[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule

by Andrew Barrett

  It was a little after eight on Thursday night and Eddie crammed buttered bread into his mouth, and swallowed black coffee as though he wasn’t going to drink for a week. An hour passed before normality returned to his world. He stared at Mick, pleased that he was at last staying in focus. “There are three stages, I think, to being a pisshead.” Crumbs clung to his wrinkled shirt.

  “Is this Wisdom According to Collins?”

  “Sobriety,” he said, “is smack in the middle. Inebriation is above it, and hangover or withdrawal, whatever you want to call it, is below. See?”

  “How profound.” Mick stubbed out his cigarette, dumped it in the kitchen bin, and rested his backside against the sink, arms folded, waiting for the next morsel of divinity.

  “When I wake up in the morning, regardless of whether I’ve had a drink the night before–”

  “You’ve always had a drink the night before.”

  Eddie was working on his balance, and he reckoned in another half an hour he’d have it cracked for sure. “Fair point. Anyway, when I wake up in the morning, I have to drink just to get to sobriety. Does that happen to you?”

  “I keep a bottle at the side of my bed. When I wake up, my friend, I’m already sober.”

  Eddie nodded, finding the idea most agreeable. “You ever thought about quitting? The booze, I mean.” From here, he could see the empty rum bottle in the lounge.

  Mick poured another coffee, took Eddie’s mug and refilled it.

  “After what we just put away, you should be pissed, and I have to say it’s annoying that you’re not.”

  “I am. But I control it better. You’re still a beginner. I’ve been like this most of my adult life and my kidneys are old hands at railroading the poison. I am one of life’s perpetual pissheads. I cannot go an hour without something. Well, if I do, I start to feel groggy–”

  “Hungover, the stage below sobriety.”

  “Whatever, Frankenstein.”

  “You mean Einstein.”

  “I know what I mean. And the answer is of course I tried,” Mick said. “I try every day of my stinking life because every day of my stinking life I think this’ll be the last one. I think my kidneys, good as they are, will just say ‘fuck you’ and shut up shop. Or my ticker will resign and I’ll hit the pavement like an alcohol balloon. I always think to myself, Mick, when you get a moment to have a word with yourself about this, you are going to have to convince yourself that it’s probably doing you no good at all. Could even be harming you.”

  Eddie laughed.

  “But I never get the chance to have that conversation. I think I avoid myself.”

  “I try to stop, too. But I enjoy it.” And then Eddie noticed his trembling hand. “Well, I used to enjoy it. Now it’s a habit and whenever I find myself getting low, I drink because it stops me getting lower. It gives me stability. And they’re right; it does help you forget.” Mick nodded his agreement, and Eddie’s eyes sank towards the floor and he contemplated breaking the news.

  This could be it; this could cause them to go their separate ways.

  Mick never questioned Eddie’s desperation to get back to sobriety so quickly. But the odd look in his eyes told Eddie that maybe he knew already.

  Eddie asked, “Fancy a drive?”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  – Two –

  They had driven around Wakefield for twenty-five minutes and Mick was getting naffed off with him, but Eddie couldn’t muster the courage to ask him outright. He mentally challenged his friendship with Mick, and each time he practised asking the question, Mick slammed on the brakes and kicked him out of the car. He was worried. But some things in life are worth ending your life for, he repeated to himself.

  “Out with it.” Mick pulled the car up quickly without indicating. The car behind swerved, tyres slipping on the wet road, horn blaring. Mick turned his head to Eddie and asked, “It’s Henry Deacon, isn’t it?”

  Eddie paused. “Do you think I’m a tit?”

  Mick stroked his chin, and Eddie could hear the bristles scrape against his hands.

  “No need to give it so much thought.”

  “You have every right, Eddie. I don’t blame you at all, not one bit. But what’s done can’t be undone, poor Sam is still dead, and afterwards, he still would be. And I know you can’t put a value on something like this, but do think it’s worth it? Really?”

  For a long time Eddie said nothing, noticed the spits of rain falling on the screen, join with others and in the dazzling light of approaching cars, watched them trickle downwards before the wipers obliterated them. At last, he said, “You keep a bottle at the side of your bed and have a swig or two through the small hours until daylight comes and you take a couple of gulps before your breakfast and after your shower. And before you set off for work, it’s like a bolster to have a cupful?”

  “You been spying on me?”

  “It’s like that with me and my kid. Has been for weeks. Except during the night, I don’t sip gracefully, I gulp bucketfuls of his memory, and I cry. There’s no wailing, no sobbing. Just tears. I do that all night, like a drip-feed only in reverse. And in the morning the tears stop. But the thoughts don’t. After my breakfast I take a bath in those thoughts, I lather myself up with hatred.” Eddie looked forward through the screen, the pearls of rain out of focus, the streetlamps sharp yet hazy. “Sound like a prick, don’t I?”

  “You sound like a grieving father who wants…” Mick stopped.

  Eddie looked at him. “Don’t you be afraid to say it too. I think it all day and all night and, hell, I’m still afraid to say it.”

  “Comes down to trust, my friend.”

  “I trust you. Ever since–”

  “Ever since the first nightmare?”

