As they entered, the first man said, ‘We’d better give him some food. He must be hungry by now.’
Graham thought, ‘Finally, I get to eat something, but what will it be?’
As he was thinking about what food he might be given, the first man went over to several bins sitting near the door. The bins were blue and round and didn’t look like they contained any food that he would normally like to eat.
The man reached inside one container and pulled out a bag, which was clearly dog food, as the outside of the bag had the picture of a dog on it. Graham watched as he filled a bowl with some of this dried dog food. As he walked towards Graham, he said, ‘You’re joking! I’m not a dog! I’m not an animal! Why are you treating me like this and why are you feeding me dog food?’
He stared at the approaching man, who scowled at Graham and said, ‘It’s all there is for you, so you’d better eat it, you leech! And if you know what’s good for you, you’d better be quiet!’
‘I can’t eat dog food! You can’t feed that to me!’ Graham protested.
Just as these words left his lips, the man threw the bowl and its contents at Graham. The bowl and the dried food hit the bars of the cage, making a clinking sound, as the pieces of food scatted everywhere. The bowl fell to the floor and shattered into several pieces, with some of the shards scattering into his cage across the floor.
‘There you go, you little shit! Look what you made me do, you ungrateful moron!’ the man said.
‘Now you can go hungry or pick up the food from the floor, and you’d better be careful you don’t cut yourself on that broken bowl,’ he said sarcastically as he stared at Graham through the cage bars.
Graham stared back in disgust. ‘I don’t believe you guys! What the hell is wrong with you, treating a fellow human being like this? I’ve done nothing wrong!’ he protested again.
‘Nothing wrong?’ the man said, almost spitting out the words.
‘You mean you’ve done nothing right. You sponge off your government and laze around doing nothing all day, expecting everyone else to pay for you,’ he said.
‘You’re a leech on society, so you deserve to be part of the little experiment we have going here.’
‘Experiment? What experiment?’ Graham asked incredulously.
‘Hey, Scott, stop! Don’t tell him anymore,’ his colleague shouted.
Ignoring what the second man had said, Graham asked again, ‘What experiment? What are you doing with me and why?’
But now Scott fell silent, walked away and left the building, leaving the other man to bark, ‘Look, you leech! We offered you food and you dare to even question that. Just remember, only a short while ago you were out there in the wild fending for yourself without any food or water.
‘You’ve got water now, and you’d better eat the food on the floor or else you will starve. There’s no one to help you and we don’t care. There are others to replace you in this experiment and there are plenty of others who simply failed to survive before you.’
With this Graham froze and stared at the man, as a shiver ran up his spine. ‘Others,’ he thought. ‘There must be other innocent people like me that these men have kidnapped and who they are experimenting with.’
He didn’t know that what the man had said was an exaggeration of the truth, which he had done for effect, when in fact it had been just one other so far.
‘How many have you experimented with?’ he asked the man.
‘Look, you idiot! We’ve already told you too much, so shut the fuck up and eat your dog food! You’d better make the most of the food you have, or you’ll go hungry. There’s nothing else available for the likes of you!’
Graham looked down at the pieces of dog food on the floor and around his cage, and then looked up to the man who was still looking down at him. Then the man turned and, without saying another word, left the building. For a brief instant light streamed in again from outside, before the door was closed once more behind him and locked. Graham shuddered as he heard the metal-on-metal sound of the two bolts sliding into place.
Plunged into semi-darkness once more, he sat back to think about what he’d heard. He now knew that he was a part of some weird experiment, and it seemed as though it was directed at benefit claimants.
‘Maybe I’m putting two and two together and making five, but I’m now sure that this is not just an experiment, but a survival experiment to see if we can survive in the wild,’ he thought.
‘There seemed to be a clue in the way these two men spoke to me and their making reference to my getting government benefits. But that’s back in the UK. Why would they care about my claiming benefits in another country?
‘But how did they get me out here, and how did they get me on a plane without my knowing?’
With those questions in mind, he thought back to what had happened in England.
He was aware of waking up in a coffin-like box and glimpsing the blue-eyed man who had confronted him in his flat.
‘Perhaps after they’d sedated me, they put me in that box — or was it a coffin? — in order to smuggle me out of the country on the understanding that it contained a body,’ he thought.
‘But that’s a long time to be sedated for, and I’m now sure the sharp pain I felt when I was in my flat was an injection of anaesthetic.’
His thoughts returned to the blue-eyed man. ‘Why does he hate people like me so much,’ he posited.
‘I know that I’ve made nothing of myself and I know I’ve been cheating the system, but how dare this man play god like this with me and others!’
With these thoughts, he turned to look down at the dog food scattered across the floor of his cage together with the broken bits of bowl. He also remembered the comment by the one called Scott, how he’d blamed him for smashing the bowl and for the food being thrown on the floor. After staring at the dry dog food for some time, he decided to try it. But first, he carefully picked out the pieces of shattered bowl and put these outside the cage.
