Bite

by Nick Louth

  Now all I hear is the spatter of vomit before they take him in. Then the pleas. That is the time to squeeze my hands on my ears. Even through them I hear the roof resonating with screams and cries for them to stop. His cries and mine.

  Some days he is unconscious when they have finished. Yesterday he had convulsions in his cell for ten minutes afterwards, his head banging rhythmically against the cement floor.

  But today was the worst day of all. When they brought Jarman back moaning, I called out to him as I always do. I put my arm through the grille to try to reach him, as I always do. This time he didn’t take it. I could hear no movement, only a faint breathing. I called again, stretching my arm as far as I could to reach him.

  Then Jarman spat on my hand.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  Max crawled rapidly back to the box pew where Miller’s body lay. At his belt he found a Heckler and Koch VP70 automatic pistol and in a leg scabbard a slim serrated knife. He took them both.

  With grim satisfaction Max realised that d’Anville must have turfed Grzalawicz onto the floor because he needed the wheelchair. He may not be able to use his legs, and he would undoubtedly be in a lot of pain, but d’Anville’s cunning and an Ingram on full automatic was still a tough proposition.

  The tell-tale whine of the wheelchair showed d’Anville was moving up the north arcade, behind the pulpit and maybe fifteen yards from the box pew where Max was crouched. The storm was abating but it was now after nine and the remains of the evening light cast only the palest glow inside the church. Max stuck his head above the pew lip, then slid out. Snipers who live longest are those who fire each shot from a different place. Down on the floor he crawled through the chairs and across the nave until he reached the pulpit. The whine of the chair was heading east, towards the transept, from which it would be a right turn then straight south to the vestibule.

  A trail of blood droplets between gory tyre tracks marked the Belgian’s path. Crouching low, Max followed. The tyre marks veered off right, around a thick pillar. Max leaned against the cold stone and listened to the hum of the motor close by.

  Time to finish the job.

  Max checked the Heckler and Koch’s safety was off and stepped out, behind the chair. D’Anville sensed he was there, and pressed the lever to turn the chair, the Ingram tracking round like a tank gun. Max pumped off two quick rounds, low into the back of the chair. Sparks flew as the second shot ricocheted off metal into the gloom. The motor began a high pitched whine, and whirled d’Anville around in a tight fast circle, blood dripping off the frame, the tyres making concentric red patterns on the tiles. There was a hole in the man’s chest the size of a fist, but his eyes were bright and fingers tight on the Ingram. Max ducked behind a pillar just in time as d’Anville sprayed a ninety-degree arc of lead, exploding a stained glass window at the north end of the church.

  D’Anville was cursing, struggling with the controls as the chair continued to waltz, turning him away from the pillar where Max was hidden. Max took his chance and stepped out. He hesitated to fire again. There were things he needed to know, things that only d’Anville could tell him. The chair was a quarter turn away, d’Anville making agonised attempts to swing his head and body back, to pivot on a shattered spine, to keep the Ingram pointing at him. Finally the Belgian yelled in frustration and jammed his fist hard between the spokes of the right wheel, where it was crushed against the frame. The chair stopped dead. Max hurled himself forward, pitching d’Anville to the floor. The Ingram clattered and slid away as Max got a firm grip on the Belgian’s left arm. The other remained trapped in the wheel.

  Max pressed his pistol to d’Anville’s skull.

  ‘You have five seconds to tell me where Erica is.’

  D’Anville coughed, bright blood spilling down his mouth, as he tried to laugh. ‘You can’t do anything to me now but make it easier.’

  Max nodded at that truth. ‘Just tell me. Quickly.’

  ‘I always take my time, Carver. I always have a little fun on the way.’

  ‘Like you did with Lisbeth de Laan? Like you did with Johnny Gee?’ Max clenched his fists.

  ‘Johnny Gee is ancient history, Carver. Who cares?’

  ‘Lisbeth cared. As far as she was concerned Johnny was still alive,’ Max said. ‘He was more alive for her than you ever were.’

