Complicity

After it's over we cut to another scene and there's somebody who might be the little guy again and he's still strapped to a chair but this time it's a tall hospital chair with wheels and a little fold-away table in front of him and the straps holding his torso would be easy to undo but his hands are limp. There's some sort of board behind his head and a towel or something round his forehead holding his head upright but the eyes Christ the eyes there's nothing there and McDu

And then of course there are the other two. First it's Azul and his girlfriend. She's traumatised and dehydrated but otherwise unharmed but he's got soul brother's limbs where his own ought to be; necrosis like frostbite, blood-death at the extremities but the extremities start at shoulder and groin; he's alive but if you were him you'd rather not be. Arms salesman; okay the Avenger the Equaliser the Total Fucking Nutter went for the legs too but still, and the editor spiked, and the rapist — lenient judge raped and the pornographer poisoned and stroked and the man who was so callous about the bloodshed in the Iran/Iraq war forced to watch his pe

And it just goes on keeps going on another night another nightmare and then back to the interview room again and the tape machine again and more questions about Stromefirry-nofirry and Jersey and flights and that's when they tell me about the other one that's when they say oh by the way your best friend Andy is dead blown up in the hotel when it burned down; probably beaten to death first head stoved in but of course you probably know all that because you did that too, didn't you?

I lied about something. Earlier. I told it the way it felt, not as it actually was. Or the way it feels and actually is. Whatever.

'Andy; Yvo

'Hi," she says, shaking his hand.

'And that's William out there," I tell Andy. "With the big sword."

Andy turns and watches William. William; masked, clad in white, grasping his sabre and suddenly lunging forward, one leg darting ahead. His opponent jumps back and tries to fend off the blows with his own sabre but he's off-balance and William presses forward, swinging the sabre in a hacking, sweeping motion, whacking the edge of the heavy curved blade into the side of his opponent's torso.

"Aw, rats," the other guy says, as William stands back, relaxing. They take off their masks and William conies over to us, mask under his arm, sabre hanging from his hand, his face red and sheened with sweat, glistening in the sports hall's brilliant lights. I introduce him and Andy.

Andy with his short hair and his blazer and neatly creased jeans, face handsome but a little spotty, expression slightly disdainful and wary. He's twenty-one; two years older than us, but William looks the more confident and assured.

"Hi," William says, tossing back some blond hair fallen over his forehead. "So you're Cam's soldier boy."

Andy smiles thinly. "You must be… Willy, is it?"

I sigh. I'd hoped these two would get on.

Yvo

"Great," I say. Andy is silent; Yvo

"Coming to the party?"

"Yes," he says. "If that's all right."

"Of course." She smiles.

"Ah! Hot hot hot!"

"What?"

"Took the hot chilli… crunched on a whole fucking green chilli… ha…" Yvo