The Turtle Run

by Marie Evelyn

  The huge bathroom held the sort of over ornate, semi-opulent bathroom furniture that in the UK would only be chosen by two groups of people: those with artificial tans who require a bathroom in which to admire their orangeness or those who thought such a choice of bathroom furnishings demonstrated they were being ‘ironic’.

  The only positive thing about the bathroom was it made the tackiness of Richard’s bedroom seem less acute. Although the bed had appeared to be a king size at least it was to scale, whereas in here the sink, bath and bidet were so large they looked like they should host koi and water lilies. The only thing Becky did admire was a printed blind that hid the central portion of the bath: no cheap shower curtain for Richard.

  She looked at herself in the mirror trying to ignore the surrounding gold-painted curlicues. She looked young. And she looked irritated. The meal had been very pleasant and the conversation had flowed easily but something had changed once Richard thought she was drunk: not only was he probing to find out what she knew of Matthew’s intended bid but he was dropping more obvious sexual hints. While he seemed interested enough in her, Becky wondered if Richard’s business and sexual objectives were primarily driven by his rivalry with Matthew, in which case any attempt at seduction would be doubly irritating.

  She suspected Richard’s game plan was to get her drunk, take her to bed on black sheets and under pink lights and have her scream out Matthew’s intended bid at the pinnacle of passion.

  How on earth was she going to handle this tactfully? Ringing Matthew was overkill – assuming she could find a phone in the near-darkness downstairs. She certainly wanted to try and end the evening with Richard on reasonably pleasant terms but she also suspected that Richard was not sensitive to subtle dissuasions. She could throw champagne over him but he would probably take that as foreplay. She might have to try the ‘I’m in love with Matthew and no other man will do’ line but the effect of that was unpredictable.

  She finished bathing her face, and paused, thinking she heard a noise. Yes! It seemed fate had intervened to end her evening with Richard ‘pleasantly’. There was the sound of a car outside, the unmistakable crunch of tyres going over gravel. Curious as to who had unwittingly disturbed Richard’s plans for seduction and/or business espionage, she turned off the light and opened the bathroom door quietly; if she sensed that his uninvited guest was someone reasonable she would dash downstairs and cheerfully thank Richard for a pleasant dinner but say that it was sadly time to go home, now. It would be very difficult for Richard to refuse then.

  Someone banged on the front door several times. Richard must be taking his time to get there from the terrace. She heard him give a small, frustrated exclamation as he opened it.

  ‘Know who I am, Carrington?’

  The hairs on Becky’s neck stood up. The voice was male and decidedly unreasonable.

  ‘I’ve already paid,’ Richard said. He sounded more annoyed than perturbed. Then he said ‘what do you need that for?’ and this time he did sound frightened. The next moment she heard shouted obscenities and the sound of blows but it wasn’t clear who or what was being hit. It sounded like there was more than one visitor.

  She couldn’t hear Richard’s voice any longer; he seemed to be neither putting up a fight nor trying to reason with them. What if they came upstairs? She could lock herself in the bathroom but a locked door would almost certainly attract attention and it wouldn’t take long for them to smash it down. Presumably this was something personal rather than a random burglary and what they would do to her probably depended on who they thought she was in Richard’s life: if they thought she was significant to him then she was really in trouble.

  The blind down the middle of the bath was not completely opaque but if she scrunched herself into a ball in the centre of the tub she might just stay undetected. She climbed in and no sooner had she crouched down than the whole house seemed to vibrate as they pounded up the stairs.

  She couldn’t tell which room they were in now as their footsteps were drowned out by a terrifying whirring noise. It sounded like a power saw. What were they doing? Surely Richard would be screaming if they were using it to hurt him?

  The sound seemed to go on forever. But then suddenly it stopped and she heard raucous laughter. Becky had no doubt now they would find her: her heart was beating so hard that she may as well have been hitting a kettledrum.

  Someone came in and turned on the light. A cabinet door was opened and a man laughed.

  ‘What?’ Another voice.

  ‘Look.’

  The second man laughed too and Becky could hear packets or plastic bottles being swept on to the floor or grabbed. Whether they had found Viagra or heaven knows what she was grateful that whatever Richard had in his bathroom cabinet had distracted them from doing a more thorough search. They moved on to another room. More doors were opened, drawers rifled. She heard the sound of the power saw again. And then they clattered down the stairs and left.

  Becky heard their car receding down the drive and, pressing her face to the wall’s cool tiles, closed her eyes. Never again would she be scathing of Matthew’s insistence on security. Never again would she grumble, along with Clara, at the periodic testing of the alarm system which always set their nerves jangling.

  ‘Richard,’ she called out in a rusty-sounding voice. There was no answer. She almost stumbled as she stepped out of the bath; she felt like she was walking on wooden legs across the landing.

  She checked all of the rooms upstairs and found three bedrooms in the same state: the beds had been sawn into pieces. The bed in Richard’s own room had been the prime focus of attention: not only were the legs sawn off and the bed frame in separate chunks but they had run the saw along the foam mattress itself so that it looked disembowelled.

