Man of Ruin

by Oliver Franks

  Pfff. I pushed the thought out of mind and got back to finishing the meal. It was only the silly musings of some dotty old lady. I had plenty of more pressing things to worry about for the time being, such as how long I would spend in prison, where I would live, where I would pee. That question, in particular, remained far from resolved.

  *****

  The problems with needing to be taken out to pee when you’re locked up in a police cell are many. First of all, you need to time the operation or it becomes quite a hassle, I can tell you.

  Soon after the meal, I realised that another pee was on the cards. I rang the bell, and another policeman came—a young, nervous-looking bloke.

  “Can you get me DCI Butter, please,” I said, choosing not to mention the reason.

  He was perfectly nice, going off to fetch Butter for me, but of course that took time, a few minutes, and my insides of course did not stop their natural operations, so the push of my bladder became tads stronger. When Butter arrived (I now had decided that was what he was called, at least in my head), I was grumpy and didn’t mind showing it to him (what did it matter really now?)

  “Come on then. Let’s go. I need the loo!”

  I pushed past him and into the corridor, and I felt the grip of his hand on my arm.

  “Calm down, Sonny Jim,” he growled under his breath.

  “What?” I said, casually removing his hand. “You want me to go in here again?”

  His face visibly whitened and he matched my speed.

  But of course, a police station, much like a hospital, is something of a rabbit hole. It takes time to travel up the stairs and go through the various doors that separate the cells from the outside world. By the time we reached the car park and Butter’s car, I had very little patience, yet I realised with a sinking feeling I would now have to sit patiently till Butter had driven me wherever he deemed fit and safe for me to relieve myself.

  “Where are you taking me?” I said as we joined the road in front of the police station.

  “Not sure, actually,” he admitted. “Any ideas?”

  “I don’t care as long as we get there soon.”

  “Alright,” he said. “There’s some fields I know down near Tilgate.”

  He put his foot down on the pedal.

  Then we ran into traffic. I looked at the clock. It was 7:00 p.m. Shouldn’t have been busy.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Butter. “I forgot about the roadworks.”

  “So what do we do?” I said. “I can’t hold for too long!”

  “No.” He eyeballed me fearfully.

  Panicked, he looked all around him, as if that would reveal a shortcut he hadn’t thought of. Then he seemed to go perfectly still, putting a hand on his forehead, staring hopelessly out into nowhere. Obviously, no ideas were forthcoming. I didn’t blame him for being worried. What would the chief say if I caused damage to public property whilst in his custody?

  Then he smiled, flashing his eyebrows.

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  He reached under the wheel, flicked a switch or something, and suddenly the blue lights were flashing on the roof and the sirens were blasting out for all to hear.

  “It is an emergency, right?” he said.

  I just shook my head and sat back as he proceeded to bully his way through the traffic jam, cars swerving left, right and centre to avoid us.

  *****

  He was quite trusting with me when we got to the field. He also didn’t seem to worry that it might belong to someone who might not appreciate super strong acid being splurted all over it. He was a copper though, so I figured it was up to him. He let me go off and do my business in peace, and I did just that while he stood leaning against the bonnet of the car and smoked a fag. When I returned, he flipped it away into the bushes and whistled to himself as we got in the car.

  “Right, back home,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We drove for a few minutes before he asked.

  “Everything okay, was it, out there in the field?”

  “There is a small area of it that I don’t think will ever grow again, but I’m perfect now. Thank you.”

  On the way back, we approached a Tesco Express. I decided to try my luck.

  “Couldn’t make a quick pit stop, could we?” I said. “Get some snacks?”

  “You’re a prisoner, Dave. This isn’t a summer holiday.”

  He drove right on past.

  Right, I thought. Back to grumpy old Butter. What he said about me being a prisoner jangled too. After all that I’d shown them, was I really a prisoner? I mean, yes, I’d caused a fair bit of mayhem. Yes, someone had ended up dead, the thought of that making me shudder every time I considered it. In fact, I chose to ignore it as much as possible. But the truth was, it was all an accident and none of it really my fault. Alright, not if old Meg’s home truth was to be believed, but I really couldn’t see how a poor diet, however fabulously awful mine was, could lead to such a monstrous outcome. So why should I be a prisoner? Or more to the point, could they keep me there for much longer? Did I have to do what they told me?

  Well, the depressing thought came to me: yes they probably could keep me there as long as they wanted since, whichever way you looked at it, damage was caused, and it had sprung forth directly from me, from my pesky member. On top of that, it was all very well feeling sorry for myself at being banged up and everything, but really, I had no idea where to go otherwise. For the entire past couple of days since that fateful first night down at the Dog and Whistle, I’d been asking myself what to do next whilst getting into constant trouble along the way and getting no closer to an answer. That’s what had got me locked up in the first place.

  With my head going round in circles like this, DCI Butter escorted me back to my cell. The whole rigmarole had taken the best part of an hour. And that was only the first of many toilet trips we’d have the pleasure of taking together.

