The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  Eddie stood. His hand found the arm of the chair and a grunt later he was upright; wobbling, but upright. On the table below him were a bottle of brandy and a packet of cigarettes. The room slid out of focus and suddenly the sacking curtains were askew. He blacked out before his head hit the floor.

  When he came to, the brandy bottle lay next him. His cheek was wet with liquor, the crushed cigarettes were a murky brown colour floating on the small pool next to his face. Eddie closed his eyes tight. Anything to stop the tears.

  You’re a drunken twat.

  Words spoken by Jilly weeks ago – months ago. The scar on his left leg ached.

  Yes, he was in a bad state, but his problem was infinity; his problem was Time running along the x-axis versus Stress running along the y-axis. But there never seemed to be time without stress. Stress was a constant.

  Only the end of time could stop it all. But what use would sobriety be to him then? Who cared if the guy in the coffin was pissed or not?

  * * *

  It was after nine on Friday morning and Eddie, stinking of brandypuke and piss, sank into a cool bath, cigarette dangling from his mouth. This was Eddie’s existence: going to work, coming home, and getting slaughtered.

  Actually, that was a rather simplistic résumé. Home – proper home, happy, cosy home – was about five miles from this yellow-stained bathtub. He looked around the grey room, at the mould in the corner by the window, at the torn linoleum that always seemed to squelch underfoot, and listened to the cistern’s overflow dripping water into a bed of moss in the yard around the back. This flat over a carpet shop in Wakefield City centre, was just a stopgap. It was ninety quid a week and it was somewhere to get pissed and ignore the x-axis.

  Yes, Jilly was five miles west, and their son, Sammy, would have spent last term at school sharing disaster stories with other kids whose folks had split up. Eddie smiled at the thought of his boy. Another couple of sleeps and they could spend the day together, pretending none of this had ever happened, pretending to be a real father and son.

  He had never felt so alone. “Have you told me I’m wonderful today, Sammy?” Eddie’s voice echoed.

  Sammy’s eyes would roll upward and he would tut before saying, ‘Daddy, you’re wonderful’. They would laugh and roll around on the floor tickling each other.

  His smile spilled off the side of his face as thoughts turned to Jilly. She was a wonderful woman, very homely, a superb mother and actually quite an artisan in the bedroom. Another tiny smile ruptured Eddie’s lips and then vanished as though it was an absurdity it ever having been there. She could be a bitch too. It wasn’t her fault, though. It was his. Fairly and squarely, the fault was his.

  The next part of the résumé, the going to work part, was reasonably accurate. He was a Scenes of Crime Officer for West Yorkshire Police. It was a civilian role, a good job that was sometimes exciting and sometimes so infuriating he would reach for the job paper – and then put it back. He couldn’t do anything else. Didn’t really want to either.

  The only truly accurate piece of the résumé was the getting slaughtered part. He did it on a regular basis. He liked to be regular, did Eddie. Liked to build up and fortify a tradition. Though, he conceded, last night’s effort was a little more extreme a slaughtering than normal. He couldn’t remember pissing himself before.

  It was scary what the booze could do to you.

  A knock came at the door, forcing Eddie back into his own private existence. The bath water was cold. “Bollocks!”

  The knock came again.

  He climbed from the tub like a man twice his age, wincing at the pain in his leg, the pain coming from the scar. He slung a towel around his waist, and squelched across the lino and out into the lounge again, heading for the door. “Who’s there?” The smell of puke lingered large and loud.

  “Me.”

  Eddie turned the key and went to the kitchen. “Cuppa?”

  “Phew! Jesus, Eddie.” Ros stepped in and dropped the parcel on Eddie’s crumpled sofa. “You are disgusting.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” He grabbed the kettle. “Heavy night.”

  “Really?” Ros curled up her nose. “Oh God. Now I can smell piss.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Like I said—”

  “I know, I know.” She stepped into the kitchen, and grimaced at the greasy hob hiding beneath frying pans, at the crusty plates in the sink and stickiness of the floor. “You have to sort your life out.”

