The Judas Scar

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘I think I’m going to go to bed,’ she said to Gill, poking her head around the living room door. ‘Is there anything you need before I go up?’

  Gill was stroking the cat, who purred so loudly Harmony could hear it from the doorway. Gill glanced up and gave a brief smile. ‘No, thank you, I’ve got everything I need right here.’

  At eleven-thirty her phone beeped a text. She grabbed at it. It was Luke.

  Is Will back yet? No.

  She wasn’t sure what else to say. She pressed send then stared at her phone until the screensaver gave way to black.

  She lay awake for most of the night, as a confusing mix of feelings and emotions jostled in her head. She wanted to know where Will was. She was terrified he was lying dead or dying with the car wrapped around a lamppost somewhere. She hated how he drove when he was angry, and hearing him screech off like that was hideous.

  She woke with a start as soon as she heard the front door open. She looked at her clock; it was four-thirty.

  ‘Will,’ she breathed. She leapt out of bed and ran to the stairs. He looked tired, deep grey bags beneath his eyes, his skin pale,

  clothes rumpled with smudges of dirt over them. She put her arms around him, one hand against his head, held him close to her chest.

  He pulled away from her and walked back down the stairs. She followed him and closed the kitchen door behind her so they could talk without waking Gill.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  He wasn’t able to look her in the eyes. ‘I drove a bit. Walked a lot.’ He leant heavily against the work surface. ‘I had some thinking to do.’

  ‘And?’ Harmony sat at the table.

  ‘I love you. I don’t think I knew what that really meant until yesterday. All this time I’ve been coasting through life, hiding stuff from you – from myself, even. There was so much I should have told you, but I just hid it, hoped it wouldn’t interfere. It’s been like wearing invisible shackles that held me back, that stopped me being truthful to both of us. I’ve been living a lie. But when I thought about you with another man, when I thought about you leaving me, I saw my world fall apart.’

  ‘I was so angry, but it was wrong of me. Unfair to use my anger as an excuse to betray you like that.’

  ‘My father used to take great joy in telling me how unfair life was. “Life isn’t fair, William,” he used to say. “Life is ugly.” I used to think he was a dick for saying it, but I know what he meant now. Life isn’t fair. I wasn’t fair to you and you weren’t fair to me.’

  ‘Can we get through this?’

  He took hold of her hand. ‘Yes, I think we can.’

  ‘What if he calls again? He hasn’t left me alone, Will. He even went to Sophie’s.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about him anymore. I’m here now.’

  They went upstairs and Will went into the bathroom. Harmony went into the bedroom and grabbed her phone from the bedside table.

  He just got back. Now leave us alone.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X

  Alastair Farrow settled down on the sofa to watch the television. His wife had got up to take the empty plates through to the kitchen, so he grabbed the remote and started to flick through the channels. There was no way he was watching some reality crap about orange-skinned nobodies he’d never heard of. Christ, her taste in television – no, in all things – was appalling. He trawled through until he found a repeat of Have I Got News forYou on Dave and then hid the remote beneath a cushion. He swilled his whisky gently, listening to the ice cubes clink against the glass, and began to laugh loudly along with the show.

  When the phone rang he checked his watch and muttered under his breath. Who the hell could that be? It was nearly ten o’clock. He heard his wife answer with that irritating sing-song phone voice she put on, and a few moments later she came into the room.

  ‘There’s someone on the phone for you,’ she said.

  ‘For me? What do they want? If it’s someone trying to sell something you can tell them to piss off.’

  ‘He isn’t a salesman, he said he wants to talk to you. He said his name is Will English?’

  ‘For crying out loud,’ snapped Alastair. He took a heavy breath and shook his head. ‘What’s wrong with that idiot?’ He drank some whisky and turned back to the television. ‘You can tell him to piss off anyway. I’m not interested in talking to him.’

  ‘He sounded quite insistent.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ shouted Alastair, not taking his eyes off the television. ‘He’s a moron.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t take long.’

