The Redemption Factory Read online

  There on the ground, shaped like a bloody ‘S’ was the horrible piece of meat from the picture. To Lucky’s horror, it moved, slightly, squirming in its own blackened blood.

  The air in Lucky’s stomach began to spin, looking for food, hoping to toss it through his mouth.

  “Fuck …” Lucky stepped back, a couple of inches, realising he was standing in chunky red and black liquid.

  Without warning, the meat reached and touched Lucky’s shoe.

  “Fuck!” He kicked it away. “What the fuck …”

  There was more sniggering from Violet and Taps.

  “You don’t recognise him, Mister Short?” said Shank.

  “Him …?” Then it came, the shock, hitting him full force in the throat. “Paul …? Ah fuck … Paul …”

  A sound whimpered from the meat; its fingers made a slight movement in the blood.

  Shank ripped the screen from its encasement. “Yes, Mister Short. That is Mister Goodman. Now, I think it’s best if you sit down. You look as if –”

  “You baldy-headed cunt! What the fuck did you do to him!” Lucky made a feeble attempt to swipe at Shank, but his fist was quickly grabbed by Taps, who pushed him back, in the direction of the chair.

  “Sit your arse down,” commanded Taps, forcing Lucky into the chair. “Don’t talk. Not yet, anyway. Not until Mister Shank requires you. And when you’re asked to talk, make sure you tell him every thing he wants to know. Understand? Everything …”

  When Lucky didn’t answer, it was left to Shank to break the silence.

  “It’s okay, Taps. Something tells me that we can do business with Mister Short. He looks a far smarter man that Mister Goodman.”

  “Why? Why did you do that to Paul? It wasn’t his fault He knew nothing. He was just trying to protect me. He’s my best friend.”

  “Best friend?” chided Violet. “Is that what he is? Then why did he tell us everything, right down to the room you were staying in?”

  Lucky shook his head. “You can’t try that shit with me. Paul would never tell, no matter how much you fuckers tortured him. He won a gold medal at the Olympics, for boxing. Know that? Beat the shit out of Mangler Delaney. Bet you didn’t? He can take your best fucking shot and spit it right back at you!”

  Shank nodded, as if agreeing. “All I ask is that you tell me how many others were told, about what you think you saw in the woods.”

  “Others? What others? There are no fucking others.”

  “Taps? Please secure Mister Short. It seems he is as unwilling as Mister Goodman.”

  As ordered, Taps tied Lucky to the chair.

  “I know Lucky is only your nickname, Mister Short,” said Shank, approaching the chair. “I’m told people say you were born with a horseshoe up your backside. Is that correct.”

  Lucky mumbled, a feeble grin on his face, the words sounding through his broken nose, “Some even say it was an entire stable.”

  Shank smiled. “Good. I like a man with a sense of humour. But let me tell you something for nothing, Mister Short: luck never triumphs over reality, and I guess someone just left your stable door wide open, because you’ve run right out of luck. But that can all be rectified with the right answers.”

  “Otherwise, you will be sliced and diced like the little frog you are,” replied Violet, bringing her face closer to Lucky. Her hand held a meat hook. “Perhaps you have more sense, Lucky Ducky, than your so-called friend. He didn’t care shit about you. He would’ve let us kill you first. My advice to you is save yourself, tell us how many other people know about what you saw in the forest,” she whispered. “Just give us the names of the other people.”

  Violet’s voice had become so soft Lucky strained to hear what she was saying. She could easily have been a mother whispering a bedtime story to her son.

  “C’mere. Closer. I want to tell you where the others are hiding,” whispered Lucky, his voice barely audible.

  Violet turned to Shank and grinned. He couldn’t get the names, but she had secured them. He’d be raging. “Who are they and where are they hiding?” asked Violet, impatiently.

  “Right up your scraggy, smelly hole,” he giggled, uncontrollably.

  Baffled, Violet stood back in amazement at the madness that had just escaped from Lucky’s mouth. Shank shook his head.

