Prepared to Die

by Peter Dudgeon

  Daniel wasn’t smiling now as he placed the mug on the granite worktop, next to Alison’s cup. Hers was plastic (no hot drinks allowed towards the end) and unnaturally angled in a way which had made it easier for her to drink. He paused for a moment and picked up Alison’s cup, wondering what to do with it, fighting a swelling desire to throw it in the bin. His conscience kicked in and he placed it in a box under the breakfast bar. It looked pitiful, sitting, open-mouthed on the cardboard alone. He guessed it would soon be buried under a pile of other things he no longer needed, all to be returned to either the district nurses or the Multiple Sclerosis Society. No one had prepared him for this - to be alone.

  All the flowers and best wishes, all the time given by the nurses who’d relieved him for a few hours each week towards the end, the support groups they’d both attended - all of that attention yet no one spoke of ‘What after?’

  Daniel walked, tea in hand, to a small study, which had recently morphed purpose, now a junk-room. Beyond boxes and Alison’s wheelchair, his electric guitar hung from a wall bracket. It was a 1968 Les Paul Standard he’d owned for … what would it be … wow … thirty years. He reached over the boxes and freed its neck from the black padded collar, his lower back complaining at the reach. He took the guitar, without amplifier, and his mug of tea into the conservatory where he’d drunk wine with friends less than two hours earlier. A yellow plastic pick was threaded between the guitar’s strings. He set it free.

  With the guitar on his knee, he strummed just once. It was horrendously out of tune. And as he hit strings, listened and tinkered with the pegs, he noticed how unnatural and awkward it felt, like trying on a twenty-year-old suit.

  Once it was scarcely tuned, he strummed two simple chords and stopped. The tinny twang reverberated a plangent, skeletal echo through an unbearably empty house.

  The day darkened as though God had twisted the earth’s dimmer switch. That throat sting returned and a teardrop landed on the guitar’s neck, dampening its fret board. He hung his head and pressed his eyes in a doomed attempt to stem tears.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Daniel woke to the sound of the letterbox clapping and a newspaper hitting the mat.

  His hand lay in the subtle indentation on Alison’s side of the bed. Perhaps one day he would wake sprawled diagonally across the mattress, but in the two weeks since Alison’s death, he hadn’t strayed from his side.

  Light should have been permeating the curtains by now, but the winter continued to be grey and stifling. It was nine o’clock. No reason to get up, except for the nagging conscience of a habitually busy man.

  A crumpled heap of last night’s clothes lay on the carpet next to his bed. He couldn’t quite remember leaving them there, just over a bottle of red wine had seen to that. A shower would come later, for now, with a coffee in one hand, a paper in the other (dressed in yesterday’s jeans and jumper from the heap), he would break through the sludge of sleep.

  He was hoping the Guardian had been delivered, but it was the Louth Herald. Despite the inevitable fifty-page account of insignificance, padded with houses for sale and the odd job advert, it would at least bring focus to his bleary eyes. He lumbered zombielike down the hall and grabbed the paper, dropping it facedown on the tile-topped kitchen table without regard. As the kettle bubbled, he went back to the table and turned the newspaper face up. The lead headline: “Knife death horror strikes Blaine.”

  Coffee making was forgotten.

  The paper confirmed: Sebastian Fallon (believed to be in his late thirties) found dead in his house, the apparent victim of a knife attack. The other man involved was, as yet, unidentified. There was a picture - decades out of date - of Sebastian Fallon dwarfing his school football teammates, their heads barely reaching his shoulders. He wore the expression of a reluctant participant.

  An unflattering passport style picture of the postwoman who’d found Fallon accompanied the article. Daniel recognised her as he guessed most in the village would. There was a quote from her, next to the picture: “I feel so sorry for Mr Fallon’s family. He was such a quiet man who kept himself to himself.”

  Daniel patted his pockets for his mobile phone without success. On the wall hung a rustic rooster-shaped clock. Underneath the clock, the kitchen’s yellowing landline was secured to the wall. Charlotte’s number was written on the phone’s insert. He thumb-dialled it with the newspaper tucked under his arm. No answer.

