Collusion: Chapter 3

A beer run goes wrong and violence ensues

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ll publish a section from the novel. Chapter 1 and 2 are here for those who missed the. The story so far: Michael Ashton, a journalist, is working on a story about right-wing football lads and former servicemen in 2019 as Britain tears itself apart over Brexit. He is chased by a violent ex-soldier across Flanders and a nightmare scenario unfolds

Chapter 3 Drivetime

Ashton overtook a lorry and glanced in his mirrors again. The van had slowed and was keeping a reasonable distance from the Volvo. Was he being paranoid? He braked and indicated to leave the motorway at the Oye-Plage/Audruicq exit. As he drove downhill on the off ramp he kept staring at his mirror, hoping desperately that the next vehicle behind would be anything but a grey van. And then he saw it. The nightmare was continuing.

A quick left and a hard right put him back on the motorway. Again he was fixated on traffic behind. There it was again, bowling uphill just as he merged. The display on the dashboard said 40.

He put his foot down. Perhaps he could get enough distance between them to put a couple of gallons into the tank and gain himself some time to form a plan. But the Mercedes matched his pace with ease. They were waiting for him to stop.

A variety of thoughts ran through his mind. Speed up in the hope of being noticed by a traffic cop? That would use fuel and he might not even see a patrol car. Get off the motorway and find a police station? No crime had been committed and his schoolboy French was not adequate for the sort of conversation that was necessary. Try and lose them in a nearby town? If he did not know the street layout he would be as likely to box himself in. He knew Poperinge and its one-way system. That would be his best chance. He looked at the petrol gauge. The Belgian town was, he reckoned, 40 miles away. It would be close.

He turned south in the direction of Lille. There was less traffic here and the radio, which he had forgotten was on, started to break up. Words came through in bursts: “Meaningful vote,” “Backstop,” “civil unrest.” Ashton turned it off in fury, twisting the dial so hard it almost broke. They were still behind.

He phoned the editor of the website that had commissioned the latest piece. “Look,” he said, “it might be nothing but I saw the ExSat fella on the boat and I think he’s following me.” The line was awful. Some stuttering fragments of the reply came into his ear: “… signal… can’t… you... me?” He hung up. His iphone was low on battery, too. Cursing, he threw it on the passenger seat. Looking at the dashboard he saw the new number he dreaded: 35.

For a moment it crossed his mind to text someone and at least alert them to his predicament but that would be dangerous. The rain had started again and visibility was reduced. The weather might work in his favour and provide him with the opportunity to give the van the slip. Then he composed himself and considered a different approach. There was a service station just before he was due to leave the motorway at Steenvoorde. Why shouldn’t he just stop and ask them what they wanted? There would be people there. Surely it would be safe?

For three or four minutes he decided that this was what he should do. Then it struck him that in these stormy conditions there may not be too many witnesses milling around. They would be sheltering indoors. Killer was a trained soldier and presumably so was his companion. They could incapacitate him and throw him into their van in a moment. No, he had to lose them. The LED number said 30. His time was ticking away.

Conditions were so bad that he could not read the registration number on the van. He picked up his phone and tried to take a jittery photo of it over his shoulder but the car swerved dangerously as he tried to swivel round. Crashing would make life easy for them. There had to be a solution. He racked his mind and dreaded looking at the petrol indicator. But he needed to know where he stood: about 25 miles from coming to a standstill.

Ashton knew the border region near Poperinge well. There would be opportunities to shake his pursuers there, he was sure. There was nothing he could do but continue driving for the next half-hour or so. Once again he tried to think rationally. Joseph had attempted to scare him by calling this man a killer but what were the chances of it being true? He could have served in Iraq, Afghanistan or even the Balkans and many unpleasant things happened in those places. Might he be one of those individuals with a taste for violence who had joined the forces to have his savage instincts honed and indulged? Or had the ideological madness sweeping Britain turned his head? People were being dehumanised every day and radical behaviour was increasingly normalised.

The deathly expression on the man’s face in the pub had given Ashton pause for thought. He oozed brutality and some deep impulse had driven the journalist to run away from him on the ferry. In truth, this person frightened Ashton and he wasn’t easily unnerved. He suspected that this man was capable of ending someone’s life and putting any thought of the victim out of his mind. He realised now what had caused him to hide on the boat: Killer was the sort who’d casually flip him overboard and then return to the bar for a drink. Ashton could not get caught. He looked down. He needed something to happen in the next 20 miles.

