by Danny Hogan
‘Stay, kip on the sofa if you want, seriously, no funny business. It’s too late to go home. I’ll drive you to your place tomorrow. Besides, I really want to get to know you.’
‘I’ll stay for a little more but seriously I want to get going at some point. Anyway, what do you know about Hammerstein’s joint?’
He looked taken aback but then began to talk. Eloise learned that he’d found the job on Gumtree and hadn’t even met Napoleon Hammerstein.
‘I mean he could have been in the club when I was there but I wouldn’t know what he looks like anyway.’
Eloise felt the energy seep from her as Jez was talking and might have actually said, ‘God you’re boring’ but couldn’t be sure. Her brain was muddled and, fight as she might, she could barely stay awake.
Even though she had been living in Brighton for some five years, one thing Eloise couldn’t stand was waking up to the evil cawing of seagulls. It seemed malicious and had exactly the same sentiment as when she was once woken by a gang of chavs throwing stones at her window. One saving grace was the smell of fresh gourmet coffee filling her nostrils.
She opened her eyes and saw Jez pottering about in the kitchen. He was joined by a foppish lad who looked like he watched a lot of cricket and rugby but was probably not very good at either. Both of them appeared to be very proud of the fact that they were wearing just boxer shorts and T-shirts but she couldn’t think for the life of her why. Eloise saw that she was wearing a baggy T-shirt that didn’t belong to her, and was under a plush quilt. She then became aware of an extraordinarily bad taste in her mouth and a dark mood descended upon her.
‘Eloise, this is Johnny. Johnny, Eloise.’
Johnny offered Eloise a limp handshake and said, ‘Eloise, pleased to meet you’ in a loud nasally voice.
‘Why am I here?’ Eloise got up and checked herself. Her pasties were still on and so were her knickers; these two had a chance of survival.
‘Is that a philosophical question?’ asked Johnny, grinning like an idiot.
‘Don’t get funny with me, you tart, what’s that taste in my mouth?’ Eloise spat on the floor. ‘It ain’t normal.’
Johnny looked shocked and Jez appeared apologetic as he picked up one the bottles of beer he had offered her last night and held it up.
‘It’s this new Lithuanian beer; it’s really nice but has a strange after taste.’
Eloise snatched the beer and sniffed it. The aroma of stale, foreign booze was too much and she passed it back to him as her stomach heaved.
The sky outside was overcast, filling the room with a gloomy light. All Eloise wanted was to call in sick and go home but she was ravenous, so when Jez passed her a plate of breakfast she could not refuse.
The kind of conversation that Johnny and Jez struck up with each other was woeful and Eloise looked on as she ate, wondering what these two would do if they were ever faced with real problems.
Jez lent her a pair of combats to go with the T-shirt she had borrowed and they headed down to his car, a brand new Audi A5 with all the trimmings, which was spoiled only by a large streak of seagull shit across the passenger door and window.
‘You must be a damned good workie, affording all this on commission.’
He didn’t answer.
On the ride home Jez seemed to have lost his nerve with her, so Eloise decided to break the ice.
‘Listen, thanks for putting me up and helping me out last night.’
‘It’ll be interesting to see if I still have a job tomorrow night, or survive the kicking I’ll be getting by the looks of things,’ said Jez, concentrating on the road.
‘Listen, you do bloody well with your law thing, maybe you shouldn’t bother turning up and go and look for something else.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking.’
Eloise indicated that they were at her flat and they pulled up on the opposite side of the road. Jez seemed to scrutinise it heavily.
‘All right, mate, it ain’t like your place I know but…’
‘Invite me in for a coffee,’ he suddenly blurted. ‘I’m gasping.’
She had called in sick at Jez’s and all she wanted to do now was die in bed for a bit, alone. But he had helped her out.
‘All right but don’t get any ideas. Last night was last night.’
The hall and stairway leading to her flat were dark, as the lights didn’t work. But, despite what Jez might think, she felt a huge sense of relief as she entered. It was a studio but she was well pleased with how she had done it up. A fake leopard skin rug on the floor and matching bedspread, red and white gingham tablecloth on the small table with her laptop on it and plants everywhere you looked. Old-fashioned posters from the golden age, books, CDs and records covered the walls.
‘Think yourself lucky, I don’t let just anyone here.’
‘You live alone?’
He was answered by the appearance of Sinatra, who seemed awfully suspicious of him. Jez regarded the cat as if it was some kind of foe and seemed to be looking at the furnishings of her place almost moodily.
As Eloise went into the small galley kitchen to make the coffee, she felt strange.
Something wasn’t right.
14
The last twenty-four hours had given Eloise plenty to think about but what really stuck in her mind was Jez’s behaviour before he left.
He’d seemed cold and looked at all her things with an apparently critical eye. Every time Sinatra came near him, he brushed him aside as if he was an object and not a living creature. He didn’t talk much, just glare at her things. That, along with the treatment of her cat made her anxious for him to leave. And when he finally did, she felt glad.
‘What a dickhead, eh Sinatra?’ she said, tickling the cat under his chin as he showed his appreciation with slow, rhythmic purrs.
