by Alex Bell
‘Stop talking and get on with it.’ I felt like yelling at him. ‘Drink.’
He tut-tutted. ‘Don’t you understand? Delaying the moment of eating heightens the appreciation.’
‘Put the tube in your gob and damn well suck!’
‘As you wish, old boy.’
The man took the thick rubber tube and placed one end in his mouth. With shivers of anticipation he sucked… sucked hard. The tube stiffened and bulged as fluid engorged it. Moonlight falling through the branches above his head created a mottled pattern of light and shade on his face – yet the brightest things were Spencer’s eyes. They blazed with rampant greed.
Fluid entered his mouth. He tasted… savoured… allowed the flavours to drench his tongue. His eyes glazed over with bliss.
‘So?’ I breathed. ‘What do you think?’
‘Hmmm…’ He pulled hard on that tube; his throat swelled as that soup of the grave gushed through; his Adam’s apple pressed outwards against the knot of the cravat.
‘Okay.’ Gordon sounded anxious. ‘You’ve had some. Now it’s our turn.’
When Gordon tried to take the tube from Spencer, well… that’s when it kicked off. All hell was let loose.
Without even removing the tube from his mouth, Spencer managed to grunt with anger. No way was the man going to be deprived of this delicious beverage. He continued to suck as hard as he could. He gorged on that subterranean liquid. An expression of nothing less than ecstasy filled his face. This was a crescendo of gluttony. Nothing would prevent Spencer from devouring the feast.
Of course Gordon and I tried to stop him. We wanted our portion of grave gravy. ‘Fair’s fair – we demand our share!’ I don’t know if I shouted the words or Gordon did. In any event we fought for the blessed, wonderful tube that brought the soup to the surface.
There, in the moonlight, madness took possession of three gluttonous men. We tried to wrench the feeding tube from Spencer’s hand. With demonical strength he pushed us away. Even though he fought us, he didn’t stop slurping once. And within five minutes he’d drained the coffin.
As we stood there panting, bruised and scratched from our madcap tussle, Spencer pulled the cigar from his jacket and relit it – the man did enjoy a smoke after a good meal. But right at that moment we wanted to kill the greedy, selfish pig.
‘That was sooo good,’ cooed Spencer. ‘I want more.’ He pulled on the fat cigar and blew clouds of smoke into the moonlight, which filtered through the branches. ‘I want lots more.’
‘You should have shared. That’s not right.’ There were tears of disappointment in my eyes. ‘We all should have had some.’
‘And now there’s none left.’ Gordon had murder in his eye. ‘You greedy bastard.’
‘We’re self-confessed gluttons,’ oozed Spencer. ‘We are naturally greedy.’
‘You’ve had the lot.’ Gordon bunched his fists. ‘There aren’t any other graves here that are six weeks old.’
Spencer jammed the cigar between his teeth and crouched down. He began reading cards on the withered floral tributes. He plucked one from a faded bouquet of roses. ‘Ah… there is another grave… and it’s just the right vintage.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Right here, below Uncle Toby, is Auntie Sylvia.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a double burial. Whatever the circumstances, husband and wife died together… more importantly, they were buried together. There must be a second coffin directly beneath the one we’ve just drained.’
‘We’ve drained!’ I echoed in disbelief. ‘You drained it by yourself. You had the ruddy lot.’
Puffing clouds of smoke from the cigar, he seized the steel shaft of the auger and pushed downwards.
Spencer laughed. ‘There’s another batch of fresh Gravy Soup – it’s just inches away, gentlemen.’
Frenzied greed gave him an uncanny strength. He put all his weight on the auger, driving the point through the bottom of the coffin and down into the second coffin beneath. The tip of his cigar glowed white-hot as he sucked air and smoke into his lungs.
‘Spencer!’ I shouted. ‘Put the cigar out first. The gas… the methane…’
‘It’s inflammable!’ Gordon grabbed hold of Spencer.
