Pecking Order (9 page)

Turning his head he spat into the road, trying to remove the bad-egg taste her exhaust fumes had left in his mouth. Wiping his lips with one hand, he turned his attention to the next step of his plan.

Chapter 10

Eric knocked on the door marked, John Milner BA (Hons) MSc (Psych).

Receiving no answer, he continued down the corridor, looking into each laboratory as he went. In the third room he spotted his colleague and pushed open the door. A man with thin greying hair and a short beard looked up from the table on which he was arranging piles of essays.

'Professor Maudsley, to what do I owe this pleasure? I haven't seen you in the psychology department for many a month.' His voice carried a faint North American accent.

'Hello John. I'm just here to ask a favour actually.'

The man sat on the edge of the table and held out his hands, 'Fire away.'

'I need to borrow any basic psychology tests you might have - Rorschach cards and the like. Do you have any bits and pieces like that?'

‘Plenty - though I can't give you an actual set of Rorschach cards. We try and keep those secret. They depend on the element of surprise, you see. But I've got similar cards along with standard cognitive assessment tests used by larger companies assessing potential employees. I think I've even got a psychiatric test for assessing criminal tendencies. What's it for?'

‘Oh, a young cousin of mine is staging a play. One of the scenes involves a psychiatrist's appointment, so they wanted to look at some tests and get a feel for the type of questions asked.'

'Sounds interesting. All that stuff should be in here.' He unlocked a wall cupboard and pulled out a few folders and what looked like a pack of oversized playing cards. 'Here's the imitation Rorschach test, always a favourite amongst first year students. You know how it works?'

'Vaguely.'

'It's absurdly simple. Too much so, in the opinion of many modern-day psychiatrists. Each card has a blot on it, created by dripping ink onto the middle of a page and then folding it over. The result is all sorts of weird and wonderful symmetrical patterns. You simply ask what the shape reminds your subject of. One man's butterfly is another man's double-faced demon. Of course analysing the results is a whole different ball game.'

'That's OK, it's just the test itself, not the analysis of it that features in the play.’

'Right. Well this folder has a test favoured by many American companies for recruiting senior personnel in the late 1990s. And here's the criminal assessment one - the two are surprisingly similar.' They laughed at his joke. 'As I say - it's all in the analysis of the answers.'

'That's great John, can I borrow them for a few days?'

'Have them for the summer if you want - my last lecture was on Thursday. I've just got to mark this lot now,' he said, patting the nearest pile of scripts.

Eric left the department and returned to his office. Once in his seat he powered-up the computer and clicked onto the desktop publishing programme. From his briefcase he took out the two Commando comics and wrote out all the words he'd underlined. Confidential. Spy. Agents. Need-to-know basis. Search and destroy. For your eyes only. Mission. Objectives. Operatives. Undercover. Project Alpha. Secret. Call sign. Code.

He tinkered around with the various words, combining them in different ways, crossing some out, adding others in. Eventually he was happy. On his computer, he selected an A5-size field and inside the box typed, 'Top Secret Government Project. Agents Wanted. Call - ' then he picked up one of the two pay-as-you-go phones he'd bought earlier with cash and typed its number across the base of his advert.

Next, he selected some pale blue A5 divider cards from a packet in his top drawer and inserted one into his printer. After typing in one for 'Number of copies required' he pressed 'Print'. The machine began to click and whir. Once the process was complete he clicked the 'Close' icon on his screen. An inner window asked if he wanted to save his work. He selected 'No'. The page of text vanished from his screen.

He carefully picked the ad off the printer, gathered it up with the war comics and sheet of paper he'd been doodling on then slipped everything into his bag.

