by S. B. Caves
He peeled an onion, grabbed a knife from the block and began vigorously dicing it. The knife rapidly thudded into the chopping board.
‘What’s it all about, Jack?’
Jack picked up the chopping board and swept the onion into the pan, and then rifled through the drawers looking for the can opener.
‘I saw you and that woman beat him up and then you threw him in the van.’
It was possibly the first time that he had ever heard her pick her words before speaking. He had never known her to be so articulate. He turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms.
‘I’ve never lied to you,’ Jack said. ‘Not once. So don’t ask me to lie to you now.’
‘I’m not asking you to lie. I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to trust me.’
‘I don’t want you involved in this,’ he said. ‘The less you know, the better.’
‘Well, I already know that you kidnapped him and that you’re keeping him in that warehouse. What else do you think is going to get me into trouble?’
‘Have you been watching the news?’ he asked, turning away from her to concentrate on the sizzling pan.
Oh, you’d better believe I have, she thought. ‘Bits and pieces.’
‘Then you know he’s a heroin dealer.’
‘What’s that got to do with you?’
‘Nothing. But it should tell you that he’s a nasty piece of work and he deserves everything that’s coming to him. He’s not some choirboy that I’ve just snatched off the street. He’s the devil.’
And I’m his God, he thought absently. I’m his Jesus Christ.
‘So you’re a vigilante now?’ When he ignored her, she said, ‘That woman, she’s your wife’s sister. What’s her involvement?’
He grabbed a wooden spoon and stabbed it into the mince. He was actually faintly surprised that the word ‘vigilante’ was part of her lexicon.
‘Jack? What does she have to do with it?’
He was forgetting to do something but he couldn’t remember what. Garlic, was that it? You put garlic in spaghetti Bolognese, didn’t you? And mushrooms. But he wasn’t making spaghetti, he was making… what was he making? He looked at the supermarket bag, saw the kidney beans and remembered. Chilli con carne, that was it.
‘I know you’re not having an affair, I’m not accusing you of that. I know that you wouldn’t do that to me. But I just need to… Jack? Jack, will you look at me?’
‘I’m cooking, honey,’ he said. He wanted to ask her where the fuck she kept her can opener but waited for his temper to simmer down. Speaking of, the heat was too high for the pan. He was going to burn the mince. What was he cooking again? Chilli, for god’s sake. ‘Where do you keep your can opener?’
‘The drawer on your left.’
He knew he had already checked that drawer, but he pulled it open again, perhaps a little too hard. The cutlery jumped in its compartments. He found the can opener, although it looked like more of a corkscrew or some sort of funky spoon and he started to wonder what had possessed her to buy such an awful contraption. He placed the can opener on the lip of the kidney bean can and turned the handle. It didn’t bite through the metal. He tried again and still no luck.
‘What is this?’ he asked, holding it up. ‘How am I supposed to use this thing?’
‘You have to—’
‘What? What do I need to do?’
‘You just use it like a regular one, except—’
‘Well, obviously I don’t, because I can’t get this fucking can open. What is this? Some new technology that’s supposed to improve the experience of opening cans? In all my life, I’ve never seen something so stupid. Why change the fucking design?’
‘Shall I do it?’
‘Be my guest.’ He tossed the can opener on the counter and turned back to the mince, which was starting to brown.
‘Here,’ she said, handing him the now open can of kidney beans. ‘Easy peasy.’
He sighed. ‘May, I’m… I’m sorry. My back is making me miserable and I’ve got so much on my mind, you wouldn’t believe it.’ He drained the water from the kidney beans and upended the contents of the can into the pan.
‘What are you going to do with him?’
‘Who?’
‘Craig Morley. The man on the news that you kidnapped.’
‘I just want to talk to him and then I’m going to let him go.’ He’d lost interest in the food. He turned the heat all the way down and eased himself into a chair at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t want to talk any more about this now. I thought I came here to talk about marriage.’
‘How can we talk about marriage if we still have secrets?’
‘This isn’t a secret. It’s just something that had to be done, something that goes back to before I met you.’
‘Is it something to do with your… wife?’ She spoke with the caution of a woman talking to a crazy man who had broken into the house with a knife. She had never known Jack to lose his temper, but thought this particular subject might be the minefield to change that.
‘All right,’ he said with a heavy sigh, his elbows on the table, his hands clutched together as if in prayer. ‘I’m going to say this once, and never again. I don’t ever want to talk about my wife. I don’t want you asking questions about her, and I don’t want you trying to squeeze me for information about her. She’s gone, and that’s all you need to know.’
May stared down at her lap and pulled a piece of loose thread from her skirt. ‘You still love her. Even after all these years, it’s her that you think about, isn’t it?’
‘What did I just say, May?’
The way he looked at her just then made the hairs on the nape of her neck prickle. The pupils of his eyes were like two holes drilled through a piece of glass. Beneath the kitchen lights, he suddenly appeared very frightening. It occurred to her that she may have made a very big mistake. And still… she could not ignore the rapidity of her heartbeat, the flush of heat across her skin. So he was a bad guy? Wasn’t that her type? Hadn’t she always fallen for some kind of villain in her chequered list of lovers? And hadn’t she always liked that aspect of danger about them? She felt as though she had always known there was an element of darkness to Jack, that he carried this long shadow with him everywhere he went, and this time she was right and – god, was she becoming aroused?
