by T. J. Lebbon
‘So what did you do?’
‘Left the park, tried to phone you, rang Mum and then came to the coffee shop. Do you think she knows the man in the Jeep?’
‘What man? What Jeep?’
‘Oh, hang on, Mum hasn’t …’ She trailed off and Dom was left with a quiet phone, more rustling in the background, distant voices.
‘Emma? Daisy?’ His voice was raised, almost shouting, and the car’s interior suddenly felt claustrophobic. When he drew in the humid air was it was devoid of oxygen. Throwing the door open, he almost fell out onto the road. The tarmac was hot and sticky. The air was so still that even the birds seemed too lethargic to sing. The landscape held its breath, and through the phone jammed against his ear he heard only the background sounds.
‘Emma!’ he shouted again, and then she was there.
‘Some guy in a Jeep. I think he’s been following me.’
Dom closed his eyes. The Loony Tunes had been in a van and a BMW, not a Jeep. The crashed BMW had been found, but not the van. And they were proper criminals, armed and dangerous, so of course they wouldn’t use their own vehicles to do the robbery.
They weren’t that fucking stupid.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, just rattled. I’ll take Daisy home and—’
‘Okay, I’ll meet you there. Be half an hour. Get me a cappuccino take-out?’ He struggled to sound calm.
‘Dom?’ In only his name she asked a hundred questions. They knew each other so well. What do you know, what’s happening, who is he, why haven’t you asked more?
‘Have you called the police?’ he asked, and even the word police felt laden with despair.
‘No. No, he didn’t actually … Do you think I should?’
Yes, he thought. ‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘What’s happening?’ Emma asked, but it was more an instruction than a question. Tell me what the fuck is going on!
‘Might be some guy to do with work.’
‘What guy?’
‘He owes me money and I threatened to take him to small claims.’ The words rolled easily from his tongue, and once they started the lies forming behind them pushed them out with ease. It felt bad lying to Emma. But far better than telling the dreadful truth.
‘You didn’t tell me about this.’
‘It’s only a couple of grand. What did he look like?’
‘Lots of hair, big beard. Weird eyes, just staring.’
‘Yeah, that’s him. Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Grumpy old farmer.’
‘Scared the hell out of me,’ Emma said, and in the deserted lane, Dom leaned against the van and closed his eyes. He wanted to tell everything, but nothing could make things well. ‘So what about the woman and Daisy?’
‘Some random nutter,’ Dom said. ‘Few homeless people been sleeping in that park, apparently.’
‘Just because they’re homeless doesn’t mean they’re nutters,’ Emma said.
‘You know what I mean. We won’t let her into town on her own again.’
‘We can’t say—’
‘Just for now,’ Dom said.
‘Okay. I’ll see you at home.’ He knew her tone of voice. She wanted him to come and tell them exactly what was going on.
And he had half an hour in which to find out.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll call him now and sort this out. Love you.’
‘You too,’ his wife said, distracted. He often told her that when they went to bed, but rarely on the phone.
Dom hung up before she could say any more. He stared at the phone. It couldn’t be a coincidence. His daughter, his wife …
What the hell had he done?
He wanted to shout and rage at himself, take everything back. Travel back to that drink and cake outside the Blue Door and tell Andy he was stupid, that doing a post office over was the most ludicrous idea ever. Move on from there, cycle home, hug his wife and continue their comfortable, boring life. Sometimes she signed up for something mad, like a parachute jump or a forty-mile hike across the Mendips. Sometimes she sighed when he said no to doing those things with her.
He didn’t want to do one thing every day that scared him. He wanted his wife and daughter safe, not being followed and spooked. He wanted to feel secretly, quietly, jealous of Andy when he went on one of his foreign adventure trips, or got laid, or when they showered together after squash and Dom saw his friend’s fitter body, fuller head of hair. He wanted that jealousy because it meant he was comfortable and safe.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he muttered, drawing his left hand across his face. He was slick with sweat.
