The streets at the top of the village were sweltering and deserted. The clamour of raised voices drew them further downhill to the square between the church and pub, where they encountered the rear end of an angry mob besieging the schoolhouse, shouting and crowding round the building. From the number of people they could see, most of the village must be there, their bodies so tightly packed there was no way the newcomers could get through even if it was safe to try.
‘We’ll have to go in the back,’ said Will, and set off at a trot round to the rear and the door that opened into the empty half of the school. When the others followed, they found him gesturing impatiently for the Major to unpick the lock.
Once inside, they ran through the echoing rooms, heading for the door into the schoolhouse, and from there to Mrs P’s kitchen. As they approached the door connecting the two buildings, the sounds of voices grew louder.
Will tried the door and found it unlocked. He opened it a crack and put his ear to it. It was the voices of the mob they had been able to hear, loud and angry through the window. The kitchen was empty, curtains closed. There were other voices upstairs, and Will ran up the narrow and winding staircase, Primrose close behind and Bob following. The Major stayed in the kitchen, with the gun Flora had given him, in case any of the mob decided to break down the door or come in through the windows.
Bursting into the bedroom, Will found the teacher and another woman seated beside each other on the bed. Standing in front of him, her back to the door, was a woman with a bobbed helmet of dyed blonde hair whom he assumed to be Mrs Harrow. She was saying that it wouldn’t be long before Mr Spight came to sort them out, and then they would be sorry. She had spoken to Gloria’s daughter but had spared her the devastation of hearing that her mother was implicated in an insurgent plot. She couldn’t think why it was taking so long for someone to come and sort them out …
From the looks on the seated women’s faces, this speech had been made more than once.
Mrs Harrow turned towards the door. At the sight of a stranger, a look of shock did its best to spread across her face. When Bob pushed past Will and she recognised him, relief replaced the panic.
‘Bob! Is the Mayor coming?’ she cried.
‘No. He’s a little tied up at the moment, but he expressly asked me to give you his commendations and thanks, and he wants me to bring these two to him,’ Bob replied. He crossed the room to the bed and extended a hand to each of the women. They both took one and stood up.
Mrs Harrow looked disappointed. ‘You’re taking them now?’
‘Yes. There’s another public meeting tonight, in Longmarsh, a big one. It’s imperative you come, and that you spread the word as wide as you can. Make sure that lot know about it.’ He pointed to the window and the unseen but still audible crowd beyond.
‘But I don’t understand ...’
‘You will, Mrs Harrow, you soon will.’
*
The last time Hector Jr had allowed himself to love anything was a memory he found too painful to look at. He kept it locked up tight, though it leaked out into his dreams, causing him to wake up crying, his pillow wet with tears. When that happened, he would twist the skin on his forearm until it bruised, to give himself something ‘real’ to cry about, the bright new pain pushing away an old ache of grief and guilt.
The object of his affections had been a cat. A skinny little tabby thing that liked to creep into his bedroom. The first time he found it, it had been sat on his windowsill, watching the nuthatches and bluetits flitting about in the tree outside the open window. He tried to stroke it and it had leapt away, using the flagpole beneath his window as a springboard to the top of the garden wall beneath. The next time it came, he didn’t approach, but sped to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of milk, which he put on the floor a few feet inside the room. He sat on his bed and watched the cat sniff the air and regard him suspiciously, holding his breath until hunger overcame its fear and it jumped down to lap at the milk with a dainty pink tongue.
Before long he was sneaking food into his room regularly, feeding the cat and earning a reward in permitted caresses of its soft fur and occasional rasps from its rough tongue. Within a matter of weeks, the cat had become his best friend, sleeping on his bed at night and purring in his ear when he woke. It became fat, stretched out content on the bedspread, its tummy bulging.
He kept it a secret. People didn’t have pets in Harbingford. There were some working dogs, and feral cats tolerated as long as they kept vermin away, but pets were seen as waste and indulgence, part of an old, soft way of life. In his own short lifetime there had been years when there was barely enough food for humans, and he’d heard whispers of people putting pets in the pot back in the day when times were hardest. His mum would probably be OK with him looking after a cat, but he knew his dad and granddad would disapprove. They had an image to uphold.
One day he went up to his room after school and there was no sign of the cat, although he had left the window open as usual. He threw himself on the bed and the old mattress squealed in protest. An answering chorus of high-pitched squeaks came from under it. Poking his head over the side he saw the cat nestled into one of his old jumpers, with three tiny kittens curled into the crook of her body, their little heads blind and weaving.
Astonished and awestruck, Hector Jr dropped beside the bed on his knees and stroked the mother cat’s head. She awarded him one tongue rasp before turning to washing her babies. That night he could barely sleep for excitement.
But he did sleep, and when he woke his father was in his room, shaking him awake and saying, ‘Happy Birthday Jr. Eight years old, eh? Get up. Your mum wants you downstairs for a special breakfast before school.’
Hector Jr mumbled and turned away, burying his head in the pillow. He had forgotten about the cats, until he heard his dad say, ‘What’s making that noise? We got rats in here?’
