[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule

by Andrew Barrett

  “Have they called for recovery?”

  Henry turned to Sirius. “That’s my old girlfriend down there,” he pointed, “the copper.”

  “Not the time, Henry. Now, have they–”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Shush, you tit, you want to get us arrested?”

  Henry looked up at Sirius. “How the fuck are we going to get out of this, now?”

  “You said no one ever came here!”

  Twenty minutes floated by. Henry daydreamed about Launa and intermittently thought of the Jaguar. Sirius thought about the Jaguar and intermittently about the kid and disposing of him as soon as he got back to his car – no need to keep dead trash. He dwelled on Henry’s problem, getting to the car before CSI did.

  Both were pulled from their thoughts as a large lorry, with whole branches of hawthorn sticking out of the roof lights and the bent mirrors, drove up to the police car, turned outside the hut and reversed towards the Jaguar.

  Sirius climbed down the far side of the embankment, standing straight at last, and walked back the way he came. Henry shuffled along by his side, sulking. “Don’t ponder on irony, it’ll drive you nuts.” Only minutes passed before they heard the truck revving hard, and then a plume of smoke belched into the air as the driver set off again, down towards the entrance, followed no doubt by Henry’s ex-girl.

  The shard protruded from the ignition barrel and the lights glowed red at him. But Christian was lost in thought. What’s wrong with you? Sirius will be back any moment and you can expect a real beating before they finally kill you.

  He shifted quickly, looking for the window switches and then stopped. The car was rocking as though someone outside was gently pushing it from side to side. He cocked his head and listened but heard nothing except a strange crunching.

  Christian sat up and looked out of the window. The car was indeed rocking, and the crunching was coming from the wheels as they turned on the gravelly surface. The rocking was caused by undulations as the car picked up speed going backwards, downhill. The ignition light glowed and in the rear-view mirror loomed a hole in the earth as large as the Grand Canyon.

  “That was the only plan I had to get you off the hook.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “We don’t need him anymore.”

  “Can’t we follow the car to the garage and–”

  “They have security on, never get him in there, and no, we couldn’t get the car out either.”

  They walked west, occasionally seeing the bowed roof of the old hut thirty yards below through breaks in the embankment’s edge. They walked over the crest of the hill and down the gentle incline at the end of the embankment, a strong breeze blowing into their faces.

  Up ahead, no more than an hour away, was the dark cloud they had outrun from Leeds. It was heading their way and below it was a band of rain that looked like a shredded grey valance.

  Without warning Sirius started sprinting downhill.

  Henry looked perplexed and followed at a more leisurely pace.

  Sirius was in time to see his rental car fall backwards off the cliff, a very alive, very awake and very scared kid peering through the windscreen at him, one hand reaching out as though hoping for redemption. He didn’t know why, but Sirius raised his arm too, and watched as the nose of his car disappeared over the edge.

  Henry stopped at his side. “Please tell me I did not see what I–”

  There was a scraping of metal, then a thud, more scraping of metal and breaking glass, and then a faint pop. They looked at each other. “I did see what I thought I saw, didn’t I?”

  Sirius walked towards the edge.

  “I am so sick of fucking walking from here back into town! It took me an hour and a half just to get back to something resembling civilisation, and then a taxi home!”

  “Shut up, Henry.”

  There wasn’t an edge as such, but there was a steep gradient and he wondered how fast the car would have been travelling as the gradient turned more vertical than horizontal. He couldn’t see the result of that speed, couldn’t get close enough. A blanket of dust and some shiny part of the car blew briefly into view, then nothing.

  “How far down is it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Do you think he’s dead?”

  He turned. “I am not a fucking psychic, Henry.”

  “But we need to be certain, don’t we; can’t have–”

  Then a sound came from down the empty quarry that shut them both up. The car erupted in a whoosh that made the air ripple, and close behind it was a mushroom of smoke. They looked at each other again.

