‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
At this she burst out laughing.
‘Oh Erasmus, you don’t do serious very well. This is a first for me! Someone apologising for not having sex with me, unless?’
He looked down at the swirling galaxy of whisky moving in his hand.
‘This is about Karen, isn’t it?’
He didn’t answer.
Even the bruised eye was twinkling with amusement now.
‘You do love her, I can see that, and you probably don’t remember but you told me at the pub that you did. The question is though, and it’s a million dollar question trust me, is does she love you?’
It felt like there was pull, a force of gravity dragging him back to the person he once was, connecting him with the person he had become, that somehow turned upon the answer to the question. He knew right at that moment that redemption was possible, the answer was clear, he was home.
‘Yes she does.’
For a moment he thought Cat would be upset, that he had misjudged her coolness but all his concerns were dispelled by the grin she gave him.
‘You old dog, Erasmus. Who says love can’t strike twice? And don’t take this the wrong way but you know what, you’re a lucky man and she is a lucky woman. Let’s drink to that?’
She raised her glass and Erasmus brought his up, meeting it with a clink.
‘You should report it to the police you know. He’ll do it again.’
She brushed her hand gently against the bruise.
‘I don’t think so and I don’t want the hassle. I handed my notice in today, bought my flight. In four days time I will be sunning myself in Oz, the last thing I need is to be dragged back to a court case to give evidence just so he can get a fine. And, anyway, you haven’t seen the bruises I gave him.’
‘I have no doubt,’ replied Erasmus.
‘I’m going to miss you.’
‘I will miss you too Cat.’
She uncurled her legs from under and her and handed him her empty glass.
‘One for the road.’
He poured her another drink. She made a soft noise of satisfaction in the back of her throat.
Erasmus sat back down in the chair.
‘For what it’s worth I think you’re doing the right thing. I never understood what you saw in him to be honest.’
‘To love is blind!’
They touched their glasses together.
‘You know the cheeky bastard had been internet dating behind my back. Can you believe it?’
‘Frankly no.’
Cat dug out her phone from her jacket. She pressed the screen a couple of times.
‘I saw him minimise something the other day when I walked in on him on the computer. I thought I had caught him wanking off to porn, you know how you guys like to do that – ’ she smiled at him ‘ – but it wasn’t that and the dumb bastard didn’t even clear his history. Schoolboy error or what. Anyway take a look at what my stupid ex-boyfriend was looking at.’
She passed Erasmus her phone.
‘I’ll say it again, I never understood how you could be with him.’
He took the phone. It took him a second or two to work out what he was looking at but when he did his heart seemed to lose its foundations in his chest.
It was an internet dating profile. There was a picture of Ben, smiling and clearly taken some years before when he had a full head of hair and actually looked quite handsome. Above the picture was Ben’s dating profile username: Ethan 92.
‘Is everything OK? You don’t look well.’
‘No, I have to go, right now. Where is Ben?’
‘Last I saw he was running out the door holding his swollen testicles after I kicked him there. He’s probably gone to the school. That’s where he always goes, he hasn’t got any friends around here. No surprise, eh? Why?’
Erasmus was already halfway out of the room.
‘Help yourself to whisky and let yourself out,’ he shouted back to her as he ran out the door.
CHAPTER 43
The school was in darkness. There should have been security lights on but there was nothing, just the black outline of the Victorian building rising from beyond the iron railings. Erasmus climbed over the locked gate and made his way to the entrance. His nerve endings tingled in the same way as they had done when on patrol in Helmand. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking into an ambush.
Even though it was 9 p.m. the front door of the school was unlocked. He gently pushed the wooden door and stepped into the building. The temperature was colder in here. Erasmus shivered and long buried memories of an Afghani school classroom and mutilated children swam towards the surface of his mind.
In the dim light cast by a half moon he could make out the various leaflets and notices pinned to the notice board besides a large green door marked staff room. One piece of A4 caught his attention in particular, a sign warning of paedophiles: STRANGER = DANGER Erasmus wasn’t sure what he thought of that, though right now it seemed good advice.
In the long corridor darker shadows indicated recessed doors to classrooms. The moonlight cast a pall over the corridor making it seem even colder. Erasmus’s breath condensed into little clouds of steel grey mist and the sound of his footsteps echoed loudly in the silence his taking care to place each foot down on the floor as softly as possible.
He came to the first classroom and tried the door handle. It was locked but he could see through the glass window in the door and into the classroom: empty. He moved on along the frozen corridor checking a succession of classrooms. All were locked and all were empty.
Eventually the corridor came to a junction where two further corridors split off right and left. Erasmus stood at the junction and paused. Suddenly there was a noise, the distant sound of what sounded like a door banging shut. It came from his right. Moving as quickly and as quietly as he could on the tiled floor Erasmus made his way towards it. He followed the corridor, his footsteps sounding like thunderclaps in the silence of the school. There was another noise, louder now, and this sounded like a groan. He inwardly cursed that he hadn’t taken the tyre wrench out of the boot of his car.
