The issue was he could feel her wanting to move onto the next stage and someone else’s wedding was going to bring that topic to the surface like a fart in a bath. As he was dragged over by a laughing Carl to take a group shot after the registrar offered to take some he decided all he needed now was for the bride to throw her bouquet and Sara to catch it before looking at him and bursting into tears. If he didn’t take the next step he was going to lose her, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want that either.
After another round of kissing, hugging and congratulating which Will struggled to join in with any enthusiasm, Darren cleared his throat.
‘OK guys, we will meet you at The Swan Hotel. Dinner and drinks on me!’
‘You can show me the way in my car,’ Dean said over his shoulder. ‘The others will be in Darren’s car and he always tries to lose me when I follow him.’
‘Sure,’ Will nodded. He then caught a glance off Sara and could almost hear the ‘Kerching’ as his negative balance went up a notch to a new high.
* * *
Will was itching with questions and Dean was cool, so he could ask stuff without worrying about offending anyone. He climbed into Dean’s jeep, pleased the SRI was nowhere to be seen and they followed in convoy with Sara behind.
Let’s get to it Will thought as they were only ten minutes from the hotel.
‘So Dean, how the hell did all this happen?’
‘Well,’ he paused. He had a distant look on his face. ‘This goes no further. It’s a nice story in a terrible war torn kind of way, but a tough one to tell. We were the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, us and a load of other EU nations. Man, you would not believe the shit we have seen.’ As they stopped at some traffic lights Dean lit a cigarette, his hand shaking. ‘It seems crazy that people would do that to each other. You kind of expect it in Asia or Africa, but it all seemed the more shocking as it was a fairly normal place you know, brick houses and apartment blocks. Dead bodies in suits freak me out.’
‘We were the liberating force in Pristina. The Serbs retreated as we got there but they had been there a while and had time to commit some awful crimes. I hope I never see so many dead bodies again in all my life. Executed, like cattle. We broke into a house as we could hear a terrible bawling. Darren and I went in, it went eerily quiet except for this gentle sobbing. Chilling shit man. When we got in there, Kristina was crying on the sofa.’ He stopped as if to wonder whether to continue, then taking a deep breath, he did so.
‘I don’t know what had been done to her, but there was a lot of blood and she was only half clothed. When she saw us, she ran into Darren’s arms and clung to him like a limpet. She then looked in his eyes. She ordered him, ‘They are still here. Upstairs. Kill them’.
We went upstairs, Darren took point. I’ve never been so scared. There it felt like every civilian was issued an AK47 on their first day at school so you knew you could be shot round any corner. House clearances are not for the timid.’
Will looked over at him. He had trickles of sweat running down the side of his head despite the car being freezing.
‘I kicked the door in and Darren went in with his pistol raised. There were two men cowering in the corner. Boys really, eighteen or so. They had camo trousers and boots on, but T shirts. Fucking Man Utd T-shirts. If they had guns I never saw them.
One tried to climb out the window, so Darren shot him in the back. He then pulled him into the middle of the room and whilst looking at the other one, pumped two rounds straight into this kid’s groin. The other one, well, scared doesn’t even begin to describe his features. Appalling thing, seeing a grown man piss themselves through fear.
They deserved it Will, fucking rapists. My sister was raped, she’s still fucked up now. Anyway, Darren put his gun away, and drew out a knife. Not a huge one, but it must have been razor sharp. The boy never moved.’ Dean sniffed and blinked his eyes trying to clear the tears.
‘Darren held his throat, pinned him to the wall, and ran the blade along his stomach you know, horizontally.’ Dean took a deep breath and then spat the rest out as though he had to get it out now or he would never be free of these memories. ‘He punched him in the stomach and pulled his intestines out. They just hung over his belt like a red octopus bulging out of its hole.’
‘Darren just left him standing there. He came up to me and gave me his pistol. I watched him walk back out, Kristina was at the door, watching. She took his bloody hand and guided him down the stairs. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen. This kid was alive and started to walk toward me, like the god damn living dead.’ He shook his head. ‘All I could think was this guy could talk, so I shot him in the head. When I got downstairs Kristina was washing Darren’s hands in the sink.’
They pulled up in the car park at the back of the upmarket hotel. Dean rested his head on the steering wheel. Will let out a long gasp, he doubted he had taken any breaths since he had left the register office. Completely and utterly stunned he tried to open the door, but felt like he barely had the energy to pull the lever. Dean suddenly reached over and grabbed his hand.
‘You cannot tell anyone Will, not a soul.’ He looked Will in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I had to tell someone. We did right Will, didn’t we?’ he whispered.
What do you say to that? Will patted him on the leg, and said the first thing that came into his reeling mind. ‘It was war Dean.’
24
He got out of the car and walked on what felt like stilts to the small side bar in the hotel and mumbling with a mouth full of glue, ordered a double whisky. He downed it in one and felt a hard slap on his back. He spun round and found Darren grinning at him.
‘Wrong bar buddy, we got a private room. We just wanted a small intimate dinner. Then we all go out and do some damage! Come on.’ He put his arm around Will and guided him out the room. Will had a last look back, expecting to find his soul suspended on the ceiling by its fingertips, refusing to be dragged into this madness.
