David Hewson stared out of the window of the Jaguar. It was a typical Northern rainy day, the sky gunmetal grey with no sign of clearing, the rain more like a wet fog than a downpour. ‘I hate Leeds,’ he said.
His companion in the back seat chuckled. ‘Well don’t let the constituents hear you say that,’ he said.
Hewson looked across at the man. Oliver Tidy was his agent, his minder and his confidant. And like Hewson he’d been born 170 miles to the south in London. But unlike Hewson, the agent had to stay in Leeds all year round, bar the odd trip to the Capital. ‘You know what I mean, Oliver,’ he said. ‘It’s a shit-hole, it really is.’
‘They did try to get you a safe seat closer to London, but beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Tidy.
‘It’s hardly a safe seat,’ said Hewson.
‘Exactly, so let’s do what we have to do to turn it into one.’
Hewson folded his arms. ‘And dragging me out to an old folks home is going to win me votes, is it?’
‘Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Come on, get your game face on.’
Hewson scowled. ‘Oliver, I don’t mind going out and pressing the flesh, but with the best will in the world, how many more elections are they going to be voting in?’
‘It’s the next one that matters. And with luck they’ll all be around for that.’
‘The average life expectancy for people admitted to care homes is two years, did you know that?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Tidy. ‘But with the election due next year, that doesn’t worry me over much. Look, David, they asked for you. Do you know how many organisations say no when I ask if you can visit? And here we have a group who want you to talk to them. If I were you I wouldn’t go looking gift horses in the mouth.’
‘And how many will be there?’
‘They promised me forty or so. And forty votes is nothing to get sniffy about.’
‘Okay, point taken,’ said Hewson. ‘But half an hour, max.’
‘A cup of tea and a slice of cake and we’re out,’ said Tidy.
Hewson nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.
‘And really, it’s not too bad up here. ‘
Hewson looked down his nose at the agent. ‘Oliver, it’s Leeds. I’m a London boy. I belong in the big smoke. So do you.’
‘We’ll get there eventually. Get your majority up here and you can write your own ticket.’
‘I wish I had your optimism, Oliver.’
‘You just keep climbing the slippery pole and I’ll keep pushing. Now get your game face on, we’re here.’
The car pulled up in front of a featureless concrete building with a wheelchair ramp up to the main entrance. ‘I can’t park here, double yellows,’ said the driver.
‘They said there was a car park at the back of the building,’ said Tidy. ‘We’ll see you there later.’
‘Keep the engine running so we can make a quick getaway,’ said Hewson, opening the door and stepping onto the pavement. He rubbed the back of his neck. The tendons were as taut as steel wires and he had the start of a headache.
Tidy joined him on the pavement. He was carrying a battered leather briefcase and had the collar of his raincoat turned up. Hewson was wearing a cashmere overcoat over a dark grey suit but he took off the coat as soon as he followed Tidy through the main doors.
A woman was waiting for them. She was in her late sixties with tightly-permed hair and lipstick that was almost scarlet. Her eyebrows seemed to have gone and had been replaced with thin brown lines, either with a pencil or a tattooist’s needle. She was wearing a two-piece suit from a thick pinkish material, a high-cut jacket and a skirt that went to below her knees. Her flat shoes were also pink, as was the silk scarf loosely tied around her neck. She was carrying a large red leather handbag in the crook of her left arm. She smiled and Hewson saw a smear of red lipstick across her top teeth. ‘Mr Hewson, thank so you so much for coming,’ she said.
‘Mrs Tyler?’ said Tidy, holding out his hand. Mrs Tyler was the administrator of the home. ‘Oliver Tidy, it was me who spoke with you on the phone.’
‘Oh no, I’m Ruth Duffy, one of the residents,’ said the woman. ‘Mrs Tyler asked if I’d welcome you and take you through.’ She released his hand and shook hands with Hewson. ‘So nice to meet you, Mr Hewson. And thank you for coming to see us.’
‘Very happy to be here,’ said Hewson. ‘Please, lead the way.’
