Without rising to my feet I crabbed backwards towards the kitchen door and safety. The door was wide open and Norton and Rowles were stood there, smoking guns aimed down the corridor over my head, covering my retreat.
'You were right, it's a trap!' I shouted.
I reached the door and sprang upright. As I did so there was gunfire from outside, at the front of the house. Someone was attacking Haycox and Neate, someone who'd been waiting for us to get inside the house before revealing their presence.
I pointed to the boy on the floor in front of me, the one with the pink froth bubbling out of his mouth.
'That's Wolf-Barry,' I said.
'I fucking knew it,' replied Norton.
'And I think that's Patel,' I said, indicating the corpse at the foot of the stairs.
'Green,' I shouted. 'Are you alone in there?'
'What do you fucking think?' came the reply. It was Wylie.
This was not good. Not good at all.
'I've got a gun to Limpdick's head, Keegan. If any of your men offer the slightest resistance I'll splash his brains all over the walls, got me?'
'What do you want, Wylie?'
'Want? I've got what I want: you. You're surrounded. My men were waiting outside in the dark. There's ten of us, how many of you?'
Fuck fuck fuck.
I heard the sound of a gun hitting the floor behind me and I turned to see Jones standing stock still at the back door, his eyes wide as saucers. Pugh had a knife to his throat.
'Drop the guns,' he said.
Nobody moved.
'I said, drop the guns!'
Pugh pressed the knife into Jones' throat and a small trickle of blood escaped.
We dropped our guns.
'Now on the floor,' he shouted. 'Hands behind your heads.'
We complied. The kitchen tiles were hard and cold.
'All right, chief, we've got them,' he said.
Ten minutes later I was tied to a chair in the dining room. The other prisoners were being kept next door. I'd caught a glimpse of them through the door when I was being trussed up; Green had a huge purple bruise on his forehead, and Neate had been shot and killed out front, but everyone else was okay. All ten of the farm family were there, as were the six kids from Green's troupe, Norton, Jones and Rowles.
I'd obviously been set aside for special treatment. I didn't want to dwell on what Wylie was likely to do to me. My hands and feet were firmly bound, and there was no give in the ropes at all. I wasn't going anywhere.
Wylie pulled over a chair, reversed it, and sat facing me, resting his arms on the seat back. He had removed his balaclava, no need for it now. He looked very pleased with himself. And so he should. I'd walked obediently into his trap like the amateur I was. I would've kicked myself if my feet hadn't been tied. I figured that the best I could hope for was a bloody good kicking and I saw no reason to prolong the agony.
'Patel and Wolf-Barry are dead,' I said. 'That just leaves you, Pugh and Speight. So who are the other guys, Wylie?'
'They're old friends of yours, Lee,' he said. 'Wanted a chance for a bit of payback. Actually I'm working for them, sort of sub-contracting. They wanted me to deliver you to them. Piece of piss, really.'
'Wolf-Barry didn't look like he thought much of your plan as I shoved a knife into his heart.'
Wylie looked annoyed. 'He shouldn't have broken cover. He was supposed to stay in there 'til I gave the signal. Prick.'
'No wonder you command such loyalty, you're just so compassionate.'
He smiled the smile of a man who knew he was in total control. 'No point trying to piss me off, Lee. I've got my orders and I'm going to stick to them. You're not going to annoy me into making mistakes. I'm supposed to deliver you in one piece and that's what I'm going to do.'
He stood up and walked over to me, leaning down so we were face to face.
'Doesn't mean I can't hurt you just a little bit first though, does it?'
He leaned back, raised his right leg and stamped on my balls.
There's no point describing the pain. If you're a woman you've got no idea, and if you're a guy you know only too well. Suffice to say I screamed for a bit, whimpered for a while, and then passed out.
Unconsciousness passed into sleep. Wylie woke me in the morning by kicking me in both shins. The first thing I heard, apart from my own curses, was a chorus of screams from outside the house. He untied my feet and led me out the front door, where a familiar canvas-top truck was parked. The engine was running and the rest of the captives were already in the back. All except Mr Woodhams, who was lying on the grass, sliced open from pubis to throat, with a group of young men stood around him, dabbling their hands in the gore and wiping it all over themselves.
Blood Hunters.
Pugh and Speight were standing at the back of the truck, machine guns slung across their chests. They were trying not to watch the gruesome ritual occurring right in front of them. Pugh looked sick.
Wylie forced me into the truck, and then the six Blood Hunters climbed in and sat at the back. They sat silently, staring into space. Each carried a machete and a gun. They stank like an abattoir. Pugh closed the tailgate, the three sixth-formers went to sit in the cab, and we pulled out of the driveway onto the road.
The nine remaining residents of the Woodhams farm were cowering in the far end of the truck, in various states of hysteria. The eleven St Mark's boys were all there too, hands bound, all looking to me for ideas or hope as we were bounced about by potholed roads. I shrugged helplessly. But Norton found my gaze and winked. Good to know somebody had a plan.
We rumbled along for about five minutes until I felt a nudge from Jones, who was sitting next to me. I felt something cold touch my fingers. A knife! Where the hell had he got a bloody knife? I glanced up and saw Norton grinning at me. He nodded subtly downwards and wiggled his right foot. He'd had a knife in his boot. I could have kissed him. I scanned the faces of all the other boys. All of them still had their hands behind their backs as if still tied up, but they all looked at me, excited and nervous. Christ. They were all free!
I grabbed the knife and set about cutting the rope that bound me. It didn't take long; it was razor sharp. I felt my hands come free and I squeezed the knife handle firmly in my right hand. I looked up. Everyone was looking at me.
I mouthed silently: 'One, two, three.'
As one, we leapt up from our seats and shoved towards the six Blood Hunters. One of them went over the tailgate and smacked onto the road before he even knew what was happening. I buried the knife in the eye socket of another, and grabbed his machete as he tumbled backwards towards the tarmac. The other four were no match for the combined shoving weight of twelve boys, but the tailgate was still closed, and they braced themselves against it. One of them tried to grab his gun, but the crush of bodies was so tight that he couldn't bring it to bear, and his hands got stuck down on his chest so he couldn't defend himself. Rowles hit him repeatedly, over and over again, both hands working the man's face like a punchbag. Jones wrestled for control of another man's machete, which was suspended over his head. But he was too weak to prevent it coming down and splitting him open. As the Blood Hunter tried to wrench the blade free, Haycox, who had somehow got hold of a machete in the struggle, returned the favour, striking his head from his shoulders with one powerful swipe. Norton grabbed the decapitated man's feet and tipped him over the tailgate onto the road.
The Blood Hunter being hit by Rowles was unconscious by this point, and only remaining upright because of the melee surrounding him. Rowles kept punching him anyway. The other two Blood Hunters were backed right up against the tailgate now. One was hacking and slashing wildly, and as I watched he sliced open the throat of a young boy called Russell, who sang comic songs in Green's revue. The boy tumbled backwards with a terrible screech. The other Blood Hunter was struggling with Norton for possession of his gun until his mate's wild swinging blade smacked into the side of his head with a soft crunch. Norton shoved him back over the tailgate and onto the road, the machete still embedded in his head.
