Coffin Dodgers

by William Stafford

  “Your bumchum will save us,” said Stevens.

  “You’re unbelievable” Pattimore gasped. “Here we are, tied up in the cellar of a madman and you’re still spouting the homophobic insults.”

  Stevens shrugged as much as his bonds would allow. “It’s only banter, isn’t it? Fuck sake! I’ve got a lot of respect for your - um - er...”

  “My lover? Well, you do a great job of hiding it.”

  Stevens cleared his throat. “I happen to think Detective Inspector Brough is the finest policeman I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Fuck me!”

  “And I would like to be more like him.”

  “So you do want to fuck me?” Pattimore teased.

  “Fuck off,” Stevens corrected. “Seriously, he gets the job done. No one can touch him undercover - and that’s not a reference to the bedroom before you say anything.”

  “Well, you have surprised me; I have to tell you that.” Pattimore was astounded. “Yeah,” he reflected, “he’s a good cop is Davey. Good bloke all round too.”

  “Now, let’s not go overboard,” said Stevens. “Here’s me, undercover and what happens? I make a prize tit of myself and end up captured in a cellar, waiting for some nutter to come back with his trolley of torture.”

  “You weren’t that bad,” said Pattimore. “What I saw was very funny.”

  “Funny?” Stevens was taken aback. “I was going for glamorous. I was going for elegant.”

  Pattimore chuckled but then his mood dropped. “He will be back, won’t he? Him and his trolley.”

  “I’d put money on it. He’s not going to let us go, is he? Two coppers who witnessed what he did to our new mate Ronaldo, is he?”

  “I don’t want to die,” said Pattimore.

  “Nor do I,” said Stevens. “Surprisingly. Not like that, any road.” He nodded at the eyeless Ronnie Flavell, the spigot still protruding from his jugular.

  “What I mean is, I can’t go yet,” said Pattimore. “I have to make things right with Davey.”

  Stevens grunted. “If you’m looking for one last shag, you can forget it. Don’t you go thinking, at last I’ve got Benny on his tod, I can make my move. Don’t even start imagining all this could be yours.”

  “All this and less, you mean,” Pattimore shot back. “No,” he went on, “I’m trying to be serious.”

  “You’re in the right division,” said Stevens. When Pattimore didn’t laugh, Stevens prompted him to speak on.

  “Listen,” said Pattimore.

  “I am doing,” said Stevens.

  “And don’t interrupt! If I tell you something - well, if I get out of here I can tell Davey myself and if I don’t, and you do, well, will you tell him on my behalf?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “Tell him I’m sorry. I - look, you have to explain - if you get out of here and I don’t.” He took a deep breath. “I hit him.”

  “Who?”

  “Davey. More than once. Proper hit him, like.”

  Pattimore could feel Stevens tense up behind him.

  “If this is some excuse to go into all that kinky stuff...”

  “It’s not! Ben, please listen. I have a problem. A real anger problem. I get it from my dad. I always swore I wouldn’t turn out like him. Every night when I’d hear him laying into my mom, I swore to God (I believed in him then, like Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy), I swore I’d never raise my hand in anger against anyone. And especially not someone I was supposed to care about - About whom I am supposed to care; Davey would have picked me up on that.

  “When I got older, I shot up. Not drugs. Height-wise, I mean. And my dad could see me getting taller and he must have decided he’d have to do something and smack me down before it occurred to me to stand up to him. So, he started picking on me. He’d ridicule everything I liked. Oh, why are you watching The Sound of Music, our Jason? Why don’t you like the football? Come here; let me teach you how to box. Let me put some time into you.

  “His little training sessions were just a pretext, an excuse to beat me up. At first it was horseplay, silly stuff like getting me in a headlock and rubbing my scalp with his knuckle. ‘Soldiers’ Cake’ he called it. But before long, he wouldn’t even pretend. He’d grab me when I got in from school and he’d empty my bag all over the floor. And if I had a magazine in there - nothing dirty, just celebrity gossip and boy bands - he’d roll it up and hit me with it until it was in tatters.

