Stitched

by Taylor, Peter

  Bridge gestured magnanimously with his hands. ‘Doc, what can I say? You were right and I was wrong – about exercise, I mean. Been going to the gym and I’m sleeping like next door’s cat. Sleep of the just they call it, don’t they? And my brain is so sharp, so productive after a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘What they say,’ Alex said, a little reserved. Something in Bridge’s voice wasn’t hitting the right key here, as though he had a hidden agenda lurking in his devious mind and it was a source of self-satisfaction, massaging his ego.

  ‘How are you sleeping, Doc? You don’t look so good, if I may presume.’

  Bridge’s face was affecting a mock concern, like an over-eager gossip’s pretending empathy with her victim in order to extract fresh fuel to store away for future use.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ Alex said, uncomfortable with the over-the-top friendliness they both knew for what it was. How long would the gangster keep it up before coming to his point?

  Bridge cocked an eyebrow. ‘Why I ask, Doc, is because your welfare is of increasing importance to me. I am a professional in my own right, see, just like you.’

  ‘Glad you’re looking out for me,’ Alex said, trying to hide his concern at Bridge’s bizarre behaviour. ‘But why? What professional service are you offering? Have I missed something?’

  Like a parent indulging a child’s endearing ignorance, Bridge leaned his head to one side and smiled knowingly. Alex felt like hitting him, venting all his current frustrations on that smug face.

  ‘I don’t like to see an intelligent man like you suffering, Doc. It can ruin your health, all that worry, then what good would you be to me?’

  Alex felt himself colour. Bridge, with his criminal, predatory instinct, had somehow picked up that he was out of sorts and was playing on it for his own sadistic reasons; one childish tilt back at the system which contained him.

  ‘My health is not the matter at hand, Bridge. Yours is, however.’

  Bridge just pulled a face, then said, ‘You think they’ve captured your soul, Doc?’

  Alex’s eyes widened. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Are you hallucinating, man? Been on the drugs in your pad?’

  Bridge grinned. Like a dramatic lecturer making a point to his audience, he raised an arm, pointed a finger to the sky.

  ‘Red Indians in America. They used to believe if you took a photograph of someone you were capturing the soul. Has that happened to you, Doc? Is that why you’re so pale.’

  A switch turned on in Alex’s head. Cold fingers plucked at his innards. Surely this man couldn’t know what was troubling him. It must be a lucky hit, a random choice of metaphor coinciding with a sensitive set of circumstances, a lucky, meaningless synchronicity. He forced himself to be calm, not let this arrogant man see he had hit a spot.

  ‘I believe you’re supposed to have a bad chest this time,’ he said, perfunctorily. ‘So enough of the mystic meanderings about the soul and let’s see if your body’s functioning.’

  Bridge lowered his head and his eyes fixed on Alex like an animal focusing on prey. His voice changed, was deeper, like a growl. Alex felt the malevolence in him vibrating on the air.

  ‘I see I need to spell it out for you, Doc. Let me see, now. First, there was the unsavoury business in the hotel. Then there was the money handed over and the little powder present. My associate was wired and taped the conversation. His pal in the hide photographed the whole dirty business. They tell me he got good close ups, telling detail. So you see there’s enough to cause you serious grief if the wrong people get hold of all that evidence. It might seem a little circumstantial but it would take some explaining when it’s all put together.’

  For days Alex had been living in anticipation that something was coming. But it had manifested itself from a totally unexpected direction, taken him by surprise and was worse than he could have imagined. As though struck by a powerful, invisible force, he took a step backwards. His breathing accelerated as the magnitude of his trouble hit home. This criminal thought he had power over him and, if he didn’t give him whatever it was he wanted, losing his job might be the least of his worries; criminal charges were a possibility here. All that trouble they’d gone to was ominous, wasn’t it? High stakes must surely be involved!

  He lowered himself into his chair, looked up at Bridge, tried not to seem as defeated as he felt while he waited to see what came next, dreading it. The criminal was watching him, a calculating coldness in his eyes. Beneath that gaze he felt like a specimen lying helplessly under the microscope on a laboratory table, ripe for experiment.

