Anderson said in a conversational tone, ‘These walls are surprisingly thick and so is the door. I don’t think anyone will hear you scream but I don’t like noise, so I’ll leave the tape on for now.’ He paused for effect. ‘Now, doubtless, you’ll be wondering why you’re here.’
Bingham shook his head helplessly, a wordless pleading for mercy.
Anderson took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on slowly and thoughtfully. He had heard that the anticipation of pain is almost as effective as pain itself. He wasn’t sure. One day he would ask but usually when he’d finished with someone, they were in no fit state for measured reflection. They were pathetically grateful to be alive even if the gratitude was mixed with extreme pain.
He leant forward and said, ‘This isn’t about you, Rabbit.’ He studied his gloved hands carefully. ‘Your friend Conquest has taken a boy and I want to know where he’s put him. That’s fairly simple, isn’t it. You are going to tell me where, aren’t you? I’ll just repeat that for you, you don’t look all there, Rabbit. Do try and concentrate. I want to know where Conquest would be keeping a boy. You’re going to tell me, so you might as well get it off your chest now.’
It wasn’t a question. Anderson’s freedom, ten years of his life, rested on Bingham telling him what he wanted to know. He would talk. Unable to speak, Bingham’s responses were limited to a yes or a no. A nod or a shake of the head. Had he been able to talk he would have tried to plead ignorance or buy time.
He knew exactly where the boy would be held. It was where he intended to stay after he left prison. He shook his head. Anderson sighed as if he’d been expecting this. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a Zippo lighter.
He flicked the lighter and a ragged yellow flame appeared. Anderson and Bingham both looked at the flame, then Anderson shook his head sadly and leant forward with the lighter. His other hand took Rabbit’s penis. Bingham’s agony began.
A little while later for Anderson, a lifetime later for Rabbit, he extinguished the flame, ‘Well?’ Bingham shook his head. His face was wet with tears. Unable to scream, unable to move, he had just endured pain like nothing he could have ever imagined. Anderson put his head close to Bingham’s.
‘It won’t get any better. I’ve only just started. Tell me what I need to know.’ Anderson re-applied the flame. A thin plume of dark smoke rose and the smell of burning flesh started to fill the room.
Bingham’s head started nodding frantically. Anderson put away the lighter and took out a pen and paper. He removed the tape from Bingham’s mouth and listened carefully as he told Anderson the location of the island and where the boy would be held.
‘Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ said Anderson. He looked with distaste at Bingham.
Anderson had grown to dislike Bingham greatly in their short meeting. He opened the cupboard door and glanced out to check the time against the clock on the wall. An hour before Jardine would reappear to take Bingham away. He had paid Jardine a great deal of money for this. It was hugely expensive but money was not a problem for Anderson. Included in the deal was another bribe for the warder in charge of the relevant security cameras, another five-figure sum. He’d promised Jardine he wouldn’t kill Bingham. Neither of them wanted Bingham dead. He smiled to himself. Bingham noticed the smile and, like a dog eager to ingratiate itself to his master, smiled back, despite the pain. It was all over now. He had done as Anderson had asked; he had betrayed Conquest.
Anderson leant forward and replaced the tape, which had been hanging by one corner from Bingham’s cheek. He patted it gently. ‘I guess they call you Rabbit because of your teeth,’ he said conversationally.
Bingham nodded. He was wary but he’d done everything asked of him. A bargain was a bargain; it was only fair. Surely to God this was the end of it.
Anderson reached behind him. He had a brick in his hand, a conventional house brick. Nothing special. Without warning he slammed the end into Bingham’s mouth. Bingham’s head snapped back with the force of the blow. Anderson had to restrain his immediate instinct, born of a number of vicious fights in pubs, car parks and streets, to slam the brick, or his hand, into Bingham’s exposed throat. He pushed his fingers against the rapidly swelling skin of Bingham’s upper lip to check the damage he’d done. He felt the ridge of Bingham’s front teeth with the tips of his fingers. They were still surprisingly intact. Blood seeped from around the black strip of duct tape that dramatically punctuated the very pale parchment of the skin on Bingham’s face.
It took two more blows before Anderson was satisfied.
Rabbit Bingham would need a new nickname.
31
In Brussels, Lord Justice Reece showered carefully and washed his thick, silver-grey hair. He looked at his face critically in the bathroom mirror. He had never been good-looking, his lips were wide and blubbery, his eyes slightly bulging, his face fleshy, but his ugliness had worked to his advantage. People don’t want their lawyers to look like male models. They want ability, they want reassurance, and Reece’s messianic self-confidence, boosted by carefully chosen, high-profile pro-bono work and remorseless media networking, had made him very reassuring indeed.
Before he had become a judge there were few TV or radio programmes about civil rights that didn’t feature Reece. He’d made his name in the law by championing unpopular causes and the downtrodden, but only if they were also popular media topics. He was also a fixture on the lecture circuit, a regular at places like the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union Society. He had many friends in the BBC. He had adopted a strategy of professing modesty, but reluctantly appearing in the full blaze of publicity for ‘moral’ reasons. Media fame had brought high-profile cases, which in turn brought the ability to charge astronomical fees. Representing the underdog and fighting injustice was lucrative work for Reece, but of course he’d only do it if there was interest from the intelligentsia. Before becoming a judge, Reece was a multimillionaire from his legal practice but he kept this quiet from the public, who viewed him as an ascetic seeker of truth. Now he had set his sights on bigger things than fame or money. Now he was after power.
The interviews he had attended in Strasbourg for the presidency of the European Court of Human Rights had gone extremely well the day before, he knew that. He had expected nothing less. The questions he had been asked, the outline of the future for the law he’d been invited to express, could have been expressly designed to play to his strengths. The legal profession usually draws its top tier of lawyers from a particular class, connected, arrogant, ambitious, wealthy; it’s an exclusive club. The role of a senior legal position is not concerned with justice or ethics; it is primarily to safeguard salaries, reputation, power and status for the legal profession. Lord Justice Reece was a highly safe pair of hands and well used to dealing with civil servants, government and the European Union. He spoke their language, bureaucracy, and he spoke it fluently, mellifluously and persuasively — it’s a universal language, the Esperanto of power.
That morning he would meet the advisers to the French and German Justice ministers — agreeable, civilized, like-minded, legal minds. Then there would be a long lunch and another meeting. In the evening, dinner with the EU Justice Commissioner at Bruneau, one of Brussels’ best Michelin-starred restaurants, centrally located in Avenue Rousting in the shadow of the Koekelberg.
Reece liked to think of himself as a gourmet. As a child he’d had to endure the horrors of English boarding-school cooking, the lumpy mash, the lukewarm, gristly, grey mince with its congealing gravy, and tapioca pudding. Now he was a Michelin Guide addict. Any trip to any city for whatever reason would find Reece booked into one of the red guide’s entries, and nine times out of ten someone else would be paying. He was particularly looking forward to Bruneau as he’d never been before; he only knew about it by repute. Its chocolate soufflé was said to be superb, as was the cheese board. The rack of lamb was legendary, the turbot alone worth the enormous EU fisheries subsidy.