Bold as Love (25 page)

Ax went to visit his old lady in Hastings, the one he’d met at the Volunteer Initiative launch. Her name was Laura Preston, nice coincidence. She was ninety nine now, and still glad to be alive. She said she thought bringing back National Service was a good idea, but there ought to be something for the girls. His postcards from Yorkshire were up on her wall.

Then the shrinks said Pig was sane. He would stand trial, and it was time to talk the thing out.

Saul Burnet’s parents were members of a magical cult: not mainstream Satanist or Pagan, something of the group’s own invention. He was sexually and violently abused by both his parents, and others, when he was four and five and six years’ old. Then his parents split up, he went to live with his maternal grandparents and had no further contact with that lifestyle. In his early twenties he began to collect kiddie porn, and was drawn into the world of sexual violence against children. He got scared when some of his confederates were arrested, and gave it all up. When he returned to the habit, and started using the house on Ruskin Road, he avoided all former contacts. No one, not even his closest associates, knew what was going on. He would take children there, assault them in the cellar that he’d set up to look like the room that had dominated his childhood; and record the action. He had to frighten them, hurt them and particularly immobilise them, or he didn’t get a good experience. But he knew it was wrong and he only did it when he really needed to do it.

He’d been forced to do away with four children during the past five years, due to the stress of the Organs’ success, and then Paul Javert’s Think Tank, and all that had followed. On each occasion, although he admitted he’d tortured them, the death had been an accident that he could explain. He had tried to preserve them, because that was what seemed right, like the ancient Egyptians. He believed that his wife must have been secretly filming him, and that was how she had found out about the house.

‘Four bodies have been found,’ Fiorinda went on. ‘Three little girls and a boy, where he said they would be. No more, though the police have taken the place apart. In most respects Pigsty’s version checks out, except his story of how he procured.’ She gazed ahead of her for a moment, this word gave Fiorinda trouble. Her bodyguards, though they did not stir or look at her, seemed to the rest of the circle to have moved closer…‘procured the children. He says he “bought them off the internet”, but the details aren’t convincing. He’s protecting his sources. So that’s it. Everything I’ve told you has yet to be fully investigated, proved, names named; stand up in court. But it will. Including the torture, to the point of death. Nobody, not the police or Pigsty’s defence team, has any doubt of what’s going to happen.’

‘That’s why he hated cameras,’ murmured Roxane. ‘The fear of getting caught.’

Fiorinda gave Rox a puzzled look. ‘No. It’s because he hates to be reminded. Cameras make him feel sick.’

‘The trial won’t come up for months,’ said Ax. ‘It could be a year, or two. But as the law stands, and the way Pigsty has reacted, he’s going to die.’

‘Maybe it’s what he wants,’ said Dilip quietly, while the rest stayed silent.

‘I’m quite sure it is,’ Fiorinda had started some careful crosshatching in the margin of her printed notes. She spoke without looking up.

‘But what do
we
want,’ said Ax. ‘Should he die, or should he live? Well?’

The office was barred to its normal traffic, no one in here today but the remains of the Counter Cultural Think Tank. It was February. Weak, clear, morning sunshine streamed through the naked windows: made a glowing aureole of Fiorinda’s hair and bathed Ax’s long fingered, well-knit hands in silver; but left untouched the rosy darkness of the skull’s blank eyes.

‘Will you go on wearing the mask, Sage?’ asked Roxane, suddenly.

Three other deathsheads turned on hir as one, displeased at being separated from their chief. ‘It’s a fair question,’ said Sage. ‘We’ve talked about it. Yeah, we’ll keep the masks. If we stop wearing them, that says the next weird-looking person you meet is probably a murdering paedophile Satanist. We better reverse the drugs legislation, fold the volunteer programme, go back to worshipping at Tescos, let gun culture and green concrete agribusiness have their wicked way. Clear the campgrounds, shoot down any resistance. I don’t think that makes much sense.’

‘A good answer.’

‘Probably have to have some kind of global ban on the Heads’ music too. Then I wouldn’t be rich an’ famous any more, and I wouldn’t like that at all.’

‘But I asked you something,’ said Ax, with a faint smile. ‘I mean it. I want to know what you all think.’

Rob looked disgusted. ‘How can we answer that? It’s not our business.’

‘It might be.’

