The two of them sat atop the National Gallery, watching the crowds in Trafalgar Square, their legs dangling over the building’s edge. It was early summer in London, which was to say the clouds were thinner and the sun approaching warm when it managed to cut through.
“How are we doing?” asked the taller. His name was Al. He liked to appear tall and broad-shouldered, with wavy blonde hair slicked back. Sometimes he wore sunglasses, but today it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Terribly.” Lee favoured a shorter appearance, darker hair and a pot belly. “We were meant to turn twenty by sundown. Thirty, if they’d already sinned and we could lead them further down the dark path.”
“What are we on?”
“Three.”
“Oh.”
From here they watched the crowds, but more importantly, they could see the aura of every person too. Auras not only broadcast a person’s emotional state to these two. They could read a person’s lifestyle, habits, choices... and propensity for certain kinds of behaviour.
Al sighed. “I thought it’d be nice to come up here. For a change, you know? I miss the pigeons. We don’t get pigeons down there. But this, if I’m really honest, is bloody boring.”
“Tell me about it. I spend most of my time up here. Not through choice, mind you. I seem to get lumped with this gig whether I want it or not. I remember when this was a craft. You could spend years destroying a man’s life, piece by piece, choice by choice until his soul was as black as slate. Nowadays, it’s a couple of sins and on to the next one. Still, at least it’s not misty. Mist gets everywhere. Takes hours to dry out after a day spent sat in the mist. And it fuzzes up the auras something terrible.”
“Oh!” There was the sound of air imploding, and Al disappeared briefly. When he reappeared he was grinning. “Heh heh heh.”
“What did you get?”
“Adultery. That fella, there. The one with the brown jacket, the ginger one. Got a silly little beard. His PA has been flirting with him for weeks now, and he’s going to decide to take her out when he gets back to the office. A few drinks, then back to hers for a quickie in the kitchen. He’ll dump her a few weeks later out of guilt before his girlfriend gets suspicious.”
Lee squinted. “Yep, got him.” He opened the app on his phone and pressed an icon. “Adultery. Bingo. That’s four, then.”
“What time is it?”
“About half past eleven.”
“Oh.”
Time passed. The sun climbed the sky and discovered more cloud. Whether or not it was a better class of cloud made little difference to those below. In Trafalgar Square more and more humans were carrying food. Many auras dimmed as people threw leftovers and litter to the ground. Some felt guilty as they did so; other couldn’t care less. London’s rats and pigeons were indifferent as to why food hit the floor or how the humans felt about it.
“Got anything to eat?” asked Lee.
“Penguin or Kit-Kat?”
“Um, Penguin if you don’t mind. Tea? I’ve a flask here.”
“Yeah, why not.”
More time crawled by as they scanned the crowds. No likely prospects were found. People passed beneath them, every one with a small hint of sin about them. Some carried biros stolen from the office. Some fancied their best friend’s partner but would never do anything about it. Some knew they had been given too much change at the till and kept it. Some never tipped when they knew they should. But there was nothing of real consequence, no sin to cause harm enough to register towards their quota.
“There! There!” Al pointed into the crowd. “Two O’clock. Carrying an Iron Man messenger bag!”
“I see him, but...”
 “Homosexual!”
Lee frowned at Al. “How many decades has it been since they let you up here last?”
Al’s hand dropped to his side, his finger still pointing. “Not a sin anymore?”
“Never was.”
“But I thought-“
“Lots of people did. Turned out it was just a typo.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Love thy neighbour didn’t specify any type of neighbour for a reason. Funny how many people ignore that key fact when they find someone to fear. Nowhere was it written Love thy neighbour except the ones who are a slightly different colour or worship at a different church or fancy different people than you. That’s the problem with humans. Give ‘em an instruction clearer than pure spring water and they’ll still twist it to suit their own prejudice.”
“Oh.”
Minutes passed. Five or six pigeons were now vying for Al’s attention. One decided to try his luck with Lee and was swatted away.
“D’you think He did that on purpose?” asked Al.
“What?”
“Put all that stuff in there that contradicts all the other stuff.”
“Never really thought about it.”
“Because if you read the book, his side killed a lot more people than our side did. If he’s screwing with them he could easily be screwing with us.”
“Never really thought about it.”
“Maybe he’s a double agent. Maybe he runs both departments, just wears a different glamour when he manages us.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s no way to speak to people. Anyway, have you ever seen the two bosses in the same room at the same time?”
“No, but... no. I can’t see it myself. Ham sandwich? It’s got some of that red Welsh mustard in it, got a zing to it but lots of flavour.”
“Sorry. I can’t. Vegetarian. Got any cheese?”
The crowds ebbed and flowed to the clock of the day. Two more potential adulterers were tipped over the edge of temptation into action, one man planned to solve his financial woes by conning an old business partner, and one teenager decided to steal a Mars bar from the local Tesco express after finding he had left his wallet at home.
“Every little helps,” said Lee as he tapped away at his phone.
Al fed Red Leicester crumbs to a pigeon. “This job is harder than it used to be. D’you think?”
“Sometimes. Yeah, I guess so.”
“It’s as if they’re doing most of the work for us.”
“I know.”
“Remember  when everyone was expected to live by The Book?”
“Only in certain places, mind.”
“True, but it was easier then. Sin, or not a sin. Now it’s all ‘free thought’ this and ‘personal responsibility’ that. Where does that leave us?”
“Yeah, I know.”
More minutes passed. One person collected a tenner from the floor when they knew who had dropped it. A teenage girl in a denim jacket picked wallets and purses from the crowd. An adult male downloaded a Justin Bieber track to his iPhone in full knowledge of what he was doing, for reasons not even Al and Lee could fathom. They decided to leave that one alone.
Al drained the last of his tea and handed the mug back. “Got any crisps?”
“Got some Monster Munch.”
“They’ll do. Pickled onion or roast beef?”
“Beef.”
“Pass them over anyway.” He opened the packet and inspected the contents, frowning. “Oh. What happened? Didn’t these bags used to be bigger? And look, there can’t be a dozen in there!”
“You have been away, son. They’ve been like that for ages.”
After finishing the Monster-Munch, Al scrunched the packet and threw it over the edge of the roof. He watched as it opened a little way, and floated down to the steps below.
“Don’t do that, it makes the place look untidy.”
“We’ve a Hell of a lot more to worry about than that, my friend.”
“True. But still, don’t do it.”
“D’you ever think we’ve made the wrong career choice?”
Lee shrugged. “There’s only two options open to the likes of us. And really, we’re both two sides of the same coin. Once people start to question everything, start to act out of responsibility instead of the fear of retribution, we’re pretty much redundant. We need to be a lot more creative than we used to be.”
Al checked his watch and let out a long sigh. “Sod this. Shift’s over in ten minutes. May as well start packing up now. Tomorrow, I think, we’ll play this game at The Garrick Arms. Or maybe the Harp.”
“You mean clock off early? Isn’t that against the rules?” And two more auras, invisible to their owners, turned the slightest shade darker.
 
