Beautiful Child

by Menon, David

  ‘You’re not going to throw me out?’

  ‘No, Adrian, I’m not,’ said Penny. ‘But I do need to try and understand better than I’m doing now. I accept what’s happened and I hear everything you’re saying…’

  ‘… but it’s not enough?’

  ‘Not yet’ said Penny, ‘I feel like I’ve got to get to know you all over again.’

  ‘I’m not any different now to how I’ve always been, Penny.’

  ‘You can easily say that, Adrian, but I need to feel it. Do you understand? I need to feel what you’re saying. I don’t know how I’m going to work through this, Adrian, but I owe it to the kids to try. I owe it to you and to our marriage. I need time, Adrian. Don’t rush me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Adrian, ‘and thank you. I thought I was going to lose you and that terrified me.’

  ‘But what would you say if you thought you were going to lose Matt, Adrian? Would that terrify you too? Or have I got to think about opening up this marriage to the three of us? It would be like a custody arrangement. I have custody of you but you go and see him on set days.’

  Adrian picked up his wife’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, Penny. You’re my life and my world and I’m desperately sorry that I’ve hurt you. I don’t know what else to say.’

  *

  Paddy pressed the end of the barrel of his gun further into the side of his prison guard who was trying to convince him that he should stop what he was trying to do.

  ‘You will do as you’re told, big man, or else your kids will be growing up with only a memory of their father.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, O’Brien’ said the guard, ‘you know you’ll never get away with it. It’s completely pointless and you’re up for parole soon. Why put that at risk?’

  ‘You don’t ask me any questions and you don’t speak to me unless I speak to you,’ Paddy growled, ‘do you understand?’

  The prison guard didn’t answer.

  ‘I said do you understand?’ Paddy repeated.

  ‘Yes, O’Brien, I understand.’

  ‘Right, so make one wrong move and you’ll die. Now give me the key to the handcuffs.’

  The guard did as he was told and in a matter of seconds Paddy had unlocked his side of the cuffs and fastened them to the guard’s side so that the guard’s hands were now cuffed together behind his back.

  ‘Don’t forget’ said Paddy. ‘Do as you’re told and you’ll live.’

  ‘Paddy, please!’ Angela begged. She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing or how easily she’d been duped by her patient. ‘What the hell are you doing? I got you out today because I trusted you. I thought we’d invested a lot of genuine emotion into our relationship.’

  Paddy was genuinely sorry about the effect of what all this was having on the Doc but he had no choice. If he was to sort things out once and for all then this was the only way to do it. He had to try and stop the killings before anybody else copped it.

  ‘We have, Doc, we have.’

  ‘But how can you say that and then do something like this? You’ve let me down, Paddy. After all these weeks you’ve let me down but it isn’t too late to put it right.’

  ‘Oh I’m going to put it right, Doc, just not in the way everybody here would expect,’ said Paddy. He then grabbed the prison officers’ arm. ‘ Now where’s your car, Doc?’

  ‘My car?’

  ‘Yes, where is it?’

  ‘Well it’s the red BMW just outside the gates,’ said Angela who by now was absolutely terrified at the thought of whatever Paddy was planning .

  ‘Lead me to it.’

  ‘O’Brien!’ Sara pleaded, ‘Put the gun down and we’ll talk this over. You know you’re not going to get very far and even if you do, this won’t all end well.’

  ‘Shut your pretty little mouth, copper!’

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve been planning this for months, O’Brien,’ said Sara.

  ‘Ten out of ten, copper.’

  ‘We can still help you, O’Brien,’ said Joe who could see the looks on the faces of Angela and the prison officer. Fear didn’t even come close.

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, fat bloke,’ said Paddy who nodded in the direction of the church. ‘Now all of you get in there.’

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ Brendan demanded as he came back from seeing the last of the mourners on their way. Then he exchanged a look with Paddy and in that instant they both knew.