  Eddie nodded solemnly and sprinkled coffee in two mismatched mugs.

  “Don’t patronise me when I’m trying to lecture you.”

  How come the stress levels always curved upwards against the y-axis whenever there was a female around?

  “You’d better do something radical, Eddie, or else grow wings and a halo.”

  “Radical?” Eddie poured the water, sniffed at the dregs of milk before adding a few drops. “Next time you come over,” he pointed at the carton of milk.

  “Yes, I’ll bring some.”

  “Radical. Okay, I can do radical, Ros.”

  “Really?” Coffee in hand, she followed him into the lounge, breathing shallowly.

  “’Scuse the pong.”

  “’Scused.”

  Without collapsing this time, as though showing off a new found talent, Eddie reached down for the Courvoisier still lying on the carpet, and gulped half a dozen mouthfuls in one go. Ros sat by the window in the knackered armchair. He dropped the bottle, felt the tinge of tears behind his eyes as the liquor bit, and felt the buzz in his gums. Then he belched.

  “Radical enough for you?”

  “Prick. You’ll kill yourself.”

  “Wish it would hurry up, I’m sick of waiting. Even public transport isn’t this unreliable.”

  “Why? Why do you want that?”

  “Because I think people deserve better—”

  “Stop arsing around, this is serious.”

  “Damned right it is.” He sat on the sofa. “I’m sick of it.” He raised his eyebrows, tried to smile, “I want to be back with Sammy…”

  She paused before saying, “I sounded like Jilly just then, didn’t I?” She perched on the edge of her seat, elbows on knees. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “You coming over tonight?” Eddie looked her in the eye and changed the subject as easily as turning the page of a newspaper.

  “Is Mick?”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “He is, isn’t he?”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. He’ll be here at six.”

  Ros giggled, sipped the coffee. “Count me in.”

  “Thought you didn’t like him.”

  “But I do like you. He’s an alky and you need all the protection you can get.”

  “Protection? From what?”

  “He’s a bad influence. He’s on his own and he wants to see you on your own too, so you can be on your own together.” She reclined in the seat. “I think he’s jealous of you, somehow.”

  “Who, Mick? Naw.”

  “He messed up his own life, Eddie; and all he can see in you is another sap like him. And what’s worse than going through life as a sap? Going through life as a sap on your own. He’s happy to see you wreck any chance of getting back with Jilly.”

  “He’s not smart enough to think like that.”

  Ros shook her head, “You know that your only hope of getting together again rests with you quitting the booze, don’t you? I’ve seen how she looks at you when she smells alcohol on your breath. Her eyes turn to hatred.”

  Eddie stared at the curtains.

  “I’m sorry I said that.” She cleared her throat, “But if you ever want to be Sammy’s dad again,” Eddie flinched, “then you’ve gotta pull your head out of your arse and take a break from drunken sleepovers with Mick.”

  “Stop beating around the bush and say what you mean.”

  “You remembered why I’m here yet?”

  Usually Ros called around to see how he was doing and to make sure he
was fit for work. It was another tradition. Plus, she fancied him like crazy, he could tell, the way she…

  Eddie’s eyes filled with dread – quickly. He looked at the carriage clock on the dusty mantelpiece. She also called around to prepare him for… “Sammy!”

  Ros smiled and reclined in the chair. “Got there in the end.”

  “Oh fuck me.”

  “Appreciate the offer, but if you’re late again—”

  “Oh bollocks.”

  “And you owe me 200 quid.” She pointed to the parcel.

  “What would I do without you?”

  “Drown in your own vomit, I suspect.” She wasn’t smiling now.

  “And you wrapped it too. Thanks Ros.”

  “I got a card. You’ll need to write it though; you ought to do that bit yourself.”

  “I know, I know.” Eddie stood up quickly, wobbled a bit and fell into a panic. “Ros, what the fuck do I do?”

  “Shouldn’t have been so radical, man.”

