Decay Inevitable

“What are you after?” Will said. His eyes hadn’t strayed from the pocket since de Fleche had withdrawn the bottle. He ignored the drink when de Fleche offered it to him again. Something was in there; he could see light glancing off it, slow liquid light that snagged in Will’s eyes like syrup spinning from a spoon.

“Simple things in life,” de Fleche said. “A steak pie and a glass of Tizer. A woman with big tits. Friday night is comedy night on Channel Four. Revenge.”

Will didn’t hear any of it. Instead, he heard de Fleche’s original question, repeated so often it became mantra-like, became nonsense, like repeating one’s name over and over until the monotony of speech takes away all of its relevance.

“What’s in there?” he asked, lifting himself on tip-toe to try to define its shape.

“You in my pocket? You in my pocket?”

youinmypocketyouinmypocketyouinmypocketyouinmypocket

It was a book. The first book Catriona had ever bought for him, when they had been seeing each other for about a month. It was a tatty old Corgi Carousel paperback by Gordon Burness called The White Badger. Cat had bought it for him because the picture on the cover – of Snowball, an albino badger – reminded her of Will: pale, bemused, babyish. Inside, she had written: For Will. My own little badger. Love, Cat.

He remembered the smell of that book. He had slipped it under his pillow once he had read it. He gazed at it now. He yearned for its smell, for its special feel between his fingers. Something she had bought for him. Something she had touched, just for a little time. Something she had touched.

youinmypocketyouinmypocketyouinmypocketyouinmypocket

Will said, “You don’t have any power over me.”

“We’ll see about that,” de Fleche replied, deepening the view for him. “We’ll see.”

THEY LIFTED SEAN and carried him into the room, a dining room with its long table set to one side. On the walls were various pictures of benevolent seascapes and smiling, matriarchal figures in the midst of picnicking families and frisky dogs. They provided a sickening diorama against which Emma swung gently, the rope (he hoped it was the rope, God yes, the rope, and not the bones in her neck grating together) grinding and popping as it shifted against the beam.

Gleave said, “Drop her. Take her out the back and put her in the stables. And shave a few fibres from that rope. Stuff them in her mouth before you take the noose off her.”

Sean tried to kick out, to make some kind of protest, but the strength had been drawn from his muscles as finally as a sting pulled from a bee. He watched Emma sink through the air and diminish, seemingly, into the floor, so violent was her impact with it. She was too slack, too lacking in control for Sean to believe this was Emma. Even in death, she’d retain her grace, her spine. He wanted to tell someone, you’ve got the wrong girl. That isn’t Emma.

Tim Enever sloped out of the shadows, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I told you, didn’t I? I said you were fucked.”

Sean spat at him. He wiped the spittle away with the same vapid indifference. “Do you want some kind of happy badge for that, you phlegm-head? You fucking freak.”

Tim bound Sean’s hands behind him with unexpected strength; rough hemp bit into his wrists, causing his pulse there to sing loudly. He wondered if he would exist long enough to feel it cease. When Tim had finished imprisoning Sean, he grabbed Emma by the hair and dragged her out of the room. Sean bit his lips when her head clouted the wainscot. Tim would pay for that. They all would.

Gleave had lost interest in him. He was standing by the window, looking out at the fields as their hard edges were slowly rubbed out by mist tip-toeing in from the river. Sean might as well have been dead already.

“I could be of use to you,” Sean said. Gleave did not turn around but Vernon Lord began cackling.

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Like you were a great help to me.”

“Gleave,” Sean persisted.

“You’d kill me the first chance you got,” Gleave said. He could have been soothing a child to sleep. “You’ve worked hard, Sean. It’s time you had a rest. A long one.”

Tim returned, wiping his hands on a tea towel patterned with cats. He moved in front of him and draped the noose around Sean’s neck.

Sean said, hating the wheedling aspect that had crept into his voice, “Tim, how long do you think you’ve got? Hey? Before they fuck you up too?”

“I do good,” Tim said, conversationally. “Me and Lordy. We clean up. He harvests, I deliver. Nice.”

“And all because people call you ‘sir’ over there, is that it? Do you know how sad that is?”