‘Okay,’ said Felice, ‘I’m not in favour of a life for a life. I didn’t like it when they brought the death penalty back, before I ever knew what was coming. But you just came back from a
shooting war
that started half way up the M1, Ax. People die by violence all the time in this city, and all the cities of England. This is our times, we got the law for these times. You say
he’s ours
. Dilip says,
he’s ours
. I hear you. But I’m sorry, I don’t see the death of one sick, murdering bastard, who doesn’t even want to live, is a big issue.’

‘Good point,’ said Sage.

The other Babes made it known that they were with Felice.

‘What about you, Sage,’ asked Cherry. ‘What’s your choice?’

‘I’ve spent the last couple of months playing paintball with live ammunition, in defence of the nation state. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t know: somehow I still can’t stick judicial murder. I vote for life.’

‘I say he lives,’ said Roxane grimly. ‘I hate the death penalty. It stinks.’

‘Lives,’ said Chip, his round cherub face almost looking grown up.

‘Life without parole,’ said Verlaine. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘He would be better off dead,’ said Dilip. ‘Back to the clay, remoulded in the hands of the Divine. But that’s too bad. We cannot let him go, we must carry him round our necks like the albatross, we cannot pretend he didn’t happen, we have to keep him by us over the years, assimilate, accept, who knows, maybe redeem our shame, our boss. Life.’

‘He should die,’ said Fereshteh, in a low voice. She wasn’t wearing the
burqa,
only the hejab scarf. She never wore the burqa again, but the change was hard on her. Her liquid dark eyes looked to Fiorinda for support, but found none: she quickly lowered her glance, trying to make a veil of just not looking at anyone.

‘Fiorinda?’ said Ax.

‘I think it is cruel,’ she answered, concentrating on her crosshatching, the clipped accent well to the fore. ‘I think it is torture, because I don’t believe he can recover or repent. He’s not capable of that, Dilip. But he has to live.’

Ax kept talking it around. In the end they all said live. Even the Babes and their man, even Smelly Hugh. Even Fereshteh: because that was the answer Ax wanted. It was ruthless attrition. He didn’t go after their hearts and minds, just their assent. They didn’t have to mean it, he was satisfied to nag them into
saying
the right thing. That’s Ax, thought Sage. Always the art of the possible, always willing to take partial, fucked up and temporary, if that’s what he can get. How strange that that’s what makes him such a formidable guy—the way he’s prepared to settle for a fuck-up.

‘Okay,’ said Ax, at last. ‘I said, it might be our business. Or my business. I saw the er, the real Prime Minister again, yesterday.’ His expression was reserved, bleak: not a hint of triumph. ‘He made me an offer. Not unexpected, but…well, I made him a counter offer. I told him I want a referendum on the death penalty, and if the people vote for capital punishment, I won’t accept the Presidency. For the record, he says it’s not out of the question, in the life of this Parliament. There’s been a “revulsion of feeling”, on that issue, among others. I told him that’s not good enough. I need an answer now, or they can find someone else to babysit the CCM, and pick another Funky Green Ceremonial Head of State.’

They had known the Presidency was on the cards. For everyone except Sage and Fiorinda, the rest was a shock.

‘This is important,’ said Ax. ‘The guys offering me this job know the truth about Massacre Night. They may not have known about the children, but they knew Pigsty was a cold-blooded murderer when they hired him. Now they’re glad of the chance to be rid of the monster. I want the Presidency, I admit. I think I can use that position. But I’m not quite hypocrite enough to try and build the Good State over Pigsty’s dead body.’

‘A referendum takes
forever
to organise,’ protested Roxane. ‘The CCM won’t wait. They’ll play hell if they don’t see you installed soon—’

‘Day and a half to pass a bill,’ said Fiorinda, doodling hard. ‘If there’s a will to do it, and cross party support. A month or so to print slips and mobilise the polling stations. Electronic voting is fucked-up and discredited, but the traditional method is on the shelf, and in working order. It’s like the corporate music biz. If they don’t care, they’ll sit on your stuff for years. If they’re keen, it’s hyped and out all over the world in a week.’

‘So, they’ll be voting on whether or not to retain the death penalty?’

‘They’ll know what they’re voting for.’ said Sage. ‘We’ll make sure of that.’

‘Sage,’ said Fiorinda, getting next to him and away from Ax, as the meeting broke up. ‘Are you registered to vote anywhere?’

The skull looked a little shifty. ‘Not sure. I might be, down in Cornwall.’