 
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​Early morning. Up here, the sun had been visible for a few hours though it was yet to rid the shady places of frost. She felt every ray on her face. The sky was a vivid azure, and the cool breeze whipped around the young girl as she sat on the rocky outcrop, hugging her knees. She shivered. The small leather bag strapped to her waist was filled with dried fruit and the travel-bread her kind had made since time beyond recall. Small doughy lumps that tasted like chalk and sat heavy in the stomach, each one an unexciting fuel for half a day’s travel. It was a shame that putting the fruit in the bread caused it to crumble as it cooked. The belt holding the food to one side also held her water to the other, a large canteen full to the brim.
“Millie? Millie, are you up here already?”
A thin, pebble-strewn path wound its way tentatively up the side of this tallest peak of her grandfather’s mountain. The path wore deep into the rock. Her grandfather grasped the rocks and grass at either side, pulling himself up as he walked.
“There... That... that gets harder each time. Still this’ll be the last time, eh?” With a heavy gasp he sat down beside her, and brushed some of the hair away from the side of her face. The wind took it and threw it around the back of her head. “That’s better. Now I can see your pretty face better.”
She smiled, her chin still resting on her knees. The last time, indeed. From here she could see the whole of the mountain and their valley. The important parts, anyway. The log cabin in which they lived. The pig-pen, the pasture fields, the vegetable patches, and the forest. The stream that ran from somewhere she had never explored, and the stepping stones laid long ago. Her whole world.
Her grandfather patted his knees with his hands. “Are you hungry?”
She wasn’t, but she nodded anyway. She thought of what she’d already eaten. Thick oat biscuits smothered in syrup, with bacon and eggs. A breakfast like that should be enough to see her through past midday. She took the fruit and cheese her grandfather proffered, feeling the time-worn skin of his hands as she did so.
All her life she’d been happy here. More than happy. Theirs was a life of love, and she cherished her grandfather. The thought of what was to come terrified her.
As if reading her thoughts, he reached around her shoulders and gave a warm hug.
“Nothing lasts for ever, my dear. Someday even this mountain will wear away to dust; someday even our people will take their place in history. Or myth.” He pulled her close, squeezed once more, and kissed her temple. She gave another smile in return, and moved a hand so she could hold his; the one that still draped over her shoulder.
Our people. They had so many names in so many places, but were known everywhere as those who lived on the mountains in the sky, drifting here and there, sighted less and less. She hadn’t seen another mountain in months.
“Bamp, I’m scared.”
“I know.”
So was he. He remembered clearly the evening when it struck him for certain that this day was due. He’d always known that it would arrive, of course, in a vague sort of way. But there was also a world of difference between knowing you’d someday die, and a doctor telling how long you had left. Seeing those two buds between her shoulders emerge, growing week upon week... well, now he could appreciate what his parents must have felt all those years back. Always growing, always learning.
He wished her parents were still here; a dull ache, keener than ever on this day. Her wings, fully grown now, twitched as she sat and contemplated the next few days, just as his had so many years ago. The potent mix of terror and exhilaration as he flew high and free on wings he’d long since lost was a memory as sharp now as it had ever been, like looking through still clear waters at the bottom of a deep lake. He remembered taking off, a gust of wind lifting him so high and so quickly that he thought he’d left his stomach behind... the elemental power around him so out of his control until he learned to surf the surging thrusts, to glide the ebbs... the cold, the loneliness, the sun so close he could reach out and burn his fingertips... and the relief, the relief at finally seeing the small speck emerging from distant clouds just as he felt he could go on no longer. The speck that grew into a mountain. This mountain. Then the sorrow, years later, when his child came into the world, and  life left his wings to atrophy.
It was their way. But what right did he have to sorrow? He’d had a family here, and though all he held dear was about to depart, he wouldn’t exchange one moment of the bliss she’d brought him, not for anything. Not even to purge the fear and impending emptiness he felt now, threatening to turn his bowels to water. He would give her every last grain of strength he had, even if it left him a weathered husk.
“What happens when I leave, Bamp? What happens to you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll still have the garden, the holding, the sculptures you made; this whole place is made of memories now. They’ll see me through.” For a while. Then the mountain would return to nature, awaiting discovery or decay. There were, after all, fewer than ever searching for a home amongst the clouds.
“What if I fail? What if I don’t find anywhere like this? What if I use up all my food, all my drink, and end up down there on Terra?” Once their kind set foot on Terra there was no way back up. She’d lose her wings and settle for an earthbound mate, raise an earthbound family, never to step on to a mountain such as this again.
He squeezed her once more, kissed her again. Wiped her tears away before his could fall. He tightened the straps on her clothing and adjusted the slits at the back to ensure her wings were as free as could be.
“Oh, my love. But what if you soar?”
 
 
 
