by S. B. Caves
‘I want you to get the fuck out of here,’ he said, ripping open the doors of her wardrobe. He reached inside, grabbed a handful of clothes that she’d spent a large chunk of her previous weekend ironing and folding, and tossed them at her.
‘Please stop that,’ she said. ‘I’ll pack, OK? Just don’t.’
‘No, I can’t stop. You’ll need your clothes,’ he said, stumbling on the words. He yanked hangers from the wardrobe and flung her dresses and blouses on the floor.
He sat with his back to the wall, his forearms resting on his knees, watching her pull the suitcase from beneath the bed. She could feel his smouldering stare and knew his bottom lip would be sticking out sulkily. It made her pack faster. She opened her drawer and removed underwear indiscriminately, stuffed it in the case and then zipped it.
‘Wow, that was quick,’ he mumbled. ‘Did you rehearse this beforehand? Did you do a speed run?’
She pulled the suitcase off the bed. It felt as though it was still empty, but everything she’d packed would keep her covered for at least a couple of days.
Her nakedness now made her feel very uncomfortable. She picked up the clothes she had taken off less than half an hour before, and put them back on. She could smell the warehouse on the fabric, could pick up Morley’s scent woven into the folds. ‘I’ll be back in a few days for the rest of my stuff,’ she croaked, opening the bedroom door. ‘I’ll text you before to find a time that’s convenient for you.’
She wheeled the case out onto the landing and heard him lurching across the bedroom after her. She was on the stairs when he crashed out of the bedroom.
‘Wait, Emily!’
She dragged the case and it bumped down the stairs after her; she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blubbering.
‘Don’t go like this,’ he said, grabbing hold of the case to prevent her descending further. ‘I don’t get it. This morning we were in love, and now… now everything has fallen apart.’
‘Just let me go, Roger.’
‘No. You can’t just breeze out of my…’ He was trying to make some elaborate sweeping gesture but leaned forward in the process. For the second time that evening a man fell on her, but on this occasion, she had anticipated it and managed to put her hands up, letting go of the suitcase in the process. She pressed against his chest to stop him from clattering down the stairs and breaking his neck.
‘I just don’t know why this is happening.’
Charles came out of his room in his dressing gown and poked his head around the stairs. ‘Everything all right, guys?’
‘Yes,’ Emily said.
‘No,’ Roger said.
Emily picked up her suitcase from where it had dropped and continued down the stairs. She opened the front door, the cold night air blowing in her face. Roger’s hand closed the door before she stepped out.
‘Just wait a second,’ Roger said quietly, his breath bitter and warm. His hand remained pressed against the door, preventing her from opening it. ‘Just tell me. Tell me what this is all about. If something’s wrong, I can help you fix it.’
‘No,’ she sighed wearily, the weight of all the evening’s emotion pushing down on her shoulders. ‘I don’t think you can. It’s better this way. Just trust me.’
His head tipped to the side, bumping the door. ‘Just… I don’t know. We had so much planned.’ The sulky expression morphed, became vengeful. ‘You fucking time-waster. You’ve wasted…’ He closed his eyes, tried to calculate the duration of their relationship. ‘You’ve wasted everything.’
She shouldered past him, the suitcase now weighing heavy as a boulder as she clanked it onto the porch.
‘I fucking hate you,’ he said, and slammed the door behind her.
* * *
The Uber arrived and the driver took her to the hotel without any small talk, which was just as well. She spent the entire journey crying into her hands.
She spoke to the hotel clerk, booked the cheapest thing available, and headed straight to her room.
When she was in bed, she reached down into her jeans pocket and removed her phone to make sure her alarm was off. She didn’t want anything waking her up in the morning. She wanted to sleep forever. She squinted at the glow of the screen in the darkness and saw four missed calls. Three of them were from Roger. One of them was from a number she didn’t recognise.
She scrolled through her call log and saw that she had called the number before. She thought for a moment and then realised it was when she was trying to get in touch with Bernard, to take him out for coffee and probe him for information about Morley.
