Free The Unblemished by Conrad Williams Page B

surge of pride that he had been chosen above all others. He felt
affection, maybe even love, for the man and slid the greaseproof
packet across the table.
    'I'll try my best,' Manser said.
    'I'm famished,' Salavaria said. His hands shook as they lifted one
white triangle with its insert of pinkish meat. As he bit into it, his eyes
rolled back into his head.
    Just like a shark , Manser thought.
    He could not watch him finish the sandwich. Not because of the
animal way he devoured it, although that was shocking enough,
but because it disturbed even him to see slices of a woman he'd
slept with the previous night being consumed. This was Jacqueline
Kay, or at least a part of her, a student he had picked up in a pub
on the Finchley Road six days earlier.
    You need to fast them , Dr Losh had advised him at the start. Forty-eight
hours is best but you can get away with half that. Just give them
a little water, that's all. It was part of his thrill, his fetish, he
supposed, that he must wait for them to be physically prepared for
the traumas their bodies had to be subjected to. Salavaria was an
extremely demanding person but he didn't care how the meat was
treated after his delicacies were harvested. Manser might have been
able to dispense with Dr Losh had Salavaria been happy to eat cold
cuts from a cadaver, but he was adamant that his slices of buttock
and breast be carved from a warm donor.
    Manser's prick stirred as he recalled the way he had slid, unhindered,
into Ms Kay that morning, the expression on her face of dulled
shock that her body was still being ravaged, that she was still having
to endure this. When does it give up? she seemed to be asking. When
is enough too much?
    Now he heard the balling of the greaseproof paper and a clearing
of the throat. Manser returned his attention to the other man in time
to see him dabbing crumbs from the tabletop with the tip of a finger.
    A comma of grease on his chin provided the welcome break to a
terrible sentence.
    Salavaria's eyes were glazed. His voice was content, sated, a little
sleepy when he said: 'Thank you, Malcolm.' And then: 'Do you have
the next menu ready for me?'
    As Manser fiddled with the straps and buckles on the old leather
wallet, he totted up their atrocious total so far. Five years, nine
victims. Salavaria was insistent he feed once every six months. He had
not yet fully divulged the reasons for his proxy return to murder and
Manser was grateful for that. He did not much care to know. It was
enough that they were in league. He was pleasing a legend and being
allowed to pick through the leftovers for as long as was hygienic. Dr
Losh was a competent if slapdash surgeon and a great help when it
came to disposing of bodies, and body parts. It was a brilliant system;
he just had to make sure he remained careful, and travelled widely in
order to choose potential victims. Don't defecate where you
masticate , Salavaria had warned him, early on.
    This philosophy informed the latest batch of 'applicants', as
Salavaria referred to them. From the wallet Manser extracted two
dozen black-and-white images, all taken in landscape mode, all 6" × 4".
None of the targeted subjects was aware of being photographed and
all of them were of a graininess to suggest they had been taken at long
range. Four from the tennis courts of a sixth-form college in
Sunderland; eight from a café in central Bristol; two on the beach at
Cardiff; three at a funfair outside Leicester; five on the ferry across
the Mersey; and two at a service station on the M6.
    Salavaria placed one of this last pair to the side. He held its mate
with trembling hands. 'This one,' he said, falteringly. 'This one ...
    how ... who ...'
    Manser thought he was trying to establish how someone at a
service station could be tracked. All of his applicants would have been
followed to determine an address, should they need to be acquired at
a later date. He thought of explaining this to him, but Salavaria
finally spat out a complete