by S. B. Caves
‘What’s your name?’ Morley asked, so casually that they might have been a couple of old friends having a discussion over a pint.
‘My name is Jack Bracket. Kate Bracket was my wife. And you’ – he thrust out an index finger as though it were a dagger – ‘you murdered her.’
Morley expelled a weary sigh. ‘Jack, I’ve never killed anyone in my life.’
‘You’re a liar.’
‘I’ve never seen you or your wife before. I’m sure of it.’
Jack punched his fist through one of the boxes lining the wall, which spewed polystyrene. Something sharp bit into his knuckles but he kept punching.
‘Twelve years ago, you knocked on our door and you stabbed her!’
‘Stabbed her, did I?’ Morley chuckled weakly. ‘Twelve years ago I stabbed her? No.’
‘All you’re doing is making this worse for yourself.’
‘Really? I don’t think so,’ Morley said. ‘I think you plan to kill me no matter what I tell you.’ He didn’t seem afraid at the prospect of dying. In fact, Jack thought he seemed relieved. Morley licked his lips, which were starting to harden and peel, and said, ‘You might as well kill me now then. But you’d be killing an innocent man, which would make you the murderer now, wouldn’t it?’
Jack was awed by Morley. All the years of thinking about this encounter, plotting what he might say to him, what he might do to him, and now he was completely disarmed. Morley had nerves of steel and he wasn’t going to admit fault in a million years. But how could he look in Jack’s face and lie so boldly?
‘So what are you gonna do, Jack? You gonna torture me? You gonna murder me? You gonna leave me tied up here like your little slave?’
Jack ran his hands through his hair and then smoothed down his beard. He exhaled slowly, waiting for his heartbeat to settle, and then sat down on the chair.
‘I might do all those things, Craig. But first, I’m going to tell you a story.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
2007
‘You stink!’ Kate said, giggling as she pulled away from his embrace. ‘Oh my god, you smell like a caveman.’
She shooed him away with her hands but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her closer, burying his face in her neck and growling. She was ticklish by her collarbone so he blew his lips on that spot until she cringed away, breaking into hysterical laughter.
‘Stop it!’ she managed, ‘I can’t breathe.’
Jack continued, pinning her arms at her side. ‘Say I’m the king.’
‘All right,’ she said, feigning defeat. ‘I’m the king!’
‘I gave you a chance.’ He went back to her neck and blew down on her collarbone. She convulsed with laughter. He let her twist away and back up down the hallway.
‘You’re an idiot,’ she said, pouting. ‘And you stink.’
‘Well, what way is that to treat your husband? You should have my dinner on the table and a bath already run for me. So, where is it?’
‘You’re too rough with me, as well,’ she pointed to her stomach.
‘You don’t know rough,’ he said, bending down to untie his boots. He kissed her stomach gently and then followed her into the living room. Judge Judy was on the TV and a glass of lemonade sat on the coffee table.
‘Seriously, though, did you make any dinner?’
‘I literally got in and fell straight asleep,’ she said, fanning her face with a copy of the local paper. ‘I can make a salad or something if you want?’
‘No, I don’t want that, I’m starving,’ he said, peeling off his T-shirt. It felt soggy in his hand and the white cotton was stained grey with sweat. The hair on his chest was slick; his forearms and neck burnt red.
‘Get a takeaway then,’ she said and glanced over at him briefly. ‘My god, look how sunburnt you are.’
‘We took some chairs and sat in the sun through lunch. I fell right asleep.’
‘I’m pregnant, I have an excuse to fall asleep all the time. But you’re not supposed to be falling asleep on the job.’ She knelt on the sofa to inspect the redness of his arms. ‘If you’re going out in the sun, you have to put sun cream on, Jack.’
‘Oh, stop being silly. What do you fancy for dinner then? I think I could do with something from Golden Dragon, what do you reckon? We could eat it in the garden.’
‘You’ve got too many freckles on your arms,’ she said, ignoring his segue and settling back into her chair. ‘You’re going to end up getting skin cancer if you keep sitting in the blazing heat without any sun cream on. You’re too fair. You can’t sit out in the sun like that, Jack, honestly.’
