Connaught had never considered himself to be a good man. He was big, and he liked to throw his weight about, and other people got hurt in the process, that was fine by him. He was not, however, an idiot, and had never had any desire to see the inside of a prison, so he’d found ways to turn his nature to his advantage. He knew how to follow rules, and if not exceptionally brave, was certainly no coward, a combination of personality traits he had managed to turn into a successful, if not exactly sparkling military career, this being a field of endeavour where a certain amount of brutality is not considered to be an altogether bad thing. A military career does not, however, last forever, so at the age of forty, with twenty-two years of service and two failed marriages behind him (this being a field of endeavour where a certain amount of brutality is not considered to be altogether a good thing), Connaught found him back in civvy street.
The transition from a military to a civilian life is not always an easy one, and people deal with it in different ways. Several men of Connaught’s acquaintance (and men are the relevant sex here, since he didn’t believe in women in uniform, so what they did when they quit was of complete indifference to him), didn’t cope with it at all, and fell straight into a bottle. This was something he regarded as weakness (Connaught was noted for his views on weakness, and they weren’t sympathetic views). Quite a few others went into alcohol in a different way, running bars, or in some cases working on the door. Connaught never fancied this, the hours were long, and he wasn’t a people person, unless being a hitting people person counted, which he suspected it might not. One of his better mates (and he’d never really let anyone get that close, even in the army) had tried to sell him on the virtue of becoming a prison officer, which isn’t a huge jump from the military, but it didn’t appeal; being a guard might get you more pay and a better uniform than being a prisoner, but it still got you locked up all day.
What he did like the look of was buy-to-let housing. One of his brothers-in-law had been into this, and it had seemed like a good gig. The bloke was fat, lazy, loaded, and always had some amusing tale about throwing people out on the street for owing him money, which seemed right up Connaught’s street. Of course, in order to go into this, he would need money, which he didn’t have in any great supply (two divorces, with the second wife being hired a fancy lawyer by her no-good, buy-to-let landlord brother, had eaten into his savings in a rather bad way). But the dream was still there, gave him something to aim for.
So, what he needed was something where he could earn good money, relatively quickly, for relatively little effort, with a skill set that came down to a willingness to rough people up, as long as they weren’t too big, and there was no danger of being put in prison for his efforts. Which was how he had fallen into the wonderful world of debt collection.
Debt collection, if you are not familiar with it, works (in theory) like this: if somebody owes you money, and won’t pay, you can take them to court, where you explain why you think they owe you money, they can explain why they think they don’t owe you money, and if you win than you can get an order forcing them to pay. If they still won’t pay, then you can get a debt collector, licenced by the court, to collect on your behalf, such a collector can seize goods against the debt and sell them to recover the money.
That’s the theory. The practice is, of course, rather different, since the courts are, like many areas of modern life, hopelessly corrupt. This means that it is often quite possible to get a court order against somebody without ever telling them you’re taking them to court, which in turn removes the need to bother with niceties like evidence. Better yet, there are whole fields that have emerged, such as council tax and parking, where courts will rubber stamp whole stacks of cases without ever bothering to find out if there is any merit in them. So, all an enterprising debt collection company needs is to find a corrupt official who will push through such cases for a small consideration (sadly not hard to find), and whole piles of debt can be generated and enforced without ever being incurred in the first place. The first thing most victims know is when a collector turns up at their door and tells them to pay up.
Most people, needless to say, are forced to pay. Calling the police is futile, as few police officers will put any effort into dealing with a conflict between a member of the public and a representative of any vaguely official sounding organisation, even fewer if a court order has been issued, no matter how dubious the circumstances surrounding it. Lawyers, unless you’re very rich and therefore worth the effort, are even less useful. Sure, they know the system’s corrupt, but they make their living within that corrupt system, and challenging it is against their interests. No lawyer, given a choice, will let any sharp object near a goose that might one day lay a golden egg.
