Foot Soldiers

by Neil Williams

“No it’s fine,” he said watching Molly-Jane wriggling uncomfortably around on her shoulder. “You’ve got your hands full.” Then he clocked the smoky haze shrouding the hallway and sniffed his nostrils together. “And I think your toast is burning!”

  “Yeah,” she whined as if setting fire to bread products was a regular occurrence and had no immediate plans to stop it. “Fancy a cuppa?”

  He could sense that she really didn’t want him to say yes, but his need to get to the bottom of Liam’s murder made him not care a hoot. “Oh, go on then,” he gasped. “A cuppa would be grand.”

  “Great,” she said stepping aside to allow him access. “Go on through to the kitchen. I’ll just put madam here down for a nap and then get the kettle on.”

  Ralph smiled a ‘thank you’ and ambled confidently into the cloudy hall.

  “Just follow the smoke.”

  He laughed and wandered off into the kitchen, leaving her behind to close the door. Slamming it shut, she checked to make sure the coast was clear and then hurriedly rooted through the pockets of the kagool to see if Dean’s mobile phone was still there. Thankfully, it was.

  “Oh, thank Christ!” she sighed sharply.

  Craning her head towards the kitchen door to make sure Ralph wasn’t spying on her, she quickly slotted the phone back into the pocket and hooked the kagool onto the wooden bulb of the banister. Taking a much needed breath to calm her nerves, she took to the steps.

  The moment she was gone, Ralph poked his head out of the kitchen door and sunk his eyelids. He knew what was coming, and although he knew it had to be done, it made him feel rotten all the same.

  It was a lovely morning now that the sun had finally broken through the brooding clouds that rolled ominously over Harbridge and bleached the sky with squinting light.

  A good stroll away from the town centre, at the very end of the rugged path that twisted precariously along the side of the overgrown river bank was The Old Mill.

  In the large garden behind the renovated house was Dean, busy aerating a large three berth tent on a crisp clean lawn that had not long been mowed and now smelt like freshly made toast... unlike the charcoal burnt toast Linda had dumped in the recycling.

  Dean loved the great outdoors. He loved that gentle tap of breeze on the back of his neck whenever he went for a walk. He loved exploring eerie woodlands and losing himself in the secret wonders of the magnificent hills that surrounded his home like a comfort blanket. Going outside allowed him to look inside. After all, there were lots of things going on inside Dean’s mind. Things Ralph Kramer was as eager as a Beaver to unearth.

  Sat alone at the kitchen table, Ralph watched Dean through the window, farting around with the bellowing tent. He’d never really been one for camping; the mere thought of having to walk barefoot into a grubby camp site shower room that reeked of urine sent shivers up his spine, but he couldn’t help but feel a little envious of those that loved to escape their caves and embrace God’s country in a sleeping bag.

  Ralph peeled his hawk-like eyes away from the window and looked at Linda, stood with her back to him at the counter, pouring boiling water from a kettle into two large mugs.

  He glanced at the baby monitor by his side and then at Linda. “Big change becoming a parent, innit?”

  Linda shot a warm look back over her shoulder at him and nodded. She picked up the two mugs of coffee and walked over to him, offering him one of the drinks. He took one of the mugs from her and smiled.

  “Cheers.”

  She fell silent. There was clearly something on her mind. Ralph took a gentle slurp of coffee and waited. He knew that patience was a virtue.

  Finally, she spoke.

  “Are you a policeman, Ralph?”

  He almost choked on the coffee.

  “Sorry,” she said. “That was rude of me. It’s just...”

  Ralph gave her a knowing look. “I ask a lot of questions?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Old habits... Sorry.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “So what then, you’re retired?”

  He glanced at her and then looked suspiciously through the window at Dean. “Guilt is a crafty bugger.” He looked back at her. “Whether they like it or not, it makes people want to get caught.”

  Linda was clearly taken aback. What was he accusing her of?

  He took another slurp of coffee and smiled. “My ex-wife, she... She used to give me this ‘look’ whenever I did or said something I shouldn’t, which was... well, was pretty much all of the time.” His eyes narrowed. “It was the same ‘look’ you gave Dean last night whenever he talked about Liam.”

