“This was our home,” I growl angrily. “Once full of life, but now filled by death. It is not a place for the living.”
They look uncomfortable.
“Goodbye,” I say, and slam the door in their faces.
~~~~~
Northern France
Jack trundled southwards. He’d stop in and collect his stuff from Madrid and then head east. This would be a long journey. Again. But he’d gained another, albeit old, handgun for his troubles.
You never knew when you might need another gun.
He glanced across at a couple of attractive French girls sitting further along the carriage. They’d had a couple of looks at him, but appeared to be more interested in looking at photos, or some app, or something, on their mobiles. Maybe he’d have to sidle over and strike up a conversation? The name’s Vittalle, Jack Vittalle. Something like that.
He checked his bedraggled reflection in the train window and grimaced at the tramp staring back at him. There was also a pretty rancid stench coming from somewhere nearby, and he was worryingly sure he knew the source – too much heavy and stressful exercise and no changes of clothing were taking their toll.
“Not a bloody chance,” he muttered quietly to himself, and let his head slump disappointedly against the vibrating glass.
He’d stink halfway to high heaven by the time he got to Spain.
But, with luck, at least he wouldn’t get his personal space invaded much along the way.
~~~~~
London
It has taken some months for the three co-conspirators to come to trial. I’m not sure of all of the legal technicalities involved, though many have been explained over the last several weeks of daily journeys into London. For so many hours, I have sat here in the public gallery above the courtroom and stared unflinchingly at the three men who facilitated my suffering. I have discovered that they weren’t directly involved – other than by feeding, helping, running, carrying for and protecting the murderers as they planned their wickedness – so my feelings for them are constrained to a simmering malevolence.
Being here every day you start to recognise familiar faces: the other bereaved family members who surround me in our little focus group of vitriolic hatred, the media in their perpetual rush for headlines, the lawyers, the jury, the judge, the police, the witnesses, the arresting officers...
It’s not been an easy trial. The case has been complicated by the injuries sustained by one of them. He’s made himself out as being permanently incapacitated by the actions of the police but, when I watch him, I can’t see much wrong. It looks to me as if he sneers to himself from time to time, when he thinks he’s not being observed. Like it’s a big joke. He reminds me of someone else. Someone else who recently considered the world to be nothing more than his own possession. Whose consideration of others extended only as far as his own personal desires allowed. Who threatened me.
But, right now, I’m not thinking about Travellers, I’m just feeling stunned.
I felt so sure that the jury would see through the liar’s playacting as easily as I could. All the fine rhetoric and argument presented by his defence council was clearly just that: rhetoric. I felt so certain that here, in our wonderful, sophisticated country; the country you had elected to make your own; that you had even gone so far as to give up your own heritage for; that you had taken for your own to become British, alongside me, because in your own words you, “Love this place.” That this modern country, with its modern science, great knowledge and bulldog spirit would recognise selfish cowardly lies and blatant self-preservation.
Would serve justice.
Well, it did for two of them and these comrades looked just as angry as I was, when it didn’t for the third.
No, there clearly isn’t any honour amongst the guilty. It might exist between thieves, but I never got around to asking my short-lived house-guests. The little, overweight, ugly terrorist smiled for a fraction of a second when they announced he would walk free. When they proclaimed that he had suffered sufficiently. When they agreed that he’d need professional support and assistance for the rest of his life. That a sizeable civil case should now be brought against the police for their mishandling of the arrest. That such a case was necessary so that the State could properly fund his ongoing healthcare.
He doesn’t look like he needs much help to me.
As I step out of the courts into the dark evening and usual barrage of flashguns, I notice that there are new lights in the sky tonight. It’s Bonfire Night. I’d forgotten. A huge red rosette bursts over the skyline and the loud booming sound of the explosion makes me stagger involuntarily. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I can see the flames again. They rage around me. And I can see Grey Beard. And I can see the flying metal. And I can see the blood-red mists swirling...
I lurch forwards, starting to fall, but an unknown hand reaches out swiftly, and grabs hold of my forearm.
“Are you okay?” asks a woman’s voice, and my head flashes round defensively.
