I fell into blackness.
THIRTEEN
Some time later, I didn’t know how long, I awoke into a blackness which at first seemed as dense as my unconsciousness but gradually eased into grey.
I was weak and faint and spent what seemed ages struggling to get into a sitting position before I realized that it wasn’t just weakness which hindered me.
My hands were tied behind my back and hobbled to my ankles.
I was lying on a stone floor and as my eyes became used to the greyness I realized I was in some kind of boiler-room. I could see the outlines of the great metal boiler against the wall opposite. Behind me was a pile of coke and it was by rolling against this that I finally got to a kneeling position which was the nearest to being upright I could manage.
The pain from the jagged pieces of coke pressing into my knees was sharp enough to penetrate the violent throbbing which filled my head, but I held the position long enough to look around and locate the door up a couple of steps and to my left. Beneath it was a thin sliver of light which, much diluted, provided my illumination.
With a sense of having accomplished something, I subsided on to the pile of coke, which slid down around me in a rustling avalanche. The noise must have penetrated the door for a couple of seconds later it was flung open.
‘He’s awake,’ I heard Mervyn’s voice say.
‘Well, hit him again.’ Cooper.
‘No. I can’t. Not when he’s tied up.’
I heard a chair moved impatiently, then determined footsteps across a wooden floor and down the steps. Next moment my hair was seized in a vicious grasp and my head forced back till I was looking Sam full in the face.
He laid a piece of wood, probably the chair leg, against my bruised and swollen neck. I tried to speak but only then realized the full effect of his first blow. I could only produce a choked gurgle. He smiled as he became aware of my predicament and let me drop back on to the coke.
‘What are we going to do with him, Sam?’ came Mervyn’s fearful voice from the doorway.
I lay coiled up like a foetus on the coke and strained my ears for the answer.
‘Kill him.’
I wished I hadn’t bothered.
‘Kill him,’ echoed Mervyn. ‘But you said before we might just take him to the police and say we captured him. They’d never believe his story, not with more of us. That’s what you said.’
His voice was getting higher. Sam cut in.
‘I thought a bit more. He’s dangerous. He’ll talk and talk till someone gets interested. If he disappears that’s practically proof he’s guilty.’
His tone of voice was conversational, casual. I began to suspect he must be that happily rare monster, the pure sadist. But he stooped over me once more, and his mouth and eyes belied his coldly logical words. He looked about thirteen, desperately struggling with a problem beyond his years and longing to be advised, but too stubborn to ask.
I tried to speak again, but produced only another grunt and Mervyn’s voice cut across it.
‘What about his wife?’
Sam adjusted his face, though he couldn’t hide the uncertainty in his eyes, and turned away from me.
‘That bird? Who’ll listen to her? She’s biased. I think he might have been bluffing about her anyway.’
His voice was as cool as ever, with just a hint of amusement in it. But it rang artificially to me now; I could trace its source to a dozen television series.
For a moment, the thought gave me comfort; comfort which increased as Mervyn spoke once more.
‘But we can’t just kill him, Sam.’
His voice was almost hysterical now with protest.
‘Are you chickening out again, Merv?’ asked Cooper softly.
The tones were still the tones of the television master criminal. But now their artificiality brought me little relief. It had begun to dawn on me that playing a role doesn’t make any of the actions involved in that role less real.
And Mervyn’s reluctance, my major source of hope only a minute earlier, was now obviously the main reagent to harden Cooper in his role. The needs and wishes of others can make us deny our real selves in all kinds of strange ways. I thought briefly of myself and Peter, but self-analysis was an unwarranted luxury at that particular moment.
‘I never did, Sam. You know I never,’ protested Mervyn.
Sam moved away, then in a resigned tone as if in answer to some pleading expression on Mervyn’s face he said, ‘Oh, bring him up if you like then. I don’t care.’
Footsteps came down and Mervyn half lifted me. He caught hold of my cracked hand and I let out a strangled shriek.
