We Are the Hanged Man (4 page)

'Here's what we're going to do instead,' said Claudia, leaping in to make an announcement and help increase the dramatic tension.

'This weekend,' said the man, 'we're going to cut the field in half. In one… night… We're calling it the Night of the Long Knives.'

He paused and smiled, waiting for Jericho to be impressed.

'Some people might think it apposite that we're comparing the institution of modern day independent television with the institution of the German Nazi party, but like, they're not understanding the kind of ironic modern sensibility that we're bringing to it. Television is the new war, all that stuff.' His voice was starting to speed up, as the weight of dark silence from across the desk became heavier and heavier. Usually, even when people thought he was talking drivel, they had the decency to pretend they were in awe of him or, at the very least, agreed with everything he said.

'Night of the Long Knives,' said the other woman, as if it was such a great and original idea it was worth repeating.

'So after this weekend we're going to be down to three, and that's where you, and where this great artistic creation of television improv comes in.'

He raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for Jericho's enthusiastic response.

'What do you want from me?' said Jericho again, as it seemed like an age since he'd last asked that question and he'd still to receive an answer.

'They didn't tell you?'

Jericho answered with a blank stare.

'Well, Chief Inspector, I guess they wanted you to hear it from the horse's mouth, and really, we appreciate you agreeing to take this on, especially in light of the fact that you don't yet know what it is. It shows real willing and enthusiasm for what we're trying to do here. Change Britain while entertaining it at the same time.'

He smiled. Jericho didn't.

'So, after this weekend we have three finalists left. Then, over the final week of the show they will each be deputised into the police service, taking it in turn to spend time with you as you're out and about, like solving crimes and shit.'

'You're a really famous detective,' threw in Claudia.

'So this segment of the show lasts five nights from next Monday, leading up to the final night a week Saturday. The three finalists – and I think we already know who those three are going to be…'

The women smiled knowingly. Jericho didn't.

'…will be getting in-house training, everything from riot policing to filling in paperwork, although obviously for the latter we're going to have to spice it up with office sexual politics, that kind of shit. But the real focus, of course, for those five days will be the time that each of them spends with you. Then on the final night, obviously we deep six two of the contestants and have ourselves a winner. And we're talking, you know, a pretty intensive approach. An hour or two each night regular TV, at least two to three hours a day on digital. I know, you're laughing, but although they don't get a big slice of the cake, the digital audience is high quality. You know what I mean? It's a good audience. They have spending power. The advertising rakes in more than you'd think. And, of course, we're looking at no end of online tie-ins and promotions. And, from your point of view, above all else, this is going to be great for your career. The opportunities for you after this are going to be colossal. Holy Jesus, you're going to be the most recognisable face of crime-fighting on Planet Earth. The Yanks will probably want you to be guest starring on
actual
episodes of CSI for a kick-off. All sorts of shit.'

The room had several large windows overlooking the city, but the glass was thick. Triple glazed. The door to the outer office had a seal that had been invented by NASA. No sound got in or out.

When the man in the middle stopped talking, there was complete silence. And despite what he had implied, Jericho wasn't laughing.

*

There were four of them in a row. Hung by the neck.

Once upon a time there had been music. Sometimes mellow and smooth, cool bass and muted trumpets, brushes on drums; sometimes crackly piano and rusty old vocals. The four of them had swayed in time to the music, or so it had seemed, although there was no one there to watch.

Perhaps they just moved in the wind that crept in beneath the door; perhaps they swayed with the house, blown by the sea winds.

Perhaps they didn't move at all. That was more likely. They hung in dead silence. At first the smell was suffocating, all-encompassing, rancid. Crept into the walls and the sparse furniture. It dripped onto the floor along with the decomposing flesh.

They never touched each other, as if each corpse was repulsed by the festering, rotting carcass hanging next to it. A few inches apart, they hung still and lifeless, slowly decaying in wretched silence.

Eventually the music, which had been left playing on endless loop, the scratchy needle returning to the start of the record every twenty minutes or so, was ended by a power cut and never restarted.

The overpowering stench, the grim and total darkness took over. There was no music; there was no light. There was nothing for those bodies to do other than decompose and stink and rot in their Stygian oblivion.

In time even the stench faded to a musty aroma of decay; the clothes hung loosely from bodies that frittered away to skeletons.

Years passed.

They were sitting in the car on the way back from the station at Castle Cary. Hadn't spoken yet. Haynes was waiting for Jericho.

They'd all been talking about it at the police station in Wells; they all knew why Jericho had been dragged up to London. They weren't laughing
at
Jericho; he wasn't the kind of man to inspire that. They liked him, respected him, to a man and woman were glad that they worked with him. Yet, in some kind of way or other, they were still laughing. Of all the people they could have ordered to do it…

Some thought that Jericho would resign.

'You knew already,' said Jericho, finally talking as they passed around the edges of Shepton Mallet.

