The Savages (27 page)

‘Once a vegetarian,' she muttered bitterly, ‘always a vegetarian.'

Amanda walked past the house three times before she dared to venture onto the drive. The lights were on, and she could clearly hear activity inside. There was certainly some cooking going on because the hob extractor was blowing at full tilt. Immediately, she figured they had invited Jack for a bite to eat. Given how easily he had abandoned his pledge to kill a man, no doubt he had thrown away everything and was enjoying some beef, pork or chicken. Feeling let down, betrayed and angry, Amanda headed for the passage around the side of the house. All she wanted to do was peek inside. Just to confirm that she'd been dealing with a creep.

It was the sight of the flabby-looking man face down and bleeding on the patio that caused her to freeze. At first she thought he was drunk, judging by the way he was groaning, but the silver foil pants just foxed her. Was this some kind of stag night, she thought to herself, and then dared to peer around the corner of the house. She could hear a lot of noise from the kitchen, like dogs competing to wolf down the last few kibbles from a bowl. Crouching at the drainpipe, she saw the broken glass from the French windows. Then, very slowly, she turned to focus on the interior.

‘Oh … wow,' she whispered to herself after a moment. Her eyes began to widen, her face illuminated from the kitchen as she emerged from her hiding place. Without a doubt, this was an atrocity she was witnessing, but in her mind it took things even further than she had ever imagined. In a stroke, she had stumbled on the only way to eat meat with a clear conscience. The realisation hit her so suddenly that it felt as if her life's work had been leading to this moment. Amanda smiled, rising to her feet to face the diners inside. For she had arrived, as darkness closed in, to witness humans turn upon their own kind. A woman stood at the hob, flash frying thin steaks that had come straight from source thanks to the bald-headed figure carving expertly in the background. As for what was left of Jack, splayed out over the butcher's block, he looked as if he might have died of fright. Still, no animals had suffered for their supper here. Not the innocent kind. The flesh on the plates was fair game. It was, she realised, on drawing ever closer to the broken window, the
ultimate
in ethical eating.

Just then, one of the family members picked up on her presence. It was the girl that had accompanied Jack to the talk. She seemed different in this light, thought Amanda, and not in a bad way. In fact, the whole family looked to be the sort of people she wanted to know better.

‘What is it like?' she asked them.

Such was Amanda's expression of wonder that nobody looked at all threatened by her presence. If anything, they looked transported to another dimension by the food they were eating here.

‘Bacon,' said the girl between mouthfuls. ‘The best you ever tasted.'

‘May I join you?' Amanda Dias waited for her response, entranced by what she had discovered, before carefully making her way across the glass shards that covered the threshold.

To the neighbours and nearby residents, it felt like an age before the media moved on. For weeks after Vernon English found the strength to stumble into the road to raise the alarm, the house was under siege from camera crews, journalists, photographers and the plain curious. The police cordon held them back while the house was practically pulled apart. When the investigation finally finished, building contractors moved in to board up the doors and windows. From that day on, the house set about a slow decay. Weeds sprung from every crack and crevice in the brickwork, while dead leaves gathered in the porch as if seeking shelter from the wind.

Once, at the skate park, Maisy and Faria overheard Liam Parker boast that he had managed to climb into the Savages' back garden at night. Together with his cousin Tyler, they claimed to have broken in through the back door and then taken a tour by torchlight.

‘What was it like inside?' asked Maisy, who turned to pay him attention for what felt like the first time in her life.

‘The place is stripped bare,' said Tyler, a heavy-set lad whose stripy T-shirt and tight jeans made him look like a badly squeezed tube of toothpaste. ‘Looks like it hasn't been lived in for one hundred years. There's dust and cobwebs everywhere.'

‘Were you scared?' asked Faria.

Liam punched the end of his skateboard with one foot. He aimed to flip it into his hand, but instead it just slapped him in the groin.

‘The Savages aren't coming back,' he croaked, and collected the board to hide the fact that his face was knotted with pain. When he straightened up, he found both girls waiting for more. ‘They're gone,' he said with some certainty. ‘But it's frightening to think that they're out there somewhere.'

