Black by Rose

by Andrew Barrett

  This is Brian, remember? Come on, you’ve shared so much– “My money is what we shared,” she whispered to the empty hall. Don’t you care about your pride, Ros? Don’t you care he’s been shagging The Bitch?

  Just wake him gently and talk. You’ll see, it’ll work out fine.

  — Two —

  He heard the door close. Heard her take off her coat, and then she mumbled something.

  He swallowed.

  He could sense a confrontation coming a mile away. He was ready for it though. Ros was a good woman, and he wanted to keep her. She was his stability, and she kept his business on the straight and narrow while his moral compass had spun so fast the fucking needle had come off. But she had become boring, tedious to be around. And the worst thing was that she had… she had devalued herself somehow. And that meant he valued her less too, until he didn’t value her at all. She meant less to him now than ever before, less than a broken tool, worthless. The only thing keeping them together now was his pity for her; the way she made him feel, like dirty somehow, because she was as worthless as shit. He was doing her a favour, being kind to a dumb animal. Yes, she was his stability, or at least she used to be.

  He was almost looking forward to her breaking the news that she’d seen him leave… she was nervous. She was bricking it, big time. He could tell. Over the last few days she’d grown very cold towards him. And since the bust up at her office, she’d been remarkably strong in not mentioning it to him directly. But tonight it was coming to a head; no way on God’s earth could she keep it in any more. She was fit to burst.

  In the darkness, he squinted. He could hear her in the kitchen, shuffling about, filling the kettle, plucking up the courage to rouse him and begin their awkward conversation. Well, awkward for her. And then he heard her coming up the stairs. The bedroom door opened and Brian closed his eyes. He was looking forward to this.

  — Three —

  She opened the bedroom door and peered in. The room was filled with a gentle orange glow from the streetlamp outside. She could see him. He was fast asleep, lightly snoring. Rain patted against the window. What had she said, wake him gently and begin talking?

  In one fluid movement she turned on the light and threw the bucket of cold water all over him. He screamed and was out of bed and on the floor like a dying fish on the dock, gasping for breath against the shock.

  “You bastard!” she screamed.

  Boring and staid Brian was on his feet in no time and with a fluidity to equal her own, punched her in the stomach hard enough to have her double up. The breath belched out of her and she collapsed on the carpet unable to breathe, one hand clawing at thin air, the other embedded in her stomach, knees pulled up tight and eyes wide. She sipped air through clenched teeth and as soon as she filled her lungs, she emptied her stomach on the floor next to her; convulsing, the pain in her body but a fraction of that in her mind.

  She stared up him and was horrified to see him smiling at her.

  “Look what you made me do, Rosaline.”

  She gasped.

  “Woman shouldn’t treat her man like that. No.” Water dripped from his long hair right into her face. He didn’t move aside. He obviously liked to see it fall on her. “I coulda killed you, girl. And then what woulda happened, eh?”

  “You’re screwing—”

  “Ah ah. No need for that kinda language,” he smiled. “I can see you’re a little upset,” he soothed, “but there isn’t no need to be. You’re mine now. When we met, you were everything to me. You still are—”

  “Then why?”

  His face darkened, the smile vanished. “You forced me into it! I had no choice, Rosaline. You grew snotty with me, like I wasn’t worth shit and you were better ’n me.”

  “I never did.” She coughed, and spat out more vomit.

  “Why did you have to change? We were doing great and you changed and you made me—”

  “Oh I made you fuck her, did I?”

  Brian knelt by her side, brought his face within inches of hers. She held her breath and then whimpered, fingernails digging into the carpet. She screwed her eyes tightly closed but refused to cry. “You be careful now, Rosaline,” he whispered. “You’re making me cross again and then whatever happens’ll be your fault.”

  She whimpered again, shoulders jerking despite the resolve she thought she had. That though, was running away from her now until she felt totally vulnerable.