He followed Darren into the room and found it was all set up for a small private wedding. There was one big table, with two larger chairs at the head of it and eight more seats around the sides. The others were all seated, so Will slumped into the one free space between Sara and Aiden. Dean was sitting opposite him and he could feel his eyes on him. To his great relief he found a full glass of chilled white wine in front of him. He still felt like he was going to go off pop, so he picked it up and stood up.
‘The bride and groom,’ he loudly declared.
Everyone stood up and followed suit, Will noting he wasn’t the only one downing his glass in one. The two brothers appeared to have finished a bottle of wine between them already and they couldn’t have been in the room more than five minutes. Will dropped into his seat with the finesse of a sack of potatoes falling off a lorry. Sara reached over and touched his cheek.
‘Are you ok? You look like you have seen a ghost.’
Will considered this and thought more likely a monster. He smiled at her though as he replied.
‘Ah, you know how weddings make me nervous.’
Darren saved anymore grilling by rising to his feet and chinked his glass with his spoon. They all quietened down.
‘I love a good speech,’ he began. ‘But I’ll do my best to keep it short.’ They all laughed. ‘Kristina here today, has made me the happiest man in the world. The moment we set eyes on each other, you took my breath away.’ The girl’s all ‘ahh’d’. Will found his gaze locked to Dean’s, both grim. He wasn’t the only person to have had his breath taken away that day. He looked up to the happy couple and found Kristina staring at him, like a hawk eyeing up a mouse. He forced a grin onto his face and prayed for this nightmare to be over soon.
‘And we are having a baby. I will protect this boy with all my strength and power.’
Will kept his grin on his face, knowing he probably looked like a stroke victim, but went along with the cheers. He was really thinking that was a fairly scary choice of words. He also had a nasty thought a
s to the father of the child. He didn’t know the dates and maybe it was Darren’s, but it was perfectly possible that Darren had disembowelled ‘dad’.
* * *
As it turned out, Will enjoyed the dinner. Two bottles of wine and that whisky had perked him up no end, as well as an excellent meal. Will surmised that he must be a bloody cold fish to be able to forgive and forget about something like that so quickly, which should have seen him galloping straight to the authorities. He considered that for a minute and had known it was never an option. Loyalty to Darren and Dean maybe, an element of they had it coming perhaps, or more likely he just didn’t want to think about it again. As that sank in he tried to match the violence to the boy he knew at school. As the pieces slotted into place in his mind, he now wondered why he had been so astounded.
As the waitress cleared the desserts away, Darren announced that it was time for the boys to go to the cigar room. This brought a chorus of ‘Hurrahs’ from all the men present, whom Will noticed to a man were looking more and more dishevelled and rosy cheeked. Even Sara and Deidre were loud and energised. Only Kristina remained immaculate at the head of the table, if she had been drinking he hadn’t noticed. He guessed not, in her state.
The men followed Darren into a small cosy room with six high backed comfy chairs surrounding a big blazing open fire. Large portraits, heavy curtains and thick carpet added to the sense of warmth and refinement. They all found a seat and lit up the cigars that a clearly worse for wear Dean had passed round. It was a nice touch from Darren, Will concluded and the earlier shocking news faded even further into the background.
‘So who is next?’ Darren queried with a raised eyebrow.
‘Will,’ Carl shouted and burst into a fit of giggles. Someone else had clearly been partaking of the liquid refreshments. The others all laughed at Will’s expense as Carl continued.
‘Actually, I have something to ask you lot. Some advice is needed here. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, ummm and well, I can’t decide, Ow!’ Darren had thrown a coaster at Carl and hit him on the knee.
‘Spit it out you joey.’
Carl took a deep breath.
‘I might ask Deidre to marry me.’
Will groaned out loud and had a coaster fly past his ear for his trouble, considerably faster than the one that had hit Carl.
‘Go for it Carl mate,’ Darren said. ‘I feel complete.’ Will groaned again, even louder after retreating behind his chair.
Darren ignored him and gave Carl a serious look.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he said.
Will could not resist replying, ‘She might say yes?’ He got hit on the side of a head with another coaster from an impossible angle immediately after and saw Aiden grinning at him on his left.
‘Ignore him Carl,’ Aiden laughed. ‘Will doesn’t care about anything enough to commit. He is detached from reality. I say go for it too.’ Darren cheered.
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Will said. ‘We haven’t asked our new friends here.’ He pointed to the brothers, who had produced a bottle of brandy from somewhere and were pouring it into their coffees like they were about to go over the top at the Somme. Will could only remember one of their names and shouted it out.
‘Heh Algan.’ So distracted were they in their pursuit of drunkenness that he had to get out of his seat and tap one of them on the shoulder
‘Algan, what do you think of Carl marrying Deidre?’ The one he thought was Algan directed a sharp look at him. He stood up, causing a brief flutter in Will’s bowels.
‘It’s Agon or Alban.’ He peered closely at Will, and then roared with laughter. ‘Ah very funny, you joke yes, excellent joke. Which is the one you call Deidre?’
‘She is the one with the crazy hair,’ Will explained.
