Death Day

by Shaun Hutson

  At that point, Lambert had collapsed.

  And now, he found the courage to look back at his brother's grave. He wiped the tears away, suddenly becoming aware of just how cold the wind was getting. He shivered, cold in spirit as well as body.

  'Shit,' he said aloud, shaking his head. He inhaled, held the breath then let it out very slowly.

  The family had been very understanding about it. God, how fucking ironic, how bloody magnanimous of them, he thought. Never mind about your brother, it wasn't your fault. He felt suddenly angry. So, maybe it wasn't his fault, but, he told himself, what good were consolations when you had to live with the thought for the rest of your life?

  He'd woken screaming for nights afterwards. Debbie understood, she always understood. He thanked God he had her. They'd been married two years but already he wondered what the hell he'd have done without her. If he hadn't had her with him during the last couple of weeks he'd have gone up the wall. Everyone had been very understanding but it had done nothing to ease the guilt. He wondered what would.

  There had been nothing about it in the newspapers. Lambert knew Charles Burton, the man who ran The Medworth Chronicle. The two men disliked one another but Lambert had managed to persuade him not to mention his name in the local rag. It wouldn't have done his reputation much good either. He'd been surprised that he hadn't heard more from Divisional HQ in Nottingham. Lambert, as head of Medworth's small police force, could do without the kind of publicity which the crash might have brought. He was surprised he hadn't been asked to resign or some such drastic measure, but, as Debbie had said to him at the time, he hadn't killed his own brother. He had only been involved in the accident which had taken his life.

  Lambert was the only one who felt like a murderer.

  He lingered a moment longer, then, almost reluctantly, he turned and made his way back along the path between the graves until he reached the gravel drive.

  It was after nine but he was in no hurry. He'd been told to take a month off. Get his thoughts back into one piece. The men under him were all capable. Capable enough at least to run things until he returned.

  He walked, head bowed, collar turned up against the wind. Lost in his own thoughts, he almost bumped into the tall man coming through the cemetery gates.

  The man was carrying a pick over his shoulder and there was a younger man behind wearing a pair of bright orange overalls.

  Lambert sidestepped the pair who continued up the gravel drive, their mud-caked boots making it sound as if they were walking on cornflakes. Lambert saw their council van parked across the road outside the vicarage. There was movement in the bay window of the building and Lambert saw Father Ridley standing inside. He waved cheerfully to the young man who raised a hand in weary acknowledgement. He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and unlocked the car door. He slid behind the wheel, started the engine and swung the car round, pointing it down the hill in the direction of the town. Lambert flicked on the radio but, after a moment or two found that he didn't feel like listening to music. He switched the set off.

  He drove the rest of the way in silence.

  * * *

  'It'll take until next Christmas to clear this lot,' said Ray Mackenzie, dropping his pick dejectedly.

  He was looking at a patch of ground about half the size of a football pitch, surrounded on three sides by densely planted trees. Some had even encroached into the heavily overgrown area itself. The grass and weeds were waist high in places and, as Mackenzie stepped forward, he snagged his arm on a particularly tall gorse bush. He muttered something to himself and kicked at it.

  The area was beyond the main part of the cemetery, two hundred yards or more from the central driveway along which they had just come. Situated in a slight hollow, it was effectively masked from the rest of the area. Only the fact that the top halves of the trees poked up above the rim of the crest testified to its existence. The grass was neatly cut only up to the very edge of the crest then it sloped down into the area where the two men stood. Nature run riot.

  'Fancy letting it get in this state in the first place,' complained the younger of the two men. Steve Pike had quite fancied the idea of working for the council at first. Weeding the flower beds in the town gardens, cutting the grass in the park? It had seemed like a good idea. As he surveyed the expanse of twisted gorse, bracken, heather and waist high grass he began to have second thoughts.

  Father Ridley had called the council offices and asked if they could send some men to clear a patch of ground for him.

