by Guy N Smith
‘Simon!’ Ron Blythe stepped forward. ‘Thank God! I've been searching all over the place for you.’
‘Have you? Were you really bothered?’ Simon Blythe sank down into an armchair, fatigue flooding over him. ‘Don't try to kid me. Don't come the sloppy stuff now. You couldn't give a shit about anybody but yourself.’
Ron Blythe controlled his rising anger and his contempt for his brother. Now that the chips were down for everybody, feuding was not going to help anyone.
‘I wanted to find you,’ he said. ‘I tried telephoning the hospital. All the lines are jammed.’
‘The hospital!’ Simon gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, God, you ought to see it. It's like a bloody doss house. People lying in the corridors. No beds. Precious few blankets. Lying on old coats, sacks, anything. Nobody bothering with them. There's corpses, too. One in ten, maybe. Not even laid out. Left there just as they died. Folks spewing over each other. Nurses and doctors, too. They've had to call in the army to hold off the crowds. People are trying to break in, in the hope of getting treatment, and others are attempting to loot the kitchens. The soldiers shot a guy, only yards from where I was standing. A kid. An ordinary decent boy. He wasn't doing anything except arguing, demanding that they let him through with his ten year-old sister. They warned him. Oh, Jesus, they warned him, all right. “Piss off, you poxy bastard or we'll blow your fucking guts out.” He stood his ground, so one of the swines just gave it to him, a rifle bullet in the stomach. The kid was writhing and screaming blue murder so the bastard shot him again. Blew half his bloody head off! That's what's happening out there, Ron. It's taken me two days to get back here from Bordesley Green. You're like a hunted animal out there. Soldiers in armoured cars touring the streets, breaking up the crowds, opening fire at the slightest excuse. Then there's the looters. I watched 'em strip a guy of his clothing, then kick hell out of him in the gutter. You've got to hide, bide your time. Sometimes it takes you several hours to travel a hundred yards.’
‘What about … did you see, Cathy?’ Ron's lower lip trembled as he asked the question.
‘Oh, yes. Oh, God, yes. I saw her!’ Simon covered his face with his hands as he spoke. ‘Along with the rest of 'em. Took me hours to find her. I was in the hospital before the troops arrived. I hunted the wards and corridors, along with everybody else. Everybody calling out the name of the one they were searching for. There must have been a dozen Cathys lost in there. Then I found her, just when I'd given up.’
Simon lapsed into silence, reliving the nightmare, seeing Cathy again.
‘The beds were all full when they got there with her.’ His voice rose to a hysterical pitch. ‘So they'd put her in a store room behind the kitchens. That was where they took 'em all until they couldn't get any more in. A Black Hole of Calcutta. Some of the victims had crawled on top of others, maybe seeking comfort. Oh, God, there was a guy on top of Cathy. A drop out. A meths drinker. A dirty stinking wretch of humanity. He'd undressed her, was trying to … I don't know which of them died first …’
Simon Blythe's voice tailed off, and he began to sob uncontrollably, seeing the scene again, his own helplessness to intervene.
‘Unrecognisable,’ he concluded, his voice barely audible. ‘I wish I … hadn't found her.’
Suddenly Simon lurched to his feet and went into the kitchen. Ron heard the clinking of crockery in the cupboards, a loud crash as a cup fell and smashed on the sink unit. Cursing. A mug being filled from the tap, water still running whilst Simon drank. Filled again. Drank.
Ron Blythe took a deep breath. It was obvious that his brother was now a victim. Indeed, it would have been a miracle if he had escaped.
‘Ron. Whatever you do … don't … drink the water.’ Simon returned to the doorway, barely able to stand.
‘Just like you haven't been doing, eh?’ Make light of it. Treat him like a delirious child.
‘Doesn't matter for me any more, old son. I've had it. My guts are trying to eat their way out, and I've been drinking from the gutters, too. Wanted to get back here before I died.’
Ron nodded. There was nothing else to say. He watched his brother making for the stairs, negotiating them one at a time, clinging to the banisters with both hands, not looking back. Crawling by the time he reached the landing.