I recognise her but can’t work out from where. She sees the fury painted over my face and lets go quickly.
“Sorry,” she says. “I thought you might have stumbled or something.” She’s being kind.
“Firework,” I grunt self-consciously, though I’m not sure why I should feel embarrassed.
Her eyes widen fractionally. She understands.
“I’m Sharinda Manjeethra,” she says. “You can call me Shaz.”
London
Shaz is preparing dinner in
her large and well equipped kitchen. We have become firm friends over these last few months. Kindred spirits in our own polemic way. Allies around a single cause: justice.
Since the trial, life has been interesting for both of us. I have decided to start working toward securing my third dan, a whole step up from my previously, much struggled for, second black belt. For some reason, but probably due to my perpetual feelings of anger and aggression, the fighting is coming easily now. The downside is that I’ve had to start travelling further, in order to find groups which provide sufficient challenge. This has been okay, I’ve got few other things to do with my time.
Steve remains in the background, as perpetually enthusiastic and good-humoured as ever, and we still go to training together, one or two evenings, every week. We were both disappointed when the National Health Service pronounced that I didn’t need special attention any more, and that he had to go back to his normal nursing duties during the daytime.
This, of course, is in stark contrast to my poor little terrorist friend who, according to the side-story coverage his legal firm keep securing on the inside pages of the newspapers, would appear to be in need of all the assistance our country can offer. I’d have to say that it’s a bit of a mystery to me – he looks like he’s getting around just fine, whenever I’m watching him.
The local police came round a couple more times, and I consented to allow them into the house on the second visit; though I shepherded them into the lounge and made them sit there surrounded by our pictures. Yes, I’ve done some redecorating and printed out hundreds of pictures of you and Lizzie and plastered the whole room with them. I need to have you around me during the daytime, as well as in my dreams. Oddly, the police seemed reluctant to come in on their third visit and stayed on the doorstep, where they clearly felt more comfortable, while they told me that the remaining Travellers had finally been moved on. I replied, honestly, that I couldn’t care less.
I continue to hone my archery skills. The combination of my superb muscle tone and continual practice is yielding mighty accuracy. Vengeance and I can almost visualise our arrow’s entire trajectory before each loose, irrespective of weather conditions. Nothing is safe within our killing range.
I have also discovered, now that I’ve turned my hand to it, that I’m something of a fletcher – an arrow-smith – and this has required a subtle repurposing of the garage. A whole new range of exotic arrow tips are being crafted and then subjected to trial. My local butchers have never sold so many full legs of meat.
At the moment, Shaz is midway through demonstrating her own butchery prowess on a couple of small, hapless, chicken carcasses. Her deft, yet violent, incisions betray the frustrations that I know are festering inside her. She’s had it rough since the verdict, and been subjected to endless detailed cross-examination and scrutiny. In a particularly insidious piece of media gamesmanship, the defence team have managed to spin the press stories so that she appears to be responsible for their client’s freedom. They very cleverly ran a whole sequence of stories which clearly insinuated that they, the judge, and the poor innocent jury had been left with no legitimate options for prosecution after her irresponsible actions.
I just told her that she should have hit him harder.
Manjeethra’s kitchen extends across the whole width of the rear of her house. I sit at her dining table, over in the corner, and flick through today’s newspaper while she preps. Though it’s not a small house, this particular room seems disproportionately large to me. I know that she has a man in her life, someone she’s been with for quite a while, but I’ve never met him and he doesn’t live here. This is
her
house, and one of her main reasons for choosing it was this huge culinary area – cooking is a passion of hers.
So, like today, on her random days off, she’s taken to trying out new experimental cuisine on me. I’ve become the modern day version of a medieval food-taster for Mr. Mystery-man, whoever he is. Not that I care: I’ve only ever been able to do the basics, and Shaz’s so-called-experiments are therefore much better than anything I’d ever put together for myself.
“I still think you should do more cooking,” she mutters as her blade slices neatly into the carcass in front of her. “You’d find it therapeutic.”
