The man Al had loved all along, the one who could take everything from him in an instant, was here, in flesh and bone, and he felt as if he had always known him.
Greg wished the moment when he opened his mouth, and Al’s name came out of it, flying in the crisp air like a little flapping bird, never happened.
“Alfrid!”
The name was pronounced whole for the first time, something he wasn’t allowed to do in front of the children, because of its Scandinavian ring. He had called her Al for so long, she was Al even in his thoughts.
She turned around. Her eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled, and her lips curled back from her teeth. Greg’s heart drummed in his chest.
“You,” she hissed. “You followed me.”
“Don’t worry about him, Alfrid.” The man’s voice was slightly muffled by the whisper of wind in the leaves. “Let’s go. I hope you remembered to teach the muppet how to change a light bulb, and to make his own bed. Is he potty trained yet?” His sparkling white teeth flashed in a grin. The smile sweetened his features. He was a very attractive man. The first rays of the sun sparkled off his ginger-gold beard. Greg suddenly felt small and ugly, a miserable rodent shadowed by the splendid wings of an eagle.
“He followed me. He wants me back. He wants to come between us.”
“No, I don’t,” said Greg, playing with the ring in the pocket of his trousers. The stone was cold and smooth. “All I want is to ask that you never come back. Never return to the children’s lives. Please, Alfrid. They’ve been through enough.”
Alfrid threw back her head and laughed. “You’re such a liar. You can’t live without me. Liar, liar, your pants are on fire!” Greg shuddered. He wanted to remind her to take her medication, but thought better of it. It was all over now.
They were both standing on the wobbly bridge. The canal had burst its banks with the winter rains, and now the water was rising, swelling under their feet, growing every second. It seeped through the rotten wooden boards, licking the tips of his boots. A dead squirrel floated not far from them between some reeds.
“Push him, Alfrid,” called the man.
“What?”
“Just push him over. You told me he can’t swim. Let the muppet drown.”
The bridge moved under his feet. Greg felt dizzy. He shook his head in horror. He could turn around, break into a run, disappear into the woods, but he didn’t dare make another step on the precarious platform. He’d been meaning to ring the council about this hazard months ago, and never got round to it. Now, it seemed that it was all for a reason, that the things that happened and didn’t happen in his life and the lives of those close to him had been leading to this grand, dramatic finale. He was to drown in a cloudy river. He would choke on mud until he died. He had been a powerless lamb in the hands of his cruel destiny.
He couldn’t turn around. If he did, she would jump on his back and bite him. Cold sweat poured down his face as he recalled the time she’d attacked him with a hot iron. He had to tell the children he’d fallen down the stone steps to the cellar.
“Push him!”
Alfrid vaulted forwards. Her satchel swinging on her arm, she lurched at him…and the next moment they were wrestling around in circles, in a mad death dance witnessed by the creatures of the wild. Foxes, squirrels and robins, who had seen life and death fights many times over, looked on indifferently.
Greg could smell Alfrid’s breath. It came out of her mouth in quick puffs. He saw the blood pulsing in the veins on her neck. He heard the fabric of her cloak rip.
He couldn’t recall the exact moment when he noticed the umbrella. Was it when she grabbed hold of his hair, tugging at it with her claws? Was it before he heard the echo of the man’s laugh bounce off the trees? Was it before or after he caught sight of something disturbing lying in the ashes of the fire, a few feet from him?
It had been in his hands all along. His fist closed around the wooden handle. He held it out before him, stepping back, while Alfrid, shaking with rage, her eyes shining, crept towards him. She made a low hissing sound, something that reminded him of the many times she had hissed at him in the prison of their bedroom. Then, for the first time, Greg let the thought sink: Alfrid was sick. She was very sick. He had to stop feeling sorry for her. He had to stop wanting to cure her. He had to do something else…he had to kill her.
“Take it off him, Alfrid,” the man shouted. He was recording the fight with his phone. His death, on video. Greg wiped off sweat on his sleeve, and in that brief moment, Alfrid leapt forward and yanked the umbrella from his hands.
