Relieved, ignoring the slur, Spight reached out his hand for another grappling match and tried not to wince. ‘Done.’
*
There had been something of a delay, as it turned out Dr Harrow didn’t live in the fat farm building, as Fred had assumed, but in the gatehouse with his family. While he waited, Fred dragged the prisoner down to the basement, at the insistence of Dorcas who didn’t want her residents disturbed more than they had been already. As part of Spight’s inner cadre, she knew all about the more brutal realities of life in modern Devon, but it was something that was kept at a remove from the general population, and she didn’t want it intruding at the farm.
Once there, the boy was recuffed to the leg of a heavy steel table supporting the fat rendering equipment, so that he was forced to sit on the floor. By now he was fully conscious, silent and pale with fright. Good, the more scared he was, the easier it would be to extract information.
Dr Harrow came in yawning, looking like he had dressed in a hurry. He stopped short when he saw the boy cuffed to the table and put down the black bag he was carrying.
‘Dug said there was a problem at the farm. What’s going on? I thought it was one of my patients.’
Patients? Was the man mad? They were cattle, like Spight said in his more unguarded moments. Stupid, greedy cattle. Or rather pigs. Livestock.
‘We found him down in the woods in a secret hideout. We need to know what he was doing, and who else he’s working with. What are the maps about?’ This last was barked at his prisoner.
‘I don’t know what you mean, what maps?’ It was the first time the boy had spoken. His voice squeaked with fright, wobbling between two registers. If his balls had dropped yet, it sounded like they were trying to creep back up into his body.
Fred took the roll of maps from where he had put them on the workbench running along the wall of the basement. He smacked them against the leg of the table the prisoner was shackled to. The boy flinched but said nothing. ‘Don’t play dumb, kid, you were in the bunker, these maps were in that bunker. Don’t pretend you don’t know what they are.’
The boy trembled, but his face remained blank and still he said nothing.
‘OK Doc, over to you. There’s no time to beat it out of him.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Harrow’s worried frown said he had a fair idea, but needed it spelled out.
‘Do what you do. I’m sure there’s a bit of fat on ’im, time to donate it to the cause. No need to waste anaesthetic.’
‘I’m really not sure …’
‘I don’t givea fuck, Harrow, just get it done, and don’t make me have to tell the Mayor you didn’t want to cooperate.’
Harrow opened his mouth a few times like he was going to protest, then shrugged. He didn’t look the prisoner in the eye as he said, ‘I’ll need a table, and a power supply.’
The collapsible gurney had been brought downstairs from its usual place in the treatment room, with a great deal of difficulty and swearing, by Biff and Fred. They set it up next to the portable generator, before moving the table to which their prisoner was handcuffed. This was accomplished with considerably more difficulty, as it was steel and heavy, and the vat even heavier. The boy sat, shuffling along with the table when kicked, and said nothing.
When the gurney was ready, Biff freed the prisoner, stripping him of his jacket and hauling him up onto the cold steel surface. Reattaching the cuff to one of the supports left the prisoner’s arm twisted at an awkward angle.
Dr Harrow pulled up the boy’s jumper and t-shirt, unbuckled his belt and unfastened his trousers, exposing a flat, quivering white stomach and bony ribs.
‘I don’t see much fat here.’
‘Fuck’s sake Harrow, does that really matter? This i’n’t really about the fat, right?’
‘Yes, right.’ Harrow’s hands were shaking as he swabbed a wad of cotton with iodine and swept it across pristine skin, leaving a brown stain. For someone who cut people all the time, the man was a pussy.
‘Don’t know why you’re bothering with that.’
‘I don’t want him catching an infection.’
‘Yeah, right, his life expectancy is gonna be that long.’ Fred was bluffing, he knew it was more likely Spight would send the boy to New Jersey. Young as he was he would fetch a very good price; the Mayor would want him in reasonable shape, for at least as long as it took to get him to a cargo ship and payment. But the prisoner didn’t know that, and the more scared he was the more likely it was he would break and talk. All Fred wanted was for him to talk. Torture didn’t bother him, but it took time, and he wanted this information nailed before Spight came back and took over. He wanted his father-in-law’s respect, sod it! Not to say: Well, I caught this terrorist but he ain’t talking, over to you.
