Catalyst

by Mark Eklid

  It had occurred to him that he might have to leave that school anyway. He could not stand the thought of them still working together, awkwardly shuffling around the same staff room, knowing that he could not have her anymore.

  Helena had not been around much to notice Darrell moping on the sofa, basking in self-pity. She probably wouldn’t have cared anyway if she had been around, but she hadn’t – as usual. Yet he had enjoyed the few days they spent together after the shooting. They were tight again, free of other distractions, but that had not lasted. Even though she was meant to be taking personal time off to be with him, she had spent just about the whole of the last two days at work because of the fall-out of the news report that had dominated the local headlines since Thursday. She was working now, upstairs in the study, even though it was a Saturday.

  What happened to their marriage? They used to be happy. Once.

  He heard her coming down the stairs and hoped she was heading for the kitchen or was about to tell him she had to go out again, anything as long as she left him alone, but the front room door opened and she came in.

  ‘Budge up,’ she said almost cheerfully, waiting to sit on the far seat of the sofa, where Darrell rested his injured foot on two cushions.

  Reluctantly, he shuffled his body upright as she picked up the cushions and sat. Darrell propped himself on his arms, ready to swing around and give her more space, but she touched his leg to stop him and, without saying a word, encouraged him to put his foot on her lap. He did not resist.

  Helena gently stroked the clean white bandages. He watched her. She looked so tired.

  ‘What’s the score?’ she asked.

  He examined the screen to read the match information in the top corner.

  ‘Err, two-nil. I’ve not really been watching it to be honest.’

  She nodded. He knew that she had no real interest.

  ‘You seem a bit flat,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you know.’ He gestured with a tip of his head towards his foot and hoped she had bought the excuse.

  They sat in silence for five minutes, both staring blankly at a football match that might just as easily have been a re-enactment of the Battle of Little Big Horn as far as either of them cared but looking at the TV served as a diversion for them, so they could both pretend there was another reason they were in the room together. The sharp blast of the referee’s whistle brought the game to an end and they were alone again.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said, forcing out the words before she could change her mind.

  Inwardly, he sagged. The last thing he needed was one of Helena’s ‘this is how I feel, tell me how you feel’ attempts to counsel some sick aspect of their failing relationship. He didn’t think he could stand that, but he was trapped.

  ‘I’ve been seeing someone else.’

  Darrell was shocked. He gazed at her through narrowed eyes. Seriously? Her attention was still outwardly fixed on the TV. She was serious.

  ‘It’s been going on for eight months and we loved each other – or at least I thought I loved him. Anyway, it’s over now. I found out that I didn’t really know him at all.’

  He was stunned, rather than hurt, by the revelation. He had been so obsessed by the need to conceal his own affair that he had not even contemplated that Helena might have another man in her life – and she had been living the lie for so much longer! He and Beth had only been seeing each other for weeks, since the start of the spring term.

  ‘Jesus!’ He was struggling to find words to say. ‘Eight months! I mean, what…? Who is he? Do I know him?’

  She shook her head. ‘Some guy I met through work. Who he is isn’t important.’ Helena made herself turn to give him the respect of eye contact.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Darrell. I’ve been an idiot.’

  He made a half-angry you-can-say-that-again noise of feigned disgust, but he knew he could not be truly outraged. That would be hypocritical. It came more from bemusement. He had been unfaithful to her but had never thought Helena would do that to him.

  ‘That’s not all,’ she added, solemnly, and he stared at her again.

  What else?

  ‘You know this furore about the dangerous chemical waste at the site of the proposed housing development?’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘That’s why you had to go back to work, right? Haven’t you been part of the team trying to work out how it nearly got through the process without anybody knowing?’

  ‘I have,’ she said, as if there was a large ‘but’ on the way. ‘But what I haven’t told anybody yet is that I’m more a part of the problem than the solution.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He was being forced to see Helena in a whole new light and had no idea what she might reveal to him next.

  ‘You were working on that housing development, weren’t you? Did you see this coming?’

  She hesitated. This was less easy to admit to than the affair.

  ‘Worse than that, I’m afraid. I’d agreed to take money in order to make sure the planning application got through the committee stage.’

  ‘Jesus!’ He almost shot out of the chair, bad foot or not. ‘Fuck, Helena! How could you? I mean, this is just… fuck!’

  ‘I didn’t know how serious the contamination was.’ She was desperate for him to see it more closely from her side. ‘If I had known the full extent, I would never have agreed to go along with it, I swear. The other two who were a part of this – one of them was the man I’ve been seeing – they didn’t tell me everything. They told me there were only moderate levels of contamination on the site and that the benefits to the city generally far outweighed the potential risks. They kept me in the dark. I got played.’

  The explanation appeared to calm him a little, but not completely.

  ‘But you took a bribe! You put your duty second to money, Helena. This is so wrong.’

  She shrugged. ‘I know, I know. I should never have agreed to go along with it. I haven’t taken money yet because it all depended on the planning application going through and obviously that’s not going to happen now, but that’s not the issue and you’re right, I know. Like I said, I’ve been an idiot.’

