THIS STORY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 12
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Chapter 23: Moral Responsibility
Velma and Muriel eventually found Andy and Sammy at Monty’s. He said he’d gone to Muriel’s first but there were police cars outside so he didn’t hang around. He told them his place had been invaded as well.
“So I went looking for prey but couldn’t find any. I mean, I don’t know where to start. How do you do it Vel? How do you find prey every single day?”
“I wish it were hard,” she told him, “but it usually isn’t. Especially if you plan ahead. Unfortunately serial killers are everywhere.”
There was a pause in the conversation when both of them noticed Muriel was trying to bite her own wrist.
“Ohh,” Andy grinned, “welcome to the team.”
“Keep it together,” Velma pulled Muriel’s hand away from her mouth. “Not long now.”
Desperate for her first feed, Muriel was extremely agitated. She repeatedly flexed her fingers and ran on the spot. “How much longer?” she asked plaintively.
“Just one more hour Murry, keep it together.”
“What’s in an hour?” Andy asked, “do we have dinner plans?”
“Farmer’s market,” Velma told him, “starts at eight but I’m thinking the stall-holders will start setting up an hour or two before that. Hopefully two.”
“Meat stall you mean?”
“Rare breed meats no less,” Velma told him sarcastically.
Andy’s expression of disgust vanished when another thought crossed his mind. “Maybe we should decide where we’re gonna spend the day, before going to the market. Who knows how close to sunrise it’ll be before we’re finished there. It’d be good to know which direction to head in if we’re in a hurry.”
“Good point,” Velma agreed, “but I’ve already decided. We’re going to the freight terminal afterwards.”
“Won’t that be under the sun?”
“Only after sunrise. We get there before that, duck into an empty shipping container and sleep the whole day to somewhere else.”
“On a ship?” for a moment Muriel was distracted from her hunger, “I haven’t got my passport!”
“On a train. A slow train to somewhere dark.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter? It’ll be a long journey so we won’t have to get out until the sun’s gone down. It’ll be a fresh start where nobody knows us.”
Andy felt his pocket. “I’ve lost my wallet!” he said, checking all his pockets again. “I know I picked it up when I got dressed.”
“Have you misted since then?” asked Velma.
“er, yes, I had to mist under the door.”
“You can’t bring anything with you when you mist,” Velma reminded him, “except the clothes you’re wearing.”
“Doh!”
“I haven’t got any money either,” said Muriel after checking her own pockets, “and I didn’t mist.”
“You became the wolf, and then the bat,” Velma patiently explained, “you can’t carry anything with them either.”
“So none of us have got any money?” Andy was a little concerned. “Won’t we need money?”
“Money is handy,” Velma agreed, “but we can manage without it. We have to travel light.”
Muriel was winding her hair around her fingers. “Can we go now? I want to go now. It’s nearly quarter to six.” She pointed at the church clock.
***
Mick pulled the van into the Cook Street car park and was glad to see they were the first to arrive.
“Good. We can have the corner pitch,” he told his brother. “This one, facing the entrance.”
“Are you sure?” Mack didn’t like to break the rules. “Don’t the regulars have set stalls?”
“No,” Mick assured him, “the guy on the phone told me, it’s first come first served. Come on.”
He parked next to his chosen stall, climbed out and opened the back of the van. Mack joined him and the first thing they did was set up their display fridges and filled one with pork sausages, chops, roasting joints and bacon. They crammed the other with glass jars of home-made paté and trays of sliced brawn. Then they put up their signage and stood back to admire their work.
“Not bad if I do say so myself,” Mick smiled. “Maybe we should do this full time – a new business.”
Mack shook his head. “I knew you’d do this. What do we need a new business for? This is just a hobby, remember? Learning new skills, trying new experiences – remember?”
Mick took no notice. Mack was always like this. He had no vision. It was pretty cold, now that he’d finished the heavy lifting, so he put his hat and scarf back on. According to the weather forecast it was going to be a nice day today. Mild for November anyway. But of course it was bound to be cold in the dark. He grabbed his phone from the van and sat down behind the stall to continue reading Blane Smegson’s Butchery and Pork Cookery. Mack sat down next to him wrapped in a wool blanket, put in his earpiece and listened to his radio.
“Morning,” said Velma, “you’re here early.”
Mick looked up. “Hello! Sorry, you startled me for a moment, didn’t hear you approach.” he stood up. “You must be Margaret,” he said, offering his hand.
Velma shook it and smiled. “Sometimes,” she replied, “and you are?”
“Mick and Mack Mirvine, it’s our first time.”
“Oh, right, I remember now.” Velma liked to play along. “You’ve picked a good spot.”
“Yes, I thought so,” Mick agreed. “Is that okay? Your husband said it was first come first served.”
