by J G Alva
Mark slithered to his feet, but just as he regained them Sutton grabbed the lapel of his suit and punched him in the face again. Mark grunted at the impact and then tried to get a hand up to protect himself, but Sutton shoved at his chest, and his hands went out to break his fall instead. However, he only fell against the dining room table and chairs, and so Sutton went in again, chopping and punching at his head, using both fists this time. He felt Mark’s nose break; watched as the skin around his eye sockets split and started to bleed; took pleasure in seeing the lips split in half a dozen places. The blood gushed from his mouth and nose and made him look terrible, like he was more injured than he really was; like a horror movie ghoul.
“Stop it!” Grace screamed. “Stop it! You’re killing him!”
Sutton stopped, breathing hard. His knuckles were a little raw. The fight had gone out of Mark altogether. He seemed dazed and confused, barely able to stay upright. His eyes had puffed up, and Sutton was doubtful if he could see very well out of them.
Sutton grabbed a lapel and dragged him toward the kitchen. Mark didn’t protest, only held his hands up as if to ward off more blows; like a child in a playground. He was truly beaten.
Sutton threw him against the breakfast bar, Mark knocking over two of the high stools. The wind whistled out of his mouth in a strange half-groan.
Mark struggled to remain on his feet, until Sutton directed his bulk to a stool. Grace watched him with wide eyes. Sutton put a hand at the back of her husband’s neck and then forced him forward over the breakfast bar, toward Grace…so she could get a real good look. Mark’s face was a mess. There was blood dripping on to the countertop, and as if for effect Mark gave an agonised groan.
Grace stared at her husband’s battered face miserably and then said, “I’m sorry. Please don’t hit him anymore. Please.”
“You know why I’m here,” Sutton said.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes flickering. “Yes.”
“So explain it to me.”
She nodded. She wiped at her tears, smearing mascara up across her cheek.
“I got a phone call,” she said. “I was told you might come. Ask questions.”
“Who called you?”
She squirmed. She didn’t want to tell him.
Sutton grabbed the back of Mark’s neck again and pushed him over the breakfast bar toward her. Mark groaned again.
“Stop it,” she pleased.
“Who called you?”
“Oh God. Dr Bodel. Alright? It was Dr Bodel.”
Sutton released Mark.
Mark coughed, spitting blood over the breakfast bar. Grace flinched. That lovely white kitchen…stained by the consequences of their actions.
“And he asked you to drug me?”
“No. No. That was my idea. He just asked me to lie to you, to not let you know of our association. That was all. He said he would stop you himself, that had had a way to make you leave him alone, he just needed the time to get it set up. He said that you were asking about a former patient of his, that could cause him trouble. He said that he was at a critical stage in his research, not just critical, but that he had found a cure, and that any upheaval at this stage might do irreparable damage to his reputation. His work is so important, I couldn’t allow…” Grace shook her head, tried to pull herself together. Finally succeeded. “I know Dr Bodel wouldn’t do anything about you, he’s such a kind and gentle man, but I couldn’t risk that you would interfere with him. Not if he was on the brink of a cure. To finally stop this terrible disease…So I thought, if I drugged you…and held you captive…then he could continue his work unmolested.” She looked at him beseechingly. “I’m sorry. Please. I’m so sorry…”
She dissolved into plaintive sobbing.
He waited until the squall had passed, and then said, “your husband helped?”
“Honestly, he just did it because of me,” she said protectively. “It was my decision to do it, not his, but after it was done, after I put the drugs in your coffee and you collapsed, I knew I wouldn’t be able to physically move you, so I called him, and he came home and…He didn’t do any of this, it was all me, he wanted to take you to the hospital but after I explained that you were threatening Dr Bodel’s work, we decided to lock you in one of the basements in Barrow Gurney. Just until Dr Bodel could finish his work. Then we would let you out. That was it. That was all it was.”
“Why not just kill me?” Sutton asked.
Grace’s eyes went wide.
“We couldn’t…we’re not murderers,” she protested.
“Your husband came out to meet me with a shotgun,” Sutton pointed out.
“It wasn’t loaded,” she said quickly. “Honestly, it was just to make you leave. We were both so scared…” She was near tears again.
“We left you food, and water,” she continued. “We’d have come back and let you out in a few days. It was just until Dr Bodel could finish his work. That’s all. Please.”
“And what’s so important about Dr Bodel’s work that you would risk going to prison to protect it?”
Grace looked at Mark, and Mark reached out a hand to her; she took it, enveloping it in both of hers.
“So that no parent should have to go through what we went through,” she said, “when we lost our son.”
Sutton stared at her, and then out of his pocket he produced the small cuddly toy that had been in the plastic bag of food.
He put it on the breakfast bar for them both to see.
Grace stared at it, and then burst into uncontrollable sobbing…almost as if she had lost her son all over again.
