See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

by Douglas Lindsay

‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Intriguing. Well, yes, why not, eh? That rather sounds like a plan. It’ll make lovely television. I hope you’ve got a decent script though, there’s the potential it could be maudlin. No one enjoys maudlin.’

  He goes behind her, finds the end of the piece of tape strapped around her head and across her mouth, and then quickly unravels it, ripping it out her hair at the end. She cries out at the shock of it, then quickly bites her teeth, pressing her lips together, annoyed she made the sound.

  I don’t doubt Clayton. He’s a calculating, weird, sick fucker, but strangely there’s some code about him. I trust him in that. If I do as he’s telling me, he’ll let them live. If I don’t, we all die.

  And so, as I look at her, I’m not thinking about the awful night in Bosnia. I’m thinking about a few evenings ago, sitting on a sofa with Eileen, desperate to sleep with her, as turned on as I’ve ever been. Maybe even more turned on than usual, given I was having to deny myself.

  Here, in the demon’s pit, with two bound kidnap victims and a mad fucktard with a gun in his hand, and me on my knees, utterly crushed, I’m forcing myself to think about watching lesbian porn with my best friend, trying to force some life into what is currently the deadest organ in my body. Or, at least, tied for dead last with my brain.

  ‘Don’t trust him,’ she says, her voice hard and cold. ‘You can’t fucking trust him, Tom.’

  Jesus. She’s not going to make it any easier. She doesn’t want me to do it.

  Of course she doesn’t want me to do it!

  I already had words in her mouth. I imagined her telling me she’d really wanted me to do it on Saturday anyway, I imagined her encouragement. Something to make it easier. Something to cause a spark.

  ‘I can’t let you die,’ I say. Head down, staring at the carpet.

  ‘We’re all going to die anyway.’

  ‘I believe him,’ I say, looking up.

  Behind her he squeals quietly, and the sound stabs into the side of my head. Squealing with delight.

  I just want it all over. All of it. For me to be dead, and for the sergeant not to be dead with me.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Tom,’ she says. ‘Don’t you dare do what he wants.’

  ‘Tut tut tut...,’ comes the voice from behind. ‘Now, now, Sgt Harrison, you have to remember your place in this little drama. Maybe you don’t know the story, perhaps that’s the trouble. The Sergeant here was forced to rape someone, or else the victim would be shot. She, in her desperation, pleaded with him to rape her. Questionable, then, of course whether you could call it rape in my book, but let’s not get into legal technobabble...’

  Just shut up. Please. Stop talking.

  ‘So, if we are to truly offer the sergeant redemption, you have to go along with it, Sgt Harrison. This isn’t about you, you know! Nor, I should add, is it about me. Let Sgt Hutton do what he has to do. You know –’

  ‘Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! I’m doing it!’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ he says, faux shocked. ‘Extraordinary!’

  And I approach her on my hands and knees. Jesus fucking Christ. There’s your next fucking metaphor. There’s your life in one all-consuming instance of desperate awfulness.

  I glance up at her as I come to the couch. A last look and she closes her eyes. Clamps them shut. I rest my arms on her legs – she’s wearing jeans – hesitate, and then part her legs.

  Pushing forward into the abyss, even though I know I’m not going to be able to do it. I know I’m not, and it’ll be for exactly the same reason as before. It’s not a matter of whether I should. It’s not a matter of playing along to the gunman’s whims. My penis is no more willing now than it was back then. And Jesus, why would it be? If it couldn’t get an involuntary erection in my mid-twenties, it sure as fuck isn’t going to now.

  I reach out, hand on the zip of her jeans. This, for some reason, feels like the Rubicon. We’re here, we’re fucked up and messed around and used, and we’re fully clothed. As soon as I start undressing her, this is it. Cross this line, and nothing stops until I’m lying on top of her and my useless fucking cock has made its final decision.

  I need to recapture the feeling. This is where I wanted to be the other night. She was right there, next to me, the most unbelievably erotic situation I could imagine, and I was desperate to put my hand on her thighs. They were there, naked, pressed against mine, and I couldn’t touch.

