Even as he sped back to the village, he told himself that he couldn’t confront her. It wasn’t so much that he lacked the balls to do it, but he remembered what she had said about Melusine. He dared not demand to know if she had taken a lover. What he needed was reassurance.
It could still be OK, he thought, as he jolted over the disinfectant mat. We can start again. Soon, maybe, she’ll be ready to try for a family. That will make all the difference.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Melanie said when he opened the door of the study.
“I’ve jacked it in,” he said. “The money’s good, but I’m sick of the smell and the faces of the animals as I kill them.”
She swallowed. “What are you going to do?”
“Dunno. I’ll find something.”
“But there’s no work! Haven’t you heard? The countryside is closed. No tourists, no trade, nothing. People are going bankrupt right, left and centre.”
“All right, it might take a while.” He thought for a moment. “What’s up? Don’t you want me under your feet all day?”
“It’s not that!” Two pink spots appeared in her cheeks. It wasn’t like her to be flustered. “We can’t go on like this.”
“Me spending cash we haven’t got at the Wheatsheaf, you mean?”
“Don’t shout! I know you need to unwind…”
“Too right,” he said, and marched out of the house.
Ten minutes later, nursing a pint in the saloon, he was wondering if he’d been too rough with her. They hardly ever argued; neither of them were natural combatants. When Sally asked him if he was OK, he bit her head off.
“Why? Don’t I look OK?”
“I only asked,” she said in an injured tone. “And if you want to know the truth, you look as miserable as sin.”
It dawned on him that he hadn’t been happy for a long time. Not since before the coming of the plague, that was for sure. Maybe he should offer Melanie an olive branch. It wasn’t a Yorkshireman’s habit to say sorry, but he wasn’t proud. He would do anything, if it would help to recapture the love they had shared at one time. Maybe even work out his contract with the Ministry. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialled home. He would apologise right now, and then go back and see what else he could do to make amends.
The number was engaged. He tried again a couple of minutes later, with the same result. Her parents were dead and she seldom socialised. The head teacher was on holiday and her two closest colleagues had taken a party of pupils to France. Who could she be talking to?
“Dave not in tonight?” he asked.
Sally shook her head to show that she bore no grudge for his sharp tone earlier. “He said that he would be busy in the garden until it got dark. He’s building a rockery, you know.”
Oh really? Jason’s head was swimming and it wasn’t just down to the beer. “Same again, then.”
As darkness fell, Dave showed up. He spotted Jason and gave him a wicked grin. “What’s up, mate? Abandoned your old lady? I dunno, you’d better take care. You know, women are like cars. You’ve got to keep their engines tuned.”
“You’ve been looking after Cheryl?” a fat man at the bar demanded.
Dave found this amusing. “Matter of fact, I’ve been out in the garden.”
“Oh yeah? Planting a few seeds?”
The fat man and Dave roared with laughter and fell into ribald conversation. Jason sat glowering and monosyllabic for a couple of rounds before summoning up the energy to head for home. If Dave had been with Mel, she would need time to have a bath, make herself decent. He didn’t want a confrontation this evening. He had to think things through.
Although he could hold his beer better than most, he was swaying slightly as he walked through his front door. All the lights were out. It wasn’t late, but Melanie must be in bed. She would probably say she needed the sleep, after he had woken her so inconsiderately that morning. Perhaps she was already fast asleep; she was bound to be tired.
On tiptoe, he made his way into the study. At night she left her mobile on her desk. He lifted it up and checked the list of recent calls. It was the first time in the marriage that he had ever snooped on her, but he couldn’t help it. A familiar set of digits came up at once. His guts lurched. The number belonged to Dave Sharpe.
He started to climb the stairs, wanting to have it out with Melanie, but halfway up he changed his mind and went back down again. Better leave it until morning. He couldn’t sleep beside her, though. Not after what she’d done. Dave Sharpe. His thoughts were as gridlocked as an urban motorway, but he could still guess what had happened. Dave and Melanie must have had a fling, but he’d two-timed her and got Cheryl pregnant. Perhaps Melanie had been too stingy in bed for him.
