Life Without Me

by Anna Legat

  ‘Bastard!’

  It was unmistakably Charlotte’s voice. I had missed her arrival as much as Mark had. She had crept up on us both. There she stood with her blonde locks foaming around her face, her cheeks flushed with fury – a scorned Nordic Valkyrja.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Mark was taken aback. He got up from the chair, knocked it down. It clunked. Instinctively, he looked at me to check if that woke me up. I wished!

  ‘How could you? We’ve only just –’ She glanced at her engagement finger, unsure if what she believed was her engagement ring was really there.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte … You and I – we didn’t really think it through … I was going to …’

  ‘What were you going to do? What?’ Her fury was transforming into hysteria. ‘You bloody bastard! What are you trying to do to me? Kill me?’

  ‘I’d never … Never would I want to hurt you. The last person on this planet, I’d want to hurt, believe me, is you. But it happened –’

  ‘You’re taking the piss? Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘I’ll explain, calmly. Give me a chance. Let’s not do it here, by my mother’s bedside.’

  ‘Let’s not!’ She was pulling at her finger as if her objective was to tear it away from her hand.

  Down the corridor Chi was approaching, dressed in her nurse’s uniform. She was heading for my room. I could tell she was alarmed. The argument could be heard from afar; the whole hospital floor was tuning in.

  Finally, Charlotte managed to pull the engagement ring off her finger, without taking her finger with it. She waved the ring in Mark’s face. ‘What is this? A joke? Is this your engagement ring or not? You gave it to me, remember?’

  ‘I … I … You can keep it. Please keep it, but –’

  Outpouring of tears prevented her from speaking. She threw the ring at him. It ricocheted from his shoulder and landed on my bed. She burst out, retching with tears. For a split second, Mark just stood there, shocked. Her steps and sobs were receding down the corridor. ‘Shit!’ he mumbled, and took off, after her. In the corridor he brushed by Chi. At first, he didn’t recognise her, then he stopped a few steps past her. Looked back. Hesitated. Gave her an apologetic, plaintive gaze, and ran after Charlotte.

  Chi lowered her eyes and bit her bottom lip, turned and walked slowly, placing her feet firmly: one in front of the other. She passed by a few nurses and visitors, all staring curiously at her and then retreating back into their chores and conversations with their loved ones.

  She sought refuge from the public eye in my room. She knew I wouldn’t judge her. And I wouldn’t. Somehow, despite myself and against common sense, I was on her side. I thought Mark was a fool. A week ago I would have rejoiced, but today I felt he was the loser, not Chi.

  Her hands were trembling ever so slightly when she checked the valves on my life support machine and recorded data on my patient board. As she was straightening my sheets and smoothing out the blanket, she found the ring. She picked it up, turned it in her fingers and watched it sparkle against the lights. Then she put it on my bedside table. Her face showed no emotion, but her cheeks were wet.

  Charlotte thundered down the fire escape. Mark was only a few steps behind her, but she was a fast runner. She wasn’t an athlete for nothing. She crossed the foyer, pushing forward blindly. Instinctively, people made way for her: she had that haunted look of someone who had been told their loved one was dead and that there was nothing that could be done to bring them back.

  Walking in long strides, but refusing to run (not to make a spectacle of himself – a genetic trace of the Ibsens he had inherited), Mark stood little chance of catching up with her. As she charged across the forecourt, thrusting herself at oncoming traffic, he seemed to be slowing down in his pursuit of her. It was now more out of concern for her safety than for the purpose of catching up with her that he was following her at all. He gestured to the driver of an approaching four-by-four to stop and give way. When the man did so, Mark paused by his window and wheezed breathlessly, ‘Thanks! She’s distraught.’

  ‘Yeah, no problem!’ the driver responded. ’Tis an ’ospital, innit? Things ’appen!’

  ‘Thanks!’

  He chased her across the vast hospital parking area, all the way to her car. It was a small, battered Ford, grey and unassuming, totally out of sync with its glamorous owner. From a distance of several metres, Charlotte pressed the immobiliser’s button. The car winked at her cheerfully. She was almost in when Mark abandoned his pursuit, stood dead in his tracks and shouted, ‘Charlotte!’

