Under the Skin

12

FOLDING HER ARMS across her breasts, palms on shoulders, and closing her eyes, Isserley allowed herself to slip under the water. Giving the sorely punished muscles and bones of her neck permission to let her head go, she felt her hair swirl up towards the surface as her heavy little skull sank like a stone. The world disappeared into darkness, and the familiar sounds of Ablach Farm were swallowed up into a numb aquatic murmur.

The rest of Isserley’s body sank more hesitantly than her head, at first trying out a new centre of gravity, attemping to float, before it too descended towards the bottom. Bubbles leaked out of her ears and nose. Her mouth was slightly open, not breathing.

After a minute or two, she opened her eyes. Through the shimmering water and the waving seaweed of her hair, she could see a glow of sunlight, distorted, like a distant glimpse of an open door at the end of a dark corridor. As her lungs began to hurt, this light began to dilate, then throb in rhythm with her labouring heartbeat. It was time to come up for air.

Pushing up from the bottom, she splashed through the surface with her head and shoulders, gasping fresh oxygen, wiping her streaming hair back from her face, blinking and snuffling. Her vertebrae shifted and clicked, a sickening gristle sound trapped deep inside the flesh, as the weight settled back on her shoulders.

In the world outside the water, the sunlight had ceased to shimmer and pulsate: it shone through the soiled window of the bathroom, warm and constant. The nozzle of the shower was lit up like a lamp, and ceiling cobwebs luminesced like wisps of sheepswool caught on a barbed-wire fence. The ceramic top of the toilet cistern was almost too bright to look at, so Isserley let her eyes rest on its waxy torso. The pale blue letters tattooed there, ARMITAGE SHANKS, were as incomprehensible as ever, despite Isserley’s years of learning the language. The hot-water tank gulped and belched, the way it always did when Isserley had a bath instead of a shower. At her feet, the rusted brass taps gurgled and hissed. The green plastic bottle of shampoo said EVERYDAY USE. Everything was back to normal. Amlis Vess was gone, and she remained, and it was already tomorrow. She should have known from the beginning that it would end like this.

Isserley leaned her head back, resting the base of her aching skull on the ceramic lip of the bath. On the ceiling directly above the tub, the pus-coloured paint hung in intricate shards and blisters, eroded by years of steam. Several coats of paint, like thin geological layers, had been penetrated by this attrition. It was the closest thing Isserley had yet found, in this world, to the landscape of her childhood. She lowered her eyes.

Her body was invisible below the reflective surface of the water, except for the tips of her toes and the curves of her breasts. She stared down at those alien mounds of flesh, easily imagining them as something other than what they were. Marooned like this in the sunlit water, they reminded her of rocks in the ocean, revealed by the tide. Stones on her chest, pushing her down. Amlis Vess had never seen her without these artificial tumours bulging out of her; would never know that she had once had a smooth breast worthy of his. Hard and sleek, with glossy auburn fur which men could hardly keep themselves from stroking.

She closed her eyes tightly, enduring the exquisitely unpleasant sensation of water trickling out of her mutilated ears. As if taking advantage of this lapse in vigilance, a dribble of scalding water leaked abruptly from the hot tap onto her left foot. Isserley hissed in surprise, and clenched her toes into a fist. How strange, she thought, that such tiny, trivial discomforts could still matter, when Amlis was gone and she was ready to die.

In the rusty soap dish hooked onto the side of the bathtub lay several new razor blades wrapped in cardboard. She unsheathed one of them, flicking the cardboard away. Reaching down to the grimy tiled floor, she picked up the mirror she’d brought downstairs with her. She held it above her, angled it to get the best light, looking herself straight in the face.

She tried to see herself as a vodsel might.

Even at a glance, she found it difficult to believe how much she had let herself go. It seemed like only a few days ago that she’d last done what was necessary to push herself across the dividing line into bestiality; it must have been much longer ago than that. What a bizarre sight she must have been to the vodsels who’d seen her recently. It was a good thing, really, that the last couple were safely out of circulation, because she had to admit she didn’t pass muster now; her fur was growing back everywhere except in the places that were so severely scarred or artificial that nothing could grow there. She looked almost human.

Her hairline was barely discernible anymore; downy fuzz covered her forehead and connected up with the thicker fur on her brows. Her lower eyelashes had almost ceased to be defined as such, merging with the stubble on her cheeks, brown stubble that was softening as it grew. Her shoulders and upper arms were lined with a tentative fleece of auburn.