Then, it happened.
Greg had never imagined it could be so easy.
It was almost as if the umbrella had suddenly sprang to life and, in a millisecond, twisted itself and shot forward like a silver-headed arrow.
Blood sprayed from her neck. Her arms flailed hysterically, hands feeling around in a desperate attempt to remove the metal object from her throat. The umbrella snapped open, concealing her bulging eyes, her mouth gasping for breath. Greg thought it looked like a large dark bird, sucking the life out of Alfrid with its beak – a bird of death. From the trees, the man roared, and suddenly he was running towards them, his black coat flying behind him.
Alfrid’s feet moved frantically. She clutched at her neck and her screams came out as sickening gargles. The bridge protested with a low creaking sound, and time stood still but only for a second before it collapsed into the murky river below.
Her cloak swelled in the wind, a white bubble on the coppery water. Her blood spread quickly through the bulrushes. Miraculously, Greg was still standing. Relief coursed through him. He wasn’t dying with Alfrid. He was alive. His feet touched solid ground: he wasn’t standing on the bridge anymore, but on a safe piece of land. He had stepped back so far that, without realising it, he’d retraced his steps. He turned around and ran, just as the man jumped into the water to drag the limp body ashore.
He ran faster than ever, his lungs burning, so fast that his jaws flapped in the wind, up the cycle path, past the streetlamps and the bench where Old Woolly the tramp now slept, his face hidden under a newspaper. He was already home, back in the safety of his warm hallway, when he remembered the disturbing object in the woods. It was lying in the scattered ashes of the extinguished fire, its black curved claws sticking out from the crisp dead leaves.
A human foot.
It was only after he’d had a shower, changed into clean clothes, and thrown the bloodstained ones into a plastic bag, that he discovered Alfrid’s note. She’s dead, he said in his head over and over. The thought was oddly liberating. He could live a normal life from now on.
From his trouser pocket, he removed a wooden Russian doll. He shook the doll to hear the tinkle of metal inside. The ring was safe. He placed the doll into another, identical one, and then another. He would make Alfrid look bad in front of the children. He would hang the engagement ring in the tree, next to her bitter goodbye note. The irony wasn’t, after all, that far from the truth.
36. Santa Steak
The shadowy shape brought its head closer to the light. With one swift movement, the hood was pulled back to reveal a hideous face with sunken eyes and wrinkles as deep as knife scars. Studs glinted in the hairy ears and the potato nose, where bubbles of snot swelled and popped. With a great thud, the man dropped his sack to the floor. Honey’s heart drummed and she held her breath as his gloved hands dragged something heavy from the sack, something swaddled up like a baby.
“Ah,” he groaned. “Just what I needed.”
Honey exhaled, relieved. It was a megaphone, not some half-frozen child. She remembered being kidnapped, and shuddered to think of the narrow, smelly and suffocating space inside the sack.
“Attention, animals and midgets! Attention, attention!” Santa Claws howled. Frost powdered his beard like thousands of tiny glass
shards. “Tonight we are celebrating New Year’s Eve. The Reindeer Barbecue, national celebration of Santaville. Therefore, we are all eating well. Reindeer meat is the main delicacy. Seal, ermine, bear and fish are available on request. For the more sophisticated diners, I am happy to announce that fresh human meat will be served later this evening. Tasty, if a little on the tough side.” He grinned. “My brother, Oskar Claus, also known as Santa Claus, will be garrotted tonight, and his body parts eaten by all of us. If you have not had the fortune to see this remarkable gadget in action, the garotte vil is a handheld weapon of death, used to strangle someone.
Goosebumps exploded on Honey’s skin. She glanced quickly at Fern, who looked to be on the point of fainting. Next to her, Rong looked oddly fascinated.
Like an illusionist performing in a show, Santa Claws took ropes, strings and wires out of his sack, displaying them on a large tray held by a dwarf.
He walked over to the garrotte-vile, removed his gloves, and pulled the dust cloth away. “My brother will be tied to this stake, with an iron ring placed around his neck.”
