by Kevin Brooks
Jenny waggled her hand. ‘He got a couple of good hits in, then the spray came on and soaked through the sheet and he started yelling.’
‘Any damage?’
‘What?’
‘Any damage?’
‘Not to the camera.’
‘How about Fred?’
‘His eyes and his face got burned and he hurt his arm when he fell off the chair. His ears are bleeding too.’
‘From the whistle?’
She dug a finger in her ear. ‘What?’
‘The whistle.’
‘It hurt my ears.’
‘I know.’
There didn’t seem much else to say. Jenny looked at me. I shrugged. She gave her ears another dig, then winced.
‘Why’s he doing this to us, Linus?’ she said, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘Why’s he so bad?’
‘I don’t know. Some people are just like that, I suppose. They like being bad.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
A couple of months ago I got beaten up by a bunch of stockbrokers. I think they were stockbrokers anyway. Stockbrokers, bankers, traders, something like that. There were about six or seven of them. Young men in sharp suits and expensive haircuts. It was a Friday night, about eight o’clock. Cold and drizzly. Damp. I was busking around Prince’s Street. There are loads of wine bars around there and they always get really busy on a Friday evening. You know, end of the day, end of the week, start of the weekend, let’s all go out and have a good time, that kind of thing. Anyway, I thought I might get lucky, tug a few drunken heartstrings, get some cash. So I found myself a nice little sheltered spot in the doorway of an office building, got my guitar out, laid the case on the ground, and started to play. And I was doing pretty well too. A nice pile of 50ps, pound coins, a few two-pounders. I’d even got a screwed-up fiver from someone.
Then they showed up – the stockbrokers, the men in sharp suits. They were all good and drunk and working hard to enjoy themselves. Loud-mouthed, red-faced, laughing and pushing each other around. As they walked past me one of them tripped over the kerb and stumbled into the doorway, crashing into my guitar case and knocking it over. The coins tumbled out and rolled all over the place – along the pavement, under people’s feet, into the rain-soaked gutter. I stopped playing and looked down at the drunken idiot crawling around on his knees at my feet. He had gelled hair and neat little sideburns and he was laughing like an idiot and grabbing at the coins, throwing them at his mates.
‘You stupid shit,’ I said to him.
He stopped laughing and glared at me. ‘You what?’
‘That’s my money you’re chucking away.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
He picked up a pound coin. ‘You call this money?’
I was beginning to wish I hadn’t said anything now. His friends had shuffled over and were standing in a semicircle behind him, egging him on, looking for trouble. He was getting to his feet now. He was drunk, he couldn’t back down.
It wasn’t a good situation.
‘Look,’ I said calmly, ‘just forget it, OK? It doesn’t matter.’
He stepped towards me, holding out the pound coin. ‘You call this money?’
I sighed. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’
‘You want this?’ he said, holding out the coin to me.
I didn’t say anything.
‘You want it? Here …’ He lobbed the coin into a puddle. ‘It’s yours. Now pick it up.’
I looked at him.
He smiled. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
I glanced behind him at the others. They were quiet, tensed, waiting for it to start.
‘Hey,’ said the drunk.
I looked at him again.
He moved closer, grinning. ‘I said pick it up, wanker.’
It was beyond words now. The line had been crossed. There was only one thing to do. So I did it. I unclipped my guitar strap and moved towards the puddle, holding the guitar by the neck. I heard a snigger, an arrogant snort, then I spun round and hammered my guitar into the drunk guy’s head. It made a pretty good sound – a big hollow boing – but I don’t think it hurt him that much. If he hadn’t been drunk he probably wouldn’t have fallen over. But he was drunk, and he did fall over, and that was too much for his mates. They all piled in and kicked the shit out of me.
It’s late evening now. I couldn’t get back to sleep after the whistling episode so I spent a while just walking around, thinking and looking, looking and thinking. There’s got to be some way of getting out of here, but I still can’t see it.
While I was walking around, Anja and Bird were talking together at the dining table. I heard Bird telling Anja that the police were looking for her. They’d found her car, searched the flat where she’d been abducted, checked the phone records where she worked, etc.
‘And?’ said Anja.
‘Last I heard they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.’
Anja shook her head. ‘Useless bastards.’
I carried on wandering around for a while and then I went back to my room.
And here I am.
I’ve been thinking about Dad, trying to imagine him at one of those press conferences you get when a kid goes missing. The room full of journalists and TV reporters, the cameras, the microphones, the parents (or parent) flanked by serious-looking policemen. The parent/s looking stern, trying not to cry, trying to stay calm. The mother/father’s lip quivering as she/he reads out a statement appealing for information …
Then I suddenly realized – Dad won’t know that I’m missing. Of course he won’t know. I’ve already been gone for five months. The only people likely to miss me are Lugless and Bob, Windsor Jack, a few other lowlifes, and they’re hardly going to lose any sleep over it. On the street, people come and go all the time. Nothing lasts, no one stays around for long. They might have wondered where I was for a day or so, but after that they would have just nicked all my stuff – blankets, guitar case – and forgotten all about me.
