Slow Poison Chapter One

Slow Poison by Casimir Greenfield

Synopsis: SLOW POISON’ is a multi-layered study of intimidation, dark secrets and misguided vengeance, culminating in a bloody siege high in the snowbound Cotswold Hills.

This book contains very strong language and scenes of a sexual nature. Slow Poison opens in Amsterdam just before the feast of Saint Nicholas in December in the mid1980’s. The brutal slaying of a British tourist and the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of a young football supporter sparks off an orgy of violence. But the killing is no random act. The boy is innocent. The real killer returns to England to begin the final chapter of an obsessive campaign of revenge spanning several decades. The twisted acts of violence and vengeance are punctuated by the pages of a stolen diary written in the dark days of the second world war. The killer identifies with the unspeakable horrors of the death camp as he coldly wreaks revenge for a series of traumatic events that took place in the mid1950s on a Gloucestershire council estate.

© 2012 Casimir Greenfield Contact Casimir Greenfield at [email protected] To read more of this book please visit http://www.authonomy.com/books/42586/slow-poison/.

Chapter One Cheltenham, November 18th Yellow sodium lights permeated the grey and taupe tones of the Mews sitting room. The man lay naked and scarred across the Roche Bobois leather settee, his white streaked face a death mask, delicate fingers searching for release. Power on. The transience of sound. A fragile memory of a voice. ‘...how can you know when is the moment to leave...?... I did not choose t o remain and accept the inevitable... those things were happening to the others...not to us... to the gypsies and to the queers...we did not speak of it... A sound. Scalding liquid rippling into bone china.‘...what could I have done..? Where was there left to go..?’ A sound. A spoon in a teacup. ‘...always someone at the door, someone borrowing a little milk, a little sugar, someone complaining about the piano... but when their knock came, I knew who it was... I knew... in that one sharp burst of sound, everything we had ever known was gone ....and she was dancing, muttering her passages... It took the shattering of the Limbach to bring her to her senses.... In that one brief second we all knew. They were no more than boys... they broke my ribs and kicked my privates... And they took my little one, their fingers tight around her chignon so that she could not look back. their fingers, poking and pinching and probing... And all the time their taunting...juden....juden...juden...’ The frail, heavily accented voice trailed off, leaving an undercurrent of sound; distant traffic, the hollering of children, a train. Then came the other sounds, quite close; the chink of a cup in a saucer, a sip, and the sudden swoop of a Staverton jet. The whiplash snap of a brittle bone. Amsterdam, December 6th Noise preceded The Six. Belches, Brummie accents, and brown beer bottles played like nightsticks along the jade green railings of the canal bridges, their fairy light arches full circles in the water. The garish Christmas windows reflected haggard faces, torn and scabbed earringed ears and obscene tattoos. Behind the metal security screens, tinselled dildos, sparkling hard-core and fuchsia-pink sex dolls flaunted the season. In other windows hard hag-women goose-bumped in fragile negligees, hiding neither age nor needle scars beneath their Clearasil and Rubenstein masks. Drunken rosetted hordes scuffed through the streets all night, scraping sparks from their steel toecapped boots. In at the doors, three at a time, bottles clutched like weapons in grimy fingers. Grumbling, cursing, haggling like belligerent beggars, sucked dismally dry in the City of Love. The Six tumbled with echoing whoops and crashes, from the mouth of a tight, urinous alley into a huddle of Blacks.

‘Oh fuck...trouble...’ Big smiles, gold teeth, pocketed hands stroking tooled steel. Ray-Ban’d carrion crows proffering a fetid carcass. ‘HAAAAAAASHHH..? HAAAAAASHHH..? ‘ ‘I’ll have some of that, Sambo..!’ The Six scored their pathetic lumps of resin and on they went - Den, Pete, ‘Dog’ Barker, Mart, Kev and Richie - leaving a trail of phlegm and expensive scratches, yob-high on Mercedes lacquer. Aimless souls, far from the city bequeathed them, a legacy of smouldering retreads seeping from their pores. The game was still to come - balletic warring icons fighting for favours before their mindless acolytes, all identity absorbed like stains in the stadium yell. The Six pawed at the window of a young Filipino girl wearing lilac eye shadow and little else. ‘Wot about this un, then? ‘ ‘Nah... ‘ ‘Christ! I’ve got another fuckin’ boner!’ ‘You’re worse than a fuckin’ donkey, you are! ‘ ‘Who’s up fer it then? Richie? Kev? ‘ ‘Nah...I’m knackered. Less go an’ watch a fuck show at one of they clubs... ‘ The girl watched The Six with disinterest. Little English pricks. Couple of minutes tops. Too pissed to notice the featherlite rolled from her tongue. English. Schoften. Easy money. ‘Ooh yeah..! Tha’s good..! Yeah! YEAH! Fuckin’ HELL! ‘ The Filipino girl glanced at her ormolu watch. Four minutes. ‘Okay honey, time you go home now...’ The Walletjes. Peep shows, live shows, pigs, whips and buggery. Twenny-four-hours-a-day! Come on, come in...is all life show... Den’s flushed face reddened more in the light of the open doorway. ‘Just the one, mate! ‘, He told the doorman, ‘Me mates is in already. The bored couple performing on the dimly spotlit stage moved impotently to the house-muzak that pounded through the dark, over-crowded smoky bar. ‘Hey Den, over ‘ere! ‘ Den stumbled over outstretched legs to reach them. ‘How was it then, Den. Eh? ‘ ‘Fuckin’ brilliant, wunnit! ‘