‘Sorry,’ he said. Then I was manhandled up the steps into a small kitchen which I took to be an appendage of the hall. When Mervyn let me go, I just collapsed sideways again of course. He rummaged in a drawer and produced a large knife. For a second I thought that in an effort to conciliate Sam, who sat on a stool by the sink looking down at me with disdain, he was going to cut my throat. But he only sawed at the rope which linked my wrists and my ankles. Having cut through this, he helped me to a sitting position with my back against the wall. My ankles and wrists were still tightly bound, but the relief of being able to stretch out my legs made even the agony of cramp seem pleasurable. Mervyn filled a cup with water and set it to my lips. I took a mouthful and swallowed painfully. Then another.
‘You know what they say about lambs, Merv,’ said Sam suddenly. ‘You should never make a pet of one or it will really upset you when you take it to the market.’
Mervyn ignored him and continued to hold the cup to my lips till I shook my head.
‘Time,’ I said to him. ‘What time?’
He looked at his watch.
‘Five to eleven.’
I must have been unconscious almost an hour.
‘I’ll have to be getting home soon, Sam,’ said Mervyn, his voice betraying a longing to get back to the familiar surroundings and see the familiar faces at his home.
‘Me too,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s get it over with. You or me?’
‘What?’
‘Kill him. It’s about time you had a go. I do all the rough work round here.’
‘I can’t, Sam. Honest, I can’t.’
Cooper shrugged.
‘All right.’
He stood up and opened a cupboard, reached in and produced a white tablecloth. He came purposefully towards me and draped it over the floor around me.
‘What’s that for?’ enquired Mervyn.
‘Blood,’ said Sam laconically, then held his hand out like a surgeon in the theatre.
‘Let’s have the knife,’ he said.
It was all so dreadfully corny that I could not quite take it seriously. I could see from Sam’s face that he did not know either just how serious he was. I think he was hoping almost as desperately as I was for something to interrupt the situation.
Only Mervyn was completely convinced of the seriousness of what was happening. And ironically, the more convinced he was, the more likely it was to happen.
‘No, Sam,’ he said. ‘No.’
‘Give us it here then,’ said Sam impatiently, and reached back and snatched the knife up from the floor.
‘Now, Mr Bentink,’ he said.
I am still not sure if he would have used it or not. I don’t think so. His face was full of trouble.
But Mervyn had no doubts.
‘No, Sam!’ he cried, and swung the discarded chair leg against Cooper’s skull just above the ear with a terrible smack. His face went grey in front of me, the knife fell, and he collapsed over my legs.
I kicked him away. He twisted round on to his back and lay with unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling. A slowly swelling bubble of saliva oozed from his lips.
Mervyn bent over him.
‘Sam. Oh, Sam,’ he said.
I didn’t like this at all. I had a feeling that any uncertainties which might have existed in Sam’s mind would have disappeared when he regain
ed consciousness. Temporarily, anyway, he would have no doubts about his role. And temporarily could mean forever for me.
‘Mervyn,’ I croaked, ‘untie me, Mervyn. I can help you. There was no point unless you untie me, Mervyn.’
I was probably half unintelligible anyway, but he did not even acknowledge that I was making sounds. He just knelt there cradling Sam’s head and weeping.
I looked around desperately. Then I remembered the knife. It lay where it had fallen and I let myself slide slowly down the wall till my hands could reach it. The blade was too long for me to be able to hold it in my hand and saw at the rope binding my wrists so I concentrated on that between my ankles. It took a surprisingly long time. I thought with horror of Sam sawing away at my throat with this blunt blade and a memory came to me of Peter killing the sheep. It seemed an infinity away.
I staggered to my feet, hands still tied behind my back, and stumbled across to the door. I was bent on putting as much distance between myself and this blond-haired, blue-eyed youth who lay unconscious on the floor. I had never been so frightened of anyone in my life. I turned my back to the door and twisted the handle.