  I squeeze them, press my head against her left leg. She is steady. Tense, but not a hint of a tremble. She’s not telling me to stop anymore. He’s controlled her, just as much as he’s controlled me these last few days.

  As if to remind me of his presence, he squeals again. I look up, and there he is, out of reach, gun in one hand, phone in the other. He lifts his eyebrows at me in encouragement. We’re all friends in this together. I look back up at Harrison, eyes still closed, face set hard.

  The past floats away. It’s gone. Dead and gone. I’m not reliving the past, any more than I’m giving myself redemption. All I’m doing is giving in to the whims of a fucking freak.

  Why did I even start thinking about it?

  There are tears on my face, and I press my head more firmly against Harrison’s thigh. Just for a second. Then finally, finally, I make a decision and grow some fucking balls for the first time since walking into the room.

  It’s not about making a grab for the gun, attempting some dramatic act that turns the scene on its head, leaving the women released, and me standing over Clayton. Just the balls to finally not do what this lunatic is telling me to.

  I get to my feet, lean forward, press my face against Harrison’s cheek for a second, whisper, ‘Sorry,’ in her ear, then kiss her briefly on the lips and stand up.

  She looks up at me, her expression suddenly changing. I glance at Brady – the last woman with whom I’ll ever have sex – almost forgotten, bound and gagged on the sidelines, no more than six inches from Harrison, and then finally I stand upright and look at Clayton.

  ‘What’s this?’ he says, the phone lowering.

  ‘I’m done.’

  ‘You’re done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm... well I think that means I put a bullet in your head, and then strap the two women together, shortly afterwards leaving this place with all three of you dead. Are you sure that’s what you want? Are you sure you want it on your conscience, the very last thing on your resume?’

  ‘How many bullets are in the gun?’

  ‘Curious,’ he says. ‘Just the one. Why?’

  ‘Give me it.’

  He smiles. Has a look about him like he’s on fucking Crackerjack.

  ‘Ooh, interesting. Explain.’

  ‘My death, this whole thing, this was to be the last act in the Bob Dylan Murders. Self Portrait. Well, the video isn’t a self-portrait, really, is it? You made it. If a self portrait is what you want, I have to die by my own hand. So give me the gun.’

  The eyebrows are lifted again.

  ‘And how –’

  ‘We’re renegotiating. I’m not going to do what you want with the Sergeant, but I’ll do this. Give me the gun, I shoot myself, you free the women, and then you can be on your way. Live whatever life you’re going to lead. I’ll be dead, I won’t care.’

  ‘I’m not sure I entirely understand the concept. So I give you the gun? And you kill yourself? And not me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why would I trust you? Why wouldn’t you just shoot me?’

  My shoulders are slumped. I’ve had enough. Can barely even bring myself to talk.

  ‘I’m already suspended. This would be just what I needed. A murder trial for putting a bullet in your face. I’m done, Mr Clayton. You win. It’s all yours. All of it. Every fucking thing you want out of this. If you want to put a bullet in my head, then on you go. Here I am. But I thought you might take a little more pleasure out of me doing it to myself.’

  His lips are pursed. Thinking about it. And I’m not lying. I d
on’t care, I really have had enough. I want out of here, and this is the best route.

  ‘I just don’t want to take Sgt Harrison, or Dr Brady, with me. Give me the gun, you’ll get your Self Portrait, and we’re done.’

  ‘Hmm...,’ he says, and now the phone is back in his pocket, the gun lowered, and I can see he’s thinking about it. I’ve nothing else to add though. Not trying to persuade him, not trying to do anything further.

  ‘Very well,’ he says finally. ‘Yes, yes... Let’s try this. Sounds exciting. Two foes taking each other at their word. Rather splendid.’

  He pauses, there’s a genuine look of curiosity about him – he’s finally, after all this time, considering something that wasn’t part of his plan – and then he holds the gun forward.

  ‘Gosh,’ he continues, ‘I do believe I’m rather nervous. That hasn’t happened in quite some time.’

  And then the gun is in my hand.

  I don’t know guns, been such a long time. This seems old, the kind with a barrel. Like the old Westerns, or Clint in the Dirty Harry movies. But smaller. I push the barrel out and check, and sure enough, one bullet. All he thought he’d need.

