ACT
II
Twenty-two years
earlier
CHAPTER NINE
“Don’t be a fool, Ralph, put the gun down.”
Sean Brady tried to keep his voice calm, panic vying with amused incredulity to
get the better of his stomach. “This is ridiculous. We can talk this through.
We’re best mates for heaven’s sake.”
“You’re no mate of mine,” sniffed Cotter. “A
mate doesn’t grass up another mate.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Ralph, so just put
the gun down and I’ll pour us both a stiff drink, okay?”
“Don’t move!” shouted Cotter, beads of sweat
trickling down his face and getting in his eyes to the extent that he had to
reach in his pocket for a tissue and dab at each eye, careful to keep pointed
at Sean. He was scared but angry too.
Sean wasn’t going to put him down this time, no one was. He had a gun. He was
in charge. It was...exhilarating. “You’re planning to tell Jean about me and
Daz. Don’t try and deny it, Daz told me.”
“You and Daz…? What about you and Daz? What
did Daz tell you? Put that thing down, Ralph, before someone gets hurt.”
Ralph felt the sex between his legs begin to stiffen and
throb. Sean was afraid of him. Someone was afraid of him, Ralph Cotter. He
almost wished the damn gun were loaded. “Jean mustn’t know about me and Daz,”
he said doggedly. “It would do her head in.”
The penny dropped and so did Sean Brady’s
jaw. “You and Daz are...?”
“Go on, say it, you know you’re dying to.
Yes, we’re a couple of poufs, queers, homosexuals. Got a problem with that have
you?”
“Bloody hell, you mean...? Well, stone me!
Believe me, Ralph I had no idea. The thought never entered my head, honest,”
Sean lied. “Look, mate, that’s your business. Not mine, not Jean’s, nobody’s.
It’s down to you and Daz what you get up to when nobody’s looking. If it grabs
you, go for it, that’s what I say.” Sean tried, without much success, to
swallow the snigger that was tickling his throat.
They were in the Brady’s living room. Sean had answered
the door to Ralph Cotter barely ten minutes previously and been glad to see his
old friend. He and Carol had been rowing about her going clubbing two nights in
a row, leaving him to baby-sit their son Liam. Liam would be five-years-old in
just a couple of months. Sean adored the boy but a toddler was no company for a
grown man.
He had gone to the sideboard, taken a pack
of playing cards from a drawer and turned to show Ralph, a gleam in both eyes.
He always beat his friend, hands down, at any card game. “You choose,” he
started to say then took in a strange look on Ralph’s face - and the army
surplus revolver in one hand. True, he
had half-expected a confrontation of sorts after letting slip a teasing remark
to Daz Horton over a couple of lunchtime beers a few days earlier. But he had expected the confrontation to come
from his colleague, not Ralph.
“What Daz and me have got is special and I’m
not going to let you ruin things. If you tell Jean, it will destroy her and
she’ll make bloody sure she destroys me,” Cotter was saying.
“And shooting me will solve everything, will
it? Even you’ve got more sense than
that, surely? It’s not as if you’ve even
got the bottle to use that thing, we both know that. Let’s face it Ralph, my
old son, Action Man you’re not. So stop
playing silly beggars and let’s chat about things over a few drinks, yeah? You know you couldn’t hurt a fly any more
than I’d ever say or do anything to hurt you, not for the world. We’re mates, for crying out loud. So, how
about it? Put the gun down, eh?”
“You never take me seriously,” Ralph Cotter
wailed.
At that moment, a pyjama-clad toddler with a mop of
blond curls and dressed in a blue woollen dressing gown a size too big,
appeared in a doorway clutching a huge, shabby teddy bear with both ears
missing.
“Daddy, noisy…”
“See what you’ve done?” Sean shouted at
Cotter, “You’ve not only woken my son, you’ve scared him half to death! Just you wait...” He approached the flushed,
fretful child.
Cotter glanced at the boy and tried to smile reassuringly. Suddenly
aware that Sean was heading towards him, he panicked. The threat of “Just you
wait” boomed around the room like a massive echo that would ring in his ears
for years to come. A rage in him, all the greater for its impotence, surged
through every sinew of quivering flesh. His finger pulled the trigger.
The resulting explosion was terrifying.
