Books of Blood: Volumes 1-6

  "Not in this day and age," Polo replied.

  "But the Seraphim will see," it said. "And that means you'll never go to that place."

  "What place?"

  The Yattering fumbled for the special word it had heard Beelzebub use.

  "Heaven," it said, triumphant. An ugly grin had come on to its face; this was the cleverest maneuver it had ever attempted; it was juggling theology here.

  Jack nodded slowly, nibbling at his bottom lip.

  The creature was probably telling the truth: association with it or its like would not be looked upon benignly by the Host of Saints and Angels. He probably was forbidden access to the plains of paradise.

  "Well," he said, "you know what I have to say about that, don't you?"

  The Yattering stared at him, frowning. No, it didn't know. Then the grin of satisfaction it had been wearing died, as it saw just what Polo was driving at.

  "What do I say?" Polo asked it.

  Defeated, the Yattering murmured the phrase.

  "Che sera, sera."

  Polo smiled. "There's a chance for you yet," he said, and led the way over the threshold, closing the door with something very like serenity on his face.

  IV: PIG BLOOD BLUES

  You could smell the kids before you could see them, their young sweat turned stale in corridors with barred windows, their bolted breath sour, their heads musty. Then their voices, subdued by the rules of confinement. Don't run. Don't shout. Don't whistle. Don't fight. They called it a Remand Centre for Adolescent Offenders, but it was near as damn it a prison. There were locks and keys and warders. The gestures of liberalism were few and far between and they didn't disguise the truth too well; Tetherdowne was a prison by sweeter name, and the inmates knew it.

  Not that Redman had any illusions about his pupils-to-be. They were hard, and they were locked away for a reason. Most of them would rob you blind as soon as look at you; cripple you if it suited them, no sweat. He had too many years in the force to believe the sociological lie. He knew the victims, and he knew the kids. They weren't misunderstood morons, they were quick and sharp and amoral, like the razors they hid under their tongues. They had no use for sentiment, they just wanted out.

  "Welcome to Tetherdowne."

  Was the woman's name Leverton, or Leverfall, or -”I'm Doctor Leverthal."

  Leverthal. Yes. Hard-bitten bitch he'd met at -”We met at the interview."

  "Yes."

  "We're glad to see you, Mr. Redman."

  "Neil; please call me Neil."

  "We try not to go on a first name basis in front of the boys, we find they think they've got a finger into your private life. So I'd prefer you to keep Christian names purely for off-duty hours."

  She didn't offer hers. Probably something flinty.

  Yvonne. Lydia. He'd invent something appropriate.

  She looked fifty, and was probably ten years younger.

  No make-up, hair tied back so severely he wondered her eyes didn't pop.

  "You'll be beginning classes the day after tomorrow. The Governor asked me to welcome you to the Centre on his behalf, and apologize to you that he can't be here himself. There are funding problems."

  "Aren't there always?"

  "Regrettably yes. I'm afraid we're swimming against the tide here; the general mood of the country is very Law and Order orientated."

  What was that a nice way of saying? Beat the shit out of any kid caught so much as jay-walking? Yes, he'd been that way himself in his time, and it was a nasty little cul-de-sac, every bit as bad as being sentimental. "The fact is, we may lose Tetherdowne altogether," she said, “which would be a shame. I know it doesn't look like much…"

  "- but it's home," he laughed. The joke fell among thieves. She didn't even seem to hear it.

  "You," her tone hardened, “you have a solid (did she say sullied?) background in the Police Force. Our hope is that your appointment here will be welcomed by the funding authorities."

  So that was it. Token ex-policeman brought in to appease the powers that be, to show willing in the discipline department. They didn't really want him here. They wanted some sociologist who'd write up reports on the effect of the class-system on brutality amongst teenagers. She was quietly telling him that he was the odd man out. "I told you why I left the force."

  "You mentioned it. Invalided out."

  "I wouldn't take a desk job, it was as simple as that; and they wouldn't let me do what I did best. Danger to myself according to some of them."