  “You don’t care about us,” he whispered. “You never really have, have you? You got your man, and you made him how you wanted; you paid me like a prostitute, bought me stuff so I’d stay around with you. And now I’m… I’m like a trophy for you, all bought an’ paid for, for you to show off, to make yourself feel good. You’re selfish, did you know that? Treat people like muck when you’ve had it easy all your life. You’re a sad woman, Rosaline. Very sad.”

  She sobbed.

  “You drove me into her bed. Did you know that? You brought this on yourself, and now you have the nerve to accuse me, to accuse me, of doing wrong? Unbelievable.” He tucked a finger beneath her chin and turned her head so she was forced to look at him. “But that’s okay, Rosaline.” He smiled again, his eyes shifting between her own as he made sure she understood his point of view. “I forgive you.”

  But before she could even open her mouth to speak, he put extra pressure under her chin.

  “I said it’s fine; I understand. And I don’t hold it against you, okay?”

  She stared at him.

  “I said okay?”

  She nodded, and the pressure beneath her chin disappeared.

  “All this,” he said, “all this silliness with the water, and you making me hit you; we can forget all that, and we can carry on as before. I won’t hold it against you, Rosaline, you know I’m not that kinda fella. Forgive an’ forget, that’s me, eh?” He looked at her still, and then he grinned. “Okay?”

  Her lip trembled and she found herself nodding just so he’d go away and leave her alone. She had to hold her breath so she couldn’t sob, she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, but when she closed her eyes, a tear squeezed out, and that made her angry all over again.

  “Good lass,” he said. And then he stood.

  She took a quivering breath, held it for a moment, and then said, “I want you to leave, Brian.” She opened her eyes slowly then. She could see him in the dull glow from the ceiling lamp, standing over her, naked except for a pair of wet boxers. He had his hands on his hips and he was looking down at her with incredulity on his face, confusion, as though he’d offered her a diamond tiara and she’d declined it in favour of a piece of chewing-gum he’d peeled off his work boots.

  “I see,” he said. He raised a finger, “I got something to show you. You stay right there, okay. I mean it, don’t move, I’ll be back in a second.”

  When he’d gone, the breath she’d been holding shivered out of her and she hitched in another one, tears rolling out of her eyes now so fiercely and with such heat that she didn’t even see him come back in the room. It was only when he resumed his earlier kneeling position right by her head that she knew he was there and shrieked. She could feel his breath on her cheek.

  He laughed softly at her, “Edgy, Rosaline? Sign of a guilty conscience is that, y’know.”

  “Please, Brian—”

  “Ssshhh,” he moved closer. “I don’t want to see you like this. You’ve always been a loyal woman to me, and I thank you for it.” That’s when he grabbed her roughly by the hair and brought the kitchen knife up to her eye.

  He’s going to kill me. That was the only thought circling her mind now. He’s going to kill me. Brian, the gardener. She tensed up, closed her eyes and swallowed, just waiting for it, the feel of a cold blade against her throat and then the hotness as it entered, and then what? Then she could feel the blood running hot, steaming across her neck, could hear it pattering on the carpet with each frenzied beat of a weakening heart.

  He clutched her hair tighter,
and still she dare not look, and then he dragged her head sideways and into the vomit. She felt it, cold against her cheek, felt its stench sting her nostrils, and she gasped, almost threw up again as he moved her face in and out of it, tilting her head towards it and pushing her until it was on her lips, in her eye, up her nose. And then he pulled her back away from it, straightened her face up. She shivered, retched.

  “Rosaline,” he whispered.

  She opened her eyes. He smiled at her.

  And then she felt the blade at her throat and could no longer hold back the tears. He had broken her finally, and she wailed.

  “Ssshhh, it’s gonna be okay. You’ll see.” He stroked her hair and then pressed the blade in harder, and she sipped tiny breaths at the top of her lungs, just waiting now. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither are you. Everything’s going to stay just as it is.”

  She stared at him, not daring to move, hands digging into the carpet still, legs trembling. Any second that blade was going to pierce her skin, to puncture her throat.

  “Is that clear?”

  She stared.

  “Nod if you agree.”

  She stared.

  The blade pressed harder and she closed her eyes.

