The Artisans Read online

  THE ARTISANS

  J.G. Alva

  “…Friend turned upon friend, wife turned upon husband, brother turned upon brother, and it was a rich and unholy mess. The Clicks and Switcheads watched as their masters fought in the streets, in the parks, in the meeting towers…even in their own homes. Shooting and burning, cutting and stabbing, punching and kicking, it seemed as if no man – or woman – was spared from this terrible plague. The death of an innocent at the hands of one who had been trusted with justice and instead had meted out a wild and indecent punishment could not be ignored. All who saw it could not turn away, and yet all who saw it longed to have turned before bearing witness. It mirrored some vital terror from their own daily lives, and resonated so strongly within them that they could neither disregard nor suppress it; they knew only that the lives they had been living could not go on, not without some revolution of the spirit. And so they brought about a revolution of the flesh, and weapons were taken up against Lords and Peasants alike, while others used their teeth on washed and unwashed necks, without reservation; there was no unfair prejudice. It was a pandemonium of murder and blood and it did not stop until all ill had been cleanly excised from society, and the world could start again, anew…”

  -Excerpt from Fall of the Ravenans, by Michael Broadbent

  PROLOGUE

  2004

  It looked like they were going to cut off his arm.

  Sutton had come in through the kitchen at the back of the house, creeping through the darkened interior like a Grendel; now, he stood in the hallway, watching as they prepared to carry out this terrible threat.

  There were three of them: two to hold him down, and one to do the cutting. The sixty watt bulb inside the paper ball bamboo style lampshade cast a diffuse pool of light into the lounge, illuminating a depressingly prosaic interior for the scene of such horrific torture: there was an old tube TV by the window; an X-box on the floor; a small shelf unit full of DVDs; two brown four-seater sofas; a not wholly unexpected profusion of merchandise that indicated four men were living together in this three bedroom terraced house: crushed beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, football shirts, car magazines. It was nothing new.

  There was a rug in front of the gas fireplace, and this was to be the staging ground for their hostage’s dismemberment: they had him on his knees, his right arm pulled so far back he was forced to bow down to the floor as if praying, his left arm held up to the light. Sutton couldn’t see his face, but he could see he was in his twenties, his hair cut to a minimal bristle. They had taken his shirt off him – God alone knew why. He had a thin frame, but the muscles looked sturdy. Sutton noticed a tattoo on his shoulder: an eagle clutching a skull with flaming eye sockets. It was good work.

  The men holding him weren’t really men; they were boys. Eighteen or nineteen years of age, they exuded fear and violence in equal measure; Sutton could smell it; like the changing rooms after a hard football match. One of the boys had an impressive arm around Danny’s neck, his hair cut into a Mohawk. The one holding his right arm had shaved his hair off completely; he was skinny, and as white as a pail of milk. The one with the knife had his hair in braids. He was very verbose on the subject of cutting off Danny’s arm. To hear him tell it, it was good work and he enjoyed doing it. But the talk had the flavour of desperation, as if he were trying to work himself up to it. He would have to do it – if what Sutton had been told was correct, then it was going to happen – but Sutton had some time still.

  Adam Longhall was a PE teacher for a school in Mangotsfield. Sutton had met him one evening two days ago on the concrete football pitch on the far side of the main hall. The setting sun had burned the underside of a ribbed array of scattered clouds pink; if he had to paint it, the colour wouldn’t look real. A hooker’s lipstick red, it was spectacular; like a sunset from an old Technicolor movie.

  Adam had not been pleased to see him; after all, this was not a pleasant matter. He was collecting footballs and putting them in a large sack and he used it as an excuse not to look at Sutton.

  “You’re Sutton Mills?” He asked eventually, when he had all the balls.

  “I am.”

  “Suzy said you were tall, but she didn’t say you were big. I mean, she said you worked out…”

  Adam trailed off. For a full minute, he stared at the ground. Sutton waited him out. Sometimes it took a little longer. Everyone was different. Not everyone could look the world in its crazy bloodshot eye and act. Sometimes it was just too much.

  “Suzy told you what I want done,” he said eventually.

  “She told me some of it. It’s your brother, she said. Danny.”

  Adam threw the sack full of footballs at the chain link fence that surround the playground on three sides with some vehemence. Frustration or anger…or both. The fence rattled momentarily, and then was still.

  “I don’t even know if I should get you to do this,” Adam said. “I don’t know if there’s even a point. I mean, whether he should be saved or not. Because if it’s not this – if you can get him out, that is – then it will be something else, some way down the line. It’s just the way he is. I don’t know…”

  “Is it drugs?” Sutton asked.

  “No,” Adam said. “Not really. I mean, yes, he’s been on drugs from time to time, but he could just as easily have not been on them, if that makes sense. It’s…it’s something else. I don’t know. It’s like there’s two people: the man, Daniel Longhall…and then there’s the animal inside him. The Beast. He’s two people, and he can literally turn from one to the other in a heartbeat. It’s that quick. Maybe there’s something wrong in his head. You know. A chemical imbalance or something. It’s like that fence when we were growing up. Did Suzy tell you about that?”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “We both grew up on a farm, in Wiltshire. The next farm over had an electrified fence. I don’t remember why. But it was live. We used to throw things at it, to see the sparks: rocks and shit. But it got to the point where that wasn’t enough for Danny. He used to have to touch it. Always. And when he got used to that, to that initial shock, then he would have to see how long he could hold on to it for. It was…bizarre. He’d have these burns over his hands…” Adam held up his own hands, as if he expected to find the same wounds on his palms…but of course he didn’t. He shook his head. “He ate bees.”