Mrs Duffy took them down a corridor and through a set of fire doors. The building had an institutional feel, the floors were tiled and the walls were painted a pale green and dotted with noticeboards. There were fluorescent lights overhead and Hewson squinted, his headache getting worse by the seconds.
‘Here we are,’ said Mrs Duffy, pushing open a door. There was a blue plastic sign under a small window with the words DAY ROOM in white. Hewson followed her inside, with Tidy close behind. Hewson already had his professional smile on, but it hardened a fraction when he saw how empty the room was. There were only a dozen or so people waiting, the youngest in their seventies.
‘We were told that there’d be forty or so people,’ said Hewson. Most of the residents were sitting in armchairs that were lined up with their backs to the walls. There was an old-fashioned television set on a small table, a card table with four wooden chairs, a dining table with half a dozen chairs, and a sideboard piled high with magazines. There were blinds on the windows overlooking the street but they were down and the overhead lights were on.
‘I’m sorry, yes. There are forty residents but quite a few are confined to their rooms.’
‘And Mr Caine died last night,’ said one of the ladies.
‘Yes, he did. That was a pity.’ Mrs Duffy smiled at Hewson. ‘He was a lovely man. He’d only been here six months.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Hewson, flashing her his most sympathetic smile. ‘Are you expecting anyone else?’
The door opened and two elderly men came in, one of them supporting himself on a walker, the other using a stick. ‘I think that’s everyone,’ said Mrs Duffy brightly. ‘Perhaps we could make a start.’
Hewson nodded. ‘I thought I’d say a few words and then answer some questions.’ He looked around the room. ‘Will the press be here? The local paper?’
‘No, I’m sorry, it’s just us,’ said Mrs Duffy. The door opened and an old man came in with a tray of tea things. ‘Ah, here’s Mr McCall with your refreshments,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you make yourself comfortable while I pour the tea.’ She waved at a winged armchair and Hewson sat down. Tidy sat in another chair, by the windows. ‘How do you take it?’
‘Milk.’
‘No sugar?’
‘I use sweeteners.’
‘That’s nice for you. And Mr Tidy?’
‘A dash of milk and one sugar.’
Mrs Duffy poured their tea and handed cups to both men. The rest of the residents sat down and looked expectantly at the MP. Hewson stirred his tea and took a cautious sip. Bad tea was one of the drawbacks of the job, but this cup tasted fine.
‘Before you start, do you mind if Mr Cohen records your talk. It’s not often we get a VIP and we’d like a souvenir to remind us of this special day.’ She gestured at a wizened old man with thick-lensed spectacles who was holding up an old-fashioned video camera, the sort that used a small video-cassette. He nodded and smiled showing uneven yellow teeth.
‘Of course,’ said Hewson. ‘Just remember to say “Action” when you’re ready.’
‘Do you hear that, Nicholas?’ said Mrs Duffy. The man nodded sagely.
‘I was joking,’ said Hewson.
‘Action!’ said Cohen, and he pointed at Hewson with his free hand.
Hewson took another sip of his tea, then went into his standard ten minute speech about the debt the country owed to its senior citizens, about how experience came with age, and then switched into a list of all the good things his party were doing to make the country a better place. Hewson had given so many
speeches that he could pretty much talk on remote control. He knew when to tell a joke, when to feign sincerity, and when to sound enthusiastic. He knew all about maintaining eye contact and smiling and when to nod and when to frown. Then he asked them if they had any questions and he finished off his tea.
‘When are you going to increase our pensions?’ asked a woman sitting at the table. She had an ill-fitting blonde wig that looked as if it might slip off her head at any moment.
‘Pensions rise in line with inflation,’ said Hewson. ‘Our Government has done more than anyone to make sure that senior citizens receive enough money.’
‘Enough money?’ said a woman in a floral housecoat. She was wearing thick surgical stockings and leopard print slippers. ‘We get nothing. The council take it straight off us to pay for this place. We never get to see the money.’