  Not a shooter, Clayton. He kills with malice aforethought and absurdity and grotesquery. A bullet in the head isn’t for him. Except when he has manipulated someone else into putting the bullet in their own head.

  ‘You have the gun, Sergeant,’ he says.

  ‘Tom!’

  I don’t look at her. Eyes on the gun. No fight in me. I’ve given up. Just want it all to be over. And it could be over if I killed him. At least, this little drama would be over. But I trust him, as much as he seems to have trusted me.

  If I kill myself, then the sergeant, the doctor and the doctor’s daughter, wherever she is, this invisible, kidnapped girl, will all be safe. I kill him, well yes, the women will still be safe, but it leaves me standing here with a gun and more blood on my hands. It doesn’t matter what Clayton has done – and the chances of us finding proof of all of it will be damned slim – I’ll still be the police officer who put a bullet in the head of an unarmed man. The investigation, the media, the trial, the bullshit. And I’d still be here, in this fucking awful world of injustice and terror and famine and illness and war, I’d be on my way to prison, and all those fuckers out there who mistrust us and everything we do would have one more giant excuse for hating the police.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he says. ‘It’s time.’

  The seconds pass. The music comes back, as though someone has just turned it on, but it can’t have gone away. I just hadn’t been thinking about it. I haven’t heard it in several minutes. Sounds like a choir of angels, the perfect thing to hear before I pull the trigger, and send myself down where I belong, into the pits of Hell.

  ‘Tom! What the fuck are you doing?’

  I look at her. Sgt Harrison. Saying the right thing, just as Sgt Harrison usually does.

  ‘Put a bullet in his knee, cut our bonds and call for back-up! Tom! Come on...’

  Her voice starts to trail away at the end.

  ‘You fascinated me, Sgt Hutton,’ says Clayton. ‘After your outburst at my able assistant during that frightful crows business, I couldn’t help but examine your life. What had led you to such an attitude? Fascinating. You really, truly are fascinating. A smorgasbord of psychological disaster.’

  He laughs lightly. He’s laughing at me? And I’m the one with the gun in my hand.

  ‘Right, right, enough, Sergeant, time to get going, we can’t be dilly-dallying around any further. The text you sent to DCI Taylor will be coming to bear fruit soon enough. Chop chop!’

  Jesus, he really does know everything.

  He holds my gaze, then takes the phone back out his pocket. This is it, then. I can feel the relief. At last he’s shut up, and this can all be over.

  Place the gun in my mouth, momentarily catch my lip between the steel and my teeth, turn the barrel upside down so that it’s pointed upwards into my head. Towards that fucked-up, booze-binged, sex-addled brain, the one that deserves no more. No more than this.

  ‘Tom!’

  Eyes closed. It comes to this. And do I believe him, as I give him what he wants? That he’ll release the women, before disappearing off into the night? And how much longer before he resurfaces, to carry out further monstrous crimes? How many more lives will he destroy?

  Do I turn my back on justice so easily, so that he once again, for the third, or the fifth, or the tenth time in his life, walks away, untouched by the law?

  Hand surprisingly steady. One small movement of my finger on the trigger and it’s over. One bullet, one death; one life that few, if any, will mourn.

  Fuck it.

  Open my eyes to look for the last time at my tormentor, the man who has hounded me and killed me as sure as it’s him who has the gun in his hand.

  He stares back, cold and hard, no hint of smugness, no hint of triumph. Just a face in a crowd of one.

  Ah fuck it, fuck it, fuck it! Fuck it! How can I give this cunt the satisfaction?

  When I pull the trigger I have to be alone, I have to be doing it on my own terms. It can be tomorrow or next fucking week, but not now, not with this bastard looking at me.

  Gun out the mouth, and I toss it on to the floor. It bounces briefly, shallowly, and then comes to rest between us.

  We look down at the gun together, then our eyes lift so we’re staring at each other.

  I win. That’s the thought that comes into my head. He led me here, through twists and turns and connivances, all with the intention of us arriving at this moment. Me with a gun in my hand, yet me at his mercy.

