~ * ~
4.10 p.m.
Her phone beeps. She is low on battery, should have plugged it in last night, wasn’t thinking, must start thinking. It’s Pete again: About to turn off my phone. Plane taxiing. Air steward has glared at me twice. I love you. Coming.
Caroline smiles, nods to herself, breathes out a breath she didn’t even know she had been holding. She rubs her neck, downs the now cold coffee, orders a third prosecco. She texts back, it doesn’t matter that Pete won’t get this, it doesn’t matter that he will only pick it up when his plane lands, it matters that she tells him. I love you. I’m waiting for you.
~ * ~
4.40 p.m.
Caroline pays for her drinks, stands; she’s actually a little drunk now, enjoying feeling a little drunk now. She should probably eat, will get back to the hotel, find her way through these insane streets and canals. She’ll stop on the way and buy something to eat from one of those shops that sell fat-filled breads to tourists hungry from sight-seeing, something with cheese and aubergine and courgette and salami. Antipasti in bread, that’s what Pete calls it, disapproving. He likes long Italian meals, each course an adventure in itself, doesn’t think the Venetians should accommodate tourist desires, doesn’t think of himself as a tourist at all. Caroline probably has three hours before she needs to be ready for Pete, two to be on the safe side. She will make her way back slowly, eat, sober up, wash and dress and be ready for the surprise he has been unready for. All will be well.
~ * ~
5 p.m.
Caroline has found her way back to the Grand Canal. She didn’t realize she’d come so far; there are signs for the Ghetto back behind her. She and Pete came here the first time they were in Venice together. It was sad, and lovely, to see the old synagogue, to see where the word came from, and then Pete found an amazing restaurant that night, quite close to the Ghetto, and they’d eaten so well, so happily. When they walked out into the night she was amazed it was so late, and so very quiet, so different from other parts of the city, busy until late at night. It’s quiet here now, too, quieter anyway than back where she thought she’d been heading, to the Rialto. She heads east again, a falling sun behind her, in and out. Unable to walk directly alongside the Grand Canal here, she tries to keep the sun behind her, even when she has to turn north again. Eventually there are more people, and signs, and a vaporetto stop, and Caroline buys her ticket, boards it, the beginning of a headache coming with sunset.
Caroline gets off at San Toma, between the Rialto and Accademia, it must be close to the hotel. She wishes she’d thought to bring a map, to ask the man at Reception for a map, but she didn’t. At home Caroline never gets lost, prides herself on knowing her way round London, even the farthest reaches, or the most winding parts down by Greenwich and Canary Wharf, prides herself on always knowing where the water is. Here she is where the water is, always. Her compass is waterlogged. She will wander and she will find it. She remembers the street name, the canal name, she will find it.
~ * ~
5.10 p.m.
Caroline has a feeling she is close. She is walking alongside a narrow canal, the footpath here is narrow too. She is behind two men, one older, greyer than the other. They have Australian or New Zealand accents, she can’t tell the difference, and they’re laughing about a girl they both know. You should have seen her face, one says. Mate, I don’t need to see her face, I can see your face! And they laugh and the greyer one slaps the other one on the back and they stop for a moment. One is lighting a cigarette and Caroline needs to get past them. She says, excuse me, excuse me, can I get past here? They shuffle to the side, she hears the match strike, the flare of warm light, and Caroline turns to thank the two men. She recognizes one of them. The older one, with greying hair, is the man from the hotel’s Reception. She knows for sure he is from the hotel and she knows this because he sees her, sees her looking, and nudges his friend and they both look up. Shit! the older one says. And he turns away, his head to the wall, but it’s too late and Caroline wants to throw up again, wants to grab him and ask what the fuck is going on, wants to reach out to the man, but her legs don’t want that at all, her legs and her gut are terrified, and she runs instead, runs away from them, rushing on to where she thinks the hotel is. Her head doesn’t want to go to the hotel at all, it isn’t safe, can’t be safe, but her legs and gut propel her. Now pushing past a young couple, Caroline shoves them both out of her way. They are English and yell at her in surprise, yell that she should be careful, there’s no need for that, what’s her problem?