Ron began to consider his own position. He had to get back and rejoin the action committee. Not that anything would be achieved by his return. Lengthy meetings. Ridiculous suggestions and theories. Back to square one and starting all over again. In fact, there was no point in returning. Far better to escape - only much more difficult. Head north. Rejoin Margaret. No point in that either. She was still at her mother's. And he didn't want to go there. The two of them were all washed up, and had been for a long time.
He wandered outside, standing in the small neat garden, the afternoon sun slanting on to him through the bare branches of a syringa bush. In the distance he could hear a roar, a multitude of voices like a football crowd yelling insults at the referee. A token figure, the law, on a rectangle of green grass. That was how it was now in this city. The crowd versus the law. The poisoned water was the opposition, a strong visiting team that was well in the lead and dictating the play. And it would be the winner when the final whistle blew.
Ron Blythe walked down the short drive and out into the empty road without looking back. Simon would not have thanked him for going upstairs and, in any case, there was nothing he could do. Short of brutally despatching the sufferers, they were best left to die alone. In agony. Every single one of them.
He walked on, not hurrying, and eventually came to a main street. A crowd was gathered around a man perched on an upturned wooden box. Gesticulating wildly, the speaker was constantly pointing skywards. Ron smiled wryly. A few weeks ago this unorthodox preacher would have been either ignored or else ridiculed. Now people turned to him: a saviour. They would have followed a horned devil into hell if it had meant escape from Birmingham.
Blythe stood listening for a few minutes. Not that he was interested in the sudden turning to God in this hour of need. He was no hypocrite, whatever else his faults. He was also an atheist. He simply welcomed a brief respite to look around him.
Suddenly a crashing and splintering of glass interrupted the speaker. Heads turned. Further up the street two longhaired youths had thrown bricks through the window of a supermarket. Heedless of the jagged glass stalactites and stalagmites they reached inside, dragging out a wooden crate filled with bottles. Mineral water or beer, the contents were immaterial to them. Only one thing mattered: it wasn't local water.
They began to run off in the opposite direction, each holding one of the handles, the weight bending them double. Barely fifty yards further on they pulled up, glancing around, dropping the crate so that it toppled over and bottles rolled across the pavement.
A green and brown camouflaged armoured car swung round the corner from an intersecting side street, four steel-helmeted soldiers sitting upright, the driver crouched over the steering wheel. All four carried automatic rifles.
The man behind the wheel saw the youths crossing the road, pointed, and accelerated. The vehicle picked up speed immediately, swerving to head them off.
The looters checked their flight, standing in the middle of the road, expressions of sheer terror on their faces. Their arms went above their heads in a pleading gesture of surrender. But in this war no prisoners were taken. Quarter was asked, but not given.
Four raised rifles, steady in spite of the careering truck, drawing their beads. Single trigger pressures. A volley of shots rolled into one, building up to a crescendo, then dying away as the towering buildings took up the echoes and gradually released them.
Both men were thrown backwards by the force of tree striking bullets, bloody holes disintegrating the faces, torn jugular veins stifling the screams. Dead before they hit the ground, the two landed together, one on top of the other.
The car did not slow. The driver had picked his mark with unerring accuracy,
the front offside wheel crushing the heads simultaneously, the rear one ballooning the abdomens,, bursting stomach walls and shooting the tortured intestines out, bloody human offal that became caught up in the exhaust system, trailing crimson ribbons; on past the horror-stricken crowd that had been interrupted in its prayers for salvation, then lost to sight as the military peace keepers headed on to the parallel main A38 road, leaving a double line of bloodstained tyre marks in their wake.
Ron Blythe walked steadily on, pausing only to pick up an unbroken bottle. He stared at the label, and put it back where he had found it.Detergent! In their panic the two men had taken the nearest crate. Like many others, they had died for nothing.
All around, in this city of death, people were dying needlessly, not all from the effects of Weedspray.