  This is all I can do. This is the only way I can come out of this situation on top. By not pulling the trigger.

  There is a second, while this latest development feeds into the situation, while he processes it.

  He had planned for me to shoot myself.

  Perhaps he planned, as he handed over the gun, for me to shoot him.

  Now, has he also planned for me to toss the gun onto the carpet?

  ‘What’d I miss?’

  We turn to look at the door, and there he is, a late arrival to the party.

  ‘Ha!’ barks Clayton, in his buffoonish way. ‘I fucking knew it!’

  50

  TAYLOR QUICKLY LOOKS around the room, taking in the situation. Me, deranged and weeping, the television tossed and busted, Harrison and Brady bound to the sofa, Clayton, owning the room, completely in control, despite being armed with nothing but total self-confidence, and the gun on the carpet between us. If anything, marginally closer to Clayton.

  A few seconds ago the gun didn’t matter. Clayton gave it to me, I tossed it on the floor. Neither of us seemed to care who had it. Now, however, Taylor has walked in on the party.

  Am I in a position to get the gun before Clayton? Does he hold another concealed weapon?

  Fuck. This has brought me back to life. Didn’t take much, did it? When I’m consumed by self, I don’t care. Very easy to let go, because there’s so little to let go of. But now Taylor’s walked into the middle of the scene and the previous dynamic is out the window. No honour amongst thieves now.

  And so we stand, eyes moving between each other and the gun, absurdly like Eastwood, Wallach and van Cleef in that damn, fucking movie, and the heavenly choir still sings beautifully in the background. Jesus.

  ‘Isn’t this weird?’ says Clayton, and he’s smiling now. Fucking smiling, the bastard. ‘I mean, isn’t it? Weird and wonderful. The three of us standing here in some fucked up abortion of a Mexican stand-off, and there are two hostages just sitting here, wrapped in fucking duct tape like, I don’t know, sausages in clingfilm. Well, it’s remarkable.’

  He doesn’t get anything from either of us. We’re both making the same calculation. Who gets to the gun first? In this respect, at least, Taylor is out of the equation, being that extra few yards away. His part, such as it is, has possibly already been played. Has he called for back-up? That
’s what will be running through Clayton’s mind.

  ‘Blah blah blah,’ he says, waving his fucking hand again, and I could break those bloody fingers, ‘this is all very well and good. And I wish we could stand here chatting. Time to go, however, time to go. I must say I’m disappointed you betrayed me, Sergeant, I really am. I thought we had a bond.’

  Oh, for fuck’s sake!

  I dive for the gun. Don’t even think there’s any positive thought in that direction. Just happens.

  Clayton is quicker. I’m a lumbering, unfit fool, he has the moves. The bastard has everything.

  Foot to the gun barrel, presses down, pushes the grip off the floor, and it’s in his hand. I’m upon him in the same movement, the gun is fired, the explosion of it booms in my ear, but the bullet doesn’t hit me.

  Tumbling back onto the floor, me on top. He brings his head down, but misses the sweet spot. Instead a clash of foreheads. Press my nails into his wrists, and then, another unthinking moment. Bite his hand, like a fucking kid fighting.

  And then Taylor is there, swinging, and Clayton and I are torn apart. I fall away, head hits against something, and Taylor is on top of Clayton, driving him backwards, driving strong and hard, and then Clayton’s head thumps into the wall.

  Can see it in his eyes, straight away, a knockout blow, and his head falls forward. The eyes are still open, but the fight has gone out of him, along with his awareness of what’s happening. For good measure, Taylor brings his fist up, a swift uppercut, under Clayton’s chin, smacking his head back against the wall again, and now Taylor steps back, lets him go, and Clayton falls to the floor.

  He steps over him, making sure he’s down and is staying down, speaks without turning round.

  ‘Get me some tape, Sergeant. Come on!’

  Off my feet, stop instantly.

  The doctor, looking shocked, her face still wrapped in silver tape. Harrison next to her, eyes open, looking up at me, a large soaking patch of blood on her side.

  ‘Jesus, Eileen.’

  ‘I’m good,’ she says. ‘I’m good.’

  She doesn’t sound good.