The Desolate Garden

by Daniel Kemp

  The death of these poor animals was a secondary consideration to the abject mutilation, leaving the owners with no choice but to execute the animals, in order to stop the terrible suffering they endured from such evil attacks. The stories I was told were horrific. None was more so than the one relating to a child who found her pet, which had been left out in the paddock, recovering from sedation but not and never to recover from the contemptible damage inflicted by a chainsaw. The animal was left to lie in agony, waiting for a humane end.

  I approached the Chief Constable with the aim of asking for more help, more patrols, a more obvious presence as a way of deterrence and for the prevention of these heinous crimes. I quoted the opening sentence of his own Police Instruction Book: 'The primary purpose of a police constable is the prevention of crime.' I will admit that, at that stage of our conversation I was far from calm and conciliatory. I had listened to his category of higher priorities and his repeated statements of understaffing due to underfunding, not enough petty cash for such unfortunate things - his phrase and choice of words, not mine. I had, as they say, lost my cool.

  “What do you, and all the others idiots like you do on a weekend, then? Watch the news on the television and say, ah, what a shame, what is this world coming to? Perhaps you are more comfortable discussing the number of parking tickets issued, and how many more local shops have had to close as a consequence of that process? Why don't you and your cronies do some policing for a change, and earn your keep, protecting people instead of interfering with them?”

  He wasn't too pleased with my suggestion, nor with the actions I proposed to take when he would not budge from his stated position.

  “In that case, if you won't help us, we'll help ourselves and on your head be it if someone gets killed!”

  That appendix of mine, about someone being killed, didn't help my case when I was arrested for attempted murder. I had fired two rounds in the air and then at a pickup truck Jack Jeffries and I found on his land as it made off, dumping a chainsaw from its open tail gate. I, naively, reported the incident that Saturday at three in the morning after trying to chase the truck, but by the time we had reach our own vehicle it was long gone, perhaps luckily. I gave the police its registration number then returned home, thinking no more about it, until Joseph woke me at ten.

  I was charged, and held in custody, until I appeared in a Magistrates court for bail proceedings on the Monday morning. When the charge was put to me I pleaded not guilty, and my solicitor argued that there was no case to answer. I had fired my service pistol, for which I held a licence, on private property, with the owner's permission. The alleged intended victim could not be found, the number on the truck was false, and my service records showed that, had I wanted to kill someone that night, my ability with a gun would have meant that whoever it was would be dead. Paulo was right in his assumption that I would have made an expert marksman, I had done the course.

  It was a convincing argument professionally put and keenly listened to by the Magistrate, who, after declaring his knowledge of me and my background, and the circumstances surrounding the event with the effects that it had brought to the community, dismissed the case, censoring the Police in bringing such a matter to his court.

  “It is my opinion that the defendant has every right to raise a civil procedure for wrongful arrest and imprisonment against the police authorities who have dealt with this abominably. Surely a degree understanding should have prevailed in this case before the use of the law with all its wide ramifications, and the time of this court, were required? In such a matter, the attempted murder of another, a senior officer would have to authorise this action. I will have the name and rank of that officer delivered to the clerk's office by midday. If you have nothing else to waste my time on?”

  He glanced at the prosecutor's bench, where the representative from the Crown Prosecution Service simply shook his head. “Then I dismiss this case. You are free to go.” He addressed this remark to me. Eyes fixed firmly on the uniformed senior police officer seated beside the advocate.

  I never did sue, nor did I send any flowers when Chief Constable Rainer was posted to the Northumberland Constabulary a few months after my court appearance. I had no reason to disrespect ordinary police officers going about their duty. I knew several personally and shared a drink with at the Spyglass and Kettle when, eventually, the two I fired at were caught for another offence, and admitted their guilt. However, I never forgot what was said many times whilst I was at Sandhurst: that the men under command are judged by the quality and competence of their officers, who are expected to exercise good sense at all times. In my view Rainer acted in an imbecile way, showing poor judgement and even less common sense.

  * * *

  The smell of grease mixed with boot polish and waxed jackets that invaded my nostrils as I greeted the Chief Inspector in charge of the armed blue-clad men of assorted sizes sitting around my gun room with their Hecklers, magazines still attached did nothing to alter my conviction.

  “Quite a collection you've got here, sir,” he remarked, attempting to engage me in conversation as he gazed at the gun cabinets.

  “Yes,” obliquely I replied, shaking his offered hand but declining to continue or offer an opinion on the competence of his group. Nor did I remark on their overzealous conditioning of their weapons. I simply walked away reminded of a different life when all was more clear and defined.

