She asked me if I was crying. Grimly, I shook my head.
“I suppose you must be wondering why… why I’ve chosen him and not you. It has to sting, all this. It has to rankle.”
Through the duct tape, I groaned in affirmation.
“I hate to say it, Henry, but in the end it wasn’t difficult.”
I groaned again.
“You’re too nice,” she said. “You’ve got to have a bit of steel in you and Joe… Well, Joe’s iron straight through.”
This isn’t you, I wanted to say. God, Abbey, this isn’t you at all.
“Joe knows what I want,” she said. “And the thing is — you never got to know me at all.” She smiled sadly. “But we’re still friends, aren’t we? We’ll be better as friends, I think. Better as mates.”
I shook my head.
“Listen, Joe and I have to go now. There’s a lot for us to do. I’m sorry. Truly.” She kissed me on the forehead and walked away.
I heard the smack of the front door, the snap of the key in the lock, and for a short while, all was silence.
I think I must have passed out. When I opened my eyes, it had grown dark, the blood on my wrists had dried to crusts and I felt a burning desire to urinate. But I wasn’t alone. I could hard people moving about outside.
Someone come to find me? Abbey returned, stricken with conscience? Granddad?
I heard the rattle of the door, footsteps coming toward me, whispers which spoke my name. A faint hope reignited itself within me.
There was light in my eyes. A torch in my face. Hands reaching toward me.
I moaned a frantic greeting.
My rescuers grinned. “Hello, sir!”
“What ho, old top!”
The ginger-haired man yanked the tape from my mouth and I yelped in pain.
“You look a bit peaky, sir!”
Oh God.
“Please,” I muttered. “Please… Please help me… I know we’ve had our differences. But for God’s sake, let me go.”
One of them giggled. “Sorry, lamb chop. That’s not really on the cards.”
Boon looked around him and smacked his hands together cheerfully. “Where’s the little lady, then, sir?”
“Where’s the missus?”
“Popped out, has she, sir?”
“Gone to borrow a cup of sugar?”
“Please…” I said. “You can see what’s happened here. Please untie me. That’s all I ask.”
“Oh no, sir.”
“Couldn’t do that, sir.”
“Point of fact, this is how we expected to find you, sir. This is where your grandpapa told us you would be.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, wriggling my arms beneath the rope.
“He liked your ladyfriend when he sold her the flat, sir.”
“Thought she was quite a dish, sir.”
“Thought she’d be perfect.”
“Perfect?” I said. “Perfect for what?”
A wide grin spread across Boon’s face. “Perfect hair, sir,” he said. “With which to set the trap.”
Hawker pulled at each of my hands, wriggling them free from the tape and exposing my wrists.
“Now then, Mr. L,” said Boon, “have we ever told you about our penknife?”
“It’d be queer if we hadn’t, sir,” Hawker chortled. “We tell most of the chaps. It’s got a bottle opener and a corkscrew and a how-de-ye-do for getting stones from horses’ hooves.”
The pressure on my bladder had grown intolerable until, miserably, I felt a warm piss spurt into my pants and start to soak my trousers.
Hawker dug into his blazer pocket. With evident pride, her produced a long knife and brought it close to my left wrist.
I screamed. “Please! What are you doing?”
Boon sniggered. “We’re good boys.”
“We’re the sturdiest chaps in school.”
“We’re only doing what your grandpa wanted.”
Cold steel on my skin”
“I shouldn’t fret, sir.”
“Buck up, Mr. L!”
“It’s all part of the plan.”
“All part of the Process.”
Hawker cut into my wrist, slashing downward in swift vertical motions, following the path of the vein. Blood bubbled up. With hideous expertise, he did exactly the same to my other wrist.
As I screamed, Boon touched the brim of his cap. “’Fraid we’ve got to dash, sir.”
“But we want you to know it’s been a real pleasure.”
“We’ve had ripping fun”
“Such larks!”
“Such japes!”
“Ta-ta, sir!”
“Tinkety-tonk!”
With the smell of fireworks and sherbet dip, they shimmered and disappeared, and I was left alone in that wretched room, already too weak to cry out, watching my life pool away from me onto the floor. I stared down until I couldn’t bear it any longer. I closed my eyes, lost myself in the pain and sucked in a few last breaths.
A short while later, my heart stopped beating altogether and I burrowed down into the darkness.
Chapter 27
I’ve just seen what I wrote yesterday. Obviously, you realize what’s happened. The other storyteller (the interloper, the spite merchant) has returned and I no longer have complete control of my pen.
So this is it, then.
A race to the finish.
Chapter 28
Unexpectedly, I opened my eyes.
It was as if waking up from an unusually vivid and visceral dream. I felt groggy and dazed and there was a sour taste in my mouth by the symptoms were no worse than those you might expect from a medium-strength hangover.
I was still bound to the chair but there were no cuts to my wrists. They chafed against the duct tape but they weren’t bleeding now, nor did they even appear to be grazed. Of the Prefects, there was no sign.
The pieces of tape which tied me to the chair seemed suddenly easy to remove. They slipped away like shrouds.
