Please Do Not Ask for Mercy as a Refusal Often Offends E-Book

Paul Bassett Davies

• Herausgeber: Lightning Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A darkly comic dystopian crime novel Detective Kilroy is assigned to investigate a horrible murder. He's a fine cop, from the brim of his hat to the soles of his brogues, but his inquiries, far from solving the mystery, lead him into a deeper one – and to Cynthia, an enigmatic woman with a secret that could overturn Kilroy's entire world. But where is this world? It seems both familiar and uncanny, with electric cars, but no digital devices, and the audience for a public execution arriving by tram. Meanwhile, the seas are retreating, and the Church exerts an iron grip on society – and history. Power belongs to those who control the narrative. Kilroy is forced to take sides between the Kafkaesque state that pays his wages, and the truth-seekers striving to destroy it, all the while becoming increasingly besotted with a woman who may only love him for his mind – in an alarmingly literal way. Please Do Not Ask for Mercy as a Refusal Often Offends is a dystopian satire that manages to be funny and frightening in equal measure.

Leseprobe

Published in 2020

by Lightning Books Ltd

Imprint of EyeStorm Media

312 Uxbridge Road

Rickmansworth

Hertfordshire

WD3 8YL

www.lightning-books.com

Copyright © Paul Bassett Davies 2020

Cover by Nell Wood

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

ISBN: 9781785631856

For my son, Theo, and his comrades, whose passionate commitment to a better future for our world and its inhabitants is a mighty beacon of hope

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.– John Donne

Know all things to be like this: mirage, a cloud castle, A dream, an apparition, Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.– Buddha

‘Is it about a bicycle?’– Flann O’Brien,The Third Policeman

CONTENTS

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

KILROY

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

CURTIS

KILROY

CURTIS

THANKS

GOSPEL

The Landmass Gospel

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

k i l r o y

Manfred faced his execution in high spirits. He sang snatches of unrecognisable songs with great gusto, and recited peculiar stories that he seemed to be inventing on the spot. It was all nonsense and gibberish, of course. His mind was deranged, and everything was scrambled up. The crowd couldn’t have asked for a better show.

But then there was some unpleasantness. Manfred began to blaspheme in the most appalling way, even repeating the odious words and phrases that had brought him to this regrettable termination. Parents covered their children’s ears, and Manfred was silenced swiftly. The remainder of the ceremony was conducted in a more restrained atmosphere, and after it was over there were the usual grumbles from some among the dispersing crowd, deploring the outdated custom that allowed the condemned man to say a few words. They asked each other why the courtesy of a final speech should be extended to scoundrels who exploited it as an opportunity to scandalise decent families. There was no excuse for that kind of exhibition, they said, even if the man was bonkers.

People also complained, as they always did, about how long it took to get out of Shadbold Square, owing to the narrowness of the surrounding streets, and the failure of the authorities to lay on extra trams for these occasions, which were always well-attended despite everyone assuring each other, after every execution, that they certainly wouldn’t be coming again and things were very much better in the old days.

Manfred’s shoes were presented to his family the next day. His son, Roland, was proud of the memento, but Sheba, his older sister, made a mime of vomiting every time she passed the mantelpiece on which the stained footwear was displayed. The children’s mother, Wanda, was a practical woman, and a few days later, when the kids were at school, she put her late husband’s shoes in the garbage grinder. When the children came home Roland kicked up a fuss, but his mother mollified him with the promise of a visit to the fish museum. As for Sheba, she seemed indifferent to the loss. However, the very next morning young Roland was confronted by a dreadful scene in the kitchen when he came down for breakfast. Blood was spattered on the walls, and was congealing into a sticky pool beneath the body of his mother, which lay on the floor. Her throat had been cut, and a large kitchen knife was sticking out of her eye socket. There was no sign of Sheba, some of whose clothes and belongings were discovered to be missing, along with a backpack.

It seemed like an open-and-shut case of Abrupt Matricide Syndrome with an absconding culprit, but the authorities naturally asked the police to investigate.

Detective Kilroy was given the job. He was a handsome fellow, and a professional from the brim of his hat to the soles of his shoes. He lived for his police work, and for Creek, the parrot who shared his austere bachelor quarters. It was a gorgeous specimen of the Freakin Grey species, and Kilroy was very fond of it.

