by Matt Shaw
“What is it?” I asked, scared of the answer.
“Put your hand in.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Put your fucking hand in. You wanted to know what I do. This is what I do.”
I slowly put my hand in the bag and fumbled around. I felt something. What is that? Hair? Hair. I moved my hand further into the bag. Skin? Wet. What is this? I pulled my hand out of the bag and stood away from it.
“What the hell is this?” I asked. “What the hell is in that bag? What have you done?”
“So many questions, so many questions. Where would you like me to start?”
“What have you done?”
“A wasted question - you know what I’ve done.”
“I need you to say it.”
“I killed him.”
“Who?”
“The boy.”
“Stop fucking about with me!” I shouted. “What boy?!”
“Ooh - raising your voice at me, I’m impressed.”
“I swear to God…”
“Shut up! This macho bullshit - it’s not you. It doesn’t suit you. You’re just coming across as desperate.”
“Desperate?! I am desperate! I’m desperate to know what you’ve done and why!”
“Tie the bag up and put it back in the dumpster. The sun will be up soon and we really don’t want to get caught standing here. I promise that once you’ve done that you can go back to being macho and the big man…But for now - think with your fucking head.”
“Put it back in the dumpster? You want it back in the bin? You put it back in the fucking bin!”
I turned away from him. I was done being his pawn. And I refused to tidy up what he had done. I wanted no part of it. I sat there - pissed - and watched as he lifted the bag back into the dumpster. Once again, just as he had done before, he buried it under the other bags we’d taken out. He slammed the lid down and walked back to the van. He jumped in the driver’s seat. Guess I’m the passenger then. The van coughed into life as he turned the key in the ignition.
“What boy?” I asked him as he reversed us out of the alley. We hit the main road and he slammed the van into first gear before heading off in the direction we’d previously come from.
“The one from the park. The one who was crying constantly. His mum was shouting at him. She stormed off saying she’d go home without him. A common ploy put into play by desperate mothers. They think their threat of leaving without their child is supposed to scare them into running after them. Might work in some cases, but not in this instance. Mummy might have come back for him but it was too late. He wasn’t there..”
“You snatched a child from the park? What if someone saw you…Where the fuck was I?”
“I don’t know where you were. For all I know you stropped off because your day wasn’t going as you’d hope it would. Quite frankly, I didn’t give a fuck. I wanted to have some fun. I think I deserve that much…”
“By snatching a child from the park? Again - what if someone saw you? You put him in my fucking van.”
“Where else was I going to put him?”
“Did someone see you? Oh shit, I don’t even want to know.”
“What the fuck do you take me for? No one saw me.”
“We’re going to jail. You know that, right?”
He didn’t say anything. He just frowned as though his mind was going elsewhere. I don’t even want to know where it went. If he was capable of…What…He killed a boy? If he could think of that - what the fuck else could he do? Don’t question it. I don’t want to know.
“We needed to do this,” he said finally, breaking the silence between us.
“I’m a children’s entertainer - why the fuck would I want to hurt a child?”
“It wasn’t one of your children - one of your precious little darlings who enjoys laughing at your pathetic bullshit.” His voice irritated me. It sounded like he was taunting me, trying to get a reaction from me, but what sort of reaction was I supposed to give after seeing what he had just done to a child? “The child was a cunt…”
“The child was just that…A child.”
“A noisy, spoilt little shit cunt.”
“Someone’s son.”
“Demon Seed.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Me? What’s wrong with you? Hiding behind your day job. What happened tonight, what happened with the child - that is who we are. That is what we’re about.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is and the sooner you realise that - the better.”
“Just don’t even talk to me. I need to think about what we’re going to do.”
“What we’re going to do? There’s nothing to do.”
“You think hiding a body in a dumpster is enough to keep us safe? You think they won’t be able to trace the murder back to you? Back to us? And you say I’m an idiot? Jesus fucking Christ…”
“You need to calm down. You’ll give yourself a brain aneurysm.”
“Just - please - shut the fuck up.”
“By morning, when you have had time to think about this properly, you’ll come crawling to me. You’ll realise this was the right thing to do. Is the right thing to do. So I killed an unhappy child. Big deal. They deserved it and - you know - they’re probably up there in some fucking Heaven thanking me for what I did to them. Clearly they weren’t happy with their mummy and daddy. I did them a favour…”
“SHUT UP!” I screamed at him. He stared at me via the rear-view mirror. There was an anger in his eyes I’d seen on more than one occasion. I shifted in my seat. I don’t want to annoy him, not knowing what he was capable of, but I can’t hear his voice right now. The man is poison. Pure poison. Sure - at times children could be irritating when they weren’t happy but only because it’s hard to get them to change their attitude when they’re having a sulk. People like me, I just want to make the world smile. Children like that? If they were having a sulk about whatever - children like that are hard to make smile. It doesn’t mean I’d want them to die. Especially at the hands of a psychopath.