Eloise put her hand on her chin and thought. Jez had screwed with her head. Made her soft.
Although it was miserable out, she decided the best thing to do would be to go down to the seafront and try and get her head together.
Freshly showered and with a fresh change of clothes, she took a can of cider she had in the fridge and made her way to the beach.
Looking out at the waves which rolled lazily and crashed onto the pebbles, she drank her cider as her mind wandered. Seagulls circled overhead like the Devil’s own vultures and she kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t shit on her. She was in no mood for Murphy’s Law now.
Her thoughts went from Jez to Hammerstein as the realisation that her life was about to become very hard soaked through her. She was at a complete loss and felt so very tired.
Some children were paddling in the waves nearby, prodding things in the water with sticks and laughing. A dog bounded into the foam to join in with the fun. Eloise wondered, had she made different choices and led the banal life she had always loathed, if things wouldn’t have been easier. Thoughts of the past filled her mind like unwelcome house guests. Drink-fuelled nights in strange countries, battles won and lost. There was a kind of obligation to entertain them but a longing that they were gone.
After finishing her cider she stayed for a bit more to breathe the clean air and then, as she wasn’t feeling much better, decided to go back home.
Entering the dark hallway, Eloise was suddenly overcome with a deep and unusual sense of foreboding. She stopped for a moment at the stairs and looked hard into the shadows but as her eyes became accustomed, she was reassured to see that there was no one there.
It was when she arrived at her flat that she realised her instincts had been right.
The door hung from its frame and had been smashed at the lock. She shook with adrenalin as she stormed into her room, ready for aggro. What she saw clean robbed her of any fight. Her whole music collection, original albums from the likes of Agnostic Front, Madball, The Last Resort, Gundog, The Business and Deadline lay in shards across the floor; her books, including many first edition pulp novels from the Fifties were in tatter
ed remains and her clothes were strewn about the place or draped across bits of broken furniture.
But it was what was on the wall that bore more horror than she could ever imagine.
In one sense it didn’t look like something she had known or loved or that had kept her company when everything else was going wrong. On the other hand, the delicateness of life and love was so painfully illustrated.
Nailed in cruciform to the wall was Sinatra, though he didn’t look anything like feline now. Blue-grey tufts of fur patchily covered what resembled a rabbit’s carcass. The face was horrible, a living creature frozen in the midst of indescribable torture. The absolute worst of it though was the huge gaping wound across his guts and the streams of red and purple entrails that had been pulled from it. His intestines had, in turn, been nailed to the wall so that they read “Bitch”.
Eloise, scarcely able to take it all in, fell to the floor and held her head in her hands. She stayed that way for what could have been hours.
When she removed her hands from her face, there on the floor in front of her she saw a scattered pile of crude photocopies of the photos that Napoleon Hammerstein had in the file.
Vile, hateful, disgusting images. Scenes upon scenes of hideous acts that had ruined her life. Things that had made it so hard for her to interact and to trust, things that had bred the violence in her that had brought her trouble everywhere she went.
Eloise sat there unable to stop herself from sobbing. She felt like a freak, a monster. Somebody who wasn’t normal. At that moment she found herself missing Hunter dearly. He was always the one person she had felt comfortable with. The one person she had entrusted with details of what had happened and he didn’t treat her any differently afterwards.
Shakily she got up and tried to phone him but after several tries only got his answer phone and left a garbled message which she regretted instantly.
Her mobile rang as soon as she hung up and she answered it quickly.
‘I trust you got my message,’ came the unmistakable voice of Napoleon Hammerstein.
She didn’t answer, no words were forthcoming.
‘My customers are not very happy with me, Eloise. You cost me a lot of money, not to mention the fact you emasculated one of my expensive security consultants.’
There was a long silence as if he expected a response from her. She didn’t give one.
‘I would threaten you Eloise but I think we both know that your life is worthless and, well, I’ve already killed your cat. I am sending my personal assistant to collect you and bring you in for a meeting. Come quietly or Hunter Steadman will be next.’ With that the phone went dead.
Eloise glared at the phone in her hand, rage building up in her. It was no longer under her control.
15
Eloise went in the kitchen and ignited a ring. Selecting the biggest cauldron from her collection of antique solid brass pans which had escaped the ravages on her flat, she filled it two-thirds with water and placed it on the hob.
Going back into her living area she scavenged around for her big rubber Mac and put it on. It had a large gash down one breast, but that was OK.
Back in the kitchen she poured a load of oil into the cauldron and then a full kilo of sugar. She was stirring the bubbling concoction as she heard a car pull up outside.
Inching towards the window she leant forward a tad and peeked out of it. Down in the street the pony-tailed man was exiting a flashy black saloon.
Rushing back into the kitchen, she checked on the cauldron. It was bubbling and spitting angrily. She then ran across the floor of the living room and propped the remnants of the door against its frame.
Going back into the kitchen, she grabbed the cauldron. It was as heavy as hell but she needed all her strength now. Wrapping her insulated rubber forearms carefully around the brass pan, but keeping it a sufficient distant from her body, she heaved it with her across the living room. She had to turn her head away from the searing, hot steam but was not able to avoid the molten spit that erupted from the pot and burned her chest badly. She had to take it.
