Конрад Уильямс - Decay Inevitable

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?”

“Do you know how sad you are? In two minutes, you’re going to be as dead as the thing in Vernon’s boxers, dangling there, kicking imaginary footballs, but I’ll still be earning a crust and getting my back scratched by the girls In Country.”

“For how long, Tim? As soon as you start slowing down, or fucking up, whichever comes first, how long do you think they’ll keep you in custard, hey? For as long as it takes to find another weirdo who’ll happily go wandering among the stiffs while they sit back and rake in the goodies.”

Tim was staring at him, but Sean couldn’t work out if it was because he had hit a nerve or whether Tim had just switched off, as he had seen him do at the de Fleche building sometimes.

“We all share the takings,” Tim said.

“Really?” The noose was causing Sean’s throat to itch. It hugged his Adam’s apple when he swallowed. It felt as though the rope was getting to know him, sizing him up. It felt impatient for the work it was best at. “There’s more than just money. Rich pickings you haven’t been told about. Vernon there. Have a guess how old he is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Vernon. Do you know how old he is?”

Tim’s mouth was opening and shutting like the slow gape of fish in restaurant tanks. At last, he said, “Vernon’s my friend.” He busied himself checking the knots on Sean’s wrist and around his throat, but he was troubled, Sean could see that. He must suspect something himself, even if he wasn’t saying as much now. Sean suggested that was the case.

“Just fuck off,” Tim said, the profanity sounding clownish coming from his too-soft mouth. “All right? Just fuck off. It’s not going to save you. Nothing’s going to save you.”

“What’s going to save you , Tim?” And then he told him how old Vernon Lord really was.

“What?” Vernon said, when he was distracted from his tabloid newspaper for long enough to see that Tim was gazing at him, his shoulders slumped, the end of the rope like a limp prick in his hands. “What’s up?”

Sean said, “What is it, Tim? You not getting any of this deal? They give you a bit of pocket money to shut you up and send you on your way? And there’s Vernon. Pink and perky. And old enough to be your great-great-grandfather.”

“He’s having you on, Tim,” said Vernon. “Listen to what he’s saying. The madness.”

Sean went on, “You never see Vernon with a cold, or a bad back, do you? And all those things wrong with you, Tim. They could sort you out in a second if they wanted to. But they don’t want you or anyone else getting too strong. They want people they can control.”

Tim said, “In Country, I can breathe clearly. My chest doesn’t hurt. I’m well there.”

“And how often are you allowed over there, Tim? My guess is, not very often, and when you are, they’ve got you on a leash. Vernon doesn’t take those risks, and look at him. Look at a photograph of him from fifty years ago, like I did, something Kev showed me, and you won’t find a single difference. They’re ripping the piss out of you.”

Tim returned his attention to Vernon, who had pulled himself to his feet, a sorry expression on his face. He was slowly shaking his head. Tim said, “Is that true?”

“Timmy,” Vernon said, weakly. “You’ve been like a son to me.”

Gleave strode back into the room, a mobile phone clamped to his ear. It came away from his ear when he saw what was going on.

“Why isn’t he dead yet?” he asked, waving the phone vaguely in Sean’s direction.

Tim said, “I want more life.”

Gleave’s expression was that of a father who had just returned from an apocalyptic Christmas shopping trip to find he has forgotten the turkey. “I want you to do as you’re told. Now string that fucker up.”

Tim said, “No. I want to know why I’m not in the loop. Why aren’t I getting what I deserve?”

“You want what you deserve?” Gleave asked, all patience evaporated. He grabbed Vernon’s revolver from the older man’s hand and pointed it at Tim’s face. There was a flash of light, but the sound that the revolver made, in the same instant that Tim was launched off his feet to paint the wall with his own colours, was not that of a gunshot. Sean, pulled onto his side when Tim dragged the bight of the rope with him, his neck on fire, thought that clouds had entered the room. They passed in front of the sun, blocking the light. But clouds don’t carry brick-dust in their hearts, and their thunder is not caused by collapsing masonry.

The rope liked the feel of itself against his neck. It liked the taste of his sweat as it soaked into its fibres. Sean was sure he felt it constrict against him, like a boa sensing victory: a bitter peristalsis. For a second he thought he was back in the de Fleche building with Robbie Deakin and Nicky Preece, swapping insults and working up a sweat on the hammer. Plaster dust was in his hair, making an old man of him. It stuck in his throat. They’d take an hour after work and sink a few Stellas at the Ferry Inn. Home for a bath, phone Emma, go out for a steak, and take the car up to Walton Reservoir. Watch the sun go down, kiss her throat, see what happens next.

There was a lorry in the hallway. It had come at them across the field – Sean could see out of the grotesquely slanting window frame, through the settling plumes, a haphazard set of tyre prints slewing in great, lazy zig-zags as they homed in on the farmhouse – and ploughed through the face, lurching onto its side and taking out two of the walls completely. Gleave was trapped beneath one of them, screaming so violently that there was blood in his spittle. His leg was trapped under a pile of bricks and one of the ancient beams that had dropped from the ceiling. The shin was folded neatly back on itself. If Gleave could have waggled his toes he’d scratch his calf with them.