We drove the remainder of the journey in silence. My mind focused on whether we were going to be caught for his crimes. My mind wondered whether there was a way out of it for me. Not him. He can go down for the crime. He deserves it. I don’t though. This was all him. It was nothing to do with me. I’m fuming that he could even bring me into it without first checking with me. I angled myself in my seat so I could see him in the side mirror of the van; he looked like he was as fuming as I was. Well stuff him. I don’t owe him anything. I’ll wait until morning and then I’ll turn him in. The authorities might go easy on me if I turn him in. It would go a long way to show I’m not a part of what he did. It was all him.
I don’t owe him anything.
5.
I hadn’t slept all night. I had lain awake, tossing and turning. Occasionally, I heard him trying to talk to me - trying to say something - but I ignored him. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. My mind was too caught up with getting taken in by the police when the crime is discovered.
The sun shone through the cracks in the curtains reminding me that it was a new day. All night I had been wrestling with what would be the best course of action in my mind and - only now - had I finally come to a decision. The thought I had whilst he drove us home was the best way to go. For me at least. Phone the police.
I rolled off the bed and reached across to where my mobile phone was charging on the bedside cabinet. I unlocked the touch-screen and went through to the keypad function. I pressed the first nine. My finger wavered over the nine when I heard him speak to me.
“What are you fucking doing?”
“What I have to do.”
“Jesus. Have you heard yourself? You think you’re so fucking high and mighty. Well - fine - phone them then, if that’s what you think is the right thing to do.”
“Of course it is. You’re a murderer!”
“So are
you. Your prints are on his face just as mine are.”
“I’ll tell them you took me there to show me what you did and that I reached into the bag because it was too dark to see. That’s the truth.”
He laughed, “And you think they’ll believe you? You’re even more fucking pathetic than I first thought.”
“Me? I’m not the one killing children.”
“Call them then. They’ll take us both down but if that’s what you want to do, I won’t stand in your way. Here, fuck it, I’ll even help.” He called my bluff by pressing the second nine. “Come on, just one more press and both of our lives are over.”
“Only yours.”
“You’re sure about that? They’ll somehow take me away and leave you behind? The innocent party in all of this?”
“I am innocent.”
“From where I stand, you have as much blood on your hands as I do. Anyway - sorry - I didn’t mean to distract you. I believe you were in the middle of making a phone call? Please. Don't let me stop you.”
“Fuck you!” I threw the phone onto the bed.
“No balls. You lack conviction in everything you do.”
“Don’t push me,” I hissed.
“Why ever not? The worst you’re going to do is shout and whinge at me. Although, to be fair, that is irritating. Gives me a headache whenever you talk…”
“You give me a headache.”
“Well isn’t this the most childish of conversations! You spend too much time with kiddies. Surprised you’re not dating one of them.”
“Fuck off.”
“Unless that’s why you’re upset I killed the boy? You think it’s a waste of prime meat? Maybe next time I should have given you some alone time first…You know - let you fuck the virgin ass before I stuck a knife through his eye.”
“Is that how you did it?” His words made me feel cold to the core.
“Fuck his ass?”
“Stuck a knife through his eye.”
“You want the details?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if I wanted them or not. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear how he killed an innocent child. Part of me wanted to know (I guess that much was obvious) and part of me wanted to bury any knowledge of what he’d done. I felt a sickness brewing within the pit of my stomach.
“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” he asked. “Maybe you want a little time in the bathroom first?”
“Just tell me. What did you do?”
“You going to tell the police?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Because if you are, I’d rather you just listened in on the conversation with them. Not sure I want to be repeating myself all day long, you know?”
“Just tell me!” I shouted. My voice echoed through the room.
He sat on the edge of the bed and picked the phone up before clearing the screen from the previous dialled numbers. He set the phone to one side, back on the bedside cabinet. He hesitated a moment as he cast his mind back to the previous day.
“Like I said,” he started, “you disappeared - not sure where. I figured you were just in a mood because your day hadn’t gone as you planned. You know, what with the cancelled party and then the poor reaction in the park…So I was waiting by the van so I could catch a lift home and I heard all this commotion. This woman was screaming at her child for some reason or other. She ended up getting in her car and wheel-spinning from the car park as though abandoning him there. He didn’t seem to care. Just stood there screaming his head off, you know - a proper fucking rant. God only knows what it was about. It was embarrassing.”
“Children play up from time to time.”
“Yes - and should be shot for it. You want me to fucking finish?” I didn’t say anything. I waited patiently for him to continue his story. He took another deep breath and continued, “So this bastard thing was screaming and screaming. I looked around and the mother wasn’t coming back. Fuck knows where she had disappeared too, and there wasn’t anyone else coming to his aid. No one else was even around, to be honest. Seems most of the park was empty at that time but then - you did decide to leave it really late. Why was that?”
“I was touting for business.”
“You sure about that? Or were you waiting for the perfect opportunity to snatch a child?”