A grey-haired man pushed himself up out of his armchair and pointed a gnarled finger at Hewson. His face was so wrinkled he could have been anywhere between seventy and ninety years old, but his eyes flashed fire. ‘You answer me this, Mr Hewson. Why can someone from another country come here and get free health care and a mansion in London and a big screen TV, and then they get to bring their whole family over here? Yet you can’t pay to take care of your country’s old folks. My father died to save this country, Mr Hewson, I’m just glad he didn’t live to see what you’ve done to it.’
‘Really, you don’t want to believe everything you read in the Daily Mail,’ said Hewson.
‘I read the Guardian,’ said the man, jabbing his finger at Hewson again. ‘But that isn’t the point. The point is that this country now cares more about foreigners than it does about its own people. Do you know how much I have pay to stay here, Mr Hewson?’
Hewson looked over at his agent. Tidy was sipping his tea and studiously avoiding his gaze. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said.
‘Three thousand pounds a month,’ said the man. ‘And when all my savings have gone, they’ll sell my house and take that. I’m being raped, Mr Hewson, raped by your Government and shame on you.’
‘Please, Mr Mosby, there’s no need to raise your voice,’ said Mrs Duffy.
The man muttered an apology and sat down. There was a damp patch in the crotch of his trousers as if he had spilled something there. Or wet himself. Hewson tried not to stare at the wet stain.
‘It is something we feel strongly about, as you can see,’ said Mrs Duffy. She picked up a plate of Digestive biscuits and offered it to the MP. He took one and smiled his thanks.
‘They took my cats,’ said an old woman who was sitting with knitting needles in her hands and a large ball of wool in her lap.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Hewson, but the woman didn’t look up. He put his biscuit on his saucer and took a sip of his tea.
‘The council, they took her cats away,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘You’re not allowed to have pets in here, so they took her cats away.’
‘They killed them,’ muttered the woman.
Mrs Duffy nodded. ‘I know they did, Mrs Pinborough, and shame on them for that.’ She smiled at Hewson. ‘They told her that they had found homes for the cats but they didn’t. They put them to sleep.’ She tilted her head on one side as she continued to smile at the MP. ‘Isn’t that funny?’ she said. ‘A euphemism for euthanasia. That’s almost a pun.’
Hewson frowned. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘Have you been to an old folks home before?’ asked a wizened old man with a bent spine. He had to push himself back into his chair to meet Hewson’s gaze. ‘Have you?’
Hewson shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You’d hate it,’ said the man. He was wearing a green cardigan, brown corduroy trousers and tartan carpet slippers.
‘It looks perfectly nice,’ said Hewson, looking around and forcing a smile. Actually it was one of the most depressing places he’d ever visited. The carpet was threadbare, the armchairs lined up against the walls were stained and worn and there was a horrible smell in the air, a mixture of sweat, urine and stale cabbage.
‘It’s a shithole,’ said the man.
‘Mr Wilkins, please,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘There’s no need for language like that.’
‘But it is a shithole,’ Mr Wilkins muttered, but he put up a hand by way of apology as Mrs Duffy continued to glare at him.
‘It isn’t perfectly nice, though, Mr Hewson,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘It’s actually quite horrible. They keep us two to a room, did you know that? And we have no control over who we share with.’
‘The woman in my room is dying,’ said Mrs Pinborough, her eyes fixed on her knitting needles.
‘We’re all dying,’ muttered Mr Wilkins. He looked away as Mrs Duffy glared at him.
‘Every night, when she sleeps, her breath rattles like it’s going to stop at any moment,’ said Mrs Pinborough.
‘Shouldn’t she be in hospital?’ asked Mr Hewson.
‘She’s not sick,’ said Mrs Pinborough. ‘She’s dying. And she’s taking her own sweet time doing it.’
‘The man in my room snores so much I can’t sleep without earplugs,’ said a stick-than man with swept-back grey hair. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. ‘And he farts. He farts and he snores and I’ve complained but nothing is ever done. It’s like Mrs Duffy says, we’d be better off in prison.’
Mr Hewson frowned. ‘Prison? What do you mean?’ He looked over at Mrs Duffy. ‘What is he talking about?’
Mrs Duffy shrugged. ‘It’s true, unfortunately. You treat prisoners better than you treat us senior citizens.’
‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say,’ said Hewson.
Mrs Duffy shook her head. ‘In prison, we’d have single rooms. With a television. And Sky TV.’
‘You have Sky TV here, don’t you?’
‘Only the basic package. No sport. And just the one set, in the television room. There are always arguments over what we should watch. And it has to be switched off at 10pm sharp. We’re not allowed to watch it after that. In prison, you can watch TV all night if you want. And you get video games. And books. All free.’
‘We can’t use the garden either,’ said another woman. She had a hair net over her wispy grey hair and a surgical collar around her neck. ‘Only on special occasions. Isn’t that right, Mrs Duffy.’
‘That’s right, Mrs Carver.’ Mrs Duffy nodded at Hewson. ‘They say they don’t want us bringing in dirt. I tell everyone, if we were in prison at least we’d get outside every day. That’s a human right, fresh air. In prison they have to have exercise, but here..’ She shrugged.
‘Tell him about the food, Mrs Duffy,’ said a portly woman sitting by the window. She had thinning hair that had been dyed a pale shade of purple that only emphasized the whiteness of her skull. Her eyes were reddened as if she had been crying as she stared at Hewson she fiddled with a wedding band on a chain around her neck. ‘Tell him how bad the food is.’
Mrs Duffy nodded. ‘It’s terrible,’ she said to Hewson.
‘You wouldn’t feed it to a dog,’ said one woman.
‘A dog wouldn’t touch it,’ said a man with a stoop who was holding himself up with an aluminium walker.
‘I’m sure the management would listen to your complaints,’ said Hewson.
‘They don’t care,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘We’re not people to them. We’re profit centres. They take as much money as they can and they give us the bare minimum.’
‘Less than the bare minimum,’ said the man with the walker. He started coughing and his whole body shuddered.
‘Mr Waites, please, don’t upset yourself, you know it only makes your asthma worse,’ said Mrs Duffy. One of the ladies standing near to Mr Waites helped him away from the walker and into a high winged armchair that had been covered in plastic.
‘Did you know, Mr Hewson, that in prison you get a choice of five meals for your dinner? And there’s always a vegetarian option.’ Mrs Duffy nodded enthusiastically. ‘Always.’
‘I’m sure you
have vegetarian meals here,’ said Hewson.
‘We only get meat every second day,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘If you’re a vegetarian on a meat day, they just scrape it off the plate before they give it to you.’
‘It’s not meat,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘Not real meat. Not steak. Or chops. We get bits of meat in gravy or sauce and it could be anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were feeding us horsemeat.’
‘For breakfast we get porridge or cereal and a slice of toast,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘That’s it. No eggs. No bacon. No sausage. Then we get pasta or soup and a sandwich for lunch. And for dinner we get slops.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Mr Hewson. He looked over at Tidy but the man was slumped in his chair and staring at the floor. Hewson leaned forward to pick up his cup, hoping that the movement would attract Tidy’s attention, but he continued to stare vacantly at the carpet. Hewson sipped his tea and took a quick look at his wristwatch. He had only been there for fifteen minutes.
‘It’s slops, Mr Hewson, there’s no other way to describe it,’ said Mrs Duffy.
‘I haven’t had food that needs chewing for more than a year,’ said Mr Wilkins, and most of the other residents nodded in agreement.
‘You know what happens when you don’t eat solid food?’ asked Mosby. ‘Your teeth fall out. If you don’t use them, you lose them.’ He tapped his front teeth, ‘I’ve got dentures now but my teeth were fine when I moved in.’
Hewson put down his cup and looked over at Tidy. Tidy had closed his eyes. Hewson was just about to call over to him, when Mrs Duffy started speaking again.
