Reaper

by Jon Grahame

  Reaper

  Jon Grahame

  For my agent, Mandy Little

  Copyright

  Rotterdam House

  116 Quayside

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  NE1 3DY

  www.myrmidonbooks.com

  Published by Myrmidon 2011

  Copyright © Jon Grahame 2011

  Jon Grahame has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-905802-69-2

  Set in 11.75/15.5 Sabon

  by Ellipsis Digital Limited, Glasgow Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, RG1 8EX

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Contents

  Daily Telegraph, February 5, 2010

  Chapter 1 - 19

  Daily Telegraph , February 5, 2010

  China’s reckless use of antibiotics in the health system and agricultural production is unleashing an explosion of drug resistant superbugs that endanger global health, according to leading scientists.

  Chinese doctors routinely hand out multiple doses of antibiotics for simple maladies, like sore throats, and the country’s farmers’ excessive dependence on the drugs has tainted the food chain.

  Studies in China show a ‘frightening’ increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also known as MRSA.

  There are warnings that new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs will spread quickly through international air travel and international food sourcing.

  “We have a lot of data from Chinese hospitals and it shows a very frightening picture of high-level antibiotic resistance,” said Dr Andreas Heddini of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. “Doctors are daily finding there is nothing they can do; even third and fourth-line antibiotics are not working.

  “There is a real risk that globally we will return to a pre-antibiotic era of medicine, where we face a situation where a number of medical treatment options would no longer be there. What happens in China matters for the rest of the world.”

  Associated Press, February 10, 2013

  An outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has been reported in Guangdong Province, China. It was discovered by Canada’s Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), an electronic warning system that monitors and analyses internet media traffic, and is part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network (GOARN). The disease comes on top of the problems caused by the violent earthquake that devastated the region two months ago. Members of worldwide aid agencies are still working in the area.

  Guangdong Province previously suffered a SARS epidemic in 2002 although the Chinese Government did not inform WHO until four months later. It spread to 37 countries and there were 8,096 known infected cases and 774 fatalities. SARS is a viral disease that can initially be caught from palm civets, raccoon dogs, ferret badgers, domestic cats and bats. Initial symptoms are flu-like and may include lethargy, fever, coughs, sore throats and shortness of breath.

  Les Knight, founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

  (As quoted in The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, Virgin Books)

  ‘No virus can ever get all six billion of us. A 99.99 per cent die-off would still leave 650,000 naturally immune survivors. Epidemics actually strengthen a species. In 50,000 years, we could easily be right back where we are now.’

  Chapter 1

  JIM REAPER STARTED TO PLAN MURDER as thousands began to die in a natural disaster that almost killed the world.

  He had become a man of routine and habit. He still bought the Independent, as a sign of his social leanings and pretensions. He had bought the paper when Margaret was alive. The Independent for him, the Mirror for her. His and her papers, reflecting his and her intellects. Except that he had preferred to read the Mirror first, for the shorthand version of national and world events, and the sports pages.

  On this day, he walked into the city, as he did every day, and bought the newspaper from the same shop in Reuben Street. He had a late breakfast at Wetherspoons.

  He always started with a couple of coffees and then, seeing as he was in a bar, it seemed only polite to have a couple of pints. Maybe three or four. No more. He wasn’t an alcoholic or dependent on the booze; he was dependent on the routine. On this grey day in the middle of February, he left to walk home, back through the city and into the suburbs. It was then he saw Frank Morris, large as life, coming out of a bar in New Street, a mobile phone to his ear, a girl on his arm, laughing and joking as if all was well with the world.

  You only had to look at the morning headlines to see that all was not well with the world. The earthquake in China was proving more of a handful than expected. Thousands had been killed, infrastructure devastated and, on top of that, there had been an outbreak of a glorified flu virus. The world had started dying, although no one yet knew it, and all Reaper could think about was how to kill Frank Morris.

  He followed him, almost without thinking, staying well back and hidden among the crowds. Morris and the girl went to the bus station and waited at the number 36 bay. Reaper kept his distance and watched from the anonymity of ever-changing crowds. A green double-decker arrived and disgorged passengers. The driver left and the bus waited empty, doors closed, until a new driver climbed on board. Now the doors opened again and those waiting could board and pay their fares. Morris and the girl went upstairs. Reaper got on the bus and asked for a ticket to the terminus, took a seat on the lower deck, and waited.

  The girl had been attractive in a common way. The boots she wore and the fake fur jacket were probably high street expensive. The skirt was short and her legs long; her make-up blatant and her hair bleached straw blonde. She laughed too loud. He could hear her now from downstairs; she was laughing as if to show off to the world that she was with a real catch. She couldn’t be more than 18. She didn’t know any better.