  ‘I owned her too.’ D’Anville coughed up more blood. ‘I’ve owned a lot of people, you know. Because of Erica I own you.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Hey Max! Good shooting on the cripple, by the way. You know the most difficult part of that? It wasn’t hauling him out of the chair, that was easy. The toughest part was getting my coat off to lay on him. Damn, it’s hard when you are missing a couple of vertebrae, when you’re lying on the floor, to get those arms free.’

  ‘I’m happy to hear of your suffering.’

  D’Anville closed his eyes, fighting back a wave of pain. He forced a smile, and fresh red blood slid down his lips. ‘Just a few seconds more, and I’m out of here.’

  ‘Where is Erica?’

  ‘My friend the malaria man is looking after her. A crazy old friend from way back. Lucky guy gets all the money to himself now.’

  ‘Tell me where she is!’ Max grabbed hold of d’Anville’s shirt, and hauled him up off the floor until they were close.

  D’Anville looked up at Max and his face spread into an evil, malicious smile. ‘I win, Max. You lose.’

  Max felt something touch his side and he dropped d’Anville like a hot potato. He had forgotten Alex’s rules, he’d been stupid. Miller’s knife was gone from Max’s waistband. The Belgian’s eyes were closed and he was pressing his left fist into the hole in his chest. Max grabbed the hand and tried to pull it away. Even as he was dying, d’Anville retained the strength of an ox. Max braced a foot on his chest and still needed both hands to do it. When the fist came away, clasped in it was Miller’s knife, red to the hilt. D’Anville was dead.

  Today when they came for Jarman he fought like a madman. I soon realised it wasn’t hatred of them that had inspired this fury. It was hatred of me.

  ‘You bitch!’ he bellowed as they tried to pull him from the grille. ‘I can’t take any more. Are you just going to let me die for your precious honour?’

  ‘No. Jarman, Jarman, please! It’s not like that.’

  ‘Of course it is! He’s testing you, don’t you see? He told me yesterday. It’s always been your choice, you just close your eyes to it.’

  The truth of his words struck home. In my pain I lashed out.

  ‘If you hadn’t tried to escape this would never have happened!’

  ‘I beg you, Erica…’

  They dragged him out of the cell, beating him as they went.

  ‘If you have any heart left…’

  The door to the torture room banged closed and Jarman’s torment began. I screamed Crocodile’s name, again and again. Immediately I felt a shadow in my cell, a brooding darkness, and looked up. Crocodile stood above me, near the grille, staring down at the animal in her cage.

  ‘Is it true?’ I asked.

  He shook his head slowly, just watching me. A filthy girl, barely this side of insanity, hunched into a corner, rocking backwards and forwards, hands on her ears.

  I snarled at him, and pulled the rag of a dress over my head, so he could see the raw sewer creature he had made of me. ‘Is this about me? Is all this about this little place?’ I pointed at my sex. ‘If this what you want? Is it?’

  He looked disgusted, but said nothing. I grabbed the bars above me, my filthy hands, fingernails like claws.

  ‘If that is what you want, you can have it. It isn’t mine anymore, none of me is. So why not take what you want. But leave him alone! It’s nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Do you really want to save him?’ Crocodile asked, peeling a mango above me.

  ‘Of course. I’ll do anything you say. You can have me, willingly.’

  ‘Ah!’ Crocodile said, po
pping a slice of mango in his mouth. ‘But that’s not enough any more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He pointed his knife towards the sound of screaming. ‘So very principled, aren’t you?’ He dropping the peel into my cage and walked away, leaving me the jagged metallic echoes of Jarman’s torment.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  Max could hear sirens outside the church. He stepped away from d’Anville’s corpse and headed towards the entrance. Through the partly-open door he could see squad cars, armed cops in helmets hiding behind the vehicles and further back a press of bystanders in the rain. On the ground between two cars were two groups of crouching paramedics. One group was working frantically around a blanketed figure. The second group was lifting someone on a stretcher, covered by a blanket strapped carefully from head to mid calf, leaving only the tips of blue jeans and a pair of pink sneakers visible. Mary-Anne’s sneakers.

  One more thing to do. Max took out the mobile phone and punched up Alex’s number. It rang and rang before the answer machine kicked in.

