Very Nearly Dead

by A K Reynolds

  When Kylie had finally composed herself I said, ‘How did Seth die? How do you know about it?’

  She’d taken a pack of tissues from her bag while she’d been crying and used at least half of them to staunch the flow of her tears. She pulled another one out and dabbed at her face.

  ‘I called him this morning right after I called you. He didn’t answer so I drove round to his place. It was surrounded by police and reporters. The police wouldn’t let me in the house. I asked one of the reporters what was going on and he told me Seth had been found dead in his front room. No sign of a struggle. We both know what that means.’

  So he’d been wasted the same way Charlie and Stuart had been.

  ‘Who did it, Kylie? We have to work it out. If one of Seth’s business rivals is behind it, why did he kill Charlie? I understand why he’d kill Stuart but not Charlie.’

  She took a sip of her coffee. It must’ve been stone-cold by then.

  ‘Charlie was on Seth’s payroll,’ she said. ‘Stuart always had been ever since school. Charlie tried to distance himself at first but he got drawn in when he needed money. Seth lent him what he needed and Charlie ended up doing delivery work for him to repay the loan.’

  I knew Stuart had been working for Seth, but not Charlie. It seemed Seth was even better at manipulating people than I’d always given him credit for. ‘What about me? Why should I be a target?’

  ‘It could be enough that you knew me, Seth, and the rest of us.’

  ‘I wondered if I’d been caught in the crossfire.’

  She lowered her voice and looked apprehensive. ‘I’m pretty sure someone’s been following me.’

  Was this paranoia? Or was she really being followed? Was I being followed? If I was, I’d probably been too drunk to notice most of the time.

  ‘Kylie, what are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t go to the police for obvious reasons. Maybe you can. You could tell them about the baseball bat you got.’

  ‘I could, but by the time they got round to doing anything about it, we’d all be dead if that’s what’s on the cards. And in any case, I doubt they’ll be able to get anything from it which would help them catch whoever sent it. Even if they did, what would they charge them with? Abuse of the post?’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  We finished our meals in silence, having tacitly concluded we were both doomed and there was nothing we could do about it – except hope we were somehow mistaken.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, as we left TNQ. ‘Until next time, then.’

  Kylie hugged me with genuine affection, something I hadn’t had from her since our schooldays. Maybe the feeling she was being stalked with a view to being killed made her appreciate me all of a sudden.

  ‘Yes, till next time,’ she said. ‘If there is a next time, that is.’

  9

  Way Back When

  Fear turned my insides into knots. It wasn’t only fear I felt, though. There were other emotions, and anger was part of the mix.

  I was on all fours, helpless, but I swore to myself that if I possibly could, then somehow, some way, they were all going to pay for this, in the same currency they’d demanded from me and Tony: blood.

  Seth stepped over Tony’s prone form and I noticed something in his hand: a black baseball bat. He wielded it clinically, bringing it down in a vicious arc onto my head. I tried to raise an arm to protect myself but couldn’t. I was too dazed, presumably because I’d been hit once already. I was aware of the bat striking me, then it was lights out and I entered the void.

  The void is the place where you cease to exist as a person. It’s a dark place of silence and nothingness. How long I remained there, I don’t know.

  It was a voice which brought me out of it for the first time.

  ‘When will Charlotte wake up, Mum?’

  That’s when I began to surface. I didn’t know who I was, or where I was. Then I smelled disinfectant. I felt myself tilt slightly, and realised I was in a hospital bed, and someone was sitting near me on the edge of it.

  In the same instant I knew something very bad had happened to me, and was gripped by panic. I screamed, but no noise came from my mouth – I couldn’t even open my mouth. The scream was entirely in my mind, and it almost drowned out the voices I was hearing, ‘When will she wake up, Mum?’

  ‘I don’t know, love. Soon, I hope. But it might be never.’

