Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

'Torch the black. Now.'

Alphonse was dragged to the stake. David watched, horrified, mesmerized. They were really going to do it.

Amy cried out: 'Miguel. Stop. Please. What's the point?'

'The Zulo speaks? Yes? Bai? Ez? Tell me where Eloise Bentayou is and I will stop. Until then, I shall burn the fucking half caste — like they burned my people — tortured them — burned the Basques like witches — '

'You're not a Basque, you fucking moron.' Angus spat the words. 'You're a Cagot. A shit person. Look at you — '

'Angus, help me! Help me please!'

It was Alphonse, calling and wailing. He was now lashed to the stake; the sky was dark behind him. Amy's face was wrenched with anger:

'Stop this — Miguel — '

'Only if you tell me. Where Eloise is? Eh?'

Angus spat: 'Why? Cagot asshole. Why should we give her to you? You'll just kill her, too. Won't you?'

Miguel motioned a hand.

'El fuego. Mesedez…'

David stared, appalled. One of the accomplices was stooping to the dry timber gathered around Alphonse's feet. David noticed that Angus's boyfriend was wearing Nike trainers. He found himself wondering if they would melt. David clenched himself for what he was about to witness. Enoka was flicking a Zippo. The tiny flame began to catch.

'Angusss!'

Alphonse was screaming, his voice carrying like a church-bell, echoing up the canyon.

The first flames licked, hesitantly, as though they were investigating Alphonse — testing the flesh. Young predator cubs.

'This will keep us warm,' said Garovillo. 'The roasting of the bastard. The toasting of the sinotsu.'

The flames rose, gaining confidence; they rose higher. The desert wood was very dry. The flames crackled in the cold clear air. A smell of woodsmoke filled the night. The desert moon shone down. Alphonse was crying out, shrieking, stretching against his bonds.

Garovillo sighed, expressively.

'So there we are. Angus Nairn, the scientist Angus Nairn. Now you must tell me where she is. Alphonse is about to be die, to be cooked, pot roasted. You won't want him then, will you? When he's just a side of beef? So much…crackling?'

Angus looked directly at Miguel.

'You're going to kill us anyway. You can do what you like. What does it matter?'

Alphonse cried out. He was writhing, and yelling: 'Angus — no, Angus — please tell him'!

Miguel smiled again.

'He wants to live, Doctor Nairn. He doesn't want to have his…boyish limbs toasted and grilled. And I feel sympathy. I am vegetarian. Barazkijalea naiz!' He sighed. 'So tell us.'

Angus said nothing. David saw a profound tremor in Angus's cheek: the grinding of his teeth. Alphonse was wailing.

'It hurts! Angus! I'm burning! Please!'

The flames were higher, a stray spark had caught in Alphonse's hair; his hair was smoking, singeing, the smell of burnt hair mixed with the woodsmoke. Alphonse was catching: catching on fire. He was beginning to burn.

The seconds of waiting dilated in the darkness.

'OK! Stop it!' Angus was shouting. 'I will tell you where she is! Eloise. Stop the burning.'

Miguel spun — and snapped:

'Tell me now!

'She's in the Sperrgebiet.'

'Where?'

'Twenty-six kilometres due south of Diaz Point! Stop him burning, stop it — '

'Where exactly?'

'The Tamara Minehead. The Rosh road. Disguised as mine offices. Garovillo — '

Miguel smiled. And pivoted.

And gestured at his men.

'Pour a little gasoline, onto the flames. It's going to be a very cold night and we need a nice big fire.'

The following hour was the most grotesquely prolonged and awful hour of David's life. It was worse than anything he had yet witnessed these last violent weeks.

Alphonse burned, slowly, and profoundly, and agonizingly. First his trainers smoked, and charred, and melted into stringy plastic, and then his cotton trousers dropped, blackened, from his brown limbs: charring rags of smoking cloth. Finally the flesh began to roast. Obscenely. The brown skin flashed away, showing the fat and muscles. And then the fat of the boy's thighs began to melt, spitting in the fire. And all the time Alphonse screamed. The shrillest, cruellest scream David had ever heard. A shriek that carried across the silent desert, a man being slowly burned alive.

Then the screaming stopped, and resolved into a low, sussurating moan. The flames were big and monstrous but Alphonse was hymning his own death, almost singing. The hair was a mass of burned and charring black dreadlocks, the smell of roasting flesh was evil and sweet: a crematorium smell, a barbecue smell.

Bats winged about the smoke. David saw the eyes of desert animals attracted by the smell and the glow — jackals skulking in the gloom. Hoping for food. The smell of burning meat was attracting the shiny-eyed jackals.

Standing hard by the fire, Miguel gluttonously inhaled the smoke. The terrorist leaned to the roaring flames, and poked at the blackened body with a stick. Alphonse twitched. Still alive. Still alive. The fire roared.

'Puerca? Urdaiazpiko?'

Amy was puking. She was leaning to her side and vomiting. David felt the same gag reflex. On his left, Angus had his eyes shut. The Scotsman's face was blank and impassive. And yet it somehow expressed the deepest emotion. Utter desolation.

And then, at last, Alphonse died. The dark head lolled. The fire had wholly engulfed him. The deed was done. The fire began to subside. The body was a mass of red embers, glowing bones and meat. A black and scarlet effigy of a man, in the black desert night. The ribcage had collapsed and the heart was exposed: a vermilion knot of muscle.

Miguel was still greedily inhaling the smell of burning flesh. And Angus was watching him. Eyes narrowed. There was a cold yet incandescent fury in the Scotsman's gaze, a shrewd and calculating anger. Ferocious anger.

David noted that even Miguel's accomplices seemed repelled by the immolation.

They were looking away, glancing surreptitiously at each other, and shaking their heads. But they were obedient. There was no sense of disloyalty. More like fear. They were scared of the Wolf.

Garovillo gazed at David, assessingly.

'That was impressive, Martinez.' He ran fingers through his long black hair. 'You are a man of some…courage. Or uncaring cruelty. Only you watched the whole show. Only you. And you did not vomit like Amy. You have a strong stomach. Strong constitution. You are stocky, like a bull. A wild boar.'

Then Miguel glanced at the sky. The woodsmoke was drifting across the heavens, turning the moon into the pale face of a young widow — veiled with funeral grey. The smoke was dwindling, the fire was nearly done.

'We need to build another fire. Yes we are all warm and tostada now. But the flames are nearly gone. So we need a big new fire. To barbecue our next course. The big man…the American Basque-burger.'

Alan shook his head. 'Ain't got no wood, Mig.'

'But we need to burn him. Burn him next!' Miguel's voice was stilted: with a hint of frustration. 'If we kill and burn the Amerikako then Eloise will be offered up to us.'

David felt the rough hands of Miguel's accomplices drag him to his feet. His knees were weak, he was sagging with the horror.

He was going to be burned alive. Like Alphonse.

The journalist stood there, utterly stunned. And trapped. 'You know my name?'

'Heck.' The monk laughed. 'You think we don't read the newspapers? You wrote about those murders in England, didn't you? Seen the photo.'

He sagged: 'But…'

'I've been watching you since you got here. We've been warned that someone might come…Name's McMahon. Patrick. Paddy Thomas McMahon.'

Simon leaned against a stack of books. Now he stared around: he saw that many shelves were bare: it was like the library had been ransacked.