He hadn’t needed to do that, I suppose. He may have got away with it. The incident had happened in an isolated spot – a fuel station with no one else around – yet he had given himself up and, as a reward, the police had beaten the shit out of him.
They gave him life; they gave him maximum. He was not the sort to elicit sympathy, and he didn’t want it. I now knew why Judith had always referred to the whole incident as a foolish thing. She was not referring to the murder; she was talking about how Hamish had given himself up, refused a lawyer and said nothing to defend himself. Angus would have agreed with that sentiment. The fact was that he alone knew the truth. He knew because he had been there with Hamish at the robbery, and he knew why Hamish had remained silent. He had done it to protect his fifteen-year-old younger brother.
Today he said nothing. He simply concentrated on the road ahead.
I stared morosely in front. I was thinking of Hamish. He was on my list, one more person to set free, one more person who had fallen victim to Fabian. He may have done a terrible thing, but I was determined he would suffer no more. If Matrix succeeded in turning the world upside down then Hamish would benefit – thoughts I kept to myself, thoughts I dared not share with Angus.
Sonia sat squashed between the two of us. I tried to give her space but my leg tended to sprawl. She was silent and tight lipped, deep and intense – smelling of wild heather as usual.
We drove for some time, only stopping once for the boys to have a piss. Still, she said nothing. She didn’t even comment at the obscene jokes from the back. It was Angus who told them to shut up, and they did. They always deferred to him; as far as they were concerned, he was the eldest.
We were some fifteen minutes away when I spoke to Angus. ‘Now it’s time,’ I said. Sonia looked up at me, puzzled. Angus stopped the car and pulled out a blindfold.
‘Angus is going to blindfold you,’ I said to her.
‘What? No way!’
‘You’ve no choice if you want to continue,’ said Angus.
‘Why?’
‘It’s the way we do it,’ he said bluntly.
‘It’ll keep you safe,’ I said.
‘It’ll keep them safe,’ added Angus.
She looked puzzled still, and she glanced down at the blindfold. ‘No,’ she said firmly. Angus was about to speak, but she took the blindfold from him. ‘If I have to wear the thing then David will put it on.’
I didn’t smile. I knew what this had cost her. I thought she was being remarkably brave. ‘Just for a wee while,’ I said, as I placed it gently around her head.
We drove on and I felt small fingers wriggle into my hand. I squeezed them. ‘Is this what it feels like?’ she whispered to me. She touched her blindfold.
‘Aye, sort of,’ I said. She nodded and smiled.
We came to the safe house. We now had four, and Caliph was waiting for us. I pulled the blindfold from Sonia’s eyes. She gazed around in astonishment. I don’t know what she was expecting, but I bet it wasn’t a farmyard. Euan had leapt out of the car and opened my door. He helped me out.
Caliph came forward, a huge grin on his face. ‘Matrix!’ he said. He thumped his chest and took my right hand. He placed it to his lips. ‘We’re very pleased to see you! We heard ...’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘You’ve a lot of people to convince of that,’ he replied.
‘We have plans to make.’
He held out his hands. ‘All under control; you’ll see.’ He turned to Sonia, looking mystified.
‘My nurse,’ I explained.
He smiled again. ‘Then you’re most welcome,’ he said.
Sonia had walked up, still looking astonished. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘No need to know,’ said Angus.
‘Amongst friends,’ said Caliph. He held out his hand, and she looked at it. He had a swastika tattooed on it, similar to mine.
She looked at him incredulously. He beamed down at her. Caliph was quite a figure, tall, broad, and still remarkably good-looking despite the scars and the Fabian mark on his left cheek and the two missing fingers on his left hand.
At that moment Meera came out. Meera was Caliph’s girlfriend and a Blood Brother. She should have been beautiful – I thought she still was – but some bastard had gone to a great deal of trouble to change her face. Each pod was different in the way it marked its victims. I became familiar enough with the brand types to know at a glance where in the country someone had been held. Meera had been taken by a group in York, where they took out the whole of the left cheek with the Fabian mark. It was not a burn; it was a large slash, inflicted with a jagged knife.
She came out now, shy and, to me, beautiful. Caliph placed his arm around her shoulders. They intended to marry as soon as they could assume an identity again, as soon as it was safe to do so.
‘This is Meera,’ he said. Come on, we’ll introduce you to the others.’
Sonia looked at me. ‘Go with them,’ I said. ‘And, Sonia, don’t worry you haven’t discovered a nest of fascists.’
Sonia followed Caliph and Meera in.
***********************
I watched as Sonia moved among my people. They made her welcome. They had apparently decided she was my woman and that made a difference, but they were also genuinely pleased to see someone different. She sat and talked to many of them during the following days. For most of that time I had little to do with her. It was not until the second night that we finally talked alone. I was sitting outside smoking a cigarette. She came out with a blanket. I was already covered, nobody would have let me sit in the cold. We all watched out for each other. She placed her blanket over me anyway and sat down beside me.
To tell the truth, I had been glad that I had not seen her. I had not been looking forward to this meeting. I braced myself.
‘They call you a god,’ she said.
