by Clive Barry
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Who the fuck did that?’ Questioned the big lad.
Mike said nothing, he was actually starting to turn a strange colour of green and although he could ride out a force nine in a coble, he was seriously struggling to keep his present stomach contents in place.
‘I did,’ whispered Sally,
‘You fuckin’ did? How the? Why the? Oh fuck!’
The stupid confused state just verbally poured out of Paul’s gaping gob, while Mike forcibly kept his own clenched tightly shut, letting his big brother conduct the interrogation.
‘Right, right.’
Paul muttered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief at the total carnage his baby sister had just introduced them both to.
‘What am I going to do? Can yeh help us? What am I gonna tell me bairns when they get home? They can’t see this, they’re gonna hate me.’ Sally continued to ramble incoherently.
It was Mike who seemed to be the first to regain his composure. Taking a dirty tea towel from the kitchen sink and from arm’s length and a very safe distance, managed to throw it neatly across Charlie’s face, covering it.
‘What time is it?’ Mike asked.
‘Why? Where the fuck do yeh think yeh goin man?’ exclaimed Paul in horror at the idea that he may be left alone to deal with the devastation all by himself.
‘Nowhere man, it’s cos we don’t want the fuckin’ kids walkin’ in on this, do we?’
Mike was thinking positively and the other two were quite happy to let him.
‘Half past two,’ Sally finally replied, ‘I have to go for the kids in ten minutes.’
‘No yeh don’t,’ said Mike, ‘what yeh have to do is get a bin bag and throw all those fuckin’ clothes in it. But first is there anyone that can get the bairns and keep them for a while?’
‘Well I could ask Jenny, she has a couple of kids herself in the same class as ours. She’ll do it cos she knew we been fighting, I could tell her it’s best if the kids don’t come home just yet cos we’re still at it.’
‘Good, go do that then Sal and ask if she can keep them for a couple of hours so we can get some breathing space and sort this fuckin’ mess out.’
Mike was sometimes brains, but with Paul, it was usually brains and brawn.
Sally went off and made the phone call to her friend whilst Mike and Paul discussed the game plan. She was back within a few minutes.
‘She says she’ll keep them overnight wi’ her kid’s cos it’s not fair on our bairns listenin’ to us goin’ at it all night.’
Mike looked relieved.
‘Thank fuck,’ he said, ‘so we got a bit of time to sort this fuckin’ mess out then. Sal go open them back windows and get the stink out of here. He was a dirty, smelly fat bastard when he was alive but fuck he stinks worse than a bucket of pig shit now.’
Sally did as she was told while her two older brothers, their backs to her, unceremoniously lifted the body of her now lifeless husband onto the floor. Sally stripped where she stood, taking off all her outer clothing and shoes, placing everything on the blood covered living room rug and leaving on just her panties and bra. She then ran barefoot upstairs, removed the remaining under clothes and stepped under the shower for the second time in only a few hours.
When Sally came back downstairs a short while later, she was wearing cut off jeans and a big oversized pink sweatshirt. The body of her dear departed was laid naked with his arms crossed over on his chest, feet together on the living room rug.
The gaping wound of his neck seemed to have shut over while he was laid flat and his eyes had been closed, he looked quite calm and at peace.
‘Where’s his clothes? Why’s he naked?’
Sally asked in surprise. Mike looked at Paul, then back to Sally before explaining.
‘All clothes and owt with blood on that can be burned is goin’ into plastic bags. We’ll wrap fat boy up in the rug for now and take him for a drive during the night when there’s no fucker ‘round to watch.’
Paul continued to be busy while Mike explained the plan.
‘Make sure yeh don’t get owt on yeh again our Sal, in fact go in the kitchen and put the kettle on, I’m parched, I could do with a very strong drink about now and I’d really rather it wasn’t fuckin’ tea.’
It was dark when they eventually completed the clean up operation of the living room. They’d managed to roll Charlie up in the rug, although his feet had stuck out from the bottom, his head and face had been covered.
