by Clive Barry
Between the two of them they lifted and passed the boxed body parts up into the boat, then Paul went down and with a few deft strokes of the knife and a bit of a twist, he removed Charlie’s head from his body.
The torso went into a large heavy duty polypropylene bag with the head in a black plastic bin liner. It was amazing how heavy a torso could be, even without head and limbs, in Charlie’s case it came to just under nine stone or one hundred and thirty pounds.
Paul, with the help of Mike, then threw the bagged torso across his shoulders and climbed the ladder, dropping the remains of Charlie over the side into the bottom of the coble, his head following soon after.
They then wrapped the bloody rug back into the tarpaulin and that went into the back of the car again to be disposed of when they came back ashore.
Everything else went on board the Bonny Doris together with all the knives and other tools employed in the dismemberment.
‘Right,’ said Paul, ‘that’s him sorted, let’s get this boat in the water and feed them fuckin’ fishies.’
Mike took an old nylon broom from the boat and swept around the area used for the butchery. The soft sand that had blown up from the beach had absorbed all of the remaining spilt blood, but sweeping around had removed all other traces, leaving a relatively clean floor area.
Mike then took off his Nike trainers and threw them in the car, retrieving his waders out from the back. Fitting snuggly into the boots, he then pulled the big waterproof bib and braces over his shoulders. Once this was complete, he unlocked and opened the gates, driving the car out of the compound and parking it on the opposite side of the road.
Locked in the compound was a tractor used for towing the boats down to the slipway and onto the beach opposite the compound gates. This tractor was a cooperative motor, owned and paid for by the members of the local Fisherman’s Society, each member of which had a key to the compound and the tractor. At the moment, there were around twenty boats in the compound. Some were away being rigged and refitted but there could be as many as thirty locked up at any one time when it was full.
Paul reversed the tractor back to the tow bar of the trailer and connected the lights and brakes, by this time Mike had returned and they pulled out of the gates, swung the trailer and tractor round and drove down the slipway onto the beach.
The dawn light was slowly coming up in the east now and the wind and swell had increased making the Bonny Doris roll and pitch a bit. They released the steel wire holding her on the trailer and Mike jumped on board, starting the 36 horse power Volvo Penta MD 17 engine. He turned the key, pulled the starter and the little beauty fired up first time.
Putting her in dead slow aft and with Paul pushing, Mike slid away from the trailer and the connections that Paul had unhitched.
‘Back in a mo bro.’
Paul called to him and drove the tractor and trailer back up the slipway, across the Esplanade and into the compound, unhitching the trailer in their private allotted parking space.
Two other lads had just arrived by car to take their boat out, so he bid them a good morning and exchanged pleasantries, then parked the tractor in front of their boat for them to use. He then ran back over the road to where Mike was holding the Bonny Doris steady, waded out and without any effort, jumped on board.
They followed a north by north east heading off the beach and put the Bonny Doris into full throttle. She was able to keep up a steady five knots all day, even with a slight head wind.
Today they were lucky the wind was from the south west which was the direction of the normal prevailing winds in this area. The heading would take them off the shallows, past the steep slope into the twenty five metre deep water anchorage of the oil and chemical tankers dotted about, awaiting berths at the numerous terminals in the mouth of the river Tonnet, north of Seaborough city.
They anticipated around two hours to reach the lobster traps they’d checked on just a day earlier.
‘You never know we may even have summit to bring back with us as well,’ Paul thought out loud.
They steamed past the outer anchorage area until they saw the first of their marker buoys depicting the beginning of their submerged traps.
Upon arrival, Paul began heaving up the first trap by use of the eight inch Electroslaver hauler on the starboard side of the boat, while Mike put the engine into the stop position.
They remained drifting whilst the trap was brought on board. Inside they found a couple of small crabs, too small to be landed ashore, so Paul reached in and cautiously lifted them out dropping them promptly over the side.
The traps they used were metal welded, pvc coated and Japanese made. They were of a good strong construction and could be collapsed for storage and handling if required.
The brothers had been given a fair deal by a retiring lobsterman mate of their dads. The old lad had wanted fifteen pounds apiece for forty pieces, but canny old George Vickers had got him down to ten fifty each and a couple of pints in the Ship and Anchor after. These traps would last maintenance free for years.
‘Okay, let’s get this show on the road, pass me some of Charlie outta the cooler boxes Mike.’
Mike shook his head in exasperation but complied with a left forearm and a hand.
‘Sick I’m tellin’ you, you’re fuckin’ sick. How many bits do you think we should put in each one?’ Mike asked.
‘I don’t think it matters too much mate, it’ll either be eaten or it’ll rot, but one way or t’other there should be only bones left at the end, hey what do I fuckin’ know, I never done fuck all like this before ‘ave I?’
They carried on from trap to trap placing pieces of dismembered Charlie into each one and removing a total of six decent size crabs and four good size lobsters all within the legal specification to be landed ashore.
Mike then washed out the cooler boxes over the side of the boat, removing any remaining blood that Charlie may have left behind and after putting elastic bands around the claws of the crustaceans, placed the crabs in one box and the lobsters in another, all they had left now was a head and torso.