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​"And our final guest tonight. Fresh from his European tour in support of his new album Comprehensive, we have the very talented Paul Hatfield! Come join us on the sofa, Paul.”
The studio audience was small, the applause polite. No doubt it would sound louder on the TV. He fixed his smile and trotted on to the stage. The presenter flashed a grin of her own and waited for him to sit on the sofa. She smoothed her dress and lowered herself into her own seat. The prompt cards she held in her hand were vacant props. Either she was well prepared or the questions were fed through her earpiece. He wasn’t sure.
“So, Paul. Great to finally have you here. I’ve been a fan of yours for some time. I picked up your breakthrough album Racers when it came out, what, five years ago?”
“Er, yeah. About five years ago I released that.”
“And you only went on to bigger and better things afterwards. Now, you’ve just come off your European tour. Tell us about that.”
“Sure. I flew in last night from Hamburg, the last stop on the tour. I played a few dates across the continent, a few festivals in Scandinavia and then finished up trekking across Spain, France and then Germany.”
“Will you be playing any British dates?”
“Yeah. I’ve got about ten days off. Then I play Cardiff, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sheffield… I think that’s all.”
“The dates are on your website, right?”
“Yeah, they should be up by now.”
“Okay, great. Now, I like a solid guitar album as much as anyone else. We’ve had our fair share of musicians on here as you probably know. I’ve been listening to the review copy of your new album - just one of the privileges of my job - and it’s a cracker, it really is. When’s it out?”
“The fifteenth.”
“A week Thursday, then. Can we… which camera are we on? Can we get a close up of the cover? Great. It’s been in my car all week. I was surprised when I played it the first time. It’s got a much rockier edge than your last few albums. They were quite… reflective, I suppose. Not as loud as this one, and I mean that in a good way. Could you tell us what that’s all about?”
*  *  *
The interview room was small and stale. He’d been here for twenty minutes, awaiting the officers. A grid of polystyrene tiles hung above him, two light-bulbs glaring through frosted glass perspex. The walls were brown. The end of the steel table butted against the wall to his left. The table was fixed to the floor, as were the chairs. He wished he could move his closer. A small brown box was affixed to the wall, resting on the table. He wondered what it was for.
The door clunked and opened inwards. Two officers, a male and a female, entered and sat at the opposite side of the table, closest to the door.
The male officer spoke.
“Before we start I need to remind you that everything that happens here will be recorded, both in audio and video.” He indicated the small camera in the far corner of the ceiling, over Paul’s right shoulder. “If you’re ready to start, we’ll begin.”
Paul nodded.
“Okay.”
The officer glanced at his colleague. She pressed a button on her side of the brown box.
“It is sixteen thirty-seven on the twenty-fourth of December, two thousand and fifteen. I am DI Winchcombe.”
“And I am officer McPartland, badge number one four nine.”
“We are in Downhope police station in custody suite ‘D’ to interview Paul Hatfield. Could you confirm your name for the record please?”
“I’m Paul.”
Winchcombe leant against the table.
“I’m sorry, we’ll need your full name. And you’ll have to speak up, else the microphone might not pick up everything.”
Paul straightened his shoulders and raised his voice.
“I’m Paul Hatfield.”
“You were arrested at approximately ten thirty this morning, at Tane and Worfold, where you currently work. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And at the time of arrest did the arresting officer read you your rights?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And at that time you stated you did not want a lawyer. Is that still the case?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to add before we begin the interview?”
Paul raised his head as a man hefts a boulder. “I’m guilty. I killed him. With these hands.”
*  *  *
Paul opened the door. The small plastic chair was vacant. At the far side of the cheap flat-packed desk, Esme sat in her black swivel chair. He noted his personnel file open in front of her. She closed the manilla folder and looked up.
“Thanks for coming in today. I know you’re due on shift this afternoon but until we investigate the allegation against you, we can’t allow you into any of the homes. I have to inform you you’re suspended without prejudice, on full pay, until this is sorted. I expect it’ll take only a few days. I am going to have to write this all down, so apologies if I’m writing while you talk. I am paying attention. Now, can you tell me what happened last weekend, the evening of the… seventh?
*  *  *
“Sure. It’s been a kind of back-to-my-roots thing. At school I was the kid who eschewed whatever everyone else was listening to. For me it was all about Free, Zeppelin, Sabbath. I mean, it was the nineties bands that kicked off my interest in the guitar. Pearl Jam were cool, but Nirvana set it off for me. Loud, angsty power chords anyone could play. And once I got my guitar -a beat up second hand Jackson, nothing like any grunge band would touch. Man, it was loud. But anyway, once I’d thrashed out power chords for a few months I started listening again to that seventies stuff.”
“And is this album an attempt to recapture those early experiences with music?”
“Yeah, in a sense. Certainly, with my kids being a little older. I’ve been looking at what the next few years may hold for them, and kind of comparing that to my own experiences. I mean, you can’t hear that in the music, but I think it’s there in the lyrics.”
“Ah yes, the lyrics. I was going to come to those.”
*  *  *
The two officers looked at each other. Mcpartland nodded at Winchcombe to continue.
“So Mister Hatfield. Can you tell us what led to the events of this morning?”
“I think so. Our new supervisor came in about eight months ago. He’s given me nothing but grief since he started. Like, I’ve been ill this year. No more than some of the others. But he’s never spoken to anyone else about it. It’s like he looks for reasons to have a go at me. Anyway, after I was ill last he threatened to fire me if there were ‘any more problems’. There’d never been any problems until he started. And I’ve been there about four years, longer than most of the team. But, zero hours, no rights… I’ve been losing hours since he took over the rota. I pretty much live week to week. I’m single, no kids, get no state help. As long as you’re in work nobody gives a shit how difficult it is to get by. Anyway, at the end of last week a big order came in last minute. Somebody else had let the customer down and we got the order. Could lead to more things for the company. The rest of the factories on site close over Christmas. Not us. I turned up on time for work that morning, and the front gates to the site were locked. The key holder, he works directly for the site owners, he doesn’t work Christmas eve. So the gate’s locked. I had to walk to the mews at the rear of the site. Anyway, I come in to work a few minutes behind the clock. I pass my supervisor on the stairs and he blanks me. I say good morning and he blanked me. And I don’t mean just walked past me. I said ‘good morning’ and he looked the other way. Actually turned his head the other way. So I threw my stuff into the locker and walked double-quick to my workstation. I’ve been working less than two minutes -he was still switching his computer on when I swiped in- and in front of everyone, he calls me out to his desk. Summons me, like a naughty pupil. He’s pissed because I went straight to my workstation instead of grovelling at his desk for being late. Like, he wasn’t complaining about me being late, not at first. It was about how I’d not explained myself to him. Even though he was late, and for the same reason. It’s about manners and courtesy, he said, I’d at least expect an apology. Manners and courtesy. After he blatantly ignored me on the way in. Then he talked about reliability and timekeeping, not that my punctuality has ever been an issue. Then, in front of everyone, he threatened to fire me. Now, I’ve got nothing. I work all the hours I’m given. I rent a room. Can’t afford my own place. I read a lot, what I can get from the local library. When it’s open. Don’t holiday. Don’t do much except work and pay bills. I’ve no backup. Nothing to show for the hours I work, nothing but empty pockets and frayed jeans. Now this guy wants to take even that. He knows if I lose my job I’m homeless. And he’s grinning as he’s speaking. Manners and courtesy. That’s when I lost it.”
“Could you explain? What do you mean ‘lost it’?”
The cuffs rattled as he gesticulated.
“I grabbed his head. Smashed it into the desk. Twice. Then pinned it to the desk with my left hand as I punched it. Over and over until somebody pulled me off. I don’t remember who.”
*  *  *
“Okay. Where to start? I know you hardly get a chance to visit the homes, so I guess I’ll start with the lads. Marcus and Jamie have both lived at Waterchase House for a while. They’re of similar ages, though Marcus is a bit older. I’m Jamie’s keyworker, helped him move in. Marcus has been there slightly longer. I was on shift with Aiden. Both boys are supervised.”
“At all times?”
“Both boys are one-to-one. But the previous shift hadn’t done the grocery shop. I don’t know why. Anyway, I gave Aiden some petty cash to fetch bread, milk, a few other things.”
“Even though both boys are one-to-one?”
“What else could I do? We needed the shopping. Anyway, Jamie’s in the lounge playing X-Box. He’d been there since the morning. Marcus was offered to go to the shop but he refused. Declined. He knew we needed the shopping. It’s his little bit of control. He thought we wouldn’t be able to go to the shop if he stayed home.”
“Why?”
“Because both boys are one-to-one. I don’t buy into that sort of behaviour, so I sent Aiden off site to the shop. I was sat with Jamie. Marcus came to the door, demanded to go out in the car. I told him he’d have to wait. He asked why. I told him I couldn’t leave Jamie. He said, Jamie’ll have to come too. I told him that wasn’t happening, I wasn’t interrupting Jamie’s X-box time just so he could go for a drive. I said, if you wanted a drive you should’ve gone to the shop. He said, I don’t want to go to the shop. Jamie’s got to come in the car with me. I could see he was getting agitated so I got off the sofa and asked him to leave. There’s also a history of Marcus bullying Jamie that’s gone unresolved. As I went to the doorway Marcus pushed past me to get into the room. He switched the X-box off and said, He’s not fucking playing it now, he can come. At that point I ushered Marcus out.
I think Jamie’d had enough. He got up as if to fight Marcus, something he’s never done before. Marcus didn’t expect it either. He tried to run from Jamie as I got between them to break up any fight. Marcus tripped over my foot, fell to the floor. Jamie took advantage. I think he was paying Marcus back for all the punches and slaps he’s given Jamie over the months. He pounced on Marcus, gave him a few punches before I could get him off. It’s all in my incident report.”
“Marcus says you tripped him on purpose.”
“He would. Jamie won the scrap. He’s embarrassed and needs an excuse for why he lost. He’d just pushed Jamie too far too often.”
“Aiden says you were stood back allowing Jamie to hit Marcus when he got back from the shop. That you only intervened when he arrived.”
“Not true. I’d told Jamie several times to get off Marcus. I’d delayed physically intervening as pulling Jamie away would have risked putting him at physical harm if Marcus then attacked him, or myself at harm if they both attacked me. With Aiden there it made any intervention a lot safer.”
*  *  *
“The lyrics on this album are more… angsty, I suppose, than your others. You’ve always tackled big themes in your work. Global politics, religious hypocrisy, corruption of all kinds. But the lyrics on this one are somehow more oblique and more personal at the same time.”
“Yep.”
“But there are discernible themes here. You sing at one point about refusing to be a victim and not wanting your son to make a different decision. I wonder, can one choose to be a victim? There are parallels with some of your older songs in terms of how you describe the system treading on the little guy, victimising him or others on the way. But those songs seem fuelled by a more focused rage - at how things are, at people’s refusal to see that, and to see there can be a better way. These lyrics, though, are more personal and reflective. I get the feeling throughout the album that you’re circling a specific incident or event without ever describing it in detail. Would you say that’s true? If so, what incident? I’m assuming it’s from your teenage years. Would you share?”
*  *  *
“It seems, Mr Hatfield, that you have a long history of violence. You are no stranger to the judicial system, let’s put it that way. Ever since your teens, there’s a record of violence playing a bigger and bigger part in your life. Playground scraps that led to expulsions. Affray. ABH. GBH. And now this. Your family background seems pretty stable, according to what I have here. No suggestions of DV at home. You describe your father as someone who was absent due to his work, but a warm figure when he was present. Your mother didn’t work while you were growing up, and kept ‘a good home’. You say you’re largely self-educated, having dropped out of school with few qualifications despite being a promising student. During your years in primary school and for the first few years of your secondary education you showed no propensity for the kind of violence that has dominated your life since. All of this leads me to believe there may have been some sort of critical incident to set you on this path. Is that correct? I’d be interested to hear.”
*  *  *
“What concerns me is that there have been a few incidents over recent months. None as severe as this. But staff have raised concerns over the way you talk about Marcus. Not in front of him, but in the office.”
“That’s just banter. Decompressing after a hard shift. He’s a damaged kid. Seen a lot of things at home he shouldn’t have. Been moved around a lot. He’s really challenging, and sometimes you need to let off steam. We all do, it’s an intense job.”
“It is. All our children can be challenging. My concern, from what I’m hearing, is that you seem to focus on Marcus’ behaviour more than Jamie’s. Or Dan’s, when he was here.”
“I have huge concerns over the way he treats other kids. I always have. He’s a bully, and he doesn’t have the right to treat others like that.”
“So you let Jamie get a little payback?”
“That’s not what I said. I’ve raised my worries about Marcus several times in team meetings and in supervisions.”
“I know. And those concerns have been dealt with.”
“They’ve been brushed aside.”
“They have been dealt with. I’ve looked through a lot of your paperwork -supervision notes, team meetings, seniors’ meetings- and this is a recurring theme. Marcus is a very complex young man with a lot of issues. His disordered attachment, his ADHD, his appalling view of women. Yet you appear to ignore all this, focussing instead on a perceived bullying issue which, and both your manager and our psychologist agree on this, is not bullying but a function of his inability to form relationships. It was a similar scenario with Dan. And with May and Shanelle, when we had the girls. I wonder if there’s something in your background we don’t know about, something that causes you to frame everything in terms of bullying to the exclusion of almost everything else. Because if so, I suggest you take this chance to be honest with us before we investigate this safeguarding issue any further.”
*  *  *
I never really fitted in as a kid. I mean, I had my niche, my clique. Always three or four of us who didn’t fit in anywhere else and came together by default. I’ve no idea where any of them are now. But I never fitted in with the cooler kids. Never tried to, and never hid the fact I never tried.
We moved around a lot. The kids in my clique changed and were interchangeable. In each school I was the kid with the cheap clothes, the different taste in music, the odd accent, the funny slang. I didn’t give a toss about fashion or sport or any of the other superficial glue holding youths together. Still don’t. I couldn’t tell you who won the Premier League last year, who the world heavyweight champion is, or who beat who at Wimbledon over the summer. For as long as I can remember I’ve preferred reading and music.
So I stuck out. And kids are vicious pack animals. So are adults, mostly. The same feral creatures, with a veneer of respectability. Go into any Facebook group. People are anonymous there, they think it keeps them safe. Makes them feel powerful. See how they respond to the one or two people bucking the trend, showing an opinion that’s not peer-approved. Politics, religion, the monarchy… even pointless shit like TV shows or brands of trainer. Step out of line and people will crucify you, no matter how inconsequential the issue. I swear only the fear of losing the mortgage stops most people from going apeshit in public and beating the hell out of strangers.
Anyway. All through school I was the victim of other people’s bullshit. If I contributed to a class discussion I was a crawler for joining in. If I didn’t, I was a moron for not knowing anything. If I ignored their name-calling I was a coward. If I responded, others joined in to drown my voice. A fist, a kick, a shove. It was an unusual morning without one. A good beating was a termly event. And all the while a fire burned within me. You see, if I was getting this shit from the smartest kids, or the toughest kids, or kids who had a vendetta against me it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to take. But these kids, these jackals, they weren’t that smart. That’s why they all laughed at the same stupid names and jokes. They weren’t that tough. That’s why they only confronted me when they were in a pack. They didn’t have a vendetta. It was a sport. And the more they realised I couldn’t stand up to the pack, the bigger the pack got.
That was school. An endless hail of names and fists.
The turning point came only a few months before our GCSEs. Most of the dregs had left by that point. ‘Bail before you fail’ as they say. The pack remained, though now it was a pack of rats rather than jackals. Most of them were from the year group below. They’d still give out the verbal abuse, but the physical stuff stopped.
Our school, the one I was in at the time, consisted of a single-storey quadrangle and a large tower block. I was between lessons, walking from the quad to the block, trailing a group from my class. One of these kids, one of the ones from the year below, shouted something at me. I don’t for the life of me remember what. Something inane. He was standing on the steps outside one of the demountable classrooms dotted around the grounds. Temporary buildings that’d been there longer than most of the staff. I turned to shout something back and flick the V. Before I could, a voice spoke into my ear. I don’t mean that in any metaphorical sense. I swear it was a voice as clear as any conversation I’ve ever had. It wasn’t a voice I recognised, and I haven’t heard it since. But it was close. It spoke as if sharing a secret. All other sounds -the chatting kids, the shoes crunching on gravel, the seagulls on the field behind the school- hushed.
These guys are morons. A few years’ time, you’ll wonder how they ever got to treat you like this. You’ll move on. They’ll be stuck in this shitty little town forever.
*  *  *
He tapped his leg with the ring finger of his right hand as he answered. A bespoke pair of 3x1 jeans only a week old.
“At that moment I knew. I knew I had to pick a direction and work until I made it. With my eldest now approaching the same age I guess it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I think it’s an important message. People can only make you feel worthless if you let them. If you’ve a talent and a passion, pursue it. If someone tries to judge you for the way you look or think or dress, well, screw them. It’s a reflection of their worthlessness, not yours. And I was right. A few years after school ended, before I did my music degree, I wandered into the job centre. I was looking for something part-time to earn a bit of cash over the summer. Anyway, browsing the vacancies I saw a face I vaguely recognised. I took a second, and realised it was one of the nobs who used to give me grief in school. The one from the steps. Ceri. He hadn’t worked a day since leaving. I don’t know if he has yet. He’s still in that shitty little town. And here I am.”
*  *  *
“And I knew then, at the sound of that voice, the only way to get anywhere was to make them afraid to make me feel like that. I mean, this kid was a year below me and thought he could fill the bigger shoes just emptied. So I walked over to him. The cocky little shit didn’t step away when I squared up. He laughed at me. And why not? I’d been in a few scraps in school, lashed out when they pushed me too far. I never won. The pack made sure of that. That laugh, that stupid little sneer he gave with it… it was like every time they made fun of me, every belittling comment, every time they disregarded my feelings in pursuit of their sport. I hit him. There were three steps up to the door on those cabins, and he missed every one on his way down. When he sat up I hit him again. Because it felt good. I finally understood what they gained from treating me like they did. I know it’s wrong. I don’t care. Because if life is a choice between feeling powerful or feeling the way they made me feel every day until then, I’ll pick ‘powerful’ every time.”
*  *  *
“I didn’t think much about the voice. I didn’t think much about the words either. Not for a while. But I felt different in myself. I realised they had no right to treat me like they did. From then on their words, and the words of others, had little effect on me. I also knew there was nothing I could do about the times already passed. The one thing I could do for myself was to make sure no-one made me feel like that again. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted also to help as many others as I could not to feel that way. To empower them. Protecting and safeguarding are fine, but too little. We’ve got to give these kids the chance to understand that they are in control of their lives if they choose. What else can we do?”
 