The lads always carried spare gear and tackle for the boat in the back of the car, so Mike had gone out earlier at Paul’s instructions and brought back a small tarpaulin and a roll of nylon cord that they used for repairing the older lobster traps. Charlie and the rug were now rolled up in the tarp with both ends tied off looking like a very large blood sausage.
Sally and the boys had got busy once they managed to get Charlie tidied up and placed out of the way under the window at the back of the living room.
The painted concrete floor had been mopped and scrubbed a dozen times with a mixture of Domestos and then Detol. The silk emulsion painted walls were washed down to remove the remaining spray of congealed blood and the house now smelt like the emergency trauma unit of the general hospital.
There’d been a lot less blood than there could have, but as the first stab was in the back of the neck, Charlie had actually died before the severing of his throat and carotid arteries, consequently his heart had already stopped pumping.
They’d tried to remove the splattering of blood from Charlie’s chair but to no avail, so whilst Sally and Mike carried on cleaning, Paul put the chair and all the soiled clothing together with the mop and cleaning rags into the back of the car, wrapped in plastic sheets. He then drove the short distance to behind the local shops where there were a couple of refuse skips kept.
All the rubbish was thrown into a skip and then Paul set fire to it. In this area, fires in skips were common place and always being lit by the local kids. No one was going to pay any untoward attention to this one.
He sat in the car a small distance away just to ensure everything was well lit and that the local fire brigade didn’t turn up, then he drove back to Sally’s house.
While Paul had gone off to set fire to the local skip, Sally phoned Jenny.
‘Hya Jen, it’s only me Sally, I just wondered if I could talk to me bairns?’
‘Course yeh can pet I’ll get ‘em for yeh now. Are yeh alright? He hasn’t hurt yeh again has he?’
‘No, no, I’m fine, just a lotta shoutin’ and stuff goin on. I just needed to talk to me kids before they went to bed.’
Sally could hear Jenny call in the background.
‘Kids, away, yeh mam wants to talk to yeh and say night, night.’
Sally had trouble keeping the many emotions out of her voice as she spoke first to Georgia, then little Charlie. They were both happy, they’d eaten all their tea and were in clean borrowed pyjamas watching cartoons on the telly ready for bed.
Jenny told Sally that she would see them all to school the next day and that she didn’t have to worry. Sally thanked her with a genuine gratitude, tears in her eyes and a sob in her voice and let her know that she would be there in the afternoon to pick them up straight after school. At least she hoped she was.
Sally and Mike were finishing a pot of tea when Paul arrived back, so he poured himself one and whilst they were all sat in the kitchen at the bench table, Paul gently probed.
‘Sal, sweetheart, I gotta ask yeh, what the fuck ‘appened? What brought this lot on? If anyone ‘ad said teh me you did that, I’d a fuckin’ laughed at them and said you were the last one in the world capable of what we saw in there.’
Sally, elbows on the table, cradling her mug in both hands spoke.
‘I think I were just so fed up of bein’ his punch bag our Paul. I guess I sorta lost the plot a bit. I don’t actually remember a lot about what ‘appened, I just sorta woke up and there it a
ll was.’
Both lads just nodded, they thought maybe they understood.
After a few silent moments in the kitchen, Sally then asked.
‘What we gonna do with ‘im?’
Considering a few hours previously she’d been a total wreck, Sally was now quite calm with her big brothers sat by her side.
‘I think it best if yeh let us worry about that sis,’ said Paul.
‘Ya,’ Mike replied, ‘the less yeh know, the less yeh can worry or talk about. Yeh need to concentrate on you and them bairns now and we’ll sort the rest out.’
Sally nodded her head in agreement.
‘It’s time to go,’ Paul whispered much later, ‘you ready bro’?’
Mike lifted his head from the kitchen table and tried to focus on his big brother’s face. He’d been napping for a couple of hours with his head resting on his arms, waiting for a time when they could both leave the house carrying the large bundle to the car without being seen by anyone that might become suspicious.