  ‘Did he say what he wants?’ Alastair asked irritably.

  ‘No, he just said he needed a few moments and that he’s sorry to disturb us this late.’

  ‘Is that all?’ She nodded.

  Alastair thought for a moment or two, remembering the things Will had said to him in the pub. He didn’t want to hear any of that rubbish again. It was a part of his life he didn’t need to revisit.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to him. It’s late. Go and tell him to write me a letter or something. In fact, no, don’t say that. Tell him to go fuck himself.’ He chuckled quietly at the thought of his wife passing that message on, and then drained his whisky.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell him yourself?’ she suggested. ‘It might be better coming straight from you. He’s got a very nice voice,’ she said, as if this might persuade him.

  He banged his glass down on the side table. ‘Jesus, woman, this is ridiculous! It’s ten o’clock on a Sunday night!’

  ‘You talk to him and I’ll fill your drink. How about that?’ Alastair Farrow stood up and straightened his clothes. ‘I’m not happy about this at all,’ he grumbled as he passed her.

  ‘I know you’re not, dearest.’ She walked over to the side table and picked up his empty glass.

  ‘Farrow speaking,’ he said as he picked up the phone.

  ‘Listen very carefully. I need to see you. I didn’t say what I wanted to say last time. I lost control and I’m sorry about that.You’re going to tell your wife you need to talk to me and then you’re going to get into your car and drive to an address I’m going to give you.’

  ‘Ha!’ Farrow couldn’t help laughing. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Don’t say another word. If you do I will tell your wife what you did at school. I can show her. I have a photo. Of you that afternoon.’

  ‘You don’t have a photograph. You’re lying.’

  ‘I had my camera that day. You threw it into the bushes. You remember that? Well, I went into the bushes and found it. I have a photo. And it’s a good one. I have no qualms about showing your wife, your kids, your boss, I’ll tag it on your bloody Facebook page, do you hear me? All you have to do is give me five minutes of your time then you’ll never hear from me again. I need some … ’ he paused, ‘closure.’

  Closure? Who did this guy think he was? Peddling politically correct American therapist claptrap like that. He was even more of an idiot than he thought.

  ‘You owe me that much.’

  Farrow looked up to see his wife coming out of the kitchen with a glass of whisky in one hand and a large gin and tonic in the other. She handed it to him as she passed. He waited until she was back in the living room before replying. ‘You’re blackmailing me,’ he hissed.

  ‘I am asking that you talk to me and then we can both forget all about it.’

  ‘Where is this bloody place?’ he asked, keeping his voice down.

  ‘Not far. Under an hour.’

  Farrow shook his head. ‘Address?’ he snapped. He tore a piece of paper off the pad by the phone and grabbed the pencil that lay beside it, wrote the address down, then slammed the phone into its cradle and swore. ‘You should never have picked up that bloody call!’ he shouted. ‘It’s some idiot I was at school with. He’s an utter lunatic and now I’ve got to go and talk to him.’

  She ignored him and laughed at something on the television.

>   ‘Did you hear me?’ he yelled.

  She looked up at him. ‘Please don’t wake the children.’ Then she turned back to the television and drank some of her gin.

  ‘I’m going out. Don’t wait up for me.’ She didn’t look away from the television.

  Alastair Farrow knocked his second whisky back in one and then took his car keys off the table in the hall. It was dark outside; not pitch black, but dark. Farrow noted it was past midsummer’s night now so the days would be getting shorter. Great, he thought. Cold, dark commuting to look forward to.

  He looked out over the cul-de-sac they lived on. He hated it. Hated the dull tweeness of it. It was a dead-end street populated with dead-end people and nothing like where he imagined he’d be at forty-three. He thought he’d be in a large pile somewhere, with a couple of staff and an indoor swimming pool. His neighbours to the left were clearly out for the evening, no car in their driveway and all the lights off. Stupid idiots, he thought, why not leave a sign on the door telling all and sundry there’s nobody home? He made a mental note to speak to them about it in the morning. It wasn’t good to encourage attention from burglars in The Close. Burglaries always happened in clusters. Burglars were a lazy bunch.

