by George Rufus
He knew Ian and Steve, his sidekick would be in the Trout and Tipple that night, as it was Steve's local. Steve had been at the bar the week before telling a couple of his mates that Ian would be about next week. He was raving about what a lucky bastard Ian was with a new job, a tasty much younger Swedish girlfriend and everything going again for him.
Perfect time to start collecting his dues. He had been waiting for an opportune trigger to set off events that would mean he could draw a final line under the past and to enable him to start living.
He had parked the VW caddy van in the road with the clearest view of the car park of the pub, the following week, in the hopes that Steve and Ian would turn up. His patience was rewarded on the third night when in a beaten up old Skoda, Steve, Ian and a young blonde woman drove in and parked.
He waited ten minutes, fairly confident that they would have got a drink and sat down. Then slipping in the side door, anticipating the bustle of a Thursday night in this popular drinking hole, he entered quietly and without fuss.
It was ten years since they had been at school, he had dramatically changed in build, due to the physical daily work he did and facially enough to go under their radar. With longer hair, a beard and an unassuming air, he was not going to stand out in a pub where the bar was three deep and noise levels were high. He went to the end of the bar nearest the door, subtlety surveying the room, as he waited to be served.
Steve and Ian were sat with their backs to him, a very pretty blonde was smiling and chatting to them as they sat engrossed in a map they had spread over the table. He sipped his pint of coke and waited for the table behind them to be free. He sat with his back to the others and slightly around the corner, at an angle where he could hear parts of the discussion going on, but with little fear of anyone seeing him, unless they got up and walked deliberately to face him.
He pretended to be reading a daily paper, nursing his sole drink, as he couldn't risk returning to the bar. He listened intently to every snippet of information he could glean above the hiatus of noise that dipped and rose in the bar. It soon became apparent that they were planning a trip for Ian and his girlfriend. She was having very little say on what was happening, going along with everything that was suggested. Her fresh faced enthusiasm, her gullibility at first made it seems a shame that she would have to be the one who paid Ian's dues, but then it would also be saving her from ultimately being in a relationship with Ian. She had also begun to grate on his raw nerves, as he listened to her half cup full take on life. Her positive sunny nature was an insult to all he had been robbed off. Her silly laugh felt like acid eroding away his tolerance.
Ironically with the new daydreams he allowed himself, like he did as a young child, he would picture himself with an incredibly beautiful, fresh faced girlfriend who would always be smiling at him like Freda was. It ate him up to see Ian having someone looking at him in a way he didn't deserve. That was what he was owed. That was his future. He switched his attention to the way, he saw Ian responding. Like a masochistic voyeur, he watched the obvious emotion Ian had now invested in his girlfriend. Losing her would hurt. If he was suspected of making her disappear, even better. He needed to pay his dues. He felt slightly elated at the punishments that were coming Ian's way.
He gathered enough details of where they would camp, which fortuitously matched a day he had off and left the bar without being noticed. He knew that his plan would be scuppered if the weather was bad, but he hoped not, as he might need more than this occasion to see through his plans.
This was the important one. This was the one that would show he was not the cowardly belly aching loser, his father had said he was. If he could see this one through he would be on the road to a new beginning. He hoped luck was on his side or he would have to come up with another plan.
Luck had indeed been on his side that evening. After watching from a vantage point on that clear evening and knowing exactly where they were going to camp, he had simply waited for an opportunity. There was no one else about. That was the beauty of the wild camp, you were alone, particularly if you were away from the regular beauty spots.
So he had waited patiently. Constantly reminding himself of every moment of public humiliation and scrutiny that Ian Jenkins had foisted upon him. The bum chums anecdotes would now cost him dearly. Finally his patience paid off. He watched the very unsteady Ian stumble into the tent and crept nearer as his equally unsteady girlfriend hobbled and crawled right down to the rivers edge. The stars lit up the sky for him and the sheep intermittent grumbling noises covered his stealth like footsteps. By the time she had clumsily removed her trousers to pee somewhat precariously at the edge of the river, he had chosen his murder weapon, a large lump of glittering granite. As the granite struck her skull, she fell limply onto the ground, without too much sound. He had hit her with such force, fuelled by years of unspent anger and the desire to not fail or be caught, that he shattered the base of her skull instantly.
He waited only a few minutes to check whether Ian was going to going to come and share the moment but he was slumbering, his heavy snoring accompanying the sheep murmurings. He had hoisted her over one shoulder and began his ascent. She weighed no more than the heavy fertiliser bags he carried daily and except for reshuffling her body position, he walked steadily towards the trail where he would have a more even ground. He knew no one else was about and he had not left his van in a car park but back on a side road. He walked slowly and carefully towards the reservoir. As he walked he congratulated himself for seeing through this necessary act without wavering. He mentally stuck up the middle finger to his father and all those endlessly disparaging comments he had made about being a loser. He had a plan of action. He felt strong, almost invincible.His father had been the first a long time ago, but that was out of pure survival instincts. This one was the first of own schedule. He was successfully putting back together a life that others had tried to shatter irrevocably. Ian had paid the first instalment on his dues. If public scrutiny and suspicion of Ian now followed, which it should, then all of his debts would be paid.
