The Accident

by S D Monaghan

  Christine ran her hands through her hair. ‘This has all gone mental, Gordon. This is not going to work and I’m going to die in this shithole. It really has all gone wrong.’

  Gordon placed his hands on Christine’s cheeks. ‘I know precisely what I’m doing.’

  ‘No, Gordon. It’s out of control. It’s all gone to—’

  Gordon’s lips landed on Christine’s and they kissed, embracing tightly. Tara was as shocked as when she’d first set eyes on Ryan in this room.

  What. The. Jesus?

  When they parted, Gordon held the sides of Christine’s face. He said, ‘By tomorrow, Fenton will be gone from your life. Ryan will be gone too. Then it’s just us. You and me. So keep it together and do exactly what I say. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Christine whispered.

  ‘And you know what? After Fenton’s gone, I have a contract lined up. Not just these council houses. I’m talking about a serious job. Yes, Christine – I got it. I’m designing and building the church; a church the size of a shopping mall, all bankrolled by American biblical interests. Wait till you see my plans and drawings. Then after I invest twenty grand here, twenty grand there, soon we’ll be talking about real money again.’

  The revelation that Gordon and Christine were lovers had thrown Tara. But she needed to concentrate on her survival. She said, ‘You didn’t want Ryan to get the ferry on Sunday night because Christine would have had to leave, too?’

  ‘You looked pretty, gagged,’ Christine said. ‘You want it back on?’

  Almost gleefully, Tara persisted, ‘And how were you going to get Ryan to stay? Did you expect him to just come round to the idea of taking one for “Team Gordon and Christine”, his estranged fucking wife and her fella? Did you actually think Ryan would do the honourable thing and die for the woman he hates? What is the matter with you, Gordon? I mean, Jesus, I didn’t hire an imbecile to design my house.’

  Christine said, ‘Oh, just spell it out for her, Gordon. At least it’ll shut her up. Or maybe we’ll just gag her again.’

  Gordon turned from Tara and looked out the window.

  Christine sighed. ‘Fine, then. Tara, remember when your husband was hit on the head with a hammer on Sunday night?’

  ‘Yes. Gordon hit him with it. From behind. Real brave.’

  ‘But why do you think Gordon was holding a hammer?’

  Tara lay down flat on the mattress, her arms dangling above her head from the handcuffs. In a low voice she said, ‘Gordon, you were going to kill Ryan?’

  Gordon turned from the window. ‘What else could I do? If he got the ferry, then Christine would have had to leave and hide until Fenton found her. Just like he’d find Ryan. Fenton has a long reach, and Europe is just another short little continent. By running, Ryan was killing them both. But with Ryan found dead, the police would be involved. They might discover something about importing drugs, but they would never be able to prove anything. They never can with guys like Fenton. But there would be enough attention to make Fenton go away. He’d probably assume a rival had killed Ryan instead of paying him for the stolen drugs. No honour among thieves, et cetera.’

  ‘But then your husband almost did the job for him,’ Christine said.

  Gordon rolled a cufflink between his fingers. ‘I wasn’t expecting Dave in the house. So I hit him with the hammer before he saw me. It was a hard thing to do. I’m a normal person. Normal people can’t do those types of things just like that. And then when I found Ryan in the pit, I stood over him, wishing he was dead – but when he wasn’t, I had to try to force myself to smash his skull in. But no chance. Even with him unconscious. And that’s when I realised that I didn’t have to kill anyone. And so, thanks to Dave, no one had to die and no one has to die. A house is lost. A fortune is squandered. But—’

  ‘Our house. Our money. Gordon, if you’re doing all this for Christine, it is, unquestionably, the most stupid mistake of your life.’

  Christine said, ‘Do you think Gordon and me happened, like, this morning? We’ve been seeing each other for years.’

  ‘Once all this is over, we’re moving to America together,’ said Gordon. ‘It would be a real treat if Dave and you could come over for the house-warming.’

  ‘Christine loves the fact that you’ll kill for her,’ Tara said. ‘But she also loves the fact that you’ll die for her. Because that’s what could happen, if you don’t go to jail.’

  ‘I’m curious, Tara, what would you have done if Dave was in Christine’s situation?’

