Pecking Order (34 page)

As Eric concluded his speech, he glanced to his right. A silver Polo going in the opposite direction sped past them. 'OK, we'll be at the subject's property in about twenty minutes.'

The group slowly trudged across the open field, making a beeline for the glowing windows of the farmhouse in the distance. Three of the men had baseball bats balanced over their shoulders. They looked like a bunch of American dads making their way home from the ballpark. The woman walked alongside them, a baseball bat held in each hand. Childishly she swished the tip of each through the long grass. Behind them all was the last man. He was carrying a large hold-all and a petrol can.

Eric parked a few streets away and led Rubble to a patch of waste ground, wonky football posts spanning a muddy crater at one end. The railway line lay behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. After pacing alongside the barrier for a few dozen metres. Eric spotted a section at the base that had been partially bent back by kids or animals.

‘Agent White - make that gap larger and we'll proceed to the back of the subject's flat.'

Rubble fell to his knees and ripped the fence upwards.

'Enough,' said Eric and they both squeezed through.

Clare's flat was at the other end of the short terrace of bungalows, along the back of which ran a shoulder-high fence made up of wooden panels embedded in a concrete base. As they made their way along the grass verge between the fence and the tracks, they had to step over old mattresses and negotiate their way round broken microwaves, battered old hoovers and countless bags of rubbish that had been tipped there by the occupants of the properties beyond. Stamping down a patch of thistles directly behind Clare's flat, Eric was easily able to peer over the top of the fence and look at the kitchen window. A dull glow shone from deep within.

'OK the subject appears to be in,' stated Eric. Beside them the rails began to faintly ping and whine. It was a strange noise, like the sound of a stone bouncing over an ice-covered lake. From his pocket he removed a stubby screwdriver. 'Use this to dig out the putty. Hurry, a train is coming.'

Rubble snatched the screwdriver, gripped the handle in his teeth and vaulted silently over the fence. Eric watched as he bounded across the small concrete yard up to the kitchen window. He crouched there, screwdriver poised at the ready. The noise being carried along the rails steadily increased in volume, the pings becoming louder and merging together so that, when he finally heard the train engine itself, the parallel bands of metal sounded alive. A second later, the train nosed round the curve in the track, a hurtling torpedo of yellow light. Eric raised a hand to shield his face as it raced past, slack-faced passengers framed for an instant between his fingers.

The noise died away and he peeped back over the fence. Rubble was still squatting below the level of the window, now prising out putty with the screwdriver. Several minutes later the rails started to sing again. Eric dropped to his knees as a heavier, slower train appeared, more guttural in its tone. The diesel engine chugged by, dragging behind it an immense and thundering procession of freight carriages. When Eric looked back over the fence, he saw Rubble removing one of the lower panes of glass and reaching inside to release the window handle. It opened outwards and he lifted himself up into the gap.

Placing a foot on the edge of the sink, Rubble climbed carefully across it and dropped out of Eric's sight into the kitchen beyond. With knees flexed and feet placed far apart on the lino floor, he remained motionless, frowning at the heavy, smoke-filled atmosphere.

Outside, the last carriages of the freight train trundled past. Rubble stood and moved to the kitchen door. The sitting room was lit softly by a strange lamp with moving globules of what looked to Rubble like egg yolk inside. He stared at the posters on the walls. A silhouette of a man with his fist raised upwards. There was writing underneath it. The first word was, Che. After that, Rubble couldn't understand any of it. But he recognised the other posters easily enough. A hammer and sickle on a red background. And another poster stamped with the letters, CCCP. Symbols of a hostile power. An enemy of his country.

He moved into the room and was edging towards the door in the corner when he spotted the girl lying face down on a rug in front of the gas fire. By her head blackened knives formed a cross on the hearth. Her face was turned to one side, eyes shut and saliva glistening at the corner of her slightly open mouth. Rubble stepped round the sofa and stood over her, one foot on each side of her waist.