Sally had gone upstairs earlier at their insistence. Removed the vomit covered bedding off the once matrimonial bed and put it in the washing machine downstairs on a setting of a very hot cotton wash. She then went to the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs, took out fresh bedding, turned the mattress over and made the bed up again.
After asking the lads downstairs if there was anything else they needed, she changed into clean pyjamas, climbed under the quilt totally exhausted from the previous twenty four hour’s exertions. Sally was fast asleep almost before her head touched the pillow.
It was one thirty a.m. on a still and quiet spring morning, when Paul and Mike walked out the backdoor of the little council house that Sally would now share with just the two children.
Mike went first to ensure that no one was around, opened the back of the car, then returned inside to pick up the feet end of his once brother in law. Paul took the head end and together they both struggled with the heavy uncooperating lump of dead flesh. They dumped the corpse in the back of the car, shutting the door over as quietly as they could, then both looking around to ensure they weren’t being observed.
People living in this part of town purposely didn’t observe anything, certainly not if the local constabulary or anyone else representing authority might get involved. The majority of the local populace of this area all had something they didn’t want to draw attention to.
CHAPTER SIX
Paul drove again and went straight to the boat compound. Mike got out and unlocked the padlock on the big gates, all the owners of the boats within the compound had keys for the lockup so they could get their boats in and out during unsocial hours.
After Paul reversed through and parked the car alongside the Bonny Doris, Mike then relocked the padlock on the front of the gates by putting his hands through from the inside.
The car lights turned off, the engine now silent with the only sound being that of the waves washing against the sea wall on the far side of the road and seagulls screaming under a street light as they fought over the remnants of a late night revellers discarded Big Mac and fries.
The brothers stood at the back of the car with the hatch door open. The body had not moved, and it became a bit of a struggle for the two of them to get a firm grip within such a confined space.
Charlie took up the whole area in the back of the car and had wedged, but with a bit of pushing and shoving they managed to get a grip on his feet and pull him straight. It was just a matter of them now dragging together and with a few tugs and jerks, Charlie dropped heavily out of the back and onto the sand covered ground next to the boat and trailer.
Neither of the lads heard or saw the big car pull up
outside the gates, but when the torch light caught Mikes
eyes he automatically shaded them with his hand, blinded by
the brightness.
‘What you up to in there?’ Came a male voice from the car.
‘Stay where you are and keep your head down bro.’
Mike whispered to Paul as he walked towards the big BMW X5 police car.
‘Alright mate?’
Mike replied standing on the inside of the compound. The police officer in the passenger side had his window down but made no move to get out.
‘You’re up late or is it early?’ The officer asked.
‘Early,’ said Mike, ‘tide’ll be turnin’ in a few hours so me brother’l be along soon and we’ll be goin out for the day, see if we can make a bit of a livin’ at this bloody game.’
The officer stared at Mike inquiringly, then asked.
‘You’re Mike Vickers, aren’t yeh? Yeh got an older brother Paul and a younger pretty sister, what’s her name Sandy?’
‘Aye, that’s right but her names Sally, Paul should be along soon. The boat used to be me dads but he’s knackered wi’ bad lungs now, so me and our lad are the registered operators.’
The officer looked him up and down slowly then said.
‘You don’t remember me do yeh? We were in the same year at Thornton’s secondary, Dave Riley, we were on the same footy team.’
Mike smiled in recognition.
‘Oh ya, I remember, how yeh keeping mate?’
‘Good thanks, but I gotta ask, how come yer locked in the compound?’
Mike gave a short laugh and shook his head.
‘I’m not locked in mate, I locked the gates me self cos we get a lotta drunks comin’ out of the clubs at this time of night and I don’t wanna get mugged or have to put up wi’ the hassle of twattin’ some shit faced little smack head while I’m tryin to get ready for work.’
Mike took the keys out of his pocket and showed them to the policeman.
Officer Riley laughed.
‘Okay mate we’ll leave yeh to it, we gotta go see if we can find some bad guys. You take care and be safe out there though, eh?’