  'Well,' said Mackenzie. 'Standing here looking at it isn't going to make it go away.'

  With that he drove his pick into the ground, turning a large clod. He grimaced as he saw the size of the worm which clung to it. He broke the clod with his pick and continued digging. Steve stood watching him.

  'Come on,' snapped Mackenzie. 'Get the sickle and cut some of that stuff down.' He pointed to a dense growth of ragweed which was fully two feet high. Steve went to the canvas bag they had brought with them and pulled out the sickle, then he set to work, hacking away at the recalcitrant plants. Mackenzie swapped his pick for a shovel and was soon turning the earth. But it was quite a battle.

  Steve too found that the roots of the bramble and gorse bushes went deeper than he thought. Great thick tendrils of root clung to the earth like bony fingers.

  They worked on. Yet despite the fury of their exertions, both men began to notice something odd. Both were soaked in sweat but both could feel their bodies trembling from the cold. A cold the like of which neither had experienced before. A deep, penetrating cold which was almost oppressive. Mackenzie stopped digging and looked up.

  Another thirty minutes and the men decided that it was time they stopped for a while. Steve looked around. They had done quite well considering the size of the problem. At least a quarter of the overgrown area had been cleared, the earth now dark beneath their feet. Mackenzie looked at his watch. The second hand was frozen. It had stopped, the hands pointing to 9:30. He shook it and grunted.

  'What's up?' asked Steve, taking the fag he was offered.

  'My bloody watch has stopped,' Mackenzie told him.

  Steve rolled up his sleeve, his forehead creasing. He tapped the face of his own timepiece.

  'So has mine,' he exclaimed, extending his arm so that Mackenzie could see. The twin hands were immobile.

  Stuck at 9:30.

  * * *

  Lambert parked the Capri in the small driveway beside the house and got out. The next door cat scampered across the front lawn as he walked up the path to the back door and he hissed at it. The startled animal spun round and fled off through a hole in the fence. Lambert smiled thinly to himself.

  He found his back door key and let himself in. It was after nine-thirty so he knew that Debbie would be gone. She always left well before nine, sometimes before he even drove for the cemetery. The kitchen smelt of pine and new wood, and Lambert inhaled deeply. He crossed to the kitchen table and sat down, noting that two letters were propped up against the tea pot. He smiled again. Although the letters were addressed to Mr and Mrs T. Lambert, Debbie had left them for him to open. She always did. He considered the envelopes for a moment then dropped them back onto the table and crossed to the sink to fill the kettle. He stood for a moment, looking out of the back window, thinking how badly the grass needed cutting. The gardens on either side were in a worse state and that, at least, comforted him somewhat.

  Their house was roomy, semi-detached, with three bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen and spacious living room. The third bedroom was to be used as a nursery when, and if, the need ever arose. Lambert looked down into the aluminum bottom of the sink and saw his own distorted image staring back at him. At the present time, there was no talk of children. Both he and Debbie had promising careers: he was one of the youngest Inspectors in the Midlands force and Debbie was chief librarian at the large Victorian looking building in the centre of Medworth. Lambert shook his head. An Inspector in charge of a force
of less than twelve. That was police logic for you.

  The shrill whistling of the kettle interrupted his thoughts. He made the tea, poured himself a cup and carried it into the living room where the daily paper was waiting on the arm of his chair. Debbie again. God how he loved that girl. He suddenly began to feel warmer, the incidents of the morning gradually subsiding. Diminishing but never fading.

  He flicked through the paper, hardly seeing the words, then he folded it up and stuck it in the paper rack. Lambert gazed across at the bay window.

  It was the inactivity more than anything which wore him down. The same routine every day, stuck in the house trying to find jobs that he'd already done two days before. The doctor had told him to rest for a month after the accident, but the time was dragging into an eternity. He glanced down at the phone on the table beside his chair and rubbed his chin contemplatively. Should he ring the station? Just to find out if they needed him for anything?