  She backed away from him. “I’m sorry?”

  “When he said he liked Liam, you gave him a look and he changed his tune.”

  There was a tremble in her voice. “I don’t know what you mean,”

  Ralph gave her a sterner look. “Yeah, you do. Dean... He wasn’t Liam’s rival at all, was he? He was his friend.” Then, he asked her the big question that had been playing on his mind.

  “So why make him say that he wasn’t? Why make him lie?”

  Linda muttered something incomprehensible as she tried to find the words, but the sudden sound of Molly-Jane crying bled through the baby monitor and saved her.

  Ralph glanced at the monitor and then curiously craned his eyes back towards hers. “Unless...” he frowned. “Unless Liam was the...“ Was he about to say ‘father’?

  “What?!” she barked. She looked at him baffled. “What, you don’t seriously think... Me and... Liam?!” She shook her head and laughed. “Sorry, Ralph, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Liam, he was...”

  Ralph perked up like a Meer-cat. “What?”

  She almost said whatever it was Liam ‘had been’, but the sound of her daughter crying provided her with the ‘get out of jail’ free card she so desperately needed.

  “I think you should leave.”

  Ralph was about to respond, but she stole this thunder before he could. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to go and see to my baby.”

  Before he could react, she darted out of the kitchen and rushed up the stairs. “All right, sweetheart,” she yelled, “Mummy’s coming!”

  Ralph sat silent. His mind was awash with suspicious thoughts. Slurping on the coffee, he slowly turned his head towards the window and set his sights on Dean.

  “Yup,” he whispered sadly. “Guilt is a crafty bugger all right!”

  Dean hadn’t noticed Ralph when he first wandered out of the back door and into his well manicured garden. He hadn’t seen his uninvited guest watching him for a few moments before heading up the stone path towards him. He hadn’t clocked Ralph taking note of the metal gate in the fence at the back of his land that opened out onto the vast woodlands and ramble tracks that ran up towards Hadrian’s Wall.

  Then, he did see him and didn’t look too well pleased about it. Aw for fu...

  “Ralph... What can I do for you now?”

  “Nowt,” he said with a smile. “I just wanted to say hello before I popped off. I dropped your kagool back as promised.”

  Dean pretended like he’d forgotten all about it. “Oh, right. Thanks!” Then he stared coldly at him. “Well... you’ve said your hello.”

  Aware that he wasn’t welcome, but not really bothered, Ralph took a moment before bidding him ‘farewell’ with a playful nod and heading back down the garden path. But then, suddenly, something caught the corner of his eye at the far end of the pristine lawn; a rotting Fur tree, brown and limp and as dead at Liam Roberts.

  “What happened to the tree?”

  Dean shot a curious look at Ralph and then at the perished Fur tree. He sneered. “It died.”

  Ralph looked up and saw Linda peering down at him from out of the top window. He knew that he hadn’t meant to have seen her watching him by the way she quickly sank back into the shadows.

  “It’s not the only thing that died around here,” he said throwing a knowing look b
ack over his shoulder at Dean. “Is it?”

  6

  On the other side of town, in a squalid little bedsit at the top of Main Street, trouble was quickly brewing.

  Crashed out on a large leather chair that reeked of cigarette smoke, under a grubby white duvet was Trevor. He’d not long gotten back from his night shift at the local hospital where he earned a crust as a porter and was dead to the world.

  Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door. Trevor’s head toppled to one side and a slither of drool spilled out of his mouth.

  There was another deafening knock. This time it was much louder... angrier... more violent. The door shuddered.

  Whoever was stood on the other side of it didn’t sound too happy about having to wait. “Open the fucking door!”

  The third knock almost punched the door off its hinges.

  Trevor woke with a startled yelp and shot a sleepy look at the door. There was a forth thunderous knock.

