Whenever he recalled the horrors that he had witnessed during that period, it always seemed to be condensed into a single moment. Not the endless trail of men, both young and old, who were taken behind the white house to the accompanying staccato of gunfire. Not when a young mother was told to silence her baby and, when she could not, it was taken from her and its throat was cut. Not the little boy’s head paraded on a Serbian knife, with the screaming mother behind holding his headless corpse. Not the unborn baby torn from its mother’s belly and dashed on the tarmac. It was his mother in her sable fur coat, that always made her look like she was on her way to the opera, running to the side of her neighbour’s daughter Jasmina, who had been surrounded by Serbian soldiers, and begging them to leave her alone. Then he had watched her run to a Dutch soldier, who stood nearby with headphones on, and begged him to intercede, while Jasmina was lifted from the ground by three of the soldiers and raped by the fourth.
He did not remember any sound, as if he had worn the headphones and they had played emptiness, whilst his mother lay at the feet of the Dutchman, silently screaming in her sable coat.
He unlocks the car with the remote and walks to the boot. No sooner has he opened the latch than the boot flies open, almost catching him in the face, and a pair of tied-together legs kick out at him violently. He steps back, takes the Glock out of his jacket, then catches the feet with one of his enormous hands and points the gun into the boot, right at the junk’s face. The struggling stops immediately. He lets go of the feet and, with the gun still pointing into the boot, he raises his left index finger and shakes it in silent admonishment. He puts the hood back on the junk’s head, pulling the strings around the neck. He puts the gun away, grabs the junk’s ankles with both hands and pulls him out of the boot in one swift lifting motion that ensures his hands, which are tied behind his back, do not catch on the edge of the boot. Lowering the junk’s covered head to the floor, he gently lays him out flat on his back. He checks the boot and, once satisfied that there are no stains or damp patches, he closes and locks it. He picks up the junk under the arms and flings him over his shoulder, walks round to the back of the house, past the swimming pool and, ducking slightly to get his huge frame – plus body on shoulder – under the veranda, he opens the access door to the basement, where Mr Kent is sitting on a wooden chair waiting for him. He puts the junk on the chair in front of Mr Kent and then, in response to Mr Kent’s nod, removes the hood.
“Cigarette?” says Mr Kent, “No? Mind if I do? I’m trying to quit, but you know… Have you ever been scuba diving? No? Can’t say it ever appealed to my tastes in particular either, but it’s my daughter you see, she got me into it. She’s an adventurous one that one; must get it from her mother, I suppose. It certainly doesn’t come from me, anyway; I’m more of a creature comforts man myself. Can’t see the point in trekking off to all these God-forsaken places to see what’s right under your nose. But her: started out with the Brownies, then it was the Guides, then she was off on the Duke of Edinburgh Award – have you heard of that? Probably originated in Scotland, judging from the name. Anyway, in case you’re not in the know, it’s a sort of outdoor pursuits scheme, y’know orienteering and so on. Then after that it was Operation Raleigh. She did a selection weekend up in the Malverns and this wasn’t just a camping weekend, let me tell you, this was proper SAS shit: skinning rabbits, swimming across half-frozen lakes, eating termites, you name it. So anyway, she’s one of the two percent who get selected to go on to the next stage and the following year she is sent off to Borneo to build tracks in the jungle and monitor sea slug populations on the reef and so on. Well, whilst she was out there, me and the missus happened to be in the vicinity, so we dropped in to see how she was getting on and that’s when she convinced me to sample the life aquatic. There’s a tiny little island off the east coast of Borneo called Sipadan – it’s meant to be the best dive site in the world. It’s basically a column of rock rising 400m from the sea floor, with a tiny little desert island on the top. You drop into the sea and then drift down the sea wall and let the currents carry you along and oh my God, it is amazing.” Mr Kent leans forward excitedly. “Virgin reef, turtles everywhere, huge shoals of fish every colour of the rainbow – triggers, jacks, groupers, barracuda, parrot fish, moray eels, stingrays, you name it; but the ones which interested me the most were the sharks and, let me tell you, there was thousands of ‘em. The main ones that you see are the reef sharks – black tips and white tips. Generally, close to the reef, they tend to be small, four or five feet at the most. Sharks of this size have a certain look about the face. They’re very smooth and streamlined, and reminiscent of their little cousins, the dogfish. They’re not particularly scary. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t offer them a bleeding finger – little dogs can still bite – but you don’t fear for your life when these guys are swimming around. It’s when you drift away from the reef and out into the blue that you start to see the bigger sharks – six, seven, eight feet long – and these are the ones you don’t turn your back on. When they get to this size, something in the shark’s face changes; they lose that smooth innocence of youth and take on a bulky, more angular appearance. The jaws seem to take on a life of their own and, instead of that neat rounded line on the underside of the head, the rows of teeth that keep marching out over the years leave that mouth hanging open more often than not, twitching like toned muscle. But it’s the change in the eyes that really gets your heart pumping that little bit harder. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul and there is a darkness to a big shark’s eyes, as if the accumulation of death that it metes out over the years has blackened its soul.”
