The Penal Colony (34 page)

“This won’t take long,” Appleton said.

The left-hand wall was dominated by the
warden’s 1:10,000 map of the island, showing place-names, contours,
tidal zones, vegetation, and the various survey stations used in
studying the animals and plants.

“Do you want to take it off the wall?” Franks
said.

“It’d be much easier if we did,” Appleton
said.

Using a screwdriver attachment on his pocket
knife, Appleton unfastened the perspex sheet and with Routledge’s
help lifted it down. They carefully unpeeled the map.

“Shall I clear my desk?” Franks said.

“There’s no need. We’ll take it into the
lab.”

Franks came to watch. Routledge and Appleton
laid the perspex sheet across two trestle tables and spread the map
across it. Appleton produced his notebook.

With Thaine’s tape measure and a large pair
of folding-leg compasses borrowed from the carpentry shop,
Routledge ascertained the distance on the paper between Azion Point
and Beacon Point, 401 millimetres, and drew an arc with this radius
from each of the two Points. From Azion Point he raised an arc of
663 millimetres, which was the reading taken on Beacon Point
multiplied by 401 and divided by 500, the distance from the inner
to the outer nail on each limb of the protractor. With a pencil and
straight-edge he joined Beacon Point to the place where this arc
crossed the arc he had just raised from Beacon Point. Performing
the reverse operation on Azion Point left him with two straight
lines which intersected somewhere out to sea about four kilometres
south of Beacon Point. This was the position of the southern
lightship. It fell beyond the edge of the map, so he took some
extra paper from Franks to make an extension.

He next plotted the position of the northern
lightship. Stretching the tape measure between the two points gave
a converted distance of 16,060 metres.

“Say 16,100 to allow for inaccuracies,”
Routledge said.

Franks smiled. “I’ll buy that.” He turned his
head. “Come in, Stamper. Come in.”

The door to the corridor was ajar: Stamper
had knocked on it anyway.

Stamper appeared extremely agitated.
Routledge had never seen him like this before.

“Father,” Stamper said. “I must have a
private word.”

“If it’s not a personal matter, you can say
anything in front of Routledge here.”

For a moment Routledge did not realize the
honour that had just been done him. He was too worried by Stamper’s
expression, by the growing premonition that something terrible had
happened.

“There’s an outsider on the porch,” Stamper
said. “He says he wants to see you.”

“An outsider? How did he get into the
Village?”

“Through the gate. Mr Myers took the
decision.”

“Who is it?”

“Obadiah Walker. Father, he knows about the
boat.”

“That’s OK, Wayne,” Martinson said. “I
understand.”

“Just protectin’ my interests, Jim.”

“Sure. Sure. I’d do the same if I was
you.”

“’Nother thing. Ain’t safe to push Gomm and
Wilmot no more. When the time come, that time enough.”

“And Feely?”

Pope grinned, showing his yellow teeth.

“Want to know a secret, Wayne?”

“Spill.”

“You and me, we speak the same lingo.”

This was their fifth meeting in all, the
third at Piper’s Beach. At the second, on the day after Boxing Day,
Pope had brought the binoculars and Martinson had known that
everything at last was about to go his way. Their earliest
conversations had been almost like a ritual dance: elaborately
wary, replete with buried meanings, of full significance only to
the participants. Later, when it had become apparent that they did
indeed speak the same lingo, Pope had been the first to open
up.

“What’s happening about the binocs?”
Martinson said.

“Archie blame Des now. Reckon he leave the
door unlocked. Des get a bit of a smackin’. Still, he like that
anyway. He like that fine.”

“Yeah? Never did before. When he was with
Peto.”

“Do now.”

“You in’t no tin roof, Wayne?”

“Me? No. Not special.” Moving his hips back
and forth in unison, he made a brief pumping movement with his
right hand. “Any hole do Wayne. I takes it as it come.”

“Why you doing this?”

“Fun, man. Laughs.”

“And the island.”

“That too.”

“You’ll be king. Wayne the First of
Sert.”

“Might wears purple and swaps my name. Be the
Pope instead. Pope Wayne.”