  He held the newspaper at eye level in case Morris looked in his direction when they came downstairs to disembark but, when they did, in the middle of the undistingushed Butterly Estate, the man was too intent on saying something suggestive to the girl, who laughed obligingly and flashed a challenging glance down the bus as if to relay the fact that they were now going off to do something scandalous and dirty that was far beyond the limits of her audience’s boring lives. They got off as it started to rain. Two other people were also waiting to climb down, one an elderly woman who was taking her time. Reaper left his seat, helped her and got off himself.

  The couple were running down the wet pavement, eager to be out of the rain, eager for each other. Reaper followed at a distance. They turned left and he ran to keep them in sight. They walked up the path of a semi-detached council house. He walked twenty paces down the street until he could confirm the number on the gate, tur
ned away and began to walk back. The rain was getting heavier but he didn’t feel the elements; he felt only the anger, deep, patient and uncompromising.

  It was two hours before he realised he was approaching his own house. Without realising, he had responded to a homing instinct like a pigeon. The day was already darkening and he was soaked and needed to pee. He let himself in, stripped naked, used the lavatory and took a hot shower. He lost track of time and became aware, some hours later, that he was laying on his bed in a bathrobe.

  His mind had short-circuited with the knowledge that Frank Morris was out and he knew where he lived. A sudden thought muddled his half-formed intention. Did the girl live with him? Or was she only an afternoon’s diversion? He calmed himself. A lot of planning was needed. He would discover the necessary details, he would wait until the time was right, and then he would act. Justice would finally be done.

  So far, justice had been only noticeable by its absence.

  Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. Reaper thought it was time the Lord had a little help.

  Reaper stopped drinking and undertook a fitness programme of walking and jogging. Then he initiated a harsh regime of circuit training in his garage. After a month, he felt fitter than he had in a long time. He bought a nondescript second-hand van that wouldn’t look out of place parked near his target’s house and kept intermittent surveillance on Morris. He treated the rear windows of the van with transparency paint that let him see out but rendered the interior dark. He sat on a mattress in the back and logged the man’s movements, not all and every day, but enough to build up an accurate framework of when he was at home.

  He had been right. The girl did not live at the house.

  Morris took several girls there, most of them on the verge of legality, very few of them more than once.

  Morris had spent three years inside and looked to be in the peak of condition. He walked as if he had lifted weights and his muscles bulged his clothes. His hair was cropped, his features had an arrogance that some women might find attractive. He was six feet tall and 32 years old, two inches taller than Reaper and thirteen years younger. Reaper continued his own routine of exercise with a grim determination.

  He no longer bought a newspaper and was unaware of the stories reporting the spread across the world of the pandemic, tagged ‘Super-SARS’. He watched only films or dramas on television. He recorded many and re-ran them. His choice was eclectic: The Railway Children for lost innocence, Unforgiven for revenge.

  Most were violent. He had a joke with himself that they were training films. He watched brain-eating Zombies without flinching or laughing. He bought a punch bag that he hung from the ceiling of the garage and practised kicks and firmed up his fists upon it.

  The time was getting close. He felt he was approaching peak fitness and the moment of justice. Then Morris disappeared.

  Reaper parked the van to make sure his target was keeping to his schedule, but Morris wasn’t at the house.

  Had he stayed somewhere else overnight? He did not reappear the next day. Reaper spent longer in the van, using a bottle to piss in, but the man did not return that night or the day after.

  Hunger and tiredness made him drive home and consider what might have happened, but after food and sleep he returned to his vigil. Morris was still absent, although the postman called. The thought that his mail was still being delivered gave him cause for optimism until he realised it could be junk mail or Morris could simply have left without telling his creditors. Why would he tell creditors? Who else would send him mail?

  Driven to distraction by uncertainty, Reaper moved the van to a location well away from the house, then walked back and strode down the garden path as if he had a perfect right to be there. He pretended to knock at the door in case a neighbour was watching, and then peered through the front window into a room dominated by a large-screen TV. Newspapers and magazines were on a coffee table, a scarf and a jacket were thrown over the back of an armchair. The house did not look abandoned. He went round the back and saw a piece of toast next to the sink alongside a mug of half-drunk coffee. The clincher was a four-pack of Carlsberg Special on the bench. Morris would never have left those behind.

  Even so, the following days were tense and Reaper’s training suffered. When Morris returned after an absence of three weeks, he had a deep tan and a satisfied smile. Three weeks in the sun on no visible means of support. Reaper hadn’t watched where Morris had gone during the days or nights; he had only wanted to know when he was at home. His hours of absence from the house had not fitted a normal work pattern: but then Morris had never had normal work; thieving, enforcing and drug dealing had been his trades, although the police had never been able to gather enough evidence to make a case.