  ‘Don’t you dare compare that woman and you to David and me.’

  ‘I know what you were prepared to do for Dave. You thought he’d killed an innocent man and buried him under your patio. And yet you snuggled up to him and pondered all the ways that you could help him get away with it.’

  Tara wanted to say something that would illuminate what she’d been prepared to do for her husband in a different light. But if it had come to it, she’d have taken a hammer to both Gordon and Fenton’s skulls. Unlike you, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

  Gordon’s demeanour suddenly reverted back to the competent alpha male that had made the building of Tara’s house so stress-free. ‘Right, I have to meet Dave and do the transfer. Christine, keep her quiet until I’ve spoken to Fenton. Gag her if needs be. Let’s keep this smooth and simple, the way I like it. OK?’ He placed the key to the cuffs on a paint tin.

  Christine leaned against the wall looking at her feet as the architect’s shoes pounded down the stairs. Then she sighed and said, ‘This would never have happened to you if you hadn’t slept with a married man.’ She adjusted her gaze to the mattress. ‘I hope you understand that. If you were just an innocent party, just a client of Gordon’s down on Lawrence Court, then I would never have agreed to any of this.’ Christine gave a walrus snort. ‘But you’re just a slut. So, like, whatever.’

  Tara’s raised, handcuffed arms felt a subtle jolt against the constant weight of her hanging limbs. The support bar had loosened a few centimetres. Tara pretended to shuffle her body into a more comfortable position, but was really taking her weight back from the metal bracelets, giving the chain slack, preparing herself for one big tug to free herself from the wall. But she needed to get Christine close to her. And so she started laughing, wheezing as if she was a teenager at the back of class.

  ‘What?’ Christine demanded. Her eyes narrowed into mascara-clotted slits.

  ‘Ryan really did a job on you, didn’t he? Like, even with all that heavy, disgusting make-up I can still tell that you were once very beautiful.’

  Christine dropped the stained napkin onto the floor. She walked over to the mattress and hunched down. ‘Don’t try and do cynicism. You can’t do it very well.’

  Tara lunged forward – but her handcuffs snapped backwards. Christine scrambled away from the mattress, which gave Tara enough time for a second tug – ripping the support bar out of the plasterboard.

  ‘Stay down!’ Christine ordered.

  Tara jumped up and swung the bar blindly towards her captor. It whacked against the side of Christine’s head and she promptly buckled to her knees. Tara dropped the bar onto the mattress, and with handcuffed fists clenched together whacked the metal bracelets against Christine’s forehead. Christine hit the floor, face down.

  Tara stood still for a moment, listening. Was anyone coming? There was the muffled sound of voices arguing coming from somewhere downstairs. Good. They’re distracted with their own shit. She snapped up the key from the paint tin. Don’t drop it. Her panicked movements meant it took three attempts to get the key into direct contact with the lock. Don’t fuck up. She tried to turn it, straining her wrist, bending her limbs. Got it. She pulled her hands from the bracelets and threw them to the mattress. She went for the window, where she could see her car across the road. She could break the window and scream. Would anyone hear? Would anyone care?

  She left the bedroom, entered the grubby bathroom at the back of the house and opened the frosted windo
w. Below was the yard, and beyond that, a wall bordering a laneway. She stepped out onto the window ledge. In the neighbouring garden, right up against the border wall, was a small shed. It was a fifty-fifty chance whether or not the structure would support her weight crashing down on top of it. As Tara leaned out, she felt a surety of pride: that it was she who was keeping the baby alive – her alone. Then she jumped.

  She landed on the felt roof and waited for it to give way. It didn’t, and she lowered herself to the neighbouring yard. For a second she considered banging on the back window, but then remembered that Gordon was supervising the renovation of the entire street, so there was nobody living there either. Instead, she hauled herself up on a bin and scrambled over the back wall to the lane. Keep going. Keep going.

  The road was up ahead. Twenty feet away. An army of pigeons charged with her down the concrete canyon like a spooked shoal. Ten feet away. She sprinted past heaped bin bags, broken glass and a rusty washing machine. Almost there.