If Amlis Vess had stayed a little longer, he would have seen something of why men from the Elite had always promised her that they would keep her where she belonged, that they would put in a good word for her when the time came, that they would make sure she was never sent where a girl as beautiful as her should never be forced to go. It would be a crime against nature, one of them had told her once, as he stroked her flank, straying inwards towards the soft genital slit.

Isserley wielded the razor blade with great care. She’d dabbed shampoo onto her cheeks, but because the fur went right up to the rims of her eyelids, she must be careful not to push the soapy froth onto her eyeballs. Her eyes were sore enough from having to wear glasses so much of the time. And, of course, from weeping over Amlis, and life in general.

With delicate, tender scrapes, she shaved the fur off her face, leaving a few wisps for eyelashes. She tried to stop frowning, to make her forehead smooth as she dragged the razor across it. With every scrape she rinsed the blade in the bathwater; soon her fur was floating all around her, borne on a flotilla of shampoo scum.

When she was finished, Isserley picked up the mirror again and examined herself. A droplet of watery blood was trickling down her forehead; she wiped it away before it could run down into her eye. It would heal in a minute.

Instead of a straight hairline, windscreen-style, she’d given herself a slight V-shape, as a sort of experiment. She’d seen it on vodsels sometimes and thought it looked quite attractive.

The rest was straightforward. Unsheathing a fresh blade, she shaved her arms and legs, her shoulders, her feet. With a grunt of effort she swivelled her arms behind her back and shaved there, one hand angling the mirror, the other wielding the blade. Her abdomen needed only a few touch-ups; the scarred flesh from her amputated teats was dimpled and tough, like the torso of a lean, well-muscled vodsel who kept away from alcohol and fatty feed. The tangle of knotted flesh between her legs she didn’t touch or examine; it was a lost cause.

The water had gone cold around her, and looked like a pond stagnant with brown algae. She stood up and gave herself a quick blast of hot water from the shower nozzle to flush off the loose fur. Then she stepped out of the tub onto the cold tiles, next to her shabby little pile of discarded clothes. Grasping them in her toes, she tossed them into the bath and pushed them under the water, which was instantly filthy.

Amlis Vess was gone, and there was nothing to do but go to work.

The midday news came on the television while she was doing her exercises. For the first time in years, it had some relevance to her.

‘A search is under way for missing Perthshire man, William Cameron, ‘said a concerned female voice, as the grubby screen in Isserley’s bedroom displayed a picture of the red-maned, knitted-jumper vodsel she’d picked up days before,’ who was last seen attempting to hitch-hike home from Inverness on Sunday.’ A different photograph replaced the first, this one showing the vodsel relaxing in front of a caravan, hugging between his legs a sleepy-eyed female with thick glasses. Two chubby toddlers, out of focus, were frozen in the extreme foreground, wide-eyed with surprise at the camera flash. ‘Police say there is as yet no evidence of any connection between Mr Cameron’s disappearance and the murder of Anthony Mallinder on Sunday.’ The red-mane and his family were extinguished and a grainy image of the monstrous baldhead in yellow overalls was superimposed, instantly making Isserley’s flesh creep. ‘They acknowledge, however, a possible connection with the disappearance of German medical student Dieter Genscher, last seen at Aviemore.’ The disturbing sight of the baldhead was mercifully replaced by a snapshot of a harmless-looking vodsel Isserley couldn’t recall seeing before. Then, after what seemed like only a fraction of a second, there was some high-quality film footage of the A9, the camera mounted low on the ground, to show the passing cars from the perspective of a hitch-hiker.

Isserley continued her exercises as the news progressed to other things: huge herds of starving vodsels in a foreign country, the misbehaviour of a singer who wasn’t John Martyn, sporting events, weather. Driving conditions were likely to be quite good, if the forecast was accurate.

Exercise and the sun beaming in through the window had dried her hair. She appraised herself in her little mirror, frowning. Her fresh black top – the freshest-looking of the ones in her wardrobe – was a little frayed. Still smart, but a little frayed.

You shouldn’t have taken that red-haired vodsel, she said to herself, suddenly. William Cameron.

Pushing the thought away, she tried to return her attention to the matter at hand. Where was she supposed to get more clothes? Donny’s Garage didn’t sell clothes. For years, she’d resisted the temptation to wear items of clothing she’d come by in the course of her work, fearing that they would be recognized as belonging to individual vodsels, but maybe…

You shouldn’t have taken him, she told herself again. You’re slipping. It’s over.