  “Never put grease on the outside of a Glock. It's made of a superior plastic, and it will slip from your sweaty palm the first time in action. The metal parts need a tender wipe, no more. Imagine you're stroking your lover's nipples for the first time…be gentle, gentlemen. Treat her as a lady would like to be treated, and if there are any amongst you who don't know how to treat a lady, it might be better that you transfer to the Navy; they have a lot of ladies there!” The staff sergeant would say, at weapons training.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Water Features

  Life changed suddenly for Igor Stanislovich Abishley, and it started as a river boat trip that the tourists who take it now marvel at. One of the reason Igor did not appreciate it in the same way was because the year was 1953, one year after the canal opened, and the land had yet to recover from the ravages of the siege. Another reason was more pertinent to the situation. Igor was only three years and eight months old and didn't appreciate much, other than the meagre food his mother fed him and the clothes that she found to clothe him in. Then, however, purely through the fault of lack of age, he never realised that the sacrifice Yelena made helped to keep him safe from the pneumonia epidemic that Stalingrad suffered that year.

  The elder Abishleys had experienced a rare war, and a common war. They had both survived, which was rare, and had lost loved ones, which was all too common. Their home, near the port, was one of the first to be hit by aerial bombing on the 23rd of August 1942, killing their two sons outright and burying Yelena beneath tons of rubble somewhere between the ground floor and the remains of the fourteen storey building. When her screams for help were heard, after four ceaseless days and nights of bombing and shelling, her left arm had to be severed at the shoulder before the gangrene, caused by the nails protruding from a shattered floorboard, travelled further into her body. She was reprieved from the sentence of death that she faced, but not the limitations in what little life was left open to her.

  The men in grey dusty overalls fed her half the rations of other workers, arguing that she only worked half as much as the others. Clothing, medicine, and water were also halved, as the men in the not-so-dusty grey overalls argued that she couldn't survive long because of her injuries, and more would be a waste.

  Stanislav, a river boat pilot by trade, helped his wife when he could. He scavenged and hoarded, like the rest of the conscripts, fighting each other over the scarce morsels that could be found. Dead Germans were, at first, a rare opportunity with pockets full of rations, but that lasted only a year or so, as the German sixth army was slowly starved into surrender
by their Herr Hitler. The parachutes that missed his army were another blessing to Yelena. She had friends who did not wear the authoritarian grey coats to cover their bones, but did have knives and scissors as arms and tools from Stalin's communist regime.

  Yelena and Stanislav outlived the war and brought a new life into the sorry downtrodden world in which they lived in the March of 1950. They were happy with each other, proud of the new born Igor, and content in the dreams they had for his future. Such is the way of Russians. They are proud, defiant, friendly dreamers, with a splattering of poets who fuel those dreams. But there were no poets watching when Yelena gave up her struggle for survival and fell beneath the hammer of that epidemic she had fought against to save Igor. Now it was Stanislav's role to deliver the salvation they had dreamt of. After saying goodbye to his wife, Stanislav piloted his river boat through the Volga-Don Canal, carrying his son concealed below the timber he ferried to the Sea of Azov and then on to Sevastopol.

  Stanislav knew Ibo Pasha well, and they had met many times at the site of one of the battles fought in the Crimea War. Their countries were friends now, not enemies as in the 1850s. Pasha was Turkish, hailing from Istanbul, and had access to the Western world where dreams came true, or so Stanislav had been told. Without exchanging a word Stanislav handed a canvas seaman's bag to the silent Pasha containing his son Igor. That trade, unseen by the Chekists in their wooden huts, was not for money but for a promise made by one man of honour to another. It was not the only thing exchanged that night between those two. Stanislav gave his friend a carefully sealed envelope, bearing his son's name on the front then broke the silence. “Whoever takes Igor, make sure that they disclose the contents of this to him when he is ready, Pasha. You must promise me this, on your children's lives.”

  Pasha never liked his shortened Christian name, finding it somewhat effeminate when mouthed by other men; he had a hang up about names. He had wanted for ages to fully embrace Islam, and change both names into something that he considered more dynamic and meaningful, like Abdullah or Mohammed; but the hectic life he led left little time already, let alone any spare to indulge himself in trivialities. He admired the English habit of addressing one another by their surnames. He found that convention respectful and dignified and adopted that mode for himself, as, in his own opinion, he had both of those English attributes.

  Some, like Stanislav, and there were many likeminded, thought Pasha the most honest man on earth. Others within the many legations found in Istanbul viewed him suspiciously, but all were well aware of his worth to them. He spoke Turkish, Greek and English exceptionally well, with enough knowledge of French, German and Albanian to understand and communicate.

  Pasha passed Stanislav a note, because Stanislav earned money from the KGB. That's how Yelena beat the odds and stayed alive as long as she did and that's why the Chekists turned a blind eye but discovered two other children hidden on the river boat 'Alanta', and that's why Igor ended up where he did. As well as the qualities previously ascribed to the Russian race, adaptability should be added; the adjustment to differing conditions had been inbred in that nation's people from the beginning of time.

  * * *

  The infant Igor Abishley was placed in the loving care of the Consul, the head of the British Consulate in Istanbul. This man was a career diplomat destined, he believed, to become an Ambassador not continually travelling from one consulate to another dealing with bureaucratic issues of Brits abroad, or Turks wanting to live or trade with Britain. He wanted to leave this transient life and settle permanently in one part of the world to enjoy what that world had to offer him. He was forty years of age, aesthetically missable, and socially definitely to be avoided at any cost. He had forfeited some of that dream when he lost his wife and son to heart failure, following a severe illness of diphtheria. It had been at a time when he was happy as the Cultural Attaché at the British Embassy in Tehran. Here in Istanbul, after months of compassionate leave, he was morose, having little more than the graphic details of that loss with which to engage most of whom he met and conversed with.

