by Andy Bailey
“Look, Martin’s here,” he indicated with his right hand to the end of the lane. The tall hedges on either side of the lane stopped 20 metres beyond the front of the car and it led onto a wide open space that stretched away before them. Sure enough, from behind the end of the right hand hedge came the unmistakeable figure of Martin Dash, his blonde hair shining like a torch in the deepening gloom. Susan had raised her eyes tentatively from their watery cup just to see him walking cautiously towards the car, caught in the full beam of its bright white lights. He was wearing a denim jacket over a white shirt, black jeans and Timberland boots. He put his hand up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the lights’ dazzle and approached warily.
Susan heard the voice of Michael Green coming from behind Martin – “Turn those bloody lights off !”
Derek appeared to be caught in two minds, between returning to the front of the car to turn the lights off – as ordered – and staying at the back to comfort his passenger – as he wanted to do. But now Susan was coming out of the car anyway, pushing past the hapless Derek and running to Martin, who stretched his arms out to pull her in to him, his face now beaming.
The two embraced in the glare of the headlights and their lips locked in an urgent union of love and desire. Derek killed the lights and they were plunged into their own cocoon of darkness that excluded the whole world. Susan gripped her lover’s back like the mast of a storm-tossed boat, terrified to let go lest she be swept back into the tumult. Martin felt her tears run down his own cheeks and her chest heaved against him.
“Don’t cry, Love – there’s no need, really,” Martin tried to soothe her as he held her head on his chest and stroked her hair. “What is it?”
As she brought her face up to meet his, Derek slunk past to go to Michael, looking rather sheepish and trying his best not to be there. But Martin nodded to him: “Thanks, mate” – Derek cocked his head up an inch to say 'No problem,' almost apologetically. Susan now let out a sigh that was a mixture of relief and embarrassment, giggled happily at Derek’s receding back and shook her head.
“What?” puzzled Martin.
“I can’t believe I thought . . .”
“Thought what?”
Susan hesitated and then shook her head again – “Oh nothing, nothing. I’m sorry about this.” She indicated her face with her hands, took the hankie Martin now proffered and wiped her eyes. There was, by now, no mascara left on her and her violet eyes sparkled in the fading light, unadorned, the residual splashes of her tears glistening her lashes. “It’s been a hell of a few days, to be honest, and it’s all suddenly got on top of me. But it’s OK. I’m fine now.”
She shrugged her shoulders as if to throw it off and now smiled broadly at Martin, her lovely red lips wide open in a cheesy grin of regular pearly whites. With her raven hair cast back off her face, Martin might reasonably have assumed that the Elizabeth Taylor of ‘Suddenly, Last Summer’ had dropped into his lap.
“But what’s going on? What is this place?”
Susan looked past Martin’s left shoulder to see where Michael and Derek were talking in hushed tones. Martin turned to look at the pair and then back to Susan, but this was only really to give himself a few more seconds before he had to answer. He hesitated a little more, not really wanting to spoil the moment with what he had to say.
“Believe it or not, it’s an airstrip . . . a bit of a makeshift one, as far as I can tell, but there’s a small plane behind that hedge,” he indicated with a tip of the head past his co-conspirators.
Susan’s face darkened as she looked – without looking – and realised what he was talking about.
“A plane?” she said, blankly: “For who?” – slightly dazed, she had probably worked out the answer to the question but it came out anyway.
“It’s for me Susan. I’ve got to get away.” A pained expression clung to his face.
“Why?”
“You know why. Barry Rogers has been murdered and apparently I’m the number one suspect. But I’m not going to sit through another murder trial and be fitted up again, Suze. I can’t do it. I can’t go to prison.” He now looked anguished and she held his arms in her hands.
“But you won’t, Martin, you won’t. I mean, you didn’t . . ?” She didn’t know whether it was right to enunciate the last words of the sentence or not and, instead, was left staring at Martin in a way she’d not intended.