Her trousers were fine, the green velvet glossy and clean. A bit patchy on the seat, perhaps, but no-one ever saw that, all being welL Her shoes were polished and seemingly indestructible. The cleavage of her bosom glowed in the sunlight like something from the cover of a vodsel magazine. The tiny cut on her hairline had healed already; she picked the crust off, and it didn’t resume bleeding. She ran her fingers through her hair, all ten fingernails securely in place. She breathed deeply, sucking the cool clean air through her nostrils, keeping her spine straight. Outside her window, the earth’s atmosphere was bright and blue, obscuring the eternities of space beyond.

Life goes on, she insisted to herself.

On her way out of the house, she found the note from Esswis, which she’d forgotten all about. By the looks of it, it had been lying under her door for days. She held its damp and faded text up to the light. Esswis’s tortuous scrawl didn’t make things any easier, but one thing was immediately clear: this wasn’t a personal letter. He was merely passing on a message from Vess Incorporated, which, because Esswis was Isserley’s superior, had been conveyed to him first.

As far as Isserley could decipher, Vess Incorporated was wondering if there was any possibility she could bring in a few more vodsels than usual. Twenty per cent more per annum would be fine. If there was any difficulty, the Corporation could send someone to help her out. In fact, it was seriously considering sending someone anyway.

Isserley folded the note into a pocket of her trousers, even though she hadn’t read it all. Vess Incorporated would have to learn that it couldn’t fuck with her like this. She would send them a little message on the next transport ship. In the meantime, she would think about what changes needed to be made to her working life.

Isserley’s arrival in the dining hall caused much guttural murmuring among the men. They obviously hadn’t expected her to reappear so soon after her humiliation, but that was because they were stupid and understood nothing. Wouldn’t they just love to have had a bit longer to gossip about her! What a stir her breakdown and her expulsion from the Processing Hall must have made in their stagnant little world! How the legend would have grown if she’d hidden away for days in her cottage, paralysed with shame, until at last she was so weak with hunger she was forced to crawl down to them! Well, she refused to give them the satisfaction. She would tough it out, show them what she was made of.

She cast her eyes disdainfully over the entire herd of them. Compared to Amlis Vess, they were scabrous grotesques, pea-brained savages. She should never have felt shame about her own deformity; she was no uglier than they were, surely, and infinitely better bred.

‘Is the high-quality meat all gone?’ she enquired, rummaging among the pots and bowls on the serving tables. The memory of her one little taste of the divine marinated steak that Hilis had prepared in honour of Amlis was suddenly haunting her.

‘Sorry, Isserley, it’s in here,’ said the squinty one with the mouldy face whose name she always forgot. He patted his mangy, distended belly and wheezed with laughter.

Isserley beamed pure contempt at him. They ought to feed you on straw, she thought, then turned her back and busied herself with her old standby of bread and mussanta paste. Better to eat that, bland though it was, than take a risk with the blistered fatty sausages and limp wedges of pie: there was no telling what sort of trash was in them.

‘Plenty of pie,’ somebody assured her.

‘No thanks,’ she smiled insincerely, as she leaned against one of the benches, ignoring offers to sit down on the floor with this man or that. Holding one hand under the thinly pasted bread to catch any crumbs that might fall, she began to eat, staring over the men’s heads, planning her day.

‘That fancy meat sure was good,’ recalled Yns the engineer, then, sniggering, quipped: ‘We’ll just have to get a few more visits from Amlis Vess, won’t we?’

Isserley looked down at him, as he grinned back at her with decayed teeth and a glisten of gravy on his snout. Yet despite her distaste, she understood all of a sudden that he was harmless, an impotent drudge, a slave, a disposable means to an end. Imprisoned underground, he was living out an existence scarcely better than what he would have known if he’d stayed in the Estates. To be brutally honest, all these men were falling apart, hair by hair and tooth by tooth, like over-used pieces of equipment, like tools bought cheap for a job that would outlast them. While Isserley roamed the airy spaces of her unrestricted domain, they remained trapped below the barns of Ablach, labouring mindlessly, grubbing in tungsten-lit gloom, breathing stale air, eating whatever offal was too gross to be of value to their masters. Amid much fanfare about escape and pioneering, Vess Incorporated had simply dug them out of one hole and buried them in another.

