Ruin Nation (23 page)

“But you never got round to killing him?”

“No. He never got round to cleaning the streets. You’re looking at me blank. Perhaps I should explain: Durham and I parted friendship when the war ended.”

He backs the car up, squishing an old woman in a tinfoil hat, and continues: “Insects again. Where you and I might see an ants nest, he sees a socialist utopia and sets about trying to emulate it. So I’m setting up sham parliaments for the European Union’s benefit, hoping for some foreign aid. Meanwhile, he’s saying, ‘sod the rest of the world’, and starts demanding we run the country like a giant fucking beehive. At this point, I realise he’s a tiny tad unhinged and persuade him to try policing, where this might be to his professional advantage. It’ll keep him from under my feet and, being a brutal nut, he might just be good at it. That’s when I hatch the De Orco plan.

“Now, how shall I put this? Well, you expect your police to be a little corrupt. However, you also expect them to solve some crime along the way. It shows willing. It goes some way to justifying the salary.

“But Durham doesn’t care. He’s getting his pay direct from the criminals, letting them do what they want. Which leaves him more time to do what
he
wants. And what the drunken little dung-baller likes most of all is plotting my downfall and the confiscation of my army.

“But I didn’t work long and hard buttering up mad old Generals just to hand everything to the first nutcase in rubber trousers who comes along.”

“Would he know what to do with an army?” I ask.

“Probably kit them out in stripy jumpers and send them off on a ten mile pollen hunt. There’ll be weapons training, self-defence classes and lessons on how to build a bivouac out of little wax hexagons. So what do you think? …Yes or no?”

“I’m guessing it’s a no then, Sir.”

“Yes, Jupiter, it’s a no.”

We drive up to a checkpoint. It’s past curfew and a black-visored, heavily-armoured leopard handler asks for our documents. I can’t see his animal, but I notice his leash disappearing up a tree.

“Oh, it’s
you
, Sir,” he says upon sight of Malmot. “So sorry.” We drive on without delay.

Now I don’t know how to talk to
Malmot. He despises independence and looks down on deference. Silent? You’re plotting against him. Shy? You’re hiding something. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. So I figure I’ll just come out with it. Best to bite the bullet and accept the bollocking if it comes.

“Durham’s plot, Sir… His revolution… How much of
it’s, er…
accurate
?”

Malmot
makes direct eye contact. I wish he wouldn’t. He should be watching the road. There’s more thuds and crunches as he explains:

“You mean, how much of
it’s bullshit?” And he laughs. “Remember Calamari’s speech in the Dental surgery? About delayed-truth? Well, this is similar. We’re reshaping the actuality to match the intent; making the crime fit the punishment, if you will.”

“All of it, from the butchering of the landed gentry, fomenting dissent in the capital, and the march to power on Downing Street, it’s all pure Durham, direct from his own secret papers. We’re just providing the people, the opportunities, the triggers, and putting everything into action a little earlier than he might have planned. And if we change the cast a little, make the division between the good guys and bad guys a little clearer cut, perhaps tack on a happy ending, well, if it was a film script, he’d still get his name on the credits.”

“But he can’t lead a revolution from a prison cell, Sir.”

“He can if he escapes. Or if we say he’s escaped. Then he’s twice as useful to us. ‘Reds under the beds’ and all that. Nothing like the threat of robbers to get the girls screaming and the boys running downstairs with baseball bats.”

Well, I’ve had enough of Malmot’s sage-like wisdom for the night so I’m relieved when we arrive at my house.

I hope he doesn’t try and kiss me, I think to myself, because there’s clearly an ulterior motive here. Fortunately, he doesn’t. Just bids me goodbye with a formal snort and tears off with his wheels squealing.

And I’m standing on my front step, just about to put my key in the door, when the damn thing creaks open in front of me. And there’s Calamine, smiling like he knows something I don’t. Which he always does. Smiling like he’s just screwed my wife. Which he might have.

“Do you want to know what the future holds?” he asks me obliquely.

“Only if it’s extremely, extremely uneventful,” I answer because, by this point, I’m exhausted.

“I’ve been talking to your wife,” he says.

“Oh, yes? With your penis?” Is this jealousy I’m expressing? Surely not. The woman despises me and the feeling’s more than mutual.

“Well,
er, no,” he stammers. (You’d be surprised how prudish these men-of-action can be. Won’t look at a woman sideways unless there’s a wedding ring handy.)

“She wants you back. You’re a hero now. You can expect to be treated like one.” He leans in close. There’s a glint in his eye. “Would you like to know something else interesting? The tests came back and you’re not infertile! Well, that’s funny, I thought to myself. So we went through your bins and discovered that your wife has been taking black-market contraceptives! Isn’t that good news?!”

“What? That my wife didn’t want to breed with me because she thought I was a waste of space?”

“No, the wanting you back.”

“She wants her widow’s pension. Already spent it, probably. Really, Calamine, as far as good news goes, this is, well... it’s just
shit
news, isn’t it?”

Calamine seems unfazed.

“You’re a hero,” he continues brightly, “you should make the most of it. I’ll take your report in the morning. You have some repopulating of the species to do!” He looks at me and laughs. “See you tomorrow, bright and early,” he says with a wink. “Or bleary-eyed and saddle sore!”

But cold, emotionless sex with someone who expects gratitude doesn’t appeal to me right now. I’m a hero. I have options.

Tomorrow becomes Today and the rest of the Future lines up accordingly. There’s a knock on the door, but it’s not Calamine. Calamine never shows.

“Special delivery!” says a man in a grey jumpsuit and peaked cap, handing me a docket to sign. I look at him and he looks at me. It’s the gentleman with three testicles from Battencross Manor.