The corridor turned 90 degrees to the left and then ended at a set of wooden double doors. He halted at the doors and listened. This time he was sure, there was the sound of groaning and it was coming from behind the doors. There was no window in the door so he would be going in blind. He took a deep breath, bunched his fists, and pushed open the doors.
It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness of the room but when they did he realised he was in the school’s gymnasium. Climbing bars lined the walls of the gym. He blinked and refocused. There was something at the far end of the hall, something that shouldn’t have been there.
He took a few steps forward before realising what he was looking at. There, hanging about twenty-five feet up, suspended as though crucified, was a girl wearing a black mask with dark red lips behind which he could see a panting mouth. He knew straight away it was Rebecca. His stomach somersaulted as he registered the rope around her neck, taut and tied to the top bar, another ten feet above her. The reason for the crucifix pose was apparent, her arms were held out either side of her so her hands could try and grip the varnished wood of the wall bars. Her bare feet were pointing out to the hall, an inch of heel on either foot struggling to keep her from falling and snapping her neck.
She was looking down at her feet and hadn’t noticed him yet. Before he could move he watched as her left foot lost grip and slipped out from under her. Her arms tightened and held on and with an effort that caused her to scream with pain she pulled herself up and slid her heel back into position.
Erasmus ran across the hall.
‘Rebecca, it’s me Erasmus!’
She lifted her head up. The mask gave her the look of a sinister clown but he could see her eyes registered hope and then she groaned again, words beyond her effort.
‘I’m coming.’
> Erasmus grabbed the wall bars and began to climb. He stopped when he reached her level. She turned her head to look at him and he saw why she was unable to speak. The rope, a thin climbing rope used for gym work, was so tight around her neck that there were red welts in her neck where it was biting. He reached across and with his left arm supporting him and used his right to try and get some purchase on the noose.
His fingers struggled against the knot that was tied at the back of her neck. Rebecca, sensing this, let her head drop forward, exposing more of the noose. He moved closer and grabbed hold of the noose with both hands now using only the toes of his feet to balance.
He tried pulling at the knot to loosen it but it wouldn’t budge. Erasmus knew from his army days that a proper noose knot pulled tight and under tension like this one was would be nearly impossible to loosen even if it was laid out on the floor of the gym.
His damaged hand, bandaged but with the fingers exposed, struggled against the tightness of the knot and he felt his wounds begin to seep. The pain, dull at first, sharpened with each movement, cutting through the light blanket of relief brought by the painkillers.
He looked up and saw that the rope was tied to the top bar but with a fisherman’s knot but more importantly there was a long snag end that he could use to push through and loosen the knot.
Rebecca jerked forward and began to lose his balance, her foot slipping again. She toppled forward. Erasmus let go of the rope and grabbed her just in time before her weight took her hurtling towards the floor of the gym, a fall that would have been broken by the snap and kick of the rope breaking her neck. For a second he thought her weight would take them both off the bars but he pushed with his shoulder and, with his arm around her chest, managed to grab hold of the bar behind her, flattening her to the wall.
She wouldn’t last much longer. He had to untie the rope at the top.
He held her for a few seconds and then spoke. ‘I am going to climb to the top and untie the rope. You’ll have to hold on for a minute or two longer. When I untie it you will fall but it’s not far, you remember how to break a fall?’
She groaned but then nodded.
‘You have to hang on.’
Her eyelids were half closed and Erasmus thought he had lost her but again she nodded.
‘OK, have you gripped the bars?’
He checked she had, her thin fingers and polished nails dug into the varnish.
‘I’m going.’
He climbed quickly and was at the top of the bars in a few seconds. The top was only a few feet below the roof, some forty feet up. When he stopped he looked up at the roof and it hit him all at once, the swooping, vertiginous roller coaster of dizziness and sickness. He became disorientated and the bars suddenly seemed slippery and narrow. His feet struggled for grip and he was filled with an almost uncontrollable urge to let go and let gravity take its course. But he gripped hard with both his hands and buried his face into the wall bars.
There was another anguished groan from below.
He glanced down, still firmly pressed against the wall and he saw Rebecca’s upturned face, scared and desperate. He swallowed hard and swung back to the bars. He forced his eyes to focus on the knot. It was a simple double overhand knot but to untie it he would need both his hands free. He pushed himself away from the bars and then took his hands from the bars.
Every cell and fibre in his body seemed to be screaming ‘no!’ but he grabbed the knot with his left hand and the slack end with his right and began to push it through the bunched bulk of the knot.
Another groan but this time he didn’t look down.
The slack end was stuck. He needed to apply more pressure but the only way to do this was stand on his toes and gain some height. Another swooping sensation nearly drove him back to the bars but he ignored it as he best he could and stood up on tiptoes. There was now only millimetres of grip between him and a fall which could end up killing them both.
He pushed the slack end of rope but it wouldn’t give. The bandage on his right hand now was soaked bloody red, the pain maddening. He tried again, screaming with effort, and this time it moved slightly at first and then it was through. He quickly unspooled the second knot and then it was free.