The doctor’s equipment consisted of a needle connected to a cannula, in turn connected to a flexible hose, and powered by a generator. Harrow picked up the needle, and stood, hesitating. Fred switched on the generator. It belched smoke into the room and he wondered if they should be doing this somewhere with better ventilation. But it was too late now. He plugged the hose into a socket and switched it on.
Biff gave Harrow a gentle shove towards the gurney.
The doctor’s face was pale but his voice steady as he said, ’You’ll have to hold him down, he’s going to struggle.’
Biff took hold of the prisoner’s shoulders and Fred grabbed him around the knees.
‘Last chance kid.’ Fred kept his tone gentle. The boy’s face was white, his eyes screwed shut. He didn’t speak.
Harrow made a small puncture with the needle. The flesh he pierced spasmed but the boy only gasped as blood welled and tears leaked from his eyes. Harrow pressed a button and a sucking noise filled the room. It was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of screaming as Harrow began to work the needle into the fatty layer beneath the skin, the doctor’s hands steadying as professional habits took over. Clots of yellow, threaded with red, moved up the tube.
Holding on to the bucking, thrashing body and bringing his full weight to bear to keep it on the trolley, Fred was too distracted to see his son standing in the doorway, his eyes wide.
*
It didn’t take long for Mal to break. Yes, he wanted to see the light return to darkest Devon, but not at this price. He had been warned he might face torture if he fell into the hands of Spight’s empire, but it had been something he hadn’t really believed. His family were from Devon, these were their neighbours and friends. Surely the rumours of people dying or disappearing were false, exaggerated. If he’d known it was all true he might not have volunteered.
He told them everything he knew about the disruption of the shipment, the monitoring of the Mayor and his minions and the plan to get Spight out of the way. It took them a while to believe that finer details and their final objective had been kept from him, the one holding his legs swapping with the doctor to become creative with the needle, culminating in holding it above Mal’s twitching eyeball. Here, the doctor intervened, switching off the generator and declaring to the red-faced man that that was enough, it was clear this was just some footsoldier, and if they wanted more answers they’d have to go further up the chain of command.
Mal collapsed back onto the gurney and wept. It was at this point he became aware of the boy, the one from the woods who had knocked him over, standing just inside the plastic curtain in the doorway, watching him. What sort of monsters were these people?
Generator fumes fouled the air, which reeked of blood and burned bacon. All of them were coughing. Mal retched weakly over the side of the gurney, crying out with pain as the spasms racking his stomach aggravated his wounds, blood pulsing and spattering the floor. The short, fierce-looking woman appeared behind the boy and shoved him towards the stairs.
‘Get out of here Hector, before I smack you one. I might have known this was where you’d sneak off to,’ she said sharply to the boy, then turned to the man who seemed permanently a
ngry. ‘And you, Fred, have completely freaked out my residents. They can hear the screaming way up to the roof. I’m not having any more of it, you hear me?’
‘We’ve got what we wanted.’
‘Good, now clean him up. He might be a terrorist, but there’s no need to kill him when we can make something from him. And clean up this bloody mess – we need this room to finish rendering the next batch.’
‘I need somewhere secure to put him.’ Fred’s tone was stubborn. Fred … the Mayor’s son-in-law. Stories about his violent temper were widespread in the Saltash training camp and turned out to have a basis in fact. And that greedy-eyed boy, who had ignored the woman’s instruction and was still hovering at her elbow, must be the Hector Jr Mal had heard about. He gave a mental shrug. It wasn’t as though the information was going to help him now.
The woman replied, ‘He can go in the old pantry. It’s got no windows and the lock’s secure. I’ll get him a blanket so he don’t freeze. You, clean him up.’ This last was said to the doctor as she whisked back out of the room.