Melanie must have lost her heart to Dave. Yes, that explained everything. How she had fallen for Dave’s mate on the rebound, her lapses into frigidity, even the story about Melusine. She did have a terrible secret after all.
He spent the night dozing fitfully on the lumpy sofa in their living room. At about four he woke from a nightmare. A dead bullock had risen like a zombie from the pile of carcasses and come towards him, intent upon taking revenge. The room was chilly in the middle of the night, but sweat was sticking his shirt to his chest. His head was pounding and the stale taste of beer lingered in his mouth.
Why had she done this to him? Dave was no fool; he must have picked up a hint that Melanie still held a torch for him. For all Cheryl’s famously voracious appetites, he wouldn’t have been able to resist the opportunity to be able to turn Jason into a cuckold. Humiliating his old ‘friend’ at the same time as enjoying the sweet pleasures of Melanie’s tender flesh would double the fun.
At ten to seven, he heard the alarm shrilling in the bedroom. Moments later, Melanie came hurrying down the stairs, calling his name. When she saw him, her face turned crimson. In that instant, he knew that she knew he knew.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was croaky, uncertain.
“You should have told me the truth,” he said. “We never should have got married.”
“What are you talking about?” She was no good at feigning innocence. He thought she was naturally honest. Living a lie must have been a torment, but things had gone too far for him to feel a spurt of sympathy.
“Admit it. You’re in love with Dave Sharpe, aren’t you? That’s always been your secret, hasn’t it, Melusine? But you never had the bottle to tell me.”
No actress could have faked the horror in her eyes. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“You lied to me,” he said quietly. “But I found you out in the end.”
“You don’t understand!”
“Believe me, I do. You slut.”
Tears were dribbling down her cheeks. For a moment she seemed transfixed and then she gave a little cry and ran out of the room and up the stairs. He heard her locking the door to their bedroom. No problem. He wasn’t going after her just now. There was something else – this came to him in a slap of understanding – that he must do first.
He didn’t bother to wash or shave; he was past all that. From upstairs came the sound of loud racking sobs, but as he unlocked his van, he felt a strange sense of calm, as if for the whole of his life he’d been wandering aimlessly, but now he’d found a mission.
Where could he find Dave Sharpe? At one time Dave’s round had covered the village and its outskirts, but now he was a floater and covered for colleagues who were sick or on holiday, so he moved around the area. He said he preferred this; he liked the variety, but more than that, there was often a chance to meet new women. Countless times he regaled the Wheatsheaf saloon bar with anecdotes of nymphomaniac housewives who asked him in while their husbands were out at work. If only his restless womanising hadn’t encompassed Melanie.
As Jason turned on the ignition, he saw the bedroom curtain twitch. His
wife, furtively watching him drive out of their marriage. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the van shot out into the road, narrowly missing a milk float. His plan was to follow a circular route, heading out west first and then up and around the hillside before returning to the village. Sooner or later, he was sure to come across Dave Sharpe.
It took longer than he expected, but five miles from home he finally spotted his target. Dave was delivering a parcel to an isolated cottage at the end of a short lane. The woman on the doorstep was white-haired and frail, so Dave would not be lingering. The lane was narrow and Jason parked his van across to block it. He watched the woman go back inside her home and Dave climb on to his bicycle. Jason picked up the bolt gun from the passenger’s seat. Keeping it behind his back, he shuffled out of the van to face his enemy.
“What…oh, it’s you! Christ, Jason, what are you playing at?”
Jason said nothing. Dave dismounted and leaned his bike against the hedge. He marched up and stared into Jason’s eyes.
“Lost your tongue?”
“I’ve lost everything,” Jason said.
An odd light came into Dave’s eyes. “Is this about Mel?”
Jason showed him the gun. They were within touching distance of each other. Jason caught a whiff of the other man’s aftershave. Aftershave! What sort of a postman doused himself in that muck when he went out on his round of a morning? Only one who wanted to shag any woman stupid enough to give him the glad eye.