  ‘Give me the key to the church, Father’

  ‘What in the name of God…’

  ‘…I said give me the key to the church, Father! And don’t mess me about.’

  Brendan handed the key over and then Paddy ordered Brendan, Sara, and Joe to get inside the church.

  ‘And don’t even think about trying anything’ Paddy warned, ‘you know I’ve killed before and I’ll kill again.’

  ‘Just tell me why you’re doing this’ said Sara.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘But I want to know now!’

  ‘Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want.’

  Once they were all inside the church, Paddy told Angela to lock them in. She did as she was told but her hand was shaking so much she almost couldn’t turn the key in the lock. Eventually she managed.

  ‘Right, let’s get moving.’

  Paddy marched the prison officer down the path to the church gate with Angela following anxiously behind them. Once they got to Angela’s car he told her to open the boot. He then told the prison office to get in and closed it down on him.

  ‘For God’s sake, Paddy, the man won’t be able to breathe!’

  ‘Yes he will, Doc’ said Paddy, looking round. ‘Now get in. We’re going for a drive.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know yet but I’ll tell you which way to go.’

  ‘Paddy, please’ Angela pleaded tearfully. ‘Let me go home to my husband.’

  ‘I will, Doc, I promise you will. I’ve no problem with you.’

  They got into the car and Angela began to drive off.

  ‘Paddy, I … ‘

  ‘…now let’s get one thing straight, Doc. My name isn’t Paddy or Sean Patrick O’Brien. It’s Andrew John Cook. Andy Cook.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When Penny got round to Matt Schofield’s house and knocked on the door she suddenly didn’t know what on earth she was going to say. How do you start off a conversation with the man who you’ve found out has been sleeping with your husband? Do you threaten to scratch his eyes out? Penny allowed herself a small smile. She wouldn’t be as crass as that with a woman who’d slept with Adrian so she wasn’t going to be like that with Matt Schofield. It was getting dark. She knocked again. His car was in the drive so he must be in. He must’ve had it repaired pretty quickly because there was no sign of the damage that she knew her sister had inflicted on it. She didn’t know which was more twisted. The petty little dramas of her sister or the reality of the situation she now found herself in. She could hear someone inside running about but she was about to give up and leave when the door opened and Matt Schofield was standing there, tucking his shirt into his trousers.

  ‘Sorry’ he said. ‘I’ve just come out of the shower.’

  ‘Well if I’ve called at a bad time?’

  ‘No,’ said Matt, looking back into Penny’s appealing eyes. She was a good-looking woman without being flash. Her shoulder length auburn hair was soft and she didn’t need a lot of make up to bring out the prettiness of her oval shaped face. She had on a flowery print dress in different shades of green and a medium length cream coloured single breasted raincoat. ‘Did you knock before?’

  ‘Only a few seconds ago.’

  ‘It’s just that I thought I heard something downstairs when I was in the shower,’ said Matt. ‘Just before you knocked. Oh well, listen Penny, sorry, please come in.’

  Matt led Penny through to his kitchen where he switched on the kettle. All of a sudden he was nervous. He’d taken something fr
om this woman. Something that she believed wasn’t his to take. And he hadn’t had any conscience about it.

  ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please,’ Penny slid her bag off her shoulders, ‘could I sit down?’

  ‘Of course.’ Matt pointed at a chair she was standing behind. ‘I’m in a bit of a flux because, well you know what happened to my sister’s fiancé?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘I’m so sorry. She must be in a terrible state.’

  ‘She is. She still needs to be sedated a lot of the time. She found him, you see. The poor soul can’t get that image out of her mind.’

  ‘I can imagine what that must be like’ said Penny.

  ‘I’m on my way over there now to look after her. My parents are exhausted. Well, all three of us are.’

  He turned back to the kettle and made the tea in a pot. He placed a couple of mugs on the table along with some milk and sugar. Then he sat down opposite her at the table and waited for the tea to brew. He hated this tendency these days to just throw a bag in a mug and make tea that way. Tea had to be made in a pot or not at all.

