[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule

by Andrew Barrett

  His finger feathered the trigger. “Stephen is a good boy, a law-abiding citizen who used to visit me once a week regular as clockwork with his wife. Anyway, he’s shocked to see this man in his kitchen and stabs him.

  “The long and the short of it is that my boy went to jail because someone else was doing something they shouldn’t have been.”

  Deacon moved his foot away from the panic button. “How do you think killing me might help you exactly?”

  “Don’t get flippant with me. My hand gets awful shaky when I’m angered, and I’ve known my index finger, which is the little bugger curled around the trigger, twitch ever so forcefully when I’m enraged. Do you see my point?”

  “I see your point very clearly.”

  “Don’t think you’re home and safe ’cause this old guy don’t know nothing about guns. I know that where I point the tube end is more or less where the bullet is gonna go.”

  “For a man who claims to stand on the moral high ground–”

  Lincoln rode over the statement like it was roadkill. “My son was rejected for early release because – and this will pull your sense of justice right back into the Stone Age – because ‘he was still a danger to burglars’.’” Lincoln said the words very slowly. “He was still a danger to burglars. I went wild. This is where an old man’s Victorian way of thinking gets in the way of progress, but hear me out; if a fellow is burgling your house, then he is doing something fundamentally wrong. If he didn’t do this fundamentally wrong thing then he could never expect to be hurt by law-abiding citizens. Am I talking bollocks or does it make sense?”

  “I–”

  “Where is the logic in locking up a man trying to prevent a crime in progress when the criminal shouldn’t be there?” Lincoln was almost screaming now, and he slammed the butt of the gun into the beautiful desk. “Inside, the burglars get a DVD player,” he hissed, “and I can barely afford my fucking TV licence!”

  Deacon almost leapt from his chair as someone knocked on the door. “Sir George? Everything okay in there?”

  The gratitude Deacon felt at the interruption was like the relief of finally reaching the surface when you thought your lungs would burst. But he kept his demeanour cool, like he’d just stepped out of a freezer. He pressed the intercom and cleared his throat, staring at the frail old man who was as proud a man as he had ever met. He said, “Everything’s fine; we were just having a heated discussion. No need to panic.”

  Unforgivable. Utterly punishable.

  Lincoln looked through slits at Deacon and wondered if he’d just been buggered by some kind of secret word. He gave it ten seconds, and when he found himself still sitting in the chair and still breathing, he thanked Deacon for his benevolence.

  “I understand your angst, and I agree with your sentiment entirely.”

  Lincoln sat up straight and said, “I don’t even know if this thing works.” He offered the briefest of smiles before pride snatched it away. Then he spun the barrel. “But it’s still got six in the hole.” He saw a flash of fear in Deacon. “I’m not going to kill you; I had to make myself heard over the do-gooders who’ve never been burgled or robbed or had their property set on fire. And I had to make myself heard over the crap rattling around inside your head. I knew I was just another disgruntled nutter here to bother you. I had to change that.”

  Deacon defiantly poked a finger into the barrel of Lincoln’s gun. The old man swallowed. The threat looked decidedly more feeble now than it did a moment ago. The path to victory was paved not with bravery, but with calculated risk.

  Lincoln pulled the gun away, steered it around Deacon’s finger, the one with a fading red circle on the end, and reasserted his point.

  Deacon slammed his fist on the desk. “You disgust me. You come in here talking about decency, preaching at me like a law-abiding citizen. And you point that thing at a minister of Her Majesty’s Government! At the successor of a minister who was shot dead!”

  Lincoln jumped. The threat was dead, if ever it had drawn breath to begin with.

  “You could go to jail just for having that thing. You could be in the room next to your boy.”

  Lincoln slid the gun away. “My dad was a soldier. He died so that the burglar could smile at my boy while he stole from him. And then that burglar laughed at my boy, and that burglar pissed his pants when he got Legal Aid to sue my boy. And that burglar got himself a DVD player and three squares a day for less than half the time my boy is doing. Is that fair?”