He turned his attention to the small stage. ‘Fuckin’ HELL, they’re both bints! ‘ When the obscene grind was over, the stage was reoccupied immediately by a single naked dancer of indeterminable age. White, skinny, somewhere between junky and anorexic. She turned her back to the leering crowd and doubled over, her head between her legs. With one hand, she pulled a strand from somewhere that none of them could quite believe. Smoke rose and filled a single beam of light. The small room hung heavy with the ripe stench of musk and sweat. A low, lewd jeer rose from The Six. The seconds heaved by. More jeers. More nylon. A bra. A sequinned garter belt. The muffled pounding rumbled on. The dancer kneaded herself inside the semblance of a costume. The primitive rhythms could not possibly do her justice. A roar from the terraces came closer. There were clusters of locals and tourists ranged along the railings of the hump-backed bridges. In the narrow streets the red lights glowed like cinders in the crisp December air. Snow had not yet fallen, but the night was keen with pre-frost whispers. A man was waiting for The Six, all quiet and unbeknown to them, huddled in Armani camel watching the doorway of the Casa Rosa. When at last they emerged from the deep red core, the man shuddered slightly and limped awkwardly on Gucci, a few meters behind them. This was the third night and The Six were repeating their ragged routine of the past two days. They clattered noisily through the winding back streets toward the plush surroundings of the Victoria Hotel. Just for a jar or two On that first evening in the Victoria, they had stumbled into the restaurant, destroying his reverie. On an impulse he had followed them into the night. They could be useful. He would need someone like them. He closed the leather-bound diary he was reading, and watched the swell and swagger of denim. His chest felt tight, his mouth was dry and he hardened. The city was nervous of them. Nervous of their unfettered unpredictability. Wild things, sniffing the cosmopolitan air like rutting beasts. He sat close enough to hear so much. ‘Fuckin’ bottle ‘em if they try it on, fuckin’ cunts..! ‘ ‘Cut the fuckers. Cloggie cunts..! ‘ On the morning of the third day, he watched them emerge through the steel exit doors of the SleepInn on the Rozengracht, groping their way into the bright winter sunshine, unwashed and unshaven, a breakfast of beer in progress. He watched them gesticulate and curse at the waves of cyclists teetering through their group, bells clamouring. The Six mooched along the cobbled cycle lanes, oblivious to the flow, the contra flow. ‘Fuckin’ Cloggies! Why don’t ya watch where yer fuckin’ goin’..? ‘ He followed them to a McDonalds’ where they spilled mayonnaise and ketchup in toothpasty trails all over the wood-rimmed tabletops. He followed them into the porno cinema opposite the Munt. He watched from a seat near the exit, listened to them scream and holler at the action on the small grainy screen and then sink into silence. He watched their darting hands in the darkness. He followed as closely as he could as they raced down the narrow alleyways toward the glass and marble of the Muziek Theater, singing their City anthems in tuneless tenors and baritones. Few windows in those dark clefts escaped the lick of their Pentels. Bulls they were, looking for china shops.

He watched them crumble their hash into roll-ups in dark doorways. He watched one of them crack the window of a Showarma bar on the Kloveniersburgwal, watched them run from the honing steel of the Israeli owner who chased them for streets, cursing them in Hebrew. He located them again, homing in on the noise. They stormed the Victoria. The waiters armed themselves with small change and haughty sneers. ‘Shit! ‘, said one of them, built like a flamenco dancer. ‘Die lui zijn terug, verdorie.‘ Passers-by watched the soundless gaggle turn over chairs and send the plastic ferns tumbling into ashtrays and coffee cups in the glass conservatory of the Victoria Hotel. ‘You don’t know nuffin about fucking tactics...’ ‘Lissen! The fuckin’ ref was well out of order.’ ‘Yeah…yeah... ‘ So much sarcasm squeezed into two little words. ‘Who was there? Well...go on... I was fuckin’ well there..!’ The man wished they had taken up their usual place inside the piano bar where it was dark, secluded and confined. He sat at a corner table and felt for the small leather-bound diary in his coat pocket. He settled down and observed the others in the bar; the two couples poring over their menu, planning the evening’s meal. The flamenco waiter was suddenly at his shoulder, pen poised. ‘Goedenavond, Meneer. ‘ ‘Spa Citroen, alsjeblieft... ‘ The waiter flounced off, heels clicking like castanets on the tiles at the edge of the carpeted floor. The man looked over at the couples. He turned to the diary, vaguely disappointed. He glanced at a yellowed page at pencil marks that had faded almost to invisibility. In the half-light of the piano bar, it was hard to make out the words. He pulled the decorative candle closer, but not too close. Just near enough to enable reading. ‘July 3rd 1939. At the summer cottage, the two of us, sequestered in pastoral seclusion amidst the lowing cattle, bleating rams , sheep, green embryonic berries ripening in the hedgerow. Brackish juices steep the sodden water meadows, the outbuildings break the view. Behind the cottage, wisps of early mist rise inches above the clover. Ghosts, listlessly undecided between earthy delights and paradise... ‘ He struggled over the forgotten words, this disease of a language that none of their droning had prepared him for. His heart slowed to its regular beat as the two couples looked up at the noise. The Six were mobile again, slamming themselves into the outer edge of the Bechstein like runaway trains at the end of the tracks. The man closed his book and leaned back into the shadows. He sipped his Spa Citroen and looked around the bar. He lit a Sobranie and blew the smoke into the candle flame. At the other table, the two couples were giving their orders to the flamenco waiter. He tapped out a staccato exit into the blaze of the kitchen lights.