 
 
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A noise, low and rumbling. A diesel engine. Probably a 4x4, to get this far from the road. Mal undid his apron and put it on the hook in the hallway. Nobody came up his track. He slipped out the side door. It was early evening; Mal must have lost track of time. Easily done, when you’ve a project at hand.
The blue Toyota had made a clumsy turn in the grass outside his tumbledown cottage. The tyres had churned up deep muddy grooves. The engine was still running, a flatulent bop-bop-bop disturbing the tranquillity. The interior light was on. Mal could see the manila envelope in the driver’s hand as he squinted at the address and then the surroundings. The tall hedges around his plot and at each side of the track meant there wasn’t much to look at. The driver's window slid down as Mal approached.
"What d'yer want?"
"Oh, hi. I've a parcel for delivery."
"I'm not expecting anything."
"Ah. Is this the Carson’s farm?"
"No."
"I see. Do you know where it is?"
"No."
"No idea?"
"No. This is private land."
The stranger gave half a smile. He tried to hold Mal's unflinching gaze, then blinked away. "I see. Looks like I've taken a wrong turn."
"Looks like you have."
"I'd better be off, then."
"Yeah. You had."
The exhaust coughed a black cloud and the vehicle rumbled away. Mal stood watch until the Toyota disappeared, the blue paint merging with the encroaching gloom. He turned, slowly, and entered the side door. He picked up his apron from the hook, retied it and wiped the dark smear from his hand. He unlocked another door and descended the stone steps into the cellar. A single naked bulb hung from the ceiling. There were more dark smears on the walls.
Mal smiled and picked up his knife. Long and keen, the blade was curved from the many times he had applied the whetstone. The knife had been his father’s. It was the nearest thing Mal had to an heirloom. That, as well as the cottage and his father’s favourite saying: “Do what you want, but never get caught.”
He looked at the chained and gagged figure in the corner. The figure whose darting eyes had stopped Mal in his work and alerted him to the noise coming up the lane. Mal saw the hope flicker and die, like a candle wick drowning in wax. He slipped the needle-nose pliers from his pocket and continued his work.
 
 
 
