by Shaun Hutson
Ronni smiled.
Eva Cole wandered over to join them, her shock of white hair covered by a brightly coloured party hat.
She watched as Jack Fuller took a small sausage roll from the plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly.
“They look so happy, don’t they?” Eva observed.
Fuller nodded, then wiped crumbs from his lips.
“Could I have the next dance, please, Eva?” he said grandly.
Eva chuckled.
“It’s been years since anyone asked me to dance, Jack,” she confessed.
“All the more reason to say yes, then,” Fuller told her.
“You make the most of it, Eva,” said Ronni.
“He might not ask again.”
“I’d be delighted,” Eva said.
“Forty-six years,” Helen murmured wistfully as she watched the dancing couple.
“It’s a long time to be with the same person, isn’t it? They’re so lucky to have each other.”
Ronni ran a hand through her hair.
How lucky are you? What exactly are you expecting to find if you ever have the courage to leave Andy?
“You don’t get that long for murder, do you?” Fuller grinned.
“Jack, you are terrible,” Helen said, laughing.
“How long were you married, Barbara?” Eva wanted to know.
Twenty-three years,” she informed them.
“We were childhood sweethearts. Lived next door to each other. Went to the same school. He told me when we were eight that he was going to marry me.”
“How romantic,” Eva cooed.
“I read somewhere that the average marriage lasts ten years these days,” Fuller interjected.
A chorus of mutterings met his remark.
“The slightest hint of trouble and people split up,” Barbara said dismissively.
“They don’t want to work at their marriages.”
Ronni said nothing.
“Not like them,” Helen added, nodding in the direction of the Hollands.
The music finally came to an end.
Harry Holland took a step back from his wife, then bowed his head and kissed her hand.
The watching residents clapped loudly.
Janice was dabbing at her eye corners with a small handkerchief.
“This has all been so lovely,” she said, glancing around at her companions.
“You’re all very kind.”
“We had enough trouble keeping it a secret, Janice,” George Errington told her as he got to his feet.
“Speech,” called Donald Tanner.
“Yes, come on, Harry, say something,” Jack Fuller echoed.
Holland held up his hands and waited for the good-natured goading to end, then he slid his arm around Janice’s shoulder and coughed theatrically.
“We’d both like to thank you all for everything,” he began.
“You’ve all made the day wonderful for us. Personally, I’d like to thank Janice for putting up with me for forty-six years. I doubt if any man could have been as happy as I have for so long. I’m just glad I was the one she agreed to marry.”
Janice wiped more tears away.
“I’ve actually written a little poem for you, my love,” Harry continued, fumbling in his jacket pocket.
Ronni looked on as he unfolded the small piece of paper and glanced at it before fixing his eyes on Janice.
“It’s not exactly Wordsworth.” Harry grinned.
“But here goes:
The life we share is special, The love we share is true, There’s nothing else on earth I need, As long as I’ve got you.
You’ve taught me just what love means, Through all our years together.
Years, I pray, we’ll always spend now and then for ever.
Through good and bad and old and new, I thank the Lord that I’ve got you.
A renewed round of applause greeted the poem.
Janice took the paper from her husband, glanced at it, then embraced him.
“Come on, you two,” Helen called.
“Come and have some of your cake.”
“A bloody poet too, eh, Harry?” George Errington said, shaking hands with the other man.
They both grinned.
Ronni and Helen cut the cake and shared out the portions.
“One more thing before we all get stuck in,” Donald Tanner interjected.
Janice dabbed her eyes again.
“A little present from all of us,” Tanner announced. He produced a dark blue box from behind one of the tables and held it before Janice.
“You open it, Harry,” she said.
“I’m shaking.”
Holland took the box from Tanner and eased the lid off.
The clock inside was about eight inches tall. Waterford crystal.
“It’s beautiful,” Janice said softly.
A shaft of light from the sinking sun arrowed through the room and bounced off the crystal. It was as if the clock itself was reflecting a rainbow as the light broke up into half a dozen different colours.
“Thank you,” Harry Holland echoed.
“Thank you very much. All of you.”
Ronni kissed them both.
The sound of Frank Sinatra began to fill the room. Fuller whispered something in Eva’s ear and led her into the middle of the makeshift dance floor.
Almost unnoticed, Ronni slipped out of the day room, leaving the residents alone. As she made her way along the corridor she could hear the sounds of music and merriment behind her.
They seemed a thousand miles away.
THE OFFICE OVERLOOKED the small car park and well-manicured front lawn of Shelby House.
Ronni sat gazing out into the rapidly descending gloom. The sun had bled to death in the sky, staining the heavens crimson. The clouds looked like gauze bundles, saturated with the deep red of the sunset.
Birds returning to their nests were black arrowheads against the blazing backdrop.