‘De hele tent is vol met die verdomde Engelse vanavond! ‘he muttered to the kitchen staff. It was true. The piano bar was occupied solely by the English. By coincidence and chance. And by design. There exists a strange kind of twilight time in the Low Countries. That time between Sinterklaas and Christmas. The satellite channels have brought with them their Americanised ideals and commercialised Christmas. Xmas. The Dickensian, Rudolphian, Crosbyan kind of Christmas. But the Dutch hold fast to their Fifth of December traditions; ‘Suprises’ and marzipan pigs, Zwarte Piets and Sint himself, sweets for the goodies, deep dungeons for the rest. So now, on The Sixth, the shops were full of confusion. Cut price Sinterklaas wrapping paper and marzipan lay side by side with Mrs. Freans’ Christmas puddings. The overnight transformation was schizophrenic in its swiftness of change, its absoluteness of direction. In the street a barrel organ played, catching the last of the rush hour donors, infusing the air with merry calliope renditions of Arlen and Berlin tunes. The organ grinder’s metal collecting cup rattled in time to the jangle, shaking copper and nickel encouragingly at the stragglers. The Bechstein resonated with the percussive rapping of the grubby fingers of The Six. ‘Fuck this and fuck that...’ The two couples sat at their table half-hidden from the man. Fretwork shadows played over their faces, candlelight gleaming in their eyes. The men and one of the women were in their early forties. The other woman - slim, blond, Petula Clark cheekbones - was younger. Middle thirties. Becky Farthing. ‘I’m looking forward to this!’, said Fred, rubbing his ample belly. ‘You eat too much for your own good!’, laughed Becky. ‘When I lose sight of me shoes, I’ll start worrying!’ ‘It’s not yer shoes you should be worrying about!’, said the other man. Glyn Wood was plump, with wispy ginger hair showing advanced signs of receding. He and his wife Janet were holidaying with the Farthings. The party were in a bright mood. This evening’s meal was Fred’s treat. Glyn had done the honours the night before. Champagne, and a small phial of AnaisAnais for each of the ladies. Glyn was a software salesman, his first respectable job. Janet all M&S and Waitrose, worked in ‘Pumpkin Pie’, a wholefood restaurant in Stroud. Glyn and Janet were pleasant friends. Fred Farthing was a big muscular man. Black hair, brush-cut, and a broad tanned face with full lips part hidden by a bushy moustache. He sat grinning, his fat unmanicured fingers curled around his glass, warming the cheap champagne. He was forty-one, Scorpio rising, and about to die. ‘Right!’ Fred was standing, raised glass in hand. ‘I’VE got a surprise for the girls tonight.’ He winked knowingly at Glyn, who smiled bemusedly. Fred handed Becky and Janet a small giftwrapped cube, first to Becky, then to Janet. Sinterklaas paper. A sticker read ‘SURPRISE’ Fred watched them both excitedly with his grin widening across his flushed face.

‘Oh, Fred... it’s beautiful..!’ Inside the packages were small black cases, which hinged open to reveal tiny diamond pendants hanging from fine gold chains. ‘Oh, Fred...I don’t know what to say...I’ve never seen anything so lovely...’ said Becky. Fred moved behind Becky’s chair. He helped her clasp the pendant around her neck. He stooped to kiss the nape of her neck before sitting down. ‘Love you!’ He whispered. Janet held her gold chain taut, sending the diamond spinning, catching candlelight in the facets, filling dark filigree shadows with unwanted light. The man started at the unaccustomed brilliance. ‘Come on, Glyn - do the honours!’ Janet angled her neck so that Glyn too could act the gallant. He fumbled with the clasp and leaned over to Fred. ‘I dunno Fred, you’re a dark horse. I wondered where you went thisafty.’ Glyn put his arm around Janet’s shoulder as he sat down. Becky smiled at Janet. Fred slipped his big hand between Becky’s thighs under the cover of the tablecloth and drew her attention back to him. ‘I must say WE were wondering where you’d got to as well.’ Said Janet in a voice full of mock rebuke, ‘This is a wicked city for an innocent little lad like you to be let loose in...’ Right Becky? The meal arrived. Steak, chips, runner beans from a can, applesauce and limp winter lettuce. A wholly unsuitable last supper. The flamenco waiter left them to it. ‘Great. Look at this!’, Said Fred, sprinkling his meal liberally with salt and pepper. They all helped themselves to the vegetables and salad and began to eat. ‘Oh god..!’ Becky spluttered into her napkin,’ My beans taste of Lifebuoy Soap.’ Becky explored her mouth with a tentative tongue, wary of what else she might discover. Fred knew the taste of Lifebuoy Soap. Oh yes. Stonehouse Primary. Caught saying ‘bugger’ during morning assembly. During the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Our Mother, who art in the kitchen, buggered be thy tits...’ Horsefall had pounced, his thunderclap voice riveting the gigglers and fiddlers to the spot. ‘FARTHING!’ Fred, eight, was lifted inches from the ground by the scruff of his grimy neck, and carried into the cloakroom. The cloakroom; pegs in rows, names and pictures, coats and hats, and at the far end the double sink. ‘You vile little insect!’, Horsefall hissed into his face. The stench of peppermints made Fred fart. ‘WHAT ARE YOU?’

‘...insect sir...’ ‘AND WHAT DO WE DO WITH FOUL MOUTHED LITTLE INSECTS, FARTHING?’ Impale them with pins? Stamp on them? Cover them with chocolate and give them as booby prizes on ‘Open the Box’? ‘Dunno sir...’ ‘WE MAKE SURE THEY NEVER, EVER DO IT AGAIN, INSECT!’ Horsefall picked up a bar of slimy pink Carbolic and ground it into Fred’s astonished mouth. O. Horsefall panted and sweated. Fred wriggled and retched and gurgled ghastly sounds. Horsefall cuffed him about the ears for good measure and sent him flying across the cloakroom. Fred landed among the duffel coats, jarring his right elbow on the white tiled wall. He watched with a mixture pain and bemusement as Horsefall leaned back against the wall, panting heavily, eyes closed, flecks of white spittle at the corners of his mouth, hands groping at his groin. Indelible ink. Voices drifted across from the Bechstein. ‘...Fuckin’ will, you know! I’ll fuckin’ bottle ‘em!’ Fred looked up, looked across, clenched his fists, and shouted at The Six. ‘Keep it down, lads. There’s ladies present...’ ‘Can’t fuckin’ see none!’ Fred laid his napkin down and began to rise. ‘Don’t be daft, mate.’, Glyn echoed, ‘you can see how pissed they are!’ Fred tried to ignore them, But the mood was gone, Becky was suddenly distant, swirling Merlot to freshen her mouth. Fred pulled his chair closer to the table. Glyn attempted to stitch together the lost moments. ‘Here’s to us!’ he said, ‘Cheers!’ The four friends raised their glasses once more and clinked them together. Fred finished his steak and half of Becky’s in silence, and they ordered exotic ices from the flamenco waiter. ‘Aaah!’, said Glyn. ‘This is the life’ ‘CUNTS! I’ll fuckin’ ‘ave ‘em!’ The Bechstein. ‘Coffee?’ ‘CUNTS! I’ll fuckin’ nail ‘em!’ ‘No I’ll have tea.’, Said Becky. ‘I’m dying for a cup.’ Music filled the piano bar. Not the distant barrel organ, not the muzak from the foyer. The music came from the sextet of savage voices humping the piano.

‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ The taut strings of the grand boomed out under the flat of their callused palms. ‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ The flamenco waiter looked on helplessly, their cropped skulls and rude tattoos beyond his wildest dreams. ‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ Two trams in convoy rumbled down their rails toward the Dam bulging at the welds with commuters, windows dripping like monstera leaves in a sultry rain forest, passengers peering out from the safety at the straggles of vociferous groups, long December scarves in warrior colours, rattles and rosettes, echoing through the night streets and countless nervous bars. ‘CIT-TEE’ The coffee came, biscuits nestling in saucers. The four shifted uneasily on their chairs. ‘I thought you wanted tea.’. Fred was bristling. ‘It’s all right...coffee’s fine...’ ‘I’ll change it...’ ‘No...don’t make a fuss...’ But the flamenco waiter had already escaped. They began to make plans for the evening ahead. Glyn had tried unsuccessfully each night to steer the ladies toward the blush tints of the Red Light District. ‘It’s only a bit of fun. Why not?’ A party of Americans came in noisily and set the candles shivering in their slipstream. The bar was filling up. ‘I’m not going into any of those shows...’, Janet insisted. ‘We’ll just go window shopping!’, Insisted Glyn. ‘Just a bit of fun...that’s all.’ Three girls with wet stringy hair came through from the foyer and sat at a table near the window, near the man. The flamenco waiter glided in to serve the party of Americans with their Cokes and beers. Fred called him over on his way back to the kitchen. ‘Waiter...’ Castanets. A poised pen. A trembling hand. ‘We’ll have some more coffee, and some Drambuie...’ Fred covered a noiseless burp with his hand and shifted slightly on his chair.

‘I’m off to the Gents’ All this booze has got to me...’ Glyn rose and followed Fred into the foyer. Den and ‘Dog’ swivelled round on their bar stools. Kev muttered something under his breath that made them all snicker. Then Den and ‘Dog’ turned a full circle. The Gents’ was in the souterrain, reached by a dimly lit narrow flight of freestanding filigree stairs. The dainty treads were carpeted in deep purple plush. The hallway between the Heren W.C. and the basement disco was floored with terracotta. The disco, promisingly named ‘Madonna’s’ had not yet opened. The dance floor was unlit and grimy, pitted by nights of stilettos and smouldering cigarettes. A malodorous melange of drink and perfume oozed from the open doorway. The DJ and a cocktail waitress were chatting just inside the entrance. To the left was the Heren W.C. with its three glass partitioned urinals, two blue-lit junky-proof booths, a washbasin, an air-drier, no towel, and a contraceptive machine. ‘Thirty five cents for a bloody slash!’ , Fred complained. The two friends stood side by side, relieving themselves. ‘Are you all right, mate? You seemed a bit funny earlier on... I dunno...’ ‘Nah, nothin’ wrong with me, mate...’, Fred replied.

They had all noticed his subdued mood earlier in the day, but the chores of holidaymaking had pushed the thoughts away. Fred was good at hiding his true emotions. There was a pause. Sounds filtered through. Trickles. Foreign voices, tram rumbles. ‘Well...to tell ya the truth, Glyn...’, Fred turned his head as he spoke, still urinating , ‘ I can’t stand the thought of going back to Saudi. I’ve fucking had it, mate...’ ‘I though you loved it out there. The money and everything…’ ‘I wish..!’ When Fred had lit up in the bus station ambience of Birmingham Airport those four years ago, he had thought so too. He had smoked away the time waiting with the others. Some younger, some nearer his own age, some a good deal older. Some pale, like himself, others with tanned and leathery skin. They made up a raucous group of about forty-five in all. They joked together, so many questions roaring about inside their heads. They swilled the last dregs from their dented lager cans, wary of the stories they had heard about the lack of juice, not wanting to believe them, scared to ask the old hands who sat back and watched them through their smoke screens and Suns. Fred had been lucky to land this job, what with the little one almost due. Shame he wouldn’t be there to help. Not that he would go anywhere near a hospital. No thank you. But the cigars and drinks with the boys would have been a laugh. Playing the proud Dad. Three or four days would have made all the difference, but nine months earlier it would have been impossible to predict how much could have happened to their lives. The sullen rows they had battled out. Always about money. Could he help it that Daniels’ had closed down? Could he fuck!