After disposing of Freda's body in the reservoir, he thought with complete clarity about the next person on his lis, who also had it coming. He felt an eagerness to get on.
This was long overdue.
Ritual humiliation by a teacher was abuse. Day in, day out, an adult targeting a teenager with snipes, sarcasm and public criticism that never went checked. No retribution, no punishments, all adds up to heavy penalty.
David Hardy was a typical teacher who wasn't able to make it in the real world. So as the saying goes,if you can't do it, teach it.
He was a bitter, failed snob who lost his job in some independent school through his inability to perform at expected levels and as such,he resented every day he had to teach in the local failing comprehensive where he was forced to work until retirement.
The louts he taught were unteachable in his eyes and therefore he blamed their lack of progress and poor achievement to their backgrounds, their poor discipline. He was blissfully unaware that it was due to the fact he never put any effort into his teaching or into inspiring those to achieve greater things in his chosen subject.
English was for the educated, not louts, he firmly believed. Literature beyond the ignorance of the pupils he failed to teach properly. Unlike others teachers devoted to chasing the c grade and above for their students, he berated their inability to tune in on the finer feelings of the writer's aims, language and openly laughing any empathetic responses any one dared to offer.
Reducing a pupil to tears, silence and obedience were his targets not a better understanding of the text. Slamming comments about work were given out aloud in class with any returned piece of work. The joy of the D and E and even ungraded piece of work, brought a sneer to his face as he worked his way down to your desk to return a piece of coursework. The realisation that you were doomed to fail in a subject that everyone needed in their chosen future job, added to the frustration, in a s
chool where no one got to move class because teacher turnover mapped exclusions and supply teachers were the norm, especially in shortage subjects.
Every day became a waste of time in these lessons, as well as filling you with dread.
How to repay such a bully especially when you were singled out for his special treatment was a lengthy decision. How to worked out the repayment due, for being targeted as the scrawny no hoper from a one parent family with a learning difficulty living in a council house, needed thought and care. Anyone who had put such effort into wearing away someone's self-esteem for the sheer hell of it, really needed to pay back in a meaningful and painful way that would help them to reflect on their actions. The comments he had written on reports sent home, guaranteed beatings from a father who already deplored his son's weaknesses in certain subjects. The identified learning difficulties had already labelled him as a failure to his father and were another sign of what a weak loser he would turn out to be. Mr Hardy's unfair written comments labelling him as insolent and lazy had heaped more punishment on him. He had to make him pay and he knew just how to do that and when.
Mr Hardy enjoyed a tipple or two at the Whitchurch pub, he would stagger home at closing time along the back road each night, fighting fit for another day in the classroom. Out of term he would go a little earlier and stay until he was kicked out at closing time. He rarely was invited to stay to the private 'lock in's ' because his boorish repertoire offended most of the locals. His pathetic need to speak in terms of heightened self-importance, despite being well into his fifties, made others avoid eye contact with him. If they were new into the pub and innocently joined him at his table they soon realised their mistake and drank quickly and returned to the bar. His views on the world were all linked to his narrow experiences in two schools, where like his non-existent love life, he lacked any fervour, passion or commitment. His dull whining dialogue, sounded word for word like the worst election speech, on a par with Nigel Farage for his outrageous snipes and negativity towards minorities or those not quite on a par with perceptions he held of himself.
David Hardy was in essence a nasty little man, a bully. He needed to be made to cry, crap his pants and to beg for his life. The same way he had terrorised children and teenagers and got away with it.
Tonight he would wait. Tonight sir would pay. Fair dues.
Chapter Eight.
"Steve, he's got to go and you need to tell him. He could be a bloody killer for all we know and we've got responsibilities. We are parents. If you really cared about your family, you'd bloody well go and....."
"For fucks sake, he's just had his girlfriend murdered woman, how the bloody hell can I chuck him out now."
Steve had listened to his wife's tirade of demands for over an hour on and off now. While his mate was at the police station again going over the events of the last few days, he was being screamed at about his inadequacies as a man, a father and a provider for his family. He was sick of being told what to do.
Charlotte's sudden announcement that she was pregnant had been not part of his life plan. Suddenly everyone had expected him to do the right thing. There was en-masse disapproval permeating from every pore in their families that he had not waited until he had achieved the appropriate list of requirements needed for marriage and bringing up a family. It had placed an unbearable burden on him to marry hastily and give up all dreams of a longer life as a bachelor, to travel and some fun.
He felt he was trapped in this life with this woman and two kids at twenty six years of age and endless expectations he would never meet. He was a worried man. Her badly timed reprimand making it impossible for him to think straight.
"When you are off swanning around in your bloody truck all hours of the day, your family are at risk with that man in the house. My mum says I can stay at hers for a while so you can sort this out!"
