by Robert Innes
“He’s a psycho, Blake,” Harrison reasoned. “He’s going to say things like that. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” He put his arm around Blake and pulled him in tight. “He’s in prison and she’s in a flat with a security team and people around her all the time. She’s safe. There’s nothing he could possibly do.”
Blake looked Harrison right in the eyes. “Then why am I so convinced that she isn’t going to survive the week?”
Harrison did not seem to be able to think of a reply. He just pulled Blake in tighter, and despite everything that was happening, Blake felt a little reassured. Since they had met, Harrison had been through more than most people his age would have to deal with in two lifetimes. Two of his ex-partners were dead, one murdered, one by jumping off the church roof. Blake had been involved in all of this, and just two months ago, they had both come face to face with Blake’s ex, whilst another crazy murder had gone on around them. Despite the emotional rollercoaster that had been their relationship, they both knew that it had been the reason they were now together. And as they sat in silence on the sofa, Blake knew it had all been worth it.
He had been thinking about how he wanted to phrase what he was about to say, but as the moment arrived, his words came out simply and without any inner turmoil. “Move in.”
Harrison looked down at him, his expression soft. “Hmm?”
Blake sat up and took a hold of his hand. “Move in here. Sell the cottage and move in with me.”
Harrison looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. Why not? It’s the next step, right? We practically live with each other anyway, I’m always at yours, and you’re always here. We might as well make it permanent?”
For one horrible moment, Blake thought that Harrison was going to decline, but instead his face broke out into a delighted grin and he nodded. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
Blake smiled back at him and pulled him in for a kiss. After a moment, Harrison pulled away. “There’s one problem though.”
“What?”
Harrison grimaced. “Betty.”
Blake closed his eyes and groaned. Somehow, he had managed to forget about Harrison’s rambunctious goat that he had owned since he was a child. Betty, it seemed, absolutely hated Blake. “Couldn’t you add her in as an extra on the cottage? Advertise her as onsite security?”
Harrison chuckled. “No. Come on Blake, I know it seems stupid to you, but she was pretty much my only friend when I was growing up. When everything was happening with Daniel and my parents were…” he hesitated and shook his head. “…doing their thing, Betty was the one who distracted me. I can’t just abandon her.”
Blake sighed. “No, I know. We’ll sort something out. The thing is, I can’t have her in the house. I sometimes bring work home with me and I can’t have the details of confidential cases going down her gullet.”
“I set up a little shed for her in my yard. All we need to do is put it out the front. We’ll take her for walks, it’ll be fine.”
Blake raised an eyebrow. “Take her for walks? She’s a goat.”
“It’s not about the walk,” Harrison laughed. “The point of taking a goat out is the brush-eating they do while they’re walking. Saves on money for food and gives her a bit of stimulation instead of being cooped in a shed all day.”
Blake sighed and shook his head with amusement. “And that’s the deal? You’ll move in as long as Betty is happy with her living arrangements and daily exertions?”
Harrison nodded. “That’s the deal.”
“Then how about,” Blake said, placing his beer can down on the ground before standing up and pulling Harrison to his feet, “that we make that official?”
Harrison followed Blake’s glance towards the stairs and grinned. “We’ll talk goat sheds afterwards, yes?”
“Yeah, sure, promise,” Blake said vaguely, leading him towards the stairs. He flicked off the light and the cottage plunged into darkness as he led his boyfriend towards the bedroom.
Blake was not sure what woke him a few hours later but as he looked at the clock on his bedside table, which read two AM, he suddenly felt wide-awake. Beside him, Harrison softly snored into the pillow, so Blake gently got out of bed and pulled on a pair of jogging bottoms.
His thoughts immediately returned to Thomas Frost and his would-be victim, as if the passion with Harrison before they had fallen asleep had merely paused his brain. Despite Harrison’s reassurances that it was surely impossible for Frost to get to Kerry at all, Blake could not shake off the feeling that there was a reason why Frost had been so keen to tell him what he had.
His throat began to feel dry so Blake tiptoed across the bedroom, cringing slightly at the creak of floorboards beneath his bare feet. He made his way downstairs to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He stared out of the window, deep in thought as he slowly sipped it. He could not get the image of Thomas Frost out of his head, sneering at him, seven years ago when he had been pulled off Kerry and arrested, vowing that it was not the end.
Blake wandered into the living room, smiling at the sight of Harrison’s trainers by the door. It was an addition to the room that he was only too happy to start getting used to. After everything that had happened, it felt like they had finally earned this moment.
The sound of a car approaching outside broke his thoughts. Anywhere else Blake had ever lived, the sound of a car at this time of night would not have even registered, but in Harmschapel, traffic was a rare thing after a certain time, and non-existent at this hour.
A few moments later, the car came to a stop with the engine running, right outside his cottage. Blake was just about to lean over the sofa and peer out of the curtains when there was a loud metallic thud on the front door.