 
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I’ve been in this fetid city of tents and makeshift shelters for three days now. It took me a week to walk here, my wife by my side and my child in my arms.
It’s never peaceful. Children cry, mothers cry, fathers cry. The plain is flat and wide, the tents lightweight. They flap and flutter in the cold wind between the creaking scrapwood hovels, a mournful sound. Many will die this winter. Open sewers run through the camp. People cook on open fires; at least, those lucky enough to have anything to cook.  There is nowhere to bury the dead. Each morning and evening cleanup teams patrol the camp. They remove our corpses, dump them in open graves not two miles away. The wind brings the smell of the dead, a sweet, sickening rotting smell, back to us in waves of sorrow and nausea. If bitterness, sorrow and despair had flavours or scents, it’s here they could be tasted, here they could be smelled. Here, they can already be seen and heard.
Three days.
Three days of furtive enquiries, of walking to and fro across the camp, waiting at rendezvous points, following directions. I’d heard there were useful men here, but all of them are scared. They need to know everything about you before they risk sending anyone to talk. Even then you have to work your way along the chain, step by step, until you get to meet the people you need to speak to.
It’s a sharp contrast with my past life as a teacher, dedicated to enriching the lives of others. I haven’t eaten properly for a week. I stink of stale sweat, donated clothes, and the garbage-dump aroma filling this place. The conversation with this latest, brief acquaintance lasts seconds. The person I need to speak to has agreed to meet tomorrow. Just be here at the same time, and I’ll be taken to meet him.
Tomorrow. And then what? How quickly things can change.
A few days ago it had been life as it ever was, in the shadow of our oppressors. Blue skinned and eight feet tall, they regard us -sandy, scaly and squat- as little more than vermin. A hundred and twenty seasons have passed since the World Security Council granted the Zanaan, nomads by ancient tradition, the safe haven of the lands across the river. The lands of our ancestors. We started off as neighbours, almost. They needed a home. They were a people lost, displaced across the globe, maligned and mistreated, unable to settle and establish a nation of their own. People tied by belief and custom rather than land. But land they were given nonetheless. A swathe cut from our heritage, land across the far banks of our river. Fields our forbears tilled and lakes our ancestors fished. All gone at the stroke of a pen.
It wasn't enough. Nothing's ever enough for the Blueskins. Within a dozen seasons, they'd annexed the land between theirs and the river itself. Then they spread along its banks. We pleaded for help but found ourselves abandoned by the World Security Council, who wanted no part in clearing the mess they'd made. As our people protested in every way against their displacement the Zanaan reacted with an aggression unknown in these parts. Bombings. Assassinating elders and organisers. Clearing entire villages and towns. Such things became commonplace. For our protests we were labelled 'troublemakers' and 'terrorists', labels that lost us our place at the World Security Council table. Where we had once lived as and where we pleased on the far side of the river, now we existed only in huddled enclaves, bordered and monitored and controlled. Atomised and isolated from one another wherever possible. The Zanaan were free to move as they wanted. Our people were checked and scanned every time we crossed a border to work, shop or visit friends and family. People with no interest in conflict would be denied access arbitrarily, for any length of time. No courts, no right of appeal. Some days the borders stayed shut to us all for no reason, and no employer pays for a day's work not done.
Eventually, we left our fertile plains for the harsher lands this side of the river.
Still they could not leave us alone. When we fished the river we were accused of trespass. First they warned us. Then they rounded us up, deported us to our bank. When we repaired our smashed boats and took to the great river again to feed our families, they called us poachers and fired on us. If we stood up to them they called us aggressors and fired on our fishing villages too.
Soon the marshlands were labelled a buffer zone, in a move approved by the WSC. We were moved further away from the river to the scrublands and the foothills. They left us here. Not in peace. Far from it. Always we have contended with them shelling our homes, businesses, schools, hospitals. Always they prevented us from crossing the buffer zone, travelling hours to get to a place of work, gambling a day’s wage on whether or not we would be allowed to reach our destination. Trade embargoes, aid embargoes, raids, encroachments, unsafe water supplies... all made living here a hell. But what can we do? If we don’t retaliate they walk all over us. If we defend ourselves they paint us as the villains and kill our families.
Ten days ago there’d been a clash at a border checkpoint. They’d stopped our people crossing for three days in a row. People needed to get to work, to visit markets and loved ones. Tempers flared. Shots were fired. Three unarmed civilians were wounded. The crowd surged. The Zanaan guards shot four more to ‘cool the crowd’. One died before he hit the floor. Two others lay screaming until all breath left them. The young boy will never walk again. A Zanaan patrol tank was on the scene in minutes.
The crowd refused to disperse. More were crushed under the tank’s huge wheels, a bloody pulp of limbs and clothing. All died. Murdered by the Zanaan. One was a young female, queuing to cross the border to get to school. She hadn’t been allowed to attend all week.
Nine days ago our freedom fighters launched a single rocket into Zanaan territory. It exploded, as planned, in a Zanaan barracks. Several soldiers were killed, several injured.
Eight days ago the Chitterers arrived.
A flock of drones flew low over the city. We used to shoot the drones down. Now the Zanaan fill them with explosives and shrapnel, and crash them into residential areas when shot at. Each had several loudhailers repeating over and over the message that we had a minute to evacuate. One minute to evacuate the whole quarter.
They know it’s not enough. Nowhere near enough, and that’s part of the sick joke. They love to watch us scurry and run. They knew they were flying over a residential and commercial area. There are no weapons here. The rocket was launched from the hills behind the city, at least five grand measures away. We knew it and they knew it too. But they also knew that those firing the shells had families in the town. Defenceless families. I see now they have never had any intention of taking down the fighters until they are the only ones of us left. They need the fighters to fight; for their own citizens to be angry and afraid, to justify the continued removal of our people from our land and continue expanding their territory.
The drones returned to the far bank. The square in which I stood with my family, the square that was host to the largest food market in the city, became silent. Almost everyone watched the skies. A few had already chosen to run, darting between the stalls and the sky-watchers.
The soft boom in the distance announced the launch of the first missile; then a second; then a third. Each drew a stark, black line in the powder-blue sky, a straight line from their land to ours. The first of those missiles flew overhead, its faint hum getting louder as it drew closer. Then the muffled bampf of the casing blowing apart. Like a blot of ink dropped into a glass of water, the blackness crept across the sky with slow arrogance, as if the Zanaan could defy the law of gravity as well as the laws of conflict.  More people ran. Others stood, still transfixed. The second missile hummed overhead, exploding further north. Bampf. Then the third, to the south. Bampf. Three dark clouds descended on the city, forming like bruises on a newborn’s skin. As they dropped lower and thinned out, drifting in the wind, the noise they made became louder and louder. ChitititITITIT; the sound of insects calling to one another. Panic erupted as the plague fell. All around me people screamed and ran, directionless but still trampling over one another in their efforts to get away from here.
Chitterers. Nanobots, dropped on us in their millions, an iridescent swarm of destruction. Each one no bigger than half the length of your smallest finger, and designed for one purpose. To chew. Each six-legged creation possessed an outsized set of mandibles strong enough to turn granite to dust, and two equally strong pincers to help break its food into bite-sized pieces. They were created to chew only non-living matter. Immediately they landed on the tops of our housing blocks and our temples we could see the devastation they caused. The tops of the buildings disintegrated, carried away like pollen in the breeze.
 More people screamed. In anger, for mercy, to their gods, for their loved ones. There was a stampede for the gates. People were crushed in the tumult. Stalls were knocked over. Fights broke out. Families became separated – including my own. My young daughter was knocked from my shoulders, and the crowd ran over her. I fought, kicked and punched like a madman to pick up her mangled body. She was still breathing but did not do so for long. She died in my arms less than an hour from the city.
The dust that had been our buildings fell on us. Amongst the screams there were coughs, choking wracking coughs, as the sandstorm billowed over and through the crowd, harsh and abrasive, burying in our throats and grinding at our eyes. We forced our way through one of the gates, my wife and I, with our precious daughter in my arms. Her final breath was a laboured wheeze.
Behind the dust, the Chitterers floated down. As they landed on the crowd they continued eating any material they could find. A wooden ox-cart collapsed as they gnawed its wheel and bridle to dust within seconds. I heard a leg snap as it fell on a screaming passer-by. Soon his cries were pounded into the ground. The beast ran free, trampling more of the crowd as it went. The pavement itself was chewed away, tripping many as we all tried to escape. Others fell into the holes. Gods help me, I found myself leaping over writhing bodies and running across the prone as we made our way to the city gates. Behind us there was a soft explosion as the Chitterers ate their way through the pavement and broke through a water main. At least the water dampened some of the dust. It stuck to people like a thin clay. The noise of the crowd was deafening, though no individual words were clear. The Chitterers chewed through an electricity cable; the loose end swung toward the spouting water. Sparks flew and soon a fire raged through three or four buildings, spreading through the city. The fleeing crowds on the streets were joined by those running from the buildings dissolving around them, swarms of Chitterers eating away at the concrete. Some were not quick enough, and the wet crack of bodies hitting the pavements as the upper floors gave way beneath them is something that will stay with me forever.
Then the buildings collapsed. As they were programmed to do, the Chitterers ate away the sides of buildings where the wind had blown them. They gnawed holes in the walls and along the edges of two buildings: the main temple and a ten-storey residential block. With a groan and a crash bigger than words the buildings fell, one after another. Most of the temple landed in the open space behind, decimating a graveyard. The residential block twisted as it fell onto the smaller dwellings opposite. The dust, masonry and glass it threw up rained upon the closest crowds. The dust turned pink. Those too elderly or frail to join the exodus were crushed in their homes. Those who came later to the camp described to me in haunting detail how the Chitterers, those indestructible little devils, kept on chewing the debris; how the mangled corpses within were revealed bit by bit as the went swept away the dust of their work. Entire stretches of road were soaked red. Dark specks within the clouds continued making their noise. Chittitititititit.
The Chitterers finally landed on the panicked crowd, still running for the city gates. We tried to stamp on them like you would a bug. They were too strong. People tried to swat them from their backs, and those of their friends. Their legs and pincers were too tenacious. They crawled like lice, all the while making that interminable sound, all the while scratching at the skin as they searched for inorganic material. Like fabric. Soon many of the crowd were not only panicked and bruised, but naked too. Our city, our possessions, our clothing. All dissolved around us as we fled. My last memory of that place is a trail of misery, leaving behind a waste dump of rubble and broken limbs, dust billowing over the river towards the Zanaan’s land. Chitterers last a day before their energy cells expire. It is more than enough.
It took us a week to reach the camp, taking it in turns to carry our daughter’s body. Had we known what awaited us we would have buried her at the roadside. We expected a place where we could follow the final rites of our kind. She received no such blessing to take her into the next world. Neither did my wife, taken by the cholera that is rife here, a night and a day after we arrived.
The circle of retribution is endless. But what choice do they give us? To one side we have the impotence of the WSC; to the other, the malice of the Zanaan. If we kowtow they will hit us with just as much violence. If we can bloody a nose as they break our bones, then so be it. Better that than to leave this world cowering like a cur under its master’s whip. A week ago I feared for the safety of my family. This week I have nothing worth losing. Is there a way out of this? I don’t know. But I do know there’s a way out of this camp. In two days’ time I, along with perhaps a dozen others, will be taking it. Under the dark and cloudy skies I will slink away to the hills behind our ruined city, to fight for others’ families until I meet my own again.
 
