by James Newman
LORD B. I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER. SHE IS WITH ME NOW. YOU WANT HER BACK THE PRICE TAG IS ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS IN CRISP CLEAN UNMARKED BILLS TO BE DEPOSITED AT A TIME AND PLACE. I WILL BE IN TOUCH. I AM NOT JOKING, I HAVE KILLED. I CAN KILL ANOTHER. HOW MUCH DOES SHE MEAN TO YOU BYRON, HOW MUCH?
MAGIC AND LOSS
BYRON HAD read the letter seventeen times already and his gut told him that only a smart kid would risk such a move. A smart kid like Jimmy.
But Jimmy was in the nick.
He had heard through the lodge, through a copper. It didn’t make sense.
His next thought was that clown Ed. He drove to the hospital where Edward Case was being kept under observation. Lined up to be sectioned under the mental health act as a nut job, or as they said, psychotic drug dependent male with violent tendencies and self-harm issues.
In other words.
Grade A. Nut-job.
“Haven’t seen him since the other day. We got turned over. He took a slug in the leg. Figured he was still in here,”
“In the hospital?”
“He walked out. Bounty went with him to the game. That’s the last I heard about him.”
Byron figured he was telling the truth. Ed sat up and started to remove his IV, loosened the bandage and then yanked the needle from his wrist. An alarm rang and an orderly walked in to Edward Case’s private ward and into his Edward Case’s fist. Byron swung a right that put the orderly out of action and said, “Jesus, Eddy. Let’s fly.”
“I’ll help get him, Byron. I know the type of places he likes to hide. Jimmy was like a brother.”
“Okay put you fackin strides on sharpish and let’s go.”
They drove back to the mansion in the Aston Martin with not a word exchanged between them.
Byron sat down in the living room staring at the red stain on the carpet. As Ed paced the room. “Lend me the motor. I’ll find ‘im.”
“Wait, I’m thinking.”
The Ghost Hunter.
Byron picked up the card.
It was worth a go.
Bill Morgan
International Ghost Hunter
Tel 07959 896578 www.spiritworld.org
The bone rang three times before the ghost hunter picked up.
“Hello, this is Bill.”
“Bill, this is Byron. I feel we may have got off on the wrong foot.”
It was a line he often used. Use your disadvantages as advantages...
“Sorry, who...”
“You was taking photos,” Byron struggled to find the words. “Photos of ghosts outside my gaff. The thing is, my daughter’s gone missing...”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I can’t call the filth.”
“Excuse me?”
“The police...I need to find a way to find her...I’m clutching at fucking straws here...”
“I have a friend, she uses crystals.”
“What, she on the fucking meth, rocks, what you fackin getting at here mate?”
“No, no, no. It’s like a dowser. Ancient crystals. I’ll be over in twenty minutes. Are you at home?”
“No, I’m at the top of the Eiffel fackin tower throwing tiffany diamonds at passing bloody pigeons.”
He put down the phone.
Ed Case paced the room several times before saying, “Fackit I’ll find him. I’ll pay Bounty a visit.”
The corner of Ed’s eyes noticed a pair of secateurs laid on an Edwardian table. The tool used for clipping his rose garden. Perfect.
“Mind if I borrow these?” he said.
“Bit late to be plucking Roses,” he said and then thought about his words. “Fack it, take them and take the motor.” Byron threw Ed the keys.
Listened to the door open and then close.
Walked to the drinks cabinet. Poured himself a large brandy and lit a cigar. Looked at that stain on the carpet. It had grown wider a couple of inches, perhaps some kind of rot in the timber boards beneath the carpet.
Perhaps.
RUN, RUN, RUN
JANE STARED at Rose in disbelief. The same pizza restaurant, the same ordinary crowd. She told her friend the whole story. From the night they met with Bounty, about the betting shop. “There’s only one thing to do,” she said.
“What?”
“Go to the police. Then run! You are in this up to your neck now. You want to kidnap yourself. You know about the murder, about the drug exchange. Go to the police and tell them everything, you might just get away with a slap on the wrist.”
“It’s a lot of money. Think what we could do with that kind of money. Leave the country. Go back to Ibiza.”
“Then when the money runs out and the old man finds out the truth. What happens then, Rose?”
“He will never find out.”
“It’s your decision. But I told you from the start never get involved with anyone from those camps. They are not like you. He gets arrested. Makes a deal with the police. Says you were in with it all. What happens then, Rose. I love you. You’re a friend. Please do not do this. There is more to life than money.”
“Like what?
‘“Family, Rose, family.”
HARRY’S CURCUMSITION
BOUNTY LOOKED at himself in the mirror. Naked. A full length mirror. She was right, Jane was right, bitch, that bitch was right; it was nothing more than a small black acorn. He took another line, drank another glass of putrid red wine and snorted a long line of cocaine from the coffee table. His room was filled with old pizza cartons, empty beer cans and ashtrays overfilling with joints. He looked at it. The thing that his uncle had told him was so beautiful. The thing that had made the betting shop girl stop laughing. The thing that Jane had laughed about. That ugly monstrously tiny thing that had led him from one disaster to another.