  Sutton honestly thought he had misheard.

  “What?”

  “He used to catch them, and see if he could eat them before they stung in.”

  There was a beat while Sutton tried to imagine someone eating bees. He couldn’t. It was just too bizarre.

  “Is he into pain?” He asked eventually. “Is that what it is?”

  Adam shook his head again, but he wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think…I think he likes being alive. Likes being reminded that he’s alive. That’s what the pain does. And the danger. It’s like he’s always on this knife edge of death, and therefore always aware that he’s alive. Does that make sense?”

  Sutton nodded. He wasn’t wholly unfamiliar with that feeling.

  “And he’s in danger now?”

  Adam nodded.

  “I got a call from him Saturday night. I don’t know what happened, or why it happened, and frankly I don’t care. But he’s upset some unpleasant people, I gather, and they are out to do him harm.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  Adam’s eyes were worried, and seemed to reach out to Sutton.

  “I want you to get him out of there. Out of Bristol. Somewhere safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “I can pay you.”

  “Alright.”

  “I don’t know if helping him matters,” Adam continued, idly kicking stone
s across the pitch. “If it’s even worth it. Even if you can save him, if you can get him out of Bristol safely, he’ll probably be dead in a year. The way he lives his life…”

  “Where is he?” Sutton asked.

  “In a friend’s house in Westbury-on-Trym. But from what he said, he hasn’t got long before they find him.”

  “Alright. So let’s say I go and talk to him. That he lets me talk to him. If I do, is he even going to come with me? If he is the way you say he is.”

  “Yeah. He asked for my help. When he called. That’s the first time he’s done that. Ever. I mean, I’ve always helped him his whole life. Even though I’m the younger brother, it feels like I’ve always been looking out for him. Instead of the other way around, which is how it should be. But I’m afraid I said some unpleasant things to him on the phone. I refused to help him, point blank.”

  “But it’s been bothering you, ever since.”

  Adam stared at Sutton and then said, “Suzy said you were smart. Yes. Yes, it has.”

  But of course this begged the obvious question: why didn’t Adam go and pick up his brother and get him out of Bristol himself?

  “I was going to,” he said, after Sutton had asked him. “Even after the stuff I said to him, but…Suzy won’t let me. I mean, I understand it. We just found out we’re going to have a baby. Two months now. I can’t risk it. Not for Danny. Do you understand?”

  Sutton nodded.

  He had more pressing responsibilities.

  “How will I get him to trust me? Assuming I decide to help.”

  Adam had already thought of this. His answer came quickly.

  “Tell him you know the story about the swing,” he said.

  “The swing?”

  “Yeah. He has a scar on his face. It runs right down here, like this.” Adam traced a line from just above his left eye to halfway down his cheek. “He keeps telling people he got it in a knife fight in Easton. But that’s bollocks. He fell off a swing when he was eight. He cut up his face, and damaged his eye. That’s why they’re different colours. They should both be green, but the left one now looks mostly brown. It’s called Mechanical Anisocoria; damage between the iris and the lens. If you tell him that, then he’ll know I sent you. He won’t like it, that I told, but he’ll trust you.” He hesitated, and then produced a grim smile. “Maybe.”

  Braided Hair stuck a knife into the top of Danny’s shoulder suddenly, bringing Sutton back to the present. It must have been a sharp knife, because it slid into the skin like butter.

  A runnel of blood popped out, slipping over the shoulder in a perfectly straight line. Danny, his face bent toward the carpet, growled deep in his throat. Spit bubbled from his mouth on to the rug. Braided Hair pulled the knife out quickly, and a few droplets splashed his face. He flinched but didn’t wipe them away.

  If Danny wanted to be reminded he was alive, then he must be feeling it now.

  They might just want to cut off his arm – penance for whatever it was he had done to upset the people these young men reported to – but the odds were that they would end up killing him. Sutton didn’t think they were bothered either way.

  He went back into the kitchen. A streetlight beyond the back fence issued enough illumination to make out the bulky shapes of the kitchen island, an empty clothes horse, a large metal rubbish bin, and a tumble dryer standing by itself against the back wall. The washing up had not been attended to in some time, and lay piled in the sink; Sutton picked out a plate and then dropped it to the floor, where it shattered.

  The sound was spectacularly loud.

  All discussion in the front room ceased suddenly.

  Sutton moved to a position behind the door to the hall.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a reasonable approximation of a cat’s meow.

  Braided Hair said, “Nick. Go look.”