Honey’s heart drummed fast. Why did Santa Claws’ hands look so young?
“A wooden stick will be placed in the loop,” the horrible voice continued, “and by rotating the ring, will be tightened until my brother is strangled to death.” He cackled, pacing around the chair like a cat circling its prey.
He scanned the room with his cold, shiny eyes. Blood-drained faces stared back at him.
“Boo!” he yelled at the children, and laughed heartily when they screamed and drew back from him.
“It’s okay, little ones. I won’t eat you…yet.” He laughed again. “Not before you get your first taste of proper meat, anyway. Get ready to say goodbye to your beloved Santa Claus tonight. I bet he tastes of milk and biscuits, I’ll make sure he has some as his last meal, and maybe a drop of sherry, too! Ha, ha, ha!”
Thunderous laughter exploded in the cold and damp factory. The dwarf escorted Santa Claws to the table, where more dwarves tried to hold the dishes in place while he swiped away the tablecloth to use as a bib. In seconds, he demolished a reindeer burger, a giant slice of reindeer pie, and a whole stuffed ermine. Honey had had looked away as Black Russian cleaned the poor animal inside out and filled it with sausage meat.
Honey barely touched the food. Would the plan they’d made in the dormitory ever work? She felt for the knife in her boot, but then remembered that Oskar had confiscated it. A dangerous thing for a girl to be playing with, he’d said. Honey didn’t point out that the dangerous thing had saved him from a slow and painful death on the gallows.
She felt tired – so tired. Tiring your enemy was a military tactic – as the saying went: never fight someone at the end of a journey, unless it’s the end of their journey. This was Honey’s journey, and the hour was late. She wondered what the time was, but there were no clocks in Santaville. And anyway, when you can’t measure it in days and nights, time didn’t really matter. The oven beeped, and Teddy pulled a tray of fragrant buns out of it.
“Mmm, this tastes just like Mum’s. Try it.”
“Teddy! Really! Thinking of food now! Aren’t you worried one bit? Oskar…Ah, never mind! Eat on, I guess it’s all you care about!”
Teddy shrugged and ate another bun. At least, Honey had to admit, food was plentiful today. The children had eaten as much as they’d wanted of the food they prepared themselves under the eagle eye of Black Russian. Fred and Dmitri, two skinny boys with faces like spotty eggs, wolfed down cakes greedily, knowing there wouldn’t be an opportunity to eat so well for another year.
“Time for dessert,” said Erasmus, looking away from the table where the dwarves ate like starving dogs, snorting and snarling, sucking on the bones and ripping the meat with their teeth. “I feel like I’ve eaten a horse, though.” He patted his belly.
“You probably have,” said Rong, nibbling her sushi roll. After much protesting from the other children, she agreed to cover her missing eye with a large plaster. This way, the dark slimy hole didn’t ruin everyone’s appetite. “How do you know the food is what they say? We could be eating horsemeat or dog meat. More like your kind of thing than mine.” She gave Erasmus a charming smile.
Erasmus ignored her. It was Teddy who spoke.
“Rong, how did that happen?”
“What, this?” She peeled the plaster away.
Erasmus stopped midway eating a bun. “Put that back on!” he commanded.
Rong glued back the plaster, a smirk on her face. Honey felt sick. Okay, so eye patches were back in fashion, but daring everyone to stare at a hole in your skull was just odd. The girl was a weirdo.
“Melted plastic,” Rong answered. “I was badly injured, so my eye had to be removed. Our chef the surgeon did me the honour.” She nodded at Black Russian, who was grumbling with his head in one of the hot ovens, checking on some pies. “He scooped it out with his thumb.”
Erasmus spat out a mouthful of crumbs and, kicking his chair back, stomped away making gagging sounds.
37. A Guest for Dinner
A while later, Honey sat in the dark, her knees to her mouth, staring at the machines. Sharp parts stuck out from beneath the folds of the white dust-cloths. A wheel, a handle, a tube, making a tangle of shadows on the walls.