  Reaper returned to his regime of rigorous training and, towards the end of April, he was ready again, mentally and physically. Without turning mystic, he felt the karma of the moment ahead. It would happen the next Wednesday.

  On Wednesday nights, Morris usually came home about 7:30 and stayed in alone. Usually this coincided with a football match on television. Everybody has routines. Reaper waited in the van and watched the house. A taxi stopped outside at 7:40 and Morris got out, walked down the path and went in through the front door. Reaper drove home, ate a steak, showered and prepared. He wore black to blend into the night.

  In a shoulder bag, he carried a meat cleaver, a hammer, a pair of plastic handcuffs and the nearest thing he could find in a toyshop to a vaguely convincing Colt.45, once he’d added a little paint here and there. At 10 o’clock, he drove the van back to the Butterly Estate and parked round the corner from the house.

  There was an intermittent moon that played hide and seek with the clouds. It was a spring night; warm with the promise of a summer he planned to miss. He felt no excitement or fear or even anticipation as he left the van and walked down the street towards the semi-detached house; this was the final act. There was a light on in the front room. He went to the door and took the hammer from the bag. He knocked. Waited and knocked again. The light in the hall came on and he heard Morris speculating out loud to himself about who the hell was knocking at this time of night. The door opened, Reaper stepped forward and hit him with the hammer.

  The speed of the attack made it successful. He connected with Morris’ head and Morris went down, still conscious, but shocked and shouting. Reaper went inside and closed the door. He pushed the man onto his front and pulled one hand behind his back. As he tried to get the other, Morris realised what was happening and began to struggle. He was stronger than Reaper expected and the handcuffs wouldn’t work.

  The plan to make him wait until dawn, tied to a chair, being told why and how he was going to be killed, was discarded. Reaper pulled the meat cleaver from the bag, swung it high and brought it down into the back of the man’s head. It split his skull like a melon and blood spurted into his face.

  Morris stopped struggling. His legs twitched and he gurgled, but he stopped struggling. Reaper sat with his back against the front door, looking down the worn carpet of the hallway towards the kitchen. The door to the living room was open and he could hear highlights from a football match on the television. He took a deep breath and smelt the blood, could almost taste the blood. He got up and left the cleaver where it was and wondered if it was too early to call the police.

  Maybe he would have a cup of tea first? He felt tired, drained. All that preparation, all that concentrated energy and now it was over, in two blood-splattered minutes.

  Would Emily understand? Would Margaret? He suspected Emily would approve. This was for you, love. But his wife had been aggravatingly religious, particularly towards the end. She wouldn’t approve.

  Not that he cared.

  He went into the kitchen and switched on the light.

  Now he was here, he couldn’t be bothered making tea.

  In the fridge were the cans of Special Brew. He wouldn’t normally choose such a strong beer but there was no alternative. Besides, i
t was a special occasion, and he allowed the wisp of a gallows smile to cross his face.

  He took a can and popped the ring pull. A noise in the hall made him turn; Morris was trying to get to his feet. Reaper put the can down and opened kitchen drawers, found what he was looking for and picked a carving knife. He wrapped a tea towel round the handle to get a better grip, and stepped into the hall, measuring the distance. He judged his target was fairly close to death anyway, but he moved quickly and stuck the knife into Morris’s stomach with an upward thrust.

  Reaper let go, stood back, and watched Morris fall, driving the knife further into his body as he hit the floor. This time he wouldn’t get up.

  The blood on Reaper’s hand bothered him. It was on his face as well. He ran a tap at the sink and washed it off as best he could. Then, picking up the can of lager and stepping over the body, he went into the front room. The match highlights were still on.

  Newcastle were winning two nil. He sat and watched until it finished and a news bulletin followed. It was about Super-SARS, the flu virus that was sweeping the nation. It had been dominating newspaper bill-boards and TV headlines so much, even he had been unable to avoid the vague awareness of what was happening. The TV reporter was speculating on rumours that the Government was planning quarantine areas.

  Reaper was tired. Killing had taken more out of him than he had realised. Maybe it was time to call the police.

  Morris didn’t have a land line and Reaper didn’t have a mobile. He used Morris’s mobile, left on the arm of the couch, where he had apparently been sprawled. Reaper dialled 999 and told them his name, and that he had killed a man. He told them the address and said he was armed and dangerous and would kill the first person who attempted to come through the front door.

  He wanted them to bring guns. He wanted them to shoot him. Death by police. It had a certain satisfying symmetry.