  He grunted and turned away, warming his hands around the mug of steaming tea. He eyed the phone again but, instead, went and retrieved the letters from the kitchen. He tore the first of them open, knowing from the 'Private' stamp on the top left hand corner that it was a bill of some sort. Electricity. He muttered something to himself and re-folded it then tore open the second.

  It was from his mother. He read it briefly, not really seeing the words on the blue tinted pages. Everything was all right, his father was fine. Hope he was feeling better. Etc., etc., etc. Tactfully no mention of Mike. He pushed the letter to one side and finished his tea. The same old crap every time. Debbie usually replied to them. Lambert picked up the letter once more and read the line which never failed to annoy him.

  'Your father is fine.'

  He threw it down. Father. Fucking stepfather. His own father had been dead for ten years. Lambert had watched him die, day by day. A little at a time. He remembered coming home from school every dinner time when he was twelve and finding his father sitting at the table, the bottle of whisky gripped in his palsied hand. Lambert hated him for his drinking, he hated him for what it had made him. But most of all, he hated his mother because she was the reason his father had begun drinking in the first place. Her and her fancy man. Mr Ted bloody Grover. 'Your father.' His new father, his fucking stepfather.

  He tore the letter up savagely, hurling the pieces away from him in rage, his breath coming in short gasps.

  Cirrhosis of the liver had caused his real father's death. Or precipitated it anyway. Lambert remembered finding him that day. His head thrown back, his eyes open. The yellow blobs of vomit still on his lips, the empty bottle gripped in his rigid fingers. Choked on his own puke.

  Why was it, Lambert thought, that the painful memories always stayed more vivid than the pleasant ones? To him at any rate.

  He reached for the phone and dialled Medworth police station. The phone rang a couple of times, then was picked up.

  'Medworth Police Station,' the voice said.

  Lambert smiled, recognizing the voice as sergeant Vic Hayes.

  'Morning, Vic,' he said.

  'How you keeping, sir?'

  'Not bad. What's doing?'

  There was a pause at the other end as Hayes tried to think of something he could tell his superior. His tone sounded almost apologetic, 'Nothing really. Mrs Short lost her purse in the Bingo hall, she thinks it was nicked. Two kids took a bike from outside old man Sudbury's shop and I've got bloody flu, that's all I can tell you.' The sentence was finished off with an almighty sneeze.

  Lambert nodded, 'So there's nothing worth me coming in for?'

  'No, sir. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be resting? I heard that the doctor gave you a month off.'

  'How the hell do you know that?' asked Lambert, good naturedly.

  'I bumped into your wife the other day,' Hayes explained. There was silence for a moment, then the sergeant said, 'By the way, sir, we were all very sorry about what happened.'

  Lambert cut him short, 'Thanks.' He moved hurriedly on. 'Look, Vic, if anything does turn up, let me know, will you? Sitting at home here is driving me up the bloody wall.'

  'Will do, sir.'

  They said their goodbyes and Lambert hung up, plunged once more into the silence of the room. He clapped his hands together as if trying to shake himself free of the lethargy which gripped him. He got up, tired of the silence, and crossed to the record player. He selected the loudest recording that they had in their collection and dropped it onto the turntable.

  Someone thundered out 'Long Live Rock & Roll' and Lambert went back into the kitchen to make himself some breakfast.

  Already, the emotions were slipping to the back of his mind, waiting to be stirred perhaps the next day, but, for now, he began to feel brighter.

  'Long Live Rock & Roll' blasted on.

  * * *

  Debbie Lambert looked at her watch and noted with delight that it was nearly one o'clock. She took off her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. There was a nagging ache behind her eyes and she closed them for a moment. The ledgers lay before her as if defying her to carry on work. This was the only part of her job she hated. Cataloguing. She was thankful it only happened once a year. Every book in the library, all 35,624 of them, had to be listed by author, publisher and serial number. She'd been working at it now for more than a week and hadn't even got half way. She resolved to take some of it home with her that night.