  “You won’t have to torment yourself any more. We understand each other now, don’t we, dear?”

  She nodded, reluctantly at first, and then as the blade left her throat, she nodded more vehemently, and the tears came again, and with them the sobbing too.

  “I love you, Rosaline. Remember that. I love you so much. We’ll always be together. And don’t worry; I really do forgive you. I’m your man. And you are my woman.” He stood and she dared to open her eyes again. “Now go take a shower, clean yourself up. And then clean your mess up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  — One —

  Monty closed the front door and walked along the hallway into the lounge.

  “They get away okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “No hitches?”

  “Nope.”

  Monty handed the iPad to Slade and sat down opposite him. Slade looked at the thing. It was a piece of glass with an aluminium plate glued to its lower half. Not one button on it. “And I do what with it?”

  Tyler sighed and stepped forward. “Dinosaur.” He prodded the recess and the screen turned blue, asked for a password.

  They all looked at each other.

  “Try his birthday year,” Monty said. “He was always shit at remembering passwords.”

  Slade looked at Monty.

  “One-nine-seven-eight.”

  “Don’t you know our birthdays, Dad?”

  “Son, I don’t even know my own fucking birthday, so put your lip away.”

  A touchscreen keypad cursor blinked, and Slade’s big clumsy finger punched the numbers hard. The machine came to life displaying row after row of inch square icons. Slade shook his head in despair and handed it to Tyler.

  “These are called apps, Dad. You can get games, BBC news, Google…”

  “Whoopee. Put one on my shopping list, Monty.”

  Monty laughed as Tyler scrolled through five screens of apps until he hovered above one in particular. “e-Dater.” He pressed the app and the screen filled with a multitude of colours; it showed a side panel with pictures of happy couples sharing glasses of champagne, of sexy silhouettes of couples kissing at sunset.

  “Jesus,” Slade said. “I’d rather go see Tanya,” he smiled. Then he remembered the mess he’d made of Tanya, “Or maybe Shauna instead.”

  Along the other sidebar were adverts; thousands of them, that scrolled continuously and offered everything from garden sheds on eBay to structured retirement plans with a free Parker pen, from decadent holidays in Barbados to private clinics in London.

  In the centre of the screen were two boxes, a cursor blinking in the uppermost one. “Username,” whispered Tyler. He looked up, “that’ll be his email address.”

  “Coulda told you that,” said Slade.

  Tyler went back to the front screen and picked Yahoo, then read off and remembered Blake’s address before returning to the e-Dater site. He entered “Blake1978@ymail.com” and the cursor moved to the blank box labelled password.

  “This is where we have to be careful. Some of these sites will lock you out for a day or two if you enter the wrong password more than a couple of times.”

  “Oh good,” Monty said, “that helps.”

  “How many goes do we get?”

  Tyler looked at his dad, shrugged. “You have to get the third one right.”

  “Start thinking, boys. Monty: pen and paper, let’s do this thing right.”

  — Two —

  They circled the block three times, looking for signs of recent activity, for recently parked vehicles or for out-of-place youths walking the streets. They looked for open windows, blowing curtains on the upper floors of the building that faced onto their target. There were none. It was after two in the morning, mid-week, and nothing moved, thought Jagger, except bad men and coppers. It was raining heavily, was almost deafening in the back of the van. Jagger was sitting on a wheel arch, gloved hand curled around the bodywork to keep from sliding off. Between his feet was a large canvas bag.

  A wiry kid called Wasp sat opposite him, dressed entirely in black. He never moved a muscle until it was time to rock, and then he was like a whippet. He had jet black eyes that seemed to stare forever, unblinking, studying; making mental notes. Jagger didn’t much like him. But he wasn’t paid to like him, he was paid to do the job and get the hell out. It was Wasp’s job to make sure they did it unimpeded.

  Waves of rain blew up the street, and a gusty wind nudged the van towards the gutter. Ste stopped it, pulled up the handbrake. “I don’t like this, man.”

  Pikey turned in the passenger seat and faced Ste. “Why?”

