Flesh Wounds (8 page)

She chose a candidate with little deliberation and popped the hood over the hen’s head. It was a small thing, but it made the whole undertaking so much easier, a fact presumably not lost on Lisa when she failed to return the hood to its rightful place. It made the birds more placid, sometimes rooted them to the spot, sparing the time-consuming and temper-shredding (not to mention dignity-rending) farce of chasing the chookie around like Benny Hill. But perhaps more importantly, it spared her from looking it in the eye between that moment of choosing and the bird’s imminent end on the block.

That was why they hooded prisoners before the gallows, blindfolded men in front of the firing squad. People thought it was a courtesy to the condemned, so that they wouldn’t have to literally face their death, but it was actually for the benefit of the executioners. How could you shoot somebody while you looked into their eyes? How could you watch a person be hanged if you could see the agonies racking their face?

They should bring it back, people kept saying. People who had never killed anything, not even a chicken.

She took the bird outside briskly, entering an almost automatic process from the moment the hood was in place and her grip firm on the hen’s neck. There would be no dallying, no ponderance, only the swiftest of action. She was at the block in moments, where she held the bird by its legs and tail in her left hand, its neck straining back against its body as soon as it touched the wood. With her right hand she reached for the handle of the cleaver, always keeping her eyes on the bird, and in a practised movement drew it up and decisively down, severing the head completely. A streak of red violated the purity of the frost, and she let a little more spill in a deliberate arc before bringing the twitching bird into place above the bucket. She stared at the spray and the arc, like some runic symbol whose meaning she could not read, all the while continuing to hold the bleeding carcass over the bucket. She admired the rune’s grace and simplicity, imagining herself the keeper of something truly ancient that was sacred to this spot and this act, unchanging over centuries.

She could feel the bird buck and spasm, the muscle reflexes pulsing against her grip, and as she looked at the crimson pattern stark against the whiteness, she felt a small burning echo of shame. She recalled with guilt the time something truly was imparted to her from a previous generation, when her father taught her and Lisa how to do this.

Lisa had been eight and a half, she seven. There was never any question of her waiting until she was Lisa’s age for her chance to be taught or even permitted to do anything: she always had to have a go at the same time, compelled from as young as she could remember to prove she was as big, as fast, as strong, as clever as her older sister.

Dad hadn’t expected either of them to manage it by themselves, but he knew it was important to make them part of this, so that they would be prepared when that time did come. What he clearly didn’t expect was their reaction. She had insisted on going first, as usual, and had been accommodated, as usual, by a father happy to follow the path of least resistance and an older sister who was in no rush to be at the front of this particular queue. Dad made her grip the bird in both hands, showing her how to hold it against the block and very carefully ensuring both bird and daughter were steady before bringing down the blade.

She recalled a pulse of tense anticipation as he swung, her hands squeezing reflexively tighter, and of jolting fright as the impact seemed to pass through her, from the ground at her feet and the warm body in her grip, then a relieved kind of elation mixed with a brief feeling of achievement. She remembered giggling a little, nervously, in the stillness of the moment. Then the bird jerked back to life in her hands and she lost her hold in her startlement, allowing it to drop to the ground, where it proceeded to hare off in the direction of the stables.

Dad was trying to inoculate them against the horror and instil a solemn sense of purpose to the act. However, he was a bit late: they must have seen their mum do it a hundred times, initially paying fascinated attention as they stopped to stare, later merely aware it was going on in the background of whatever game they were playing.

She remembered that the first time she saw a chicken’s head severed and roll off the block, she had felt much as she did when she was shown a magic trick: a mixture of surprised delight and confusion as she tried to reconstruct the action and the outcome. But once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. They were already inured to the blood, albeit there remained something incredible about the speed of the transformation from living state to dead, side by side, bright realm, shadow realm.

Dead chickens running around with their heads off was altogether new, and, for a while at least, hilariously so. She and Lisa went charging delightedly after it, shrieking with laughter and excitement as it veered erratically across the grass. Between them they signally failed to corner the fugitive, which only came to a stop when it ran full-tilt into the side of the stables, a conclusion to the chase that precipitated further hysterics from its two pursuers.

The laughter stopped abruptly when they turned around and saw the thunderous glower across their father’s face. He didn’t need to say anything: in that moment, they understood immediately that what they were doing was wrong, and on an instinctive, fundamental level
why
it was wrong. No, he didn’t need to say anything, but he said plenty nonetheless. If he wanted to ensure that she never forgot his words, then he did his job well. She could recall them still, almost a decade later. His voice was calm, measured, a man who knew the need to scold had been obviated by a mere look, and who wanted his girls to listen, not cower.

‘We’re taking this creature’s life to preserve our own. Killing something is a sacrifice – it’s always a sacrifice, and a sacrifice should be solemn. We’ll live off this creature today and tomorrow too. We owe it our gratitude and we owe it our respect, our courtesy … and our kindness.’

She remembered looking down at the headless body, now lifeless on the ground, and weeping. She didn’t feel bad that they had killed it, but for the indignity of the chase.

That was why she had glanced towards the house before moving the block and the bucket, and felt an echo of that shame as she contemplated the rune. She wanted to see what the blood looked like against the frost, but she didn’t want anyone to notice that this was what she was doing. It was merely an echo of shame though, not shame itself, because this wasn’t to disrespect the act of sacrifice. She was making it feel like a ritual, because ritual served to remind her of the significance of actions that had become almost automatic.

She would remember the rune always, she decided: this cold morning, this sunshine, this symbol in blood newly imbued with meaning. And she was right, but not for the reasons she envisaged in that moment.

