The Conspiracy Theorist

by Mark Raven

  What was he up to?

  Across the road the procession continued up to the church. It seemed they came from every retirement home in the South East. They came on sticks and artificial limbs, hobbling up the path. They came in wheelchairs with stout nurses in attendance. One of them came in a black London cab that an old gentleman told to wait. Not cheap, I thought.

  Unlike Sunny Prajapati, for Sir Simeon Marchant there was no memorial service, just this funeral as a single, obscure rite of passage. It seemed strange, given his war record.

  Still Jenny Forbes-Marchant did not arrive. The flow of mourners had stilled to a trickle, and then there were none. All that was left was a row of cars. No hearse had arrived. I decided to get out and join the congregation. It was too late now to do anything before the service.

  As I walked across the road, a man got out of a car. He could have been military, or a copper. But his manner was too polite, and familiar.

  ‘Mr Breckenridge.’

  ‘Mr Becket.’ the young lawyer said. It was as if he really did not want to interrupt me.

  He held out a mobile phone like he had just found it.

  ‘I have been asked to hand you this,’ he said. ‘There is only one number on it.’

  I took it. He passed me and walked through the lych-gate, taking his gloves off.

  I pressed the green button. There was one mobile number displayed. I pressed it. It was answered immediately.

  ‘Becket,’ the voice said. It was a South African accent. There was an unpleasant drawl to it. Like he had said ‘you piece of shit’ instead of my name. I decided not to use his.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just hold the line please.’

  I walked several paces away from the church gate. I could see the hearse approaching. On the phone, there was a sound like tape being ripped and a short yelp of pain.

  ‘Tom!’ she cried. ‘Tom, is that you?’

  The voice sounded angry too, but it was also transformed, so unlike her, thick with fear. It was Meg, but not Meg.

  I drove as I was told to without contacting anyone, without speeding and with due care and attention. There was no choice in the matter, no calculation, no planning. I just had to get to Meg as quickly as possible, and I would think what I needed to do after that. I was breathing hard. By going along with them, I knew I was breaking every rule in the book. But the book in question had been written by professionals, and I was no longer a professional. I was a victim, and victims followed their instincts. Besides what else could I have done? Talked to Richie or Singh? One of them would not have done anything and the other would not have known what to do. The dilemma of modern policing.

  So I drove as instructed. The A27 was busy but I knew I was under some sort of surveillance. They may not even intend to meet me. He had perhaps achieved his objective just by getting me away from Jenny Forbes-Marchant and asking difficult questions. I still did not know if Sir Simeon’s daughter was in on it. Right now I didn’t care. I just recalled the shock on her face as I drove away in my hire care. She was just getting out of a black Mercedes, resplendent in black herself, staring hard at me, open-mouthed. She did not seem complicit in Meg’s kidnapping, but it was hard to tell. And that did not mean she wasn’t involved in her father’s death. How can you fully understand a person’s motivations? But something deep inside me told me she was not guilty. She was not that good an actor. She wore her heart on her sleeve. And it was a pretty shallow heart too.

  Now it would all come out, whatever happened. It would now be impossible to bury it. But I could not think about that right now. I just had to get Meg free—and then I would worry about myself.

  I realised they must have picked me up there last night or this morning. Perhaps they even followed me to the hire car place in Paddington, realised I was going to the funeral, and doubled back to get her. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I could not leave it alone, as Meg said, and now she was paying the price. I beat the wheel with my hand.

  ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!’

  That about summed it up.

  North, as instructed. A steady fifty-five miles per hour, as instructed. I passed a garage, an abandoned factory, a rural railway station. But it was too soon. I needed to relax, be ready for the long game. These were professionals after all.

  The phone was propped up in front of me. A text came in.

  At next roundabout, go back the way you came. Full circle.

  I did as I was told. No other vehicle did the same. No one followed my hire car. I wondered how they were tracking me. Presumably via the phone Breckenridge had given me. Why had he given it me? How was he involved?

  Up ahead, the factory again, the garage...

  Another text.

  Pull in at train station. Park.

  I did. No one followed. I parked.

  Switch off engine.

  I obeyed and pocketed the keys. A train was pulling in at the station.

  Run 4 train!

  I got out of the car and raced up the ramp to the platform. The train was making a beeping noise like it was about to explode, the doors closed. I hit the flashing button and, to my huge relief, the doors opened. I squeezed through, before they changed their mind. I looked back at the empty car park, realising I had forgotten to lock the car. It is remarkable how you think of such inconsequential things at times of great stress.

  The carriage was almost empty. But none of the other passengers paid me the slightest attention. I was just another commuter who had nearly missed his train. I sat down, breathing hard. My heart doing a quick seven furlongs in my chest. The phone bleeped.

  Well done. AFI.

  Army speak: Await Further Instructions.

  I had little choice. I sat back. A jovial guard came along. I asked him what the final station on the line was. He told me and I bought a ticket, a single. I thanked him, realising I could barely talk. Perhaps I was having a heart attack? Perhaps this was how it came to you. He gave me a friendly tap on the shoulder and left me to it.

  Miles of countryside. I couldn’t really focus on it. Another text.