 
 
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With a crash Jim Astro landed on the sandy shore, the fifth such landing this year. Beaches, cliffs, fields, swamps, jungles, deserts... in the past two years he’d seen them all.
He checked his chronograph. Two and a half years, almost. Time moved fast when you jumped. No time to settle, no time to put down roots.
He’d brought so little with him. There was always a lag between landing and his stuff arriving. And there was always something missing.
He looked up and down the strange shore. If past experience was anything to go by, he had only a few weeks to assimilate. If he didn’t work out the local culture and customs quickly, if he put a foot wrong, the jumping process would start again. He’d be gone before he could settle in.
A brackish stream ran through the sand to the waves. From somewhere inland, he heard the sounds of a small village. Loud, rambunctious sounds. He knew this could be a celebration, the sounds of everyday life, or something much darker. It wouldn’t be the first time he arrived at a new place in the middle of An Incident. He thought back to the time he’d arrived in the middle of what looked like a riot. The locals were rampaging, throwing things and yelling obscenities and trying to escape. He hadn’t known what to do, but he knew he had to pick a side. He’d never been in a place where you could afford to be alone.
Later that very week he’d jumped again.
The back of his neck prickled. He took a deep breath and walked upstream.
*  *  *
He’d done well, considering. Usually, the cracks started showing within the first few weeks. He’d been here almost six months. He as getting the hang of it, he was sure. All his belongings had arrived weeks ago. He’d made one or two mistakes, upset the locals a few times. But they didn’t forget. Mistakes led to errors, led to misunderstandings, led to more mistakes. Mistakes were fine, mistakes were expected. His problem was he didn’t know how to correct them afterwards. He tried, he always tried, but every effort made things worse. That was the problem with jumping, the problem with being in a strange land; the rules were always changing. What worked in one place didn’t work in another. How was he ever expected to learn? And now another jump was imminent. Perhaps if he ran away they wouldn’t be able to make him jump.
No. He’d tried that before. They always caught him, and he risked jumping further, or, worse, jumping to a place he couldn’t escape from.
Better to let them take control. Better to let them decide where he jumped to, and try to make the next landing work.
A hand rested on his shoulder. A new pilot, one he didn’t recognise. One he didn’t know. Another person to suss out, another relationship to build and understand before they got sent away. Sometimes he thought it wasn’t worth the effort, but he needed them as much as he resented them interfering ad then leaving.
“Darren? Hi, I’m Laura. I’m your new social worker. I’ll be taking you to your new placement. It’s a long drive, would you like to stop for a coffee on the way? We could get to know each other.”
 
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It's eight-thirty am and I'm already on my second energy drink. I should have finished yesterday's shift at four thirty pm, but I didn't leave the home until ten past eight. By the time I got to my own home my wife had fed our kids, bathed them and put them to bed. My dinner wasn’t the only thing cold. "You spend more time at work than at home these days," she says, and I have nothing to argue back with. I'd already agreed to go in to work early today to cover a staff member who was either sick or had quit. One often leads to the other and nobody's heard from him for a week, longer than he's actually worked for us. I doubt we'll see him again.
My mind snaps back to the road. I'm certain I'm not fit to drive. Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” screams at me from the speakers. Yesterday I started work at seven-thirty am, having slept in at the home the previous night. I should have been in bed half an hour before midnight, but the kids were up until two fighting each other, fighting us, and trashing the place. It was gone half past three in the morning before we finished the paperwork. "You’ll get the hours back" my manager assures me.
Yeah. Right.
It goes on to my timesheet as overtime, which may or may not be paid as such once my rota has been worked out for the month. Overtime is time-and-a-quarter, paid once we work over forty-two hours a week calculated as part of a rolling six-week average and received a month in lieu. After ten years in the industry, I’m still not on a regular salary and still don’t fully understand how my pay is worked out. Still, it pays the bills. Well, most of them. Most months. All I know is, with every payslip, I can’t help feeling short-changed.
As I pull my car into the drive I see one of the maintenance staff boarding up the broken kitchen window. His colleague is ordering a replacement pane over the phone. Neither has bothered to measure. The company owns five homes, and the maintenance staff know each window’s measurements by heart.
Longhope is our biggest home. It’s a large, detached house with two bedrooms for children, a large bathroom, and a staff sleep-in room on the first floor. The ground floor comprises two further bedrooms, the office (which doubles as the second sleep-in room), the kitchen, a bathroom, two lounges and a conservatory. In the large garden is what’s best described as a summer house, referred to as ‘the shed’, which is used as the manager’s office. All our houses are named rather than numbered. All are remote enough from any neighbours that we do not keep any of them awake at night. As I switch the engine off I hear a smash and a "Fuck off cunt!" and reconsider my decision to park right outside the house. Instead, I park on the road and walk the short driveway. Overlooking each car park the company has attached a sign to the home warning it takes no responsibility for damage caused to any cars, including those of staff. This should read ‘especially’ the cars of staff. We lose a few staff each year after one child or another has written their car off. Nobody believes the company will be so blasé about their car until they try to claim a penny for the damage. The company has several times paid for repairs to the cars of social workers, Youth Offending Service workers and representatives of Local Authorities –anyone who can cost them money by refusing to place any further children at the home or threaten to sue them. Staff are neither. “Those are the types of kids you chose to work with,” is the standard response.
I park my car on the road and lock it. The weak May sun drips onto my back. The day looks warmer than it is. By the time I’ve walked back up the drive two staff members are holding the child, Mikey, as a third removes a large stone from his grip. "Cunt!" is screamed twice more before I reach the front door, along with a “Paedophile!” or two for good measure. One of the maintenance men is now ordering a bathroom window from the glazier. I can’t be certain but I think I hear the phrase “little mad bastard” as he redials. He knows the measurements for that one too, every bit as well as the glazier knows the route to Longhope. Both nod at me as I pass.
As I enter the front door Mikey -who barely comes up to my shoulder, but is as scrawny as an alley-cat and just as fierce when cornered- kicks and punches at staff. When he realises he is being held too securely to do this he spits instead. Both staff have been with us for several months now and already have become used to this. Once he begins to tire Mikey will stop struggling and introduce the threats. Threats to get the staff fired for touching him (within five minutes they will both repeatedly be called “paedophiles” again), and threats to “knock them the fuck out” once he gets free.  Mikey is a fairly typical kid in care: wiry, dressed in a hooded tracksuit and a too-big baseball cap, angry at everything and with a history of neglect and abuse newcomers to the industry have difficulty comprehending.
Another child, Tom, paces the hallway deciding whether or not to join in with what's happening outside. Tom has been with us for five weeks. He arrived with less than a week’s warning, and our exiting therapist quickly diagnosed him as being on the autistic spectrum. We are currently making notes on his behaviour - any patterns or triggers we see, successful behaviour management strategies, what activities he enjoys, how he builds relationships with staff, and any other significant behaviours we observe. The therapist used the first four week’s notes to write a “Therapeutic Interventions and Behaviour Support Structures” plan.  She will present and read through it at this week’s team meeting. It’ll be her last before leaving for a better-paid post outside the company. As ever the behaviour support plan, which is what everyone calls it, will be the staff observations we submitted. She’ll collate them into a document spiced up with extra jargon, and add a summary of the generic therapeutic approaches the company uses across its homes. She’ll take a good ten minutes to explain it to us as if we’ve never seen it before. Most of them are out of date before they are printed. The company’s policy is to produce these documents within the first twenty-eight days of a placement. It looks ‘pro-active’ and ‘efficient’. In reality, every child goes through a settling-in period, and the vast majority of the behaviours they show us in the first month or so are their way of finding out where the boundaries are and which staff are the most manipulable. Once they know, and once they feel safe enough in the placement to express themselves, their behaviours change dramatically – often within a week of the plan being written. But that doesn’t matter. Producing a behaviour management document within twenty-eight days looks good and keeps the social workers happy. If ever you need to demonstrate to a professional you’re doing something, show them a report.
I warn Tom, if he does interfere with Mikey’s incident I'll confiscate his Playstation for a week and inform his Youth Offending Service worker. He tells me to “fuck off”, but goes to his room anyway. I wait long enough to be certain he is not going to come back out, unlock the office door, and open another energy drink.
Tracey Beaker this is not.