  Angry at being made a fool of, Violet plunged the hook towards Lucky’s head, drilling it for his eyes.

  Only the sudden movement of Shank’s feet tripping Violet, prevented the hook from finding its intended target, imbedding itself into Lucky’s thigh, instead.

  “Don’t be so stupid,” growled Shank, staring down at the figure of Violet on the ground. “He’s no use to us dead, you fool.”

  Rising, Violet stared at Shank. “Don’t call me that again. I don’t like it. I don’t allow anyone to call me a fool.”

  Ignoring her, Shank turned his attention to Lucky.

  “Not much brains, Mister Short, but you do have balls. I respect that. Balls. But I can’t allow such insolence.” He twisted the hook, deeper into Lucky’s thigh, until he felt metal against bone.

  The shrieks coming from Lucky’s mouth were chilling, like a dog severed in half.

  “I think it is safe to say the application of justice has been done,” said Shank, removing the bloody hook from the devastated leg. Blood flowed freely from the wound, but Shank made no action to prevent it. “Blood and time are both running out for you Mister Short. Your life is entirely in your own hands. I hope you understand that?”

  Shank nodded to Taps who opened up a box and removed two items, one of which was an electric drill. Taps plugged it into the wall, and flicked the switch.

  “Did you know that primitive people believed that madness was a sign of demon possession? They drilled holes in the front of the skull to serve as a gateway out of the mind,” said, Shank touching the drill’s trigger, its whirl screaming in the room. “Very primitive, bur effective …”

  Lucky’s body was beginning to get cold. He felt exhausted, resigned. He wanted it all over with.

  Shank held the second item inches from Lucky’s face. The items were shaped like the figure 8 with long metal rods attached to it. Tiny teeth hugged the inside.

  “Do you know what these are?”

  “No …”

  “Gelding tongs, Mister Short. The latest model. Pristine and ready for action. Are you sure you don’t wish to help us? No? Very well. You leave me with no other option, I’m afraid. Violet?” Shanks handed her the gelding tongs.

  Violet smiled a bottle-in-your-face smile. “I’m going to take such delight in removing your baggage …”

  A shiver touched Lucky spine, making his balls shrivel.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TIDYING UP ALL LOOSE ENDS

  “Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.”

  Marcus Aurelius

  “The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.”

  Nietzsche

  KENNEDY SEALED THE letters. One was address to Cathleen, the other to Paul. He debated whether they should be left on the table for Biddy to find in the morning, or left somewhere in Cathleen’s room. The latter won out. Biddy would open the letters, reading them thoroughly, deliciously spreading their contents for all to see and listen to. No, Biddy could not be trusted. He had learned that lesson the hard way. Catherine couldn’t be trusted either; but she was certainly the lesser evil of the two as far as gossiping was concerned.

  The house felt dank, amplifying the mouldy odour of the old carpeting. A nice warm fire would kill most of the smell, but there was little point in any more mundane habits.

  In the kitchen he filled a bowl with soup, accompanied it with some bread and a small glass of orange juice. He couldn’t help smiling. Cathleen would sniff suspiciously at the contents.

  Moments later, Kennedy entered the bedroom.

  “It looks like a storm gathering strength,”
he said, placing the tray on the side table.

  Cathleen ignored him, eyeing the tray, vigilantly. “What on earth is that? I didn’t ask for any of that health food garbage, did I? Did you put sleeping tablets in that? Think I’m as bloody daft as you look?”

  He saw fatigue on her face and considered abandoning any lengthening of conversation.

  “I’m concerned that you are not eating.”

  “Very concerned, are we? Perhaps it’s the soup you’ve put the pills in? How many? Bet you didn’t even bother to count them? Just poured them in. Old Cathleen doesn’t know what day it is. They’ll say she did it herself. Silly old woman. That poor man, now a widow. And pigs will fly.” She swiped angrily at the tray, knocking it across the room. “I’m not hungry. Besides, I’ve told Biddy to come over and make my meals in future. You’re not to be trusted, Philip Kennedy. Not one bit. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know something is.”