Immediately the rope shot through his hands, burning his palms, as Rebecca fell to the gym floor. She hit with a gruesome thud.
‘Rebecca!’
Erasmus hurtled down the bars, each second seeming like a minute, and then he was down. He knelt beside her prone figure. She was still breathing. Now the noose was no longer under tension he unravelled it quickly and slipped it off her neck.
She rolled over on her side. Erasmus pulled off the mask.
‘Thank you,’ she said in a croaky voice. There were angry red grooves marking where the rope had bitten into her skin.
‘Are you hurt?’
She groaned.
‘My ankle but I remembered how to fall.’ Her voice was weak and she was clearly in shock.
He looked down. He could see her ankle was at a twisted angle, it looked like a break.
‘Good girl. What happened, Rebecca?’
Tears formed in her eyes. She swallowed, the effort causing her visible pain.
‘I was meant to meet Ethan here in the gym. I waited but he didn’t come and then I heard somebody behind me. I passed out and woke up with the noose around my neck and that mask on my – ’ Rebecca grimaced and then suddenly her eyes widened with fear as she looked at something behind Erasmus.
Erasmus turned and looked. The door to the gym had opened and a man was standing there, silhouetted in black.
The man stood still for a second, watching them.
Erasmus took out his phone and gave it to Rebecca.
‘Call the police.’
It was instinct driven by rage but Erasmus was on his feet, running towards him before he had any conscious thought whether it was a good idea.
The man turned and ran.
Erasmus burst through the gym doors and hurtled down the dark corridors in pursuit. He caught a glimpse of the man as he turned the corner into the main corridor, his leather shoes skidding on the tiled floor like a cartoon cat. Erasmus had no such problem, his desert boots held grip perfectly and he quickly gained on him.
When Erasmus reached the main corridor he was only five yards behind the man and he could hear him panting with the exertion of his retreat. Erasmus reached out to grab him and his fingers touched the man’s jacket but when he tried to close his grip ice-cold daggers of pain shot up his damaged right hand. He screamed in agony and frustration.
They came to the reception area, the man making for the doors. As he hit them, Erasmus dived and rugby tackled him. Together they both went flying out of the doors and down the steps, tumbling and punching as they went.
At the bottom of the steps they came to stop and Erasmus slid on top of the man’s back. He twisted him round and came face to face with Ben.
‘You cunt!’ shouted Ben as he swung a fist that landed heavily on Erasmus’s right kidney, knocking the wind out of him. He sucked up the pain. ‘I – ’ Ben began but didn’t get to finish the sentence due to Erasmus’s left fist landing squarely on his nose and snapping it.
Ben raised a hand and tried to speak again.
Erasmus’s training kicked in, the man was still a threat to him and to Rebecca as long as he was moving. He began to rain down blows. Ben tried to cover his face with his hands. Erasmus tore them away and punched as if in a trance.
‘Erasmus! Stop!’
He looked up into blue flashing lights. Pobrosky, dressed in long brown mac, was standing a yard away, a look of horror on her face.
‘Stop. You’re killing him!’
Erasmus looked down at his fists, they were coated in blood and pieces of skin, his and Ben’s. He sank backwards. He had called Pobroksky’s personal mobile number from the car when he was on the way to the school. It had gone straight to voicemail. He hadn’t expected her to respond to his message
.
‘What took you so long? Rebecca’s in the gym. This piece of shit tried to kill her.’
Pobrosky turned to a uniformed officer behind her and gave orders for an ambulance to be called.
‘I was at dinner. Good job my date was boring or you would be up on a murder charge,’ she said gesturing towards Ben.
Erasmus looked up at the stars. A wave of sheer exhaustion hit him. He nodded, the closest he could get to thanking her.
‘Do you want to get off him now?’ she added.
Erasmus stood up.
Ben was groaning and beginning to roll on to his side.
‘He’ll be OK,’ said Erasmus.
Pobrosky knelt down and pulled Ben’s wrists together before cuffing them. She looked up at Erasmus from her kneeling position.
‘If he’s done what you said then who gives a shit?’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 44
Erasmus stared up at the contrails stretched like long strings of candyfloss against the clear blue sky and shivered. Pete passed him a bottle of Corona. Erasmus looked at it as though puzzled by what he was meant to do with it.
‘Staring into space? Way to go mental health.’ Pete raised a fist in the air in a mock salute. ‘And before you ask, no I don’t have any bloody Kami Kazi or whatever poncey whisky you drink. This is a BBQ not a gentleman’s club.’
‘When you said come round for lunch I wasn’t expecting a BBQ in January. You never cease to surprise me,’ said Erasmus.
Pete frowned and Erasmus realised that his friend was actually a little put out that Erasmus hadn’t embraced the idea of a winter wonderland BBQ which he had decided to hold as soon as the sun began to shine.
‘But I think it’s a great idea. I was just going to ask if you had a slice of lime to go with the beer?’
‘Oh yeah, I think there’s some in the kitchen. Give me a second. I need to change that bloody music anyway. Rhianna, Jesus Christ I fear for the younger generation. Mind the coals, will ya?’
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