‘Take your clothes off.’ He whispered the command, but here was real menace in his voice.
Slowly, she began to undress.
‘Come on, come on, I haven’t got all night!’
She undressed quicker, throwing the T-shirt in the corner, pulling off her jeans and socks. She stood there, swallowing her grief and feeling ashamed. But she didn’t know what for. Why was she feeling ashamed? Why was she allowing herself–
‘Bra and pants too, come on, chop-chop.’
‘No.’
Brian stopped still. Slowly, he turned to face her. ‘Excuse me?’
She said nothing.
He turned off the tap. It dripped. ‘Take them off. If I have to ask again, I’ll whack you.’
Ros stood motionless for a moment or two. Then she burst into tears again and reached around and unclasped the bra, slid her pants off.
Brian smiled. He could see the scar below her ribcage, how it glistened in the light.
‘Kneel down.’
‘Why?’
He made to slap her, and she recoiled, gasped and hid her face. Then she knelt down.
‘In front of the bath, stupid! You really are tryin’ my patience. I have places to be this evening, and here I am, wasting my time with you. D’ya think I want to do this? D’ya think I enjoy it? Hurry up, dammit!’
Ros knelt before the bath, head down submissively, her lips moved slightly.
And then he grabbed her by the hair and pushed her head under the water.
Ros panicked, arms thrashing in the bath, elbows banging against the hard enamel, trying to pull his hands off her, kicking out with her bare feet and making absolutely no impression at all.
‘Eddie Collins is dead.’
She screamed and a hurried torrent of air bubbles broke the surface, and then she really did panic, and for a moment, she managed to break the surface, gasped in some air, but got a mouthful of water too, and she tried to cough, but he already had her back under the water.
‘I love you, Rosaline.’
And Ros was drowning.
Inside her head, there was tumult. It was filled with her own internal screams, and it was filled with the sounds of thrashing in the water, and sounds of air leaking out, and the heat of cold water burning in her lungs, and she felt the strangest most irrelevant things like her toenails digging into the carpet, like the faint scum-line of soap around the upper edge of the bath. And she could see the bottom of the tub. She could feel the coldness of the water against her eardrums. Her elbows hurt, and she didn’t know why.
And she could hear her own heart above all this tumult, slowing down, and she blinked less often, and she could feel the last few air bubbles running up the side of her face, almost tickling.
Brian hauled her out of the water. She coughed water, belched it and vomited it. She sucked in lungfuls of air and coughed it all back out again. Ros screamed.
‘You do love me, don’t you Rosaline?’
‘Fuck you,’ she gasped. ‘I love Eddie.’
His grip on her hair tightened, and this time, he rammed her head beneath the water. And this time, the air flowed in larger bubbles up her face, she pushed it out. And she stared at the bottom of the tub feeling nothing. Her toenails sent her no strange messages; she didn’t even feel for the scum-line this time.
She let her hands settle on the bottom, closed her eyes…and breathed in.
There was a brief moment or two when it was all so serene. Of course, she knew it was death coming along, and really, it didn’t matter. Death came to everyone, eventually. And drowning wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. Everyone always wanted to die in their sleep, naturally, she supposed, because it was like not being there while something horrid happened. But drowning was not totally unpleasant. There was the initial shock where your lungs don’t get air, they get water. And that was the worst part, she thought. But after that, when the convulsing was over with, it was so enormously peaceful. It was the transition from life to death, and it was utterly wonderful. Extremely relaxing.
Death was simply a change of state, that’s all. And people were frightened of it, not necessarily because they’d miss whatever they left behind, but because they’d never done it before – and people were always scared of new things.
But then that tumult she’d experienced a little earlier came back.
Daylight fell out of the air like cinders at bonfire. In its place, a mellow, cool yet insipid darkness washed over the land as quickly as an artist’s watercolour brush; the contrast dispersed and with it came a silence that was almost eerie.
Eddie ambled up the driveway, almost afraid to knock on the front door, now he’d rushed all the way here. What the hell was he going to say if Brian answered? Hi, just thought I’d pop by and tell Ros I’m not dead. It didn’t have the strength he was looking for, and more importantly, it was like a boast, it assumed she’d give a shit that he was alive anyway.
And if Ros herself answered, what was he going to say? Fooled ya! or worse, Now you know what it’s like! And again, he could imagine her expression: Yeah, so what? See you at work tomorrow. And the door would close in his face.
Maybe this was a bad idea. It all made him appear conceited. Eddie raised his hand to knock and then bit his lower lip. As he turned and took his first stride back to the van, he heard it, as plain as twilight. A scream. He stood there with his eyes wide, as though it would make the situation clearer to him, as though opening his eyes wide would open his ears wide too.