Dad thinks I’m safe. I sent him a letter a couple of days after I left. I’m all right, I told him. I’ve got money. I’m staying with friends. Please don’t call the police. I’ll come back when I’m ready. Love Linus.
I sometimes wonder what Dad thought when he read it. I imagine his face as he opens the envelope. His mouth twitching beneath his grey moustache, his eyes squinting as he unfolds the paper and reads the letter. I wonder if he thought, Yeah, well, maybe it’ll do him some good. Teach him to appreciate what he’s got. Or did he think, Shit, what’s the matter with him? Stupid kid. Or maybe he just thought …
I don’t know.
My brain is spilling over at the moment.
I don’t know what to think about anything.
I realize that I haven’t fully explained myself yet. I haven’t told you what you might (or might not) want to know – my history, my story, the details of my life. But you have to look at things from my point of view. You have to understand what you are to me.
To me, at the moment, you’re just a piece of paper. At best, a mirror. At worst, a means to an end. The truth is, all I’m doing is talking to myself. I’m talking to Linus Weems. And I know everything there is to know about him. I know what he’s done and what he thinks and what his secrets are. So I don’t need to explain anything. I don’t need to tell his story.
I don’t want to tell it.
I’m sick of it.
11.45 p.m.
I’ve just been to the bathroom. Arse- and belly-wise, everything seems back to normal.
On the way back to my room I saw Anja and Bird again. T
hey were still sitting at the dining table, still talking. They must have been at it all night. Anja had cleaned up her hair and Bird had taken off his jacket and tie. His shirt sleeves were neatly rolled up and he was making those infuriating hand gestures that business people make all the time – pointing, chopping, open-palmed questions. Yuh yuh yuh? Anja was leaning forward with her legs crossed, nodding sincerely at all the right moments, flicking at her hair.
They didn’t acknowledge me.
One more thing before I leave it for tonight. Bird said the man got him when he was coming home from work yesterday evening. But, as far as I’m aware, yesterday was a Sunday.
What does that mean?
1) Bird works on Sundays? Unlikely.
2) Bird’s lying? Possible.
3) I’ve got the days mixed up. More than likely.
That’s all.
Tuesday (?), 7 February
We’ve had a meeting.
Anja and Bird announced it. 10.00 am. At the dining table.
This is how it started:
BIRD (opening his notebook): Is everybody ready? Fred?
FRED (staring at the ceiling, picking burnt skin from his lips): Yeah, what?
BIRD: Are you ready?
FRED: Ready for what?
BIRD: We need to talk. All of us.
FRED (grinning): Right, go on then.
BIRD (looking round the table): OK, let’s start by finding out who we all are. I’ll set the ball rolling. My name’s Will Bird. I’m 38 years old. I was born in Southend and I moved to Chelmsford ten years ago. I share a house with my partner, Lucy, a call-centre manager. I’ve been a management consultant for eight years, mostly in the banking industry. Before that I worked in customer service training. In my spare time I enjoy paintball games and tinkering with radio-controlled cars. Linus?
ME: What?
BIRD: Tell us about yourself.
ME: Why?
BIRD: Communication, trust –
ME: Trust?
ANJA (to me): Listen to him. He’s trying to help.
BIRD (smiling at her): Thank you. (Turning to me with a fake smile) Hey, come on, we have to work together, Linus. We have to pool our resources.
ME: Hey, I know.
BIRD: We need spirit, determination, solidarity –
ME: What we need is a way out of here.
FRED: Fucking right.
ANJA: Christ!
FRED (glaring at her): What’s the matter with you?
ANJA: Nothing.
FRED: Yeah, fucking nothing. Tell me about it. You and your fucking nothing. Ever since you got here all you’ve done is sit around all day on your tight little arse doing fuck all, then this fat ponce comes along and all of a sudden you’re up for it.
BIRD: Now just a minute –
FRED (giving him a threatening look): Yeah?
ANJA (sneering): Oh, that’s right. Why don’t you hit him with a saucepan?
FRED: At least I’m trying.
ANJA: You can say that again.
FRED: Fuck you.
BIRD (hitting the table): That’s enough!
FRED: Fuck you too, fat stuff.
Then Jenny started crying.
We took a break.
Anja and Bird went off down the corridor and the rest of us went into the kitchen. While Jenny washed her face and dried her tears, I made some tea and talked quietly to Fred.
‘You’re frightening Jenny,’ I told him. ‘Keep it down a bit. And go easy on the swearing. She’s only a kid.’
‘Kids don’t give a shit about swearing.’
‘Some of them do.’
‘Yeah, well …’
‘You’re scaring her.’
‘It’s not my fault. It’s them, Bird and Anja, they’re doing my head in. All this meetings shit –’
‘Yeah, I know. I don’t like it either. But getting all worked up about it isn’t going to help, is it?’