The clean-up was almost as bad as the torture. The doctor suggested some poppy juice, but the angry man, Fred, refused; Mal’s open wounds were swabbed with disinfectant, and his mouth muffled when he screamed. After that, bandages were wrapped around his torso and his clothing was restored, before Fred and the other man dragged him up the stairs and through the kitchen to a corridor and a dark room lined with shelves stocked with tins and jars. A blanket had been thrown on the floor, which was just about long enough for him to lie down fully.
‘Night-night,’ said Fred as he pushed him inside. Mal knew, from a brief glimpse out of the kitchen window, that dawn was breaking. Once the door was slammed closed and locked, there was no way to tell. Darkness was complete. Falling to his knees and feeling his way to the blanket, Mal wrapped himself up and lay down. The burning of his wounds was nothing to the tortuous thoughts that crowded his mind as he wondered what would come next.
*
The journey upriver to Littlemarsh took longer than the journey down. Spight was too impatient to wait for the tide to turn, so they were battling the current. It was illogical; waiting another hour would make their return journey quicker, but he didn’t want to be sitting still when there was so much to organise. He had to find another twenty-five bodies – and young, well-fleshed and healthy ones at that – by the following evening, or the deal was off. Dorcas wouldn’t want to give up any of her fatties except the one they’d already agreed, which reduced his options considerably.
He already had a few spares lined up, being held under guard in warehouses near the dock in Plymouth. For the most part, they were older than the skipper had specified, but Spight hoped if he salted the shipment with enough younger bodies the others might not be noticed until the boat was underway. What happened to them after Dwight gave them a closer inspection was not his concern. It might sour relations for the next load, but that was tomorrow’s problem, and besides his special project might be up and running by then.
He sat in the prow of the dinghy as Bob steered the boat, and schemed. He couldn’t call anyone, as the battery of his satellite phone had died while he was talking to Dwight; all he could do was lay plans and will the landscape to pass faster.
‘We’re going to have to do a raid in Plymouth,’ he told Bob as they entered the last bend before Longmarsh. Dawn had well and truly broken, birds making a damned racket in the trees to either side. Tendrils of mist clung to the water and drifted across the boat. Spight batted at them irritably.
‘A raid?’ Bob looked doubtful. The man was a wuss.
They’d done street raids in the past and yes, it was risky; someone who looked friendless and vulnerable could turn out to be anything but, and a situation could turn ugly in a moment but, as he pointed out, ‘Where else am I going to get twenty-five pieces of meat at short notice?’
‘Twenty-five?’
‘What are you, a damn parrot? Yes, twenty-five. And they have to be young. Young as you can. It’ll have to be today – we have to get them to Dartmouth by tomorrow night.’
‘Can’t Dwight meet us back in Plymouth?’
‘Of course he could, but he won’t. This is going to cost us a lot in fuel. Come on, man, we have to get moving!’
The quay was in sight. Beyond it lay the town, the church steeple on the hill jutting from the mist and sparking light as the sun rose over distant hills. From here, in these conditions, it was possible to think the town was in good repair; even the wharfside developments – built so close to the river they flooded at every spring tide and had been abandoned to rats and stray dogs – looked habitable.
While Bob offloaded the remaining fuel, stowing it in the back of the Land Rover waiting for them on the quayside, Spight started the engine and plugged his phone into a USB adaptor to put it on charge. As soon as the phone blinked back into life a text came through. It was from Dorcas and characteristically terse.
Come to fat farm asap
What the hell was it now?
It turned out to be a prisoner in the pantry, mutilated by his son-in-law – now roaming the woods doing God only knew what – and a fuming Matron threatening bodily harm to his brat of a grandson if he, Spight, didn’t take him home right now. The Mayor heard Dorcas’s story in silence, inspected the unconscious prisoner from the pantry doorway and grabbed his grandson by the ear before dragged him out to the Land Rover and throwing him into the passenger seat.