Occasionally he wondered if perhaps he should have risen higher in the force by the age of thirty-nine, but he never let the thought linger in his mind for too long. Regret was a useless indulgence, and he wished he’d known that when he was younger.

Kilroy’s first task was to talk to the son. Roland was eleven years old, and Kilroy expected him to be flustered. He’d recently lost his father in unfortunate circumstances, and then, before he could catch his breath, came the additional surprise of his mother’s death. No boy could be unaffected by seeing his dad executed, then stumbling across the bloody corpse of his mother in the family kitchen on his way to school.

Beneath his gruff exterior Kilroy was a decent man, and he was surprised to learn that Roland had been taken into custody. When he tried to find out who had given the order to arrest the boy, nobody seemed to know. Kilroy didn’t claim to be an expert in child psychology, but he figured that being locked up would do nothing to improve the youngster’s frame of mind.

His own plan had been to adopt a friendly approach, and perhaps take the boy out to tea, which he imagined a person of his age might appreciate. But now, the best he could do was to bring a glass of spood juice into Roland’s cell, and ask the custodian to remove the shackles. He was determined to treat the boy like his own son, if he’d had a son, and assuming he had a good relationship with the hypothetical child.

Kilroy sat down opposite Roland, handed him the juice, and smiled at him. He wanted to show he wasn’t a beast, and he began the interrogation by asking the boy how he was feeling. That was a mistake.

To Kilroy’s surprise and embarrassment, the youth began to speak, not just of his feelings at the present moment, as Kilroy had intended, but of his emotions in general. It seemed that Roland’s tender young heart was a cornucopia of conflicted passions, which he promptly disgorged.

Sometimes, he said, I feel that life’s plentiful syrup is erupting through my pipes, and I am almost overwhelmed by a sense of pure, unbounded joy; I fear that I must swoon at the sheer beauty of the world, in every particular, both great and small, and oh, I am undone.

I see, Kilroy said, playing for time, and at others?

At other times, Roland said in his clear, high-pitched voice, I feel the aching sadness of life pervading my weary existence like an eldritch fog, engulfing me in a haunting melancholy that is nigh on unbearable.

Kilroy checked the notes in his file. Was the kid really only eleven? Yes, according to the notes. Kilroy wondered what the hell they taught them in school these days. As it happened, the file contained copies of Roland’s school reports. Kilroy glanced at the most recent one and noticed that the boy had expressed an interest in training to enter the priesthood.

Eventually he managed to get the interview back on track, and questioned Roland about the events leading up to his mother’s presumed murder, and the disappearance of his sister, Sheba. That was when the mystery deepened.

The forensic specialists had established the time of Wanda’s death as between five and eight-thirty in the morning. That fitted with Roland’s account, of coming down to breakfast at nine to find his mother’s corpse still warm, her blood in the process of congealing, and the onset of rigor mortis only just beginning. It appeared that Roland was gifted, in addition to his eloquence, with an advanced understanding of human biology. But he was adamant that he’d heard his sister packing her things and leaving the house just after midnight. He was absolutely certain of that.

And later, Kilroy asked, did you hear her come back in?

No, replied Roland, but I sleep very heavily between the hours of one and seven. My nocturnal rhythms are rigid to the point of despotism. If Sheba had returned to the house later, I would have heard nothing.

Kilroy asked if Sheba’s behaviour had seemed unusual in the days between her father’s execution and her mother’s death.

The lad furrowed his brow. Hmmm, he ventured, I didn’t see much of her, to tell you the truth. I remember she said she’d been reading a lot.

And that was unusual?

What?

Her reading a lot.

Not really. She was always a keen reader.

Kilroy tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. You just implied, he said slowly, that it was unusual for her to be reading a lot.

No, Roland said with a shake of his head, I didn’t. That may be what you inferred, but you asked me if her behaviour had been unusual, and I mentioned that I hadn’t seen much of her. That was the unusual part. Normally, I’d see her reading. She would sprawl about the place, engrossed in the trashy girls’ stuff she liked. But during the period about which you enquired she spent most of her time in her room, and when I asked her what she’d been doing in there she told me she’d been reading. And before you ask, she didn’t tell me what. I suspect she didn’t want me to know.