  A white van screeched to a halt. Tara stopped just before slamming into the side of it. The side door opened. A tall skinhead, the size and shape of an industrial refrigerator, glared at her. Tara looked at his tattoos, his tracksuit, the cruelty that poured into the vacancy of his expression. In what sounded like a Russian accent, he said, ‘Good day, Tara. I’m Viktor. Nice to meet you at last. Mr Fenton will see you now.’

  Tara covered her face with her hands as if she’d just turned over an exam sheet and immediately knew that she couldn’t answer a single question. Her life’s dream was getting away from her like something slippery and alive that did not want to leave the water, gliding away again every time she thought she’d grasped it.

  Viktor reached forward and grabbed her, but he was surprisingly gentle as he nudged her into the back seat of the van. Fenton was sitting in front of her, on a toolbox in the middle of the floor.

  Tara swallowed. It’s just like going over the edge on that Busch Gardens rollercoaster. You can’t get off. You take a deep breath. You open your eyes. You stare down at the height and the speed. You face it. It’s like what David shouted beside you: ‘Open your eyes, or you’ll miss it all.’

  As Viktor scrambled back into the driver’s seat, Tara remembered when, as a little girl, her father had brought her to work one Saturday. They had been in the forest to check on the seedlings when they’d come across a gang of drunk teenagers from the nearby town. The young men had tried to frighten her father, but he had been so brave. She remembered a little of what he’d said – shaming the gang for acting so crass as to frighten a little girl.

  Tara glared at Fenton. ‘I’m not frightened of you. You’re pathetic. Two big tough men, alone with a pregnant woman, trying to bully her. Wow – if I was a man and I got to that point in my life, I’d kill myself.’

  ‘I heard watching your kitty die was fascinating,’ Fenton said. ‘See, Tara, animals die different to people. Prey becomes so still in the jaws of the predator. According to Viktor, it was as if the poor thing felt no pain. It was as if there really is a God, and at the end He felt sympathy for it.’

  Dora? Tara was suddenly aware of the relevance of the cat’s absence that morning. She thought of David in the woodland with a shovel. Fenton is waiting for emotion. She tried to shake the image of her loyal, friendly pet from her head. Never give them what they want. Calmly, Tara said, ‘You’re psychotic, Fenton. And you can’t see it because you’re psychotic.’

  Up front, Viktor moved the driver’s seat further back and lowered its backrest, giving him a clearer view of the van’s hull. Tara had impressed him.

  ‘Psychotic?’ Fenton said, his expression stiffening, for the first time not liking what he was hearing. ‘Like a serial killer, or a pervert like Fred West or something? Or like that doctor with the beard in England?’

  ‘No,’ Tara said with an air of boredom. ‘They’re all interesting. You’re just the run-of-the-mill sociopathic kind. The kind that tortures animals. But then, how else would a loser like you get respect in a world that only rewards ambition, talent and hard work?’

  ‘Very ballsy, Tara. But I work hard. Just like your husband. Except I didn’t have the learning potential that Davy had. And yet, at the end of the day, I still have the cash to move to your area – yeah, to Lawrence Court. But I never would. Cos I’m not a fake cunt.’ Fenton raised his head, as if by even indirectly complimenting Cawley, he was complimenting himself. ‘I’m proud I come from here. I hate it, too, but I never want to fully leave. Probably the same for Davy. I bet every so often he creeps by in his BMW just to reassure himself that all the shit is still here. So don’t you judge me when you come from the type of lucky background that allows you to pick a bleed’n Indian jewellery-making course or arty path, so that your career can reflect the one long group hug that your fucking life is.’

  ‘My father cut down trees for a living. My mother worked in a bar.’

  ‘So? You think you know what it’s like growing up in a place like this just cos you’re working-class? There’s a difference between being working-class and being scum-class. You haven’t a clue. I’d be a virtuous cunt, too, if I’d arrived onto the earth with a perfect body, born of loving parents in a town that didn’t know violence and gear.’

  Up front, Viktor had become disinterested, like a young man in the back row of a lecture. Tapping his watch, he said, ‘Boss. There is our business we need to do.’