Caroline doesn’t know what her problem is. And then she does. Running on, slowing, walking now, breath catching, a stitch in her side, walking towards the hotel anyway, sure she knows these streets now, sure she knows where she is... Caroline does know what her problem is. She knows she hasn’t been able to believe those messages from Pete, not really, knows Pete would never let her down like this, knows he would have been at the airport, in the hotel, would have been waiting. And now she stops, cold, sick to her stomach and bile rising again in her throat. Because she knows, actually, that Pete doesn’t really do surprises, that while they have their games, Pete has never really done surprises, that the real surprise she came home to on Friday evening was that it was so out of character for Pete. So in character for John.
~ * ~
5.40 p.m.
The sun is still lighting the sky, but it’s darker and cooler in the narrow street leading to the hotel. On the other side of the small canal just here, beneath a shop awning, standing with his back to her, Caroline sees a man texting. She sees the man and she is sure she knows who he is, knows the back of him. The man stops texting, watches his phone’s screen. A few seconds later her own phone beeps. A text comes through, from Pete’s phone. I’m here. Landed. Won’t be long. Can’t wait to see you. It’s been way too long.
The man turns; he doesn’t see Caroline looking. It’s John, Caroline is sure it is John. He looks in through the window of the shop, waves, walks on, away down the little walkway alongside the canal, down to a bridge that will bring him back to this side of the canal, where the hotel is.
The hotel has her bag and her things and her passport and Caroline wants nothing more than to run from here, run from this place, but her phone is almost out of battery and the charger is in her room and her stuff is in the room, and maybe, maybe she is as paranoid as John always said, maybe she’s just exhausted and maybe it will be all right, but whatever it will be she needs to charge her phone and she needs to get her things and so she runs back down the street to the hotel and opens the front door and lets herself in.
~ * ~
5.50 p.m.
There is no one in Reception, just as there was no one earlier. She runs upstairs and into the sitting room of the suite, slamming the door behind her, locking it. Caroline looks around. She takes in the room properly, sees that while it is a beautiful room, cool and clean, lovely lines, it is missing some of those things even the finest hotel rooms must have. The sign on the wall about emergency exits. The list by the telephone of charges, useful numbers to call. The explanation in five different languages of how to work the TV and satellite. She remembers there were no signs downstairs either. Nothing on the reception desk that was, after all, just a counter really, a plain counter, with nothing on it, no message about breakfast or checkout, no handy pile of maps and leaflets for unprepared tourists. Caroline realizes she has seen no other guests. The only people she has seen are the chambermaid and the man behind the desk. And that she did see them when she went out today and they were speaking English, she wasn’t mistaken. Caroline has let herself believe. And now she lets herself understand. She walks over to the locked door; it opens. Behind it is a kitchen. A normal, elegant, newly fitted kitchen. This is not a hotel room. It is an apartment.
Her phone beeps. She doesn’t want to look. Can’t stop herself looking.
I’m in the bedroom. Waiting.
And even
though she doesn’t want to go, and even though her gut and legs are trying to hold her back, Caroline overrules them this time and walks herself to the bedroom door.
She opens the door.
Pete is on the bed. And a lot of blood. Pete’s blood, on the bed, bloody Pete.
And the phone beeps again and she hears the sitting-room door, the door from the corridor, the door she locked, she hears it being unlocked.
And she looks at the phone as the door handle turns and her phone says: See? I told you it was a surprise.
And Caroline wants to move, to scream, to run, but nothing is working, her legs, her mouth, nothing is working, nothing can move her, she is stuck staring at Pete, Pete’s blood, stuck waiting as the steps come closer behind her
And then a hand is on her shoulder and still her mouth won’t open, her voice won’t come and John says, See? I told you I’d always remember you.
<
BEDLAM
Ken Bruen
I
’ve been out of the hospital, near three weeks.
I know because I precisely counted and oh, so.....................delicately counted the days.
I wish I knew how long I was incarcerated.
The heavy medication, the padded room, you lose all sense of nigh everything.
A room designed to drive you............madder.
It did.
I alas, remember, months gone by, weeks, years?
Curled up in the foetal position, and cackling to me own self.
They’d just hosed me down, those fucking lethal sprays of water that bounce you off the freaking walls.
A day came when I managed to feign taking the pills and slowly, oh, so fucking slowly, I began to get back to me own self. Now play the game.
I became the model patient.
It mostly worked.
