The White Room (23 page)

It is an abattoir.

Hanging from hooks suspended from ceiling and walls are carcasses. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. Blood-drained racks of meat. No individual animals: all individual animals. The place is alive with activity, like flies on a dead dog. Men dressed in cloth caps and bloodied aprons wield sharp blades, toil before the meat. Bleeding. Skinning. Carving. Removing heads, guts and hearts. Some taking the parts away, others feeding them to the furnaces. The carcasses moving along, the racks creaking, groaning.

Further in he goes. Up close, the pillars and archways seem made of candle wax: run off and set solid. Pooling on the floor. He walks through. The men, oblivious to his presence, get on with their work.

He reaches a door. Large, heavy, studded with bolts. This, he knows with dream logic, is the centre. He opens the door, steps inside.

The door closes behind him. The heart is clean, bright. Soundless. The walls are dazzling-white ceramic tile. Decorated only by arcs of dried blood. In the centre is a stainless-steel block. Shining blade marks and scratches glinting on the surface. Time stops in the room. Chill creeps into his bones.

The white room.

He shudders from more than the cold. From understanding. He knows what the room means, what it does. The furnaces, the carcasses. With dream logic and dream clarity, he knows.

It is the heart, he knows. The cold, clinical heart. The heart of the city. What the city was built around, built on. Beating rhythmically, regularly. The heart was the room.

He wants to leave. He turns and, expecting resistance, opens the door. There is no resistance. He is free to come and go. He walks back into the huge hall. He looks again at the melted wax pillars. This time he sees them for what they are: not wax, but waste. Animal fat, gristle and skin. Some still red-veined in places. Moulded and shaped. Waste but not wasted.

He walks back out on to the street. The dream city shimmers and moves about him. Mists and fog roll through the streets, changing the layout once again. Strange. Familiar. Strange. Familiar. He looks around. He knows exactly where he is. He knows exactly what is happening.

A truth has been revealed to him. A truth he will not remember on waking. A truth that will remain beyond his fingertips. Beyond his reach.

The city moves.

He is lost.

March 1964:

Bits and Pieces

Ben Marshall checked that the levels were high and the speakers in place. He moved the arm of the portable record player so the seven-inch single was 45rpm ready. He held the arm back.

‘Mr Tyler?' he said.

No response.

‘Your last chance, Mr Tyler.'

Ben cocked his head, listening. Had he heard a muffled ‘Bugger off'? He shrugged. No matter.

‘Ah, well,' Ben said to himself.

He dropped the needle. Crackles, bloops and hisses, then: the drums. Solid, insistent.

Boom boom boom boom ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta TA TA.

Then the guitars, bass, keyboards. All banging down together, boxing gloves subtle.

On top of that the vocals:

I'm in pieces, bits and pieces …

Ben nodded his head in time to the music, tapped his foot, sang along.

He stood with his back to a borrowed flat-bed truck holding a portable generator. Wires trailed to the Vox amplifiers/speakers he had mounted on a windowsill on 23a Berwick Street, just off Raby Street in Byker. The portable record player was on the garden wall.

With a final drumbeat flourish, the song ended. Ben walked to the closed front door, opened the letterbox, shouted through it.

‘Enjoy that, Mr Tyler?'

No response.

‘You ready to come out or d'you want to hear it again?'

No response.

‘Ah, well …'

He walked back to the wall, dropped the arm in place.

Boom boom boom boom ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta TA TA.
And off again.

Ben was aware that people were looking at him. Women were putting down their shopping bags and staring. Talking to their neighbours, pointing. Young children were laughing. Older people were shaking their heads, walking past, muttering bitterly.

Ben didn't care. Let them all gawp. Let them all stare. He thought of playing to the crowd, courting them with charm. But decided against it. They would know who he was, or at least what he was doing. And they would be scared.

That fear would keep them in line. And he enjoyed the feeling that power gave him.

