Dead Man's Time

So what’s your name?’
    ‘Ken Barnes.’ He could hardly speak for the pain.
    ‘I need some information from you. Like, did you have a nice time in Withdean Road, Brighton, last week? Was it fun torturing that old lady with the curling tongs?’
    ‘It wasn’t me,’ he yammered.
    ‘No?’
    ‘No. Wasn’t me. I was – I was . . .’ He fell silent.
    Daly nodded at the Apologist. He stamped even harder, and this time Daly heard the crunch of breaking bones, accompanied by a howl of agony from Barnes.
    ‘Barcelona just scored,’ the Apologist said, nodding at the television screen.
    ‘He did that. It was him, the stupid bastard,’ Barnes gasped.
    ‘Your friend, Mr Macario?’ Daly asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    Daly nodded, then looked down at the slumped, unconscious figure of Tony Macario. ‘The strong, silent type, is he?’
    ‘I was just hired to do the job. They needed someone to help hump the furniture, that’s all I was doing there.’
    ‘Hired by who? Your boss, Eamonn Pollock?’
    Barnes said nothing.
    Daly turned to the Apologist. ‘You’d better stamp on his foot again.’
    ‘Noooooo! Please! I’ll tell you what you want.’
    ‘That’s better,’ Daly said. ‘Because you’re going to tell us anyway, so the less pain for you, the less aggro for us. Now, I’ve a list of things I really want
to know. First, where is the Patek Philippe watch you stole from that house? Second, where is the rest of the stuff? Third, where is the safe on this boat, and how do we open it. And fourth, where
is your boss, Eamonn Pollock?’
    ‘I don’t know about any watch, that’s the truth. I don’t remember a watch.’
    ‘Remember getting the safe code from that old lady?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘You know something, I don’t believe you,’ Daly said. ‘Why is that, do you think? Because you’re a crap liar?’
    ‘The gorilla’s broken my fucking foot.’
    ‘He’ll break the other one in a minute. That old lady was my auntie. That watch belonged to my grandfather. I can’t get my auntie back because she’s dead. But I’m
sure as hell going to get that watch back. And you know where it is.’
    Barnes shook his head.
    Daly cupped the man’s chin in his hand, forcing him to look straight at him. ‘Listen to me, Ken. If you don’t tell me where that watch is, my friend’s going to kill you.
Simple as that. I’ll give you ten seconds to think it over.’
    Daly stood staring at his own watch for the ten seconds. Then he looked at the Apologist and rotated his wrist. Moments later, Barnes was hanging upside down, suspended by his right ankle.
    ‘That helping to clear your mind?’ Daly asked.
    ‘I’ve drunk too much,’ he slurred for the first time. ‘Please put me down. I – I—’
    ‘Maybe you need another drink, to help the old brain cells?’ Daly asked.
    He shook his head. His eyes were like two frightened little birds.
    ‘Be back in a tick,’ Daly said, and climbed up the stairs.
    ‘Sorry to keep you hanging about,’ the Apologist said.
    Moments later Lucas Daly reappeared with a bottle of Macallan Scotch in one hand, and a small plastic funnel in the other. ‘Put him on the deck,’ he instructed the Apologist.
‘Then open his gob.’
    The henchman obliged. Barnes tried to wriggle free, but the Apologist knelt on his chest, pinioning him to the floor, and held his head with his hands, as firmly as a vice. Daly knelt, unscrewed
the cap of the bottle, pushed the funnel into his mouth, then began pouring in the whisky.
    The man spluttered and choked.
    ‘Am I pouring too fast?’
    Barnes tried to shake his head, but it was held in the Apologist’s iron grip. In less than five minutes, the bottle was empty.
    Their captive’s eyes were rolling. Daly shot a glance at Macario, who was slowly starting to stir, then returned his attention to Barnes. ‘Where’s the watch? The Patek
Philippe? Where’s the safe? And where’s your boss, Eamonn Pollock?’
    ‘Safe’s in the master bedroom.’ Barnes’s eyes rolled again. Then, moments before he passed out, he murmured something barely decipherable.
    *
    Fifteen minutes later, as Tony Macario opened his eyes, fully conscious again now, the first thing he saw was his colleague, Ken Barnes, suspended upside down by his ankles,
unconscious, being swung, head first and extremely hard, into a stanchion studded with rivets.
    Then he realized, through a haze of alcohol and blinding headache, that he was bound hand and foot and could not