“Not particularly,” said Keith, but his heart was racing.
“Prepare yourself; it’ll probably stink like hell - but you should be used to that, sitting there with shit in your pants.”
He prised off the lid of one of the barrels, recoiling as the stench of rotting meat and the sharp tang of chemicals hit him. “Pee-yew!” He flapped his hand in front of his nose. He opened the second barrel. Keith’s eyes were watering from the smell. He strained his neck, trying to see what was in the foul-smelling containers.
“Oops, silly me! My big reveal has no impact if you can’t see the fucking things.”
He pushed one barrel over. Pink and grey goop spilled out. Keith began to cough and splutter from the fumes. Dickon pushed the second barrel over. Some of the contents splashed on Keith’s trousers. The lumps in this liquid were larger - Keith gagged in horror - were recognisable as parts of bones. The crown of a skull was clearly distinguishable. A row of teeth in a jawbone confirmed Keith’s initial supposition to be correct: these were human remains.
“Of course,” Dickon giggled, “They’ve probably changed quite a bit since last you saw them.”
Keith tried to look away but he couldn’t. Was that dark smudge bobbing in a bubble what was left of an eyeball?
“Who - who are they?”
“Oh, Keith,” Dickon pouted. “Can’t you guess?” He waited but Keith didn’t respond. “These are your old friends from school. Thing One and Thing Two, remember? The three of you used to make my life hell every-fucking-day. You can’t have forgotten!”
Keith’s head was spinning. A kaleidoscope of thoughts clamoured for his attention, every one of them making him want to scream.
“Oh,” he said at last. His mutilated mouth twisted in a grimace. “Oh, fuck.”
***
Daley and his mates found other fish to pick on. With Kenny Dickens no longer at the school, they sought out the weak and the vulnerable, and transferred their bullying to another crop of lame ducks and life’s losers. Kenny Dickens was soon forgotten and the years passed.
One August morning, Daley was slinking home from school. He’d been to collect his exam results and although he hadn’t been expecting anything near the very beginning of the alphabet, he had hoped to be surprised with a couple of Cs among the Ds and Es. No such luck - but then, how lucky you are is not what the public examinations are designed to measure.
His henchmen had cottoned on to the business of actually knuckling down and studying long ago, distancing themselves from Daley, deliberately or otherwise. He’d left them in the school hall, celebrating with the teachers. Someone suggested they should all go for pizza and Daley just had to get out of there. He’d sloped off with never a goodbye or a backward glance.
Fuck re-sits! He wasn’t going to set foot in that shit hole again. He’d get a job or try his luck at Dedley Technical College or somewhere.
With his fists thrust deep into the pockets of his bomber jacket, he strode with a determined expression, ready to face the music that would be played on his head and torso by his stepfather as soon as his results - or lack thereof - became known.
Might as well get it over with, he reasoned. The longer he left it, the worse it would be; it was reasoning of this nature that informed the way Daley dealt with his own victims, teasing out the agony of anticipation for as long as he could so that when he finally clobbered them, it almost came as a blessed relief.
He took his customary shortcut through the narrow alley that led to his side of the estate, taking care to avoid the dog shit that was liberally distributed along the length of the path. His impromptu game of hopscotch was brought to a sudden and unexpected end when someone jumped him from a wall. Daley toppled under the weight of his assailant, finding himself pinned to the ground, dog shit and all. Winded, Daley struggled and squirmed. The attacker wasn’t all that heavy but the blade he was holding against Daley’s cheek commanded his attention. Daley vaguely recognised it as the kind they used to use in Art lessons. The attacker’s knees squeezed Daley’s neck. Daley choked, trying to see past the knife and identify the mugger. How dare anybody try to mug me? Anger swelled in him. His chest rose as though to unseat the bastard.
“Go on, then!” Daley spat. “You fucking coward!”
The attacker, masked in a hood, sunglasses and a scarf, tilted his head to one side.