  “Don’t play the martyr. You’re no more innocent than me, my dear. You know exactly what’s going on. You took something belonging to me, thinking it would empower you to keep me here.” He laughed. “I am not going to harm you, Catherine. Not now …”

  Catherine looked at him, her eyes tight with suspicion.

  “You intend to leave me. Don’t you? Bastard. For better or for worse. Remember those fine words?”

  “I never agreed to them. You did,” he retorted.

  “I won’t let you leave. You’ll have to kill me. Otherwise, I will use everything in my power to keep you here.”

  “A prisoner? Is that it?” He wanted to laugh at the irony of it.

  Traffic could be heard in the distance. There was the sound of dogs barking.

  “Lately, I’ve begun to feel like an hourglass, sand running out. Running out a bit too fast, telling me something …” said Kennedy, surprised at this admission to his wife.

  Cathleen snorted. “An hourglass, you say? I was thinking you’re more like a giant balloon, all the hot air escaping through your arse.”

  She seemed alive again, purged and ready for action.

  This is her most dangerous, he thought, when she can convince people to trust her again. He had given her the chance to be civil, but she had slapped it away, just like the tray. There was no point in pursuing this discussion. It would only take an unpleasant turn, and a quarrel right now would be disastrous.

  For the next few minutes, not a word was said, as if both were simply content to listen to the other breathe, waiting for the other’s blunder, or trap.

  “There were times I thought I felt something for you, again,” said Kennedy, breaking the silence. He needed to exorcise the remaining amount of words assembled in his head, needed the next discussion to be on his terms. “But there were other moments; moments when I was so stressed by fury and hatred of you that I wanted to kill you.”

  “You’ve never loved me,” accused Catherine.

  “I never once told you I never loved you,” said Kennedy. Cathleen wasn’t to be loved. Respected, yes. Loved? Indeed, he would have found it difficult at the moment to refute that there was at least a trace of truth in what she was saying.

  “You never once told me you did,” retorted Cathleen, lightning fast, a mischievous gleam in her eyes, ever the pragmatist, yet excited in these rare glows of moments long gone.

  He would have encouraged her with a smile – a negotiating smile – but he was far too raw for that.

  She continued. “I had a terrible pain last night, unlike any other I’ve had to face. Yet, when I awoke this morning, the pain had subsided. In fact, in had totally evaporated and the permanent throbbing in my side was no longer permanent. It was gone.”

  Kennedy sighed softly, believing he was in for the usual monotonous self-pitying lecture, but was rammed by the force of the continuation in Cathleen’s next three words.

  “I am dying,” she said, matter-of-factly, a voice flat and apathetic, almost as if she had not meant him to hear her. “I know this now because Moore told me two weeks ago, but I suspected it much earlier.”

  She turned her head away, her eyes catching the last fusion of the day’s dying strings of coloured lights.

  For a moment, Kennedy was confused. She had cried wolf so many times, yet something in her voice alerted him.

  “Don’t be silly. You’ll be burying me, when the time comes. God knows what garments you’ll force my corpse to wear,” he grinned woodenly, feeling uncomfortable by the conversation’s direction, approaching her bed cautiously. “The realities, for you, are still as endless as the possibilities; possibilities you have always strived after.” He wanted to touch her head, her face, but couldn’t. “You have always been an extraordinary woman, a strong woman.”

  Shadows began flittering across the room. He eased the lamp’s glare on her bedside table while placing the letters beneath her pillow, hoping she wouldn’t open both, believing she would.

  Night sounds were gathering outside in the street, but even they could not disturb the stillness and fullness of which now confused and infuriated him by its utter unfamiliarity. He was a stranger in his own home, yet familiar too, in that frightening way when the past that you so desperately want to forget suddenly comes calling.

