Steven Dunne - The Disciple

‘Sorry I don’t have a proper glass.’

Ashwell blinked then fixed Brook in his sights. ‘You lousy bushwhacking son of a bitch. Get these cuffs off me, you fucker, or I’ll kill you.’

Brook smiled back but remained perfectly still. ‘I see you’re not a wine drinker, sir. Can I get you a beer instead?’

‘A beer? Fuck you. I said, get these cuffs off, dammit, ’fore I take a baseball bat to your ass.’

‘Do you think abusing and threatening me is the right way to secure your release?’

‘I don’t give a cold shit in hell what you think, you Limey fucker.’ He tried again to right himself. He noticed Billy on the floor beside him. ‘What you done to my boy?’ Then he saw the cup. ‘You son of a bitch. You fed that coffee to my boy?’

‘Sleep you called it. Would that be from Twilight Sleep?’ Ashwell didn’t reply. ‘Twilight Sleep, caused by a mixture of scopolamine and morphine. In small doses it can create a zombie-like compliance — in larger doses, death. I’m impressed. Where would you get that sort of knowledge? And, more importantly, where do you get your scopolamine?’ Still Ashwell remained mute. ‘Maybe you know it better as hyoscine.’ Brook took a sip of wine. ‘Let me assure you, sir, that unhesitating and well-mannered cooperation is the only way you and your son have a chance at seeing the dawn.’

Ashwell continued his sulk, but the barriers in his mind had crumbled. ‘Used to be a fly boy down South America. Had my own charter service. When I went to Colombia I found out about scop. They use it a lot down there for robbing folk. Rape too. It comes from Borrachero trees. Brung some saplings back with me to grow.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, around,’ Ashwell said with a grin. ‘You want some, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.’

Brook took another sip of wine. ‘So when you got back from South America you set yourself up in a lonely gas station miles from anywhere and started using it on people.’

‘Not people, Mr Brook. Tourists like you.’

Brook smiled at the distinction. ‘They get a spiked coffee and young Billy follows them in the tow truck until the drug takes effect.’

‘S’right. When the drug kicks in, they pull over for a sleep. Then he robs them. And that’s the operation, right there.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Sure. When they wake up they don’t know what’s happened to them — scop causes amnesia, see. They just go on their way. No harm, no foul. Eventually they work out they been robbed. But what the hell? They’re insured, ain’t they?’

Brook smiled. ‘Surely when they wake up and realise they’ve been robbed, there must be some evidence they’ve been here.’

‘What evidence? We don’t got no till receipt. We say it’s broke and if they want one, we just write a chit. And we only take the ones who pay cash.’ Brook smiled suddenly, his black eyes disappearing under a concertina of skin. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you put your credit card back.’

‘One of the reasons.’

‘How in the hell you know what we was going to do? ’Bout the coffee an’ all?’

‘Let’s just say I had a feeling.’

‘Bullshit. Are you police?’

Brook fixed Ashwell with a wintry eye. ‘You’re going to wish I was.’

‘Why? What you going to do? Nuth’n. You’ve had your fun. Now take our money and get on out.’

‘You’d make a great salesman, Mr Ashwell.’

Brook pulled off his black gloves. He had a pair of latex gloves underneath. Then he stood, zipping his boiler suit up to his neck. ‘I’m sorry I’ve got no great art to remind you,’ he said. A cutthroat razor gleamed suddenly in his hand.

Ashwell saw it and began to talk a little faster, grinding his wrists against the handcuffs. ‘Remind me of what?’

‘Of how wonderful the human race can be if it aspires to greatness instead of evil. Ideally, you should die beneath a beautiful painting, with wondrous music as your companion to oblivion. Alas…’

‘You’re gonna kill us over a few dollars? You’re gonna kill my boy?’

‘You killed Billy years ago. I’m just here to make it official.’

‘I ain’t killed no one.’

‘Really? Tell me, did you kill your wife before you murdered the humanity in Billy or after?’

‘My wife?’ screamed Ashwell.

‘No matter. The chronology is hardly an issue now.’

‘You son of a bitch…’

‘So what happens to the children in your operation?’

asked Brook, to forestall another rant. ‘I hope it’s quick and painless.’

‘Children?’

‘You know, the children who don’t drink coffee — the children on holiday with their parents who could identify Billy. And the other people in the vehicle who can remember what happened to them — the people who can remember being robbed, the people who can remember the car crashing, the people who can remember Billy turning up to help, the people who can remember being towed back here, who know where you’ve parked their car, with all the other cars in the clearing out back.’

Ashwell smiled his green and yellow smile and thought for a second. Then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Oh, those people.’ He seemed to drift off for a moment, remembering secret pleasures. ‘Well, that’s why I choose tourists like you, Mr Brook, on holiday, hundreds of miles from home. It could be months before some of those people are missed. And even when they are reported missing…’

‘Of course. They’re travelling. They could be anywhere,’ nodded Brook, his mouth beginning to harden.

‘Exactly. And if the crash ain’t killed ’em, we bring ’em back here and have some fun. We party with the wives in front of their menfolk. They don’t like that.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘Then we kill the men in front of their families. They sure do make a hollering. We kill the little ’uns straight off usually but if the kids are old enough, we keep ’em a while and show ’em a good time. I get to bust the girls then give ’em to Billy when I get bored. If we get a real squirrelly little bitch, I invite my brother Jake over for a blind date.’ Ashwell sniggered. ‘They’re old enough to bleed, they’re old enough to butcher. That’s what Jake says.’

Brook walked over to Ashwell’s chair. ‘I hope Jake’s already dead because I’ve got a lot on at the moment.’

‘Ain’t no call to take on so, Mr Brook. We kept the sweet stuff for you. Got plenty of money left. Lot more than two hundred dollars. You can have it all. And don’t forget we got you on camera, Mister Brook.’

Brook circled slowly round behind him.

‘I bought some gas and left,’ said Brook. ‘No harm, no foul.’ He moved directly behind Ashwell so that the cuffed man had to strain to keep him in view.

‘We got your licence plate too.’

‘Same answer,’ whispered Brook in Ashwell’s ear.

Ashwell’s head was yanked back so his Adam’s apple strained at the skin of his throat. Brook placed the blade of the razor onto the submerged blue of the carotid artery.

‘We got a mic in that camera, Mr Brook,’ squeaked Ashwell. ‘They’ll know your name.’

‘Oh, I doubt that.’ However, Brook appeared to hesitate as he processed this new information. Ashwell waited, hope seizing him. ‘See, that’s the other reason I didn’t give you my credit card. My name’s not Brook,’ said the man. He began to hum the Requiem … then sliced cleanly into Ashwell’s flabby neck.

Damen Brook opened his eyes but remained motionless in his sleeping bag. The trees near the tent were creaking under the wind’s assault and an owl hooted off in the distance, but the noise that had woken him had not been one of nature’s sound effects. He looked at his watch — two in the morning. Maybe a car at the bottom of the field had woken him — but at this hour and in the depths of the Peak District? It seemed unlikely. He felt around for his water bottle and took a short drink.