  Don’t think of using this phone for anything. We are monitoring it.

  I had already discounted borrowing someone else’s—who would I call, and what possible use would it do, Meg? —but it was important that they thought I would. And perhaps they thought there would be some point to it. There was a hint of weakness in that text. It no longer sounded like one voice. We are monitoring it. It had the classic feeling of dual command. I started to think through what they wanted from me. It could not be just keeping me away from Sir Simeon’s funeral, or Jenny Forbes-Marchant. There had to be more to it. And why was Miles Breckenridge involved?

  Another text.

  Get off at the next stop.

  I was the only person who did so. It was a deserted rural station, trees on three sides. A car park full of vehicles suggested it was a commuter stop on the way to London. The small ticket office was closed. I stood outside it, facing the car park. Security cameras looked down on me. I felt small, the pixelated image of a middle-aged man, out of breath, sweating, anxious. I could hear the birds singing, an express train whizzed past behind me making me jump.

  A black van with darkened windows pulled up across the car park. Well away from the CCTV. I checked the phone. I had not heard the text come in.

  Get in black van. Side door. Put phone in bin + weapons.

  Dropping the mobile in the rubbish bin, I lifted my jacket to indicate I was not carrying anything. I walked towards the van. I could not see inside. I opened the sliding door. As I did, two sets of arms reached out and grabbed me, pulling me inside like a sack of spuds.

  I felt about as useful.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They were thorough, professional and everything else they advertised on their website. This was REsurance at work and it was very reassuring for the free world to be protected by such assiduous defence contractors. Their experience in Iraq and sundry o
ther places, it seemed, had stood them in good stead. They handled me with the impersonality of true pro’s, like a piece of meat or a parcel that might explode in their faces. They did not risk knocking me out or sedating me. Two very strong arms grasped me in a bear hug—although that sounds too intimate a term—locking my arms at my sides. They removed my shoes, patted me down and emptied my pockets. I heard my lighter skitter across the metal floor of the van. They retrieved it. Leaving nothing to chance, I thought.

  Another person placed something over my head. At first I thought it was a hood, a coarse material like sacking, but it came all the way down to my waist and was secured there by a belt. They tightened it just above my wrists, winding me in the process. I was rolled over onto my front, and more air was knocked out of me. For a moment I couldn’t breathe and then I remembered it was the panic that did that to you. It was a physical reaction like being plunged into freezing water. My ankles were grabbed firmly, although I had no intention of kicking out, and they were secured by what felt like plastic ties. Then I was pushed away from them—job done—and I heard someone tap on the side of the van. The metal floor shuddered beneath me as we moved off. Slowly, sedately, not drawing attention to ourselves. If this was extraordinary rendition, it was, well, extraordinary.

  I told myself to take deep breaths, but every breath drew the sacking into my mouth. I tried to bring my hands up to remove it. But I couldn’t. They were locked there. Unable to help. I was unable to help myself. I choked, my eyes swam. I choked again, told myself not be so silly, and levelled off my breath. Something deep inside of me was ready to beg already. Just for some air. To seek out their eyes and beg. If only I could get this thing off my face. I cried out but heard my voice at once muffled and gasping like that of a drowning man. The van stopped. I heard the door slide and slam to. The body of the vehicle shook as it moved off again. And then, the sense that I was finally alone.

  I smelled exhaust fumes. Still I could not breathe properly. I felt the vehicle vibrate under me; we were travelling fast now. I imagined the van swerving down country lanes. I was thrown on my side. I choked again. It was impossible to breathe. I rocked. It was as if I was trying to get out of my own body. If only I could stop it. If only I could make it end. I wanted to beg and plead for the space to breathe, and had to make myself not even consider shouting out. If I did, I knew they would stop the van and tape the sack to my face. And it would be worse. The thing to remember, I told myself, is that it can always get worse.

  Something hardened in my chest, welling up within me. I blinked. I still could not see anything. I shuffled into a sitting position. I could feel the strap run underneath my groin. The van rocked and I hit the side. Something sharp banged into my leg. It was like a nail, or screw, or jagged piece of ridged metal. I pushed my leg onto it. I gasped. I pressed harder. It pierced the skin and almost felt like a relief; that there was a different type of pain. It took away the fear: the unreasonable fear of suffocating, the fact I could be left in this sack forever, till someone found me curled like a peat bog man, till they turned the exhaust fumes off.

  The fear came back in waves, like something leaping inside of me. I spat into the bag and felt the wetness on my face; like something within me scrabbling to be let out.

  I needed to get rid of the fear at all costs. Fear is the worst enemy, as it is inside you and as immutable as character or hard luck. So I pressed down harder on the metal and felt the blood run down my leg in a satisfying trickle. I felt the blood pooling above my sock and soaking into it. I kept pressing. Pressing the thing inside me down and out through my bloodstream.

  I yelped in pain, and found I could breathe again.

  I could breathe slowly. I could feel the sack wrinkle before me, but it was just a sack. No more than a piece of fabric on my face.

