Ventriloquists

by David Mathew

  ‘Good boy. Now turn off your lights; this is the road,’ Den instructed, in the back of his mind wondering if he’d managed to convince his son against what was obvious or not.

  2.

  Conducting his endless internal interview with Virginia, Branston leaned into his steering wheel, his arms limp in a vague cross. He watched the house – Number 11. He was part detective, part peeping tom; and when the van laboured into sight, Branston could not have been more content.

  He watched it swing wide in the empty road, then negotiate a reverse up the short driveway and into the garage. His pulse quickened. His imagination had been playing with possibilities about the Edlesborough house since he’d arrived in this road for the first time tonight in Yasser’s wake. Now the suspense was something harder, like a cramp.

  Hours earlier, Branston had followed Yasser to the house up the road, Number 77; he had seen the Asian girl slip around the side, while Yasser rang the front doorbell. While Yasser and the house owner had talked on the step, what had the Asian girl been doing at the back of the building? A burglary? (Branston waited for the reveal.) In a state of serenity Branston had watched Yasser walk away and get back into his car. A long wait had followed. Even pumped up by the mission – by the story! – Branston had grown bored. Then Yasser had started his engine and had driven off.

  This had been the most difficult decision that Branston had needed to make. He’d been torn between waiting outside the house to try to discover what had happened to the Asian girl and starting his own engine to pursue his student. Although the house clearly meant something significant, and although the home owner and Yasser were not friends (otherwise why the doorstep conversation at this hour?), there was something appealing about keeping Yasser in his line of sight, for as long as possible, for the sake of dramatic continuity, if for no other reason.

  But what if Yasser is just going home? Branston had asked himself… in the voice of his interviewer, Virginia.

  Then I’ll come back here.

  But won’t it be too late by then? Virginia had continued, her voice slightly spiky with agitation.

  ‘For what?’ Branston had answered in a whisper.

  Indeed, for what? All of this time later, and Branston was no clearer about the night’s purposes. He had followed Yasser to the Travellers’ camp; he had waited outside, not wishing to push his luck. While parked outside, he had even become jittery because of his proximity to the camp’s entrance, so he’d driving back the way he’d arrived, fairly convinced that Yasser would drive back to the house in Edlesborough sooner or later.

  Yasser had done so, albeit after a length of visit that had shown Branston the opening acts of a new work entitled Panic at Gypsy Park. Having waited so long, he had thought that he’d made a mistake. Yasser must have taken the other way when he’d left the camp. But then Yasser had come along, whizzing past Branston (who ducked low in the seat), accompanied by the woman in the film that Yasser had shot; the woman who had snatched the child.

  On Yasser’s tail once again, half believing that he saw the glow of fire in his rearview mirror, Branston had been led back to Edlesborough, where some sort of party must be gathering at the original house. Or maybe not. When they’d all repaired to the damaged house down the road, Branston had got out of the car and followed on foot, his training shoes making no sound. Not that it would have mattered if he’d clicked along in high heels, he had reckoned - these people were on a mission tonight.

  Now that the van had reversed into the garage of the damaged house, Branston believed that they would all move into the next chapter… Having jogged up and down the road a couple of times, Branston had moved his car nearer to Number 11, where he waited now. Not so close, he hoped, that he was easily in sight (although he had to concede that it wouldn’t be difficult to be spotted), but close enough to keep a good eye on the place.

  However, there was not much to see. From within the garage, the guy who had been in the van’s passenger seat was pulling down the door. None of the original four had emerged either. What could they be doing in there? Branston wondered. And what significance did the van play?

  Virginia asked Branston a question. Did you ever consider the possibility that the van drivers live here?

  Branston informed his interviewer that this was a good question, but added: No. No, I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why. The garage door was unlocked, Virginia. The passenger got out and opened it – without a key. And I don’t think men who don’t come home from work until this late are in the habit of leaving their garages unlocked in Edlesborough, any more so than they are anywhere else these days.

