(1992) Prophecy (2 page)

On a raised dais like an altar at the far end was a bed covered with tasselled cloth. There were massive black candles at each corner and, beyond, a leather-bound book lay on a lectern.

The man in the black hat nodded at his brother, whilst the soldiers stared round in awe and horror. ‘The fires of Hell already lit, my Lord?’

‘I’ll have no more of these games, Thomas. What do you want?’

‘’Tis no game, Francis, I assure you. None but that of your own making. I must depart, for I’ve a long way to go before dark. I’ll take my leave of you, if you’ll forgive me. Sergeant Proudlove will attend your needs; a good man by all accounts and a father of three young boys.’

He nodded to the sergeant who had a blunt face with a broad, flat nose and dull eyes, and walked out. Ignoring the shouts of his brother, he closed the door of the chamber behind him.

‘Like to sport with young boys, your Lordship?’ the sergeant said.

As the nobleman looked at him, and at each of the deadpan faces of the other six soldiers, the heat of his anger began to turn into the cold uncertainty of fear. ‘Your intrusion is intolerable,’ he said stiffly.

‘We has but only one more intrusion to make and we’lst be gone, my Lord.’ The sergeant grinned and several of the other soldiers let out coarse sniggers. Then he nodded and they gripped their prey tighter.

‘Unhand me at once, I say! What do you mean by all this?’

The sergeant pointed to the bed. The soldiers pulled the nobleman over and thrust him face down on to it. The sergeant removed his waist sash and tied it across Francis’ mouth as a gag, yanking it so tightly that there was a grunt of pain. Then he carefully eased up the gold robe, exposing the nobleman’s naked, bony backside. Francis began to struggle harder, grunting louder. The soldiers moved as if they had done this before, four of them each using his own body weight to pin down an arm or a leg, the other two sitting on the small of his back. ‘Careful not to bruise him,’ the sergeant said.

He walked slowly across to the fire, knelt and picked up the poker then ambled back to the front of the bed and held the poker up so that Francis could see it. ‘Thou enjoyest sporting with backsides, let’s see how thou enjoyest this, my Lord.’

The nobleman’s eyes widened; the cruelness of them was gone now, replaced with a look of pleading. He
mumbled desperately and incoherently through the gag.

The sergeant removed from inside his jacket a slim hollow ox-horn and checked that the poker would slide freely through it. Then he placed his hands on his captive’s buttocks, which were slippery with the perspiration of fear, and pushed them apart, locating with his eyes the circular orifice of the anus. Using some of his own spittle he lubricated the end of the ox-horn, then again located the orifice and slowly but firmly inserted the horn, easing it in further and further.

‘Gently does it, my Lord,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t want to hurt you.’

There was a guffaw from the soldiers. The nobleman struggled, his buttocks twitching fiercely, but the sergeant continued pushing the tube in for several inches until only the tip was still showing.

A low whine of fear escaped through the gag. Rivulets of sweat ran down the small of the victim’s back. Sergeant Proudlove carried the poker across to the fire and prodded the tip deep into the burning coals. The nobleman grunted, trying to speak, to call out to him, but the sergeant stood in steadfast silence, watching the poker, carefully pulling on a thick gauntlet.

After a few minutes he removed the poker. The last twelve inches of the tip were glowing red and white hot. He walked around and held it up in front of the nobleman’s face. ‘Ready, my Lord?’

The nobleman’s eyes skittered as if they had broken loose in their mountings. Another, longer, whine of fear came through the gag, then another. He tried to speak, choked on his own saliva and coughed, then tried frantically to speak again. He writhed and thrashed, throwing one soldier off his back on to the
floor, and pulling an arm free. A soldier grabbed it again, pinned it down and the other climbed back on to him, holding him down grimly. The sergeant thrust the poker back into the coals, holding it for some seconds with his gloved hand. The nobleman whined again, then again.

The sergeant removed the poker, walked up to him, gripped the hollow horn, which had slid out a couple of inches, carefully inserted the red-hot poker into the end of it as if he was locating his sword into his scabbard, then slid it in, pushing firmly and grimly.

There was a sharp hiss and bubbling sound as it burned through the soft rectal flesh, and the sudden sweet smell of roasting meat.