  I do not know how far we travelled. I concentrated on my breathing. It was the only thing that belonged to me. I refused to think about anything else. Where they were taking me I didn’t know. I had no training to cope with this. I had sent people on this sort of thing, and they came back full of beans, but with a certain haunted look in their eyes too. Most of us do not have to face an education in the most fundamental things, presumably on the basis that they will not happen to you. And yet death comes to us all. How do we keep our integrity or our dignity in the face of such things? Most of us are surrounded at such times by people only wanting to do us good—nurses, doctors, relatives, carers—but here I was, like Sir Simeon Marchant, confronted by those who have no moral sense, no barriers, no empathy, or understanding of what constituted civilised behaviour. How would I manage if I were dumped over a cliff, or into an open grave and earth piled on top of me?

  Breathe, I told myself. Don’t think, just breathe. They are professionals. If they wanted to kill you, they could have done it by now with no bother. They do not want to punish you, and if they did, they would want to do it face to face.

  A thought struck me. It was something I was ashamed of. I could barely whisper it into the darkness.

  ‘Meg?’

  My voice sounded high-pitched, scared. No answer.

  I said her name again. Not because I thought she was there in the van with me, but in order to get some steel back into my voice.

  ‘Meg?’

  That sounded better. It sounded like me. I breathed again. Slowly, in rhythm with the slowing vehicle.

  At last I heard the tyres scrunch on gravel as the van came to a squirming halt.

  The door slid open. Even through the sacking I could feel the sunlight. Nothing had ever been as welcome as that light. My senses were alive: my throbbing leg, far off a gull’s cry, the salty taste of my tears. I could not smell anything but the hessian. They stood me on the gravel like a rag doll. Someone commented that I had cut my leg.

  A voice said, ‘It’s not important.’ Then added, ‘But clean out the van.’

  The relaxed nature of their conversation angered me. I was just another job for them. They were like Parcel Force or that other one, the World’s Favourite Logistics firm, only their customer care left something to be desired. I felt like shouting at them, raging and spitting but it would have not done any good. I would have to wait to fill in their feedback form.

  They frogmarched me across the gravel, my curled up feet bumping against the stones. We stopped. I stood there, sagging at the knees. I was pulled back a few inches like we were playing blind man’s bluff. Again the cry of gulls. I looked up. A strong hand pushed my head down like a penitent’s. Sackcloth and ashes. A door creaked open and I was pushed inside. I stumbled into the darkness and fell over, colliding with something soft.

  ‘Get off me!’

  It was no more than a whisper, a hiss really, but it was Meg.

  ‘Meg, it’s me!’

  ‘Tom, untie me.’

  I levered myself onto my side. My shoulder hurt. I could smell her perfume. I could not tell you what the scent was. But it was her.

  ‘Listen, Meg. I’m tied up too.’

  I tried to touch her but my arms were still shackled at my sides. They ached, not from inactivity but because I wanted to hold her.

  ‘Where are you?’

  We edged closer. I heard her sob.

  ‘Thomas I can’t breathe too well.’

  I felt the fear multiply inside of me. We were no longer human. What had been bearable suddenly was not. It was ridiculous. We were both lying like parcels on the floor in the semi-darkness. I found a wall and edged myself upright. The wall felt like wood, wooden slats like a shed, and gave a little as I steadied myself.

  I yelled at the top of my voice. I don’t know what I shouted or what it sounded like. I was deafened by the sound of my own fear. But I felt better. The energy flowed out of me and for a moment I felt I could breathe fully again. But then the illusion was gone. And what was left was helplessness and guilt.

  I could hear Meg sobbing below me. I could not touch her or comfort her so I kept yelling, kicking at the wall until I fell
over again. I sat with my back to the wall edging closer to her until our shoulders met. She flinched.

  ‘Meg!’

  ‘What is it?’ she hissed back.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She laughed bitterly.

  ‘You’re sorry!’

  I tried to laugh but it was hollow. Empty of everything but fear. I tried to control my voice. I could not allow her to see me defeated.

  ‘Meg, did you see their faces?’

  ‘No, they wore masks. I was walking past a van on the way to work. I thought they were delivering something. They pushed me in. Then they put me in this thing. What is this thing? I can’t move my arms. I can’t see you.’

  ‘Some kind of restraint vest, I’d guess.’

  ‘Why have they put it on us?’

  ‘So we don’t know who they are. That’s good.’

  ‘Good?’ she said. ‘I want to know who they are, Thomas. I want to know who is doing this to me.’

  ‘The point is we can’t identify them.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Carstairs said the men who attacked me had been released on bail.’

  ‘And you knew that? Last night?’

  ‘No,’ I said, thinking I should have. I should not have trusted Richie. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  She was silent again for a few minutes. I could hear her breathing heavily.

  ‘Meg? Meg, are you..?’

  ‘So is it them, Thomas?’

  ‘I think so. I just don’t know why Marchant’s lawyer is involved. He handed me the phone...’

  ‘Tom, I'm not that interested in why we are here. Just when are they going to let us go.’

  ‘I don’t know. They will probably let you go now I am here.’

  She was quiet for a minute or two. I wondered if I had said the right thing. I thought about saying something else. But I would probably only make it worse.