This then, was the world Connaught had found himself in, and it was a world he found that he rather liked. His employers were based in the Channel Islands, and he never met them, though he assumed that the Channel Islands address was only on paper anyway, and the people who he actually worked for were somewhere else. Not that this worried him greatly, as to all intents and purposes he worked for himself. Each week he would receive a number of jobs by email, and would proceed to visit the listed people. Nine times out of ten he just frightened the living daylights out of them (something he was good at), told them he was coming back in twenty four hours if they didn’t make a payment by them, and they phoned the company’s call centre in India and paid up, upon which he got a commission. Sometimes people had moved on, and he got to do a bit of detective work hunting them down, which was fun. Sometimes they disappeared well enough that he couldn’t find them, which he disliked, and would generally take out on the next person he was called on to visit. What he really liked though, was when he was called on the seize goods against a debt. This was potentially the most profitable part of the job, as he was the person who decided the value of any goods he seized (this was not strictly legal, but few people at this stage were in any position to argue), which meant that nothing he ever took covered the administrative charge on him taking it, giving him the power to go back again. Mostly people at this point took the call centre option, and he got his commission, plus whatever goods he had taken. Jewellery was a favourite, but he liked cars too. He’d seized a Jaguar once, which he’d sold to himself for a pound.
Today was looking like it might be a seizing goods day. The address was a country house that had seen better days, but if it was now looking rather the worse for wear, it didn’t look completely abandoned. It had, to his trained eye, the look of a property whose owner could no longer cope with maintaining it, which since his notes told him he was looking for a man in his seventies, was very hopeful. A touch of dementia, plus a big house with no close neighbours could well turn into a chance to walk off with a lot of loot. This was very much the sort of job he dreamed of.
The house was hidden from the road by a stand of trees, with a long gravel drive that snaked through them. It smelt of money, for all the grass that was growing through the gravel. He parked up directly in front of the house (not the Jag, he kept that for his own time; for work he had a nondescript white van, anonymous with a good carrying capacity), shoved the keys into the pockets of his old leather jacket (he dressed for comfort not style, and vaguely felt that the leather made him more menacing), and stalked up the steps to the double doors at the front. Looked like the sort of place where tradesmen were supposed to enter through a servant’s door round the back, but his trade being somewhat specialised, he tended to ignore such conventions.
The doors lacked a bell of any sort (not really a surprise), so he tried the hammering and shouting approach.
‘Mr Hamilton? Are you there? My name’s John Connaught and I’m here about some money you owe!’
He wasn’t actually sure this was going to work, as the property was quite large, and it was quite likely he couldn’t be heard very far inside, particularly if the inhabitant(s) were of advancing years with doubtful hearing, but to his surprise he heard shuffling behind the doors, somebody fiddled with the lock and one of the doors began to open.
He didn’t wait, as soon as a gap appeared, he started to push his way through, not strictly by the book, but he wanted to make an impression. People who lived in this sort of house, in his experience, tended to assume they were in charge of everything, so it was best to assert your dominance at the start of any conversation, make sure they knew where they stood. Of course, he tended to do that with all his clients, no matter what sort of house they lived in, but it paid to be thorough.
At this point things started to get odd. As he pushed through the doors somebody on the other side grabbed his arm and started to pull him in. Connaught was a big man, and worked out regularly. People significantly larger and stronger than him were not something he encountered very often, but whoever was trying to pull him through those doors was both, and he didn’t much care for it. Finding something unusual is not the same as not being prepared for it, and Connaught had been in the army for long enough not to know better than to rely on his size to win a fight. As he was pulled inwards, he twisted his arm to break the grip, and swept his other hand across the forearm of the person gripping him to knock it away. This worked, to an extent. His assailant lost their grip on his arm, but responded by grabbing his jacket and pulling again. Connaught had, by this point, decided that he really didn’t want to go into that house, and shrugged his jacket off to get away, staggering back and almost stumbling down the steps as he came free.
The doors burst open behind him, revealing at least a dozen men on the other side (he wasn’t stopping to count). All of them were big, bigger than Connaught who stood six foot four in his stockinged feet, and all were seriously well muscled. More worrying, however, was the way they were dressed. Under different circumstances this would have been funny, as each was wearing a crimson robe, complete with a hood of the eyes-cut-out-of-a-pillowcase variety. The inherent ridiculousness of such a costume is, however, diminished somewhat when the people wearing them have just attacked you, and appear to be intent on doing it again. Connaught wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t a fool either, and he knew when he couldn’t win a fight. He ran.
The van would have been a good place to run to, but the keys were in the jacket he’d just lost, so he sprinted across the gravel drive and into the stand of trees, heading towards the road beyond. He could hear pounding footsteps behind him. No shouting, no conversation, but the sound of large, physically fit men running. He’d been in the army long enough to hear a lot of that; he knew when men were tired and about to give up, and when they could keep it up all day. This lot sounded like they could keep it up all day.
