by Gerald Wixey
‘Go and sit with Don.’
Shirley stared at me, never moved for a second or two. She sighed and moved towards the door.
I grabbed her wrist, ‘I know about the letter and I know that you rang the military police.’
‘Know it all don’t you.’
I pointed at her, ‘And you told Eyeless where we were living.’
‘Leave me alone – you know nothing about me.’
She shook her hand free and walked towards a dying man.
Stuart whispered, ‘What was that all about?’
He clamped the ice onto the point of impact and groaned again, softly. Slowly merging between a groan and heavy sighing breaths. A sound so evocative of Harry in the car, holding onto his bandaged hand. All it needed was a curse or two. ‘Fucking hell, Jesus fucking Christ, why did I do that?’ He flicked his good eye my way and shouted. ‘Go and ring them… quick.’
My voice cracked as I said, ‘Have we got two dead men in the room?’
Stuart turned and for a pulse in the neck and nodded.
‘Does that nod mean that he’s dead or alive?’
He nodded again, ‘Alive.’ He groaned again, pursed his lips. ‘Ring my old man now, please.’
Down the stairs again just to have Harry shouting down the phone at me. I quickly explained and went back up to the grisly scene. Shirley was stroking Don’s cheek with one hand and a towel was compressed over his gaping stomach. I didn’t dare ask how he was. Stuart, stood by now, he glanced at me and said, ‘Two men in Shirley’s house, both unconscious, she certainly knows how to finish a man off.’
She stared back, pointed at Stuart and shouted, ‘I’m not in the mood.’
Shirley began to sob. Racking, shoulder heaving sobs as the spectre of safety dragged her away from what exactly? Teddy still had her biggest carving knife by his side. The other man had probably bled to death. Through her tears she asked the same question as me. ‘Is he alive?’
At that moment Harry burst through the door. Wyn close behind. They looked at the scene. Pretty mild compared to what they’d been used to. Two sets of raised eyebrows, two mouths open. Harry noticed Stuart’s eye, came up and stared into his face. ‘Did he hit you?’
Stuart shook his head, ‘I stuck my head into his face.’
Harry smiled, ‘Good man – hurt’s doesn’t it?’
Wyn came up to Shirley, ‘Can I get anything – cigarette, coffee?’
She nodded, ‘Both please.’
‘What happened Shirley? We need to get the story straight.’
‘I don’t know, never locked the door I suppose. Never saw anything. One minute Don was …’
Pumping away?
‘We never heard a thing, just this noise. Don came out of the bathroom and…’
Wyn came back in with coffee and cigarettes, ‘I’ve rung the police. Don’t look like that, how long does it take to get our stories straight for God’s sake?’
He walked over to Shirley, lit her cigarette and passed it over to her. There had always been this iron bond between them. Despite their many separations and her betrayals, they were tighter than a welders joint. She told him everything and he understood it all. They whispered away to one another now. A meeting within a meeting, heads together like twins.
Harry took his eyes away from them and back to his son. He kept winking at Stuart. Harry always told him that foreheads do more damage than a fist.
That’s my boy.
‘What’s the story then?’
I said, ‘Well we’ve rescued a policeman and a damsel in real distress. Caught a murderer. It makes things easier – perhaps they’ll gloss over the past.’
Please gloss over the past
‘Not me, Teddy hit me, remember?’ Stuart took his one eyed gaze around the room, ‘Let the old boys save everyone. Teddy stabbed Don and then knocked me out. Dad and Wyn rescued us. It looks better for them, a thirty five year vendetta knocked on the head by two old men.’
‘Less of the fucking old.’
Is it possible to stare death in the face and become a better man or woman? Stuart suggested that it could happen that way. He looked pretty smug mind, but that’s a reasonable emotion in a moment like this. It did paint the others in a truly positive light as well.
‘We followed Teddy down here. He stabbed Don in front of our eyes. Pity we can’t get him dressed. How do we explain that away?’
