Savage Games

by Peter Boland

By early evening Savage, Archie and Dink were back in Tivoli Gardens.

  Savage closed and locked his door and sat on his bed, reflecting on his actions so far. He really hadn’t expected to be helping someone with an eating disorder. But then, out of all the missions that he’d carried out with the SAS, he couldn’t think of one that had actually gone to plan. No matter how much intel they had or how much strategy they’d worked out, every mission always changed the second they were on the ground. That didn’t matter. Improvise and adapt, that was the way of the SAS.

  Savage picked up Dave’s old Harrington jacket off the floor, the one that Vlad the Inhaler had discarded. He smoothed it out and hung it up. That was when he felt something in the pocket. A piece of folded-up paper. He opened it out to reveal a computer printout full of numbers. There were probably hundreds of them, arranged in four neat columns. Each number had three digits then a forward slash then four more digits. One of the numbers was ringed in red biro.

  Savage noticed two small holes in the top left-hand corner, like tiny vampire teeth marks. Another page had been stapled to it, now missing. Savage went on a search around his room, looking everywhere to locate the missing page. There was no sign of it.

  He took a shot of the page on his phone and sent it to Tannaz, together with a text:

  Do these numbers mean anything? Found them in Dave’s jacket

  I’ll check them out. You okay?

  Never better

  How are the locals?

  Interesting. Not what I imagined

  Be careful. Don’t start getting involved in anything

  Too late, thought Savage.

  I’ll take a look at the numbers too. Might be something. Might be nothing

  Me too. Text you when I have something. Night x

  He sat back on his bed, staring at the list of numbers, trying to make sense of them. A cacophonous noise rose up through his floorboards, a mix of sounds from every room below. A variety of thumping music, arguments and TVs turned up too loud. This certainly wasn’t his quiet little flat in Camberwell.

  Savage cut out all the jumble of sounds from around him and concentrated on the list of figures. He knew Tannaz would be better at this sort of thing than him. He should let her get on with it. That would be lazy, so he started using his phone to search and play with them. Try to discover a pattern or at least what they represented. Serial numbers, perhaps? But for what?

  Around one thirty in the morning, Savage hadn’t got anywhere. The numbers were still a mystery and were starting to blur and dance in front of his eyes, merging into one another. He was getting sleepy. The house had quietened down, which was how he heard Archie’s door open and close ever so slowly and ever so gently. The action of someone not wanting to be discovered, except the doors and walls in Tivoli Gardens were as thin as paper. Savage got up and tiptoed to his own door pressing his ear against it. He could just about hear light footsteps descending the stairs. A few second later, the stiff front door opened and closed. Savage switched off his light, went to the window and looked out.

  Down on the street in front of the house, he saw the curious shape of Archie scuttling off down the street, away from Tivoli Gardens. At the corner, Archie paused briefly, his head scanning left and right, then he disappeared from view down another road. Very odd behaviour, especially considering how dangerous Thornhill was in the daytime, let alone at night, and how bitterly cold it was.

  Savage made a mental note of it then went back to his numbers. He texted Tannaz to see if she’d had any luck. She too had drawn a blank.

  His eyes were getting heavy and he couldn’t concentrate any longer. He felt sleep coming for him. Just at that moment when consciousness began to melt away, he heard the voice. The one inside his head. Jeff Perkins, the personification of his post-traumatic stress all rolled into one irritating accuser.

  “That’s got to be a new low for you, Savage.”

  Savage sat bolt upright on the bed as if an electric shock had passed through his whole body.

  Jeff spoke again, tutting. “Hurting someone with special needs. You’re really plumbing the depths now.”

  Savage swore.

  Jeff had always berated and tormented regularly, with the underlying aim of getting Savage to kill himself as penance for all the people he’d killed. Jeff had gone silent for a while. Now he was back.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Savage.

  “What I always do. I’m here to make fun of you and urge you to do the right thing. End it all. Just like your mate Dave and his son Luke. Now they had the right idea. So why is it so hard for you?”

  “I don’t want to do that, not anymore. I have a purpose in life. I have Tannaz, my friend.”

  The voice burst out laughing. “Your friend? She’s not your friend, you idiot. She’s just using you for your knowledge. Once she’s got what she needs she’ll be off.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is. And what happens when she gets a girlfriend? Or it might even be a boyfriend as we’ve just discovered. Do you think she’ll want you hanging around like a creepy uncle?”

  “She’s my friend. People don’t just give up having friends because they start going out with someone.”

  “She will. You mark my words.”

  Savage decided to go on the offensive. “You don’t like Tannaz, do you?”

  “Don’t have an opinion on her, just stating a fact is all.”

  “You see, I think it’s more than that. You go all quiet when she’s around. Go a bit shy, don’t you? And now she’s not here, you suddenly make an appearance, what a surprise. You’re scared of her. She’s your kryptonite.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do. You’re so transparent. So easy to read. You want her out of the way, so you can come back whenever you want. Well it’s not going to happen any time soon.”

  “That’s not the reason at all. The reason I’m here is because you hit a new low. You hurt someone with special needs. How did that feel?”