‘Right brain of Britain, what do we fuckin’ do wi’ this?’
Mike asked pointing with his rubber booted foot to the final remnants of a once upon a time, sort of human being.
Paul stood up stretching his arms above his head, opened his mouth and yawned.
‘Right what we’re gonna do is tie the fat boy to a weight and just drop him over the fuckin’ side to the bottom. We can either hook him or just tie him with a bit of Kevlar line. Fasten it to a couple of those old knackered twenty mill’ ‘D’ shackles and drop him, we can do the same wi’ his fat ugly bald head as well.’
Paul went into the standing shelter and brought out a reel of the braided 1000 pound Kevlar string line and cut off around two metres. He fastened a six inch shark hook to one end and two ‘D’ shackles to the other. With the shark hook he turned the torso remains of Charlie over and hooked from the right side of Charlies back just above what had once upon a time been his waist. Then around the spinal column and back through to the left side, securing the torso as if it were a side of beef in an abattoir.
The whole operation took a surprising amount of effort as Charlie was fast becoming very stiff and solid. Upon completion Paul needed to sit down to regain his strength.
They did the same with the head, but put the hook into Charlies mouth instead and through the bottom jaw bone, with only one shackle to weigh it down.
When they’d finished, they dropped the two shackles of the torso over the side. Paul then took the filleting knife and slit Charlies belly open from chest to groin. They had both taken an end each of the short remaining body letting it slide over the boats gunwale and gently into the water before the internal organs had a chance to drop out, there was hardly a splash. Paul lifted the remaining head and shackle over the side of the boat and let go.
‘Cheers Charlie’ he said, ‘ave a good one.’
Mike then leaned over
the side and finally dispelled the contents of his stomach.
By the time they’d finished and turned the boat around, the sea was dead calm and the sun was starting to set again. They could see the lights along the coastline flickering in the distance. They passed back in between the tankers at the anchorage area, all with their deck and accommodation lights on, looking like horizontal Christmas trees, it was a beautiful sunset and the end to a very long day.
‘Hey, Mike me lad,’ Paul was sat on the washboard at the aft end, letting the breeze blow over him, ‘when we get ashore, I’ll let you buy me a pint or three.’
Mike smiled at his big brother.
‘Aye, why not mate?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sally opened her eyes slowly. She stretched and looked at the cheap digital alarm clock on the cabinet next to her side of the bed, it read ten minutes after seven. She was laid on her back in her comfy warm pyjamas with the now clean bed smelling of Spring garden scented washing powder.
The room was quiet and there was no one snoring, farting or shouting abuse. The world was at peace and she was about to roll over and doze back off to sleep again when it all came flooding back to her.
The shock of it kicked in the adrenalin and a chilling vision appeared in Sally’s mind of what had actually taken place the day before. She threw herself out of bed, ran into the bathroom where she just managed to lift the toilet seat before the mad rush of acidic watery vomit erupted from her mouth.
How could she have slept after what had happened? What kind of an insensitive monster was she? She flushed the toilet and remained kneeling on the bathroom floor for a few minutes before leaning over the sink to rinse her face and clean her teeth. Standing upright she looked at herself in the small makeup mirror, examining her two black eyes which were now a blend of purple and shades of green. Her bottom lip had a scab the size of a five pence piece near the corner of her mouth and the left side of her face and cheek were still a bit swollen. Her sides still ached from a mixture of the kicking and the muscle straining work out she’d inflicted on herself during the clean up operations in the living room.
She pulled her pyjama pants down and sat on the toilet to have a pee, wondering why her brothers hadn’t been in touch. What time did they leave and where did they take her dead husband.
She shivered involuntarily as she thought that maybe they’d been caught with Charlie in the back of the car and might have spent the night in a police cell. Would they have been able to get in touch with her, or would the police have prevented it with the intention of calling on her later in the day.
Too many questions started to form in her mind as she sat on the loo. Sally then went back into the bedroom to find her bathrobe and realised it still had spots of her own blood down the front. She put it on anyway and was about to go downstairs when her mobile phone rang in the bedroom. Sally froze, was it Paul, or maybe Mike, what had happened.
She grabbed the phone without looking at the display and half screamed into the mouth piece,
‘Yeh, who is it?’
‘Hi Sally, it’s only me Jenny. The kids are up and wanted to say good morning to you. Hope I never woke you pet. Is everything all right at your place?’
Sally relaxed and took a deep breath before answering.
‘Yeh everything’s fine here, thanks Jen. Charlie’s still sleeping, but I was up anyway, put the kids on and I’ll call yeh later to give yeh an update.’
‘Aye, alright pet, here’s the bairns, speak to yeh later then.’
Sally spoke first to Georgia and heard all about how great it was staying at Jenny’s house, then she tried to pry a conversation out of little Charlie but he was in the middle of a computer game and needed to get back before he lost all his lives.
She hung up with her heart still pounding. Sally then descended the stairs with trepidation and entered the living room.
She didn’t know what to expect, but it was exactly as it had been the night before, minus Charlie wrapped up in the middle. It seemed so empty now though without the lads in there with her. There was a kind of silent echo as she walked across the floor in her bare feet to open the blinds.