  She seemed a little embarrassed by his explanation. Her a psychologist too; she should have been devouring this stuff, it was his private hurt he was making public here. He was coming clean, for Christ's sake. "So I was out on my backside, after twenty-four years." He hesitated, then said his piece. "I'm not a token policeman; I'm not any kind of policeman. The force and I parted company. Understand what I'm saying?" "Good, good." She didn't understand a bloody word. He tried another approach.

  "I'd like to know what the boys have been told."

  "Been told?"

  "About me."

  "Well, something of your background."

  "I see." They'd been warned. Here come the pigs.

  "It seemed important."

  He grunted.

  "You see, so many of these boys have real aggression problems. That's a source of difficulty for so very many of them. They can't control themselves, and consequently they suffer."

  He didn't argue, but she looked at him severely, as though he had.

  "Oh yes, they suffer. That's why we're at such pains to show some appreciation of their situation; to teach them that there are alternatives."

  She walked across to the window. From the second storey there was an adequate view of the grounds. Tetherdowne had been some kind of estate, and there was a good deal of land attached to the main house. A playing-field, its grass sere in the midsummer drought. Beyond it a cluster of out-houses, some exhausted trees, shrubbery, and then rough wasteland off to the wall. He'd seen the wall from the other side. Alcatraz would have been proud of it. "We try to give them a little freedom, a little education and a little sympathy. There's a popular notion, isn't there, that delinquents enjoy their criminal activities? This isn't my experience at all. They come to me guilty, broken… One broken victim flicked a vee at Leverthal's back as he sauntered along the corridor. Hair slicked down and parted in three places. A couple of home-grown tattoos on his fore-arm, unfinished.

  "They have committed criminal acts, however," Redman pointed out.

  "Yes, but -” "And must, presumably, be reminded of the fact."

  "I don't think they need any reminding, Mr. Redman. I think they burn with guilt."

  She was hot on guilt, which didn't surprise him. They'd taken over the pulpit, these analysts. They were up where the Bible-thumpers used to stand, with the threadbare sermons on the fires below, but with a slightly less colourful vocabulary. It was fundamentally the same story though, complete with the promises of healing, if the rituals were observed. And behold, the righteous shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

  There was a pursuit on the playing field, he noticed. Pursuit, and now a capture. One victim was laying into another smaller victim with his boot; it was a fairly merciless display.

  Leverthal caught the scene at the same time as Redman.

  "Excuse me. I must -”

  She started down the stairs.

  "Your workshop is third door on the left if you want to take a look," she called over her shoulder, "I'll be right back." Like hell she would. Judging by the way the scene on the field was progressing, it would be a three crowbar job to prize them apart.

  Redman wandered along to his workshop. The door was locked, but through the wired glass he could see the benches, the vices, the tools. Not bad at all. He might even teach them some wood-work, if he was left alone long enough to do it.

  A bit frustrated not to be able to get in, he doubled back along the corridor, and followed Leverthal downstairs, finding hi
s way out easily on to the sun-lit playing field. A little knot of spectators had grown around the fight, or the massacre, which had now ceased. Leverthal was standing, staring down at the boy on the ground. One of the warders was kneeling at the boy's head; the injuries looked bad.

  A number of the spectators looked up and stared at the new face as Redman approached. There were whispers amongst them, some smiles.

  Redman looked at the boy. Perhaps sixteen, he lay with his cheek to the ground, as if listening for something in the earth.

  "Lacey', Leverthal named the boy for Redman.

  "Is he badly hurt?"

  The man kneeling beside Lacey shook his head.

  "Not too bad. Bit of a fall. Nothing broken."

  There was blood on the boy's face from his mashed nose. His eyes were closed. Peaceful. He could have been dead. "Where's the bloody stretcher?" said the warder. He was clearly uncomfortable on the drought-hardened ground. "They're coming, Sir," said someone. Redman thought it was the aggressor. A thin lad: about nineteen. The sort of eyes that could sour milk at twenty paces.

  Indeed a small posse of boys was emerging from the main building, carrying a stretcher and a red blanket. They were all grinning from ear to ear.