  A ramming punch of shame struck Savage in the gut. Made him feel sick to his core. “Stop changing the subject.”

  “You’re the one changing the subject. You attacked someone with special needs. What’s next, are you going to kick someone in a wheelchair. Tell me, what was it like? Was it like the first time you killed someone? We all remember that, don’t we?”

  “Shut up, Jeff.”

  “Your first mission as a member of an SAS in Iraq. Shall I remind you? You had to destroy that radio tower guiding Scud missiles.”

  Out of all the traumatic memories Savage had gathered in his time, this one stung the most. The one he’d tried to bury deep down. “You don’t need to remind me, Jeff,” said Savage. “It haunts me every day.”

  “Good. It should haunt you. So you don’t need reminding of it then?”

  “No, not at all. It’s seared onto my brain.”

  “Well, tough, because I’m going to remind you anyway.”

  Savage lay back on his bed, scrunching his eyes up tight, as if this could block out the memory somehow.

  “Should have been a straightforward mission, remember? But your intel was out of date. The Iraqis had realised just how important the tower was. They’d strengthened the garrison guarding the tower, hadn’t they? Your team was outnumbered. That’s what you train for in the SAS. Being outnumbered. I remember you hiding in the rocks surrounding the tower. You could see the silhouettes of dozens of Iraqi guards moving around. You had to set charges at the base of the tower but that would mean fighting through them all, then fighting back out again. Stupidly, you volunteered to go first or were you just trying to show off?”

  Savage ignored the jibe. He could picture the scene like it was yesterday. The cold chill of the desert air, the vast starlight canopy above, and the enemy in f
ront, completely unaware they were being watched.

  “You were ordered to silently take out the guard closest—no firearms or you’d lose the element of surprise. You were supposed to knife the first guard, then like a tag team, move forward, silently taking it in turns to take out the next guard and the next, knifing them until your team silently reached the tower. You mucked it up, didn’t you? Royally screwed up.”

  In the frigid air of his room, Savage felt hot prickles of sweat on his forehead.

  “The guy you were supposed to kill first sat in a jeep, hand dangling lazily out of the window, flicking ash off the end of a cigarette. A simple kill: sidle up to the vehicle, knife ready. Pull open the door, surprise the victim, stab him in his vital organs. A quiet kill, no alarms raised. As you got close, he turned his head to blow smoke out of the window. You’ll never forget the mask of sheer terror on his young face. He was barely sixteen. Even in the near darkness you could see his big innocent brown eyes and a mop of thick, black hair. An almost babyish face.”

  Savage groaned as he relived the moment.

  “He’d never seen action and definitely never seen an enemy soldier, not this close. The boy froze at the sight of you with your knife raised. You weren’t close enough to make the kill. You saw him go for his gun. You had no choice. It was either you or him. You dropped the knife, pulled out your Browning and put three rounds into him, killing him instantly.

  “No time to process what you’d just done. All hell was unleashed. Your gunfire alerted every Iraqi soldier that they were under attack. A full-on fire fight. Bullets flying in every direction. The Iraqis panicked, shooting randomly into the desert night. Not like the SAS. You kept your heads, moved in, guns raised, firing only when you had to. The commotion you caused actually worked in your favour. That was lucky, wasn’t it? A distraction, allowing you to get to the tower and set the charges. Getting out was harder. You fought through it and escaped with the team intact, apart from a few minor injuries. But you left dozens of Iraqis dying in the cold desert. Including that young innocent boy.”

  Savage swore out loud. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

  “I’m going to go now, but I’ll leave you with this one thought. Your first kill is like sex, isn’t it? You never forget your first time. I bet that boy never got to have sex. I bet he never got to do anything, thanks to you, Savage. Now think of all the other hundreds of people prematurely killed by your hands. All the lives you’ve abbreviated. Think on that, John Savage. Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter 22

  A gentle knocking dragged Savage from his sleep. It was a miracle he’d got any shut eye after the return of Jeff Perkins, and his shaming monologue. The death of that young Iraqi soldier had always haunted him. Savage had managed to push it to the back of his mind. Jeff had brought it to the forefront again, where it now sat, pecking away at his conscience like a demented bird. Savage kept telling himself that the destruction of that radio tower had saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent lives and prevented missiles from reaching their target. He reminded himself of this over and over again, until it drowned out the guilt for what he’d done to that young Iraqi soldier. Gradually, the sweating and shaking stopped, and he had slipped into a short, fitful sleep, serenaded outside by car alarms, bottles being smashed and weapon dogs barking, and the couple beneath, starting up another argument. Compared to sleeping in a war zone where people were trying to put a bullet in his head, it was far more peaceful.

  The knocking outside continued.

  He’d fallen asleep in his clothes, so he went straight to the door and found Dink standing there.

  “So we gonna make food?” said Dink, all bright-eyed like a puppy ready for a walk.

  “What time is it?” asked Savage.

  “Six o’clock in the morning,” said Dink.