“They look like robots,” Jerry said, startling her. She hadn’t seen him there in the dark. He sighed. “I miss my room. I had lots of robots. Remote-controlled. Mum said they were creepy. Do you think that’s why she sold me? Because my toys were creepy?”
Honey wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came. She could not comfort him any more than she could comfort herself.
“Will I ever see my parents again?”
“I don’t know,” Honey answered. “I don’t even know if I want to see mine.” That was a lie. Honey craved the comfort of Chess Cottage, with the soft cushions and cosy corners and well stocked cupboards.
“My picture, on a goats’ milk bottle! I could kill them for doing it. I hate goats!” Tears pooled in Jerry’s eyes and he clenched his fists.
“Still, it would be nice to see them again, right?” Honey saw the arch of a smile shoot up on Jerry’s face. “So nice, you might even forget about killing them for an hour or so?”
Jerry cheered up. “Just to give Dad enough time to make his awesome meatballs, you know, squeezed from sausage meat, and…and Mum could whip up a scrumptious Victoria sponge! It could be her last wish! Before she’s killed in a battle of tickles, I mean.”
Honey smiled, and looked up at the severed doll heads and limbs poking out from the wicker baskets. Then, out of nowhere, she heard a scream. She shuddered. Will the murder she’d witnessed ever be erased from her memory? A shape seemed to grow from the dark, and Honey almost screamed herself when she saw the bulging eyes and dangling tongue of the guard staring at her from the garrotte-vile. Then it vanished, and she realised it had been an illusion of the shadows. The chair was empty. She pictured herself on the cool leather, her neck in the iron ring, her hands fastened with belts.
Teddy was eating salty herring laces.
“Santa’s probably gone for a pee in the snow,” he said, rolling a lace over his tongue.
“Eat properly,” Honey snapped.
“I bet. He peerd on our snowman, yerr know,” commented Zachary, his mouth full of apple torte.
“What? He peed on your snowman? That’s sick! That’s illegal!”
“So is buying and selling children. People do it anyway.”
For the first time since Honey met her, Rong sighed. “The green fields behind my house were perfect for races,” she whispered. “I knew Father had some financial troubles, but never imagined he’d solve them by selling me.”
“There’s something worse than knowing you have a price,” said Johann.
“No kidd
ing!” Rong bristled up. “What?”
“Knowing what the price was. Who knows, maybe you were worth as much as a new plasma TV.”
“Shut up!”
“I miss home, too,” said Erasmus. “My mum’s fish balls are the best in the world.”
“I miss Granddad,” said Clementine, “even though he’s dead.”
“My baby brother was born this year.” Tears welled up in Fern’s eyes. “I miss him, even though I’ve never met him.”
“I miss my mum’s pickles,” said Fred, and Honey glanced at her brother. She would eat gherkin stew for the rest of her life, she promised silently. She would drink the vinegar mixture first thing every morning. She would never again pop Dad’s cellophane covers with pins and she wouldn’t say his pickles looked like mummies…
When the voice ripped through the silence, she thought, for one horrifying moment, that the Nenets were back to their satanic grunts.
But the truth was even more horrifying.
The voice wasn’t coming from the loudspeakers, but from the gloom itself, like the flutter of a bird in a cave. The ovens had stopped baking and the cold was back, chilling to the bone. Honey’s heart stopped for a breathtakingly long second as she allowed the spoken words to reach her brain.
“Axe, my brother.”
A hush spread over the room. The chatter of the dwarves froze into silence – a silence broken by the unnerving sound of footsteps and the loud thudding of Honey’s heart. A figure emerged into the pool of light in the middle of the room.
The shadow lay on the ground, spilling from the large body above it. The gloved hand pulled back a balaclava.
Oskar pointed the harpoon at the man sitting in the only comfortable armchair – throne decorated with fake snowflakes, tinsel and bells. The bells, miniature reindeer heads with sharp antlers and teeth, jingled softly.
Santa Claws Page 26