The Perimeter (12 page)

‘Where’ve you been, Riley?’ Pa asked.

‘I left my bag at Lou’s yesterday. So I nipped back to get it and ran into Liss and Annabelle on the way home.’

‘The Walls isn’t somewhere you ‘nip’ to without telling anyone,’ Pa said. ‘Especially not at the moment with all that’s going on at the compound.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘Not to mention the waste of fuel,’ he continued. ‘I don’t want you going out alone anymore. Not at the moment anyway.’

‘Okay,’ I said, eager to change the subject. ‘So I wonder what’s going on with Liss and Anna.’

‘Didn’t you ask them?’ Pa said.

‘Yeah, but they said it was a long story, so I figured I’d let them get cleaned up first.’

‘What about Fred and Jessie?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The girls were out there alone on foot, not far from the fence. A pack of dogs was attacking them.’

Pa exhaled and stood up, rubbing his chin. ‘Dogs?’

‘Yeah. We scared them off though.’

‘Good. Those dogs are getting cheekier by the minute.’

‘They were more than cheeky.’

‘Might have to do something about them.’

‘Liss and Anna can stay with us, can’t they Pa?’ I asked.

‘We’ll see,’ Pa replied.

‘I’ll make them some porridge,’ Ma said, walking over to the pan cupboard.

‘Something’s not right about all this,’ Pa said. ‘We need to find out exactly what it is those girls are doing here.’

Chapter Fourteen

Jamie

The room lay in semi-darkness. Black curtains had been drawn across two windows, but still a thin film of sunlight managed to creep inside. Before him, two figures sat unmoving, dressed in dark, hooded robes. Jamie’s eyes flicked to an empty wooden chair in the centre of the room. He guessed that was meant for him. Jamie stood, indecisive for a moment, and then he came forward and sat in the chair, laying his crutches beside him. They clattered down onto the floor and his chair leg scraped as he sat. The silence soon settled back around him and he became aware of his own rasping breath.

Was he supposed to say something? Was he simply supposed to begin listing out his sins for these ‘Listener’ people? Sweat trickled down his forehead and a droplet landed on his top lip. He wiped it away and blinked several times. Suddenly, a loud continuous hiss flooded the room, like a relentless wind or fast running water. Then, over the top of the hiss, came voices:

‘Speak, we are listening.’

Whoa
, Jamie thought, almost jumping out of his skin in fright.
What the
. . . The words had seemed to come from the room itself, not from the men in front of him. The blend of voices had been deep and otherworldly, like God himself had spoken. Jamie quickly realised they must be using some kind of loudspeaker; that would explain the hissing sound he’d heard a second ago. He glanced around the room, but even if there were any to be found, there wasn’t enough light for him to spot them.

 ‘Speak, we are listening,’ the voices came again.

The figures in front of him raised their heads so they appeared to be looking right at him, but the freaky thing was, Jamie still couldn’t see their faces. It was as if the robes were worn by invisible men.

Jamie told himself this was all merely trickery and technology, intended to spook and intimidate him. Well, they’d done a pretty good job, but he was here for a reason. He needed to do this.

‘My . . .’ he cleared his throat. ‘My name is Jamie. I’ve come here because I’m sick of life on the outside.’ He paused for a moment and swallowed. ‘It’s hard . . . It’s harsh and you end up doing things you shouldn’t . . .’ He paused again. Was he really going to do this? Was he going to gamble with his own life by confessing? The loudspeaker hiss suddenly ceased.

‘Go on.’ This time it was one of the figures who spoke; not the loud crackling God-voice. It was a man’s voice. Someone quite young by the sound of him.

‘I did something. It was an accident. But it was terrible. I . . .’ the girl’s blank, unseeing face flashed into his mind again. The blood, the glass, the terror. A tear slid down Jamie’s cheek. ‘She was only a young girl and it was all my fault,’ he said. ‘I know that now. She died because of me. I had no business being in her garden, but I was only looking for somewhere safe to sleep. And now she’s dead.’ Jamie’s voice had broken down into a gulping, gasping mess. He had done it. He had confessed to his crime.