  ‘You get it now, Doc? We haven’t much time, so listen good. You’re going to help me get out of this place, see? That’s what this is all about. Help me and all the evidence against you will be destroyed. It’ll all go away.’

  Alex tried to summon a little courage. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘Do your worst. There’s no end to a blackmail. I was a fool to go down that road the first time but no more, no more.’

  Alex’s voice had risen. Bridge looked towards the door, afraid the screw would hear and investigate. He lowered his own voice.

  ‘Sometime soon I need to fake a heart attack so they have to call an ambulance. You need to confirm I need hospital urgently. That’s it for you, Doc. They’d never know what you did. How could they?’

  ‘No! I won’t help scum like you escape. Get out of here.’ Alex waved a hand dismissively. In his heart he was angry at his foolishness in allowing himself to be manoeuvred into this position.

  ‘Think hard, Doc. Think of your career, how bad it’s going to look.’

  Bridge was hovering, a bird of prey seeking the right moment to swoop and sink its talons.

  ‘If you won’t do it for yourself alone, think of others,’ he said.

  ‘Others?’ Alex questioned, puzzled, only half-aware, thinking how his life was about to disintegrate.

  ‘Last resort, we’ll hurt your family.’

  Disgust contorted Alex’s features. He fought the urge to attack Bridge there and then, hang the consequences, because they couldn’t get much worse.

  ‘Let me see,’ Bridge continued, ‘there’s Liz, deaf Ann the beloved daughter, Gloria your new love. I believe she lives with you now.’

  Alex’s head jerked back. His eyes bulged, his fists bunched and he started to rise.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Bridge snapped at him. ‘What good would it do? You’ve got to think, my man. Think hard! You’re dealing with a pretty mean hombre here.’

  Alex glowered then lowered himself back into his chair. He’d been on the verge of launching a physical attack but the magnitude of the threat this man and his associates posed for him and his family forced him to think again.

  Somehow, they were into every corner of his life. He had to think about the threat to those nearest to him. Bridge was the one holding all the aces here.

  Bridge, sensing victory, stepped towards the door. ‘Next time I see you, I’ll have details and timings.’

  ‘Get out,’ Alex said, biting hard into his bottom lip, holding himself in check with difficulty.

  ‘Remember, everything to gain, nothing to lose,’ Bridge hissed. ‘We’ll destroy your whole world, Doc, and my hands won’t even get dirty ’cos others will do it for money.’

  With a last meaningful glance at Alex, he opened the door. Then, he was gone from the room. His presence lingered on in the air, an oppressive heaviness.

  In the silence and solitude Alex felt as though the room was pressing in on him, collaborating with his tormentor to squeeze his life from all sides. He placed his head in his hands. Bizarrely, images of those burned corpses in Iraq, his friends’ corpses, ghosted their way into his mind, reminding him of what man could do to man, what Bridge and his ilk could do to those he loved. He’d seen enough savagery out there and it had nearly destroyed his mind. The thought of Liz, Ann and Gloria suffering for his foolishness, his capitulation to that first blackmail, was beyond his endurance. No doubt about it
, he was trapped and, other than doing as they asked, he couldn’t see a way out.

  Chapter Eleven

  That night, for the first time in a long time, Alex drank heavily. Luckily, Gloria was staying the night with the girlfriend who was trying to find her a job; apparently they had some paperwork to catch up on. By the time they’d finished, she reckoned, it would be too late for the long, moorland drive home, especially since they had had an early start and she would be tired by the evening. Alex was glad to be alone with his problem, thinking, searching for a solution, but finding it difficult to decide on one.