Bernard had also sent her a text message. It read:
‘I think you and I need to have a little chat about your friend… call me.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
When he had finished tying up Morley, making a noose for his neck that would keep him tethered to the pipe but allow him two feet of slack, Jack crumpled in a heap just outside the oiling room. Jagged teeth gnawed at his tailbone and the surrounding muscles felt like coils of razor wire. He lay there for a very long time, fresh sweat breaking out of his pores and soaking through his clothes. His right thigh was cold and numb all the way down to his kneecap.
Whenever he tried to shift his weight in an effort to stand up, new and vibrant messages of pain blossomed through his body, and the warehouse lights dimmed before his eyes. He could not believe that his brain was still allowing him to process this much pain without shutting down. There were several times when he thought he was going to black out and he actually looked forward to it.
It felt like hours later when he finally rolled onto his side, panting, with perspiration dripping from his hair. A helicopter propeller of pain whirred angrily in his head as he pressed his clammy palms against the floor and tried to push himself up. Like a grotesque parody of the evolution of man, he struggled to a kneeling position and then, much later and with the help of the oiling room door handle, got to his feet. This triumph was not without its indignity; the effort pinched his bladder and he urinated in his jeans. He didn’t care. Pissing himself was a small price to pay considering he was back on his feet.
He made it to the stairs and clutched the metal banister as though it were a piece of driftwood that had just saved him from drowning. He pillowed his head on his forearm and spat on the floor.
‘FUCKING BASTARD, LET ME OUT!’ The groggy voice travelled out of the oiling room. Jack could hardly believe it. They’d hammered Morley’s skull, punched him and choked him unconscious with a belt, and he still had the energy to yell like that. Tough bastard. Jack didn’t even have the strength to tell him to shut his trap.
Jack looked up the stairs. There was a bottle of Bells whisky in the kitchen and he wanted it badly, especially now that the pills were wearing off. But the stairs scared him. He visualised the ascent, thinking about the shift in weight as he pressed his foot down and raised another, an act he had taken for granted all his life. Now the action was a calculated risk. He could imagine the muscles in his back stretching and snapping, and his legs giving way beneath him.
He leaned all his weight on the banister and negotiated the stairs slowly and steadily. A swarm of black dots floated in his vision, and he felt the gentle tug of unconsciousness pulling at him.
He wanted to stop and take a break but knew there was no chance he’d be able to sit down on these stairs. The only choice he had was to forge ahead. He thought about Morley and the smug, condescending way the man had spoken to him. He had no fear, no remorse, no soul. Jack didn’t know if there was anything he could do to get the truth out of him. He didn’t think Morley would confess even if Jack tortured him. Jack could pull the man’s teeth and fingernails out and Morley would probably laugh at him, the same way he had laughed when he got in the back of that car.
The first note of defeat began to resonate within him. He wasn’t built for this kind of thing any more; his back just wasn’t up to it. Morley had had the better of him twice now. Were it not for Emi
ly’s help, Jack would be dead, no doubt about it. How could he have been so stupid as to leave his knife in the room? It was those kinds of mistakes that reaffirmed what he already knew: he couldn’t keep this ship sailing for much longer. It might be better to just kill Morley right now.
But first, he would have a drink. He got to the top of the stairs and walked, hunchbacked, to the kitchen. He uncapped the whisky and drank deeply, ignoring the burn.
Two large squares of damp foam leaned against the wall, presumably the insides of sofa cushions in their former life. He dropped them on the floor and went about trying to lie down.
* * *
Colin saw the woman on the security camera and released an exasperated sigh. ‘Christ, not again.’
‘What is it?’ Amanda asked, looking up from her laptop.
The buzzer droned through the warehouse again.
‘You ever met Jack’s missus?’
Amanda pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and shook her head. The buzzer went off again in three short angry bursts. ‘Well, are you going to answer it?’
‘She’s a nightmare,’ Colin said. ‘Can you talk to her?’
‘Me? I’ve got nothing to do with deliveries.’
‘She’s not here for—’ He paused as the buzzer went off again. ‘She’s here for Jack.’