Then, in one swift movement, he sat down on the small of her back, hooked a forearm under her throat and gripped the top of her left shoulder. With his other hand he cupped her chin, forcing her head up and to the side. Just like the diagram in his magazine on the SAS. Then he bent her body backwards, raising her up to his bowed head. Her eyes had opened wide and she reached with feeble hands to where his forearm was crushing her windpipe.

Pressing his lips close to her ear he hissed, 'Die subv ... subs ...' He struggled with the unfamiliar word. 'Subersive!'

Then he wrenched his hands in opposite directions. Her neck instantly gave way with a loud click and he found himself looking into her eyes, even though her body was still facing the carpet. He dropped her lifeless form back to the floor. Then he removed the syringe from his pocket and emptied its contents into the vein in her neck. Standing back up, he looked at the armchair beside him. A cardboard box lay there and balanced on a small stack of files inside was a pencil-case made from clear plastic. Rubble peered at the feather inside, recognising it as the same type the chickens had on his farm. Glancing towards the kitchen door to check Agent Orange couldn't see, he unzipped the case, took the feather out and carefully placed it in the front pocket of his overalls. A memento for his caravan.

As soon as his feet touched the ground on the other side of the fence, Eric grasped him by the upper arm. 'Did you kill her?' he whispered, looking desperately into Rubble's eyes.

'Yeah. Broke her neck. And stuck her with the syringe.'

Rubble thought Eric had collapsed as he suddenly crouched down, hands going up to the sides of his face.

'Are you all right, Sir?' He wondered whether to hook his hands under the other man's armpits and haul him back to his feet.

Eric breathed deeply several times and stood up. 'I'm fine Agent White,' he said, wiping his face while weighing up the syringe in his jacket pocket with his other hand. 'Time to take you home.'

They stood behind the hen-coop at the bottom of the landscaped grounds while the heavy-duty zip of the holdall slowly creaked open. A full-sized chicken suit was pulled out and handed to the woman. Off to the side, one of the men was carefully soaking two lengths of rag in petrol. The woman climbed into the suit and, holding the head under one arm, said, 'If this goes wrong, I've got no chance. Forget running, I can hardly walk in this.' She began raising up one of the massive foam feet in explanation.

Her companions were all pulling on black balaclavas.

'Don't worry about it. The only person who won’t be doing any walking after tonight is the bastard in there,' said one, nodding towards the farmhouse.

Chapter 54

After doing a slow circuit of the village green, Clare came to a halt by the red phone box outside the post office. She got out and walked up the stone ramp to the front door. A small sign with a Consignia logo said, Closed.

Clare began looking at the bits of paper pinned to the noticeboard in the front window.

'Aquarium for sale. 20" x 18" x 12". Includes pump, gravel and stand. No fish. £30 o.n.o.'

‘Baby sitter. Responsible and mature. 16 years old. £6 per hour.'

Then, at the bottom of the notice board she saw the words 'Egg collectors wanted.' She read on. 'Enquire at Embleton farm. Good rates of pay. Call any day between 11 and 12 o'clock.' In the corner of the piece of card was a small map, showing Embleton farm to be just down the road leading back to the motorway.

Clare got back in the Polo and drove out of the village. A minute later she passed a narrow lane and immediately after it saw a sign at the head of a tarmacked drive. Embleton Farm. Private Property. She parked in front of the gates and, leaving the headlights on, climbed back out. A small camera mounted on top of one of the gateposts looked down at her as she searched for a buzzer or some sort of intercom device. Nothing. The Polo's headlights shone down the driveway, illuminating a row of fir trees. Above them she could just make out the tops of two dark bottle-like shapes. Grain silos, she guessed.

Flicking the headlights off, she picked a lighter from out of the glove compartment, locked the car and climbed over the metal gates. As she walked along the driveway her trainers creaked in the silent night air. Soon the road began to slope downwards, curling behind the fir trees and ending at a sort of office building with metal shutters covering the windows. Wooden palettes were stacked by a side door, and she could tell no one lived inside.

