Tom Aston - The Machine

It was an hour later, long after the noise had calmed down, when the terrified man below him spoke.

‘They’ll kill us, you know.’ It was a New Zealand accent. ‘They said they’re going to kill us and they will.’ His voice was weak and trembling. Then he said, ‘Is it true? Did you kill the whore in the Snake Market? They say she was tortured and murdered.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Stone. ‘This is place is OK. It’s old, but it’s well run. The guards here won’t let anything happen to you. Neither will I.’

That didn’t cut any ice. ‘It’s not me. They’re going to kill you, because you killed the whore. They’ve told me already. But they’ll have to kill me too, I know they will. To stop me talking.’

Stone looked down. The guy’s eyes were tight shut. Stone jumped down from his bunk and began to coax out of this shrivelled individual what he had heard.

It turned out the man’s name was Williams. A businessman from New Zealand — a quiet husband and father by the look of it — who was tempted to the Ming Dai Hotel that day with a prostitute. Williams didn’t know much more, but he’d been seen in the Ming Dai, and then a girl had been murdered — tortured and murdered. By a white man. Williams had been arrested and ended up in this Victorian hole deep below the streets of Hong Kong.

This kind of made sense as far as it went. But what was wrong with this picture? Why were Stone and Williams in the same cell? They were held in connection with the same crime — the killing at the Snake Market. Why put them in the same cell, where they could concoct stories and alibis? Also, before Stone had even arrived on the wing, word had gone out that he’d tortured and murdered the girl. Who would do that?

This was Zhang’s way of expressing displeasure with Stone. Maybe even getting rid of him. Stone asked Williams if he’d seen anyone resembling Ekstrom at the Ming Dai, or whether he’d actually seen Junko Terashima. Williams was no help at all, had no information. He was going to pieces, dissolving into guilt.

‘I love my wife so much. I’ve never been tempted to cheat before,’ said Williams, squeaking in his New Zealand accent. ‘Now I’ve landed myself in this place, locked in a tiny cell with a murderer. It’s God’s judgement on me.’

What a worm. Williams stayed crushed up in the corner of the bunk like some kind of contortionist, whining over and over about how he loved his wife, and if only he hadn’t strayed, and this was God’s way of punishing him, yadda yadda. He sounded more scared of his wife than anything that might happen to him in that hole in Hong Kong.

Williams wanted literally to hide — to curl into a ball in the shadows on the lower bunk. But hiding isn’t easy in a prison, and if the other prisoners really wanted Williams, which Stone doubted, Stone didn’t rate the guy’s strategy too highly.

But if they wanted Stone? He couldn’t see why, but something was going down in that place. If some prisoners did come looking for him, Stone would be ready when they found him. He was better of out of the way of Williams though. Stone would look weak merely by association with the man. In a place like this, looking strong is nine parts of being strong. Better to keep that pathetic creature Williams out of it. Stone would leave the cell when he got the chance — and see who came looking for him.

Dinner was served in the cells. Stone ate his rice at the bars of the cell, eye-balling the shouters and plate-clangers from his cell. He wanted to see their eyes, to see who meant it. There were a couple of big Malaysian guys who were looking at him silently. They could mean trouble. On the other hand it could be anyone.

A couple of hours after dinner, the cell doors were finally opened and prisoners escorted out in turn to make their ablutions. This could be it.

A clear head is the best weapon. So many men, even big, strong, musclemen, feel stress going into a fight. They start the fight on a ninety-five percent stress level, which creates negative thoughts of what might happen. Unexpected stress points can cause a domino effect of negative thoughts. Inarticulate, looping, draining thoughts. Stress piles on stress, and each sight or sound can paralyse the mind. In fact it certainly will paralyse the mind. And if you’re not thinking, you’ve already lost.

The answer is obvious, but not easy to achieve. Keep a calm clear head, and put the stress onto the other guy.

The cell door clunked open. Stone turned to Williams and ordered him to stay in the cell. No explanation. As his cell door swung wide, Stone smiled at the warder and walked out. The prison guard avoided his eye. Did that mean anything? The Malaysians were giving Stone the stare, trying to look wolfish and hard, laughing to each other. But the laugh said they were nervous, distracting themselves. As the time approaches stressful thoughts would be coursing through them, distracting, making it all happen too fast. Ten, twenty, fifty stress impulses a second can cascade through the mind. Only the highly trained and the bone stupid can avoid it, and these Malaysians weren’t stupid. They’d likely been paid by one of Zhang's acolytes. Were they up to their task?

The entrance to the shower room was a low hole in the nauseous cream and shit brown of the prison wall. The prisoners had to stoop to get in and there was a press at the door. The Malaysians jostled to stay behind him. They would know the routine, the times when the warders weren’t looking.

Eight at a time went through to the showers and Stone found himself in the last bunch. He stayed back to wait for the Malaysians. Unfair not to give them an opportunity. As they went through, the inmates began to undress and to use the toilet, pissing like horses, glad not to have to use the latrines in the cells. Stone looked around. There were three Chinese warders with batons. The room was tiled white, floor to ceiling. Easy to clean away the blood — the perfect location. Stone began to undress, but stood tall, looking around, eyeing the Malaysians, keeping only the warders at his back.

Stone bent to take off his trousers — a moment of danger when he couldn’t jump out of the way. Here it came — Stone snatched the pants back up as one guy leaped for him. Stone raised his hands, but the Malaysian backed off, looking at something behind Stone. Stone’s head flicked round — too late. His arms were grabbed from behind. Two of them on him, behind his back. He couldn’t see them. He tried to kick out backwards, to trip them, up-end them on the wet tiled floor, but his trousers were round his thighs. It was all he could do to stay upright and whoever it was back there was strong. They had his upper arms pulled right back. Nothing he could do about it.

Was it Zhang who had planned this stunt? Whatever. Someone had definitely told the guards to disappear. There were three of them a second ago. Unless…

He tried to shove them sideways, to get them to fall. It would be a start. But his feet barely gripped the floor at all. The men behind held him up. They had a plan, these guys. He’d underestimated them, and it was about to get worse.

Boom! The first blow to his kidneys. Then another. Heavy blows, expertly applied. A few more blows like that and he was dead. Stone let himself vomit after the third, half-digested rice spilling down his chest to the tiles. He’d have to play dead — pretend to be finished, out of it. Not much of a plan, but…

Stone opened his eyes for a second. The prisoners were all gone. Whoever was left in that room was there to assist at an execution. Stone had been wrong about the Malaysians. They were nothing to do with it. Probably they’d wanted to warn him. Now they’d left him to his fate. Once again Stone had gone looking for one fight too many.