  “And then I wanted to be in the school play. Don’t let your dad know, said Mom. She knew what was going on but she was powerless to stop it, of course. Tell him you’ve got football practice, she advised. Well, that worked. For all of five minutes.

  “’What do you want to be in a play for?’ Dad yelled in my face. ‘You some kind of woofter or something?’ A stroke of genius: I suppose I went undercover for the first time in my life - I sort of gave my dad a knowing kind of look. But Dad, I said, all the best-looking wenches am in the play.

  “That flummoxed him. He backed off and started looking at me differently. He didn’t come out and say, That’s my boy, or Give her one from me, son, but you could see it there, bubbling under the surface.

  “I even got myself a girlfriend. Of sorts. Just someone to go over my lines with. It didn’t hurt to bring her home and Dad made all sorts of lewd faces behind her back. Well, I must have been a better actor than I thought, because this girl, this Debbie, took a shine to me. She made it perfectly clear she wanted me to - you know. Well, I could only go along with things up to a point and Debbie got really upset and told everybody at rehearsals that I was a bloody poof. Take no notice, said our leading man - Daniel Higgins - She’s a bloody slag anyway.

  “But it worked. With my dad, I mean. He kept his hands off me for months. Until he came home early one afternoon during half term and caught me and Daniel Higgins racking each other off in my bedroom.”

  Stevens was on tenterhooks. “Then what happened?”

  “Well, he told Daniel - all calm, like - it must have taken superhuman effort - told him to go home and not come around again and then when we were alone, he punched me in the belly. He called me a filthy little queer and a bum boy and a freak and I was no son of his. I thought he was going to kill me and he might have if Mom hadn’t come in. Well,” Pattimore cleared the emotion from his throat, “he put her in the hospital and I went into care.”

  Stevens was sensitive enough to hold his tongue while his colleague sobbed behind him. After a few minutes, he asked what made Pattimore think he’d turned out like his old man.

  “It was at college,” Pattimore resumed, “When I first lost it - my temper, I mean. A stupid training exercise and I was paired up with the slowest, dimmest - No, that’s unfair. But I was running out of patience. And there we were, me and Piggy Halford on this exercise and he pipes up to tell me I’m reading the map wrong and I tell him he’d better shut up or I’d put some time into him - That should have been all the warning signal I needed: my dad’s words spewing out of my mouth like that - but he keeps on at me and I look at the map again and I see that he’s been right all along but I won’t admit it. Instead I kicked the shit out of him for correcting me.

  “Like a twat he said he’d fallen over but somebody else had seen me attack him. And I was almost kicked off the force before I’d even started. If Piggy had corroborated the witness’s account, that would have been me finished.

  “And that’s something else I have to do. If I get out of here. I must find Piggy and thank him and tell him I’m sorry.”

  “And,” said Stevens, not unkindly, “tell him you’re getting help. Anger management and all that bollocks. Well, it probably ain’t bollocks but, you know. And stop all this ‘if I get out of here’ shit. Your David’s going to come to the rescue, ain’t he? And then you can tell him everything you’ve
told me. Instead of giving me earache about it. Fucking hell.”

  As companionable a silence as was possible under the circumstances fell over the detectives. They listened for sounds outside their section of the cellar and Stevens kept a wary eye on the eyeless Ronnie Flavell in case the corpse decided to get up for another promenade.

  12.

  While Pattimore was telling his story, in another part of the cellar, another narrator was spinning a yarn.

  “There was once a little boy,” Dickon began. Keith made an effort to appear attentive; the longer Dickon spoke, the longer Keith could stay alive. “The little boy - in case you’re wondering - was me. I looked different back then - let’s face it: we both did. You frown, Keith? You don’t remember me? Have I really changed that much? Oh, but of course, you knew me by a different name back then, didn’t you, Keith?”