  Someone had unlocked the garage door before the van had arrived, either before the four visitors had arrived (which suggested at least a fifth person present, unless it had been the guy who lived at 77); or perhaps it was one of the four who had slipped into the garage via an entrance adjacent to the back garden.

  Why did it matter anyway? Vowing to edit his answers more scrupulously while on surveillance in the future, Branston was contemplating the next move – when the garage door opened again.

  The van’s main beams flared. Branston heard the engine roar, but he waited before starting his own vehicle. Be patient. See what the others do… This advice to self despite the seemingly obvious: the van drivers had come to collect something or to drop something off – something that had required a bit of privacy.

  As the van eased out of the garage, a man that Branston had never seen before walked down the path between the house and the garage, the woman from the Travellers’ camp a few steps behind him. The man – oldish, ruffled – gave the van a wave in the driveway, then he closed the garage door again. Wordlessly as far as Branston could tell, the two of them walked together on the pavement, not in the direction of Number 77: in the direction of the end of the road, where the park began.

  Perhaps they’re parked in the park car park, Virginia…

  Shouldn’t you find out? Start the engine. Follow them!

  But where was Yasser? He had not exited the house, which meant that he was still in the property somewhere (minus Maggie, who seemed to have just deserted him), or he had left in the back of the van, with the delivery men.

  Did he mean to leave in the back of the van? Was he conscious?

  Storyline.

  Boy goes to gypsy camp to take back child stolen by lady gypsy. Lady gypsy has had her own child stolen earlier. Boy tries to find lady gypsy’s child. Goes to home of old boy with criminal clout. Old boy whacks the younger boy. Dead. Van drivers collect the body…

  With no way of knowing how far away from, or close to, the facts this outline was, Branston reminded himself that an Asian woman had gone in there too – as had the man from Number 77. Where were they now?

  In the back of the van as well, Branston supposed. Why would the three of them hang around in an abandoned house?

  Oh I don’t know. Ghost-spotting? A sexual threeway? (Branston blinked several times.) Perhaps they intended a fivesome…

  Yeah right. So who are the guys in the van?

  He had three alternatives, and two of them were shrinking from sight.

  Follow the van.

  Follow the old guy and the baby-thief woman.

  Stay put and wait.

  Then a fourth choice became clear, quite unexpectedly, as the man from Number 77 stumbled out onto the front lawn, swaying like a sailor, his face filthy with something that Branston did not want to be blood.

  As fast as he could, Branston got out of his car and crossed the deserted road. He wouldn’t be able to catch the van anyway; perhaps the other two (who knew where they intended to walk?), but not the van: and now it scarcely mattered. The man from 77 needed help – Branston’s help – and could hardly stand up straight. He’d been attacked, it seemed.

  ‘What happened?’

  Chris looked at Branston –
each a stranger to one another – and in the streetlamp’s illumination his eyes were milky and liquid.

  ‘Cut myself shaving – what does it look like? Which way did they go?’ Chris asked.

  ‘The old guy or the van?’

  ‘The van. Which way?’

  Branston pointed in the direction of Chris’s house and Chris shuffled off.

  ‘Where’s Yasser?’ Branston asked.

  ‘He’s in the van,’ Chris slurred over his shoulder. ‘He does experiments on them… and my Bernadette’s already there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere in Ashridge… Gotta get to my car…’ He sounded drunk.

  Are you part of this story or not? demanded Branston to himself. The answer took less than a second to compute.

  ‘Get in my car,’ he told Chris. ‘I’m driving – you’re talking. I need explanations… The van can’t’ve got far. We’ll catch em.’

  3.

