by Ken Preston
Emma wanted to tell Karl it wasn’t his fault, anyone could have made a mistake like that. But she didn’t, because she knew how he felt, and she knew he wouldn’t listen.
“The point I’m trying to make here,” Karl said, “is that for months afterwards I refused to trust my own judgement. My editor had every right to sack me, but he didn’t. But I was a coward after that. I was still keeping potential stories to myself, but not because I was scared he would take them off me and let somebody else run them, but because I didn’t trust my own judgement anymore. I was too fearful of making another mistake like that again, and couldn’t commit to the stories I was chasing.”
“And you think that’s what’s happening with me?”
“I know that’s what’s going on with you, Emma, even if you don’t realise it yourself. Look, I’ve rambled on long enough.” Karl stood up. “I’m heading back up to the newsroom. You stay here a while longer, have a think. I’ll see you in a bit, all right?”
“Okay,” Emma said.
The editor turned and began walking out of the coffee shop.
“Karl?”
He stopped, turned back.
“Thanks,” Emma said.
Karl gave her a wave and stepped outside. Emma watched him go.
That was a nice speech, Karl, but you’re wrong. I still feel like shit about Coffin’s family, but I’m not going to let it get in the way of doing my job, or getting that story.
But what was the story she was writing? What had begun as an expose of the Slaughterhouse Mob was now growing into something much bigger. But Emma only had strands of the story, unconnected threads. And no idea which thread to pull on, to start unravelling the story.
Emma stood up, gathered her things together. She decided she would sit on the video of Terry Wu’s murder, and the evidence against Craggs, for the time being. Just until she found out a little more about what was going on.
Like who set up Terry Wu’s computer, so that Coffin would be filmed shooting him. The whole sexy temptress part that Steffanie had been playing in Terry Wu’s office had looked utterly fake to Emma. Had she known that Terry Wu was going to be executed by Coffin that night? And so she had played the part of his mistress so that she could get access to his computer and use his webcam to film Coffin pulling the trigger? Was she really that cold?
Emma didn’t really think that Steffanie would have had the IT skills to set up the computer like that, so she must have had an accomplice. But who? And did her accomplice then have her killed? Was Steffanie meant to go to the papers with her evidence, or was it supposed to be used another way? Blackmail, perhaps?
And had she been murdered because Craggs found out she was going to the papers with evidence that would bring him down? Or had her accomplice had her killed, for some reason? Or was it purely bad luck that the Birmingham Vampire picked the Coffin house for his first kill?
And then there was Tom Mills to think about, and his connection with the Birmingham Vampire, and his two mysterious companions that he kept shuttling around in cars, under a blanket. What the hell was that all about?
And did it have anything to do with Steffanie and her evidence against Coffin and the Slaughterhouse Mob, or was it all just a coincidence?
“Fuck!” Emma hissed.
She realised she was still standing by the table, holding onto her handbag with the iPad inside. The cafe was filling up, and Emma decided to get moving.
Maybe she would go to the hospital and visit Laura, see how Jacob was. If he was awake, he might be willing to talk to her about what happened in that house. And if not, maybe Laura could tell her about her history with Tom and Coffin.
A little background information for her career making story.
baby wipes
Coffin hung around the club for a while, shooting pool in the back with Clevon, and drinking beer. Clevon talked about the plans he had for his own nightclub one day, or maybe a gym, but Coffin was only half listening. They played five games, and Coffin lost every one of them. He was too tensed up to concentrate on his shots, thinking about Emma, and her boyfriend Archer, and thinking about Tom, and how he must have known Jacob was being kept prisoner in that cellar.
That day, back when Craggs and Coffin had paid Tom a visit, on account of the beating he’d given Laura, Coffin should have killed him. Only loyalty to the old man had stopped him. But that had been a mistake, Coffin could see that now. Craggs didn’t know Tom the way Coffin did.
He’d argued with Craggs against leniency and giving him another chance. For all his hard man status, and some of the terrible things he had done, Craggs had an old-fashioned sense of loyalty and duty. It was this part of his character that had enabled him to become the most successful gang leader in the country for a long time. Once you were accepted into the Slaughterhouse Mob, you became part of Mortimer Craggs’ family.
And you looked after your family.
But Tom Mills had to be the exception.
The next time he saw Tom, Coffin was going to break his kneecaps, and then maybe his knuckles, and he was going to keep working on him until he found out what was going on.
Then he was going to kill him.
The bastard didn’t deserve to live. Coffin had it all worked out. Once he’d taken care of Tom, he would dispose of the body, maybe weight him down and throw him in the canal. Or maybe stuff him in the boot of a car and then take it and have it crushed. Leaving Tom alive and conscious whilst in the car might be a nice touch.
The only problem was, Tom had disappeared. And if he had any sense, he was going to make that a permanent disappearance.
So Coffin was edgy and tense and lacking any sense of purposeful action.
After losing his fifth game of pool in a row, Coffin decided he’d had enough. He considered heading back to the flat over the Blockade, but couldn’t face the thought of sitting alone in the tiny living-room, on that tiny couch, drinking whisky. Making his excuses to Clevon, he left the club.