The kittens had resumed squeaking. There was nothing he could do – he told himself afterwards, before he forbade himself from ever thinking about it again – to stop Fred from kneeling beside the bed and peering underneath.
‘What the … they are fucking rats! What you doing keeping them in your room?’
‘They’re not rats, they’re kittens!’ Hector shouted as he struggled free of blankets and tried to push Fred away from the side of the bed.
‘They’re vermin is what they are!’ Fred was pulling the old jumper out. The kittens were wriggling around. There was no sign of the cat.
Before Hector could stop him, Fred had picked up all three of the kittens and crossed the room.
‘Dad! Noooooo!’ Junior screamed in horror, as the tiny bodies were thrown out of the open first-floor window. He rushed across and leaned out. Far below, one of the kittens lay twitching on the concrete. The other two were still. He knew he should go and do something about the one still alive, but he was too horror-struck and sick. Fred gave him a smack around the head and told him to grow the fuck up and stop wailing like a girl.
After a furious row between his parents, and at Fred’s insistence, Hector was sent to school. There had been no celebration breakfast. He sat in numb silence for the day, ignoring the questions of the teacher and the concern in her eyes. When he got home at lunchtime, steeling himself, he went into the back yard. The bodies were gone. He felt relief that he didn’t have to do anything, and horribly guilty.
He went up to his room and found the cat sniffing under the bed and crying. Terrified of what Fred would do if he came home and found her there, he chased her away and threw soft toys at her until she jumped up on the windowsill and hissed at him before disappearing.
That night was the last time he had seen the cat, and the last time he cried. Not even his mother could penetrate the shell he put up around himself. He took refuge in small acts of meanness that put friends at a distance and made sure he didn’t make new ones. Within a year, he had built a new persona and rattled around inside it. He had been sure he would grow to fill it one day.
>
Now, he could feel it cracking and disintegrating. Inside it, he felt tiny, weak, blind and helpless. Just like those poor kittens before Fred killed them.
*
He shouldn’t have shouted at the boy. It had taken a good twenty minutes after Junior had run off for Fred to finish the work of making the gap in the wood large enough for his considerable bulk. He was hampered by having to work quietly for fear of alerting the guard he could hear walking up and down outside the door, so he couldn’t just kick it out.
No, he shouldn’t have shouted at the boy, but it had felt good to tell the truth. No point in pretending anymore.
No point in much of anything anymore. All Fred’s dreams of running Spight’s empire were gone. All that was left to him was the need for revenge. An overpowering wish to make the world pay for what it had done to him, and then to get the hell out of Devon with whatever he could take with him.
First things first. He would take out his rage on the boy who had started the whole thing: that brat they’d found in the bunker. Everything had been going fine until he’d popped up. Fred would go after that boy before anyone else remembered him, and if the beating he administered didn’t kill him first, he could use the terrorist agent as a hostage to get himself across the border into Dorset or Somerset.
Fred pushed his head out through the hole, looked around and, when he saw no one close by, forced his shoulders and then his belly through, ignoring the pain of splinters catching and needling through his shirt. Once free he stood hunched over, braced for a fight that didn’t come. No one had noticed his escape.
He straightened up and lumbered away from the quayside, in the direction of a quiet stretch of river where it was safe to swim across; from there he would take the old paths towards Bodingleigh.
*
Once safely out of the schoolhouse and back on the outskirts of the village, the Major sent Gloria and Mrs Prendaghast back to Longmarsh in the Land Rover, with Bob and Primrose, while he and Will headed on foot for the fat farm. Primrose wanted to go with them, but the Major suggested she should be on hand to tell her story to the townspeople if needed. She looked petrified at the idea but agreed to go, clutching Mrs Prendaghast’s hand. The old woman patted her on the arm and coaxed her into the back of the vehicle, while Gloria and Bob climbed into the front.
As he walked away backwards up the hill, the last Will saw of her was a pair of huge eyes staring at him out of the side window, her gaze following him until he turned the corner into the shadows of the lane and was lost to view. Once she was out of sight he shook himself and hurried after the Major.
They had no idea where Mal was, but the logical place to start was where he had been held before their last, botched attempt to rescue him – the larder at the fat farm – and that was where the Major decided they should go. Their last visit was preying on Will’s mind as they hurried along the road. This was the first time he had had a chance to talk to the Major about Spight’s revelations. He had so many questions, and no idea where to start.
They trotted along the road for a few minutes in silence. When the Major next spoke, as the neared the break in the hedge where they would enter the farm’s woods, it was clear he had been thinking along the same lines.
‘I owe you an explanation,’ he said soberly.
Now the opportunity had presented itself, Will wasn’t sure he wanted to know more, and shrugged his shoulders.
The Major climbed through the hedge and Will followed. There was a dense tangle of laurel to struggle through, and when they reached a clearing on the other side Will found the Major sitting on a fallen ash tree, waiting for him. He motioned for Will to sit next to him. Will sat. The Major picked up a dead branch and began stripping the bark as he spoke.