Jack stripped down to his boxer shorts and collapsed onto the sofa. Through the open window, they could hear the chime of the ice cream van jingling down the street, like the Pied Piper luring children away from their homes.
‘I could really do with a witch’s hat right now,’ Kate said, abandoning Judge Judy in favour of a DVD of The OC.
‘Witch’s hat? What’s that? Something your mum used to wear?’ She leaned over and slapped his sunburnt forearm. ‘Ouch!’
‘You know what I’m on about,’ she said as the disclaimer screen came on. She had a thing for these damn soppy dramas, and Jack couldn’t stand them. If it wasn’t The OC box set, then it would be Dawson’s Creek or Party of Five or some other show full of attractive twenty-something-year-olds with perfect teeth. Didn’t matter much to him what she watched now, though. The heat was already knocking him out and he estimated that he’d be asleep before the end of the opening credits.
He yawned, leaned back into the sofa and stretched his legs out onto the footstool. ‘I don’t know what a witch’s hat is, honest.’
‘Maybe you called them something different as a kid. It’s an ice cream with an ice lolly stuck in it. We used to love them.’
‘That sounds like an abomination.’
‘It wasn’t. It was the best thing ever.’
‘You were feral children,’ he said sleepily. ‘And our child will not be eating any of that junk.’
‘Oh yes, he will.’
‘He?’
‘Or she?’ she amended, rolling her eyes. ‘But it’s a he. I know it.’ She knitted her fingers lovingly across the small paunch of her stomach.
‘Jack Junior,’ he said, smiling, before leaning down to kiss her hands.
‘I could kill for one of them now,’ she said, nudging him with her bare foot.
‘Kill for what?’
‘A witch’s hat.’
‘So what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Go and get me one.’
‘What? No way. I’ve just sat down.’
‘Exactly. You’ve just sat down, you’re not settled yet.’ She nudged him again. ‘Please. I’m so hot.’
‘I’ll get the fan down later.’
‘The ice cream isn’t for me. Jack Junior wants it,’ she said, giving him the puppy eyes and rubbing her stomach. ‘You’re going to deny your child?’
‘I’m denying the child on the basis that I don’t want to encourage any occult-themed refreshments in this house.’
‘Come on,’ she whined, digging her heel into his thigh. ‘The ice cream man is going to drive away.’
‘He’s probably a mile down the road anyway.’
‘He isn’t. I heard him.’
‘You heard the echo. It’s probably leapfrogged to us from about five streets away.’
‘So you’re really not going to get me an ice cream? I’m going to go through hours of intense agony to push your baby out and you can’t even go to the ice cream van?’
He looked over at her to gauge how desperate she was. Her face was stern and unwavering. She pointed at her stomach and then tapped her wrist to indicate he was wasting time.
‘OK, I’ll look down the road for him, but if I can’t see him I’m coming back and you can’t sulk.’
‘You’ll find him. I have faith in you. Now go quickly.’
He pulled himself off the sofa and
jogged upstairs, slipped into a pair of shorts and a vest, then put a pair of flip-flops on. As he left he said, ‘Don’t fall back asleep before you order my food.’
‘You got it.’
He stepped out of the house and shielded his eyes from the sun, looking up and down the street. He walked to the corner and found a swarm of kids clustered around a pink-and-white ice cream van about two hundred yards away. He thought about jogging to the van but didn’t have the energy. Judging by the number of kids waiting, Jack supposed he could afford to stroll. He reached the van and waited for the kids to finish harassing the ice cream man. The little buggers took their time, asking a dozen questions about each lolly or modifying their ice creams with all kinds of crazy coloured sauces.
