Berserk

And then the tiny corpse reached out and grabbed Tom's arm.

Chapter Three

'What did you tell him?'

'I've already told!'

'I don't believe you.'

'Then why bother asking me again, Cole?'

Cole stared down at Nathan King, tied into a chair with his own Tom-up clothes. The idiot was still trying to play with him, string him along, and Cole did not have time for that. Not now. His purpose, stalled for a decade, was moving again. The last thing he wanted to be doing was beating information out of his friend, this useless ex-grunt. 'You're wasting my time,' he said.

King shook his head. 'For God's sake, I told—' Cole's fist connected with his chin and flipped his head back and to the side.

King gasped, spat blood, and Cole stepped back so that he did not get splashed. 'Think about what you're going to say to me next,' Cole said. 'Daz told me you went back to the pub to meet Tom Roberts. There's only one reason you'd have done that, and we both know what that is. So, for the last time … what did you tell him?' He massaged his knuckles and turned away.

King's flat was small and untidy. There were grubby hand marks around the light switches, cobwebs in the ceiling corners, and used fast food containers piled up beside the only armchair. Food was trodden into the carpet. Beer cans were crushed and thrown into one corner of the kitchen. He lived like an animal. Cole did not want to be here—he felt dirtied just breathing the air—but he needed more from King. More than just, 'I told him it wasn't like the army said.' In one way he was glad that King had spilled the beans at last, but he needed to know which beans and what flavour. It would do Cole no good at all storming blindly into the countryside in search of phantoms he had lost a decade ago.

'Cole …' King spat several times and a tooth tumbled from his mouth. 'Fuck's sake, Cole, you knocked my tooth out! I don't see you for ten years, then you turn up and knock out my tooth? What's the point of that, eh?' He stared at the bloodied molar stuck on his thigh, shaking his head, and his whole body shivered.

Cole looked at the pathetic man strapped into the timber kitchen chair, and shame bled into his anger. 'Sorry, Nath,' he said. 'Really mate, I'm sorry. But more than being sorry, I need to know exactly what you said to the old guy about his son. Exactly. Everything. He's left his house with his wife and I need to know why he's suddenly gone. I can guess where he's gone, that's no problem, because it's ten years ago this weekend. But Nath … I don't want to go down there blind and deaf, mate. I need to know how much you told him. I need to know everything he knows. And I'll hit you again if you continue to piss me around.'

King hung his head, blood dripping into his lap. Tears followed, and the big man sucked back a sob. 'Cole, it just came out,' he said. 'Steven Roberts was his son—remember Steve?—and the guy looked so sad, you know? So desperate for the truth. I thought it might help him to know. And I told him where to look.'

'The grave?' Cole went cold. We left her chained up, wanting her to suffer, wanting her to be alive down there forever … 'I'll meet you again' she said… 'Holy shit, Nath.'

'I didn't tell him anything about—'

Cole hit him again, and there was real feeling behind this one. 'You twat! Why the hell would you do something like that. Does he know? Does he know about her?'

King shook his head, blood and saliva swaying from his chin. 'Of course not,' he said, tired and sad and scared. 'You think I'd have told him about them? I don't even know all about them, or understand what I do know. And I don't want to think about them but I do, every night, I dream and scream and sometimes I think sharing the fear will reduce it, you know? But if you think I told him all that, you're mad.'

'I am mad,' Cole said. 'Mad that they got away.'

'The ones that got away …' King shook his head. 'They're long, long gone mate.'

Cole sat on the armchair and stared at King. He had been a good soldier ten years ago, and someone Cole could have trusted with his life. Now he was a fat shit, living like a pig, sitting in the chair and spilling his guts after a couple of punches. He stank. He had no respect for himself anymore, and no sense of responsibility about the secrets he knew.

'Did you tell him his son isn't buried there?'

King raised his head and stared at Cole, and Cole thought, Oh shit, he doesn't know, he really doesn't know.

'What are you on about?'

'They didn't all die, Nath. Some of them were taken away.'

King stared over his shoulder at a past he had been trying to forget forever. 'Poor bastards.'

'Now you realise why I want to know exactly what you told him.' But the words suddenly felt hollow in Cole's mouth, because really there was little point in going on. He knew as much as King could reveal—Tom Roberts had gone down to the Plain to look for the grave of his son—and the most important thing he had to do now was to follow Roberts, stop him, and if necessary silence him. Roberts knew too much already. The slightest risk of him opening the grave … that could not be allowed to happen. Not now. Not after so long, when most of the people who knew about the berserkers were dead, or mad.

'I showed him where to find the grave, and that's all. But Cole, you mean they took some of the guys with them? Who? Where? Why?'

'Where is what I've spent the last ten years trying to find out,' Cole said. 'And I think you know why.'

King bowed his head. 'Poor bastards,' he said again.

Cole stood to leave. 'Nath, you live like a pig. What happened to you? Why did you go this way? You could have sorted yourself out, got a decent job in security. Worked abroad, maybe. Why this?' He gestured at the filthy living room, encapsulating the whole of King's life with one wave of his hand.

'Seeing what I saw …' King said, but he shook his head and looked down at his bound arms and legs. 'You leaving me like this?'

Cole put his hand on King's shoulder and squeezed. His old comrade. His old friend. 'No,' he said, and as King's shoulders relaxed Cole grabbed him around the head and broke his neck.

Outside Nathan King's second-floor flat, Cole stood for a while and held onto the landing balustrade. He was shaking. His hands were clawed, cramped, and his shoulders ached. He had not killed anyone for six years; he had never killed a friend. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, taking strange comfort in the city smells after leaving the reeking flat. Exhaust fumes and the stench of stale fat from fast food restaurants were preferable to the stench of King's decline. Memories flashed by, images of King and him ten years ago, young and brash and indestructible.

Working at Porton Down had been a much sought after secondment. The food and accommodations had been good, the security work interesting, and the local ladies had always been interested in men clothed in uniforms and secrecy. Days on the base were spent patrolling the perimeter, fixing fences, handling the dogs, guarding the gates and occasionally doing over reporters who made it their mission to 'reveal breaches in security.' Evenings were spent at local pubs and clubs, spreading wild tales without actually saying anything, and letting the local girls work off their fascination in the backseats of cars or on the moor behind the pubs. Cole, King and the others had revelled in the assignment. They were reliable men, good soldiers—that was why they had been chosen—but they were also more than aware that they had landed a cushy number. They worked hard at the security of the base, always aware that a true breach would likely result in them being sent back to their regiments, and put a lot of energy into their leisure time, too. The base had a good gym and ample countryside for running; they kept fit. They banked their extra wages. Rarely, if ever, did they question what was going on at the camp. They all knew of the facility's history, but they were army through and through. They understood the need for deterrent and retaliation, and none of them had any time for the occasional protestors who camped at the main gates, waving their placards and demanding the safe return of a bunch of bunnies or puppies.

Three months after starting there, he and King had witnessed the return of the berserkers from Iraq.

Cole opened his eyes and stared out across the park opposite the flat. A young mother was pushing a pram