Chapter 11

By now the sudden noise the conveyor belt made as it started to revolve was less alarming to the birds: it seemed it wasn't the prelude to some sort of attack. None of them had fed yet and no eggs had been produced. Their hunger and thirst were mounting, forcing them to explore their tiny home. The bird in the corner brushed against the red nozzle poking through the bars and a fat drop of water welled out of the tip. It fell onto the bird's back and rolled down the richly coloured feathers. The animal cocked its head to regard the glistening piece of plastic. A tentative peck released a second large drip and the bird gratefully drank it. Squashed alongside, another bird saw the water and the first jostle occurred as the two sought to drink. In the other rear corner a slightly smaller hen awkwardly tried to turn itself around. When it had been shoved into the cage its left leg had been bent back; the thigh muscle was severely torn and the bone fractured. It slumped against the bars, a low guttural sound of distress rising from its throat. At the front of the cage the largest bird warily extended its head between the bars. The conveyor belt rattled along just below its beak, carrying scores of pellets on an endless loop. From their smell, the bird knew the small objects were food, but it was a type it hadn't experienced before and it was reluctant to try. It drew its head back into the cage, neck feathers catching painfully on the bars. But the pangs of hunger were too strong and eventually its head appeared out of the front of the cage once again. A beady eye regarded the moving pellets and, unable to resist, the chicken abruptly pecked at one.

Chapter 12

As he pulled up near the village post office he was surprised to see a group of three old ladies already waiting outside the locked door. He'd assumed he would be the first customer of the day. Sitting in his car, he watched as they chatted animatedly with each other. All wore ankle-length navy raincoats and two had plastic scarves on their heads, despite the clear sky.

He undid his seat belt and checked yet again that the postcard-size advertisement was safely in his jacket pocket. Glancing in his rear-view mirror, he saw the old lady in the motorised wheelchair he'd encountered a couple of days before. She rolled up the ramp and Eric noted with interest how the three women only wished her the briefest of good mornings. She sat hunched in the seat, one claw perched on the arm controls.

Inside the shop a shadow moved behind the windows. It glided up to the door and paused there as bolts were slid back. Then the sign flipped from Closed to Open and the door swung outwards. Eric could hear his chirpy tone through the car window.

'Hello ladies! And how are we on this beautiful morning?'

'Fine thank you, Mr Williams,' the three women crowed back in a disjointed chorus.

Once they had all teetered inside, he climbed out of his car and crossed the quiet road. He stood at the newspaper shelves assessing the situation. Once again, only the elderly shopkeeper was working behind the glass screen of the post office counter. Busily he stamped booklets, the old ladies gathered before him.

Eric squatted down and drew the piece of thin card from his pocket. Then he picked up the uppermost Commando war comic, slid the piece of paper inside the back cover, returned it to the shelf and picked up an
Independent
. He walked over to the shop counter and waited.

Presently, the owner called out to him from behind the screened off section. 'I'll be with you in two ticks!'

Eric smiled. 'No hurry.'

As the man counted out the three old ladies' pensions Eric listened to the conversation rattle about between them.

'Did you have the ham, Elsie? I had the ham. It was nice.'

'Yes, I had the ham. But Beth had the cheese.'

'Did you Beth? Was the cheese nice?'

'I didn't much care for it actually, Dot. It was that rubbery foreign sort. From Switzerland or wherever.'

‘Well, the ham was very nice.’

Beth leaned closer to her companions and whispered, 'Sticks. That sort?'

Elsie nodded in silent agreement, but Dot said, 'I'm sorry?'

Elsie and Beth glanced with some embarrassment at Eric. Beth looked back at Dot, opened her mouth slightly and pointed to the roof of her mouth. Sticks, she silently said, then pursed her lips and looked off to the side.

'Oh, the cheese stuck to your plate?' Dot asked loudly.

'Well the ham was nice,' Elsie intervened. 'Thin sliced, it was.'

'Yes - I prefer thin sliced,' replied Dot.

'I'll try it next Monday,’ Beth said. ‘Unless they have turkey, I prefer turkey to everything.'

Eric listened to their conversation with revulsion - its triviality horrified him. A lifetime of experience and wisdom, reduced to this. The type of sandwich served at their local OAP night. Memories came flooding back of his years spent working in inner city care homes. Despite the differences in the financial well-being of his former patients and the elderly ladies stood next to him, their physical state had all slid to the same level. Money couldn't change that. From the corner of his eye he looked at the way one of them stood, weight shifting uncomfortably from one arthritic hip to the other. The curved upper spine of another, forcing the head into endless contemplation of her feet.