In a few years I’ll be buying ice cream for the kid, he thought, imagining himself standing in the queue with an arm around little Jack or little Kate. Ever since their first scan, he had spent a lot of time daydreaming about what their child would eventually look like. It filled him with the loveliest kind of anxiety he’d ever known. The pleasant giddiness was offset by the dread that dwelled in the crevices of his mind. Every night before bed, he had to wait until Kate was asleep before he would allow himself to drift. He wanted to be alert in case she suddenly felt any twinges or sharp pains. And when he did finally sink into the pillow, he would mentally mutter the word healthy over and over until unconsciousness took him.
Please god, I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, I just want it to be healthy.
When it was finally his turn to order, Jack said, ‘Do you do something called a witch’s hat?’
The bald ice cream man scratched his hairy forearm and nodded.
‘Really? I didn’t think you’d know what that is.’
‘Popeye, witch’s hat, same thing. Two pound, boss.’
Jack paid and watched the man plonk a strawberry rocket into his ice cream, and then took it home, licking his knuckles when it dribbled down.
‘You got it?’ Kate was kneeling on the sofa when he entered the living room. Upon seeing the witch’s hat, she smiled and clasped her hands together over her heart. ‘Oh, my hero.’
‘Here.’ He handed it to her, sucking ice cream from his thumb. He plonked himself back down on the sofa, his eyelids drooping heavily. Kate removed the rocket from the ice cream, licked it in a way that was vaguely erotic to him, and then sighed contentedly. She leaned over and kissed his sunburnt nose; her soft lips were cold and soothing. He smiled and fell asleep.
When the doorbell rang, he stirred awake and saw the red-stained lolly stick on the coffee table. He could’ve been out for ten minutes or an hour, he wasn’t sure.
‘That’ll be your food,’ she said, patting him on the calf as she rose from the sofa and padded into the hallway to answer the door.
Jack could feel sleep trying to seduce him, but he was hungrier than he was tired and knew if he dozed off again then he would lie awake all night. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, and released a yawn that almost dislocated his jaw.
Then he heard the disturbance in the hallway. It sounded like a slap, then a thud, then a short, sharp shriek.
Jack stood up and through the curtains saw a hooded boy running down his garden path. His mind erupted with questions – what was that sound? Why was the delivery man dressed in a hoody when it was so hot out, and why was he running away?
It wasn’t the delivery man.
Jack raced out into the hallway and found Kate on the floor. There was a split second of confusion before he saw the blood, and then the strength melted away from his legs. He knelt by his wife and looked up through the open doorway in time to see the car pull away, and the boy peering out the window at what he had done, admiring his work. The fading sunlight shone into the boy’s pale face, illuminating a set of sparkling green eyes. In that instant, the world slowed down long enough for Jack to see the boy wink at him. He was laughing at Jack.
Jack felt a hand touch his face and looked down at Kate.
‘Ja…’ A bubble of blood burst out of her mouth as she tried to speak. She was clasping her neck. Blood pumped between her fingers and was splashing the skirting board and staining the wallpaper. In that moment of insanity, his thoughts a riot of noise in his head, Jack wondered if he would need to paint the skirting board again or whether he could just sop it up with a sponge. Then all thoughts vanished along with the feeling in his body, and he was alone with his dying wife as gouts of blood poured out of her neck in rhythmic spurts.
‘Katie!’ He pulled off his vest and pressed it over her hand, which was covering the neck wound. The white vest turned red in a matter of seconds. He could feel her hot blood soaking through the vest, dyeing his hands. ‘Someone help me!’ he screamed, and then pressed the vest harder against her. He looked into her eyes. They were wide with confusion and fear. Her lips continued to move silently as though searching for the right words that would convey her utter astonishment.
Jack had no idea what to do. The pressure he was placing on her neck didn’t seem to be helping. He didn’t want to move her in case it worsened her condition. Her condition? He didn’t even know what was wrong with her, except that blood was gushing out of her neck and it was scaring him witless.
‘Honey, can you hear me?’ he yelled, one hand over her neck and the other cupping her cheek. ‘You’re going to be OK.’ But as he said this his voice warbled, changing octave. He screamed out through the doorway again: ‘SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!’
Her eyes didn’t seem to be focusing on anything; they were just two glassy balls, staring past him.
