Sacrifice Read online

He crawled a good twenty yards before he stopped. He spat into the dust, and cleared his throat, and wiped his mouth on his shirt-sleeve. Then he lay where he was and listened. He could hear the whining of the Mercedes’ transmission, and the crunching of its wheels through the field. Then it stopped, and its engine was switched off. It couldn’t have been very far away, because he could hear the slow ticking of its bodywork as it cooled down. He heard the doors opened, creaking on their hinges.

  ‘Did you see where he went?’ This, surprisingly, in American-accented English.

  ‘He’s lying low. But don’t worry about it, he can’t get away. Axel will find him.’

  Nicholas supposed that Axel was the lumpy-faced man whom he had seen smoking in the garden: the man who had followed him through the trees. He lay with his cheek against the earth, trying to suppress his panting. An amber centipede climbed up a mustard-stem only an inch or two in front of his nose. He supposed that this would be as good a place to die as any. He wondered what his mother would have thought, on the day that he was born, if she had been told that her new baby would die in Jutland, in just over 32 years, under a May sky, in a mustard field?

  Even now, all those miles away, his mother must be thinking something, doing something, tidying or tending her garden; and for a moment Nicholas squeezed his eyes closed and wished that it were possible to travel through time and space just by thinking about it. To open his eyes again, and find that he was standing in the garden in Colonial Heights, Virginia, that would be a miracle for which he would light a candle every day for the rest of his miraculously-preserved life.

  He could almost hear the garden swing creaking, and his mother saying, ‘Nicholas never eats enough; never did. All scrag, that boy. Good brains, but no body even worth arguing about.’

  But the creak of the garden swing was the creak of the Mercedes’ door; and the sounds of summer in Virginia were the footsteps of the two men in grey suits who were now crossing the field looking for him. He cleared his throat again, and wiped the sweat away from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘He can’t be far,’ said one of the men. Both of them stopped, then started walking again.

  ‘Axel!’ called the other.

  ‘All right, all right,’ replied the one called Axel, impatiently. ‘I saw him fall. He can’t be far away.’

  At that moment, the single bell in the red-tiled steeple of Sct. Jorgens Church began to peal; steadily, clearly, into the warm afternoon. Nicholas raised his head a little, and saw that the three men had now met up. One of them was physically vast: a huge-headed man whose suit stretched across his back like a tarpaulin over a truckload of packing-cases, but it was impossible to see his face because he was too far away, and he was wiping his forehead with a large blue handkerchief. The other two were quite ordinary: middle-aged, one of them wearing spectacles. The one called Axel was lighting another cigarette. The smoke hurried off to the east, over the tile-topped wall.

  Nicholas thought: if I make a run for it now, the chances are that I might surprise them. They might shoot at me, but even if they do, they can only have handguns, and by the time they’ve taken them out, and tried to aim them. I’ll be well out of accurate range. Tula-Tokarev automatics, probably; couldn’t hit a hippo unless it was sitting on your lap. He tried to think who had told him that, and then remembered, with a wash of bitterness. Charles Krogh.

  Well, he thought. It’s now, or it’s definitely never. And he was up and running before he even realized himself what he had done. Through the mustard, around the car, and across to the wall. None of the three men shouted at him, although he heard their heavy footsteps in pursuit. He reached the wall, gripped the edge of the tiles on the top of it, and dragged himself up the whitewashed rendering, his feet scrabbling against dust and grit. Then he rolled over, cracking two or three tiles as he went, and dropped straight into the churchyard. The bell was still pealing loudly, although he hadn’t heard it at all while he was running. He ran across the brick-paved yard, and around to the low, open doorway.

  Inside, it was cool, and so dark that he had to open his eyes wide to see what was happening. Down at the far end of the church, ten or eleven people were gathered, all dressed up in smart summer suits and flowery hats and buttonholes, and a baby was crying. A priest in a white smock was standing by the font, reading the words of the christening ceremony.

  Nicholas walked down the length of the church. The floor was tiled, so that his footsteps clattered and echoed, and everybody in the christening party looked around at him in irritation.

  ‘Father,’ he said. ‘Father, excuse me.’

