by Jessie Keane
Clara shook her head. She was finding it hard to think. ‘Not many earls in Houndsditch,’ she said.
‘Or in Soho,’ said Marcus.
‘No. Oh God,’ she moaned as he unclasped her bra and pulled it off. Her nipples were hard as rocks, and when he touched them, slowly running his palms over them, she felt like she might just disintegrate, just die with bliss.
Now he was turning with her still in his arms, pushing her back down onto the bed, yanking the dress off her, pulling her tights and her pants out of the way. Then he sat back and looked at her for long moments.
Do it, thought Clara frantically. Please, just do it.
Marcus pulled off his shirt, took off his shoes and socks, kicked off his jeans and pants.
‘Jesus,’ she groaned.
‘Tell me what you want,’ said Marcus, coming to her, brushing the full length of his hard lithe body against hers.
Clara gasped, licked her lips. She felt choked, emotional, almost beyond words.
‘You,’ she managed to say. So what if he killed her later? Now, right now, she was in heaven; she was exactly where she had wanted to be, ever since their wedding day. ‘I want you.’
‘Good. Like this?’ he said, and bent his head and touched her nipples with his mouth, sucking them in, rendering them so sensitive that she cried out again. ‘Or like this?’ he asked, moving between her legs, opening her wide, touching her with his cock, arousing her so much that she could only pant for breath.
‘Yes,’ she groaned. ‘Like that.’
Marcus pushed into her. Clara clung to him as he kissed her lips, as his tongue entered her mouth. This was different, so very different, from that first time when he’d been so furious, so aggressive. This time he was slower, taking his time, making her wait until it was her that surged forward, clasping him, welcoming him in, and then and only then did he push forward too, hard yet silken, filling her to the hilt.
I don’t care if I die, not after this, she thought.
Their bodies locked together. This was what her mother must have felt for her father, this all-consuming rush of uncontrollable lust, this was what had killed Kathleen. Love had killed her.
I don’t care, thought Clara. Just let me die right now, I don’t care.
And when it came, her orgasm was so intense that she screamed, every gorgeous pulsing wave of it hitting her, tossing her into warmth, exhaustion. They were still twined together when she fell asleep, right there in her husband’s arms.
94
She was wandering through a big empty house, a flickering candle on a saucer in her hand.
No, she thought. Oh no.
She couldn’t bear it, not again, but her feet kept moving, she had to keep walking through these cavernous halls and there, oh fuck there was the half-open door, and inside there was the light of a fire.
She wanted to turn, run the other way, only her legs wouldn’t move in any direction but forward, toward the door. The candle in her hand, the wood of the door, peeling pale-blue paint, it was all real, oh and cockroaches scuttling around her feet this time, crunching beneath them as she stepped on some of them, it was real, this was real.
Clara wanted to scream, wanted to run away, but her hand reached out and pushed the door wide and she knew exactly what she would see here, she knew it, she had lived it a thousand times.
And there she was, her mother Kathleen – sitting in the chair beside the lit fire, the flames falling upon her blue-grey face with its closed eyes, the firelight lapping at the form of the slumbering blanket-wrapped child asleep in her arms.
Only the baby’s not asleep, is she? She’s dead, like Mum.
There was blood on the floor. Clara wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, she was dumb, unable to break free. And then her eyes moved and she saw the other chair, and her veins turned to ice.
Toby was there.
Toby was sitting there, his eyes closed – but not the Toby she had known, not Toby the flamboyant, the beautiful. This was a smouldering wreckage of twisted blackened sinew and bone that somehow had Toby’s face.
Toby’s eyes were closed.
‘Toby . . . ’ she wanted to say, to run to him, to help him.
His eyes opened.
They were black, inhuman. Not Toby’s eyes at all. Slowly, his head turned and those awful eyes fastened upon her. The scarred mouth twisted into a grin.
Clara, said his dry, cracked voice in her head, and Clara fell back, screaming.