He screwed his head down into his shoulders and narrowed his eyes “No, of course I bloody didn’t . . . Wha?”
“I know. I know you didn’t, Love,” she assured him. “That’s what I mean – you didn’t do it and you’ll be able to prove that you didn’t do it. Look, he was shot at this house this afternoon, so you’ll have an alibi, won’t you? Where were you?”
Martin shuffled on his feet and involuntarily inclined slightly to his left. Susan’s gaze was directed straight past Martin to the ambiguous figure of Michael Green who, just at that moment, happened to be staring straight at her. Could he hear what they were saying?
Susan couldn’t help but talk more quietly now, though she wasn’t sure why. “You were with Michael?”
Martin nodded.
“Well, that’s that then. There’s your alibi.” Somehow she didn’t feel 100% sure when she said this and Martin shuffled a bit more.
“What’s wrong with that? Michael will say you were with him, won’t he?”
Martin was looking down at the ground. “I don’t want to drag Michael into this . . . and . . . there’s a danger he wouldn’t be believed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’ll say he’s just doing it out of loyalty to me. Michael might not stand up as a good witness, Susan.”
“How’s that?”
Martin stretched his lips back across his teeth “He . . . he’s had one or two brushes with . . . well, you know.”
Susan said nothing but looked again past Martin to see Michael turn his gaze away from her and say something to Derek, who now looked anxiously across to her himself.
“And . . . .” Martin continued, awkwardly.
Susan looked back at Martin “and what..?” she asked, slowly.
“And we were there this afternoon,” Martin looked like he had just been caught stealing from his mother’s purse.
“What?” Susan was incredulous – “At Barry’s house?!”
“Hmm.”
“Jesus, Martin – what were you thinking?”
“I know, I know,” he held his hands up, apologetically. “But we needed to get the story straight. Michael took me and I swear that, when we left, Barry was still very much alive.”
“Well, was he alone?”
“I’m afraid so. To be honest, there was a bit of a scene and we left in a hurry but I couldn’t see any sign of anyone else there.”
“No Joan?”
“Not as far as I could tell.”
“So, what did he say?”
“I won’t bore you with the details but he was all over the shop as it happens – borderline hysterical, actually; making all sorts of threats, crazy. We just got out of it. I was only with Michael all afternoon otherwise and I was for coming home to you.” (These words induced a small spasm of pain in Susan’s chest, which Martin noticed but he continued.) “But Michael got a call to say that Barry had been shot and it’s been panic stations ever since, to tell you the truth.”
“That plane is Michael’s?”
“Yeah – he’s going to get me away somewhere, Susan. The thing is – even aside from me being suspected for Barry’s murder – if the real killers are who we think they are, they could well be coming after me next . . .”
Susan couldn’t quite believe that they were having a conversation like this at a private airstrip in the middle of nowhere – where had she been all her life while this sort of thing was going on? She was struggling for a moment to deny the logic of what Martin was saying and, just then, a call came from Michael –
“Martin
!”
They both looked to see Michael point to his wristwatch, then the darkening sky and mouth: “Sorry.”
“Shit, we’re going to have to go,” Martin was now flustered. “I’ve made him wait for ages because I wanted to see you before I go but we’re losing the light now.”
“Wait – I’m coming with you, yes?” Susan grabbed Martin’s hand.
Martin just stood and gazed into her pleading eyes. Finally he shook his head and cast his eyes to the ground again.
“No, you can’t Susan. I won’t do that to you – I can’t.”
“What?!” Susan was aghast. “You can’t go without me. Please don’t leave me.” She’d known really, as soon as the plane was mentioned, that something of the sort was on the cards but now, when the thing suddenly came into sharp focus, she found that it was too much and she felt again the pressure in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled of its own volition. Martin gazed upon her and never felt so desolate.