With the evening came a chill, one that permeated Shelby House despite the central heating.
Ronni looked at the paperwork before her with a weary resignation:
patient reports, to be submitted to their doctors; pharmaceutical orders; stock lists that determined how much and what kind of food was kept in the kitchen; financial reports .. .
Etc.” etc.
Ronni could feel a headache gnawing at the base of her skull. She reached up and massaged her own neck, gently twisting her head this way and that. It did little to help and she fumbled in her handbag for a couple of Nurofen. She took them with the tea she’d left on one corner of the desk fifteen minutes ago. It was stone cold and she winced as she swallowed the tablets.
Again she looked down at the paperwork, telling herself it should be done before she went home.
From the direction of the day room she could still hear music. Glenn Miller, she guessed. Her father had been a big fan.
Outside, she heard the sound of tyres on gravel.
Ronni glanced at her watch.
Moments later, there was a tap on the office door and she turned to see Gordon Faulkner standing there.
“How did the party go?” he asked.
Ronni smiled.
“They’re still at it by the sound of things,” she told him.
“So what are you doing in here?”
“My job,” she told him, tapping the paperwork.
“Excuse me.”
“Sorry, Gordon. I didn’t mean to be sharp. I just thought I’d leave them to it, that’s all.”
“Did Alison come in this afternoon? She said she was going to.”
“She popped in for an hour, had a couple of drinks and a piece of cake.
Don’t worry, we’ve saved you some.”
Faulkner smiled.
“Go on then, Ronni,” he told her.
“Go home. You look fit to drop, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“I didn’t sleep too well last night.”
“And
y keeping you awake?” He chuckled.
“You could say that,” she confessed, but the smile she managed never touched her eyes.
“Well, I’m going along to see how the party’s going,” Faulkner told her.
“I’ll come with you. Say goodnight to everyone,” she said.
They walked together from the office, along the corridor, past the pharmacy and the staff room towards the day room.
The sound of the Glenn Miller band had been replaced by Duke Ellington.
“This could go on all night.” Faulkner grinned.
Ronni was about to answer him when she heard the sound of shattering glass.
It took her only seconds to realize it came from outside.
As RONNI TURNED and headed for the main doors she heard another loud crash.
She quickened her pace, Faulkner close behind her.
She paused at the top of the short flight of steps leading to the main doors and scanned the darkened area in front of Shelby House, lit only by spotlights.
The beams cut through the gloom.
There was nothing moving.
“Oh, Christ, look,” murmured Faulkner. He was pointing in the direction of his and Ronni’s cars.
As he prepared to take a step forward, Ronni held out a hand to restrain him.
Her own gaze was fixed on the vehicles, in particular Faulkner’s Corsa.
Finally, together, they walked slowly down the steps and over to the cars, their feet crunching loudly on the gravel of the drive.
“Shit,” muttered Faulkner.
His front and rear windscreen had been smashed in. Pieces of glass had sprayed into the car and also over the driveway around the vehicle.
Both wing mirrors had been torn free and broken.
The front two tyres were slashed.
As he walked around he saw that the back ones were in a similar state.
The body work had suffered similar mutilation. There were deep scratches along both sides of the vehicle and, as he drew nearer, he saw what looked like white mist rising from the bonnet. There was viscous liquid all over it, some dripping onto the driveway; as he leaned nearer he could still see the paintwork bubbling.
“Don’t touch it,” Ronni hissed. She picked up a stick and prodded the blistered paint. The wood crackled and blackened as it made contact with the liquid on the bonnet.
“Acid,” she remarked, then moved to inspect her own car.
The driver’s side window had been broken and both wing mirrors lay twisted on the ground.
There was a large crack across the windscreen, the branch that had been used to make it still lay across the bonnet. The glass had spider webbed around the point of impact, but otherwise it had remained intact, despite the ferocity of the onslaught.
She crouched and inspected her tyres, relieved to see that all four were still undamaged.
Faulkner was standing with his hands cupped over his mouth, barely able to believe the destruction visited upon his car.
Carved into the passenger door were two words:
He shook his head incredulously.
Ronni was already striding up the driveway.
“What are you doing?” Faulkner wanted to know.
“Whoever did this can’t have got far,” she told him.
He ran after her and shot out a hand to hold her back.
“Ronni, for God’s sake! Whoever did this could be watching us now,” he snapped.
The words hit her like a thunderbolt.
She scanned the trees and bushes that flanked the drive and grew all around the front lawn of Shelby House.
Were there indeed eyes upon them now?
She took a step backwards.
“Who’d want to do this?” she mused, still gazing at the windblown trees and bushes.
“Let’s go back inside,” he said anxiously. He put out a hand to guide her towards the safety of Shelby House. He felt exposed out here in the darkened drive.
