The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  The Deputy Head, Janet Nugent, said the local community was extremely distressed by the tragedy. She added that her staff are utterly distraught. Josephine Tower’s father, the Right Reverend Steven Chapman, Bishop of Chichester, was not available for comment.

  By Michael Lyndon

  Friday 5th June

  Chapter Five

  — One —

  For maybe an hour or so, Eddie and Jilly had spoken about the arrangements and decided it was best to bury Sam on his birthday. It had been far from easy; both were completely out of it. The funeral director had managed to get them together, and it was he who had suggested it.

  To an outsider, that may have appeared a little strange, possibly dipping its toes somewhere near the fringes of morbidity. But there was undeniable logic behind it.

  Sam was born 5th June; he died 29th May. They were two dates to add to the diary; black dates with red circles scribbled around them, dates that would hurt for years to come, dates that would never just be another day. Neither Eddie nor Jilly would look forward to either of those days so they decided not to create a third black day with a red circle scribbled around it.

  * * *

  Ros had bought Eddie a black suit. And she’d bought him patent shoes, a smart white shirt and a thin black tie. She told him he looked good, but Eddie wasn’t even there. That morning he had stood before the bathroom mirror and just stared at himself, feeling nothing, no pain, no inebriation, nothing. He was just a block of wax crafted into a face by some art student who hadn’t really got the hang of human anatomy, it looked wrong. It looked twisted, not human.

  Catatonic feels like this, he told himself.

  An hour later, he was back in front of the mirror, shaved, a shirt collar and black tie visible. His eyes were red. His face pale. And some time after that, he was aroused from his catatonic state by a knock at the door. And here he was in the kitchen. The cutlery drawer was open and he was looking at the paring knife.

  He blinked, slid the drawer closed, unable to recall ever opening it. He answered the door to Ros who stood there in the dark grey suit she used for court. She had pity in her eyes – as everyone these days seemed to – and then she moved forward and threw her arms around him. He cried the first tears of the day then.

  * * *

  It had been more or less the same for Jilly. Except that she had her parents there to field any phone calls, to accept the flowers at the door and pick up the cards that dropped like tears through the letterbox. She sat before her dressing table mirror in bra and pants and let time drip away, watching a face she didn’t recognise and feeling raw emotions eat away at the drugs she was on.

  — Two —

  A breeze skittered across the car park, pulling sweet wrappers and the discarded cellophane sheets from bunches of flowers along towards the fence where a congregation of rubbish gathered. But the sky was clear, it was warm and Eddie suddenly realised she was talking to him.

  “Sorry?”

  “You still okay to make your own way home? I have to get to work.”

  Eddie nodded, and on autopilot, said, “Thanks, Ros.”

  “It was a lovely service,” she whispered.

  Together at the stone narthex of St Mary Magdalen, they stood and watched as Jilly and her entourage gathered in the central aisle of the nave. He was her husband, but didn’t feel part of that family anymore. Ros discreetly squeezed his hand, and when Eddie eventually turned to look, she had gone. He stepped outside too, and saw her leaving through the lychgate. A man stood there watching him.

  “Eddie,” someone inside the church called.

  It was time to carry his boy into the churchyard. Eddie trembled.

  — Three —

  Eventually, the sextons stopped their work and just looked at him. He was sitting on the highest part of the backfill; they had practically scraped the earth from around him. “Sorry,” he said and stood, scooping up the bottle of brandy as he went.

  One last time he glanced at a photograph of Sammy that was paper-clipped to a floral tribute just out of his finger’s reach, and then he ambled towards the gate, slipping the bottle inside his pocket for later. His face felt sore where she’d punched him, and his ribs did too. He had a hunch there were one or two scratches on his body waiting to be discovered once he got out of this not so crisp new suit. He looked down and saw the hole in the knee and the mud on the jacket and the scuffed shoes.

  Eddie took out his cigarettes and looked in despair at the crushed packet.

  “Here you are mate, have one of these.”

  Eddie looked up as he approached the lychgate. It was Mick Lyndon. Eddie walked right by him, “I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Eddie, come on.”

  Eddie stopped and turned. “Thought I told you to piss off and leave me alone.”

  “I thought I’d said sorry.”

  “Whoopee doo.”

  “What do you want me to do, print a retraction?”

  Eddie swung a fist towards Mick’s face. Mick screwed his eyes shut and stood still. Eddie’s fist stopped an inch before Mick’s nose, and then his arm fell to his side.

  Mick opened an eye, then both. “Look,” he said, “I am sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing; people don’t have enough good news, and they love a hero—”

  “I am not their fucking entertainment. And I am not a fucking hero! Given the choice, a hero would do exactly the same again. I wouldn’t. Okay?”

  Mick held out his hands.

  “That shit you came out with was four months ago. A lifetime ago. We argued about the hero stuff back then, and you said you’d never pull a stunt like it again.”

  “I am so—”

  “Hero’s son dies, I think you said.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, Eddie.” He offered the cigarette packet again.

  Eddie looked at Mick, and then took a cigarette.