Coffin got on his Harley-Davidson and headed into town. He bought himself a mobile and called the club, and left his number.
“Tell Mort if he hears or sees anything of Tom, to call me right away,” he said. Coffin didn’t think Tom would return to the club, but you never knew.
Coffin climbed back on the Harley. He pulled the mobile out of his pocket, cradled it in his hand and looked at it. Just a couple of days ago he’d got out of prison, with nothing on his mind other than executing the lowlifes who had murdered his family. Nothing else had mattered, he’d had no other reason to live.
But now look at him. It seemed like he had a purpose in life again. Was it simply because that murdering psychopath was still out there somewhere? Was it because Tom was involved, and there was more going on than Coffin could see right now?
Or was it more than that?
Coffin hadn’t been able to see himself climbing back on his bike ever again, or doing anything else associated with his life before he lost Steffanie and Michael. But he had gone home once already today, and it had been painful, but not impossibly so.
Maybe it was time to go back home again.
Time to confront his ghosts and reclaim his family home. Maybe then he could start thinking about what to do next.
Coffin gunned the bike into life and headed out of the city centre.
By the time he pulled the Fat Boy up onto his drive, Coffin’s shoulder and arm were on fire. He leaned the bike on its kickstand, and climbed off, flexing his arm and his fingers.
Earlier, when he had collected his bike, Coffin had managed to stand just inside the threshold of his own home, unable to enter any further. Now Coffin gazed up at the house, at the bedroom windows, the clouds reflected in the panes of glass. Maybe now really was the time to sell up, move on. Say goodbye to his life as a member of the Slaughterhouse Mob.
Coffin couldn’t see how his life could continue the same as it had been, before he was sent to jail.
He pulled out his house key and inserted it
into the lock. It jammed slightly as he turned it and then stopped moving altogether. Coffin pushed at the door, and it opened.
Had he left the front door unlocked after his visit this morning? Coffin was reasonably sure he hadn’t. And nobody else, as far as he knew, had a spare key. Unless Steffanie had given a key to a neighbour for some reason, without telling him.
But if that was the case, what the hell had they been doing in his house today? It wasn’t like they had a cat that needed feeding, or plants that needed watering.
Coffin stepped inside. Glass crunched beneath his shoes. One of the family photographs on the floor. The glass in the frame was all shattered, a spider’s web of cracks spreading out from the impact point in the centre. Coffin bent down and picked the photograph up. He looked at the space on the wall where it had been hanging, the ghost of its presence still there in the slightly paler rectangle.
Coffin tipped the frame upside down and let the shards of glass fall onto the carpet. Then he pulled the print out of the frame. It was undamaged, apart from a slight creasing where he had stepped on it.
Coffin’s head snapped up as he heard voices from the living-room. Listening intently, he realised it was his television.
Holding the picture frame in one hand, and the photographic print in the other, Coffin walked slowly down the hall, alongside the stairs.
At the moment before the impact, he heard a giggle, but it was too late. A figure landed on top of him, must have dropped from the upstairs landing. Before he knew what was happening, his attacker had wrapped his arms around Coffin’s neck, and his legs around his chest.
The stink of unwashed flesh, and piss, overwhelmed him, and Coffin started gagging. He swung around and threw his whole weight backwards, crushing his attacker between himself and the wall. The man howled, and then wrapped his hands over Coffin’s face, forcing his fingers into his eyes. Coffin’s vision went black and then stars exploded in the darkness. He grabbed the man’s wrists and pulled his hands off his face, those fingers out of his eyes.
Holding onto his attacker’s wrists still, Coffin swung around, smashing the man’s side into the balustrade at the bottom of the stairs. He had still been giggling, but now he let out a deep whoosh of air on the impact, and the grip of his legs around Coffin’s chest loosened. Coffin shook him off completely and whirled around to face him.
“Oh, shit,” he growled and stepped back. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Corpse lay on the floor in his ill-fitting suit, clutching his side where he had winded himself, and grinned up at Coffin.
“Mrs Stump’s arrivered hereabouts to exinate you, we have indeed,” he said.
Coffin ignored him, turned his back on him. Wherever Corpse was, Stump had to be nearby. If his nose wasn’t already filled with Corpse’s stink, he would have been able to smell her. He pushed open the living-room door, and there she was, sitting on his sofa, watching television. Some crap, daytime soap opera. Stump was shovelling crisps into her mouth as she watched, with the remote cradled in her plastic mannequin’s hand. She was wearing dark, wraparound sunglasses, and her long, black trench coat.
Beneath her booted feet was the edge of the dried blood stain, covering most of the carpet, a ragged edged pool of dark red.
Steffanie’s blood.
“Joe Coffin, at last,” Stump said, through a mouthful of crisps. “I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve made ourselves at home. Well, I have, anyway. Mr Corpse was so excited at the prospect of seeing you, he just had to sit upstairs and watch for you out of the bedroom window. I told him, I said, Joe Coffin might be ages yet before he comes home. We might even have to spend the night. I said to him, why don’t you come and sit with me, and watch some television. On the go all the time, we are. It’s so difficult to find the time to relax. What do they call it these days? Downtime, that’s it. It’s so difficult to find downtime.”
