He turned to say something to Wayne but his eyes were closed and he was snoring.
Wayne slept all the way back to his house. When Erasmus reached Wayne’s street he found himself looking for the parked car across the street but it was gone.
This time when he hit the buzzer the gates opened straight away.
Steph came out and watched as Wayne staggered uneasily towards her like a newborn deer trying out its legs for the first time. She shook her head and then stood aside to let him in. She walked across to the car. Erasmus rolled down his window. She leaned down and nodded her head slowly.
‘Thank you.’
‘Not a problem,’ he said and was about to turn the ignition key when she placed her hand on his right arm and leaned in so close he could smell the sweetness of her body scent.
‘A deals a deal. I’ll be in touch. Have you got a card?’
Goosebumps formed at the back of Erasmus neck and then hurtled down his arms like they were in a race to get to Steph.
‘Sure.’ He dug out a card from the glove compartment and handed it to her.
She took it and placed it next to her mobile phone. She leaned in close.
‘I’ll call you.’
Erasmus just nodded. He knew if he spoke the lust caught in the back of his throat would be heard by her and he didn’t want to give her that victory. She let go of his arm and he pulled out of the drive, and headed back to Liverpool.
CHAPTER 9
In the darkness of Rebecca’s room the only light came from the computer monitor. The cold blue glow bathed her face in a harsh, unloving light. Downstairs she could hear her mother moving around, clearing up the dishes before settling down in front of the TV, like every night. Her middle-class masquerade ball, circling the sofas like a dog looking for its favourite spot to hunker down in and see out the night. Rebecca couldn’t live like that and wouldn’t live like that. A life without intensity, without love, was pointless. If her short life had taught her anything it was this: It was better to be dead than to know and then lose love. Rebecca wouldn’t lose her love. But now it was threatened what could she do?
She got up from his chair and walked to the small wardrobe in the corner of the room. Her bedroom was small, little more than a box room and the bed took up half the room. Shelves that lined the poster covered walls groaned under the weight of cuddly toys that had been retired from the bed, books, old toys and magazines. The floor of the room was covered with discarded clothing. She knelt down at the foot of the bed as though she was about to pray, but instead of praying she leant under the bed and pulled out the battered leather satchel that she carried to school every day.
She sat back at the chair in front of her computer and opened the satchel. It didn’t contain textbooks. She placed the two items from the satchel in front of her on the desk, and then she looked again at the message on the screen.
Ethan was beautiful inside and out. His picture made her stomach do flips and her nerve endings tingled with pleasure every time she looked at it. He was good looking with his floppy fringe, blue eyes and loving smile, but she had fallen in love with him long before he sent her a photograph. She had met him, or rather his avatar, E-Z92, on a forum for the American teenage poet, Bluestar. Bluestar was an online sensation but mainly in the US. Rebecca prided herself on being one of the first in the UK to hear about Bluestar and she loved his poetry, nothing else seemed to express just how she felt herself. They had begun by debating the meaning of Bluestar’s most famous poem, ‘the love we give away’, and from there things had progressed quickly. They had quickly moved on to Instant Messaging. Ethan worked so messages during the day were few and far between but the evening hours would pass as they handed to each other the secrets of their hearts.
Ethan was older than her, twenty-three and married with two young girls. Him telling her this had been a milestone in their relationship. By then she had been lost and if he had told her he was a serial killer she may have stuck by him, but an unhappy marriage that trapped him? This she could live with and it seemed to bring them closer together in many ways. He had confided to her that Rebecca was his escape, his private place that no one else knew about as much as he was hers. Their secret relationship bound them together in a knot of charged passions and frustrated desire. She loved him and she knew that he loved her.
Their relationship had developed quickly and, despite only existing online, passionately. Rebecca would inwardly laugh when her school friends talked about their boyfriends. They were boys, with boyish, awkward and clumsy ways. Ethan was a man, and he talked about his feelings like man. He also had responsibilities and he honoured those like the man he was. And therein lay the rub. He loved Rebecca but his wife, an evil woman called Melanie, had tricked him into marriage by getting pregnant, not that he begrudged his daughters, they were, apart from Rebecca, the most precious things in the world to him, but he was frightened about what Melanie would do to the children if he left her for Rebecca. Melanie was jealous and had threatened before that if he ever left her she would harm the children. Ethan had sent Rebecca photographs of the girls, they were gorgeous, exactly the kind of children that Rebecca had hoped she would have, but that was impossible now.
Online, late at night, Rebecca and Ethan had talked it over and over. The cutting was something that he raised. He mentioned he had become so upset and frustrated that one day he had taken a craft knife and just sliced his arms, just a little bit at first, but then more and more, and that the pain was sweet and took him out of himself, away from his worries. Rebecca had started to cut, first just to be closer to him, and then she became enthralled by it, by the ritual, by the pain, by the release. Now, they cut together and it was beautiful.