Spencer wouldn’t relinquish the auger, no doubt thinking this was a trick to deprive him of that delicious broth. He jammed the rubber hose into his mouth. Now he had both the feeding tube and the cigar gripped between his teeth.
I tried helping Gordon wrestle Spencer away. Spencer shoved me so violently that I fell sprawling. Gordon clung to Spencer’s back as the man hunched over the top of the auger that protruded three feet or so above the grave.
‘Get rid of the cigar!’ Gordon hollered. ‘If you let the gas out, it–’
Spencer pushed downward. The point of the auger penetrated the lid of the second coffin – that’s when he did release the pent-up methane. Inflammable gas rushed up the hollow core of the auger. From there, it sped along the rubber tube into Spencer’s mouth – the mouth that held the cigar with its brightly glowing tip.
The smouldering tobacco ignited that almighty grave burp.
I remember what happened next in perfect detail. Spencer was hunched forward over the top of the auger. Gordon clung to Spencer, almost as if he attempted a piggy-back. With a WHUMP the inflammable gas detonated. Suddenly night became bright as day. A ball of fire shot through the tree above me. The force of the explosion threw both men upward by at least ten feet. I lay there dazed on the ground, the smell of singed hair prickling my nostrils. I waited for Spencer and Gordon to fall back down to the ground.
They didn’t fall. Strangely, they remained suspended ten feet above the grave. At last, my eyes adjusted to the moonlight again after the explosion’s brilliant flash and I could work out what had happened. The auger had shot from the ground, violently expelled by detonating methane (very much like a spear being discharged from a harpoon gun). The steel shaft had passed through the men’s rib cages, one after another, before pinning them both to one of the tree’s thick branches. There they hung. Both Spencer and Gordon could have been two nuggets of pork on a kebab skewer.
Both were dead, of course: quite dead.
I scrambled to my feet, ready to dash from the cemetery. But then I saw the hole in the grave that the auger had left. Bubbling enticingly from the hole, came that sumptuous liquid. The gas must have ignited inside the coffin, too – both heating and forcing the Gravy Soup upwards.
Reddish brown, steaming gently, releasing such wonderful aromas into the air, that broth called to me. Instantly, I forgot about my two companions hanging limply from the branch.
Gravy Soup. Deliciously wonderful Gravy Soup. The next thing I knew I’d thrown myself down onto my knees. I plunged my face into the hot charnel chowder bubbling out of the ground like a mountain spring. And I did what gluttons do. I didn’t stop gulping down the food until there was nothing left to gulp.
*
I’ve seen doctors. I’ve seen medical specialists. They all agree on a diagnosis. They tell me I’ve lost my sense of taste and smell. It must be a result of the horror of seeing my two friends being simultaneously stabbed through the hearts by the auger (naturally, I haven’t revealed what actually happened to the authorities).
I still think about Gravy Soup. I remember how good it tasted. And I remember that it satisfied my food cravings for at least for a day or so. After gorging on the stuff I could lounge contentedly on my sofa with a full belly, feeling content. I still eat big meals. I’ve even crept into cemeteries at midnight to suck out the contents of graves. But I might as well be drinking water. The taste buds on my tongue are dead. I can taste nothing. But even though my sense of taste has vanished my hunger has not. I crave food. I want to eat. However, nothing satisfies my hunger. My stomach always feels empty… and that brutal hunger is driving me insane. Perhaps this my curse: that in the midst of all the food that surrounds me at home, in supermarkets and in restaurants I actually feel as if I am s
tarving. And, as God is my witness, I tell you that I know I will feel the agonies of unending hunger until the day I die.
The Devil in Red
by
Alex Bell
‘Do you believe in God?’ I ask.
He looks surprised. ‘Is that the question?’
‘Is it?’
‘Hardly.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘perhaps you might be kind enough to enlighten me. What is the question?’
‘Can I smoke in here?’
