For One Night Only

by W W Walker

  “The police?” said Eva. “The coast guard, surely?”

  “Y…Yes,” Gladys stuttered. “They were going to call the coast guard too, but then the power went off and they couldn’t call anyone.”

  “So, he’s still missing?”

  “Yes, he’s still missing.”

  Constance ran up the steps with no care to any mishap. She’d done the same that morning when that girl with the ponytail had come down to the beach. She’d gone on a run and Constance had climbed up almost two steps at a time, just as she was doing now.

  Oh god. Seeing Eddie like that had shaken her to the core. His body looked disgusting. His flesh looked like tripe, white and wrinkled, and his arms were askew as if they had been broken at the joints against the force of the waves on the rocks, but it was his staring, empty eyes that had chilled her to the bone. They had looked straight into her soul, making her feel like she would be spending eternity in hell.

  She’d scrambled away from him, kicking her heels into the sand, but under her arm, the wetsuit remained. She’d pulled it to her chest as if it were protection against her despicable husband, dead as he was.

  Eddie’s body remained lying on the beach as the waves washed over him, covering him over and over again in frothing white water as it ebbed and returned. The waves had covered Constance’s legs, and it was only then, she had been roused from her daze. She looked around her and realised the beach was almost covered. Thank god, she thought. Once again it would take Eddie’s body into its dark depths, concealing her crime for yet one more night.

  Gladys leaned forward and touched Marigold’s hand. It was a silencing hand, a motherly hand. One of love and reassurance. Marigold was glad of it. Someone had to take over the story because she couldn’t go on. She just couldn’t.

  “Marigold came over to see how we were when the lights went off,” Gladys said. “She has been very supportive.” The two women smiled, knowing smiles, smiles that only they knew the cause.

  “She helped us get through the day after we were terribly worried about my son. There was nothing we could do. We just had to wait until the electric came back on.”

  A whistle of wind blew outside the window behind Glady’s armchair. The draft made the candles all flicker in unison as if the flames were performing the dance of death. “The way this wind is picking up, it may never come back on. Not tonight,” said Eva.

  Marigold glanced at her watch. She was to give Constance thirty minutes to do what she needed to do.

  Kiki leaned in. “Well done you, for looking out for them, Marigold,” she said.

  “I was just being a good neighbour.”

  “More than that. You were a true friend.”

  “No problem.” Marigold absentmindedly stroked her finger over the face of her watch.

  As she rushed along the eight, Constance glanced back towards Eva’s house. It was hard to see inside, with just the candlelight in there, but the curtains were still open and she could make out a group of women gathered around an armchair.

  She was about to keep speed walking towards her house when she just happened to espy a small light inside the empty house at No.3. She stopped. Strange, she thought. Surely there was no one in there and yet the light had now turned to a white glow as if there was someone in there smoking a cigarette.

  With much more important things on her mind, she went straight past her house to the Butler’s and went quickly around the side towards the greenhouse. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. She needed to put the wetsuit towards the back, to make it look as if the killer had tried to hide it. Just as she went three steps in, her bare feet stepped in something cold. She shone the torch to the floor and recoiled when she saw her foot covered in blackened blood. She lifted it and saw what looked like small intestines hanging from her toes. She scraped her foot on a clean slab while grimacing with horror.

  “I don’t know how much more I can take,” she said until she realised she was talking to herself. Enough is enough. With all resolve draining from her, she threw the wetsuit into the corner of the greenhouse, leaving it draped over a large pot filled with green bean sticks.

  Then Constance backed out, pulling the door shut and running over the garden to her own house next door.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Rhianna had slipped away. She’d been thinking about Tom ever since she’d left him at the door when he’d touched her hand. Her heart pounded every time she thought about their first meeting; the way he looked; how he spoke; his whole persona; how he held himself; how assertive he was. It all added up to one hunk of a man, and she cared not for his inability to walk. Despite his incapacity, when she thought about how he’d been injured, it made her admire him more. He’d remained honourable when he’d avoided crashing his lorry into a woman driver. Even then he had been a gentleman. Even then!

  She wanted to be with him, spend time with him, talk to him. And even if he may never be able to make love to her, the feelings she had for him seemed to eliminate the thought of never having his children…if they reached that occasion in their relationship. Relationship! What was she thinking? Was she stepping ahead of herself? She hardly knew him. Surely it wasn’t normal for a woman to think about marrying a man she’d just met. Maybe she’d romanticised the whole thing. Maybe she’d just got carried away. She was a fool…wasn’t she?

  Despite her hopes and doubts, she still went quietly toward his house needing to see him one more time that night.

  The women in No.5 were all talking about the man who had been lost at sea, Eddie. Rhianna didn’t know him, nor did she know his wife or the mother. She would help if she could but what use would she be? As it was, the thought of seeing Tom diminished any responsibility to neighbours and strangers.

  Tonight, she was a free bird. Liberated. She had no adults watching over her. She was alone in Seaview for one night only and she meant to make the most of it.

