Rhinoceros 28
The carrier bag wasn’t empty. Alan weighed it in his hand. Nothing much. A lighter? Cigarettes? He took it up to his flat, intending to throw it in the bin, but before he did, mild curiosity took hold. He tipped it onto his desk. A memory stick clattered out. It landed beside another one, which Alan had prised from his knee at Ryon’s and kept clasped, his talisman, in his fist throughout the subsequent ordeal. Two memory sticks. Alan’s brain moved slowly. He looked around his flat as though someone was watching him.
When he slotted the stick into his laptop it took a while for the computer to recognise it. A series of small windows popped up on the screen and then a bar of colour making laborious binary progress to the sound of grinds and whirrs from within. “Come, on, come on,” Alan intoned until the contents finally appeared. One film. That was it. Alan frowned, then double-clicked.
A clatter and rustle of noise burst from the tinny speakers, the image dark and blurred. The camera swayed about through layers of opaque colour and shade.
Alan was about to give up when he heard a voice he knew, one which sent tingles of painful recognition down his spine. It was muffled, yet distinct all the same. “What have you got, then?” it said. More rustling, vertiginous movement, then, suddenly, clarity. The camera, it seems, had been lifted out of a bag or pocket and placed amongst other objects on a low table. The view was of a depressingly familiar sitting room from the eye level of a small dog. Mr Mitchelson sat squarely but squatly in a low chair looking straight at the camera, curious yet not knowing. “What’s this then, my boy?” he added with a humourless grin. Ryon’s voice boomed from nearby, “Just a couple of cameras and an iPod.” “Fuck, is that it?” Mr Mitchelson said quickly, still looking at the camera; or, more to the point, looking at Alan. Alan squirmed slightly. But he found himself leaning closer to the screen with a mixture of horror and fascination. Ryon went on, “It’s what I usually get, nothing special.”
“Well I can’t give you nothing special for it, can I?”
“Why don’t you nick ‘em yourself, then?”
“I don’t need to when I’ve got fuckers like you.”
“Cheers, an’ all.”
“Besides, who has all the contacts? Who manages the business?” and Mr Mitchelson cackled uncharacteristically. “Oi,” he suddenly shouted to his right, “get us another can.”
The conversation continued. As Mr Mitchelson drank he became more talkative. Gradually Alan understood what Ryon was doing. His interjections seemed risky, certainly cheeky, but he was leading Mr Mitchelson down a confessional path. A few prompts, mixed with sizable swigs from a regular supply of cans and he was off. “I wish I knew how to do your bit,” Ryon said at one point. “Fucking ‘ell,” Mr Mitchelson replied with a smug gesture of mock despair, “you don’t know half of it.” And he went on about his contacts, the boxing up of stolen goods, the meeting points, his trusted joeys.
Eventually Mr Mitchelson seemed to collect himself. “Right, I’ll give you twenty. I’m feeling generous today.”
There was a pause, and Alan found himself gripping the mouse with a sweaty palm and muttering, “Get out, Ryon, you idiot.”
“Alright, twenty, but I think I’ll keep that camera.” There was another heightened, hissing silence.
“What for? You’ve nicked better ones.”
“And? I want this one.”
Mr Mitchelson looked straight into the lens of the camera, and Alan looked straight into his eyes, reading his every thought. Mr Mitchelson was trying to figure out the course of events, his role, the subtle change in their relationship. He was calculating. His face went feral, an inhuman phase, like an angry moon. “Fuck it, whatever,” he said, suddenly tired, and he sunk back in the chair. “Another can!” he shouted.
The viewpoint blurred again, the sitting room zoomed up and around, then muffled fabric noises, fumbling clicks, and then a voice said, “Wait a minute – “ and the film stopped.
Alan gazed at the screen. Had he guessed? But then Ryon had got the film, so he must’ve succeeded. Or did they fight? Mr Mitchelson didn’t seem to have his thugs or his son with him on this occasion, and he was drunk, so Ryon would have had a good chance. Come to think of it, Alan mused, scratching his head, when had this film been taken? Before they went into custody? Or were they out on bail? Alan instinctively prickled, listened for noises outside, steps at the front door. Ridiculous, he told himself.
Alan thought back to the drive with Ryon across night time Sheffield. There was no hint of any of this, no instructions given, no sense of irony in his voice, or possibilities. But then that was Ryon, a blank canvas. It wasn’t even clear to Alan whether the film had been left deliberately in the car. Alan placed all these thoughts on the inner scales of action and inaction. He pulled out the memory stick and looked at it. The modern world. The same moral dilemmas and choices, but in an entirely new format. What had Ryon said? Sort out the Mitchelsons once and for all. Perhaps that was a hint. Perhaps. And then there was that earlier discussion, about whether another wrong can put right a previous wrong. Ryon was very clear on that point: whatever it takes, do it. But still. And Alan placed the two memory sticks side by side. Two stories thrown together by some incredible set of chances, with Alan as the dubious bridge between them. He nudged them together on the desk. One story partially told, another yet to be told. Should he keep it? A keepsake, indeed. But the other memory stick, that presented a whole new adventure. No, not an adventure, a descent into hell, the inferno. Does the world need to know every story from it's dirty midst?
Alan looked hard at these small inanimate objects. They lay comfortably, neatly, side by side, already partners in crime. They offered no moral support. Merely neutral technology, only assuming an ethical existence in Alan's hands, directed by Alan's intentions.
Alan stared at them and thought and thought.