After a quick look around and seeing no signs of blood or anything untoward, all the walls fresh and clean with the floor almost gleaming after the scrubbing it had been given, she re-entered the kitchen and saw the knife on the draining board.
It had been well wiped and washed, Paul had said to give it a good clean and keep it.
‘You’ll need that for peelin’ tatties for the bairn’s chips,’ he’d said.
She filled the kettle with cold water from the tap and flicked on the switch for a cup of coffee.
Having made her coffee, Sally also made a slice of toast, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. Sometime the day before yesterday she’d had egg and chips with the kids for tea. She covered the toast with some mixture of vegetable oil and butter substitute from a plastic tub and sat at the table eating whilst trying to gather her thoughts and decide what she was going to do next.
As she sat in total peace and quiet at the little pine table she could hear the sound of Ed Sheeran singing off in the distance. Sally stood and followed the sound upstairs reaching the halfway point before realising it was coming from the bedroom and sounded like Charlies ring tone on his mobile phone.
She found the phone tucked in the pocket of his knock off North Face fleece which was just to say hanging on the back of an old kitchen chair they kept behind the bedroom door.
She took the phone out of the pocket and noted there were several missed calls and text messages from various people, then the phone stopped ringing, it must have gone to voicemail she thought.
Sally sat on the end of the bed and looked around. Charlie’s old Adidas trainers were under the chair where he’d kicked them off, his dirty socks with a big hole in the toe were lying next to them and his bright red and white striped football supporter’s shirt was in a heap behind the chair where he’d thrown it.
Sally looked at all of Charlie’s belongings laying around the room and decided she was going to have to get rid of them. What else could she do, if Charlie was not here, then he’d left and if he’d left, he would have taken or be wearing his clothes, so she had to make at least some of them disappear.
While she was thinking of what to get rid of and what to keep, Sally got dressed. She put on a clean pair of underwear and her skinny jeans, then pulled on the pale washed out pink sweatshirt that she’d been wearing the night before and retrieved her old worn and faithful pale blue denim flats from in the cupboard, putting them on again without socks. She combed her hair and quickly slapped on a few touches of make up around her eyes. She looked in the mirror and nodded with satisfaction at the results. She knew that everyone else knew she’d had a good hiding so there was hardly any point spending a lot of time and effort trying to conceal it.
Sally fluffed up the pillows and pulled the quilt straight on the bed, then went over to Charlie’s clothes and started emptying the pockets, throwing the contents onto the bed and the clothes in a heap on the floor. She found his wallet in the inside pocket of his fleece and some small change in the outer pockets.
Sally was used to going through Charlies pockets after he’d had a good night out and fallen asleep unconscious, that was how she always managed to get her extra housekeeping. Charlie could never remember how much he’d spent, or what he’d spent it on. He was always trying to impress the big boys’ by buying them drinks, trying his hardest to be a part of their inner clique. They used to take them laughing behind his back about what a total loser he was, they never ever bought him one back.
Sally picked up all the discarded clothing from the bedroom floor and started to fold and place it all in neat laundry piles. She then went to the cupboard, moved a canvas shoulder bag she didn’t recognise, which was laid on the floor and continued by removing Charlie’s hanging shirts and jeans, again going through the pockets and folding them n
eatly on top of the bed.
She picked up the discarded shoulder bag and after examining it from the outside, opened it.
Everything was contained in clear plastic resealable pouches and there were at least fifty little packets of white powder. She was shocked, but when she went deeper into the bags inside zipped pocket, Sally had to sit down to regain her composure.
She thought she knew what the white powder might be, although at no time in her life had Sally ever had anything to do with drugs, she didn’t agree with them and as a mam, wanted them as far away from her bairns as she could possibly get them.
To her knowledge, Charlie had never had anything to do with drugs either, but with the little white powder packets and the wads of money she’d just found in the strange little shoulder bag, she decided she knew very little about Charlie anymore.
Sally tidied and moved all Charlies clothes into neat piles on the floor and laid the white plastic envelopes just as neatly out on the bed. After counting she found there was a total of twenty four thousand nine hundred and sixty five pounds, she recounted and again came up with the same amount.
Sally sat for a moment to take it all in, then conducted a few deep breathing exercises, her hands were shaking and she needed somewhere to stash her findings. Somewhere the kids wouldn’t find and no one else if they came snooping.
Sally in all her life had never held such an amount of money. It wasn’t quite a major lottery windfall, but Sally had never seen the likes of it before.
The money she decided she would keep as things were probably going to be tight for a while, but as far as the white stuff was concerned, she didn’t know what to do. Her heart was telling her to flush it all down the loo, her brain was saying, put it to one side and talk to Paul and Mike about it, they would have the answers, where the bloody hell were they?
The knock at the door made her jump and startled her out of her contemplation. Who the hell was that, Should I answer or pretend I’m out, then she realised it was probably the lads back. She grabbed the money and the packages and quickly threw them back in the bag, then pushed the bag under her pillow with the quilt on top, smoothing it neatly over.
