Bloodtide

to the great men and the little men, and Signy was able to astonish Conor with her insights into what would happen, by whom, and when and how.

'But how did you know?' he'd cry.

Conor was not just in love; he was also impressed. Signy had an almost magical grasp of affairs of state.

Two years after Cherry had found Siggy in the market place, Signy and Conor were sleeping together regularly. One night, for the first time since the murder of her family, he fell asleep as he lay across her thigh. Or so it seemed. In fact, he was pretending. Signy held him as gently as a baby, and stroked his neck and watched with wet eyes as Cherry stood in the doorway of a neighbouring room with a sharp kitchen knife in her hand.

She shook her head. Even if she hadn't guessed that Conor was only putting her to the test, killing him was too easy. It would ruin everything. She wanted his whole world in her hand.

When he opened his eyes he boasted, 'See? I fell asleep. I trust you.' But Signy sighed and shook her head, and told him that if he trusted her he would let her out of her prison.

'One day,' he said. And already he began to think that one day, maybe he really would.

4

Siggy

Muswell Hill's a scumbag of a place to live. It suits me fine. We got this big old flat on the fourth floor of a tatty, ugly brick building overlooking the main street. We could have afforded better, but better attracts attention. I like Muswell Hill. The criminal fraternity is thick on the ground. I mean, you can get lost in the crowd.

It's all oil lamps and old dusty furniture, but there's a great view out over east London and the market's right down on the street below us. You can see it all – half the folk chewing cabbage leaves picked up from the gutter, the other half swapping videos. You can get some good stuff in Muswell market. The criminal fraternity, see? I spend a lot of time sitting up here with my binoculars, keeping an eye on things. In fact, that's about all I do. It's called being depressed. Melanie goes on at me. She's always out and about, busy, busy. It scares me. I should go along with her, keep an eye on her. I love that smelly old pig. But I can't. Bring myself to do it, I mean.

About a year after Cherry found us I went along back to the City to see what Conor had left of our territory and you know what? It wasn't there anymore. All gone. He'd have changed the layout of the roads if he could have. It was stupid to go in the first place. Signy was on at me: there must be some people, you just have to dig deep enough. Well, I dug. I won't be going back.

Conor didn't just defeat us in battle, he annihilated everything to do with the Volsons. It wasn't just the family. It wasn't just the generals and the gangmen. It wasn't even just the merchants who had grown rich under Val, the importers and exporters, the smugglers, the big shopkeepers. It was everyone. It didn't matter how little they were. If they were little under us, they were dead. Even the poor men and women who had nothing, even the children. Anyone who spoke fondly of us, anyone who admired us, anyone who was thought to admire us – they'd all been wiped out.

It's an industry out there. All along Moorgate they have continuous sacrifices to the AlFather. See… Conor's even taken our god off us. I walked down there; I saw them. I knew them. Strung up by one foot, hands tied behind their backs, men, women and children dripping black blood from their mouths onto the pavements. Half a mile of them. They hung them on anything that came to hand – from lamp-posts, traffic signs, windows, from scaffold poles stuck from window to window or just nailed by a heel to the wall if there was nowhere else handy. Months after the defeat and Conor was still finding fresh victims every day.

So much for any little hopes we might have left. The people were gone, you see. A territory isn't land, it's people. Me and Signy are about the only ones left.

Andstill she wants me to fight Conor! What with? Melanie and Cherry armed with nail files? Yeah, well, Melanie goes on at me from time to time about 'the resistance'. Which is what? A bunch of farmyard animals waving rusty guns in the air. Yeah. OK, I've seen enough of halfmen to know that they're not the monsters everyone thinks they are, but that's not quite the same thing as fighting an organisation like Conor's. Melanie – her heart's in the right place; look what she did for me. I love her, she's all I have. But I wouldn't trust her to lay the table, let alone the plans for an invasion.

The thing that really does my head in, though, is Signy. How can she bear it? After all he's done! She carries the wounds on her own body, hamstrung. And yet she lets her jailer in. They fuck -well, how else do you want me to put it? Making love? And why? For revenge, so I'm told. Well, listen; I don't believe all that much in revenge. I mean, what's it for? What's it do? I don't buy it. It's an excuse. She's not there for the sake our family. She's there because she wants to be there. She could get out tomorrow. She could be with me right now if she wanted it, but she prefers to stay there with Conor. After all he's done! I mean, forget about what he did to Val and Ben and Had. Forget about what he did to me. Look what he did to her!

Sometimes it makes me want to vomit up my memories of her. But I can't, I can't. She's my sis and I love her. Even when I hate her I still love her. That's all.

Well, she was tough, Signy, but she's had a basinful, let's face it. It was bad enough what I went through, but she really did fall for Conor. She loved him. She believed it and now she can't let go. I guess it's driven her mad.

That's what I keep telling myself. She's crazy. It's not her fault, it's not even her doing it anymore. That's not my sister in there, that's someone else. Conor took everything away, even her own mind. And now he can climb up that ladder and shag what's left whenever he feels like it… and that… THAT… is the one thing I can't forgive. And I tell you, if there was anything,anything that might convince me I had a chance of sliding a knife under Conor's ribs, I'd do it, I'd do it tomorrow. I'd do it now. I'd die for it. I'd do it if it cost the lives of every soul in this town of London.

But I can't.

That's me, always the realist. Conor's too strong and I'm too weak. Conor broke Signy, yeah. But he broke me too. We both got away with our lives, but what are we good for now? She's a lump of meat Conor uses when the urge takes him. And me, I sit here looking out at the world and wondering what it's going to do to me next, and all I have left to love and hold dear is a lump of fat pork with a big smile on its face called Melanie pig.

5

Melanie

This uman, my Siggy, e's rich as kings and so'm I.

I goes out every day down the market. Bargins… oinky, Bargins! Everythins a bargin if you got the money. I thought stealin' outta dustbins was good shopping. Now I'm out all the time, buying grub, good grub, bad grub – it's all grub, innit? If it ain't no good fer me it'll be good fer someone else. I oinky-buys dented tins o fruit and vegetables cheap, n then gets meself ripped off. Oinky-oinky, ha-ha-ha! Well, that's what my Sigs thinks, but I'm too smart fer that. No, oinky, no-no. Groink. I beats em right down to a handful of pennies n then gives a fiver to some poor old thing or appen in a collection box for our Dag! Then I tell Sigs, 'Ah, Sigs, oinky-oinky, oinky-oink, boo-hoo-hoo! I got ripped off agin!' N e rolls is eyes n e says, 'Ow much more is it gonna cost keeping you in tins, Mel?' N then e goes, 'An ow come you spends so much an the cupboard's alway empty, then, eh, Mels?'

N I says, 'I jus need the practice, Sigs. Shoppin don't come easy to old Mels, I needs a bit o practice, see, Sigs. Groink.'

E don like me elping folks out, even though I elped im out. Where'd e be but fer me? Think e's jealous I do, yus. Groink. Well, it's a big flat, oinky, I'm an old old thing, I can't change me ways. Oh, I'm allus bringing things back, wotever I can find.

'S'all rubbish, Mels,' e goes.

N I goes, 'Yeah, n some of it's alive, same as you was.' But e don get it.

'Wot's this, then?' e goes, shoving this poor half-starved doggy-cur at me I'd let loose in the kitchen n told to