Two Crime Novelettes: The Revenge of Darian Devlin and A Singular Murder

by J. S. Mahon

  Seeing a space big enough for a car just across the lane, I hurried back to the layby and drove back down to it, before rushing back up the narrow path to the woods. As I settled down behind a biggish bush I almost hoped that he had returned already, but when I heard a dog bark further up the main path I took the pistol out of the rucksack and loaded it.

  By the time I heard footsteps I had started sweating and my hand was none too steady, so it was something of a relief when a middle-aged woman walked past with her Labrador on a lead. After a few deep breaths I calmed down and felt that I had the situation well in hand. The woman had provided me with a dress rehearsal and I had seen the perfect spot between two trees where I could get a good shot.

  When after about half an hour more footsteps approached, the sight of a Yorkshire terrier sniffing around about ten yards from me did nothing for my composure, but I steadied myself on one knee, took aim, and waited. After firing at his back I rushed past the barking dog and flew down the narrow path as fast as I could. When I got back to the car my adrenaline was sky high and as I drove down the lane, trying not to go too fast, I began to laugh out loud at the cries of pain and fury that I had heard as I made my escape. I had no fear of feeling low for the rest of that weekend.

  7

  I’m trying to be as truthful as possible, but when I tell you that I was pleased to have been shot in the left buttock with some kind of airgun on Saturday morning you probably won’t believe me. The reason I was pleased was that despite the shock and the considerable pain, I still managed to hobble back up the path a few yards to try to confront my assailant. Judging by the fact that the pellet had stuck in my flesh, the shot couldn’t have been fired from a great distance and I thought that I might be able to get at him before he had time to reload or escape.

  I was rewarded for my efforts and, let’s face it, my bravery, because through the trees and away to the left I saw a figure hurtling down a path and although I couldn’t see him very clearly I knew for a fact that there was no way that either Malcolm D. or Peter B. could have run so fast. Afzal K. it was then, I thought as I walked slowly back to the layby, trying my damnedest not to limp as I passed a bloke getting out of his car.

  Once in the car I stuffed some paper towels inside my briefs to soak up any blood and on reaching home I was pleased to see that Helen and Jenny had not returned from Jenny’s riding class. I limped up to the bathroom – it was really starting to hurt by then – took off my trousers and briefs, and looked at the damage in the mirror. There wasn’t much blood at all, but the pellet was still there and I’d have to remove it if I didn’t want my wife to find out.

  I found some tweezers in the cupboard and managed to grip the pellet with them and yank it out, a very painful process indeed. A bit more blood came out then, so I gave the area a good wash, put on some antiseptic cream, and dressed the wound. The cream stank, so I cut my left forefinger with a razorblade, rubbed plenty of cream on, and put two big plasters on it. That might seem a bit over the top, but I was less keen than ever to get the coppers involved now that I’d identified my foe and I knew that Helen would ring them if she found out about the shooting. This was something between me and him and I was sure I could punish him much more appropriately than they ever would.

  With the help of a lot of paracetamol I managed to show no signs of my main injury when they returned home and we had lunch together. When Jenny wrinkled her nose at the smell of antiseptic I told them I’d cut my finger on a sharp stone while out with the dog. At about half past one they went off to see Helen’s mother and I made a beeline for the computer. Afzal K.’s punishment would have to be in a similar vein to what he had done to me and over lunch I’d remembered an interesting article I’d read in the paper that week. After a quick search I found a place that sold what I was looking for and after studying the map I cleared the browser history and set off.

  I can’t say that I enjoyed that drive to the outskirts of Leeds, but the throbbing pain in my buttock was a constant reminder of the reason for my journey. I bought what I wanted, no questions asked, and got home about half an hour before my wife and daughter did. When the pain got worse that evening as we sat watching TV, I reminded myself what I had stored in the car boot and looked forward to the week ahead.

  Monday and Tuesday passed very slowly and although it was tempting to stop a few people’s money just for a bit of light relief, I managed to hold myself back as I hoped that my new benign streak would show that I was in a very relaxed frame of mind. I was ever so friendly to all the people I despised, so when Afzal K. arrived on Wednesday morning I’d had plenty of practice.

  “Hi, Afzal. How’s it going?” I said, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Pretty good. I’ve got an interview this afternoon.”

  “Great. Where’s that?”

  “It’s at the gym where I go. They’re thinking of taking me on as an instructor there,” he said, looking quite excited. “A guy’s just left and I’ve been asking them to give me a job for a long time, especially since I did the course I needed.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, vaguely remembering a certificate that he’d brought in once. I didn’t know if he was making the story up to deflect my attention from the shooting incident, but the gym was precisely the thing I had planned to quiz him about. “Which gym is it, by the way?”

  “Bodies. Bodies Gym. It’s on Burnside Road.”

  “Ah yes, quite a big place isn’t it?”

  “Yes, they do all sorts of things; weights, cardio, fitness classes, the works. I’ve been helping out there for a while and it’s about time they offered me a job,” he said, looking very pleased with himself.