Then his mother died. In Coney Hatch. In the bloody loony bin for chrissakes. He regretted his kneejerk drive to Gloucester for the rest of his days, barrelling his way through the bruised grey mortuary doors, startling the fat Jamaican nurse hunched over the old bag of bones. What he saw burned into the back of his brain: the part shaved skull of the shrivelled yellow corpse, the tufts of grey liceridden mess glinting with pins and razor blade shards haloing the bristled scalp on the pitted slab. This final reunion with the old sow left prescient Chinese burns all over his soul – a nasty little gypsy’s curse of a demented future. There was no funeral. There was no money for a funeral. Maisie had been dead for years, curdled and stained and rank in his damp nightmares – the only time that Becky ever heard her name. There was no money full stop. The redundancy fund was withering away to the point where Fred crumpled every manila envelope that hit the doormat unopened. There was the germ of an ulcer festering in his gut – he could feel it. There was more. Becky announced that she was pregnant. Three months already. Another little germ festering away. Then she landed a job. At a bloody estate agents. Fred‘s deflated ego certainly couldn’t take all this pressure. He couldn’t find a job, he couldn’t provide, couldn’t even get a bloody hard-on these days. Then he saw the job ad in a page of greasy chip paper. The number was barely legible - but Fred called to arrange an interview. He went up to Bromsgrove, got the job, a contract on a yearly basis. And then the rows began in earnest. World class, heavyweight, full distance rows. ‘The end of August? That’s when the baby’s due, Fred!’ ‘But you shouldn’t have to work anyway.’ ‘You won’t even BE here! Who’s going to do the work then?’ ‘I know. Janet will help...’ ‘My job’s important to me. So is the baby. I thought we could get through all this. But if you’re not even here...’ ‘It was fine to fill in while I was still on the dole...’ ‘Christ, Fred! Is that how you see my life? Some kind of stop-gap until YOU get a real job...’ ‘You know that’s not what I mean. I thought...’ ‘You never bloody think...that’s your trouble.’ They finished the day in stony silence. He left her to the television, knitting needles clicking out her annoyance. He staggered in at midnight, stinking of Woolpack smoke and ale, the television was already cold and the knitting unravelled on the carpet. He sat alone in the kitchen and ripped the ring pull from a can of supermarket lager. The curl of aluminium nicked his thumb and a tiny bubble of blood welled to the surface. ‘Oh, Shit!’ But Fred signed the contract. He had no other choice. Saudi. The sands stretched away around the small landing strip, out toward the far horizons. Stepping out of the plane, his mouth filled with fine sand as he gasped in the heat. Soon every fold

and crevice would be filled with particles. Eyes and hairline, fingernails and ears, foreskin and navel. Soon they would all live, eat, breath, piss and shit the bloody stuff. The heat almost threw him backward. Benidorm had not prepared him for this. He felt like a man on Mars. Medina appeared blinding white from the stinking bus, but close to, it was filthy. The noise hit as hard as the heat. No one had warned them about the human clamour that shimmered in the mirages. No one had mentioned the stench. Camel urine and sweet cloying incense, the lye and aloe of the dyers’ yards. Far in the distance, Fred could just make out the gilded dome of a mosque. Becky would have liked that. Oh God! Becky! The bus did not drive far into the city, stopping abruptly before an anonymous wall, its sheer side broken only by the fretwork screen of a doorway. As the men emerged from the bus, they found themselves easy targets for the hoards of bright-eyed little boys that flocked around them, vying for attention. Precocious Arab boys reaching out, clutching at cotton and pale wrists. ‘Wonfuk, Mister? Wonfuk?’ ‘What are they saying?’ Fred asked one of the old hands. The little Geordie winked at Fred. ‘Whit daes it fuckin’ sound like? They’re fuckin’ bum boys! Ye’ll get used tae them soon enough. Ah, man, just fuckin’ ignore ‘em!’ Fred found himself in a squat apartment with three of the other men. Two to a room complete with broken overhead fan, a window that wouldn’t budge, that would have opened onto a blind wall. A minute ancient refrigerator stood in a kitchen full of nameless smells. Fred felt lost and alone, but there was a sense of excitement too. Like being a kid again in some ways. He studied the crumpled worksheet he’d been given. Thirty-six hours to acclimatise. ‘I’ll show ye the ropes, man!’, said Geordie slapping him on the back. ‘Is this place really dry?’, Fred ventured ‘As a fuckin’ bone, man!’. The little man moved over to the door and closed it quietly. ‘We don’t want them two snooping’, he said pulling a generous six-pack from his duffel bag. ‘It’s a wee warm like, but it’s wet an’ fuckin powerful, man. Get that doon yer neck!’ Newcastle Brown. Nectar. They stripped down to their underpants, sweat pouring off them into the thin cotton sheets that hid the mattresses. ‘Fuck me! It’s a hundred and thirty five Fahrenheit in here!’ Geordie slurred. Outside, the noon heat drove the populous into the shade until the relative cool of two or three. Several flies buzzed haplessly, throwing themselves against the hot brittle glass of the small apartment windows. He looked at Geordie, his sweat drenched hairy body felled by the alcohol and the heat. Then he thought of Becky. He remembered her face as he had left for the airport little more that twenty-four hours before. There was no love there. Glyn had driven him to Birmingham and Janet had stayed behind with Becky. Her contractions had already begun, irregular and far apart, but dilation had started. Becky

had stayed in the house as Fred left. Fred couldn’t find the words he knew he should offer her, and by the time he stepped out of the Saudi bus, Becky was already panting and perspiring, screaming out her anger and frustration with the pain of childbirth. She was alone again. Alone with his child. Becky sent Fred the cutting from the Stroud News and Journal. And a photograph of the little baby. ‘Farthing - To Fred and Rebecca (Nee Williams) 29th of August. A Daughter, Sarah Louise. Grateful thanks to all concerned. Sarah Louise. Sarah Louise. Sarah Louise. Fred repeated the names over and over again. Geordie had laid his hands on a bottle of Asti and they had celebrated until the sudden sunset sobered him. Black. Just like that. Then, with a jolt, he was awake. It was almost midnight and he was piss-hard, the sound of Geordie snoring in deep sleep an arms length away. ‘Becky...Becky...’, he sobbed quietly. He shuddered as he came, spurting violently into the musty mattress. He wandered out into the morning heat and found a kiosk with a few sun-bleached postcards on sale. He picked one out. A picture of a mosque. The card smelled of ginger. He wrote a few clumsy words of congratulation to someone he didn’t really know. It all seemed so distant and remote. He ripped the card into pieces and scattered it into the sand. He rushed back to the flat and wrote the first letter he had ever written to her. The last. She was glad he had. Becky read and re-read the scrawly words, the only written proof that he might have loved her. Work was tough under the fierce sun, He was homesick and full of regret that he had not looked harder, closer to home. He missed Hilliers skinless sausages. He missed his pint. He missed his selfish sex. Oh sure, he missed that. ‘Wonfuk? You like? Or maybe nice girl?’ ‘Fukoff…’ He relieved himself when the hormones raged, climaxing to images of string and peeling paint. ‘You got no idea what it’s fuckin’ like. It’s hell. Pure shitty hell. ‘I’m sorry Fred, I thought you had a cushy number. Honest...’ ‘I dunno. Sometimes I feel like topping meself. I’ve fuckin’ had it, mate.’ Glyn didn’t know how to reply. He shook himself dry and zipped up. Fred continued with his steady stream as Glyn washed his hands and dried them under the noisy blower. Fred was still there as Glyn left the toilet and climbed up the dainty stairs. Fred was just finishing off as Glyn took his place back at their table. Glyn lifted his glass of Drambuie to his lips and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Becky and Janet were fingering their diamonds and didn’t notice how disturbed Glyn looked.