And then he tried the front door, found it locked and wondered for a second whether to shoulder it. He would, he decided, if he couldn’t get through the back door. He leapt over the side gate, down the path and found the back door slightly ajar. Eddie checked himself before entering; it felt uncomfortable somehow, and technically, it was burglary–
There was a shout, and a muffled scream; the sounds of splashing water confused him. But it didn’t matter what was happening; his legs took care of the distance while his mind wondered what it would find when it reached the source of the noises.
He thudded up the stairs two at a time, the splashing clearer yet more subdued, lazy.
Eddie reached the doorway and was utterly mesmerised by what he saw. Mesmerised and horrified. Ros was naked, her head held under water by Brian who crouched above her, a twisted sneer on his face. His arms shook with tension as he held them dead straight, keeping his wife’s head submersed as little bubbles popped on the still water. She was limp, though; he could see her feet were just there, there was no movement, no reflex, no jerking. Her arms were lazily hanging in the water, hands grazing the bottom of the bath as though her life was over.
Suddenly, Brian saw Eddie, and the sneer changed to a weird mixture of anger and embarrassment; being caught, being disturbed while doing this most private of activities – killing your wife – was almost comical. But Eddie didn’t laugh.
‘Get out of my house!’
Eddie blinked. Did he just say that? Am I supposed to apologise for interrupting and close the fucking door behind me? Eddie stepped into the bathroom and swung a mighty left-handed blow to the side of Brian’s exposed head. Brian’s face crumpled, and he arched backwards, then his legs folded, and he bounced into the sink and landed awkwardly on the floor. He was groaning as Eddie reached down and pulled Ros out of the bath.
She didn’t splutter. She didn’t make any sound. Water cascaded from her hair, and Eddie dragged her onto the landing, directly beneath the shining ceiling light.
There was an undercurrent of panic trying to get to the surface inside Eddie’s mind, trying to take control and leave him totally frozen, rigid, and useless. He wouldn’t let it; he had to act almost on instinct because to stop now and think of what the hell to do in situations like these was just asking for trouble.
But he couldn’t stop a snapshot of a memory from a distant first aid course flitting across his mind; how he’d slouched there with his arms folded, stifling yawns and struggling to
keep his eyes open as the instructor rambled on, a monotone rumble like the sound of a fucking air conditioning unit at the front of the class.
He listened at her mouth, knew she wasn’t breathing and went straight into tilting back her head to expose and straighten her throat. And then the panicky little voice advised him to empty her lungs of water first. Its voice was high-pitched and annoying, but Eddie heard it and wondered how to do that – he was sure the air conditioning unit never mentioned that in the course.
Eddie turned her onto her side and lay behind her, then curled his arm around her abdomen and pulled. Water shot from her mouth and poured through the spindles and down the stairs wall. He did it again, listened as it flowed less and less. And then he began to tingle all over, because he was sure he’d wasted too much time, and had inadvertently killed her. He pulled her onto her back, tilted her head, opened her mouth and pinched her nose. He took a breath and forced it into Ros’s mouth. He felt his lip split open again from the thorn wound, and when he sat up, she had blood all over her mouth and a trickle of it running down her cheek – it looked like lipstick applied by a three-year-old.
And then the panicky voice shouted again – chest compressions!
He looked at Ros’s chest, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and crossed his hands over her sternum and pressed, and pressed and pressed. And then he didn’t need the panicky voice anymore, because he was panicking by himself right now. He breathed into her again, watched her chest rise and fall, and he pressed her chest again, and he breathed, and he pressed, and nothing happened.
‘Fuck!’ he screamed.
‘This is where you open her eyes and say you love her.’
Eddie looked up. Brian stood in the bathroom doorway, fists pumping by his sides, blood from a bust lip hanging like a pendulum from his chin. ‘And maybe you drop a tear onto her face too, that sometimes works.’
‘Brian. Stay the fuck away from me, or I swear to God, I’ll–’
Brian laughed, a snorting kind of laugh that just enraged Eddie. But he didn’t matter; what mattered was Ros, and he wouldn’t give in until exhaustion claimed him.
He reached over, and he breathed into her, a long breath that filled her lungs so much that she arched her back from the floor. Still nothing. And then he clasped his hands and beat on her chest, got progressively wilder, a little more violent than he thought was safe; and then he got faster, heavier, and more frenzied than he knew was safe. And then he cried as he worked on her. Unashamedly cried.
And then, as Brian stepped closer and took a hold of Eddie by the neck of his jacket, she spluttered. It sounded like an old car cranking into life. The splutter happened again, and then she took a breath by herself, and then she breathed deeply, and then her eyes opened, and then she threw up on the landing, as Eddie’s fingertips brushed her skin. And Brian had him. Ros cried in between hitches of breath and began to take notice of her surroundings, began to be aware of where she was and what was happening around her and what had been happening before she went under – wherever under actually was, and what she saw made her scream again.