  Several times he considered phoning the police, once even picked up the handset to do it. If it had been only his reputation and career on the line, he might just have done it, might even have been willing to serve time if the law somehow interpreted the photographs and tape the wrong way, because he had to admit they’d done a good job in incriminating him. But it wasn’t just himself involved and, hard as he tried, he couldn’t think of a way to extricate his dear ones from the danger Bridge and his cronies posed. His fourth glass of whisky hadn’t made things any clearer but at least it helped assuage some of his pain. Around midnight, still unable to reach a clear decision and his brain exhausted, he staggered to bed and fell asleep.

  Morning came with a hangover. He peeped at the bedside clock to discover he’d overslept. It was 10 a.m. already. He managed to drag himself up, dress in his shorts and singlet and force himself to go for a cross-country run, a masochistic yet, from plenty of practice in his army days, the best antidote he knew to a heavy drinking session. He threw up after a half-mile and then things improved.

  After he’d managed another two miles he returned home, lay in the bath and felt a little better physically, if not mentally. At least there was the consolation that he was off for two days; he couldn’t have faced work today, not with his troubles pummelling his mind ceaselessly.

  He passed an hour doing simple but necessary household chores to occupy his brain. Then he noticed the date on a calendar and groaned as he remembered that today was Ann’s sports day and he’d promised to meet Liz outside her school in Nunthorpe. He looked at his watch. If he put his foot down he might just make it. But God, how was he ever going to hide his state of mind from Liz? He decided he’d just have to do his best, the way he’d had to in his army days, bravado on the outside while inside you were quaking.

  Hoping the four whiskies had worked their way out of his system, he set off, driving at the edge of the speed limit, never going over in case the police stopped him and added to his troubles. He was already ten minutes late when he arrived on the outskirts of Nunthorpe, a pleasant enough suburb of Middlesbrough.

  He was fifteen minutes late when he arrived at the school. Pacing and looking flustered, Liz was at the gate waiting for him. As he parked his car and walked towards her half his brain was toying with the idea of telling her everything, the other half telling him it would be best not to because what good would it do? If they tried to hide, the people Bridge employed, given the evidence of their capabilities so far, were thorough enough to find them. Even if he confessed to the police himself, could they protect his family and Gloria for ever? He doubted it. No matter how bad he felt about it, that was the reality. Doing as he was told seemed the only safe option to protect those he cared about, no matter how reluctant he was to comply with Bridge’s demands.

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ Liz called out when she spotted him. ‘I nearly went in by myself. Would have done if Ann hadn’t expected a united front from us today.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, falling in beside her as they headed in, ‘traffic jam.’

  She slowed her pace momentarily and he felt her scrutinizing him. ‘You OK, Alex? You sound – look – different.’

  He wasn’t surprised she’d noticed. She’d known him so long she was bound to pick up on the fact that he was a worried man.

  ‘Just a bit under the weather,’ he answered. ‘But I didn’t want to let Ann down.’

  ‘Black mark for the bad shave, then,’ she said. ‘Not to mention the bags under the eyes.’

  A young, florid-faced teacher was standing outside the main school building. Recognizing Liz, he guided them to the path that led to the back of the school where the sports field was situated.

  When Alex saw the crowd of excited children, the proud parents and the harassed teachers, heard the noise they were making, he groaned inwardly. How was he going to endure this, today? Then he felt Liz pulling at his jacket and he followed her to a row of seats next to the running track.

  The races had already started. He had to steel himself to endure what, given different circumstances, would have been a pleasant occasion. The children’s cheering, the hullabaloo which accompanied each race and the strident voice of the teacher on the microphone as he tried to master the general disorder, assaulted Alex’s frayed nerves. He craved peace and quiet, thinking time, but he had no chance here and his thought patterns hit crash barriers before they could gather any momentum.

  ‘Have you got a splinter in your backside, Alex?’ Liz complained, after the third race. ‘I’ve never known you so restless. You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Bench is a bit hard, pet,’ Alex said. ‘Makes a change, anyway. You often said I was a pain in your backside.’

  She didn’t react to his poor attempt at a joke, just turned her attention back to the races, looking for their daughter. Alex forced himself to sit still, clap enthusiastically in the right places, his mind on Bridge and his threats.