He had moved into property in the autumn of 1963, on the money he had made selling pills and puff. He had handed over his markets, opened a gateway for Big Derek into the North-East, been allowed to retire gracefully. Through contacts he had made, by moving in the right circles, by March 1964 he owned six houses and three flats, all let out at the highest possible rental value.

Things went smoothly for the most part but, occasionally, someone gave him trouble. Like now.

Wilf Tyler had lived in the same Byker flat nearly all his life. Ben had bought the flat, together with the one upstairs, and decided that it was too big for the number of people living in it. It could be three flats. Or even four.

He had thrown the belongings of the family in the top flat out on the street, told them since they wouldn't sign a new rental agreement with him they had forfeited their right to live there. They hadn't argued.

But Wilf Tyler had. So more drastic measures had been called for.

With a final drumbeat flourish, the song ended.

Again.

Ben sighed and smiled. Back to the letterbox.

‘How was that, Mr Tyler? Any good?'

No response.

‘More of a Beatles man, are you? Stones?'

No response.

‘Ah, well, here we go again …'

Several bolts were unlocked, pushed back. An old, grey-haired man emerged, wearing a suit and overcoat. His body looked thin and frail, his eyes fiery and angry.

‘Right, you bastard, you've won. You've won, you bastard.'

‘Hello, Mr Tyler. Nice to see you at last.'

Wilf Tyler squared up to Ben, looked him in the eye, unblinking.

‘If I was twenty years younger, I'd fuckin' have you. You bastard.'

Ben smiled.

‘But you're not, are you?'

Wilf Tyler was almost vibrating with rage. He hauled an old suitcase over the threshold, slammed the door behind him.

‘I'll be back for the rest of me stuff.'

Ben said nothing.

‘I'm goin' to me daughter's.'

He dragged his case halfway down the path, put it down, turned.

‘You haven't heard the last of this, you bastard.'

He picked up his case, resumed walking. As he reached the wall, he knocked the portable record player to the ground. It crashed, leaving a strong electric hum in the air.

‘I'll be billing you for that, Mr Tyler,' said Ben.

Wilf Tyler mumbled something inaudible. Then made slow, sad, painful progress up the street and away.

Ben crossed to where the record player lay. He picked it up. It was bashed, scuffed but still seemed in workable condition. The record, however, was scratched and broken. Ben threw it into the front garden.

‘Hated that song anyway.'

He began packing his equipment away, ready to move on to his next recalcitrant tenant.

Johnny chose his spot, stuck his blade in, drew it down. He stood back, anticipating the blood, stopping too much of it from going on to his clothes. He peeled back the skin, let the entrails fall into the waiting bucket.

Another animal butchered. Another bull reduced to component meat and meat products.

He looked into the bull's large, glassy eye. Found nothing there.

The Victorians, he had once read, believed that a murdered person would retain the imprint of their murderer on their eyeball after death. He wondered if that were in some way true. And whether it applied to all animals.

And, above all, how many times his face would appear.

Job done, he moved to the next carcass along, hooked on to the overhead rail, brought it into place.

He was happy in his work. Contented.

Now.

After that night in the toilets in Byker, the first time, Johnny had been terrified. He had scanned the
Chronicle
for days afterwards, waiting to see the article, expecting a knock on the door and a truncheon-rush of police at any moment.

But it hadn't happened.

Days spent scouring the paper. Nothing. He began to imagine he'd missed it and would go back to check.

Panic and paranoia seeped in. Perhaps the police knew what he had done. Were sending him coded messages to lure him out. To catch him doing it again.

He watched the TV news, waiting to see his photofit.

For days, then weeks: nothing.

He set no fires, made no more trips into public toilets. Bottled his desires.

Perhaps they were waiting for him. Staking out the toilets, willing him to enter, sending in a plain-clothes man to trap him.

Days, weeks, then months: nothing.

And then he got a grip, began to think logically.

The man he had met that night hadn't wanted to press charges. He was either unable or unwilling to offer a description. The police would have only the one Johnny had mentioned in his anonymous phone call to go on. The man wouldn't have sought publicity for what had happened. Hadn't he mentioned a girlfriend? The man must have recovered. Or not: poofs killing poofs was way down on the police agenda.

