The Slaughter Man (27 page)

‘Drink up, Detective,’ Nawkins told me. ‘Because I am going to light a match on your next breath.’

Already I thought I could smell my roasting flesh.

‘Burn it,’ Gatling said contemptuously, not looking up from the phone. ‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? No more fires, Nawkins.’

It was not a request. It was a command and I saw the look of disappointment on Nawkins’ face. He was a man who liked his fire. And I remembered the farm where the Slaughter Man left no prints because someone had torched it.

‘You want him gone, don’t you?’ Nawkins said. ‘He can’t be found, can he? The fire will stop him being found.’

Gatling indicated the blackened stain in the kitchen and dining area.

‘Tried that already, didn’t you? How did that work out, you moron?’

‘Your wife wasn’t burned by townies,’ I told Nawkins. ‘She wasn’t burned in a riot. That’s all bullshit. She was burned alive by you, wasn’t she? What did she do to deserve that?’

I saw his body tense but he didn’t look at me.

‘You want him gone, don’t you?’ Nawkins said.

‘There’s a better way,’ Gatling said.

Suddenly it all fit.

I looked at Sean Nawkins and I saw a burning caravan with a screaming woman inside and I remembered the visitors’ records at a maximum-security prison that recorded Sean’s wife visiting his brother Peter week after week, year after year.

And I saw the total certainty of Sean Nawkins’ daughter dragging her nails down my face, not believing but
knowing
that her Uncle Peter was innocent of the crimes he was accused of.

‘What you looking at, pig?’ Nawkins shouted.

I smiled at him.

‘I’m looking at a man whose wife and daughter both went to bed with his brother.’

He raised the hammer, murder in his face.

‘And that’s why you set him up,’ I said.

He hit me with the hammer.

A hard crack across the cheekbone that tore off an inch of flesh just under my eye.

I hung my head, trying to control my breathing, attempting to master the pain. It was a few minutes before I could speak.

‘Gatling?’ I said.

‘What?’

Not looking at me. Still fiddling with his phone.

‘This is what happened,’ I said. ‘Sean Nawkins here meant to shut your sister up. Stop Mary blabbing to the law. Very popular these days. Historic sex crimes that come back from the dead. You can do a lot of time for old sex crimes. Doesn’t matter how long ago it was. No statute of limitations on raping children. Victims are finding their voice. And justice. Justice at last. What was the idea? Kill the whole family to make it look like a spree kill?’

Gatling almost smiled.

‘It worked, didn’t it?’

‘Did you know Nawkins raped Mary? I bet that wasn’t in the plan, was it? That’s why you loathed Mary’s husband. Nobody’s meant to touch Mary apart from you. But he did, Gatling. Nawkins here. Ask him. That information was never released. But it’s true. Ask him.’

Silence in the white room. Gatling was staring at Nawkins.

‘Is this true?’

‘No! He’s trying to save his worthless skin …’

‘Gatling?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Where’s Bradley?’ I said.

I began to call the boy’s name.

‘
BRADLEY! BRADLEY! BRADLEY!
’

‘Shut him up, will you?’ Gatling said, and Nawkins furiously covered my mouth with duct tape. Then he covered my nose, my eyes, my ears. He kept going until all the duct tape was gone.

And suddenly I could not breathe. My mouth. My nose. He had covered too much. He had left no airways. He wanted me dead now.

I tried to calm my heart.

I realised I could no longer breathe through my mouth and most of my nose was blocked by the tape. But I could suck in air through one tiny corner of one sinus. It was enough. And the top of one eye could see a slither of the room above the tape that blinded me.

And that is how I saw the security guard.

A young Nepalese, probably ex-British Army Ghurkha, maybe the same one who had been here on the first day. He was standing at the end of the driveway, looking towards the house uncertainly. Gatling and Nawkins were talking at the garden window. They had not seen him. The guard continued to look at the house.

My legs were taped above the knees. But I could still move my lower legs. I lashed out at the tall glass vase on the coffee table. I missed and cracked the top of my bare foot against the side of the table. The pain shot up my legs and wrung my testicles. I swallowed the sickness because I knew that if I was sick now then I would choke to death.