He dialled Andy again, and after three rings he picked up.
‘Andy,’ he said. ‘Emma and Daisy have been threatened.’
Andy was quiet. Dom could hear his friend breathing, hear the sounds of traffic. He must have been driving again, hands-free.
‘What have you told them, Dom?’ he asked at last.
‘Nothing! Are you crazy?’
‘Who threatened them?’
‘A woman intimidated Daisy in the park. A guy in a Jeep followed Emma. Lots of hair, big beard.’
‘What did they say?’
‘The woman called Daisy a soft bitch.’
‘So they weren’t threatened.’
‘They were followed! Daisy’s not quite eleven, Andy. She was scared half to death!’
Andy’s silence again. Dom wanted to reach through the phone line and grab him, shake him.
‘Andy, we’ve got to go to the police.’
‘No,’ Andy said. ‘Your place. I’ll meet you there. I’ll be there before you. And when you get there, I do the talking. Got it?’
‘Is it them?’
‘You pissed off anyone else lately?’
‘Andy, they’re murderers!’
‘I know them.’
‘What do you mean, you know them?’
‘Their type. I know their type. We don’t want to fuck around here, Dom.’
‘How do you know their type?’
‘No police. Just be as quick as you can.’ Andy rang off. Dom tried to call him again, but it went straight to voicemail.
‘Shit!’
A motor sounded in the distance, coming closer. A car appeared around a bend in the lane, and Dom tensed, wondering who he would see and what they would threaten him with. It was an elderly couple. The man sat in the passenger seat, a small dog in his lap. They both looked at him, and Dom tried on a smile. Neither of them smiled back.
As the car passed he slumped into the van, tried Andy one more time, then placed the phone on the seat beside him. He stared at it. 999, that’s all it would take, three easy numbers and a few sentences of explanation. And then his whole life, and that of his family, would be forever changed.
Ruined.
Emma and Daisy would be ostracised in the village. Daisy would have to move school and lose her friends, in the year before her important change to comprehensive school. Emma would lose her job, because they couldn’t have the wife of an armed robber working with vulnerable teens. He’d go to prison.
Prison. A place for criminals, not for him. And with that idea came their reason one more time, the factor that had persuaded both him and Andy that they could do this and get away with it: no one would ever suspect them.
I know their type, Andy had said. The realisation that Dom had never truly known his friend pressed in hard.
His thoughts tumbled over each other. He tried to take in a calming breath, but the hot air was stifling and he couldn’t think straight. Too much had happened too quickly. It was like a dream, something that made perfect sense when asleep but which was chaotic and surreal in real life. Perhaps he’d already thrown his real life away.
Dom picked up the phone and dialled two 9s before dropping it again. Half an hour home. After that, everything could be resolved.
He drove the van faster than he should, the phone nestled between his thighs and turned up high. It remained silent all the way
home.
Chapter Ten
Attenshun
Written in blood, the message said, Now we have your attenshun.
Daisy struggled to go to Jazz. She tugged and pulled, trying to break free of her mother’s grasp. But Emma had protected this girl since before she was born, and her first instinct now was to hug her tight, smother her with her arms and love, and keep her away from whatever danger had befallen them.
This was more than just a dispute over an electrical contract and a bit of owed money. Dom must think she was stupid.
‘Jazz,’ Daisy said, her voice sharp with shock and broken with tears.
Their dog was dead. She’d been stabbed many times, and her bloodied hulk was prone on their large patio. Flies buzzed. That offended Emma more than the open meat of her, the gashed flesh, the clotted fur and pale pink of bloodied bone showing through here and there.
Emma moved, disturbing the flies. They took off in a haze, some of them spiralling away, others landing on the bloody words painted across their white rendered wall between back door and dining room patio doors. The writer had cut off Jazz’s tail to use as a brush.
Now we have your attenshun.