She awoke with a start, to darkness and stillness. She was drenched in sweat and her heart was racing. She lay there thinking that Toby was coming for her, that soon her mother was going to rise from the dead too, and she would hear the creaking shuffling sounds of two dead people coming to get her, and the baby would wake and it would gurgle and if it did that then she knew she would go completely, utterly mad.
She lay there, panting, disorientated.
There was no traffic noise. It was weird, no traffic noise. In London, it was the background track to her entire life. Then her scattered senses sharpened. She could hear an owl, hooting. This was different to when she normally awoke from the nightmare. Very different indeed. Someone had their arms around her. Someone was breathing in her ear.
Slowly, she came back to herself, back to reality. She was here in this disgusting hovel with Marcus. They had made love. She could still feel the dampness of his seed on her inner thighs.
Oh God, the way he made her feel . . .
She was slightly sore, he had made her sore, and she didn’t care.
After that she had fallen asleep, and now – thank God! – something had woken her up, she didn’t know what. Maybe that bloody owl. The candles had burned down to nothing. Now the only light in the room was the faint alien wash of the moon, glimmering through the tatty old curtains.
Something had disturbed her, snapped her awake. But what?
There was another sound now, an unearthly sound. Her heart picked up speed. What the hell was that? She edged out from beneath Marcus’s arm, started to sit up. His hand caught hold of her wrist.
‘Where you going?’ he asked.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ she hissed.
‘Fox barking. Woke me up.’
‘Is that what it is? Sounds like someone being strangled.’
‘Come back here,’ he said, yawning.
Clara lay down again. She could see his eyes gleaming darkly as he wrapped her in his arms again. She was very glad of Marcus’s strong arms around her, driving the bad dreams away.
Then there was another noise. Louder. A shriek, loud enough to make her skin crawl.
‘Shit! What was that, then?’ she demanded, as yet another sound ripped through the still night air. It was horrible, like a long-drawn-out scream. ‘You can’t tell me that was a bloody fox.’
Marcus let out a long sigh. He sat up, swung his legs to the floor, pulled on his trousers and picked up the loaded gun and the torch. She saw his outline moving across the room toward the door. ‘Stay right here. Don’t move from this room. All right?’
Clara said nothing.
‘Did you hear me?’ he said.
‘I heard you.’
‘Good.’ He opened the door, stepped through it, closed it behind him.
And nobody gives me orders, thought Clara, rummaging around and finding her dress, pulling it on, zipping it up. She scuffed her feet into her shoes and, shivering, she followed him out. On the landing she could see the bucket lit by a faint shaft of light. She stepped around it and carefully groped her way down the stairs. Ahead of her, she saw the front door opening, saw the torch’s glimmer as Marcus stepped into the stark white moonlit world outside. She followed.
95
Clara could see the torch wavering ahead as he walked down the path, and she trailed in his footsteps, thinking of the molehills he’d warned her of earlier and how easy it would be to turn her ankle in the half-dark, break her fucking neck.
‘Holy shit, oh fuck, oh God . .
. ’ someone was swearing steadily and viciously up ahead. She followed the beam of Marcus’s torch. It was a man’s voice, and now that man gave a cry like a wounded animal, a noise that made the hair on the nape of her neck stand up.
Marcus had moved off the path, into the thick shrubbery to their right, and cautiously Clara followed. Then she saw Marcus stop, saw the torch’s beam stop too, and light up a wizened and tortured man’s face. His grey-blond hair was caught in a long ponytail, and his swarthy features were contorted into a grimace of pain. There were garish tattoos on both his muscled forearms, and even on the ground and writhing in pain, he looked big; threatening somehow.
‘What the hell—’ said Clara out loud, and hurried up.
Marcus half-turned and swore. ‘Didn’t I tell you to stay in the fucking room?’
‘What’s going on? Is he hurt?’
In the torchlight Clara could see there was a rifle on the ground, just out of the man’s reach. Marcus kicked it further away. His own gun was still in his hand.
‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Clara. ‘He’s got a gun with him!’
‘Yeah, good question, pal. What the fuck are you doing here? Or should I take a guess?’ Marcus kicked the man in the ribs and he writhed and yelled.