“Absolutely, it makes no difference where you park yourselves, certainly not to these guys anyway.”
“Which guys?”
Velma waved her hand across the expanse of his stall. “These guys. The former owners of your produce.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Mick was a little uncomfortable. “Sally and Suzy you mean?”
“Aw, you named them?” she feigned amusement.
“Yeah, we’re soft like that.”
“Clearly,” she smiled. “What’s your story then? I mean, I’m sure you told my husband but -“
“Happy to talk about it, yes,” said Mick, and he was. “Last March we bought two Gloucester Old Spots piglets – it’s a rare breed and we were told it produced top quality meat. We called them Sally and Suzy.” He smiled. “Honestly, you should have seen them. Absolutely adorable and completely devoted to each other.”
“I’ve heard that about pigs.”
“Oh yes, I did a lot of reading beforehand. They form strong, lifelong family bonds. Very social animals.”
Velma nodded. “Fascinating.”
“Yeah, and these two were inseparable – playing together and always slept side by side. Very cute.”
“I’m sure.”
“Anyway, we were determined to make sure they had a happy life with us, and they did. Plenty of space, living free range on the enclosure Mack built for them. Always well fed on good quality food. The life of Riley they had.” He chuckled.
“Yeah, for eight months. And then?”
“They reached slaughter weight when they were eight months old – last week – so we took them to the slaughterhouse. The next day we got four half pigs back and we spent the rest of the week making all this out of them.”
Velma pulled a face. “That sounds … challenging.”
“No, we enjoyed every minute of it,” he told her cheerfully. “I’d done a lot of research, been to butchery evening classes, watched a lot of YouTube, read a lot of books.”
“But where did you do it? In your own kitchen?” He nodded but before he could speak she went on. “Didn’t it get blood everywhere? On the grout between your kitchen tiles? Ingrained in your worktops?”
“Ha ha ha, no, no, they exsanguinate them at the slaughterhouse. They were bloodless when we got them back.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Exsanguination means to drain of blood,” he explained patiently. “So at the slaughterhouse, after the animal is stunned, they hang it by its hind legs and cut its arteries. As its heart is still pumping, it pumps all the blood out of the body. Then they wash the carcass so it’s clean when it comes back to us. Or it was. They were,” he corrected himself.
“And you’re not sad about Suzy and Sally? You don’t feel guilty?”
“No, no,” he told her, “the way I see it, we gave them a good life. I feel good about that.”
“That makes it okay?”
“Yes, it does,” he said without being the least bit defensive, “we took moral responsibility for being meat-eaters, and we got better quality, better value meat into the bargain.”
“Moral responsibility? That’s a new one. How does that work?”
“Well, if we take responsibility for making sure the animals are well looked after, we don’t have to worry about whether the meat we eat comes from a factory farm. We personally make sure our meat is humanely raised.” He bent down and reached for something under the table.
“Well, you bought the piglets from a breeder who forcibly impregnated their mother and then confiscated her babies.” Velma counted on her fingers the number of ways he had disproved his hypothesis. “And then eight months later, when you’d finished giving them a happy life, you committed the cruellest act of betrayal by sending two animals who trusted you to the slaughterhouse.”
Mick stood up again. “Sorry, did you say something?” Velma shook her head and he handed her a book. “I got the idea from this,” he told her. “We’re going to do it again next year.”
She handed it back to him. “Wouldn’t it be more moral to just stop eating meat? I’m sure Suzy and Sally would think so.”
Mick grinned. “Ah, well, that’s another discussion isn’t it?” Mack took his earpiece out and stood up. “This is my brother Mack,” Mick introduced him.
Velma nodded and waved at someone across the car park. “And these are my friends,” she told him, “Buffy and Xander.”
“Ha,” Mick almost laughed, “really?”
“Yes,” Velma smiled, “and I have to confess, I already knew what exsanguinate means. It’s something I do a lot.”
Mick and Mack frowned at each other before looking back at Velma. “What are you talking about?”
Her terrifying eyes stared into theirs and both brothers were transfixed. “Buffy and Xander on the other hand, are like you, new to the process,” she explained, “because they’ve only recently accepted the moral responsibility to protect people like Suzy and Sally.”
Both men, as if they had no choice, sat down. A bearded black man, who probably wasn’t called Xander, took Mick’s right hand. A blonde white woman, who probably wasn’t called Buffy, took Mack’s left hand, and a little old dog, who was probably a terrier, ran excitedly up to the dark-haired white woman who probably wasn’t called Margaret.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hang you by your ankles,” Velma told the brothers, “we’re not monsters.”
Then she became the wolf and ran around in play with Sammy while Andy and Muriel completed the necessary exsanguination processes until they were fully fuelled and ready for their long journey.
***
That’s the end of the first Velma book. Book 2 coming soon 😀
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