A convulsion of agony bulged every muscle of the nobleman’s body and a scream tore free of the gag and bounced around the room like an unleashed demon; it came back at the soldiers from the ceiling, from the walls, from the floor: a screeching banshee that became louder every second as the sergeant pushed the poker relentlessly, holding it with both hands, twisting it, working it further and further in, forcing it up through the rectum, the colon, tearing through the peritoneum, melting and cauterizing a passage through the liver, gall-bladder and pancreas; through muscles, tendons, gristle, piercing the stomach wall, stirring the nobleman’s bowels and organs like a giant pudding until the poker was in up to the handle.

The victim arched backwards, scattering all six of the soldiers. His neck twisted like a serpent, his head almost turning completely backwards as if his neck was broken. He stared the sergeant full in the eye and for a moment the sergeant thought he was going to clamber off the bed. Then the nobleman’s mouth contorted as if it were melting, and let out a low,
barely audible moan of agony; slowly this began to rise into a howl, becoming louder and louder until, in its crescendo, it seemed to detach itself from the writhing, almost inhuman, object on the bed and explode in an independent ball of energy.

The soldiers stood back, covering their ears now, unable to bear the sound that threatened to shatter the insides of their own heads. Even the sergeant released his grip and covered his ears.

Long after the poker had cooled and the nobleman lay motionless in his own slime and vomit, his fingernails embedded into the palms of his hands, the scream remained, echoing back at them as if it would never fade.

26th March, 1988

The father and son walked along the London pavement in the warmth of the spring mid-morning sunshine. The father ambled at a leisurely stride; a tall man in his late thirties, in an unbuttoned Harris Tweed coat, whose thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, as if he was pondering the cosmos above him rather than concentrating on his immediate environs.

He had a strong, open face, with handsome features and an amiable, if rather absent-minded, expression. His brown hair was parted high and was a little long, covering the tips of his ears and the top of his collar. His bearing was distinctly aristocratic, but in spite of his City suit he looked more like an academic than someone who fitted into a business community.

The five-year-old boy had his mother’s looks: short ginger curls, a serious, freckled face, wide, innocent green eyes. He was wearing a tiny corduroy jacket, grey flannel shorts, grey knee-length socks and polished black shoes. He wished his father would walk faster; this part of London did not interest him – except for the Dungeon and the Tower, and the Docklands train, and they had already done those. The thought of the shop in Regent Street filled him with an excitement he could barely contain, and the prospect of the tube train they were going to take to it was something he looked forward to also, but now that they had left the boring office where he had had to wait for an hour with nothing much to read, his father seemed in no hurry and he panicked for a moment.

‘Daddy, we are going to Hamleys, aren’t we? You promised.’

‘Hamleys?’ The father stared at his son as if he had momentarily forgotten him.

‘You promised!’

‘Righty ho, suppose we’d better head there, then.’

The boy looked at his father, never sure when he was joking and when he was serious. ‘Is this the right way?’

‘We’ve got to wait for Mummy.’

The boy’s face fell. ‘Where is she?’

‘At the hairdresser’s. She’s coming to my office at half past twelve. That’s in twenty minutes.’

‘That’s not for ages! Where are we going now?’

‘I have to pick up Mummy’s wedding bracelet from the mender.’

The boy’s face fell further. ‘You said we were going to Hamleys.’

‘We’re going to have lunch with Mummy,
then
we’re going to Hamleys.’

‘I want to go now! You promised!’ The boy was sobbing.

They were blocking a busy pavement, being jostled by passers-by. There was an alley-way beside them, with a café a short distance down on the right. The father pulled his fractious son past an employment bureau, a travel agent, a heel bar and a few other shops, then stopped outside a dingy, unprepossessing sandwich bar with words above it, in twelve-inch-high dayglo letters, two of which were missing:
SANDW CH S LUIGI CAFE
. Four small suction cups held a white plastic menu against the inside of the window.
EAT IN OR TAKE AWAY
was printed along the bottom.

‘Look, they have milkshakes,’ the father said. ‘Let’s have one.’

A small queue stood at the counter and all but one of the tiny handful of tables were taken. There was a strong smell of coffee and of frying food; a dying fly fizzed and crackled in the mesh of an ultraviolet trap. Two posters, discoloured with age, one of Amalfi and one of Naples, were stuck to the back wall.