‘Christ, get it off me, will you? For fuck’s sake get it off.’ The man started sobbing with pain.
And now in the torchlight Clara could see what he was talking about. clamped onto the man’s right leg below the knee was a huge dark metallic thing shaped like a whale’s jaws. He’d clearly stepped into it, springing the trap, catching his leg in its grip. There was blood seeping out; it gleamed dark and wet in the torchlight.
‘Oh Jesus, that’s a mantrap,’ she said in horror. She’d heard tales of the things, they’d been used years ago to keep poachers off estate lands, but she’d never seen one before. She’d heard they could snap a man like a twig. And from the peculiar angle of the man’s leg as he lay there, she could see that it had done just that. The leg was broken; it would never be the same again.
‘Yep, it is,’ said Marcus. ‘Works too, don’t it.’
‘Get me out of here, you cocksucking son of a whore!’ snarled the man.
‘Who sent you?’ asked Marcus.
‘Fuck you!’
‘I said who sent you?’ Marcus repeated, and emphasized the question with a kick to the man’s ribs.
‘Fuck! Oh shit, oh Christ . . . ’
‘Tell me,’ said Marcus. ‘Or that leg’s gonna be the least of your problems.’
‘Fuck off!’ snarled the man, his face convulsed with pain.
Marcus kicked him again. Twice.
‘Jesus!’ the man yelled, agonized, trying to roll away, then shrieking as his leg moved against the trap.
‘Save yourself the trouble,’ said Marcus. ‘Tell me a name.’
‘No . . . ’ He was gasping, sweating, half-crying with the pain now.
Marcus drew back his foot to land another kick.
‘No! Wait!’ the man shouted. ‘All right! I’ll tell you.’
‘Go on,’ said Marcus, and his voice was so cold it made Clara shudder.
‘Sears! Fulton Sears.’ The man sent a pain-filled nod in Clara’s direction. ‘I had a hit to do on her. Clara Redmayne. He wanted it done, he wanted her out of it.’
Clara felt all the blood in her body rush straight to her feet.
Marcus turned to her. ‘Go back to the path. Go back exactly the way you came. Carefully. Don’t step to the left or right, got me?’
Oh Christ, the place is littered with those things, she realized suddenly.
Marcus had come down here today and he’d set these traps because he knew whoever had tried to shoot her, whoever Sears had paid to do it, would follow them down and try to finish the job. Her husband had staked her out in the wilds here like a piece of bait – and it had worked. They’d caught their gunman. But what the hell were they going to do with him?
‘What . . . ’ Clara asked, her mind floundering, her stomach churning with revulsion, her eyes on the man’s ruined, crippled leg. ‘We have to get him out of that.’
Marcus looked at her. ‘Go back to the path,’ he said. ‘Go on. Do it.’
Clara turned and stepped carefully, oh so carefully, back toward the path, fearing that at any moment she would hear a movement, feel a gigantic snap of ferocious metal teeth and then she too would be in a death grip, unable to escape.
Molehills! She remembered him grabbing her so roughly yesterday, pulling her back onto the path when they’d arrived here. He’d set this whole thing up, and he hadn’t told her a thing about it.
The blood humming in her ears, crashing crazily in her veins, she found the path and exhaled sharply, shaking, as she stood on it once more, in safety. Breathing hard, she looked back at the semi-darkness where she had left Marcus and the crippled gunman. She could see the torch flickering, and hear the man’s desperate cries as the metal clawed ever deeper into his flesh.
She trembled and stood there, hugging herself for warmth.
And then came the shot, deafening in the still night air.
Clara flinched and let out a cry.
Then there was only silence.
96
Ma Sears was gasping her life away in a dingy little side ward in a Manchester hospital. Dad had already passed on, about two years earlier. Now there was just Ma. Ivan sat there at her bedside and wished she’d hurry the fuck up. They’d called him in overnight, said if you want to see your mother still alive, you’d better come now.