The Six had watched Glyn return to his seat. Four of them headed loudly for the foyer, for the Gents’ ‘CIT-TEE!’ The man in the camel coat slipped a ten guilder note under the coaster, pulled his fine black kid gloves over his delicate fingers and followed in the shadow of the four, hands deep in camel pockets, caressing steel. The four were drunk. They were approaching the stage when the brain numbs, when blue clouds the vision, when atrophy begins. The man felt he could almost control them. Time to stoke up the tired engine a little. ‘CIT-TEE!’ The four filled the narrow spiral stair, only to find their way blocked by Fred’s bulk. He too was drunk. He was still zipping his fly. ‘Well, look who it fuckin’ isn’t. Mister Fuckin’ Nice Guy!’, Den hollered at him. Den was small, but as brave as a jackal when surrounded by the pack. ‘Out of the fuckin’ way, Grandpa..!’ ‘Shit!’, said Fred, under his breath. He decided to brazen it out, to use his scrumhalf shoulders to push up and through. He braced himself for the uphill shove, steadied himself for the effort the manoeuvre would require and began the push. Fred could not see how many there were. Four or five or so. Unexpected opportunities presented themselves. ‘What the fuck..?’ Fred surprised the four with his strength as they teetered on the dainty treads. ‘Come on you wankers, put some fuckin’ muscle into it...’ Fred roared like a bull and had the advantage at last. He pushed past two of them, pummelling with his fists as he squeezed through. He kneed one of them in the groin and the bugger spat in his face. The noise had grabbed everyone’s attention and dinner ceased as the melee began. Others near the top of the stairs were jostled out of the way. The waiter, the man and one of the Americans attempted to side step the trouble. Fred and the four were near the top, Fred’s bulk winning the day. Veins stood out on his neck as his face reddened. His heart pounded dangerously close to breaking point, but he was not going to let these bullyboys win this fight. He made it to the top. ‘Right, you bastards..!’ Then Fred felt a pain so intense that he lost his grip on the ironwork of the banister. He clutched at his heart and reeled backward unable to breathe. Fred tried to grasp hold of something to steady his balance. He found Mart’s studded belt and Kev’s ankle as they all fell down into the well of the stairway. They slammed into a squirming heap at the bottom of the stairs, with Fred, the sum of their weight, crushing the breath out of them. He let out another roar filled to the brim with pain. ‘BLOODY HELL!’, He screamed. ‘BECKY!’ He rose briefly and hovered for a second before falling backwards and banging his head on the terracotta tiles. He lay back, quite still now, with a steady trickle of blood seeping from his cracked skull.

Den screamed like a girl. ‘JESUS CHRIST! BLOOD’ Den and the others dragged themselves from under Fred and crawled away across the slippery tiles. Kev and Mart stared stupidly at Fred laying a foot away from them, blood spurting like a geyser from the gaping wound in his chest. Blood spouted over all of them. Urine ran down Den’s legs and mingled with the blood that washed over the tiles. Blood. Dog had fainted. Noise, sweat, panic. Blood. ‘DEN! What the fuck you done?’ Someone’s foot dislodged the blade that lay among the purple pile of the treads, sending it clattering down onto the tiled floor. Noise. Blood. A solid wall of red cacophony. ‘Becky...Becky...’ ‘ I didn’t fuckin’ do nothin’ Kev! Mart! I didn’t! Someone in the foyer made a phone call in near perfect Dutch. Glyn pushed his way through scrum at the top of the spiral stair running at the noise, Becky and Janet abandoned their diamonds and flew with the flock. Janet could almost see and she held Becky back. She could hear Glyn shouting above the noise. ‘YOU BASTARDS! YOU BASTARDS.... WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?’ Fred could just make out the blur of faces through ribbons of pain, through the muffled sickening sounds. His head had cracked painfully upon the terracotta tile, his elbows had grazed, his heart hurt him badly, and he tasted soap. He could see quite clearly the rows of pegs and hats and coats, rows of teeth bearing down upon him. ‘Why are you here?’ ‘I said bugger, Miss...’ The police were already on their way. More seconds passed. Fred felt himself slip away into a painfilled nightmare of willow arrows and stinging nettles and string and peeling paint and dank smells of creosote and carbolic soap. His torn heart beat absurdly fast, pumping blood, losing the battle. Becky screamed so loud that her lungs hurt with the effort. Den screamed out his innocence. ‘I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT! I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ TOUCH ‘IM! But he was trapped. They all were. The four. The Six. The Pack, Their cropped skulls evidence enough on this night of incriminating bristle. The squad cars and ambulances added descant siren wails to the demonic orchestration. ‘Laat ons door...aljseblieft...laat ons door...’ The ambulance men pushed their way into the hotel by way of the main entrance angled across from the Sint Nicolas Church. One carried a stretcher roll under his arm, the other carried a large ribbed aluminium case filled with emergency equipment. A third followed, empty-handed. Police pervaded the foyer. They stood amid the chaos, attempting to bring order to the mayhem. One look at the stairs filled with familiar colours told them what they already expected. The English! Godverdomme! ‘Stand back, please. Everybody! Police!’