There is only one way to be together. Have you got the materials? E
Rebecca looked down at the desk where she had neatly laid out the materials, a large Ziploc bag that she had taken from the kitchen, and a small loop made of washing line that she had taken from the garden shed.
She looked at them and shuddered. She knew what they had to do. They had agreed it was the only way out, and the only way that she could be with him without the children being hurt.
Rebecca picked up the bag and placed it over her head. She paused as from downstairs she heard the sound of her mother getting off the couch and walking through to the kitchen. And then she heard the sounds of a cup being placed on a worktop. Her mother was making a cup of tea to drink while watching her favourite soap opera. Her routines were tragic and Rebecca was glad she wouldn’t ever fall into that rut.
She picked up the rope and placed the loop around her neck. She tightened it, but not too tight, not yet.
Breathing was difficult and the bag began to stick to her face, moisture from her breath condensing on the inside of the bag quickly making it slick.
She typed quickly.
I love you, E
The reply came seconds later.
I love you Becs. I’m ready. Are you? E
She took in another breath. Air was still getting in but as soon as she tightened the cord the air would be gone in seconds and then she would die as would he, her beloved Ethan.
She heard the kettle’s digital whistle sound from downstairs. At least her mother wasn’t on the wine again as she seemed to be on most nights.
Her fingers gripped the end of the cord. One pull and it would be over.
Her breathing quickened. Not many more breaths now. Excitement and fear made every moment seem as hard and clear as diamond. Her fingers caressed the cord.
Are you doing it? E
The cursor flickered expectantly at the end of the sentence.
There was another sound from downstairs, a familiar sound in recent weeks. It was the sound of her mother crying softly.
Her fingers left the cord. She hesitated for a second and then typed.
I want to do it looking into your eyes. Will you meet me and then we can be together for ever?
This time the answer didn’t co
me as quickly as before. A minute passed and then the reply.
Of course, my love. I have to go now, SHE has come in and the kids are crying. I will be in touch soon, my love. E
Rebecca sighed. He was always so understanding, so loving, and now at last she would meet him, smell him and touch him before they completed the most loving, the most final act together.
CHAPTER 10
It was Pete’s idea and like all his best ideas it came to him in the pub. They had decamped to the Philharmonic pub that stood on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Hope Street, the street named for the fact that it ran between the old gothic Anglican cathedral and the new sixties Catholic cathedral known locally as Paddy’s Wigwam because of its pyramid-like structure. Hope Street seemed anachronistic in these multi-cultural times but something about its optimistic naivety had always struck Erasmus as peculiarly Liverpudlian.
Another undoubted Liverpudlian characteristic was a fondness for drink and Pete was bringing them their third pint with a smile on his face.
‘Sock puppets. That’s how we find out what’s going on with this Ethan guy.’
‘You are going to have to explain,’
Pete took a sip of his beer and licked his lips.
They were sitting in a mahogany lined snug just off the bar, it was called the Listz Room, and there was an identical one across the corridor known as the Brahms. Brahms was filled with drunken Veterinary students. Erasmus had ascertained this while Pete was at the bar when one of them had placed a small dead cat on the table in front of them, part of some elaborate drinking game. Two of them were also wearing rugby shirts with LIVERPOOL VETS ON TOUR 2013 emblazoned on the back. Erasmus believed in using all the available evidence. The Listz they had to themselves.
Pete placed his pint on the table.
‘You know Debs loves these thriller books, well she gets them online and she always reads the reviews and buys them on the basis of whether the review is good or bad. I tell her she should be reading the classics but she won’t listen.’
Erasmus knew what the classics meant to Pete. It began with ‘On the Road’ and ended with ‘Naked Lunch’. The counter-culture of that time had invented everything of value according to Pete. They had had many arguments about it. This time Erasmus just raised an eyebrow, which Pete didn’t see or chose to ignore.
‘Anyway, there is a big scandal going on turns out some of these authors have been registering accounts in fake names and going on and giving their novels five star reviews. These accounts are called sock puppets.’
‘A new name for an old game,’ said Erasmus.
Pete nodded enthusiastically.
‘Exactly. We need to set up a sock puppet, join her social network of choice and become buddies with Rebecca online.’
‘Can’t you just hack into her computer?’
Pete took a long swig of his beer.
‘Christ, you think I’m the NSA? You watch a couple of spy movies and you think that it’s that easy? It’s not. The easiest way is to guess her password. It’s how most of the big hacks you read about in the press come about. The problem is she’s been tipped off by her mother and if she has any cunning – and as a father to teenage girls I can tell you that they have – she will have changed it to an alpha numeric combo which, as any nerd will tell you, has a gazillion possibilities. But, if she trusts us and communicates with us there is a chance she will open an email attachment from us and then bingo I can stick a keystroke programme on her computer.’
It felt wrong but Erasmus was fresh out of ideas. There was no chance of getting Rebecca sectioned, she was a morose teenage girl who cut herself, join the back of a very long queue. He had thought of talking to Rebecca directly, as a family friend, but Karen had been clear that he would get nothing from her and if she thought her mother had been talking to ‘strangers’ about this then things could get worse very quickly. Karen’s biggest fear was Rebecca running away and then she would have no possibility of helping her. Covert could be the only way to go.