  Groaning, he reluctantly stamped his way out of the duvet and ambled slowly towards the door, yawning. “All right, hold your horses – I’m coming. Jesus,” he looked at his watch. “It’s ten in the morning for Christ’s sake.” He foolishly opened the door without looking at who was stood outside waiting for him and coughed. “What do you want?”

  “Your head on a stick!”

  Before Trevor could even lift his head and look his angry visitor in the eyes, Eddie McMillan spilled inside and drove his fist through his face. Trevor reeled back and tumbling onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  Rolling around on the floor, he clamped his hands to his bloodied nose and squealed in agony, as Eddie booted the door shut and then started booting the living daylights out of him.

  “I TOLD YOU TO KEEP IT SHUT!”

  ---

  It was the end of another ‘scarecrow’ shift up at the wall and Ned was now back at the station, farting around inside his locker and trying desperately not to think about how uncomfortable it had been standing in the muddy field for three life-sucking hours with a deathly silent Matilda. He’d wanted to tell her that it had been a stupid mistake on his part to invite her back for sex... erm, coffee... but didn’t have the nerve. He just wanted them to go back to how they were before ‘Brokeback Mountain’ had almost ended with a kiss, but feared he’d have only made things worse by opening his gob.

  “Ned!”

  ‘Oh, shit, it’s her!’ he thought upon hearing his name called out. Sucking back a nervous breath, he dared to peer out from inside his locker and say something funny, but then he saw her. She looked ashen faced and worried. He’d never seen her look that way before and it scared him. She rushed up to him and grabbed his arm.

  “What is it?”

  “Trevor,” she spat. “He’s been attacked!”

  He knew instantly who was responsible. “Eddie McMillan?”

  ---

  “It all went south a couple of months back,” coughed Trevor. He lifted his head slowly off the pillow and took a sharp, stinging sip of icy water from the glass Ned was holding to his swollen, bloodied lips. It hurt to talk.

  “Me and Liam, we were heading out of The Bull when Eddie came out of nowhere and grabbed him.” His ballooned eyes welled with tears. “He put a knife to his throat and warned him that if he didn’t get back the twenty grand he owned him, the next time he saw him, he’d... he’d stick in the blade.”

  This was news to Ned. He muttered a ‘huh?’ and shot a confused look at Matilda, who stood at the side of the hospital bed with an equally baffled frown on her face. They turned to Trevor.

  “Wait,” said Ned, “TWENTY grand?”

  Trevor nodded. Christ, it hurt to nod. “That’s why I thought Liam had done a bunk, you know? Eddie, he must’ve followed Liam up to the wall and...” He went quiet.

  Ned wasn’t sure what the heck to believe anymore and looked to Matilda for some kind of guidance. But before she could offer any, Trevor coughed violently.

  “Eddie warned me... He told me to keep my gob shut, but... I can’t help my mouth – it... It keeps getting me into trouble.” He tried to mock himself with a smile, but it was far too painful.

  Matilda smiled warmly at him and gently squeezed his arm. “The only one who’s in trouble is Eddie McMillan.”

  Ned gathered together his thoughts and handed Trevor the glass of water. “Get some rest.”

  They were about to walk away, when Trevor barked something that made them stop dead and think. “Why didn’t he do a runner?”

  As curious at cats, they both turned back around and looked at him.

  “Liam,” he coughed. “If he couldn’t pay Eddie back, WHY didn’t he just do a runner? I ruddy know I would’ve!”

  It was a bloody good question. ‘Why indeed’ thought Ned. ‘Why DIDN’T Liam do a runner?’

  ---

  “It’s not looking too good for you, Edward – is it?” said Matilda in her best interrogator voice.

  Eddie pressed his chunky fingers hard into the table and craned threateningly towards her and Ned, who sat across from him in an interview room that wasn’t much bigger than the cupboard Harry Potter lived in.

  “When you gonna get it into your thick heads? - I didn’t kill Liam Roberts.”

  Matilda rubbed a crust of sleep from her eye and sneered back at him. She wasn’t convinced. “Why should we believe you?”

  “You lied to us, Eddie,” piped in Ned before he could answer. “You said two grand, but it was twenty. Why did you lie?”