  The band of spectators had begun to disperse, now that the best of it was over. Not much fun picking up the pieces. "Wait, wait," said Redman, “don't we need some witnesses here? Who did this?"

  There were a few casual shrugs, but most of them played deaf. They sauntered away as if nothing had been said. Redman said: "We saw it. From the window."

  Leverthal was offering no support.

  "Didn't we?" he demanded of her.

  "It was too far to lay any blame, I think. But I don't want to see any more of this kind of bullying, do you all understand me?"

  She'd seen Lacey, and recognized him easily from that distance. Why not the attacker too? Redman kicked himself for not concentrating; without names and personalities to go with the faces, it was difficult to distinguish between them. The risk of making a misplaced accusation was high, even though he was almost sure of the curdling eyed boy. This was no time to make mistakes, he decided; this time he'd have to let the issue drop.

  Leverthal seemed unmoved by the whole thing.

  "Lacey," she said quietly, “it's always Lacey."

  "He asks for it," said one of the boys with the stretcher, brushing a sheaf of blond-white hair from his eyes, “he doesn't know no better."

  Ignoring the observation, Leverthal supervised Lacey's transfer to the stretcher, and started to walk back to the main building, with Redman in tow. It was all so casual.

  "Not exactly wholesome, Lacey," she said cryptically, almost by way of explanation; and that was all. So much for compassion.

  Redman glanced back as they tucked the red blanket around Lacey's still form. Two things happened, almost simultaneously.

  The first: Somebody in the group said, "That's the pig'. The second: Lacey's eyes opened and looked straight into Redman's, wide, clear and true.

  Redman spent a good deal of the next day putting his workshop in order. Many of the tools had been broken or rendered useless by untrained handling: saws without teeth, chisels that were chipped and edgeless, broken vices. He'd need money to re-supply the shop with the basics of the trade, but now wasn't the time to start asking. Wiser to wait, and be seen to do a decent job. He was quite used to the politics of institutions; the force was full of it. About four-thirty a bell started to ring, a good way from the workshop. He ignored it, but after a time his instincts got the better of him. Bells were alarms, and alarms were sounded to alert people. He left his tidying, locked the workshop door behind him, and followed his ears.

  The bell was ringing in what was laughingly called the Hospital Unit, two or three rooms closed off from the main block and prettied up with a few pictures and curtains at the windows. There was no sign of smoke in the air, so it clearly wasn't a fire. There was shouting though. M ore than shouting. A howl.

  He quickened his pace along the interminable corridors, and as he turned a corner towards the Unit a small figure ran straight into him. The impact winded both of them, but Redman grabbed the lad by the arm before he could make off again. The captive was quick to respond, lashing out with his shoeless feet against Redman's shin. But he had him fast.

  "Let me go you fucking -”

  "Calm down! Calm down!"

  His pursuers were almost there. "Hold him!"

  "Fucker! Fucker! Fucker! Fucker!"

  "Hold him!"

  It was like wrestling a crocodile: the kid had all the strength of fear. But the best of his fury was spent. Tears were springing into his bruised eyes as he spat in Redman's face. It was Lacey in his arms, unwholesome Lacey.

  "OK. We got him."

  Redman stepped back as the warder took over, putting Lacey in a hold that looked fit to break the boy's arm. Two or three others were appearing round the corner. Two boys, and a nurse, a very unlovely creature. "Let me go… Let me go…" Lacey was yelling, but any stomach for the fight had gone out of him. A pout came to his face in defeat, and still the cow-like eyes turned up accusingly at Redman, big and brown. He looked younger than his sixteen years, almost prepubescent. There was a whisper of bum-fluff on his cheek and a few spots amongst the bruises and a badly-applied dressing across his nose. But quite a girlish face, a virgin's face, from an age when there were still virgins. And still the eyes.

  Leverthal had appeared, too late to be of use.

  "What's going on?"

  The warder piped up. The chase had taken his breath, and his temper.

  "He locked himself in the lavatories. Tried to get out through the window."