“Look at me, Mr Henderson.” The junk starts to wriggle and cry out muffled shouts through his gag at the mention of his name. “Hold him. Look into my eyes, Mr Henderson, and tell me, how dark do these eyes look, because I’m beginning to wonder if the same thing will happen to a human as happens to the shark.”
The internal door to the basement opens and Ig walks quietly in. He stands very still for a moment surveying the scene.
“Mr Kent?” Mr Kent turns and Ig beckons him over with a finger. They huddle for a moment and then Mr Kent can be audibly heard to say, “Run that by me one more time Ig, there’s a good lad.” Ig leans in and whispers to him again. Mr Kent turns and looks at the junk for a moment, then raises a finger and with a reassuring smile says:
“Be right with you.”
Mr Kent turns and looks at Bernard. The smile has gone. He says, “Got a second for me, Bernard?” He walks over.
“When Ig told you to go and grab the guy in the hat after the match, what sort of hat was the guy that you grabbed wearing?” says Mr Kent quietly.
“A big Mexican hat,” says Bernard.
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Is there a problem, Mr Kent?”
“Yes, there’s a big fucking problem my friend. You’ve got the wrong guy!”
Bernard flashes pale and red as blood rushes from and to different parts of his face. Someone else must have made a mistake. He doesn’t make mistakes.
“I promise that was the guy wearing the Mexican hat. Honestly…”
Mr Kent looks at him for a long moment.
“Where’s the hat, Bernard?”
He struggles to control his anger.
“It fell off when I grabbed him, I swear Mr Kent…” he says, hating every obsequious intonation in his voice.
“Enough, we don’t have time for this. Bag ‘im and dump ‘im, then you and Ig best get crackin’ and find me my grocer.” The fact that Mr Kent keeps his temper, stays calm, even though he is clearly very angry, makes Bernard’s humiliation worse. He is boiling with the injustice of the situation. He wants to say something else, but what can he say? He turns and walks back towards the junk, who is looking at him and smiling under the gag.
“What are you smiling at?” he says and launches his fist into the junk’s face. His head snaps back with a sickening cr
ack.
A silence follows the noise. Bernard’s back remains turned to Mr Kent and Ig, but even so he knows that they can see the light playing across the contours of his face reflected in the sable-black glass of the small window that looks across the pool. He sees the fear and surprise in their faces. The muscles in his face contract against his will beneath the naked bulb.
Bernard stands in silence and the dark window yawns.
Scarf
Ted’s face contorts for a moment as he hears the coins he is inserting into the ticket machine dispensing beneath as fast as he can load them. He takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow. Deep breaths; his doctor had told him he must try to take deep breaths when he feels himself getting tense. This essentially means he needs to try and take deep breaths from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep, possibly whilst he’s sleeping too. He certainly didn’t get much rest at night over the weekend – there’s something very odd about the house at the moment, to say the least. He’s probably just worrying about Connie; Lord knows where she’s got to. She must’ve gone to stay with her friend Daisy in Cornwall and taken their grandson, Paul, and the dog with her. Strange of her not to leave a note or return his call and let him know what’s going on, but he’d been under so much pressure over the weekend that he’d barely set foot in his own house – these bloody community engagement events were a real bind.
He could not see the point; you can’t leave the general populace to decide how they should be managed, it would be utter chaos. Besides, it was the same old handful of griping moaners showing up at every single event, no matter where it was held, with one sole purpose in mind; to complain. To complain about the bin men breaking the lid of their wheelie bin and how it won’t close and the foxes get in and it’s a God-awful mess every morning and who has to clean it up? That’s right, poor old griper. Or to complain about why have they changed the number 32 bus back to a number 3 bus; there’s already a number 3 bus running from Tottenham Swale to Pall Mall, did he not know? What could possibly be the point? Think of all the bus stops they’ll need to amend, who is going to pay for that? Let me guess… That’s right, poor old griper. And with fuel prices climbing through the roof, who is going to freeze to death when the nights close in? That’s right, poor old griper. And what’s the council doing about it? Not a bloody thing, that’s what. Poor old griper doesn’t know why she loyally votes for his party election after election. Ted smiles, he feigns concern, he reassures on topics of which he has no understanding and he imagines his fingers tightening around the poor old griper’s throat and silencing her complaints for good.
Finally the machine swallows some of his coins and spits out a travel card.
“Finally,” he says. He picks up his ticket and the small hillock of coins he’s made in the steel trough and turns towards the barriers, thinking as he does so that someone should do something about those hopeless machines. What on earth was wrong with human beings vending the tickets?
He gets to the ticket barrier and inserts his card, puffing all the while. His ticket pops up and taking it he walks forward into the barrier. A small red sign says ‘Seek assistance’. He tries the ticket again, with the same result.