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” Coffin growled.
Stump stroked her mannequin’s hand, running her fingers along the glossy, faded plastic shell. “We were waiting for you, Mr Coffin. It’s been such a long time since we last crossed paths.”
“I seem to remember saying that I never wanted to see the pair of you again,” Coffin said. “I’ve had enough of you two to last me a lifetime. Didn’t I make that clear?”
Coffin heard snuffling from the hallway. Stepping out of the doorway, he looked back and saw Corpse. His nose was bleeding, and he was wiping the snot and blood away with the sleeve of his dark, stained suit. He looked at Coffin and grinned, showing off his blackened, chipped teeth. His gums had receded, and his teeth looked long and horse-like.
“You two are fucking disgusting,” Coffin said.
Stump screwed up her empty crisp packet and dropped it on the floor. “Mr Corpse and I have been sent here to kill you.”
Coffin’s body tensed up, his hands automatically bunching into fists. Stump and Corpse might look like a pair of weird tramps, but he knew how dangerous they could be. If he could help it, he didn’t want this to end in a fight.
Stump laughed, her rolls of fat jiggling up and down. Sitting down like she was, it was hard to tell where her pendulous breasts ended and her stomach began. The bulging flesh had no sense of bodily form to it.
“Don’t worry, Mr Coffin, we’re not interested in a fight,” Stump said. “The money offer was a very good one, half up front, would you believe it? I was sorely tempted, but then I remembered, Mr Corpse and I owe you a favour. And I can’t let it be said that Mr. Corpse and myself don’t pay back our debts. That would be terribly unprofessional.”
“I told you to forget it,” Coffin said. “I hadn’t gone there to save you two, I was out to kill Ullman.”
“Which you did, thereby saving our lives in the process.”
“If I’d arrived ten minutes later, you pair would have been dead. And believe me, I wouldn’t have given a shit. It makes no difference to me what happens to either of you, just as long as you stay out of my face.”
“Mrs Stump, I don’t imagipose he muchly niceties us,” Corpse said, walking into the living-room and sitting down next to Stump.
Coffin did his best to hide the tension and the rage building inside him. If he attempted to physically throw them out, there would be a fight. It wasn’t the thought of violence that had Coffin acting so cautious, it was all the damage that would be caused in the process. This was where he had lived with his wife and son, where he had been part of a family.
Coffin couldn’t fight them in here.
“So you think not killing me makes us even now?” he said.
“I’d say it squares the balance up, somewhat, wouldn’t you?” Stump replied.
“Maybe,” Coffin said. “One more thing, though, before you go. Why tell me? Why not just refuse the job? Or take the money and then run? Why come here, and risk making me angry, getting us into a fight?”
Stump reached into her trench coat and pulled out a thick wad of bills. Rifling through them, she looked up at Coffin. With her eyes hidden by the sunglasses, it was like being stared at by a bug eyed fly.
“I thought you might be interested in who was willing to pay so generously to see you taken out.”
“It was Tom, wasn’t it?” Coffin said quietly.
Stump said nothing, just continued rifling through the thick wad of money.
“Where did you meet with him?”
“A service station on the M6.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. We delivered him a car, seems he had to abandon his last one. I should imagine he will be long gone by now.”
“What kind of car? What registration?”
“Really, Mr Coffin, I can’t go telling you everything, that would be unfair to Mr Mills. I owe him a little loyalty. He did pay me quite a sum of money, after all.” Stump returned the money to her inside pocket and stood up. “Come on, Mr Corpse, let’s get going, shall we? We don’t want to outstay our we
lcome.”
Corpse stood up and grinned at Coffin, the blood and snot smeared across his cheek drying into a crusty scab.
“You’re damselvety is absolested lovelable,” he said.
Coffin planted a hand on Corpse’s chest. “What did you say?” He looked at Stump. “What the fuck’s he talking about?”
“He was complimenting you, Mr Coffin, on your choice of girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Coffin snarled.
“Our mistake,” Stump said, smiling. “We were foolish for assuming the young woman here earlier was your companion.”
“What young woman?” Coffin growled.
“She was carryating all the sprogborn wipers,” Corpse said.
“Yes, she seemed very attached to them,” Stump said.
Coffin leaned over Stump and Corpse, putting his face right in theirs. “What young woman?”
“Blond hair, slim, very attractive,” Stump said. “Why, I was quite taken with her myself, and as for Mr Corpse, he practically swooned in front of her, he was so smitten. Isn’t that right, Mr Corpse?”
Corpse nodded enthusiastically.
“She was lovelable,” he said, licking his lips, as though he had taken a bite out of her, and found her to be very tasty.
Coffin dropped his hand from Corpse’s chest and nodded at the door. “Get the fuck out and don’t ever come here again.”
Stump sighed, and inserted the mannequin fingers beneath her sunglasses, and rubbed at her eye.
“I told you, Mr Corpse, didn’t I, that he wouldn’t appreciate our taking the time to come here and warn him? Men, they are all the same.” She touched Corpse on the face, ran her fingers down his cheek. “Present company excepted, of course, my love.”