Read Online The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still by Malcolm Pryce - Free Book Online Page B

you look like you’d enjoy it.’
    ‘Don’t get funny. It doesn’t mean I can’t have you flogged, or that I won’t. It’s just not in our best interests at the moment.’
    ‘Or mine.’
    His face turned a deeper shade of red. ‘Look here you –’
    The mandarin placed his hand on the officer’s forearm. ‘Let’s not get distracted.’
    ‘How can I help you?’ I asked.
    ‘We want you to betray someone,’ said the mandarin.
    ‘Who do you want me to betray?’
    ‘The man calling himself Raspiwtin,’ he said.
    ‘What do you call him?’
    The mandarin sighed. ‘Please don’t keep asking impertinent questions. We’re not here to negotiate. We’re offering you a deal you can’t refuse.’
    ‘It’s not a deal then, is it?’
    He raised his head slightly and looked over my shoulder. He nodded. Four strong, hard hands grabbed me from behind, hoisted me clear of the chair and dragged me across the room. In one fluid movement they twisted me round and slammed me into the wall. Then they did it again and put me back in the chair. My nostrils began to clog with blood which frothed and bubbled. I could feel it trickling across my upper lip. Drops fell and spattered the tabletop. My interlocutors gave no hint of having noticed.
    ‘You will observe, Mr Knight,’ said the mandarin in a tone that suggested my being thrown into the wall had somehow tried his patience to the limit, ‘that the wall is made of brick.’
    ‘What is it you want?’ I asked.
    ‘Raspiwtin has been to see you.’
    I shrugged.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I can’t remember.’
    ‘We already know what for.’
    ‘Who are you? And don’t say, “We ask the questions”.’
    There was the sound of movement behind me and I braced. I was thrown into the wall again. When I was back in my chair, he said, ‘Our organisation is a secret subsection of the Welsh office known as the Aviary.’
    ‘Which branch?’
    There was a moment’s silence.
    ‘Look, snooper,’ said the cop, ‘quit the comedy. We could rub you out now. Not just here, everywhere. We could make it so you never existed. We could remove every record of you. We’d change the hospital records to say stillborn. We’d arrange a fire in the church where you were baptised. Anyone who claimed to remember you, we’d convince them they didn’t. We can do that. The ones who stubbornly clung to your memory, we’d have them sectioned. We do it all the time; it would be like swatting a fly to us.’
    ‘Is that what you did to Iestyn Probert?’
    None of the assembled faces showed a sign of recognising the name, but this stony absence of a reaction was in its own way a reaction, as was the slight but palpable increase in tension. The cop spoke too quickly. ‘We’ll keep you in a cell and send you the tapes of your father going to the police station to report a missing person. “What missing person?” they’d ask him. “There’s no record of such a person ever having existed. Go back to your donkeys, you silly old fool.” For a long time he wouldn’t believe it; he’d cling to the belief he once had a son, but he’d get used to it. We’d put him in the cell next to yours so you could hear him crying in the night. You could tap out messages to him on the plumbing, saying, “Hey, it’s me, Louie.” And he’d tap back, “Louie who?” ’ He stopped and for a moment there was silence. ‘We can do that,’ he said.
    ‘Who is Raspiwtin?’ I asked.
    ‘He’s not who he says he is,’ said the mandarin.
    ‘That’s who he isn’t, not who he is.’
    ‘You need to know who the man is before you betray him?’
    ‘I’ve never betrayed anybody before.’
    ‘I’m sorry, we don’t work for the Boy Scouts, Mr Knight. We have issues of grave national security at play here; sentiment doesn’t come into it. We could do this other ways, we have plenty of options; you have none. We could get the information a dozen other ways, but for reasons it is not necessary to disclose to you,