It was locked.
I looked around for a key but could see nothing. It seemed to me as if there was more colour in Sam’s cheeks. The saliva bubble had burst.
Desperately, and foolishly in my weakened condition, I began thrusting at the door with my shoulder.
‘Mr Bentink.’
I spun round in terror. It was Mervyn.
‘Mr Bentink.’
‘Open the door, Mervyn.’
I could hardly understand my own voice.
‘Mr Bentink. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I thought.’
‘Open the door, Mervyn, please.’
Had Sam stirred? No, it was just nerves.
‘I’d never done it before, not properly. Sam had. Sam told me what it was like. And I’d read about it. And seen pictures. Sam had some. We talked about girls a lot on holiday. Especially those two – Sam said they were ready for it. He said he knew.’
Sam moved. There was no mistaking it this time.
‘Mervyn, cut my arms loose. Hurry.’
He ignored my plea but stood in front of me looking vacantly at the floor.
‘We met them on the mountain. They were half undressed. I couldn’t stop looking at them all the time we were talking. I just couldn’t help it. One of them said something to Sam and he made a joke. We all laughed. I wanted to touch them, that’s all. Just touch.’
Sam suddenly turned over and lay on his side. I could not tell how much this was a conscious move, how much some kind of reflex. I did not want to find out. I decided to try the window, but Mervyn gripped me by my jacket with surprising strength. Or perhaps it was just my surprising weakness.
‘Sam put his arm round one, I mean right round so that his hand touched her breast. She stopped laughing. She wanted to go but he wouldn’t let her. He just laughed. He held her and with his other hand he undid her bra, then pulled it off. She tried to cover herself with her hands but we all saw. We all saw. It was the first time I had. Really I mean. Not pictures.’
Sam raised himself on his elbow. His eyes looked fully alert.
‘Sam got hold of her again and held her arms behind her back so we could all see. The other one tried to help, but I grabbed her and one of the others pulled her bra off. They started to shout but we put our hands over their mouths. Then Sam took her shorts off and got on top of her and started to do it. He was holding her round the throat so she couldn’t scream. He started to do it and he shouted at me to start. I couldn’t help it. I thought she probably wanted it anyway like Sam said. So I did it. The others helped hold her and she sort of fainted. Then Sam finished and he got up and I finished too and I got up. And Sam said it was someone else’s turn. But when one of the others went over to his girl he said she wasn’t breathing. He said she was dead. He said Sam had squeezed her throat too hard.’
I looked with fascinated horror at Sam, who had risen unsteadily to his feet and was casting around for a weapon. The knife lay where I had dropped it.
‘He came over to mine then. She was still breathing all right. He asked if anyone else wanted to do it with her. But no one did, not any more. Then he laughed and he said that he couldn’t let one of them go when we’d killed the other. And he squeezed her throat. Till she stopped breathing.’
Sam had the knife in his hand. Mervyn relaxed his grip. All animation had left his voice.
‘Then we got all their stuff together and we dragged them across to a gully. We tipped them in. I didn’t know what to do. No one did except Sam. He remembered seeing you earlier. We all did. We hadn’t met anyone else and you were dressed funny. Not funny. But not like us. We could remember, see? So we all made up our story. We didn’t know you had seen them. We just wanted to fool the police. We just said we saw them with two men. Then they started asking a lot more closely. They kept on hinting at you. So Sam changed the story a bit to fit you more. Sam changed it for us all.’
So I hadn’t been altogether wrong, but I had no time now for idle speculation. Sam, who had for the past couple of moments been listening attentively to Mervyn, suddenly moved. I poised myself to dodge without much hope. The knife swung back, then thrust forward. I remained perfectly still.
‘Sam,’ said Mervyn, his hand clawing up his back to where the hilt protruded. ‘Sam.’