In the time it took for Blake to jump up and unlock the door, the sound of screeching tyres filled the air, and when he opened the door the smell of burning rubber filled his nostrils. In the distance, he could just make out the back red lights of the car shining in the darkness. But then, Blake saw what had made the sound on the door. There was a large carving knife stuck in the wood, holding a sheet of paper in place.
As he stared at it, Blake vaguely heard Harrison run down the stairs behind him.
“What was that?” Harrison murmured, rubbing his eyes. “Did I hear a car?”
Blake couldn’t answer him. He was transfixed on the paper on the door. It was a picture of Kerry Nightingale, smiling proudly at the camera, sunglasses making her appear cool and collected, shaking hands with another MP, at the height of her political career, and below the picture, in bright red writing: ‘SHE’LL BE DEAD BY MORNING.’
Jamie closed his eyes as he hurtled towards the ground, his feet having given out from underneath him as he had stumbled home from the club, drunker than he had been for quite a long time.
His face whacked the side of the pavement and he let out a moan as the sound of laughter and jeering from other drunken revellers echoed around him. He ignored them, pulled himself up off the ground, grabbing hold of a lamppost for support, and continued stumbling down the road.
It had not been the greatest of days. After Kerry had snubbed him again, Jamie had left work in an absolutely foul mood with the one aim of getting himself as drunk as he possibly could with the thirty pound he had left over in his account before pay day. As it was, the first bar he had walked into had one pound drinks on offer and before too long, he had found himself getting into a fight which had resulted in him being forcibly removed from the bar.
If it had not been for Kerry constantly at the forefront of his mind, Jamie would have hung around the bar in order to give the other man who he had been fighting with a second round, but instead he was now stumbling down the road towards the apartment building where not only did he work, but she lived.
As the apartment block came into view, Jamie remembered when he and Kerry had first met. She had just moved into the apartments and he had been helping her haul a lot of bags and boxes towards the
lift after the delivery men had driven off without helping, more than likely because Kerry had been chastising them for the way in which they had been handling her belongings. They had started chatting and before too long, Jamie had become completely entranced by her. Something about her had occupied his feelings from that day forwards, and at first it felt entirely mutual. Because of her political career, Kerry had insisted that their relationship was undertaken very much on the quiet, something Jamie was only too happy to oblige with. A week ago, that had all changed. She had gone from doting and romantic to cold and distant, culminating in her telling him she wanted their relationship to end. She had not even had the good grace to explain why, just that she felt that they ‘had gone as far as they could.’
Jamie arrived at the entrance to the apartments. Through the glass, he could see Sonia sitting in one of the chairs behind the desk with her feet up, still engrossed in one of her crime novels, her huge frame bulging out over the side of her chair, looking as sweaty and out of breath as ever.
Jamie banged on the glass angrily, leaning against the wall. Sonia glanced up at him and stared in surprise before pressing the release button underneath the desk.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as he stumbled through the door.
“I wanna speak to Kerry,” Jamie slurred, storming past her and towards the lift.
“Jamie, it’s three in the morning for God’s sake,” Sonia replied, slamming her book down. “Look at the state of you – go home and sober yourself up.”
Jamie ignored her. He punched the button to call the lift and it opened immediately. Before Sonia could reach him to try and pull him out, the doors were closing and he was on his way up to the top floor.
“This better be important, Jamie,” Kerry snapped, standing in the doorway, a furious look in her eyes.
“Of course it’s important,” Jamie slurred, pushing past her. “That is, I think it’s important anyway. I thought we were important, turns out I was wrong.”
Kerry sighed and closed the flat door. “I would offer you a drink, but it looks like you’ve had enough already.”
“You don’t have the right to judge me.”
“Just say what you came to say and get out. I have things to do.”
“Yeah,” Jamie scoffed, glaring at her. “Like running away to Spain? Got some Spanish guy to keep you, have you?”
“That’s none of your business, Jamie. Now, are we done here?”
“No!” Jamie shouted, the vast amount of beer he had drank intensifying his emotions. “Before you run away, -”
“I am not running away.”
“I want to know why you ended things between us.”
Kerry rolled her eyes. “Because you’re a child, Jamie. I’m old enough to be your mother. We would never have worked.”
“Yeah?” Jamie snarled, storming towards the bedroom door and kicking it open. “Didn’t seem to bother you when we were both on that bed, did it?”
He flicked the light switch to the bedroom on but nothing happened other than a quiet crack as the bulb blew.
Kerry glanced at the light with a slight air of derision. “Maybe I’m going to move to somewhere where the lights don’t need replacing every five minutes?”
Jamie slammed the door to the pitch-black bedroom and pointed an accusing finger at her. “Do y’know what? I hope you meet someone who you really like, someone you really fall for –“
“Don’t be dramatic, Jamie. You didn’t fall for me.”
“Yes I did. Don’t tell me how I felt,” he snapped furiously. He could feel a lump in his throat and became even angrier at the fact that he was close to bursting into tears. “And I hope you meet someone who you fall for and they break your heart in the same way you did mine – I hope it absolutely destroys you.”