He shook his head. “I can’t spirit you away just like that, Love. Can you imagine? – Secretary of State’s daughter kidnapped by mental killer ! We wouldn’t stand a chance. And it’s not right to do that to your family. This is the best way, Love, believe me. I won’t be gone forever. In a while, I’ll get in touch and we’ll sort it out. We’ll make a plan. We will. Listen, Susan . . . I love you. I really love you. You’re the most beautiful, fabulous woman and I want us to be together for the rest of our lives.”
"I’ve been through all sorts of shit in my life and there’s more coming now but you’re the only one who’s ever really understood me, who’s ever really loved me for what I am and stuck by me. I can’t believe I’m so lucky to have you and I won’t let you go now. I have to leave but I’ll be back for you, I promise. We will be together.” He pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely. They wrapped their arms around each other as though they'd never let go. The tears ran down Susan’s cheeks again and, as she ran her fingers through his hair, her whole body seemed ablaze with sensation. She had never felt so alive as she did now and yet she believed she was dying.
“I love you Martin, I love you so much – you don’t know. I so wish you weren’t going now. I wish we could just go home together and have a normal life like everyone else. But we will, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will my darling, we will. I’ll be back. And I love you.”
“Please call me – please?”
“Yes, I will – don’t worry,” and he tapped his breast pocket to indicate his mobile.
“Goodbye Susan – for now.”
Martin looked to be in torment as he turned and walked towards Michael and Derek, each step a torture and, upon each step, an agonised decision whether to take another one.
Susan felt like she was in some kind of nightmare as she stood alone on the track and even now somehow felt that if she called out it would all stop and she would wake up back in her normal life.
Martin shook hands with Derek and patted him on the shoulder. Just before he disappeared behind the end of the hedgerow, he turned to look at Susan one last time and it was another of those moments that should have been captured. And it was caught, burnt into the retina of Susan’s mind’s eye – the tragic figure of Martin Dash, only just silhouetted against the darkening sky, his hair falling across his forehead, the gaze of a man in pain, but always in pain, and looking somewhere beyond the pain.
And he turned again and was gone out of sight. Susan stood rooted to the spot and suddenly felt that she could take no more. She slid down to her knees and simply sobbed at the sheer awfulness of it. After all she had been through. After a lifetime of spinning around on the spot, always waiting, waiting for that which she didn’t know but knew must be out there. After all that, she had found it – found him. Only to have him snatched from her.
She heard the crunch of Derek’s shoes approaching and he knelt to put his arms around her shoulder “Come on, love. It’s all right, you’ll see him again. I know you will. Come on,” and he eased her upright and rubbed her arm to ease the pain.
“Thank you, “ she sniffed and used the hankie that Derek now proffered.
“Can we see it go?” she asked.
“OK, love,” and they walked arm in arm along the lane. When they came to the end, Susan could see the extent of what lay beyond: a big, rectangular, close-cropped field sloping slightly from the right down to the left and, just as she looked right to see the little white Cessna, its engine clattered into life. This startled a murder of crows to evacuate a run of trees at the top of the field. As the wrinkled scarf of black birds was dragged along the navy sky, their caws provided an apt accompaniment to the lonely chugging of the plane trundling up to the start of its run.
It was difficult to see in the light that was now left but it looked to Susan that there was no sort of runway here and the choice of location for Martin’s getaway had, indeed, been somewhat ad hoc. In any event, the plane now turned at the top end of the field to their right and almost immediately started forward determinedly with much revving and not a little bouncing of the nose. It was at this point that Susan wondered if it was Michael Green in the pilot’s seat and, not for the first time, the thought of Martin trusting his fate to that man’s hands gave her a nasty shudder of foreboding.
Nevertheless, the plane was now steaming down the field tidily enough, its landing lights showing the way, and, as it came level with she and Derek, Susan could just see a shock of blond hair and a hand waving below it. She waved back but watched, bereft, as the wheels separated from the ground and the dark human moth rose up, floated over the wood at the bottom of the field and melted into the sky. She could still hear the whirr of its engine for a little while after she had lost sight of it but soon that was gone too and they were left standing in a soundless space. Presently the crows returned to float their sinister croak on the currents of warm air lapping over the field.