‘I’m sure there could be some changes made around here,’ Isserley said, ‘without needing a visit from Amlis Vess to justify them.’

This caused more guttural murmurings, meaningless insurrections mumbled by creatures without hope. Only one man spoke up.

‘There’s a rumour Vess Incorporated wants bigger shipments,’ said Ensel. He was eating a mash of green vegetable from a dish, and washing it down with fresh water rather than the ezziin favoured by the others. Isserley realized, with a pang of pity, that he was trying to take care of himself, to keep up some sort of standard. Perhaps, all this time, he’d been saving himself for her, conscientiously discouraging his fur from falling out, fur that was the colour of unrinsed potato and the texture of… of an old anorak hood.

‘I’m sure Vess Incorporated would love us all to work harder,’ she remarked.

Everyone ate in silence for a while.

You shouldn’t have taken the red-haired one, thought Isserley again. It’s over.

She grimaced, and disguised the grimace by biting into her bread. Don’t be so gutless, she chided herself. In a week, it’ll all be forgotten.

As the food dwindled, disappearing serve by serve, its individual smells waned and were replaced by a rising fug of male sweat and fermented alcohol. It was an atmosphere almost guaranteed to inspire disgust in Isserley, but today she was able to rise above it. In fact, she actually began to relax as it sank in that the men who were here now were the only ones she would need to confront. Unser, whom she’d dreaded running into so soon after her disgrace, was nowhere to be seen and the food was vanishing fast. Hilis was absent, too, as he always was by the time the meal was laid out. That was good: that suited her.

She should never have allowed herself to be led into his kitchen, looking back on it now; Hilis had tried to get too intimate with her, had carried on as if they were two of a kind. She wasn’t anybody’s kind – the sooner he understood that, the better it would be for both of them. As for Unser, he’d humiliated her when she was at her most vulnerable, the bastard. She wished she could wipe him off the face of the planet, for having abused his power like that. It was just as well he wasn’t showing his face.

Mealtime was drawing to a close; one of the men had wandered off already, and others were licking and slurping the inner reaches of their bowls and pitchers. Isserley’s relief about Hilis and Unser turned, at last, to curiosity – where were they? Then it dawned on her that it must be all a matter of hierarchy and privilege. Unser and Hilis were a cut above these brawny specimens littered around the dining hall; probably the two of them ate together in some cosy retreat – enjoying a better class of food too, no doubt. What were the two of them feasting on? She’d like to know. Those sealed supply crates that came with every monthly shipment: was it really just stuff like serslida and mussanta in them, or were there secret luxuries she never got to sample? And what about the way Vess Incorporated conveyed its messages to her via Esswis, despite the fact that everything revolved around her? Men and their little power games! She’d tackle these inequalities soon enough.

Isserley spread another slice of bread and mussanta, then helped herself to a bowl of the same green vegetable Ensel had chosen. She was determined always to go off well-fuelled from this day onwards, to make sure she never again succumbed to the humiliating helplessness of hunger far from home. She drank water by the cupful and felt her stomach swelling inside her.

‘We hear another woman might be coming,’ blurted the mouldy-faced man, then sniggered awkwardly under Isserley’s glare.

‘I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ she advised him.

Blinking, the mouldy-faced man went back to his pitcher of ezziin, but Ensel wasn’t so easily cowed.

‘What if they do send someone, though?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It’d make a big difference to your life wouldn’t it? The way it’s been till now, it must get lonely for you sometimes. All that territory to cover, and just you to cover it.’

‘I manage,’ said Isserley evenly.

‘There’s nothing like friendship, though, is there?’ Ensel persisted.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ warned Isserley.

She was out of the dining hall and back on the surface within two minutes.

Mist was rolling in from the invisible horizon as she drove her car onto the A9. The road itself was still clear enough, but the fields on either side were already half lost, silos sinking into the fog, cows and sheep meekly allowing themselves to be swallowed up. A tide of white haze lapped at the grassy shores of the motorway. This is another thing Amlis would have killed to see, Isserley thought. The clouds coming down to earth. Pure water floating through the air like smoke.

There were a million things Amlis would never experience, privileged though he was, beautiful and unscarred though he was. He was a prince returning home, but his kingdom was a slag-heap compared to Isserley’s own domain. Even the Elite, sheltered from the worst of the ugliness, were like prisoners in opulent cages; they would live out their lives without even imagining the beauty that Isserley saw all around her every day. Everything they devoted themselves to was sealed indoors: money, sex, drugs, outrageously expensive food (– ten thousand liss for a fillet of voddissin!). All to distract them from the awful desolation, the darkness, the putrefaction, lying in wait for them just outside the thin skin of their homes.

