Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  In front of him, the door swung open and the other man came in. He was also masked and carried a battered red metal box with a spike underneath and a coil of flex attached. He went over to the rusty winch and wedged the box amongst the metalwork, pushing and rocking it to check that it was firmly lodged.

  Frowning, Gideon watched as the man then untangled the flex, using a crocodile clip on the end to connect it to a length of silvery wire that hung from above.

  It said a lot for his woolly state of mind that Gideon only then recognised the metal box for what it was – an electric fencer unit, such as was used to power stock fencing. He knew from experience that the twelve-volt battery delivered a nasty jolt to any man or beast unwary enough to touch it, and, with a growing foreboding, he followed the silver wire upward with his eyes until he saw where it had been wound round a crossbeam, high in the roof space. His position prevented him from following its course along the beam but it wasn’t necessary. Directly above he could see his wrists, bound with orange baling twine and wound about with a coil of the same silver wire. As far as he could see, the baling twine was looped over one of several heavy, S-shaped iron hooks that hung from staples driven into the timber. Gideon thought they looked a little like meat hooks.

  At his other extremity he could feel the cold floor with his toes, and it took him a moment or two to comprehend the reason for this. His feet were bare. He had no boots on. His cold-induced shaking grew a stage or two worse.

  ‘Ah. ’E’s twigged it,’ the talkative one said. ‘And ’e don’t look too ’appy!’

  Gideon wasn’t ‘’appy’.

  His mind was racing. What did they hope to achieve? Did they intend questioning him? Was that what this was all about?

  If it was, he had to wonder just what kind of power pack they’d put in their fencer unit. He had no idea what was legally available, even supposing they stayed within the bounds of legality, which was unlikely, given their record so far. He was heartily glad that beyond an antiquated light fitting or two that might or might not be defunct, the derelict site seemed to have no mains electricity supply; no sockets.

  The burning pain in his wrists began to seep through the residual muddle in his head, and he tried to take some of his weight on his feet, without success. Although he could just get the balls of his feet in contact with the floor, he couldn’t seem to balance that way and he sagged sideways, the movement putting even more strain on his arms.

  He spread his feet to steady himself, with just his toes touching. Marginally better.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked. His throat was sore and his voice emerged as not much more than a cracked whisper.

  ‘We don’t want nuffink,’ Bad Breath told him, coming round in front and looking up.

  It was on the tip of Gideon’s tongue to ask who’d sent them, but he checked himself. If he’d been meant to know they would have told him.

  The fencer rigged up to his satisfaction, the other man came over.

  ‘We’re just delivering a message,’ he said, his voice a stage or two more educated than his more loquacious companion’s.

  ‘You’ve been pokin’ your nose where it don’t belong,’ Bad Breath put in. ‘And we was asked to ’ave a little word . . .’

  By whom? Bentley? Surely this wasn’t Stephenson’s doing? Much easier to believe it was the health-club owner, who’d been openly antagonistic. But then, Gideon didn’t really know either of them, in spite of the instinctive liking he’d felt for the teacher.

  ‘Arncha gonna ask who?’

  But the other man shook his head. ‘He knows we won’t tell him. He’s a cool customer, this one. Let’s just get this done and get out of here.’

  Cool? Ye gods! If they only knew!

  Clenching his jaw and just about everything else, Gideon watched the man go over to the fencer and reach for the switch. With a click, it was on, and for one blessed moment, nothing happened, allowing him the fleeting and altogether ridiculous hope that the battery was flat.

  In the gloom of the musty room, the little orange bulb on top of the unit flashed brightly, and in the next instant, Gideon convulsed as the shock coursed through his body to the floor.

  ‘’E didn’t like that,’ Bad Breath observed with gratification, and as he finished speaking, the fencer pulsed again.

  Bad Breath and his mate disappeared somewhere around the tenth or eleventh pulse of current.

  Gideon didn’t see them go, he was too caught up in his own personal hell of zinging, fizzing pain. Jolt after jolt. Regular as clockwork, anticipated and yet still unexpected, the current used his body as a bridge to the floor. Squinting through screwed-up eyes between pulses, Gideon found himself alone in the gloom, and the discovery was chilling. With the disappearance of his tormentors went any hope of an early end to his ordeal.

  Zap!

  It felt as though someone was pushing red-hot wires through his bones. With each shock his muscles contracted violently, beyond his control. And with every shock the initiative he was working so hard to muster in each blessed, two-second respite splintered into a thousand pieces.

  ‘You bastards!’ he yelled out, suddenly and without premeditation, then his breath caught in his throat with a sob of hopelessness.

  Gradually, the repeated pulses of electricity were breaking down his ability to function on any level. His muscles were in spasm, his brain increasingly unable to do anything but focus with agonising expectation on the next jolt, and his will power leaching away through his feet with the current.

  His feet.

  Bootless and wet; touching down in a puddle of water; completing the circuit and conducting the electricity to the ground.

  Bird on a wire.

  Birds sat on the high-voltage cables. They did so in total safety because they had no contact with the earth below; they were not part of the circuit.