  Chris attempted to explain to Branston what had happened in the house…

  When Yasser collapsed in the darkened bedroom, Chris felt edgy. It was pretty obvious that he was now on his own; it was just him and Maggie and Benny in the room, and Maggie had just nailed her colours to the mast. She and Benny were together. Quite how or quite why was a matter that Chris felt he needn’t dwell on. If the crack on the head that he’d received from Benny had not been sufficient to convince him of the danger he was in, he had now witnessed Maggie’s deconstruction of Yasser. The stench of the evidence lingered – in the stagnant, compromised oxygen – and Chris pressed a hash-stinking palm to his nostrils.

  To run or not to run?

  Chris would have to push past Maggie (and step over Yasser) in order to get out of the door; but once clear of the room, of the landing, surely he could make it through the pitch-dark house safely enough. The morning would smell delicious… but then what? It was utterly inconceivable – it was totally unacceptable – that he would phone the law. A matter of general principle. But what else was left?

  ‘Do you wanna be on your way?’ Benny asked – Chris wasn’t sure if the question was for him. Benny sniggered. ‘Or do you want your money back?’

  So the question was for him.

  ‘Yes I do,’ Chris answered.

  As though nothing more serious than a difference of opinions had occurred in the last few minutes, the three of them walked back down and through the house. Such was the drumming in his skull by this point that Chris did not pay much attention to the others’ proximity. If they wanted to attack him again – to boot him down the stairs, to snap his neck – then there was nothing he could do to stop them. His injury had robbed him of his survival instinct. Parenthetically he wondered if he had also lost a life-threatening quantity of blood. He didn’t dare check if his wound was still bleeding.

  The cold air outside made him dizzy. A few minutes earlier he had asked himself if he was ready to run – to barge out of the house if necessary – but now it was an effort simply to stand up. The black-and-cream lawn, dyed a thousand variations of greyscale by the moon and stars, looked awfully inviting as a place to lay his head…

  Chris imagined Bernadette, and how she’d nurse him on those rare occasions when he was ill. She would hold his head; remind him to drink his Lemsip… Where was she? Where was she when she should be nursing him right now?

  ‘Is Bernadette with you?’ he asked Benny. ‘Wherever you’re keeping them all… is she with you?’

  ‘She’s the nurse, right?’

  ‘You know she is.’

  ‘Yeah I’ve got her. She’s safe…’ Benny sniffed the air and reminded himself of something. ‘Listen, mate, I’ve gotta make a phone call, all right? Chat to Maggie or be on your toes – as you like it. But if you wanna stick around you can see a bit of the process: the collection. I just need to give em a bell for the directions. They’ll be here soon.’

  Forcing himself to focus, Chris was made aware of all the gaps that he had in his comprehension; not all of these gaps could be explained by the attack either. It was like trying to catch up with a film’s plot, thirty minutes in.

  ‘So what do you have to say for yourself?’ Chris asked Maggie while Benny strolled away (presumably for privacy). Chris took a seat on one of the benches.

  Maggie shrugged.

  ‘You don’t know, eh? What’s to stop me calling the police?’

  Maggie shrugged again. ‘You don’t mean anything to him, in case you haven’t realised. You can do what you like.’

  Wishing that he didn’t have to hear that all the time, Chris rebounded. ‘Well, maybe the fucking law means something to him. Have you thought of that?’

  There was that shrug once more! (Chris would have taken pleasure from slapping her one!) ‘You don’t understand,’ Maggie told him, sitting down beside him. ‘He drops hints all the time. I have to expect he wants to get caught… but no one challenges anything he does. No one sees… For Christ’s sake, we’re sitting in someone’s back garden – why are none of the neighbours calling the police? Because they’re just like you and me – or like we were until recently. They don’t want to watch the show. To watch is… to watch is to get involved.’

  Chris waited. While he couldn’t query the commonsense nature of what Maggie had told him, the big picture remained cloudy and stormy. The only way to converse with madness, Bernadette had once told him, is to learn its language.

  As her face filled his mind once again (smiling this time), Chris knew that he had to find her, and in order to find her he had to learn the language of madness. After all, she was smiling now; she was aware that he knew that she hadn’t left him deliberately. She hadn’t run off with another man. She hadn’t blown a top-secret Lottery win on a ticket to Barbados. She’d been taken by Benny.