“Three corpses, mate,” he says in a broad Geordie brogue. “Reckon you’ll want ‘
em round the back. We’d bring ‘em in for you but she’s hurt ‘er wrist.” He jerks his thumb toward his female companion, sat behind the wheel of a large, refrigerated van. The turquoise dress is gone but I recognise her red hair and mad, brown eyes. She waves.

“Shot ‘
em ourselves,” he adds with a wink. “In Rangoon!”

“Couldn’t you deliver them to the workshop?”

“No, you’re not there,” he answers with impeccable logic. “And these things need careful storage. We’ve got some mechanical gubbins too. Couldn’t give us a hand, could you? Only she’s…”

“Hurt her hand. Yes, I know.”

Soon my shed’s full of mangled metal and human meat. I’m not happy. Bang goes my quiet weekend.

I contact
Malmot. It takes ages to get through to him. Nobody knows who I am. The people who do, don’t care. Then I realise that I don’t own a phone and I’ve never been given a contact number. So whose is this mobile and how did I know what to dial into it? First things first, though…

“Ah! So you’ve got them, then?” says
Malmot.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Wondering who they are, aren’t you?”

“The corpses? Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Do you
really
want to know? I mean,
really
?”

“
Er…”

“[Gleefully] Well, the black fellow, he’s Nelson Churchill, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Though there isn’t much of either at the moment. Pay particular attention to his neck. We used a garrotte and it bit quite deeply. The woman – can’t remember her name offhand. Campaigns against landmines. We thought it’d be funny if she started campaigning
for
them. No foul play involved. Drank herself to death. Turned yellow and dropped off the twig, so, perhaps, a lick of paint’s in order. …And don’t fiddle about with her. I don’t appreciate that sort of thing.”

“I’ve got an estranged wife, Sir. I’m not some weird loner.”

“I’ve never known a marriage certificate stop a pervert.”

“Yes, but…”

“And you
are
a weird loner – let’s not kid ourselves.”

“But...”

“Don’t interrupt. Now, last but not least – drumroll please! – we have Nathaniel Davenport, Leader of the Opposition – now leading the chorus in the Choir Invisible, God rot his righteous soul. Bled to death from an arrow in the femoral artery.”

“Very clever.”

“Yes. Keeps the evidence hidden in his trousers, so to speak. He’s our star turn. So get him on ice and sharpen your skills on the other two. He needs to be perfect. Now how long do you think you’ll need?”

“Do you have any engineers? I could prototype an
animatronic skeleton and they could copy it. That’d save time. They’ll need to resize for the woman though. Can’t have her insides a foot and a half taller than her skin.”

“[Tetchily] Yes, yes. I don’t need the technicalities.”

“Yes. [Icily] Sorry… Sir.”

“On a different note, I see you’re using the phone. Got the number then?”

“Yes, Sir. Though I don’t know how. I…”

“Good. Got to go now. Goodbye.”

*
* *

Now let’s jump to the backstage area of the
‘Le Monde’ exhibition Centre. Our ingredients are: one Malmot; one Jupiter; one bespectacled speechwriter; a sound technician with an old laptop computer; eight Goons (assorted); one dead anti-landmine campaigner; one dead Shadow Home Secretary; one dead Leader of the Opposition.

The speechwriter has a problem with something. He’s a
moany old git with spectacles and long, wavy hair.

“I just think that the Minister for Agriculture would give the statement, Sir. It’s an Agriculture-related kind of thing.”

“I don’t care,” answers Malmot, his nose buried in a weapons systems catalogue. “That lot out there, they
certainly
don’t care. Anyone who
might
will be intoxicated. Anyone who
did
is mad.
You. You
are the only person in this entire country who cares.”

“But attention to detail, Sir, it’s…”

“Not necessary when the public has the attention span of a three-year old. A stupid three-year old.”

“But we’ve got a Minister for Agriculture here. Why aren’t we using him? It doesn’t make sense, Sir.”

“Does anything we’re going to say today make sense? Sure, there’s a sort of pseudo-logic underpinning it all, but it’s really just offensiveness for its own sake.”

“But...”

“You’ve got to play to your audience, boy. We’re dealing with the indigenous Englishman. Outrage is all these brain-dead chav goobers can express. Except pride in their own stupidity, of course.”

Now we jump to the Main Hall, Le Monde Exhibition Centre and an assembled cast of press, policemen and punters: human effluent in general.

“So let’s just recount what we know about Davenport,” says the white-haired reporter in the grey trench coat to the camera wrapped in barbwire. “The man, not the crockery! Ah hah! Well, he’s a man on a mission. But does that mission extend beyond redecorating Downing Street? Detractors say he’s all roundabout and no horses. ‘Where’s the policy behind the rhetoric?’ Supporters, however, claim…”

“Previously,” says the concrete-haired female reporter with the alcoholic shakes to the large camera armoured with riot shields, “Davenport was best known for his role as Shadow Foreign Secretary – regarded as the most pointless job in politics by many, given our country’s status as the leper of Europe.”

“So far,” continues the white-haired reporter, “Davenport’s time in Opposition has been characterised by a distinct lack of dramatic action – exactly what we’d expect from a stop-gap leader who...”

“What’s the problem?” drawls the paralytic cameraman.

“I was going to say he poses no real threat to the Prime Minister. But I don’t know who the Prime Minister is anymore.”

“Just start mouthing a name and I’ll jerk focus like someone’s bumped into my arm,” says the cameraman, swigging on a container of meths.

“Davenport!” bawls the reporter in the bright red suit from the late night gossip show to his co-presenter’s breasts, “What do we know about Davenport? What do you
want to
know about him? Well, he’s here to give some kind of big speech… but let’s forget about all that boring stuff, eh Roxy? Here’s three facts you may not know about our possible future Prime Minister!”