I stared at Shirley, ‘That’s Shirley’s to explain away.’
Her nose flared and Wyn squeezed her shoulder. ‘It’s all right. It will sort itself out.’
The ambulance men arrived five minutes before the police. The debate began, any shifting of Don and the probability was that what little blood he had left in his body would soon siphon away. But they had no choice, he would die either way. One ambulance man tried to staunch the flow as Stuart took one end of the stretcher.
Mably and his troops arrived at the same time as the stretcher left the back door. He stared down at his sergeant, ‘What the …’
Stuart gestured with his head. ‘The murdering bastard’s been laid out upstairs on the bed for you. Worked out nicely Inspector.’
They came slowly up the stairs, tiptoed around the pool of blood and stared into the bedroom. The inspector gave me one of those suspicious police looks. A frown, another glance at the carnage. Another frown back at me. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Teddy Lewis, I think you’ll find his fingerprints all over the caravan. He laid Don out and Stuart. Harry laid Teddy out.’
‘But that’s Bernard Schwartz, I saw him at the coroners.’ He puffed his cheeks out. ‘Did Don know who he was? How many of you knew?’ Mably nodded, ‘Only the whole bloody world and his wife. Apart from those that should have known. Jack, Jack we’ve got some serious talking to do.’
I stared at Harry. Unlike a cat at the hint of trouble, their first instinct is to get as far away from humans as possible. I took on the mantle of a dog, seeking safety by getting as close to their owners as possible. I walked and stood next to Harry. He slipped his arm around me and whispered. ‘Don’t worry Jackie boy.’ Harry held me up just like he did after Eyeless’s demise. He frowned at Mably and said, ‘Don’t worry about that policeman, it’s all over now. All over.’
It felt like the mangled knot that had strangled my heart for years had been severed by a slashing blade. I could breathe again. I stared at Harry’s gnarled old fist resting on my shoulder. Hard hands, knotted from years of punching hard heads in boxing rings. Good job he hadn’t hit anyone, I imagined broken, splayed fingers defying cartilages, bending away at odd angles and then the nerve screaming pain.
I glanced down at pool of blood. My relief had become tempered with a simmering rage. I wanted to tell Shirley it was all her fault. But she’d be swearing and blaming the spider. Forgetting that she had spun the web all by herself. The web of secrecy demanded time and money and inventiveness. Defeat costs marriages and more stares from the neighbours. She knew life, affairs, jealousies and the oddness of the sexual nature.
But little of common sense most would say.
Except Wyn of course, he said it often enough, who would say anything if it were a man behaving like that? None of you, she enjoys life too much for you hypocrites. Eyes fluttered to ground as a man’s one sided love affair meant defending her had become a life time exercise. He had become her own listening service. Someone that can be told anything without fear of criticism. He had heard and done worse himself. Whatever came his way, never incited anything but a calm understanding. We all felt affectionate emotion for this gorgeous woman. But it was all a trap in a way, Shirley was an authority in the provocation of such feelings.
Or perhaps I was just jealous.
Perhaps we had all forgotten what started what started this nightmare off. A young suicide called Celia. No one asked about her any more. I stared at her unconscious father – well who could ever imagine what he thought about anything.
*****
Carol
didn’t come into work the next day, sat by a hospital bed watching her half dead husband’s laboured breathing. A man soon to be cited for bravery, trying to rescue a woman held hostage by a lunatic. What he was doing naked in Shirley’s house was never made public. She had a champion for a husband. No wonder Carol sounded so happy on the phone, husband just about alive and back in the fold. Unable and probably unwilling to stray again.
For a while anyway.
Stuart said one word. ‘Carol?’
I nodded and glanced at my younger colleague. His eye had taken on the appearance of a multi-coloured closure. Shut and likely to remain so few a good few days yet. Still he’d be dining out on that for weeks to come and who could blame him. Another hero whose spouse accepted his sudden absences. Hours and days at a time – working, chasing a criminal mastermind. Well mastermind was how he described Teddy to Kathy.