It’s against the rules, of course, but I pass him a cigarette from my pocket anyway. No one is likely to come in and object. They’re too afraid to enter the room. Not afraid of him as such – he’s restrained, after all – no, they’re more afraid of the cloud of violence that surrounds him. They think it a contagion – something that might soak through the pores of the skin straight through to the soul. It’s foolish, really. This is a prison, after all – no one here is a stranger to this particular breed of darkness. They have seen it – or its like – many times before. But perhaps they have not stared into its eyes as I have done. I am no longer affected by the horror of it as I once was. That in itself bothers me. But it’s a fact I cannot change.
He picks up the cigarette; his handcuffs clank against the table. I see the congealed blood around his wrists where the cuffs have worn at them – split skin and red sores.
He glances at me, raises one eyebrow a fraction. ‘Do you mind?’
I take the lighter from my pocket, flick a flame into life. Not so much as a rap on the mirrored window. We are turning a blind eye today, then. Awkwardly, he lifts both hands to place the cigarette between his lips and I lean across the table to light it for him. The tip burns bright, the lighter snaps shut. I lean back.
‘So,’ I say, ‘do you believe in God, Mr Marlow? Is that why you did what you did?’
He stares at me for a moment, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, clouding the air between us. For a moment, as I look back into those blue eyes, rimmed with red, staring at me through smoke, I feel a flicker of a strange, secret desire to feel the same coldness everyone else feels when they look at this man. Knowing what he has done, and being so close to him, should make me feel something. Make me shudder. But there’s nothing. And I suppose that’s what makes me so good at what I do.
‘Why do any of us do what we do?’ he says. Then he shrugs and I hear the rattle of chains. ‘Do I believe in God? I believe in His wrath. Is that an answer for you?’
‘For me?’ It is my turn to shrug. The barest lift of a shoulder beneath a one thousand pound jacket. ‘None of this is for me, Mr Marlow. We’re here for you. I’m trying to help you.’
‘I never asked for your help.’
‘But you need it just the same. You understand this is serious?’
‘So everyone keeps telling me.’
I am silent for a moment. Then I lean back in my uncomfortable metal chair. ‘Let’s talk about your wife.’
He draws hard on his cigarette, the tip flaring red in the fug. A single bead of sweat begins to swell into something noticeable at the edge of his hairline. He has an expensive haircut – very much like my own. They haven’t shaved his head yet. If that happened there’d be little left to mark him out as what he is, or used to be – a man of wealth and power and influence. One of my own kind – we might have sat across the same table at a dinner party if things had been different. Made small talk over expensive brandy served in cut-glass goblets. Compared notes on the fine cigars we had imported. Instead we have this – the breathing in of second-hand smoke from the cheap cigarettes I bought at the prison shop on the way in here, whilst the walls of the interview room seem to shrink around us.
He does not like my last remark. He likes it even less than the God question. I see the resentment and dislike in his eyes as he looks at me.
‘This is pointless,’ he says, and there is a warning in the tone of his voice.
‘This is necessary, I’m afraid,’ I say.
My voice comes out just a little more clipped than I had intended, which is not at all like me – I who am so disciplined in all that I do. But I feel suddenly weary of this today – all of this – the police stations and the prisons, the murderers, the blood and the death and the darkness of it all. It doesn’t horrify me as it should, of course, but I am tired of it. That says something for me, I hope. I am, at least, tired of it, to my very bones.
I let my clients smoke if they want to because it helps to relax them sometimes, which helps the interview along, but the smoke and the tiny airless room set off my claustrophobia, and that does nothing to improve my mood.
I do not allow myself the luxury of a sigh. ‘As your legal counsel I must tell you that it’s in your interests to confess.’
There is silence for the stretch of several slow beats. I feel the blood throbbing through my temples with each one and I curse my fear of small spaces, and this tiny room, and the monster who has brought me here today. He isn’t looking at me, but is staring past me as he calmly smokes the cigarette and I wonder whether he has even heard my question. I’m about it ask it again when he says, quite calmly, ‘Confess to what?’
It is a tedious business dealing with psychotics and criminals sometimes. Especially when they show no remorse. Judges like remorse. So do juries.