‘Surely, this stuff can’t be that bad,’ he thought.
As he picked up the first piece of dog food and put it into his mouth, he recalled drinking the dirty water at the waterhole, and thought, ‘Eating this food can’t be as bad as that, and I’m surprised I wasn’t really ill from drinking that water.’
He tasted the piece of dog food and found it really dry with a bit of a combined fishy and chicken taste. The food was crunchy, and after chewing it, he forced himself to swallow. He then picked up a few more pieces of the dog food and ate these, too, making the most of the food he had, not knowing when he might be fed again or sent back out into the wild. The feeling of humiliation was almost overwhelming to him at this point, and this made him think again about how he’d led his life up to now.
‘If only these men would give me another chance. Perhaps I can ask to see the man with the blue eyes and ask for his forgiveness. Then maybe he’ll let me go free,’ he thought in a positive way, the first time he’d done so for as long as he could remember.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Joshua liked it when Druker went away; it meant that he could go off exploring on his own. He liked to track lions and he was keen to watch how the prides developed. He also was aware that their neighbouring owner hunted lion.
He showed more concern than even Scott, who he knew was into animal conservation, but more interested in the rhino population in Zambia. However, Joshua knew that lions were under more pressure these days, with their numbers dwindling.
He knew that to the south of their property there were three male lions, which he was surprised hadn’t yet gone in search of their own pride, although he put it down to the abundance of game that kept them sated.
Joshua went to ask Mulubwa what she could rustle him up for a packed lunch for when he was out in the reserve.
‘Good morning, Mulubwa, how are you this morning?’
‘I’m good, thank you, how are you?’ she replied, with one of her usual smiles.
‘What could you put together for me for a packed lunch today, my darling?’ Joshua said to her, as he returned the smile.
‘Well, my sweetie, give me half an hour and I’ll put together something for you. I have some freshly made Nshima for you.’
‘Great, thank you. I’ll just be outside sorting out the Land Rover and my rifle.’
‘Where you off to, Josh?’
‘Off to the south of the reserve to see if I can find the three lions. I like to make the most of the time when Druker is away.’
‘OK, my sweetie, it’ll be ready in half an hour or so and I’ll bring it out to you.’
‘Thank you.’
And with that Joshua left the kitchen to go and check on the mark beforehand, and to speak with Ken to make sure he would look after things whilst he was away.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Druker arrived at his offices in Chelmsford, where he met with his secretary and receptionist, Felicity. After a few moments of idle chat, she confirmed his first interview was with a woman named Carly Prow in around half an hour. Felicity handed him her CV and at the same time told him that there were a number of things she needed to catch up on, once he’d settled in.
When Druker was in the UK, he referred to himself as Blake Caldwell, which was his real name. Peter Druker was a made-up name and was used to cover up what he was doing. Felicity had always referred to him as Blake and was not aware of his other name, nor was she aware of his African experiment. She did, however, begin to question the candidates he’d been seeing recently, as their CVs were not exactly great. Her questions led her to explain that she was worried about working with people like this, but Druker explained this away by saying that he was interested to see if there was any hope for people who up to now had been wasting their lives.
‘The person you are seeing today, Carly Prow, if you look at her CV, there are huge gaps in it. She has now been out of work for over two years,’ Felicity said.
‘Okay, I’ll take a look,’ he confirmed, as he took Prow’s CV from her.
‘Also, the Jobcentre called last week following up on some of your previous interviews; there was David Lane and Graham Smith. I told them that you were still considering them,’ she said. ‘Is that right?’
‘Eh, yes, that’s right; let’s see how we get on today, shall we?’ he replied.
‘I really don’t know how these people get away with it for so long and continue to receive their benefits,’ Felicity said disapprovingly.
‘Nor do I, and that’s why I want to see if there’s any way of changing their attitude,’ he lied, as in reality he was trying to find people who were sponging off the system for his experiment, which would certainly ‘change their attitude,’ all right.
He had always hated this behaviour and he felt that the UK had become too much of a nanny state. His hate had really been fuelled when he was holidaying in Barbados, where he’d come across a couple who were boasting about how they were receiving benefits whilst at the same time dealing in drugs. The couple had got very drunk one evening and Druker had overheard the conversation they were having with a small group of people. He had been surprised at how open they were, not just about their benefit fraud, but also about how they openly bragged about their cocaine dealings. They were telling these people how easy it had been to fool the agencies into paying them their benefits, despite living in a large home filled with an expensive kitchen, furnishings, and other luxuries, which were largely funded from their drug money.
It was very apparent that they lived the high life. They also bragged about driving around in Mercedes cars and he had seen that they each wore Rolex watches and other costly jewellery, together with designer clothes. He was still with his wife at the time and they were both holidaying at Sandy Lane, which was probably one of the most expensive hotels on the island, and despite the fact that this couple were claiming benefits, they were staying there too.