  ‘I don’t want to like you, Matt.’

  ‘No, well I can understand that.’

  ‘But my sister Natasha hates you so that must mean you’re not that bad a bloke.’

  Matt managed a half smile. ‘Natasha and I never got on from the word go.’

  ‘Natasha has got a big collection of people she doesn’t get on with.’

  ‘I take it you the two of you don’t get on?’

  ‘Never have, we’re just not the same kind of people.’

  ‘It’s different with my sister and I. We’ve always been close.’

  ‘She’ll need you now more than ever’

  Matt smiled. ‘Yes, and I’ll be there for her. But Penny, as sad and as savage as recent events in my sister’s life have been, I’m sure you didn’t come to talk about them.’

  Penny blushed. ‘No, you’re right. I wanted to be angry with you. Well not just angry. I wanted to be bloody furious with you. But I’m not. I had a long talk with Adrian earlier and I’m angry with him but not you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he betrayed his loyalty to me. You didn’t. He did. You didn’t owe me anything. At least that’s how I’m trying to rationalise things.’

  ‘He didn’t betray his loyalty to you, Penny, there’s a distinction to be made. If you like, you and I found different parts of him.’

  ‘Yes I know he tried to explain all of that himself but I don’t know…’

  ‘But that’s what it amounts to, Penny.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know there was this different side to him, Matt. And it’s hard to take.’

  ‘I know and I understand, believe me.’

  ‘Do you want to share him?’

  ‘No’ said Matt. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Would you have carried on seeing him if I hadn’t found out?’

  ‘I don’t know’ said Matt, thinking of Charlie. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘And are you going to fight for him?’

  ‘No, Penny. I’m going to back off and leave you to sort things out. I’ve no interest in breaking up anybody’s marriage.’

  ‘But will you miss him?’

  Matt suddenly felt emotional. ‘Yes’ he admitted. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, I will miss him.’

  ‘Are you in love with him?’

  ‘I thought I wasn’t’ said Matt clearing his throat. He didn’t want to break down in front of her but everything seemed to be in such a mess. ‘But I think I must be a little bit. Life’s a bit complicated for me at the moment though.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry,’ said Penny who felt strangely magnanimous towards her husband’s lover, ‘I know how easy it is to fall in love with him.’

  ‘This is all very grown up, Penny.’

  ‘That’s because we’re both grown up people’ said Penny. ‘I’ve always left the big dramas to Natasha. But it’s not me. All I wanted to know was whether or not I’ve still got a relationship with Adrian to save.’

  ‘Which you most definitely have.’

  ‘And I wanted to know what you were planning to do’ said Penny. ‘And you’ve answered that in a more generous way than I could’ve expected.’

  ‘I’ve given you the truth.’

  ‘It’s going to be hard though, Matt. As you say, we’re being very grown up but there are certain things I can’t get out of my head. Like when I imagine the two of you together and yet he says he’s not even a little bit gay.’

  ‘I think Adrian is essentially straight but he had this side to him that was curious about other men. I just happened to be the one who turned the key in the lock if you like.’

  ‘Do you think some other man in the future could do that too?’

  Matt looked at Penny and knew what it was she wanted him to say. So he decided to give it to her even though it wasn’t what he felt.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he lied, ‘and that’s not my ego talking. I just think he took a once in a lifetime chance and I think he’ll put it all quietly away now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Matt tried to smile but it wouldn’t come and then he was saved by his mobile ringing. It was sitting on the table and he picked it up to look at the caller id display. He saw that it was Angus’ parents. He said ‘excuse me’ to Penny then he answered.

  ‘Hello, Margaret? …of course you can but would you mind if I called you back in a minute or so? …it’s just that I’ve got somebody with me …no, that’s fine. Speak to you in a minute.’

