Life's Lottery (58 page)

‘That’s it?’ she asks.

Sean bends forward to look out through the windshield.

Before he can say anything, Mary takes his head and rams it against the dashboard. The impact shakes the whole car.

Mary gets out of the car, walks round, and opens the front passenger door. She hauls Sean out. He holds his bleeding forehead. She drags him up the drive like a sack of potatoes. His legs flail, heels scraping crazy-paving. Mary kicks open the kitchen door and drags him inside.

If you sit in the car and wait, go to 172. If you get out and follow Mary, go to 185.

Y
ou have been at the Marion Compound for two days, preparing. The Compound is in the middle of Snowdonia, half-way up a minor Welsh mountain. It was a bankrupt farm, leased cheaply and recently bought for a song. You’ve converted sheep-pens into a sleeping hut for the clients. You and James have a cottage as quarters and an office.

It’s November. You usually shut down for the winter but this is special. Normally, you provide heating in the pens. You’ve taken the stove out for the Hackwill party. The weather forecast is for drizzle, a consistent climatic feature in these parts. The slate-grey skies seem cheery to you, pregnant with long-deserved retribution. Cloud boils, ready to rain on Robert Hackwill.

You see the minibus coming, slowing to cope with the gradient. A road winds up from the valley. A long way. You’ve let it fall into pitted disrepair, and even gouged out a few new pot-holes to give the approach to the Compound that ‘Abandon all hope’ feeling. On maps, you have the pens and the cottage down as Colditz and Castle Dracula.

Is Hackwill worried now? Has he recognised James? Of course he has. Are the others catching on?

James parks by the pens and lets the Hackwill party out. They unbend and stretch, after several hours in the cramped minibus, groaning and stamping.

‘You remember my brother, Keith,’ says James.

Hackwill, in an expensive anorak, nods but doesn’t smile.

‘Good to see you, mate,’ says Sean Rye, grinning too widely. He is wearing a violently orange cagoule. ‘This is like a reunion.’

Reg Jessup glumly goes along with it.

This is delicious.

Shane Bush stands at the back, hired help rather than executive level, not paid to have an opinion. Mary Yatman, alert, wears a bodystocking, Doc Martens and a padded camouflage jacket. You and James have discussed her: she’ll be the dangerous one. The older bloke, heavy in the gut, is Ben McKinnell, a builder who stands to make a mint out of Hackwill’s long-gestating Discount Development. Tristram Warwick and Kay Shearer, who you understand are lovers, hang back in matching survival gear; squash-hardened, confident, competent. You’ll see how they manage away from the confines of a gym, forced to exert themselves for longer than a lunch break.

‘Where are the bogs?’ Sean asks.

You point at the mountainside and try not to smile.

‘What? No facilities?’

‘There’s a flush toilet in the cottage,’ you tell him.

‘Terrif,’ he smiles, taking a step towards the tiny stone building.

You stretch out an arm and bar his way. ‘You have to earn the right of access.’

‘What?’

You see Hackwill and Mary exchange a look. They’re catching on too early.

‘I’m paying a hundred quid for the week,’ says Sean, ‘and I can’t pee?’

You shrug. Your usual rate is £500 a week.

‘Of course you can pee,’ James says. ‘You just have to use nature’s toilet, otherwise known as the Principality of Wales.’

While this has been going on, Shearer has stepped behind the minibus and pissed against the wheel. Sean gets the idea, and hops to it, relieving himself in a gush.

‘It’s bloody cold,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ you agree.

* * *

You get the Hackwill party bedded down in the pens. There are eight of them, but you provide only seven sleeping bags. Hackwill, instantly leader, arranges a game of potatoes to decide who gets to be cosy. Sean, shaping up as runt of the litter, loses. You sloshed a couple of buckets of water in the pens yesterday so the ground should be nicely damp. Nothing too obvious. Yet.

In Castle Dracula, warmed by the open fire, you and James split a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and listen in on the party’s chatter. Colditz, of course, is bugged. The low-tech appearance of the Compound is supposed to be deceptive.

Sean, aptly, pisses and moans. McKinnell and Jessup say this isn’t what they expected. Warwick and Shearer agree.

Hackwill merely says, ‘I know the Marions.’

‘This was your idea,’ Jessup whines.