I aimed another kick at the glass vase and this time connected. The vase went flying, shattering against the far side of the coffee table, broken glass and water and fresh lilies everywhere.

And through my tiny window on the world, I saw the security guard coming up the drive.

He rang the doorbell.

Nawkins leaned close to me.

‘I was going to do you quick,’ he whispered. ‘But now you’re going to be done as slow as I can make it.’

I lashed out with my foot and connected with something hard and human. His fingers dug into my neck like claws, forcing my head down, and I could feel the cold air from the open door and the murmur of civilised conversation.

‘Thank you so much,’ Gatling was saying. ‘Yes, the police released the house … I’ll be staying here tonight, but thank you for your concern.’

‘Sir,’ said the Ghurkha, and he went away.

The front door closed.

Footsteps on the driveway.

The door of the guard’s car door, opening and closing. The car driving away.

I could have wept.

And then we were all alone in the big house at the top of the highest hill in the city, and there was a silence that sounded like the end of the world.

The blind, I thought.

Peter Nawkins was the blind.

Peter Nawkins was Maisy Dawes.

And he was perfect for the role.

‘Wait until the guard knocks off,’ Gatling said. ‘Then we can take this one out the back.’ He patted me on the head. My heart pounded in my chest. The air wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

I was suffocating.

‘I know just the right place to bury him,’ Gatling said.

The wall at the back of The Garden was covered with ivy.

At a certain spot it could be pulled back to reveal a sally port – a secret double doorway whose original purpose could only be remembered by men who had been dust for a hundred years.

But when the ivy was pulled aside the hidden sally port provided entry to The Garden, just as it had on the night that Nawkins came to annihilate a family, just as it gave them passage into Highgate Cemetery on the night they carried me to the place of the dead.

They carried me deep into the Victorian jungle. I tried to keep a map in my head. Through the wall. Down the steps to Egyptian Avenue. A right to – where? – Dickens’ Path. And then left and downhill to Comforts Corner.

But my mind was still weak and dizzy with the Rohypnol, I was in the middle of the drugged fog now, and by the time they dropped me hard on the ground, I was lost.

I could see nothing. There was only the blackness.

But I could hear the sound of earth being dug up, and then the sound of ancient wood, rotten with the ages, creaking and cracking as it was prised open.

There was the smell of the grave and strong arms were lifting me.

‘You want to sleep with a whore?’ Nils Gatling said, close to my ear. ‘Here’s one you can sleep with forever.’

Then I felt the rustle and crack of human bones beneath me as they lowered me into the coffin.

Enough
.

Sleep now.

Close your eyes
.

Think of nothing
.

Slip into the darkness that is total and unbroken and all you will ever know
.

Let your breath do the work.

Let it be over
.

Embrace the blackness and end all of your suffering.

End it. End it. End it
.

The pain revived me.

I had no idea how long they had waited for the security guard to end his shift but I guessed it was hours rather than minutes because the pain sliced right through the Rohypnol fog inside my head.

They had knocked me about quite a bit, but the pain that woke me was from the single cut high on my cheekbone where Nawkins had caught me with the claw of the hammer.

The pain – the fierce sting of a fresh, deep cut on top of a bruise – was enough to lift the mist just enough to make me realise that they had buried me alive.

I screamed.

I thrashed like a dog with a dying rat in its mouth, the ancient bones cracking and snapping and breaking beneath me, sticking into my flesh, the tape that held my arms loosening, as if it had no dominion in this terrible place. I tore at it with my fingers, my teeth, pulling it away from me, wanting it gone.

There was so much of it but I knew that I was reaching the end of it when it began to tear away hair and skin. Then I lay there panting, and the roof of the universe was damp, rotten wood just a few inches above my face.

I lay there breathing, the blackness around me unbroken and absolute.

Then I began to punch.

‘
Scout!
’

I thought of her and I drew another breath. I thought of her and she gave me strength. I thought of her and I said her name aloud and the sound of my daughter’s name was full of the rage to live.