*
At Sutton’s insistence, Diane left the car and entered the house.
Her wide eyes took in the splinters of wood on the floor, the blood on the wall, the blood on the dining table, the dining table chairs that were overturned, the discarded cricket bat, the blood on the breakfast bar…before finally settling on Mark Chapel’s face. She looked queasy.
Grace had applied bandages and tentatively dabbed at some of the swelling with ice crushed in a tea towel, but Mark still looked bad.
Sutton explained what he wanted her to do; it was why he had brought her with him in the first place.
“It’s almost like a will,” he said, with a small smile.
“But…why?” She asked, confused.
Sutton pulled her away from the Chapels, so that they were out of earshot.
“Because we need it,” Sutton said.
“But-“
“Grace writes a statement of what she did and why she did it. She signs it, we witness it, and add our signatures to it. At the very least, we could add it to what we already know. At the most, it’s a leash to keep them from running off.”
“Running off?”
“Either at the mouths, or literally running off.”
Diane thought about it.
“Does Grace know what happened to Gavin?” She asked.
“No. Gavin never contacted her.”
“You believe her?”
Sutton shrugged.
“She has no reason to lie, at this stage. Get some paper from the den. Do you have a pen?”
With Sutton and Diane watching, Grace wrote down what she had done. When she was finished, Sutton and Diane read it, and once they were both satisfied, Grace signed it, dated it, and then passed it to them to add their own signatures as witnesses.
“Can we call an ambulance now?” Grace asked, a little steel coming back into her voice, now that she was committed, one way or another.
Sutton folded the signed statement, put it in an envelope, and slipped it into an inside pocket of his jacket.
He smiled.
“Of course.”
She went to make the call, but Mark put a hand out to stop her.
“What are you going to do with that?” He asked, his swollen lips struggling to pronounce some of the words. He indicated the statement in Sutton’s pocket with a nod of his head.
Sutton thought.
<
br /> “I haven’t decided,” he said eventually.
“It could ruin us,” Mark said, with a look at Grace.
“It could,” Sutton agreed.
“Then don’t use it.”
“Well. That depends.”
Mark shifted uncomfortably.
“What do you want?” He asked. “Is it money?”
“Control,” Sutton said, patting his pocket. “I don’t want you flying off to St Tropez.”
“We…” Mark looked at his wife. “We won’t be going anywhere. Robbie’s grave…we could never leave.”
Sutton stared at him.
“Perhaps I want a little revenge,” he admitted.
Mark did not reply.
“Not all prisons have walls,” Sutton pointed out.
Mark stared at him through puffy eye slits.
“Please,” Grace said, “for the sake of everyone else who is suffering, leave Dr Bodel alone. Let him continue his work. He has to continue his work. I can’t…I can’t even begin to tell you how important it is.”
Sutton stared at her.
“Call an ambulance, Grace,” he said, turning and indicating to Diane that it was time for them to leave. “Your husband’s bleeding again.”
*
CHAPTER 18
MONDAY
Sutton rose early Monday morning, robbed of peace and recuperation by a fitful night’s sleep.
He took a shower, made a pot of tea, and then walked restlessly around his flat. He had things to do, but he didn’t want to start anything; any commitment – to anything – felt like too much effort. The Royal West of England Academy were unveiling a new exhibition tonight, featuring the Slade and New English Art Club; paintings by Augustus John, William Orpen and John Everett would be on display, and Sutton had wanted to observe the originals in the flesh for a long time. He should be motivated to go…
But he was not.
He couldn’t quite pin down the reason for this malaise. Sure, the fact that he had not put the nightmares to bed was unsatisfactory. He understood that the reason they hadn’t stopped was because Grace and Mark Chapel were not ultimately responsible. The tragedy of their son’s death had stripped away their reason for living, and so in its place they had placed Bodel, which was only a slight modification: aligning themselves with a man who might one day create a cure that would save someone else’s son. How were they to know that, contrary to all he said and did – and all that was said about him – that he was not quite the altruistic figure they believed him to be.
He wondered if their devotion to Bodel’s cause had put their own nightmares to bed: namely, the whispered voices of suspicion…that their son’s death was somehow their fault. A parent’s job is to protect their child…and here they had failed at this most fundamental thing. That it was beyond their control was no consolation, not really: they had still failed.
Grief can do strange things to people.
He realised in that moment that part of his preoccupation with the Chapels was a distraction; that he knew why the bad dreams had not lessened, or ceased altogether; why this strange restlessness of the spirit seemed to prohibit him from enjoying anything: he was lonely. It was Christmas, and he was alone. That he had contrived these circumstances was a bitter pill, but the outcome was the same.
How was Diane celebrating her Christmas?
How was Fin?
How was Janice?
He poured another cup of tea – no sugar, nature makes it sweet enough – and brooded about his next move. And that was when the phone rang.
“Hello?” He said.
There was a long drawn out yawn on the other end of the line.