He, on the other hand, was not feeling so good. He wasn’t totally unfit, he had a set of weights at home and worked out regularly, but running was an exercise he’d given up the day he left the army. The truth was he was carrying a fair amount of middle-age spread. He’d been keeping in shape, but the shape he’d been keeping in was ‘bear’, not ‘gazelle’. He had plenty of muscle around the chest, shoulders and arms, because he liked to be bigger than people, but that didn’t help with running at all. Within a few seconds he felt like his chest was going to explode. Sweat seemed to be exploding from every pore on his body, he was soaked through almost instantly. What he was running through didn’t help. The woodland was overgrown, the trees covered in moss, the ground uneven and covered in brambles and bracken that tugged at him has he thrashed his way through. It probably wasn’t much fun running through it in robes either, but he had a feeling he was clearing a path.
How far was it to the road? It couldn’t be that far, the drive hadn’t been that long, but he couldn’t see it. The road had to be his best hope, surely a bunch of guys in strange robes weren’t going to chase him in the open, with cars going past? Maybe he shouldn’t guess, today was not a day when his expectations were helping him much. Where was the road? Why couldn’t he see it? It couldn’t be that far. Had he made a mistake, got turned around somehow? Was he running away from the road? He tried to look around, but couldn’t see anything useful, then tripped, and toppled into a ditch.
He hit his head as he fell, which hurt like hell, but he could deal with pain. It also left him bleeding from the forehead, as well as covering him in mud, moss and ditch water. Connaught didn’t have time to worry about it. He pulled himself up burst through a patch of bracken, slid down an embankment, and found himself back on the road.
No traffic. That wasn’t good. He didn’t think he’d be chased with witnesses, but along an empty road he wasn’t so sure. There was a town about three miles away, to the east, which meant turning right. He was confident on this (army training again), the first thing he’d felt good about since he’d been attacked. He turned right and kept running.
Running on the road was easier, but he was close to exhausted, and soaked in mud, ditch water, and blood. It looked like he’d cut himself in other places when he fell, but he didn’t have time to check. He kept running. He didn’t know if he was still being chased, but he had to assume he was until he knew he was safe. Everything hurt. His supply of adrenaline was exhausted, he was just consciously fighting the pain now. He kept running. He probably wasn’t going much above a walking pace by now, but he couldn’t stop until he knew he was safe. Kept running.
The truck blasted him with its horn as it swung past him, the driver obviously unimpressed to see a shambling unkempt man lurching along in the middle of the road. He jumped to one side, and for the first time, took stock of where he was. There was no sign of his pursuers, running along a public highway had obviously put them off. His shirt was ruined, torn in several places, covered in moss stains, and soaked in blood from the gash on his head and others on his arms and chest. His trousers weren’t much better. His shoes were wrecked, soaked through and coming unglued. From here on in he was wearing trainers to work. Sod looking official.
He couldn’t hang about though. He hadn’t seen another vehicle at the house, but there was no reason to assume there wasn’t one that could come after him. Hell, his van was there and they had the keys, they could come after him in that. Not just his keys he realised, his wallet too. All his ID and his access to money. Even his mobile phone. Today was not going to be a fun day.
There was no point in dwelling on it though, best to get on with it. He pulled himself together. If he couldn’t run any further then it was time to march. Chin up. Eyes front. One foot in front of the other. He wasn’t beaten by this, and he wasn’t going to let it beat him.
Once he got his head in the right place, he started to eat up the distance. He was passing the first houses in no time. The first people too. An old lady had to drag her dog away from him, so enraged was it by his appearance. The dog clearly thought he was an afront to civilized society. The old lady didn’t look like she disagreed with it.
This wasn’t going to be a fun day. It didn’t matter. Chin up. Eyes front. One foot in front of the other.
He reached the centre of the town, such as it was, in under an hour. He didn’t have any way of actually knowing the time, but he was pretty good at judging. There wasn’t much to the town. A few shops, half of them closed, most of the ones that were open were run by charities. A small Tesco. A group of pensioners staring at him. Fantastic. Probably thought he was the new village idiot. Some grotty looking takeaways. A betting shop. A sign indicating the way to a police station. That was more promising.
He didn’t like the idea of presenting himself as a victim; telling some country copper he’d been robbed by a bunch of blokes in silly robes (which was, when he thought about it, what had happened). His ego pretty much demanded that he always be the toughest guy in the room, and today he looked weak and foolish. He didn’t like it one bit. But he couldn’t let that matter. Chin up. Eyes front. One foot in front of the other.