‘Look at me, love,’ he said, desperately trying to get her to focus on him. Her lips had stopped moving and now her mouth hung open slackly, and obscenely, he could smell the sweet strawberry flavouring of the witch’s hat amidst the metallic stink of her blood. ‘Listen to me now, Kate,’ he said, trying to keep his voice level so as not to panic her. ‘I need you to try and focus for me, honey. Can you do that? Don’t go to sleep. Don’t…’ The dam broke and a single, wracking sob shuddered out of him.
‘What’s going on?’ One of his neighbours, a tall, thin man who lived across the road, was standing in the front garden.
‘Call an ambulance,’ Jack shouted.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I don’t know!’ he snapped. He looked down at Kate, and in the second that he’d taken his attention off her to speak to the neighbour, she had slipped away. He couldn’t quite work out why, or how this had happened, and the confusion separated his mind from his body.
Maybe she isn’t dead, he thought, knowing that it was a lie, knowing that this was some kind of defence mechanism to stop his sanity from shattering. He bent down and placed an ear to her lips, but could not feel any breath. She had lost so much blood that it had drained the colour from her face and lips, and now her complexion was so ashen she looked almost a pale shade of green. He pressed his fingers on the opposite side of her neck, feeling for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. The blood was no longer pumping from her neck, but merely spilling out, spreading in a pool that stretched to the base of the staircase.
She couldn’t be dead. There was no way she could really be dead, because just moments ago she was getting ready to watch The OC and he had just bought her an ice cream, and this sort of thing couldn’t happen on such an ordinary day. There was no reason for this to happen, and it was that thought that caused a tidal wave of unreality to crash over him. The house began to quiver and spin. His body was on fire, the heat seeming to emanate from his brain, and the only thought that survived the flames was that none of this was fair.
This couldn’t happen to people like them.
When the delivery man pulled up on the moped outside his gate, Jack screamed, and the furnace erupted.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Morley listened to the whole thing without interruption. When Jack was finished, his hands were shaking. Jack inhaled deeply and then relea
sed the breath slowly and steadily, pulling himself back from the brink of hyperventilating. He hadn’t told that story in such detail in a very long time, not since he was featured in the re-enactment for the TV appeal.
‘You only have one chance to live,’ Jack said, wiping the corners of his lips with his fingertips. The effort it had taken to relay the story made the moisture evaporate from his mouth. ‘All I want to know is why you did it. Just tell me.’
‘And then what?’ Morley replied quietly. ‘You’ll just untie me and let me go about my business?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said.
‘Now who’s lying to who?’ He gasped and grimaced, his face shiny with perspiration. ‘I might be a lot of things, Jack. But I’m not a fucking idiot.’
‘I can cause you serious pain. I’m not sure that I want to. But I will if you don’t tell me what made you do it.’
A tired, almost sad look passed over Morley’s face. He closed his eyes and was quiet for several seconds, as though lost in thought. Then he said, ‘You’re going to kill me no matter what I tell you. There’s no way that you can let me live. Not after going through all this to get me here.’
Jack smiled. ‘All right. You’re right. You’re not a fucking idiot.’ Then the smile died and Jack’s expression was like a cliff face weathered by years of grief. ‘How you die is up to you, Craig. If you tell me what I want to know, then I’ll do it quickly. I’ll give you something you didn’t give Kate. I’ll kill you with some dignity. And I’ll bury you properly.’ He leaned back in the chair, his palms pressed flat on his thighs; the shaking had stopped and he felt he was in control of himself once again. ‘If you want to lie to me, I’ll make sure the pain drags on and on. That’s the only deal I’m going to offer you.’
Morley spat on the floor. ‘I’m dying of thirst,’ he said, and laughed mirthlessly to himself. ‘I don’t suppose I could get another sip of that water, could I?’
Jack stood up, took the bottle of water to Morley and let him have two large gulps.
‘Thanks. That’s better.’ Morley cleared his throat, and then winced against the pain it caused in his head. ‘Am I allowed to ask you a question, Jack?’