‘We stay together,’ Emma said. She eased Daisy around the mess of their dead, beloved pet, trying to shield her daughter’s eyes, failing. Daisy was mature for her age, and strong with it. She wouldn’t want to not see. She’d inherited her mother’s headstrong attitude, and she’d want to witness what had happened to her beloved pet.
They’d bought the dog when Daisy was four years old. Dom had held out for a year or so, fending off her pleading Can we have a puppy? moments with talk of how expensive they were, how they needed a lot of exercise, and what a tie it would be. A four year old didn’t care about these things or understand them, and when Emma’s allegiances on the matter shifted from Dom to Daisy, the decision was effectively made. She’d grown up with dogs in the house, and although all he said was true, the idea had started to appeal to her more and more.
Dom had been the one most smitten when the Labrador puppy had arrived.
‘Oh, Jazz,’ she whispered, voice breaking.
‘Who would do this?’ Daisy asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll kill them.’
‘Now, Daisy, you’ve got to—’
‘I’ll kill them!’ Her voice was louder, and with a twist and a shove she broke free of Emma’s arms. She didn’t go far. Four steps towards the dog’s corpse, she half knelt, then stood and backed away again. There was nothing left to stroke that wasn’t corrupted with blood. No soft fur to bury her face in, no warm muzzle, no living, loving eyes.
Emma glanced at the back door. It had been forced open, the uPVC framing around the handle and lock cracked and crumbled.
Dom had always said that Jazz would be useless as a guard dog, and that if they were burgled she’d lick them into submission. Emma wondered whether the dog had greeted the intruder, jumped around in excitement, and whether the attacker had petted her for a while before using the knife.
The gardens and houses around them were quiet, still. The myriad scents of summer hung on the air – cut grass, rose perfume, washing drying in the sun, the hint of an early barbecue. Their garden was quite secluded, but two neighbours’ houses had windows looking down onto their lawn. They were silent and closed, reflecting sunlight and blue sky.
She looked at the back door again. It was only open an inch or so. Whoever had done this had pulled it closed as they left.
Or pushed it shut when they were inside.
‘Daisy,’ she whispered. ‘Come on.’
Her daughter turned then, looking right at her. The grief was heartbreaking. Daisy didn’t deserve it, Emma thought. She was a great kid, thoughtful and bright, relishing life and empathising with those around her. She lived for today and said she wanted to never have a real job. That annoyed Dom, unsettled him even though she was still so young. Emma thought part of that was fear that Daisy would have the same early experiences her mother had sought.
‘Daisy, with me.’ They backed towards the gate. Emma had her phone in her hand, and as they slipped out onto the driveway she swiped the screen to unlock it.
Daisy screamed.
Emma looked up, panicked.
Andy stood in their front garden, close to the drive gate twenty metres away.
‘Em,’ he said.
‘Someone killed Jazz,’ Daisy said. Andy didn’t look at her. He was staring at Emma, glancing down at the phone in her hand. He shook his head.
‘Em, don’t.’
‘Andy?’
‘Dom’s on his way.’ His eyes flickered to the front door, first floor windows, back again. He swayed gently from foot to foot as if ready to run, seemingly unaware that he was doing it. Through the hedge that separated their front garden from the road, she saw the ghost red shape of Dom’s Ford Focus.
‘You’re driving Dom’s car?’
‘I got the bump fixed for him.’
‘Someone’s stalking us,’ Emma said. ‘They killed our dog, Andy. I’m calling the police.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not unless you want Dom to go to prison.’
‘Prison?’
‘Mum?’ Daisy asked.
A car drove along the street, not slowing. Emma saw it pass by the end of their driveway, recognised it. Their friends Gill and Steve. Their families sometimes walked together, out into the countryside to a local pub. Once, it had started raining as they walked, and they’d all sheltered in a fisherman’s hut until the summer storm blew over. Normal suddenly felt so far away, and she suddenly wanted to talk to them.
Not to Andy. Andy was frightening her.
‘You’d better explain,’ she said.
‘Not here, and not now.’