Spight got into the driver’s seat.
Junior wouldn’t shut up, insistent on telling his story and the important part he had played in the capture of the terrorist.
‘Where’s your father now?’ growled Spight.
‘He went with Biff, back to the hideout to see if Dug seen anything. Can we go too? I can show you the way.’
‘You should be home in bed.’
‘But it’s morning! Can’t go to bed now! I got some sleep anyway, I’m not tired.’ Big eyes looked at him pleadingly. The boy certainly had an appetite for action … a proper chip off the old block. A surge of familial pride led him to ruffle the boy’s hair. His grandson beamed with pleasure.
‘OK, let’s go look at this bunker, see what Fred has to say. And then, later, we’ll have a chat about sneaking out in the night and refusing to do what you’re told.’
The boy looked a good deal less pleased by that prospect but kept quiet.
Bob was hovering by the Land Rover’s door, looking a little queasy. Dorcas had been graphic in her description of the violence that had been visited on the prisoner. Spight told him to stay at the fat farm and make sure his phone had plenty of charge. He would be needed later, but first he was allowed to get some sleep in one of the spare rooms.
By the time they found the clearing, Hector Jr was back to his bumptious self, telling his grandfather in detail about how he had captured the insurgent single-handed, and then watched as Fred forced him to tell them what he knew. The boy’s high, slightly nasal voice was carrying through the woods. If there were any more conspirators in the neighbourhood they’d be long gone.
They found Fred and his friends standing in the middle of the clearing when they eventually found it. Fred didn’t look happy to see his father-in-law, or son, but said nothing as he showed them the main entrance, now open after a close inspection of the bunker disclosed a key on a nail just inside the door. Spight pulled the ivy aside and ducked into the tunnel, followed by his family and the two militia men.
He was disturbed to discover something like this had been hidden from view on his own turf. He looked around him, taking in the evidence of long habitation; clothes strewn over the single cot, plates and food scraps piled up on the countertop, the smell of unwashed bodies thickening the air. A folder on the table caught his eye and he moved closer to have a look. Inside was a stack of photos. At the top was a picture of him, with his name written neatly below it. The candid shot had caught him in mid-speech, mouth open and brow furrowed, over a sea of head
s. There were also labelled photos of Bob, Fred, several other militia officers and key personnel from Bodingleigh and across Devon, and his grandson. This last enraged him. How dare they threaten his family?
Fred hadn’t had any luck in finding the key to the other locked door. Spight ordered him to break it in and Fred complied willingly, kicking at it until the wood splintered around the lock and the door swung open.
Spight strode in and looked around him at the massed radio and IT equipment. More than the other room, this tangible evidence of a concerted, organised and resourced effort to thwart his empire and his plans enraged him. He knew he had enemies, and the loss of his shipment proved they meant business, but this was something else; this felt like the whole outside world ganging up on him and his vision of a good life for his people. Yes, his vision might be at the expense of the freedom of choice of a few, but when had the system ever looked out for everyone? No one who cooperated had to starve in his Devon, and no one was without work or a useful niche to fill. That was a distinct improvement on how things had been when he first became Mayor.
In a fit of temper, he pulled at cables and smacked a radio antenna off the worktop, threw batteries at the wall and ground circuits into the dirt floor.
‘What we gonna do if they come back? They’re gonna know we’ve been in here, if you trash the place,’ Fred pointed out.
‘By the time they do, we’ll have them.’ Spight swept a monitor onto the floor. The crash of glass was gratifying.
‘OK, you got a point. But we could sell this stuff. Or use it ourselves.’
Spight pulled himself together. It was true, this was merchandise. Besides, he was feeling calmer now. ‘OK, lock up, and Dug, you stay to watch. You see or hear anyone, you get word out to me and I’ll send you backup with guns. Any luck, we’ll round these renegades up and send them off with Dwight. Serve them right. Fred, Biff, come with me, I need you to go to Plymouth to lead a raid.’
To See the Light Return Page 11