  Mondays were usually quiet, but today there were agitated babblings from the direction of the children's section. A party of twenty kids from the local infants school had been brought in with the idea of introducing them to the delights of a library. Debbie could see two of the little darlings giggling uncontrollably as they pawed through a book on early erotic art. She barely suppressed a grin herself, especially when the kids looked up and saw her watching them. They both turned the colour of a pillar box and hurriedly replaced the book.

  'Don't you just love kids?' said Susan Howard, struggling past with an armful of books.

  Debbie raised one eyebrow questioningly and Susan laughed. Nice girl, thought Debbie, about twenty, a year or so younger than herself. They got on well together. All the staff in the building did. There were just four of them: herself, Susan, Mrs Grady and Miss Baxter (who took care of the research section, or reference library as everyone else liked to call it). Debbie had wondered whether Miss Baxter would resent being under a woman more than thirty years younger than herself, but there had been no animosity shown. The previous head librarian had died three years before and few people suspected that the job would go to someone as young as Debbie, but her aptitude for the job was undeniable. She had, since she took over, tried to change the image of the building somewhat. She disliked the staid, Victorian picture of libraries which most people had. Of old spinsters in long skirts and horn-rimmed glasses hobbling about the corridors, and endless leather-bound dusty volumes which no one ever read. Since she had taken over, more youngsters had joined. Attracted no doubt by the presence of Susan, and, she hoped, herself. More men were members now than ever before.

  She dropped her glasses into her handbag and stood up, shaking her legs to restore the circulation. She'd been sitting in more or less the same position for nearly four hours, bent over the ledgers and her shoulders and legs felt as if someone had been kicking her. She exhaled deeply and swept a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair.

  'Sue,' she called quietly, 'I'm just popping out for lunch.'

  The other girl nodded and struggled on with her armful of books.

  Debbie walked out, the noise of her high heels clicking conspicuously on the polished wooden floor. As she reached the exit door she eyed her reflection in the glass and smiled. She had a good figure, slim hipped, the small curve of her bottom accentuated by the tight jeans which she wore. The thick jumper which covered her upper body concealed her pert breasts and made her look shapeless, but she dressed for comfort, not show.

  As she stepped out i
nto the street, an arm enfolded her waist and she spun round anxiously.

  It was Lambert.

  Debbie smiled broadly and kissed him.

  'I thought you were at home,' she said happily.

  He shrugged, 'I ran out of things to do. You were the last resort.' He smiled as she punched him on the arm.

  'Cheeky sod,' she giggled. 'I was just going for lunch.'

  'I know.'

  'My God, you're not a policeman for nothing, are you?' she said sarcastically, trying not to smile.

  He slapped her hard across the backside. 'Come on, Miss Librarian, let me buy you some lunch.'

  * * *

  The nearest cafe was busy but they found a seat near the window and Debbie sat down while

  Lambert fetched the lunch, picking food out from beneath the plastic fronted cabinets. He returned with a laden tray and began unloading it onto the table.

  As they ate, she told him about her morning's work and about the kids. He smiled a lot. A little too much perhaps. She reached across the table to clutch his hand.

  'You all right?' she asked.

  He nodded, 'I walked down here to meet you,' he told her, 'I needed the air.'

  She smiled, then trying to sound brighter, 'Were those letters anything important this morning?'

  He told her about the bill. 'The other one was from my mother.'

  'What did she have to say? Or do you want me to read it when I get home?'

  'I tore the fucking thing up,' snapped Lambert.

  Two women on the table next to them looked round, and the policeman met their stare. They returned quickly to their tea, and gossip.

  'What did it say?' asked Debbie, squeezing his hand tighter.

  He shrugged and took a sip of his tea before answering, 'The same old shit. Same as always. I don't know why the hell she can't just leave me alone. I never asked her to start writing in the first place.' He slammed his cup down with a little bit too much force, making a loud crack.