Bill returned as promised within twenty minutes. He had driven back in one of his gardening vans, full of all its usual equipment. He carried a roll of plastic into the living room, then started getting organised.
Kava arrived five minutes later. It was 6.30 am. Toffee met him at the car, and the two of them carried in four large plastic trays, their contents covered with what looked like old tablecloths. Kava then carried inside one more item, a white plastic bucket, lid on, its viscous contents sloshing about inside as he walked. I was then ordered by Gabby to go and sit with the prisoners in the library, wait until I was called. I obeyed. I had set the equipment up. Just the tripod camera. No need for hidden cameras now.
Fifteen minutes later, Toffee walked into the room. He grabbed hold of Cement Voice, put his hand easily around his substantial bicep, squeezed it like putty, and dragged him out of the room. We shut the door and took him into the downstairs bathroom. Once in there, Toffee threw him in the bath, tied his legs together, checked the knots on his hands and the tape on his mouth.
For just a second I was tempted to turn the bath on, fill it up, give CV a taste of what it’s like to have your head held underwater.
‘Stay here, mate,’ Toffee said. ‘I’ll be back.’ He then went and took Metro-Goon upstairs. We had split the prisoners up.
About ten minutes later I heard shouting coming from the living room. With the doors closed, and being at the other end of the house, I couldn’t make out any words. I could hear Bill shouting, though. Gabby too, and Toffee. Then Jack. They all had a turn, menacing, angry, frightening, sometimes all at once.
After the shouting, silence. Fifteen seconds after that, the low guttural crunch of one of Bill’s chainsaws kicking into action, quickly followed by the mini-bike whiz of my trusty lawn clipper. There was screaming then, more of it, for maybe fifteen seconds. Not shouting, screaming. Someone in agony. Then the chainsaw hit something hard. I thought they were hacking up the furniture at first, then recognition swept over me. A distant sound from a distant memory. I’m in a butcher’s shop as a child. We have ordered chops. The butcher starts up his electric saw, pushes meat and bone towards the blade. The blade skips through the bone with an upward rushing shriek. Deeper this time. A chainsaw, after all, is a tad more robust than a butcher’s saw. Even from this distance, though, one thing was clear. The bone was being cut through like balsawood.
I looked at CV. His black eyes were hot and glistening. On the far side of his face, his nose trembled. I nodded at him, and smiled.
Shortly after, Kava was back. He motioned for me to come with him. ‘Chris, mate,’ he said. ‘Come have some fun. Makin’ a real mess of the other one.’ We left CV, went upstairs, grabbed Metro-Goon, then led him into the living room.
I walked in, holding MG by the arm. Bill Doyle’s favourite expression slapped me in the face. I was prepared, but it still belted me one. As one word. Fuckmedead. Only in capitals. FUCKMEDEAD.
This was the scene. Bill was standing in the middle of the room. His feet were planted on a sheet of yellow plastic, which covered most of the floor. The yellow plastic was generously smeared in blood. Bill himself was liberally coated, including some deft splashes on his safety goggles, where droplets clung like Arabian jewels.
In his right hand he held his chainsaw, tip pointed towards the ceiling. On his face he wore a smile. Fiendish and slightly deranged. In his other hand he held what appeared to be a heart. He squeezed the organ just as we walked in. Blood oozed freely from it, gushing down his bare forearm. Nice touch.
Gabby was next to Bill. She was holding the lawn clipper. The Scorpion. She had blood from her hands to her elbows, like an army surgeon at the front line. Pieces of blood-splattered rib-eye were spread about the floor, along with the occasional piece of crimson-coated bone. Cherry, pink and ruby-coloured innards of various descriptions were strategically placed elsewhere, including over Toffee and Jack.
Sitting in his wheelchair, covered in entrails and offal, Jack really did look like an ancient Beatle now, doing a historic reprise of the controversial Robert Whitaker shot from the album cover of Yesterday and Today. In the far corner was a blood-covered plastic bag. I assumed that it contained a football. Hanging limply out of the top of the bag were some strands of hair. The wig I had given to Jack. Blood-soaked, it was a fair match with CV’s. Sticking out from the middle of the bag was the spear from the spear gun.
When I had taken this all in, when MG had been allowed to take it all in, Gabby started up the clipper. She revved it three or four times, then turned it down to a low chuckle. ‘Welcome to the abattoir,’ she said.
She was good at this. Those flunkies from Charlie’s Angels – glamorous and tough? Gabby would eat them for breakfast while she tackled more Greer and de Beauvoir. She whizzed the Scorpion back to life. ‘Pull his pants down. Let’s see if he’s smart enough to talk.’
Fuckmedead. Even I stepped backwards at that. As soon as I did, I was down on my bum. I had put my foot on a stray kidney, and arse-up I went. MG came down on top of me.
He’d fainted, the poor metrosexual bastard.
When he came to, when we had him in the chair, he talked. He talked and talked. I don’t care how tough you are. Anybody who saw that woman with the lawn clipper, and that blood-covered Sasquatch holding the chainsaw, would have talked too if anyone had asked. We all have a breaking point. When the living room has become the dying room, you can reach that point fast. Especially trousers down with the Scorp in front of your groin, and what appears to be your colleague’s gallbladder at your feet.
I turned the machines on, started burning a DVD, and MG talked.
Half an hour later, not long before eight, CV did the same thing. He was a bit harder to make out, given that he now only had one nostril, albeit ten centimetres in diameter, but, to his credit, he was equally as willing.
One thing I learnt from that morning. Never underestimate the benefit of having a good relationship with your butcher.