He looked at me, his eyes cold with violence.
‘You know what I could do to them?’ he said.
‘All sorts, I imagine.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
An intimate silence hung in the air for a moment. Dirty and hard. I couldn’t break it. Whatever words I wanted to say were stuck in the back of my throat. It was all I could do to keep looking at Fred. His great stone head filled the room with unspoken menace.
Then, all at once, his eyes twinkled and his mouth broke into a grin and he leaned across the table and clumped me on the shoulder.
‘You know what our trouble is?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You and me … we’ve both been fucked right from the start.’
My home is a big house in the country. It’s got six bedrooms, three bathrooms, three reception rooms, a wine cellar, a library, riding stables, a croquet lawn, and a swimming pool. My dad owns three cars. We have another house in California and a villa in the Algarve. And from the age of twelve I’ve had the best education money can buy.
Yeah, Fred, you’re right: fucked from the start.
After half an hour we tried the meeting again. This time we stuck to the basics.
Who, or what, is our abductor?
A psycho.
A pervert.
A people collector.
What does he want?
To watch us.
To kill us.
To keep us as pets.
Where are we?
In a basement.
A cellar.
Somewhere near London?
Somewhere in Essex?
What are we going to do?
Survive.
Escape.
How are we going to survive?
Eat.
Drink.
Keep ourselves clean.
Stay calm.
Get organized.
How do we get organized?
The way we get organized, apparently, is by drawing up a rota of duties. Which has now been done. So, from now on:
One of us takes charge of the shopping list, logging requests throughout the day, thinking about what else we need, then writing the list and making sure it’s in the lift by nine o’clock each evening.
One of us does the washing-up and general cleaning. Any rubbish, put it in a bin liner and put it in the lift. (Put bin liners on the shopping list.)
One of us waits for the lift each morning, collects the shopping and puts it away.
And one of us cooks. Twice a day. Nine-thirty and six-thirty. If you want anything else to eat at any other time, you have to get it yourself.
We take it in turns, a rota system, different duties every day.
Another question we tried to discuss at the meeting was How Do We Get Out Of Here? And it was at this point that the meeting went very quiet, and one by one we all looked up at the grille in the ceiling. It looked back at us, mocking our silence with its cold white eye. All-seeing, all-hearing.
Fred broke the silence. ‘How can we get out of here if he’s watching us all the time? We can’t even talk about escaping.’
‘You’re sure they’re cameras?’ Bird said.
I nodded. ‘And microphones.’
‘And you can’t cover them up?’
‘What do you think this is?’ Fred said, indicating his burnt face. ‘Sunburn?’
‘Hmm,’ muttered Bird, scribbling something in his notebook.
‘Give me that,’ I said to him.
‘What?’
‘Your notebook.’
‘I’m keeping notes of the meeting –’
‘Just
give it here a second.’
He reluctantly passed it over.
‘Pen?’
He passed me his pen.
I shielded the page with my hand and wrote: We’ve all got a notebook. Keep your back to the cameras, write down any escape ideas, bring them to the table at 10 each night. We can discuss.
Then I passed the notebook around. When everyone had read it, I said, ‘OK?’
It was OK.
I said to Bird, ‘Have you kept a written record of the whole meeting?’
‘Of course.’
I nodded. ‘Right, well, there’s one more person to come. It’ll be easier if you just show him or her your notes rather than having to go over everything again.’
‘What do you mean, one more person to come?’ asked Anja.
‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? There are six rooms down here. Six plates, six cups … there’s six of everything. But only five of us. There must be one more to come.’
Wednesday, 8 February
A long day.
Nothing happens.
We eat, we drink, we stay calm, we get organized. We all look terrible. Pale, drained, haunted. Anja is developing an unbalanced stare. When she’s not in her room she walks around looking busy all the time, but her eyes are permanently unfocused, like a caged bear at the zoo. Bird can’t keep his eyes off her. He keeps scratching his groin and rubbing his face. Although he’s only been here a short while he’s already got a thick growth of stubble on his chin. All over his face, in fact. He’s a hairy man is Mr Bird. Fred’s beard is longer but stragglier, a bit like Shaggy’s beard. You know, Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Not that Fred looks anything like Shaggy. He’s more like Desperate Dan. Imagine Desperate Dan with Shaggy’s beard and junkie eyes and tattoos all over his body – that’s what Fred looks like.
I don’t know what I look like. I don’t really care. You don’t get any points for looking good down here. I feel pretty scummy though, and that’s not nice. No matter how many times I wash, my skin still feels dirty and clammy, like the dirt is underneath the skin. My head itches too.
The whole thing stinks.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to Bird about what day it was when he was abducted. Actually, that’s a lie. I’ve had plenty of chances to talk to him, I just don’t want to. As you’ve probably guessed, I don’t like him. He creeps me out. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter what day it was. If he’s lying, he’s lying. There’s nothing I can do about that. And if he’s not lying, and I’ve lost a day … well, so what? Who cares what day it is?