How many times have I played this game?
‘To your wife’s murder, of course,’ I say.
He looks at me then, the cigarette forgotten in his hand for a moment. I have his attention, at least. He sees me now.
‘I didn’t kill my wife.’
The way he says it – it almost sounds like the truth, and I wonder if he actually believes it. With some clients, it’s obvious from the start. But with others – like Marcus Marlow – they are not opaque like that. They don’t let me see inside. Does he believe his own fantasy or not? Am I dealing with a deranged madman or someone who is horribly sane? It’s a guessing game until the end.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ he says again. ‘I loved her.’
So we are to dance around one another then. The lawyer and the client in the age-old grisly danse macabre.
I consider, for a moment, what to say next, but then I decide to say nothing and take the photos from my briefcase instead – spread them out on the table, like a bad actor in a cheap film.
‘Help me out here,’ I say – the kind of sentence I would never normally speak – it’s so unlike my usual self and I wonder why I am saying it now. ‘Someone did. Someone cut her body up into twenty-three pieces. When you were arrested you were brought to the police station and your personal effects consisted of—’ I pretend to consult a piece of paper but, in fact, I know these details off by heart, ‘a right foot, a left arm, five chunks of a left leg, a right breast, two fingers from a right hand, and a head, which you’d been carrying around in a sack.’
‘That wasn’t my wife.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘The body parts were confirmed as being those of Laura Marlow.’
‘It wasn’t my wife.’
‘Laura Marlow isn’t your wife?’
‘No.’ The neon lighting above us flickers and he squints slightly, rubs at his head like it aches. I resist the urge to do the same. ‘No,’ he says again. ‘Laura Marlow is my wife but the body parts weren’t Laura Marlow.’
‘She was a chef,’ I say. ‘Your wife. Wasn’t she?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You had some large cooking knives in your home. Last week something made you snap and you took one of those knives and you chopped your wife up into twenty-three pieces, didn’t you, sir? So what happened? Did you find out she was having an affair? Did she say the wrong thing at the wrong moment? Did you marry a nag who was pecking you to death? What? What was it?’
The cigarette falls from his fingers, smoulders away into ash on the table between us. He looks at me and the bead of sweat finally begins to roll down his face.
‘It wasn’t her,’ he says.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That... thing... that thing that I chopped up into bits,’ he says, enunciating each word in his cultured and well-spoken voice, ‘was not my wife.’
I am not much in the mood for this sort of thing today. ‘Who was she then?’
‘A devil,’ he says, whispers it almost. ‘A devil in red.’
I still can’t quite tell whether he believes his own fantasy or not but this performance should certainly be enough to impress a jury. It would be even more dramatic in a court room with all those gasps and murmurs from the gallery – or the audience, as I like to think of them. We could, perhaps, go for an insanity defence here.
My fingers drum against the plastic table. ‘You do consider yourself to be religious, don’t you, Mr Marlow?’
He says nothing.
‘You think that God talks to you?’ I prompt.
‘Not God.’
‘But you do hear someone? In your head, I mean? That’s what you said when they arrested you. Someone told you to kill your wife? Who speaks to you if not God?’
‘Something... else.’ He looks at me. ‘God and the devil,’ he says, ‘they’re on the same side. That’s what people don’t realise. That’s what they don’t get. You asked me if I believe in God. I believe in Hell and the devil – and that’s the same thing. You know, God really hates men like you and me.’
‘Why?’
He looks at me for long moments. ‘You already know,’ he finally says. ‘Don’t you? You already know. You’re a bottom-feeder like I am. Hard times are good for business, aren’t they?’
‘Sending a devil to impersonate your wife seems a cruel and unusual punishment,’ I say, trying to get us back on track.
He laughs at that. Well, laugh seems not quite the right word. It’s a howl more than anything. A mad howl of mirth that goes on and on, chipping away at whatever sanity there is left in the room. Just when I think he is going to suffocate himself with it he stops abruptly. He leans back in his chair, still smiling that appalling smile.