“Too busy,” I grunt. Conversation remains difficult. The doctors say it will probably not get much better. They also think I should be cutting back on the steroids, but I’m still getting too many other peripheral benefits from them – just this morning I caught sight of my new physique in my bathroom mirror. I can hardly recognise myself.
“Doing what?” she fires back, without taking her eyes off her vivisection.
“Well, apart from training and archery, I’ve been practicing some of those unarmed combat techniques you’ve been showing me, and researching our little friend.”
“Researching?”
I turn a page of the newspaper. “Stalking’s possibly a better description.”
This grabs her attention, and she spins round to face me. “You’ve not approached him, have you?” she asks, agitated.
I laugh and shake my head, “Course not. I keep well clear.”
“Hmmm,” she says and turns away. “I’ll show you some more stuff later. Like, how to track a target without getting spotted. If you want to do something like that, then it’s really important that he doesn’t get wind that you’re tailing him. They’ll bring nuisance charges against you, or a restraining order, or worse, knowing them thieving bastards, they’ll sue you for something.” The slam of carbon steel into her chopping board is, I sense, a fraction more violent than absolutely necessary to take the spindly little chicken leg off. “I wouldn’t put it past them to try to strip you of the insurance money. Or your home.”
Now she’s got
my
attention. “Okay,” I rumble, feeling my anger rising. I will not permit any more violation of my battered existence. Some more of her coaching would be useful – not least, because I’m hatching a plan to put some of it to good use...
I decide it’s best to change the subject. “What’s the board for?” I ask.
Not far away from me, hanging from a string by the kitchen door, is an old wooden chopping board. I’ve seen it several times but, as a wall ornament, it’s not in keeping with Manjeethra’s generally very tasteful decor: it’s basically an old battered bit of wood with various chunks taken out of it.
“Therapy,” she says.
I don’t understand her, “What?”
“I keep trying to tell you cookery is therapeutic, but you don’t believe me.” She trims the last piece off the fully dissected carcass, stands, and with one smooth movement and a flick of her wrist, sends the carving knife tumbling through the air.
I watch, fascinated, as it glints past my eyes, barely inches from my face, and buries itself into the centre of the clattering wooden target. “Nice,” I grunt.
“No,” she says. “This is nice.”
The second blade, snatched in an instant from the rack, slams into the board barely a millimetre from the first. A tiny splinter of wood from the gap between the quivering blades springs across and onto the newspaper in front of me.
“Show me,” I say.
~~~~~
Skala Kallonis, Lesvos, Greece
He watched as a fishing boat chugged slowly across the huge lagoon toward him. It was a simple family boat – royal blue, with yellow edgings, hand painted – and was being piloted by one of only a few villagers venturing out in this lull in the storms.
A heavy awning flapped over the boat’s open deck like a loosely pegged tent. Stretched, as it was, over a simple metal frame, this tarpaulin afforded some scant protection from the cold and spray, but Vittalle doubted that the fisherman would venture beyond the enclosed gulf’s mouth today.
It had been unusually cold this winter. There had even been an inch or so of snow, a few days ago. It was all melted now, but Jack still needed to light a fire every evening to keep his little villa warm.
Jack looked out across the five kilometres of grey, washboard rippled water toward the distant, mist-shrouded shoreline. Forest covered mountains rose from this hazy horizon toward half blue, half cloud, skies as if they were hovering, suspended in midair. Perched here on his personal sofa – an old abandoned tractor tyre, that he’d manhandled down to his secluded little beach, years ago – and wrapped, as he was, in several layers of faded cotton tee-shirts and a couple of his favourite chunky-knit sweaters, he felt cosy enough.
He wouldn’t want to be on that boat though.
It had been weeks and, as much as it was pleasant to spend time here, he was bored. The excitement of Poland, then the distractions of his journey overland to Madrid to collect his equipment, and then onward across southern Europe to here, had soon faded away to nothing. Now there was too much time to think. Too much time to remember.
This morning had been particularly bad.