Just a blundering, psychotic more like.
And Stuart, his father and uncle never tried to keep the truth a secret either. Apart from their police statements, they told anyone and everyone pretty much as it was. Principle one thing, reality another. I suppose the truth was seeping into Inspector Mably’s consciousness. But he’d just shrug it away. Thirty five years earlier and a novice policeman missed out on murder and mayhem. Mably didn’t need reminding of how we talked him out of that.
Retirement loomed, he didn’t want questions about buried criminals coming back to spoil his last year as the bastion of propriety. Carol would hear these same rumours, like Mably she’d shrug them off as petty jealousies spouted by small minded, rumour mongers.
Even problems with the Inland Revenue receded as corrupt accountants fleecing innocent, law abiding men became their legal eagle’s mantra. The real threat of assassination the motive for a change of identity. It had all slipped into place so neatly.
Of course my clients want to repay every penny to the Inland Revenue. It may take a long time however and considering that they’ve already paid the monies once …
‘Wyn’s taken Shirley down to Cornwall for a few days.’
I shrugged, that was Wyn’s predictable response to any of Shirley’s crisis. Stuart sat back in his chair and swung his legs onto his empty desk. Clasped his hands behind his head. Wearing his wound like a street fighter’s medal of honour. He turned his head my way. One eye shut, but just like his father in the photograph, he wasn’t winking.
I had to say it, ‘You look just like Harry.’
‘What five foot five and fat.’
I smiled, ‘Something like that.’
‘Wyn was right, you’re lucky Jack.’
I sat up; it wasn’t anywhere close to being an accurate assessment. But I smiled and thought, there’s worse things to have on your headstone.
Lucky Jack.
Teddy - 1980
He woke up in a bed, surrounded by curtains. The smell of hospitals and dying old men.
It stank of a prison hospital.
Even the nurse looked like some kind of rodent. His eyes followed the ugly nurse, which type of rodent? Small eyes too close together, big ears.
Some sort of intelligent rat.
The androgynous haircut reminded him of his sister. But despite the appearance, his sister was sexy and in an aggressive way. Throwing any man in her immediate vicinity the challenging stare of the sexually voracious.
Not this little rat.
He wondered if his sister was still alive, she had the clap once and never went to work. She used to show him her chuff when he was little.
Teddy sighed, people don’t understand hatred, never realise its true value or how to use it. Teddy could hate and Eyeless could fight. Eyeless didn’t hate and Teddy couldn’t fight.
Funny old world.
Why did Eyeless try and finish them off?
He did it for me.
Good old Eyeless.
His mind flew randomly around like a moth battering into a light bulb. He didn’t understand, didn’t know anything, or what it meant anymore.
No, no… he never understood anything. He fingered his jaw. Soup for weeks rat face had told him. He went to cuff her, but a sharp pain shot up his arm. He blinked at the handcuff, shook his hand, a dry, metal rattling alarm went off. Handcuffed to his fucking bed.
He drifted back, what was the name of that old trailer? The Bone Yard.
A trailer in the prison yard used for overnight visits of wives.
Or in his case Shirley.
They both knew the guards would be watching. It turned both of them on. Give them a proper show.
Prison.
Prison.
Prison sex.
It didn’t take long to remember the prison sex. Not with Shirley. The trailer was a privilege granted to the chosen few.
What about real prison sex?
It took longer to remember just exactly what happened. The little poof blowing his cock.
Not that.
Watching.
Binding the poof’s hands.
The pretty little poof.
He was so young and vestal.
It must have hurt him, but was still breathing afterwards.
His head down, eyes closed, and his throat wide open.
A lamb and martyr, so precious.
The others all found some release in sodomy.
Except the poof.
His hands bound, his head down, his eyes shut.