Here in Isserley’s own private world, that was all reversed. What went on inside the houses – mere specks under the vast sky – was insignificant; the dwellings and their inhabitants were like tiny shells and shrimps nestling on the seabed under an ocean of pale blue oxygen. Nothing that happened on the ground could ever compete with the grandeur of what happened above. Amlis had glimpsed this, had stolen an incredulous look at the sky for a few hours, and then had to let it go; she had made a sacrifice, and had gained the whole world forever.

No-one else must ever come here, she told herself.

In the distance, a hitcher stood on her side of the road, gesturing hopefully to whoever she might prove to be. She slowed down, to take a good look at him. Behind her, another car revved its engine and tooted its horn, impatient to pass. She ignored it. It could complain all it liked, as long as it left this hitcher alone until she’d made up her mind.

The hitcher was big, dressed in a suit without a raincoat over the top, and bareheaded. He wasn’t bald: in fact, he had a halo of grey hair fluttering in the breeze. He was standing right next to the sign that said P, reassuring drivers that he wouldn’t be any bother to stop for. That was about as much as Isserley was able to take in, what with the other car tooting and growling behind her.

Passing the hitcher, she veered into the parking area to allow the angry vehicle its way through. Of course the hitcher thought she was pulling over for him, but it was too soon for Isserley to make such a commitment; she wasn’t going to make any more mistakes. As soon as the coast was clear, she accelerated back onto the road, and the hitcher, who’d shambled into a half-run towards her car, slumped to a standstill as she left him in the pall of her exhaust.

On the second approach, passing by on the opposite side, she noted that he was quite shabbily dressed. The clothes themselves were of good quality – he was wearing a dark-grey suit with a light-grey pullover underneath – but they had a greasy sheen, and hung like loose hide on his hulking frame. The slits of his coat pockets sagged open like extra orifices, the knees of his trousers were baggy and pale, the hand that waved limply at the passing traffic looked dirty. But what was he like inside?

He turned to look at her car as she passed, because there was so little traffic on either side of the road. If he recognized her as the driver who’d almost stopped for him a minute ago, he gave no sign; his face was a stoical mask, hard and wrinkled. Isserley had to admit he wasn’t the most impressive specimen she’d ever seen. He was getting a bit old; his hair was grey, he had a taupe beard with flecks of silver in it, he didn’t stand very upright. He had plenty of muscle on him, but a fair bit of fat too. Among vodsels, he was no Amlis Vess, that was for sure, but he wasn’t an Yns, either. He was average.

On the third approach, she decided to take him. Why not, after all? What difference would it make in the end? What right did Vess Incorporated have to make her task more difficult than it already was? If they had their way, she would be vetting the inhabitants of the entire world, endless millions of them, rejecting almost every single one, in an insane search for perfection. It was time they realized what was really out there. This hitcher was what was really out there.

She pulled over into the same parking area as before, gently tooting her horn in case he was afraid of being fooled a second time. Raindrops began to spatter on the windscreen as he walked towards her; within the few seconds it took him to reach the passenger door, a downpour was setting in.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked, as he swung into the car next to her, a rumpled grey mass with a grim head screwed into the shoulders.

‘Nowhere fast,’ he said, staring straight ahead.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, acknowledging her with a faint smile, though his bloodshot eyes were humourless. ‘Thanks for stopping. Carry on, carry on.’

She looked him quickly up and down. As well as being shabby, his suit was covered in loose hair – not his own, but black and white. His own hair had been cut severely in the past, and the basic shape of the design could still be seen, but all around the old edges, a moss of more recent hair had sprouted: a wiry thicket on his neck, wayward fuzz on his jaws, and then the bristles which covered virtually all his flesh from his cheeks to the grubby collar of his pullover.

‘But where do you want to go?’ insisted Isserley.

‘I don’t really care,’ he said, an edge of irritability poking through his dull monotone. ‘Know any exciting places? I don’t.’

Isserley tried to listen to her instincts, to judge if there was any danger in him. Strangely, she couldn’t detect anything. She gestured to the seatbelt, and his brawny hands, whose nails were black with grime, fumbled for the clasp.

