by David Carter
After the barbershop massacre they were finally fed, tinned spaghetti on toast, something that none of them would have eaten at home, but by then, it seemed like dinner at the Ritz.
The day dragged by with surprisingly little happening. There were different staff on during the day and they didn’t seem to bother much about the new arrivals. At six o’clock they were fed again, Lancashire hotpot, they were told, which seemed oddly appropriate, incorporating meat of non-specific origin. Rumours quickly circulated that the local horse population had crashed.
Weston was forced into sucking his food through inflated gums, and what remained of his jagged and broken teeth, though he still managed to joke that the meat was probably dead donkey from the creatures that formerly patrolled Blackpool pleasure beach. Martin hated the meat, and left it. One of the other guys begged it, and Martin waved him on. The guy rapidly cleared the plate, and burped like a navvy. Soon after that, they were led back to their hut and locked down.
They lay on their beds and ticked off a deadly dull day. 179 to go. Perhaps they were trying to bore them to death; perhaps the authorities figured the sentence would seem like 180 years. Without warning, the lights went off at 10pm and everyone settled to sleep. It took a while, but eventually the hut was filled with the sounds of unconscious men, snoring and talking in their sleep, imploring their loved ones, in different ways.
At 2.30am the lights went on in a blinding flash.
A moment later the door opened and Sergeant Devlin and Corporal Evans hustled into the hut, Devlin tapping that truncheon against his leg. He nodded at his corporal.
‘Get up, ladies! Get the hell up!’ yelled Evans.
Martin was the first to wake. He had no idea what time it was, though he guessed it was around half four. It was still pitch dark; that much was obvious, and he wondered if this was to be the routine. Early mornings - disturbed nights - boring days - dreadful food - nothing much to do.
‘Get up, ladies! I will not tell you again!’ screamed Evans.
Martin staggered to the end of his bed, as did most of the others. One man slept serenely on. He was a big guy named Ben Kerr, a broad chap Martin had shared a brief conversation with. Martin liked him; they had common interests, though Martin was alive to the possibility of stool pigeons hiding in the thickets. Devlin closed on the sleeping Kerr. He took the truncheon back; much like a golfer might, and brought it down across the slumbering man’s shoulder. Martin winced.
The man grunted under the force of the blow, and rolled from his pit. He staggered, moaning, toward the end of his bed, rubbing his shoulder bone furiously, but somehow remained silent.
‘Get up, Wayne!’ screamed Devlin.
‘Wayne Kerr! You’re a Wayne Kerr!’ he said spitefully, grinning stupidly across at Evans, for all to see.
‘He is that, sir,’ said Evans snappily. ‘He’s a Wayne Kerr all right!’
Devlin glared round the hut at each man, grinning idiotically.
‘I just wanted to see those slap heads,’ and he tapped the top of his cap. ‘Those glorious slap heads! One dozen polished white turnips! It does you credit. I might enter you in the Poulton-le-Fylde agricultural show. I’d be certain to win. Don’t they look smart, corporal? And clean?’
‘They do that sir, they surely do.’
‘That’s all it was, men. I just wanted to say Hello, and check that my orders had been carried out. All right, Oliver?’ he said, grinning at Owens, and his broken nose.
‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir.’
‘Been fed have we? Nice full tum-tum?’
‘Yes, sir, perfectly sir, no complaints at all, sir.’
‘Goody-two-shoes. That’s what I like to hear, happy contented men, with no complaints, no freaking complaints, at all. That’s it then; don’t let me keep you, ladies. Back to your beddy-byes, I know you are all in love with your right hands.’
They stumbled back to bed, yawning and pulling the sparse covers tightly around them.
‘I might have said back to bed,’ the sergeant snarled, ‘but I definitely didn’t say slouch, did I corporal?’
‘No, sir, you definitely didn’t say slouch!’
‘Sleep at attention, men!’ yelled the sarge. ‘Where do you think you freaking are? Pontins?’