‘Well, Jack’s not here and I’ve got invoices to chase. I’m snowed under.’
‘Please. I’d do it for you. Come on, please. I’m busy too.’ He gestured to the pallet of boxes. ‘I’m a day late with some of this. I’ll get you a sticky bun tomorrow?’
The buzzer went off again. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Amanda said irritably, rising from the desk, peering across the room at the security screen.
Colin began jogging to the back of the warehouse. ‘Answer it. If she asks, I’m not here.’
‘You owe me more than a bloody sticky bun,’ she said, making her way to the door. When she opened it, the woman flinched back, surprised.
‘Who are you?’ May asked.
‘I’m Amanda. I work in accounts. How can I help you?’
‘I need to see Jack. I’m his fiancée.’
Amanda feigned surprise. ‘Oh, sorry. Jack’s not here.’
‘Yes, I know. Where’s that other boy, the blond one?’
‘Colin?’ Amanda shrugged. ‘I think he’s with a client at the minute.’
May’s eyes narrowed, her tongue probing the inside of her cheek. ‘Really? Well, I was wondering if you could let me know when Jack is due in.’
‘I don’t know, he didn’t say.’
‘So he just dropped everything and took off without any word about when he might be back?’
‘Well, he’s the boss,’ Amanda said, as politely as she could. ‘He doesn’t really need to tell us anything.’
‘What about the boy? He would know, wouldn’t he?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, he would,’ May said matter-of-factly. She didn’t like this girl. She was pretty, probably had her pick of the boys. An accountant? So she was smart and pretty and a bitch. Funny, May couldn’t recall Jack ever mentioning her. But she forced a smile, knowing you caught more flies with honey than you did with vinegar, and said, ‘Do you have an idea of any big orders he would have to oversee? He had something going on with that German wholesaler, didn’t he?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Amanda said.
‘Does he have a diary here?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘All right.’ May shrugged. ‘I’ll just come in and wait for him. I’m sure he’ll be coming by at some point, won’t he?’
She went to step inside when Amanda said, ‘He could be in Cheshunt. Have you tried there?’
‘Cheshunt? What’s in Cheshunt?’
Amanda frowned. ‘Um, the new warehouse. He’s been taking the stock over there, ready for the merger.’
‘Merger? What are you talking about?’
‘Strident was bought out by Greco Kitchens. We’ll be operating out of the new warehouse in April, so he’s been trying to get that ready.’
A smile slid across May’s face. ‘I couldn’t trouble you for the address and number, could I?’
* * *
Jack could hear Morley scratching around in the oiling room before he opened the door. It reminded Jack of a time when Kate thought they had rats in the walls, and she would wake him up at three every morning, saying, ‘There it is, listen. You hear it?’ Turned out that it wasn’t rats at all, but a single mouse, which he caught a few days later with a glue trap. He had wanted to stomp on the trap to make sure the mouse wouldn’t come back, but Kate forbade it. ‘Can’t you just take it to the park and release it?
‘Maybe I can buy a leash and take it for a walk while I’m at it,’ he’d said, before taking it into the back garden and crushing it underfoot.
Morley was bent over on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. It looked like he was praying to Jack as he entered.
‘You’d better fucking kill me,’ Morley said, the veins in his forehead like fat worms feeding. ‘If I get out of here again, I’m going to…’
‘You’re going to what?’
‘I’m going to skin you alive. You think I’m lying, don’t you? Oh, you’d better believe me. I’m going to skin you alive and then I’m going to piss on your body.’
‘Really? That another one of your little raps?’ Jack said disinterestedly and threw a bucket at him. It hit Morley’s head and bounced off a nearby box. ‘That’s for you to go to the toilet.’
‘Toilet? You fucking stupid cunt. How am I supposed to get my trousers down with my hands tied behind my back?’
‘That’s your problem. I would have kept them tied up the way they were if you hadn’t tried to escape.’
‘You’d better kill me…’
‘I’m not going to do anything until you tell me why you murdered my wife.’