This was running away from her. How had she let him take the reins here? She was the one with the upper hand; she had to remember that.
‘Jack, I want to marry you. And I want to do it soon. I think this is a fair request.’
Jack seemed to consider it. ‘Fine. We’ll get married then.’
‘And I have conditions,’ she added, and upon seeing that he had no reaction, she continued. ‘You don’t want me talking about your wife. That’s more than fine by me. But if you want me to stick to that rule then you have to agree to never have any contact with that woman, your wife’s sister.’
‘That seems reasonable,’ he said.
‘Really?’ she laughed, a mingling of surprise and nervousness.
‘Yes. I told you, I just needed time to talk it through. I mean, I’m naturally a bit apprehensive, but I suppose we have to do the decent thing.’ Pressing his weight down on the table, he rose from the chair and opened his arms. ‘Come on. Bring it here.’
She skipped across the kitchen and buried her face in his wide, firm chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. Now she cried, but they were tears of joy and he was laughing and stroking her hair, telling her to stop being so silly. And then they kissed, long and passionately, her lips wet and eager, her tongue slippery and animated.
He broke the kiss off prematurely, leaving her gasping into his face. ‘May, there’s one more thing we do need to get straight, though,’ he said. She tilted her head back and looked up at him wondrously, like an obedient dog ready to retrieve whatever object he let fly.
‘What is it, love?’
He drew her tighter agai
nst his chest and was no longer stroking her hair but letting his hand linger on the back of her neck. She felt the muscles in his calloused palm, the strength of the wrist beyond it.
‘Who have you spoken to about the other night?’
‘Spoken to?’
‘Yes. Did you mention me to anyone?’
‘No, Jack.’ She tried to pull back for eye contact but he wouldn’t allow it. She tried to wiggle her shoulders but it was no use, so she spoke into his chest. ‘I was in the car park. I followed you to see what you were doing with that woman and then, well, I saw.’
‘Someone else was there too. Did you see them?’
‘Someone else?’
‘The one who made the police report.’
‘I don’t… I’m not sure…’
‘You don’t have to be afraid of me, May. I haven’t given you a reason to be afraid of me before, have I?’
‘I know.’
‘So tell me the truth.’
‘It was a girl. A young girl. She was with Craig Morley.’ She kept referring to him by his full name as though he were a celebrity, and it was starting to irritate him. ‘She watched you from the entrance of the block. She came out blubbering…’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Jack, please, I didn’t say anything to the police. I was gone before they even showed up.’
‘You sure? You seemed really angry with me the last time we saw each other.’
‘So you think I would just chuck everything away because of a stupid argument?’
‘I don’t know. Would you?’
‘No. She saw you kidnap her boyfriend and called the police. And that’s it. I just wanted to know if she saw you, that’s all. I was trying to look out for you.’
‘You’d better not be lying to me, May.’
She could feel herself growing hot, the outrage lighting a fire deep inside of her. You’d better not be lying to me, May. That sounded like something her ex-husband would say before he cracked her across the face or chased her screaming through the house with a belt wrapped around his fist.
‘You have the cheek to accuse me of lying?’
‘Stop throwing a tantrum, and—’
She bit into his chest as hard as she could, her teeth sinking through the fabric of his shirt and pinching into where he’d bandaged the knife wound. He shrieked in pain and surprise and she broke free of his embrace. He looked down at his shirt, saw the wet ring of teeth impressions, and then turned his attention to her.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she yelled with such authority that she actually stopped him in mid-step. ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’
‘See,’ he sneered, gingerly touching his chest. ‘This is why we can’t get married. You’re an emotional wreck. You don’t know how to control your—’
She grabbed a plate from the shelf – the special crockery that was reserved for special dinners like birthdays and Christmas – and launched it at him. It whistled past his head and shattered against the wall, showering him with shards.
‘Make me break my nice china, you fucking…’ She grabbed another plate and threw it. This time she was less discriminating with her aim. The plate flew wide and smashed against a cupboard. She had turned to retrieve more ammo when he caught hold of her wrists.
‘This isn’t a game, May! What did you tell the police?’
She was stuttering on her sobs, a thick line of saliva dribbling down her chin.
He let go of her. ‘This is how you want it, is it? Maybe deep down you want me to put my hands on you like your piece of shit husband used to. But you know what?’ He smoothed his hair back. ‘I don’t want to do this. I love you too much, May. Can’t you see that? I love you, for Christ’s sake. I always have!’
He sat down in the chair, the pain in his back pulsing like a heartbeat. He covered his face and now it was his turn to cry. He bawled loudly, his despair amplified against his hands. He cried until his sobs overwhelmed hers. He felt her touch his shoulder and flinched away.
‘I don’t want you to see me like this,’ he said, without removing his hands from his eyes.
She had never seen him cry before. In fact, she had never seen him show any emotion other than tepid disinterest. His whole repertoire of feelings could be summed up in a single shrug. And here he was crying… crying for her!