The prisoners lay on their backs, at attention.
‘Better! Much better! From now on, I will always expect you to sleep to attention. Anyone forgetting will regret it. Nightie-night, sweethearts!’
‘Good night, sir,’ most of them said.
The officers turned toward the door, but did not go out.
‘Oh,’ said the sarge, peering at Corporal Evans as if he had forgotten something. ‘There is one other thing.’
‘Yes, sir?’ said Evans.
‘I think, men by the beds might be in order again, for this one.’
‘Yes, sir! Stand by your beds, ninnies! Stand by your sodding beds!’
Weston was on the brink of saying: For God’s sake, what now? through his damaged mouth, but his painful trap stopped him.
‘I have just remembered,’ muttered Devlin. ‘Some of us are going for a little trip, aren’t we? Yes, that’s it, a short drive round the Blackpool attractions.’
He pulled a note from his jacket pocket and pretended to look at it.
‘Weston! You have drawn a lucky ticket. Get dressed!’
‘Sir!’ said Weston, skipping and shivering to his bedside table to retrieve his clothes.
‘Oliver! You too! You’re second!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Owens, not surprised that his name had been called.
‘And who is the third lucky man?’ muttered Devlin, studying at length his important instruction sheet.
‘Reamse! Which one of you dobbers is Reamse?’ He stared round the hut at each man, except Martin.
‘I am, sir,’ said Martin, ‘I am Reamse.’
Devlin locked his dark eyes on the man who had dared to speak, as if he had never seen him before.
‘You are Reamse?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then it is YOU; isn’t it? Drawn the lucky ticket. Get sodding dressed, and be quick about it. You have one minute!’
Twenty-Six
Eve checked over her shoulder, as she made her way down the narrow path toward the boathouse. There was no one following, as she picked her way along the squelchy pathway between the reeds and bulrushes. Her best black school shoes were getting muddy but that couldn’t be helped. To either side of her, stunted willows crowded in on the path. In front of her, a moorhen came out of the reeds, only to rush away again on spying her.
The path wended this way and that, and then opened out into a small turfed clearing where the boathouse lay on the far side. It was a two story wooden building, long ago painted maroon; though the paint was now faded and peeling. At the first floor level there was a balcony at either end, one looking out over the river, back across toward the Quomps and the Priory, while the one on the near side overlooked scrubland and wetland, similar to that she had walked through.
Beneath the balcony was a single timber door. It was a sturdy entrance designed to keep out intruders. Eve tried the handle. It was locked. She thought it looked as though no one had been through it in years. She took a few steps backward and peered up at the balcony. The door from there into the building was also closed. She stooped and grabbed some gravel and tossed a small stone up against the window. Nothing happened. Everything was quiet, except for squabbling ducks on the river, the freshening wind, and a distant coxswain laying down the law.
Perhaps the lad had changed his mind and gone elsewhere. She threw another larger stone that almost broke the glass. Still nothing, until a moment later, the door at ground level opened an inch.
She couldn’t see anyone, but heard the lad say: ‘Come on in, and be quick about it.’
She checked over her shoulder again. No one there. Not a soul on that side of the river, so far as she could see, not down in the wetlands. She went inside w
ithout pulling the door any further open than necessary. Adam ran up the straight staircase in front of her. She noticed he wore neither shoes nor socks and his feet were bright white, like boiled trotters. She followed him up and by the time she hit the top, he was sitting on an old padded sofa, grinning. Over the sink he had rigged up a small string line on which his recently washed socks hung down.
‘You came then?’ he said.
‘Course I did,’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘Said so, didn’t I.’
‘Thought you might have changed your mind.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I always do what I say I am going to do.’
She looked smart; he noticed that, in her short dark grey skirt, and mauve school blazer. Not at all like the streetwise kid he had bumped into in the library. She seemed prettier too somehow, much prettier.
‘Bring anything to eat?’