  “Drink?” asked Mick.

  The Yorkshire Echo 17th June

  School Murderer Caught

  It was the worst act of murder seen in England this century, and the public outcry was unprecedented. On Thursday (4th June), eighteen children and four adults burned to death in Chantry House Church of England Primary School in East Sussex.

  In a planned operation, police arrested a lone female from a nearby housing estate. She is currently being held in custody and questioned about the incident. Interestingly, the police eventually caught the perpetrator after finding the remains of fingerprints in blood – not believed to be human blood – on the petrol container in the false ceiling above the classroom.

  But only chance helped ensure her capture. Mrs Bolton works for a local factory in the production of fireworks – for which employees have their fingerprints taken as a matter of routine. A police spokesperson confirmed that the crime scene fingerprints did not match any of the 200 thousand sets of fingerprints on their computer system. But an internal audit at the company showed several ignition items missing – the same items used in the school fire.

  A source revealed that the arsonist, Mrs Margaret Bolton, 28, a single mother, allegedly felt aggrieved at the treatment of her son by the Headmaster and Local Education Authority.

  Rumour suggests that he was a disruptive and often violent pupil who terrorised his classmates to such an extent that the LEA felt inclined to expel him pending the results of a mental assessment. And this shocking tragedy is the result of a simple exclusion order.

  Parents of those children who remain at the school, and the families of those who have lost loved ones in the disaster, are calling for more stringent checks on disruptive children and their parents.

  Startlingly, Mrs Bolton left a message for the world with a neighbour prior to her arrest: “I would not have done this had The Rules been in force; I didn’t want to die, just wanted to be out of the rat race and have my boy properly looked after”.

  That might be of no consolation, but it is vindication that The Rules will be seen by would-be criminals as a deterre
nt.

  Ironically, had Mrs Bolton been caught or had confessed before the 15th June to her crime, she would have spent life behind bars as she’d wanted. Her death is scheduled for some time in the week ahead.

  By Michael Lyndon

  Thursday 18th June

  Chapter Six

  — One —

  “Mr…?”

  Wearily, the old man looked up, and the cap he fidgeted with lay crumpled in his lap. “My name is Lincoln Farrier.”

  The clerk examined the register, found the name and said, “Ah yes, Mr Farrier, Sir George will see you now. Please go on through.”

  A large suited man to the side of the clerk got up out of his chair, but the clerk shook his head, “Look at him,” he whispered as the old guy struggled to his feet, “I don’t think he’ll cause any trouble.” The man shrugged and retook his seat.

  Mr Farrier knocked on the door. This was the first time he had ever wanted to see his MP; this was the first time he ever needed to see his MP. And the fact that his MP was Sir George Deacon, the new Justice Minister, wasn’t lost on Lincoln Farrier. Old he may have been, stupid he was not.

  The rich mahogany door swung open before him, but the butterflies he anticipated never came; he only ever looked the world in the eye when that eye needed a good prodding. Today was such a day.

  He held onto his cap and stood on the varnished wooden floor in front of a grand-looking desk where a grey-haired man made notes with a fountain pen. This was the great Sir George Deacon.

  “Sit.”

  Lincoln blinked at the man’s abruptness. He closed the door and sat in the chair opposite the crown of Deacon’s head, waiting until the great man spoke. He wondered where to begin.

  “Mr Farrier,” at last he put down the pen, took off his half-rimmed glasses. “What may I do for you today?”

  Lincoln moved uncomfortably in the chair. “I want manners to return to England.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Everywhere where you go, everything you want to do is governed by fear. Dare I go into the Allied Postal anymore; it was robbed only a week ago. The local pub was burgled, and two holiday cottages was burgled and another set alight.” He put down the cap. “Things are getting too bad for normal folks to cope with anymore.”

  “Have you got any idea how we can manage the problem? A business plan, perhaps?”

  “No I haven’t got no business plan! You are the man with his finger on the pulse of the British public; you come up with a business plan.”

  “Is that all you came—”

  “The police – armed because being a bobby is dangerous now – so the police catch them and sometimes,” he pointed a shaking finger at Deacon, “the little buggers get sent to jail. But when they get there, it’s like a holiday camp for them! Did you know that in each room – not cell, mind – room, there is a television, and they get to select what VD they’d like to watch each evening?”

  Deacon said, “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh aye. And they’re allowed to accept cash donations so they can buy tobacco or drugs; and them outside send it in to them, cause them outside are still burgling!” Lincoln paused for breath. “Them law-breakers are laughing at you.

  “Well, they’re laughing at us too; but I couldn’t care less if they laugh at you and the courts and the police, really; but I do care if they laugh at me. They are wiping our noses in the shit!” Lincoln covered his mouth.

  “Carry on.”

  “The prisons are filling up with young people who care nothing for the rights of others. They seem to bother about themselves more’n anything else in the world, and that’s not what life is about. So long as they’re getting their drug money from somewhere they’re happy. These days, no one believes in working to get the money to buy what they want. They believe in getting things for nothing. And that is wrong.”