I see, Kilroy said once again. But he saw nothing. He was stumped.

Kilroy excused himself and went outside the cell to collect his thoughts. It didn’t make sense. Why would the girl leave the house in the early hours of the morning, taking her backpack with her, and then return a few hours later in order to murder her mother? Unless…unless…what?

Kilroy was aware that an alternative hypothesis was lurking just beyond his mental field of vision, like a distant road sign that was unreadable to a man who’d left his glasses at home. Only by approaching closer could Kilroy decipher the message, but for every step he took in its direction, it receded by an equal distance, remaining tantalisingly fuzzy. Experience had taught him that he needed to relax, unclench the mental fist that constrained him, and allow the message to present itself to him in its own good time, perhaps when he was asleep, which sometimes happened.

But sleep would have to wait. Right now he had a precocious eleven-year-old boy locked up in a cell, and limited time in which to question him. At any moment a social advocate could arrive and pester him to either release the boy, or charge him, or put him to the itching test and have done with it. Even if Kilroy let him go, Roland would have to be rehoused with foster parents, and Kilroy needed to put himself out of the picture before he got entangled in the process, thank you very much. The red tape was a nightmare, and Kilroy didn’t need that shit in his life.

But something told Kilroy the boy had useful information, if only he could get it out of him. He refused to consider the itching test. He had never knowingly hurt a child, and despised anyone who would do so. Anyhow, Kilroy didn’t generally go in for that type of thing. No rough stuff, unless it was strictly unavoidable.

Back in the cell he was about to resume his questioning when Roland forestalled him by bursting into tears. Kilroy wondered if it was just another tactic, like the eloquence and the emotional disclosure, but nonetheless he handed the snivelling boy a handkerchief that he kept in his breast pocket for occasions like this. The storm of tears began to abate, and Kilroy was thinking that perhaps he might try a new approach, based on jovial, man-to-man camaraderie, when the custodian entered the cell, and told Kilroy he was wanted on the telephone.

Kilroy took the call in the custodian’s office. It was the Chief’s secretary, telling Kilroy to release the boy and come to see the Chief immediately.

He handed the receiver back to the custodian with a sigh.

The man raised his eyebrows. Trouble?

My middle name, Kilroy said.

The Chief was a big woman, as large as a house. Not literally, but whenever Kilroy thought about her he pictured her as an imposing municipal building, inside which he was not welcome. He found it impossible to imagine any type of intimacy with her.

In reality she was a medium-sized woman with an air of competence and efficiency that often made Kilroy feel like he needed a shower. She had a habit of communicating in a series of questions, some of them rhetorical. In this instance, the questions were as follows:

Why had Kilroy taken a juvenile witness into custody?

Was he aware that this could look bad for the department?

As a matter of interest, was Kilroy a fucking idiot?

When was Kilroy going to focus the investigation on finding the girl?

How far away did he think she could have got by now?

Why wasn’t he out there right now, tracking her down?

What was he waiting for?

Kilroy decided not to point out that the order to arrest Roland hadn’t come from him. He didn’t want to appear defensive or whiny. Besides, if the Chief herself had given the order, Kilroy judged it unwise to confront her about it. And if she hadn’t, that meant it must have come from further up the chain, or from a special services unit, operating under separate authority, and Kilroy had no desire to open that particular can of worms. It was a sizeable can, into which it was surprisingly easy to fall.

He simply nodded, stood up, and walked to the door. As he opened it, the Chief spoke again. Kilroy, she said, wait.

He waited.

You’re a good cop, she said. One of our best. I’m under pressure to find this girl and get the case wrapped up. Certain people are nervous about it, and these are turbulent times, what with social unrest, people going wrong, people dropping dead for no reason, and so on. So, please proceed swiftly, but with caution. I don’t want to lose you, and this girl could be extremely dangerous. Look what she did to her own mother. If you find your safety threatened in any way, slay her without hesitation. Shoot first. I know you can be sensitive – no, don’t try to deny it – and you’re not as jaded as you like to think. Keep your pistol handy. I know you’ll do your best. Thank you, Kilroy.