  Lincoln grabbed the chair and made an effort to stand. “I know perfectly well that I sound like an old fool with nothing better to do than whine to busy people like you, but the world today really is what people make it. You have the power to make it good again. You have the power to make it fair.”

  “Mr Farrier.” On shaking legs, Deacon was at his side, helping the old man stand. “I got your message.”

  “Can you help us? I’ve tried every other avenue. S’why I’m so desperate, Mr Deacon.” Lincoln scooped up his cap, and said, “I’ve been foolish, I shouldn’t have–”

  “No, you shouldn’t, Mr Farrier.” Deacon’s stare was grave.

  “You gonna call the police?” he asked. “You have every right.”

  “I don’t work like that.” Now Deacon’s eyes moved away, unable or unwilling to make eye contact.

  “Will you see what you can do about my situation, Sir George?”

  “Count on it.”

  – Two –

  Deacon closed the door behind the old man.

  He wished he loved his own son as much as Lincoln obviously loved his. He wished he loved his own son at all. Back behind the desk, he reflected how he had shaken like a pneumonia victim when Lincoln pulled the gun; could see his career ending very abruptly before he’d achieved his ambition.

  He pressed the intercom, “Sirius. In here.”

  Moments later Sirius appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”

  “The old man who just left?”

  “Sir.”

  “He pulled a gun on me.”

  “Sir?” No change of expression. Though the tone had raised an octave.

  “Make him have an accident with it.” Deacon put his spectacles on and looked back at his notes, providing no elaboration on the request, except to say, “His son, Stephen, is in jail, and he misses him terribly.”

  The door closed.

  Deacon ignored the intercom and screamed, “And next time search everyone, you imbecile!”

  9

  Thursday 18th June

  – One –

  “Thank you.” Lincoln stepped down off the bus, shielding his eyes from the glare of sunlight.

  He respected Deacon for listening to the drivel coming out of an old man’s mouth. On the surface he seemed okay. But there was something beneath the “okay”, something that left a trail like a slug did; Deacon was slime. And this wasn’t a generalisation; Deacon came across as your good old-fashioned baby-kissing politician, but there was something strange underneath it all.

  Over the last two years he’d written to every parole board, each tier of governor at Stephen’s jail, to the old PM and the new PM, to the late Roger King and anyone else he thought might listen.

  Yet there was still one institution left to raise the issue with, and he patted the letter in the left breast pocket of his best tweed jacket. From the bus stop, he headed for the post box set into the wall outside the post office. He paused with the letter in his hand, when Mrs Walker appeared in the doorway and called him over.

  She was peering around the doorframe, hand clasped there as if holding on.

  “Mrs Walker.” He smoothed down his tweed jacket, felt the bump under the right breast pocket, and successfully ignored it.

  “How you doing, Lincoln?” Her smile revealed a perfect set of dentures.

  “Better, Mrs Walker,” he said as he made his way into the little shop that fronted the post office. “Just come from seeing Sir George Deacon.”

  Mrs Walke
r’s face lit up and she stepped closer. “I wondered where you were going when I saw you get on the bus. Oh I am pleased you finally went to see him. How did you get on? Was he a fair man?”

  “Well.” Lincoln shifted. “It went alright. He said he’d see what he could do, but the wheels of politics turn slowly–”

  “But he must have given some commitment?”

  “Well, you know–”

  “Were you persuasive, Lincoln? Were you forceful? You know these fellows won’t do anything unless you put a gun to their heads.”

  Lincoln stared at Mrs Walker, blinking. “You’d have been proud of me.”

  “I already am.”

  “I was posting this…”

  “Oh, give it here. You don’t need to use the box unless we’re shut.” Mrs Walker took the letter and sneaked a glance at the address scrawled in Lincoln’s forward-slanted writing. “And I have something for you.” She slid around the counter, and held out a letter. “I knew who it was from,” she said, “so I wouldn’t let Ricky take it back to the depot.”