The gun jumped out of Cotter’s hand as if of
its own accord and fell to the carpeted floor. A few yards away, Sean Brady lay
perfectly still, blood oozing from the breast pocket of his shirt. Absurdly, it went through Cotter’s mind that
he still had a hard on. He went to the body, knelt and felt for a pulse. There
was none. Sean Brady, his best mate, was dead. He, Ralph Cotter, had killed him
in cold blood. “It wasn’t supposed to be loaded,” he tried to explain to the
small boy who had come to stand beside him, still clutching his teddy bear.
“What’s the matter with daddy?”
“Nothing, he’s just...playing. We’re playing
a game.”
“Can I play?”
“It’s back to bed with you, my lad,” Cotter
forced himself to say and picked up the child in his arms. A pair of small
hands fastened trustingly around his neck. “Well go and find mummy first, shall
we?” thinking that he could hardly leave Liam in the house alone with his
father’s dead body. The boy nodded.
Cotter carried him to the car.
After sitting Liam in the passenger seat, he
was about to go to the other side when the enormity of what had happened
suddenly struck home. He had killed someone. Not only that, this boy was a
witness. There was no hiding place. “Oh, God, what have I done?” he heard
himself sob. Snatching up Liam in his arms again, he ran back to the house. The
boy started screaming for the teddy bear left in the car but Cotter would not
work that out until much later. Instead, he thought the child had suddenly
become aware of what he’d done. He panicked. Having already shut the front
door, he ran to the back of the house. The kitchen window was ajar. Dumping the
boy on the patio, he managed to open it further and climb inside. In next to no
time, he had put Liam to bed. The child was still screaming and had turned as
white as chalk, his tear-stained face a picture of bewilderment and misery. “Be
a good boy for Uncle Ralph until mummy comes home,” he told the lad.
“I want my teddy. Where’s daddy? Tell daddy
I want my teddy,” Liam sobbed pitiably.
Cotter ran out of the room, down the stairs
and back to the car. The slam of the front door a second time sounded like a
gun being fired and he flung himself at the steering wheel, a gibbering wreck.
There he remained for a good fifteen minutes, shaking uncontrollably,
struggling to digest the enormity and impossibility of what he had done.
Slowly, the shaking eased and his mind began to clear.
What next? Find Carol, go to the police or call an ambulance? “No point in calling an ambulance, he’s dead,”
he told the dwarf mascot dangling above his head. The word reverberated in his
head for several seconds, forcing him out of the car. He vomited into the
gutter, felt marginally better for it and got back inside. Daz would know what
to do for the best, he always did. “Daz will see us alright,” he told the mascot,
breathlessly, then drove like a man possessed to his lover’s house in Barnet.
..................................
“You did what?” Darren “Daz” Horton was
incredulous.
“I didn’t mean to kill him. You’ve got to believe me.
The gun wasn’t meant to be loaded,” protested Cotter, “I tried it out first. I
did, honest. I pointed it at this garden gnome, closed my eyes and pulled the
trigger. Nothing happened. How the hell was I supposed to know there was
another bullet in the damn thing? It’s not fair, Daz, it’s not bloody fair. Now
I’m facing a life sentence and all I wanted to do was show Sean I meant
business. He never takes anything seriously, including me.”
“Why am I not surprised?” commented Horton
scathingly.
“What are we going to do? I can’t go to jail, I just can’t! I’m scared,
Daz!” Cotter wailed then burst into tears and fell into Horton’s brawny arms.
“Pull yourself together, man,” said Horton sharply and
sent Cotter reeling with a hefty slap around the face.
Cotter went sprawling and collapsed in a heap on the
floor, head in hands, whimpering softly.
“We need to buy ourselves some time to think things
through,” said Horton and began pacing up and down. “We can’t stay here, that’s
for sure. Someone will give the police my name, you can bet on it. They’ll
already have yours, of course,” he added derisively. “How could you have been
such a complete and utter nerd? I don’t
need this, Ralph, I don’t bloody need it!””
Cotter got shakily to his feet, nursing his cheek. “I’m
sorry Daz,” he sobbed.
“So you should be,” retorted Horton, “So you
bloody well should be!” All at once he
made a grab for the trembling younger man and caught him in a bear hug. Cotter
breathed a sigh of relief. Daz would know what to do for the best. Daz would
see him right. Didn’t he always?
The two men had met almost a year ago to the day in a
supermarket. Daz had been wearing a short-sleeved shirt and Bermuda shorts.