  I felt sensations on my scalp. Someone was gently stroking my hair. It made me feel better, so I stopped screaming, and began to wonder who my visitors were.

  I recognised their voices, but when I tried to bring their names and faces to mind, it proved impossible. Then I felt sleepy. Experiencing consciousness of sorts for only those few seconds had exhausted me, and I sank back into the void.

  A hand held my own hand tightly. Was this the same visit or another, later visit? If it was another visit, was it hours or months later? I don’t know. All I can say for sure is that the sensation of my hand being held roused me, and I was able to listen to two people conversing for what seemed like several minutes.

  ‘Charlotte, can you hear me?’

  It was my mum – the woman who’d made my life hell. But now I was delighted and grateful to hear her voice.

  ‘Mum,’ I said, but the word never left my lips. I heard it in my head but knew I hadn’t been able to say it.

  ‘Charlotte, me and your dad are both with you. I hope you know that, love.’

  My heart leaped in the knowledge that my parents were both present and I realised I loved them both. I tried to tell them I knew they were there, but didn’t succeed. My nervous system wasn’t ready, so I just did my best to enjoy their company.

  The knowledge my parents were visiting me gave me reason to get well and recover. I promised myself I was going to get out of the place I was in, for their sake. Once I’d made the promise, my recovery began. I felt a tingling in my nervous system which told me positive things were happening to my body. I couldn’t yet make any conscious movements, but I convinced myself I’d be able to, sooner rather than later.

  That was when I remembered another promise I’d made to myself a long time before – that I was going to make a select group of people very miserable indeed. Who were they? Surely it’d come back to me. It had to. Something told me it was desperately important.

  It took time, but gradually the lost knowledge I was seeking emerged from the mist. Namely, seven people had murdered my boyfriend and put me in hospital.

  The seven people were: Seth Delaney, Charlie Duggan, Mike Stone, Stuart Foss, Danny Scott, Kylie Wood, and Jasmine Black.

  10

  Here and Now

  As I left TNQ and Kylie headed back to her car, I couldn’t help but notice I was only a few yards away from a pub called Psycho Jack’s. It was an unusual name for a pub, and it caught my eye. I decided to explore the place to find out what it was like. You never know when such information is going to come in useful, after all. That was the lie I told myself at the time, anyway. But the real reason I went in there was to get a drink, because Kylie had set my nerves on edge.

  I pushed open the door and went inside. The place had a pleasingly dark interior with plenty of good places to sit. Psycho Jack, or someone employed by him, a good-looking middle-aged man who looked like he could’ve gotten a bit-part in a movie, was busy polishing glasses behind the bar. He put his latest glass down as I approached. Naturally, there were craft ales on draft. Every pub in London has craft ales on draft these days. One of Psycho Jack’s craft ales was fully nine point five per cent by volume. It looked like my kind of drink.

  ‘A half of Crazy Jane, please,’ I said.

  ‘Coming right up,’ he replied putting a glass under the nozzle. As the glass filled, I cast my eye over the place and saw a TV lounge through a doorway at the back. It was a touch I liked. I’m not a fan of TVs in pubs unless I want to watch one. This pub gave me the option of a room with a TV and another room without one.r />
  Jack handed me my glass and I paid him using my contactless credit card. Then, as there was no-one around I wanted to talk to, I went through to the TV lounge so as not to have to endure my own thoughts.

  The news was on, and the headlines were, as usual, relentlessly grim, which made me feel better about myself. There’s nothing like somebody else’s misery to make you realise you’re not in as bad a place as you thought you were.

  As I watched a procession of depressing news stories about war and death, refugees and famine – the all-too-usual fare – I wondered if I wasn’t behaving too much like a sheep under a carving knife, the way I was just sitting around waiting to be bumped off. Maybe, I thought, instead of fretting about who had sent the baseball bat and what it might mean, and which of Seth’s many enemies was out to get me, I should start thinking about how to save myself.

  But what could I do?