The public area of the police station was a room about the size of a toiled cubicle, with a hatch covered by a mirrored window, and a doorbell to be rung for attention. Opposite the entry was a second door with a combination keypad. The only furniture was a flimsy looking bench that seemed to be the result of somebody carefully calculating exactly how wide it had to be to not count as a stool.
Connaught rang the bell. The glass window slid back revealing a short, balding man wearing half-moon glasses, over which he peered at him in some distain. He was wearing a sweatshirt with a police logo printed on it, beneath which were the words ‘Civilian Contractor’. Brilliant.
He needed to gain some control here, but didn’t think he could push too hard, so he went with his closed approach to polite.
‘Hi, I need to speak to a police officer…’
‘That’s not for you to say sir.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s not up to you to decide you need to see a police officer. Every case has to be assessed on its own merit. If you’re case merits you seeing a police officer, then you can see a police officer.’
‘Look, this isn’t usually a problem, I haven’t got my ID, but I’m a court appointed…;
‘A court appointed person who doesn’t have an ID?’
‘It’s been stolen.’
‘So you say, sir.’
‘Yes, that’s the point, I’ve been robbed, that’s why I want to see a policeman.’
‘We call them police officers these days, sir.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘On account of some of them are ladies.’
‘I know that too.’
‘And you can’t see one without a good reason.’
‘But I’ve been robbed.’
‘So you say, sir.’
‘I do say, yes, and that’s why I want to see a police officer.’
‘You can’t see a police officer just because you want to, sir.’
‘Fine, how do I get to see a police officer.’
‘You have to fill in the form, sir.’
‘And if I fill in the form, I can see a police officer?’
‘Not for me to say, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Each application has to be assessed on its merit, sir. I can hardly say whether or not you will be able to see a police officer before you’ve filled in the form, can I now sir?’
Connaught took a deep breath. He could sense pond water dripping from his trousers and forming a pool beneath him.
‘OK then, can I have the form?’
By this stage Connaught was becoming concerned that he might not be allowed to have the form without meeting some other criteria, but this turned out not to be the case. The man simply reached under the counter, produced a form handed it to him, and closed the hatch.
Connaught looked at the form. It was ten pages long, in colour, and printed on soft card. He wondered how many extra police officers the local force could afford to hire if it didn’t waste money on things like this. Then he wondered how he was going to fill it in. He rang the bell again.
‘Filled it in already, sir?’
‘No, I need a pen.’
‘A pen, sir?
‘Yes, to wright with.’
‘There’s no need to take that attitude, sir. I know what a pen is.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting that you didn’t, it’s just that I don’t have a pen.’
’You don’t own a pen, sir?’
‘I own several pens, but they’re in my jacket.’
‘There you are then, sir.’
‘Which has been stolen.’
‘So you say, sir.’
‘Yes I do say. That’s why I’m here, and why I want to see a police officer.’
‘Then I suggest you fill in the form, sir.’
‘I don’t have a pen to fill the form in with.’
‘Then I suggest you buy one, sir.’
‘I don’t have any money.’
‘Then I suggest you get a job, sir.’
‘I’ve got a job, I’m a licenced debt collector.’
‘Have you got any ID, sir?’
‘No, it’s been stolen.’
‘So you say, sir.’
‘Look, can’t you just lend me a pen?’
‘Lend you a pen, sir?’
‘Yes, lend me a pen.’
‘And why would I do that, sir?’
‘So that I can fill out the form.’
‘If you need to fill out the form, sir, then it’s your responsibility to find a pen. Other people provide their own pens, if I give one to you that wouldn’t be fair on them, would it now sir?’
Connaught looked around. There was a distinct lack of other people. He looked back. The hatch had been shut again. He obviously wasn’t getting a pen.
Think. He had to think. He had no money, and had to get a pen. Stealing a pen from somewhere wasn’t an option, he didn’t want to get to talk to a policeman that way, and he didn’t fancy walking up to random people in the street and trying to borrow one. He’d seen how people were reacting to him. So, he had to think. Where could he get a pen? Think. A bookie’s. He’d seen a bookie’s.
Connaught was not a gambling man. Like a lot of things, he viewed it as a weakness. But he’d been dragged into betting shops a few times when he was in the army, and he had a rough idea how they worked. People wrote their bets down on bits of paper. The people who ran the places wanted people to write their bets down on the bits of paper, as that was how they made their money, so they gave away pens. Left them lying around the place. So, he could get a pen from the bookie’s.