​
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The estuary was wide and brown and flat. Stalky grass grew in awkward tufts through the mud. If you didn’t know this piece of headland you’d expect to be walking on solid earth. Above the murky waters an overcast sky glowered, sulky clouds grey and low.
Aaron’s rod perched on his rest, his newspaper sprawled on his lap. His green canvas seat creaked as he shifted his weight. It was quiet out here. There was the breeze. Lapping waves. The rumble of traffic from the bridge.
Footsteps squelched from behind. Creeping, almost. Aaron looked over his shoulder. He didn't recognise the face.
"Allright mate, how's it going?" Not a local accent.
"Not too bad. Nice day for it. Could do with a bit more sun, though." The stranger didn’t answer, only rocked on his heels. One hand stayed in the back pocket of his jeans, and his eyes flickered from Aaron to the road at the sound of every passing car. Aaron tried again. "What's your name, but?"
"Spi- Simon. Caught much?"
"Simon. Aaron. Pleased to meet you. Where you from?"
"Just visiting. Staying in the town."
"Ah, one o' the b n' b's on Alexandra Road, yeah?"
"Sure."
"Tidy. They're all pretty decent down there."
"Sure. This a good spot? How many have you caught?"
"Me? Ho ho. Let me show you something."
He leaned forward and picked up the rod. The multiplier whirred like a showroom model as he cranked the handle. Metre by metre he reeled in the fishing line until it was clear of the water.
"You've lost the hook."
"Don't use 'em. Don't like fish. But I can't drink, see. Diabetes, my doctor said. And we've no garden in the flat. I only work part time, to top up my pension. Wife's the same. Love her to bits, we've been together nigh-on forty years, you know. But she can't stand me being under her feet when we're both off work. So I comes down twice a week for a break."
"Why fish?"
"It's quiet. And out of the way. By the time you've parked up in the layby, traipsed across the grass and mud... I'm surprised you came out here. There's a car park nearer the other bank further up. You must have missed it. Anyway, the wife, her sister's a carer. Looks after old people at home. Their own homes, you know. Drives back and forth over that bridge a dozen times a day. She'll let the old girl know if I'm not here." He proffered his flask to the stranger. "Tea?"
"No thanks, mate. Just looking around checking out who's here. I'll be off."
"Oh. Right. Well, take care. Enjoy the rest of your holiday."
"Yeah, yeah."
Spider backed away from the lucky old man. He released his grip on the blade in his back pocket. Fishing was a blood sport, and those who took blood should be prepared to lose their own.
 
 
 
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​The note -handwritten, unusual in this day and age- had been brief, and cryptic. ‘19:10 between the fountain and the pond. Red scarf'.
Which fountain? Which pond? Would his contact wear the red scarf? Should he? He didn't own a red scarf, so he'd made do with a red hand towel, cut lengthways.
This park, this open space with nowhere to hide, was the only one he knew of with a fountain and a pond in sight of each other. An elliptical path bound the features. During the day, it was an endless loop for joggers. Few used it this late in the evening. Right now a single man occupied it, exercising some sort of yellow dog. A retriever? A Labrador? Whatever. Something big and meaty.
It was already twenty past. The breeze stiffened under the darkening sky. Despite the chill, Mr Banks was sweating. He tugged at his scarf.
He'd arrived alone, as asked. Every shadow hid a detective waiting to pounce. Every person he'd passed was an undercover cop.
It was a stupid prohibition, when you thought about it. But the Animal Care Act recognised all animals as sentient beings. And the Humanitarian Ethics Act, just a few years younger, granted all sentient beings the right to life.
The society's reputation was that of a body of people unafraid to use their canines for the purpose God intended. He remembered the solid, satisfying taste of meat from his boyhood. None of the synthesised concoctions on offer could replicate it.
He’d gleaned what scant information he had from message boards, and oblique references on desolate blogs. His contact, known only by the username flashing on-screen in secure chatrooms, didn’t give much away. Mr Banks had no idea where they were based, what sorts of people joined, or even how big the society was. But common sense told him the society had to be disciplined. And cautious.
They were watching him, he was certain. Checking he hadn't been followed. This was a test. They wanted to see him, check if he'd stick to their instructions.
He'd wait, show himself, prove he was alone. After thirty minutes he'd leave, and at home there'd be another enigmatic letter with further instructions.
Twenty-five past. A despondent breeze tugged brown curls of leaves in its wake. He kicked some away from his shoe, watched them drift into the gloom.
The winter-silent fountain was as stark as the deciduous skeletons encircling it. They lined the pond too, a blank stare gazing at the sky.
Half past. Nothing. No buzzing of the phone set to silent in his pocket. No note slipped into his pocket, no blood-red flash of a stranger's throat.
The dog walker made another pass. Mr Banks avoided eye contact, made a non-committal gesture: a nod that could mean anything from ‘good evening', to ‘nice dog', to ‘don't speak to me'.
The walker trundled out of his vision. He turned on his heel to face the distant gates. Another sigh, and he started walking. A few crunches of gravel. Three concrete slaps. The softness of grass.
A dozen steps. That was as far as he got before the hand clapped on his shoulder, stopping his heart.
“Mr Banks.”
He tried answering. The words snagged on his scarf. The hand gripped his shoulder, turning him around.
A slash of red at the throat. The dog walker opened his top coat button, showing the red scarf beneath.
Mr Banks smiled.
“Yes. Yes, that's me. Mr Banks. And you are?”
The stranger ignored his hand, shaking his shoulder instead. 
“Come with me. You can call me Mr Maumi.”
The stranger didn't wait. Mr Banks trotted the first steps to catch up.
“So, where we're going, is it far? Should I keep my scarf on?”
“Drink this.”
The stranger thrust a thumb-sized bottle at him.
“What is it?”
“Drink. Or stay here. I really don't care.”
Mr Banks took the liquid. He unscrewed the cap. Sniffed. Odourless. He swallowed it in one go.
Another test.
They left the park in silence.
 
*  *  *
 
Four blocks. Five blocks. Six blocks, into an area of the city he'd never been to before. Buildings swung left and right. The moon was a rippled puddle.
Mr Banks' head drifted around his mind. If he lost the stranger, he'd never find him again. He could wander for hours before finding anything familiar. Even the park was a vague memory, mud at the bottom of a pond.
An alley, oil-slick puddles and reeking of urine. Sirens, moaning a distant refrain. A mound of flattened detritus that may have been a person.
“Where are we?”
“Almost there.”
His stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten since breakfast. He wanted to savour every bite of whatever meat they served.
Wheezing. The dog strained against her collar, breath ragged.
“Why don't you get a harness?”
The stranger shrugged.
“No point.”
He yanked the dog's chain, dragging her back to heel. The animal made a coughing sound, and lurched forward again.
“Why join,” asked the stranger.
Mr Banks stumbled.
“Um. Well, it's a human rights issue. If you don't want to eat meat that's fine. But there's no reason to stop other responsible adults from doing so.”
“Food fascism.”
“Exactly. Why should we be made to feel bad for doing what our bodies were designed to do?”
Mr Maumi’s teeth glinted.
“That's what I say.”
“As long as it's killed humanely, what's the issue?”
Another smile. Mr Maumi looped the dog's chain, pulling her closer.
“An unpopular opinion. Must make mealtimes difficult.”
“Oh, I don’t have any family. None I’ve seen for ages, anyway. Nobody local.”
The tangle of alleys knotted around them. Mr Banks' felt like a weighted balloon. Helium on top, sandbag legs. He suppressed a yawn.
“So, when do we eat?”
“Soon enough. What's your definition of ‘humane'?”
“Killing the animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. Drug it maybe, to keep it relaxed. Stun it. Then a quick slash to the throat and it's all over. How does the society get the meat? I know you don't know me, so I understand if you don't want to tell me. But I am curious.”
“Tough times. I don't know if we'll ever reverse that stupid piece of legislation. People have moved on. Some people. We still believe in freedom. We have to go get it, bring it back ourselves. But there's freedom in subterfuge.” He pulled the dog closer again. “Once you've crossed the line, you're free to do as you please. We used to eat beef, lamb, pork, chicken. They took all that away. So we took matters into our own hands. Why stop at those boring staples, raised on the cheapest feed and almost tasteless? Real meat is free, unrestrained. Every piece should have its own taste. And, when nothing’s farmed, you have to eat what you can.”
Something rattled the darkness of the alley. A rat? A cat. The dog stopped, and cocked its ears. A pigeon fluttered its wings on a windowsill above them. For a second, the grey moon flashed a gull’s silhouette through the gap between the tall buildings.
“So many flavours to try,” said Mr Maumi.
Mr Banks nodded.
More gulls, cawing in the moonlight. The sound of lapping water. They were near the docks, at a small entrance to a large warehouse. Mr Maumi took a set of keys from his pocket. He handed the chain to Mr Banks.
“Here. Hold this.”
Mr Banks did as he was bidden.
The key cast a shadow on the ground. It rippled across an oily puddle as Mr Maumi stepped up to the dark, metal door. A padlock the size of Mr Banks’ fist held it shut. The mechanism creaked and groaned as the key prised it open. A short chain clanged against the door, echoing off the close warehouse walls. The hinges screeched as Mr Maumi pushed the door open.
The dog twitched. Mr Banks stared into the doorway. Something, some unidentifiable smell, wafted out. The dog whined.
The darkness was thick and greasy. Not even moonlight dared enter.
“Come in. Bring the dog.”
“Is this… where we meet?”
“We’ve already met. It’s where we eat.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Scary building, huh? Everyone gets nervous when they get here. This whole wharf is disused. Used to be an old meatpacking warehouse. Animals came in the front, food came out the back.”
“I’m not sure about this.”
Something clicked in the darkness of the alley. Something that wasn’t in Mr Maumi’s hand before. He pointed it at Mr Banks.
“It’s too late to back out. Get in the building. Slow steps, in front of me. Bring the dog.”
Mr Banks dropped the leash. If the dog ran off, that second could be all he needed to turn and run.
The chain clanked to the floor. The leather loop splashed into a puddle. The dog trotted over to Mr Maumi. Mr Banks’ concrete legs refused to move.
Mr Maumi wagged the gun in the direction of the door.
“You can’t run. The drugs make sure of that. And where would you go? You’re lost. There’s no-one here to report a gunshot.”
“People will come looking. My name’s not Mr Banks.”
“I know, Alan Stephens. You live alone in an apartment you own. No mortgage lender or landlord to come looking for money. You have no girlfriend. Your mother passed away several years ago. You don’t speak to your father.”
Hands trembling, Alan’s shoes crunched over the loose gravel escaping the cracks in the tarmac. They sloshed through the puddle and took him over the threshold. Heavy shapes lurked in the shadows. Before his eyes could adjust, the door clanked shut and he was in absolute darkness.
Something crackled behind him. A sharp, electric sound. A blue-white flash threw his shadow on to the skeletons of chains and hooks hanging from the iron beams. He turned. Before he could call out, the Taser bit into his neck.
 