  A row of cars separated them. As she turned to face him, they could only see each other from the chest up. A glimmer of hope lit in her eyes. ‘Yes, Mark?’ The same, faint hope rang in her voice.

  He put his arms up in the air. ‘I am sorry it’s come to this,’ he told her. ‘I am sorry you had to find out that way … But I can’t keep lying to you. Sorry …’

  The glimmer of hope exploded into a firework of fury. ‘Bastard!’

  ‘Please take care –’

  ‘Fuck off.’ She slammed the door, thrust the beam of headlights into his face, and drove off with an ominous screech of tyres.

  Chi was still by my bedside, taking time to compose herself before she emerged to face the world at large and pretend convincingly that what had just happened was all water off a duck’s back. Without much purpose, she was re-arranging my pillows for the umpteenth time. Mark caught her unawares when he spoke, still panting, ‘Did you really think I was going to let you go?’

  She spun on her heel.

  ‘I told you, Chi – you are it for me! I bloody well love you and won’t ever lose you!’

  He ran to her and lifted her – her feet dangling above the floor – and squeezed her so hard that she squealed. ‘Put me down! Put me down before someone sees you and they throw us out of here! Put me down, you madman!’ she chimed with laughter.

  ‘Not before you say you’ll marry me!’

  Personally, I thought he was overdoing it. His first bride wasn’t yet cold in her grave – so to speak – and here he was proposing to the next one. Great minds think alike and I had proof of it when Chi pointed to Charlotte’s ring glittering furiously on my bedside table. ‘Do you not think you should take a break from marriage for a day or two?’ she asked.

  ‘I haven’t started yet. Not with the right woman!’ Mark insisted, still holding her up in the air like a squirming beetle. ‘Say yes, please,’ he said. ‘I won’t rest till you do.’

  ‘On one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘You won’t force me to stay here. And you won’t give me a recycled ring.’

  ‘That’s two conditions. Both accepted.’ Mark put her down, fell to one knee, grabbed her hand and kissed it. Then, still on his knee, he spoke to me: ‘Mum, meet Chi – my wife to be.’

  I must admit, I was bruised and swollen with emotions. Perhaps for the first time I was glad my horrid misadventure had befallen me. At least I didn’t have to struggle to hold back tears of joy and stop myself from jumping through the roof – I was gracefully bedridden and unable to raise a finger.

  Etienne was punctual. He rang the doorbell at precisely six o’clock. Tony opened the door almost instantly, as if he was standing behind it, waiting. He was dressed oddly for the occasion of his date: dark-grey joggers, brand new and untypically cheap trainers with no labels, dark-green khaki coat and a beanie that made his head appear pear-shaped.

  Etienne ran his eyes up and down his benefactor’s strange attire without comment.

  ‘Step in,’ Tony led him to the kitchen. ‘Sit down.’

  Etienne looked around him nervously. He relaxed a bit once he had established that there was no one in the house but the two of them and that neither the bedroom nor a mysterious cellar behind a concealed trapdoor was on the cards. ‘So, you want me to drive somewhere?’

  There was a map of Bristol on the kitchen table. It was opened on a page that depicted the convolut
ed arteries of the eastern suburbs. Tony stabbed his fingers at a spot marked in pencil. ‘I want you to go there. It’s where the old Cadbury factory used to be.’

  ‘Yes, I know that area. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’

  Etienne fidgeted uncomfortably. I would be bloody nervous too if I were him.

  ‘I need to know,’ he said. ‘I need to know what’s there and why I’m wanted there. Otherwise I won’t do it. There’s a limit to what I’m prepared to do – even for a thousand pounds.’

  ‘You’re not needed there. Neither are you wanted there. What I want you to do is to get there via this route,’ Tony ran his finger along what looked like a stretch of ring road. He paused at a spot, ‘Somewhere here you’ll see a speed camera. It’s active. I want you to go over the limit: ten or fifteen miles over, no more.’

  ‘I’ll get caught.’