  "Why?"

  The question was addressed to the warder, not to the child. A telling confusion. The warder, confounded, shrugged. "Why?" Redman repeated the question to Lacey. The boy just stared, as though he'd never been asked a question before.

  "You the pig?" he said suddenly, snot running from his nose.

  "Pig?"

  "He means policeman," said one of the boys. The noun was spoken with a mocking precision, as though he was addressing an imbecile.

  "I know what he means, lad," said Redman, still determined to out-stare Lacey, "I know very well what he means." "Are you?"

  "Be quiet, Lacey," said Leverthal, "you're in enough trouble as it is."

  "Yes, son. I'm the pig."

  The war of looks went on, a private battle between boy and man.

  "You don't know nothing," said Lacey. It wasn't a snide remark, the boy was simply telling his version of the truth; his gaze didn't flicker.

  "All right, Lacey, that's enough." The warder was trying to haul him away; his belly stuck out between pajama top and bottom, a smooth dome of milk skin.

  "Let him speak," said Redman. "What don't I know?"

  "He can give his side of the story to the Governor," said Leverthal before Lacey could reply. "It's not your concern."

  But it was very much his concern. The stare made it his concern; so cutting, so damned. The stare demanded that it become his concern.

  "Let him speak," said Redman, the authority in his voice overriding Leverthal. The warder loosened his hold just a little.

  "Why did you try and escape, Lacey?"

  "Cause he came back."

  "Who came back? A name, Lacey. Who are you talking about?"

  For several seconds Redman sensed the boy fighting a pact with silence; then Lacey shook his head, breaking the electric exchange between them. He seemed to lose his way somewhere; a kind of puzzlement gagged him. "No harm's going to come to you."

  Lacey stared at his feet, frowning. "I want to go back to bed now," he said. A virgin's request. "No harm, Lacey. I promise."

  The promise seemed to have precious little effect; Lacey was struck dumb. But it was a promise nevertheless, and he hoped Lacey realized that. The kid looked exhausted by the effort of his failed escape, of the pursuit, of staring. His face was ashen. He let
the warder turn him and take him back. Before he rounded the corner again, he seemed to change his mind; he struggled to loose himself, failed, but managed to twist himself round to face his interrogator. "Henessey," he said, meeting Redman's eyes once more. That was all. He was shunted out of sight before he could say anything more.

  "Henessey?" said Redman, feeling like a stranger suddenly.

  "Who's Henessey?"

  Leverthal was lighting a cigarette. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly as she did it. He hadn't noticed that yesterday, but he wasn't surprised. He'd yet to meet a head shrinker who didn't have problems of their own.

  "The boy's lying," she said, "Henessey's no longer with us."

  A little pause. Redman didn't prompt, it would only make her jumpy.

  "Lacey's clever," she went on, putting the cigarette to her colourless lips. "He knows just the spot." "Eh?"

  "You're new here, and he wants to give you the impression that he's got a mystery all of his own." "It isn't a mystery then?"

  "Henessey?" she snorted. "Good God no. He escaped custody in early May. He and Lacey…" She hesitated, without wanting to. "He and Lacey had something between them. Drugs perhaps, we never found out. Glue-sniffing, mutual masturbation, God knows what."

  She really did find the whole subject unpleasant. Distaste was written over her face in a dozen tight places. "How did Henessey escape?"

  "We still don't know," she said. "He just didn't turn up for roll-call one morning. The place was searched from top to bottom. But he'd gone."

  "Is it possible he'd come back?"

  A genuine laugh.

  "Jesus no. He hated the place. Besides, how could he get in?"

  "He got out."

  Leverthal conceded the point with a murmur. "He wasn't especially bright, but he was cunning. I wasn't altogether surprised when he went missing. The few weeks before his escape he'd really sunk into himself. I couldn't get anything out of him, and up until then he'd been quite talkative."

  "And Lacey?"

  "Under his thumb. It often happens. Younger boy idolizes an older, more experienced individual. Lacey had a very unsettled family background."