Perhaps a bolt of lightning would pierce the room and strike him down. But nothing stirred, no one moved. The two figures stayed seated without a word.

‘Is that it?’ Jamie asked. ‘Or should I explain some more?’

‘Go on,’ the young man’s voice repeated.

Jamie tried to compose himself. He wiped away his tears and cast his mind back to the night when the woman in the AV had knocked him down. He would tell these listener-guys the whole sorry story. Might as well; he’d already confessed to murder, the rest was just for himself, to get it all out of his system.

As Jamie told his story, he felt a lightness of being creep over him, a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was as if, with every word, his body and mind was coming slowly back into focus. Maybe Mr Carter and John had been right. Confession was good for the soul.

Jamie didn’t let himself think about what would happen afterwards. He just spoke the words and let The Listeners listen. His voice threaded itself around the small room, twisting into the dark corners and wrapping itself around the chairs and over The Listeners. As the words left Jamie’s mouth, they took on a separate entity, as though his past actions no longer belonged to him. They now belonged to the room and to The Listeners. Jamie talked and talked, leaving out no single detail.

Finally, his story was done and the room no longer seemed threatening. It was simply a normal room with summer sunlight filtering in through the gaps in the curtains. Jamie thought that whatever happened next he would be able to deal with it. Even if they chucked him in jail, or lined him up against the wall to be executed, he would accept it. But somehow he didn’t get the impression that was to be his fate.

The faint sound of birdsong from outside made him feel almost euphoric. He wondered whether he was now supposed to leave the room, but before he could make up his mind whether to stay seated or to get up, The Listeners rose to their feet and began to remove their deep hoods.

Jamie was curious to see the faces of the two figures who had listened to his confession. He imagined them to be of another world, perhaps like beautiful angels or terrible demons. But as the Listeners removed their hoods, he saw that they were merely men. One was short and quite elderly with wrinkled skin and thin grey hair, the other was much younger – a boy really. Good looking though, and almost like an angel, with his halo of fair curls. Jamie guessed it had been this younger one who had prompted him to keep speaking during his confession. Both their expressions were neutral, neither warm nor cold.

‘Thank you for your words,’ the younger one said.

Jamie nodded.

‘My name is Matthew, and this is Michael.’

‘What I told you,’ Jamie said, ‘are you going to do anything about it?’

‘You need dwell on it no longer,’ Matthew replied.

Jamie wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but at least no one was pointing a weapon in his face or battering the door down to take him away. And these two seemed remarkably unfazed by his awful story.

‘Come with me,’ Matthew said, walking the three feet across the room to where Jamie sat. Matthew bent down to retrieve the crutches and pass them to Jamie, who took them with a murmur of thanks. He stood and turned to follow Matthew out of the room. Before leaving, he glanced back at Michael, but the man had now replaced his hood and stood unmoving, his features concealed once more.

As Jamie followed Matthew out of the room and down the stairs, he felt like a completely different person to the one who had climbed the stairs only a short while earlier. He realised he was less afraid, and the constant worries and questions, which had dogged him these past days, now seemed entirely unimportant. They were still there, under the surface, but he didn’t let himself examine them. He was quite happy to accept whatever was about to happen. It was a liberating feeling.

They were now outside once more and the sun hung lower in the sky, making the heat a touch less fierce. Matthew’s robes swept along the dusty ground and Jamie’s eyes fixed on several brown holly leaves which had attached themselves to the robe’s hem, making a rustling scraping noise as he walked, dragging and jumping in his wake. This time, as Jamie followed Matthew, he barely noticed his surroundings and paid no attention to the route they took; his mind was clear and blank and free with just the rustle of the holly leaves, the dull thud of his crutches and the warmth of the sun on his back.

After a time, they arrived at another building, traversed another wide cool hallway, climbed another winding flight of stairs and crossed another landing. Matthew had come to a stop outside yet another door.