  “He was inside it, wasn’t he?”

  “Yep.”

  “Glad it wasn’t a diesel car. He’s toast. Let’s go.”

  47

  Tuesday 23rd June

  The sound of gravel and quarry dirt grinding under the tyres stopped. The car was airborne. There was something approached serenity. Air whistled past the car with the odd tink as grit from the spinning tyres hit the inner wings. Christian whimpered.

  For an eternity, Christian saw nothing but blue-grey sky. He felt pressure against his back as the car tilted from horizontal towards vertical. And then there was a shocking bang as it caught an outcrop; the view through the windscreen changed considerably then. The sky disappeared, and the grey subsoil of quarry loomed large. Christian landed against the ceiling of the car as it went into a flip. Papers and coins hit the ceiling around him.

  Christian was going to die soon.

  In the eeriness of the falling car, things changed again. All the papers, the maps, the pens and coins, fell against the windscreen. Christian fell onto the steering wheel and dashboard. He screamed, his shoulder smacked the dash and his cuffed wrist punched the screen as the car hit the haul road head-on.

  In a microsecond, the two airbags deployed and Christian thought he’d been shot. The explosive charges that set the airbags off deafened him and punched him on the ribs and the knees. Surely death would snatch him now.

  The car teetered on its crushed nose for a moment and then toppled onto its roof. Christian hit the ceiling again, hard, and the side windows buckled and blew out. Cold air streamed in along with dust and fragments of toughened glass that made him screw his good eye shut and hold his breath.

  Christian expected to see Sirius and the fat one, Henry, standing there with the wind whipping their fancy suits around their legs, smiling, pointing a gun into the car.

  There was nothing. Just the eddies being tossed about by the wind.

  All his senses reported back: there was mild pain in his left knee, massive pain in his left shoulder and arm, more blood trickling into his ear, an ache in his head like someone had mistaken it for an anvil. And a strange smell.

  Petrol.

  Cubes of shattered glass stuck to his hands and knees as he crawled out from the wreck. And as he did so, he looked up and saw the summit forty or fifty feet above him. “Thank you,” he said to whoever had pulled the strings. When finally he stood on shaking legs at the side of the car and looked around at his prison cell he cursed.

  The first few drops of rain patted his head. “Bollocks.”

  48

  Tuesday 23rd June

  – One –

  The rain flowed down his face as he looked up at her. She held him.

  The tears subsided, and the sobs came less often. He looked at the Styrofoam cup brigade in the doorway but eventually they lost interest and ambled back inside for the resumption of their weekly fix.

  “He spoke to you, didn’t he?”

  Eddie ignored the question.

  He felt invaded, he felt dirty; as though his inner thoughts had been plundered by a mind rapist. And now, instead of grief being the prevalent force inside him, anger took over and made him stand.

  Jilly caught hold of his arms. “Answer me.”

  “That fucker is reading minds.”

  She let go. “Right,” she whispered.

&nbs
p; “Come with me.” Eddie clutched Jilly’s arm and walked her inside the Memorial Hall. Two pairs of wet footprints followed them over the parquet floor and stopped at the freak’s desk. “Excuse me, do you mind?” Eddie pulled the freak’s new customer out of the chair and asked her to, “Leave us alone for a moment, please.” The woman protested, but Eddie stamped on her words like damp confetti into coarse asphalt. “Would you jump in my grave that quick? I haven’t finished here, now give me some space!”

  She shuffled away to her coffee-sipping cronies in the corner and shared disconsolate words and reproachful looks.

  “Eddie,” the freak began.

  “Don’t fucking Eddie me,” he sat, “I want to know where you got your information about Sam.”

  The freak looked up at Jilly, smiled almost apologetically in recognition.

  Eddie nodded. “So you two know each other, eh?”

  “I now know that you and Jilly are Sam’s parents.”