‘Take me to the moon, how’s that?’ he suggested testily. ‘Take me to Timbuktu. Take me to Tipperary. It’s a long way, they say.’

Isserley looked away from him, puzzled. The rain was pelting down. She flipped the toggles for the windscreen wipers and the indicator.

Even as he was strapping himself in, the hitcher was thinking there was still time to change his mind. What on earth was the point of going through with this? Why not just get right out of the car, go right back where he’d come from, and keep his… his poison to himself? There was something so sick about doing this day after day, going out on the road and seeing if he could trap some poor sucker into giving him a lift. Then, as soon as he had a captive audience, of course he would let them have it, right in the guts, right between the eyes, always the same thing. Why do it? Why? He never felt any better afterwards – worse, usually. The drivers who picked him up felt worse, that’s for sure – if they were able to feel anything at all. What a way to treat people who were only trying to do a good turn!

Maybe he’d behave differently with this one, because she was a girl. Getting picked up by a female was pretty rare, especially such a young one. She looked like she’d suffered, too, in her short life: she hadn’t had it easy. Pale, sitting stiffly, trying to put on a brave face. He’d seen it before. Too much too young. Tits on display to show she wasn’t ready to give up being sexy yet, but the rest of her beaten and worn down, prematurely old. Did she have two screaming toddlers waiting for her at her parents’ place? Was she some sort of addict? A prostitute struggling to find an alternative way of making ends meet? The skin of her scrawny clenched hands was dry and scarred. He couldn’t see her face now, but at a glimpse it had seemed like a battleground of bitter experience. God, if only he could spare her what he was going to put her through – make a superhuman effort to keep it all in. But fat chance. He’d let her have it like all the others. Until something happened to make him stop. Until, finally, it was all over.

He could see her little nose, sniffing, poking out from behind the curtain of her hair. She was sniffing him, all right. They all did. It had begun.

‘I’ll open a window, shall I?’ he offered wearily.

Isserley flashed an awkward smile, embarrassed at being caught out.

‘No, no, it’s raining,’ she protested. ‘You’d get wet. I – I don’t really mind the smell, actually. I was just wondering what it is.’

‘It’s dog,’ he said, staring straight ahead of him.

‘Dog?’

‘Pure aroma of dog,’ he affirmed. ‘Essence of spaniel.’ He clenched his fists against his thighs, and agitated his feet against the floor; Isserley noticed he wasn’t wearing any socks. Grunting repeatedly as if being teased with a sharp implement, he grimaced into his lap, then suddenly asked, ‘Are you person or a cat person?’

Isserley thought that one over for a minute.

‘Neither, really,’ she said, still unsure of her footing in this bizarre conversation. She racked her brains to retrieve what little she knew on the subject of cats and dogs. ‘I don’t know if I could take good care of a pet,’ she admitted, noting another hitcher on the next hill, wondering if she’d made a mistake choosing this one. ‘It sounds complicated, from what I’ve heard. Don’t you have to keep pushing a dog off your bed, to show him who’s boss?’

The vodsel grunted again, in pain this time, as he tried to cross one leg over the other irritably, and hit his knee on the underside of the dashboard.

‘Who told you that?’ he sneered.

Isserley decided against mentioning the dog breeder, in case the police were looking for him. ‘I think I read it somewhere,’ she said.

‘Well, I don’t sleep on a bed,’ said the shabby vodsel, folding his arms across his chest. His voice had lowered to a monotone again, a strange mixture of prickly insolence and unfathomable despair.

‘Really?’ said Isserley. ‘What do you sleep on?’

‘A mattress in the back of my van,’ he said, as if she was trying to argue him out of it but he’d ceased to care. ‘With the dog.’

Unemployed, thought Isserley. Then, immediately: it doesn’t matter. Let him go. It’s over. Amlis has gone away. No-one loves you. The police are moving in. Go home.

But she had no home to go to, not really. Not unless she did her job. Pushing back defeatist thoughts, she tried instead to reason with the vodsel at hand.

‘If you own a van,’ she challenged him politely, ‘why are you hitch-hiking? Why not drive yourself?’

‘Can’t afford the petrol,’ he muttered.

‘Doesn’t the government give you… um… an allowance?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘I thought everybody who’s unemployed gets an allowance from the government.’

‘I’m not unemployed,’ he retorted. ‘I own a business.’

