Page 30

Sawyer

The cold porcelain on my hands helps me concentrate. Emotionally exhausted but I think I understand the game now. I’m already in. I’d rather be in, and in the know, than in and blindfolded. The sight of Craig in the bathtub is startling, but I breathe through it while Nik prepares for questioning. His voice is psychotically soothing, but not in the same way he soothes me. It’s different, manufactured and artificial.

“I’m going to remove the tape from your mouth, don’t kick off. Then I’m going to sit you up properly, that can’t be comfortable”

And he does, with one vicious rip. Then he pulls Craig to sitting, his chest almost between his knees. Nik grabs him by the nape of the neck and pulls the saliva-soaked sock from his mouth. Craig’s jaw hangs open and his eyes fix on Nik, terrified.

“Here is how this is going to work. Firstly, I’m going to provide you with some certainty. You have no control here. Your reputation and connections can’t do you any favours. If you upset me, it will hurt. If you upset me enough, you will die. I will ask questions. You will answer them to the best of your knowledge. If I think you’re withholding something, it will hurt. If you don’t answer me, it will hurt. You do not have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used to justify me getting my kicks from inflicting an intolerable amount of pain until such time as you lose consciousness. Interrogation will recommence when you regain consciousness. If you answer me, and I don’t believe you, it will hurt. Any questions?” and then he adds an addendum, evidently not in the previous script “I have someone else in the room with me. If you, in any way, shape or form, by action, inaction or omission, upset her. All bets are off. You will die a thousand deaths, and believe you are already in hell”

There is a very fucked up and depraved part of me that almost wants to aww at that obvious inversion of the rules, and clear consideration for me. I’m pretty sure this would be considered a war crime in basically every country. Can a war criminal be sweet? Even Hitler had a dog, right? It does make me warm slightly, even if Nik towering over a mummified man should be, and honestly is, entirely terrifying. But terror is a good start, it’s a feeling. We’ve not died on the inside, yet.

Nik places his finger on his lips and locks eyes with me in a “shush” motion and that knowing wink.

“First question - we’ll start with the easy ones. I have your colleague in the other room. Your behaviour has very real consequences for him too. He’s already told me a lot. If your answers don’t match you become mutually useless, and you both die. Tell me about your colleague through there”

I can’t help but smirk. Muscles isn’t in the other room, part of his remains are on the bottom of Nik’s bloody boots.

I can’t help but lean forward, gripping the porcelain, feeling somewhat detached from the scene before me, as if I’m binge-watching some Netflix docu-series, rather than a live interrogation occurring in my bathroom.

“He’s nobody… really…” comes a reluctant, stuttering answer. Followed by a familiar sigh, nose-bridge pinch, and then a deafening slap landing on his hairline.

“Don’t piss me off,” Nik warns, clarifying the purpose of the slap, as if anybody was unsure

“Just muscle, coming up, county lines shit, gets kids in and hooked on the life”

“Name?” Nik presses on

“Kian, we call him Key”

“Why you? Why did Harry not come and see me himself?”

My eyes ping between the two, like I’m watching the tennis from the front row, as Craig stutters, gaps, silences, stops himself and ultimately provides zero intelligible answers. In slow motion Nik walks to me and holds his hand out, glancing from me to the gun.

He stalks his way back to the bathtub, I can’t tell if it’s slow motion or he’s being deliberately dramatic. Either way I’m entranced watching him work.

With startling speed and accuracy, Nik grabs Craig’s hair with one hand and exploits the gasp, shoving the barrel of the gun into his mouth. Suddenly Craig is trying to talk, scream, squeal, anything to escape. To negotiate with his executioner.

“You knew the fucking rules” Nik tells him “make your peace with your God” and he starts counting down from five with increasing aggression and urgency. More muffled sounds escape from Craig, when the countdown finishes I squeeze my eyes closed again - even though I know the gun isn’t even loaded. Click.

I open my eyes and bring my gaze to the scene in front of me. A hysterical, sobbing Craig, now decorated with his own urine. I can’t even begin to fathom the sheer terror he must be experiencing right now. Yet I can barely look away.

“Now that you know how very fucking serious I am, you had better talk…”

And he opens up. Every secret he can think of that might save his life. He spills everything. And by Christ there are some revelations. It’s entertaining until I hear my own name, and my stomach drops, reminding me this is, in fact, actually fucking happening in my bathroom.

Until then it was some tea about Harry, a guy called Dmitri, some skimming and Nik was apparently the fall guy. Sounds like whatever Harry schemed went spectacularly wrong in some big way. Now Nik is holed up with me, Harry has leverage on everyone, including Dan, who is getting fucked up behind bars and might crack and make a deal which is where I come in because keeping me alive is apparently a motivator for Dan to keep his mouth shut. And there’s leverage on me, too, which kind of pisses me off on a whole bunch of levels.

This is clearly a big reveal, though, because I have never in all my years known Harry to run scared. Now he’s been bunkered down somewhere, sending other plebs to do everything. That can only mean he pissed off the wrong shark, the National Crime Agency are closing in, or maybe both.

“Well thank you, for that helpful insight…” Nik has clearly heard enough and gained whatever information he was after “…just one more question… now that you’ve told me all of this, what use can you still be to me?”

“Wait… no! We had a deal! I told you everything!” hysteria taking over again

“The deal specified repercussions, not reparations or rewards,” Nik accurately surmises. I’ve got to hand it to him, he’s a naughty bastard. He continues “and you might have just handed away your value.” The natural response to this, of course, is some sobbing, some hysteria, begging and bargaining to stonewall silence from Nik. Until he hits the jackpot.

“…I can feed you information! I can arrange a sit-down!”

“Let me confer with my colleague. Open wide.” And Nik stuffs his mouth with the sock and tapes him quiet again, before leading me out of the room.