Jago (52 page)

A
lamp strung from the central pole cast a bright circle on a wood and metal school chair, leaving the rest of the tent in curtained dark. Constable Erskine shoved Teddy into the chair and produced a pair of handcuffs like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat. He clinked them in the air.

‘Hands by your sides,’ the policeman said.

Teddy, who could barely feel his right hand after the arm-abuse he had taken, obeyed.

‘Lovely,’ Erskine said, and bent down behind the chair. The cuffs slipped around his wrists, biting deep as Erskine fastened them. The policeman stood back to admire his handiwork. Teddy reflexively struggled, and found he had been cuffed to the chair, hands pulled below the seat, chain stretched tight underneath. His shoulders and wrists hurt, and he couldn’t get the cuffs free because of the chairlegs. Even if he slipped forward and got loose, he would still be cuffed to the chair, because the tube legs had runners between them.

‘Trussed up like a battery hen,’ Erskine said. ‘Right and proper.’

‘Can I have my phone call?’

Erskine laughed. ‘Bloody television,’ he said. ‘We get more people like you than you’d believe.’

‘Come on, it’s my rights.’

Erskine, teeth shining, stalked around the chair and chuckled.

‘That’s America, Edward. This is England. Old England, a civilized country. We don’t waste rights on steaming heaps of dog dirt, my son.’

Teddy leaned forward, feeling stabs in his shoulders. He didn’t have anyone to call, anyway. His parents would have been out of their depth.

‘By the way, anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you. Do you understand that?’

Teddy nodded.

‘Out loud.’

‘Huh?’

‘Say you understand that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.’

‘I understand.’

‘That anything I say…’

‘I understand that anything I say will be taken down… and may be used in evidence against me.’

‘Fine and dandy. Oh yes, fine and dandy.’

Teddy was in the Twilight Zone. Erskine wasn’t acting like a real copper. His very white skin had developed stubbly blemishes, like measles. Erskine cracked knuckles and took a swing at his chin. Teddy’s head shot back on his neck, and his whole body, the chair with it, tipped over. Erskine caught him, and kept him upright. Teddy was completely stunned.

‘A little insurance,’ Erskine said, taking two more sets of handcuffs from somewhere. He clipped Teddy’s ankles, fastening them to the chairlegs so he couldn’t even kick.

‘Meet the whopper,’ Erskine said, unsheathing his truncheon. ‘A woodentop’s best friend is his whopper.’

There was blood in Teddy’s mouth, and his jaw was wonky. He shook his head, trying to shake the ringing out of it. Erskine was as cracked as Terry and Allison.

‘Now,’ Erskine said, slapping the truncheon into his palm like a German sausage, ‘say after me…’

‘Uh?’

Teddy wasn’t following. If he tried to concentrate, his head hurt so bad he saw flashes before his eyes.

‘Say after me, “I confess to the murder of that old man.”’

‘What?’

Erskine jabbed his neck with the truncheon and lifted up his head. His blue eyes observed Teddy’s face, deep and empty. The constable had hair so blond his eyebrows were invisible. He had a fine white scar on one cheek, like a duellist’s mark. And a purpling bruise on his forehead which he kept unconsciously scratching. He had caught something nasty. Spots were erupting all over his face.

‘I confess…’ Erskine prompted.

‘I didn’t—’

The truncheon jabbed again, striking Teddy’s collarbone.

‘I—’

The pain was so severe, he couldn’t even think to speak. Erskine bent down and rapped Teddy’s right knee, like a doctor testing for a reflex. It was an explosion of hurt. Teddy screamed and bent over, biting his tongue hard. The pain grew in his knee, seeped into the rest of his body.

‘Just confess, and we can use that in evidence against you. That’s how it works, sunshine. One more old fart in the world, more or less. Who cares, eh? Just sign on the line, and I’m sure the magistrate will let you off with a right bollocking.’

Erskine did the other knee. Teddy now had matching agonies. The cuffs around his ankles bit as he kicked.

‘Temper, temper. Only nancy boys kick, you know.’

Teddy sat up straight, trying not to whimper. Behind Erskine, he thought he saw a face glowing in the dark.

‘No need for anything elaborate, Edward. A simple “I did it” will do just as well as a detailed confession. Can you say “I did it”?’

‘But I—’

Erskine slapped Teddy’s left shin with the truncheon. His knees flared, and new pain joined the old ones.

‘You were about to protest your innocence again, weren’t you?’

