Coffin Dodgers

by William Stafford

  He snatched up his phone. Pattimore’s number was on speed dial but Brough hesitated. What can I say? I don’t want to come across as a bitter old nag; Jason wouldn’t respond kindly to that. I’ll just say hello. I’ll ask if he’s having a good night. I won’t ask when he’s coming home - Oh, this is a fucking minefield!

  His thumb pressed ‘1’ and the phone dialled Pattimore’s number. The connection went directly to voice mail.

  He’s switched his phone off, Brough was frustrated. How the hell can I effect a reconciliation if he’s switched his fucking phone off?

  Brough sprang to his feet. He shoved the suitcases under the bed with his shin.

  Just going for a walk, an innocent little stroll because I can’t sleep. That’s all.

  And if my steps take me anywhere the Oddfellows Arms - well...

  ***

  Pattimore woke up in confusion and alarm to find someone right behind him pulling and pushing. He didn’t need to hear many of the swearwords to identify the other person as D I Stevens.

  “Benny, fucking hell; keep still, man!”

  The pulling and pushing ceased.

  “Is that you, Jase?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Jase. Now just keep still a bit so I can work out what’s going on.”

  They were in darkness - that was easy to see, but it was about the only thing that was. They were on a floor of damp brickwork and there was an odour of mildew - underneath Stevens’s sweat, that is.

  “We appear to be tied up,” Pattimore said. “Together.”

  Stevens gasped. “Now, now; I ain’t into no kinky shit. You’m a good-looking lad but that’s as far as my appreciation goes.”

  “You twat,” said Pattimore. “This isn’t my doing. Do you really think I arranged to have you drugged and tied up -tied to me, back-to-back, so I could have my wicked way with you?”

  “You might have done,” Stevens pouted. “Can’t be tr -” He broke off but Pattimore knew what he’d been about to say.

  “Can’t be trusted? Who can’t be trusted? Me, or gays in general?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you were going to.”

  “Was not!”

  “You fucking were. If I had a hand free, you’d be feeling the back of it.”

  “Just keep still,” Stevens grumbled. “It’s bad enough we’m tied together without you wriggling about.”

  “Turning you on, is it?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Is that what you think we do? Detective Inspector Brough and me? Rub shoulder blades together?”

  Stevens shuddered at the thought of it. “I don’t want to know; I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Come off it.”

  “Don’t you think we should be thinking about something else? Like who the fuck put us here and how the fuck we’m going to get out.”

  Pattimore had to concede that would be a better use of their time.

  “Where am we?” Stevens tried to peer through the shadows.

  “The cellar, I think,” said Pattimore. “Of the pub.”

  “Oh,” said Stevens. “So, do you think it was that sneaky bar steward that put us in here?”

  “He’s the prime suspect, yes.”

  “But how? How the fuck did he manage it? He’s only a little chap and his hands hang off his wrists like wind chimes.”

  “And you’re a big, butch bastard, of course.”

  “Cheers, yeah, and you’m not exactly made of tissue paper yourself.”

  “It was the drinks,” said Pattimore.

  “What was?”

  “He brought us drinks in, didn’t he? In your dressing room, didn’t he? He must have spiked them.”

  Stevens thought about it. “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  “So...” Pattimore nudged Stevens in the kidney. “Does this mean you’re still wearing your stripper outfit?”

  “Shut up.”

  “You are! Oh, I wish I could see.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “This is hilarious!”

  “And it’s not a stripper outfit. I am a drag artiste. Or I mean I was undercover as one.”

  Pattimore threw back his head - as far as he could - and laughed. Stevens squirmed.

  “So pleased you’re enjoying yourselves, gentlemen,” said Dickon, stepping out of the darkness, bringing a patch of torchlight with him. “It seems we have a surprise addition to the bill.”

  He thrust someone before him, casting him to the floor. Stevens and Pattimore tried to lean out of the way.