  ‘Sorry about that, that’s the mother of my sister’s fiancé. Her family seem to think that because I’m a doctor that I can somehow be some kind of counsellor too so when they need to talk they ring me. I don’t mind though. They’re good people and they’ve lost their son in such awful circumstances.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Penny making to get up.

  ‘No, stay’ said Matt. ‘Please. I’d like to carry on talking for a little while if that’s okay with you?’

  ‘Well, yes’ said Penny. ‘If you want to.’

  ‘Help yourself to some tea’ said Matt as he stood up. ‘It should’ve brewed by now. I’ll go and make this call upstairs and I’ll be down in a few minutes.’

  It was about ten minutes later when Matt finished his call and went back downstairs. He turned into the hall that led to the kitchen and immediately noticed up that his back door was open. Maybe Penny wanted some fresh air? He’d heard her chair scraping against the tiles on his kitchen floor and thought she might be getting up to walk around a bit. Then he looked down and saw a trickle of blood seeping through the doorway into the hall. He stopped. He felt sick. He proceeded slowly and as the macabre scene was revealed he brought his hand up to his mouth. Penny was still in the chair she’d been sitting on when he went upstairs. But she was dead. There was blood all over the place. Her eyes and mouth were both wide open.

  Her throat had been cut.

  Matt slid down the wall and began to shake.

  *

  ‘My father was a good deal older than my mother, Doc,’ said Andy Cook. ‘He was just past sixty when he married her. He was the good old boy from the pub who’d invested more emotion in his beer than in any human relationships. She was the tart with a heart who’d never found what she’d always really wanted which was true love. And she still hadn’t found it with my father but it was as close as she was ever going to get, I suppose. Then I came along and that seemed to please them both. Mum doted on me and Dad was a really proud father, you know. He took me everywhere.’

  Angela was finding it hard to take her eyes off the gun in Andy Cook’s hand. She was listening to him but she was also reproaching herself. How could she have been so stupid? She’d been in the profession for all these years and yet he’d so easily duped her into believing he was Sean Patrick O’Brien. But then he’d fooled everybody. The authorities in Australia, the authorities here.
How had he got away with it? And why? He’d got her to drive out to a pretty remote spot on the hills between Macclesfield and Buxton, where the Cheshire plains met the Derbyshire Peaks. If the circumstances were different she could almost imagine herself enjoying it all. As it was they were a long way out of town and she felt vulnerable. They’d driven down a track that was off the main road and nobody would notice them if they weren’t specifically looking this way. He’d assured her that she was going to be okay but the 9/11 hijackers had told that to the passengers on the planes that they flew into the World Trade Centre, hadn’t they?. And if Andy Cook had been capable of impersonating another man all this time, including doing a long stretch in prison under that name, then what else could he be capable of? Then she kept thinking about the poor prison guard handcuffed in the boot. What must be going through his mind?

  ‘I take it there’s some rain to come on this story?’ she said, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice.

  ‘Oh yeah, Doc, you could say that. I was just a bit past twelve years old. In fact, it hadn’t been long since my birthday. Anyway, my Dad dropped dead with a massive heart attack. They tried to revive him apparently but it was no bloody good. He’d gone. My Mum and I were heart broken, absolutely cut to pieces with grief. Then about a year later, just when we were starting to come to terms with it, my world got ripped apart again. My Mum was knocked down by a bastard hit and run driver.’ He started to cry. ‘They said I had to be a big, brave boy because Mum wouldn’t be coming home.’

  ‘And that’s when they put you in the children’s home?’

  ‘Yeah’ said Andy. He wiped his mouth and face with the back of his hand.

  ‘Weren’t there any family members who could take care of you?’

  ‘Mum had lost touch with all her folks years before. A couple of them came to the funeral but they didn’t ask what was going to be happening to me. I had an Uncle on my father’s side up in Brisbane but he was in his late seventies and didn’t want the responsibility of taking on a nephew he didn’t know. So yeah, I got sent into the fun palace.’