Kilroy closed the door gently behind him.

c u r t i s

Kilroy told me about the case over a drink the following evening.

I was his only close woman friend, probably because we’d never been lovers. I’ll admit that when we’d first met there was a strong erotic charge between us, and we seemed to be headed for bed, but for some reason we never got there. Eventually we reached the stage where we knew each other too well for it to happen. Perhaps it was still conceivable that if we’d drunk too much one evening, and one or both of us had been overwhelmingly hungry for that intimacy, we might have made it. But we would have felt bad in the morning, and nothing would have been the same again. You know how it is.

We were accustomed to meet every week or so, but all that was about to end, for reasons that will become clear. Our paths diverged, and it was a long time before I discovered what Kilroy did after he disappeared. By the time I got the full story, the world had changed irrevocably for all of us.

We met at our usual haunt, a bar called The Cobbler. Nobody knew where the name came from. If there had ever been a connection with shoemaking, or shoes, it had long since vanished. The nearest shoe store was half a kilometre away. Someone in the bar once suggested that cobbler was a type of drink, but that seemed unlikely.

The bar was in the basement of an old building on a busy street, and the noise of traffic and trams was a constant background. It was a dive. George, the owner, cultivated the bar’s air of squalor, and understood that any attempt to improve it would turn it from a dive – which has a certain allure – into a dump, which is just a dump.

For one night a week I treated the sticky tables and the disgusting bathrooms as the price of the kick I got from drinking in a place like that with a man like Kilroy. I suspect that he, for his part, found me refreshingly unglamorous. In his eyes, my work at an insurance company made me an ordinary civilian, whose thoughts and feelings represented those of the general populace, from which Kilroy felt himself exiled by his police work. I served as a kind of litmus test for him. However, the process worked both ways, and in order to find out what I was thinking it was necessary for Kilroy to reveal what was on his own mind, which I found useful.

On this particular evening Kilroy looked tired. He’d obeyed his Chief’s orders, and focused his efforts on finding Sheba, the fugitive daughter and presumed murderer. He suspected Roland of possessing more information about his sister than he’d divulged, but he’d been warned to lay off the boy.

Damn kids, Kilroy said to me, I’ve had about enough of them. Especially teenagers.

Hold on, I said, you told me the boy’s only eleven. That hardly makes him a teenager.

Kilroy took a slug of his drink and regarded me balefully. I’m not talking about him, he said, I’m talking about the girl’s friends. I went to her school. But I couldn’t get anywhere, and I don’t mind admitting it’s bugging the hell out of me. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t kids of Sheba’s age like to talk, especially the girls? Once you get them started, the problem is usually getting them to shut up, right? They gossip and chatter about each other, and they tell you who’s got a crush on who, and who’s their best friend, and who’s not – until it all changes the next week, of course – but something screwy is going on at that school, believe me. OK, I know my personal experience of kids is limited, and so is yours, because...you know...

He trailed off and looked down at his drink. The fact that we were both childless was a topic we rarely mentioned, not because we avoided it with any particular sensitivity, but because there was nothing much to say. But now Kilroy seemed to have made himself uncomfortable, and I tried to lighten the mood.

Well, I said, I can understand how hurt you must have been when the young ladies didn’t swoon and fall at your feet. Perhaps you should have shown them your gun. Or perhaps they were scared enough already, on account of a big, tough, handsome cop wanting to ask them a bunch of personal questions.

Kilroy threw me a sardonic look. I don’t think they were scared, he said. Not of me, anyhow.

Of her?

Maybe. But not in the way you’d expect. It was more like they were excited.

I thought about that for a moment. OK, I said, I guess it could be pretty exciting if your classmate is wanted for murder, and on the run.

Then why didn’t they talk about it the way people usually do? You know how it is: they either say they never imagined the suspect to be capable of doing such a thing, because she always seemed like such a nice, quiet type, or they say they always thought there was something sinister about her and they’re not at all surprised to discover she’s a depraved, stone-cold killer. But not these kids. They didn’t want to talk about the murder, or about Sheba. They were hiding something.

Maybe they didn’t want to risk being implicated.