‘I expect you put them right.’
‘You’re all they have.’ She looked at me, ‘And you’re putting your life in danger.’
‘It’s not important.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I remained silent. She sighed. ‘Will you talk to me?’ she asked. ‘Tell me what happened? I’ve spoken to many - discards.’ She spoke the word with distaste, as if it was unclean, and I flinched and turned my head away. She carried on. ‘They’ve talked to me, told me things. But I still don’t know about you. What they did to you.’
Still I said nothing.
‘Why won’t you talk to me? Is it because I’m not Judith?’
It was not that; it had nothing to do with Judith. I simply didn’t want to discuss it with her. I wanted to keep my heart secret and my soul intact. I wanted to wrap my mind and spirit up and keep it away from prying eyes. I wanted her to stop asking questions. I knew she needed to know, but I had no intention of telling her. I didn’t want her to see that, in the end, I was nothing but a dirty boy who had escaped. So I lied. ‘Partly,’ I said.
She wouldn’t let it go. ‘What do you mean - partly?’
I smoked my cigarette. ‘Too many nightmares,’ I muttered.
‘I still don’t understand why you can’t talk to me?’ She sounded impatient, frustrated.
‘I’ll never talk to you. I keep my secrets locked up. It’s my right. It’s the right of everyone to choose whether they tell their story or keep it close to their heart.’
‘You can’t do this to me!’ she cried.
I didn’t look at her. ‘I can and I will,’ I said simply.
‘You could, at least, have told me the truth. You owed me that much.’ Now we had come to the truth of her heart. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she continued. ‘You shouldn’t have put me in the wrong for so long.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I knew once I told you, you’d hate me for it. It’s what I expected.’
‘No, David, I don’t hate you. But I do understand, at last.’
‘Understand what?’
‘Why I’ve always loved
you.’
She walked away and left me to my secrets.
***********************
We didn’t talk again. I was busy. I had plans to make. We were supposed to be raiding a certain pod in London, a sweat and sex shop full of children, but it had been delayed by my brush with the law. We needed to move it along; we were ready. I had sorted out the technical difficulties and, reluctantly, I had at last sought out and gained the help of my electronic chess partner, Cyclops, to jam up some nets that would otherwise interfere with the rescue. It was to be his test, a rehearsal for bigger things to come.
I wanted to pull those children out, and I wanted to destroy something that Fabian was obviously proud of. I wanted them to hate and fear us. I wanted them to make more mistakes. I was in a hurry. It was time, the new safe house was ready and the Salvation Army had been warned and was totally prepared to take on the care of the children.
I had a promise to fulfil to a certain boy who had been through hell and still come out with a smile. I had told Ramon I would rescue them all, and I intended to do so.
Chapter 65
October 2039
There is a busy street in the heart of London, full of shops, apartment blocks, small businesses and people, and within its heart is a black hole – a dark place where horror lurks, where nightmares are made real. People move quickly by and fail to hear the despair, the desperate cries of the weak and lonely. They are simply too busy to notice. Life goes on.
Until the day when their comfortable routine lives were disturbed by a gas explosion.
It all began mid–morning on a bright, cold October day; workmen turned up wearing the emergency services uniform of luminous yellow. They also wore gas masks. Traffic was pulled to a halt and diverted down one lane, creating immediate chaos. A tent was erected on the road and pathway. It stretched across the path and was attached to an old Victorian building. The annoyance at the disruption was nothing compared to the rising sense of panic as a sign was erected across the road and path, warning passersby of the possible danger of a gas explosion. Men came by, calling out with loudspeakers that there had been a gas leak, but that there was absolutely nothing to worry about; there was no need to abandon buildings or shops or avoid the area. No reason at all, everything was under control. No one believed them. They would say that, wouldn’t they? People started to drift away, and news soon spread to the drivers and the volume of traffic grew less.
The captain of the work crew gave a media interview, assuring the public that there was no danger, that the gas leak was a small one and that the possibility of an explosion was negligible. He urged the people who lived in the apartment block to return home and the people who worked in the financial institutes to return to work. He laughed easily. ‘Do you think I would let my men work in dangerous conditions? In a tent?’
The media man laughed with him and they both agreed. ‘That would be ridiculous,’ they said.
Yet, even as they laughed, an explosion suddenly shook the ground and the buildings around them, and then came the unmistakable smell of gas. Everything went silent as dust rose thickly into the air. The tent – remarkably – remained in position. The captain went pale, turned and ran down to his men. The media machine beat a hasty retreat.
Soon the sound of sirens from three ambulances made its way through the mayhem, and the vehicles pulled up outside the tent. They backed right in. No one came near, although the camera lens peered intimately down to the standing vehicles. They could see very little as the rear doors of the ambulances were tucked inside the tent.
News of death and injuries filtered up to those watching. It took nearly an hour but, at last, the ambulances raced off down the road. It was at that point that the police, fire services and more ambulances turned up – late and slightly flustered.
When the tent was finally examined and removed, they found an enormous neat hole in the wall of the building it had been resting against. Dead bodies were indeed found, but they were scattered inside the building and were the bodies of seven men and women, each killed with a single bullet in the head.