  Never deal with the devil. The words of wisdom reverberated in his mind. He supposed it was a good axiom to live by but, in this case, no matter how hard he thought about it, there seemed no alternative but to accommodate the devil in the form of Charles Bridge. Yet, part of him was still tempted to rid himself of the burden, hand it over to the police, hang the consequences. Trouble was, the consequences wouldn’t just be his.

  ‘Look, there’s our Ann at the starting line,’ Liz chirruped. ‘It must be her race next.’

  Alex saw Ann standing amongst the swirl of competitors. He was struck how small and vulnerable she looked, nervous too, as she stepped up to the line. His heart went out to her, his daughter who had overcome so much, for whom he hadn’t been there enough when she’d needed him. An urge to protect her, rooted in all that it meant to be human and to love unreservedly, almost overwhelmed him. Beyond any doubt in this uncertain world, doing his best for her must be his only consideration now.

  The starter’s flag went down and the race began. Ann and the other competitors surged forward, loose-limbed and leggy, like young colts gambolling, except that each young face was set with determination. Ann managed to lead right to the last yard when a stronger girl edged in front to break the tape a fraction ahead of her.

  Alex felt a keen sense of disappointment for Ann, losing when she’d been so close to victory. Yet he realized his sympathy wasn’t needed as his daughter turned to the winner and, with a broad, generous smile, embraced her affectionately. It made him proud to see that. His daughter was surely growing into a socially adjusted person, not the isolated loner he once thought she was in danger of becoming.

  ‘Good work, Liz,’ he said, fighting back a tear. ‘Our Ann has become a real lady thanks to you.’

  Liz glanced at him briefly. ‘Partly you,’ she told him. ‘She always listened to you, you know, even in the bad times.’

  He sighed. ‘But maybe my career wasn’t worth the time it consumed.’ He was conscious of the melancholy in his voice.

  With a rueful grin, she said, ‘Cheer up, Alex. You had to find yourself, otherwise you’d have been frustrated all your days. I wouldn’t have wanted that and neither would you.’

  He was going to answer when he felt a tap on his shoulder. A voice that he didn’t recognize spoke.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Macdonald.’

  Alex turned, looked up. First impression: the man was fat and bald, dressed in a black suit, black shirt, white tie and w
hite shoes, fashion gone awry, out of place here. Then Alex’s blood ran cold when he realized it was the man from the Gypsy, the same one who had been at the table with the girl who had set all his current woes in motion. When he recovered from the initial surprise, he wanted to stand up and wipe away the smirk which hovered at the edges of his mouth. But he was conscious of Liz turning, that other parents were swivelling their heads and staring at the man who was dressed like a penguin.

  ‘What is it?’ He did his best to keep the distaste out of his voice but knew he hadn’t succeeded when he felt Liz tense.

  ‘Just wanted to congratulate you on your daughter’s performance. That was her came second, wasn’t it?’

  Alex’s blood started to pulse. His face coloured as though at any moment anger and physical disgust would overcome his self-control and propel him towards the man. Yet, aware what the real agenda was here, that others were watching, he managed to sit on his emotion, answer with a barely perceptible nod of his head.

  The man’s small eyes gleamed in triumph, then turned on to Liz. His smirk gave way to what could have passed for a smile except for the insurmountable handicap of a missing front tooth.

  ‘Your daughter did well, didn’t she, Liz? Went faster down that track than a pint down my gullet.’

  Alex’s eyes flitted to Liz’s face. She was looking bemused, as though she should know a man who used her name with such familiarity but couldn’t place him.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you,’ she said eventually, her voice neutral.

  There was a short lull in the conversation. Then the man turned back to Alex. Their eyes locked, smouldering like two boxers at a weigh-in.

  ‘Alex and I have mutual friends, mutual interests. Haven’t we, old son?’

  Alex’s eyes fired bullets of fury at the man. But he was in a straitjacket, no safe recourse open, the need for self-control paramount.

  ‘Yes,’ he grunted.

  Again, an embarrassing silence followed. Eventually, the man filled it.