He wondered what the men in the van were thinking. Did they have a plan? They almost certainly had more petrol. They were on unknown territory, though. That gave Ashton a huge advantage.

So too did the squalls. It was dingy. Darkness would have been even better but visibility was dreadful with the rain and spray off the road. He began to mentally rehearse potential scenarios. The countdown was getting lower: 15 miles now.

It was time to try the phone again but the signal was still very weak. He had planned a nice relaxing lunch, over which he’d book a last-minute hotel. Fear overrode hunger as he sped past the service station and approached the turnoff. He suspected that the car’s range was close to single figures. The number 10 on the LED did not reassure him.

He turned left towards the border and put a little bit of distance between himself and the van. A truck had slotted in behind the Volvo and that would slow them down. With a single lane in each direction, it was dangerous to overtake. Both the car and the Mercedes were left-hand drive and they had to play cat-and-mouse with traffic as well as each other.

It occurred to Ashton that there was a reason that few car chases were set in the Low Countries. The landscape was flat and the roads largely straight. As long as they could see him he could only carry on.

The old border control posts were up ahead and a variety of shops and warehouses clustered together on the French side. A sign with a Union Flag offered rolling tobacco and cigarettes to English daytrippers. Two petrol stations were there, too, mocking Ashton. He checked his mirror. The van was about half a mile back, overtaking an articulated lorry. There was not enough time to stop. He was exhausted and had less than five miles to play with.

The empty shell of the customs post loomed: 100 yards of disused offices on each side of the road with a much smaller central station where the passport inspectors used to sit. Ashton wished they were still there. They would have scared off the occupants of the van – or at least caused them a delay and provided more time to escape.

He floored the accelerator and dodged a tractor as he took a long, gentle rightward curve. The farmer blocked the road for a while and the headlights of a line of opposing traffic reassured Ashton that his pursuers would struggle to get around the agricultural vehicle. The Volvo was pulling away.

He swept left and could not see the van. This was a chance to take a turnoff at the Abele/Steen Acker junction but he lost his nerve. He did not know this part of the area well enough and was not sure where he could get fuel.

Once he was past the Praline Paleis chocolate shop he was almost committed to going into town. He considered turning left down the narrow path to Noel Culiver’s farm and beer shop but the weather worked against him. He did not know how far ahead he was. The small window disappeared in a flash. This was the straightest section of the drive. The Poperinge ring road was up ahead.

And there, in his mirrors, he saw the Mercedes, closing, closing, closing. The display still said five miles of petrol remained.

Ashton went left on the ring road and then took a quick right down Casselstraat. There was congestion here, heading towards the town centre, but it kept the van at bay. At the roundabout he went right on Hondstraat, ready to turn left towards the main square. As he approached the junction he realised he had made a terrible mistake. He had either misremembered the one-way layout or it had been changed. There was no left turn.

He could not see the Mercedes so decided to take a risk and drive the wrong way down the street. In about 50 metres he could turn right, skirt the Grote Markt and go right again very quickly. It would then be almost impossible to work out which direction he was headed. He reached the junction unimpeded but, to his horror, realised he had again fallen foul of the one-way system. He could not go around the square as planned. The traffic flow had been revamped since his last visit.

A minvan was waiting to turn left and the driver banged his horn in anger because the Volvo blocked his path. Ashton pulled in front, aiming to go straight on into a narrow alley behind Sint-Bertinuskerk. Because he emerged from an unexpected direction, a truck had to slam on to avoid hitting him, its squealing brakes turning the heads of pedestrians.

For a moment Ashton thought the chaos would help. There was still a chance he could get around the Grote Markt and disappear. He accelerated into the narrow lane behind the huge church. In a matter of seconds he would be out of view. He glanced in his mirror and there was no sign of the van. The joy was short-lived. A car reversed out of a parking space behind Sint-Bertinuskerk. He hammered the brake and came within inches of hitting the rear of the vehicle. The driver wound down his window and let loose a volley of Flemish invective. Ashton ignored it. He only had eyes for his mirror.

In that reflection he could see Killer’s face. The Mercedes was making the same illegal manoeuvre as the Volvo. Without the holdup Ashton would have been away. The gauge still said five miles’ worth of fuel was in the tank. That could not be true.