  No sooner had I had that thought then another struck me.

  What if I’d been barking up the wrong tree entirely?

  It wasn’t Seth who was behind the killings. What if it wasn’t one of his business rivals either? What if it was someone from the mutual past I shared with Seth who had reason to hate me?

  Think, Jaz, who could hate you enough to kill you?

  Then I began to think the unthinkable, the impossible, for only one such person came to mind: Charlotte Hawkins.

  And it couldn’t possibly be Charlotte.

  She was the nearest thing to dead there could possibly be.

  And the very nearly dead don’t kill.

  They can’t.

  Can they?

  Charlotte was a member of the gang I used to hang around with at St Benedict’s. There were eight of us: Charlotte, Seth Delaney, Charlie Duggan, Mike Stone, Stuart Foss, Danny Scott, Kylie Wood, and myself, Jasmine Black. I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t a very nice gang, which is putting it mildly.

  It hadn’t been nice back in my schooldays, and it wasn’t nice now, during my adulthood, insofar as it still existed. Four of the gang members were no longer around: Charlie was dead, killed at the school reunion. And so was Stuart, having been killed around the same time. And more recently Seth had shuffled off the mortal coil. As for Charlotte, she might as well have been dead, owing to what happened to her in the park near our school one night.

  Seth was the leader of our gang. My relationship with him had been unusual, and probably unhealthy. He was my protector throughout my school years, the person who’d step in to save me if I was in jeopardy. Mind you, Charlotte helped me too, sometimes. She had a reputation for being ‘hard’, and I, for one, would never have crossed her.

  Seth roped me into activities I’d sooner have missed. That was the price I paid for his protection. Because of my devil’s bargain, I was never able to turn him down. An unholy mix of fear, respect, obligation, and perhaps even sublimated love made me do more-or-less everything he wanted. He had a kind of hold over me because I went to a rough school, and would’ve lived my life in fear, if not for him. Yes, we had sex together, but he asked me to keep it secret, and I did – he was going out with Kylie at the time. It was weak-willed of me to have sex with Seth behind Kylie’s back, I know, but I’ve come on a lot since then.

  I was sixteen, and a seasoned member of Seth’s gang, albeit one who was unproven. I knew I’d be expected to prove myself at some time or other, and was dreading that time coming. The others had all proven themselves in the way Seth expected them to: by helping him inflict violence on an unlucky individual when required.

  But he got his comeuppance: another gang beat the tar out of him and he had to spend time in hospital recovering. When I visited him, he said it’d been a surprise attack and he hadn’t stood a chance. When he was discharged, he said he’d get even. Nothing seemed to come of it, and, as time passed by, I forgot about the incident.

  Then one evening Seth called me on my mobile after school. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘On my way home.’

  ‘Meet me at the park entrance. There’s something we have to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember the gang that attacked me? I know who one of them was.’

  My stomach turned over. I knew what was coming.

  ‘We’re going to sort him out tonight,’ he continued. ‘It’ll be your chance to show us what you’re made of.’

  The last thing I wanted was for Seth and the rest of them ever to find out what I was made of. I tried desperately to think of an excuse to go home, but none came to mind, so instead I decided to pretend to go along with things, but to definitely not hurt anyone – or get hurt myself, if I could help it. That said, I reckoned I’d sooner get hurt myself than hurt whatever victim Seth had singled out for vengeance.

  When I got to the park entrance, Seth was there with Charlie, Mike, Stuart, Danny, and Kylie.

  ‘Right, let’s go, follow me,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Charlotte?’ I asked.

  ‘Never mind her,’ said Seth. Kylie just shrugged.

  We made our way along the tarmac paths running through the trees towards the middle of the park, where the children’s playground was. As we neared it, we rounded a corner and practically bumped into two people, a teenage boy and girl, embracing each other and kissing.

  ‘There he is, and look who he’s with,’ said Seth. ‘What are you waiting for? Get stuck in!’

