THE SPANISH WAITER: TWENTY-FIVE

a knife in the dark...

LATE AFTERNOON

Boney and his two agents were becoming increasingly frustrated by the simple fact that they had been locked into what could only be a cell and that if they needed to take a leak they had to share a bucket. It was unsavoury and Murial decided that the last thing she would do is use it. Then the pressure inside her built up, and she used it while the two men obligingly looked the other way, for which she, at least, was grateful.

The two Spanish guards left them in peace after ensuring that the cell was escape-proof. Afternoon came and they tried shouting for help, but one thing the guards decided was they would leave the English spies to stew on their own until a promised police unit would come later in the day or maybe tomorrow to take them away. So no amount of shouting, bellowing or cursing would move them into action. They had a secret establishment to guard, that was what they were paid to do so that was what they would do.

Therefore Boney and his two agents could shout and scream all they liked but nobody would come. And if they needed a piss or even a crap they had a bucket, didn’t they?

It was afternoon time when they were brought refreshments, and they consisted of cups of tea and a dish of rather unappetising shepherds pie. Apparently a sympathetic guest at the hotel down the road had heard of their plight and wanted to hep by carting some refreshment to them. That’s what Boney and co. were told it was, and maybe the description was right but it had been allowed to congeal and looked far from appetising.

The tea, liquid in chipped cups, was reasonable and yet it had an underlying flavour that wasn’t tea, but they drank it anyway because by then they were really very thirsty.

It must have been some additional ingredient in that tea that made them all mysteriously suddenly extremely sleepy.

“I’m shattered” yawned Sparky.

“Anyone would think I’d swallowed a sleeping draught,” groaned Boney.

“I’ll have this bunk and you two share the other,” muttered Murial as she laid claim to one of the beds and stretched out on it.

“I’m too tired to argue,” moaned Boney, and he lay on the second bunk, leaving barely enough room for Sparky.

And within a very short time the three of them were fast asleep despite the fact that it was still only afternoon and consequently they didn’t notice the way one of the Spanish guards sniggered at them as he cleared away half the shepherds pie that remsaied uneaten, and the empty chipped cups.

He knew that his prisoners would be out for the count and that a night that hadn’t even arrived and hopefully would be over and done with by the time any of them stirred. He and his fellow guard would be ble to nip out and have some time away from the wretched place where they watched over secrets that probably weren’t secrets at all. Anyway, they had homes to go to, wives to feed them and maybe even be affectionately cuddly for them, and the prisoners (they weren’t even paid to look after prisoners anyway) would still be there in the morning, wouldn’t they?

In the sleeping cell the day (which was almost over anyway) began to give way to night, and the absence of light meant it was very dark indeed. But that didn’t matter because there was nobody conscious enough to need light. At least, there wasn’t before a shadowy figure holding a mobile phone with its torch switched on, half-stumbled past work benches and a wide variety of helicopter parts that reared into the air grotesquely when the torch light caught them.

The figure quite obviously knew what he wanted (it was a he rather than a she because his intended task wasn’t at all feminine) and he soon found the cell in which the sleeping threesome lay, occasional snores filling the air with drugged somnolence.

He must have known the secret of the door that three experienced secret service agents couldn’t open, and crept into the cell.

“You bloody fool,” he muttered as he stared down at Boney, and in order to make sure that the leader of the trio knew he was there even though the knowledge would be vague through the deceptive mists of sleep, he removed a kitchen knife from a trouser pocket where it had been secretly stashed, helped by a tear in said pocket, and tickled Boney under the chin with it.

“Gerrorf,” growled Boney, and he snored.

The blade did more than tickle him, it somehow penetrated the gloom of drugged sleep until his eyes opened and he could see a little of what was going on.

“You…?” he gasped, “here…”

“You have brought things to a fine head,” snapped the knife-man, “a catalogue of disasters from start to finish!”

And as Boney stared at him, mentally groping for understanding which wouldn’t come, he plunged his knife viciously where he was confident the man’s heart would be, and got it right first time.

Then he silently withdrew, leaving the cell door shut behind him, and using the same bright light he found his way out into the night, and then away until the only evidence of his passing that way was the blood seeping from the late and hardly lamented body of Boney, aka Gaddy Carter.

Murial was the first of the other two to wake up.

“Anyone awake?” she whispered, but Sparky was still spark out.

She sat up and looked around her. The two men were lying on the other bunk, but there was something odd about the way Boney was lying. He didn’t look quite normal, though she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“Boney?” she hissed, then “Sparky?”

But her wakefulness was merely a temporary retreat from drugged sleep, and she allowed her eyes to close while her brain did its best to orientate her senses.

Then Sparky’s eyes flickered open, then shut, and when he moved he knew that something was wrong because his hand was resting on congealed blood and it didn’t feel quite right.

“Yuk,” he grumbled, “you pissed yourself, Boney?”

“Wassat?” came Murial’s voice.

“Boney’s all wet…” muttered Sparky, “the filthy pig!”

Murial tried to sit up, but couldn’t quite make it. “It’s red,” she told Sparky, “it’s red piss!”

It took seconds that seemed like ages before Sparky was aware of what had really happened.

“It’s not piss,” he managed to force out through what was still a mental fog, “it’s blood, and Boney’s dead!”

© Peter Rogerson 30.11.22

...