  Lincoln licked his dry lips, and reached out for the letter.

  “It has to be signed for,” she said in a high, excited voice. “It’s from Stephen.”

  – Two –

  Sirius parked in The Blacksmith pub car park in Methley. He took out the paper with Lincoln Farrier’s address on it, memorised it and climbed from the car. The place was busy; holidaymakers filled the beer garden with laughter. Kids played on the slide and the squeaking swing out back. And the main street, out to the front, was a throng of colourfully-clothed shoppers weighed down with bags, calling at their misbehaving youngsters as they frolicked in the bright afternoon sunshine.

  Sirius took off his tie and tossed it back into the car, slung his jacket over his arm and closed the door. Five minutes later, he left behind the hustle of the main street, its shops, the pub, the restaurants, and ice cream parlours in exchange for serenity and peace. Cottages lined the roadside.

  He left the road, turned down a dirt track in between two cottages and let himself into the back garden of the one on the right. It was the last dwelling as you headed out of the village and it was secluded.

  Through a well-kept gap in the hedge at the end of the garden was a wooden structure that looked like a small barn, and from here he could just make out through the darkness inside, the bellows of an old furnace. Over the door was a sign: The Farrier’s Den.

  The shadows were short but dark, the day hot, a day you’d choose to sit out in such a wonderful garden with a cold beer watching the shadows grow longer.

  Sirius knocked on the door. There was no reply. He tried the door handle, discovered it was locked, and peered through the keyhole.

  He stepped back, looked at the old building, and noticed the window to his right was ajar. It took him no time at all to get inside Lincoln Farrier’s neat little house. And it was neat, free of bric-a-brac, clean and tidy.

  Everything was just so; the TV newspaper was squared away on the tiny coffee table in the centre of Lincoln’s lounge, the curtains were tied neatly back, and although the carpet was threadbare in places, it was clean. And the strangest thing perhaps, he noticed, there was no smell of piss you’d normally associate with elderly people; it smelled of…nothing at all.

  With gloved hands, Sirius searched the polished bureau and the sideboard drawers, looking for something with the old man’s writing on.

  These were the kinds of jobs he enjoyed. They gave him a lucrative challenge. He was an officer of the Close Protection Squads run by SO19, a reclusive department based in New Scotland Yard. The job involved Sir George’s security, clearing potential hazards, and cleaning up his mess. Each CPO knew his host almost intimately, and often did little “favours” like this for them; though not all officers carried out favours quite so extreme.

  Deacon trusted Sirius to be discreet, and he knew Sirius would administer the favour with skill, making it appear accidental, or in the case of this old guy, self-inflicted.

  From the bureau he took a letter which bore the House of Commons heading. It was from People Against Crime founder, Emily Cooper. And stapled to the letter, which promised to look into “this kind of thing”, was a handwritten note from Lincoln. Sirius sat in the bureau’s chair and studied the letter, paying attention not to the actual words used, but to their construction, their fluency and style.

  In the same bureau, he found the pad on which Lincoln wrote all his correspondence; a textured fawn paper that added elegance to his remarkable way of writing. And next to the pad, the old guy’s fountain pen, and a book of stamps and a wad of envelopes. Sirius slid out the bureau’s writing desk.

  – Three –

  Mrs Walker had practically barricaded the post office until Lincoln opened and read the letter. The parole board, those demigods with the power of granting freedom, had finally agreed to let Stephen walk at last.

  Lincoln’s heart fluttered alarmingly when he read his boy’s news, and Mrs Walker had guided him to the wooden bench in the corner of the shop. “He’s coming home, Mrs Walker,” he said with a voice that was crackly, breaking with the strain of happiness. The letter shook so much it was almost illegible. But he’d made out the important words: freedom and home. “Next month,” he said.

  It took a full ten minutes for Lincoln to regain his composure. He stood with his chest out, feeling proud once more and feeling that there was a God after all. This morning’s trip to see Deacon was now redundant.

