The Conspiracy Theorist (31 page)

Another text.

Get
off at the next stop.

I was the only person who did so.
 
It was a deserted rural station, trees
on three sides.
 
A car park full of
vehicles suggested it was a commuter stop on the way to London.
 
The small ticket office was
closed.
 
I stood outside it, facing
the car park.
 
Security cameras
looked down on me.
 
I felt small,
the pixelated image of a middle-aged man, out of breath, sweating,
anxious.
 
I could hear the birds
singing, an express train whizzed past behind me making me jump.

A black van with darkened windows
pulled up across the car park.
 
Well
away from the CCTV.
 
I checked the
phone.
 
I had not heard the text
come in.

Get in
black van.
 
Side door.
 
Put phone in bin + weapons.

Dropping the mobile in the rubbish bin,
I lifted my jacket to indicate I was not carrying anything.
 
I walked towards the van.
 
I could not see inside.
 
I opened the sliding door.
 
As I did, two sets of arms reached out
and grabbed me, pulling me inside like a sack of spuds.
 

I felt about as useful.

They
were thorough, professional and everything else they advertised on their
website.
 
This was REsurance at
work and it was very reassuring for the free world to be protected by such
assiduous defence contractors.
 
Their
experience in Iraq and sundry other places, it seemed, had stood them in good
stead.
 
They handled me with the
impersonality of true pro’s, like a piece of meat or a parcel that might
explode in their faces.
 
They did
not risk knocking me out or sedating me.
 
Two very strong arms grasped me in a bear hug—although that sounds
too intimate a term—locking my arms at my sides.
 
They removed my shoes, patted me down
and emptied my pockets.
 
I heard my
lighter skitter across the metal floor of the van.
 
They retrieved it.
 
Leaving nothing to chance, I thought.
 

Another person placed something over my
head.
 
At first I thought it was a
hood, a coarse material like sacking, but it came all the way down to my waist and
was secured there by a belt.
 
They
tightened it just above my wrists, winding me in the process.
 
I was rolled over onto my front, and more
air was knocked out of me.
 
For a
moment I couldn’t breathe and then I remembered it was the panic that did that
to you.
 
It was a physical reaction
like being plunged into freezing water.
 
My ankles were grabbed firmly, although I had no intention of kicking
out, and they were secured by what felt like plastic ties.
 
Then I was pushed away from
them—job done—and I heard someone tap on the side of the van.
 
The metal floor shuddered beneath me as
we moved off.
 
Slowly, sedately,
not drawing attention to
ourselves
.
 
If this was extraordinary rendition, it
was, well, extraordinary.

I told myself to take deep breaths, but
every breath drew the sacking into my mouth.
 
I tried to bring my hands up to remove it.
 
But I couldn’t.
 
They were locked there.
 
Unable to help.
 
I was unable to help myself.
 
I choked
,
my eyes swam
.
 
I
choked again, told myself not be so silly, and levelled off my breath.
 
Something deep inside of me was ready
to beg already.
 
Just for some
air.
 
To seek out
their eyes and beg.
 
If only
I could get this thing off my face.
 
I cried out but heard my voice at once muffled and gasping like that of
a drowning man.
 
The van
stopped.
 
I heard the door slide
and slam to.
 
The body of the
vehicle shook as it moved off again.
 
And then, the sense that I was finally alone.

I smelled exhaust fumes.
 
Still I could not breathe
properly.
 
I felt the vehicle vibrate
under me; we were travelling fast now.
 
I imagined the van swerving down country lanes.
 
I was thrown on my side.
 
I choked again.
 
It was impossible to breathe.
 
I rocked.
 
It was as if I was trying to get out of my own body.
 
If only I could stop it.
 
If only I could make it end.
 
I wanted to beg and plead for the space
to breathe, and had to make myself not even consider shouting out.
 
If I did, I knew they would stop the
van and tape the sack to my face.
 
And it would be worse.
 
The
thing to remember, I told myself, is that it can always get worse.

Something hardened in my chest, welling
up within me.
 
I blinked.
 
I still could not see anything.
 
I shuffled into a sitting
position.
 
I could feel the strap run
underneath my groin.
 
The van
rocked and I hit the side.
 
Something sharp banged into my leg.
 
It was like a nail, or screw, or jagged piece of ridged
metal.
 
I pushed my leg onto
it.
 
I gasped.
 
I pressed harder.
 
It pierced the skin and almost felt
like a relief; that there was a different type of pain.
 
It took away the fear: the unreasonable
fear of suffocating, the fact I could be left in this sack
forever,
till someone found me curled like a peat bog man, till
they turned the exhaust fumes off.
 

The fear came back in waves, like
something leaping inside of me.
 
I
spat into the bag and felt the wetness on my face; like something within me
scrabbling to be let out.
 

I needed to get rid of the fear at all
costs.
 
Fear is the worst enemy, as
it is inside you and as immutable as character or hard luck.
 
So I pressed down harder on the metal
and felt the blood run down my leg in a satisfying trickle.
 
I felt the blood pooling above my sock
and soaking into it.
 
I kept
pressing.
 
Pressing the thing
inside me down and out through my bloodstream.
 

I yelped in pain, and found I could
breathe again.

I could breathe slowly.
 
I could feel the sack wrinkle before
me, but it was just a sack.
 