So he’d driven over, ready to play the good son, thinking there would be things to do when it was all over, lots of things, take ten skips and a fumigator to clear all the shit from the house before he could put the fucking thing up for sale, the crap she’d gathered around her over the years. Jumble sales, charity stuff, Ma loved all that and came home with ridiculous things, saying they’d come in handy. A camera tripod, for God’s sake. A gas mask from the war. Oh, and wouldn’t that little toy guitar look sweet on the mantelpiece . . . endless sacks of the stuff, brought home and left in bags here there and everywhere.
So hurry up and die, for Christ’s sake, and I can get on, thought Ivan, watching his mother’s face now, hoping for a sign of life.
And then she opened her eyes, tiny dark orbs in the folds of pale wrinkled skin all around them. He nearly jumped, he was that shocked. They had said she was on her way out, and now her eyes were open and they were staring at him.
‘Jacko?’ she croaked.
Ivan cleared his throat and took her icy-cold hand. It was heated to tropical in here, and she felt stone cold. ‘No, Ma. It’s me, Ivan.’
‘Where’s Jacko, my baby? I want him. And Fulton, where’s Fulton?’
Ivan sighed inwardly. Jacko was fuck knew where and he didn’t care anyway, why would he? The only reason he’d sent Fulton down to London to look for the little tosser was because Ma had been carping on, and then after Pa died Ma had entered her confused period and hadn’t bothered him any more about it, which was all good news as far as Ivan was concerned.
Recently, she’d been mistaking him for Jacko a lot. Sometimes for Fulton too. But she hadn’t actually asked for either of them in a long, long time, and that surprised him.
‘They’re away, Ma,’ said Ivan. ‘Business. Down south.’
‘I want them here,’ said Ma, and a tear trickled from her eye and dampened the hospital pillow. ‘I want them here,’ she wailed, and Ivan saw the nurses watching from their station.
Well, fuck. Ivan supposed that when you were on your deathbed you could ask for anything you wanted. He hadn’t touched base with Fulton in a long while, and the car business was quiet right now.
Besides, with a bit of luck, by the time he’d been down to London and back, Ma would be dead and gone. Plus he could do with a break from Milly. His missus had been bending his ear for weeks, wanting to know how much longer the old cow was planning to hold on; she was counting the days t
ill they could sell that bloody bungalow and make a fortune. Few night away, take in the sights, smash the life out of a barmaid or two . . . Ivan was warming to the idea. And then he’d get home – alone, of course – and the whole shebang would be over anyway.
‘I’ll get them for you, Ma,’ said Ivan. ‘I’ll fetch them. Both of them.’
That seemed to settle her.
Wonder if she’ll last the night? thought Ivan. He stood up. Her eyes were closed again.
Good, he thought. Just make sure it’s fucking permanent soon, OK?
After driving down, Ivan parked up his flashy new motor outside Fulton’s flat, pulled his sheepskin collar up against the wind and rain, and rang the bell.
No answer.
It was three in the morning and Ivan knew that Fulton knocked off at two, so he should be home by now. From the hospital, Ivan had gone back to his house, skirted around Milly, who was giving it all that, as usual – Is she dead yet? What are we going to do about the bungalow? Who’s going to clear out all that crap the old girl keeps? – told her he was off to London because Ma had asked for Fulton and Jacko, and Fulton wasn’t answering his phone – which was true. He packed a bag, kissed her cheek, goosed her arse, and left. Now he was standing out here in the dark and the rain and the cold, and Fulton wasn’t answering the bloody door.
He rang again, and pounded a fist on the door.
Finally, just as he was about to give up, go away, a light came on in the hall. And then the bolts were thrown back and the door opened.
‘What the f—’ asked Fulton, standing there in pyjama bottoms.
Ivan looked at his little brother and wondered what sort of shitstorm had kicked off to leave him looking like this. He had bloody bandages on both hands. He was limping. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, almost like he’d been crying. A large boxer dog nudged its way to the door, stumpy tail wagging, and Fulton booted it up the arse. It vanished back inside the flat.
‘What d’you mean, what the fuck?’ said Ivan. ‘What the fuck happened to you, bro? You look like someone’s taken a dump straight on your head.’