To Indigo by Tanith Lee (read along books txt) 📕

“Let’s go and inspect it, then,” he said, “your sandwich.”

Perhaps the sting hadn’t yet had a chance to build up to its proper toxicity. In the cases I’d heard of asphyxiation, or at least incapacitation of anyone stung in the mouth, happened inside a couple of minutes.

We both walked back into the front room.

The undone sandwich lay there, bread and ham and the smears of the margarine. Nothing else. The plate hadn’t broken.

Sej went over to it and toed the food.

“What’s that?” he asked. He bent forward and I saw the tiny blackish curled up corpse of the wasp lying under the rim of the plate.

Now I had better turn and run as fast as my watery legs would carry me.

A loud crunching crack sounded from the back of the house. A chair went over in the kitchen. Feet were pounding like a train up through the hall. Something pushed me aside.

There were two of them, both in black jeans, T-shirts and trainers. One wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, the other had a mop of brown hair.

I’d staggered back and reached the wall.

I saw Sej standing there with his eyes wide and then they had him. One blow thudded home in his stomach. As he doubled the brown-haired man grabbed his arms from behind, and swung him away to the wall beyond the window. There, screened from the street by the drapery of one of my mother’s curtains, the other rhythmically began to sink fresh blows into him.

“That’s enough,” said the brown-haired man presently. He looked over his shoulder at me. “We’ll do a bit more work later, somewhere else. You’d like him off the premises I take it?” He spoke with an Oxbridge accent. Under the cascade of hair, I identified Mr C in a wig. I’d never, then, heard him speak before.

The other man, one I didn’t know with a young bony face, was examining Sej as carefully as a doctor. “He’s out.”

“How did you – I mean – so fast…?” gormlessly I said.

“Cart knows your type, Mr Phillips. And your friend here’s type too. We’ve been watching. Just round the corner. Come on,” he added to the other man, “we’ll take him out the back way. Vehicle’s just along the Crescent, Mr Phillips. You’ll need to get your back door fixed. But this one won’t be bothering you for at least ten days. Say twelve days, by the time my colleague has had enough room to exercise his full powers.” The other one grinned.

“How will you…?” I said. “I mean, someone may see you.”

“They won’t see him,” said Mr C. “We have a big roll of carpet out there. Ever heard of Cleopatra?”

I nodded, stupefied.

The other man said, however, “She was carried unseen like into the presence of Caesar, tied up in a carpet. And that’s how we do it, place like this. ‘S nice carpet. And look, no blood to mess it up.” He winked. “Not yet.”

They dragged Sej out.

I followed them in a kind of dream state to the kitchen. The door was intact but the lock had been nimbly forced. A large roll of carpet lay on the ground. They pulled it through into the house and I wondered if George and Vita were watching.

“My neighbours…”

“Suspicious? You’d be surprised, Mr Phillips. Any questions, someone bust your back door when you were out, or having a nap. Stole some carpet. They get confused you see, witnesses,” said Mr C. his voice taking on a differently accented twang. “Carpet came in, and went out? Nah. Just went out. Elderly couple I think they are, right? Saw ’em the other day. Both batty from the looks of ’em. Guy the other side too busy hoovering. Likes a bit of weed an’ all, je pense. Not reliable.”

They put Sej into the carpet, rolled him up.

I stood there watching.

I kept wanting to laugh, but also I needed to be alone. I wanted them gone. How didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but solitude.

“And he won’t – be back.”

“Not for a while. And of course, if there’s any more trouble,” Mr C was Oxbridge once more, “we can always arrange a larger delivery. By the way,” he added, as they efficiently raised the bundle, “best to pay HQ inside twelve hours. It’s more polite. Looks as if you’re pleased with the work.”

Weakly I said, “The man said a credit card – is that right?”

“Affirmative.”

Out they strode, carrying the carpet. Limber as squirrels over the fence they went. They must have a van. I closed the door and found I could after all jam it shut. Immediately I called the number again on Sej’s mobile and got the one who answered with the mystic words Bizan poos. But very smartly he acknowledged delivery of my ‘order’, and took the details of my card. I was warmly thanked.

Only later did I realise both entries to and exits from my house were now barred to me, I was still trapped, the back door jammed, the front door locked and no keys left, for Sej had them all. But the keys came, both sets, next morning, put through my front door in a plain white envelope. And the day after that Duran, flushed with the joy of successful fatherhood, mended the back door and enhanced every aspect of security in the house.

TWENTY

Collapse. That happened on the third day. Until then I’d kept going, carried by a sort of transparent bubble of buoyant un-caringness, the kind that can result from certain types of trauma, or alcohol.

Duran hadn’t been quite fooled by it, I felt, less fooled than I was, probably.

“You OK, Roy, mate?” he asked me several times.

But then, he’d seen the gutted TV and the red paint all over the front room.

Knowing now I couldn’t spill a single bean to him, I spun him a version of the story Mr C had suggested. Vandals had broken in at the kitchen door while I was away up