  Fenton nodded. Then he said, ‘Tara, you’re a smart girl. You know what I’m capable of. I’m not going to play games with you. I don’t have the time.’ He lifted himself off the toolbox, undid the catches and flipped the lip open. Reaching inside, he withdrew a large black metal handgun.

  ‘Oh Jesus, you can’t be serious.’

  Fenton began screwing on the silencer. ‘This big boy holds the barrel axis close to your hand. Makes the Glock more comfortable to shoot by reducing muzzle rise. If you screw up and only maim your kill – which is not liable to happen – it allows for faster aim recovery in rapid shooting sequence. But best of all, Glock rhymes with cock. Granted, it doesn’t have much stopping power, but I’m not being asked to level an elephant. Just a pretty little pregnant girl who is really getting on my fucking nerves right now – which are frayed, because I’m not used to not getting what I want, whenever the fuck I want it. Capiche?’

  ‘This can’t be happening. I didn’t jump from a first-storey window onto a garden shed just to be stuck here with you. I could’ve hurt my baby.’

  Fenton shrugged, turning the Glock’s weight over as if one side was preferable to the other. ‘So, Viktor was following Christine this morning. She left her house in Sutton and parked Ryan’s white SUV deep into this estate. The good news is that there’s only one way in and out of the estate. The laneways and roads just twist and come right back out here. Which means she’s in there somewhere, hiding. And I can only speculate that Ryan is with her. Which leads me to conclude that you were just in there with your pals. Am I getting warm?’

  Tara’s brain was moving fast now. Even though the mess had become messier, the situation had, paradoxically, become clearer.

  ‘Where’s Ryan, Tara? You have ten seconds to volunteer the information. Otherwise I’ll just take it, like I take everything I want.’

  Tara realised she could free David and herself from this mess forever. She could hang onto her money, her house, her future. All she had to do was give Fenton exactly what he wanted. ‘If I give you Ryan and Christine right now... Then I walk away? And David walks away?’

  ‘You and Davy mean nothing to me. I want Ryan. There’s no money in hurting you. There’s no connections to make by hurting you. There’s no territory to be gained by hurting you. If I hurt you, then I just get complications. When rich people get hurt, cops care.’

  ‘You leave David and me and our baby alone forever, and scum like him’ – she pointed to Viktor – ‘never go near our house again. You forget us and we forget you.’

  ‘You have my wo
rd, and my word is my bond. Otherwise why would anyone do business with me? Ryan had no doubt that he’d get paid. Just as he had no doubt that he was fucked when he failed to deliver. Because my word is my bond. Tara, you’re out of time. It’s your call.’

  She closed her eyes. It’s nature. You don’t want to get in the way of nature. She had to think of the baby, her husband, their future; the money. Let nature take its course. Tara nodded at Viktor. ‘Start it up; I’ll bring you there now.’

  Viktor turned the key and pulled away from the pavement. Fenton rested the silenced Glock on his lap.

  ‘Turn right,’ Tara said. ‘It’s about five houses along.’

  ‘Good girl,’ Fenton muttered. He opened the toolbox again and this time brought out a small pair of binoculars. He leaned over the passenger seat and glassed the front of the terraced house. Then he lowered them and chin-pointed towards the front room. ‘Why’s your husband in there, Tara?’

  ‘What?’ Oh my god. ‘He can’t be. He isn’t. That’s impossible.’

  Viktor said, ‘I can get extra muscle here in five minutes. We can get every last one. No mess.’

  Fenton checked the silencer on the Glock. ‘I don’t need no extra fucking muscle. In fact, I’ll do them myself. It’ll be a pleasure. Keep her here. We’ll do her in the woods after.’

  Viktor’s hand roughly smacked down over Tara’s mouth and a huge arm locked into place beneath her neck. Tara closed her eyes and hoped that somehow it would be relief that awaited her in the darkness. She would like to find her father there, put her head on his chest and feel the heat and the strong pumping of his heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Just ten minutes before Tara jumped from the bathroom window, David’s BMW, heavy and powerful, was speeding along the coast road. He couldn’t stop picturing the blade at Tara’s throat. He saw his child inside her belly. Whenever it came out of there, it would be just a murmuring weight in his hands, helpless and needing their protection.