  Keith was still perplexed. He tried to get a better look at the lunatic that was keeping him prisoner. He’d noticed earlier the botox and the telltale stretched look of the facelift, and had attributed them to the vanity or the desire of the ageing homosexual to keep young and beautiful whatever it took. Now Keith tried to see past the cosmetic alterations and imagine the true face of his captor. It was impossible. He couldn’t even hazard a guess at Dickon’s natural hair colour.

  Dickon basked in Keith’s scrutiny, tilting his head this way and that in order to show himself off in the best possible light - even if that light came from his handheld torch.

  “Did a good job, didn’t he? Doctor Flepp, I mean. One of the finest in L. A.”

  He turned his torch beam onto Keith’s zigzag mouth. “Much better than the ham-fisted hack who stitched you up.” He laughed to see Keith flinch and turn his face away, whether it was from the reference to his disfigurement or the sting of the light in his eyes.

  “Who are you?” said Keith. Dickon’s amused look dropped.

  “You’re supposed to have recognised me by now, Keith you fuckwit! You’re supposed to have gone as pale as your scars and be trembling like a baby deer taking a shit. You’re supposed to gasp in horror and say my name.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t have a clue.”

  “Just a minute.” Dickon snatched something from the trolley. It was a craft knife with a hefty handle and a small, slanting blade peeping from a slot. “Maybe this will jog your memory.”

  Keith frowned at the knife.

  “But I don’t know anyone called Stanley,” he said.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Dickon wailed. “Don’t you recognise it? How could you forget? It was this very knife that slashed your stupid chops to ribbons.”

  Keith’s mutilated mouth dropped open. He peered at the blade anew. “But how did you get it?”

  “Bloody hell! It’s my knife, you donkey! It had been all along. Fuck me, the penny’s got a long way to drop.”

  “No!” said Keith.

  “Yes!” said Dickon. “Say my name!”

  “Er...”

  “Say my name, bitch!”

  “It’s on the tip of my tongue...”

  “Say it!”

  “Er - Spittle?”

  “Say my fucking name!”

  “I’m sorry - I honestly don’t remember. What does it begin with?”

  “Give me strength!” Dickon appealed to the low arches of the cellar ceiling. Things weren’t playing out as he had envisaged. The twat Keith wasn’t picking his cues up. He was completely off-script, deviating wildly from the scene Dickon had rehearsed in his head for decades.

  “My name is Dickens,” he said, running an exasperated hand down his face.

  “What? Dickon Dickens? Bad luck!”

  “No, of course it’s not Dickon Dickens, you fucking moron. It’s Kenny. Kenny Dickens.”

  “The country and western singer?”

  “No, not the fucking country and fucking western fucking singer! Oh, you must remember. From school. Little Kenny Dickens. Kenneth. You know! Little Kenny Piss-Pants...”

  “Ah,” said Keith.

  He knew. The penny had finally hit the ground.

  ***

  “It’s closed,” said Luigi, looking at the Oddfellows Arms from the street.

  “I know,” said Brough, trying to be patient. “I wouldn’t have called you over here if it was open. Did you bring your keys?”

  “Yes.” Luigi jangled his heavily-laden key ring a little too close to Brough’s nose. “Are we going inside?”

  “Not we; me,” said Brough. Luigi looked stricken.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Oh what?” said Brough.

  “Well, it’s just that when you rang you said you wanted me to open up for you, so I thought...”

  “What did you think I meant? Emotionally?”

  “No, um, physically.”

  “Jesus Christ. Look, this is police business not some kind of tacky pick-up.”

  “Oh,” said Luigi, brightening a little. It was good to know Brough’s rejection wasn’t personal. Brough held out his hand. Luigi took it.

  “No!” Brough wriggled free. “The keys!”

  Luigi giggled. He handed Brough the bunch. The detective frowned helplessly at the multitude of options. It could take him the rest of the night to find the one that unlocked the front door.