Dave Riley gave Mike the thumbs up with his arm outstretched from the police car passenger window and waved as they drove off.
Mike breathed a sigh of relief as he slowly turned around to walk back to the Mondeo, his big brother and a very dead Charlie.
‘I think I may have just shat me self,’ he muttered out loud.
Paul was still crouched low behind the car when Mike returned.
‘What the fuck was that all about man? I thought yeh was gonna invite him over for a fuckin’ beer while yeh was reminiscing. They could at least of give us a hand to lift this fat twat into the boat cos we’re gonna need a fuckin’ crane to pick him up. If Charlie had been a tuna fish we’d be worth a fuckin’ fortune by now.’
Paul was right, to lift the deadweight of Charlie’s eighteen stone into the boat was going to take a superhuman effort, unless they could find some lifting gear. With the boat sitting on the trailer made it at least two and a half foot off the ground, that combined with a five foot of freeboard clearance required a lift of over seven foot.
Paul was a big lad at six foot one and Mike only slightly smaller at five eleven, but to lift Charlie above their heads was going to be hard to say the least and so they didn’t. Instead, it was Paul that came up with the bright idea of putting Charlie in the boat, piece by piece.
‘You are fuckin’ jokin’? Oh please tell me your fuckin’ jokin man.’
Mike had gone that strange colour of green again, he had only just got back his normal pallor after seeing Charlie sat in the arm chair, covered in his own blood with an extra gaping mouth in his neck.
‘Nah, nah, listen,’ said big brother Paul, ‘I’ll do all the cutting up cos I do most of the gutting an’ cleaning anyway an’ it really doesn’t bother us. We can pack ‘im in them spare cold boxes to take ‘im out, then pack the parts into the lobster traps. The fuckin’ crabs and lobsters’ll do the rest. Them greedy little crustacean bastards’ll eat owt. Then in a few days’ time we can go back out an empty any of the remaining bones. Just think ‘ow fat those fuckin’ crabs’ll be after ‘avin dinner wi’ our Charlie.’
&nb
sp; ‘And ‘ow long do yeh think this is gonna take? We’re sat here in the middle of a fuckin’ boat yard an’ any one of the other lads could be coming in for their boats. Tide’ll be turnin’ in a few hours.’
‘Well we best get fuckin’ started then hadn’t we our lad,’ said Paul.
The brothers didn’t carry anything larger than the boning and filleting knives on board the boat. They had a small hatchet for cutting the lines in an emergency, but that had rusted so badly it was neither use nor ornament.
‘Right up you go,’ said Paul to his younger sibling, ‘get up that fuckin’ ladder and pass down those fuckin’ cold boxes while I start trimming our Charlie down to size.’
Mike looked at him and shook his head.
‘You’re fuckin’ sick you. I always thought it when we was kids, but now it’s confirmed, you’re a total sick fuck.’
Paul put on a pair of the industrial rubber gloves he used for fish handling, then started by removing the ropes holding the tarpaulin. He unwrapped Charlie naked onto the ground and with the sharpest knife he trimmed around Charlie’s right wrist, slicing through skin, muscle and tendons. The knife just slid straight through with hardly any effort. He then placed a large screw driver into the joint and twisted and with surprisingly little force, the hand popped off.
Paul carried on up the arm to the elbow, employing the same method and again there was no great effort required. It was a bit more difficult at the shoulder with a bit more strength required, but Paul was on a roll and the adrenalin had taken over.
Mike had brought several boxes down and with squinted eyes so he couldn’t watch what his big brother was doing and wearing his own heavy duty rubber gloves, he began to pack the boxes with body parts. They shared the parts out evenly as they’d decided earlier that two of Charlies thighs were not going to fit into a single box. They’d also decided that neither of the thighs would fit into a single trap either and the excess flesh would require filleting off the bone first.
There was a lot less blood than they’d anticipated. Charlie had mostly bled out in the house at the hands of Sally his wife. They had everything all boxed up nice and neat and what remained was a torso with a semi severed head still attached.