“Oh bloody hell,” he mutters. Deep breaths. People are tutting behind him. OK! It was hardly his fault, was it? He reverses and then cuts across the flow of human traffic, generating additional tuts, towards the spotty young scrote who is casually leaning on the disabled manual barrier.
“I only just bought the bloody thing,” he says, shoving it in the young man’s face.
“OK Sir, deep breaths,” says the young man, opening the barrier.
Deep breaths! Everyone’s bloody at it! He should turn round and let the whippersnapper know who he is.
The bloody escalator is being renovated, so he is forced to use the hard, steep central steps. Somebody should do something about this level of service, considering the price you pay. He looks at the name proudly inscribed on the boards of the company responsible for servicing the escalators – ‘GERYON – for life’s little ups and downs’. Oh yes, hilarious. He half expects the boards to tell him to take deep breaths.
Ted gets to the platform puffing heavily and, after mopping his brow with his handkerchief, he picks up his train of thought. Essentially, most individuals are unfit to make the important decisions about society; they are too small-minded and unable to see how their own issues and observations interact and fit into the big picture. Even small groups of people lack the required scope to make informed, balanced decisions on matters of national and international importance. Of course, governments still have a role to play in steering society along, but even they are guilty of making short-term decisions to gain credibility with the voters. The real visionaries in this day and age are the huge multinational corporations; only they have the resources, strength, market sensitivity and independence to guide the human race into the future. The council had long taken the view that local government should forge strong links with businesses and work in partnership wherever possible to galvanize projects in the public interest. It is only natural, in his eyes, that if he is working with large multinationals to assist them in building better housing for his ward, then he is entitled to a little compensation in view of the huge profits that they will generate from such developments. After all, somebody has to police the movers and the shakers and it isn’t going to be done by standing back and tossing around the odd withering comment at a council meeting. Someone needs to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. This is what it means to be one of the elite, this is the secret; understanding that rules are established to keep the general populace of simple-minded Luddites and gripers on the straight and narrow where they belong, thus enabling the elite to soar above the ordered ranks, unrestricted and free, to allow their superior intellects to do the best for all.
He looks fondly at the black, white and mauve stripes of his scarf, the colours of Balliol College – what heady days. Fragrant cloves wafting through the first cold nights of autumn, soaking up glass after glass of mulled wine and bellowing ‘The Gordouli’ at the gates of their rivals at Trinity. The feasting and the dancing and the drinking down of the world’s knowledge, for after all:
“There’s no knowledge but I know it.
I am Master of this College,
What I don’t know isn’t knowledge.”
He could do anything in those days: from seducing young maids in a punt on the Thames to dazzling his cronies during the holidays, with speeches delivered stood on a table in the beer garden in the ‘Tolly’. He would pander to the influential, knowing that he would be returning one day to take up his rightful position in politics. By the time he’d graduated, he could get away with murder and nobody would turn a hair.
He is slowly being edged down the platform as more commuters swell the numbers waiting for the next train. He should’ve taken the overland to London Bridge. Bloody DLR. A young woman in a black pencil skirt, white blouse, black jacket and heels is stood nearby. She looks pale and vulnerable. He imagines what it would be like to have a gadget that could freeze time, allowing him to freely move around whilst others remained static and unaware. He would definitely be pushing the button right now. He would squeeze his way through the crowd until he was next to her and then slowly unbutton her blouse. With one hand massaging her breasts, he would leisurely take out his member and proceed to sing a limerick or two in front of all these miserable morning commuters whilst massaging himself between the legs. He looks along the platform – there are probably a few others he’d be conducting some physical examinations on. Then finally, once he’d sung his heart out, he’d button everything back up and calmly make his way back to the exact position he’d been standing in – very important, this – and push the button to return to real time.
Good lord, what is he thinking? He hears the train approaching from down the tunnel and begins to manoeuvre himself parallel to where he believes the doors will stop. The train sq
ueals to a stop in the exact perfect position. He psyches himself up for the big squeeze. There is a pause. He hears tutting from behind him. Every momentary delay adds to the tension, seconds passing like elephants on tightropes. Then the lights flash on the door buttons, the doors hiss and beep, and as soon as there is a space big enough to fit him, he shoves himself onto the train. There are a few noises of disapproval from the other passengers as some of them edge around him in order to get off the train, and then the wave plunges into the gap.
“Can you move down please?” come the voices from the doors. He tries to maintain a space around him. He can hear the honking of disease-ridden noses, venting their contents into used tissues.
“Please can passengers move down the carriage to allow as many passengers to board as possible,” says the conductor on the overhead tannoy. He is bracing himself to hold off more pressure when he sees the black jacket and pencil skirt crushed into a space nearby. He turns slightly and yields to the pressure a little and, as if by magic, the young girl is pushed into his belly. A couple more people cram themselves into the tube before the sliding doors begin to beep. Everyone breathes in and they are sealed off from the still-growing crowd of frustration on the platform.
The Laundry Basket Page 8