  “Here,” said Luigi, cupping Brough’s hand in his and picking out a key. “This will get you in. Then, if the alarm’s on, you’ll need this little stubby one for the control panel behind the door. Oh, and you’ll need the code too. It’s oh seven eleven. Which just happens to be Dickon’s birthday. It’s his way of making sure we never forget to get him a card and a box of chockies.”

  “Zero, seven, one, one,” Brough repeated. “Got it.” He headed for the door but Luigi called him back.

  “I won’t get in trouble, will I?”

  Brough went back to him. “No, you won’t get into trouble; why would you get into trouble?”

  “Well, I’m no expert,” the bar man nodded at the pub, “but shouldn’t you have a warrant or something?”

  “Um...” said Brough.

  “And backup, at least.”

  “Um... it’s on its way,” said Brough quickly. “My backup is bringing the paperwork. But you’d better go home so they don’t catch you hanging around.”

  “Oh,” said Luigi. “Right. Good luck, David.”

  “Thanks.” Brough watched Luigi walk away and, clutching the necessary key, approached the pub’s main entrance.

  ***

  Jerry was asleep; Miller was lying awake, fretting As far as she was concerned, the morning couldn’t come too soon.

  She was keen to get back to the Environmental Health office and see that bloke - Robbie? Ronnie? - and perhaps recruit him to accompany her on her bogus visit to the Oddfellows Arms. He’d seemed keen - if not to help then on Miller, which was tantamount to the same thing in Miller’s experience.

  She heaved herself out of bed and padded to the bathroom for a drink of water.

  God, I look terrible. She could barely look at herself in the mirror. Like I haven’t been coloured in.

  She gulped the cool water. Lately it was the only thing she could stomach.

  What’s the matter with me?

  She went back to bed, not taking particular care to let Jerry sleep undisturbed. Let him wake up and look after me!

  But the gravedigger was spark out like one of his tenants.

  Alone in the dark, Miller worried about her health, trying to self-diagnose and only succeeding in frightening herself. Everything is scarier in the dark and every fear is amplified. A snort of a snore escaped from her boyfriend. Sound was amplified too, unfortunately.

  What if it’s the big C-word - not the swearword, the other C-word. Which is just a
s taboo as the swearword; you just don’t say it, you don’t talk about it.

  Perhaps it’s an ulcer. Ulcers are treatable, aren’t they? Or are they? How do you treat an ulcer?

  Or - or - perhaps it’s an allergic reaction. Perhaps I ate something and I didn’t know I’m allergic to it. They can test for allergies, can’t they?

  Or - or -

  No.

  It’s cancer. I know it is. Cancer took my dad and now it’s come for me.

  I’m sure of it.

  Having thus convinced herself that she was terminal, Miller brought her conjectures to an end and rolled over onto her side, her back to the snoring gravedigger. Seconds later, she was asleep, drawing a bizarre kind of comfort from the seeming certainty of her demise.

  ***

  Brough let himself into the pub, opening the door just enough to slip through. He used the screen of his smart phone to light his way. He checked the alarm’s control panel behind the door, reciting the code number under his breath. Zero, seven, one, one... Happy birthday, Dickon.

  The alarm wasn’t activated.

  Which means...

  Brough’s mind raced to work out the significance of the alarm being off.

  Which means... there’s someone still here...

  His supposition was entirely correct. The someone who was still there, namely Dickon, snuck up behind the distracted detective, snaking his hand in front of Brough’s face and clamping a drug-impregnated beer towel over his mouth. Brough’s eyes fluttered, rolling white. He toppled backwards, unconscious, into the bar manager’s clutches.

  “Oh, duckie,” Dickon emitted an ironic sigh. “I’ve waited years to get you in my arms and now here you are. I didn’t want this though; no, not like this.”

  13.

  “Now, where was we?” Dickon bustled back into the cellar where he had left Keith to reflect on the past. He sprayed air freshener in all directions to mask the stench of Keith’s beshitted boxers.

  “We were just at the part where you let me go and we say no more about it.” There was a hopeful look on Keith’s lopsided face. Dickon clicked his tongue.