Kilroy drummed his fingers on the table. No, it wasn’t that. I can tell when people are trying to cover their tracks and sell me a packet of crap, and these kids were playing a whole different game. That’s what’s eating me. I couldn’t get a handle on what they were actually feeling. It’s almost like they were...I don’t know...in awe of her. And not just the kids. When I sat down with the woman who runs the place – the head teacher – I could hardly get a word out of her. It was like a bad first date. Eventually she grudgingly divulged that she’d had concerns about Sheba for some time, and when I asked her what she meant, exactly, she huffed something about her being a bad influence on the other students. OK, I said, like what? Naturally, I expected to hear the usual stuff about fooling around in class, neglecting her studies, forgetting homework, answering back, being disruptive, fighting in the playground— excuse me, what’s so funny?

Nothing, I said. It’s just that you seem very familiar with that kind of scholastic assessment. Are you by any chance quoting one of your own school reports?

Kilroy rubbed his chin. Well, it’s true I wasn’t exactly a model student, I guess. But anyhow, those weren’t the type of problems the head teacher was getting from Sheba. Not at all. She said the girl was almost too quiet – in class, at any rate. But at other times she was always at the centre of a little huddle: everyone whispering, like they were cooking something up, but damned if she could find out what it was.

And how long had this been going on?

That’s just it. She’d been this way for weeks, apparently. Maybe months. And check this: when I tried to find Sheba’s designated class teacher – the one who had most contact with her – I discover the guy is on sick leave. So, I contact his home, and the wife tells me he’s taken off. Gone fishing. Where? She has no idea. But definitely can’t be reached. And not only that, but her poor, suffering husband is such a constant martyr to his nerves that he headed for the hills two weeks before the murder. Then I hear that a girl who’s supposed to be Sheba’s best friend is also absent from school, taken somewhere out east by her parents to visit a great-aunt at the end of her span. I did some checking, and it appears the old lady in question is taking her own sweet time about dying, and the family can’t say when they’ll be back. Now, all this may not add up to anything, and the fact that two people who were exceptionally close to the girl made themselves scarce a few days before she allegedly committed a murder – all that may be a coincidence, although it’s the type that keeps me awake at night. But something’s not right, I can feel it. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.

Good for you, I said. Trust your instincts, they’re usually reliable.

Kilroy gave me a mock salute. Thank you, ma’am.

You’re welcome, I said. But it sounds to me as though Sheba was up to something, and whatever it was, it started well before the murder, and possibly before her father’s execution. Perhaps even before his arrest. Which raises an interesting question, doesn’t it?

Correct. Was it premeditated? Kilroy jabbed at the table. Did this girl plan to kill her mother?

I waited, not knowing if he expected an answer. He cocked his eyebrow at me. Well, I said, she packed her bags. That suggests she planned to leave.

She planned to leave, yes. But did she plan the killing?

Search me.

We both took a sip of our whisky. I looked around. It was quiet for a Saturday night, even though the streets outside were still crowded. I could see the ghostly shapes of feet and ankles passing the grime-caked windows that were little more than a series of horizontal slits just below the ceiling along one wall of the joint.

I leaned towards Kilroy. The girl, I said. Is she definitely the killer?

Kilroy gazed at me impassively. After a moment he picked up his glass and drained it. I should be out there, he said. Out there tracking her down, shouldn’t I?

I shrugged, and drained my drink too.

When I returned from the bar Kilroy’s hat was on the table in front of him. He was turning it around slowly and scowling at it, as if considering the best angle from which to assault it. He looked up as I placed his drink on the table, and moved the hat back onto the bench beside him.

He took a slug of whisky and shook his head. I don’t know, he said.

I smiled at him. What don’t you know, Kilroy?

Why I’m here.

In the existential sense?

That too, Kilroy said. But I was referring to the investigation. Why aren’t I out there, beyond the city limits, trekking through the meadows, scouring the hillsides, scanning the far horizon in search of my quarry?

Because, I said, you’re a city cop.

Exactly. I’m a city cop. But I’ve got my orders, so off I go.

When was the last time you were out there?

Kilroy picked up his glass and raised it to the light, squinting through it as if he were trying to see distant fields and forests beyond it. I’m not scared, he said. I was born out there, you know. I can find my way around.

