by Tommy Dakar
Pet had started crying then, with huge, uncontrollable sobs, and could not stop despite Brendan's stunned support. Luz had rushed out after her mistress, but had soon come back, wringing her hands, unable to enter the lady's room. Stein and Ambrose had stared at their plates in shock, their worlds on pause.
Sydney was dead, then. He had been thrown from his car straight into a tree. It hadn't made much sense. Not even thirty. He had been so healthy and intelligent, too strong and bright to just die. And his wife Andrea five months pregnant! And Petunia sobbing uncontrollably. What a night.
‘It's never going to be the same here again,’
Pet had stated in a dramatic voice. He had been warned.
The double doors that led to the Haute part of the house were also locked, which was something he had not foreseen. He pulled at them vigorously, but they held firm, so he went back into the kitchen for a knife. He needed one that was thin enough to enter the crack between the doors, but strong enough to lever them open. He ended up choosing the largest of them all, a cleaver of sorts, but less bulky. It took some time, but he eventually managed to force the double doors open and accede to the main part of the mansion. He left the cleaver on a thin two legged table that sat against the wall, and headed towards the main entrance hall.
Sydney Haute had been cut down in his prime, and that had convinced Petunia that Life, Life in general, is capricious and spiteful. He was the only son and heir of Arnold Haute, in his turn son of the great Randolph Haute, who had made a fortune out of ball bearings of all things. Had that caught George Ork's attention, Ambrose would now be known as Randy. Sydney, as most people had pointed out, had not lived up to one of the versions of his family name, was anything but haughty. He had been a genuinely friendly type, cheerful, bright, and understandably happy with his lot. Life in general had bestowed him with its finest honours, the sun had shone on his whole existence. His life had ended instantly on collision with a tree by the side of a country road. Now after his name came two dates in brackets, and he was no more.
Attention to detail. He had to pay attention to detail and follow the plan to the letter, foresee anything that could go wrong or change things. One of these was to check the mail. Ambrose had not understood why, it certainly didn't seem important. After all, it wasn't his post. Spotty had explained.
‘It's to cut out unforseenables. Improbabilities that turn probable, right?’
Spotty enjoyed baffling Ambrose.
‘Imagine he comes in and there's a letter on the floor’
‘They don't fall onto the floor, there's a basket just behind the letter box.’
‘Or wherever. A missive, right? But one that's overpoweringly more urgent than the job in hand. What does he do? He scrams, leaving you wondering what went wrong. It's the detail, the devil is in the detail, the devil's tail, right?’
Ambrose didn't doubt it, Spotty was a lot brighter than he was. He opened the basket and took out the mail. Nothing too interesting, they looked like bills mostly, nothing that would make you scram in his opinion, but he tucked them into his back pocket just in case.
He stood for a moment and recapped. The wall, the alarm, the back door, the post. So far so good.
It wasn't part of the plan, at least not part of the plan he had put together in prison with Spotty, but as he had caught the earlier bus and had so much time on his hands, he decided it wouldn't hurt to go upstairs and have a snoop around, for old time's sake.
Totally alone in the grand old mansion he could have taken the main staircase, a hand carved masterpiece sculpted out of dark wood which swung up to the first floor under tapestries and chandelier, but he instinctively headed for the service stairs.
Walking through the rooms on that floor was like being taken on a guided tour of the Haute family tragedy - Mrs. Haute, Sydney and Andrea, the nursery. He pushed open the door to what had been the young couple's room, and gingerly poked his head inside, almost as if he expected the young master of the house to still be sitting at his desk by the window. Sydney had always been kind to Ambrose, had never ridiculed him or called him a buffoon like Harvey had later. Quite the opposite, he had shown great interest in Ambrose's work. 'How's it going, Bro?' he would ask, and always wait and listen to the answer, unlike others. The young master of the house had been so popular, just like one of the family. But Sydney had died, and Petunia had been right – nothing had been the same after that. Andrea had gone on to give to birth to Sydney Jr. and....
Ambrose clenched his teeth. He did not want to think about that again, not just yet.