  ‘Hi Alex, it’s Max. I’m the only one left. D’Anville’s dead, Grzalawicz, Miller and Stevens too. Mary-Anne is under a blanket, I don’t know what happened and the other guy, Kuijper, I never saw him at all. I don’t know what your plans are now, but I would sure appreciate any help you could give me to find that barge you mentioned. I’m going out to the cops now.’

  Max hung up. He took a deep breath, held his hands in the air and walked out into the lights. Five seconds later two burly policeman had him on the ground with his arm so far up his back he was seeing stars. Handcuffed and roughed up he was being bundled into an armoured police van when he saw Stokenbrand. The detective nodded at him and rubbed his hands, anticipating pleasures to come.

  As the van raced away, Max scanned the stony faces of the three cops opposite him and tried to put himself in Alex’s shoes. Alex had no reason to lift a finger to help, now d’Anville was dead. The job was done, at a heck of a price, but it was done. The ex-president could grow old knowing that retribution had been exacted for the death of his boy, the ambassador.

  Against that Max was just the lure, a cheap piece of meat, hung up ready to take the rap for all the carnage. His prints were on two guns and a knife. His bullets in Grzalawicz. Lisbeth’s blood all over him. That is what cheap meat is for. To be thrown to the sharks.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I have chosen. It is evening, in a day I don’t know in a month I don’t know. Dakka has just brought me a pineapple, hacked roughly into pieces. A last meal. I devoured it like an animal, sucking the juice off my filthy fingers. Dakka, the apprentice rapist and war criminal, looks at me with amazement and even respect. He smiled and nodded at me, then flicked his eyes towards the torture cell. ‘Tomorrow, you?’

  I nodded. Tomorrow, me. Not Jarman, but me.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  The car bumped up a ramp out of the police station and onto the street. Max, under a blanket on the back seat, saw street lights flash yellow through the fabric.

  ‘You can come out now,’ Alex said. ‘We’re in the clear.’

  Max sat upright and saw Alex for the first time. He was short and dark, with receding hair, not at all as Max had imagined.

  ‘How did you do it?’ Max asked.

  ‘I called in some big favours. Officially, I’m taking you for an interrogation. Voos and Stokenbrand were going to come with me but I guess I must have forgotten to wait for them. I reckon it gives us around a couple of hours.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A little place not far from Rotterdam, on a quiet canal. D’Anville’s barge is moored there. Are you ready for this?’

  Max nodded and rubbed his face. The car clock read just after midnight, but it felt like four in the morning. ‘I’m running on adrenaline, but I got a few hours left in me.’

  ‘I want to hear the story of Grzalawicz’s last hour, Max. You are the only one who can tell me.’

  ‘Sure, but later. When this is all over I’ll tell you everything I know. But I can’t tell you much about the others.’

  ‘Kuijper was electrocuted, just like Miller and Stevens. Someone, I guess d’Anville, had ripped the bottom five feet of lightning conductor off the side of the church, and used the power cables from the generator to earth it via the scaffolding where Kuijper was. Of course d’Anville couldn’t have known that he was going to get Miller and Stevens too. That was a bonus for him.’

  ‘What about Mary-Anne?’

  ‘Dead too. Single powerful stab wound from under the left ribcage, commando style. Went straight into the heart.’

  They spent two hours on the motorway, then turned off down a narrow straight road bordered by a narrow canal and quaint steep-roofed houses. They passed through a medieval town, its street cafés still busy, and then down a long flat road cutting through treeless pastures towards a distant line of giant modern windmills, their massive metal propellers turning lazily in the moonlight.

  ‘Look,’ Alex said. They were converging with a thirty foot embankment that marched across the countryside like a wall. Above it Max could see the superstructure of a cargo ship, lit up like a Christmas tree, making stately progress towards them. Alex took the car up a sliproad onto a narrow road on the embankment, and killed the engine. Beyond was the silvery water of a huge canal, a hundred yards wide and straight as a ruler.

  ‘Crazy country where the water is higher than the land, right?’ Alex said. ‘I’m told this goes all the way via the Rhine, right up into Switzerland eventually.’

  ‘Where’s d’Anville’s barge?’ Max asked.