  He climbed into his company car, which was just about the best bit of his excuse for a life, and clipped his seatbelt. It was a four-year-old BMW and he kept it immaculate. The children weren’t allowed anywhere near it; they and their sticky fingers were only allowed in the rubbish-strewn Galaxy. Just looking at the crisp crumbs, books, plastic toys and accumulated child detritus turned his stomach.

  As he turned on the engine he realised how utterly ludicrous this was. It was a farce. Raking up the past like this was pathetic. Will English was a wimp; he always had been. He’d deal with him quickly, get the photograph, burn it and get on with his life. He pulled the piece of paper out and then tapped the address into his satnav. Fifty-one minutes. If he put his foot down he’d do it in forty. Three minutes with the idiot. Then forty minutes home. He checked the clock on the dash. Nine minutes past ten. He’d be back by half past eleven for a large whisky and bit of internet porn before bed.

  The monotone voice of the satnav told him he was nearly there. He put the indicator on and turned into a small business park. It was dark and set back from the road with a large pair of metal gates open against an overgrown hedge. There were a number of garage-type units. One of them, number three, the number Will English had given him, had its door ajar, throwing a stripe of fluorescent light across the forecourt. He pulled up and turned off the engine. Then he pulled down the visor and checked his appearance. He ran his hands over his head and straightened his shirt collar before getting out of the car.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, his voice echoing off the walls of the prefab building. A police siren sounded over the noise of the traffic on the road outside. He walked towards unit three. ‘Hello?’ he called again.

  ‘English?’

  ‘In here.’

  As soon as he stepped inside he saw it was some sort of photographic studio, with painted breeze-block walls and lights on stands. The door closed behind him with a thud.

  He turned and saw a man with his back to him sliding closed the bolt on the door.

  ‘You’re not Will English.’

  ‘No,’ said the man, well dressed in an expensive suit and a foppish haircut framing his pretty-boy face. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Who the hell are—’

  The man walked over to Farrow and the next thing he knew he’d taken a punch to the stomach. The pain shot around his body. Farrow bent double, too winded to call out. He tried to stand upright, tried to catch his breath, but then there was a blow to his head.

  When he came round he was lying on the floor and the left side of his head throbbed. He tried to get up but found his hands were tied behind his back. Both his wrists and his ankles hurt. He looked down and saw his feet were also tied with a couple of brightly coloured bungee ropes. Where the hooks met they pushed into his skin. His mouth ached and he realised with horror that he’d been gagged. Fear took hold and he began to panic. He kicked his legs in an attempt to free himself, wriggled back and forth. The man who’d locked him in, who’d punched him, and who, Alastair assumed, had tied him up like this, came into his sights. He crouched beside him and stared down at him. His eyes were dark and cold, but his clothes, the way he held himself was at odds with his menacing look; he looked more like a management consultant than a mugger.

  The man grabbed Alastair by his arm, hooking his hand through the crook of his elbow, and yanked him to his feet. He gestured to a chair a few feet from him.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Alastair glared at him and shook his head as he retched at the stench of the rag stuffed in his mouth.

  ‘Sit.’ The man held up a Swiss Army knife, the blade open, glinting a little in the light.

  Farrow didn’t move.

  The man lifted his hand and brought the knife down across Farrow’s face, over the scar that ran down his cheek. The pain was excruciating and Farrow tried to cry out but the sound was muffled by the gag.

  ‘Did that hurt as much as last time?’ hissed the man. ‘Does that turn you on?’ He stepped closer, until his mouth was next to his ear.

  ‘Does that make you want to fuck me now?’

  And then Farrow knew who it was and his legs buckled beneath him.

