Bad Music 18
Fait Accompli
‘Faith Graham?’ He pronounced it Fait. Fait Gram.
Amber turned, ‘Man at the door!’ and the next thing, she was being shoved inside, a hand round her throat squeezing a bit too tight to be mistaken for play-fighting, like she did with her sister. She tried to scream but she didn’t have the air or the time as she was pushed along the hall and into the living room, where she was flung onto the sofa.
Faith looked up. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it.
‘Fait Gram,’ the man repeated.
She nodded.
The other man must have slammed the door shut, they heard the bang, then he was in the living room beside them. ‘We want Angus.’ He pronounced it Arng Goose.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Where?’
Faith was nothing but cunning. She took her time to reply, studying them as she prepared her answer. Both men had injuries to their faces. The man who spoke had a gash that ran from above his left eye and down to his cheek. It had been stitched and the black threads against the livid flesh gave him a Frankenstein look, like his face was quilted from different constituent parts.
The second man had his jaw wired shut. His left eye was swollen almost closed.
‘Want me to call him?’ Faith asked.
‘Call now.’
She turned to Amber. ‘Put the kettle on, love.’ And as Amber stood she added, ‘And fetch my phone.’ The men waited while Amber went into the kitchen, heard her filling the kettle with water. ‘Tea? While you wait?’
‘Thankyou.’
Amber returned with Faith’s phone. The screen was badly cracked. She went through her numbers and then pressed dial. Waited.
‘Speaker,’ the man said. Faith nodded, switched it to speaker. The phone rang and rang. It went to answer. ‘I’ll try again,’ she said, dialled and then waited.
‘Your phone rang,’ Wull said, throwing it over to Angus. ‘I think it’s on silent, but I saw the screen light up.’
‘I hate people calling me,’ Angus said. He checked the screen. It lit up again and he answered. ‘Yeah?’ He listened some more, taking a sharp intake of breath that signaled to Wull that something was amiss. He listened more, his face darkening. Finally, he said, ‘I’ll be half an hour.’
Faith looked at the men. ‘Thirty minutes?’
‘We’ll wait.’
‘See you then,’ she said to the phone. Put it down.
Amber popped her head in the door, ‘We’re out of milk. I’ll go get some.’ She was gone before the men could argue.
‘Sister?’ the man asked.
‘Niece.’ She clarified, ‘My sister’s daughter.’
‘Ah.’ The man looked around. ‘You have a nice house. If Angus brings the drugs, we will leave you in your nice house and never return.’ His voice was conversational, though he seemed to struggle a little against the stitches on his cheek. ‘If the drugs do not arrive in thirty minutes, we will take away your niece and rape her every day. And we will burn down your house with you in it.’
Faith’s expression was blank. ‘She’ll make you some tea when she returns with milk.’
‘Thankyou.’
On the way back from the shop, Amber saw someone sitting astride a motorbike, the engine running. Whoever it was didn’t take it off when they motioned her to come over. She went to speak to them, listened, nodded, spoke some, then made her way back home.
‘Back!’ Amber shouted when she stepped in through the kitchen door. The man with the wired jaw looked in and she held up the milk, a smile pasted on her face. ‘Sugar?’
‘Two’ he said, his jaw unmoving, his lips doing the work.
‘Tea, milk and two sugars coming up.’
In the living room, the man with the stitches in his face looked at his phone. ‘Eleven minutes. Then rape and burn.’ He looked at Faith. ‘I not joking.’
‘I know,’ Faith said.
The other man went and stood by the window.
In the kitchen, Amber went to the cupboard retrieved a tub of salt and lifted the lid of the kettle, poured the salt into the heating water.
Faith popped the TV on. ‘You like Bluey?’ she asked.
‘Paw Patrol,’ the man with the stitches said. ‘My daughter watch it.’
Faith scanned through the channels until she found Paw Patrol. As the episode began, both men settled in watch. Faith shouted, ‘Hurry up with the tea, Ambs.’
In the kitchen, Amber lifted the lid of the kettle to make sure it was boiling, then added half a bag of sugar. The brew cooled a little, but kept on heating. She swirled it, thick and viscous now, and then put the lid back on. She got a tray from the cupboard and a teapot, two cups.
‘Seven minutes,’ the man said, checking his watch as, on the television, Marshall performed some act of puppy derring-do. He looked up as a motorbike pulled up outside. Whoever was on it kept his helmet on, but he was wearing a backpack. The man with the stitches tapped his friend on the arm just as Amber walked into the living room with a tray on which were two cups, a teapot, and a steaming kettle. She set it on the table. ‘Where’s the…’ the man said just as Amber hurled the kettle full of prison napalm in his face.
Wull, standing in the street next to the motorbike, held a bike chain loose in his hand. He watched as a man with stitches on his face burst out through the door screaming and howling, tearing at the flesh of his face which was blistering and steaming. He was following by a second man, thrown bodily out of the door by Angus, who stood and watched as Wull stepped up and swung the heavy chain, clocking him on the side of his already-wired jaw, breaking it again. The man, both eyes almost swollen shut now, his jaw jutting sideways to an incredible degree, made an unearthly low keening noise and Wull stepped aside to allow him to stagger towards a nearby car.
They watched the car load up and then pull away.
Faith walked up to the door where Angus stood. She looked at Angus, her face impassive, then she looked at Wull. When the car had disappeared around the corner there was a long quiet. '
‘They’re having a bad day,’ Wull said, deadpan, which made Angus smile
Faith walked back inside.
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