  How many others were with her?

  ‘Where does he keep them?’ Chris asked.

  ‘A big house near Ashridge Forest.’

  Twenty minutes away, Chris calculated. ‘Couple of minutes to get back to my car,’ he said aloud.

  ‘What?’ Maggie asked. ‘Are you going there?’

  Not exactly answering the question, Chris went on: ‘There’s lots of big houses near Ashridge. Do you have an address?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘You can’t make it in your condition! You’re two minutes from a bloody coma!’

  ‘My Bernadette is there. Please, Maggie… At least explain it to me.’

  Maggie glanced towards the end of the garden. ‘He’s coming back,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Are you a prisoner too?’ Chris pressed.

  ‘Do I look like a prisoner?’ Maggie smiled. ‘The man’s me salvation. Got shot of some rats in me life… now I’m free.’

  ‘Some rats?’

  Benny was five metres from them, and Maggie said, ‘He did for me da, the rapist bastard. And Tommy’s with your girl Bernadette in Benny’s dreamworld… I hope she doesn’t get friendly with that wanker.’

  Maggie stood up, sending a riffle of petrol perfume through the air. ‘All done?’ she asked Benny.

  ‘Done and done,’ the man answered. ‘Some new boys – father and son. They’ll be here in five… What’ve you two lovebirds been discussing?’

  ‘Whether he dies here or at home.’

  Benny sniffed. ‘Fair enough. What did you decide, son?’

  Surely there would be a point at which Chris ceased to feel sick and would begin to feel anger; at which the jungle drums in his head would beat an alternative rhythm. Small waves of darkness splashed at the edges of his vision.

  Chris lifted a finger and pointed at Benny’s chest. ‘If I die here, you’ll be implicated. It’s your house, you said.’

  ‘Indeed it is, mate, but you’re not dealing from a full deck. I’ve got some boys on their way and they’re picking up the spoils to deposit elsewhere. They’ll be
making two deliveries. One to dispose of the dead ones – her old man and you, if you hurry up – and one to my labs, where I’ll work on them in due course. So it’s up to you, mate – only shit or get off the pot, okay?’

  Benny started to walk away, towards the path that would lead around the side of the house. A second later, Maggie moved off after him… and Chris was wrenched between feeling abandoned again – emotionally hurt, indeed – and feeling that he’d crawled out of the worst nightmare known in the history of the superego.

  His thoughts were sloppy and ill-formed, he knew they were; but he also knew that when his attackers were gone, they were gone forever, more than likely. And with them, his only hope of getting back to Bernadette.

  ‘Wait!’

  They had only walked a few metres, and there was no night noise to spoil his word, but Benny carried on as if he’d heard nothing. On the other hand, Maggie sopped in her tracks; she turned.

  ‘Take me with you,’ Chris pleaded. ‘I’ll be part of it – whatever it is. But don’t leave me to freeze.’

  Now Benny stopped as well. He was too far away for Chris to read his features, but the angry tone of his voice was unambiguous.

  ‘What part of this don’t you understand?’ he asked sarcastically.

  ‘All of it!’

  ‘Then listen up, for the last time. You are absolutely no use to me, twat. You are weak; you are a piss-ant penny-max stakes fucking gambler. Is that clear enough? You have no imagination and you mean nothing to evolution. So die here or crawl home like a damaged cat. Nobody will care.’

  With which Benny resumed his exit stage left… and Maggie was certain to tail him, Chris knew. However, when he looked at her he saw something that he had not expected. With Maggie being that little bit closer to where Chris was sitting, the fact that she was mouthing words was hard to deny. Chris squinted. And Maggie did it one more time: her silent adieu. And then she was off on her heels, leaving Chris atremble.

  Follow us, she had mouthed.

  4.

  Branston struggled to think of the place that this bashed-up dude would fit in.