  The pastor looked up. He had white eyebrows and eyes as pale as gulls’ eggs. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘This is a christening.’

  ‘Father, I need your help.’

  ‘Here now,’ said a young man with a long moustache. ‘This baby is being christened. Wait your turn.’

  ‘Please,’ the pastor asked him. He pointed to one of the pews close by. ‘Sit there, and I will attend to you just as soon as this baby has been christened.’

  ‘Father—’

  The priest pointed again at the pew. Nicholas, chilled, sweating, nodded and went to sit down. The christening ceremony continued. The baby panted and cried and panted and cried. On the wall behind the font was a benign statue of Sct. Jorgen, smiling beatifically towards the church’s open door. Welcome inside, all those who seek sanctuary and peace.

  Nicholas heard squeaking footsteps. Rubber-soled shoes on tiles. At least two men, one on each side of the church, and approaching him slowly, and with great deliberation. He lifted his hands and began to pray. Our Father, for God’s sake help me. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.

  The man called Axel reached the end of the line of pews, and worked his way sideways towards Nicholas, holding in his stomach with one hand to prevent it from bumping on the backs of the chairs in front. At last, breathing heavily, he sat down next to Nicholas, and folded his arms, and said, ‘You should have known that there was no place for you to hide. Especially not here. A church! Do you think that they will give you divine protection?’

  Now the other man approached from the other side of the church, the huge man whom Nicholas had only managed to glimpse across the field. He sat down, too, and rested his hands on his knees: massive hands, grotesquely large. His shoulders were higher than Nicholas’ ears, and Nicholas felt completely dwarfed. It was when he turned to look at the man’s face, however, that he was frightened the most.

  Not only was the man a giant, but his face had been hideously burned. His skin was mottled and stretched, and his mouth was dragged down at one side, so that he seemed to be perpetually snarling. His eyes were as taut-lidded and expressionless as those of a turtle; and his nose was nothing more than a lump of tissue which must have been borrowed by the surgeons who had reconstructed his face from some other part of his body. His hair was tufted and sparse, and both ears were shrivelled up.

  ‘We wanted to speak to you,’ the giant said, and sucked in saliva to prevent himself from dribbling.

  Nicholas said, ‘I don’t know who you think I am, or why you’re chasing me.’

  ‘No, no, we are not chasing you,’ smiled the one called Axel. ‘You are running away from us! Naturally, we are interested to know why. People only run away if they are guilty; if they have something to hide. We are concerned that you might be feeling over-burdened, that whatever it is you are hiding is becoming too much for you. So, we wish to relieve you of it.’

  The members of the christening party were looking around in annoyance, and the pastor said sharply, ‘Sssshhh!’

  ‘Well, we won’t disturb them more than we have to,’ said Axel, in a friendly mutter. ‘Here, Novikov, the wire.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I don’t understand what you want.’

  Axel shook his head, and continued to smile. There was dandruff on the shoulders of his jacket, carefully arranged as if he had sprinkled it there on purpose. ‘You don’t have to und
erstand, my dear Mr Reed. Neither you nor I nor Mr Novikov here are paid to understand. You are a capitalist, you should understand that. What you are not paid to do, you do not do. Moral and political commitment are measured in money. And why not?’

  While he was saying this, Novikov had drawn out from around his huge waist a coiled length of steel wire, very thin and shiny, with a white nylon handgrip at each end. Nicholas said, ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘A precaution, that’s all,’ replied Axel. ‘Here, Novikov my friend, give me that handle.’

  Novikov passed one of the handles across to Axel, who immediately passed it back to Novikov behind Nicholas’ back. Novikov then passed it back to Axel, so that by now the thin steel wire was circling Nicholas’ waist.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Nicholas demanded. ‘Listen, if you so much as—’

  ‘It’s a precaution, that’s all,’ Axel repeated. ‘Now, please, I want you to tell us a little about Lamprey.’

  ‘Lamprey? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well? Should I remind you? What about Klarlund & Christensen? What kind of bells does that ring?’

  Nicholas noisily cleared his throat. He was sweating and shaking. ‘I’m warning you now,’ he told Axel. ‘If you don’t take this wire off me, and leave me alone. I’m going to scream my goddamned head off, until that priest brings the police.’