  CHAPTER 15

  I SPENT A NUMBER OF DAYS LIKE THAT in the police station. In limbo. Trips to the field with Butter. Big meals from Meg. A half-hour each day outside in the “exercise area,” a paved rectangle surrounded by tall walls, though they made sure I did that alone. And an hour or so each evening watching the telly. With Gordon. I guess they let him spend time with me to stop me going stir-crazy, since he knew the deal anyway. He did tell me his embarrassing story, eventually, though I shan’t go into that here since it isn’t, strictly speaking, relevant. In fact, he was soon gone. Released. He got away with a caution for it, I believe, a slapped wrist.

  And so then I was alone, apart from Derek, who came back to work, though he made it his mission never to talk to me and to limit the amount of time in my presence to an absolute minimum. So I began to feel pretty down, if I’m honest, stuck there and not knowing what was going to happen to me.

  Of course, I tried asking. Derek wouldn’t speak to me, as mentioned, and Butter was hell-bent on keeping total secrecy on the matter.

  “Any updates?” I’d ask him each time we drove out to that same poor field.

  “It’s on a need-to-know basis, I’m afraid,” he would say, or something similar. “And you don’t need to know.”

  “Of course I need to know!” I’d protest. “I need to know what’s going to happen to me. How long’ve I got to stay here, going for pisses with you holding my hand.”

  “Your case is being discussed. Don’t you worry,” he’d say with a little laugh.

  The smug bastard made me want to escape. I knew I could if I wanted. All I had to do was go for a tinkle in the wrong place, blast out a choice wall or two, and I’d be free. Then I could go on that “rampage,” piss over all the ATMs, grab the cash and splurge ahoy. Out in a blaze of glory.

  I dreamed of doing that, I really did, but it was just a fantasy. It wasn’t me. You see, I may be a yob, and an idiot, but truth be told, and I don’t like telling this one, but I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat at heart.

  *****

  The
n one day, both DCI Hollingsworth and Butter were at my door, telling me to come with them. There was to be an interview, they said.

  “With who?” I said.

  “You really want to know?” said Butter.

  “Yes!”

  “MI5,” said DCI Hollingsworth, giving Butter a little slap on the arm.

  “What?!”

  I could hardly believe that I was interesting enough to warrant such attention.

  “I know.” Butter sighed. “You don’t seem worth it to me either, but apparently they want to talk to you.”

  “I can guess why,” said DCI Hollingsworth. “You seen the news lately? Been a lot of stuff about nerve gas agents and chemical weapons. Makes sense that they’d want to make sure you’re not a spy or something.”

  “I know but . . .”

  And it dawned on me.

  “Are you a spy then, Dave?” said Butter, laughing to himself.

  I took a deep breath.

  “I need the loo,” I said. “Before I speak to MI5, I definitely need the loo.”

  That wiped the smile from his face, I can tell you.

  *****

  So I went for that last-minute piss with Butter, out in the cold field, and by the time we came back, the MI5 bloke was waiting for me in the interrogation room.

  “Right,” he said irritably, rather put out by being forced to wait, I feared. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?”

  “Be good,” DCI Butter whispered into my ear.

  “You two can leave please,” the MI5 man said.

  DCI Hollingsworth and Butter hesitated, words of protest on the tips of their tongues, but leave they did, and so I was alone with him.

  This MI5 man was clearly a class above all the regular officers in the station. Somewhere in his thirties, he wore a very nice dark suit and tie, was perfectly shaved, and his hair was also all nice and glossy and freshly cut. Also, he had one of those smooth faces that looked like it received wax each day.

  “David Smith,” he said. “May I call you Dave?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “My name’s Max. Max Bridgeport. I’m an official investigator for MI5.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. Well, here’s what’s going to happen here, Dave. I have a series of questions I need to ask you. Try to answer as honestly as possible please.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. It should take about an hour. Depending on your answers, of course.”

  He took out a sheaf of papers from a folder and put it in front of him on the table. My stomach ached a little at the thought of being interrogated by MI5, and I couldn’t help being particularly aware of the camera looking down at us from the corner. I shifted uncomfortably in the seat and waited for him to begin. I hoped I wouldn’t need the toilet again.

  “Alright,” said Max. “Can you tell me about your life over the past couple of years? About yourself. What have you been up to? Have you travelled anywhere? Friends? What do you do in your spare time?”

  “Seriously?” I said, wondering how any of the boring details of my life could possibly be relevant.

  “Yes, Dave,” said Max. “Just answer truthfully, as I said.”

  He looked at me, waiting for me to talk.

  “Okay . . .” I said, thinking where to begin. “I work at the call centre. I have friends there, I suppose. Plus, some other mates I met when I first moved to Crawley. I started out in an insurance company, just doing admin and stuff, you see.”

  “Good,” he said, though I could tell by the way he said it, he was not impressed at all.

  “And travelling, was it, you wanted to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, no then. I’ve not done any travelling. Not really had the money, to be honest. Not sure what I’d do outside of England anyway. Don’t speak the lingo, you know.”

