Thorn In My Side (24 page)

'They came in
the middle of the night over a year ago, he and his henchmen. They
murdered three of our brothers and herded the rest of us into the
Great Hall. This place is now the main drug factory for the whole
of the UK and God knows where else. Also, he deals in flesh, either
working the kids to death or selling them. That is the only reason
you are alive, to work. Because the work force has dwindled over
the last week.'

Clutching his
side, Danny swung his legs off the bed, 'How the hell do I get out
of this fucking nightmare? Sorry, Father.'

'You can walk
out the gate, but you wouldn’t get far. They would shoot you, and
one other.'

'What?'

'That is how he
keeps us here. Any attempts at escape and he not only kills the
escapee, he kills others. No one wants the death of a child on
their conscience. Some have committed suicide to be free, but now
even that brings death to others.'

'The ba… So
what happens now?'

'Now, seeing as
you can stand up, you go to work.'

'No way.'

Brother David
sighed. 'I’m sorry, but if you don’t work, then trust me, you will
be flogged.'

'Flogged? Where
am
I, Hell? We gotta get outta here, man… like right
now.'

'Have you not
heard a word I said?'

Danny sat back
down on the bed. 'This isn’t real. I’m in some sort of nightmare.
Some nasty bastard must have spiked my drink. That’s it, that’s
what’s the matter, I’m tripping off somewhere, aren’t I? You’re not
real, are you?' He gave a nervous laugh, while Brother David looked
sadly at him.

‘'Cos you see,
everything just keeps on getting worse. When you think it’s all
over, everything takes another fucking dip… sorry… so it can’t be
real, can it?' He shook his head, felt the pain again, winced, and
answered himself. 'No, it’s just a nightmare. I’ll wake up, and the
last few days won’t even have happened. Alicia will still be alive,
and Shelly… Shelly…' He grabbed hold of Brother David’s wrist. 'It
is real, isn’t it?'

Brother David
sighed, as he nodded. 'Come with me. And keep quiet. The less
attention you draw to yourself the better.' He’d thought about
telling Danny that help might just be on its way, but the young man
seemed rather hyper and could possibly blurt things out.
No,
best to keep quiet for all our sakes.

Frowning, Danny
got off the bed and followed Brother David. They walked down a long
panelled hallway, with at least a dozen doors leading off to each
side. As they closed in on the end door that faced them, Danny
could hear a low murmuring. Brother David opened the door, and
Danny gasped. The smell was over powering. 'Jesus,' he muttered,
looking at Brother David. 'Sorry.'

Brother David
shushed him.

'
Shh
?'
Danny muttered, taking a step back, 'you telling me to
shh
?
Five minutes in here, mate, and I’ll be high as a fucking kite…
Sorry.'

A man holding a
gun turned and glared at them. The blood left Danny’s face as he
gulped. It was the thug from the night before. The only
satisfaction Danny could glean from the whole episode was the two
black eyes the gunman sported. Seeing Danny, he snarled, lifted the
gun and pointed it at him.

Danny’s heart
missed a beat. He felt his legs buckle, but Brother David grabbed
him with a strong arm as the thug turned away from them. Danny
gasped, and Brother David put a finger to his lips as he moved him
down the hall.

Slowly Danny
looked around. There were at least fifty people in the large hall,
most of them teenagers, a lot of girls and a smattering of boys, a
few men and women. None of them lifted their heads to show any
interest in the newcomer. Some were bent over tables packing small
yellow tablets into tiny plastic bags, others were tending rows of
cannabis plants, while three small girls packed everything into
boxes.

Danny bit down
on a gasp. Every face looked devoid of emotion, as if all hope had
gone. All of them had large black panda eyes, as if they existed on
very little sleep.

No way,
man,
he mouthed at Brother David, who gestured for him to
follow. Silently, Danny did as he was bid. They walked to where the
three girls were loading the boxes. No one looked at them except
the guard. He followed them with his eyes, eyes that Danny could
feel boring into his back.

He thought in
the last forty-eight hours that he’d gone beyond terror, but
this!

This couldn’t
be happening.

This was
England.