  Of course not, you idiot, she’ll be at work.

  Charlotte was the only qualified pharmacist in Blaine. Occasionally they got out of area cover for holidays, but mostly they just didn’t dispense when she wasn’t there. She loved that job. Daniel had heard Charlotte and Alison talk about it at length, Charlotte always anxious about the pharmacy’s rumoured closure. Daniel had heard her worry, but not really felt it, secure as he was in his own job. Taking your lot for granted was the worst of sins.

  He thought this whilst standing by the phone, wondering whom to call next. Why hadn’t Edwards put him in the picture before the papers had? You weren’t officially supposed to pass on information, but it was the unspoken ex-coppers privilege. Especially when the crime’s happened right on your doorstep. That was a good point, where exactly did it happen? Daniel leant against the wall and skimmed the article: 41 Church Road. That was two streets down - a five-minute walk at the most. He was tempted to grab his coat and march over there. But to what end? To be told that the public aren’t allowed near? Because that’s all he was now, merely a member of the public. Edwards’s silence had proved as much.

  I’ll send him a text. Where’s that damn phone?

  He found it on the bedside cabinet on charge. Cold nipped at his toes and he lifted his feet into bed, pulling the duvet over his leg, up to his knee. He sat there composing a text:

  ‘Ted - Blaine knife attack!!?! WTF!! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  About to press send, he thought better of it, replacing the message: ‘Can you give me a call asap? It’s about the attack in Blaine. Thanks. D.’

  Daniel sat there on his bed, with his phone gradually sliding down his angled thigh, occasionally repositioning it as he waited for a reply. Ten minutes passed with nothing. Opposite the bed was a framed watercolour of a man standing in a lions’ den; the majestic beasts circled him with ravenous eyes. Written on the bottom: “Didn’t my lord deliver Daniel?” The picture caught his attention as it frequently did. Alison had commissioned it for his fortieth birthday. Daniel liked neither the watercolour, nor the parable it depicted, but its artist - a fellow member of Alison’s amateur dramatics group - had needed the commission, and Daniel had accepted the picture graciously. Now, though, with Alison gone, who would know if he got rid of it?

  He looked again to her side of the bed and couldn’t shake the feeling that she was still there; the shadow the Reverend had spoken of. Was this how it was going to be? His dead wife’s ghost judging every decision?

  The Lord’s going to have his work cut out delivering me from this.

  Then his phone buzzed with a reply from Edwards:

  ‘Can I come round tonight?’

  Almost immediately, a second message: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring the case files and fill you in. Mum’s the word.”

  He knows me too well.

  That day lasted like no other. It may have only been two weeks since Alison’s passing, but Daniel found himself wanting, no … needing his old job back. How else was he going to fill his days? Still, it was a scary thought. He’d be off the pace. Regulatory changes seemed unending and the task of getting up to speed was daunting. Whether he was up to the job or not, one thing was for sure: he had to do something. Being home alone without purpose was soul sapping.

  When Edwards arrived at Daniel’s door just after seven p.m., Daniel thought he might grab him and kiss both cheeks. Of course, that never happened. A smile, a handshake and a palm on the shoulder, invited Edwards to make himself at home.

  He was out of uniform in jeans and a tan su
ede jacket. He carried a briefcase.

  “Coffee? Or something stronger?”

  “Coffee’s fine.”

  Edwards sat down at the kitchen table. He sprung the briefcase’s latches open with a clank, which cut through the kettle’s whirring. Whilst it boiled, Daniel spooned instant coffee into mugs and joined Edwards at the table, eager to get to the point.

  “Now, I’m sharing this with you in the strictest of confidence, you understand that, don’t you?”

  “Is that the obligatory yet patronising mini-lecture over with?”

  “It is.”

  “Fine. You know it’ll stay between us. Three years have changed many things, but not my discretion.”

  Edwards nodded and smiled.

  “So, what do we know?”