Ralph could not keep his eyes off the builder’s rippling muscles and mat of
reddish hair that appeared to cover his entire body. Catching the other’s questioning glance, he
looked away sheepishly and pulled a can of tuna from the shelf. He hated
tuna. The pair had passed down the aisle
in similar fashion, Ralph all but mesmerized and Daz pretending indifference.
At the baked beans, Daz came and stood beside Ralph. “Do I know you?” he barked
and made poor Ralph jump.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“So why are you looking me over like a bitch
on heat?”
“I don’t know,” Ralph stuttered. It did not occur to him
to deny it.
“You fancy me, don’t you?” in such a loud
voice that several people had looked up from their shopping trolleys, startled
and curious. Ralph blushed furiously and said nothing. “Cat got your tongue,
has it?” Ralph started to edge away but the taller, stronger man seized his
arm. “Care to put your money where your mouth is?” The deep voice boomed. Ralph
looked up, saw the big man was grinning ear to ear, and grinned back. Each
understood the other perfectly. After departing their separate checkouts, it
seemed the most natural thing in the world for Ralph to dump his carrier bags
on the rear seat of Horton’s car, sit back and enjoy the drive to a
semi-detached in Barnet that had since become a second home.
Daz had daily mood swings. One minute he
could be tough, uncompromising, even violent and the next he was a big softie.
Ralph liked that. Daz made him feel that he mattered. Jean, his wife, on the
other hand only wanted someone she could call to heel whenever she chose. Even in bed, her domination did nothing for
him. Her aggression had excited him once but now he found it boring,
predictable, sensing that his only function was to fulfil a fantasy for which
she lacked the imagination. Daz, on the other hand, was something else.
“We’ll drive down to Aunt Phoebe’s,” Horton
announced decisively. Cotter bit his lower lip, stopped crying and expressed
some surprise that Daz had never mentioned an Aunt Phoebe before. “We’re not
close but she’s a nice enough old girl and I’m all family she’s got. My uncle left her well provided for besides a
cottage in the country. She’s in Austria at the moment on some coach tour in
the Tyrol. And guess who has a key to the cottage?” Cotter’s face lit up. “Got
it in one,” Horton guffawed and shook Ralph roughly by the shoulders. “You and
I, my turtle dove, are going on a little holiday.”
“I’ll have to go home and get some things.”
“Are you stark raving mad or what? The kid saw you, didn’t he? The cops are
probably going through your knickers drawer right now! Wait here while I go and throw some things
into a bag. We’ll go shopping for you another time. Trust me, flower. We’ll get
this caper sorted you’ll see. Can’t have anyone locking up my turtle dove and
throwing away the key, can I?” and paused to kiss Cotter hard on the mouth before
disappearing upstairs.
Within the hour, they were
well on their way to Monk’s Tallow.
They took Cotter’s car. “There’s no point in taking both cars,”
Horton pointed out, “and we can hardly leave yours outside my front door.”
“Won’t the police be looking for it?”
“Exactly, so we’ll just have to hope for the
best, stay off the main roads where possible and dump it somewhere later. In
the meantime, no one is going to look in Auntie’s Phoebe’s garage...if only
because she hasn’t got a car!” he chortled.
“Trust me Ralph and don’t look so worried. Mind you,” he leered, “you’ve
been a naughty boy and you know what happens to naughty boys...” saliva
trickling from the thick, slightly parted lips.
Cotter trembled with anticipation as Horton glanced in his direction,
saw the bulge in his jeans and chortled again.
They were still some miles from Monk’s
Tallow when they tuned a bend and saw a woman just ahead, standing beside a
green hatchback, carrying a small suitcase and waving frantically.
“Don’t stop,” hissed Cotter but Horton
already had a foot on the brake.
“My engine won’t start. Could you give me a
lift to the nearest telephone? I’d be so grateful.”
“No,” Cotter whispered.
“Sure, jump in the back,” said Horton airily
and the woman did not need to be told twice.
“I’m Sarah Manners,” she told them in a
friendly enough, if slightly superior tone.
Horton decided the voice was on the fruity
side and immediately summed up the young woman as having a mind of her own. He
liked that. “I’m Darren but everyone calls me Daz,” he told her but made no
reference to Ralph. Nor did Sarah Manners pry but was content to chatter
non-stop to Daz for the next few miles. He supposed she might be nervous about
being in a car late at night with two strange men but somehow did not think so.