  She wondered what she was going to find on the ground floor. The fish tank was still dimly lit, though the effect was now more eerie than subdued. As she came down the stairs she could hear a strange groaning – prolonged and jarring – and there was Richard’s body by the front door. He was tucked into the foetal position as though he had tried to protect himself against kicks to his testicles or stomach. The fingers of one hand still curved round the stem of a brandy glass though the glass was horizontal on the floor and its contents had drained away. There was an extensive patch of blood over the front of his head.

  ‘Richard?’ said Becky. There was no obvious reaction to her voice. She repeated his name louder, then louder still as she approached him but he just carried on groaning. She leaned closer and touched his shoulder; instantly he seemed to get agitated, twisting and twitching as a sleeping person might try to shake off a heavy blanket in the night.

  What had been the motivation for this dreadful attack?

  There was something stuck with blood in Richard’s hair – a little blue pill. As he twitched some more, Becky could see more blue pills all around and beneath him; they must have been scattered over him before his random motions shook them off.

  She removed the brandy glass from his hand and tried to find a flat surface to put it on – finally having to go into the kitchen, as the coffee table in the main space had been knocked over. Individual packets of condoms had been thrown over the remains of the salad and the kitchen floor. It seemed reasonable to assume Richard was either bothering the sister or daughter of someone who objected or maybe this was related to his refusal to take a paternity test for a woman he had already ‘bothered’.

  She must get help. She looked round the fish tank but couldn’t see a phone; no doubt it had been tastefully recessed. She knew there were no nearby houses to run to though she doubted Richard would find his isolation so splendid after this. And then the obvious occurred to her. She went back to where Richard was lying and reached into his shirt pocket. There was his mobile – switched off, but there. She switched it on and prayed he hadn’t put a password on it. Of course he hadn’t; Richard was too optimistic to bother with precautions like that.

  Where had she l
eft her handbag? She found it still on her seat at the terrace table and dialled the landline number for Copper Mill. Matthew answered within seconds; she imagined he’d been sitting on the veranda waiting up for her return. Her words came out in a rush. ‘Matthew, something terrible has happened. Some people have attacked Richard. He’s unconscious. I can’t get him to come round –’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At Richard’s house. It’s – I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know it. Have they gone?’

  ‘I heard them drive off.’

  ‘Have you locked the door?’

  ‘No.’ Becky grimaced at her lack of clear thinking. That should have been the first thing she did.

  ‘OK, do that now.’

  Mobile clasped to her ear, Becky went back into the fish tank and stepped over Richard to turn the key in the door. ‘Locked,’ she said.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am,’ she said. ‘I hid.’

  ‘That’s good. Do you know if Richard is breathing?’

  ‘He must be; he’s groaning.’

  ‘OK, I’ll be right there. I’ll send the police and an ambulance too.’ Matthew hung up.

  She looked down at Richard to see if there was anything she could do. The twitching of his arms and legs was becoming more pronounced so she fetched towels from the kitchen and bathroom to use as buffers between the wall and his head and limbs. She used a separate hand towel, soaked in cold water, to try and stem the bleeding from his head but the slightest pressure seemed to provoke more urgent twitching.

  He was as swaddled as she could make him and, as she seemed to be able to offer no comfort to whatever primeval consciousness was left in his brain, Becky went to stand on the terrace and wait for Matthew and the emergency vehicles to arrive.

  Just earlier that day she had stood barefoot on the land that Matthew and Richard so wanted to buy, on the rug of brown needles from the casuarina trees, looking up at them and delighting in the lulling sound of the breeze through their leaves. But now, in the lively evening breeze, the shushing of the branches sounded less like gentle waves breaking on the sand and more like sinister crones, whispering a threat: He’s brain damaged, he’s brain damaged. However irritating Richard could be Becky’s visions of him in a coma or a wheelchair filled her with horror. By the time car-lights lit up the drive relief at her own escape from the violence had been swamped by grim thoughts about Richard’s future.

  She leaned over the railings. It wasn’t the police or the ambulance: Matthew had got there first. He barely brought his car to a stop before he got out and ran towards the entrance.

  Becky hurried back inside to let him in and the moment the door was open buried her face in his shirt.

  He put his arms around her and his lips brushed her forehead. ‘It’s probably not as bad as you think. Come on, let’s go and have a look at him.’

  ‘He’s right here.’

  Matthew let her go and bent down to examine Richard. Becky stepped back to give him more room. He moved aside some of the towels she had put around Richard and checked his ears and nose.

  ‘I think that’s good,’ he murmured. ‘At least the only blood is on his head though I know that looks pretty awful.’

  Becky knew that head wounds could pour blood so it wasn’t so much the red mat of Richard’s hair that distressed her as the twitching. There was something so alien about those body movements.

  Matthew brushed more blue pills off Richard – his only comment a raising of his eyebrows – and called loudly: ‘Richard. Richard. Richard.’ He left it a few seconds then kept repeating the three words. Eventually some connection must have been made in Richard’s brain because his eyes opened and he blinked furiously: presumably trying to make sense of the pain he was in, his body position and Matthew’s face so near him. Suddenly he looped an arm towards Matthew. It was a wild and hopeless gesture but an unmistakeable attempt at a punch.