‘Yep, course,’ and she opened her satchel and pulled out an apple, some cheese sandwiches she had made that morning, extra rations her mother had commented on.
‘You’re hungry, aren’t you?’ Jemima had said. ‘That’s double what you usually make.’
‘Sure am,’ Eve had said, ‘I’m a growing girl.’
‘Yes,’ said her mother, smiling at Eve, ‘I can see that.’
Eve’s figure was as trim as it always had been; not a spare ounce of flesh on her body anywhere.
‘Oh, and this,’ said Eve, pulling out a bottle of orangeade, and a packet of cheesy snacks of some kind.
‘You like cheese?’ said Adam, catching the bag.
‘Yep,’ said Eve. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Don’t mind. Sit down.’
‘I can’t stay long,’ she said, ‘double physics this afty,’ as she sat in an old wooden armchair opposite him. ‘You got in OK?’
‘Yeah, bloody holly bush, though, it must have grown a lot, the nail was well protected, I can tell you. I’d never have found it if you hadn’t told me.’
‘That’s the idea,’ said Eve. ‘Are you going to stay here again tonight?’
‘May as well, I’ve nowhere else to go.’
‘I’ll bring you more grub tomorrow.’
‘Ta, that would be great.’
‘Anything else you want.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘chocolate, some of that dark Swiss stuff, the expensive kind, none of that English milk rubbish, and a Messenger as well.’
‘OK,’ she said, thinking about money, when he thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
‘Here,’ he said, pulling out one of those newfangled £4 coins, the ones that are silver in the centre, but bronze on the outside. ‘Some money,’ he said, and he handed her the coin.
‘Ta,’ she said, thankful for the cash. She looked about the room. He had made it a little more comfortable, but across one corner was a large spider’s web, and sleeping in the centre, was a huge tortoiseshell spider.
‘Look at the size of that thing!’ she said, pointing across.
‘Yeah,’ he said grinning. ‘I call it Thelma. It’s been there all the time; I didn’t have the heart to kill it. Thelma and I are bezzie mates now.’
‘Really?’ she said, returning the smile. ‘You’re mad,’ and she grinned again, and glanced down at the floor, at his bare feet.
‘Haven’t you got long toes? That second toe is almost like a finger.’
Adam grinned again. He had a nice smile.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s always been like that. My mum was forever teasing me about it. Said I was the child of the devil. She always calls me her little demon.’ Present tense. He remembered. ‘Called,’ he corrected.
‘Are you going to tell me what kind of trouble you are in?’
‘Nope,’ he said, ‘best not to.’
‘Are you going to tell me about that computer program you were running?’
‘You don’t miss much.’
Her bright blue eyes widened as if what he had said was a compliment. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t.’
‘Maybe I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
She glanced at her slim gold watch.
‘Bugger!’ she said. ‘I’ll have to be going.’
‘OK,’ said Adam, slowly standing. ‘I’ll come down with you and lock up. Thanks for bringing me the stuff.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You won’t tell anyone I am here?’
‘Course not!’ she said, her voice betraying disgust he should think such a thing.
‘Not even your mum and dad.’
‘No one,’ she said, standing by the door, ‘not a soul,’ and she put her index finger vertically across her mouth. ‘My lips are sealed. Cross my heart.... and all that stuff.’
‘Great,’ he grinned, ‘see you tomoz.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you will,’ and she slipped through the door and made her way from the boathouse, and back along the muddy path. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Eve Cornelius, and she couldn’t wait to see him again.
Twenty-Seven
Owens, Weston and Reamse were bundled into the back of an old white transit van. There were no seats inside and the rutted metal floor was freezing to sit on. Evans and Devlin sat in the front, Evans driving. There had once been windows in the back doors but they had long since been blacked out. There was a tiny window at the front end that enabled them to see through to the driver’s cabin, and out through the windscreen beyond.
‘Where do you think we are going?’ asked Owens, his weak voice betraying anxiety.