He'd observed this process of decline too often over the years. If he was honest with himself, he had been only too glad to get out of caring for the elderly in a hands-on way. Studying them from an academic distance was far more appealing. Developing a disdain for those you care for was, he knew, a relatively common process amongst the employees of nursing homes. Daily exposure to it had certainly extinguished long ago the sympathy he'd first felt. Gradually, as he himself had aged, those feelings had been replaced with unease. Then discomfort and fear. And finally resentment. Resentment for the fact that he was becoming one of them.

He thought back to how his own parents had died, glad that the end was relatively quick for them both. Not that it mitigated the circumstances of their deaths. When the coal strike was finally broken in 1984 his dad had returned to work, ready to get on with earning a wage. The village colliery was one of Britain's most productive and there was plenty of work to catch up on. But within weeks the killer blow came - the Tory government closed it for 'economic reasons'.

Eric, only just qualified as a lecturer, had driven home, unable to believe it. But it was true: the colliery gates were padlocked shut. Hundreds of men's livelihoods were destroyed and the heart was ripped out of the village. After that Eric returned home as often as he could, and with each visit the colliery buildings had sagged a little more. His dad's health mirrored their decline. In his late-fifties, he didn't stand a chance of getting another job. A lifetime spent down the pit suddenly took its toll - his back and knees went and he could hardly get out of bed. Then his fingers seized up so he couldn't garden or even feed himself without difficulty. A year later he was dead.

Eric peered down at the backs of his own hands, noting the liver spots gathering at his knuckles, the bluish ropey veins meandering beneath his increasingly papery skin. Old age was slowly infecting him. He knew how quickly his mind would also deteriorate if it was deprived of the daily exercise provided by his job. His career was the only thing that set him apart from the women standing next to him - and now it was being torn from him and handed over to someone who he despised.

'Just the paper sir?' The voice snapped him out of his reverie and he looked up at the smiling shopkeeper. He glanced around - the three old ladies had gone and the minutes had slipped by. It was almost 8:55. He needed to hurry.

'Yes. Thank you,' he quickly answered, holding out a one pound coin. As the owner picked change from the open till, a bitter voice spoke from near his elbow.

'I was before that gentleman.'

He looked down into the crumpled face of the old woman as her lower jaw trembled and shook.

'I know Miss Strines,' said the shopkeeper, handing Eric his change. 'But he's only getting a paper - and your disability benefit takes a lot longer to sort out.'

'Shouldn't matter - and you know it,' she croaked indignantly.

Eric pocketed the coins, mumbled an apology and swiftly left the shop. He looked across the green and, to his relief, saw no one approaching. Once back inside his car he unfolded the newspaper and, using it as a screen, began reading the front page.

The cover headline immediately caught his attention. 'Drug giants to merge.' The story outlined how two multi-nationals were combining their operations to achieve increased levels of efficiency. Share prices in both had leapt. A spokesperson was quoted as saying how cutting roles duplicated across both operations would save millions. Eric's eyes flicked down to the spokesperson's inevitable concluding comment, the one describing how both companies were confident that no compulsory redundancies would be necessary. His snort of disbelief filled the car. 

A bulky form moving to the right dragged his gaze from the page. Rubble was walking up the ramp into the shop, tapping a key from a large bunch against the iron handrail as he went. He pulled open the door and disappeared inside. Eric waited. Moments later the door was pushed open again and Rubble stepped back out, a plastic bag of comics hanging from his hand.

Directly behind him was the old woman in her wheelchair.

Rubble held the door open until she was half-way out, then deliberately let go. It swung back, banging loudly on the footplate of the wheelchair.

Instantly the old woman began to curse. 'You're a bloody thug, Roy Bull. Always was and always will be!'

Like an overgrown kid, he skipped down the slope laughing.

'You need punishing you do - you murderous bloody oaf,' she squawked.