  “Were Sam’s parents. And you’ve been pumping her for info, haven’t you? And when dear old Daddy walked in like some schmuck, you gave it right back through both barrels.”

  “Eddie,” Jilly said.

  “But I didn’t know then that you were Sam’s father.”

  Eddie stared. Blinked.

  “Did I?”

  “Eddie,” repeated Jilly.

  “Shut up.” Eddie stood, looked down at the freak. “Now I’ll give you one last chance to tell me where you dug all this shit up from and then I’m gonna make your face look like melted plastic.”

  “Eddie!” Jilly shouted.

  “He read it somewhere!”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Then you’re a mind reader.”

  “I beg your pardon.” The freak stood.

  “Please, Eddie–”

  “Sir,” said a voice accompanied by footfalls in the silence, “may I ask you to leave?”

  “Shut it before I nail you to the fucking floor!”

  The footsteps ceased and the voice mumbled something about calling the police.

  Eddie took hold of the freak’s shirt collar and marched him backwards, and all the while Jilly was screaming for Eddie to let him be. Eddie slammed him into the wall, fist under his neck, eyes inches from eyes. “This is the last time I lower myself to your level; now you tell me and my wife where you got that shit from.”

  The freak’s eyes flitted around the room, pleading for help, and when Eddie jerked his crumpled collar, they stopped dead, pointing right at Eddie. “What can I say, I didn’t make it up, I’m not an impostor. Please, I’m sincere. You have to believe me.”

  “Eddie, let him go, babe.”

  Eddies eyes sprang wide. When was the last time she’d called him babe? Must be eight months ago. And her voice had lost its glass-shattering quality. She was calm, serene. Eddie’s grip relaxed slightly.

  “I didn’t read your mind, Eddie.”

  “Don’t call me Eddie. I’m Eddie to my friends.”

  “I swear to you, I’m genuine.”

  Eddie laughed. “Genuine, my arse. No such thing.” He let the freak go, flexed his fingers and thought hard about punching the bastard. But what would it earn him apart from a night in the cells and an eternal cold shoulder from Jilly. “You stay the fuck away from my wife. You hear?”

  The freak looked from Eddie to Jilly and back again, confused.

  “Come on, Eddie.” Jilly put her hand on his shoulder and he turned, head up, chin out.

  “Eddie?”

  Eddie stopped in his tracks. Jilly looked over her shoulder at the brave freak.

  “Do you know a man called Stuart?”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “Watch your back around him. He’s stuck-up, and he’s out to get you.”

  – Two –

  In silence they walked through the rain. They were only a minute from Jilly’s front door; maybe the need for talk had arrived, and it was Jilly whose need was greatest.

  “What did he mean by that?”

  Eddie shrugged, still trying to swallow both episodes of that particular soap opera.

  “Do you know a Stuart?”

  “Yes. I have to take my hat off to the guy, he was spot on; Stuart is after my blood.” He looked across at her through the rain. “Spooky, really. That’s my nickname for him: Stuck-up Stuart. Don’t you find that a bit… unsettling?”

  “I find a lot of things unsettling.” Jilly took her keys out, “Coffee?”

  Eddie dithered. He’d had a day right from the anus of life, and he wasn’t so sure he could handle the splashback. All the games she played these days were going to be too much, despite the whole point of tonight’s encounter was to get her back on side. “I think I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I do mind. Come and get dry.”

  She threw the towel at him and then put a steaming mug on the floor by his chair.

  “Go on,” he said. “Ask it.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  “It’s why you insisted I came in, isn’t it?”

  “Partly.” Jilly sat, kicked off her wet shoes and took a breath. “What did he say to you?”

  “There. Wasn’t so hard, was it? You could have asked that right away and saved yourself a cup of coffee.”

  “My, aren’t we feeling sorry for ourselves?” She smiled. Barely.

  “I’m having a fucking ball, Jilly.”

  “So just tell me.”

  “It’s the same shit he told you before, about how Sam still loves me and how he forgives me.”