“We’ve got to call the police,” she insisted.
Faulkner was looking at his car again, still reeling from the savagery of the attack.
The acrid smell of seared metal and acid-scarred paint filled the air around the Corsa.
There were several large dents in the side panels of both cars.
Ronni’s, however, at least looked drive able
“We must have disturbed whoever did this,” she said.
“It looks as though they ran for it before they could finish with my car.”
“Well, they did a fucking good job on mine,” Faulkner rasped angrily.
He followed Ronni back up the steps to the main doors.
She paused once more, squinting into the gloom. Trying to pick out any signs of movement in the blackness beyond the reach of the spotlights.
She could see nothing.
“WHAT THE HELL are you talking about? We’ve got to call the police.”
Ronni stood in the office and fixed Faulkner in an unblinking stare.
“What’s the point?” he demanded.
“Whoever did it is long gone now.”
“They can check for fingerprints.”
“And then what?”
“Gordon, someone used acid on your car, slashed your tyres and smashed most of your windows.”
“I saw what they did, Ronni.”
“This isn’t just some passing idiot who keys a car. You don’t know who might be responsible. They could do it again. What do you think would have happened if we’d have disturbed them earlier? They might have thrown acid at us.”
Faulkner didn’t speak for a moment, merely sucked agitatedly on a cigarette.
“Look, I’m as pissed off about it as you,” he snapped at last.
“More if you like. At least you can still drive your car. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to get the police involved.”
“Why not?”
“Remember where we are, Ronni.”
“What are you talking about? Someone walked up the drive, found our cars and deliberately vandalized them and you don’t want the police involved?”
“Think about it. If the police come swarming all over here looking for evidence, what effect is it going to have on the residents? They’ll know someone came up the driveway. They’ll know someone was in the grounds. How do you think they’re going to react to that? We’ve got people in our care with heart conditions and high blood pressure. The last thing we need is one of them having a stroke or a fucking coronary because they’re scared they might be next.”
“Why should they be?”
“I’m not saying they will. I’m just asking you to consider the possible effect bringing the police here might have on the residents.”
“What kind of person is capable of doing something like that? Why would they want to do it? Don’t you want to know?”
“Fucking right I do,” he replied, thinking that he already had a fair idea.
“It’s my car that’s a bloody wreck. I just think there’s ways of doing it.”
“Such as?”
“I’ll call the RAC. Get them to take my car away. Once it’s off the grounds, the police can analyse it as much as they like.”
Ronni held his gaze for long moments. Then she nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I suppose you’re right,” she murmured.
“There’s no point in making everyone else panic.”
Faulkner finished his cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray.
“What did you mean when you said the residents might be next?” Ronni wanted to know.
“If someone was prepared to trespass on private property to trash our cars, you don’t know what else they might do.”
IT WAS GETTING COLDER.
Ronni paused outside the main doors and pulled her coat more tightly around her. Her breath clouded in the air.
However, as she fumbled in her pocket for her keys, she wondered how much of her shivering was due to the plummeting temperatures and how much to what had alrea
dy happened that evening.
Her own car and the savaged wreck of Faulkner’s Corsa stood nearby.
Ronni peered into the gloom, watching for any signs of movement.
What do you expect to seel She crossed to the Fiesta and quickly slipped behind the wheel, locking the door behind her.
As she sat looking out of the windscreen she inspected the cracks on the glass more carefully. They didn’t obscure her view enough to affect her driving and she should be able to manage even without the wing mirror that had been torn away.
She wondered what Andy would have to say when he saw the damage. That was now both their cars vandalized.
She pushed the ignition key into place and prepared to turn it.
Something made her pause.
Don’t turn it.
Ronni swallowed hard.
What if the car was wired?
She looked down at the key, her hand resting on the steering wheel.
What if there’s a bomb under the bonnet? As soon as you turn the key ... Ronni suddenly felt angry with herself. There was no bomb under the bonnet.
If you’re so sure, then start the fucking thing. Go on.
The damage had been done by some idiots who (who were crazy enough to use acid on Faulkner’s car) got a kick out of damaging other people’s property.
That was it.
So start the engine and drive off.
She gripped the wheel with both hands and looked out into the darkness again.
Were there eyes watching her even now?
The damage to her own car was minor.
Faulkner’s was wrecked.
Had that been part of the plan? Lull you into a false sense of security?
Ronni exhaled deeply.
Start the engine.
This was vandalism, not terrorism. There was no bomb in her car.
Then reach down and turn that little key. Twist it in trie ignition.
Easy as that.
No bomb.
Her hand was shaking as it hovered over the ignition key.
Paranoid?
She rested her hand on the key.
Turn it.
Ronni switched on the lights, the beams cutting through the blackness.
Turn the fucking key if you’re so sure everything’s fine.