Glen looked in the rear-view mirror again. The BMW was still two cars back behind his Defender. He had suspected it was following him for the past five miles, and now that he had come off the motorway onto an A road, there was little question.

He changed gear and accelerated. As he returned his right hand to the wheel, he realised he was trembling: physically trembling. He felt shock, fear and anger: anger at himself first and foremost, because he had fucked up and was now paying the price.

When had he last felt like this, felt so afraid? Not since childhood, when he had known enough fear to last two lifetimes.

Since then, he had made a friend of fear: he had learned to listen to it, to draw power from it and to retain control when it was threatening to flood his senses. This was not the fear of which he had made himself a pupil, however. This was something different, something paralysing and debilitating, shot through with helplessness and doubt.

Nothing was under control, and he was just plain scared.

He felt the impulse to reach for the phone, an impulse he had felt twenty times in half as many minutes. On each occasion it was stayed by the knowledge that it was futile, and yet that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop his instincts from suggesting it again.

He kept his foot steady on the pedal, accelerating gradually, trying to be inconspicuous, trying to look normal. But nothing was normal any more. He knew this road so well, must have driven it a hundred times, but it looked different today. Everything looked different.

Arable fields lay either side of the tarmac, bordered by hedgerows. A river snaked in s-bends down the slope to his left. A couple of miles ahead he could see woodland, human-planted evergreens in their regimented rows hugging the hillside, punctuated by firebreaks and pylons. He knew there were Forestry Commission tracks snaking through there. He could take the Defender offroad, lose the BMW on the axle-breaking trails hidden beneath the canopy of pines. It would buy him time, but time to do what?

He had no game plan here. He was lost and blind. This was what happened when you broke your own rules.

He had been stupid, let impulse seize the reins and ride off at a reckless pace, leaving judgment trampled in its wake. He had been listening to fear, as he always did, but his emotions had caused him to misinterpret what it was telling him.

Up ahead he saw a helicopter rise above the trees, banking as it crested the hillside. Then he caught a flash of blue light in his rear-view mirror and saw the BMW pull out to overtake the Skoda that was sitting between them.

There was no question now. The blue light had been placed on the dashboard and the police car was closing on the Defender. Behind the Skoda he could see three more vehicles similarly identifying themselves and joining the chase. Instinct had told him what that BMW was, way back on the motorway, just as instinct had told him he was making a mistake a few hours before that. In both cases it was now far too late to do anything about it.

Christ.

He remembered about the gun, still secured in its hiding place under the chassis. There was no way of getting rid of it now.

Another glimpse in the mirror showed the BMW gaining. Something inside urged his right foot down, though it was laughable to think of trying to outrun the thing in this battered Land Rover; not on the open road anyway. The BMW had plenty more in reserve; it wasn’t readying itself to overtake or cut him off, just closing in and watching to see what he would do. Behind it, two of the other cop cars were slewing across the tarmac to form a roadblock, stopping any following traffic from passing that point. Something was about to happen, and soon.

He stared forward again as the Defender approached a bend, the road curving steeply to the right, mirroring the course of the nearby river. The woodland was still a long way off.

He tried to recall whether there was a break in the hedgerow coming up, a route over fields that would take him into the forest. The BMW was close enough that if its driver read his intentions, he might well be able to floor the accelerator and cut the Defender off. Glen would need to be absolutely committed to it, prepared to risk flipping the vehicle by making the turn at the latest possible moment and the highest possible speed, and that’s why it wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t see what hiding could achieve now, didn’t really understand why he was still driving. Flight was an instinct, not a plan.

It was over, then, even before he rounded the bend and saw the two police cars nose to nose, a van tucked sideways behind them, blocking the road less than two hundred yards ahead. Not just cars, either: it was an Armed Response Unit, two men in position on either side of the roadblock.

Glen knew there were four Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles pointed at his vehicle, capable of firing at a rate of seven hundred and fifty rounds a minute. Even if he slammed on the anchors for an emergency stop, the Defender would come to a standstill at a distance of roughly an eighth of the carbines’ effective range.

He braked steadily and deliberately, the BMW and the Vectra behind it decelerating in response, maintaining the same distance.

The Defender came to rest roughly fifty yards from the roadblock, at which moment two more armed officers leapt from the Vauxhall, each packing HKs. There were now one hundred and eighty rounds primed to come at him at nine hundred metres per second. The response team from the roadblock began to move forward in formation, keeping him covered at all times, while the two behind took up kneeling positions on the ground.

Glen thought once more of the pistol stashed under the chassis, momentarily entertaining a grimly fatalistic thought. That would be giving them what they wanted, wouldn’t it? That would end all of this: cut off the tentacles reaching out from his decades-old misdeeds to the people he loved. But would it protect them? Would it keep them safer than he could if he were still alive?

No.

Glen put his hands in the air, high and wide and highly visible. He heard a voice scream at him to get out of the vehicle and lie down on the ground. He climbed out of the Defender, felt hands upon him before he could even drop to his knees. His face rattled the tarmac, forced against it by a boot on the back of his neck while someone else wrenched his arms up his spine and slapped the cuffs on him.

‘I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Stephen Fullerton. You do not have to say anything…’

He watched the erstwhile roadblock part slowly as the two police cars reversed away from each other in order to let the custody van drive through. Glen’s head swam as they picked him up and dragged him towards it.

You do not have to say anything
.

What was there to say? He was at their mercy now, and he wasn’t expecting much of that.

There was only one way left for him to play this, a way he had learned a long and very dark time ago. He would not resist. He would let them have their way, let them dole out the damage until they themselves were tired from the blows. Then, once they were satisfied that he couldn’t take any more, he would strike.