‘First, I want you to know I never intended to lie to anyone. Major Pain was just a kind of joke nickname I had in the band we played in when we were kids. We all had one. The drummer was Sergeant, bassist was Private, lead singer was General Mayhem, backing singers were Corporals. Flora – Mrs M – was Corporal Punishment. We were all called up to the actual militia when we turned eighteen, training together. Flora and I were a couple but were posted apart. Fred was in her platoon and was obsessed with her. When I visited on leave he’d pick fights, but for the most part we ignored him and carried on seeing each other, even though it was frowned upon and her dad made it pretty clear he didn’t approve. He was my commanding officer and didn’t think I was good son-in-law material. Turned out he was right when I ran away.’
This was the bit Will was dreading. The militia were notorious for their brutality, but if the Major had deserted from cowardice he didn’t think he could bear to hear about it. He didn’t say anything though, staring at the ground while the man continued.
‘I ran because I was good at fighting and strategy, and all I could see ahead of me was years of using brute force to terrorise people into falling in line. The last act I carried out as a militiaman was to help hang a sixteen-year-old boy for stealing a sheep to feed his family, who had been evicted from their home by the sheep’s owner. Who was Spight, as it turned out. Because they hadn’t paid the rent because the father had an accident working on Spight’s farm. I was too scared to stand up for the boy, but I knew I couldn’t do it again, so I ran. Friends helped me get to Cornwall, and I put my skills at the disposal of what was, at the time, a pretty random bunch of ex-Devonians who wanted their homes back. Our bassist was already there, he called me the Major, and that was that. We don’t have ranks in our command chain, so I didn’t think anything of it, but then the cadets started using it. It was a bit of a joke, but it wasn’t meant to fool anyone or make them think it was a rank I had earned.’
The Major fell silent and dropped the now-shredded stick. Will didn’t know what to say. He still had questions, but this was not the time to go into the details of the Major’s relationship with Mrs M. His fears about the Major’s honour had at least been allayed, and his trust proved not to be misplaced. The relief was overwhelming.
He said nothing but stood and gestured into the darkness of the woods, saying, ‘Come on Major, we have a job to do,’ before standing back and letting the other man lead the way.
*
Fever dreams had tormented him since he had been taken forcibly from his comrades on the quayside, and Mal had no idea how long he had been back in the chilly and unlit larder at the fat farm. It could have been hours, or days. Food had been brought when he first arrived but he’d had no appetite to eat, only managing to drink some water to slake a raging thirst. Blankets had been provided, but he had lost them somehow in the dark, and was now racked with chills as the cold of the stone floor sucked heat out of him, too weak to move.
When light flooded into the room he squinted painfully, holding up a hand to shield his eyes and wincing as his stinking wound flared. He coughed weakly, groaned as the pain stabbed harder.
‘I can’t have him dying in my larder, Doctor, so do something about it.’ It was a woman’s voice, the same woman who had overseen his previous imprisonment. It could have been her looming over him, but his vision was blurred from being in the dark so long. Rough wool was thrown over him and a pillow placed beneath his head.
He remembered the voice of the other speaker too, it was the doctor who had helped Fred torture him, and Mal cringed as he heard, ’He looks pretty far gone. I’m not sure what I can do for him.’ Their voices were fading in and out and the light was growing dim.
‘You’re the bloody doctor! Figure something out or I’ll be telling Spight you’re past it.’
‘I don’t really see the point. If he recovers, Spight’s plans for him …’
‘What plans?’
There was no reply.
‘Fine, useless piece of shit, I’ll go find a hedgewitch and see what she can do.’
‘Steady on! No need to bring one of those heathens into it. I have some maggots that might clean out the infected flesh, then it’s up to him. It’ll help if you get him o
ut of here and into a proper bed.’
Their words were making no sense, noise with no meaning, sounds pulsing in time with the blackness that was descending. Mal was back in the dark before the door had even closed.
*
Crossing the river was the hardest part of leaving Longmarsh. Fred had to find somewhere narrow enough to get across despite the strong currents, but deserted enough to do so unremarked. His first thought was the weir, where he would be able to cross without having to swim, but when he got there he could see insurrectionist forces – or so he assumed – fiddling around with the Archimedes screw turbine that used to provide some of Longmarsh’s electricity. Busy with their work, none of them noticed him, and Fred faded back into the trees on the far bank before that could change.
The river was deeper and the currents stronger upstream. Its course would also take him further away from his destination. He decided to go back downstream, below the turbine, and risk being seen. He found a shallow entry point with a pebbled beach and stripped down to his underwear before wading out, his clothes and boots piled together in a bundle and held over his head. The shock of the cold water made him gasp, and encouraged him to half-swim, half-wade across as fast as he could. Not wanting to take the time to dry off and dress, he continued up the bank on the other side
Seeing the technicians working on the turbine was bringing it home to Fred that Devon was lost to him. The days of Spight were over. If Fred wanted to get out before retribution and show trials came into force – as they had after regime changes post-Devolution, and most recently after a challenge to Spight’s fourth consecutive term – he would have to move swiftly. He had to get to the fat farm, pick up whatever spare fuel he could and find a vehicle. Thoughts of revenge might have to wait; the instinct for survival was over-riding his need for payback. But he would take the boy as insurance, and the boy would suffer, because the fury Fred was feeling had to have an outlet.
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