Teddy nodded.

Erskine slapped the other shin. ‘Tut tut tut. Naughty naughty. That’s cheating. If you say “I
didn’t
do it”, that’s cheating. Not British at all, cheating.’

Erskine straightened up, and licked the truncheon like a little girl being provocative with an ice lolly.

‘Lesson number one. It’s the words that count, not what you think, not what you mean, not what you feel…’

Erskine gobbled the top of his truncheon, giving the leather a quick suck, then took it out of his mouth. A line of spittle stretched and broke, dribbling on the leather.

‘I was lying about you getting off easy, you know. Sinful of me to try and entrap a confession out of you that way, but we’re all sinners. If you say “I did it”, then it’s all over, and we throw you in prison for ever. That’s all there is to it. Have you ever been to prison?’

Teddy shook his head.

‘I thought not. Most people haven’t.’

Erskine’s grin grew, splitting his face almost from ear to ear. He circled around behind the chair, and talked into Teddy’s ear from the back.

‘You watch the crappy movies and the TV documentaries, but you don’t know what it’s like inside. I’ll tell you this for nothing, you won’t like it, sunshine.’

Between Erskine’s words, Teddy heard the slap of truncheon against palm. He expected a blow to fall every instant, aware of the vulnerability of the back of his neck, the fragility of his skull.

‘At your age, you’d be at the bottom of the pile. Prisons are full of bitter, twisted, hard people. All they have in life is making weaker people miserable. And you’d be the weakest person in miles.’

Erskine was breathing hard, excited.

‘You might not last a year. They take away your belt and shoelaces and anything sharp you could hurt yourself with, but that just means you have to find some really painful way of topping yourself. You can do it just by swallowing your tongue. Nasty one, that. You puke around your tongue and drown in vomit. You could bash your head against a wall. Takes a lot of grit to do that, to keep on bashing until you’ve ruptured your brainpan. Forget tunnels or hiding in dustcarts, suicide is the only real way of escaping…’

Erskine came round to his front again and, crouching, talked into Teddy’s face.

‘And to win this wonderful all-expenses paid holiday in HM Hell, all you have to do is say “I did it”. You understand?’

Teddy nodded.

Erskine chuckled again. ‘Thought you did, darling boy.’

Teddy was not alone with Erskine. In the corner, sitting on a chair like the one he was cuffed to, was the sergeant, Draper. He was the face in the dark. Teddy only saw him when he puffed on his cigarette, the red end flaring and making his face glow for a moment. There was a standing lamp, but it was pointed at Teddy’s face. He thought there might be other people around the fabric walls of the tent.

Erskine stood in front of him now. His shirt buttons were undone to the waist, and Teddy saw a white, hairless chest, dotted with spots. He was tapping the bruise on his forehead with the end of his truncheon. Teddy thought the skin might be cracking. Erskine had another bruise, a red cold-sore-like scar, in the valley between his nose and upper lip, shaped like a Hitler moustache.

‘So, we understand each other, Edward. My job is to get you to say “I did it”. Your job is to try to hold out as long as possible. Because when you lose, it’s all over. By the way, you will lose. You can’t win. That’s how the game works. Shame, really, but there it is.’

It was quiet in the tent, as if the canvas were six feet thick. Teddy spat blood at the ground, coughing.

‘Filthy fucker,’ Erskine said, cruelly tapping Teddy’s shoulder just where it already hurt.

‘Say it,’ Erskine cooed, mouth up close, close enough to kiss. ‘Just for your old Uncle Barry, say it…’

Erskine reached into Teddy’s lap with his free hand, and pinched his balls, hard. Teddy screamed.

‘Bloody racket,’ Erskine said, scratching his forehead with a thumbnail. ‘Loud enough for Loud Shit, I shouldn’t wonder. Real British craftsmanship. No modern electrical equipment wired to the old scrote, dear me, no. No psycho stuff and drugs and disco lights. Nope, just the traditional country-fresh methods that have been handed down from father to son for centuries. Just meat and bone, and the old whopper…’

Erskine sucked his truncheon again.

‘Seen a lot has the whopper. I killed a Paki with it once. I made him say “I did it”, but by then I was enjoying the game so much it would have been a sin to stop. Niggers bleed red like you and me, you know. Quite a surprise. A skull makes a hell of a din when it cracks. Like a gun going off.’

Erskine’s bruise was peeling, flakes of skin falling.