  ‘You’ll get a picture taken. Driving my car. I will get caught,’ Tony corrected him. ‘Be there around 7 p.m., give or take twenty minutes, understood?’

  ‘You want to get speeding points? You’re bonkers?’ Etienne stared at him, incredulous. ‘I don’t believe you. What’s going on? What are you getting me into?’

  Tony exhaled slowly. ‘Nothing to worry about. I want to establish a false alibi. I need to be somewhere else without anyone knowing. You’ll get me caught on the camera at the right time in a different place. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Why do you need to be –’

  ‘You’d be better off not knowing. Do we have a deal?’

  Etienne nodded.

  ‘OK. After speeding by the camera, you will go all the way to that factory. Drive around it. Stop somewhere at the back of it for about quarter of an hour. Have a smoke, or something – look out of place. Someone might see you, CCTV cameras may register you if they’re working. Wear this jacket, hood up.’ He passed him a nondescript waterproof, which was bound to make the boy look bulkier than he was in reality. ‘Discreetly, from inside the car, take a photo of the loading zone at 7.30 on this camera.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For my peace of mind. I want to be sure you got there. Not that I don’t trust you.’

  Etienne smiled.

  ‘Drive back here down the same route. Don’t speed on your way back. Be here by eight.’ Tony threw a key to his young accomplice. I couldn’t believe he would entrust his magnificent MGA into the hands of a casual male escort. But he did. Something greater was at stake here, and I dreaded to think what it was.

  As soon as Etienne was out of the door, Tony went to his weapon display cabinet. Before handling the guns, he put on black leather gloves. I knew which pistol he would go for: the untraceable one. He took it out, checked that it was loaded, wrapped it in a cloth, and placed it gently into a rucksack, which he slung over his shoulder. Thus armed, he went to the kitchen where, in a bottom drawer full of every man’s useful objects, he collected what looked like a car key. He headed for the garage. Unbeknown to me (and I imagine unbeknown to the world at large), the garage housed an old and inconspicuous Ford Fiesta, at least ten years old if the square bodywork was anything to go by. Tony got in. The engine started straight away.

  It was twenty past six when Tony drove away in the navy blue Fiesta, carrying an unlicensed pistol and heading for Clifton. My blood ran cold. You didn’t have to be a genius to work out what he was up to. Tony didn’t trust anyone, only himself. He was a suspicious beast: a perfectionist. In all the cases he handled there were never loose ends left dangling for his opponents to pull and unravel. It was Tony who ran the show, Tony who controlled every minute aspect. He didn’t trust his juniors, or even his partners to put his cases together for him. He did it himself. He most certainly didn’t trust Ehler to ‘sort out’ Jason Mahon. Tony was going to do the sorting out himself. Too much was at stake for him: if Jason was finally apprehended, he would lead the police to Ehler, and then to Tony. They had already made the connection; all they needed now were witnesses. Tony was planning to get rid of them, at least one of them, the weakest link: Jason Mahon. He probably guessed Ehler would try to silence the boy by paying him off or bullying him into submission, but Jason had already proved himself unreliable in this department. He had been prepared to testify against his master once before, what could stop him now? Tony wouldn’t take the chance of finding out. The boy had to be silenced permanently and irreversibly. Hence the pistol. I had no doubt Tony would use it. I didn’t want him to do it – this whole affair was getting out of hand – but Tony didn’t need my permission. He wasn’t doing it for me. He was doing it to save his skin, and in that mission he would stop at nothing. Etienne would provide him with a cast iron alibi. Ehler would keep his mouth shut and would get rid of the boy’s body quickly and efficiently. He would have nothing on Tony without implicating himself, so if he suspected anything he would keep it to himself. After all, he was in it up to his eyeballs. If the body was ever found, the trail would lead to Ehler – and it would stop there. Tony would walk away squeaky clean.

  I watched with dread as the Fiesta zoomed down Upper Belgrave Road, heading for Clifton Down. Suddenly it stopped. There was a parking space on the side of the road by Bristol Zoo. Tony indicated and reversed into the space. I was baffled: was he, after all, planning a quiet evening at the zoo, at his worst perhaps venturing into shooting a couple of annoying penguins or a cheeky monkey?