  The others moved forward with Seth while I hung back, partly because I wasn’t the violent type, and partly because I was shocked to see the teenage girl was Charlotte.

  Charlie and Mike grabbed the boy while Stuart and Danny grabbed Charlotte, pulling them roughly apart.

  I think everyone, except possibly Seth and Kylie, were shocked to see Charlotte in a clinch with one of the boys who’d beaten Seth up. They understood they were expected to pummel the boy, but were unsure about what to do with Charlotte. In the end it was all academic.

  Seth had a baseball bat hidden under his jacket and so did Kylie. They pulled them out at the same time.

  Seth smashed his on the boy’s head. Kylie did the same to Charlotte, but caught her only a glancing blow. Even so, it was enough to knock her off her feet. As she lay on all fours on the tarmac path, eyes open and with a dazed expression on her face, Seth turned his attentions to her, belting the back of her head.

  After Seth struck Charlotte she looked dead, or as close to death as it’s possible to be without actually dying.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, running back along the path. We followed him like sheep back to his uncle’s house. He took us there by way of a winding route and assembled us in the garage for a debriefing when we got there.

  ‘No-one can ever talk about this,’ he said. ‘If any of us says anything, we’ll all go down. Have you heard of joint enterprise?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It means that if you’re with a friend when he commits a crime, you’ll get sentenced for it just the same as if you’d committed the crime yourself, so keep schtum. Anyone who doesn’t will have me to answer to.’

  None of us were likely to grass after what we’d just seen, irrespective of the law on joint enterprise. The thought of Seth wielding a baseball bat was enough to keep us all quiet.

  For at least the next six months I was sick with worry.

  I expected a knock on the door from a policeman at any minute, every hour I was at home. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it had come. I couldn’t grass up my best mate to the police, of course, but I’m far from certain I would have had the bottle not to crack under pressure. Anyway, the policeman’s knock never came.

  Apparently the police visited Seth’s house, but he was so cool he was able to lie convincingly to them, and the coppers who came to question him went to other homes to pursue their enquiries, which never came to anything.

  Seth’s parents would have been horrified if they’d known about the incident, but of course, he never let on. To this day they probably think he can do no wro
ng, and that he’s a respectable businessman.

  ‘What the mind don’t know, the heart don’t grieve over,’ was the way he explained it to me. It worked for him. At any rate, his parents were probably one of the reasons he got away with it. Softly spoken and deeply religious, who could have failed to believe them when they said their son would never do a thing like that, and he’d come home far too early to have been involved? (He managed to pull the wool over his parents’ eyes about how long he’d been out exactly.)

  The next day at the school assembly, the head teacher made an announcement about the crime, asked if anyone knew anything about it, and if so, would they please come forward with details? No-one did, although seven of us did know about it. Fear of, or admiration for Seth, or the Code of Silence, kept us from spilling our guts about who’d done what.

  The boy who was with Charlotte – his name was Tony – died.

  Charlotte herself, it later emerged, was terribly disabled due to brain damage. She ended up lying in a hospital bed, and she might as well have been dead to the world, given the prognosis which filtered out: she would never fully recover, and it was unlikely she’d ever think clearly, speak again, or communicate in any meaningful way.

  Seth was cock-a-hoop when he heard the news.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘We’re in the clear, as long as everyone sticks to the script. And everyone had better – if they don’t want to end up like Charlotte or her dead boyfriend.’

  Of course, he showed a different face to the world – a compassionate face, full of concern that one of his erstwhile best friends was in such a bad state. He was very accomplished when it came to that sort of thing. Looking back on it, the way he used to manipulate us with a combination of charm, charisma and menace, and the way he could so easily turn off one emotion (glee at Charlotte’s injuries) and replace it with another (grief that Charlotte had been so badly hurt) he must have been psychopathic. I just didn’t see it at the time, and when I eventually saw him for what he was, it was too late.