He exited the alley and was forced to go around the Grote Markt in the opposite direction to the way he had anticipated. Turning left on to Guido Gezellestraat he swore. The Mercedes had come out and its occupants could see where he was going. The chase should have been over. Now it was back on and nearing a climax.

Ashton had one last gamble. He got back on to the ring road, went 300 yards or so and then turned on to the N38 towards Iper. It was a busy dual carriageway, very straight and without any obvious turnoffs. The Volvo was slowed by lorries and the Mercedes was flying to catch it.

As he approached the Brandhoek traffic lights, Ashton tucked himself behind a slow-moving 40-footer in the inside lane even though another juggernaut was looming behind. As the driver of the trailing lorry pulled out to overtake, it blocked the speeding van. Ashton took a deep breath, pumped the accelerator and aimed for the narrowing gap between the two lorries to reach the outside lane again. There wasn’t much space and the overtaking driver hit his brakes and horn at the same time. Ashton didn’t care. He sped around the slower wagon and cut violently back into the inside lane 50 yards before the junction. He figured that he was momentarily out of sight of his pursuers, whose vision was obscured by the two trucks.

He made a ridiculously dangerous right turn. The men in the Mercedes, now back in the outside lane, did not realise what was happening until they were through the crossroads.

The Volvo skidded and Ashton rammed both feet down on the brake and clutch. The ditch in front of Brandhoek Military Cemetery was coming too close for comfort but the driver had another concern. “Don’t stall, don’t stall,” he pleaded, aware that he might have too little fuel to spark the ignition if the engine went dead. He could see the van had stopped a quarter of a mile down the road and was looking for a gap in traffic and the chance to spin around. Then they would have to wait for a left-turn light or a break in oncoming traffic. He would get 90 seconds at most but at least he knew this village.

The engine was still running. He reversed carefully and turned the car away from the main thoroughfare. Straight ahead, the road curled away through a clutch of houses. To his right a smaller street looped left. He would be out of view in 30 seconds whichever route he chose.

A quick glance over his shoulder told him the decision needed to be made immediately. A motorist had slowed down and was flashing the Mercedes to allow the van to turn. Ashton cursed these friendly foreigners. In London it was unlikely a driver would be so courteous. There was not much time left.

Realising that the men in the van had no idea that he was short of petrol, he anticipated that they would assume he would head up the bigger road that gave him more options. The street on the right had another advantage, too. A pair of trees blocked the view from the main road. Ashton accelerated down it, passed another set of war graves and, about 300 yards further on, turned right down a dead-end lane. He knew that there was a cul-de-sac at the end and he could park out of sight, protected on one side by houses and on the other by the high hedges that flanked the dual carriageway. Once, by mistake, he had driven down there looking for the New Military cemetery. It was the safest place he could imagine at the moment.

When he stopped he looked at the petrol indicator. The numbers had gone. There were just four flashing dashes.

As a further precaution he jumped out of the car, locked the doors and jogged 150 yards across a muddy field to the New Military cemetery. It could not be seen from the lane but gave him a good position to monitor the main road. He was drenched and knee deep in wet soil.

Ashton knew this place well: Noel Chavasse, double Victoria Cross recipient, was buried there. He squatted beside the hero’s grave and looked up. Gardens backed on to the tiny graveyard and a woman cooking in her kitchen 30 yards away looked in amazement at the bedraggled visitor paying his respects in the driving rain. After a couple of minutes he moved to sit on the low perimeter wall and stared across at the busy road. The junction was visible but he would be almost impossible to see, especially in this weather. After about 25 minutes the Mercedes turned left at the crossroads and sped towards Poperinge. For the time being Ashton was safe.

Nevertheless, he lurked in the same spot for another half hour. Then he went back to the car, this time taking the long route along the streets to avoid the sodden field. He put the key in the ignition but the engine would not start. At least there was a petrol station on the other side of the highway. It was only five minutes’ walk and he was able to buy a jerrycan and five litres of fuel. After that he drove back and filled the tank.

He had not brought a change of shoes or jeans for an overnight stay. That would need to be addressed. First though, he went back to the secluded spot where he’d hidden the car, turned the heater on full to try and get dry and attempted to think like Killer. What would Ashton do in his position?