Gradually the oppression began to lift. The paranoia to dissipate. The police weren't going to break his door down. An angry, vengeful God was not going to smite him with a thunderbolt. He had got away with it. He was free. To live his life.

To do it again.

He resumed his fire-starting. That was his excellence, his art. His biggest source of income too. And he stayed at the slaughterhouse. He had heard they were going to build a new one. State-of-the-art killing. He had to get a job there. He enjoyed himself.

But sometimes he wanted more.

He stifled the urges, knowing he had no control once it had started. But he could feel it was building. Seeking another outlet.

Until he could find one, he stayed in his flat at night. Decorating it, adorning the walls, the surfaces, until it began to resemble a shrine. Expending his energy on that.

So he was happy.

For now.

Johnny chose his spot, stuck his blade in, drew it down. He stood back, anticipating the blood, stopping too much of it going on to his clothes. He peeled back the skin, let the entrails fall into the waiting bucket.

He was happy.

For now.

The Club A Go Go.

Ben sitting at the bar with Martin Fleming, telling him of the day's events.

‘You should've seen him.'

Ben had laughed, shook his head.

‘Looked like fuckin' Steptoe when he came out, so he did.'

Music heard through the walls: the Emcee Five blowing up a storm.

Martin Fleming, dandified in aubergine-coloured suit, lemon tie and matching top pocket handkerchief flourish, smelling of a delicate, understated floral scent, elegantly picked up his gin and tonic and smiled indulgently.

‘But he saw reason.' Ben nodded. ‘He saw reason.'

Another indulgent smile from Martin Fleming.

‘And the equipment's back safe and sound too.'

Martin Fleming nodded. Took another elegant sip of his gin and tonic. ‘What d'you think of this lot?' He inclined his head towards the music.

‘Good.' Ben nodded. ‘Bit rough, but good.'

‘Oh, I agree,' said Martin Fleming. ‘Rough. But then I like a bit of rough. That's why I like having you around, Ben.'

Ben looked at him. Martin Fleming was smiling broadly.

‘Steady,' said Ben. He knew Fleming was a poof, but he didn't want it pushed in his face. Made him uncomfortable. Martin Fleming smiled.

‘So, Mr Rachman, how goes your plan for buying up this fair city?'

Ben took a sip of beer, nodded.

‘Coming along.'

Martin Fleming studied him, decided whether to speak. The music crescendoed, the crowd applauded. He made his mind up.

‘Don't you think,' he said, his forehead creased, ‘that it's a little too undignified doing this alone?'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Don't you think you need a bully? Someone to strong-arm for you?'

Ben had already given the matter thought. His first instinct had been to track down his old colleagues from the Brian Mooney days. Brimson and Eddie. He had investigated: both had done their time in prison. Time that should have been Ben's. Eddie was now married with three kids and a job at Vickers. No more brushes with the law. Straight as an arrow. Ben hadn't risked approaching him; Eddie no longer fitted the profile. Brimson had been harder to trace. Word was, since he had taken a blow to the head that night in the Ropemakers, he hadn't been the same. Unable to concentrate on one thing for too long, unable to hold down a job, a relationship. His fists and temper had got him in trouble with the law many times; stitched up many a Durham mailbag as a result of a drunken fight. But the last anyone had heard of him had been on the hoppings on the Town Moor three years previously. Brimson had got a job working on the waltzer. Then in the boxing booths. When the hoppings moved on, it appeared Brimson had too.

But Ben was looking to put someone on the payroll, someone he could trust.

He smiled.

‘You think I'm not tough enough?'

‘Oh, I think you are.'

‘Steady. Or I'll have to get physical with you.'

‘Please. No, I'm sure you can manage. But don't you find getting your hands dirty a little … demeaning?'

‘Well,' said Ben, as if the thought had just struck him, ‘since you mention it. Any recommendations?'

‘Well.' Martin Fleming looked around, continued conspiratorially. ‘I have a man who does.'