  Lincoln bade Mrs Walker farewell and left with Stephen’s letter tucked into his trouser pocket, eager to read it again in private this time, to really get a feel for it. His hurried journey home was a blur.

  He closed the back door behind him, grasped the lounge door handle and stopped dead. Lincoln breathed deeply, trying to figure out where the strange smell was coming from. Something was wrong here, and he had half a mind to turn around and let himself back out. The other part of his mind told him to stop being an idiot. It told him to go sit in his armchair, take out the letter and savour it. He swung the door open and looked at his lounge.

  It was just as he’d left it this morning. Except for the fragrance.

  “Hello, Lincoln.”

  Lincoln shrieked, and his heart cracked. The adrenaline surge damned near made him faint.

  In the corner by the kitchen door stood a large man. He stepped forward, his jacket over one arm and sunglasses tucked neatly into his shirt pocket.

  “Who are you?” Lincoln backed himself into the edge of the lounge door. “What’re you…” and then he stopped. “You’re that fellow from Sir George’s surgery, aren’t you?”

  His face held no expression at all; no friendliness, no hate, nothing. He advanced.

  10

  Friday 19th June

  She screamed at Eddie, right up to his bloody face, she screamed at him like a sergeant major screams at a recruit. She beat him, and they all looked on, everyone stood by and watched her attack him. The vicar shook his disgusted head at Eddie and then turned away.

  Jilly pounced on him, and Eddie’s face hit the gravel, grazed his cheek until the blood formed in tiny spots. She kicked him in the back and he rolled over, grunting, bringing his hands up to protect his face, and he could see through his fingers a kid, no more than twenty, laughing at him, pointing something at him.

  Eddie closed his eyes and began to scream. Jilly kicked him again and again, screaming the word murderer at him until it reverberated around his echoing head. He tried to turn away but couldn’t; something stopped him and he screamed again to be set free, but it had him. And when Jilly kicked him again, he felt the brandy bottle slip. He tried to catch it but it fell out of the pocket of his new black suit, tipping end over end, spilling brandy the colour of tea into the sunlight only to darken as the shade inside the hole grabbed it and swallowed it. The bottle banged on the coffin, bounced, banged again.

  He watched in horror as it bounced again and again, banging, banging, bangin
g on the lid of the coffin, and still he was trapped and still he screamed, tried to move to cover himself but they had him, and her parents held him tight, and Eddie disappeared into a black hole of panic.

  But the brandy bottle spilling the golden liquid onto his dead son’s coffin banged on the lid like someone rapping on a door. And then the lid squeaked. It squealed as though it were being opened from inside and that’s when Eddie could take no more and he covered his eyes and

  screamed.

  “Eddie! Wake up.” She slapped him across the face.

  His eyes snapped open. He panted, sweat rolled down his neck and he panicked for a moment because he couldn’t move. He was trapped between the sofa and the coffee table. And then he looked up, saw a face over his, and gradually brought it into focus.

  “You are one screwed up fella, Eddie Collins.”

  “Ros.” Eddie closed his eyes and sobbed.

  “You are one screwed up fella, Eddie Collins.” She looked down into his wet face. Tears glistened in the whiskers on his cheeks, and formed small pools in the recesses of his ears. His hair was wet with sweat and his skin was pale, and it reminded her of a body awaiting an autopsy. Ros tutted.

  “Ros.” He cried like a kid having a nightmare.

  “Oh, Eddie.”

  He put his arm over his eyes, trying to cover the tears, embarrassed by them, and continued sobbing. His chin quivered. It was horrible to see him cry like this, and she felt sorrow that he tried to cover his emotions up. “Come on, Eddie, get up, eh?” She tapped his arm, folded her hand into his and eased him into a sitting position.

  She crouched before him, watching as the sobbing grew lighter until he took away his arm and through tear-filled eyes, looked up at her. The tears rolled away into his stubble.