Martinson shook his head and smiled. Seated
on a flat rock, he was popping the bladders on a strand of
green-black weed. He let the waves break a few more times before
speaking again. He liked the stertorous noise they made, like
giants breathing. Crash. Drag. Crash.

“So I’m on me own,” he said.

“’Fraid so, Jim. ’Cept the rope. I’ll do that
OK.”

“Comes down to the when.”

“Can’t be yet awhile. Not till the weather
warm up.”

“Don’t he never take the shutter down in
winter?”

“No.”

“Couldn’t you unfix it, like? On the
night?”

“No. Couldn’t do that. You got to wait, Jim.
With the curtain it be easy.”

“When you say warm weather, what do you mean?
March?”

“April. Could be May.”

“May!”

“April. Usually April.”

It was now early February. Two months. Eight
weeks, maybe ten. A long time to wait. But then he had been waiting
five years to hear Franks, disillusioned at the last, raise a
despairing voice to his Maker. If he had to wait another five years
it would still be worth it. What were ten weeks, balanced in the
scale of Armageddon? And he could use the interval to gather yet
more intelligence about the Village, to continue probing at
Nackett’s boys. Bubbles was in the bag. With Bubbles he had already
begun to plot and plan.

Nackett would die a rapid death. He was
lucky. Unlike Pope. Pope would be taking Nackett’s place. On the
right hand side. Feely would be in Houlihan’s place, on the left.
But, unlike those of the man in the middle, their legs would be
broken and for them it would be comparatively merciful.

April. When did Easter fall this year?

“All right,” Martinson said. “We’ll do it
your way. Let’s have a date.”

“April 15th.”

“You sure?”

“’Pend on the weather. Could be sooner than
that. Could be later. And don’t forget the moon.”

“We need a signal. Hang something from the
gallery.”

“Too chancey. I tells you what, Jim. Every
day after April 15th, you look here on the beach. If’n this rock
gets turned upside downside, you know that’s the night to
move.”

Martinson bent his head to examine the rock
on which he was seated. “All right.”

“Till then I don’t wants to see you no more.
If you got a ’mergency, send Obie with some bullshitty message,
then I’ll knows to meets you here. If I gots one, I’ll come to the
town. Right?”

“Right.”

Pope glanced round. No one was in view. “Like
I said, if you get caught, hard shit.”

“I won’t get caught.”

“See you in the spring, then, Jim.”

“Yeah.”

The pact now settled, Pope turned and started
to move away.

* * *

Obie began to wonder whether he had made a
mistake, the worst and last in the long chain of appalling blunders
that constituted his life. The way Myers was looking at him, the
way he was being kept waiting outside, the way Stamper and Myers
had conversed in low tones: all this was leading him to believe
that he should have listened to his own original counsel of caution
and stayed away. Because, even if they acceded to his demands, the
best he could eventually hope for was a faceful of TK-6 and the
splattering, torrential impact of the batch of Prison Service
machine-gun rounds reserved specially for him.

The prospect of escape, however remote, had
been too intoxicating to resist; setting foot in the Village had
instantly sobered him up. He should definitely have kept further
watch and then reported everything to Jim. Definitely.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Myers
said.

“Got to take a leak.”

“Sit down.”

Obie decided not to protest. “Cold out here,”
he said.

“Shut up,” Myers said, flatly.

“Suck my big toe, Myers.” Obie was about to
say more, but Myers moved the hatchet just slightly and Obie
remembered that his own weapon, one of Jim’s machetes, had been
confiscated at the gate. No point in antagonizing the hired help.
The goons.

Obie eyed Myers’s pristine boots and clothes,
his warm jacket. Myers was clean. His beard was trimmed, his hair
cut short. His skin looked healthy. No blotches or pimples from
eating crap all winter long. Since Nackett had taken over the
flock, Obie had received scarcely any milk or cheese. The villagers
not only had goats, lots of them: they had cows too. Pigs,
chickens. Vegetables. Fruit.

In fact, they had everything.

The door opened and Stamper came out. “All
right,” he said to Obie. “You can come in now.”

Reluctantly, Obie rose to his feet.

“You said you wanted to see the Father,
didn’t you?”