Mrs Haute's room had hardly been touched since her death. Her personal belongings had been removed and stored in the basement, but the furniture and decorations remained as she had left them. The room was no longer used. The poor woman, 'sparrow' Pet had called her back then, just seemed to deflate like a balloon the day after a party. She probably agreed with Pet that life in general was capricious and spiteful. Her only son, the marvellous, loveable Sydney had just.... She must have felt suddenly so alone, a widow with a dead son to mourn. Being surrounded by wealth and comfort at such a time was particularly ironic, almost sadistic. Her friends gave her a wide berth, which was interpreted by the more compassionate as a desire not to intrude, whilst the more cynical suspected that they were unwilling to allow even the vaguest trace of tragedy to enter their perfectly polished, successful lives in case it was contagious. The birth of her grandson and heir, Sydney Jr., had done nothing to change her spirits, and little by little she had just faded away. She had become perpetually ill, eternally depressed, cloistered in her room as if the world outside had ceased to exist. Perhaps for her it had. She had drifted on like that until one day she had silently flickered out. Ambrose had helped carry her coffin to the mausoleum whilst his sister had looked after young Sydney Jr., still just a toddler.
He could hear Spotty's voice telling him to stick to the plan, to keep an eye on the details, not to get carried away or distracted. He was a good man, Spotty, even if he had killed that insurance man. Ambrose cut off his tour and went to get the shotgun.
2
Harvey Paulson was born at the right time, in the right place. He was also lucky enough to have been born into the right race, the right sex, on the right side of town. And he was as sharp as a knife.
He was like a fully wound up toy, bursting with contained energy. His movements were swift, deft and effective, as if he knew exactly what he wanted at every turn. This morning he was choosing his clothes for the day, picking them off the hangers in the walk-in wardrobe without hesitation then laying them out on the bed for one final appraisal. Unlike his wife Andrea he did not ponder over the minor details for hours at a time, trying on garment after garment in various combinations before reaching a not necessarily conclusive decision. The adequate attire had been thought through in under a minute, with accessories to match - he knew exactly the impression he wanted to give. He glanced at the alarm clock for confirmation. Eight thirty three. As well he knew he was on schedule, time being an element he had learnt to control in his youth. It took him an average of twenty minutes to choose his wardrobe, shower, shave and dress. Therefore he gave himself twenty-five minutes, just in case he needed to sit on the toilet, or change a shirt with a missing button, or solve any other variable. Should anything else go horribly wrong the time could be made up out of the extra five or ten minutes he gave himself for breakfast and getting the car ready. So it was that Harvey Paulson was rarely, if ever, late. It was merely a matter of knowing how long certain tasks took to complete, then following them orderly to their conclusion. This was not rocket science, and was so simple to achieve, that he found others' unpunctuality irritating and unforgivable. It was slovenliness on their part, and showed a lack of interest which could ultimately be conceived as rudeness, a discourteous attitude bordering on insult.
Breakfast he took on the verandah, with its magnificent views of the ocean, under the shade of purple bougainvillea and a beige beach umbrella, as the summer sun
could be quite intense even at this early hour of the day. Beach towels hung over the metal railings of the terrace, and a smell of sun tan lotion floating in on the breeze reminded him that, officially, he was on holiday. Except that people like Harvey are hardly ever on holiday. Their minds are like round the clock machinery, nonstop production lines which go on churning out goods while the rest of the world snores on. Even when their bodies are idle, stretched out and oiled on sun beds, or gently bobbing on inflatable mattresses on the blue diamond surface of a pool, their brains keep whirling, processing data, coming up with new ideas that need to be implemented without delay.
He finished his coffee and went back inside, leaving the breakfast things on the glass table for Anne the cleaner to clear up when she arrived at nine. They no longer had live-in staff, not since the incident. Mr. Stein had wisely decided on taking early retirement, and Señora Luz had headed back to where she had originally hailed from, a tiny village up north somewhere, and was now living with her sister's family. They still maintained a minimum contact, birthday greetings and Christmas cards, more out of old world courtesy than any real desire for communication. Nothing else.