  Eddie sank back into the chair and sighed. “Why do you think, Miss Marple?” He picked at his fingers. “So I told a few fibs, so what of it? That little shite owed me a lot of money and I wanted it back. Not my fault he had a bad hand, is it?”

  Matilda couldn’t believe how blasé he was being. “You told him you’d kill him if he didn’t pay you back by the end of the week, Eddie!”

  “Damn right, I did.” He leaned towards her again. “And you know what, love, I would’ve killed him too, but I couldn’t find the little bastard, could I? Liam, he...”

  “He what?”

  He was about to say, but Ned jumped in before he could. “He was dead?”

  She shot him a look. She knew that he was right. “So,” she quizzed. “Maybe it’s been about this sodding knife all along? Liam was in debt. He needed money and fast.” She sneered at Eddie. “No-one ‘owes’ Eddie McMillan, so...” She looked at Ned. “So Liam went up to the wall looking for treasure and he found some? He found the whatsit... the...”

  “Pugio,” said Ned.

  “Yeah, that. He found the knife?”

  “Or,” he added. “Someone else found it first and he tried to kill them for it?”

  She clearly liked the sound of that theory. “Only to get himself killed!”

  Eddie hooked his hands behind his head and eased confidently back into the chair. “It’s not looking too bad for me now after all, is it?”

  Ned was about to respond, when the door swung open and Monroe and Sommers poured inside like two furious parents that had just returned home to discover their kids had burned it down to the ground, and plonked their coffee mugs down on the table in front of the startled Constables.

  “We’ll take it from here, thank you Officers!” snarled Monroe as he tried to oust Ned and Matilda off their seats and out of the interview room.

  “Please,” barked Sommers as she prodded Matilda towards the door with her finger, “If you don’t mind leaving.”

  Biting their lips, Ned and Matilda reluctantly walked towards the door.

  “Oh,” Monroe snapped smugly as he snatched Ned by the arm to stop him. “Your Sergeant would like a quick word in your ear.”

  Ned’s head sank. “Aw, shit!”

  ---

  “IS THIS YOUR CASE?!”

  Standing to attention with their hands tucked behind their backs, a sheepish looking Ned and Matilda tried not to look Sergeant Andy Walsden in the eye as he barked at them from behind his desk. For
a small, slender man that clearly owned a pedometer and ate high fibre cereal for breakfast, dinner and tea, he had a very fierce snarl.

  “I asked you a question. Is this your case?”

  Matilda dared to lift her head and look at him. “No Sir,” she murmured. “But –“

  He shook his hand. “No, no BUTS! I don’t want to hear anything about BUTS, Constable Jones – are YOU leading the Liam Roberts murder investigation?”

  “No Sir, I’m not.”

  “Then...” He really wanted to tear their heads off their shoulders and use them as golf balls, but thankfully that kind of thing just wasn’t in his DNA. Walsden was a good man at heart and he cared deeply for his team, even though they did drive him bat shit crazy and made coffee that tasted like mud.

  He counted to ten. “Then, you ‘know’ what to do. If you’re both so eager to be Detectives, then, that’s wonderful and you have my full support, but go about it the correct way next time, will you please?”

  ‘Phew’ thought Ned as he looked up. “Yes Sir,” he said. “Sorry Sir.”

  Walsden grumbled something and then shooed them away. “Go on, the pair of you – get back to what you SHOULD be doing.”

  Ned and Matilda nodded and then fell over one another’s feet as they quickly hurried to get out of the office before he could even think about changing his mind.

  ---

  They were stood at the vending machine when Matilda said, “So, do you think that’s what happened with Liam? He wanted the knife to pay off Eddie?”

  Ned shrugged his shoulders as he reached under the metal flap and dragged out a packet of Malteasers. “I dunno – maybe.” He tore at the packet. “I just keep thinking that, all this... It’s like what you said to me when we were up at my dad’s.”

  “What I said?”

  He popped a Malteaser into his mouth. “I pretend to hate him, but I love him really.”

  Matilda narrowed her eyes. “You mean?”

  “Yeah,” he winced.