‘Have you ever voted?’

‘Ah… No.’

‘Thought not. I better tell George. You’ll never handle an electoral roll all by yourself.’

The skull got on its dignity, gave her a mean glare. ‘I will sort it, okay. What about you, brat? Where are you registered huh? No fixed abode brat.’

‘Actually I hate the idea,’ said Fiorinda. ‘I don’t want to vote for anything, ever.
This is not my world
. But with luck I don’t have to worry about it this time. The most likely date is March the twentyninth. I won’t be eighteen.’

Not eighteen yet. My God.

Fiorinda was tired out. She went back to Lambeth Road with the Eyes and Rob. Sage went looking for Ax, and found him alone in the Fire Room, over in the North Wing: so called because it was one of the few rooms of the six hundred with a chimney that worked, and small enough to be heated by a fire in the grate. The room was lit by one meagre electric lamp, with a parchment, tasseled shade from the nineteen fifties, on a table by the hearth. Ax looked round and smiled wanly. Sage pulled up a chair.

‘You knew about Pigsty’s kiddie porn habit, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So did I.’ Sage took out a pack of the government-licenced Anandas he perversely favoured, offered them.

‘No thanks. I don’t know how you can stand those things.’

‘So denounce me to the Campaign for Real Cannabis. I can’t be fucked to roll my own, it takes me too long. Anyway, I like the advertising… Ax, arguably we made a shit choice on Massacre Night. We stayed alive. Arguably we made a shit choice when you came back from the Tour. We could have fled the country or something. But you are not responsible for what happened to those children.’

‘I knew enough,’ said Ax. ‘I should’ve known he was a psychopath.’

The skull looked at him in silence for a moment, then turned away and stared into the flames. ‘Where’s the line between? Ever been near it? You know about me and Mary Williams? Of course you do.’

‘I remember some of what got into the papers,’ said Ax, diplomatically.

‘Yeah. Well, it was all true. All true. I used to beat her up. Me hitting her was basically our relationship, that and the smack. I hurt her badly enough to put her in hospital a few times, including once when she was pregnant.’ Sage looked down at his masked hands and closed them into fists, the virtual ghosts that replaced the missing fingers moving with uncanny realism. ‘Not so great for needlepoint, but they work fine as weapons.’

This Ax knew. He’d seen those weapons used, up in Yorkshire. Sage in a fist fight was a thoroughly horrible proposition.

‘No wonder you hate heroin.’

‘Oh no. No, no no, never blame the drug. It was me. And I am sane, I think. What I mean is…well, I’m not sure what I mean, except you’re not to blame.’

‘How tall were you when you were sixteen?’

‘Same as I am now.’

‘God.’

‘Yeah. Fucking ridiculous.’

Ax thought about the sixteen year old giant junkie, prowling the chichi little streets of Padstow, seeking for meat. ‘If it was so bad, how come you had a kid?’

‘I didn’t know Mary had decided to get pregnant. Never crossed my mind. Girl’s stuff, contraception and all that.’ The skull grinned in self-contempt. ‘I was horrified. Got the injection, soon as I found out. I’d’ve had it done permanent if I’d been old enough.’

‘But you made her do a DNA test.’

‘That was when she set the lawyers on me. I was being nasty, I never had any doubt he was mine. I had him with me a lot, first few years. But her lifestyle changed, she got bored of trying to show me up, I don’t know… There’s a court order giving me access but that was also me being nasty. I don’t pursue it. I’m not sure if it runs any more, now Wales is a foreign country. I’ve seen him once since Dissolution. Don’t know when I’ll see him again. He’s eleven this year. I have an eleven year old son, isn’t that weird.’

‘You love him?’

‘I try not to think about it.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What can I do? She hates me. I hate her too. Nothing personal, just the whole fucking
idea
. Ah, horrible. She doesn’t want me around, she doesn’t want her kid to be with me, and I can’t blame her.’

‘Have you hit any other women, since?’

‘Haven’t hit anybody since, except for Yorkshire. Not seriously.’ Ax smiled. This would exclude some crowd-pleasing showmanship on the tv and other public occasions. And fair enough.

‘Oh, and George. I hit George occasionally. He doesn’t mind.’

‘Bizarre lives you Heads lead.’

‘I suppose we do.’ Sage finally lit the cigarette he’d been holding. ‘Ax, I—’