  Deacon nodded.

  “Once they’re in prison, they get Legal Aid to fight things they should not be entitled to fight, and that makes the system a sham. Far as I know, Legal Aid was invented to help poor people fight wrongs. It’s not there to line the pockets of the judiciary, or set the criminals free.”

  Deacon breathed deeply, and Lincoln saw he’d hit the nail spot on.

  “There’ll be more than marches if this carries on.” Lincoln sipped water from a crystal glass; he admired the craftsmanship until he saw ‘Produce of China’ engraved on its base. “Thought that might have been British then. Even thought it might have been hand-crafted, but it’ll have been done by a computer and a machine.”

  “This is the new world where craftsmanship is a very rare commodity, seldom needed any longer—”

  “But it doesn’t all have to be like it, Sir George. Okay, I’ll go along with the Chinese crystal, but do we have to take the craftsmanship out of law and order? Do we have to water it all down until there is no wrong and no right, only different shades of… well, of perception?” He sighed, fidgeted again with his cap, and then looked at Deacon. “Is this makin’ any sense to you, or should I just bugger off and leave you alone?”

  Deacon thought about it. “You talk a lot of sense, and I’m grateful you’re being so candid.”

  Inside, Lincoln smiled; this was just the beginning. “So what are you doing about it? And spare me the trivial stuff. What are you really doing?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss in-depth policy revision with members of the public, Mr Farrier, but one tit-bit I can offer is vasectomy.”

  “Come again.”

  Deacon laughed, and played with the fountain pen – definitely not made in China. “We commissioned a study to look at the last fifty years of incarceration in Britain. Its findings are eye-opening. I don’t suppose we’ll get it through parliament, but I’ll tell you about it anyway.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “People who go to jail breed people who go to jail.”

  “What?”

  “If you are a convicted felon, you are three times more likely to produce children who themselves will be jailed later in life. So I’d like criminals to be sterilised.”

  “Really?”

  “And did you know that the Sentencing Guidelines Council have been looking into banning early release for good behaviour?”

  Lincoln sneered.

  “If you’re sentenced to four years, you serve four years – if you are good. If you’re not good, you serve longer; we’re switching the way it works away from favouring the criminal. That’s why we’re building more jails.”

  “Impressive.”

  “It is.”

  “But do you think more could be done quicker if a cabinet minister was shot dead by a lunatic?”

  Deacon slowly nodded. “It was a very sad day for the country and the Great British Independence Party when Roger King—”

  “Sod Roger King.” Lincoln laid his cap on Deacon’s desk and brought out a gun.

  Deacon dropped the pen. His mouth fell open and he stared at it, and then at Lincoln. He was horrified that he was about to leave office the same way as the previous Justice Minister. Violently. “They didn’t search you?”

  “They said it would be okay to bring it in.”

  Deacon gasped. “They did?”

  “Why would they search an honest pensioner? Trouble is, this pensioner is sick to fucking death of being trampled on by the scrotes and then by the state. I want something done about it.” Lincoln brought the gun up with such powerful resolve that Deacon recoiled and raised his hands to his face. “If you shout, I will shoot you immediately. If you don’t,” he smiled coldly, “you may be able to talk your way out of it. That’s what you politicians are supposed to be good at, isn’t it?”

  Deacon’s heart leapt to 120 without changing gear. “Why are you doing this, Mr Farrier? I have nothing here of any value—”

  “Don’t ever put in me in the same league as those law-breaking youths we’ve been discussing.” Lincoln’s manner changed as though he’d pulled off the
mask and the real nutcase was out and running free with his axe.

  * * *

  He could feel his legs trembling, and he thought of shouting. Sirius, the man outside who was part of an armed close protection squad, would monitor, contain and then… what did they call it? Defuse, disarm, something like that. But he could be dead before Sirius even put down his coffee.

  “Then what do you want?”

  Lincoln Farrier was a brave man, Deacon decided. But greater still was his foolishness. There was a level of persuasiveness that Farrier had exceeded; he had made Deacon truly afraid for the first time in his life. And that was unforgivable. Totally unforgivable. Utterly punishable.

  No one threatens me, old man. No one.

  * * *

  He stared into the politician’s frightened eyes and chose not to show his regret, but to keep it repressed until the bravado he hid behind had served its purpose.

  Deacon tried to smile. “Then what do you want?”

  “I want my son back.”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “If you promise not to try any funny business I’ll let you put yer arms down.”

  “Where’s your son?”

  “Prison. And he’s there because the parole board won’t give him early release.”

  “This is why you weren’t happy to hear about the Sentence Council?”

  “Oh I’m happy to hear about it, for them what deserves it! My boy was home watching the footy one night. He got up to get himself a beer, and finds this fellow in his kitchen, just climbed in through the open window And in his hand is my boy’s wallet, mobile phone, and car keys!”

  His finger feathered the trigger. “Stephen is a good boy, a law-abiding citizen who used to visit me once a week regular as clockwork with his wife. Anyway, he’s shocked to see this man in his kitchen and stabs him.