‘Do you see how crazy the world has become, Mr Hewson? Do you? We have to sell our homes to stay here. They take all of our money, everything we earned over our lives. They take it from us and they make us sleep two to a room and they feed us slops. And when we die, they get someone else in to our beds before the sheets are even cold. I want to leave my money to my grandchildren, Mr Hewson. I want to give them a good start in life. But the council won’t let me. They came to see us and gave us a little presentation, with slides and everything. They said that if we gave any money to our children or our grandchildren they would find out and they would take it back. We had to pay for our care, they said. We have to pay for everything. My husband died for this country, Mr Hewson. He was a soldier, he died in the Falklands, back in 1982. I was pregnant with our second child. I brought them up on my own, I did. And then my younger son was killed fighting in Afghanistan. His wife is now struggling to bring up their children. And you won’t let me give my money to my son’s kids. You want to take every penny I have before I die.’
‘Mrs Duffy, really, it’s not like that.’
‘It’s exactly like that, Mr Hewson. For all of us. All you want to do is take, take, take. You’re bleeding us dry, Mr Hewson, and enough is enough.’
‘What about your families?’ asked Hewson. ‘Have you told them about your concerns.’
‘Our families have abandoned us,’ said Mrs Carver. ‘Mine have, anyway. My son lives in Australia now with his family. I can’t blame him, not with the way this country has gone.’ She pointed at Hewson and sneered at him contemptuously. ‘And you’re to blame. You and the rest of the bloody politicians. You’ve sold us down the river. We used to be Great Britain and now we’re overrun by foreigners.’
‘Careful Mrs Carver, remember your blood pressure,’ said Mrs Duffy.
‘I don’t care anymore,’ said Mrs Carver. ‘They hate us now. They want us to die, that’s what they want.’
‘Mrs Carver, no one wants that,’ said Hewson.
‘Then tell me why you’ve allowed so many foreigners into this country,’ said Mrs Carver. ‘So many that our own young people can’t get jobs. And when you go to hospital you have to sleep in a corridor because so many foreigners are on the wards. That happened to me, Mr Hewson. Last year. And don’t tell me it didn’t.’
‘And what about the foreign criminals you say you can’t send home,’ said Mr Cohen, holding the video camera away from his face. ‘We’ve got rapists and murderers who don’t belong here but they claim their Human Rights mean they should stay, And the judges let them. That’s just stupid, Mr Hewson, you know that?’
‘We all benefit from the Human Rights legislation,’ said Hewson.
‘But do we?’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘What about our human rights, Mr Hewson? What about our right to live out our last days in comfort, with good food, our own room, pleasant surroundings, with people who care about us?’
Hewson looked around the room and frowned. He still hadn’t seen any members of staff, no one had even popped their head around the door to check if everything was okay.
‘No one cares about our rights, Mr Hewson. No one cares about us, full stop. Mrs Carver is right. The world wants us dead. But before we die they want to take everything we have.’ She waved a hand around the room. ‘This is a prison, Mr Hewson. And we’re all serving life sentences. The only way out of here is in a wooden box, and we have to pay for that ourselves. That’s what I’ve explained to everyone here. We’d be better off in prison. Conditions would be better and the state will pay. You know what would be fair, Mr Hewson? What would be fair is if you would put the nation’s old folks in prison and the prisoners in old peoples’ homes. I tell you, if you put prisoners in a place like this, they wouldn’t re-offend, that I can promise you.’
Hewson looked around the room and was faced with a wall of nodding heads. He looked at his watch, but had trouble focusing on the dial. ‘Anyway, as much as I would love to continue this conversation, we do have another appointment, don’t we Oliver?’
He looked over at Tidy but the agent was slumped in his chair, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Spittle was dribbling down his chin. ‘Oliver?’
‘He asleep,’ said Mrs Duffy.
Hewson tried to get to his feet but his legs had turned to lead. ‘What’s happening?’ he said, but his tongue felt too big for his mouth and the words came out all slurred.
‘That’s what is so unfair, don’t you see?’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘Someone commits a crime and they go to prison, the taxpayer pays for everything. They get a room, they get three good meals a day, free healthcare, free dentistry, free education.’
‘My teeth hurt and they say I have to pay £200 to see a dentist,’ said a woman in a pale green shawl. She had clearly applied her lipstick with a shaky hand and there were red streaks under her nose.
Hewson opened his mouth to reply but he couldn’t seem to form the words and all he could manage was a mumble.
