all, and as truthfully as she could. That didn’t stop the torture. During the brief moments between, she wondered why the woman was asking them. They had nothing to do with the investigation.
“That is enough for now,” the woman said. “I think I have proved my point. You will answer whatever I ask, and no one will come to your aid. Think on that.”
Eve left the chamber.
Ruth forced her muscles to relax. As they did, she realised her entire body ached. She tried to think, not of herself, nor of the pain, but in the abstract, and of what she could learn from the torture. Not much, except that she could guess at the identity of the woman who’d terrified Frobisher into silence. Other than that… she searched around, replaying the questions, trying to find something, anything that would give her a sliver of hope. There was nothing. It was as the woman had said. There was no escape.
She slumped in the chair and noticed there was a little more give to the ropes. She stretched, tensed. With sweat as a lubricant, she was almost able to pull her left hand free. She pulled. Stretched. Pulled again. Almost, but not quite. Finally, she gave up. What did it matter? Even if she were to get free, what could she do?
Voices woke her. Three of them. The torturer’s and two others’. They sounded familiar. She tried to make out the words. She thought she heard ‘soon’, and then a soft laugh. There were footsteps behind her, and they were getting closer. Please, no, she thought. Not again.
A man stepped into view. “Do you remember me?” he asked.
Even though she hadn’t immediately recognised his voice, she would never have forgotten that scarred face.
“Emmitt,” she said. Her throat was sore. It hurt even saying those two syllables. “I’m glad to see your arm’s in a sling,” she spat. “I hope it hurts.”
The man tapped the arm in its discoloured cast. “Not really. I’ve had a lot worse. I am truly sorry that the first time we properly meet is like this. It is often the way.”
Ruth was tired of riddles, and she wasn’t going to play the man’s game by asking the first question that came to mind. “When you shot Hailey Lyons, why didn’t you kill me?” she asked instead.
“Those were my orders. Not to kill the police,” he said.
“From Wallace?” Ruth asked. “He gave you those orders?”
“Orders
are orders. Either you obey them all, or you obey none. Then I learned who you were. I could have killed you many times. In that apartment block by the radio antenna, by that stalled train. I didn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, uncertain whether she believed him.
He smiled.
“There are five conspirators,” she said. “Do you have a coin?”
“I don’t need one,” he said.
“Then you’re the ring leader?”
He smiled again.
“No,” Ruth said. “You can’t be, not if you’re obeying someone else’s orders.”
“Very good,” he said.
“Wallace? It can’t be him, he’s dead.”
“Very astute of you.”
“Were you going to let him run the country?”
Emmitt’s smile widened. “No.”
“You would have killed him, like you killed Turnbull?”
“We would, simply because he could not be trusted to do it himself. He was an unreliable member of our organisation. An essential one, but no, he would have died before our plans came to fruition.”
“What plans?” Ruth asked, not expecting the man to answer, just wanting to keep him talking so the woman didn’t come back.
Emmitt pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time,” he said. “I spared your life because I knew that our lives are interlinked. We were destined to meet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you read much history? There is an inevitability to events that can only be seen with the distance of time. The rise of Rome and fall of Egypt. The fall of Rome and rise of Europe. Empires, doctrines, religions; they come, they go. A battle won or an election lost may stave off collapse for a decade or three, but that collapse will still come. That is the truth of our past. Yet there are moments where a simple action could change the entire course of our species. A bullet fired in a theatre, a cannon not fired on the battlefield. A line drawn on a map, or the flip of a switch that turned a line of code into a sentient being. Those events are rare, yet they mark a crossroads. We are at one now. Britain is a paradise compared to the rest of the world. Your bandits and gangs are capitulating under the promise of electricity and old-world comforts. The rest of the world is tearing itself apart. Warlords, despots, zealots, and prophets hold sway over countries that used to think themselves the bastions of civilisation. We are approaching the moment when they can be stopped. All of them, and with a single act.”