No
more than a piece of fabric on my face.

I
do not know how far we travelled.
 
I concentrated on my breathing.
 
It was the only thing that belonged to me.
 
I refused to think about anything else.
 
Where they were taking me I didn’t
know.
 
I had no training to cope
with this.
 
I had sent people on
this sort of thing, and they came back full of beans, but with a certain
haunted look in their eyes too.
 
Most of us do not have to face an education in the most fundamental
things, presumably on the basis that they will not happen to you.
 
And yet death comes to us all.
 
How do we keep our integrity or our dignity
in the face of such things?
 
Most
of us are surrounded at such times by people only wanting to do us
good—nurses, doctors, relatives, carers—but here I was, like Sir
Simeon Marchant, confronted by those who have no moral sense, no barriers, no
empathy, or understanding of what constituted civilised behaviour.
 
How would I manage if I were dumped
over a cliff, or into an open grave and earth piled on top of me?

Breathe
, I told myself.
 
Don’t
think
,
just breathe
.
 
They
are professionals.
 
If they wanted
to kill you, they could have done it by now with no bother.
 
They do not want to punish you, and if
they did, they would want to do it face to face.

A thought struck me.
 
It was something I was ashamed of.
 
I could barely whisper it into the
darkness.

‘Meg?’

My voice sounded high-pitched, scared.
 
No answer.

I said her name again.
 
Not because I thought she was there in
the van with me, but in order to get some steel back into my voice.

‘Meg?’

That sounded better.
 
It sounded like me.
 
I breathed again.
 
Slowly, in rhythm
with the slowing vehicle.

At last I heard the tyres scrunch on
gravel as the van came to a squirming halt.

The
door slid open.
 
Even through the
sacking I could feel the sunlight.
 
Nothing had ever been as welcome as that light.
 
My senses were alive: my throbbing leg,
far off a gull’s cry, the salty taste of my tears.
 
I could not smell anything but the hessian.
 
They stood me on the gravel like a rag
doll.
 
Someone commented that I had
cut my leg.
 

A voice said, ‘It’s not
important.’
 
Then added, ‘But clean
out the van.’

The relaxed nature of their
conversation angered me.
 
I was
just another job for them.
 
They
were like Parcel Force or that other one, the World’s Favourite Logistics firm,
only their customer care left something to be desired.
 
I felt like shouting at them, raging
and spitting but it would have not done any good.
 
I would have to wait to fill in their feedback form.

They frogmarched me across the gravel,
my curled up feet bumping against the stones.
 
We stopped.
 
I
stood there, sagging at the knees.
 
I was pulled back a few inches like we were playing blind man’s bluff.
 
Again the cry of
gulls.
 
I looked up.
 
A strong hand pushed my head down like
a penitent’s.
 
Sackcloth
and ashes.
 
A door creaked
open and I was pushed inside.
 
I
stumbled into the darkness and fell over, colliding with something soft.

‘Get off me!’

It was no more than a whisper, a hiss
really, but it was Meg.

‘Meg, it’s me!’

‘Tom, untie me.’

I levered myself onto my side.
 
My shoulder hurt.
 
I could smell her perfume.
 
I could not tell you what the scent
was.
 
But it was
her
.

‘Listen, Meg.
 
I’m tied up too.’

I tried to touch her but my arms were
still shackled at my sides.
 
They
ached, not from inactivity but because I wanted to hold her.
 

‘Where are you?’

We edged closer.
 
I heard her sob.

‘Thomas I can’t breathe too well.’

I felt the fear multiply inside of
me.
 
We were no longer human.
 
What had been bearable suddenly was
not.
 
It was ridiculous.
 
We were both lying like parcels on the
floor in the semi-darkness.
 
I
found a wall and edged myself upright.
 
The wall felt like wood, wooden slats like a shed, and gave a little as
I steadied myself.
 

I yelled at the top of my voice.
 
I don’t know what I shouted or what it
sounded like.
 
I was deafened by
the sound of my own fear.
 
But I
felt better.
 
The energy flowed out
of me and for a moment I felt I could breathe fully again.
 
But then the illusion was gone.
 
And what was left was helplessness and
guilt.

I could hear Meg sobbing below me.
 
I could not touch her or comfort her so
I kept yelling, kicking at the wall until I fell over again.
 
I sat with my back to the wall edging
closer to her until our shoulders met.
 
She flinched.

‘Meg!’

‘What is it?’ she hissed back.

‘I’m sorry.’

She laughed bitterly.

‘
You’re
sorry!’

I tried to laugh but it was hollow.
 
Empty of everything but fear.
 
I tried to control my voice.
 
I could not allow her to see me
defeated.

‘Meg, did you see their faces?’

‘No, they wore masks.
 
I was walking past a van on the way to
work.
 
I thought they were
delivering something.
 
They pushed
me in.
 
Then they put me in this
thing.
 
What is this thing?
 
I can’t move my arms.
 
I can’t see you.’

‘Some kind of restraint vest, I’d
guess.’

‘Why have they put it on us?’

‘So we don’t know who they are.
 
That’s good.’

‘
Good?
’
she said.
 
‘I
want
to know who they are, Thomas.
 
I want to know who is doing this to me.’

‘The point is we can’t identify them.’

‘Who are they?’