Positioning herself by the door, her legs felt feeble and her arms ached, the heat from the cauldron was unbearable, but she had to take it.
She could hear footsteps approach her flat, unbearably slowly. The cauldron in her arms felt like a burning coal. The insulation in her Mac had given out and she was sweating and nauseous and felt like she was melting, but she had to take it.
The footsteps stopped outside the flat and there was no sound. Eloise felt her mind bending with the agonising pain, her chest stinging badly and her arms felt like they were on fire. Her legs were about to give up and all she wanted to do was drop the pan. She took hold of herself. She remembered what they had done and the all-or-nothing days she had grown up in and then the rage took over.
The door was booted away from its frame and with all her strength and might she pivoted and launched the pot.
There was a hideous hissing and steam filled the hall in front of her flat. The pony-tailed man was standing there, drenched and looking at his hands. As he brought his hands up to his face he began a howl which turned into a scream that seemed too shrill to be human.
He doubled up, gurgling and retching with his hands to his face.
Feeling the muscles in her arms tense, Eloise snatched the cauldron and brought it above her head. She was going to make sure that this man, who so enjoyed hitting women, would spend the next few minutes rueing the day the thought had entered his mind.
With a satisfying dinging sound she proceeded to spank the heavy, solid brass pot off his head and did not stop until she saw his eyeballs free of their sockets.
She was going to have Hammerstein. She was going to have them all.
Ferreting around her stuff she found an undamaged frockcoat and what she was really after a pair of her elbow-length gloves.
Although the quickest way to her destination was the seafront, she chose the road running parallel as there was a hardware store on it. It didn’t take long to select what she needed; a hatchet, which felt nice and heavy in her hands.
She was going to bring it to them, old school.
Leaving the hardware store she headed to the seafront. Her walk would normally take at least five minutes but it felt like seconds, so full was she of unbridled fury.
She stormed up the stairs of the apartment building and thumped at the door of Flat 21.
It was all falling nicely together as Jez answered the door. He was wearing a bathrobe.
Smacking him clean in the face with her forehead, he fell to the floor. She stepped over him and grabbed him by the scruff, dragging him across the floor until his head rested at the feet of the breakfast bar.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
Eloise looked over to the owner of the voice and saw the moody barmaid from Hammerstein’s standing in the sunken lounge, naked.
‘Want to get involved, do you?’ said Eloise, producing the hatchet.
The girl stood dumbstruck.
Eloise turned to look at Jez, who was lying on the floor trying to stem the blood from his nose and hiding the tears coming from his eyes.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Eloise said, kicking him in his ribs. ‘It was you who told them where I lived.’
For a while Jez just lay there snivelling.
‘Look, I...’ He let out a baleful moan. ‘I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, especially, not you.’
Jez began to sob unacontrollably.
‘Come on,’ Eloise began softly. ‘Just admit it and everything’ll be fine, I promise.’
‘Eloise,’ said the barmaid in the living room who was now covering her modesty with the very quilt Eloise had slept in that night. ‘Listen, please, he didn’t want any harm on you, but his dad insisted. You don’t know what it’s like. If Napoleon Hammerstein says “Jump”, you say, “How high?”.’
‘Mention my name again, you skank, and I’ll kill you.’ Eloise turned h
er attentions back to Jez. ‘So you’re Hammerstein’s kid. I suppose all that talk about being a law student and commission and all that was bullshit. Daddy pays for all this. He pays for all this off the backs of the defenceless, doesn’t he?’
‘I do study law, but you’re right, OK, he sorts me out,’ wept Jez. His little rich boy voice was becoming unbearable to her, she was furious that her own body had betrayed her the previous night. ‘But I just told them where you lived. It was your friend Jolene that gave him those photos. Don’t you see? He doesn’t actually have any real info on you, he just pays your friends to inform, that’s all. Listen, you can leave Brighton and disappear, perhaps we could…’ Seeing Eloise clearly not listening to him, he stopped snivelling and his features contorted angrily. He then broke into an evil grin. ‘Yeah, I drugged you last night, all right. Slipped a little something in your drink. That walk-in fridge is so handy. Want to know what Johnny and I did to you last night? Well we…’
Eloise stamped on his face until he gibbered, and then stamped on his face until he gibbered no more.
16
Resting against the breakfast bar and breathing heavily, Eloise noticed that the girl had long gone. The barmaid was nothing; she had much bigger fish to fry.
Wiping the bits of his skull from her boots on his own doormat, Eloise left Jez’s penthouse and headed off down the Kingsway towards the cinema building.
The people in West Street pottered around their business, ignorant to what was about to transpire as Eloise made her way around the building to the bar on the side.
Even though it was not officially open, she could see many people milling about within. As she approached she recognised every last one of them. A new plan began to develop.
The door was unlocked and Eloise entered slowly.
All the teeny pseudo-burlesque dancers including the skinny blonde wretch Lulu Mae and that smug barmaid were there. At their fore stood Jolene.
‘You’re going to get it now, bitch,’ said Lulu Mae.