I was released into the general population.
One slight hiccup.
One of the orderlies didn’t buy my new act.
Kept on my case, pushing me to reveal my real self.
I did.
When she was least expecting it.
I got her on the early morning of the night shift, drowned her in the toilet. Took a time but then I didn’t have anywhere else to be yet, so I drew it out a bit.
Heard the bitch plead.
Then, when I got bored, hung her from the socket, put a placard round her neck, in nice neon yellow.
It read:
I can’t take it any more.
Looked at her for a brief moment then put my hand on her hip, pushed her hard to get that swing going, said:
“You’re a swinger, babe.”
The Government cutbacks were biting, they were releasing patients all over the fucking place, and with my new model patient status...
I was freed.
The mad bastards.
Gave me a bucketful of pills to keep me on an even keel.
Good luck with that.
Four of us CURED patients were bundled into a minivan. Due to be dropped at four separate hostels in Galway city.
The driver had the look of an ex-bouncer/boxer.
The drive to Galway was silent, the other three so medicated they were comatose.
I acted similar; had been doing the zonked gig for so long it was effortless.
He dropped the other three at their designated hostels.
He checked his list Said:
“They have you in a hostel............lemme see, yeah, in Woodquay.”
I said in my meekest tone:
“Thank you so very much.”
He was surprised, asked:
“What were you in for?”
I near whispered.
“Alcoholism.”
My head bowed in shame.
He near smiled, in recognition, said:
“Yah poor devil, it killed me mum.”
I thought:
Gotcha.
Said:
“I’m afraid, though.”
He gave a look of part sympathy, mostly curiosity.
Said:
“Ary, it will be okay. What are you most afraid of?”
I hesitated, as if it was too agonizing to say.
He was in control now, urged:
“Spit it out, maybe I can help.”
Oh, he was helping all right. Tentatively, I ventured:
“My old apartment is still in my name and I know I’ll have to go there sometime but...............”
He was full hooked. I said:
“There’s six bottles of fifty-year-old Black Bushmills there.”
I could literally see the Euro signs in his bloodshot eyes, a serious amount of cash there.
His drinker’s face, the bulbous nose, the rescreen, the broken veins, the mint pills on his breath nearly disguising the effects of last night’s bash, he drooled at the mouth then all chivalrous, offered:
“Now that we can fix, right now. I’ll take them away for you.”
I protested, said:
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
He put the van in gear, said:
“I insist.”
I told him my apartment was at the end of Long Walk and he jumped right in with,
“I know them, Jesus, I’ll have us there in, like, four minutes.”
He did.
Parked at the end of Long Walk, facing the ocean.
I pointed at his feet, asked:
“Is that twenty euro?”
He bent down and I plunged in the glass shard I’d smoothed to a fine point.
I moved back as the spurt of blood gushed. He muttered:
“Sweet Jesus.”
I had to stab him a few more times till he bled out. I took his wallet, nice bit of cash there. I looked round, no witnesses I could spot. Found a black watch cap in his glove department. Pulled it right down over my face. Then I jammed his foot on the accelerator, used a piece of wood to hold it in place. I turned the ignition then slipped out as the van rolled towards the water.
I didn’t look back, moving fast. Thought I heard the van hit the water, muttered:
“Quite a splash you made, fellah.”
I made it into the shadows of the large office complex, turned in the direction of Wolfe Tone Bridge and was on Dominic in jig time.
A skip and a jig and I was passing The Samaritans’ office...and a hundred yards later, I was in Nun’s Island.
Where I owned a small apartment. Against all the odds, I’d managed to retain it as a bolt hole. No one else knew about it, I never even killed anyone there. The neighbours were a snotty bunch, never spoke or acknowledged my existence.
Perfect.
I don’t do............cordiality.
Putting the key in the lock was a real rush. I said:
“I’m home, dear.”
Absolute silence answered.
Bills were paid by direct debit, not in my own name of course. I’d more aliases than Puff Daddy.
I did have a bottle of Jameson. Who can afford Black Bush?
I poured a large one.
Sank into the battered sofa, took a lethal wallop of the Jay, and waited for the burn.
Come it did.
The fire in my gut a pale echo of the blast from gutting the van driver, I raised my glass, toasted him, said:
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10 Page 63