  Luke Crawford grabbed hold of his shoulders and sat him on the chair. His face stung and he was aware he was bleeding profusely. Crawford spent a few moments tying him to the chair with more bungee cords that he got from a large holdall. He closed his eyes and thought back to that day. That little shit, that skinny runt – Bible Boy, Puke Crawford – humiliating him in front of his friends. He’d seen their faces when he’d looked at them, his face sliced open; they hadn’t known whether to laugh or scream. One of them – Toddy, was it? – had clamped his hand over his face to cover a smirk. Rage had balled inside him as he’d looked back at that crazy boy with his mad eyes and lunatic temper. Standing tall and strong, telling him to leave his friend alone. They’d all had so much fun with him, pressing his buttons, watching him fly off the handle, sending himself straight to the end of Drysdale’s cane. But that cut. The river of blood that had flowed. His face, he knew even then, would be scarred forever, and there he was, that little shit, bony fists clenched at his sides, knife gripped tightly, facing him like David against Goliath. He’d grabbed him, knocked the knife out of his hand and growled words he couldn’t remember. A red mist descended over him. Anger like he’d never felt. The boy needed to be taught a lesson.You didn’t fuck with Alastair Farrow.

  The act itself had been quick. The others watched in a semicircle around them. Silence had fallen over them like a mantle. The only sound he could hear was a soft whimpering from Crawford. He’d hated himself, sickened but at the same time filled with such rage, a rage he couldn’t control. He couldn’t explain it. Now it seemed heinous, toxic, but then his instinct overwhelmed him, this need to dominate, to punish. When he pushed himself away from Crawford, blood from his face covering both of them, the boy had slumped on the ground like a beaten puppy. He watched with contempt as Crawford struggled to pull his trousers up to cover his pale skin that looked ghostly white against the deep browns of the woodland floor. Farrow turned away. He still remembered the revulsion he felt. Still remembered how he had used every piece of strength inside him to muster his bravado. He straightened his shoulders. Faced the others. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure about a hundred feet away. Will English. They locked eyes just before the boy fled. The look on his stricken face, a picture of disgust, shock and reproach, would stay with him forever.

  Crawford finished tying him to the chair and stood up, running his hand through his hair to neaten it.

  ‘I am going to take the gag off your mouth. If you yell or shout, even just one syllable, I will stick this through your throat without a second thought. Do you understand me?’

&nb
sp; Alastair stared at the penknife in his hand and nodded. Luke raised the knife and came closer to him. He held his breath, preparing for the pain that might come. He felt a sawing motion as Luke cut through the tape that held the rag in place, tugging his skin where it stuck to him. Luke pulled the rag from his mouth and Alastair flexed his jaw. He considered calling Luke’s bluff and shouting for help, but there was a look in his captor’s eye that kept him quiet.

  ‘You know,’ Luke said, his voice flat and soft. ‘People who rape children are the lowest of the low.’

  ‘Rape?’ Alastair stuttered. ‘Jesus Christ, I did no such thing. I was teaching you a lesson. Teaching you some respect. That’s how it was done back then. You know that.’

  Luke laughed then, the type of laugh you might hear down the pub with the boys – an unbridled laugh of amusement. He lifted the blade. ‘This is the very same knife I cut you with that day. You left me at the foot of that oak tree, bleeding and sore, violated, alone and petrified. And you know what I did after you’d all gone? I searched for this knife. I stayed there, until it was too dark to see, until I found it. It took a long time. It had travelled some way when you smacked it out of my hand. But it was my friend’s knife, his most beloved possession. It had a message from his father, who wasn’t the nicest of men, but you know how these things are. Will loved that knife and I wanted to find it for him. When I found it, feeling with my hands in the undergrowth, I felt as if I’d won the lottery. In the end, I decided to hang on to it.’

  Luke advanced on Alastair.

  ‘Stay away from me!’ cried Alastair, fear and anger melding into one indistinguishable rush of emotion. ‘Stay away or you’ll pay for it.’

  ‘I’ve already paid for it – every day of my life since that afternoon.’

  ‘You’ll go to prison. If you kill me, you’ll go to prison. Is that what you want?’