Tattington Kelptau-Monford awoke in a darkened room. It was the kind of cloying, impenetrable dark that gets into your throat and makes you choke. His eyes would never adjust.
His hands were bound, his feet tied up and he was sat upright in some kind of plastic tub. As he blinked back the thick stinging black, he could make out the big plastic tub was a scratched white colour, and slightly damp so he couldn’t get a grip with his shoes to ease himself out. He didn’t scream, instead he simply said:
“Hello” There was a click, and a small, circular orange light popped into existence. It illuminated nothing; it just hung there like an eye, millimeters from the floor. There was a second click and another eye blinked out of nothing.
“Hello Tattington,” the voice resonated from around the room, and as soon as Tattington could focus on the source there was just a click and an orange light. “How are you feeling today?” It said and again the voice seem to come from everywhere and as soon as he could move his head to focus on it there was just a click and an orange hue.
“Where am I? What are you doing to me?” He struggled against the bonds but tried to keep his voice casual. It was important to not antagonise his captor. He could talk him out of it, make sure he had a way out. Even though he was a small time crook, Tattington knew enough to get out of tough situations.
“You’ve pissed a lot of people off Tattler.” there was a click. “Should’ve kept your hands out of the till.” Click.
“What are you talking about?” he couldn’t help but let his voice break as his vocal chords grated in panic. The tie-wraps around his wrists were offering resistance and the tingle of ripped skin sent shivers up his arms. Click.
“You took things from the wrong people. We pay you to distribute a product, and instead you keep it for yourself,” alongside the click was a mounting roar. Softly at first a slow rumble that seemed to be bubbling up to something. The orange light was getting to be a solid source of light and Tattington could see patent leather shoes walking around a stark concrete floor covered in a nest of wires. “We paid you to give drugs to the good people of this town, and instead, you stock piled it, selling it without giving us our cut.” The bubbling rose, the air grew hot and clammy.
“I didn’t steal those drugs. The coke was stolen from me. Jesus man, it was the Russians!” The man laughed, he was one of Spike Gilletto’s goons, and Tattington knew this couldn’t end well. There was a definite temperature change now. Mist was moving in the orange light between short white cylinders with small eyes, and the rumble rose to a new level. A word came into his head.
“Are those kettles?”
“We were expecting you to come clean, but you didn’t,” The man slammed his hands onto the edge of the white tub, and reached down between Tattington’s feet dropping a small rubber circle into a hole, then a second word popped into his head. “So its Bath time Tattington.”
“Oh fuck, no! I didn’t take the coke man, don’t do this to me,” The man disappeared from view and reappeared with one of the rumbling kettles in hand. He stood over him, read to pour.
“Start telling the truth, or its going to get mighty uncomfortable,” A door slammed and sterile white light flooded into the room, and Tattington and the goons eyes were dazzled by it. The sound of retinas searing was almost audible over the continuing rumble of boiling kettles. The only disruption in the cascade of light was a thin lank shadow framed in the doorway.
He stood there for a few stunned seconds before drawing a long gurgling hack as he expectorated his throat, and spat a fat wodge of evil smelling mucus into the room. The two men stood in total disbelief at their interruption, and remained silent as the strange hide cowboy boots the figure wore cut into the room with a wooden clop.
He surveyed the scene, nudging one of the kettles with his boots, and peering at the man in the bath tub with the scrutiny of a health inspector in a fast food drive through. He wiped the bare jut of finger protruding from a filthy woollen fingerless glove across the bottom of the bath tub and held it in front of the goons and his own face and tutted quietly.
“Who the fuck are…” with a warm hush he pressed the raised finger to the goons mouth. He looked into his eyes with his own, sunken into pits, practically ringed by dark tissue and barely visible underneath a lank fringe of hair.