  “But you went mad; you were white as a sheet when you came out the first time.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “didn’t know it was illegal to feel like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my guts had been on a spin cycle.”

  “You’re so flippant. Why can’t you just open up? Why can’t you just admit that you got a message, tell me what it was and stop acting like a tough macho idiot.”

  “I’m not–”

  “You are. There are some things even your scientific mind can’t rationalise. There are some things that we cannot understand. Try to open up your mind to the things that haven’t been explained yet.” She watched him, sitting there like a petulant kid, sipping his coffee, clenched up, not letting anything out. “I bet a hundred years ago, if you’d said to a scientist you could catch a criminal by analysing a single hair from his head, he would have laughed you out of the building. Some things just aren’t explainable yet.”

  Eddie rocked his head. “Really.”

  “Now what did he say?”

  His eyes fell away from her as he whispered, “He said Sam thought the altar I made was wonderful. He said he forgave me. Happy now?”

  “Oh, baby,” she said. “What altar?”

  “It was a mind-fuck.”

  “What altar?”

  “His NY cap. That’s all. I keep it on the mantel.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Nice? It had my son’s head inside it, woman! And that’s it: nice?”

  “I mean I think it’s good that…”

  “I’d best be going. Thanks for the drink.”

  “Wait.”

  He braced himself. Tonight was a stupid idea.

  “Don’t go.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you need me.”

  “What?”

  “Okay, okay. I think we need each other.”

  He tried a fake laugh of exasperation. It sounded like a regular sigh. “I’ve been living in a flat that’s one step down from a squat for months, and you finally decide we need each other? I needed you months ago, and I told you that. And now I’ve had some kind of miraculous contact with my dead boy we can give it another go? Is that all you were waiting for, for me to get in touch with my inner feelings?”

  “Eddie, I don’t know what–”

  “That’s it! Now I’ve shown my caring side by signing up to Freaks Inc–”

  �
��Who?”

  “You’ve decided we can all be one happy family again. We can go down to the Memorial Hall once a week and meet up with Sam and have a good old laugh at the times we enjoyed watching him play football and the birthday parties we threw for him. Gee, that’d be great!”

  “You’re in shock.”

  “Damned right I am! And what about my drinking? Is that suddenly alright?”

  “Well, I would have–”

  “Like fuck.” Eddie stood. “You’ve now decided it’s worth another go, this relationship of ours.”

  “I thought it was what you always wanted.”

  “It was!”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is your timing’s lousy. All this time I’ve wanted to be back here, and now I’ve dared to expose these people as charlatans, everything’s fine again! I’ve been drinking this whole time, I’ve travelled to the bottom of bottle after fucking bottle, trying to pickle myself so I don’t have to stand the agony any longer, and now it’s all okay and I can curl up next to you in bed tonight. Jesus, Jilly, your motives are shallower than a teaspoon.”

  Jilly stood, the tendons in her neck bulging. “I want you back, you arsehole, because you gave it a try. I never thought you would, I always thought you’d be the stubborn idiot I kicked out, but you’re not.” She swallowed, and calmed slightly. “I know you don’t believe anything he said tonight, and that’s fine, and I know you’re still a drunken pisshead – not fine – but I do know you’re trying. And I know you tried for me. And that’s the important thing.”

  “So you’d have me back on a whim.”

  “You had some kind of contact tonight. I know it because you were shitting yourself when I bumped into you. And whether you admit it, doesn’t matter. I know Sam spoke to you.”

  “This is two-faced, Jilly. I can’t stand my life where I sit all evening in a rotting green chair and watch a portable TV with a glass of brandy in my hand and a death wish in my mind – but at least I know where I stand. I don’t like it, but it’s flat, even ground, the kind you’re never going to trip up over, no matter how pissed you get. But,” he looked around, “I’m not sure I can give up on that for a life with you on a mountain side. One wrong move and I’m back on the floor.