It was cold outside. The sun had disappeared behind a layer of cloud, and a cold wind had appeared from somewhere. It was cold and bleak and grey, and he was still soaking wet. He didn’t seem to have dried out at all. It must have been two hours since he fell in the ditch, and he was still soaked in mud and filthy water and blood. Plenty of blood. He didn’t seem to have stopped bleeding either. So, he was cold and wet and bleeding and the day was grey and bleak and windy. And pensioners. There were lots of pensioners. All staring at him. Where had they all come from? There had only been a few earlier, but now there were dozens of them. All staring at him. What were they all doing out on such a cold day? Why were they all staring at him? He knew he looked a mess, but the novelty should have worn off by now. Instead there were dozens of them, staring at him. If anything, there seem to be more of them popping up. He never saw one arriving, but if he looked away from any group of them there seemed to be more when he looked back. All staring at them.
Connaught was not above staring at people. His trade was, basically, scaring people, and staring at people is intimidating. This is particularly true if you are, like Connaught, basically scary. Scary bloke staring at you; scary. Pretty simple, and it worked a lot of the time. Pensioners though are not, on the whole, scary. Certainly not to Connaught, who viewed them as weak. Age itself is of course pretty scary, if you can admit it to yourself. The idea of losing one’s strength, health, and mental faculties is potentially a very alarming one. Connaught dealt with that by not admitting it to himself. But whatever the fear-inducing properties of age itself, the aged should not be intimidating. Certainly not to a man like Connaught, who viewed them as weak. Trouble was, it turns out that pensioners in large enough numbers can be, if not scary (he wasn’t scared, or at least not admitting it, even to himself), then at least rather unnerving. It wasn’t adding to his day. Any jobs collecting from old people came up round here, he was going to make sure the company gave them to him. Then they’d see what scary was all about.
There were old people in the bookies to, but not that many, and they weren’t interested in him anyway. It wasn’t a place where people looked at one-another. Instead they lurked in corners on their own, intent on small pieces of paper and flat screens. One man was playing a fruit machine mechanically, ignoring everyone else and being ignored by them. Normally Connaught would have despised this, seeing nothing but weakness and being incapable of either sympathy or pity, but today it suited him fine.
There were no tables in here, but a wide shelf ran around the walls, as well as several internal several pillars, and on this were pens. He found one and set to filling out the form, his hand shaking with the cold. Why did they have the air conditioning up so high? It was like a freezer in here. How was that good for business? He didn’t know, but he didn’t know how the business worked at all, other than people were week.
A bored looking woman sat behind a counter, her sleeveless top exposing heavily tattooed arms. How did she put up with the cold? He didn’t know. She ignored him, so he ignored her.
Outside again it was even colder, the sky a darker shade of grey. He hadn’t dried out at all, and now it looked like it was going to hammer down, soaking him further. At least that might wash some of the filth off. But it wouldn’t help with the cold. He’d never felt so cold in his life. Not even when he was on exercise in the Norwegian Arctic, and that had been pretty cold.
There were even more old people, seemed to be hundreds of them now. All staring at him. Their gaze seemed to suck the strength out of him, like they’d found a way to weaponize their own weakness. He had to stop thinking that. He was feeling weak because he was cold and wet through, because he couldn’t seem to dry out even in this wind. Why was that? He didn’t know. And it felt like the old people were sucking the strength out of him. The heat too. Somehow draining it away. He couldn’t think that. Mustn’t. To think that would be fear, and he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t do fear. Fear was weakness, and he wasn’t weak, he was strong. And cold. Very cold. He had to ignore it.
He stumbled back towards the police station. His teeth chattered. His limbs hardly worked, like he was trying to push himself on with sodden logs. But he didn’t stop. The army had taught him that. You don’t stop. You don’t give in to weakness. Or cold. He couldn’t give in to the cold. He couldn’t be this cold. It had to be in his mind. He couldn’t let it be in his mind. That would be weakness. And he didn’t give in to weakness.
It was cold back in the police station too, but he forced himself to ignore it. He rang the bell, and, after a while, the mirrored glass slid back and the small man stared at him.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve brought the form back.’
‘The form, sir?’
‘The form you gave me?’
‘I see.’
Connaught thrust the form at him, and, somewhat reluctantly, he took it.
‘It’s a bit damp, sir.’