‘Oh.’ Isserley saw, out of the corner of her eye, a peculiar change coming over his face. Colour had risen to his cheeks, and his eyes glistened, with a feverish enthusiasm perhaps, or tears. He bared his teeth, which were punctuated by the creamy Polyfilla of old food.

‘I pay myself a wage, y’see?’ he declared, his enunciation suddenly clear. ‘Whatever I can afford. Once I’ve paid my employees.’

‘Um… so how many people have you got working under you?’ asked Isserley, perturbed by the rictus of his grin, the intensity of his concentration. He seemed to have been roused from a coma, drastically infused with a potent cocktail of fury, self-pity and hilarity.

‘Well now, there’s a question, there’s a question,’ he said, thrumming his fingers against his thighs. ‘They may not all be turning up at the factory, y’see. Might have got discouraged by the locked gates. Might have got discouraged by the lights being off. I haven’t shown up there myself, for the last few weeks. It’s in Yorkshire, y’see. Lot of petrol to get to Yorkshire. And then, I owe the bank about three hundred thousand pounds.’

The rain was easing off now, allowing Isserley to orient herself. She could set him down in Alness, if his craziness got out of hand. She’d never had anyone quite like him before. She wondered, alarmingly, if she liked him.

‘Does that mean you’re in trouble?’ she asked, meaning the money.

‘In trouble? Me? No-o-o-o,’ he said. ‘I haven’t broken any laws.’

‘But aren’t you a… a missing person?’

‘I sent my family a postcard,’ he fired back immediately, grinning, grinning all the while, sweat twinkling in his eyebrows and on his moustache. ‘Peace of mind for the cost of a stamp. Saves the police from wasting valuable time, too.’

Isserley stiffened at the mention of police. Then, having ordered her body to relax, she got suddenly worried in case she’d let her arms sag into an angle impossible for vodsel musculature. She glanced down at her left arm, the one nearest him. It looked fine. But what was that horrible squeaking noise near her face? Oh: it was the windscreen wipers, scraping dry glass. Hastily, she switched them off.

Give up, it’s over, she thought.

‘Are you married?’ she said, after a deep breath.

‘Now there’s a question, there’s a question,’ he responded, seething, virtually rising off his seat. ‘Am I married. Am I married. Let me think now.’ His eyes shone so fiercely they looked ready to explode. ‘Yes, I suppose I was married,’ he decided, as if conceding, with grisly good humour, a point someone else had just scored at his expense. ‘For twenty-two years, as a matter of fact. Until last month, as a matter of fact.’

‘And now you’re divorced?’ pursued Isserley.

‘So I’m told, so I’m told,’ he said, with a wink like a violent tic.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Isserley. Her head was starting to ache. The car was full of the heady stink of dog, the radioactive glare of psychic torment and the sudden blaze of noonday sun right in her eyes.

‘Have you ever loved anyone?’ the vodsel challenged her.

‘I – I don’t know,’ said Isserley. ‘I don’t think so.’ She would have to take him soon, or let him go. Her heart was starting to labour, and her stomach seemed to be going into spasm. There was a roaring sound somewhere behind her, which a glance at the rear-view mirror confirmed was another vehicle – a mammoth campervan, tilting from side to side impatiently. Isserley checked her own speed and was unnerved to find it was thirty-five miles an hour – slow even for her – so she drove a little closer to the edge.

‘I loved my wife, y’see,’ the dog-smelly vodsel was saying. ‘I loved her very much. She was my world. The full Cilia Black.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

As the campervan swept past, dragging its shadow over Isserley’s car, the vodsel began to sing, loudly and uninhibitedly.

‘Sh’was my world, she was my night, my da-a-ay; sh’was my world, sh’was every breath, I ta-a-ake, and if our love, ceases to be-e-e, then it’s the end of my world, for me-e-e!’ He shut up as abruptly as he’d begun, and was again grinning at her fiercely, tears leaking down his grizzled cheeks. ‘Get the picture?’

Isserley’s head throbbed as she eased the car back towards the middle.

‘Are you under the influence of mind-altering drugs?’ she said.

‘Could be, could be,’ he winked again, ‘Fermented potato juice, made in Poland. Tough on pain, tough on the causes of pain, all for six pounds forty-nine a bottle. Bit of a disappointment in bed, though. And conversation’s a bit onesided, I feel.’