  Friday 29th May

  Chapter Two

  — One —

  Henry was late.

  He didn’t even know where Beaumont Drive was, for Christ’s sake. He looked at the satellite navigation screen in the Jaguar’s dashboard, at the cracks running along it, and at the rainbow of crushed liquid crystal, and regretted not being calm enough last month to stop the car and turn around when the friendly female voice told him to.

  It was Friday morning and the traffic into town along Leeds Road was heavy and slow moving. Strangely, the traffic coming out of town was light and fast. Henry felt around the leather passenger seat for the phone; his eyes shared their time between the road, the search for the phone and a chance encounter with a pen.

  His morning schedule was busy; he had five appointments booked, and there was no way of servicing more than four without appearing hurried, and then there was travelling time. Actually ‘travelling’ was a loose term where Henry was concerned; finding might be better, hunting better still. He ought to buy a map—

  “Shit!” Henry stabbed the brakes. Everything on the passenger seat slid into the footwell, and the nose of the Jaguar stopped but an inch or two from the Fiesta in front. He saw the driver shake his head. “Shake your head at me. Tosser!” All that for a phone.

  And that was when the phone rang.

  Henry grew increasingly agitated. The traffic moved forward, Henry rolled along. The phone continued to ring. Where the hell was Beaumont Drive? It was now ten o’clock and the need to relieve himself had developed from nowhere. The phone still rang and Henry, foot on brake, leaned into the passenger footwell and fished about under paperwork, pulling crossword puzzle books, colour brochures and letterheads aside in his haste to answer the damned phone – the damned phone he needed in order to find Beaumont Drive. The traffic moved on. The need to pee grew. And then, just as he saw the phone, just as he reached that little bit further, a cramp grabbed his left side just below the ribcage.

  Behind him, a horn sounded. He peeked up over the dashboard, and noticed the Fiesta was a good forty yards away. He released the brake and the Jag rolled. Henry screamed at the cramp. The phone still rang and he lunged for it, caught it, sat upright – teeth bared against the agony, and nearly slammed into the Fiesta for the second time in only two minutes.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. It was 10:05, and he was precisely 300 seconds late for his second appointment. He pressed ok, held the phone to his ear, and listened to the sound of an empty piece of plastic. “Bastard!” Why did that happen? Why did they always ring off when…

  Henry grew hotter. He pressed the AC switch, and the light in the centre of the dial illuminated, but nothing happened. He breathed deeply of the fumes coming through the vents and called the office. The traffic moved again slowly, more horns, more heat, a growing concern in Henry’s bladder section, and nobody answering the phone in the office. What was wrong with—

  “Smith, Pryce, and Deacon, how may I help?”

  “At last,” Henry said. “Listen, Julie, it’s me—”

  “Henry, is that you? Henry?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Julie.”

  “I can barely hear you. You’ll have to—”

  “Can you hear me?” He couldn’t remember booking the day from hell, surely that was yesterday, wasn’t it, when dear old daddy laid down some new rules. That was the day from hell, but it seemed today was the sequel. “Julie, how the bloody hell do I get to Beaumont Drive, I’m lost.”

  “What’s wrong with the sat nav?”

  He stared at the cracked screen. “Just fucking tell me, Julie, I’m not in the mood.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Julie?”

  More silence.

  Henry sighed, rubbed his face. A horn sounded from behind him, and almost absently, he flipped the bird as a response. “Julie, I—”

  “It’s Beauford Drive. And I want a word when you get back.” The line died.

  “Whoa, hold on! Julie don’t you fucking hang up on me!” Spittle flew from his mouth and his face glowed a mellow crimson. The bladder situation had grown painful, and sweat popped out on his forehead and under his nose. “I own the fucking company,” he shouted at the phone, “I’m your boss!” He threw the phone into the footwell with enough force to shatter its screen and spill its innards across the carpet.

  Someone banged on the window.