This sort of
thing went on in third world countries, of this Danny had no doubt.
You heard about it on the news. Everyone had heard of the
sweatshops spread around the world. But not even those could be
half as bad as this stink pit.

Not
here.
He shook his head in denial.

Not in
England.

No way!

They stopped at
the end of the table where the girls were stacking the boxes.
Brother David pointed to two of them, both blondes. 'Come with
me.'

Fear sprang to
the dead faces. One of them, the smallest of the trio, with big
blue eyes, started to cry.

'Shh.' Brother
David gently patted her shoulder. He turned to Danny and nodded at
the remaining girl. 'She will show you what to do.' Taking the two
girls by their hands, both of them sobbing now as if they knew
where they were going was even worse than this, Brother David, his
shoulders slumped, walked away.

Danny stared at
the girl. Her face was expressionless as she watched her two
friends being led away.

He looked
around once more at the sad, dead faces surrounding him, and knew
he was truly in hell.

Securing the
lock on the gate so that Tiny couldn’t escape, Smiler followed Aunt
May out into the street. She needed to stock up on groceries, as
four new guests were due tomorrow, and she’d commandeered Smiler to
do the carrying. She and Smiler had had a long talk this morning,
and Smiler had been able to tell her a little about his past,
something he’d never been able to do before, not even to Mike.

It had made him
feel a lot better about himself as Aunt May had stressed, over and
over, than none of it was his fault, he had been a victim, and now
it was time to put it all behind him. The other stuff she hadn’t
mocked, telling him there were more things in heaven and earth, and
if he believed he was really having visions, well, that was fine by
her.

They entered
the shop and Smiler picked up a basket, dropping it a moment later.
He quickly shook his hand. It felt like he’d had an electric shock.
He eyed the basket suspiciously, while cautiously he wrapped his
fingers round the handles again.

Aunt May looked
at him oddly, as she stood with two bags of sugar in her hands. He
heaved a sigh of relief when nothing happened. Catching her eye, he
gave a wan smile, then started following her around the shelves.
When that basket was filled to overflowing, he took it to the front
of the shop and placed it on the counter.

The shopkeeper
stared at him, as he filled a knick-knack shelf with small
snowstorm scenes of Holy Island. Smiler hurried back to Aunt May
with another basket. He didn’t like the shopkeeper, he reminded him
a little of Snakes, same mean, nasty little eyes. When Aunt May had
filled the other basket, they both went to the front of the
shop.

'Are you coming
to the meeting tomorrow night?' the shopkeeper demanded. He looked
at Aunt May over the rims of his glasses while he checked her
shopping through his till.

'Not sure,'
Aunt May replied, picking one of the snow scenes up and shaking
it.

'Why?' he
asked, as if it was a foregone conclusion that everyone on the
island would be at the meeting in Berwick, and how dare this little
old woman say otherwise.

Smiler glanced
quickly at Aunt May.

She frowned at
the shopkeeper. 'That’s my business, don’t you think?' She looked
at him with one eyebrow raised.

'Well, if you
care enough about the island, you’ll surely want to be there, I
would have thought.'

'Why are you
stirring things up?' she asked bluntly.

'Because it’s
our heritage. The gospels belong here on Lindisfarne, not in
London.' He scowled at her, his hand itching to snatch the snow
scene off her.

'Well, guess
I’ll have to think about it, then.' She put the snow scene as far
out of his reach as possible, then paid cash for her shopping, gave
him a haughty look, and they left.

'I don’t like
him,' she said to Smiler, who was carrying the two heaviest bags.
'Don’t trust him either, that’s why I pay cash. He’s not getting
his hands on my card.'

Smiler had
never owned a card. What very little cash passed through his hands
did just that – pass through in a hurry. 'Not too keen on him
either, but what can he do with the card?'

'Ahh, see, they
can trace the metal strip, and find out everything about you. I
heard about it somewhere. They know what clothes you buy, what you
eat, where you go, everything.'

'Who’s
they?'

'You know.
Them. The government.'

Smiler shrugged
'I don’t think so.' He hid a smile as he changed the bags over, so
his left hand was carrying the heavier one, flexing the fingers of
his right hand where the handles had dug in, as again he tried not
to smile.