‘That would be because I’m wet.’
‘Maybe you should have dried off first, sir.’
Connaught wasn’t rising the bait. This guy was clearly looking for an excuse to be unhelpful, and he wasn’t going to give it to him.
‘So, can I see a police officer?’
‘A police officer, sir?’
‘Yes, a police officer.’
‘I really couldn’t say, sir.’
‘Look, you said if I filled in the form then I could see a police officer. I’ve filled in the form, and I’d like to see a police officer.’
‘Oh, no sir. That isn’t how it works at all.’
Connaught’s blood should be boiling by now, but instead it seemed to be running colder. He knew he couldn’t lose his temper, but keeping it was somehow destroying something inside of him.
‘Then how does it work?’
‘Well sir, first you fill out the form…’
‘Yes.’
‘… and then somebody has to read it.’
‘Read it?’
‘Yes, sir. Read it.’
This was both obvious, and infuriating. Connaught didn’t know how to react, so he repeated himself. As a debt collector repeating himself often turned out to be a better tactic than listening to things people trying to tell him things he wasn’t interested in.
‘Read it?’
‘Yes, sir. Read it, and evaluate it.’
‘Yes sir, evaluate it.’
‘Evaluate it?’
‘Yes sir, evaluate it. So that they can make a decision.’
‘Make a decision?’
‘Yes, sir. On whether or not you can see a police officer.’
‘And do you make this decision?’
‘Oh no, sir.’
‘Then who does?’
‘The people upstairs, sir.’
‘Then why don’t you take it to the people upstairs so that they can make a decision?’
Connaught was half expecting another objection to this, but instead the man reached out and slid the window shut, without making any further comment. He was clearly just going to have to hope that the form was being taken upstairs, and not just thrown in the nearest bin. There was nothing else he could do either way.
What could he do? He couldn’t just stand here and shiver, which is what he was doing at the moment. He was so cold his knees were knocking, and so weak he was clinging onto the front of the hatch for support. This wouldn’t do, but he couldn’t go anywhere else, in case they decided he could see a police officer.
He looked around. The bench was still there, so he hobbled over to it, leaving a trail of liquid behind him. It was too small for him to sit comfortably on, but it was something. He sat shivering, the cold gnawing into his bones. Filthy water and blood pooled on the ground beneath him. Blood. He was still bleeding. Why was he still bleeding? It should have stopped by now. He was too cold to think about it.
Time passed. He couldn’t tell how long. There was no clock. He didn’t have a watch. Used to, but you don’t need one now, not with every phone having a clock on it. Till you lose your phone. It was getting colder. Liquid was pooling on the floor beneath him. But his cloths were still just as soaked. Where did it all come from. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t think. He was too cold.
After a while a woman came in. An old woman. She didn’t seem bothered by the cold. She rang the bell and stared at him. He didn’t like her staring at him, but was to weak to say anything. The cold had drained all the strength out of him. So, he sat, and shivered, and dripped.
The hatch opened and the small man appeared. He was polite, and friendly to the woman. Helpful even. Everything he hadn’t been to Connaught. Connaught couldn’t really hear what they were saying above the sound of his own teeth chattering. Something about a vehicle. She was producing her documents after being stopped. The little man was polite to her, even though she had done something wrong. But he couldn’t be polite to Connaught, who was a victim. That was it. He was a victim. Weak. So that everyone despised him. He wasn’t worth helping. Wasn’t worth being polite to. Because he was weak. A victim. He wanted to scream out in rage. But he couldn’t. He was too cold. Too weak.
Instead of screaming in rage, he could hear himself whimpering. Sobbing even. The little man and the old woman stared at him. Clearly loathing him. Loathing his weakness. But there was nothing he could do. He was too cold. Too weak.
When she had finished her business, the woman left. The little man closed the hatch again. He has back on his own. Not a bad thing.
He sat. It got colder. He shivered. It got colder. He tried to withdraw further into himself. It got colder. He felt weaker. It seemed to be getting darker too, but there was no window in here, just artificial light. It couldn’t be getting darker. Must be his eyes. The cold must be affecting them. His eyesight was getting dimmer. Weaker. Even his mind was getting weak. He couldn’t tell how long he had been here. Could only wish he wasn’t so cold, wasn’t so weak. Time passed. He couldn’t tell how long.