  “Six? Dink, it’s a bit early and we need to buy food. Nothing’s going to be open yet.”

  “Oh,” said Dink, crestfallen.

  Savage rubbed his eyes. “Listen, I heard Archie go out late last night, and I never heard him come back. Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s fine. Sometimes he disappears for days.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, a lot of people earn extra money by doing things for Wellington.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve never been asked. Just things. Little odd jobs.”

  “What sort of jobs?”

  Dink shrugged. “People don’t talk about it, ’cos they’re on benefits and I know you’re not allowed to work if you’re on benefits. I think Archie sometimes goes to the train station at night.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “To keep warm. Said he used to work there, as a cleaner, I think. Still knows them. They sometimes let him stay in the waiting room because it’s warm and his room’s freezing.”

  Savage remembered the loose cardboard taped over the broken window and the arctic blast coming in—the room faced north and was colder than a freezer compartment at Iceland—and the painful, hacking cough that erupted from deep within Archie’s chest.

  “Okay, change of plan, Dink. When Archie gets back we’re going to mend his window.”

  Dink’s face dropped. “What about the food?”

  “We’ll make that when we’ve fixed it.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Lunchtime, okay.”

  “Okay.” The big man just stood there, taking up the whole of the landing and looking awkward.

  “Would you like to help me fix the window?”

  “Could I?”

  “Why not? You go wait in your room and I’ll give you a knock when we’re ready.”

  Dink beamed, then thundered back down the stairs.

  At around eleven o’clock in the morning, Savage heard Archie’s door open and close. Savage was about to go knock on his door when a note slipped under his door. In shaky, spidery handwriting it read:

  Wanna whiskey? Archie.

  Savage noticed that whisky was misspelt with an ‘e’. He scrunched up the note and stuffed it in his pocket.

  Savage opened his door to see Archie with a brand new whisky bottle in his fist. A plaster was stuck to the centre of his forehead.

  “What happened to your head?”

  “ARI,” he giggled.

  “What’s that?”

  “Alcohol Related Injury. Walked into a door.”

  “You sure that’s what happened? Wasn’t Wellington’s goons, was it?”

  “No, no. They’d never hurt me. I’m always doing myself an injury and that.” Archie took a slug of liquor. Savage wasn’t entirely sure whether he believed him.

  Archie’s bedroom door was open and Savage could feel the chill breeze coming from it. “Listen, I want to fix that window of yours.”

  “Really. You can do that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Won’t you need new glass and that?”

  “No, that would be expensive. But we can patch it up a bit better. Stop that nasty draft coming in.”

  Archie grinned. “What about the whisky?” he asked.

  “Maybe later,” said Savage. “A celebratory drink. Grab your coat, we’re going on the scrounge.”

  They caught up with Dink downstairs, who seemed to have been sitting on the bottom step since Savage had last spoken to him. The simple idea of doing something with their day, rather than drinking or eating had energised Dink and Archie, stimulating them like they were going on an adventure, putting a bounce in their step and grins on their faces.

  “What’s first, boss?” said Archie.

  “We need some wood from somewhere, roughly the same size as this.” Savage had removed the cardboard patching from Archie’s broken window to use as a template.

  “How do we do that?” asked Dink.

&
nbsp; “Find some builders who’ll take pity on us.”

  “And then can we eat?” Dink asked.

  “Once we’ve plugged the hole in Archie’s window.”

  “What are we having?” asked Archie.

  “It’s a surprise,” said Savage.

  “I love surprises.” Dink’s big bulk quivered with joy. He still wore his open-toed sandals, while Archie and Savage were wrapped up against the biting cold.

  Zig-zagging through the litter-strewn streets of Thornhill, they came across several building-contractors’ vans as well as a skip outside a small block of council flats that were being renovated. There was no sign of anyone outside except for a skinny lad with a sawhorse and a stack of fencing slats. Every so often he’d stop and blow on his hands to warm them, then attempt to nail one of the thin slats onto a wooden frame to create a storage area for large communal bins. Each time he hammered a nail he’d curse and swear. Then throw the piece of wood away in disgust.

  As Savage got closer, he could see the problem. Every nail he hammered in split the wood, and he’d have to start again.

  The guy swore as another slat split all the way down the middle.

  “Everything okay?” asked Savage.

  “No, it is not,” he said. “It’s bloody freezing out here, and I’m not allowed to work inside until I’ve finished this bin store, but this cheap wood keeps splitting.”

  “Blunt the nail,” said Savage.

  “You what?” the lad replied, his eyebrows angled aggressively.

  “Turn the nail on its head and tap the end a few times with the hammer to blunt it.”

  “You having a laugh?”

  “Try it, what have you got to lose?”

  The lad thought for a second, weighing up whether he was going to be the butt of a joke. He shrugged his shoulders and did as Savage instructed, blunting the sharp end with his hammer. When he turned the nail over and struck it with the hammer it went in perfectly without splitting. “That’s genius,” he said. “Thanks mate.”

  “Could I have a bit of wood out of that skip and borrow your saw?” asked Savage.

  “Be my guest,” said the lad.