Morley’s eyes shone in the shade like two emeralds reflecting the sun at the bottom of a well. ‘Look, that song was just some dumb shit. I made a hundred tracks like that, just dicking around in my friend’s room. Your wife – that has nothing to do with me. Why won’t you believe that I didn’t kill her?’
‘Because I saw you on that day. July eighth, 2007, you came knocking,’ Jack said, leaning one hand on the workbench for support. A few hours’ sleep had helped mend some of the niggles, but the main points of pain still throbbed and held his every movement hostage. ‘I can keep going in circles until you get bored, or hungry, or thirsty, and then you can tell me. Or we can just speed this whole thing up.’
Morley scooted awkwardly back against the pipe. ‘You want me to be honest with you, don’t you?’
‘I’ll be able to tell either way. But of course, it’d be better for everyone if you just gave it to me straight.’
‘All right.’ Morley nodded in a resigned way that suggested defeat. ‘Here’s the truth. You know that you’ve never seen me before in your life, and you know I didn’t kill your wife. You also know that you’ve taken this too far, and the only way you can make sense of your mistake is by forcing a confession out of me.’
‘So, we’re back to this, are we?’
‘Fine. I killed your wife. There’s your confession.’
‘I already know you did it,’ Jack said monotonically. ‘I want to know why.’
Morley pressed his cheek to the floor and giggled. The giggle graduated into gales of laughter. ‘Can I…?’ He choked out more laughter, and then continued. ‘Can I tell you something?’
‘By all means,’ Jack replied stoically. ‘But if it’s more bullshit, you’re better off saving your breath. Because I’m not giving you a crumb of food or a drop of water until you tell me why.’
Morley smiled through a bloody lip. The threat didn’t mean a thing to him.
‘Earlier you asked me who I am,’ Morley said. ‘You’re so interested in me? Well, how about some trivia?’ He cleared his throat
. ‘My older brother was a deeply paranoid schizophrenic. I was always frightened of him. He had a bad temper, would just explode at something and you wouldn’t even know what was happening. But that wasn’t really what scared me about him. It was the other stuff he did. Like he wouldn’t sleep in a bed, he would sleep under it, or in the wardrobe. And then one day I came back from school and he had blacked out all our windows with shoe polish because he thought there was a witch that lived in the building across from us.
‘I remember this night when he ran into the living room completely naked, screaming that he had bugs under his skin. My mum had to tell him, “No, Maurice, you haven’t got any bugs under your skin, calm down.” But he couldn’t be told. So he’d start clawing at his skin, biting it. I watched him bite right through the back of his hand like a dog or something… blood everywhere. But that only made him go even crazier because now he’d let all the bugs out and they were crawling over everything.’
‘I don’t want to know about your brother, Craig. So stop with the sob story.’
Craig’s eyes rolled toward him. ‘Let me finish!’
Jack shifted his weight and leaned against the far wall. He was sure that he could feel a bulge in his lower back and wondered if a disc had ruptured.
‘I couldn’t understand how he could go about like that, worrying about everything, thinking up all these mad conspiracies. He just wouldn’t stop. The doctors put him on medication, and that sort of helped, but he still did weird things.
‘When I was about thirteen, I pulled back the covers to get into bed one night, and he’d put all the knives from the kitchen on my mattress and under my pillow. He said, “Craig, you need to hide these because otherwise someone might break in and try to kill me.” About a week after that he slit his wrists and bled to death.
‘The reason I’m telling you all this is because I know madness. Whatever you want to think of me, you know ─ I’m a bastard, a piece of shit, all the rest of it – understand this also: I know the darkness. I’m not talking about crime or things that go on in the streets. I’m talking about real darkness that closes in on you every second of every day. And you’ – he inclined his chin toward Jack – ‘you have that same look about you that my brother had. There’s nothing behind your eyes. So I could sit here and tell you that I didn’t kill your wife. Or I could tell you that I did kill your wife, and I did it just for fun. But none of it is going to satisfy you, is it? Because once you break through that wound, the bugs will come out.’