“Changed my mind.”

“Tough,” Myers said, rising himself.

“He’s waiting,” Stamper said.

“I got to take a J. R.”

“Later.” Myers took his elbow.

Obie angrily shook himself free. “OK,” he
said. “Later.”

He was not prepared for the inside of the
bungalow. In the past five years he had forgotten what the interior
of a civilized building was like. He had learned to accept as
normal the lack of all facilities, the vandalism, the rotting
boards, the commingled stink of stale bird-oil, urine, excrement,
vomit, semen. He had almost forgotten what a window did, or what a
hinge was for. And this was just the hallway. When Stamper opened
the door to the large room where Franks was sitting with Appleton,
Obie felt himself crushed by the shock of realizing how far he had
fallen and how much he had lost. This was like the heartbreaking
contrast between the cellblock and the two minutes the
parole-seeking con spent standing in the carpeted, picture-hung
cosiness of the governor’s office; like it, but infinitely
multiplied by the knowledge that the denial of these treasures
extended not just to the end of his sentence, but for ever.

“What is it you want?” Franks said, from
behind the trestle table.

He did not offer Obie a seat.

When Obie didn’t answer, Franks said, “Mr
Myers tells me you seem to think we’re building a boat.”

Obie had come this far. He reminded himself
there was no point in stopping now. “In Star Cove. In the
cave.”

“What an extraordinary notion.”

“Don’t give me that, Franks.” Now he had
started talking, Obie found himself continuing volubly,
simultaneously releasing all his pent-up thoughts and frantically
trying to say the right words to stave off what he now feared they
were going to do to him. “I know, and one of my mates knows, and if
I don’t come back he’s goin’ to tell everyone in the town, so don’t
get no ideas about boddin’ me to keep me quiet. We seen you
buildin’ it and me and my mate want in. We want to get off the
island much as you. That’s all. That’s it. That’s our price. Way I
see it you ain’t got no choice.”

Franks seemed amused. “We have every choice.
Let us first assume that you have put the correct interpretation on
what you imagine you have seen. Let us assume that we are not
merely building a cheese store in the cave.”

Cheese store? Cheese store? Obie was about to
panic, but then took strength from the memory of Appleton and
Jenkins on the cliff. And why bother to hide a cheese store from
the Eye? Why use dawn and dusk and fog to take the timber down? And
why run daytime patrols to protect a few wooden shelves?

“Let us assume, as I say, that you are right.
We can then either believe you when you say that you have a mate
who knows, or we can disbelieve you. If we believe you, what is to
stop us from grabbing your dick with a pair of pliers and squeezing
till you tell us his name? What is then to stop us from going to
Old Town now to find and kill him before he suspects you won’t be
coming back?”

“I wouldn’t tell you his name. I’d tell you
someone else’s.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps, and which is more
likely, no one else knows anything about this. Perhaps you’re
trying to four-flush us, Obie. What odds would you give on that, Mr
Appleton?”

“Good odds.”

“Good odds, Obie. You heard Mr Appleton. Good
odds that it would be safer to kill you now. After, of course, we
have grabbed your dick with our pliers and squeezed until you’ve
told us whatever else you might know.” He smiled icily. “Come to
think of it, just what have you seen?”

“I seen enough. With the binocs.”

“What binocs?”

“Barratt’s.”

Franks studied him without speaking. He sat
back and looked away, apparently considering what to do. He stroked
his face a few times and drew air between his teeth. Finally he
decided. He raised his eyes to Myers, who was standing by the
door.

“Kill him,” he said.

Obie saw Myers start forward, drawing a
long-bladed knife from the sheath at his belt. “No! No, wait!
There’s somethin’ else! Somethin’ more! About Jim! About
Martinson!”

Franks held up his hand: the knife slowly
returned to its sheath. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“You’ll let me live?”

“I might. No promises.”

“Think you’re some sort of hard case, don’t
you, Franks?”

“You’ve got five seconds. Starting now.”

Myers drew the knife once more. Obie looked
at it, looked at Franks. He thought of what Martinson would do to
him if he found out he had been betrayed.

“All right, Mr Myers,” Franks said. “Do
it.”