‘I wonder what June cooked Bastian tonight?’ asked Eliza. ‘Whatever it was, I bet May didn’t help. That’s the trouble with young women today, they want the menfolk to do everything for them.’
Much like poor old Jeremiah had done for Eliza, though he didn’t say. When you couldn’t kiss and make up there wasn’t much point in arguing.
‘You want to watch that government film?’ asked Jeremiah.
This was the sole purpose of having a television, to watch pre-recorded films on your DVD player. There were old movies still doing the rounds but most had been considered subversive and destroyed.
‘The one telling me where I’m going to die?’ asked Eliza.
‘After the best years of our lives,’ said Jeremiah.
‘If we must. But first let me fetch my sewing box and our clothes.’
Jeremiah pressed play, with the remote controls that encouraged laziness burnt years ago in a massive bonfire on the beach. On the TV screen, waves washed up on another golden beach with the sound of courting lovebirds in the distance.
‘Beautiful Scotland,’ said Edward, ‘where dreams come too.’
‘Where’s my tape measure gone?’ asked Eliza looking into her giraffe skin sewing box.
‘Mandrake took it this afternoon to measure up some of our rooms,’ replied Jeremiah.
‘Wonderful facilities beyond compare,’ continued Edward. ‘Saunas, steam-rooms, outdoor and indoor swimming pools. On-site hairdressers and fresh wholesome food served in all of our restaurants.’
‘Now do you believe me?’ asked Jeremiah. ‘Do you think they’d go to all this trouble if they weren’t going to look after us?’
‘Perhaps you’re right, it does look beautiful,’ said Eliza, ‘even if it is one step closer to the grave.’
She was worried about dying, who wouldn’t be? But it was the same for most, and billions had already made the same journey, they just hadn’t all retired in Scotland.
‘Quiz nights, gardening and mini-golf,’ said Edward.
‘Now that’s something you don’t see these days. I used to love golf,’ said Jeremiah.
He was excited for himself and Eliza and tried not to think of death but only of life and how glorious it had been under the STP.
Eliza began to sow in the nametags Nabulus had delivered. She began with Jeremiah Dana and his favourite patched up shirt with a tear in her eye.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Jambit having kept his ears open for any drumbeats that were the new police telecommunications.
Nabulus was in London and unlikely to enquire the nature of the callout but if he did, Bastian would say they were doing their utmost to uncover the village graffiti artist.
‘I just arrived,’ said Bastian.
Like the love bite on his neck the collared shirt failed to hide.
It was night and both men held a lantern on the village common.
‘So, why’d you call me out?’ asked Jambit, not in the slightest bit disappointed, it was sweltering and he couldn’t sleep.
‘Perhaps the dead girl left us another clue,’ said Bastian.
‘What was the first?’
‘The pen.’
‘All I see are bushes,’ said Jambit.
‘Then let’s check them.’
‘Nabulus said it was suicide.’
‘There’s no harm looking.’
They vainly checked the shrubbery before Jambit shimmied up the hanging tree.
‘Can you see anything?’ asked Bastian.
‘Only the sea and Freya’s Anchor.’
The ship had been patched up and towed out to sea far from prying eyes.
‘A present for you,’ said Jambit, jumping to the ground.
‘What is it?’ asked Bastian.
‘The threads from Clem’s trousers.’
‘I think it’s time for a friendly chat with our pigsty-man,’ said Bastian, turning towards the police station.
‘Tonight?’
‘Before anyone else gets to him. We can take the horses.’
Most citizens willing to spend points on transport were given a choice of camels or horses. The police and Party officials were given both with no such deduction.
* * *
‘Clem, are you here?’ shouted Bastian.
His heavy knocks had swung the unlatched front door open and a wind whistled through the downstairs rooms. Long net curtains flew in the wind in front of the patio doors that backed onto the river and the smell was dank and murky. The social outcast had been given the last holiday home built along the coast and it still had a fitted kitchen with the mod cons now relics.
‘Clem,’ said Bastian entering the last downstairs room with Jambit two paces behind.
The lounge was decorated with embossed wallpaper with a high-backed leather chair turned towards the ornate bureau any self-respecting citizen would have chopped up for firewood.
Bastian gave his lantern to Jambit and crept up with his feet sticking to the ground on spilt muscle liniment. He swung the chair around expecting to find Clem in a drug induced hazed. Instead he found a corpse and jumped back.
‘Another suicide,’ said Jambit, looking at the church issued glass jar on top of the desk.
He was frightened to touch it lest there were traces from the golden poison dart frog. On the label was a smiling face with the words ‘Thank you,’ underneath. Many of those now gone had assumed the cheery portrait to be that of Edward encouraging them on.
Bastian searched the house for anything that would contradict Clem’s suicide but joined Jambit outside emptyhanded.
Something had rattled the pigs and Bastian pointed his revolver into the trees. A hyena snarled with its jowls dripping with blood before he fired a shot. The rest of the pack fled back into the bush.
‘Give me a hand, Jambit,’ said Bastian bending down to lift the dead beast.
‘You eating hyena these days?’ asked Jambit.
‘It’s for the pigs. It could be days before we get allocated a new pigsty-man and the villagers love their bacon.’
They threw the dead hyena over the side of the wooden sty.
‘If Clem was hiding something, where’d you think he’d get rid of the evidence?’ Bastian asked.
‘His stove.’
‘Or the pigs, they eat anything he once told me.’
Bastian walked towards a bucket full of rotting scraps beside the trough and pulled out a screwed up ball of paper.
‘Hold up the lantern,’ he said, unravelling the note.
He held a letter stamped with the official logo of the University of Holistic Medicine, a snake biting its own tail, and read the