Eventually the internal door opened, and a policeman appeared. Police officer. He had to call them police officers. Even the male ones, who didn’t seem to like being called ‘men’ anymore. Connaught was not impressed by men that didn’t want to be called men. He thought there was something wrong with them. He knew this was about treating women as equals, something he’d never believed they could be. Women were weak, and men that didn’t see that were weak too.
The police officer was almost as tall as Connaught, but young, somewhere under thirty, and razor thin. He had a large bushy beard; which Connaught took as an attempt to look like a grown up. Maybe he was getting old. Not that he was going to admit that. But he felt old. The cold had got into his bones and made him so stiff he could hardly pull himself upright.
The young man smiled at him, in an insincere, learned-to-smile-on-a-training-course way. Connaught hated him on sight, but knew he couldn’t say anything. Not that he had the strength.
‘Mr Connaught? Would you like to come through?’.
He was led to an interview room, where a second police officer was waiting. This one was a woman. She was even younger than the first one, (maybe twenty?), short and plump. Soft looking. She had a tattoo in one hand, something leafy or flowery, he couldn’t tell. Connaught didn’t approve of women with tattoos, though he couldn’t really explain why. Possibly because it was something new in the world, and he didn’t really like new things. But admitting that would make him old, and he wasn’t ready to admit to being old, so he didn’t think it. Women shouldn’t have tattoos because women weren’t meant to have tattoos. Simple as that. In truth, Connaught wasn’t that keen on tattoos in general. The whole biker-look school of toughness had entirely passed him by; he thought that men looked toughest in uniform. If he did tend to wear jeans and a leather jacket for work, that was entirely for practical reasons, and they were always clean and smart. Deliberately looking wild and unkempt struck him as being a sign of some sort of mental deficiency. Except that today he wasn’t clean and smart, he was filthy and dishevelled. It wasn’t his fault, but it made him feel worse.
The bearded policeman took a seat next to the young woman. He indicated another seat on the opposite side of the table, and invited Connaught to sit, which he did. The chair was of the plastic, stacking variety, and liquid began to pool beneath him immediately. It seemed he would never dry out. Or warm up. He was trembling with the cold.
‘Now, I understand you allege that you’ve been robbed?’
The younger man was apparently trying to be polite, within the bounds of modern policing doubletalk. Connaught didn’t like it. He liked straight talking, particularly when it was him talking, or somebody else telling him what he wanted to hear. He had strong views about political correctness, which was weak. Nevertheless, he would have to temper his own language a bit here, which didn’t come naturally, but he needed a degree of cooperation.
‘I, I…’ he was having trouble talking, he was trembling so much, which wouldn’t make him look any better, ‘I was attacked.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was attacked and lost my jacket in the struggle.’
‘Just your jacket?’
‘It had my wallet in it, with my ID, plus my phone and my van keys.’
‘I see,’ the bearded police officer was doing all the talking, the woman was apparently here just to stare at him. ‘And you didn’t get a good look at your attackers?’
‘No, they were in a house, they attacked me as I went inside’.
Connaught, had in fact got quite a good look at his attackers, but he hadn’t felt that mentioning hooded robes would get him taken more seriously, so he hadn’t put it on the form.
‘I see, and why were you going into the property?’
‘I’m a licensed debt collector…’
This raised an eyebrow. He’d written it on the form, along with his company’s phone number, email, and web page, but it didn’t look like anyone had checked.
‘Yes.’
‘But you don’t have any ID?’
‘I said, it was in my jacket.’
‘The jacket that was lost in the struggle when I was attacked.’
‘When you were attacked by someone you didn’t see?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your attackers never came out of the house?’
‘Yes, they did.’
‘But you never got a good look at them?’
‘No.’
‘And why was that?’
‘I wasn’t hanging about; they were attacking me.’
‘And this couldn’t have been some sort of misunderstanding?’
‘No. Definitely not.’
‘Well I think the best thing we can do,’ said the young policeman, ‘would be to go back to this house and see if we can clear this up.’
Connaught felt himself shudder at the suggestion.
The young woman finally spoke up, ‘don’t worry Mr Connaught, we’ll be able to protect you.’ She reached across the table and took his hand. He felt utterly humiliated.
He agreed to go back to the house with the police officers. He didn’t feel good about it, but he couldn’t think of a good reason not to go, and he believed in facing his fears (in so far as he would admit to having fears at all) so going back was the right thing to do.