  “Okay,” he said, raising his eyebrows to himself as he wrote something down. “And what about free time?”

  “Free time,” I said, shuffling in my seat. “Well, I just chill out mostly.”

  “Chill out?”

  “Yeah. You know. Chillax. Watch TV. Play games. Order pizza.”

  I almost added that I normally did so in my underpants but thought better of it.

  “Social life?” he said.

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “What do you do?”

  “The usual.”

  “I need details please.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. Well, okay . . . I go out with the lads on the weekend, you know. Have a curry. Down the pub. Drinking and that.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “No,” I said.

  He looked up at me as if I had rung an alarm bell or something.

  “Not at the minute,” I added for good measure.

  “What about family, Dave? Don’t you have family you see?”

  “Nah, not really,” I said, laughing sadly. “Parents are arseholes. Not much to say to them really.”

  “You never see your family?”

  “Not often. Sometimes, ’course. The odd Christmas. If they’re being nice. Like I said, they’re—”

  “Arseholes?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  He looked at me like there was more I should be saying.

  “Okay, we had a bit of a bust-up a few years back. They wanted me to go to uni, be all high and mighty and that. Like you, I guess. But I wasn’t up for it.”

  “Like me?” He smiled.

  “Well, you know, have a big career and all that. I was all set to do a degree. Business and finance. That’s what Dad wanted. But I just found the whole thing boring as . . .” I was going to say “fuck” but thought better of it. “Boring as hell.”

  “I see,” he said.

  “I had this girlfriend, too,” I added, unable to stop talking now. “Alice. I liked her at first. She was a laugh, but then she got all stuck up about careers and that. Like Mum and Dad. They started ganging up on me. She wanted this and that and my parents seemed to think that was all good and proper, but I was like, hang on, this is my flipping life we’re talking about, you know? Nah. Then she got all cold and frigid on me. Then there was this day when I just thought, you know, enough is enough. My parents kept on reminding me how much money they were investing in me, my education, how much of a strain it all was, how important it was, and all the time I was just thinking no. The stuff I was learning at uni was all just crap. And I could see it all stretching before me, Alice on at me, Mum and Dad always holding the money thing against me. And so, you know, enough was enough.”

  He was looking at me, stony-faced.

  “So what did you do, Dave?”

  “I left, didn’t I?” I said, quietening down now, realising I had been getting quite animated. “Left uni. Left home. Came here.”

  “Why here?”

  “What you mean?”

  “Crawley of all places . . .” He did a little grimace, which I didn’t like.

  “Crawley’s all right,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, I know what you meant. But that’s okay. People who don’t live here don’t know. It’s a bit of a dump, bit boring, yeah, but it’s alright. Nowhere near as screwed up as somewhere like London, you know?”

  “Okay,” he said. “But why Crawley? You grew up in . . .” He looked down at one of his papers.

  “Stevenage,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Look, honestly, I only chose Crawley ’cos of the job. And there was one mate I knew who moved down here when we were kids.”

  I was talking of Martin. I always forgot that lately, when we were out on the piss and that, forgot our previous ties. The lads were mostly local, and he was too, I suppose, but me and him did have a bit more of a history. It was only an excuse for me to move here though, really. We’d never been that close in school. Just good to at least know one person when you move to a new town. That was my thinking at the time anyway.

  Max
was scribbling some notes and there was an uncomfortable couple of minutes while I had to contemplate the utter shitness of the life I had just dredged up for him.

  “Alright, Dave,” said Max, sighing and rubbing his eyes. “I think we’re pretty much done here but—”

  “Already?” I said.

  It had only been fifteen minutes at the most.

  “But unfortunately,” he continued, “I do need to go through a few more of these questions.”

  He indicated to the papers in front of him. I could see there were several more sheets to go.

  “You haven’t asked me about my . . .” I thought best how to phrase it so as not to sound like a yob. “Problem.”

  “I’ve read your testimony,” he said, looking at me. “And spoken to the officers. Do you want to talk about it again?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  “Well, fine then,” he said. “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.”

  “I’m not!”

  “Good.”

  He looked at his papers again.

  “Now,” he said. “Next question—”

  “I would like to know what’s happening to me though,” I said. “And what you’re all going to do about it.”

  I had interrupted him, but he just looked at me, cool and calm as anything.

  “I’m afraid that is above my pay grade.”

  “Seriously? You’re MI5!”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding a little wary now. “But I’m only an investigator.”

  “So what good are you to me?”

  I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but the frustration was growing in me. I’d been stuck here for days. Now here I was, talking to the bloody MI5, and even they couldn’t do anything. Quite frankly, it was doing my nut.

  “I am the one who decides if you are a terrorist, Dave,” he said softly. “And if the government considers you a threat to the nation.”

  My mouth went suddenly dry. I gulped several times.

  “Continue,” I said.

  “Very good.” He nodded. “As I mentioned just now, I do think we’re almost done here. However, I do have a few more questions I must ask.”