‘That’s true,’ said Mrs Duffy, nodding. ‘They say that there isn’t an NHS dentist nearby and they charge us £200 just for an examination. Plus we have to use their taxi service. If we were in prison, the dentist would come to us. Same as trying to see a doctor. We can never get a same day appointment, we have to wait until it’s convenient for them. If we ask for a doctor to come to see us, they just laugh. If we were in prison, there’d be a doctor on call.’
‘Why isn’t he asleep?’ asked the woman with aching teeth.
‘I put more in the other one’s tea, Mrs Bolton,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘I didn’t want him waking up. But I want to explain to Mr Hewson why we are doing what we’re doing. I think we owe him that much.’
‘We going to have to do this quickly,’ said Mrs Bolton. ‘We can’t keep them, locked up in the basement forever.’
‘They can’t get out,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘And as soon as we’re finished here we’ll let them out and they can call the police.’
‘What have you done?’ asked Hewson.
‘It’s what we’re going to do, Mr Hewson,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘Don’t you see, it’s obvious what we have to do. We have to go to prison. We’ll be looked after there.’
‘A choice of five meals a day,’ said one of the men.
‘Sky Sport,’ said Mr Wilkins.
‘A doctor on call,’ said a woman in a pink nightdress spotted with food stains.
&n
bsp; ‘We’ll get better food, a room of our own, and do you know what the wonderful thing is, Mr Hewson?’
Hewson frowned at her, trying to comprehend what was happening. He tried to lift his right arm but all his strength seemed to have gone.
‘It won’t cost us a thing,’ continued Mrs Duffy. ‘Not a penny. Everything we have can go to our families. We will finally be able to help those that we leave behind, instead of being a burden on them.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Now, we’ll have to get started, we don’t have too long. Mr Wilkins, do you think you could clear the table, please?’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Wilkins. He cleared the tea things off the coffee table and placed them on a sideboard. A woman in a frayed dressing gown and pink slippers helped him. Once the table was clear, Mrs Duffy went over and stood in front of Hewson. ‘Now, let’s get him onto the table. Be careful, we don’t want to hurt ourselves.’
The residents shuffled closer to Hewson. He tried to raise his hands but they wouldn’t move. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered.
They grabbed him by his legs and his arms, pulled him out of the chair and carried him over to the table.
‘That’s it,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘Nice and easy does it.’
They placed him on the table. Mrs Duffy produced four lengths of cord from her handbag and then placed it on a chair.. ‘Use these to tie him down, just in case,’ she said, handing out the cords.
Mr Cohen had retrieved his tripod and was fixing the video camera to it, taking care to keep the MP in the frame.
Mr Wilkins took two of the cords and began tying Hewson’s ankles to the legs of the table. Mrs Bolton and another of the women bound his wrists. Hewson tried to struggle but it was as if his whole body had gone numb.
He twisted his neck to look at Mrs Duffy. She was smiling down at him. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Hewson. This will soon be over.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. His voice sounded as if it was coming from the end of a long tunnel.
‘We’re going to do what we have to do to be sent to prison,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘We’re going to kill you.’
‘You can’t do this,’ said Hewson.
‘Oh yes, we can,’ said Mrs Duffy.
‘You’re not killers,’ said Hewson. ‘You’re not murderers.’
They finished tying him to the table and stepped back. Mrs Duffy inspected their handiwork and nodded approvingly. ‘Well, strictly speaking, while we will all be convicted of your murder, individually we won’t be killers.’
Hewson frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he said, his voice trembling.
Mrs Duffy smiled. ‘It makes perfect sense,’ she said, ‘It was Mr Billingham’s idea.’ She looked over at a man with a grey beard and totally bald head who nodded with pride. ‘Mr Billingham was a solicitor, he knows the law.’
‘The trick is that none of us will actually inflict the killing blow,’ said Mr Billingham. ‘We will all stab you at the same time and withdraw our knives at the same time. Twelve knives. Twelve wounds. You will bleed to death, yes, of course, that’s the idea, but no individual will bear the guilt.’
‘You’ll all be guilty,’ said Hewson, close to tears.