His father propelled his charge to the empty table and sat him down. The boy placed his fists on the table. ‘You promised! You promised – you –’ The boy was silent suddenly and a strange look came into his eyes, a mixture of both fear and recognition as he stared past his father at the counter.

His father turned his head, surprised, failing to see what he was looking at. Behind the counter a thin, unshaven man in his fifties greeted a customer with a cheery: ‘Hi, how y’doin? What y’gonna ’ave today?’ Next to him, a short, plump woman with lifeless black hair and a haggard, drained face, was buttering bread. There was a sharp ping and a girl in a white apron removed a dish from the microwave.

‘Chocolate milkshake?’ the father suggested, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping the tears from his son’s face. He went to the counter and bought a milkshake and an espresso.

The boy concentrated on his drink, his tantrum forgotten. Soon he was spooning the dregs from the bottom of the glass, and then he became absorbed in scooping up the last of the froth with a straw.

When they left the café and were walking back down the alley into the street, he asked, ‘Are we meeting Mummy, now?’

‘Yes, for lunch. Then we’re going to Hamleys, and then the Planetarium. You want to see the stars, don’t you?’

The boy nodded dubiously.

In the distance, they both heard a siren; it sounded like a bag of stones being swirled through the air.

‘Daddy, why does Mummy always go to the hairdresser every time we come to London?’

‘Because she likes to look nice,’ he was told.

They walked on for a moment in silence. The shops here contained nothing to distract the boy. Stationery. Men’s clothes. Masonic regalia. A bank. A silversmith.

The swishing of the siren was coming closer and the boy heard the roar of an engine. They stopped, waiting for the lights to change to cross the road. A cyclist pedalled across, wearing a crash-helmet, his face covered in a smog mask which the boy thought made him look frightening. Then he saw a woman with short red hair on the other side of the road, and for a moment he thought it was his mother and tugged excitedly on his father’s hand, wanting to pull him across the road to greet her. Until he realized she was a stranger. His mother had long hair.

The siren was still coming closer. The boy looked up at his father and tugged his sleeve. ‘Daddy, do you think I should have my hair done in London?’

The father tousled his son’s curls fondly. ‘Like to come to Trumper’s with me next time I go?’

The boy nodded, waited until his father was looking away, slid a hand up and flattened his hair down again. Then he looked across the road at the woman with red hair. She looked like his mother again now. It was his mother! It was. His heart leapt, then her hair blew in a gust, and it wasn’t; it was someone quite different.

The lights changed to green, and the boy ran forward. Something jerked him back, holding his collar, a sharp yank. There was the roar of an engine, a shadow bearing down, the siren deafening now. The red-haired woman was halfway out in the road. His mother? Not
his mother? She was staring at him, her mouth open. She was trying to run backwards now.

Tyres screamed. A shadow crossed, blocked his view for an instant. A van with two young men in it braking furiously, slewing across the road. Going to hit the woman.

‘Mummy!’ he screamed.

The woman was splayed out on the van’s bonnet. It was careering across the road, mounting the pavement. A man in a business suit dived out of its path. A traffic-light post snapped and the coloured lights shattered on to the road. Then came an explosion like a bomb as the van, with the woman still on the bonnet, smashed through the plate-glass window of a bookshop.

The woman seemed to elongate then disappear. For an instant the entire surroundings seemed paralysed. In the silence there was nothing but the sound of breaking glass. The boy saw a chunk of window fall. He heard a scream, followed by another. Doors slamming. A siren winding down. Policemen leaping out of a car. Doors of the van opening: one easily, one with difficulty, the man inside forcing it. The van’s engine was still running.

‘
Mummy!
’

The boy broke free of his father’s grip and ran in terror across the road, through the crowd that was forming, pushing his way, sidestepping the opening door of the van. Another pane of glass crashed down. Blood. Books scattered everywhere. A poster lay on the ground, covered in blood. An assistant was standing in the shop, hand over her mouth, screaming. The boy stared in the direction she was looking. His mouth opened but no sound came out. The woman’s body lay on the floor, blood jetting intermittently from her
neck. Red bubbles lay on the grey carpet tiles. A rubber mask with hair attached lay nearby, leaking blood into a fallen dumpbin of paperbacks.