  Alex consulted a map. ‘Just here.’ He looked up and pointed out a low, dark shape moored two hundred yards away. ‘I think this is it. It’s called the Roode Koninkje.’

  They left the car and walked up the towpath. The evening was warm and breezy. Alex slapped a hand against his neck, and then examined it. ‘Plenty of mosquitoes around here.’

  When they were fifty yards away Alex turned and pressed cold metal into Max’s hand. ‘I guess I should be reluctant to do this, but all bets are off now. Call it gratitude.’

  Max thanked him and pocketed the gun. It was a Heckler and Koch, like the one Miller had carried.

  The barge was sixty yards long, with low living quarters towards the stern, a rusting yellow derrick, and an aged Ford Fiesta on the flat foredeck. There was light from only one window, the irregular intensity indicating a television was on.

  ‘You sure this is the right place?’ Max whispered.

  ‘Name matches, place matches. But let’s not go crazy, okay? Just in case,’ Alex responded, tapping Max’s gun.

  Max reached across the three-foot gap to the barge, grabbed the rail and stepped across. Alex followed. They drew their guns and edged along the walkway until they were close to the lit window. Max took a deep breath and slid across until he could see inside.

  It is a dawn after a sleepless night. I hear the generator starting up. It is wheezing away, and my pee is squirting out of me and running under my feet. I am more scared that I ever have been in all my life. I have never really felt pain. Not unbearable pain, not the pain that makes you beg for death. But I am about to.

  Our Father Who Art in Heaven

  Hallowed be thy Name

  Thy Kingdom Come

  Thy Will be Done

  On Earth as it is in Heaven

  Give us this day our Daily Bread

  And Forgive us Our Trespasses…

  They are at the door. My door. I hear the key.

  Forgive me and be merciful.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Through the barge window Max saw a slim man in T-shirt and jeans, maybe fifty years old, with thinning, wispy hair and heavy stubble. He was slouched at a table with his back to the window. Max felt there was something vaguely familiar about him. He tried to think where he’d seen him before. One look at the face should do it, but h
e couldn’t see his face.

  The man was reading a magazine while the TV was on quietly in the background. Max’s gaze was drawn to the news bulletin on the screen. A drenched reporter was pointing behind him to a circle of police cars and crouching cops. Beyond, Max recognised the Oude Kerk. Then Max’s own mugshot came on the screen.

  The man jumped up in alarm, pressing the remote control to raise the TV volume. He had recognised Max’s mugshot. That put him a step ahead until Max knew who he was. Max leaned back against the barge rail, bracing himself to kick out the glass. The man turned first, saw Max looming through the window and recoiled in terror.

  Recognition was instant. Max had sat next to him on the jumbo jet all those weeks ago. The nervous, fidgety guy with the fear of flying and the orange tablets. The ordinary guy described by the waitress as sitting with Erica. Old friends not lovers, she had said. Erica’s kidnapper.

  Max could have shot him then and there, but he was sick of death and instead he kicked the window in. By the time Max yelled ‘don’t move’, the guy had ducked out of sight of the window. A door banged. Max kicked out the rest of the glass and slid carefully through the window. Footsteps pounded away in the corridor outside, then the clatter of stairs. Too fast to be up, must be down.

  Once Alex was inside, Max led off into the corridor. The man must have gone left, towards the centre of the barge because the corridor the other way was too short for the number of footsteps he heard. To the left the narrow pipe-fringed passage led ten yards to a wooden door in a bulkhead. A few feet before narrow staircases led up and down. Max chose down.

  A door clanged shut some way ahead. Max and Alex emerged into a grey metal corridor lit by fluorescent tubes. Ahead was a hefty bulkhead, its metal door circled with rivets the size of boiled eggs. Max leaned his head against the cold metal. He could hear nothing, so he pressed the stiff brass handle and pushed. The door opened slowly, restrained by something. Max pushed harder and heard a ripping noise. Now the door opened fully, taking the torn remains of a big net curtain with it. A huge, dimly-lit chamber fifteen feet high stretched away forty or fifty yards. This was the hold, converted into a huge gymnasium. It was lined with Nautilus weightlifting machines. At the far end was what looked like a small swimming pool.