‘Shut up and sleep, Reg,’ says Hackwill, darkly.

You and James laugh.

* * *

At four in the morning, when it is still dark as midnight, you and James get up, put on outdoor kit and go outside.

The pens are fitted with a klaxon that blares wake-up-you-fuckers at a million decibels. It also triggers a series of thousand-candle flashbulbs. You throw the switch. Some guests scream loud enough to be heard above the klaxon. They scramble out of Colditz.

A searchlight circle serves as a gathering point.

‘Gents, and lady,’ you say, ‘good morning. Breakfast will soon be served in the luxury lounge. First, however, you have to bring home the bacon.’

James hands out hunting knives, with serrated blades and compasses in the handles. Every guest gets one. By the end of the week, it will be their only friend.

‘Out there, somewhere, is your breakfast. Go and get it.’

You swing the searchlight manually, playing light across the mountainside.

Hackwill and Mary set off at a run. The others follow. Sean, predictably, is last. You watch them go.

Dotted around the Compound are eight bowls of cold porridge, swimming in milk, clingfilm-covered to keep scavengers away. One breakfast is heavily dosed with laxative. It will be interesting to see who gets it.

You and James laugh uncontrollably. Shouts and cries come from the darkness.

By dawn, everyone has found a bowl and, overcoming reluctance, scoffed porridge like a good little Goldilocks. McKinnell’s guts come to the boil and he squats over a latrine pit, audibly voiding himself. His sufferings sober the others.

The first day’s programme is a treasure hunt. The party is split into two teams, given maps, and sent out to bring back Cap’n Kidd’s doubloons. The winning team gets a hot meal, access to the toilet and a warm bath. The losers go hungry and make do in the cold.

You appoint Shane and Mary captains and have them pick up sides. Shane goes first and naturally picks his boss, Hackwill. Mary picks Shearer and Shane picks Warwick, splitting the couple neatly. Mary, given a choice between Reg, McKinnell and Sean, picks McKinnell, whose bowels are calming. Hackwill has Shane pick Reg and Sean complains about being picked last. You attach yourself to Mary’s team. James will tag along with what’s supposed to be Shane’s crew but has become Hackwill’s command.

‘One team gets an hour’s head start,’ James announces.

‘Which one?’ Mary asks.

‘The one that can remember all the lyrics to the theme song of
Top Cat.
Nominate your singers. Fine, so it’s Tristram versus Sean. Start singing,
now
.’

‘Top Cat!’ James sings, letting the others take it up.

‘The most effectual…’ Warwick and Sean join in.

‘Top Cat!’ you and James sing.

‘Whose intellectual close friends get to call him T.C.’

Sean stumbles over ‘providing it’s with dignity’, and McKinnell, dreaming of a porcelain toilet with a roof over it, looks hate at him.

Warwick keeps on singing, climaxing with ‘yes, he’s the chief, he’s the king, he’s above everything, he’s the most tip-top Top Cat!’ He looks pleased with himself.

Hackwill, Warwick, Shane and Reg yomp off up the hillside, following their map, which Reg holds upside-down. The map, if read properly, will lead them to two locations, where separate portions of another map are hidden. Combined, these show where the treasure – a suitcase full of Monopoly money and Bounty bars – is buried. Since they’ve only had cold porridge in the last twenty-four hours, the sweets are a real treasure. A catch is that at one of the sites they have to pick up a key for the suitcase or forfeit the game. Mary’s team have a different map, which also marks the locations of two half-maps, which show where the booty is. There are two keys, but only one case.

Over previous courses, you’ve learned that the team that loses the
Top Cat
challenge, with an hour to look at the map, usually wins. The other side often hares off desperately and gets lost.

Mary studies, relating the hand-drawn map – which is covered with Jolly Rogers and crossed cutlasses – to visible landmarks.

‘Keith,’ she says, using your Christian name for the first time, ‘what would the position be if I left you all here and searched on my own?’

‘You’d concede the hunt. You have to take your trusty shipmates with you.’

She looks at the belly-quivering McKinnell and the nose-dripping Sean. That’s what she’s afraid of.

She folds the map and puts it in her padded jacket. Then she takes out her hunting knife and examines the blade. ‘Sharp?’ she asks.

You agree that it is.