I’d forgotten Kilroy was a country boy, but it made sense. Nobody loves the city like a hick who was born and bred outside it. That was probably why Kilroy’s style was so old-school, with the hat, and the tie pin, and the polished wing-tip shoes.

Cheer up, I said, perhaps you’ll come across a recently-widowed young farmer’s wife, struggling to make ends meet. You’ll help her fight off her predatory creditors, and in return she will teach you the ways of the wilderness, and eventually, after much devout soul-searching, take you shyly into her bed.

Kilroy gave me a deadpan stare. Fuck you, he said.

I stared back at him. He cracked first, and smiled despite himself. These were the moments I cherished with Kilroy.

He took a drink and wiped his mouth. I don’t need any help, he said, with the ways of the wilderness. I can easily make it to the coast if I want to.

Which one?

Any of them, but I’m talking about the only one that matters, right? I mean, she’s not heading west, is she, unless she’s gone crazy, like her father. Even more crazy, she’d have to be, when you think about it.

South? I suggested.

Why? You get through the forest, you reach the sea, you turn around and come home. You’re not going anywhere in a damn boat from there, are you? And if she goes north, she runs out of cover pretty soon, and from then on it’s just a dull way to freeze to death, unless she packed a lot more than her pyjamas in that backpack. No, there’s only one way she’s heading.

He was right. She would take the usual escape route. There were forests and fields and settlements and farms to the east, all the way to the long sands before the coast. And then? Well, that was the interesting question.

OK, I said, when are you leaving?

There was a trace of bitterness in Kilroy’s smile. Monday, he said.

He drank the rest of his whisky and stood up.

I stood up too and shrugged myself into my coat. I imagine, I said, I’ll see you in church tomorrow?

You know you will, Ms Curtis, and I want to see you praying hard.

I always do.

Yeah, so pray for me, and for my skinny backside out there in the wild.

We exchanged a kiss on the cheek and went our separate ways.

k i l r o y

Kilroy sat at the back of the church, thinking bad thoughts.

Doubt was not a sin in itself, he knew, but it could lead to sin.

The priest himself had just said exactly that. He was only a few minutes into his sermon, but he was in good form. He’d begun with a strong denunciation of sin in general, and you can’t go wrong with a reliable crowd-pleaser like that, Kilroy thought, even if it is a little predictable. But as the priest hit his stride it became clear he was going to come down with particular severity on the subject of heresy – and blasphemy, its inevitable consequence. For, he declaimed, is not heresy the wicked usurper of virtue, and blasphemy its handmaiden, capering lewdly at the foot of its foul throne?

This is what everyone had come to hear, and the congregation was attentive.

The priest declared he would be frank with them. There was no point pretending, he said, that blasphemy wasn’t on the rise. They were all adults. He corrected himself, acknowledging there were children present. But what he meant, he said, his eyes searching out some of the youngsters in the church, and giving them a special smile, was that he trusted everyone, even the younger members of the congregation – especially them – to be mature about this problem.

It was impossible, he continued, to tackle the issue of blasphemy without putting it into a broader context. And nobody would deny – he looked around the huge church again, as if searching for anyone who cared to try it, and finding no candidates – no, nobody would deny that people were frightened. I myself, he said, am not ashamed to admit I’m frightened. But my faith sustains me! My faith is my sword, my shield, my pistol! And you too, my friends, you may take the same infallible refuge! For do we not have unshakable faith in the boundless compassion of Upstairs Mum and Dad?

He paused, allowing the worshippers to murmur their agreement. When he continued his voice was quieter and deeper. Some people had to lean forward to hear him, despite the loudspeakers placed throughout the church.

And why are we frightened, my friends? We all know the reasons. Even if you haven’t seen it for yourself, you’ve heard that the sea appears to be retreating from our coasts. Naturally, that’s worrying. It’s happening slowly, but it is surely happening. In addition to this, it appears that skyflies are on the increase. I will take this opportunity, if I may, to confirm this as an official fact. The authorities would prefer you to know the truth. Rumour and fake news are harmful, and must be confronted with fact. Verified fact. Sightings of skyflies are up.

A ripple of unease spread through the pews. Verified: the top level of fact.