  The man was unconscious. Dickon let his torch play on the slack features of his latest acquisition.

  “Gentlemen, meet Ronald. I found him snooping around outside. Isn’t it annoying when a man sticks his nose where you don’t want it? Ronald, these nice policemen will look after you while I get everything ready.”

  “Get what ready?” said Pattimore, struggling to keep an even tone in his voice.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Dickon smiled but his eyes were as dead, like a shark’s. He left them. Stevens and Pattimore looked over a shoulder each at the prone figure beside them.

  “Who the fuck is Ronald?” said Stevens. “What does that Dickhead want with him?”

  “I think we’m about to find out,” said Pattimore. “And I don’t think we’re going to like it.”

  ***

  The Oddfellows Arms was dark. Too late for the party, Brough mused, considering it an appropriate title for a rather self-pitying autobiography. The car park was empty too - apart from a solitary vehicle Brough recognised immediately as Stevens’s battered old Ford Capri.

  He assumed Stevens had drunk too much to be able to drive home. He’d probably had a skinful before going on to do his act. Brough regretted not being there to witness what was surely a once-in-a-lifetime event. The chances of an encore must be non-existent.

  There were no lights on in the flat above the restaurant on the first floor. Brough checked his wristwatch. It seemed unlikely that the bar manager would have gone directly to bed after a big night - it seemed peculiar that the big night was already over.

  Brough rubbed his chin but caught himself mid-gesture. It was something his old man would do. And Brough wasn’t ready to turn into his old man just yet. Well, not ever!

  He tried to peer into the ground floor but those windows that weren’t curtained were glazed with opaque panes.

  He did a tour of the exterior. The low growl of an animal of some kind in the zoo beyond the car park startled him. He hadn’t set foot in the zoo since all that business with the grey lady and he doubted he would again. There were too many memories that Brough would prefer to keep caged up.

  Distracted, Brough tripped over the cellar doors, landing with a thud and grazing his hand on the brand new padlock.

  Shit!

  He picked himself up and sucked at the injured heel of his hand. Just what I need: more physical injury. He took out his phone. His thumb hovered over the ‘1’ but Brough decided against speed-dialling Pattimore - who was probably holed up with some sleaze ball he’d got attached to in the pub. If he is, it’s all the more reason to leave him, thought Brough.

  Instead he scrolled through his list of contacts, going past Miller (who was also ‘2’ on speed dial) and stopping at a listing called ‘That Wanker Stevens’.

  There was no answer. Stevens was probably zonked out from drink with a half-eaten pizza and some spunk-encrusted tissues on his chest. Brough disconnected and carried on scrolling.

  Wheeler?

  She’d probably reach out across the ether and bite his head off for disturbing her beauty sleep.

  Or would she?

  The new improved version would probably thank him for thin
king of her. Nothing was too much trouble for the new improved Chief Inspector Wheeler.

  Brough was sorely tempted. He decided he hadn’t got enough to go on to disturb the Chief.

  But the pub is the centre of our investigation.

  Yes, but there’s no one here...

  All the more reason to get in and have a nose around...

  I like the way you think, Brough commended himself. Now, how am I going to get in...?

  Let your thumb do the walking...

  Brough scrolled up and down his contact list.

  When he had first arrived in Dedley three years ago and had wandered into the town’s foremost (and only) gay pub, the bar man had offered to show him around. The twinkle in his eye had suggested there was more on offer than a sight-seeing tour. He had pressed his phone number onto Brough and insisted he enter it into his phone memory right there and then. Brough had never called it. Alastair had come along and then there was Pattimore... Brough had always detected a touch of sadness behind the bar man’s customer service smile and felt more than a little guilty about calling him now.

  But this is sort of official business, he told himself.

  His thumb pressed ‘call’ and across town Luigi’s phone began to ring.

  ***

  Dickon wheeled in a trolley he’d requisitioned from the upstairs restaurant. It rattled and clattered with its load. Pattimore strained to see but Stevens had the better view.