  Having gained the information I needed and feeling in no mood for more amateur theatricals, I wished him good luck and sent him on his way. He clearly thought that he’d got away undetected on Saturday and whether or not the interview was genuine was immaterial to me. I was tempted to get up a street view of the gym there and then, but it would have been a rash thing to do on the office computer, so I decided to drive past it after work instead.

  I drove past it three times in the end, trying to figure out the best place to lie in wait for him. The gym was in an old school building and the playground had been converted into a car park. If I could find a space on the road outside I would have three options, dependent on whether he was walking or driving.

  If he walked from the gym entrance to the car park I could fire from my car seat through the railings, and if he walked off down the road I could fire from behind the car door. If he walked toward me I would have to duck and hope for the best. If he saw me, I’d have to invent some story about the job centre having sent me out to see if he was really working – not very plausible, but better than nothing – and if he didn’t I’d be able to get him as he walked away.

  The next morning I was puzzling over how I would find time to ‘case’ the gym without arousing my wife’s suspicions when the phone rang. It was Afzal K. calling to tell me that he’d been offered the job at the gym and would be signing off.

  “That’s brilliant, Afzal, and thanks for ringing to let me know. Could you just tell me what hours you’ll be working?” I was quick enough to ask.

  “From one till nine, starting today.”

  “Thanks again, Afzal, and good luck.”

  “Cheers, Darian.”

  I hung up, despatched my next customer quickly, and thought about the call. He’d sounded genuine enough, but was he gloating? Afzal K, understood the benefits system well enough to know that if you signed off you didn’t need to ring your adviser. Some people posted the form at the back of the booklet and others did nothing at all, but only the most considerate of them actually bothered to ring. Why would a person who I had given such a hard time to for two years bother to ring up if it were not to gloat? Perhaps he wished to rub in the fact that it was no longer in my power to punish him at the job centre. Maybe he wanted to hear the voice of the man he’d shot telling him how happy he was that he�
�d found a job. Whatever his reasons, he wouldn’t be feeling so smug after I’d finished with him, and that call was going to save me a lot of hanging around.

  I could have waited until I’d come up with a better alibi, but I was impatient to get the job done as quickly as possible, so when at eight o’clock that evening I told my wife that I was going to the pub, I’d fully expected her to be surprised.

  “It’s a while since you’ve been there,” she said. “And so early?”

  “I’m not going to the local. I’m going to drive over to have a pint with a new chap from work. He’s new to the area and asked me if I fancied going out one night. I don’t really, but he’s an OK bloke and I’ll be working with him a lot,” was my flimsy alibi.

  “That’s not like you, being sociable,” she said with a titter.

  “Well, I’m going to try to build up better relations there to see if I can get back in the management’s good books. I won’t be late.”

  I arrived at the gym just after half past eight and managed to park about twenty yards from the entrance. On the way there I’d stopped on a quiet street and transferred my new toy from the boot to the space in front of the passenger seat. I primed it for action and regretted that I hadn’t taken the trouble to practise using it, but I didn’t think I could go far wrong. I pulled the flat cap I was wearing down almost to eye level and pretended to mess with my mobile phone. I feared that when Afzal K. finished at nine there might be something of an exodus from the gym and I warned myself not to be impulsive and to leave if there were too many people around.

  Just after nine quite a few people did leave the gym, but Afzal wasn’t among them. Five or six cars left the car park and there was still no sign of him. At about twenty past the door opened again and I saw him exchange words with somebody inside before trotting down the steps. I was ready for him to walk across the car park and hopefully turn his back on me, but instead he headed for the street. I prayed that he would turn left at the gate and head away from me. At the gate he stopped and looked around and I was about to lie flat across the passenger seat when he set off the other way.

  While the window was lowering I had a quick look in all the mirrors before opening the door. I knelt down behind it, took aim right in the middle of his arse, and pulled the trigger. I thought my shot had been a bit high, but he was flat on his face and I raced away from the scene without getting chance to take a better look. At the end of the road I turned my lights on, took a left, and made myself slow down. Instead of driving straight home I headed out of town in the opposite direction and took a right onto a narrow lane that I knew. After giving the crossbow a good wipe with my handkerchief I flung it over the wall into a field, followed by the spare fourteen inch bolt and the box that I remembered to take out of the boot.

  After all that excitement I thought I deserved a pint, so I stopped off at a pub I’d never visited before and sat at the bar trying not to grin at the audacity of my revenge attack. At the time my satisfaction was such that I could well understand why some people chose a life of crime, but when I turned into my avenue an hour later and saw two police cars outside the house my euphoria evaporated in an instant.

  That happened last May and it was after I started the creative writing course a few weeks ago that I began writing this account. I’ve tried to write it as I felt as the story unfolded and my teacher says I haven’t made a bad job of it for a beginner. She’s a good-looking woman, but I’ll not get chance to ask her out for at least two years as I’m serving five for attempted murder. The crossbow bolt lodged in his back just a whisker to the left of his spine and we’ve both been lucky that he’s made a full recovery. That sixty quid crossbow wasn’t such a toy after all.