  My hope was short-lived. Tony walked off in the opposite direction, towards the street where Michael Ehler lived. Of course, it would be unwise to park right in front of Ehler’s mansion. Tony had really thought it through. He parked where masses of anonymous people were parking all day long, where endless numbers of mums, kids and grannies passed by, paying not the slightest attention to one mediocre old Ford Fiesta.

  It was a long walk from the zoo to Ehler’s house, and it was already quarter to seven. Tony broke into a gentle jog. There were many joggers out on the College Fields – nothing unusual about one with a rucksack on his back. I crossed my virtual fingers and wished to God that Tony would be run over by a car or that he tripped and sprained his ankle, but he proceeded undisturbed to his final destination.

  At five minutes past seven Tony sneaked up the steep pathway leading to Ehler’s garden and positioned himself only metres away from the large patio door of Ehler’s study. He was well concealed amongst the wild shrubbery that brimmed over every inch of the garden. He unzipped the pocket of his rucksack where he had earlier deposited the gun.

  The whole house was shrouded in darkness, at first sight uninhabited. Only the study was brightly lit. Jason was there already. He was very animated: his arms had a life of their own. He was pacing, stopping suddenly, turning, and fidgeting. His nerves had to be a bundle of live wires. Not an easy target, but I guess Tony was used to all sorts of moving targets that needed pacifying.

  I admired his composure. True to form, he watched the scene before him with a steady gaze. His hands, folded peacefully on the gun as if it was a Sunday Missal, were perfectly still.

  Ehler was sitting in a high-backed chair behind a desk, looking like a mythical Godfather. At one point, he got up and gestured to the agitated Mahon to shut up. Mahon froze, then smiled. It looked like he was thanking Ehler: he was nodding submissively; his hands were pressed together as if in prayer. Ehler put his hand on the young scoundrel’s back; patted him in an indulgent, paterfamilias manner. They both laughed.

  Tony removed the gun from the cloth. Cocked it. Pointed it at the two people in the study.

  Ehler moved away, leaving Jason exposed. I forgave the little weasel long ago. I didn’t want him dead. I didn’t want Tony to kill him. For grief’s sake, he was only a pimply teenager! It would be such a pointless death! If only I could press the stop button on a remote control and bring it all to a halt …

  Tony was watching as Ehler opened a safe in the wall behind a section of books which were obviously only painted on the safe’s door. Money! He was probably giving Jason money to get out of th
e country – something like that. I was OK with that. Why couldn’t Tony be?

  He pointed the gun.

  Instead of a nice little parcel of banknotes, Ehler pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Jason. Jason fell to his knees, holding his face in his hands. Tony remained unperturbed. Only now did I notice he wasn’t pointing his weapon at Jason, but at Ehler. Before the fat man pulled the trigger, Tony shot him. He then promptly wrapped the cloth around the gun and returned it to his rucksack. He clearly had no intention of shooting Jason as well. In a matter of seconds he was out of the garden, jogging lightly down the stone steps and weaving into the evening’s steady flow of foot traffic.

  I had to be out of there, too. In the back of my mind, etched there for ever, was the massive body of Michael Ehler lying flat on its back, the big gut spilled like a melting ice-cream, hands outstretched, eyes staring into the wood-panelled ceiling of his study. There was a neat hole in his forehead: the entry point of the bullet. Tony had shot him in the head. It was a precision shot – an assassin’s job. I didn’t want to look back, see what Mahon would do. He was probably in shock. The whole house was on alert. Someone had called the police. Game over.

  I went home.

  I didn’t expect Olivia to be there. Neither did I expect her and Rob to be sitting at my kitchen table, over roast dinner and a glass of red wine. For some strange reason I had thought that the world had momentarily come to a standstill as murder reigned supreme at the other end of town. No such thing – life has this habit of going on, regardless. People eat dinner and drink wine while other people are busy blowing each others’ brains out.

  The beef was well overcooked, but then it was originally meant to be eaten sometime around 3 p.m., at the approximate time of Rob’s unscheduled visit to Paula’s.