"How else am I supposed to pay the rent, the bills and keep up with your bloody expensive tastes in nursery furniture, if I don't put in the extra hours with the truck? Eh? Have you thought about that?"
" That's your job, you're the bloody man of the house. Perhaps if you spent less time and money in the gym and on those ridiculous health drinks you buy we wouldn't be so skint. Sort this out or I will be forced to take action and I will never forgive you for uprooting our children from their home. Are you listening Steve? Are you?"
The front door slammed as he left the house. He stomped miserably across the road to where his breakdown truck was parked, jumped on the cab and drove back to work. No lunch eaten, yet another bollicking, pouring rain, another fucking day in paradise.
Likewise in a less than great mood, Ian found himself with the same two coppers before, plus a duty solicitor going over the events of the wild camping expedition for the umpteenth time. Unable to shake off his feelings of misery, disbelief and anger at being cross examined again, he drained the contents of another cup of diabolical coffee and requested another toilet break. Anything to escape the constant questions. Freda had been the best thing that had happened to him in a long time and he couldn't accept it was all over. All because he fell asleep and didn't protect her. He felt cursed, deep anger and also frightened. What the hell was going on? Who was responsible and why didn't the police stop asking him questions and get the bastard who had screwed up his life and killed Freda. Freda who never hurt anyone, the happiest person he had ever met, with so much life ahead of her and he had been planning to spend it with her. He wanted to soak up the sunshine that had radiated from her, she was so fantastic, so bloody happy and he couldn't face the fact that he would never spend another moment with her.
Her parents had finally returned from their holiday and requested her body to be returned to Sweden where they lived. They wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with the investigation here in England, leaving their solicitor to deal with the police. Their beautiful nineteen year old daughter was gone, coming home in a box and taken from them. He could imagine their grief and their disbelief. He wasn't a parent but Freda was so special, so full of life, excitement and he also knew they would probably now bitterly regret they had allowed her to study for the sixth form in Devon. That is where she had met Ian and why she had stayed for a gap year. So ultimately why she was now dead.
She had boarded at the senior Independent school in Tavistock and that is how they had met on a night out in town, at a popular young people's drinking hole. He was visiting mates back in his home town, getting his life back on track and she had smiled at him dressed in some bizarre fancy dress outfit, out with her mates.
Leaving Steve to flirt with her friends, he had chatted, laughed and danced the rest of the evening with her managing to get her number before she left to go back to school. Steve had ragged him endlessly about being a cradle snatcher, even calling him a paedophile. Ian reminded Steve he had flirted outrageously with a group of school girls too, despite having a pregnant girlfriend. She was eighteen, or so she had said. He was twenty five but an immature one at that, according to his ex-wife, so fair match.
Now he would never see, touch or talk to her again and he didn't think he could cope.
Chapter Nine.
Rob left the station later than planned, as usual, after another lengthy session alongside Kate trying to make some headway in the murder enquiry. Several Plymouth detectives were now working alongside them, taking control of the disappearance of Andrea Sellars, with absolutely no movements forward, her disappearance was going to be launched nationally on the news.
Rob also had nothing, no leads, nothing but the alibi of a bereft man who had no real witnesses and no reason to kill. He hurried to his car, conscious that he needed to get home and spend time with his sons before heading out to supper at friends. He would dearly loved to have cancelled the evening commitment, but there was never a good time to have a social life and he wasn't sure how Neil and Jackie would take another no show. They had been there for him all through the recent year’s ups and downs and he also needed a break from the s
enseless circles he was going around in. He just hoped it wasn't going to another stitch up in terms of a blind date. He wanted a laugh and to have a night off from anything complicated. Meeting another suitable candidate for the job of being his girlfriend and potential mother to two young boys was not his idea of relaxing. Being a coppers girlfriend was more of a challenge than a favourable pastime and when the copper came with children and emotional baggage, one could easily label it as an ordeal. Albeit a part time one with the hours he worked.
He arrived home to find a pot of spaghetti bolognese, bubbling away on the hob, his sons had finished their homework and newly ironed shirts were hanging up on the back of the kitchen door ready to be put away. He didn't know how he would cope without Claire, as a neighbour and childminder she was on his list of favourites alongside Kate, Neil and Jackie and his best mate Chris. Life was always busy, hectic and without much time to sing and dance and stare at the skies, but he was coping and extremely grateful for the support he from friends. He had no desire or time to be involved in another relationship.
After his wife left, he had fallen into an emotional free fall that was the most frightening part of his life so far. To experience your life falling apart and to be unable to help yourself was something he would never forget. He would never trust another person enough to feel deeply about them, so there was no point in starting something new with anyone else. He had responsibilities, his boys and his job. He had people he cared for and that was enough. He never understood the need for counselling or professional help, until he had been forced to undergo the process himself. In a world where emotional happiness and stability wasn't prioritised, he now valued highly his gradually stabilising emotions. He had watched the mess and chaos that emotional breakdowns can catastrophically cause, at work. He had teetered on the edge of this now in his personal life and he wouldn't go there again. He couldn't.