  Nick padded gently along the hall and into the kitchen. He turned out to be the skinny one with the shaven head. He waited a moment in the kitchen doorway. Sutton could see him through the crack between the door and the hinges. Nick searched the dark interior, spotted the light switch, and then leaned forward to turn it on. As he did so, Sutton stepped out from behind the door and brought both hands down on the back of Nick’s neck. He gave a soft “huh” and then collapsed to the kitchen floor with an equal softness of sound.

  Silence.

  Sutton picked up a frying pan from the draining board. Like everything else, it wasn’t clean. Grease dripped from it as he held it out to his side and moved quietly into the hall.

  The boys were talking in muted voices.

  Sutton waited for them to get curious.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Nick?” One of them called. “What the fuck?”

  One of them was coming.

  Sutton swung the frying pan around.

  As it connected with the more curious of the two, Sutton shouted, “Danny, now!”

  The jarring impact of the frying pan wasn’t quite enough to incapacitate Mohawk. He stumbled, but he was impressively thick enough in the skull department to take the hit and remain standing. And he was big. Not tall, but thickly muscled. He stumbled back against the door frame, automatically bringing his hands up to his head. Sutton put a well-placed foot into the now unprotected side of Mohawk’s knee. He felt the knee give. Mohawk screamed. His hands automatically went to his knee then; he couldn’t help himself. Sutton rapped the greasy frying pan across the back of the boy’s head one more time. There was a metallic clang. Grease drenched the Mohawk. The boy fell forward into the hall on his face.

  Sure Mohawk was out of it, Sutton cautiously looked into the front room with the hope that Danny had used the distraction to his advantage.

  He was just in time to see Danny drive Braided Hair’s knife into the underside of the boy’s jaw.

  Braided Hair gave a strangled gurgle, blood bubbling out of his mouth; his arms flailed wildly for a moment, like a robot gone haywire; he pissed himself, the dark stain spreading down the inside of the right leg of his jeans. Then he went slack on the tip of the knife. Danny held him like that for a moment, blood leaking down the knife and on to his forearm, before he withdrew the knife in one swift motion and let Braided Hair fall to the floor at his feet.

  “’Ere,” Danny said, pointing the knife at Sutton. “Who the fuck be ‘e?”

  “My name is Sutton,” he said, dropping the frying pan. “Your brother sent me.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s true.”

  “’E don’t know no one could ‘urt a fuckin’ rabbit. Let alone gis these cunts an ‘iding.”

  “And yet here I am.”

  But Danny still looked sceptical.

  He had a hard face, Sutton thought, staring across the room at him. The scar helped to enforce it, a dark ragged mess of skin lined up almost vertically with the centre of his left eye. The eye helped: from this distance, it looked black, while the other one was so obviously green. He had blonde hair cut short to his head, an earring in his left ear, and besides the tattoo on his shoulder, he had another one across his chest of a tribal Inca eagle design. Another impressive bit of art…but this might be too much. Sutton was surprised to find that Danny was short: at a push, he might be five feet six inches tall.

  Sutton sighed.

  “He told me the story about the swing,” Sutton said, pointing to Danny’s face. “That you got the scar falling off a swing when you were eight.”

  At that moment, Mohawk groaned.

  Danny’s attention immediately flicked to the prostrate man, before returning to Sutton. He still had the knife in his hand. He spent a moment weighing Sutton with his eyes – those strange eyes – and then he came toward him, the knife held threatening in his fist.

  Sutton felt his body tense up. Was Daniel Longhall irrational enough to turn on the person who had saved him? Sutton hoped not, but he readied himself just in case.

  “He really shouldn’t have done that,”
Danny said.

  The accent was gone suddenly.

  It was such a minor thing, and yet Sutton momentarily felt himself in disarray. To have judged this man, not on who he was, but on what he had thought he had seen.

  There was a lesson here, he thought.

  Still, did this new facet of the man make him more or less erratic?

  Sutton prepared himself to find out.

  But Danny strode passed Sutton with no such agenda. Instead, he got down on his knees next to Mohawk. He lifted the man’s head up by his hair, his now greasy hair. Mohawk groaned again. He was still mostly out of it.

  “You may not want to see this,” Danny said, with a grin.

  Again, the strong Bristolian accent had been suppressed, and again it was just as shocking. This “other” voice was softly spoken, educated, with a slight rural twang. It was such a contrast to the look of this man – and to what Sutton had heard about him - that it was hard to believe it was real. But what was more real? The Bristolian accent or this more educated one?

  “In fact,” Danny continued, “it might be a good idea if you left altogether.”

  “I can’t,” Sutton said. “Your brother asked me to get you out of the city. To get you somewhere safe.”

  “I’m safe now, aren’t I?” Danny said. “And this is my city. And no one is going to chase me out of it.”

  He then drew the knife across Mohawk’s throat, releasing a gush of hot, viscous blood on to the carpet in the hall, silencing the man forever.

  ◆◆◆

  “How bad was it?” Andy asked, his voice tight, when Sutton called him the next night.

  “It was bad.”

  Andy released a breath.

  “I knew it would be. But…did you save him? Did he let you?”

  Sutton was in a phone box outside of a petrol station. A solitary attendant was cleaning the shelves inside. One of the fluorescents wasn’t working properly, and every time it went off the man would stop cleaning and look up…until it came back on again. Then he would resume his task.