  “All in good time. Weren’t you making coffee?”

  “Oh, yeah sorry.”

  Daniel returned with two steaming mugs and Edwards sipped his with a grimace: “Christ Daniel, that’s worse than they serve at West Parade.”

  “Piss off.” Daniel was tiring of the small talk, “Fallon?”

  “Hmm Fallon … I swear to God Dan, this is just the weirdest thing. This man we’ve identified as Anthony Nixon - self employed accountant, Blaine born and bred - goes round to Fallon’s place and guts the guy with a sixteen-inch carving knife, then slits his own throat. The post lady finds them nine days later in a bloody heap in Fallon’s hall.”

  “How can you be sure about the nine days?"

  “We’re not certain. But at six-thirty one evening, Nixon’s wife says a casual goodbye as he heads off - supposedly to the driving range - and he doesn’t come back. Next morning she files a missing person’s report. Eight days after that we find their bodies and this is consistent with the forensic analysis. The owner of the driving range says he knew Anthony Nixon, and he’s adamant Nixon didn’t show that night.”

  “You said ‘gutted’ what do you mean, precisely?”

  “You asked for it.” Edwards fanned out Fallon’s post-mortem pictures on the table. The skin from his ribcage to his groin was hacked out. Ragged-edged skin peeled away from his stomach’s cavity, like the lid of an empty tin can. Silver kidney-shaped dishes on subsequent pictures housed his organs. “They were scattered, mostly on the floor. Anthony Nixon was found laid out on them, and on Fallon … well … what was left of him anyway.”

  Daniel drew the first picture closer, squinting at Fallon’s groin.

  “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “Reddening around the testicles.”

  “He was found with guitar string wrapped round them repeatedly.”

  “His attacker?”

  “Who else?”

  “This Anthony Nixon, the accountant. Does he have previous?”

  “Nada. Squeaky clean.”

  “Mental health issues?”

  “No - as sane and lucid as you and I, from what we can gather.”

  A long silence hovered over the kitchen. Finally, Daniel shook his head, tutted and said, “What a mess.”

  “I know." After a few moments in silence, Edwards said, "Mrs Nixon, says her husband didn’t even know Fallon. Says most people figured he'd moved away and left his old place empty. And, looking at the property, I can understand why. You’d need a machete to get to his front door.

  Listen, I’m going to show you something I want your opinion on.” Edwards gathered up the crime scene photos and shoved them out of the way, next to an empty fruit bowl. Then he unzipped his briefcase lid’s internal compartment and extracted an envelope, about the thickness of a passport. “To be honest, I’m tempted to bury it. Why open this can of worms? After all, the perpetrator’s dead, nothing’s going to change that, we have no other suspects, and this might raise more questions than it answers.”

  “What might?”

  “Here. These were being delivered when the postwoman found the bodies.”

  He laid out photographs. The first four of the five images were close-ups of a young freckle-laden boy in blue trunks by the side of a swimming pool, walking then sitting with his feet kicking at the water. The fifth was blurred and at an angle. At the picture’s edge was the face of a dark-haired man, his eyes flared, his arm reaching out towards the lens.

  “Who’s the man?”

  “Anthony Nixon.”

  “Who’s the boy?”

  “Nixon’s son, we believe.”

  “Who took the pictures?”

  “Now that’s a damn good question. My money’s on Sebastian Fallon.”

  Dan motioned for Edwards to hand him the envelope. It had a Doncaster postmark, the nearest sorting office.

  “He sent them to himself?”

  “Probably sent them away to a ‘special friend’ to be developed … you don’t look convinced.”

  “There’s nothing here a chemist wouldn’t develop. And, anyway, who gets pictures developed these days?”

  “From the look of his house, I’d say mister Fallon was living in a time-warp. I’m betting he did things old school. You should see inside his place … there’s some weird shit.” Daniel re-examined the photographs, taking his time. “So what’s the verdict Dan. Should I lose these?”

  “Does Fallon have family?”

  “None we can locate.”