  “In one.” Eddie looked hopefully at Mick. “You up for it?”

  – Three –

  There was a phone ringing somewhere and she wished to God that someone would answer it. Her eyes flickered, and opened.

  It was approaching twilight, and she was still in the damp terraced house where that girl’s body was found. And worst of all, she was alone. Ros’s eyes grew wide and along with the pain in her head came the memory of why she was there. She’d been examining the scene alone, and while she was packing up, there was a noise from up in the kitchen, and foolishly she had come up the cellar steps.

  The noise had stopped by then, and she thought the wind had picked up while she was below ground, and it had chased rubbish into the kitchen, or it was pulling at the plastic bags on the paintings and then…

  The phone was still ringing.

  She fished it out of her trouser pocket and glared at the screen. It flashed up a name: Jeffery. “Hi, Jeffery.” She pulled down her facemask.

  “Ros–”

  “There’s no need to worry–”

  “I’m sure you’re doing a great job, but that’s not why I’m calling.”

  “What’s up?” She rubbed her eyes, felt a little further towards the back of her head. Her fingers came away with blood on them.

  “I have some bad news.”

  “I not in the mood for bad news.”

  “We found a burnt body in the office.”

  She held her breath. She’d seen enough bodies to fill a decent sized graveyard, bodies didn’t worry her. But what did was the solemnity in his voice as though it was personal. “Go on.”

  “Is Eddie there with you?”

  “Who is it, Jeffery?”

  Ros called Eddie four times but he didn’t pick up. Maybe it was just a poor signal. She sat on the bottom step watching a spider ensnare a small fly in one of its myriad webs. At first they thought Stuart had started the fire for some reason, though they couldn’t understand him even being there. Jeffery had told her about the bottles of liquor they found in his pockets. Obviously Eddie’s name had come straight to Jeffery’s mind, and if she was honest, it had come straight to hers too.

  Were they
saying Eddie had knocked Stuart out and planted the bottles as an elaborate double bluff before setting the place on fire? But that was preposterous! The whole scene was wrong because it meant that Stuart and Eddie had met at the office when neither of them was scheduled to be there. And it meant Eddie had the bottles with him to plant on Stuart, which meant it was all premeditated. But why would they choose to meet? They wouldn’t. They loathed each other.

  And then Ros remembered what Eddie had said at the garage while they examined the Jaguar. Something about a bullet hole in Stuart’s face.

  When quizzed, Jeffery had given no further information. Everyone who worked there was a potential suspect to a murder. But Eddie more so than anyone else.

  Her immediate relief at never having to endure Stuart’s rancour again was tempered with a sense of guilt at her own callousness, and that life was just a case of working your way through a list of bad news.

  She stood and leaned against the crumbling wall but her head banged, her neck ached, and her knees clicked. And now she was freezing; the sweat inside her plastic suit and nitrile gloves had cooled and soaked into her clothes, and every time she moved it was like lying down in a puddle.

  It was nine-forty. She had been unconscious for almost three hours, and it felt like it. Trembling, she looked around for the torch, but remembered it had been down in the cellar and turned on. “Flat by now.”

  The camera! Shit, no, please don’t let that have been stolen, I have all the evidence in there, and there was also the money from above the doorframe. She felt around the floor, kicked the camera bag, opened the zip, felt the bulge of the camera and the tamper-proof bag with the roll of cash inside it.

  And then she checked around for the paintings she had propped against the wall. Only two left. Fourteen stolen? Fifteen? “Bastards!”

  Ros found the van keys, slung the camera bag over her shoulder and then screamed as though she’d been shot.

  “Hello.”

  Ros fell backwards as the youth opened the metal door.

  “Yo, don’t worry. Everything’s cool, sis.”

  63

  Thursday 25th June

  – One –

  “How do you feel?”

  Eddie peered through the windscreen at the front of the bungalow and the big white car on the drive. He could see a six-foot wire fence at both sides of the property disappearing towards the back before the shrubs and trees blocked his view. “How do we get inside?”

  “Don’t know.” Mick’s tone was flat, lacking conviction now they’d travelled all the way out here to Alwoodley.

  Great, Eddie thought. “You know you don’t have to take part. I’d never ask you to do…”

  Mick stared at him. “I know that, you think I don’t know that. Well, I do, okay. But I want to hear from you what you’re going to do once you get in there.”

  “Depends if he’s home.”

  “His car’s on the drive, let’s assume he’s home. What are you going to do?”

  There was silence for a long time. The second hand on the dashboard clock was the only noise, and Mick moving in his seat. Then Eddie farted. Mick opened Eddie’s window and turned on the fan.

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “Ah, you noticed.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Thought the fart would do.”

  “Alas, no. Do try again.”

  “I want to ask him questions–”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “You wanted me to answer you, so shut up while I try and deliver.”

  “Carry on.”

  “I want to know what it felt like to run down another human being. I mean, I’ve hit a small dog before and it made me shake like hell afterwards, you know, the shock?”

  “What happened?”

  “What? I took it to a vet. Broken legs and fractured pelvis.”

  “Did it live?”

  Eddie breathed loudly. “Does it matter, I’m trying to make a point here and you’re asking about the fucking dog!”