Aunt May was
deeply into conspiracy theories and regularly talked to people of a
like mind on the Internet. He’d found out that much last night, as
Mike had gently teased her.

As they slowly
walked back to the house, a dark-haired, heavy-set man, dressed in
a cream suit, lilac shirt and tie, and smoking a huge fat cigar,
passed them. Smiler felt a tingle start in his toes. He began to
shake and dropped the bags. He leaned against the wall, sweat
streaming from his brow.

'Are you all
right, son?' Aunt May asked, her voice full of concern, then
sighing as one of the bags of sugar spilled its contents onto the
ground.

Smiler shook
his head. He stared at the man’s back. He felt sick, and couldn’t
explain why.

Aunt May
followed Smiler’s eyes. 'He’s one of those foreigners up at the
castle,' she whispered. They watched as he walked into the
shop.

Aunt May took a
roll of kitchen paper covered in blue flowers out of her carrier
bag, tore it open and handed it to Smiler. Then she bent down to
pick up the spilt shopping, glad that the only damage was the bag
of sugar.

'Thanks,'
Smiler said, tearing a piece off the kitchen roll and mopping his
brow.

'What did you
see?'

Smiler sighed.
'Nothing.'

'Nothing?’ she
asked in dismay.

'A… a
blackness.'

Disappointed,
she said, 'I felt as if he was creepy.' She glanced quickly up the
street, then back at Smiler.

Smiler nodded.
'Sometimes that’s all there is. Everything goes black. Other times,
things come out of the blackness… terrible things.'

Cassie had
fought as hard as she could, managing to leave two large scratch
marks on Maria’s face. But there had been two of them in the back
of the car, and a rag filled with chloroform. She hadn’t stood a
chance. Even now she was still groggy. The large room they were in
kept swimming in and out of focus, and she had no recollection of
how she’d got there. All she knew was that she was terrified, and
wanted to go home. She wanted her mother’s arms around her, telling
her she was safe.

A big man with
long hair and a booming voice kept striding back and forth. Cassie
squinted, and realised that what she had first thought was a long
coat was actually a monk’s robe.

A monk!

Her heart
lifted. Monks were good people.

Will he help
me?
she wondered.

Monks are good
people.

He will, he
must.

Filled with
desperation, she tried to stand up to get his attention.
Surely
he can see me? He will help… Take me home.

Her efforts
were wasted. She was forced back into her seat by someone behind
her. Wriggling, she looked round.

A man with a
heavily pockmarked face and a black moustache, who stank of stale
cigarette smoke, leaned forward and whispered in her ear. 'If you
know what’s good for you, kid, you’ll keep very still and very,
very quiet.' Roughly, he took hold of her head and forced it to the
front.

'She is not the
one you were supposed to bring.' The monk was talking to someone
Cassie couldn’t see. She stared at him in fear. She could feel the
man’s fingers digging into her head, and she was terrified to move.
'Where is the one you showed me?' the monk said, his voice
rising.

'She… she
wouldn’t come. I had to bring this one to fill the quota,' a woman
replied, with a tremor in her voice that frightened Cassie even
more.

'Huh,' he
grunted, his lips curled in an arrogant snarl. 'How much does the
other one know?'

'Nothing,' the
woman said quickly. 'Nothing at all. The bitch just didn’t turn up
when she was supposed to.'

'So you picked
this one up off the street?'

'More or
less.'

'Did she come
quietly?'

'Yes, yes,' she
answered quickly. 'I know her.'

'Good.' He
swung his face to Cassie.

Terrified,
Cassie began to sob, quietly at first, then with huge heart-rending
gasps. 'Mum,' she whispered between sobs. 'Please take me
home.'

Smiling, he
walked over to her. 'This
is
your home now,' he said, as if
she was an orphan and had found refuge in a storm. 'We will take
care of you now.'

Horrified, she
shook her head. 'No. I don’t want you to. I have a home.' She was
shaking now, her pleas coming out in small gasps. 'Please,' she
begged, 'let me go home…Please. Please. Please, I want to go
home.'