'Where's the sodding farmhouse?' she said to herself, squinting at the pair of long, low sheds before her. Pacing slowly along between them, she could hear the hum of extractor fans and every so often the sharp smell of ammonia floated past her. She came to the end of the sheds and stopped, tapping one foot impatiently against the sandy ground. To her left was a small fenced off area, to her right a copse of trees and behind them the faintest smudge of something white. A narrow path led into the trees and she stepped tentatively along it, barely able to see her feet until she emerged on the other side by a caravan. Debris littered the ground surrounding it and, as she approached, she could make out a mass of long, thin shapes adorning its side.

The two Range Rovers were parked side-by-side. Beneath each one was a man. They were both busily cutting into the vehicles’ fuel pipe and plugging the jagged hole with a soaking rag. In the shadows on each side of the front door the other two men waited.

'Check out the number plates,' whispered one. Both vehicles began with the numbers 1 and 3, but the digits had been positioned so close together they looked like the letter 'B'. The rest of the registrations read, 'ABY l' and 'ABY 2'.

'Sad twat,' his mate replied.

The woman stood by the fountain, vision now drastically reduced by the two small eyeholes. Her knees trembled inside the suit.

'Hello?' Clare called out. 'Anybody in?' No reply. Stepping closer, she flicked the lighter and saw the objects on the side of the caravan were a mass of severed animal tails. A shiver went right down to her coccyx. It had to be Rubble's home. Awkwardly, she tried the little handle on the door and it swung open.

'Hello?' she called again, louder this time. When no one replied she stepped inside, immediately aware of the musty aroma. In the main part of the caravan she flicked the lighter on again and could just make out the stacks of comics and magazines straining from the shelves all around. On the table was a pile of ripped paper. A picture of a female face, judging by the eye. Suddenly she felt the urge to be out of there. She turned round, walked back to the door and jumped off the low step, glad to breathe in the clean night air once again.

Unsure what to do next, she walked round to the top of the caravan and spotted the narrow lane leading towards the road. Unwilling to go back inside Rubble's home, she decided to find a pen and paper in the Polo and write him a note. She began striding up the track, feeling better and better as each step took her further away from the foul lair behind her.

The gravel crunched slightly as both men, on tip-toes, ran to their mates waiting by the front door of the farmhouse. A barely visible blue glow scurried up both lengths of cloth and seconds later the fuel tank of the left-hand Range Rover exploded with a roar. A moment later the second vehicle also went up, glass from a side window flying outwards and peppering the front of the house.

Clare looked up in surprise. Above the trees a short distance away two mushroom clouds of flame slowly rolled up into the sky. A burglar alarm started up, its shrill tone further shattering the quiet night. She quickened her pace, and a few metres later, could make out the road up in front. Headlights were approaching so she stood still, waiting for the vehicle to go past. Their shine grew brighter and, just as the car was about to sweep by, it slowed to a crawl.

The long burst of light flickered round the curtains, like an impossibly long flash of lightening. Suddenly, it doubled in strength and a sound like gravel being hurled against their windows made them all jump in their seats. The boy ran to the window, opened the curtains and stared, open-mouthed, outside.

Both Range Rovers were burning brightly and, lit by their fierce glow, was an enormous chicken. It started high stepping backwards and forwards, flapping its wings and jutting its head back and forth.

'It's...it's doing the funky chicken,' the boy said incredulously.

From behind him his father snarled, 'It's fucking dead more like!' He started towards the door.

‘Don't go out there!' his wife cried, trying to grab him.

'Get off me, woman!' he shouted, shaking himself free of her long-nailed grip, shirt tearing.

She fell back on to the sofa as he ran down the corridor and threw the front door open. A baseball bat swung out from the shadows and, with a hollow tack, connected with his left kneecap.

Rubble twisted round in his seat to look at the silver car parked at the top of the farm's driveway. A VW Polo. Eric began to slow down as they neared the turn-off for the narrow lane. Ahead and to their right twin balls of flame slowly rose up over the trees.

'That's Mr Wicks' house,' said Rubble, undoing his seat belt. 'It's on fire. Let me out!'

Eric scrutinised the explosions as they gradually turned inwards and consumed themselves. 'Wait - we must not be seen together. I'll drop you off on your lane and you can investigate once I'm gone.'