  “Sorry!”

  “It lived! It still lives on a farm in North Yorkshire, it’s called Rex, it has a pension and its very own kennel. He’s old now, and he’s deaf in one ear, but he lives life to the full. Every Christmas both of his sons bring presents like socks and miniature bottles of whisky. His master shares the traditional drumstick and sage and onion stuffing. He can’t chase the cat around the Christmas tree anymore because of an ingrowing hangnail, but at least they have fun–”

  Mick slammed the car door, and Eddie did likewise, following Mick at a slower pace, but one he could maintain without falling over sideways. “Wait,” he called. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to take the piss.”

  “What?”

  “Okay I meant to take the piss, you were annoying me–”

  “Why’re you going in there?”

  “I want to know how–”

  “Why are you going in there?”

  “I want to know why–”

  “Why the fuck are you going in there!”

  “I want to kill him!”

  They stared at each other, panting.

  Even from here, they could hear the second hand in the car ticking. Nothing moved in this affluent neighbourhood.

  “That’s all I wanted to know.” Mick took a long blink.

  Eddie swallowed. “So now you do. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t feel the urge to…”

  Mick put his hands in his trouser pockets. “I’m not going to the police. And frankly, I’m more than a little pissed off at you for thinking that of me.”

  Eddie’s eyes hit the pavement.

  “But I understand you asking. I would have asked it too.”

  “You don’t have to take part, Mick.”

  “But I’m allowed to if I want?”

  Eddie nodded, “Of course. I must admit though, I’m not prepared for it.”

  “Obviously. If you were, you’d have gloves and those white suits and whatever else.”

  “But I’ll be asking him first; I really do have questions for him.”

  “Just a warning, Eddie, don’t try to make him feel guilty by telling him Sammy’s past, or what he was doing that day, or how well he was doing in school. It won’t work on him. He has no emotion. All it’ll do is make him angry.”

  “Good. I’d like him to be angry.”

  They went back to the car and pulled the carpet mats up out of the front footwells, locked the doors and walked around the block, away from Henry Deacon’s bungalow, coming around the back of the property and through the trees and bushes of a dark woodland nearly fifteen minutes later. The lights were on but they saw no shadows against the curtains. It looked good as far as not being detected was concerned.

  He had thought of this moment maybe twice an hour every hour of every day of every week since the day his life changed. And that was a lot of thoughts. And in most of them, he was killing the driver. Be it a street kid with no future or a doctor who worked diligently in an accident and emergency unit, he would kill the driver with anything to hand or with anything his imagination told him to bring – from a hairbrush to a vacuum cleaner, from a kitchen knife to a chainsaw.

  He’d put doctors and junkies in the driver’s seat, but never a politician’s son. A very important politician’s son too. There was something justifiable in a poetic if not ironic sense, in letting the public have him. They would kill him through the courts. “Do you think the courts would kill him if we handed over the evidence?”

  “Seems as though you don’t have too much evidence left to hand over since your office burned down.”

  “Yeah we do. Anyway, we still have the car; we could always try examining it again if the upload failed.”

  “You’re more naïve than I took you for. He is Deacon’s boy; he belongs under Daddy’s wing. And there he shall remain until Sir George decides otherwise. There is no way Henry will face a Ho
me Office bullet. Sir George would not allow it. Think of the shame.”

  “Then let’s not kill him, Mick. Let’s…”

  “You want to kidnap him now? What?”

  “I just–”

  “You can’t do it, can you?” Mick’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Just wait till you get in there, Eddie. Wait till you see the arrogant twat, and then decide whether you can do it or not.”

  “I thought it would do more harm to let justice run its course.”

  Mick shrugged. “I say again, there will be no Home Office bullet.”

  It was Eddie’s turn to stare. “I thought you had it all rigged up? Henry’s walking the tightrope, and Deacon is below chewing his fingernails down to the elbows.”

  “It’s rigged up ready to hit the presses. But once Sir George gets a whiff of the story, he’ll try to suppress it, and then he’ll try to discredit those of us who would broadcast it.”

  “And if he can’t–”

  “I shudder to think.” Mick lit a cigarette, exhaled so that a cloud of smoke rose from the bank. “But it’s up to you. Your call.”

  Eddie was torn between ripping the bastard’s head off, because revenge was a wonderful therapy and he could say to the NY cap that he had done what he’d promised to do, and letting Henry suffer in jail until he died of old age. He gave Mick the nod. Mick flicked the cigarette up the bank and into the darkness of the low shrubs. “Sure?”

  “Let’s go.”

  – Two –

  There were five of them. They all crammed into the tiny kitchen to see what was so interesting. Ros backed away as far as she could, pulling the camera bag close to her chest, and noted how badly she was shaking. All it needed was for one of them to be especially high, especially bored or especially randy, and just a little brave, and within thirty minutes she’d be a changed woman.

  “What do you want?”

  The leader stepped forward; his dirty woollen hat displayed the Nike tick. He smelled her perfume and smiled. “Don’t want owt,” he said. “We saw your lot leave, but you was still here. Having plod around is bad for business. Word gets around, see?”