Janice.
“I’ve got a week off, but it takes me about that long to get my body clock back round again.”
Caught up in that melancholy mood that he had been in all morning, he found himself saying, “Janice, I don’t want you to do anything else for me. It was wrong of me to ask you, especially as I knew how uncomfortable it made you, and how much trouble you might have gotten in to if anybody had caught you. And for that I apologise. I really don’t want you to do anything more for me.”
There was a pause.
“What happened?” She asked, suddenly awake.
“What do you mean?”
“Well. Yesterday you wouldn’t stop pestering me, now you’re telling me not to bother. What’s changed?”
“Nothing. I’m going to keep looking, but I’ll find another way to do it. It’s unfair of me to ask you to do it. I should have just taken you out, and made you laugh, and danced with you – if you’d have let me – and maybe, at the end of the night, if we still liked each other, I could have kissed you under the mistletoe.”
There was silence on the phone, and he wished in that moment that there was some way he could see her face.
“My God, my heart just turned to butter.”
Surprised, he laughed.
“Can I call you?” He said. “When this is all over? Can I take you out again? Properly this time. No agendas. Just some good time. A happy time.”
There was another pause.
“It’s too late for that,” she said.
He nodded, that part of him alive with hope settling like a turbulent sea, thinking did I do this on purpose? why have I got to test myself, what am I trying to prove? and then when he realised there was no way she could know he was nodding he said, “I understand.”
“No, I mean...I want to help you.”
He frowned, sure he had misheard her.
“What?”
“There’s more going on, that I haven’t told you.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you about it now, over the phone. But all you really need to know is that I’m willing to help. Kelly couldn’t really get to the files, so I’m going in later to see her, to see if I can make copies myself.”
He felt a dart of pure worry pierce him then.
“Janice, I don’t think that’s wise.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said quickly. “But I’m going to do a little more foraging. I promise I’ll be careful. Okay?”
“Okay.”
In a small voice, she said, “maybe you could meet me later on? We don’t have to go dancing, but a meal would be nice.”
He smiled.
“I know this great place where they let you dance while you eat.”
She laughed softly.
“I can’t think of anything more horrible.”
“Well, it’s hard to tango with Tagliatelle, I’ll give you that.”
“Imagine if you had to Waltz with a Waldorf Salad.”
“Or tap dance with a Tiramisu.”
“It would go everywhere.”
He realised that the foolish smile was back, and that it was good, and he knew that she too was smiling foolishly on the other end of the line, without even having to see it, and some knot in his chest that he had not been aware of loosened, and his flat didn’t seem quite so sterile and loveless as it had been earlier in the day.
“I’ll call you,” he said, “and we’ll meet up.”
“Good.”
“Okay then.”
“Oh, by the way. Before I forget. Dr Bodel is involved with drug addicts, with drug rehabilitation. He does a lot of work at a place called the Jefferson Out Clinic.”
And there was the connection with Scott Bradley.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll see you later?”
“Yes.”
“And be careful.”
“Always, Sutton Mills. Careful is my middle name.”
“Mine’s Henry.”
Janice giggled. It was a delightful sound.
“Oh, your parents were so cruel.”
“Go back to sleep,” he said, mock-gruffly. “It might improve your mood.”
“It is much improved already, Sutton Henry Mills.” She giggled again, and then grew serious. “You seem to have that effect on me. And that’s the real reason I’ve got to be
careful.”
“I’m only a friend,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re much more than that.”
And she hung up before he had a chance to reply.
*
Dr Bodel’s office was different.
All the items in it were in exactly the same position as they had been when Sutton had visited previously – the shelf full of medical journals behind the desk, the desk itself, the shelves on the wall by the door, the loose papers, the potted plant, the ornamental microscope – and yet somehow it was all very different to his eye. Whereas before it had seemed a warm and comfortable room, now it seemed almost oppressive, packed too tightly with furniture, the window too small to offer even the illusion of freedom, the overhead light too dim to prevent the eye from straining. It was already dark too, when previously he had visited in the light, so this could not help.
Of course, it could only be different because his perception of Dr Bodel himself was now different. He was not the kindly doctor to whom you could turn in your hour of need. No, he was not nearly that amiable.
The phone had rung in the afternoon, and a nurse on the other end of the line had informed him that Dr Bodel wished to see him, to discuss an “important matter”. So here he was. Sutton could hardly refuse to come, but knowing what Dr Bodel was capable of gave him that special awareness that he was to be watched carefully, and that nothing he said could be taken as the gospel truth. Not anymore.
So Sutton waited, hearing in his ears the echo of the unique and oh so fragile chambers of the heart as it did its thing. If you listened too long, and too hard, you could start to wonder at the miracle of your existence…and how that constantly contracting soft tissue was the only thing keeping you alive. He was especially conscious of this most probably because his heart was beating faster than normal.