The priest held up his hand, and shook his head slowly with a smile. Brothers and sisters and others, he said, let us be of good cheer! Don’t lose heart. You know the old saying, “Better the Devil you know than an unfamiliar proctologist with a hangover!” That got a laugh, as always. The priest waited until the congregation had settled itself, and when he spoke again his tone was soothing.

The important thing, he said, is to remain steadfast and calm. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, provided we trust the answers given by Upstairs Mum and Dad through the scriptures, by the grace of the blessed Shadbold. But once you open the door to doubt, my friends, you’re on a slippery slope. The seed of doubt sprouts into the parasitic weed of heresy, which grows until it chokes the light and the life out of you.

Have we not seen, very recently, yet another of our dear brothers, who was led astray by doubt, betrayed into uttering the most dreadful blasphemy, and have we not seen the terrible consequence? He was sentenced to death! And was that decision right?

There were noises of assent from parts of the church, but not as many, or as loud, as Kilroy would have expected to hear.

The priest held up his hands and nodded. Yes. Of course it was. And do we regret it bitterly? Again, yes. It is a tragedy when a life does not complete its span. And now, to add to our concerns, foolish voices are raised, claiming that people are going wrong, and dying for no reason, before their time. Pay no heed, my friends. This is falsehood, pure and simple. Disdain it, as all sensible people do. But blasphemy is another matter. Blasphemy must be rooted out. We cannot allow our sacred faith to be violated!

The priest paused, dropped his gaze, and lowered his head. Kilroy couldn’t tell whether he was doing it for dramatic effect, or consulting his notes.

When he looked up there was a smile on his lips. Perhaps, he said, it’s time for some good news? I have another Verified Fact for you, friends.

The congregation perked up.

Three weeks ago, the priest said, the authorities shot down a skyfly.

He leaned back in the pulpit to enjoy the effect of his announcement. There were murmurs of satisfaction, and the more zealous members of the congregation looked as if they were having a hard time restraining the urge to applaud. Of course, applause was not permitted in the Landmass Church, although people claimed that the Reformers, in their temple on the other side of town, regularly indulged in applause, and even cheering, when they were particularly moved by the eloquence of their lecturers. It was ironic, people said, that while the Reformers were ostentatious in their disdain for the trappings of priesthood, and in their pose of humility, their lecturers were invariably vain men and women who basked in the recognition they so clearly craved. What hypocrites.

Kilroy knew this wasn’t true. He’d attended Reform services a few times, when he was trying to ingratiate himself with a woman of that persuasion, and it was just as boring as sitting in the Landmass church. The lecturers were pretty similar to priests, except they wore ordinary clothes, and strode around among the congregation instead of ascending a pulpit to deliver their sermons. Otherwise it was same, and the humility of the lecturers, assumed or otherwise, didn’t prevent them from being as well-paid as regular priests. Kilroy had no problem with that. Educators of any type, whether in schools or churches, were important members of society, and deserved to be rewarded. Only a fool would deny that. And while Kilroy may have had a restless spirit and a medium-sized helping of attitude around authority, he wasn’t a fool.

When he finally got the Reform woman into bed, he discovered she would have been perfectly happy to fuck him the first time they met, but she thought he must have been a pious type, because he kept showing up at church, and she didn’t want to shock him.

Kilroy snapped back into the present moment and tried to pay attention. He already knew about the skyfly, which was old news in the Interior Department. He also knew the authorities had learned nothing from it. They were no nearer to figuring out what the damned things were, and where they came from, than they were two years ago when they managed to shoot down the first one. This was the third, and the technology inside it looked exactly the same as the unfathomable shit inside the first two, according to the gossip around the office, although the insides of the first one had been badly damaged when they were trying to get it open. They’d been more careful since then, but it made no difference: they couldn’t even determine whether a particular component was a power source, or a weapon, or a goddam kitchen appliance – or even a component at all. Some of what was in there appeared to be a kind of goop, that flowed around the whole system.

Kilroy became aware that people around him were nodding and smiling to each other with grim satisfaction. The priest was saying something about what the shooting down of the skyfly proved, and how everyone should give thanks.