  My sentence could have been a lot worse, but my lawyer managed to convince the judge that I wasn’t in my right mind at the time of the attack. This was aided by the fact that all my accusations against Afzal K. fell flat when he provided watertight alibis for all of the things I accused him of. By the time we were through the jury thought I was bonkers and I suppose I should thank them for that. Helen’s still standing by me, just about, but when I get parole from here she’s made it clear that I’ll be on licence with her too until I’ve proved that I’m something like the man that she thought she married.

  I still don’t know who let the tyre down, scratched the car, painted the window and shot me with the airgun, and I doubt I ever will. Helen’s warned me not to even think about it and although I can hardly avoid doing that, it’s probably best not to dwell on it too much. I’ll do all the courses they throw at me in here to make sure that I can get some kind of job when I get out, because if there’s one place I won’t want to visit it’s the job centre.

  8

  I read the reports on Darian Devlin’s trial with great interest, but spoke about it with no-one. Had I known what he was capable of, I don’t think I would have begun my little campaign and I was mightily relieved when it was all done and dusted and he was sent off to serve his sentence.

  When his arrest was reported in the papers my first thought was that my provocative actions might have led to the crippling or even death of that innocent young man and I kicked myself for ever having started to behave in such an uncharacteristic way. I shuddered to think of the risks I had taken and how I might have ended up falling victim to that psychopath myself.

  When he was remanded in custody I breathed a huge sigh of relief because right from the start it seemed obvious that the Asian man was an innocent victim and had Darian been granted bail who knows what he might have found out. As the trial progressed and it became clear that the court was not interested in who else might have given him grounds for his crazy behaviour, I began to feel safer and even rather proud that my daring actions – especially the shooting in the woods – had exposed such a danger to society. Even though I didn’t dare share my exploits with even my closest friends, the memory of what I did seemed to improve my self-esteem and get me out of the rut that I had fallen into.

  So my life has taken a turn for the better since the events of last spring and I look forward to the future in a much more positive frame of mind. Even now I’m not sure if it is due to my having taken a stand against him or to the simple fact that I no longer have to spend forty hours a week working in the same office separated only by a flimsy partition.

  A Singular Murder

  My Grandfather’s Secret Crime

  INTRODUCTION

  Dull, they called me, and still do, but I haven’t felt dull during all the years since I did it. It has always been my little secret, my accomplishment, so I’ve written it down just for you, Tommy, and you can tell whoever you like when you see fit because by the time you’ve read it they won’t be able to touch me. I hope you’ll never have to do anything like it yourself, but if you ever do, use your brains, take your time, and think of that quiet man who was your granddad.

  Take care,

  Jack Turnbull

  Wednesday 2nd April, 2003

  Those words were the last that my grandfather wrote on the fifty-odd sheets of lined paper that he gave to me in a large envelope when I visited him at the care home in July of that year. He knew that he didn’t have long left then and he told me not to open the envelope, which he had taped firmly shut, until after he had died. Being a post-graduate student at the time and always short of money, I had hoped it might contain banknotes, but when I finished reading his story in the early hours of the morning after his funeral, all thoughts of the cash that it might have been had long gone from my mind.

  I haven’t told a soul about the contents of that singular document until now, but during the last ten years I must have asked my mother a thousand questions about him, mainly about the decade before I was born, the 1970s. She was a teenager then, still living at home, and remembered clearly what his routine was: working long hours at the factory, visits to the pub, more reading than television, fishing or walking at the weekends and a week at the coast in July. She said he was quite a du
ll man and wondered why I was so interested in him, even getting a tad suspicious when I narrowed my questioning down to her 17th year, but there were gaps I needed to fill and some things I needed to put into context, so I had to ask. She passed away suddenly last year, so I have decided to share his story, just as he wrote it except for a few corrections, observations (normally in parenthesis) and some name changes, including my own, in order to keep the police and press off my back.

  1

  Tommy,

  Call this a confession or call it what you will, but when it comes down to it I don’t want to take this story to the grave with me after all. You’re my favourite grandchild, and the brightest, so I’ve decided to tell it to you and hope that you won’t judge me too harshly. It happened about ten years before you were born and by the time you came along I was fairly sure that I was safe, but it’s something I’ve thought about every day since I did it, sometimes with remorse, but mostly with the satisfaction of having pulled it off.

  You won’t know what I’m talking about yet, but I’m in no hurry, so I’m going to take you back to the winter of 1972 when all the power cuts caused by the miners’ strike made things difficult at the factory where I worked. Well, easy for the blokes on the machines if the power went down, but difficult for me as I was foreman on the back shift (2pm – 10pm) and had to try to keep everyone busy.

  It was one evening at about nine o’clock, after I’d let the lads go home and was sitting in the office trying to read the paper by candlelight, when Dennis Black came in and put the kettle on. I told him he could shoot off if he wanted to, because the others had gone and I didn’t like him much anyway, but he said he fancied a brew and asked me if I wanted one. I said I was all right and it was then that he dropped the bombshell.