  “One's throat becomes enflamed, and the neck swells out of all proportion…it's commonly known as the 'bull neck disease.' It stops sufficient air getting to the vital organs, particularly the heart, as in the case of Mildred and Robert, our son. The local Iranians are apparently hosts for the toxin as they've become immune over the years. They are working on a vaccine all over the world. One day, I suppose, it will be eradicated, but at the moment it's very contagious for us Westerners. They suffered dreadfully, you know, my wife and son. I have never got over their loss, and I don't think I ever will. I love them, you see, as if they're still with me,” he stated, not really knowing whether it was the audience he was trying to persuade, or himself. At that point our man would normally excuse himself from the gathering, finding a private place in which to grieve for the past; leaving the new recipient of awareness on the 'bull neck' syndrome wondering whether to follow and console, or run somewhere else in case the morbid conversationist returned.

  They say it takes up to five years to recover from a close bereavement, and that, almost to the exact month, was how long it took for the widower of Mildred to come out of his shell and venture into the unknown. His marriage, and most probably the pregnancy, had been ordained by others. His father had wanted him gone as soon as possible, he would often voice aloud, and although Mildred's father was more reticent, he felt the same reluctance of unending shelter and benevolence about her. The two had known each other since childhood, got on well enough for the parents' satisfaction, so why not? A father of one or a mother of another asked. Neither one of the inhibited couple could think of a reason not to comply; so, in St Margaret's Westminster, their knot was tied.

  “When are you going to give us a grandchild?” a doting parent on one side or the other enquired pontifically? Why not? they thought, and so they did.

  Mr English, the Consul, that's how Pasha referred to him, made his first and last attempt at seduction within earshot of the ever listening wannabe Muslim who would have preferred to have been deaf or, at least, not conscious of the balls-up his friend made.

  “Would you consider having sex with me and bearing my children?” Mr English asked a rather respectable, beautiful young Turkish girl, at a trade gathering held in the British Embassy. Then, as the girl who he had never spoken to before lost all colour in her face and seemed on the brink of fainting, Pasha thought of striking out at Mr English who hastily added, “for money, of course. I don't expect you to love me…heavens, no!” The shocked indigenous lady hit Mr English so hard that he spun uncontrollably into the Lady Ambassador, knocking her glass of champagne to the ground. All were distraught. The girl left hurriedly with her father, mouthing a torrid diatribe in the direction of the prostrate wounded figure, and Lady Ambassador called anxiously for another glass, asking, “What did that girl say?”

  Pasha knew that his friend, Mr. English, would never find happiness again if left to his own endeavours. He would be, more likely, murdered by an irate husband! So, he and Mr English came up with a plan, whereupon it was decided that Pasha would supply his willing youngest sister, aged twenty-one, to become the new Mrs English. A child would be procured and pronounced to be Pasha's nephew, the result of a previous fictional relationship of said sister, who now loved Mr English as far as the second star on the right and back again. The sentiment was shared ditto, with a capital D.

  * * *

  Ibo Pasha became, some twenty something years after this event, a fully fledged Muslim. He finally took the name of his liking: Abd-ul-Rahim, meaning Servant of the Merciful. His downfall was, ironically, connected to this choice.

  Although he held no aversion to change in his religious calling, he did in his way of work. He joined the jihad and the Mujahideen as his main employers at the Russians' instigation, before they invaded Afghanistan. The idea was, that he would serve by doing what he did best: telling secrets. However, within his new ultra-suspicious
brotherhood, it didn't work, he came up short, as he always had seemed to do. He was found out before he really began, and was shot, never living long enough to see Igor scale the heights he was destined for.

  Mrs English survived the boredom of her marriage by seeking and finding her solace from her husband's timidity elsewhere than their separate rooms and beds, satiating it often with a wide variety of lovers.

  * * *

  In 1970, at the world-weary age of twenty-four, Rudi Mercer came across the beautifully displayed Mrs English in Washington, DC, and quickly became the Adonis to her hungry Aphrodite. He was a willing and excited participant, never having had an older and more exciting lover before. He would possibly say there was no one like her ever again, if he was gallant enough, which must be doubted.

  “No wonder your old man looks worn out, Ceran. I envy him having had you all to himself. He's been a very selfish and inconsiderate bastard,” Rudi once said, exhausted, discourteously drawing on one of Mr English's scented Turkish cigarettes and not realising how true his words were. Ceran never enlightened him; she couldn't, because she was unaware of just who Mr English truly was. It had been him who had told of the American Thor missiles stationed in Turkey that were used, five years previously, in the secret bargaining that ended the Cuban crises. It was something that better placed people than Rudi never found out about, and they were not here lying next to the surrogate mother of Igor, the forthcoming arch enemy of Paulo and inciter of slayers of Patersons. Had they have been, the future would not have altered.