  ‘Not recommended,’ said Axel, puckering his lumpy face into a frown. ‘It would be much better for you to talk to us a little; tell us what you know; and also, where is all of your information?’

  Novikov sucked in more saliva, and said, ‘We have no desire to be cruel, Mr Reed.’

  ‘I’m going to scream,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘No, no, please,’ smiled Axel. ‘That would be most ill-considered.’

  ‘Damn it, I’m going to scream. I’m giving you five, and then I’m going to scream.’

  ‘Mr Reed, please! Look at that baby there! Do you have children of your own? It would be much better if you were reasonable.’

  ‘One,’ said Nicholas, trembling, but firm.

  ‘Mr Reed, I appeal to you. Please see reason.’

  ‘Two,’ said Nicholas.

  Axel leaned forward to catch the attention of the burned Novikov, and they exchanged a curious look between them; almost mischievous, like trolls.

  ‘Three,’ Nicholas intoned, in time with the bell that was ringing from Set. Jørgen’s steeple.

  ‘Four.’

  Axel nodded. He gripped his nylon handle as tight as he could, still smiling; while Novikov gave a grunt of exertion, and wrenched his handle sharply to the right.

  Nicholas felt an agonizing pain in his spine, cold and cutting, sharp as glass. He found that he was completely unable to speak, but he stared at Axel in perplexity. He kept trying to say, ‘What was that pain? What have you done to me?’ but somehow none of his nerves seemed to co-ordinate, as if they were telephone wires that had all been ripped out of their sockets and left in multi-coloured disarray. Then he tried to turn to Novikov, but he found that he was completely paralyzed. Something else was happening to him, too: something inside his brain. He could feel a fading, a darkening, as if one by one the cells inside his mind were being switched off. Goodnight, gentlemen, time to leave. You’re dying, Nicholas, that’s what happening to you. Dying to the sonorous, monotonous clanking of a Calvinist bell.

  He couldn’t quite grasp why he was dying. He didn’t know what Axel and Novikov had done to him. But then they moved away from him; he was conscious of their leaving; pale grey shadows on a dim afternoon; and the bell sounded echoing and faint, until he wasn’t sure if it was a church bell or the distant clanking of a railroad crossing, far away in Colonial Junction.

  He fell. The pastor, finishing the christening ceremony, looked up, and suddenly understood that something was terribly wrong. The baby was crimson now, crying with that enraged wavering cry that only a feed and a cuddle can control. The pastor said to the christening guests, ‘Please, just for a moment, wait here. I’m sorry.’

  He walked with echoing footsteps to the pew where Nicholas had been sitting. He peered through the gloom at the shape he could see there, and for a long moment he couldn’t understand what it was. Then, as he began to make sense of it, he slowly raised his hand to his face, as if to reassure himself that he was still alive, and that he was still human.

  Nicholas’s torso, from the waist upwards, had fallen sideways on to the pew. One arm was half-raised, as if he had been reaching out to stop the upper half of his body from losing its balance. The lower half of his body remained where it was, sitting upright. Axel and Novikov, using their thin steel wire, had cut Nicholas almost completely in half, right through to the spine, and now his insides were piled into his exposed pelvis like yards of bloody spaghetti poured into an eggcup. Blood and bile were running on to the tiled floor in a steady black river, and following the pattern of the grouting.

  The pastor turned around and stared at the christening guests. They stared back at him. The bell above them continued to ring, on and on and on.

  The pastor said, ‘I regret that something has happened. A tragedy. I will have to ask you to leave by the vestry door.’

  They remained where they were, staring at him. The baby cried and cried.

  ‘Now!’ roared the pastor, apoplectically. ‘You will have to leave now!’

  Two

  ‘Mr Townsend!’ called Janice, through the hammered-glass partition. ‘Mr Beasley on line one!’

  ‘Tell him I’ve gone down with elephantiasis,’ said Michael distractedly. He swallowed the chilly dregs of his morning coffee, said ‘urrrgh,’ in disgust, gathered up the remaining catalogues he needed, and pushed them untidily into his Samsonite briefcase.