Vernon English's physical injuries didn't take long to heal. It was the mental scars that ran deep. He had been picked up by a squad car, following reports at first light that a man in a silver foil loincloth was staggering about attempting to flag down motorists near the park. Initially, his claim that he'd been kidnapped by cannibals was met with disbelief. The man was disturbed, the arresting officer assumed, and had most probably inflicted the injuries on himself. When a doctor was called to the station, largely because Vernon was so agitated, it was quickly recognised that he couldn't have shaved his own back, and so two officers were dispatched as a precaution to the address he kept repeating.

What they found didn't match the description of sheer horror that Vernon had described. There was no evidence that a freshly slain human body had been disembowelled, cut up, cooked and consumed. The kitchen was sparkling, though they couldn't ignore the smell of fresh bleach in the sink and the waste disposal unit. What raised their suspicions further was the French window. Despite the absence of any broken glass, the pane was missing on one side. With no sign of anyone at home, they decided to radio in some concerns.

The Detective Inspector, when he finally arrived, had a keen eye for what was missing from a potential crime scene. In this case, once he'd conducted a search of every room, he concluded that the Savage family should be located as a matter of urgency. They weren't suspected of any wrongdoing, so he stressed at the time, but it certainly seemed as if they had packed and left for a long holiday. Something wasn't right, specifically in the kitchen. The fridge and the freezer had been stripped and cleaned, and the oven washed down with some kind of industrial scouring agent. As it was highly unlikely that thieves had broken in to clean the house from top to bottom, the decision was taken to call in forensics.

From that moment on, slide by slide under the microscope, the secret that the Savages had strived to keep to themselves began to seep out.

It started with a shred of grilled meat trapped between the seat and the back rest of a toddler's high chair. As soon as that was proven to be of human origin, a full-scale enquiry was launched. Within the space of a day, the house was cloaked in scaffolding and tarpaulin, and crawling with specialists in white biohazard suits.

The investigation was intense, but it was only following a visit from Vernon that things began to piece together. Still barely speaking following his ordeal, he led them to the white police tent that covered the shed, hauled back an old piece of carpet and pointed to the concrete floor. It had proven to be surprisingly easy to break through, as if only recently set, and horribly upsetting when the first investigator pointed a torch into the pit. Not only had they uncovered some kind of underground slaughterhouse, several bin bags had been dropped in containing clothing, along with the bones of an adolescent male. Following tests, it was concluded that the human remains had reached a high temperature, not in some failed bid to incinerate the evidence but as if roasted in a domestic oven.

Everyone knew it was Jack Greenway before the police confirmed it at the press conference. He had gone missing at exactly the same time as the Savages. During their witness interviews, Faria and Maisy reported that Sasha and Jack had been experiencing issues in their relationship, but stressed that nobody expected her to break off with him like this. For a while, in private, the pair talked about what they knew in total disbelief. Surely their friend wasn't capable of some of the things they were hearing? Slowly, however, as the story began to sink in, they looked back at their time with Sasha and began to see her in a different light. Food was important to her, as Vernon kept stressing during questioning, and so was family. Despite all the friction with her father, there was a bond that seemed to strengthen whenever they sat down to eat. That was when they talked. It was the glue that held them together. Maisy and Faria's testimonies also backed this up. At school, they even found themselves defending their friend at times. Not for the flesh-eating. That was gross and always would be. Sasha might've had a taste for human heart, but despite it all, they maintained, hers was in the right place.

For the Savage family, it was to be their last supper in that house. Maybe Titus had already decided that it was time to move on, or perhaps he let his appetite get the better of him. Whether it was an oversight or deliberately planted so there was no going back, one tiny slither of what turned out to be Jack's bicep, trapped down the back of the high chair, was all it took to make headlines. Whatever the case, Titus knew how to vanish with his loved ones. Everything was shut down overnight, from his company to Facebook profiles, email and bank accounts, but not before he settled his wife's outstanding debt and notified the locations agency that their services were no longer required. Titus had everything covered so well that in effect the family consumed themselves.