*  *  *
 
Pat. Pat. Pat.
Mr Maumi looked up from his plate. The dog knew not to beg when he was eating. Instead, it had taken to lapping up the drips as they fell to the tarmac sheet.
It wasn’t an elegant meal. A slab of meat fried in an old frying pan on a camping stove, a few mushrooms tossed on the side. But, you had to eat what you could catch nowadays.
He put the plate on the floor. The dog came trotting over to clean it.
He opened his laptop. It would take several hours to gut and joint the carcass, giving him enough meat to fill his chest freezer. The river would wash away the entrails. The screen threw a ghoulish light into his features.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
 
 
 
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He sat alone at the occasional table in his living room. Desolate crumbs and a streak of marmalade littered his plate. As always, he was up with the dawn. He watched the birds attack the leftovers he’d laid out for them. Only the large pane separated him from the world. It was enough. He took his plate into the kitchen, ran half a sink of water and washed the plate. He dried it, put it away, and returned to the living room.
On his way past he looked out the dining room window. Parked across the road was a Royal Mail van. Good. He hated sitting around, looking for something to fill the day until they arrived.
Minutes later the businesslike knock he’d been waiting for brought him to the front door. He smoothed his hair with his hands, adjusted his shirt and prepared his smile. He opened the door.
“Good morning. Parcel for you.”
“Thank you.”
He took the proffered stylus and scrawled his signature on the little screen. He hated the way the stylus slid around, making his writing look like someone else’s. Still, he kept the smile until the postman left.
The smile grew into a grin once he’d shut the front door. The old desk in the dining room was now his workspace. It wasn’t a dining room anymore. He ate most of his meals at the occasional table in the living room, the rest in front of the TV.
The desk itself was almost empty. Only a photo of his ex-wife stayed next to his laptop when he wasn’t working. He placed the brown cardboard box next to it. From the top drawer, he took a letter opener. With a series of smooth, careful actions he worked his way through the packing tape at the top and both ends, making sure not to touch the contents. At the top of the box, in a brown envelope, was a docket detailing the contents. He opened it, and took note of how many smaller packages should be inside. He counted them out. Then he put them back in.
Not many. Not enough for a day’s work, but enough to keep him busy into the afternoon.
He turned on the laptop and loaded his employer’s website.
Freelance colleagues please sign in here.
He clicked the text, then typed his ID and password into the pop-up.
Please wait.
While the blue ‘almost there’ disc span, he took the packages out of the box. There were seven. He laid them in a neat line to the right of his laptop.
Please scan today’s itinerary.
Each package had a white barcode label stuck to the rear. He held each in turn, in front of his webcam, watching the hourglass turn into a green tick before raising the next one. After that, he held the letter to the camera.
Consignment complete and authorised. Please ensure all repairs are complete by 09:00 am tomorrow. A courier will arrive between the hours of 09:30 and 10:30.
He opened each small package and placed the phones on top of their envelopes. He wrinkled his nose at the last one, put it back in its envelope and pushed it to one side. He’d deal with that last. With all the phones in a neat row, he left the desk and went into the kitchen.
There wasn’t much to see in his garden. He looked out the kitchen window as the kettle boiled. A patio led to a trimmed lawn. A thin border ran around it. He’d not planted anything in there this year. Gardening had been his wife’s passion, not his. He was going to seed the border in the spring, have the grass from fence to fence. All he needed was the bird table.
The click of the kettle boiling brought him back. He made a pot of tea and put it on a tray. He placed a china cup saucer next to it, and carried the tray back to the dining room. A side table stood next to the desk, and it was there he put the tray. He turned on the DAB. Radio Four as always. He sipped his tea, and sat down to begin his work.
He took a small tray filled with screwdrivers of all types and a USB cable from the top drawer of the desk. A range of adaptors for different phone types sat next to the cable. Then he worked through the collection of broken phones sitting atop their envelopes. Most were in need of physical repairs. Broken screens, unresponsive buttons and worn headphone jacks took up the majority of his time. There were a few firmware issues that required some tricky debugging via the laptop, but even those didn’t take too long. After each repair he put the phone back into its envelope and scanned the barcode again, marking each one as complete. Then he put each envelope back in the box.
He never noticed the time pass when he was engrossed in his work, and it took his stomach rumbling to stop him. He checked his watch. Lunchtime. He made himself a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and ate in front of the news.
Big Pharma was everywhere. The reporters might not have come out and said so, but he knew. They owned the politicians dismantling the NHS, and the healthcare companies picking over its carcass. They controlled the supply and the price of medicines the world over. They influenced the media and politicians, and suppressed all views contradicting their own. They had brainwashed almost the entire human race into believing their rhetoric of drugs being the cure for all ills. Even his dear Jenna had clung to her belief in drugs and chemo, right until the end.
He scowled, and turned the TV off. Thank God for the Internet, where open-minded people like himself could learn, research and discuss their discoveries. He left his half-eaten sandwich on the plate and went back into the dining room.
The final envelope. He turned her photo away before opening it.
The phone was white, or had been when new. The edges were now a shade of grey, with yellowy marks. The screen had one of those adhesive protectors on, but it was slick with nicotine. He imagined some great ox of a bloke frowning as he exhaled clouds of noxious smoke over the device, jabbing at the screen with fingers clamped to a cigarette.
He opened the bottom drawer and lifted the false bottom. Hidden therein was a small Ziploc bag. Inside those were several identical devices. To anyone else, they’d look like standard mobile phone components.
Through his reading, he’d come to realise everything in creation had a rhythm. People had biorhythms. Animals had them. Plants had them. Crystals had their own. Mains electricity cycled at fifty hertz. Mobile phones transmitted their signals at bands between eight hundred and fifty, and two-thousand, one hundred Mhz. Cancer, he’d learned, occurred when the unnatural rhythms in the environment overcame the body’s natural biorhythms. Cancer, like most diseases, preyed on such weakened states. Cancer had its own rhythm, forcing cells to multiply too fast.
Energetics was the word for it. Unnatural substances -processed foods, drugs (yes, even caffeine), alcohol- all weakened the body’s ability to maintain its rhythm; its own refresh rate, if you like. Alter that rate, say by interrupting the cells’ natural rate with a high-frequency chip operating beyond the human auditory range, and the cells reproduced much more quickly. Malignant cells, such as those stimulated by the carcinogens this nicotine addict inhaled daily.
Life is a gift, one that ought not to be squandered so readily. All he was doing, really, was to speed up the inevitable. Loading the dice a little, so the gambler lost sooner rather than later. And when enough people lose, fewer people choose to gamble. He inserted the little gold pillow next to the earpiece, plugged the USB cable into the phone’s socket and launched the diagnostic tools. And while the blue ‘almost there’ disc span in the centre of the screen he poured another cup of tea.
 
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