Dave’s cheeks lost all colour. Hoarsely, he said, “What are you doing? Put that down.”
Jason lifted the gun and put it to Dave’s forehead. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
“I think you’re mad. You’ve lost it, mate, totally lost it.”
Dave tensed. Jason knew that he was going to try to grab the gun. He would only have one chance to do this. As he fired, he tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn’t shut. He saw agony in Dave’s eyes as well as hearing his scream. Just like my first day at the abattoir, he thought.
The pithing was over so quickly. Even as the old lady opened her door, coming to see who or what had screamed, Jason was back in the van, reversing over the body just to make sure before turning for the village. Some of Dave’s blood had splashed over him, but he didn’t care. His mind was as empty as the fields as he raced along the narrow winding lanes to his home. What was he going to say to Melanie? Was she truly lost to him forever? Ought she to die as well?
Within minutes he was back. The front door was ajar. Bolt gun in hand, he kicked it wide open and strode inside. He could hear Melanie weeping. Well, now she had something to weep about. He took the stairs two at a time. The bedroom door was shut. If she’d locked it, he meant to kick it down. But when he smashed the gun against the door, it swung on its hinges.
A woman cried out. Then he heard another voice, softly murmuring. As he stepped inside the bedroom, something occurred to him. This is all wrong. Melanie was with someone. Yet he had killed Dave Sharpe.
Melanie was in bed. Her eyes were puffy, her cheeks wet. Her companion had wrapped a plump arm around her shoulders. They were naked, both Melanie and Cheryl Sharpe. Yes, I got it so wrong. Helpless as doomed lambs, neither of them able to move or speak, the lovers stared at him.
His hand shaking, he pointed the gun first at his wife and then at Cheryl, before changing his mind and raising it instead to his left temple. The cold steel nuzzled his skin. This, at least, was a necessary death.
Top Deck
Kate Ellis
November 1965
At ten past six on a rainy Tuesday evening, Keith O’Dowd witnessed a murder.
Up until then it had been an ordinary Liverpool Tuesday, a day like every other. At half past five Keith had left the portals of the Liver Building and hurried across the Pier Head in the rain to catch his bus home. His boss, Mr. Kelly, was leaving at the same time, in the company of his secretary, Linda. Kelly had given Keith a distant nod of acknowledgement on the stairs before heading off in the direction of the car park and his brand new Ford Cortina. Keith experienced a pang of envy. He could never afford a motor like that on the meagre wages he earned as a shipping clerk. But maybe one day things would be different. Maybe one day he would join the police force like his granddad and become a detective. Everyone has to dream. And, according to his mother, Keith dreamed more than most.
That evening it was pouring with rain and the number eighty bus was ten minutes late arriving at the terminus. When it finally turned up Keith clattered up the metal stairs to the top deck, his wet trouser legs flapping cold around his ankles, and made his way straight to the front seat, the seat with the best view on the bus. He sat down by the window and lit a cigarette, then he sat quite still for a few moments, inhaling deeply before wiping the misted up window with the sleeve of his coat. Looking out of the window was better than reading the paper. And you never knew what you might see.
The bus set off through the city centre, past stores closing up for the night. The glow from the bright shop windows reflected golden on the glistening pavements and umbrellas danced up and down the streets, their owners hidden beneath. Soon they were hurtling past the Philharmonic Hall and the Women’s Hospital with its rows of brightly lit windows. Then past the faded Georgian elegance of Catherine Street where the houses of wealthy merchants and ship owners had long ago been claimed by the poor and the Bohemian, bedsit dwellers and students. Keith stared out of his lofty mobile watchtower, wiping the window from time to time to get a better view.