  No one saw her slip away. She’d taken her jacket and while the candles burned low, under the cover of darkness she left. The one person who could have prevented her from leaving was Tammy, Tom’s protective sister. She may not have wanted Rhianna to go seeking out her brother whilst she wasn’t there to defend him. And perhaps Tom needed defending because wasn’t she now a stranger, seeking him out, like a lovesick predator? Wasn’t it her intention to seduce the man who had seduced her in a heartbeat with a single touch…a smile…an encouraging word? She was a vamp and she’d never been a vamp in her life before. The feeling she had diminished all her control. Control was something that other people did. She didn’t want that. She wanted to love with abandon, not to set parameters. Yes, she was a vamp.

  As she went, the wind tore at her clothes and her ponytail, now loose at the back of her head, flapping in the wind like a sock on a rotary. The wind burned her face and sea spray salted her skin. She had to close her eyes to stop herself from secreting tears she never meant to shed. This wasn’t a time for crying, it was a time for rejoicing, celebrating the moment she’d experienced that crazy phenomenon, love at first sight. She’d never be able to explain it. It was literally inexplicable. It just was. And as far as Rhianna was concerned, she didn’t care about explaining it to any heathen who asked.

  She reached the gate which led to the back of Tom’s house.

  She glanced back to the window at the front of Eva’s place. No.5, where inside, shadows moved around as the women fussed over the old lady in the armchair.

  Rhianna took a deep breath and went through the gate.

  Kiki saw Rhianna slip away. She smiled to herself, as she thought about how much she wanted to slip away too. She could be at home, cuddled up on the sofa with the fire burning in the grate, listening to the wind whistling outside, waiting for the storm to come. Instead, she was inside Eva’s house as everyone fussed over the old lady in the armchair. The women who’d lost her son.

  She was surprised at the actions of Marigold. In a nice way! The woman had been a pest in her life, annoying t
he hell out of her every damn night, but tonight, she’d taken a family under her wing the way an honourable person cared for another human being. Her actions had cast a whole new light in Kiki’s eyes and that didn’t happen very often.

  As she sat there listening and watching, she thought about Tyrone. Where was he? What on earth had happened that would make him leave his car at the side of the road like that? How she wished the power would come back on. At least then she could call him, or he could call her.

  Suddenly, she felt a surge of energy and determination. She was going to slip away, go back home, get a ladder -the Butlers had one- and climb over the wall. She would then check to see if Tyrone had left his keys in the car, and if not, she would keep on walking until she came upon a house who had a phone. Yes, that all made sense and that was what she would do.

  Rhianna knocked on the window. She was cupping her hand over her eyes against the glass, hoping to see inside. She called his name, Tom, but the wind took it away as if she’d never uttered it at all.

  She tried the back door. It was open, but that wasn’t unusual. No one locked their doors in Seaview, not like in the city where relaxed security was starting to put doubt in people’s minds. Never before had someone intruded upon the havens of the working classes. It just wasn’t done. But now burglaries were becoming commonplace in middle-class homes, where TV’s were ripe for the picking and as more electrical goods worked their way in, people were becoming cautious about keeping their possessions safe. Not in Seaview though. In Seaview, they still didn’t lock their doors.

  She went inside. He was probably in the sitting room, staying warm in front of the fire. She knew the way. She called his name again. “Tom.” It came out a half-whisper. She didn’t know why. It was as if the darkness demanded quiet.

  She pushed open the door.

  The room was illuminated only by the flames of the fire. The sofa which had once stretched the width of the chimney-piece, facing the hearth, had been moved away. In its place was Tom’s wheelchair, where Tom, his head lolling to the side was tied with a length of thin blue rope.

  She couldn’t process it. The vision wasn’t something she’d expected at all. It just wouldn’t fathom in her consciousness. She stepped forward, her shoes thumping on the floorboards. She reached him and saw his face. He was unconscious, as if dead, his face bloodied and bruised and his mouth gagged with a piece of duct tape.

  Then the door slammed shut.

  Rhianna turned sharply and she saw a man standing in the shadows.

  Kiki was out of there. Thank the heavens! She should never have gone to the party in the first place. Let the others solve all the problems of the family from No.7. They didn’t need her.

  She closed the back door and went without a torch, around the back to the side of the house. She no longer needed a light to guide her. The moon was up, and it was bright, despite being lost occasionally behind black clouds whisked-up by the wind.

  Her hair was blowing as she came to the front of the house. She looked back to the women inside No.5, seeing shadows dance over the walls in the candlelight. They were okay, they didn’t need her. Maybe Eddie would turn up. Then they could all go back to celebrating whatever they wanted to celebrate, cocktails and all.

  She was just walking along the eight, hoping no one would spot her, when she turned her head sideways and saw something she shouldn’t have seen. It was a small flicker of light as if someone had lit a cigarette, but it was inside the empty house where no one should have been.

  She stopped. How odd! The new family weren’t supposed to be moving in until next week, so why would there be someone inside now? She remained staring. Then she wondered, despite her assumption being completely irrational if the person inside was Tyrone. She knew it didn’t make sense, but he was missing, so anything could be possible, couldn’t it?