  Darrell’s brain was in overdrive, trying to take in all the implications.

  ‘So, what happens now?’ he asked.

  ‘Now? Well…’ That was the question that had consumed her practically every waking moment since she had confronted Yuvraj. She knew what she had to do. What she didn’t know was what they would do with her.

  ‘I’ve decided to come clean. I’ve just been writing out my letter of resignation and I’ll hand that in on Monday when I go to see the council’s Monitoring Officer and basically tell him everything I know. Then, I guess I’ll have to do the same with the police because they’re bound to look to prosecute once the full facts come to light. As for what happens to me, I don’t know. Obviously, I’m ruined professionally but I deserve that. Whether or not they believe me when I tell them I wasn’t fully aware of what was going on and whether or not they give me credit for coming forward and telling them everything they want to know, I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.’

  Darrell buried his face in his hands. He had wanted Helena out of his life for so long but her going to prison? Now that he faced losing her for real, he could not stand the thought.

  ‘I’m sorry, Darrell. I’ve made a right mess of this, haven’t I? I’m sorry for everything you’re going to have to go through and,’ she gently wiggled his injured foot on her lap, ‘I’m sorry for this.’

  He stared at her, puzzled.

  ‘How is that your fault?’

  ‘The warning was meant for me,’ she said. ‘It was all linked in with the contaminated site. We think the man who came to the house was connected to one of those radical environmental groups who found out what we were planning to do and was looking to scare us into stopping. I tried to get the other two to back out because it was getting too dangerous, but they wouldn’t listen. In the meantime, it looks like
the environmentalists decided to take the decision out of our hands and they’ve done what they set out to do. They’ve killed the project stone dead. I think when the man came around that night it was to confront me, but you got dragged into it and got shot and that’s all my fault. It’s bad enough that you were hurt at all, but I don’t know what I would have done if the bullet had done even more damage. I don’t think I could have lived with myself. I don’t know how you can forgive me, Darrell, but you should know that I’m truly sorry.’

  He hadn’t properly heard everything she said. He was confused.

  ‘Hang on, hang on. The man with the gun was looking for you? I thought he was warning me.’

  It was her turn to fail to understand.

  ‘What would an environmental activist want to warn you about?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was… I thought he was…’

  Helena was stilled. This time, he needed to come clean.

  ‘I’ve been having an affair as well. Her husband is a bit of a gangster and I thought he’d found out about us and, you know.’ Darrell made a gun with his hand by sticking out his forefinger and fired it by making a ‘pow’ noise.

  ‘You’ve been having an affair?’

  She didn’t know whether to feel appalled or relieved.

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘One of the other teachers,’ he said, bashfully.

  Helena took a few seconds to reflect on this new information and laughed out loud.

  ‘So, we’ve both been having affairs with people we work with. I suppose that makes us a couple of cliches!’

  He did not share her amusement at first but then hesitantly cracked a smile.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it does.’

  She composed herself again. ‘Are you still seeing her?’

  ‘Nah,’ he shook his head emphatically. ‘It’s over. She dumped me, actually. On Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday? Must have been the day for it.’

  Darrell cocked his head, inviting further explanation.

  ‘That’s the day I found out the truth. I dumped him, actually.’

  He smiled. ‘Nice one.’

  They sat quietly, each of them in their thoughts, both lighter for the loss of their burdens.

  ‘What have we done to each other, Darrell?’ she asked, wistfully.

  He thought. ‘I guess we just stopped trying hard enough.’

  They fell quiet again, until he suddenly sat forward and held out his open palm for her to take. She accepted the offer.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be too late for us,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, but I think it is,’ she replied and she sighed deeply. ‘These next few months are going to get messy and you shouldn’t have to go through that. I’ve already put you through enough. You should get away now, before the shit really starts to fly, start again somewhere else. Pretty soon, I could end up in prison anyway and even if I manage to stay out of it, things will never be the same for me. I’ll never be allowed to forget what I’ve done.’

  She withdrew her hand and he eased back into the sofa.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m staying here. I’ll stand by you, whatever happens.’

  Helena rubbed his leg. ‘You don’t have to say that.’

  ‘I mean it,’ he pulled a stern face to underline how serious he was. ‘We’re in this together, whatever they do and whatever they say. I love you, babe.’

  She smiled at him and tears welled in her eyes. He meant it, all right. She knew him. They had lost touch with what had made their connection special for too long but there it was again, the tiniest red glow of an ember in a fire they had both feared would never warm them again. It was already more than she dared to believe she deserved, but how she needed it.

  Past the choking tightness in her throat she managed to squeeze the words, ‘Thank you.’

  Nothing more needed to be added. They were one again.

  27

  Detective Inspector Jane Jackson of Sheffield CID called the sergeant through to her office as soon as she began sifting through the usual Monday morning backlog of emails and memos and noticed that one of them included a photo attachment of the recovered handgun.