This victory, he said, is not only a testament to the skill and courage of our brave defenders in the military, but also a sign of divine approval. Think of it! Only two short years ago it would have been unimaginable that we should be able to bring down one of those mysterious objects that streaked through the sky so many thousands of metres above us, beyond the farthest reach of our plucky gunners, and yet now we have succeeded. We have humbled the dark angels, and our doctors are on the verge of unlocking their secrets. This, my brothers, sisters and others, this is the power of faith!

Bullshit, thought Kilroy, but he stood up along with everyone else as the priest raised his arms, and intoned the blessing:

In the Name of our Upstairs Mum and Dad, through the Grace of the Blessed Shadbold, who is with us, and among us, and within us, we give thanks.

c u r t i s

I didn’t usually seek out Kilroy’s company after church, especially if we’d met for a drink the previous evening, but I wanted to see him again before he hit the road.

I followed him out of a side exit, and when I emerged from the church I was accosted by a young man who handed me a leaflet. Everyone was being given one. Some people were standing by themselves, frowning as they absorbed its contents, and others were talking quietly in small groups. Families passed it around, and adults squatted down beside their younger offspring, explaining it to them with bright, nervous smiles. It was a short message on a single sheet of official paper. A decree:

VERIFIED STORY

Our Upstairs Parents, in their wisdom and compassion, gave Landmass to their children to shelter and provide for us. Thanks be to them, and to the blessed Shadbold. But certain ungrateful wretches have spread wicked falsehoods concerning the supposed existence of another landmass, beyond the vastness of the ocean. No such place exists. Those who are foolish enough to set off in search of it invariably perish in the limitless sea. Belief in this imaginary place, commonly referred to as Landmass Two, has grown in recent times into a dangerous mania, inflaming the passions of the impressionable, and luring them from the path of Truth. Therefore let it be known that from this day onwards ANY expression, public or private, of credence in this contemptible delusion will be treated as BLASPHEMY, and will meet with the severest penalties that such a crime deserves.In the name of our Upstairs Mum and Dad, through the Grace of Shadbold.

I looked around for Kilroy and discovered he was standing beside me.

Don’t sneak up on me like that, I said.

Force of habit. Sorry.

It’s OK, I said. Do you feel like talking?

Kilroy nodded curtly and jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and I followed him away from the church without saying anything. When we got to the bottom of the steps that led down to the riverside we strolled along the path beside the water until we reached a picnic area set back from the pathway. There was nobody around. We sat on a bench beneath a willow tree and stretched our legs out. Just a middle-aged couple relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.

I held up the decree. What do you make of this?

Kilroy gazed at the river. Eventually he said, Why now?

Yes, I said, it’s a strange time to be burning bridges. Or is that the right metaphor for what they’re doing?

Kilroy made a wavering gesture with his hand. Maybe, he said, but I’d call it more like doubling down. Landmass Two? No way, folks. No way, no how.

You’d think, I said, they wouldn’t want to shut that story down quite so firmly right now. I mean, it’s just going to make people ask more questions about the skyflies, isn’t it? They’re going to say, OK, if not from Landmass Two, then where? If they’re being sent by the badders, where the hell are they hiding?

That, Kilroy said, is exactly what they’ll say. They’re already saying it. Have been for some time, and it just doesn’t make sense to stir things up like this. The last thing we need is another wave of hysteria about the badders.

The pink peril.

Kilroy frowned. The what?

Pink peril. That’s what people are calling them. The latest catchphrase, or meme, or whatever. Because of the old stories about the badders being pink.

Kilroy shook his head in amused disbelief.

And it’s not a good time for hysteria, I said, what with so many other things to worry about. Especially these awful rumours of people going wrong, and dropping dead before their span. Have you actually seen that? I mean, in person?

Kilroy pulled a mock-horrified face. You heard what the priest said, didn’t you? Disdain such contemptible gossip!

I laughed. He wasn’t going to be drawn on that subject, so I tried another one. What about your fugitive, I said, do you think she’ll try to get to the coast?

And do what? said Kilroy. Steal a boat and sail away to fairyland? Fuck knows. I hope not, for her sake.

Poor girl. She may not even know she’d be committing blasphemy now, just by thinking of such a thing.

Kilroy snorted, then we sat in silence.