‘God knows,’ said Weston. ‘It’s probably another psychological ploy. They seem keen on playing these little games. Don’t worry about it.’
‘What do you think, mate?’ said Owens to Martin.
‘No idea, but I don’t like it much.’
‘How do you mean?’ said Weston.
‘What’s the point of driving around in the middle of the night? I’ll be glad when I am back in my bed.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Weston, furiously rubbing together his whitening hands, before wiping them on his marble-esque skull.
‘What time do you think it is?’ said Owens.
‘No idea, three, maybe four,’ said Weston.
‘I think a little later,’ said Martin, ‘I could be wrong. It’s bloody freezing, I know that.’
The vehicle stayed on the coast road, and passed the closed down and boarded up pleasure beach rides. The Big One ride looked like an old snake that had shed its final skin, dusty and mucky and cracked and dead. Then they were on the promenade itself, above their heads the illumination lights were strung out across the wide avenue, though they hadn’t seen a spark for more than two years. Turned off to save vital national power, was the official line. The roadside lights had been curtailed too; only one in four illuminated, as they whipped along the deserted road. Inside the van, they could hear the wild Irish Sea to their left, pounding on the grey stone seawalls. They could smell it too, rotting seaweed and fresh effluent.
Devlin and Evans could now see the Tower, the bright red light at the summit warning off aircraft, the dimmed emergency nightlights strung up its full height.
‘Nearly there,’ said Evans, glancing nervously in his wing mirrors, but there was nothing behind for the length of his vision.
‘Yep,’ said Devlin, inspecting his hands and fingernails, as if he would rather be somewhere else. Devlin yawned. Evans began whistling.
‘Shaddup!’ said Devlin.
‘Sorry, boss.’
Evans pulled the van to a stop through squeaky brakes, and into a lay-by opposite the Tower entrance. He turned off the engine and jumped out, and ran to the back and opened up.
‘Out ladies! Out!’
They were glad to get out, away from the cold metal floor, and the swaying motion, and the smell of diesel. Weston wanted to puke. Owens wanted a piss. Evans locked the van and pointed across the road.
‘Get a move on!’
/> Devlin joined them, the omnipresent truncheon swaying ready.
Martin looked right and left, as a young schoolboy might. Always pay attention to the Highway Code, his mother used to say, and he began thinking of her. It was hardly necessary, for as far as he could see, there wasn’t another vehicle anywhere on the stretch, other than next to the trannie van, where an ambulance was parked up in the same lay-by, its sidelights showing. Across the road, away to the right, Martin saw a large, almost orange, illuminated clock on the gable of one the old hotels. The clock said it was a couple of minutes shy of three o’clock, though he had no way of knowing if it was right.
It wasn’t raining, but there was moisture in the air, coming off the sea, and carried on the icy wind. They were glad to cross the road and find shelter in the entrance hall to the Tower. They went straight through, Devlin leading, Evans bringing up the rear, as they approached the lifts. The doors to the centre lift clanked open revealing an old man dressed in black trousers, white shirt, black bow tie, and shiny silver waistcoat. He winked at the newcomers, or was it a nervous tick? He appeared as if he had been purloined from one of the old department stores, or maybe he had been running that particular lift for fifty years.
‘Evening, George,’ muttered Devlin.
‘Top of the morning to ya,’ said the man through his red blotchy face, in a thick Irish accent. ‘Just the five of you, is it?’
‘Yep, George. Five.’
He buzzed the doors closed and in the next moment they were rising, slowly at first, then super quick.
‘Been to the Tower before, have you gents?’ said George, to no one in particular.
Owens looked at Devlin, as if for permission to reply. Devlin recognised subservience and pursed his lips, before nodding once.
‘No,’ said Owens, ever eager to talk, ‘but I’ve always wanted to come, it’s fab ain’t it.’
‘Oh it’s fab all right,’ said George, grinning at Devlin, just about resisting the temptation to mimic Owens’ effeteness.