  Kennedy made his way down the stairs, switching off the lights in each room. Only the eerie orange glow from the living room, caused by the remnants of hot coals from the hearth, remained, guiding him expertly towards the box – the box that had long faded from recognition but which was brought to his attention the day he was searching for the snooker balls for Paul. He was convinced it was fate playing its shrewd hand, a harbinger laughing at him, asking if he thought all had been forgotten – or forgiven?

  Cautiously, he removed the box’s content and was immediately pleased by the condition of the sole remaining item. He had always been good at his old job – when he was young and willing, unquestioning – and the proof was in the pudding. Oiled and ready, black and shiny, the old gun rested like a fat, contented eel in the palm of his hand. He was confident of its perfect working condition. In its own paradoxical way, the ugly piece of metal was beautiful, created flawlessly with inlays designed to exact tolerances and unparalleled precision and efficiency. It still hummed of lubricant when he handled it, the weapon feeling heavy yet light when balanced on fingers, admiring it like the young man who had once balanced a snooker cue, countless aeons ago, calculating the possibilities, the pros and cons.

  He placed the weapon down, alongside the book of Don Quixote, opening a page at the designated place. He reread the paragraph, loving the formations of perfect words. I shall never be fool enough to turn knight errant. For I see quite well that it’s not the fashion now to do as they did in the olden days when they say those famous knights roamed the world …

  A few minutes later, he closed the book for the last time, and walked towards the large front window, opening it. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the rain and tiny creatures flying home to safety. The wind sneaked in to the room and entered his mouth, tasting like withered crusts of bread.

  Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, thinking he should feel something – the touch of a hand, cloth against his skin, but he felt none of it. Instead, he felt numb, as if a part of him had been amputated – like Cathleen’s toes – and he could no longer find it, could no longer remember what part was missing, only that it felt wrong.

  Mixed emotion – regret tinged with an equal amount of self-justification – slowly began to build. He brushed all self-debates aside. He no longer had to be in the mood for them, no longer had to tolerate their intolerable whining, their predictable dilemma and sanitized versions of memories fading, growing dim and blurred.

  Knocking was sounding somewhere in the house. He smiled. Cathleen, Cathleen, Cathleen. A nuisance, if ever one existed … He placed the weapon to his skull, tightly, almost drilling it against his skin, feeling its weight press against him, simultaneously terrible and reassuring.

  The tension
in his knuckles had transformed into tiny skulls about to pop from their enclosure. Every nerve in his body tingled with adrenaline while the night closed in all around him, getting darker and deeper. There was no light except what glowed from the rusted ashes nestling in the fire’s open mouth.

  Obligingly, Kennedy fixed his eyes on the wall opposite, his mouth slack. He cocked the hammer and the sound did not disappoint. He was now lost, overwhelmed by events and memories no longer controlled by him.

  Kicking now followed the knocking – fierce, impatient kicking. Windows were being banged, ready to be caved in. Why was he listening? Let someone else worry. He smiled. He had more pressing matters at hand, in his hand, pressing against his skull.

  Pull it. Hurry. Pull the trigger. Soon it will all be over. Soon …

  In the distance, he could hear his name being echoed over and over again. It sounded like a ghost …

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  QUIXOTE AND SANCHO

  “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

  Alexander Pope

  “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

  Confucius

  THE DARKNESS SURROUNDING the abattoir sat waiting, patiently. It had no place else to go for at least another couple of hours, before the early morning light came to relieve it from its duty.

  Geordie’s face was a pale spot framed by the fragment of moonlight creaking in through the broken stones marshalled all along the makeshift tunnel – the one-time pathway leading to the back of the abattoir. It had remained idle for years, after the crumbling stonework had fallen, killing one of the workers making his way home on a Saturday afternoon. Always a favourite shortcut, it now lurked officially unused, condemned too dangerous. Too dangerous, even for cost-cutting Shank to consider keeping as a legitimate entrance.