Maybe visit the hotels in Poperinge to see if he’d checked in. Better still, phone them. In reality, Ashton could be anywhere. They could hardly know his destination, especially as his turn could have taken him in the direction of Iper or Lille. It was highly likely they would leave the area once they realised he’d given them the slip. He tried to remember what he’d said in the Royal Standard of England. Had he mentioned the monastery’s name? He was pretty sure he hadn’t.

Clothes were a priority. He drove into Iper and bought tracksuit bottoms, a sweatshirt and cheap training shoes from a sports shop and swapped outfits in the changing room. Afterwards he drove to St Sixtus and put the Volvo in the car park of In de Vrede, the Westvleteren tasting rooms opposite the monastery. Tonight he would leave the car and call a taxi to take him back to town. If Killer and his companion were looking for it, they were less likely to find it here.

The café was very modern and a smattering of locals sat around drinking dark, strong beer. Ashton set up his laptop and portable phone charger, ordered a blond and the house croque monsieur from a waitress and booked a hotel on the Grote Markt.

He tried to ring the editor again but there was no answer so he rattled off an email. At least there was now a record of his encounter with the two men. Who should he call? He realised that, for all the names in his contact book, he had very few friends in London. There were hundreds of acquaintances and drinking buddies but not a single person he could rely upon. Pierce was the nearest. They had known each other for more than a decade and collaborated on a variety of pieces. During that time they had fallen out on numerous occasions when Ashton had written negative articles about the PR man’s clients. There had been plenty of face-to-face shouting matches in his career but nothing had really prepared him for the attentions of Killer. He wasn’t a war correspondent, after all.

He rang Pierce, who was in a wine bar close to St Paul’s Cathedral. As usual there was the convivial noise of a crowded drinking place in the background and the sound of someone not making sense in the foreground. There was no point in continuing the call. Pierce was, at the very least, tipsy and did not understand the gravity of the situation. Instead, Ashton hung up and texted an apology about a bad line. In a second text he sketched out the rough details of the day’s events so that Pierce at least had some information about what had happened. He could read it when sober. After a moment’s consideration he forwarded a version of the text to Titch, just in case Pierce deleted it while in a drunken state.

Finally, Ashton relaxed and tried to take pleasure in the beer. It was not quite as hoppy as he remembered but there was a hint of Brettanomyces – wild yeast – in the taste. Here, in the uncomplicated farmlands of western Belgium, he was happy. In the back of his mind, though, he knew a showdown with ExSat was coming. Yes, he could see that the chance meetings had unnerved Killer. But why? His behaviour was unnaturally suspicious and aggressive. The far right – like their left-wing counterparts – loved conspiracy theories and liked to turn their own mundane activities into hugely significant adventures. Musing on this, he ordered a second bottle and then his phone rang, a withheld number. He thought it might be the editor. It wasn’t.

“You think you’re clever,” a voice with a London accent said, “but you’ve no idea what you’re getting into. We know where to find you. The next time we see you, you’ll be sorry.” The speaker hung up.

Whatever was going on, Ashton was terrified. He was on alert every time a car pulled up outside. Paranoia was building. This trip was not turning out the way he’d hoped.

*

The next day was more successful. Ashton had eaten the previous night’s dinner in the hotel on a table positioned to observe the main entrance. Afterwards he sat at the bar, this time close to the window with a view of the street. There were no Britons around, as far as he could tell, and the burly-looking men were all local and extremely friendly.

Every time he visited Poperinge, Ashton made a point of going to the neo-Gothic town hall. Down the side of the building there was an entrance to two cells where condemned men spent their final night before being shot at dawn in the first world war. They were adjacent to a small courtyard where the prisoners were executed. In the tiny quadrangle was the post that had propped up the last man to face a firing squad here. When Ashton first visited he found the experience very moving. Back then, the cells and post were neglected and this made the site even more chilling. A modernistic memorial had since been built around the execution spot and the two lock-ups had been tidied of modern graffiti. The scrawls and scratchings attributed to the doomed men remained untouched.

The cells were open to the public to visit all day; there was no guide nor supervision. It was possible to get the tiniest hint of the solitude and horror the soldiers must have felt as they waited to die.

He stood in the lockup and reflected for a few minutes, thinking about the politicians at home who invoked the language and imagery of conflict to rouse the public in their quest to break Britain’s ties with Europe. And that brought him back to his own predicament. Was he in real danger?