‘Andy, we can’t leave Jazz,’ Daisy said. ‘Not like that.’ Her voice was brittle, quiet.
‘We need to go—’
‘This is my home!’ Emma snapped.
‘I know, Em,’ Andy said. ‘And what happened to Jazz?’ Those bloody images were burned into Emma’s mind, and Andy must have seen them as her expression started to crumple. His voice softened. ‘Come with me. We’ll wait for Dom, then go somewhere—’
‘Safe?’ Daisy asked.
‘Safe.’ He nodded.
Emma made her decision. But as she locked her phone and took her first step towards Andy, she saw in his eyes that safe didn’t really exist.
Chapter Eleven
Carry On
Dom met them in the car park beside the hall where Daisy went to Scouts on a Monday. Andy had called him and arranged the meeting location, told him he had Emma and Daisy and that their dog had been killed. The hall was hidden from the road and not easy to find, unless you knew where it was. Dom knew that was why Andy had chosen it. That scared him.
What frightened him more was the fear on his family’s faces as he parked the van. They were sitting on a bench in the shade of an old oak tree, at the edge of the park bordering the hall and car park. Daisy was huddled into Emma, sobbing and frightened, head resting on her shoulder. Emma was scared, too. But she was also angry.
Dom looked into his lap and fumbled with his keys before leaving the van, giving himself a few seconds to gather himself. Has he told them already? he wondered. Andy was standing beside his wife and daughter, a protective pose that flushed Dom with a cool fury. He should have been there.
But the feeling quickly subsided. As he approached them across the dusty car park, he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything had changed forever.
There was a children’s playground directly beside the scout hall, deserted right now. A larger grassed area, shadowed with trees and a few areas of shrubs, provided shelter for a few parents with pushchairs. Toddlers toddled. A big dog sun-bathed, panting. No one was looking their way.
‘Someone killed Jazz,’ Emma said as Dom entered the tree’s shadow.
‘Andy told me.’
‘So who killed him?’
she asked. ‘Who would do that? And who’s that spooky bastard following me?’
‘I …’ Don’t know, he was going to say, but the rage in his wife’s eyes told him that would be nowhere near enough. He looked at Andy, raised his eyebrows, wished they’d talked about what had already been said.
‘Andy said you’re going to prison,’ Daisy said. She stood and came to Dom, hugged him. He was so glad. He looked at Emma over Daisy’s head and wished that she’d hug him too. But everything was on pause until the truth was out. Her life, their lives, everything they knew and loved and took for granted. She seemed aware of that already, and seeing the knowledge in her eyes made him so ashamed.
‘What have you done?’ she asked, looking from Dom to Andy, back again. ‘And don’t tell me this is just some farmer who doesn’t want to pay his bill.’
‘It’s complicated,’ Andy said.
‘So explain it to me in a nice simple way that I can understand.’
They sat on the park table and bench, Andy and Dom on one side, Emma and Daisy on the other. Dom’s heart was thudding so hard he thought it might burst. He tried to breathe slowly, tried to calm himself, afraid that the palpitations would come again and never stop. He worried about that sometimes. He wasn’t looking after himself quite as well as he should be, and something Emma had said a few years ago often hit home. I want to be able to play with my grandchildren. It had been one evening after she’d returned from a hard trail run along their local riverside, scratched by brambles, caked in mud up to her knees. He’d laughed and asked why she did that to herself. Her reply had been half-amused, but it had also carried a weight of admonishment, because she wanted him to play with their grandchildren, too.
He was trying. But he was also working hard to provide for their future in other ways.
‘It was my fault,’ Andy said. ‘All mine. He was giving me a lift before work. I’d driven out to the White Hart for a drink with Claudette on Sunday evening, had a bit too much and got a taxi home. I needed my car, so I called Dom and asked him to drop me out there. It was sort of on his way to Monmouth.’
‘Sort of,’ Dom said. Because he had to say something. If he looked too surprised by the lie Andy was constructing, Emma would see right through him.
