He held it up like the tip of a finger and walked along the line of gas workers.
‘Poncy pissing Parsons. Poncy pissing workers.’ He shook the knife in their faces. ‘A poncy pissing town. That’s what this place is. And you…’ He pointed at each of them. ‘You fucking, useless, scum-eating shirkers. You’re the worst of the lot.’
He plunged the scalpel into the nearest man’s eye. The scream filled the basement chamber. The other workers went pale. Bernard’s piss pattered loudly from the slab to the floor. The wounded man held his breached socket, trying to hold in the jellymeat of his eye. He screamed louder the more he understood his wound. There’d been a crunch of bone. Magnus had pierced not only the orbit but the bony socket itself. The man still lived, in the knowledge that Magnus had pierced through to his brain.
‘SHUT UP,’ screamed Magnus. ‘SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.’
He plunged the scalpel into the man’s face again and again until he sank to the floor taking the next man with him and the next man in the line halfway. Still the worker screamed. Each stab was a punch with a small blade at the end of it, not doing enough damage to kill, only enough to hurt him and cut him deep.
‘SHUT UP. SHUT UP.’
Magnus aimed his blows into the man’s neck and soon inflicted the right kind of damage.
Through red bubbles the man found words.
‘Stop it. You’re killing me.’
But Magnus only stabbed him faster and harder, aiming around his hands and between his fingers every time the man tried to protect himself. He kept stabbing long after the man had stopped moving and pleading. And all the time his mouth ran off his frustrations.
‘Useless, useless, useless. Look at you. Not even good enough for meat, are you, eh? I could have hired women that would have done a better job than you. I will not let this town go under. I will not let that… that freak do this to me. I’m Magnus. I’m the fucking Meat Baron. I run this fucking place.’
He left the scalpel protruding from the man’s other eye and straightened up. From the tool rack he selected the largest cleaver and hefted its weight in his hand. He walked up to the line of tied workers.
‘What was this man’s name?’
No one spoke.
‘Bruno? His name please.’
‘Uh, that would be… Lee, sir.’
‘Yeah? Well, Lee had it the easy way.’ He walked over to the slab where Bernard lay. The man wiggled beneath the leather straps and farted wetly. ‘Now, Bernard here was in charge of my gas facility last night when it was infiltrated and destroyed. This town may not have electricity for many years to come as a result. We may never be able to fix it. And all the gas we stored there for running trucks and keeping the chains running at MMP and all the other things we use it for, all that reserve is gone. And it’s Bernard’s fault. The Welfare states that such an infringement is cause for immediate revocation of status. But I say fuck that. Fuck the Welfare. This man’s not good enough to feed this town. I wouldn’t touch the primest cut off his filthy bones. And nor will anyone else. Because I will…
He raised the cleaver and brought it down.
‘NOT.’
He hoisted it up, bloody. Slammed it down.
‘TOLERATE.’
He worked it free, lifted it, hammered it down.
‘USELESS.’
And again.
‘PISSING.’
Again.
‘SCABBY.’
Up. Down.
Words. Insults. Metal parting flesh, chewing bone.
And on.
And.
On.
Which was why, as Magnus stood over Bernard’s body, he was panting.
Nineteen
Sometimes Bruno studied his own hands to see if they were trembling. He did this now as he stood outside Magnus’s bathroom. He was sure he could see some kind of vibration, at least in the very tips of his fingers, but he knew he could have been imagining it – morbidly willing it upon himself. So many townsfolk had the Shakes these days. If it wasn’t his imagination then it was… better not to think about it.
From inside the bathroom he could hear splashing and Magnus’s curses interspersed by giggles and cries of pain from his two maids. He’d gone in there to remove the blood that had dried onto his hands and hair and beard. By the sound of it, now that he was clean, he’d found other things to do in the bath.
Bruno had been standing there waiting for a long time. He’d come to announce an important visitor – still waiting in the downstairs drawing room – and Magnus had said he’d be right out. Bruno had never minded waiting in the past but these days he found it harder and harder to stand or sit and do nothing while Magnus did whatever it was he did behind closed doors. A change was coming; Bruno could sense it in everything that was taking place.
Magnus’s gruntings seemed to reach their conclusion. Bruno knocked on the door again.
‘Sir, he’s still down there.’
‘All bloody right, Bruno. I’m coming.’
The door was unbolted from inside and the two maids left, both of them avoiding Bruno’s eyes and one of them still crying. A few moments later Magnus appeared in his dressing gown and slippers with his long hair dark and dripping. He wore a towel around his shoulders to catch the water.
Magnus started to shuffle along the hallway and Bruno followed. From behind Bruno was able to study his master a little. The man had shrunk unless he was imagining that too. He looked unsteady on his feet and Bruno was sure it wasn’t due to his bath-time fun.
‘What does he want anyway?’ asked Magnus.
‘I don’t know, sir. Says it’s important. Said you’d want to know about it.’
Magnus descended the stair using the banister for support. Bruno had never seen him do that before. Bruno followed until they were in the downstairs hall.
‘Do you still need me, sir?’
‘No, Bruno. You piss off for a game of cards or whatever.
I’ll call when I want you.’
Bruno turned to walk away. When he heard the door of the drawing room close behind Magnus, he crept back and stood with his ear to the wood. Magnus was no more polite with the doctor than he was with anyone else.
‘What’s so bloody important it can’t wait until tomorrow, eh, Fellows?’
There was a pause and Bruno imagined Doctor Fellows taking in what he saw of Magnus and making an on the spot diagnosis. He’d realise there was no need to take offence in Magnus’s manner because soon enough his primary services would be required. For now, though, this was all about Fellows’s secondary function.
‘Quite a lot, Magnus. Quite the sort of thing that absolutely cannot wait until tomorrow.’
‘I’ll believe that when I hear it.’
The doctor cleared his throat. Hesitation? Embarrassment?
‘I’m trebling my fee for this.’
Magnus let out a genuine laugh.
‘Treble? For the hearsay of a quack?’
‘I want them delivered to my chambers tonight.’
Someone sat heavily in a chair making it creak. Bruno guessed it was Magnus; his legs betraying him.
‘I don’t think Bob Torrance is going to like losing three bullocks in a single day, Doc.’
‘Take it or leave it, Magnus. This information is going to save or destroy you depending only on whether you hear it or not.’
‘Tell me why I shouldn’t take you round the back and cut the information out of you.’
‘Because it’ll be the last time you’ll ever use me and I know for a fact you’ve got no one else in a trusted position like mine.’