The crack of the bolt being pulled on the heavy wooden exterior door made him flinch. For a moment a buzz of terror shook his body. He waited, barely able to breathe. But it was only a couple of Asian tourists. The last man executed here had been a Chinese worker. Ghosts from around the world lurked in this building.

On a whim, he walked down Deken de Bolaan towards the ring road. On the way he passed the Old Military Cemetery, hidden behind suburban houses and accessed by a narrow alleyway. This region was dotted with graveyards full of war dead, tiny plots of land with four or five hundred graves.

His destination, though, was a quarter of a mile farther on, the Poperinge New Military Cemetery, where 17 of those shot at dawn were interred. Two were from Liverpool, both killed for desertion. He felt a connection. He was a natural deserter, he thought, but far from a coward.

There were British, Commonwealth, French, Belgian and German soldiers buried in this tiny plot. What did nationality matter to the dead? Or sovereignty? Or any of those emotive words spouted by Brexiteers that stirred the anger of the likes of FLAG and ExSat? There was no Anglo exceptionalism here. All the bodies merged into this damp, West Flanders soil.

He walked back to the centre and booked a taxi. The Volvo was safely in the place he’d left it the previous night and there were a healthy number of vehicles outside the café. Ashton had bought two boxed six-packs of the 12 the previous night from the tiny shop just inside the entrance of De Vrede. It was the most they would sell on a single visit. He bought two more and stowed them in the car, planning to purchase another dozen bottles before departing for Calais. The time for his scheduled appointment at the brewery was near so he joined the small queue of cars at the monastery’s gate and picked up 48 bottles in two distinctive flat wooden crates with ‘Trappist Westvleteren’ burnt into the three-inch high sidepanels. Then he went to the Krombeke warehouse and bought conventional plastic crates of Orval, his favourite trappist ale, De Ranke XX Bitter and the local Hommelbier. After a stop for lunch and a last Blond in the tasting rooms, he set out for Calais and home. He was happy enough. With every hour he felt more bullish but, as he approached the old customs posts, he had a thought: what if Killer was on the ferry home?

It wasn’t very likely but he pulled over, went into a hotel close to the border, ordered a coffee and used the wifi to book the EuroTunnel. Fear was rampant and frustratingly expensive.

*

Back in London, Ashton unloaded the car. He lived in a bottom-floor flat in Lenthall House in Churchill Gardens that was below street level. He had been residing there for five years after moving in with a girlfriend. The relationship did not last. Cohabiting with a journalist who works odd hours is hard for partners. The girl decided on a change of lifestyle and moved to Ibiza. She wanted to keep a base in London and retained the council house in her name although Ashton paid the rent. It was convenient for him, although he wondered how his ex would react if he entered a new relationship. That was not an issue at the moment.

It had been a long couple of days and he decided, late on, to pop out for a beer. Expecting to meet Titch, he picked up a box of Westvleteren 12s and three Cantillon lambic rarities he’d unexpectedly found in Noel Culiver’s on the way home: Don Pepe gueuze, kriek and framboise. Titch would salivate.

It was quiet in the pub. A handful of regulars lingered around the bar and a few couples were scattered across the room. Two Campaign For Real Ale buffs sat at one of the high tables drinking halves and writing notes about each glass they sampled.

At 10.30 Titch had not shown so Ashton texted him. The answer came back quickly: “Running late, probably won’t make it tonight. Later in week?”

He was about to respond with a thumbs-up emoji when he changed his mind. “Got some delicacies for you from Belgium. Should I leave them behind the bar?”

“Why don’t you drop by my place. We can have a nightcap. I’ve got some nice stuff in the fridge,” came the reply.

That suited Ashton. He didn’t really want to haul the beer back home. Titch sent him his address; the mews was tucked away behind a terrace on Aylesford Street. There was also a key code for the front door with the message: “I shouldn’t be much after 11. I’ll need to shower and clean up. Let yourself in, go up the stairs to the first floor if there’s no answer.”

Late nights were not an issue to Titch, who was enjoying his retirement. As for Ashton, nearly a decade of working late shifts had destroyed his sleeping patterns.

After ordering another drink, Ashton checked Twitter. There was the usual outpouring of rage on FLAG’s timeline and plenty of misleading, questionable memes mixed incongruously with some football chat. ExSat were active on social media, too, but that account was private. He could not see what they thought although he had a good idea about their viewpoint. There was nothing new and little of interest.