  Ignoring the burning pain in his wrists, Gideon dropped all his weight onto his bound hands and forced his exhausted muscles to somehow lift his leaden feet clear of the floor.

  In the semi-darkness under the dusty window the bulb flashed, announcing its delivery of current with a significant click, and such was Gideon’s state that he flinched anyway.

  It took two more harmless pulses before he could trust what his body was telling him. The shocks had stopped.

  So easy. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  But even as he rejoiced in his delivery from torture he knew it was merely a respite, not a solution. The burning soreness in his wrists and the strain on his stomach muscles were evidence enough that he couldn’t hold the position for long. Already his feet were sinking inexorably closer to the floor.

  Oh think, you stupid bastard! he told himself. Think!

  To his left, the orange light flashed on. Patient. Waiting for the moment when his exhausted muscles could no longer hold his feet clear of the floor.

  If only he could reach the fencer. How far was it?

  Too far. Even the most wishful of thinking couldn’t deny that. At least eight feet, and sideways at that. It might just as well have been eight miles. He could quite possibly generate a fair amount of swing, forward and back, but because of the orientation of the hook and staple it would be much more difficult to do so laterally.

  A jolt took him by surprise and he snatched his feet up, feeling his stomach muscles burn anew as he did so.

  How long would the battery last, earthing like that?

  Gideon had no idea. Nor could he guess what kind of voltage the electric fencer was putting out, but he was almost certain that sanity would desert him long before the cell went flat.

  There had to be something he could do . . .

  Think, damn you!

  All right – if not the fencer itself, then the wire.

  Twisting his head awkwardly, Gideon followed the connecting flex upward with his eyes.

  It might be possible. It just might . . .

  If they’d taken the wire right the way along the beam to the wa
ll before they’d clipped the flex on, it would have been way beyond his reach, but they hadn’t. It began its downward slant less than four feet away from him.

  Experimentally, Gideon tried using his legs to initiate some sort of sideways movement but only achieved a kind of undignified wriggling, which would have been funny in any other situation. The twine cut deeper into the skin on his wrists and he was forced to touch down, briefly, once again.

  This time he managed to pick up before the current zapped him, and the accomplishment filled him with a ridiculous degree of elation. It was as if the small red fencer unit, with its brightly winking eye, had assumed a malicious persona. Or perhaps it was just easier to perceive it that way rather than as an insentient mechanism, delivering its cruel payload with metronomic regularity, untouched by Gideon’s pain or frustration.

  Watching the flashes, he began to count steadily during the pauses, until the bulb lit on the number six every time, and after the first three or four pulses he started to touch his feet down in between, twisting slightly and pushing himself away from the window and the fencer unit as he did so, to obtain the momentum to swing back.

  It wasn’t so easy to be accurate once he began to swing properly, because it threw his rhythm, and more than once he received a stinging reminder, but on the forward curve his outstretched feet were within inches of the flex now and, for the first time, deliverance seemed a tangible possibility.

  He knew from experience that it was no earthly good trying to break the wire itself. Formed from multiple strands of steel, it was manufactured to withstand the kind of pressure that might be exerted by a thick-skinned steer or horse, and Gideon knew it would stretch before it finally snapped. His only hope lay in the join where the crocodile clip connected to the stock fence, or where the flex exited the fencer unit itself.

  With the beam creaking alarmingly above him, Gideon put all his efforts into one final forward-reaching swing, kicking out with his bare feet . . .

  And missing.

  The effort sent his swing out of control and as he fell back his feet hit the floor, dragging on the tiles and providing the contact for a jolt that added pain to the huge wave of disappointment that swamped him. He received two more jolts before he managed to reorganise himself and lift his toes clear of the ground again.

  The effort of that final swing had caused the orange twine to bite ever deeper into his wrists, and his whole being shied away from the idea of beginning the process again, yet what choice did he have?

  Turning his head, he began to time the flashes again, and after a few pulses gritted his teeth, pushed off and started to swing.

  This time he made it.

  On the final desperate swing, he stretched his feet forward, his shoulders burning under the strain, and felt his left heel hook over the flex.

  The contact broke his impetus, sending him twisting out of control, and for a split second, as he plunged helplessly into the back swing, he thought that once again he hadn’t done enough; that the muscle-wrenching effort had been in vain. Then, as he tried to check his wildly careening progress, there came a crash, and the fencer unit toppled from its position on the winch to land on the tiled floor.

  Gideon put a foot down briefly to try and steady himself, and looked at the fallen metal box in desperation. The flex was still intact, as was the connection to the wire above, and, with the unit loose on the floor, it was going to be impossible to put the kind of pressure on the contacts necessary to break them free.

  Still twisting erratically, Gideon put his toe down again to try and ease the strain on his arms and shoulders, and discovered two things: the twine around his wrists had apparently stretched a little, allowing him to get his feet almost flat on the floor, and, having done so, the expected jolt had not yet come.

  Seconds passed, unbearably tense.

  Gideon counted steadily, his eyes fixed on the little orange bulb. He’d reached twelve before he stopped counting, finally allowing himself to believe that the fencer really was dead.