I ignored him. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to bait me into an argument with him. He was trying to get me to say what he did was right, the decent thing to do. But I wouldn’t admit it. I’d never admit it. You can’t go around killing children. It wasn’t right. Murder is bad but it’s worse when children are involved. I tried to get him to continue the story, “So you snatched him?”
He nodded, “Threw him in the back of your van.”
“How did I not hear him?”
“That would be the punch to his head. Knocked him clean out. I tell you what, too, the blissful silence of the day when he stopped screaming. Heaven.”
“You’re sick.”
“Because I like peace and quiet? Whatever.”
“The mum - she would have come back.”
“She did come back.”
“What?!”
“Asked me if I’d seen her son. I asked her if she meant the one who was screaming in the middle of the car park and she just looked embarrassed. Can you imagine that? Embarrassed by your own child. I wonder how many parents feel like that? You make them - you should stand by them no matter what; whether they’re making a scene in the car park or whether you find them a weak disappointment of a child…You should stand by them. The fact she didn’t - clearly she didn’t want him…”
“Or she was trying to…”
“Don’t try and justify it. You weren’t there.”
“What did she say?” I changed the subject back to the story to save another argument.
“When I told her I had seen him, she asked where he went. Of course I pointed her out in a completely different direction. Said he headed to the park.”
“She believed you?”
He shrugged. “I even offered to help her find him. Because that’s the nice sort of fella that I am.”
“You’re sick.” I wanted to grab for the mobile phone but knew I wouldn’t be able to phone the police, no matter how much I wanted to. He’d always stop me. “When did you kill him?” I asked.
“I brought us home. Couldn’t very well kill him in the van, could I?”
“Where did you do it?”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me…”
My mobile phone started to buzz on the bedside cabinet signifying an incoming call. With each buzz it danced a little further across the wooden top. I looked in its direction.
“You going to get that?” he asked.
I wanted to but, at the same time, I didn’t want to stop this conversation. I wanted to know all the details. For some reason I thought it might have made me feel a little better to know what had happened. That, maybe, I’d be able to come to terms with it. Was that even possible? A child had died because of us. Was there any coming back from that or had we crossed a line which could never be taken back?
Without any warning he reached across to the phone and took a hold of it. He accepted the call and pressed the phone to my ear. Didn’t really give me much of a choice but to talk to the person on the other end of it.
“Hello?” I asked, trying my best to sound normal. Trying my best to sound as though I wasn’t in the middle of a discussion detailing how a child had died the night before. Does guilt even come across in the tone of someone’s voice?
I listened to the man (Mr. Cartwright) introduce himself on the other end of the telephone. He explained that he’d seen me at a party a couple of weeks ago and his own son’s birthday was fast approaching. Apparently, his son couldn’t stop talking about me since he’d seen me and so Mr. Cartwright wanted to hire me. I felt my mind screaming at me not to accept the booking. I heard the voices say I should just hang the phone up and then other
voices say I should go; if I suddenly disappeared now, without word, it would just look more suspicious. Mr. Cartwright was unaware of my internal debating and proceeded to ask me for my rates.
He answered for me. I wanted to scream at him to shut the fuck up but I knew Mr. Cartwright would hear and - more importantly - that he wouldn't understand. Before I knew it, he had gone one step further to accept the booking. I wanted to ask him what he was playing at but - again - I knew I couldn’t. I could only sit there as he reached for the diary which was always kept close to my mobile phone. This coming Saturday was clear until he started to pencil in Mr. Cartwright’s address. Please stop. Tell him we’re busy. Tell him we have a booking. He doesn’t need to know we’re not accepting them at the moment because we killed someone last night. He doesn’t need to know any of that. Just that we’re busy. Tell him.
My heart sank as Mr. Cartwright thanked me for my time. He responded on my behalf once again before putting the phone down. He threw it to one side, with the diary, and lay back on the bed with a self-satisfied smug look on his face.
“We make quite the team,” he said.
“We can’t go to that booking. You need to call him back,” I said.
“Forgot to get his number. Sorry. This is why you take your own bookings. I’ve never been one for this side of the business.”
“This side of the business? What other sides are there?”
“We provide a service. That’s what I wanted to show you last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You entertain the good children. I punish the bad. It’s quite simple.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“You can’t do that again,” I hissed. “What you did last night - that was it - you can’t do it anymore.”
He smiled, “If you watched the news - you’d know I can do it again. And I have done it again…”
“What? What are you talking about?” Had he killed more than one child? If so, how many? What were the numbers and where was I when he was doing it? The sickness brewed within my twisting gut once more. He didn’t answer me though. I screamed at him to tell me what he meant. I screamed at him to answer my questions but he didn’t. He just sat there, smiling. And then, without a word, he disappeared from my sight. “Talk to me!” I screamed at him but he was gone. I jumped up from the bed and ran through to the landing. I called out for him to come back and talk but he ignored me. I screamed and dropped to my knees, surprised tears streaming down my face as I felt both the weight of what he’d just told me and the weight of what we’d been a part of the previous night.