  Henry jumped. More things to further depress his already depressed day. He saw that the car behind was minus a driver, and guessed that the tramp standing by the Jaguar gesticulating angrily was the missing driver on the receiving end of the bird. The window glided down and Henry said, “Could you tell me where Beauford Drive is, please?”

  “You cheeky bastard—”

  “Listen, Mr…?”

  “Never mind—”

  “Do you know where Beauford Drive is or not?”

  “You make me sick, your sort; you—”

  Henry took his finger off the window button, raised his eyebrows at the tramp. “My sort? And what sort would that be? Would that be the sort who works from sun up to sun down? Would that be the sort who employs lazy women who are more concerned about going for a cigarette break than ensuring their boss clinched a sale so he could pay them their wages!” Henry’s colour deepened, and the cramp bit again, and now he detected a slight damp patch in his crotch, something that made him even angrier than the unwashed stench of lazy-sweat coming from the tramp.

  “You fat bastard, it’s illegal to drive with a phone to your ear.”

  “My phone is broken—”

  “I saw you! And it’s illegal!”

  “Really?” Henry said, “And are you aware that it is an offence to drive with defective eyesight?”

  The man twitched his head like a pigeon, “I’ve got perfect eyesight.”

  Henry’s left index finger struck the tramp bang in the centre of his left eye, scraped along the eyeball, and embedded itself in the corner of the eye where tears usually came from. The man pulled back, face screwed into a ball of pain, and Henry’s manicured nail came away wearing a smear of blood. The man yelped and hid his damaged eye under the palm of his hand. Blood rolled around it. Henry’s cramp intensified. The damp patch in his groin was now actually wet.

  Henry felt for the window button as the tramp launched a fist into his face.

  A very fine red spray landed on the fawn leather of the naked, phone-less, brochure-less seat beside him. Henry’s world leaked into various shades of grey, but the colour returned in time to see the shock and the fear hit the tramp; the realisation that there was something very wrong with his left eye – since he couldn’t actually see out of it anymore.

  Suddenly Henry became aware of many things simultaneously: the noise from the tramp, high-pitched and warbling like a kid with his fingers trapped in a door; Henry’s nose was on fire and he felt the blood running into the crack of his closed lips and down his chin to drip onto his suit. This thought did not please Henry at all
.

  Horns sounded from behind, on-lookers laughed at them.

  The Fiesta was a couple of hundred yards ahead, almost around the next bend, almost, he had a hunch, near the turn-off for Beauford Drive. And then he saw the dashboard clock: 10:10. From his mind’s Trivia Department, a friendly female voice, sounding very much like the dead Sat Nav lady, said T-plus 600 seconds and counting.

  The two most insistent things on Henry’s mind was the tramp’s fist beginning its way towards his head again; and the wet sensation in his groin had grown liquid now. The pressure on his bladder had subsided, which meant that a gallon of piss was soaking into his suit and ruining the damned leather.

  “And I’m gonna sack Julie,” he blurted out from nowhere, to no one. The fist contacted Henry’s ear, and anger blazed furiously. He saw the bus coming, threw the transmission into ‘park’, grabbed the door handle and shouldered the door open as hard as he could. The edge of the door smacked the tramp in the face, chest and groin all at once.

  Henry watched as the tramp’s head whipped backwards, and his flailing arms failed to prevent his body falling into the path of a bus.

  The bus locked its massive tyres as the tramp folded and then disappeared beneath the smoking rubber. The passengers lurched forward alarmingly. Onlookers screamed. Car horns ceased to blow.

  The Fiesta disappeared around the corner,

  Henry turned forward and closed the door, engaged gear and planted his shaking right foot hard on the throttle.

  — Two —

  Henry saw the driver step off the bus as a thousand people swarmed the road, several of them with mobile phones to their ears. He was shaking as the scene disappeared into his rear view mirror.

  The sign for Beauford Drive sailed up the road. The Jaguar turned and swept up the narrow street as three police cars sped by the junction. Henry didn’t like the police; he always managed to fall foul of them. Okay, he’d been guilty, he conceded, but that was beside the point. Other guilty people got away with things.