  Ste shrugged. “It just don’t feel right.”

  “That it? It don’t feel right?”

  Ste looked away, “If you’re gonna take the piss—”

  “Park up where I said. Do it now.”

  Without acknowledging Pikey, Ste put the van into reverse and juddered his way onto the triangle of tarmac off the main road, at the back of the target building. The van itself provided good cover from any passing traffic; a scrubby growth of weeds and a short row of dilapidated outbuildings shielded the triangle further. The van crept backwards, tyres crunching over broken glass. Ste stopped, turned off the headlights, looked at the others and nodded.

  Pikey looked at Ste, “Stay awake, and no smoking.” Then he opened the passenger door and climbed out, “Channel 12,” and pressed the door closed after him. The sliding door opened and Jagger passed out the angle grinder and climbed out with the black holdall, a long jemmy bar sticking out past the zip.

  The triangle was crudely lit by one streetlamp that showed amber spears of wind-driven rain scattering like starbursts. It was only just bright enough to show the rear of the terrace. Jutting out like afterthoughts, a series of extensions along the block created hidden pathways to the concealed back doors, each coated with a blackness the streetlamp could not reach.

  Wasp slid from the van, clapped Jagger on the back and then took off into the darkness as quickly and quietly as a cat. Jagger slid the door closed, and walked briskly, squinting against the rain, through the puddles to the back door of the shop where Pikey was already waiting, his balaclava pulled down into place. The saw was on the ground nearby. “Leccy box is to the right, along the corridor.”

  Pikey got the five-foot jemmy to work on the grille over the back door and Jagger added his weight until the bolt sheared and the grille sprang open on squeaky hinges, banging into the brick wall. Pikey lodged the bar between the door and frame as Jagger lit up the expanding gap with an LED head torch, searching for the magnetic contact he knew would be there. He found it and, leaning across Pikey, jammed a strip of adhesive magnet, the type you’d find holding all manner of crap to the fridge door in most people’s home
s, into the gap and across the contact. Pikey heaved, and the door cracked and burst inwards. Jagger entered first, took the holdall down the short corridor to the end of the extension.

  As he approached the cupboard, he flicked the switch on the head torch again and doubled the light coming from it. Water dripped from his rolled-up woollen balaclava as he stared at the electricity metre and its array of circuit breaker switches. He swallowed nervously, looked left along the corridor to see Pikey staring at him.

  “Hurry up!”

  Jagger turned off the main power to the premises, and then smashed the alarm keypad off the wall with a lump hammer from the holdall. For a brief moment there was the shrill cry of an alarm sounding and then silence as Jagger pulled the wires off the back-up battery’s terminals. He looked at Pikey. “Here goes,” he flicked the mains switch back on. They listened. Silence.

  “Nice one,” said Pikey. “Come on.”

  Jagger rushed along the corridor, took a swift peek at the door they’d broken in through and continued past the small kitchen and into the main shop. It was supposed to be some kind of coffee shop for the Turks in the area, a meeting place with sweet tea and hookah pipes. Jagger looked around at the padded benches across one wall, an out-of-place dining table and half a dozen well-worn chairs; shelves full of spices next to boxes of toilet roll and tubs of some brown liquid. Funny fuckers, them Turks, he thought. And then his eyes fell upon the object of this evening’s enterprise. In the corner by the shop window, a white-painted wooden cube, six feet square with all manner of wires poking out the top.

  — Three —

  After twenty minutes, Slade looked at his watch; he knew the crew would be more or less in position by now. He took out his phone and checked it was sufficiently charged, checked to make sure he’d not missed any calls and then put it on the table next to him. If it rang, he wanted to be on it immediately.

  And then he looked at the list that Monty had scribed. They had seven possible passwords for Blake’s e-Dater site. And, if he was honest, he didn’t really think any of them were right. Blake was thick as pig shit; he’d be the first to admit it, so Slade wasn’t being unkind when he thought that. But the kid also had a sensitive side – and that was borne out by him going to see Rachel for dating advice.