‘I’m sorry, Jack, I’m so sorry.’ She tried to pull his hands away from his face, but he would not let her.
If he had, she would have seen that his eyes were completely dry.
‘Jack, please. I have the hammer. And the gun.’
His sobs stopped so abruptly that he had to make a strangled groaning sound to make it seem natural.
‘What did you say?’
‘Yes. I have them here. Let me get them.’ She scurried out of the kitchen and he heard her rummaging around by the stairs. When she returned with a black bin bag, he made a show of drying his eyes against his sleeve.
‘I took them before the police got there,’ she said hopefully. ‘I did it to protect you, but I didn’t want you to be mad with me.’ She opened the bin bag to show him the contents. ‘You’d think I was meddling and get angry with me, and all I was trying to do was make everything right again.’
‘May, you… you don’t understand what this means to me. Do you know what you’ve done?’
‘What?’ she asked tremulously.
‘You’ve saved my life.’ Using the chair for support, he knelt before her. ‘I should have done this ages ago. I should have done this the day I met you.’ He looked up at her. ‘I don’t have a ring, but I swear to god I’m going to buy you one first thing tomorrow and… May, can you forgive a stupid, sour old man like me and do me the honour of giving me your hand in marriage?’
As he offered the proposal, he watched her face brighten, the happiness breaking through the confusion. She would love the way he worded it too, like something from one of those romantic comedies she tortured him with.
‘Yes. Oh Jack, yes, you know I will.’
He hugged her stomach and then rose. He knew he would pay later for all the malarkey he’d put his back through today, but this had to be done. She had actually dug him out of a potentially detrimental hole, and yet he was not all that surprised. Even with all the stress, he knew there was a reason he’d kept her around, had sensed in some way that being with her was useful. At first, he’d thought that she was more of a convenience, and that a man his age living alone would seem strange, perhaps even sinister to those around him. Being alone brought unwanted attention that might have later led to suspicion, and he didn’t need that one bit. May came with emotional baggage, and yes, she was high-maintenance, but she was also a brilliant counterbalance. She provided him with all the stage dressing he needed. Here was a woman that would do anything to stay with him, keep any secret, tell any lie. She was an invaluable asset, one he could shape, mould. She was coming along perfectly.
‘Look, can we rewind and pretend that the last ten minutes never happened?’
‘Yes,’ she said, laughing and kissing his face enthusiastically.
He looked down at the debris and made a seething sound through his clenched teeth. ‘Those were your good plates.’ He slapped himself in the head. ‘I’m such a fucking idiot.’
‘No, they don’t matter. I can buy new ones.’
His shoulders sagged. ‘And I’ve ruined dinner.’ He picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the mince. It was black and stuck to the bottom of the pan.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, kissing his face. ‘I wasn’t hungry anyway.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sergeant Richmond listened to what Bernard had to say without interruption. They were standing outside the station, away from the various sound-recording cameras that lined the halls. Richmond smoked his way through two cigarettes as Bernard spoke in stuttered whispers, using his fat pink hands to emphasise certain points of the story. When he was finished, Richmond patted him on his arm and said, ‘I want to th
ank you for telling me that, Bernard. That took a lot of balls and I know it’s been weighing heavily on your mind.’
‘It has,’ Bernard confirmed, and gave Richmond a smile that looked like he was ready to catch a fly with his tongue and swallow it whole. ‘Really it has. She’s a nasty piece of work, it just took me a while to see it. She tricked me, really. I mean, she’s a bloody liar and…’
Richmond raised a hand, cutting Bernard’s monologue short. ‘Voice down, Bernard. Let’s keep this between us, yeah?’
‘Yes.’ Bernard nodded and released a shaky sigh, rubbing his crinkled forehead. ‘Thank you, sarge.’
Richmond dropped the butt of his cigarette and crushed the ember beneath his heel. He expelled twin streams of smoke through his nostrils and said, ‘This Emily woman. You know where she lives?’
‘I think so.’
‘You think so? What does that mean?’
Bernard scratched under his chin, his fingernails grazing a rash of red razor bumps. ‘Well, see, the thing is I know the house by sight, but I don’t know if she lives there any more.’
For the first time since Bernard had relayed his information to Sergeant Richmond, he saw a flicker of annoyance in the older man’s face. ‘What does that mean, Bernard?’
‘What I mean to say is, well, remember I said she cooked dinner for me once?’ Bernard saw the sergeant’s eyes glaze over, the bushy brows drawing together. ‘Yeah, she cooked for me and what I’m saying is I would probably know the route there. In fact, yeah, I definitely know where that house is.’ What he had neglected to tell the sergeant was that, when Emily went cold on him, he had spent numerous weeks driving past the house or parking directly opposite, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. On one of his nightly stakeouts, he thought he saw her silhouette drift past the upstairs window and managed to convince himself that she had just stepped out of the shower. He let this fantasy play out in his mind until he was rock hard in his pants, barely able to contain his excitement.
‘Good work, mate,’ Richmond smiled warmly. ‘Why didn’t you ever join the force? You’d have made a blinding copper.’