'Yes,' said Haynes.

Jericho nodded.

'You were right not to tell me.'

They drove on, Jericho stern-faced, staring straight ahead.

'What are you going to do?' asked Haynes. Sentences thrown out into long silences, minutes apart.

Jericho had been trying to not think about it for the previous three hours; but every time he tried to not think about it, or managed to think about something else, he began thinking about it anyway.

He didn't answer.

*

Dylan was filing her nails when he came into her office. She hadn't needed to, it wasn't something she ever did at her desk, but she knew that Jericho would be indescribably annoyed by this, his senior officer filing her nails at her desk while there was work to be done. She also knew that some would consider it extremely petty, but this was office politics and she wasn't going to be beaten by anyone, regardless of how well known they were.

Usually she would have been jealous of one of her officers being selected to go on television, but that would be when the officer was excited to be doing it. She knew Jericho would hate the idea, and so had taken great pleasure in the whole absurd notion since it was first mooted.

He sat down without invitation. She held a nail up to the light and studied it intently. He waited. She dusted the nail and blew on it, dusted it again, ran a finger over the top of it searching for ragged edges, checked it again, seemed happy, laid down the nail file, smiled across the desk.

'Happy?' she said.

Jericho looked through her. She was expecting him to complain. She was expecting him to come in and demand to be withdrawn from the stupid show. She was expecting sarcasm and anger and disaffected outright bloody moral outrage.

She had sat there on at least three occasions in the past and listened to Jericho's Al Pacino routine, spit flying and wrath spewing forth. He could go days without saying anything, yet when something worked its way under his skin, he let fly with the venom of the old Gods, vomiting his self-righteous bile onto her office floor. She saw him as a classic Mail or Express reader, appalled by modern Britain; except she knew he was also appalled by the Mail and the Express.

He did the calculation once more in his head, as he had been doing all afternoon as he tried not to think about it. She was in control of the situation, and would not be disposed to consider his objections kindly. If he complained she would go straight to confrontation. He could do the show or he could resign. Resignation would be a fine bloody-minded thing to do, but then she would be quite happy and he wouldn't have a job.

He didn't love the police force that much, but it was all he did. He didn't hanker after retirement, because he had no hobbies, no friends, no life other than this. And maybe it was shit, and maybe his predominant emotion on waking up was misery and dread about the day ahead, but it was his life, and if he threw it away, what was he going to do then? What did people do when they retired?

Play golf. Go on a cruise. Write a book. Play Wii Fit and Nintendo Brain Training. Grow vegetables. Crochet. Watch snooker and cricket. Develop a taste for real ale. Buy a boat and sail to the Channel Islands. Slowly slide into senescence and waste away until you die.

All that was coming anyway, and soon enough. There was no reason to hurry it along. Especially when it was exactly what the Superintendent was expecting and wanting him to do. The alternative was spending a week with the television cameras at his shoulder, trailed around by the kind of pre-pubescent wankers of all ages who applied for these kinds of shows. And once he was back on the television, the press would be after him again, their interest in his story once more reactivated, pictures of Amanda once more on the front pages.

Between a rock and a hard place, the Devil and the deep blue sea, the frying pan, the fire, the bag of stinking, festering crap.

'Yes,' he said suddenly. She had looked at him throughout, could see his brain moving in all directions. He may have been cunning, introverted yet full of himself, and more often than not, downright weird, but she still had plenty of moments of being able to read his thoughts, because his petty dislike of her matched her petty dislike of him. She'd been expecting indignation, yet at the same time, she was not surprised by his dull acceptance.

'Good' she said. 'I thought you might enjoy it. That's why I put you forward.'

You never put me forward
,
you lying bitch
.

'They say when they'd be down?'

Jericho shook his head.

'I've made Sergeant Light the special liaison with the company. She can sort out the logistics. I expect they'll be down in a day or two to take a look around, and start setting up. The whole show seems to be working to some sort of crazy deadline. Not unlike police work. Perhaps you can explore the similarities as part of your involvement with the process.'

She smiled again, her head cocked marginally to one side, eyebrows raised. Jericho had one of those blinding, flashing moments when he allowed his imagination to run darkly amok. He looked into her eyes and imagined grabbing her by the hair with his left hand, tilting her head back, and running a blade swiftly across her neck. Slicing again, so that her head came away in his hands. His mind ran on, unspeakable horrors, as he looked into her eyes. He would walk through the office, her severed head in his hand, dripping blood over the beige carpet.

She held the smile, even as it wavered, and then finally Jericho stood, his hatred unspoken as it spilled out over her carpet, and walked quickly from her office, closing the door behind him.

She shivered and lifted the phone. Her face was grim and dark until a voice said hello at the other end, and then Dylan leant back in her chair, the smile engaged once more, and she proceeded to use the word
darling
more in five minutes than Jericho would use in a lifetime.