The woman oozed confidence as well as a certain feminine charm. She had a way
of gesticulating that Horton found at once irritating and delightful. Cotter, for his part, remained grim faced and
unimpressed. Even so, he could not help admiring a gold charm bracelet dangling
from one wrist.
The crash, when it came,
took everyone by surprise. A fox ran into the headlights and froze. The woman’s
scream distracted Horton. Instead of driving straight on as he intended to, he
tried to swerve, momentarily lost control and drove towards a clump of trees.
He braked sharply, realizing his mistake even as he did so. The car slewed to a
jolting halt. His whole body dragged on the seat belt until he thought he must
surely split in two. Cotter gave a shriek. There was a sound of breaking glass.
Both men were sickeningly aware of their passenger’s body hurtling through the
windscreen before they lost consciousness.
Horton came to first and, although badly
winded, wasted no time dragging Cotter clear of the wreckage. The Ford was a
write-off. He picked up the girl and
laid her beside Cotter. She was dead. He
stared into bloody face. Eyes, wide open, accused and blamed him. “All for a
bloody fox!” he remonstrated with himself. How could he have not followed his
gut instinct to drive straight at it?
He’d cocked up good and proper and now look where it had got them. He
knelt beside the girl and felt again for a pulse but knew he was wasting his
time. As we went to close the dead woman’s eyes, it crossed his mind that their
expression reminded him of Ralph’s after a good hiding… angry, spent and
insatiable.
The glimmer of an idea flickered in Daz
Horton’s head but he dismissed it as too fanciful for words. An owl flew
overhead. He looked up and watched its shadowy wings glide, swoop, soar. The
idea, not the owl, performed an about-turn. It settled on a ledge at the
forefront of his mind and stayed there. Beside him, Ralph stirred and moaned.
Horton, his head throbbing and the rest of him feeling as if he had been put through
a wringer, forced himself to pay attention. “Are you okay?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?”
grumbled Cotter but managed to sit up, nursing his head in both hands.
“Can you stand?” assisting Ralph to his feet
without waiting for an answer. “I feel terrible,” then “How’s the girl?”
“Dead,” Horton told him flatly. Cotter took
one look at the corpse, saw not the young woman’s face but Sean Brady’s and
vomited.
Horton went to the car and, to his
astonishment, started it up at the first attempt. Watched by a dazed,
uncomprehending Ralph, he went to the boot and removed a blanket before
returning to Cotter and the dead girl.
The former, shivering, held out his hand for the blanket only to be
disappointed. Horton wrapped the body in the blanket without a word, carried it
to the boot and laid it gently inside.
After satisfying himself that the boot would not spring open, he joined
Cotter and slumped beside him.
“It doesn’t seem very respectful to shove
her in the boot,” Cotter ventured.
Horton shrugged. “It will have to do for
now.” He took several deep breaths and got to his feet. “Come on. We can still
make Monk’s Tallow by midnight.”
“Shouldn’t we tell the police?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Horton
reminded him and Cotter had the grace to blush. “First things first, let’s get
to the damn cottage and take the rest as it comes,” stifling a yawn, “I could
sleep forever.”
Neither man would ever recall much about the
rest of that fateful journey. Horton took several wrong turnings and it was nearly
1.30 am by the time they arrived at the cottage. Without bothering to put the
car in the garage, they staggered inside, found the main bedroom, dropped, full
clothed, on to an unmade double bed and fell almost immediately into an
exhausted sleep.
Horton woke first, with a blinding headache,
and made his way to the bathroom. Aunt Phoebe, he recalled, was something of a
hypochondriac. Sure enough, a cursory glance in the glass panelled cabinet on
the wall revealed an array of medicines that included a large bottle of
aspirin. He swallowed two, washed them down with water from the tap then wished
he hadn’t as he raised his head again only for a searing pain to strike across
both eyes. He made his way to the
kitchen, plugged in an electric kettle, ransacked some cupboards and was
relieved to discover a packet of powdered milk along with tea, coffee and a tin
of biscuits in one of them.
By the time Cotter came to join him, Horton was on his
third cup of tea, had wolfed more than half the digestives and devised an
incredible plan.
To be continued on Monday
ay
