‘It’s not important.’
‘It’s important to me.’
‘The man is dead now, Mr. Magnus. He can do no harm.’
‘Starvation, was it?’
‘Hardly. He passed away peacefully as he slept. He was a hundred and seventeen years old.’
‘I want the man’s name.’
‘No.’
Magnus gritted his teeth.
‘You’re going to wish you died in your sleep, Collins,’ he said.
Collins nodded.
‘I know.’
For a moment Magnus thought Collins looked frightened. No, it wasn’t that satisfying. It was resignation. Acceptance. The man was just too bloody relaxed. Suddenly it occurred to Magnus that there might be a real reason for such equanimity. Did Collins have a plan? Could it be that he had some group of skinny vegetarian activists on his side, people ready to fight and die for their leader like the guards and enforcers in Magnus’s employ? It was too outrageous. But perhaps it was true. It certainly explained a lot about Collins’s behaviour. Maybe there was some signal he was going to give to his empty-bellied followers. Something to do with the fight he was trying to engineer. Magnus was forced to reconsider Collins’s stature. He wasn’t telling him everything and he’d never intended to. What if Collins had allowed himself to be caught so easily for exactly this reason?
Magnus tried to keep his face even and unmoved. If there was a mob waiting in ambush outside the mansion, he’d need to bring them down before they had the opportunity to use his lack of preparation. Shit, how could he have been so stupid? He’d underestimated his enemy. It was the first and last time that would ever happen – he promised himself that right then. Never again. No more convivial chats. No more discussions. Collins would be the last. But there was just a little more he wanted to know.
He picked up a small brass bell from his desktop and shook it between his fat fingers. The noise from it was clear and piercing. Seconds later there were thumping footsteps on the stairs, louder along the hallway outside and Bruno burst into the room panting.
‘Everything all right, sir?’
‘Fine, Bruno. Absolutely fine. I wonder, would you mind closing the curtains for me?’
‘Sir?’
‘The curtains, Bruno. It’s getting dark and I don’t like the curtains open after six o’clock.’
‘But, surely, Juster—’
‘Juster will be preparing the dining table at this moment. Close the bloody curtains.’
‘Right.’ Bruno ran to each of the three windows and drew the thick dusty drapery closed. ‘Anything else, sir?’
‘Yes. Come here.’
Bruno approached and stepped up to Magnus’s chair. Magnus beckoned him closer, gesturing for secrecy. Bruno leaned his ear down to Magnus’s lips and nodded as he took his orders.
‘And Bruno,’ whispered Magnus. ‘As quietly as you can, son.’
Bruno nodded again and left the room without even looking at Collins.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Collins.
‘Only for you, old son. Only for you. Why don’t you finish your tale?’
Eleven
His mind could hide his new knowledge but his body couldn’t. It got harder bleeding the Chosen, gutting them, quartering or boning them out. But he could disguise that because he was further along the chain and the killing was done. On the stun, though, it was impossible to disguise his misgivings. It didn’t show in his face or his demeanour or in the things he said to his co-workers but it showed and it was impossible to do anything about it. The familiar shout from Torrance’s steel overlook made Shanti want to disappear.
‘Chain speed, please.’
He kept his voice even.
‘One eighteen, sir.’
Torrance must have thought he’d misheard.
‘Say again, please, Ice Pick.’
‘One eighteen.’
In the pause he could hear Torrance thinking. The next yell was aimed at the filers moving the Chosen through the crowd pens.
‘You men, keep those cattle moving. Rick’s standing here with no heads to break.’
One of them yelled back:
‘Everything’s moving fine over here, sir. Got a good steady stream.’
‘Ice Pick, what’s the problem?’
‘No problem, sir.’
‘Why aren’t we turning ’em over quicker?’
‘I thought we were. I’ll get us back up to one thirty in just a few minutes.’
Torrance didn’t shout any more, so Shanti hoped he was satisfied. Something in the man’s silence worried him, though. It wasn’t just the low chain speed – that happened to everyone once in a while. An off day was an off day. But Torrance had been looking at him recently. Not looking at him strangely but looking at him more. Noticing him. Watching him. Maybe he already knew something. If he did, Shanti knew his days at MMP were coming to an end.
He ground his teeth down upon each other. The access panel opened. He didn’t hesitate. By the end of his shift they were working at one twenty-eight. Good enough to keep Torrance off his back, but only just.
‘It’s very simple. The old man had plenty of time to think about food and survival as a loner in the Derelict Quarter. He realised that, in theory, cutting a vegetable and eating it was not so different from eating meat. Either way, you ended the life of the thing you wanted to devour. Unlike the meat-eating folk in the town, he could look with new eyes. He was prepared to think about things differently. He wondered if there might be a way for folk to survive without causing harm to any other living thing. He experimented with prayer, meditation, and exercise and came up with a basic system for nourishing the body using only light and breath.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Magnus. ‘You’re telling me that this man ignored everything written in the Book of Giving but that he still prayed? Who the hell to?’
‘It’s not the writings in a book that prove or disprove the existence of a higher power. It’s our deep experience of the world that informs us of such things. In this town there are believers and disbelievers that have no interest in the writings of the Book.’
‘Do you believe in a higher power?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Magnus had to think about that.
‘It isn’t as obvious as you might think. You’ve come here and spouted so much nonsense that it’s hard to define anything about you. Except that you are highly motivated and a bit of a head case. You say you eat God, and I suppose that means you believe there is one. It hardly appears to signify your respect for such a being however.’
‘I apologise for not being clearer. One is sometimes… so overwhelmed by truth that one forgets to speak it. In answer to your question, yes, I believe in a higher power and I respect it beyond all other things. It feeds me, it nourishes me, it… supports me. It shows me a path every single day of my life.’
‘The old man, you said he survived on light and air. But you say you live on God. How is that possible? What does it mean?’
‘Perhaps you have an image of me munching my way through a fragment of divinity. But it isn’t like that. You see, the first thing you have to do is give yourself completely to God. That act, if genuine, is a sacrifice of great value. You can’t imagine what it means at the moment, Mr. Magnus, but it is within all of us to have that understanding and for each and every one of us to make that very sacrifice. The result is that God gives you everything you will ever need. It’s as plain as that. My daily nourishment involves a routine which is some combination of prayer, calmness of mind and gentle movement of the body, but, unlike the old man, I took it all a step further. I sacrificed myself to the Creator and in return the Creator has given me everything. Absolutely everything.’