‘Yes, again, that’s the plan, don’t you see. The courts will find us guilty.’ He chuckled. ‘Mrs McDermid said that we should all plead guilty but we mustn’t do that because then we’ll get a reduced sentence and that would defeat the whole point of the exercise.’ He was wearing thick-lensed spectacles and he took them off and polished them with a bright red handkerchief. ‘We will be found guilty, but we won’t feel guilty.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ spluttered Hewson.
Mr Billingham put his glasses back on. ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘It seems to me to be no more nonsensical than you saying you don’t feel guilty about what your government has done to the old people of this country. And you don’t feel guilty, do you? You don’t feel the least bit guilty for the way you mollycoddle convicts at the same time as you take us for everything we have. Well, as Mrs Duffy said, enough is enough. Once we’ve done this, the Government will take care of us. Our troubles will be over.’
‘You can’t do this,’ said Hewson, tears trickling down his cheeks.
‘Yes we can,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘We can and we will.’ She stood up, took the scarf from around her neck and used it to gag Hewson. He thrashed his head from side to side and tried to keep his mouth closed but Mr Billingham pinched his nose and when he was forced to breathe, Mrs Duffy slipped the material between his teeth and tied it at the side. ‘Really my dear, there’s no point in you struggling,’ she said, patting him on the cheek. ‘It’ll soon be over.’ She looked over at Mr Cohen. ‘Do check the camera, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘It would be terrible to not get it on tape. We’ll need to show the judge that we all knew exactly what we are doing. We don’t want anyone saying we were crazy.’
Mr Cohen went over to the camera and peered it at. ‘It seems fine,’ he said.
‘Excellent,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘Now, do we all have our knives?’ She opened her handbag and took out a large yellow-handled kitchen knife. Mr Cohen pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and carefully unfolded the blade.
‘I thought I might use one of my knitting needles,’ said Mrs Pinborough. ‘Do you think that will be okay?’ She had a soft, wheezy voice, her eyes were almost obscured by the folds of old skin around them.
‘That’ll be fine, Mrs Pinborough,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘But just the once, remember. We all stick a knife – or a needle – in him, then we pull it out and that’s it.’ She looked over at Mr Wilkins, a small, portly man whose bald head was dotted with dark brown liver spots, giving him the look of an antique globe. ‘We don’t want anyone getting carried away in the heat of the moment,’ she said.
Mr Wilkins nodded. He did have a bit of a temper, everyone knew. He had once thrown his tray of food against the wall in the dining room and had once bitten a nurse who had tried to force an anti-depressant into his mouth. ‘I understand,’ he said. He was holding a steak knife with a wooden handle.
Mrs Duffy beamed. ‘Well then, let’s get this done and then we can all go to our rooms and pack. I have to say that I will miss you all, but hopefully at least some of us will end up in the same prison and we can carry on with our bridge games. Now please, gather around.’
The residents shuffled towards the table, knives at the ready. Mr Wilkins helped Mrs Pinborough up from her chair and over to the table. She was clutching a knitting needle in her right hand.
‘You can’t do this,’ said Hewson, his voice muffled by the scarf. ‘It isn’t fair.’
‘I can see how you would think that,’ said Mrs Duffy, patting him on the shoulder. ‘But it’s perfectly fair from our point of view. Now, please, just relax and it’ll soon be over. You’ll move on to a better place, and so will we.’ She looked around the group. They all had their knives held high. Mrs Pinborough was holding her knitting needle with both hands now and she was staring at Hewson’s groin. ‘Ready, ladies and gentlemen?’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘On a count of three. One, two, three..’
They all struck as one. Mr Wilkins let out a whoop of triumph but stopped when Mrs Duffy flashed him an admonishing look. They stepped back, then filed out through the door into the corridor as Hewson’s lifeblood pooled over the table and dripped onto the threadbare carpet.
If you enjoy dark stories, why not check out Stephen Leather’s eBook bestseller The Basement. A serial killer is loose in New York, torturing and killing helpless women. Two cops are on the case, but will they catch the killer before he kills again?
THE GHOST KIDS