  “Fuck me,” he breathed.

  “What is it?” Pattimore urged.

  “I think we’m in for a party,” said Stevens.

  “Silence!” said Dickon. “You’re not invited to this particular party, twat neck. You just sit there and enjoy the demonstration.”

  He switched on a table lamp, also borrowed from the restaurant.

  “Fuck me,” Stevens repeated, albeit in a hushed voice.

  “What?” said Pattimore.

  “Mate,” said Stevens in a whisper, “You do not want to know.”

  “I bloody do,” said Pattimore, “That’s why I asked.”

  “Oi!” Dickon snapped. “I thought I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  He struggled to lift the unconscious Ronnie Flavell onto a crate. The table lamp sidelit the Environmental Health officer’s features dramatically. Dickon adjusted the lampshade for optimal artistic effect. He tipped Ronnie’s head back and inserted the narrow stem of a funnel between his teeth.

  “What’s he doing?” Pattimore dug his elbow into Stevens.

  “He’s - he’s stuck a funnel in his gob. Not his own gob; the other bloke’s gob. What did he call him? Donald?”

  “Ronald,” Pattimore corrected. “Now what?”

  “He’s taking the top off. Off of a bottle, I mean. Both men have still got their tops on.”

  “Beer bottle or what?”

  “Looks more like whatsit - detergent or bleach or something. Kind of thing your pour under your rim. Bog rim, that is. Oh! Oh, shit!”

  “What?”

  “He’s pouring the bog cleaner into the funnel.”

  “No!”

  “He bloody is! He’s holding the poor bastard’s head back with one hand and just pouring it in with the other.”

  “And the man...”

  “He’s just sitting there. Not even gagging. Fucking hell.”

  Pattimore heard the plastic bottle bounce on the cellar floor. Dickon must have emptied it.

  “Shit me,” he said. “Now what?”

  “He’s got a hammer - No, not a hammer, a whadyacallit? Like a hammer but different.”

  “Um... a mallet?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps that’s what you call it.”

  “Never mind what it’s called; what the fuck’s he doing with it?”

  “He’s got the mallet - for want of a better word - in one hand and in the other, he’s got a - a - a -”

  “Use nouns, for fuck’s sake.”

  “A tap. You know: the kind you have on a thingy - a keg.”

  “Spigot?”

  “Yes! He’s got the whatsit - mallet - in one hand and a fucking spigot in the other - Oh!... oh, shit the bed!”

  “What?”

  “He’s put the pointy end of the wossname - the spigot - against the bloke’s neck and he’s - fuck me!”

  Stevens’s commentary broke off but Pattimore could hear for himself the clinking sounds of the round-ended mallet striking the spigot, driving it into the unfortunate Ronald Flavell’s throat.

  Dickon took a step back to admire his handiwork. He seemed more than satisfied.

  “Now what’s he doing?”

  “He’s just sitting there with a fucking tap in his neck.”

  “Not him! The maniac!”

  “He’s got a wine glass. He’s holding it under the whoozit - the nozzle - he’s turning the tap. He’s only fucking filling the glass.”

  “Shit me,” breathed Pattimore. The detectives listened in horror to the sound of the glass filling with Ronnie Flavell’s blood. Dickon turned off the tap.

  “Don’t tell me he’s going to fucking drink it!” Pattimore screwed his eyes shut.

  “Of course I’m not going to fucking drink it!” roared Dickon. “What do you fucking take me for?”

  He hurled the glass of blood at them. It struck the wall above their heads and shattered. Glass and blood landed on them. Stevens half-grunted, half-swore.

  “Ice and a slice, gentlemen?” Dickon grinned hideously, like the Beast from Customer Services.

  “What’s he doing, what’s he doing, what’s he doing?” Pattimore, frustrated by his restricted view, was beginning to panic.