A determined effort had been made following the carnage on the Aston Clearway to clear up the bodies and transport them to any available mortuaries. The death toll was at this stage in its infancy throughout other parts of the city. There was still a semblance of normality before events plunged into the depths of the unreal. Attempts were being made to identify victims and inform relatives. That was what worried Benny Wilkes.
Benny Wilkes had been called into the manager's office many times during his far from illustrious career in banking. He knew the signs only too well. The stern expression on the face of Withers, the chief clerk, whose small deep-sunken eyes failed to hide his gloating expression. Then followed the ten minute wait on the chair outside Russell's office. That was all part of the tactics - to demoralise. The chair was so situated that everybody in the office had full view of it: another strategical move. The miscreant would be well and truly conditioned by the time the pompous bank manager decided to see him; even with the banks closed to the public.
Monday morning, though, it was different. Close on midday, just as Benny was wondering how things had gone, Withers sidled up to him on the counter.
‘Mr Russell wants to see you.’ His voice was subdued, almost regretful.
Benny nodded. He had been expecting this for the past half-hour. Indeed, he was beginning to get worried when nothing happened. Now was the time for acting. It shouldn't be too hard.
‘Sit down, Mr Wilkes.’ There was a gravity and genuineness in the manager's tone, something quite out of character with the man. Russell seated himself behind his desk, toying with his rimless spectacles, removing them, putting them back on, and then pushing them up on to his forehead. He ran his fingers through his thinning grey hair, and for once in his life he was lost for words, uncertain of himself.
‘I … er … I'm afraid … I've … got some very bad news for you.’ Having made a start he seemed to gain confidence. ‘It's your father. There was a multi pile-up on the Clearway this morning. Ghastly. I'm … I'm sorry to tell you that your father was killed in it!’
Benny Wilkes dropped his head into his hands. He had to … in order to hide his expression of exultation. He gave an audible sob. It was one of relief. Then he heard Russell get to his feet, and come round behind him. A hand best described as ‘friendly’ dropped on to his shoulder. That only served to add to the part he was playing.
Benny looked up, a vacant expression on his face. That was the best way. Act as though he was numbed. He had read that that was the first natural reaction to grief.
‘I'll ask Miss Watson to bring you a cup of tea,’ the manager said, opened the door of his room, and gave some instructions to the pretty young junior typist.
A cup of hot sweet tea arrived in less than five minutes. Still Benny had not uttered a word. He was trembling. He couldn't help it. His plan had worked. He had nothing to worry about … unless the police discovered signs of the steering on the 1100 having been tampered with! He blanched at the thought and then with a shaking hand he raised the cup to his lips.
‘You'd better go home.’ It gave him a feeling of triumph to reduce Russell to sympathy. Doubly satisfactory because it was all by his own efforts. ‘I'll call a taxi for you! I think I can still get one, even in a time like this, by using my influence.’
It was getting better every minute. Benny knew that already he had killed several birds with one stone. The old man was out of the way for good. Russell was forced to show a streak of kindness, and to top it all he was being offered a free taxi ride at the expense of the bank!
‘Thank you,’ he gulped, swallowing the rest of his tea. Russell disappeared, and then returned a couple of minutes later with Benny's coat over his arm. He held it whilst the cashier struggled into it. Benny fumbled, taking his time. This he was really savouring!
Home by 1.30 pm, Benny had a spring in his step as the taxi drew away, and he entered the drive. His lips were pursing into a whistle, but it never materialised. He came to an abrupt halt, almost as if he had walked into an invisible brick wall. His stomach contracted and then, without warning, he was vomiting on to the wallflowers in the adjacent border. His senses were reeling. He felt as though he was about to faint, retching his guilt in full view of the two police officers who were sitting in the panda-car in front of the house.
This was it! It was all over before it had begun! Benny Wilkes would be the most short-lived murderer ever to have gloated over his deed. He heard their approaching footsteps, but he dared not look up. The hand was on his shoulder. He was about to sayAll right. It was me. I did it. I'll confess the lot, but his words were drowned in his heaving.