  Matthew laughed. ‘That’s more like it. Maybe he recognises me.’

  ‘Ecky-Becky.’ It was indistinct but definitely what Richard was trying to say.

  ‘On second thoughts maybe I’ll just punch him myself,’ said Matthew, smiling ironically at Becky.

  He stood up and gestured for her to swap with him. ‘He’ll be more reassured by your face than mine.’

  She crouched down beside Richard, gently talking him back into a conscious state by repeating over and over where he was. Richard’s growly attempts at speech gradually became coherent words.

  ‘There were two men. They were big buggers.’

  ‘The police are on their way,’ said Becky.

  Sirens could now be heard getting nearer. Matthew edged past Richard and Becky and went outside to meet them.

  Richard grimaced. ‘It’s coming back to me now. Sorry, Becky.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  His eyes opened wider. ‘What about you? Are you all right?’

  ‘They didn’t find me. I hid in your shower.’

  He gave the smallest of nods. ‘That’s good.’

  She straightened up and got out of the way to let Matthew and the two policemen come in. A second siren blared then was silenced as it reached the yard. The ambulance had arrived and shortly afterwards it left again with Richard inside.

  It must have been nearly midnight when the police finished asking her questions. They wanted to know whether the ‘blue medicine’ and the ‘packets of rubber objects’ (as they judiciously described them) had been scattered around before or during the intrusion. Despite the gravity of the night’s events Becky had to suppress a smile when they also asked if the beds had been sawn up before or after the men had arrived.

  Of the men involved Becky could say little other than that their accents were Bajan and that Richard seemed to have recognised them or certainly that he was aware of the reason for their visit.

  When the police finally said they could go Matthew gently led Becky to his car and drove her home. A mile or so into the journey Becky gave a sigh.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s the relief of you driving,’ she said. ‘Richard seemed to think he was a character in a computer game.’

  ‘He’s been through a few cars.’

  ‘Will the police catch his attackers, do you think? I mean, it’s a small island.’

  The moonlight through the windscreen illuminated his face; he seemed to be smiling. ‘If Richard decides to press charges they’ll have no problem catching them. But he won’t. He’s probably made some girl pregnant or chased after someone’s wife. He just never, ever thinks about the consequences.’

  Whereas Matthew clearly did and that was why he’d made sure she had a means of contacting him before she left for her date. Thank goodness for his good sense.

  Before long he was turning into the mahogany-lined lane that led to Copper Mill. ‘I sounded a bit unsympathetic back there,’ he said, ‘but I can’t forgive him for getting you involved. It could have been disastrous.’

  She was pleased his concern for her was personal rather than just to do with the rivalry between him and Richard then remembered Richard coming round and trying to punch him.

  ‘What does Ecky-Becky mean? I thought it was just a play on my name.’

  ‘I wish it were,’ said Matthew. ‘But it isn’t. Ecky-Becky, Becky Neck, Baked-neck, Redleg. As I told you once there are lots of names.’

  ‘So Richard was being –’ She sank back in her seat. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was aimed at you. How nasty.’

  ‘He is nasty. And spoilt. And lazy. And stupid.’

  ‘I had no idea it was possible to be so frightened. It was the sound of the power saw and having no idea what they were doing with it.’

  Matthew looked at her. ‘The best way to get rid of a bad sound is to replace it with a good one.’ He stopped near the bottom of the lane, just short of the yard, switched off the engine and opened the windows. Instantly the cho
rus of whistling frogs flooded in.

  Becky laughed. ‘Am I being serenaded?’

  ‘I can do better than that. Stay here a second, will you?’

  He got out and, as far as she could tell, was delving around in the undergrowth. He returned, his hands cupped together. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘What is it?’

  He opened his hands and there sat a frog little bigger than his thumbnail. ‘A genuine Barbadian whistling frog. He’s an ugly little bastard, isn’t he?’

  The frog looked up at Becky with big black eyes.

  ‘He’s lovely. To think that something that small can make such a racket.’

  ‘When you’re that ugly, you have to have some skill to attract a mate.’

  ‘Ahh, no; he’s cute.’

  Matthew returned the whistling frog to the foot of a croton shrub. It immediately hopped out of sight, its shrill cry now sounding less like an amorous call for a mate and more one of piercing indignation at being discovered.

  Matthew got back in. ‘So, if you think he’s cute then I must be in with a chance?’

  Becky looked at him, baffled. Surely he must know how good-looking he was. Although he seemed serious, she wondered whether there wasn’t some old-fashioned gallantry at play; was he trying to replace her bad experience with a light-hearted one?

  ‘If you learn to whistle like that, then yes, I’d have thought your chances are very good.’

  Matthew whistled a few sad notes then stopped. ‘I’ll have to take lessons from the experts.’

  He re-started the engine, turned into the yard, parked and they both got out. The old-fashioned house sat under the moonlight looking untroubled and secure. The security light came on as they walked arm in arm up the steps, looking like an urbane couple about to join a sedate gathering. As they stepped on to the veranda and the light switched off, returning them to darkness, Matthew’s self-control seemed to desert him. He turned Becky round to face him and kissed her.