Then he fell forward and Sam and I faced each other. I looked at his face, twisted out of all recognition by a snarl of anger; or pain; or madness. To me it didn’t much matter which. I fell back against the door wrestling with the cords which bound my wrists.
He began to laugh.
It was contrast, not similarity, which brought to my mind that melodic line of laughter drifting up the fellside an eternity ago. The sun had been shining, we had seemed isolated from time, only joy lay behind and ahead. And the laughter of a couple of youngsters in that peaceful scene had not seemed a discordant noise.
The noise I heard now was a ragged, thin-edged bark which spiralled rapidly to an almost noiseless expulsion of air through the twisted funnel of his mouth. I called upon Superboy deep inside me to lash out with a well-aimed kick. But Superboy was not coming out to play.
I began to slide down the door. I had no desire to end up on the floor, but I had no muscular control in the face of this terrible effigy of youth who was surely about to strangle me. In another moment I knew my bowels would open, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I closed my eyes and prayed that the door would burst open and the police rush in. They could arrest me, charge me, try me, condemn me. I would fall in front of Copley and kiss his feet as they spurned me.
But there was no cracking of wood as the door splintered open. Only a new sound, like but unlike the insane laughter I had just heard.
I opened my eyes again.
Sam was still standing before me, his face contorted. But now he was crying. At first he sobbed as hysterically as he had laughed, but gradually the sobs died away, though the tears still poured down his cheeks and seemed to smooth his features back to their proper youthfulness.
He knelt beside Mervyn.
‘Merv,’ he said. ‘Merv. Answer me.’
He tried to turn his friend over on his back, but the knife prevented this. With a curiously gentle force he drew it out. No fresh blood flowed from the wound. I knew he was dead.
Consciousness of this must have come to Sam too for he made no further attempts to turn the dead boy over, but merely laid him gently back on to the floor.
He then squatted on his haunches, absently hefting the knife in his hand.
I had regained a little of my strength and struggled to a sitting position.
He’s looking for someone to blame, I thought in new horror, and began to try to struggle upright.
‘Mr Bentink,’ said Sam.
I was up on one knee. An uneven e
dge of floorboard was cutting into the knee on which all my weight pressed. But I ignored the pain and knelt in perfect stillness.
‘Mr Bentink,’ said Sam again. He too was still on his knees by Mervyn. He looked at me, his mouth opened and shut a couple of times, but no words came out. Then, as if deciding the effort was not worth it, he shrugged his shoulders, gave me a smile of great charm, and with the same gentleness he had used when handling his friend’s body, he turned my own unresisting frame around.
At that moment I knew what it meant to be absolute for death. Time had stopped a second away from my heartbeat. There was no blinding vision of eternal truth, no rapid unwinding of all the reels of my life before me. Just a horror that it should come to this, that thirty-three years of life should lead to this. Every sense was deadened. Not even Shakespeare could have written any last words I would have cared to speak at that moment.
Then I realized as suddenly and completely that I wasn’t dying, that something quite different was happening.
Sam was sawing away at my bonds.
For a second I thought some miraculous change had taken place in the boy.
Then I started to listen to what he was saying.
‘You shouldn’t have killed Mervyn, Mr Bentink, and tried to murder me too. Isn’t it lucky that I’m going to be able to escape and fetch help. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. I’d try to get away if I were you. I’ll bring Merv’s dad. He’s very big and very excitable.’
I twisted away violently. Suddenly I didn’t want my bonds cut. He just kept on smiling and came towards me again.
Then my earlier prayer was belatedly answered. There came a hammering from the door behind me, followed by a splintering as somebody shoulder-charged it. It all happened so quickly that I did not have time to get out of the way and as it burst open the door caught me on the back and spun me against the wall in a sitting position. Sam with the speed of a cat had leapt across the room, flinging away the knife as he did so, and was sitting in the far corner cowering like a maltreated animal.
‘Help me,’ he cried piteously. ‘He’s killed Merv. Don’t let him touch me.’
Fell of Dark Page 18