At the time, Druker had felt really angry at how this couple were taking advantage of the government, and especially the way they had talked about it in such a dismissive way, whilst they blamed the authorities for being so stupid, rather than looking at their own scruples. He had always paid his taxes, and plenty of them, so he, along with every other honest, hardworking person in the UK, were unsuspectingly helping to fund this couple’s lavish lifestyle. He could also see that the other hotel guests, who had been listening to this bragging pair, were not too happy with what they were hearing, but the couple were so drunk, they were completely unaware of how people were reacting around them.
The group of people with them had been Americans, so although it was apparent that they were disapproving of what they were hearing, it would be unlikely they’d tell the UK authorities about the scams these two were pulling off. Druker considered dobbing them in when he got back, but it was a couple of years later that he read about them in a newspaper, having been caught and sentenced to prison, which at the time brought a smile to his face.
At that time, he hadn’t really taken his thoughts too much further, except for wondering what could be done about it. He even thought of writing to the prime minister about the issue. He wanted to urge the government to change the system in order to prevent this type of fraud from happening, but he realised it would be a waste of paper and time. It was only once he’d broken up from his wife and he’d begun to think about moving to Africa, that he thought about it in more detail.
The idea behind his experiment had been hatched whilst he’d been watching a program about lions on The Discovery Channel. It was at this moment he worked out how he could teach these people a valuable lesson in life, but he had also wanted to see if they could survive in the wild. If they didn’t, he decided that they were wasting their lives in any case, so it didn’t matter.
His plans began to come together after he’d purchased his game reserve in Zambia, at which point he’d turned his mind to how he would choose his victims. This turned out to be more straightforward than he originally thought it would be, after he’d done a Google search on benefit claimants. Whilst doing his research, he discovered that they were all required to apply for a certain number of jobs in order for them to retain their benefits. He decided that the ones he would be particularly interested in were the ones that had registered at Jobcentres, thinking that these were more likely to be playing the system.
In order for him to discover more, Druker decided to use his property company, Hatton Property Developments, as a cover to interview his candidates.
He would ask the Jobcentre to send him the CVs of the long-term unemployed, explaining to them that his aim was to see if he could rehabilitate them and get them back to work. He would then set up an interview for likely candidates. He was convinced that he’d be able to distinguish between the ones who were genuinely unemployed and claiming benefits, over someone who was playing the system, by asking the right questions and by judging their body language. The CV of this Carly Prow seemed to fit what he was looking for and Felicity’s reaction only helped to confirm his opinion.
‘I think this is crazy, if you want my opinion, Blake, and sorry to be so bold, but I also think you’re wasting your time,’ she continued.
‘We’ll see, Felicity,’ he responded, not really paying too much attention to her words because he was glancing through the post that she’d just handed to him.
‘You’ve already interviewed a few, and so far they’ve all turned out to be useless, so I don’t understand,’ she said with frustration in her voice. As she looked at him, she could see he wasn’t really paying any attention to her. She was also really struggling to understand this new project of his, as she’d worked with Blake for a number of years and what he was doing seemed to be in contradiction to what she knew about him.
‘Look at it as a new challenge, and you never know, you may even learn something from this,’ he said, trying to appease her mood.
‘A challenge! I think that’s an understatement. It will be a nightmare, and I can see
it all now,’ her mood unchanged by his tact.
‘It’s okay for you living out in Zambia. You’ll only see them every few weeks, whereas I’ll have to see anyone you hire every day,’ she said, realising as she did it that she might have over-stepped her bounds and immediately regretted her words. Druker looked up from his pile of post and stared at Felicity. He didn’t need to say a word, and she quickly apologised for her outburst and offered to make him a cup of coffee.
‘I’ve some freshly ground coffee from a new delicatessen that’s opened up near to where I live,’ she said, knowing how much he loved good coffee and hoping that this might change the mood.
‘That sounds like a good idea and the best thing you’ve said all morning,’ he agreed, as he turned to go into his office.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
After smoking her cigarette, Carly looked at her watch and realised that she needed to get ready quickly and get on her way. The interview was at a property company that had made contact via the Jobcentre. The company was looking to recruit staff that would be making out-bound calls to prospects in order to sell properties.
She knew that she’d be no good as a telemarketer, but she also knew that it was essential for her to go for this interview, to avoid the risk of her losing her benefits. She was well-rehearsed in making sure that she didn’t get the job at the interview, but even if she did get employed, she knew how to lose the job quite quickly, too.
The interview was a half-hour walk from her flat and was in about 40 minutes, so she hastily donned her interview clothes and set off. Her outfit included a pair of black trousers and an old purple and blue top that she’d not cleaned in years, so it had a distinctive, stale smell about it. This was one of her deliberate ploys to make sure her first impressions were never the best, as she knew people wouldn’t want to work with someone who smelled.
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