33.
9:00 p.m. and Susan was back in the Kensington flat. She had asked Derek to deliver her there despite his counsel against it. His view was that the police would soon work out that this spot – and not the Islington address – was Martin’s actual residence and that she was best staying out of their clutches for as long as possible. But Susan now viewed her own flat – purchased by her father – as enemy territory and really had nowhere else to go: certainly not her parents’, for the same reason.
In any case, she now saw this flat as hers and Martin’s (and wanted to stay where she could still feel a connection) and, even if the police did arrive, she really didn’t have any concrete information as to their suspect’s whereabouts anyway. In fact, she realised that she actually had no idea at all where he was headed or when she would see him again, if ever. She now felt utterly washed out and depressed from fatigue and circumstances. But it was too early to try and sleep, her mind was running along a groove and jumping back and over again and again, and she had an idea that it might need an external agent to shut it down. She pulled a cold bottle of white wine from the fridge, poured herself a large glass, slumped onto the settee and clicked on the TV.
Flicking through the channels she finally alighted on the BBC News. The usual tapestry of disasters was being gleefully unfurled – carnage in Iraq, foot and mouth in the UK – and it all seemed strangely of a piece with Susan’s mood as she sank slowly into an alcoholic fog.
She was only half awake when a string of words (her eyes had fallen shut by now) pierced her consciousness – '. . . in a case which, it is alleged, is intimately connected to the embattled Secretary of State for Transport, the Right Honourable Jimmy Sachs. The killing of his associate, Mr Barry Rogers, was reported earlier this evening with apparently no clues as to the identity of the perpetrator. However, in the latest development, his sister – Ms. Joan Rogers – has been taken under arrest after she presented herself at Barnet Police Station with her solicitor, apparently to confess to the murder, for which she has been duly charged. The latest reports suggest that – in a dramatic twist – Ms
. Rogers brought a loaded gun to the police station to hand over, identifying it as the murder weapon.'
Susan was fully awake now and sat bolt upright. The story went on to show the blue and white tape around the front of the Rogers’ house; a picture of Barry and Joan culled from some society rag showing the happy couple beaming – glasses in hand – with vulgar ostentation at a charity dinner; live footage of her father trying to dodge reporters as he arrived at the Hampstead mansion (thank God she hadn’t gone there); and commentary from the show’s reporter at the crime scene, trying to explain the twists and turns of the complex affair, which – he opined – was likely to see the final denouement of the colourful career of Mr Jimmy Sachs, even if he wasn’t culpable for any criminal deed.
Joan !
Joan had killed Barry !
She had obviously finally cracked (probably after a bottle or two at lunch); somehow got hold of a gun – in all likelihood, Barry’s own, given that he fancied himself as a bit of a gangster and always said (loudly, to anyone who could hear) that he didn’t feel safe for himself and Joan without a gun in the home (oh, delicious irony); and delivered the coup de grâce in their own lounge, right in his face.
Susan knew it was wrong to rejoice in such a thing but she couldn’t help it. This meant that Martin was no longer a suspect; that the Syrian gangs weren’t on the rampage to silence their co-conspirators; that, in fact, Joan had done the job for them, so that the prosecution’s chief witness was no more. Martin no longer needed to flee now ! Everything was going to be OK and they would live together, happily ever after ! A hot current of exhilaration flashed through her. She had to speak to him, now. His phone. He’d told Susan that he had his mobile with him – she could call him right now. Nothing was stopping her – she leapt from the settee to grab her bag and rummaged for her phone, her fingers fumbling wildly.
She nearly keyed in the wrong passcode three times to block the phone and had to tell herself to calm down. She scrolled through her Contacts, excitedly, to bring up ‘Martin Dash’. With a tumult of thoughts and ideas flooding her brain, she pressed ‘Call’ and realised she was hopping from foot to foot. She had never felt so happy.