He was led to a small police car behind the station, and asked to sit in the back. The moment he sat the liquid from his clothing began to seep into the seat. Everything he touched seemed to be soaked in seconds, but he never seemed to be any less wet. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like it. The bearded man drove, the young woman in the shotgun seat. Despite the coldness of the day, and a grey mist which had descended, both insisted on having their windows open. Connaught assumed he smelt bad, though he was too cold to smell anything himself. It didn’t make him feel any better.
The roads were lined with old people. There seemed to be thousands of them, just standing and staring at the police car as it drove past. This had to be in his head. Neither of the police officers seemed to notice, which surely, they should? Driving through a grey swirling mist along a street lined with silent old people staring at you couldn’t be normal, even in this bleak suburban hellhole. But they didn’t seem to notice, were even chatting about something like they were going for a drive on a pleasant sunny afternoon. The day wasn’t getting any less weird.
The old people thinned out as they came to the edge of the town, which was something, but the mist didn’t lift, and it was getting colder. Neither police officer seemed to feel it, and the windows remained open.
Eventually they reached the entrance to the house, and turned onto the gravel drive. Despite himself, Connaught could feel his stomach twisting with dread. He had to deal with this. He couldn’t let himself be beaten by fear; fear was weak, and he wasn’t weak. But he felt weak. Weak, and cold, and afraid. He knew it was all in his head, and that he had to beat it, but he didn’t seem able to.
‘Is that your van, Mr Connaught?’
‘It is.’
His van was sitting, apparently untouched, exactly where he had left it. This was a good thing. They hadn’t stolen it. With a bit of luck, they hadn’t stolen anything from inside it either. He didn’t feel any better.
‘Beginning to look like it might all just have been a misunderstanding.’
The young policeman wasn’t actually gloating, but it felt that way. He felt humiliated, and that wasn’t likely to change before the end of the day.
The police car pulled up alongside his van, and the police officers started to get out. The young woman turned to him.
‘You can stay in the car if you don’t feel safe, Mr Connaught’.
He didn’t feel safe. But he wasn’t going to say so. No way he was staying in the car while these two went of to do whatever they were going to do. Only so much humiliation he could take. He got out of the car.
They approached the house in line. The young policeman first. Then the woman. Then Connaught, shambling and dripping at the rear, like some sort of deranged swamp monster. They trudged across the gravel, and up the steps. The building looked a lot more dilapidated than it had this morning. Maybe it was the fog. The doors were ajar.
‘Looks like this place has been abandoned for some time.’
He pushed through the open doors, followed by the woman, then Connaught.
The smell hit Connaught straight away. He hadn’t been able to smell anything all day, he’d been much to cold. But this got through. It was overwhelming. The smell of abandoned house, and death. Something had died in here. Why hadn’t he smelt it this morning? It was awful. Even when fighting for his life he should have smelt this. He could feel his stomach churning and his heart pounding harder. So hard that it hurt. Not good. He didn’t want to have a heart attack. Not here, not today. He didn’t want this to be the last day of his life. He’d never thought much about death. Not a good thing to dwell on in the army. You had to believe you were going to survive in bad situations, or you wouldn’t be able to function properly. Today he was starting to doubt himself, and was not functioning properly. Maybe he was getting old. He didn’t like that much either.
They were standing in a large entrance hall, with several doors leading off it. The bearded policeman went through one, seemingly at random. Connaught and the woman followed him into a musty smelling room with furniture covered by dust sheets, then apparently left to rot. The policeman looked round briefly, then pushed on into another room, then another.
Finally, he stopped. Held up one hand.
‘Better not go in there.’
The woman looked past him, then turned away, retching.
The smell was really bad, but he had to know what it was. He pushed past the policeman.
Before him was a large, solid looking table, covered by a cloth, that had probably once been white. On top of this was the body of a man. It was too badly decomposed to identify, but he could see what had killed it, it had bee slit open from sternum to groin, and its insides dragged out through the hole. Blood and other liquids had soaked through the cloth.
He could hear the woman being sick somewhere. The bearded man was speaking into his radio.
‘…think we’ve found our missing man… van is parked outside the building… going to need a forensic team…’
Connaught tried to get his attention, but he was ignoring him. Probably in shock too.
Connaught was cold, and tired and soaking wet. He looked down at himself for the first time. He was soaked in blood. Nothing else, just blood. Cold blood, that wouldn’t dry. He needed to get out of here. There was a set of French windows in the room, which came open with a kick. Outside, it was getting dark. A thick fog hung over everything. It was freezing cold. There were old people in the fog. Waiting for him.