It was later reported to be the work of a terrorist organisation, probably the Brotherhood and the motive was theft. It was never reported how much, if anything, had been taken.
I can confidently state now that the total taken was twenty-seven. Twenty-seven children taken to the new safe house; no members of Bràithreachas were lost.
Chapter 66
The house was not as large or as gracious as Galmpton Court, but Elmscott had taste. It reflected its owner perfectly. It was furnished in the modern style, and it managed to combine classic design with comfort. When you walked through the front doors, you knew you were in the house of a man confident in his world, a man who naturally acquired the best, sought out the best and worshiped only the best.
Martin Harrison surrounded himself with beautiful things because he understood beauty better than anyone else. The ugly, the cheap and the tasteless had no place in his home. If he could not find the best and most beautiful of its kind then he would rather leave an empty space. The house personified the Madison ideal. Nothing marred the senses or disturbed the eye.
The house was simply beautiful.
It was still early evening, but Harrison had already gone to bed. Someone had had to come and interrupt him. He was called out from his guest bedroom. This was part of a series of rooms hidden in one wing of the house that could only be accessed through a secret door. Very few people knew of the existence of the door or the suite of rooms. Harrison called it his Special Place.
He came out, dressed in a deep-blue silk dressing gown. As he walked into the bedroom annex, he could feel the soft texture against his skin, but he hardly noticed. He was not pleased; he was furious. He stood in front of his manservant, Wilson, and scowled.
‘How many discards taken?’ he asked.
‘All of them, sir, twenty-seven.’
He swore under his breath. He rarely swore, especially in front of inferiors. ‘Get out!’ he muttered.
Wilson left quickly.
Harrison could feel the fury inside him rise up. He needed to release his anger, not just anger either but his loathing and disgust. He walked back into his special bedroom, the woman on the bed had not moved. She could not move. She was tied to the bed by her wrists and ankles. He stared at her. She was young and beautiful but damaged. She was a whore. He had picked her up that night.
He walked up to her. He had put the bridle on her. He liked the look; he thought it made her look more beautiful, more damaged, more of what she was: a base substrata. He sat on the bed and gazed at her, running his fingers across her naked body. She watched him, his every move, fear in her eyes.
‘Have you heard of a man called Matrix?’ asked Harrison softly.
Her eyes expressed puzzlement.
‘He’s not so much a man, as an animal,’ he whispered, ‘a beast.’ He ran his fingers along her legs. ‘Have you heard of him? Is he your god?’ Quickly she shook her head – too quickly he thought. He lashed out with his whip. It struck her face, creating a long thin red strip across her cheek and the bridge of her nose. ‘The truth, you whore!’ he screamed.
She began to sob again. She had cried a lot that evening. She had cried when he had tied her down, when he had placed the bridle on and when he had fitted the breaking irons. She had cried when he had spiked her; he always used a spiked condom. He was tired of her crying. She was typical substrata: always complaining. She worked in the sex industry, it was her choice and now she wept.
He wanted her to stop crying. He wanted her to be quiet. He lifted up the whip again and began to strike her across the face and shoulder, her breasts and then her thighs and legs. He struck her again and again. Once he had started, he couldn’t stop. It was always like this; he could never stop.
‘Stop crying!’ he shouted. ‘Stop your whining!’
She cried even more, and he beat her even more. He beat her until his arm was too tired and she had
fallen silent. He beat her and then he knelt down beside her beautiful body, and at last he wept, and with the tears came release.
‘I have a dream,’ he whispered to her still body. ‘I dream about this man, this wolf man with yellow eyes. He comes into my house. He stands in my living area and he watches me with his yellow eyes. I can see him, and I do nothing to stop him entering my house. For some reason, I’ve let him in. For some reason, he’s here in my house, walking up to me, and I do nothing. He’s smiling at me with his yellow teeth and he’s coming closer. I want to run away from him. He’s been haunting me since I was a child. I’ve been afraid of him for so long, and I cannot move. He moves right up close to me, reaches out his hand and touches my chest. I know what he’ll do. He’ll do what he always does. My chest is made of liquid and he plunges his hand into it as if it were simply a pool of water. He takes my heart in his dirty hands, he holds it and he twists it! It hurts so much! And I am so afraid!’
Harrison collapsed with a sob. ‘He is the wolf man and he comes into my dreams and steals them away, leaving a world of nightmares! He can see right through me with his yellow eyes, his cold, yellow, demon eyes!’
Harrison sat slumped on the bed for a moment, exhausted by his emotion.
He staggered to his feet. He pressed a switch by the side of the bed and his manservant, Wilson came running in. ‘Put the whore back out in the street,’ he said. ‘Make sure that she tells the Brotherhood who beat her senseless.’ He walked out of the room.
No one had the courage to tell him that the whore was dead.
Chapter 67
Sonia had disappeared. I knew she had disappeared because something of mine was also missing. I went to visit the doctor, just to check. He was standing at his desk. His last patient had just left.
‘She’s gone,’ I said.
The Dream Catcher Diaries Page 42