“Fucking coward!” Daley repeated. He made an effort to get up but the blade was in his mouth. Daley tried to turn away. The knife sawed through his cheek. Daley screamed. Blood gargled in his throat. The knife stabbed at his face. It stabbed through his other cheek and worked its way to the corner of his mouth. Again and again the attacker struck, jabbing and stabbing. Daley’s bottom lip was almost off. It hung fat and wet like a red slug, exposing his lower teeth.
And then it stopped. The attacker was gone. Daley lay still, aware of retreating footsteps. He coughed out a bubble of blood and with his hands cupping the ruins of his face, headed for home.
***
Keith was sobbing. At first his eyes had streamed from the stench of the spilled chemicals and the putrefying pieces of his former classmates, but now his body was wracked with genuine grief and fear.
“Let me go,” he pleaded but Dickon was concentrating on something else. “Please! Let me - wh- what are you doing?” Although Keith had a good idea.
Dickon glanced up from the mortar he was mixing on a board. “Oh, you’ll see. I picked up a lot of skills during my travels. For a kid who didn’t finish school properly, I know a lot of stuff. And bricklaying’s one of the less unusual ones. Learned this on a building site in Zante. Met a lovely bloke called Angelos, taught me the trade, gave me hod.”
Dickon brayed with laughter. He placed brick after brick in a line alongside Keith. “I’m sure you and your mates, now you’re reunited, will enjoy spending the rest of eternity together.”
“You’re insane!”
“Just think of it as a never-ending weekend in a store cupboard.”
“Please!” Keith screeched as Dickon stacked the bricks higher. “I have a wife! A family!”
Dickon’s trowel paused but he did not look at Keith. “So, you lied. You lied on your online profile.” Dickon made it sound like this was the worst of Keith Daley’s crimes.
“So did you! Your name’s not even Dickon.” A terrible realisation dawned. “You knew! You knew all along it was me! You tricked me! You lured me here under false pretences!”
“Why did you come? Bit of bum-fun behind your wife’s back? You make me sick. Perhaps you think it’s not cheating on her if it’s with a bloke. You disgust me.”
The bricklaying resumed.
“Look,” Keith spoke quickly, all too aware that the wall curving around him was growing closer to the ceiling by the minute. “I was going to tell her - when I’d found the right man - I thought you - Look - we got along all right in the chat room, didn’t we?”
“I was leading you on, you twat.” Dickon carried on building.
“I’m sorry!” Keith screamed. “I really am. For everything I did to you. I really am truly sorry. Let me make it up to you. I have money.”
“I have a pub,” Dickon shrugged. “It’s a gay gold mine. You can’t buy your way out of this.”
“I am so - so - sorry...”
“Let me guess: your bullying of me was just your way of fighting off your own latent homosexuality.”
“Er...”
“Pop psychology bollocks. There’s no excuse for what you did to me and now you must pay.”
“Bricking me up in here won’t help you compartmentalise your memories, you know. Burying me in your cellar won’t bury me in your head, you know. I’ll be dead but not forgotten.”
“Dead?” Dickon’s nose wrinkled at the apparent cuteness of the idea. “Oh no, Mr Daley; I ex
pect you to live.”
16.
Of all the skills Kenny Dickens picked up during his years of travel, spinning plates was not among them. Now, in his new persona as Dickon, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep on top of the progressively more complicated situation at the pub.
On the one hand there was the unfolding revenge drama with that bastard Keith Daley- which had been derailed momentarily when the bastard couldn’t even remember who Dickon was; on the other hand, there were the two coppers, namely that cutie Jason and the bogus drag act with the 1970s moustache. Clearly the intruder Dickon had doctored hadn’t survived long enough to carry out his instructions to tear the devious detectives limb from fucking limb.
Also - and Dickon had run out of hands - on one foot, there was dishy David, Jason’s other half, who was suspicious to say the least. Coming here, looking for his boyfriend, Brough had said. They were having problems and he thought Jason might be crying on Dickon’s shoulder or something less euphemistic. Dickon wasn’t sure he believed the story; Brough was a detective, after all, and there was no shortage of them that evening. And, on the other foot, figuratively speaking, Dickon was concerned about the medicine. It hadn’t worked properly on that Ronald chap, whoever the fuck he was, and so Dickon would have to cook up another batch for his star prisoner, the bastard Keith Daley.