‘I am taking a personal interest in you, Jamie,’ Matthew said. It was uncanny the way the boy spoke with such self-assurance. It made him seem much older than he first appeared. Before coming here, Jamie would have hated the boy’s confidence; he would’ve thought him an arrogant and precocious idiot, and would’ve answered with smart remarks to put him in his place. But now he found he wanted to impress him, to earn his favour.

‘I will leave now,’ Matthew said, ‘and trust you back into the care of John. But we shall meet again quite soon. There is something about you, Jamie . . .’ He trailed off and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘You will be useful here, I am sure of it.’

Jamie wondered if this speech was used on all the newbies, or if he, Jamie, truly was being singled out as special. He couldn’t help but feel flattered by Matthew’s words. The boy was charismatic, that was for sure. Matthew held the door open and Jamie entered the room. It was a regular dorm-type space with some bunks and a few bedside tables. Nothing fancy, but not too bad either.

‘Wait here,’ Matthew said. ‘John will be along shortly.’  Then he turned and left.

Jamie assumed this room would be where he was staying. He plonked himself down on the end of one of the beds and looked around. His eyes felt quite heavy all of a sudden, like he could sleep for a hundred years. It must be all the adrenalin of the past few hours leaving his body. Would John be cross with him if he fell asleep on this bed? Quite frankly, he was too tired to worry about that. He eased himself down on top of the covers and closed his eyes.

It seemed only moments later that he was shaken awake. Jamie turned his head and blinked his eyes open. The room lay almost in darkness, the afternoon sun a distant memory. His neck felt stiff and sore. He must have slept at a funny angle.

‘This is not your bed,’ came a soft voice.

Jamie squinted in the half-light and made out the shape of a round, doughy face belonging to a man who was pointing at the next bed along.

‘What?’ Jamie croaked.

‘This is my bed. You take that one.’

‘Oh, okay. Sorry.’

‘It’s alright.’

Jamie shuffled off the bed and managed to hobble to the next bed along.

‘What’s the time?’ Jamie asked.

‘You’ve missed supper,’ the man replied.

Jamie’s stomach growled a reply.

‘John said we should leave you to sleep,’ the man continued. ‘But you were on my bed.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Jamie apologised again. He had the feeling this man was a little bit simple.

‘I’m Jeremiah.’

‘Jamie.’

‘Both our names begin with J.’

‘Yeah.’

‘They’ll change your name soon.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yes. Your new name might not start with a J. it might start with a K or an L or even a Z.’

Jamie rubbed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the sleep from his brain. Then he realised something – while he’d slept, he hadn’t dreamt of anything at all. He’d managed to have a perfectly dreamless sleep for the first time in . . . well, forever. He looked up as the door opened and several figures filed into the room. John was among them, carrying a storm lamp which cast a yellow glow about the room. He nodded at Jamie who nodded back.

‘I see Jeremiah has shown you to your bed,’ John said. ‘The bathroom is down the hall on the right. In your bedside cupboard you will find a nightshirt, a towel, a washcloth, toothbrush and a beaker.’

The room was full of hushed mutterings, a rustling of clothes and the intermittent creak of the floorboards. The men were preparing to go to bed. As they stripped off their clothes and changed into their nightshirts, Jamie did a quick headcount – ten men including himself. But it appeared as though everyone had some kind of ailment or disability. Jeremiah was, well, not all there, John was badly disfigured, one man was badly hunched over and some men were missing limbs. Jamie wondered why he’d been put in with them when there was nothing wrong with him. Then his eyes fell on the crutches which now lay propped against the wall. Of course – he was a cripple too.

Half an hour later, showered, changed and with clean teeth, Jamie lay beneath the grey coverlet of his narrow bed. He was worried that the nightmares would return. What if he cried out in his sleep and woke everyone up? What if he let something slip about the girl’s murder? It was one thing to confess his sins to a couple of robed priest-type guys, but it was quite another to blurt out his secrets to a roomful of strangers.