‘Take it easy, sir!’ The second policeman secured a grip on Benny's left arm. The clerk fought against the red haze which threatened to envelope him. He had seen them arrest murderers on the TV in this manner.Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you. He waited for the words
‘It must have been a terrible shock for you, sir,’ they said as they were leading him back towards the house. He looked for the handcuffs, but there was no sign of them. Probably they thought he wasn't the violent type. A ‘friendly’ interrogation first, just to make him give himself away. There would be no need. He'd tell them now. Get it over with. They couldn't hang him. Five years, with time deducted for good conduct, :and he'd be free again. Even prison would be preferable to the bank!
‘I … I …’ he fought to get the confession out through trembling lips.
‘Your mother's upstairs,’ the larger of the two men was saying, a sergeant with a broad ruddy complexion, who poured a cup of tea out of a pot which had been mashing for some time, and passed it to him. ‘Lying down on the bed,’ he went on, motioning to Benny to sit down. ‘Shock. Only natural. Same as yourself. The woman from next door is with her.’
Benny looked at them vacantly. They were playing some kind of game with him. Let them, then, the bastards! No, he wouldn't give it to them on a plate. Let them find out for themselves. He looked up, his lips clamped firmly together.
‘It was a terrible accident,’ the sergeant went on. ‘One of the worst ever, in these parts. You read about them in the papers, see them on the telly, but when you're actually called out to one it's enough to put you in the asylum for a spell.’
‘What caused it?’ Benny cursed himself the moment he realised what he had said. A hardened murderer would never askthat!
‘Bald tyres.’ The sergeant seemed embarrassed. ‘On your father's car, I'm sorry to say. He must've braked, skidded, and gone across into the path of the oncoming vehicles. ‘Which brings me to the point, sir, of why we're here. Itwas your father's 1100. We know that much. But … well … he hasn't beenofficially identified, if you see what I mean. One of the other motorists who pulled up at the scene of the accident recognised the vehicle, but … he refused to look inside the wreckage. Can't say I blame him, either! But the fact remains that we've still got to have an official identification!’
Benny Wilkes felt his senses reeling again, but this time for a different reason. They hadn't even connected it withmurder. The bald tyres were the red herring, and maybe they wouldn't even look any further. And, on top of all that, they were actually i
nviting him to go and inspect the results of his work! He felt as though he wanted to leap to his feet, and yell outI've done it. I've done it. I've killed the old bastard, and fooled you all!
But he wasn't out of the wood yet.
‘All right,’ he nodded. ‘I'll do it.’
‘It … might not be all that easy.’ The sergeant looked down at his boots awkwardly. ‘There isn't much … well, it isn't a pretty sight, sir!’
Benny nodded again. He hoped it would be as gruesome as the other was hinting.
‘I'll just see how mother is,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘then I'll be with you.’
‘Take your time.’ The other seemed relieved at his cooperation. ‘There's no hurry.’
No, Benny turned his face away to hide his smile. There's no hurry. He'll keep … on ice!
Mrs Wilkes turned her head as Benny entered the darkened room. He nodded to Mrs Thomson, and she got up to go out, but he motioned to her to stay.
‘I shan't be a minute, Mrs Thomson,’ he said. ‘I've got to go with the policemen, but I shan't be away long.’
All three of them were thinking the same thing. He'd got to go and see if he could recognise any of the bits in the mortuary.
His mother's gaze met his. Her eyes were sunken, but there were no tears. No grief even. In a few hours she would have pulled herself together. He wished he could tell her. She'd understand. Maybe one day he would. For the present, though, it was best that she remained in complete ignorance.
Then he went back downstairs to the waiting policemen.
Benny Wilkes had an inbuilt fear of mortuaries. He'd only ever seen them in films. Corpses laid out on slabs, covered by sheets, a foot or a hand protruding here and there, groans, trapped wind trying to escape - you knew what it was, but you still wanted to run until your legs gave out.
This mortuary wasn't like that at all, though. It was more like the linen room at Wilmington College: all drawers and cupboards, numbered and filed. The sergeant and the attendant made straight for drawer number 67. Benny was puzzled. It was smaller than the one in the dresser in his room.