I really have got my hands (and feet) full, Dickon wailed inwardly. This whole situation is starting to get on my tits as well.
He left Keith to ruminate on recent revelations and popped up to his flat above the restaurant to check he had enough ingredients left.
I mustn’t rush, mustn’t rush, mustn’t rush - he busied himself with the kitchen scales and a mixing bowl.
Oops! Almost forgot!
He lifted a ceremonial tribal mask from its hook over his bed and put it on.
I’m sure it’s just for show, he thought, and doesn’t really influence the efficacy of the medicine; but at this late stage in the game, Dickon wasn’t prepared to risk it.
***
Outside, Jerry looked up at the darkened pub and thought he’d seen livelier cemeteries. At least he could tell Mel there was fuck all going on and put her mind at ease.
A light came on in the uppermost window.
Someone was there! Jerry froze. If they look out of that window they’ll clock me stood standing here like a total knob and -
And what? Call the coppers? Do me for trespassing?
Not if there’s anything dodgy going on, they won’t.
The light went out. Jerry decided to have a quick shufti around the back. Mel would be sure to grill him for the tiniest details of what he had seen.
He used the light from his phone as a torch. Everything looked to be in order to him, but he was no expert in the appearance of pubs after closing. Something on the ground glinted. A padlock. Brand new, it appeared. Securing the cellar doors. Crime prevention - Mel would approve.
Something sharp prodded Jerry in the small of his back.
“Don’t move!” rasped a muffled voice.
Jerry lifted his hands slowly, like they did on the telly.
“I said don’t you fucking move!” The sharp thing poked him again.
“Ow!” Jerry objected. He turned around and was confronted by a nightmare. A huge, hideous face with eyes like sloping letterboxes and a wide mouth full of fearsome fangs was grinning vacantly at him, framed by feathers and long, dried grasses. Jerry let out an involuntary cry. The sharp thing - he glanced down and saw it was some kind of antiquated spear - was pressing against his belly. “What the fuck?”
The masked man blew a handful of powder into Jerry’s face. Jerry sneezed twice. And then dropped, unconscious, to land on the padlocked cellar doors with a heavy thud.
***
“What was that?” Stevens tried to crane his neck but Pattimore’s head behind his prevented it.
“Sounded like a heavy thud,” said Pattimore. “Somebody’s out there!”
There was a brief moment of silent contemplation of this new development and then both detectives began to cry for help as loud as their parched throats would allow.
In another section of the cellar, Brough also heard the heavy thud followed by the cries of two grown men whose voices he recognised.
Jason!
That wanker Stevens!
Brough thought about adding his own voice to the hullabaloo but at that second, the door opened and a terrifying countenance was revealed. Brough couldn’t help gasping at the sight of it.
“Oops, sorry, chicken.” Dickon’s voice came from within the huge mask. He lifted it off and tucked it under his arm. “Forgot I had it on.”
He stepped in and with his trusty craft knife, slit the plastic ties that bound the detective’s wrists and ankles.
“Thanks,” said Brough, massaging the affected areas, “Nice mask. Fang?”
“Haitian. It’s a wossname, a nantique.” Dickon’s expression changed. “Oh, no you don’t. Trying to distract me with chitchat. You’m coming with me. You can rub yourself better in a minute.”
He pocketed the knife and used his spear to menace Brough out into the cellar proper. Aware that he had too many plates spinning in too many places, he had decided to put all his eggs in one basket. The spear steered Brough through to the compartment wherein his colleagues were incarcerated.
“Davey!” gasped Pattimore.
“I bloody knew it!” Stevens was full of good cheer. “I bloody knew he’d get us out.”
“Um, actually,” said Brough, a little embarrassed.
“On your knees!” Dickon commanded. Then with a snicker, he added, “Phrases that come back to haunt you!” Just as quickly, his amusement vanished and prodded Brough in the breastbone with his spear. (Another nantique, no doubt, thought Brough) “Unless you’d prefer to be tied to the other two? Make a threesome of it?”