And I punched the way I had been taught to punch for month after month, and year after year, wasting nothing, no room to waste anything, lifting my fists the few inches to the wooden ceiling, slamming them home – left – right – left – right – banging away, a small animal gasp escaping my lips with every blow, left – right – left right –
ah! – ah! – ah! – ah! –
my elbows tucked into my ribs, as if protecting myself from the body shots that robbed your breath and were worse than anything that anyone could do to your face – left – right – left – right –
ah! – ah! – ah! – ah!
– until my knuckles were torn raw and bleeding and I had to stop to master the pain and to find my breath again.

While I was resting I wrapped thick scraps of discarded duct tape around my hands, makeshift gloves to let me hit harder. Later – it felt like an hour but it could have been seconds – I began again.

And the wood cracked. A tearing sound, like sudden thunder, and it made me lash more wildly, which did no good at all, because the wood cracked no more and yet my energy seemed to be seeping from me, and I lay in the grave with the sweat pouring and the tears streaming and the salty sting in my eyes.

And I noticed the air.

There was not so much air.

The air was being used up.

I turned on my side, feeling the panic surge, trying to fight it down with slower breathing. But I found I could not lie on my side. There was no room when I was sideways. The coffin would not counter such movement. It wanted me to rest on my back and to rest like that until the end of time.

I cursed out loud, lashing out with one foot and felt it smash through rotten wood and into the cold earth. It took a while to pull my foot back. I knew then that the wood was ready to fall apart. I just had to hit it the right way. And I had to do it before the air was gone.

But I was so tired.

I closed my eyes, although nothing changed when my eyes were open or when my eyes were closed. I rested for as long as I could. Then when I felt the darkness pulling me down, telling me to sleep, telling me that I had done my best and now it was time to rest, I steeled myself for one final effort.

I could no longer punch because my knuckles were a bloody mush. So I used the weapons of the dirty fighter.

Elbows. Knees. Forehead. Hit them with anything. Hit them with everything. Getting into a mad rhythm.

‘
Scout! Scout! Scout!
’

Grunting with each impact. Left elbow into wood – right elbow into wood – lashing up with right knee – then the left knee – and finally raising myself off the ground, in a stunted little sit-up, the bones beneath me pressing into my back, then breaking as I smashed my forehead hard against the wooden sky.

And it did no good. The wood creaked and cracked and even split. But I remained in the tomb that I would rest in forever, exhausted now, and finally giving in to the hot, bitter tears.

I said one word out loud.

‘
Scout
.’

And I would have wept.

But then I felt the rat.

It came into my little wooden world through the hole that I had kicked with my foot. It slid between my legs and – responding to my cry of pure horror – slid across one thigh, its long tail like a diseased snake sliding across on my bare flesh, and I heard its teeth chatter close to my head as it paused to smell and savour the bloody meat of my face.

I kicked and screamed and thrashed, lashing out like a dying animal that finally understood he was fighting for his life.

The coffin lid split, and cracked, and fell apart.

And the sky caved in. Cold, hard dirt pouring down, hitting my chest and then my face, and then everywhere, a sky full of dirt chilled by winter, all at once in my mouth and in my eyes and clogging my nostrils.

I tore at the earth with broken fingernails. I scratched and I clawed and I dug. It tried to bury me. I refused to let it bury me. But the weight of the world pressed down on me, a world of dirt that was suffocating me. And I fought against it, knowing that when I stopped fighting it would be time to die, trying to lift myself up and yet held down hard, truly fighting more than digging now, the way a desperate man fights, with a kind of helpless and terrified ferocity, the earth so cold and so hard with the winter, and I realised that I was no longer breathing, I was drowning, a man drowning in dirt, gagging on a mouthful of the stuff, my throat closing down as my lungs and heart made ready to burst.

Then I was half-sitting up, the weight of the dirt world still pressing me down on me but unable to hold me, and I felt one hand break through the ground, the air sweet and cold, and then I was pulling, crushing bones to dust beneath my feet.