She puts the point of the knife at your balls. ‘Keith,’ she says, ‘where’s the treasure?’

You look into her eyes and see she means it.

If you tell Mary where the treasure is, go to 171. If you tough it out, go to 184.

J
ames shoots Hackwill in the brain. You don’t even flinch.

‘Now we leave,’ Mary says, before Hackwill has hit the floor.

James shoots Hackwill again, in the back of the head – what’s left of it – just to make sure. Then he drops the pistol and unslings his machine-gun.

‘Dump everything,’ he says.

Mary tosses her pistol. You and Victoria throw away your weapons. The flames get nearer. With Hackwill dead, you’re thinking ahead again, of ways out of this, of ways back.

James pulls half a dozen grenades out of his jacket and drops them on top of the pile of guns.

‘It’ll be a mystery,’ he says.

‘Let’s go.’

You help Victoria down the stairs, through eye-assaulting smoke clouds. James and Mary follow. Firemen greet you in the lobby and help you out.

TV cameras and police marksmen mark the boundary the fire brigade have set up. Everyone asks what happened.

It’s all down to Mary. She says Hackwill went mad. He had a huge cache of weapons and killed a lot of people. She commends the Marion brothers for trying to save innocents.

You are bewildered. What about all the people who saw you walk through town with guns? The workers who escaped before the firefight? Anyone who remembers James’s feud with Hackwill? You look at faces in the crowd.

As Mary talks, people nod and tut. They always knew Robert Hackwill was a wrong ’un. (So why did they keep voting for him?)

‘Are you shocked?’ a reporter asks.

‘Hackwill was a bully at school,’ you say, explaining everything.

You walk away, unscathed. You go back to your family, justified.

And so on.

A
t Sean’s leaving do, you make a fulsome speech about him. You see Warwick, officially redesignated a consultant by head office, clapping slowly amid the rapid applause. No wonder.

When you hand over Sean’s leaving present – a giant-size Filofax – and shake his hand, you feel power pass from him to you. He used his position as manager to get rich. So can you.

You drink a lot but the buzz of power keeps you sober. On the way home, you stop and park.

‘Keith, what is it?’ your wife asks.

‘You forged my signatures.’

Vanda doesn’t bother to deny it.

‘Sean isn’t taking you with him,’ you say.

She yelps once, like a dog.

‘We’ve agreed. You’ll stay. For the kids. But you’re on probation.’

You start up the car again.

* * *

To show how tough you’re going to be on defaulters, you force Kay Shearer to declare bankruptcy. You’ve discovered that Shearer and Warwick are lovers. You use that to get Warwick dismissed. He has several times interceded to help Shearer, stepping beyond the bounds.

Head office are impressed. At the bank, they call you ‘the Killer’. Mortgage rates are rising, so there are plenty of victims. You target outstanding loans and go after them. You
can
get blood out of a stone.

Shane Bush, whom you remember from school, married some slag when he was eighteen and has three children. They got a mortgage and bought a terraced house in a drab part of town. Shane should have been a council tenant like his parents, but home-ownership was sold to him as a birthright in the early ’80s and his dream is only just going sour. He’s well behind on his repayments and bridging loans are getting him in deeper.

You foreclose and put the house up for auction. In Vanda’s name, you buy the house at a knock-down price, then resell it at a profit within two days.

There are plenty of opportunities like this.

You muscle in on the Discount Development, which is Councillor Robert Hackwill’s money-making machine. It’s been in the works for years and council money has been lining the pockets of builders and their cronies. You take your cut and Hackwill realises you’re a worthwhile partner. He doesn’t trust you, of course, but he needs a man who isn’t trustworthy.

Candy resigns and goes to work for South-West Gas. You don’t understand why she seems to feel sorry for you.

You keep in touch with Sean and even let him invest some of your invisible funds for you. He compliments you on catching him up and you enjoy explaining to him how you have pulled off this or that deal.

He says he might have something big for you eventually.

Vanda drinks a lot and chain-smokes but you keep her in line. You sleep with Bella, Candy’s replacement, and Grete, the Danish nanny.

You become sleek, almost chubby. People say you look prosperous.

Money piles up. Sean gets you into the City and you funnel everything into certain stocks. Sean has inside information and the stocks go through the roof.