“Fuck off!” Stevens panicked.
Brough caught Pattimore’s hopeful expression in the gloom. “Here’s fine,” he said. He knelt and Dickon attached new plastic ties to Brough’s wrists.
“I shan’t be two shakes of a sailor’s cock,” Dickon assured them and skipped out, leaving the giant carved head on a barrel to watch over them.
“Davey...” Pattimore began.
“Who is this fucking fuckwit, Brough?” Stevens interrupted. “What’s his fucking problem?”
“Well,” said Brough. “I think we’ve found our man. Our old mate Dickon is behind the restless dead blokes who’ve been knocking around town lately.”
“He’s not my old mate,” said Stevens.
“And who’s this on the floor?” Brough nodded towards the fallen figure of Ronnie Flavell.
“That’s our new mate, Ronald or something,” said Stevens. “He’s a bit quiet. But it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.”
“How’s he doing it?” said Pattimore. “Dickon, I mean.”
“I’m not sure,” said Brough, happy to answer any question that was work-related. He nodded towards the mask. “But I’m beginning to suspect...”
“Here we are!” said Dickon, returning suddenly. He smacked on a light switch. The bare light bulb was only dim but even so it was enough to hurt the detectives’ eyes. “Room for a big one.” He cackled and pulled a rather somnambulant Jerry in. “Another one turned up late to the party. Might have to book Tasha for a return engagement.”
“Piss off,” said Stevens.
“Jerry?” gasped Brough. Miller’s boyfriend did not acknowledge the detective. That’s Jerry all right, thought Brough. “What have you done to him?”
“Not much,” Dickon shrugged. “Just gave him a little prick.”
D I Brough jutted his chin. “Before you steal any more jokes from seaside postcards, I think you should rel
ease us and turn yourself in.”
“Fucking yeah!” said Stevens.
“The joke wasn’t that bad,” said Dickon. “You gentlemen need to sit tight and enjoy the demonstration. Well, two of you may; I need one of you to, ah, assist.” He looked at them in turn, hopeful for a volunteer. “No? Then I’ll let Whojimmyflop choose - what did you call him? Jerry?”
He handed the stupefied Jerry a lemon-slicer, having to curl his fingers around the handle so he didn’t drop it. “There you go. Now, Jerry, listen to me. I want you to kill one of these nice detectives for me. Can you do that for me, Jerry? Be a love.”
Jerry stood stock still. After a moment of silence in which Dickon jerked his head towards his three prisoners and made quick, stabbing gestures, Jerry shuffled forward. He raised the knife and made slow movements, like a treacle-covered psycho killer in slow motion. Unblinking, he advanced towards Pattimore, who shrank back, trying to change positions with Stevens.
A slight frown clouded Jerry’s brow as it dawned on him the path to his chosen victim was blocked. Someone was standing in his way and that someone was Detective Inspector David Brough. Dickon had bound his hands but in his hurry, had neglected to tie his ankles.
“Davey!” Pattimore cried.
Brough searched the gravedigger’s eyes. Jerry stared blankly back. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he lifted the knife higher and higher.
“Davey! No!” Pattimore screamed. “Davey, I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry! Get out of the way!”
But Brough ignored him and stood his ground, maintaining eye contact with the gormless gravedigger.
“Do it!” Dickon urged, beginning to feel he was being overlooked in this standoff. “Go on, chicken. This one’ll do as well as the other.”
Jerry’s bottom lip trembled. Brough held his breath. Jerry emitted a low, grumbling moan from somewhere deep inside him and then, quick as a flash, he plunged the blade into his own neck. Blood sprayed like a garden sprinkler, raining on Dickon’s surprised face. Jerry tottered and stumbled, dropping the knife. He flailed around the cellar, backing Dickon into a corner. Brough saw his chance. He crouched over the knife and fumbled it into his hands. He sawed away at the plastic ties. Within seconds, his hands were free. He sprang up and menaced the cornered madman with the bloodied blade.
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