At five past the hour he exited the pub. The street was quiet and he became a little nervous. There were numerous entrances to the estate and somewhere to his left a group of youths laughed loud and nastily. The threat reverberated long after the amusement had faded. He crossed the road. There were fewer potential surprises lurking in the Regency houses on this side. Then he suddenly felt stupid. After all, he had grown up in council tenements and had never been concerned for his safety, even in the poorest areas. The right-wing nutters had destabilised him.

There was plenty of activity around the tube entrances and customers were leaving the Gallery pub. No one looked suspicious. “Come on,” he said aloud. “Don’t be daft. Nobody’s after you.”

Even so, he looked over his shoulder as he turned into the mews. The street was empty. He checked his phone for the address and code and located Titch’s property. A car door shut down towards the river end of the narrow road and a man’s goodbye echoed in the night. The vehicle began to creep over the cobbles. There was nothing unusual happening.

The car passed as he stood in front of the door. He placed the box of beer on the floor to free up his hand. First, he knocked. If Titch was home he did not want to appear impolite and barge in. There was no answer.

With his right index finger he tapped the pad and a green light came on. He pushed the door open, wedged it with his foot and leant over to pick up the Westvleteren. A voice said “Ash?” It was the quizzical tone of someone recognising an acquaintance in an unexpected place. It was friendly and caught him off guard. He turned around as a man moved across the cobbles with disconcerting speed and barged him into the house. The blow to the chest left him winded and no noise came out of his mouth. Two more men followed the first attacker inside and one placed a cloth bag over Ashton’s head. Someone punched him so hard that he saw stars. “Get him in the kitchen,” one said. “On the table if it’s big enough or on the floor.”

He tried to struggle but the men were strong. They manhandled him down before his breath returned and two of them put their weight on his hands and legs. He attempted to squirm free but the third man kicked him in the groin.

A fridge opened. “There’s bottled water. This’ll do.”

One of the men holding him down laughed. “I’ve got a better idea. Go and get some of that beer. Journalists like a drink. Let’s give him a session he’ll never forget as long as he lives. Which might not be that long.”

After a moment or two a cap popped on a bottle with a hiss of escaping carbonation. It should have been joyous. Instead, it was sinister. Ashton did not know what they were planning but it could not be good.

The one who held his right side down whispered in his ear. “You’re going to tell us what you know. Have you heard of waterboarding?” He had. Terror vibrated through his body. “You’re getting beerboarded.”

It felt like they had added a small tea-towel over his mouth and nose on top of the hood. “Why did you run away from our friends? Why were you on the ferry? What are you working on?”

“Just a piece about FLAG,” Ashton gasped. “I told your mates in the Royal Standard that I was going on a beer run. I was just…”

*

Liquid filled his mouth and lashed into his eyes. It was extremely pleasurable.

Titch shook his head and blew out a spray. The grime of the day and the sweat of exercise rinsed away. He luxuriated in the cleansing process and lingered in the shower. He was in no hurry to finish and get down to Ashton. He could wait. There was plenty to occupy his friend downstairs.

The bathroom was bright and modern. There were small speakers installed high up on the wall and flamenco music filled the space. It was a sound Titch loved and one of the main reasons he had relocated to Andalusia. Drying off slowly, he relished the delicate but precise guitar sound and the wail of gypsy pain. Se Me Aparecio La Muerte was one of his favourites and Enrique Morente’s voice rippled up and down like a call to prayer. Titch was happy. His phone pinged but he waited until the song finished before he picked it up and looked at the alert.

*

Ashton tried to hold his breath but that just sucked up material to block his nostrils, making him feel like he was being smothered. Then fluid came tumbling on to his face. It was Westvleteren 12. He was submerged in it and drowning. He thrashed and fought but he was not strong enough. It stopped.

“That was three seconds. Did it feel like three seconds? Answer.” It didn’t. It felt like minutes. He was kicked again. “What story are you working on? Why were you on that ferry.”

The millisecond before the beer drenched his face again was awful but nowhere near as bad as the next few moments. As he fought for air – there was none – his heart was speeding dangerously. There was no point in trying not to breathe. Liquid was in his nose and throat. He was dying. Then, after too long, it stopped again.

“Now that was five seconds. Next time it’s 15. They train Special Forces to resist interrogation. They tell everything after 15. So you had better spill it now.” The man chuckled. “Spill it,” he said to his mates. “See what I did there?”