The dinner crowds, the coffee crowds, the kitchen crowds edged back from the precipice, suddenly uninvolved, simply curious. The uniformed police officers cleared the stairwell with difficulty. ‘You! YOU BOYS BELOW: YOU MUST REMAIN: NO ONE IS TO LEAVE!’, one of them shouted. Pete and Richie were cornered over by the wall phones. Den, Dog, Mart, Kev, the DJ and the waitress were trapped by the flow of blood creeping toward the darkened disco. Janet held Becky away from the stairs as two policemen made their way down into the souterrain, followed by the ambulance men. Thick layers of cotton wadding staunched the flow a little, chalk scratches marked the spot with Horsefall squeaks and Fred was bound to the stretcher. He was as heavy as he looked and the ambulance men exchanged worried glances as two of them strained to lift the dead weight. Not quite dead. Almost. Sweating profusely, they bumped and tripped him painfully step by step up the delicate treads. Becky saw him for the first time. It was more terrible than she could have ever imagined. She had steeled herself for a heart attack, or a fall, but not for this blood-stained brutalised body that was being manhandled past her. ‘Oh Freddy...Freddy...’, She whispered. She freed herself from Janet’s grip and moved shakily to touch him. ‘NEE! NIET DOEN!’, shouted one of the ambulance men. ‘Engelse..’, someone said, explaining everything. ‘Are you the wife?’, someone asked her. Janet nodded for her. ‘Then you may come with us.’ Looking back, she would not remember leaving the hotel. She would remember the chirpy barrel organ playing ‘All my Loving’, her breath clouds filling the open space before her, obscuring her memory, drawing a mist filled night. She would remember feeling abject panic, clawing at her abdomen like the echoes of the final contraction, but she would not remember leaving Fred’s jacket with all of their papers and money stuffed into an inside pocket on the back of his chair. She forgot all about her diamond too. For now. ‘Mevrouw Farding, someone will later come to the hospital to talk with you. I wish you much strength’ The policeman helped her into the ambulance. Fred lay in his winding sheet, deathly pale. The ambulance howled off toward the Ij Tunnel. Becky had no words for the men who sat on either side of Fred with their tubes and machinery. In the antiseptic air of the ambulance, their life together was reeling away, but she had no words at all. The entrance to the Rode Leeuw lay two hundred and seventeen steps away from the Victoria Hotel at the Palace end of the Damrak. In the C & A passage, the flower seller was packing up for the night. A cocktail of foetid water and greenhouse freesias drifted into the street as he sluiced the pavement. The camel-coated man concentrated on his even breathing, his uneven, unhurried gait. The Rode Leeuw would offer him cover.

Seated in a dark corner, he removed the black kid gloves and folded them neatly, placing them upon the tabletop. He took the diary from his coat pocket and opened it at random. He read the familiar passages for several moments. No service. He knew he should wait, but he needed a drink. God, how he needed a drink. ‘Ober..!’ No one had noticed him. The waiter searched the room for the owner of the voice. Once located he marched over. ‘Meneer?’ ‘Een jonge, aljseblieft.’ Juniper berries. Juniperus communis. He thumbed through the diary and found the small coloured sketch. Most of the colour had faded, but there was still a bluish tinge to the berries. He noticed a small brown needle caught in the spine of the book. Part of a leaf. He prised it free with a manicured fingernail and held it to his nose. At that moment the waiter arrived with a tulip glass of genever. He inhaled deeply the heady scent of juniper. He flicked the small spiny leaf onto the carpeted table top, where it hooked itself into the red tufts like a dagger. The man closed the diary and put it in his coat pocket. Without removing his hand, he fingered the fine gold chain. He downed the genever with one gulp and looked around for the elusive waiter. ‘Ober – breng me de hele fles, alsjeblieft!’ Noise. In the Victoria, all exits and escape routes had been sealed. The four, The Six were still drunk, building up to crescendo heights that Den had long since scaled. ‘I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT! GOD’S HONEST TRUTH! TELL ‘EM WILL YA? I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT!’ The police had their hands full. The officer in charge was contemplating sending through to headquarters for reinforcements. It looked as though it might come to that. ‘I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT! TELL ‘EM MART! KEV, TELL ‘EM FER FUCK’S SAKE!’ Den sobbed out his words to the patient policeman, to the deep plush of the foyer, to his uncertain allies. A detective had arrived and was down below, examining the spot. He asked his questions in a voice that was little more than a whisper. The witnesses were eager with their accusations. ‘Nou, ze waren allemaal aan het dreigen. We hebben alles gehoord!’ He faced the four, The Six, in the foyer. The whisper cut through the noise. ‘This knife. You are the owner of this knife?’ Den said nothing ‘These letters here. On the handle. These are the letters of your name?’ It was Den’s knife. His initials had been stamped into the handle. Kev had done it for him in the chassis workshop. D.M.R. Dennis Michael O’Rourke. A policeman checked his crumpled visitor’s passport

‘Dennis Michael O’Rourke, you must come with us to the bureau. And you, the others also.’ ‘YOU CAN’T TAKE US IN! WE ‘ENT FUCKIN’ DONE NOTHING!’, Kev shouted in panic. They were all still drunk and slightly out of control. All except for Den who was completely out of control. He snivelled into his grubby hands. L.O.V.E.H.A.T.E. tattooed across his knuckles. He shivered in the warmth of the foyer. His jeans stank of urine. The police officer signalled to a colleague. ‘Neem ze allemaal mee naar het bureau.’ To The Six; ‘We take you all to the bureau for questions.’ ‘Does that mean we’re all under fuckin’ arrest?’ ‘No, you will need to be charged. You will have an advocate assigned to you, should it become needed.’ Den whimpered like a child. ‘Stick with me lads, you know I didn’t do nothing.’ All they knew was that they hadn’t done it. Pete and Richie had been at the Bechstein. Their fresh initials carved on the lid could prove that. So, if Kev and Mart and Dog knew they hadn’t done it, well that left Den, didn’t it? And it was his knife after all. Still, he was a mate, wasn’t he? He was one of the Pack. And that old geezer had got up their noses, hadn’t he? They had meant to duff him over, that much was true. ‘Yeah, course we’ll stick by ya, mate.’ Like mud they would stick. Like shit. Like it or like it not. Candlelight fell across the yellowed pages of the open diary. The man traced a delicate finger over the pencilled handwriting. Then suddenly, he snapped the diary shut with a loud report. Several people glanced across, then looked away. Had his heart missed a beat? Worlds turned on sounds like these. ‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ At seven o’clock alcohol was taking hold, and the groups of supporters were finding their voice, seeking out their kind, growing as a threat to the brightly lit Christmas windows. A dozen or so were kicking their way along the Warmoesstraat when the first of the squad cars arrived. Pack colours were identified as Den climbed out of the lead car in the company of policemen. ‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ The other cars arrived and came to a halt in front of the police headquarters. There were raised fists. And the salute. ‘PIGS! PIGS! OUT PIGS, OUT!’ A stone from the cobbled street hit a windscreen, cobwebbing the glass. Inside the station house, the desk sergeant exchanged weary glances with the telephonist.