  “Mmm … you should show her these. Mrs Nixon, that is.”

  Edwards sat back, sucked in his lips, made a smacking ‘Puh’ sound then drew air over his teeth. “I just don’t know. We have our killer. It’s the weirdest yet neatest case I’ve seen. Does she really need the thought that some pervert followed her son to the swimming baths?”

  “She needs answers, this shows probable cause … it’ll give her at least some sense of motive.”

  “It hardly justifies murder. I reckon we’ll never know what drove her husband to kill Fallon. Why not let her think that the two must have had some sort of vicious, inexplicable altercation which made her husband follow Fallon back to his house.”

  “An altercation that led to this?” Daniel held up and flipped the grotesque picture of Fallon’s body towards Edwards. “Do you think she’ll buy it?”

  “We’ve spared her the details. She just knows it was a knife attack.”

  “Did Fallon have a record?”

  “We’re checking.”

  “My bet is he’s got form, probably offences relating to children. If he has, that’s bound to get out once the papers start digging. It’ll backfire, keeping it from her.”

  “Not convinced … but maybe you’re right … appreciate the second opinion.”

  Daniel acknowledged the thanks with a nod, but Edwards didn’t notice. He was looking down at his watch.

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll think about what you said.”

  “Sure, but before you go, Who’s taking the case?”

  “Robinson.”

  Daniel shook his head. Edwards stood, tucked his seat back under the table, and held his hands up as if surrendering, “I know, I know. We’re short on resource. What can I say? It’s hard to get a good DS around here, let alone one of DI material. Most of the youngsters these days have their eyes on the Met the minute they close their first case. Then there’s those who retire early.”

  “Low blow.”

  “Just saying … come back Dan. You’re not telling me kicking around this place is doing you any good.”

  “To pick up this case?”

  “God no. I’ve given it to a monkey, ‘cause that’s all it’s going to take to dot a few Is and cross a few Ts. I need your skills elsewhere.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Edwards slipped on his jacket. “Well don’t think too long.”

  An hour after Edwards left, Charlotte returned Daniel’s call. He’d been in the bathroom at the time, and raced to dry his hands on route to the kitchen.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Dan, missed a call from you. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Ho
nestly?”

  “Well, you know, bearing up.” How the hell are you supposed to précis a web of grief over the phone? Especially when other concerns are crowding your mind. “I called because I’d heard about Sebastian Fallon and wanted your view on it.”

  “You and everyone else. These last two days have been the busiest at the pharmacy in … well … ever I think. It was like they were using the place as a community centre; gathering round the cough sweets, and then outside before heading home, just in time for another lot to come and congregate.”

  That made sense. The pharmacy was the nearest shop to Fallon’s house; the ideal vantage point to harbour from the winds and gawk at the police going about their grim work.

  “I don’t think I ever met Mr Fallon. Did you know him?” asked Daniel.

  “I saw him once or twice, a long time ago. I only remember him because he was so tall, I mean the guy was huge. He was an only child I think. I heard his mother died of ovarian cancer when he was a teenager and his grandmother took him in. He worked for Mr Cooper at the hardware store for a couple of years but was, apparently, caught stealing and Cooper let him go. I’ve heard the story a few times and each time the ‘what he stole’ gets embellished. I think a dozen cans of lighter fluid, two boxes of matches and a ‘shed-load’ of rat poison was the weirdest I heard. Probably complete rubbish … but there you go.

  Anyway, you were asking if I’d met him. He came in our shop one day. Must have been at least five years ago. It was quiet. I was working on my own that morning; it was River’s day off. I saw Sebastian duck under the trees overhanging his drive, and head across the road.

  He was wearing the type of apron you’d usually wear at school, in metalwork. I remember thinking how strange it was, coming out of the house looking like that. He walked with one of those self-conscious stoops that tall people often have, but still had to duck to get through the door.

  I remember my finger hovering over the panic button below the counter. I don’t know why - perhaps because strangers are rare in my job, or perhaps because of the rumours of him stealing - for whatever reason, I was scared. ”