  He heard Janice saying, ‘I’m afraid Mr Townsend isn’t very well today, Mr Beasley. Can I take a message? Oh. Well, I’m sure he’s read it. Yes, I know it’s been a long time. Well, can you call back tomorrow?’

  Michael came out of his office and said, ‘I’ve got to go out to Slough first. If Mr Lilley comes in, can you tell him that I’ll try to phone him this evening? Oh – and would you phone Norwich Transmitters and ask them where those semiconductors have got to? I should be home about eight. If there’s anything else you need, you can leave a message for me there. Ask Margaret to put it on the Ansaphone. She always gets hopelessly confused when anyone starts talking about computers.’

  Janice gave Michael one of her tart, knowing little smiles. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Townsend. The great industrial wheels of Townsend & Bishop will continue to turn, very well-lubricated, even when you’re tossing back the vodka and scoffing the caviare sandwiches and doing the twist with 25-stone lady roadmenders.’

  Michael nearly laughed, but stopped himself. Janice was the daughter of a British Rail driver; she was blonde and big-nosed and busty, a chain-smoker of Ardath cigarettes and a chain-eater of British Home Stores jam doughnuts, all short skirts and fluorescent T-shirts and dangly plastic earrings, yet her turn of phrase was consistently articulate and droll.

  Michael often wished that he could be just half as funny; but then from boyhood he had always been seen as a ‘serious chap’. His last prep school report had said, ‘Michael is persistent and grave, and will succeed through determination as much as talent.’ His father had frowned, and said, ‘Grave?’

  He closed the half-glazed door behind him and walked along the lino-tiled corridor to the staircase. In another office, with the door open, two West Indian girls, both recent school-leavers, were enveloping computer games in plastic bubble wrapping and singing along disharmoniously to UB40. ‘Morning, Mr Townsend,’ they called cheerily, as he passed them by. He gave them a little finger-wave. ‘Good morning, Corinna. Good morning, Doris.’ They both adored him. He had overheard them telling a friend of theirs that he was ‘ever so sensitive’.

  God, he thought, clattering down the stairs to the green-painted reception lobby, anybody woul
d be sensitive if they had twenty people’s livelihoods to take care of, not to mention all the costs of premises, and VAT, and research-and-development, and end-of-year tax-returns.

  Sheila, the telephonist, was reading Smash Hits and painting her fingernails purple. ‘That Mr Beasley’s a bit of a nutcase, don’t you think?’ she asked Michael, as he put down his briefcase to sort through the second post. Most of the envelopes were buff. Two of them said On Her Majesty’s Service. He dropped them back in the tray without opening them.

  ‘Mr Beasley,’ he told Sheila, ‘is a true British eccentric.’

  The switchboard buzzed. Sheila flicked a switch with the tips of her fingers. ‘Townsend & Bee-shop, good mawnin’,’ she said, in an exaggeratedly posh accent. ‘Neow, I’m afraid that Mr Bee-shop is away today, awl day. Would yew cayuh to speak to ‘is secre-terry? Neow?’

  Outside, in the yard, it was beginning to spit with rain. The façade of Townsend & Bishop was as unprepossessing as its interior. A square orange-brick building with green-painted metal windows, backing on to the railway line just south of hast Croydon station. Next door, there was an auto-repair works, its sagging doors sprayed with every conceivable colour from Vauxhall Crimson to Ford Ivy. All around, hundreds of slate rooftops lay submerged among the green plane trees of suburban Surrey. Children played in the streets, and their distant voices sounded like the chattering of birds.

  Michael walked across to his four-year-old Ford Granada, and unlocked the door. He was just about to climb into the driver’s seat, when someone whistled to him. He looked around, and saw a short man in a green suede hat and a noisy Gannex raincoat come hurrying across the yard, one finger raised to hold his attention.

  ‘Mr Townsend?’ he panted. He was round-faced, late middle-aged, with a white bristly moustache. ‘I’m so glad I caught you. Wallings’ the name.’

  Michael shook his hand. ‘I’m afraid I have to be in Slough by twelve.’

  ‘Well, that’s quite all right. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr—’