“Lovely, Jamie. Really mature. I was totally wrong about you. Now, please, get out. And don’t bother me again.”
Jamie stared at her in disbelief. “You really are a heartless cow, you know that?”
Kerry didn’t reply. She just opened the door to the flat and held it open, staring nonchalantly at the ceiling.
Jamie’s fists clenched. All day he had been thinking about how he could punish her for how she had made him feel. She had humiliated him, thrown him away like a piece of rubbish. There was nothing more he wanted to do at this moment than give her even half the amount of pain she had given him. He could do anything to her in this flat. If he managed to get that door closed, there would be no way of anyone getting to her before it was too late. He took a step towards her and contemplated as to whether he was really about to lash out at her when his eyes landed on a leaflet lying on the coffee table. At first he thought he had misread what was written on the front but as he looked closer, he realised what it said.
Kerry followed his eye line and ran towards the leaflet in horror, but Jamie pushed her out the way, sending her flying into a cabinet.
“Jamie, don’t, -”
But he barely heard her. He just picked up the leaflet and stared at it. “Abortion?” he said quietly.
Kerry closed her eyes and looked down at the ground.
He stared at her, questions ricocheting around his head, none of which he was sure he wanted to hear the answers to. “You’re pregnant?”
Again Kerry didn’t answer. She just looked up from the ground, first at him then back to the leaflet again.
Jamie’s heart ached. “You were pregnant?”
Still, Kerry remained silent.
Jamie looked down at the leaflet helplessly, as if it were about to produce some of the information she wasn’t giving him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“You didn’t want me to find out at all!” he shouted back at her. “I was going to be a father? And you didn’t tell me? How could you not tell me?” He stormed towards her, a red mist transcending. But just as he was about to raise his fist to strike her, a loud voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Jamie!” It was Sonia. She was standing in the still open doorway, staring at the situation with concern. “I think you’d better go, don’t you?”
For a moment, Jamie considered completely ignoring her and continuing trying to attack Kerry. But even in his livid and drunken frame of mind, he realised how stupid it would be to do it in front of a witness. Instead, he screwed up the leaflet, which was still in his hand, and flung it at Kerry, who was now cowering by the door. “You’re scum,” he spat. “And you will pay for this. I promise you that.”
Without another word, Jamie pushed past Sonia and stormed down the corridor.
The journey was not an especially long one, but the country roads leading to Clackton seemed more bendy and difficult to navigate than ever before, especially with the urgency Blake felt as he put his foot down. He was desperate to get to Clayton Apartments as quickly as he could.
The poster on the door had unnerved Blake. He had racked his brains to think who could have left him the ominous note on his door but had come to no real conclusions. Someone like Frost would know plenty of people who were capable of anything, there were groups of people he had seen while working in the city that still made his skin crawl to think about. But how would they have known where to go to leave a threat on his door? Did he now have members of Frost’s circles watching his every move? His mind briefly flicked to Harrison, alone in Juniper Cottage, more than likely back in bed, with no real way of getting help. He pushed the unpleasant notions out of his head. All he could concentrate on now was making sure that the promises on the sheet of paper that he could almost feel burning his leg in his pocket could not come to pass.
There was a fork in the road that had long since been described by local residents as an extremely unsafe area for drivers. Its main problem was a blind spot from Blake’s approaching perspective to anything coming from the left hand side until he was right in the centre of it, and sure enough, much to Blake’s disbelief, as he arrived at the centre, he saw a car t
hat had come off the road. It was on its side in a ditch, the horn blaring constantly. Through the front window screen Blake could see that the airbags had been deployed. Regardless of the situation, there was no way Blake could just drive by without stopping to help, so he screeched to a halt beside the road and jumped out his car.
The horn continued blaring as Blake stumbled down the embankment to the driver’s side and peered through the window. The driver was motionless, his face in the air bag. The smell of rubber in the air told him that the accident could only have happened in the past few minutes. Blake sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket to call for an ambulance, pulling the car door open.
“Hello? Can you hear me, mate?” There was no response.
Blake reached behind the man’s head to feel for a pulse. To his relief, he traced one. But as he explained the situation to the operator on the phone, the faint whiff of whiskey hit him. Any sympathy he felt for the driver soon diminished as he realised that had probably been drunk.
The ambulance soon arrived and Blake took down the details on where to speak to the driver when he regained consciousness. As he watched the driver being loaded into the ambulance on a stretcher, he glanced at his phone. He had wasted too much time getting to Kerry. He climbed into his car and drove as quickly as he could to Clayton Apartments.
At this time of night, even in a busy town like Clackton, all was silent and still. Only the faint echo of a group of drunk men tottering out of a kebab shop a few streets away could be heard as Blake screeched to a halt and jumped out of the car. He ran towards the building.
Glancing through the glass door and seeing nobody at the reception desk, Blake held his finger down on the bell to Kerry’s apartment in desperation. After an agonising few moments, there was finally an answer.
“Who the hell is this at this time of night?”
Blake let out a sigh of relief at the sound of Kerry’s irritated voice.