A knock at the door. Another knock. And the door came crashing forward.
“Edward, you could have fucking waited a bit longer. I’m just getting dressed.”
“So, I see, sunshine, so I see. But this is important.” Ed walked over to the coffee table and drank a big slug from the neck of the bottle of wine. “Ah, that tastes like shit, Bounty. You been shopping at that discount corner shop again. You know how I feel about that bloody place and the Pakis that run it.”
Bounty made a move to the bathroom as a heavy weight smashed against the back of his neck. The neck of the bottle was still in Ed’s hand. The glass smashed into a thousand pieces. He didn’t know if the stain on the carpet was blood or the rot-gut claret from the corner-shop.
“A wee word in your ear, son. Won’t take a minute.”
Ed grabbed him from behind, held Bounty’s hands back and looked at his full frontal reflection in the mirror. “Jesus Christ, Bounty boy, what the feck do you do with that?”
“Please...”
“I mean I thought you brothers were supposed to be hung. In more ways than one. But look at it...”
“Please, Ed...”
“No feckin wonder your parents abandoned you, son. How you supposed to carry on the family line with a pecker the size of a feckin walnut?”
Ed opened the secateurs and positioned them over Bounty’s cock. “Now I have two simple questions. Answer correctly and you will still be able to piss with that thing. Answer incorrectly and say goodbye to your little friend. And I mean little..”
“What...”
“First thing you should know before we start this little interrogation is that I have no time for rapists. Look at me, as like, the Bounty hunter.”
“Wha...”
“That little stunt in the bookies was well out of order. Now some people say that all rapists should be castrated. But with you Bounty, it hardly seems worth it, does it now, son.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Well, it’s all in the past, Bounty. Any you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m a forgiving man. Shame her old man isn’t. I’ll pick a few hundred from a whip round on the housing estate if I take your cock back as
a trophy. Can you hear me there, Bounty boy?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know is what happened to your two friends?”
“Wha...Oh no...” He felt the metal brush against him. “Please don’t do this.”
“Where are they, Bounty?”
“I don’t know!” he cried.
“Wrong answer. But I’m a gentleman so I’ll give you one more chance. Where are they. Jimmy and Rose. Those two little love birds are trying it on with the big man. A little kidnap and ransom idea.”
“I know nothing about it, Ed. I fucking promise. I saw them at the club, two nights ago, then he went with her, I went with her friend.”
“Name.”
“Jane, she lives near Tubbingdon Road.”
“A little vague.”
“Orpington, she lives near that crescent.”
“Telephone number.”
“She didn’t give it to me.”
“I’m not surprised.” Ed Case smiled over Bounty’s shoulder, his awful grimace in the mirror looked down at Bounty’s member trapped between the teeth of the rose-clippers. “It’s hardly worth chopping off.”
“Thank you Ed. I’ll do anything, honest. But Jimmy, we know he’s homeless, he switched off his phone the last couple of days.”
“You’ve been most helpful, Bounty, but as I say. I can’t stand feckin rapists.”
The serrated blades of the secateurs made a clicking sound as Ed’s fist squeezed the handles tight. Danny screamed. Blood gushed out from the rose-cutters and Bounty’s small black penis fell to the carpet, quivering for a moment with nerve reflex.
“Be seeing you,” Ed said as he walked back through the broken door. “Take care.”
Bounty picked it up. He held it in his hand. Blood gushed across the mirror.
Ed walked towards the door and then remembered.
The super glue.
Fucking A.
He walked back towards Bounty and took the quivering member from his hand, drew a line of super-glue around the perimeter and holding his arms back stuck Bounty’s penis to Bounty’s forehead.
“Feckin dickhead rapist,” Ed said pushing his victim away and making with haste towards the door, a wide grin on his boat.
Stunned by the humility of his condition Bounty stumbled down the stairwell and stepped out into the middle of the road. He didn’t have to wait long. A passing ambulance hit him head on and he flew backwards twenty yards the quivering member still attached to his head.
He came to in the back of the ambulance. Two paramedics were looking down at him. He tried to speak but his mouth was too dry and he felt faint, as if he were rising up out of his body.
He heard the paramedics speaking.
“Good Lord.”
“It’s okay, the other day we have a man stich himself together with superglue and today we have a man chop of his own dick. You ever felt like you’re in the wrong profession, John?”
“If we don’t do it. Who will?” his colleague replied philosophically.
“Did I tell you about that time I worked in a crematorium?” John asked his partner.
“No.”
“That was a gas. We worked the night shift. The bodies used to pop up with rigor mortis. We used to dress them up, the bodies, in their funereal clothes and sit them around this big old table and set up cards and bottles of whiskey, like it was some kind of zombie dinner party.”
“No shit. Why did you do that?”
“We took pictures and sold them to this sicko who hung around the place. He would pay fifty quid for a good shot. He liked them young, you know traffic accidents, shit like that.”
“Some people are crazy,” John’s partner said.
“Aint that the truth,” said John.
Bounty blacked out again not knowing if he imagined the conversation or if this was what happened when you died at the hands of Edward Case.