‘CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’‘ ' Verdorie! Wat krijgen wij nou?’ Beery breath on frosty air. Some of The Six smirked with sudden self-importance. They were hustled into the station just in time to miss the first blows. ‘FUCKIN’ PIGS! CIT-TEE! CIT-TEE!’ The desk sergeant tried to assess the situation; the enormity of it all, or with luck, the transience. He made his decision. The Pack meant business. ‘Come on, lads!’ He began mentally allocating cell space. The unwelcome chore of holding the rabble for the night. The street looked quite pretty illuminated in the glow of the blazing Fiat, festive clouds of noxious smoke pouring from its smouldering tyres. The wall of policemen moved slowly and deliberately toward the drunken revellers, cheered on by the gable-high onlookers. The noise from the drunks spiralled into the night sky, sending scores of startled pigeons fluttering like grimy snowflakes from their rooftop perches. At a signal, the police broke rank and moved toward selected targets. Doorways burst in and the cafes and bars of the Warmoestraat filled with the pack in all its colourful guises. ‘Gis four pilses, guvnor...’ The overhead aquarium, casting aqua-lights over the bar, held so much water. How long had it taken to fill it to the brim? A day or more, the owner remembered. The glass sarcophagus was over two meters long. The owner prayed that the cracked glass might hold out just long enough for him to run to the cellar for the silicone sealant. He thought it might hold out just long enough for the police to arrive and prevent a second blow. ‘BASTARD WATERS HIS FUCKIN’ BEER! IT’S GNATS PISS!’ A second glass was hurled against the aquarium wall, but it was the bar stool that brought the tropical fish to their deaths on the beer stained floor. How could the hundreds survive? The regulars, soaked and frightened, ran for cover, slipping and sliding on the squirming floor. The owner, as tough as they come, took the full force of a broken bottle in his left cheek, a futile tube of sealant in one hand. ‘Godver-de-godver...’ ‘Etters!’ Beer mats and fish floated out into the gutter, eddying away into the drains. Above the city the moon rose, a week away from fullness. It hung haloed, like a broken opaline lamp. Most of the city was peaceful, the taxis and trams and cars and bicycles moving along, unaware of Hell in progress, growing like a malignant tumour in one of the many arteries. Fred was at the outer edge of death when the young surgeon reached him. ‘Hartslag? Pols? There was no heartbeat, no pulse. He had already lost so much blood. Poor Becky. She waited outside the gates of sanity, her head resounding with the pounding of her own blood. The surgeon glanced across at her.

‘This woman should be attended to. Give her a sedative. But Becky refused the bitter capsules. Then suddenly she knew that Fred had gone. She could not pinpoint the exact moment, but she knew. All her preconceptions of death had not prepared her for this moment. A thousand discordant thoughts rang through her. In the seconds before death, Fred could still not understand why he was dying. ‘Why me? I’m Fred! I can’t die!’ Spiralling lights drew him away. He struggled against them. ‘I’m Fred. I can’t be dying...’ It was November and he was ten years old. Dursley had suffered a day of hurricanes and pockets of whirlwinds. Trees along the playing fields had been uprooted and hurled against the grocer’s shop and the Barclays windows. Heavy clouds darkened the day. Tails of the storm lashed the streets of Stonehouse. Wind moaned through the shabby council house, shifting months of dust. He could see the trees and hedges bowing and scraping before the storm. Trains rattled by unheard at the bottom of the garden, but the squeal of Brother Bernard’s Bedford van cut through. From a bedroom window Fred, on rough wool socks, watched over the sill as the monk entered the house next door, using a key that hung with countless others on his key ring. What did monks wear under their habits, he wondered. What did this monk wear? Fred knew. He had heard the instruction. He had heard the confession. Had heard the exultant rosaries cried out through the party wall. The cup held against the wallpaper was unnecessary. He had heard blasphemous oaths and screams mingling with the wail of the Erinoid hooter. When the Bedford Van strained against the elements, who would hear the monks’ confession? On this November day, the wind strained harder against the house next door. The front door, the bolthole to freedom, flew open in Dursley echoes, hammering against the doorstop like a mallet. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The back door flew open at the hand of the husband, the little balding man in brown corduroys, forgotten sandwiches bringing him home unexpectedly early. The sky cracked open as the two men faced one another in the open ended tunnel of the hall. ‘Brother Bernard!’ Monk, husband and wife were caught in the hallway as a fireball rolled across the slick asphalt of Midland Road, spitting its way in through the open doorway, scorching Vymura and Sanderson and Tuf, searing hot, burning a linoleum rut toward the back door and the garden. It rolled down the rough concrete path, skimming the mud-raked vegetable patch, splitting in an explosion of fury as it licked the small stream that ran between the foot of the gardens and the cinder path, Vick’s coal yard and the Gloucester to Bristol line. ‘I’m Fred…I can’t be dying…’ But die he did and he knew not why. But he did not die priestless

To read more of this book please visit http://www.authonomy.com/books/42586/slow-poison/. Contact Casimir Greenfield at [email protected]