  “He’s got some - oh, what’s the word? Pincers? No, not pincers. Clampy things; you use them for getting things out of the doobrie. Ice! You use them for getting ice out of the ice bucket!”

  “Tongs?”

  “That’s the fuckers.”

  “And what’s he doing with them?”

  Stevens fell silent for a moment. He was transfixed, unable to tear his gaze away; horrified, disgusted and fascinated all at the same time.

  “Benny!” Pattimore prompted.

  “Oh, Jase!” Stevens sounded like he too had something in his throat. “It’s fucking sick, man.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s only been and gone and scooped out the poor bastard’s eyes with the fucking ice tongs.”

  Pattimore shuddered.

  “And now -” Stevens sounded like he was trying not to be sick, “He’s put the eyeballs on a board - a chopping board -and he’s got a knife and he’s - oh, fuck! He’s slicing them up like fucking lemons!”

  Stevens vomited on his PVC skirt.

  Pattimore held his breath lest the stench of his colleague’s vomit make him throw up as well.

  Dickon picked up a bar towel and wiped his hands. He tossed the towel in Stevens’s lap. Stevens whimpered.

  “Thank you for the running commentary,” the madman beamed at the detective. He wheeled the trolley away. “I’ll leave you three to get better acquainted.”

  Whistling, Dickon went out, leaving darkness in his wake. The detectives heard the door close and the key turn.

  Pattimore wriggled in his bonds. “What did he mean, he’ll leave us three to get better acquainted?”

  “Fuck me,” Stevens gasped. Clumps of vomit clung to his moustache.

  “What, Benny? What is it?”

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit -oh- shit - oh shit!”

  “What is it, Benny?” Pattimore’s voice rose to a scream.

  “Christ,” said Stevens.

  The mutilated body of Ronnie Flavell stood up and took a lumbering step towards them.

 
; 11.

  Dickon pushed his trolley to the next compartment of the cellar. Originally there had been only two sections: this one - the wine cellar - and the larger one where the barrels and beer pumps lived. Recent times had seen a restructuring. The larger area was subdivided into three thanks to the erection of some judiciously placed brick partition walls. As Dickon unlocked the compartment in which Keith was imprisoned, he found he had an erection of a more personal and fleshy nature.

  He giggled. He should fuck Keith right in his lop-sided mouth - after knocking all the teeth out, of course, otherwise Keith would probably bite.

  “Yoo-hoo, Keith!” Dickon sang. “Would you like something off the trolley?”

  He threw back his head. His open-throated screeches rebounded off the curves of the ceiling. Keith, more alert than he had ever been in his life, spat on the floor.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled. “Why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to you?”

  “Questions, questions,” Dickon trilled. “I’m amazed you have the gall to ask any of them. Who am I, indeed! What have I ever done to you? Honestly, Keith. Don’t give me that shit.”

  “Who are you? Please!”

  “Oh, Keith,” Dickon held his torch under his own chin. “No? Still none the wiser? I suppose that Californian surgeon did a better job on me than the butcher who botched your face back together.”

  “What?” Keith’s twisted lips curled but his mind was galloping. Who was this madman? Surely all this was a case of mistaken identity. Yes! That was worth a try. “You’ve - I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong man.”

  “Oh, no,” said Dickon, with an eerie, lit-from-underneath grin. “You’re exactly the right one.”

  He shut the door and trundled his trolley closer.

  ***

  “Is it still moving?” Pattimore’s voice trembled.

  “Not any more. Not at the minute,” said Stevens. He tried to give the fallen form of Ronnie Flavell a kick. The Environmental Health officer had stumbled blindly towards the detective and had fallen over them, bashing his head on the wall and collapsing in a heap like so much discarded washing. “That Dickhead should have left him one of his eyes in, to see where he was going.”

  “And then he would have found us and throttled us, you fuckwit. Now, let’s try to think of how we’m going to get out of here.”