He’d wandered down here to try to distract himself, but the tiny village of Magdullah, straddling Highway A74 as it climbed into the mountains north of Kandahar, with its sparse line of tumbledown dwellings, continued to wash around his mind. He could see the dusty roadside erupting into hundreds of tiny fountains of angry spray, as lines of heavy calibre machine gun fire splattered down from multiple concealed fire points. He could see the screaming villagers, barking dogs, livestock, and children running in all directions. Could see them falling, as innocent as his squad, amongst the hail of metal.
And he can see the improvised explosive devices going off...
Despite being called to the village to help reconnect a damaged water supply, they’d actually been herded, like sheep, into a carefully calculated killing zone.
It had been an organised and sophisticated humanitarian fiction for inhumane annihilation.
Flames and metal spewed from all sides.
He watched as Pete called in air support, and then collapsed, dead, with his head exploding sideways under a horizontal storm of white hot shrapnel.
He watched the red brown soil sliding under his elbows, as he crawled along the roadside ditch, and listened as he screamed for mercy to God, to Jesus, and even to his unknown mum, while his only real family were torn to shreds around him.
He sat there, miraculously unscathed in the sudden silence, with Mike cradled in his arms, trying to staunch the hot blood which was pumping vigorously from his best-friend’s many puncture wounds, promising to tell a young wife that his comrade’s final words had been of his love for her, with angry tears pouring down his cheeks, as his closest and last remaining brother slipped away from him.
He sat there in some godforsaken distant land, swearing to the heavens that he would avenge them all, and watched as his friend drifted into unconsciousness, then passed away.
The boat chugged close as it continued onwards, and its lonely Captain raised a friendly hand in salute as he passed. Jack forced himself to lift his heavy arm, away from the ghost cradled in his lap, and returned the gesture.
Then roughly he swiped at the dampness round his eyes, and decided he would take his battered old motorbike for a ride into town later.
He needed company.
~~~~~
Barfold
It’s taken a long time and a remarkable number of failures to get to this point.
A battered pig’s haunch dangles lifelessly from the wooden A-Frame I’ve built at one end of the garden. I stand as far away as I can – by the back of the house – and carefully notch the latest of my homespun creations into Vengeance.
I’ve had to go with a steel shaft to counter balance this latest mechanical arrowhead. If I’ve finally got it right then four, initially backward facing, sprung metal barbs will snap out forwards on impact, like a star, from the sides of the tip. It could be a nasty piece of kit: streamlined enough to fly and, if it penetrates flesh, the only way to get it out will be to cut it out. Given that the fully barbs-extended radius is almost two centimetres, that would be a big hole.
I’m not entirely sure what it will do though. I know that the arrow will expend some of its kinetic energy to release the barb trigger and, up to now, I’ve had the internal trigger spring set so stiff that the mechanism hasn’t tripped, and the arrow has ended up behaving more like a blunt medieval broad-head which, because of the still-latched barbs, hasn’t stuck in very far at all. Worse, afterwards, it’s also been easy to pull out. If this attempt doesn’t work then, despite all the effort, I might abandon this experiment – it’s starting to look like a standard carbon fibre shaft, with a sawtooth-sharpened three or four flange traditional arrowhead, is about as destructive as the two of us can get.
With a familiar creak of pent up energy, Vengeance bends its tips toward me. Gently... gently... I hold my breath and ease the target into my sights. Nice... Now. My fingers move in a smooth fluid movement, so that the taut cord can accelerate cleanly from static, and for a microsecond I feel the backdraft from the high-modulus polyethylene filament as it sighs over my toughened fingertips.
The heavy arrow makes a fizzing noise as the metal shaft oscillates away into the air, propelled by all of Vengeance’s colossal 313fps of kinetic energy, and it hurtles forward toward the innocent carcass.
I’m transfixed and I watch it as it races away, arriving at the meaty target with an almighty crash.
The whole A-Frame is picked up bodily by the suddenly horizontal hunk of ham, and I instinctively jump backwards as the whole contraption is lifted clean off the ground, and thrown back violently, into the fence a further four metres behind it.
I wasn’t expecting that!
It would seem that the extending barbs have translated the arrow’s forward momentum directly into the target. Hurling it backwards. Lifting the meat, and
then
the heavy frame!