EXTRACT:
Oh No, Not My Baby by Russell James

When Zane replied, Shiel was peeling potatoes. Zane said, 'I know. You think, I'm a decent guy. I don't want to kill innocent people. It isn't right. You don't feel good about it. You think, Every man's death diminishes me. No man is an island. Don't you?'

Shiel said, ' These are awful potatoes.'

Zane said, ' I can read you like a book.'

Shiel dunked his knife in the water.

Zane said, ' You're having second thoughts. People have to die, Shiel, to make them see the point. Otherwise we're just another lost voice in the wilderness. A dozen lives maybe, to save millions.'

Shiel frowned. ' Half these potatoes are black to the core and the others are pitted with deep eyes. How come they're so different?'

'Different types.'

'They're just rotten potatoes.'

'From different places. Potatoes nowadays come from all over the world. Jersey last week, Egypt this - and next week, who knows? It's no surprise they are different.'

'I remember when potatoes were just potatoes.'

He had been waiting half an hour. In the car parked outside the yard, Nick blew on his hands. It wasn't really cold but after half an hour in the dark a chill had set in, a cool damp breeze moving across from the Severn estuary. His fingertips were balls of ice. To warm his hands he slid them beneath his thighs. His cheeks were shadows, like craters on the moon. Nick could look haunted at the best of times, and this was by no means the best of times.

Though approaching midnight the plant was still working. From ground floor windows, lights shone across the yard through wraiths of steam. The high wire netting fence made it look like a prison and from what Babette had said, the level of security on the front gate was prison tight. But she was inside. Through the quiet evening air Nick heard humming, occasional clanks, and once or twice the machinery groaned like a truck with a rickety gear. Escape pipes on the wall gave out jets of steam. Ten minutes earlier he had heard a muffled hooter, and two women had come from a side door and stood in the dark to smoke their cigarettes. They wore white overalls and tied-on hats. After they had finished and gone back, the yard was empty again. Nick wondered whether they had found time to grab a mug of coffee or milky tea before the hooter ended their short break. It sounded a grim way to earn a living.

The humming stopped.

From where he sat in the car it left a silence like dead of night. He could make out fainter sounds now: the squeak and rattle of a metal trolley on a concrete floor; some tinny music, even voices from inside. Somebody shouted something. Someone else called back. The tinny music would be a radio. He heard another shout. Then a bleeper started - not loud, but irritating - the kind of noise that pricks at your ear and makes you narrow your tired eyes.

Nick exhaled, casting a slight film of mist across the windscreen.

The bleeper changed pitch to become an oscillating howl. He saw someone run out of one side door into another. Two men trotted across the gloomy compound like hospital doctors in trailing white coats. Everyone had to wear overalls. Even Babette had worn one over her red blouson and matching jeans. Another door opened, and a dozen people emerged and stood milling about the yard as if on fire practice. If fire wardens were now going to check everyone off, Babette would be in trouble - she wasn't supposed to be there. Perhaps she could hide inside and not come out. It might even help: with everyone out in the yard she could roam around taking photographs. Maybe she had set off the alarm - a neat trick.

But they didn't seem to be on fire practice. The staff had drifted out and were now milling around, unsure what to do, while a couple of supervisory types buzzed about as if they had some idea. Nick wiped the side window and squinted through. Though the yard was poorly lit and the small shifting crowd was anonymous he couldn't see Babette among them. She wouldn't be.

He began chewing at his lip. She hadn't explained what she meant to do inside, though how much was there to say? She had the camera, and it wouldn't be hard to find where the carcasses waited to be processed. Starkly lit, no doubt, bodies sprawled across the floor - they'd make good photographs.

Babette hadn't worried about the risk. The worst that could happen was she'd be evicted from the premises. The company would not make a song and dance or complain to the police. They'd want the whole affair kept quiet. Their need for privacy would help Babette if she got caught - which she wouldn't, she'd assured him. She'd been in there before.

But it was worrying.

The people in the yard seemed uncertain what to do - and although sitting in the car left him helpless, he could do nothing else. Babette had told him to come back at half past eleven and wait inside the car - ready, if necessary, for a quick getaway.

The bleeper stopped.

It left a slight ringing in his ears, and this time he could hear the voices from the yard. He wound the window down.

It was like a radio in another room. The rolling Bristol accents carried in the night air, but though he could make out some words he couldn't get the full gist of what they said. He'd have to get out. He could stroll across to the wire netting fence but . if they saw him outside the fence, nearly twelve o'clock at night, they'd be bound to ask why he was there. Perhaps he could pretend he lived in one of the nearby houses. No. He mustn't draw attention to himself or Babette's car.

He watched the people in the yard. Had something happened in the factory? Was Babette safe?

It was when the police arrived he began to worry. First the sickening heave of a distant siren - which he tried to tell himself was going somewhere else - then the noise grew louder, lights flashed, and a white panda car arrived. As it approached the gate the barrier rose, and the car glided through. Straight to the main door. Straight inside.

It looked bad. If Babette had been caught, there was nothing he could do. He could only stay in the car in case she needed him. He began to wonder if he should back further away. No, the police might be looking around for her confederates, and if they saw his car - her car - starting up.

Please don't let it be Babette. Let it be some kind of fire practice. In that case maybe the police would have to come, as if for a real emergency. But wouldn't there be a fire engine too? He looked at the workers. It wasn't a fire practice.

Another siren. Faster, more urgent. Coming closer.

An ambulance.

Again, the barrier was lifted to let the vehicle speed through. Two men jumped out and rushed inside the building. What had happened? Had Babette been caught? Had she been hurt? Nick knew that whatever was going on had to involve Babette. It was too much of a coincidence that on the very night she slipped inside, another drama made them call the police. And an ambulance.

Another siren now.

People were appearing in the street, drawn from their houses by the sirens and flashing lights. Nothing like an accident on your doorstep to pep up the night. It had to be an accident, didn't it, if there was an ambulance?

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Other books by Russell James
(published by The Do-Not Press)
Painting in the Dark
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