might actually have gone mad. Or that he was hallucinating. Or that this was an alternative version of reality. Or all three. (Reggie! Little Reggie Chase!)
‘Arrest him,’ Vince said to her, pointing the gun at Steve Mellors. ‘He’s called Stephen Mellors and he’s the mastermind behind all this.’ Andy Bragg grunted something that seemed to be disagreement about the word ‘mastermind’.
‘Because if you don’t arrest him, I’ll shoot him,’ Vince said. He moved closer to Mellors and said ‘Arrest him’ again, the gun now inches away from Mellors’ head. ‘I promise I’ll shoot him if you don’t arrest him. It’s one or the other, you choose. I’d rather shoot him, but I’ll settle for arrest.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Mellors said to no one in particular. Jackson seemed to be the only one who saw Ronnie Dibicki slip out of the room while everyone’s attention was on the gun and its proximity to Stephen Mellors’ head.
‘Stephen Mellors, I am arresting you on suspicion of …’ Reggie said. She glanced at Jackson and he said, ‘Try GBH for starters. I expect you can throw in the Modern Slavery Act later. As well as a few other choice things.’
‘Stephen Mellors,’ Reggie said, throwing Jackson a black look, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of assault causing grievous bodily harm. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
And then one of the girls suddenly stumbled to her feet and pointed at Stephen Mellors like a character accusing someone in a melodrama. ‘Mark Price,’ she said. ‘You’re Mark Price.’
Haulage
She was dreaming about plums. Just a few days ago they had sat knee to knee – Nadja and Katja and their mother – on the small balcony of their mother’s apartment, eating plums from an old plastic bowl. The plums were the colour of bruises. Big purple bruises.
They had picked the plums on a visit to their grandfather’s farm. Not really a farm, more of a smallholding, but he grew everything. Plums, apples, cherries. Cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbages. When they were little they used to help him make his sauerkraut, squeezing the salt into it until the leaves went limp. He kept a big wooden tub of it on his porch. A thick mat of mould on the top kept it from freezing in the winter. It used to disgust Katja. She never had a strong stomach – their mother said she was a fussy eater, but she was mostly just obsessed with her weight.
Katja didn’t like to go shooting with their grandfather either. It wasn’t so much the killing that she didn’t like, it was the skinning and gutting afterwards. Their grandfather could strip a rabbit of its fur in seconds and then slit it open and let its steaming innards slip out. His dogs devoured the entrails before they even hit the ground. Nadja was his willing apprentice, following him through the woods and fields, stalking the rabbits.
Foxes too, although Katja said if he didn’t shoot the foxes the foxes would eat the rabbits and then no one would have to go about like cowboys shooting everything in sight.
Nadja was a good shot. Only this weekend she had bagged a fox, a big brown dog with a huge brush. Her grandfather nailed the best skins on to the door of his woodshed. ‘Trophies,’ he said.
Nadja was his favourite. ‘My strong girl,’ he called her. Katja didn’t care. She never cared about anything much except skating. Nadja gave up ballet so their mother could afford all the expense. Nadja wasn’t resentful – perhaps it was a relief in a way because she no longer had to keep proving herself. She loved her sister. They were close – best friends. She went to all Katja’s competitions. Hated it when she lost or when she fell, because she could be beautiful on the ice. When she had to give it up it hurt Nadja almost as much as it hurt Katja.
They’d picked all the plums, scavenging even the last of the small, imperfect ones. Their grandfather made his own slivovitz. It could take the top of your head off. They should take a bottle to London with them, he said. Show the English what a real drink was. He had never forgiven Churchill for his betrayal of the Poles after the war. Katja couldn’t care less about history. ‘Modern times