If there was laughter, Ashton did not hear. The beer poured again. The ordeal disassociated itself with time. It could have been a day, it could have been a month. It could have been longer. He did not even have the consciousness to compute how close death was. He could not think of anything, even something to tell them and make them stop. Fluid filled his head and his lungs and clogged his thoughts. The liquid was not cooling. The inside of his nose fizzed as if lava was being poured in. Every cavity was full of beer and he convulsed uncontrollably. He was drowning. A bright flash lit up his brain and then he went limp.

Titch slapped him hard. “What the hell, Mike? What happened.” He could not answer. “The police and an ambulance are coming.” All Ashton could do was cry.

The paramedics arrived first, administered oxygen and injected a sedative. The police could get no sense out of him and the ambulance took him to St Thomas’ where he was detained. He was concussed, had dangerously high blood pressure and, as a young nurse gleefully told him, would be getting “no action down under for quite a while.”

The policemen who took his statement were not interested in any connections to FLAG and ExSat. They thought he had been drunk – he stank of alcohol – and that it was a prank gone wrong or a misjudged homosexual tryst. One detective suggested he might need to book himself into a clinic to dry out. This sort of thing was not unusual in journalism.

On his second day in hospital Titch came to visit. “Good news, dear boy,” he said in a jolly manner. “All three Don Pepe’s survived. One Westy broke when it fell and they used just one more on you. I’ve still got four! Heroic work from you in saving them. How are you?”

“Fuming, unhappy, traumatised,” Ashton said. “Feeling stupid and vulnerable. I’ve had a bad few days. The police think I’m an alcoholic and had a psychotic episode. What did you tell them?”

“Not a great deal. That some men ran away when I came downstairs. They seemed to think you’d picked up some disreputable drinking partners in the pub, brought them back and then fell out with them. Maybe some sort of gay pass gone wrong. It made sense to them in those circumstances that they’d kick you in the groin.”

Ashton closed his eyes and lay back, frustrated. “I mean… the men who attacked me asked if I’d heard of waterboarding. They’ve done this sort of thing before, I’m sure.”

Titch put his head in his hands. “When do you get out?”

“Today, tomorrow. I’m concussed and my balls are in a state but there are no long-term issues.”

“I would not be so sure,” Titch said. “It will mess with your mind. You might need to see someone, though not for the reasons that those stupid coppers think.”

“What do you mean by that?” Ashton was suddenly alert.

“That’s not a conversation for now. Do they know where you live?”

“No, don’t think so,” Ashton said. “The flat’s in a girl’s name – long story – and I wasn’t there at the last census. I am worried they’ll come back to your house.”

“Don’t concern yourself with that. They’ve probably realised by now that it’s the wrong property.” Titch thought for a while. “They most likely followed you from the pub. God knows what would have happened if you’d gone home. I’d say they knew what they were doing but that’s not strictly true. They could have killed you, and that’s not the point of this stuff. Although, to be fair, they might have murdered you anyway once they’d got what they needed.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You must. You just haven’t realised what it is. Did they say anything new?”

“No. I don’t know.” Ashton had a thought. “I don’t have my phone. Do you think they took it?”

Titch sat up and fumbled in his jacket pocket. “I nearly forgot. It was on the floor. I’ve charged it for you.”

They sat in silence for a long while and then Titch spoke again. “I knew something was wrong,” he said. “In the rush to get you into the kitchen they’d not shut the front door properly. The app on my phone gave me an alert after I got out of the shower. When I came down the stairs I saw the box of beer on the floor. I knew it had to be something desperate for you to treat Westys like that. I called 999, armed myself…”

“What with?”

“An indigenous Australian killing stick I was given as a present. I called out that the police were coming and they came flying out of the kitchen. They didn’t even stop to look at me.”

“They have your address and key code,” Ashton said. “I’d be concerned.”

“I can change it any time. Your numbers were a temporary, one-off guest code. Don’t worry about that.”

“So what do I do now?” It was a rhetorical question. Ashton did not really expect an answer.

Titch rose and walked towards the door, rubbing his face. “I suspect I know more about these people than you do,” he said wearily. “Ring me when you are discharged. Take a cab to my house. I’ll be waiting for you. We need to talk.”

• Chapter 4 Bandit Country

• My other novel, Good Guys Lost, a story of gangsterism, the music industry and working-class Liverpool, is available here