  He didn’t know what exactly had happened to it, but then he didn’t need to know. The flex and connection were still intact, but somehow, somewhere, the electrical circuit had been broken and that was all that mattered. Gideon had other concerns, the most pressing of which being how to free himself from the twine and the hook.

  The curve on the S-shaped meat hook was far too deep for there to be any hope of unhooking it from the staple in the beam, so he concentrated his efforts on trying to uncouple the loop of twine between his wrists from the hook.

  The extra couple of inches of twine his Tarzanlike swinging efforts had netted him allowed him just enough bend in his legs to spring a little. It wasn’t the kind of jump that was going to win him any prizes on sports day, and after a dozen or more failed attempts he was forced to admit defeat. It might have worked if the hook was held rigid, but it wasn’t, and when he jumped it had an exasperating tendency to move with him.

  Breathing heavily, and more weary than he would have believed possible, Gideon bowed his head and could have wept with pure frustration.

  How soon would he be discovered, if he didn’t manage to free himself?

  The set-up was one strongly suggestive of hordes of young pony-mad girls turning up after school to ride and feed their adored charges, and the idea of being found in this predicament by a handful of teenagers was not one that appealed to Gideon. Parents would have to be called, and then, inevitably, the police and probably an ambulance, and the questions would begin . . .

  Gideon screwed his eyes tight shut and groaned. When he opened them again it was to see a blur of red on the edge of his vision.

  The fencer. A strong metal box. A potential step.

  With renewed energy, Gideon set his body swinging once more until he could hook his foot around the hanging flex. Pulling it closer, he managed to get his toe on the fencer unit itself, and from then on his liberation was a done deal.

  With the red box positioned below him, he was able to fit both feet onto it and stand up, taking the weight off his wrists. His legs were ridiculously jelly-like, and as the loop of orange twine finally slid clear of the hook, Gideon overbalanced from his suddenly precarious footing on the fencer, took one stumbling step and pitched forward onto the dirty tiled floor.

  It seemed to take for ever for Gideon to get himself on his feet, out of the building and back to the Land Rover, and he spent the first part of that time lying foetus-like on the cold tiles, shaking like an aspen leaf.

  Ultimately, it was the sound of Zebedee barking that provided the spur he needed; that and the thought of the round-eyed fascination of those pony-mad kids he was sure would soon be on their way. But, even with the decision made, it wasn’t easy. His hands were still bound together and felt clumsy with pins and needles, and his shoulders, freed at last from their unnatural attitude, now screamed their protest at having been obliged to move from it. Added to this he had the odd sensation of having been filleted from top to toe, neither arms nor legs seeming inclined, at first, to take his weight.

  At the sitting-up stage, Gideon regarded the small, pulled-tight knots that secured his wrists. Knowing from experience that once this kind of synthetic twine was knotted it generally stayed knotted, he didn’t waste any time trying to unpick them, looking around him instead for the means to cut or fray the twine. Nothing suggested itself, but then he remembered there’d been hay bales in one of the other sections of the building, and where there are hay bales, there is almost always a knife.

  With this in mind, Gideon pulled himself to his feet with the help of the winch mechanism and held onto it while he looked up at the beam from which he had recently hung. There were ten hooks altogether, rusting a little, but still obviously sound, and contrary to his earlier impression, his was the only one secured by a staple. The others hung over a bar fixed to the underside of the timber and were free to run along its length.

  Made of grey galvanised steel, the one staple was shiny underneath where it
had, in the not too distant past, been hammered into place. The silvery wire that had delivered the sting so effectively to Gideon’s body trailed down beside the hook, its end kinked and curled where it had pulled loose as he fell.

  And thank God it had pulled loose! Gideon thought as he looked up at it. Wrapped tightly, and with his falling weight powering it, it could have taken off a finger or a hand as easily as a cheese wire slicing through Brie. He shuddered at the thought.

  On the pallets in the corner he found his shirt and jacket, but they were useless to him while his wrists were bound, so he scooped them up and headed for the door.

  The light in the open air made him blink, even though it was still overcast, and the stiff breeze chilled the moisture on his skin as he made his way shakily along the row of outbuildings to the one with the hay. To his relief he found the expected knife, balanced on the inner window sill among decades of hay dust and the dried-up remains of several generations of spiders. Cutting the twine proved more difficult than he’d foreseen, with fingers rendered stupid by insufficient circulation and very little room to manoeuvre the blade between his wrists. In the end he accomplished the task by wedging the knife handle underneath his foot and rubbing the orange strands up and down until they frayed and parted.

  The effort made Gideon’s shoulders ache again and he sat on one of the bales for a moment, feeling about ninety and wondering where on earth he was going to find the energy needed for the journey home. He’d no idea what the time was, as his watch had disappeared, no doubt into one of his attackers’ pockets. It was a chunky explorer’s watch-cum-compass and had been a Christmas present from Pippa. A swift search confirmed that his wallet had disappeared, too. Another score to settle with the bastards, if he ever got the chance. Thankfully, he’d left his mobile in the Land Rover.

  Wishing he didn’t feel as though he’d drunk half a bottle of vodka on an empty stomach, Gideon put his shirt and jacket on and headed for his car.