THE RIVER MAN
BYRON OPENED the door. Bill entered with a woman who smelled like she kept more cats than it were reasonable to keep. The kind of woman that nurtured cats She wore a loose-fitting hemp blouse and a long flowing skirt.
Fackin crusty.
He thought but didn’t say it.
“Liz here reads the stones,” said Bill. All we need is a map of the area and an item of hers. Something precious, a piece of clothing perhaps. It would be better if it hasn’t been washed. A worn piece of clothing.”
“Watch it, sunshine. I’m fecking telling you...”
“You want to find your daughter or not?” the woman, Liz, said.
“I’ll see what I can find.’ Byron ushered them to the living room while he walked up to Rose’s upstairs room – he found a pair of leggings carried them like they were a part of her - a dead dismembered part of her.
A part that he had personally severed.
Easy, old man, Byron told himself, easy.
“Ah,” Liz said. She opened a silk purse containing crystals of different shapes and sizes and laid them on the coffee table. “Do you have a map?”
“A-Z?”
“Yes,” said Bill. “Let’s start with the local area.
Byron went out to the car got the map and came back and laid it on the table. “This alright?”
“Perfect,” they chimed.
“Okay. Let’s get fecking on with it.”
She laid the map on the table and arranged the crystals at different locations explaining, “one crystal is for the heart, the other for the soul, one is for wealth.” The pendulum begun to move towards the red crystal. “The heart. She is being held captive by somebody she, she, has an affection for.”
“Stockholm syndrome,” added the ghost hunter.
“Fuck that shite,” Byron looked close. “That’s the old barn by the Birthday Woods, just over the hill. Wait. I’ll get my shooter.”
“But we must call the police,” the White Witch said.
“Police, my fackin asshole. This shit’s personal.”
“Tonight. We’ll get the asshole tonight.”
PART THREE
THE MAGICIAN
Suicide is such a wonderful bird of flight, soaring, looking on down those who chose looking for profit. Not to. The jump, the pill, nobody there to pull you back. Plenty there to profit.
For me the ground is best.
Safer,
Oh, much safer,
Than those who,
You knew,
Here,
Are,
Gone.
The real horror and wasted over years and views over smoky roof-tops, balconies, the boathouse on the canal, where the black swan ate lumps of stale bread thrown from Jimmy’s tiny hand. His first word was bird or brrr. He laughed and giggled as the ducks and geese paddled along the canal. The opposite pathway a cyclist rode past, waved and smiled. The fear of his crying, the impossibility of discovering the small creature’s motivations. Anxiety of parenthood the natural urge the willingness to comfort, to nurture, to never, ever neglect. What might have been done is lost, abandoned, spent. Years ago, a dirty canal, a woman with a child and dreams. I should never have treated her like that, told her those words, spent that night in a hotel, silently brooding over my escape. This special horror and dreadful regret rages around me like a fierce storm, banging at the doors and windows. Outside no choice or road to travel, just the ghosts of my past closing in with a mocking sense of entitlement, a bony finger pointed at their creator. Years ago a boy reads a book in a ghostly library. Outside the rain lashes down. The boy makes a decision to fly or to fight. Or both.
M. Taylor.
THE HARDEST WALK
ROSE WALKED into the police station. The desk sergeant was flicking through a copy of Country Home. His eyes peeped above the magazine and studied her. He liked what he saw.
“What seems to be the problem, love?”
Rose smiled her best smile. The kind of smile that got things done and got them done in a hurry, “I need she to speak with the officer
in charge of the rape and robbery on Ladbrokes.”
“Of course, do you need a WPC present, I mean were you also....”
“No. It’s nothing like that,” she managed another smile, more pained this time. Rose
was ushered into a room with two chairs and a man with hair the colour of cigarette ash. Her heart stopped as she clocked the face,
He was writing on a pad of paper as she entered the interview room.
Swift looked up and smiled as he sat her tenderizing her in his mind. “Thank you sergeant, I’ll take it from here,” he said and as the desk job closed the door he looked at Rose and said, “Well, well, well. What do we have here then?”
“Cut the bullshit,” Rose said, “You have just as much to lose as me.”
“I was on duty. An undercover sting operation. What do you make of that?”
“I’ve come to give you some information.”
“Whoah. We have plenty of time, here.”
Swift felt a twinge in his trousers. The beers drank last night were wearing off and the void had left a terrible urge to reproduce, or at least relieve himself from some of the tension he felt bubbling away inside.
“I have information, about the drug robbery and about an attempted kidnapping.”
“Right. Are you willing to go on record. To make a statement that may be used in a court room?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then start from the beginning.”
She did.
Swift licked his lips as he hit record and began to write down her statement.
“And you sure this is everything?” Swift raised an ash-colored eyebrow. He felt a surge of electricity course through him.
Her lips were full, breasts generous.
“Yes.”
“And, may I ask if you are still working as a high class hooker for Roxy?”
“No,” she lied.
“And I guess it wouldn’t be too good if Byron got to find out about your alternative career?”
“You wouldn’t...”
“Well I’d hate to have to do that...But it’s all in the line of duty...” Swift said unbuttoning his black trousers.
KIDNAPPING AN HEIRESS
now
I KNEW the right tree.
The tree house.