  She looked back to No.5. She had only walked a short distance. She could still see them in there, fussing over the lady in the armchair. She wondered if she should go back and alert them…Alert them to what? She’d seen a small flicker of light. If she went back and told them that, they’d say she was being paranoid. Wouldn’t they?

  The confused expression on her face lingered when she decided to go check things out. She was many things, but no one could ever call her a coward. She’d been through pain and suffering…and danger…during the early part of her life…so any challenge now was a walk in the park. Besides, there was no point trying to climb the wall if Ty was in there, despite the practicality of that not making sense at all.

  She decided against ringing the doorbell since it was common knowledge the house was empty and that would be silly in the scheme of things. She went up over the sloping drive and down the side of the house. The garden was practically non-existent. The previous owners must have torn up the flowers before they’d left.

  She remembered them. They’d moved in at the beginning when the houses were brand new. They’d had young children who used to ride their choppers along the eight or kick a ball around, in danger of smashing a window or two. The parents were middle-aged and middle class. She stayed at home raising the kids while he went off to work each day in his white company car, a four-door Zephyr. Then he lost his job. No one knew why, but it was the reason they sold up and left. They could no longer afford the mortgage. A terrible time for them, Marigold had said. Of course, it was Marigold who had told her the whole story. If she hadn’t, Kiki wouldn’t have cared to know.

  She went around the back. Of course, the doors would be locked. She tried the patio doors anyway. She was right. House secure. Maybe she hadn’t seen someone light a cigarette. Maybe she’d seen something else. It could have been a reflection of something in the window. Yes, that could be it. It was probably her eyes playing tricks on her.

  Just before she decided to give up and leave, to carry on with her original plan of scaling the front wall on a ladder, she placed her hand up against the kitchen window. She cupped her fingers around her eyes, but she saw nothing. Just empty cabinets with the doors slightly open.

  But then she went up on her toes and in her line of sight over the stainless steel sink, she saw something on the floor. At first, she couldn’t make it out. It looked like a cross, a large cross laid down on the black and white checked tiles. But then the cross moved. She couldn’t understand it. What were her eyes seeing?

  She knew when a beam of moonlight cast itself through the window into the darkened house.

  On the floor was a man, trussed up with a rope, in the shape of a cross as if he was Jesus on a crucifix.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Drake Fisher couldn’t have been more entertained if he’d gone to see a show in the West End. The women of Seaview were entirely incompetent, living on their emotions instead of their wits. That was dangerous! For them.

  He’d watched Constance from No.7 stagger along the eight to the steps leading down to the beach. The weather was frantic and yet there she was taking an early evening stroll in the midst of it. Not long after, she’d reappeared, soaked to the skin, carrying something black that he couldn’t quite distinguish in the dark.

  He’d lit a cigarette and she stopped momentarily to look inside, wondering what she’d seen. He stubbed the end of the cigarette on the wooden parquet floor.

  She looked bewildered as if her life was being flushed down the toilet, like his mother’s had been flushed the same way.

  He was twenty-five then. He’d been at Phillips for six years, working the factory floor. He worked split shifts, preferring the night to the days. They were quieter, with less fussing, less chatter from the workers who seemed to form friendships and making friends was something he could never understand. He’d never had a friend and he functioned just fine.

  The men on transport used to rib him. He was different, he knew that, but he never quite understood their reasons for taunting him day in and day out. They used to rile him so bad that when he went home to mother, he’d give her what for. He’d shout
at her for not having his meal ready, for not cleaning the house, for not buying his favourite snacks. She took it like the docile bitch she was, still calling him her little Drakey, even at that age.

  One day it got so bad, he’d grabbed a hold of her arm, pulled her through the kitchen and into the lean-to, took the key out of his pocket, opened the cellar door and shoved her inside. She’d tumbled down the steps to the bottom. And after he heard her splash about in the water, she’d screamed when she saw father for the first time in years. Drake had leaned against the door, laughing at the thought of mother’s look of surprise when she bumped into her husband. He wondered if they’d have a good bonk while she was down there, grunting and groaning, moaning and doing it all night long…

  Then he heard her banging on the door. “Please son, let me out, oh god, let me out, please,” she begged.

  His laughter had subsided, he was no longer amused. He kept his back to the door as he shouted through it. “Who’d ya meet down there, mother?” he yelled.

  “No one, son. No one,” she sobbed behind the door.

  “Why do you want out, then?”

  “It’s the stench. I can’t stand the stench. Please, son, let me out. I’ll go down the shop and get the snacks you like,”

  His ears had pricked up then. “Quavers?” he said slowly. “You’ll get me quavers?”

  “Yes, Drakey, I’ll get you Quavers and Mars bars. You love Mars bars.”

  That’s when he let her out. She was soaked to the skin when he opened the door and she fell through onto the floor of the lean-to. He gave her a swift kick in the lower leg, and she backed off. Her face was a picture. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  He turned the key in the lock and spat back at her. “Go and get washed,” he said. “And don’t forget what you promised.”