“Don’t talk, please. If you ask that question I’ll have to do an introduction, and we both know that will spoil things. So, let me just give you some constructive criticisms…”
“Who the fuck are you?” Shouted Tattington, still tied up in the bath with the pair staring at him from their perch at the bottom of the tub. Finger still gingerly placed upon the goons lips, still silenced by the stubby digit, dumbfounded and wide eyed starring at the bound man, the strange figure sighed dramatically. He produced a damp cigarette from his inside pocket, and lit it with a strange lighter made of hammered copper in the crude shape of a phallus. Slapping it into his mouth he stood up and pointed dramatically in no particular direction.
“I’m Caspian Riot: The Hallucinogenic detective, and you my little degenerate are about to suffer my 12 inch length of the law!” He smiled, or at least it was a tangled mockery of a smile, like a rotten wound gaping open and revealing the gnarled wooden pegs that he called teeth.
“You’ve got nothing against me,” shouted the goon, “I have got a clean rap.”
“Not you, you over eager pervert!” He pointed at Tattington.
“Me?” Gasped Tattington.
“No, not you either, in the name of the Babylonian Whore do you people have no concept of theatrical suspense. Here,” he handed the goon a huge stack of papers from his inside pocket and sighed again, looking at the floor, his greasy hair hanging like a filthy curtain about his face.
“It’s a guy?” said the goon, trying to comprehend the paper work.
“That is not just a guy my friend, that is the man who stole the cocaine from your man here in the bath-tub. He was telling the truth. Some Russian broke into his house and took the stuff.” There was a smug noise from the bath.
“See jackass!”
“Oh well, is my face red?” Riot slapped him on the back.
“Yes, yes it is. Now go break his legs or something. Peel his skin off or whatever it is you do. Go, vanish,” The goon made with a small knife to un-cut Tattington’s fetters but Riot stopped him. “Nope, you’ve done enough damaged here, go on, be gone.” Smiling the goon left, gripping the notes like a Valentine’s Day card.
Practically throwing himself across the room Caspian came to rest looking straight at Tattington in the bath-tub. He was grinning broadly, and he was so close to Tattington that he could see every detail of his face. His thin leathery lips like short chapped tubes clung to oily speckled skin, peppered with brown stubble. His teeth were a vile grey flecked with yellow and he expelled a stench of cinnamon and rust. He just sat there smiling that jigsaw puzzle smile that seemed horrifically out of place.
“What?” snapped Tattington.
“Tattler, Tattler, Tattler! Great set up you’ve got here,” he said waving a hand in a grand gesture towards the kettles sprawled over the floor.
“Yeah, it must have taken a lot of time,”
“I know, doesn’t it make you feel special that someone went to all this effort to get some information out of you!” he started to chuckle and it sounded like a deep rattle: a broken Childs toy with a shattered voice box, shards of glass in a blender, a mirror breaking in the dark.
“Yeah, its pretty… neat,” Tattington tried to laugh to, but it didn’t work.
“Seems a shame not to waste it,” the laughing stopped.
“What?”
“Well, you may not have stolen the cocaine, but I know you have a dirty little habit,” There was a stunted silence as he got up and closed the door returning the room to complete darkness.
“What are you doing?” He squealed, desperately, resisting the wraps around his wrists and kicking his legs angrily.
“See, if a detective really wants to make some money he doesn’t just take on one case,” there was a click as the cowboy heal flicked a switch on one of the kettles. The orange eye blinked on. “So when I hear you are going to be in a bath, hounded by some slack-jawed thug, I thought I’d come along.” Click. “Because you have a nasty little habit.”
“I didn’t do it!” He screamed.
“Oh but you did, you did it again and again, and people are getting sick of you doing it!”
“Please, I’ve done nothing!” he thrashed about; trying to tip the bath but it was firmly attached to the floor. Clicks were coming left, right and centre accompanied by the slow building roar of boiling water. The kettle clicked off, there was silence, just the hum of steam leaving the spouts. Tattington looked around. There was no sound. Not even the slightest hint of something moving in that impenetrable darkness. He turned slowly, from right to left, straining to see anything in the nothingness that surrounded him.
There, right next to him, stock still was the smiling shape of Caspian Riot, holding a white kettle filled with boiling water.
“Let’s make sure you learn never to go to the bathroom without washing your hands.”
That’s when Tattington Kelptau-Monford started to scream.