Keith took this bus every night, rain or shine, winter or summer, and there was nothing that Tuesday night to tell him that this journey was going to be different from any other. There had been no omens of death as in the horror films he loved so much. No howling wolves or circling ravens; no mysterious gypsies issuing cryptic warnings. It had been a normal day; a good day. He had been to NEMS in his lunch hour to buy the Beatles’ latest LP, Help, for his girlfriend Susan’s birthday. He had bought some cigarettes too…and a packet of Durex from Boots just in case his luck changed when Susan saw the record. Keith patted the plastic record bag: Susan loved the Beatles so he felt rather pleased with his choice.
Once they were away from the bright, artificial lights of the city centre the scene outside grew darker…but then it was the beginning of November and the clocks had gone back. As they crawled down Princes Road Keith closed his eyes but he opened them again when the bus swung too fast round the bend at Princes Park gates, throwing him against the man who shared his seat. He restored his dignity by lighting a calming cigarette and the next time he looked out of the window he saw that they were passing the shadowy acres of Sefton Park heading down Ullet Road. His boss, Mr. Kelly, lived on Ullet Road, so he’d heard from the office gossips. He owned flats there. Flats and a new Cortina. Mr. Kelly was a lucky man.
When the bus stopped briefly in Ullet Road to let somebody off Keith found himself staring straight across into a lighted upstairs window. The curtains were wide open and two people were silhouetted behind the glass; a man and a woman who, for a split second, seemed faintly familiar. The man seemed to have both his hands raised up to the woman’s throat and they were moving slowly to and fro as if the woman was trying to ward him off, trying to save her life. Just as one of the figures appeared to collapse to the floor, the bus suddenly pulled off and tore away from the bus stop at speed.
It had all been over in a matter of seconds and Keith sat there, dazed, wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing. He turned to the man sitting next to him, a thin, middle-aged man in a shabby raincoat who smoked nervously. He was reading a newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, and appeared to be engrossed in the small ads. Keith contemplated asking him whether he’d seen the couple in the flat but he decided against it. The man would probably think he was mad.
He turned round and saw two girls sitting in the seat behind, one peroxide blonde and the other henna re
d, both with mini skirts that left little to the imagination. It would do no harm to ask…if he could phrase the question so that he didn’t sound like a complete lunatic. “Excuse me, love, did you see that murder back in Ullet Road?” might result in the men in white coats carting him away.
But from the way the two girls were chatting away, it was obvious that their minds were firmly fixed on gossip and there was no way they’d have seen anything out of the ordinary. And he guessed that, judging by the bored looks on the faces of his fellow passengers, nobody else had either. The blonde girl caught Keith’s eye but she ignored him, pulling her mini skirt down to the middle of her thighs as she carried on pointedly chatting to her friend. But attractive girls were the last thing on Keith’s mind at that moment. Some woman might be lying dead in the house they’d passed; a woman whose profile had triggered a bat squeak of recognition. But had he really seen her die?
As they stopped at the traffic lights in Smithdown Road, Keith felt a sudden urge to get off the bus, to hurry back to the spot where he’d seen the couple: he could remember the exact house and the exact window and for all he knew the woman might still be alive and in need of help. Perhaps he should tell the police. That would be what his mother would tell him to do. And Susan…she would always play things by the book. He stood up and the Echo reader beside him looked flustered as he juggled with lighted cigarette and open newspaper before swinging his legs out into the aisle to let Keith pass, thinking he was getting off at the next stop.
But Keith hesitated and sat down again, murmuring an apology. As the Echo reader mumbled, “Make up your mind, pal,” and rearranged his newspaper, Keith sat on the edge of the seat, feeling foolish. Looking round the damp, smoky top deck he was quite sure that nobody else had seen what he had seen. He was the only witness. Or had he been watching too many Hitchcock films? Had his mind been playing tricks?
In all Keith’s seventeen years, he had always possessed a streak of caution. He had never gone in for games of dare at school, never played on railway lines or played chicken with cars like some of his classmates. And in his heart of hearts he knew that there was no way he was going to investigate that flat in Ullet Road alone while there was a chance that a murderer might still be hanging about. But he still felt he should do something. Perhaps he should find a phone box when he got off the bus and call the police. Or venture into Allerton police station and report it.
Vintage Crime Page 31