They all found some brief moment of sanity in amongst the shit and blood and semen.
He looked so precious.
Poof.
He woke later, lying amongst sweat soaked sheets. He must have a fever or something. Irritable and uncomfortable in an indefinable way.
Like a cat that runs for cover on the night before a disaster.
He remembered. They might have handcuffed him. But the stupid fuckers hadn’t searched him.
Properly searched him.
He felt himself smiling at what he had concealed.
An aluminium tube that usually encased a small cigar. A petite corona – about four inches long and a half inch in diameter. An aluminium tube with a screw top. Uncle Jim told him that the smoking time of the cigar was twenty five minutes.
He had to put plenty of Vaseline around it and he winced when it went up his arse. It never had a cigar in it. A stainless steel switch blade, slim, highly polished. A three inch blade.
Toledo steel and he bought it in Spain.
‘Nurse, nurse – I need a shit.’
The rat hustled through the curtains. ‘You’re not supposed to shout with that jaw.’
‘Hurry up I need a shit.’
The guard walked him to the toilet and insisted on coming into the cubicle with him.
‘Leave me alone. Are you fucking queer or something?’
‘No fucking about then Teddy. Quick shit and out.’
He flushed and rinsed the shit off his fingers and the blade. It winked away at him.
The guard walked him back to his bed.
The guard was thick.
‘Don’t chain both arms.’
‘Regulations Teddy.’
‘I want a wank.’
‘Teddy.’
‘I have to hold my cock – I can’t sleep, please?’
The guard left his right hand free.
Whenever he closed his eyes he saw Eyeless as a young boy, in the Thames, splashing around in the moonlit mud at low tide. He heard the screams of men burning to death, pleading, begging to be let out. Eyeless always called him a dog, one that wagged its tail, but snarled at the same time – he liked that one.
Life had become like one of his photographs, one that he’d cut in two and stuck back together. Careless with the gluing, the two halves not aligned. The image forever distorted, causing him to blink like a short sighted man looking into a sandstorm.
Try to sleep again, except he kept waking as if he was still in a dream. Despite being adrift in a dream, he felt safe again. Some animals develop an intuition for these things.
He became reluctant to drink at the waterhole. A dangerous place to go. But he went anyway. He caressed the feeling of security, the umbilical of the handcuff. Whenever he woke, it felt like some kind of heaven.
Surely the smells were real? The scent she wore, the perfumed soap she used, the sweet smell of young woman. Her tight schoolgirl skin tinted a carroty orange by the firelight.
Stay here, safe at last.
He sat up and it was as if he had woken from the dead.
All the others with their roasting rectitude – fuck them all. His mind whirled away, searching for answers, desperate for a solution.
My guilt, my blame, my blood, my fault.
I am not innocent.
I’m not innocent.
No one is innocent.
No one is innocent.
No one is innocent.
No more rotting in some lethargic being.
There's a shadow, cloaking every breath. Making every promise empty, pointing every finger.
Murder or suicide now the chosen path.
Trust me. I want what I want now.
Not on my knees and on fire. My piss and shit are the fuel that set my head on fire. So smell my soul burning. I'm broken, looking up to see the enemy.
Murder or suicide?
He felt inside his underpants.
It felt hard.
Shiny and so smooth.
He pulled it out.
Getting the blade open. Hold it in his manacled hand. Lean across.
There.
He’d armed himself to fight.
It's all he had left.
There's only one choice.
He’s shameless, nameless, nothing, and no one now.
But his soul became steel and his fear no longer naked.
No longer naked and fearless.
No longer dead inside.
Loathing, weakness, and guilt keep him alive.
For how much longer?
Celia crawled away from him. Slipped away. He tried to keep a hold, but there was nothing he could say. She slid and crept away and there was nothing he could say.
The policeman didn’t mean fuck to him.
He stuck the kitchen knife in.
This is love.
This is love for Celia.