Despite an international manhunt, no trace of Titus, Angelica, Sasha, Ivan, little Katya and their grandfather was ever discovered. Nor did the authorities ever learn what fate befell the vegan extremist, Amanda Dias. Before the alleged atrocity took place, CCTV cameras picked her up in the park, looking tense and restless. Some minutes later, she had taken off in the direction of the Savages. Inside the house, her fingerprints were found on a fork, but that was where the trail ended. Her father argued that she must've grabbed it in self-defence. Others quietly believed she had crossed over to a side that was generally believed to be unthinkable. It provoked no war between food factions, just a lot of discussion.

As for Vernon English, the private investigator at the centre of the saga, he worked hard to profit from the situation before taking early retirement. His book, a memoir about the experience, and how he solved the mysterious case of Lulabelle Hart, went on to become a huge Christmas best-seller, keeping Jamie, Delia, Hugh and Gordon from the top spot. Combined with the criminal injuries payout, he now lives happily on the south coast with his publicist and partner. The couple are expecting their first child.

Faria and Maisy didn't receive as much attention from the media. This was mostly down to their parents, who agreed between themselves that it was in the girls' best interest to be sheltered from the storm. They had their exams, after all, which they took in a packed hall with one spare desk set aside for the pupil on unauthorised leave of absence. Both are now in sixth form, but no longer hang out on the skate ramp. As Maisy has just learned to drive, they prefer to take themselves into town at lunch break.

Once, when the pair opted for the sandwich shop, they spotted a guy with a hoodie and an early stage beard who was also interviewed during the investigation, and came out with his reputation intact. Neither knew what Ralph had meant to Sasha, but they could appreciate what she saw in him. Watching him select a humous, rocket and chickpea on wholemeal, only to switch it for a bacon, lettuce and tomato on white, Maisy joked that he'd probably opted for the meat in memory of what was missing from his life. Faria wondered out loud, a little too noisily for Maisy's liking, whether Sasha might secretly be in touch, but the pair weren't brave enough to approach Ralph and ask. Instead, they figured that even if he was in possession of that kind of information, he didn't look the sort who would betray her. Both Maisy and Faria treated the encounter as a bit of a giggle, and indeed it's clear the two friends are determined not to let the Savage saga overshadow their future. Still, you only have to look at the sheer number of people who follow the pair on Twitter to recognise how hard this will be for them. As the majority are strangers, it's clear their lives have been opened up to the world forever by Sasha and her infamous family.

From time to time, when curiosity gets the better of them, the girls scroll through their followers, and wonder which one their friend has created as cover. It's just a feeling, they say, and joke that's how it must be for antelope on the plains. Then the laughter trails away, for both remain convinced that Sasha and her siblings, as well as her parents and grandfather, aren't just watching but working up an appetite. At any time and place, so they believe, and possibly with new recruits to their cause, the Savages will return from the wild.

I was serving tea to my children when I came up with the idea for this novel. We were tightening our belts on the budget front, and I'd worked out that it would be cheaper to cut the meat from their diets. Knowing there would be protests – not least on the morality of making this decision on their behalf – I decided to stay quiet. Instead, I bought a vegetarian cookbook, and made a big effort to serve up tasty, nutritious and flesh-free suppers. The result? Rare compliments about my cooking and second helpings all round. It only lasted for a fortnight or so before someone asked out loud when we'd last had bangers and mash, but as a culinary experiment it gave me a great deal of food for thought.

As well as the kids in their role as guinea pigs, I should like to thank my wife, Emma, for her help and support as I cooked up the story. For managing me in different ways, I'm indebted to my literary agent, Philippa Milnes-Smith, her assistant, Holly, all at LAW, as well as Franca Bernatavicius and everyone at ILA. The historian, Roger Moorhouse, graciously helped me with the finer details regarding the Siege of Leningrad, while our sausage dog, Hercules, did little to assist the peace as I worked by barking at every squirrel outside my window.