Guy Fawkes Day
Page 113
Chapter 49: Oxshott, Surrey, November 2: 7:00 a.m.
Douglas Easterby replaced the receiver calmly then smashed his forehead into the table, pounding it again and again into the hard, rosewood bureau.
Almost immediately he heard a heart-rending caterwauling coming like a missile up the stairs towards his study.
‘You murderer! You gutless, toothless, cowardly murderer! How could you let this happen? You've killed my Marcus, my poor little Marcus!’ Rosemary was wailing hysterically, thumping the door and shrieking alternately.
His hands shaking spasmodically, Douglas Easterby got up and walked across to the safe.
He should have done this days ago, the day he got back from Ramliyya. He had thought he could weather the storm at first, but it had only got worse. It was difficult enough controlling his hands long enough to scoop out his old .38 service revolver, let alone put a couple of bullets in.
When he got to his feet again, his confidence ebbed and he thought about giving up, but his eyes suddenly caught sight of a photo of him and Marcus taken in New York a couple of summers ago and his ears began to tune in once again to his wife's demented screams coming with renewed fury at him through the door.
Douglas Easterby's whole body was shaking as he sat back down in his office chair. He tried to insert the barrel into his mouth but the pressure of the barrel coupled with the crippling faintness coursing through his veins only made him vomit onto the desk.
It took him several goes to pull the barrel out of the flecks of sick and lift it to the right side of his head, just above his ear. No good. He still couldn't steady his hand.
By this time, Rosemary had stopped screaming and had reduced the noise to a slow, measured sob. The lull helped his concentration and Easterby thought he had levelled the barrel.
He squeezed the trigger instantly but his hand jerked again in the motion. The bullet tore downwards through the ear before penetrating the collarbone. Douglas Easterby collapsed head downwards on the desk, twitching and convulsing uncontrollably but remained conscious enough of the searing bodily pain that made a fitting companion to the mire of misery that was suffocating him slowly. Very slowly.