‘How would we do it?’
Pete had finished his pint and was already looking at Erasmus’s nearly full drink with a weary look.
‘Leave it to me. I’ll set up a dummy Facebook account. I’m thinking eighteen-year-old boy, thin and moody with dark good looks, with all the right cultural references, reads the right books, think less your generation and Sartre, and more now and vampires. This guy has interests but he doesn’t see the point of it all though. Classic teenage angst and good lucks, what girl could resist? What do you think?’
‘Sounds like you fancy him yourself but she’s got a boyfriend already, Ethan. Your sock puppet will need to be someone else. What do teenage girls like.’
Pete thought hard for a moment. ‘You know what we need to do?’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, what we need to do is think of you.’
Erasmus wasn’t sure where Pete was going with this.
‘Yeah, think of me.’
‘Yeah, think of you as the gawky, spotty, awkward teenage kid with really bad dress sense and then we want to imagine the exact opposite, that’s what teenage girls like.’ Pete leaned back in his chair chuckling at his own joke.
Erasmus smiled.
‘Christ, why are we friends?’
Pete laughed again.
‘Low expectations and no one else would have us?’
‘You’re not wrong,’ replied Erasmus. ‘You want a pint?’
‘Does the Pope wear a hat?’
Truth was that Erasmus didn’t know what to think. Part of him was convinced that this was just part of parcel of normal teenage behaviour, a rite of passage that most of them got through and looked back on, incredulous and embarrassed, a few years later. The communication medium had changed since his day but the dynamic of growing up and the changes it wrought were just the same. Some fell by the wayside and wasn’t it ever so?
Yet, what Karen had told him about the bath and the blade had unnerved him. The internet and the contact it permitted with those of the same mindset at any hour of the day made the space to think, to rationalise and see alternatives smaller. And then there was Karen. She had been distraught, anxious maybe a little paranoid but it was still her. The woman he loved, had loved, all those years ago and the fear she had was real.
‘Are you alive, love, or did someone take your batteries out?’
There was laughter from the people around him as the barmaid stood with her hands on her hips giving him a cockeyed look.
‘Sorry, two pints of Landlord.’
Erasmus ferried the pints back to Pete and then went outside for a cigarette.
It was a habit he had been trying to give up for twenty years and the army hadn’t been the best environment for that. He pulled out a Malboro light. A late afternoon fog had fallen and the street was quiet apart from some dark figures, hunched over against the cold, some fifty yards away down towards Paddy’s Wigwam.
He sucked in the smoke, guilt and pleasure tussling for victory as usual.
A thought that he had been pushing away inside his mind took advantage of the space created by the beer and nicotine. Karen was single. What if?
His mobile began to vibrate. He pulled out his phone, maybe it was her? What if she was thinking the same thing?
It wasn’t, it was an unknown caller.
‘Erasmus,’ he answered.
‘Hey Erasmus, it’s Steph, Steph Besant, you do remember me, don’t you?’
A challenge or was she mocking him?
‘Yes, of course. How are you?’
‘I owe you. Do you want to collect?’
Her theory about Wayne? He had just about made his mind up that there was nothing to it.
‘I’m at the ground now. Wayne is getting some injections or something. You work for the club, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
‘Then get your arse down here. I’ll be sitting in the Main Stand in thirty minutes time. If you’re there I’ll tell you what I
know.’
Erasmus threw the cigarette on the floor and ran down the street heading for the Cunard Building and his car.
CHAPTER 11
The fog that had settled over the city meant that Erasmus didn’t see the stadium until he was so close that it suddenly loomed up out of the greyness like an ancient ghost ship in a sea fog. He parked in the executive car park and made his way into the quiet and empty ancient stadium. The security guard lounging at the player’s entrance didn’t recognise him but a quick flash of the pass that Ted had given him and he was soon in the bowels of the stadium heading for the treatment rooms under the main stand.
The stadium was old, very old. The corridors were narrow and utilitarian, cutting-edge design in 1892 but now an anachronism in the world of super slick corporate stadiums. This wasn’t one of the new shiny, modern structures funded by oligarch’s billions. It was a relic of a world past, of workingmen’s dreams and hopes. Well, that was what a slightly hurt Pete had told Erasmus when he had commented on the age of the place.
Apart from the security guard there seemed to be no one else around. It was a Wednesday evening and there was no game on but Erasmus would have expected something to be happening, a corporate event of some kind perhaps, but there was nothing. His footsteps echoed off the concrete passageways as they wound down deeper under the main stand.
After two minutes of walking without seeing another soul he eventually reached the lower area where the treatment rooms were located. The rooms were far below pitch level. Erasmus stepped close to the farthest door. He could hear the low muffled sound of two voices coming from inside. He knocked on the door.
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