‘Ah,’ Agon or Alban said. He looked over at Carl and then roared with mirth, ‘Ah, the one like the ……’ He then spoke to his brother in heavily accented dialect, before his brother said one word.
‘Clown.’
‘Yes, that’s it, the one like the clown. This very bad idea, unless you run circus.’
He bellowed with amusement again, looking at Will who had a massive grin on his face. ‘Ah,’ he shouted. ‘You make joke again.’ Gesturing to Aiden he roared, ‘Better you marry the fucking elephant.’
Will put his hand on Aiden’s shoulder and whispered, ‘I do.’ To be fair to Carl he laughed along with the rest, but when they had finished wiping tears from their cheeks, he stuck his chin out.
‘I love her, I don’t even know why, just that I do.’
‘Do it,’ Aiden said. He and Darren started chanting the words. Will raised his palms and they quietened down. He tried to look serious as he stared directly at Carl.
‘Ok fair enough, ask then. Even if it is a bit cliché, at someone else’s wedding.’ More jeers from Darren and Aiden.
‘My point is,’ as he scrabbled around in his brain for what that might have been. He blurted it out when it came back to him and realised that he was drunk as a lord.
‘What if she does say no? Things won’t go back to how they were. There will be a huge elephant in the room every time you meet.’ This brought a big cheer from the raucous Kosovan contingent. ‘You will both see you want different things and you have no future.’
The last comment tailed off and sounded very final. Carl and Aiden’s faces dropped, but Darren suddenly leapt out of his seat and rugby tackled Will to the ground.
‘Bah humbug, scrooge motherfucker,’ he yelled. ‘Enough of this, lets join the ladies, I want to dance with my wife.’ Will got to his feet, wiping ash and what looked like a pat of butter off his sleeve. He looked at his watch; Five thirty p.m. It was going to be a long night.
25
They eventually settled in a big, popular, Irish bar round the corner called O’Neill’s. It was quiet when they arrived and they settled into a booth in the corner. It reminded him of the Anne Boleyn. Nothing like a wedding to make you nostalgic Will mused. It was one of those places that catered for food in the daytime and eventually transformed itself into a late bar with a decent band and a dance floor. Darren sneaked a word with the warming up musicians and what looked like a few quid.
The lead singer soon did a remarkably good rendition of Robbie William’s ‘She’s The One’, which was apparently their song. Darren and Kristina did a slow dance, both clearly infatuated with each other and he felt Sara’s hand hold his under the table.
As the night went on he felt like he was the constant at the table as more drinks were bought and people came to chat with him. He wondered if that was how it felt to be in a wheelchair as he seemed to have lost control of his legs. Darren and his new wife came and sat with him and Will probed their future.
‘So what’s the plan, lovebirds?
‘Kristina is going back to Kosovo,’ Darren said. ‘She can’t stay here for long on her visa. I, my friend, am joining the SAS. Being in the midst of all that lunacy has made me really want to get involved, to test myself, push myself to the limits. The Para’s seem to be more involved in peacekeeping nowadays, if it’s not other nations, it’s our own squaddies. I’ve got more to offer. I’ve passed the tests and I’m off to Sierra Leone in a few weeks. All hush hush you understand.’ The information rolled and jarred around Will’s addled mind like a roulette ball that wouldn’t land.
Darren left to go to the bar, feigning mock horror at Will’s insistence that he had drunk enough. Kristina took his hands in hers. Up close her beauty was more striking, but the strength in her eyes made Will uncomfortable and he was glad all of a sudden for a girlfriend who was so easy-going.
‘Your friend, he is a good man. A great man. Did anyone tell you how we met?’
Will tried to hide the look of dismay that animated his face in an instant. There was no way he wanted to hear that fairy-tale again.
Her laugh softened her features and for a while she looked like the young girl she was, before the soldiers came an
d destroyed her life.
‘Don’t worry, I will keep it short.’ She took a sip of the pint of lager that Darren had plonked down for Will with a winning smile, and grimaced. ‘Your beer tastes unusual.’
She spoke softly in a low voice. Her English was much better than her brothers, softly accented and lovely to hear.
‘They had been in our town for many months, the Serbians. I think they knew the English were coming. It was what we all prayed for. The English and Tony Blair will save us we whispered to each other. The other nations are without a spine. The Serb’s must have known that and it was like the fall of Rome. They killed my parents. I found them at their house, sitting next to each other on the sofa. Full of holes. Nothing had been taken, they didn’t have anything to be taken. My sister disappeared and we are still to find her. My brothers were away fighting, or they, along with every other man their age, would have been rounded up and executed.’
‘So many people, children too, just shot for nothing. The first moment we knew we were safe was when your Parachute regiment, in their maroon berets, walked up our streets. When I saw Darren’s face, I knew he would help.’
‘He did help,’ she said and squeezed his hand hard. ‘He did what needed to be done. Now I will go back and re-build our country, with my son. I want to call him Tonibler, in honour, with the Albanian spelling. Did you know that many hundreds of children have been named after him? They said that if the English think you are in the right, they will not let you down.’
Lazy Blood: a powerful page-turning thriller Page 15