The A9 was clear for several hundred yards in front and behind, the campervan having sped half-way to the horizon. Isserley let one finger rest on the icpathua toggle. Her heart wasn’t beating as hard as it usually did; instead, she felt sick, as if she might throw up any minute. She took a deep breath of dog-flavoured air, and made an effort to tie up the one last loose end.

‘Who takes care of your dog when you go out hitching?’

‘No-one,’ he grimaced. ‘She stays in the van.’

‘All day and night?’

She’d posed the question without accusatory emphasis, but it seemed to wound him deeply. His manic energy flowed out of him in a gush, and he was left listless and dispirited.

‘I never stay out that long,’ he argued, monotone again. ‘I need my walkies too. She understands that.’

Isserley’s finger trembled against the icpathua toggle, then she hesitated, swallowing down a surge of nausea.

‘It’s a pretty big van,’ the vodsel muttered defensively.

‘Mm,’ Isserley reassured him, biting her lip.

‘I need to know she’ll still be there when I get back,’ he pleaded.

‘Mm,’ said Isserley. Sweat was stinging the fingers of her left hand and her wrist ached. ‘Excuse me,’ she whispered. ‘I… I have to pull over for a minute. I’m not… feeling so good.’

The car was already travelling at a crawl. She allowed it to roll into the nearest parking area and brought it to a halt. The engine shuddered and was still. Supporting herself with one quivering fist against the steering wheel, she wound open a window with the other.

‘You’re not a well girl, are you?’

She shook her head, unable to speak.

They sat in silence for a while, as the fresh air blew in. Isserley breathed deeply, and so did the vodsel. He seemed to be struggling with something, just as she was.

Eventually he said, in a low desolate tone, but very distinctly:

‘Life is shit, you know that?’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Isserley. ‘This world is very beautiful.’

He grunted disdainfully.

Leave it to the animals, I reckon. Leave the whole fucking lot to the animals.’ That seemed to be his final word on the subject, but then when he saw that Isserley had begun to cry, he lifted his filthy hand and hesitantly pawed the air near Isserley’s shoulder. Thinking better of it, he folded both his hands into his lap and looked away, out of the passenger window.

‘I’ve had my outing for today,’ he said softly. ‘How about you just let me out here?’

Isserley looked him straight in the eyes. They were shiny with unwept tears, and she could see a tiny Isserley reflected in each one.

‘I understand,’ she said, and flipped the icpathua toggle. The vodsel’s head tipped against the glass of the passenger window and rested there. The wispy grey hair growing out of his neck fluttered in the breeze.

Isserley wound up her window and pressed the button to make the glass turn dark. As soon as the interior of the car was dim and private, she pulled the vodsel back from the side window and turned his face to the front. His eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, not shocked and apprehensive like the others. He might have been sleeping, snoozing an over-long journey away, a slumber of a thousand light-years.

Isserley opened the glove box and selected a wig and a pair of spectacles. She fetched the anorak from the back seat. She dressed her fellow-traveller carefully, smoothing his dull, faded hair under a mop as black and glossy as his own might once have been. His brows were warm and bristly against the scarred flesh of her palms.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

When he was ready to go, she lightened the windows and started the car. She was less than twenty minutes from home, traffic permitting.

Back on Ablach Farm, Ensel was first out of the steading as usual, to greet her. Everything, it seemed, was back to normal.

Isserley opened the passenger door, and Ensel appraised what was sitting there.

‘A beauty,’ he complimented her. One of the best ever.’

That’s when Isserley finally lost it.

‘Don’t say that!’ she screamed at the top of her voice. ‘Why must you always fucking say that!’

Flinching at the violence of her response, Ensel seized hold of the body between them. Isserley seized hold too, struggling to keep him upright as he was dragged along the seat into the outstretched arms of the waiting men. ‘He’s not the best,’ she raged as she clutched and pushed. ‘He’s not the worst. He’s just a… just a…’ Slipping from all their grasps, the body fell heavily on the stony ground. Isserley shrieked in fury, ‘Fuck you!’

Leaving the scabrous beasts to their bumbling and grunting, she drove to her cottage in a cloud of dust.

Two hours later, just as she was starting to calm down, she found Esswis’s note in her pocket, and re-read it, this time forcing herself to decipher the last few lines. Vess Incorporated had just one extra request of her, it seemed. They were wondering if she could perhaps see her way clear to supplying them with a vodsel female, preferably one with intact eggs. There was no need to process the female. Just wrap her up carefully, send her along, and Vess Incorporated would take care of the rest.