  ‘Glock 17 – the 9mm semi-automatic of preference for the discerning modern violent criminal,’ she announced with a smile as Sergeant Copson closed the door behind him. She was in a good mood. It was far too early in the day for the nourishing effects of a weekend off to have been worn down by the daily grind.

  ‘More or less exactly where the young lass said she saw it being thrown into the Don,’ confirmed the sergeant.

  ‘Very good,’ she nodded. ‘It certainly doesn’t look like it’s been down there a long time – have we been able to get anything off it?’

  ‘Afraid not. I should imagine it was given a thorough cleaning before it was thrown away, but we nipped it down to ballistics yesterday and they were able to test-fire it OK. They’re seeing how it matches with the bullets recovered at the jewellery shop robbery scene and they’ve said they should be able to get back to us with the results this afternoon. It’s looking promising, I’d say.’

  ‘I agree.’ The inspector eased back in her chair. ‘With this and the photos and the recording, I think we’ve got enough to go on, so let’s bring Hughes in. Send someone to the house and if he’s not there, I’d like us to watch the house and the storage place so we can take him wherever he shows up first. The search warrants are ready, yes?’

  ‘For the house and the lock-up, yes ma’am.’

  ‘We’ll give them a good going-over as soon as we have him in custody and see what we can turn up. Hopefully, something that will lead us to the jewellery shop gang but, if not, I should think we’ll come up with enough for us to put Hughes away for quite a while.’

  ***

  Wesley Hughes was not at home when the police came for him. He had left early in the morning. Since accepting the assignment from Hardstaff four days earlier, he had been preparing meticulously; watching his subject, following him, studying his movements, noting his habits, and now he was ready. There was more surveillance to do, just to be extra certain, and then he had an appointment to collect the gun he needed to do the job. It was on. He was going to do it that evening.

  This would be his first hit, but Wesley already had the feeling he might develop a taste for more. Providing services for his clients to assist in the smooth running of their businesses had always been both lucrative and satisfying for him. The stakes were always high because he knew his clients would not allow a margin for error and that it would not only be his professional reputation that would suffer blows if he became sloppy, so he never neglected the small details and always got the job done well. That was why so many of the influential figures in the South Yorkshire underworld came to him. He was the best.

  Working for other people had always been enough but since agreeing to dispose of his first live body, Wesley had seen other possibilities for expanding his criminal portfolio. Sure, it meant taking on more risk than he usually did but the sheer thrill he had felt in preparing for this job was like nothing he had ever known before. He was about to execute the crime rather than just clean up after it and that was a far more gratifying prospect. Once he had his first kill on his CV, he could offer a whole new stream of usefulness to his clients in the future.

  The principles of paying attention to planning and preparation had been the same and facing the responsibility of being the one to pull the trigger did not bother him at all. Even as he watched his target going about his daily business at the café, working behind the counter or chatting to customers, he felt no pity for him, no pang of guilt for the life about to be snuffed out. It was a job. It had to be done quickly and cleanly and now Wesley knew when his best opportunity to achieve that would be.

  Every day shortly after 7 p.m., when the last customers had been served, the target would say goodbye to whichever staff member had been on that day and follow them to the door to flip the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed�
� but would never lock the door at that point. He then liked to make himself a coffee and sit, always at the same table, to work on his laptop for half an hour. Then he would clip shut the laptop, wash his cup in the sink and take the laptop and a blue bag containing the daily cash takings with him into the back room. Approximately six minutes later, he would emerge in his cycling gear, set the burglar alarm, push his bike out of the front door, lock the door and cycle off in the direction of Witham Road.

  It was a routine. Routine was good. It made him predictable. Predictable made him easy prey.

  It was 6.53 p.m. Wesley was parked across the road from the café – not directly opposite, where he might be noticed, but close enough to be able to see through the large front window as the last drinks were drained, the last customers made their way into the cold, dark evening and the last plates were cleared away. The very last ones.

  He watched as the waitress buttoned her coat across her large bosom and smothered him in a brief hug before setting off to catch her bus, not realising she was deserting him to a bloody fate. He, blissfully ignorant, waved her on her way with promises that he would see her again the next day. Promises impossible to keep. The door was shut, the sign switched to ‘closed’. It was time.

  Wesley was far more composed than he thought he might be. He had considered that there might be a few signs of apprehensiveness – first night nerves, if you like – but there were none. He was calm, focused. Maybe he had a natural calling for this kind of work.

  He opened the car glove box and pulled out the weapon he had collected from his contact in the afternoon. It felt good in his hand – a .22 calibre revolver. Revolvers left no ejected spent cartridge casings for him to be concerned about and, besides, they just looked better than the semi-automatics. He had given it a thorough check when he collected it but that was to establish its functionality. Now, as the blood surged through his body and his senses soared to greater heights than he had ever known before, he saw its deadly beauty too. The grain of the dimpled wooden grip, the curved spike of the trigger, the whir of the drum with its full burden of bullets and the eager hammer, ready to propel the shot down the chunky, stubby barrel to fulfil its mission of ripping through flesh and bone.