‘Say it,’ Erskine said, from behind, applying the truncheon to Teddy’s shoulder again. ‘Say “I did it”.’

Teddy couldn’t say anything. It hurt too much even to think. Draper’s face glowed red, like a pantomime demon.

‘Say it.’

Whatever he did, Erskine would torture and kill him. In a queer way, Teddy thought it’d be worse for him if he gave in. Erskine enjoyed the game, and would get angry if cheated out of it.

Erskine slipped the truncheon into its sheath, and got to work with his fists. He pummelled the small of Teddy’s back, then came around, and began punishing his chest.

‘Have you ever seen anyone killed?’

Teddy shook his head.

‘I thought so. Not many people have, these days. It’s the education system that’s lacking. Everyone should see someone killed, even if it’s only on video. It wakes you up, makes you understand.’

Erskine’s bruise was completely gone, leaving a neat red circle on his forehead. Inset in the raw circle was what looked like a blue tattoo. It was a swastika.

‘When I killed the coon, I suddenly understood. It’s one thing to know how the world works, another really to understand it. God puts all these wonderful things inside you, inside your head. And it’s your job to let them out, to spill them on the ground. If you crack a skull and let the brains out, it’s like making an offering. Like going to church.’

Erskine made a knuckly fist and knocked on Teddy’s forehead.

‘There are wonders in there, waiting to be let out. All the angels, all the devils…’

The policeman shoved Teddy’s head, tipping him backwards. He felt the chair runners lifting off the ground, and there was nothing under his feet. His centre of gravity shifted, and he felt the chair falling. Erskine shoved again, and Teddy landed hard, his hands pinned under chairlegs, his head rapping against the hard earth. Erskine put his foot on Teddy’s chest, and ground in with his heel.

Teddy saw the sagging roof of the marquee, and the pole that held it up. If he bent his head back, he saw the person who’d been standing behind him throughout Erskine’s game. It was the black constable. He stood to attention, a line of sweat trailing down from his helmet.

‘Give him a boot, Chocky,’ Erskine said.

Raine stepped forward and, doubt on his face, kicked Teddy in the head, just above the ear.

‘Feeble, Chocky, feeble. Where’s that jungle instinct?’

Erskine kicked Teddy in the hip, where it hurt.

‘See, give it another go.’

Raine kicked Teddy, harder.

‘Magic,’ Erskine commented. ‘Like riding a bicycle, you never forget once you’ve got the trick.’

Patches of skin had sloughed off Erskine’s bare arms, and he had more tattoos. Nazi insignia, an SS skull surrounded by lightning bolts. He even had a tattooed swastika armband in red, white and black.

‘Are you enjoying Uncle Barry’s Summer Camp?’

Teddy held still.

‘Is everybody happy?’

Teddy looked up. No reaction at all was the best way of surviving.

‘We’ve got a quiet one, Chocky. We’ll have to do our best to bring him out of his shell. We can’t have our Edward being a wallflower.’

Raine bent down and picked up Teddy’s shoulders, bringing him upright. Teddy felt dizzy after his horizontal spell, and his head flopped forwards, chin thumping his chest.

Erskine slapped him to get his attention.

‘Wakey wakey.’

Erskine took out his truncheon again.

‘Been a funny old day at Dock Green Station,’ he said. ‘Life’s like that, you know. A Paki made a bit of a nuisance of himself. Rum do, it was. Real rum do. We gave him his cuppa char and his sticky bun and took down his statement, then fucking killed the nig-nog bastard with multiple blows to the head. Dear oh dear oh lord, but that was a giggle. Multiple fucking blows to his black old fucking Paki wog nigger coon jigaboo head. As my old sarge used to say, better safe than sorry. They don’t have feelings like you and me, you know. Don’t have mothers, most of em. Don’t stand up when they play the national anthem.’

Erskine lashed out, and struck the side of Teddy’s head with the truncheon. Teddy felt his ear mashed against his skull, and was sure the bone had broken, that blood was pouring out. The chair tipped to the side, but Raine caught it and kept him upright.

‘Say it,’ Erskine said, seriously.

Draper had stood up, and walked over. He was still smoking, but his face was red with more than a reflection.

‘Steady on, Barry,’ he told Erskine. ‘Leave some for the lads back at the station.’

‘But he’s a fucking murderer, sarge.’

Draper shrugged. ‘Nobody’s perfect. Murderers aren’t such a bad lot, you know. Not once you get to know a couple. Lovely singing voices, some of them have.’