Eddie’s fingertips, the ones with essence of Ros on them, curled into a fist again, and as Brian lifted him clear of the floor, the momentum gathered produced a magically wild punch directly beneath his chin.
Eddie heard Brian’s jaw snap, heard the teeth clamp together, and saw splinters of them shoot out between clenched lips. His head jerked back and smacked into the corner of the bathroom doorframe. And for the second time, Brian hit the floor. But he didn’t groan this time, and really, Eddie couldn’t give a sideways shit. No sooner was Brian’s hand free of his jacket than Eddie turned his attention back to Ros.
And he still cried, but not with sorrow, he cried because he couldn’t believe that she was alive – still woozy, disorientated obviously, but she was coming back now, eyes lighting up again like someone was turning up the power.
She looked up at Eddie, and her face began to smile, and she simply said, ‘You’re alive.’
Of course, it was a shame. The ambulance took Brian away. They said he’d make a full recovery, once the jaw had healed. Eddie had expressed his dismay by asking the paramedics if there was any way they could think of to kill him without anyone finding out. They smiled and drove away; a police car followed the ambulance.
Ros had refused an ambulance ride of her own, despite being warned that she should have ECGs and a thorough examination. Eddie promised to give her a thorough examination when she felt better, and that had perked her up no end, and for the first time in two days, she cracked a smile and even laughed a little. She didn’t laugh when he said, ‘I promise I never looked at your tits.’
Epilogue
Brian got to keep his clothes and his toothbrush. He didn’t get to keep the Dodge Ram, nor did he set foot inside Ros’s little house ever again. He made his way to Kirsty’s place on the bus from the hospital, thankful that Ros didn’t press charges for attempted murder. Kirsty was pissed off because he forgot the Stella. No one knows what happened to him afterwards.
Lisa Westmoreland made a full recovery and had some awkward questions to answer prior to taking up residence in the segregated unit of HM Prison New Hall. To her credit, she never mentioned Sophie by name – even though Slade had, claiming her attacker was someone not known to her. Sophie left West Yorkshire, content that she’d finally made Lisa face up to her past. A few years later, she returned and lived with her sister, a reporter called Kelly, for a while.
Ros moved into Eddie’s cottage. She had the phone line repaired and redecorated the spare room where poor Charlie had died. Eddie bought new teaspoons and smoked a lot. They carefully selected a landscape gardener to get rid of the nettles out the back, had some decking constructed high enough so they had an undisturbed view across the fields towards Temple Newsam House and the surrounding woodland.
They sat on the decking, shiny with suntan lotion; Ros just soaking up rays on the lounger while Eddie studied a crossword, a cool glass of beer on the table by his side, a cigarette stuck in his lips.
‘I thought you’d fallen off the wagon,’ Ros said.
‘Hmph?’
‘They found a receipt for a bottle of whisky in your motel room.’
He looked up. ‘You cannot call that place a fucking motel. Sorry, you might get by calling it a midden, but motel, no.’
‘But the receipt?’
‘Oh, yes, that was real enough. When Benson asked me to go into the Crosbys’ gaff, I thought I’d better go prepared.’
‘So, you got drunk?’
‘What? No. I poured some into my hands and rubbed it into my face.’
‘Seriously?’
‘People have some wonderful misconceptions about drunken bastards. I know this because I was one. They don’t take you seriously, they think you’re incapable of fighting, and they expect you to fall down a lot.’ He flicked ash and took a sip of beer. ‘I wanted to fall down so I could plant the bug without it looking too obvious.’
‘Oh, I see. Very clever.’
‘And I’d rather hoped they’d just kick my arse out of there. Was a bit of shock when they decided to kill me. Kinda ruined my day a bit, did that.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘Besides, it worked in my favour when Lisa Westmoreland poked her head round the door. She knew my history, and like you, she assumed I’d fallen off the truck again too. Or wagon, skateboard, whatever.’
An hour later, after Eddie finished a crossword and a glass of apple juice, he began chuckling. Ros opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘I’m listening,’ she said.
‘It just came to me.’
‘What did?’
‘Black by Rose. You remember it was written on the scrap of paper?’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s an anagram of Blake Crosby.’
Author’s Note
I write crime thrillers, and have done since 1996, the same time I became a CSI here in Yorkshire. All of my books are
set in or around our biggest city of Leeds. I don’t write formulaic crime fiction; each one is handcrafted to give you a flavour of what CSIs encounter in real life. Every book is rich with forensic insight to enhance your enjoyment.
Thanks…
Many thanks to my superb editors, Kath Middleton and Alison Birch, without whom this book would not have turned out so well.
No Time to Die_a thrilling CSI mystery Page 34