Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2)

by Iain Rob Wright

  I feel stupid and afraid and stupid and in about one minute my 'revenge' is going to culminate in me pissing myself in his closet.

  V.

  He clomps into the bathroom. He runs water from the tap. That helps with the battle against pissing myself, really.

  I hate this man.

  He comes back and it seems he filled the small cheap white plastic kettle, because immediately I hear the angry sounds of cheap plastic expanding.

  Then he mutters to himself.

  'Right...time for a nice, big shit.'

  Really? Men tell themselves it's time for a shit?

  But that's good, right? Men shit for hours. Men shit longer than women shower.

  My legs are numb, I don't know if I can make it from here to the kettle or if he's going to read or do the crossword, perhaps he'll play a hand of Minecraft, or slap his pickled gherkin around or whatever, maybe while he's thinking about this old bird's teeth on his nut sack.

  And bam, I'm angry again.

  The door to the bathroom stays unlocked when he goes in, but he shuts the door at least.

  Now...

  There's not going to be a better chance.

  I push open the door carefully, concentrating on holding in a drunken middle-aged wee, and fall straight onto his bed when my numb legs refuse to do anything.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  Fucking fuck.

  My legs are entirely dead.

  The kettle's not far. I drag myself, desperately listening for the sound of his plop, but the kettle's masking the noise of me flailing about and the splash I'm waiting for that will say time's up far less eloquently than I'd like.

  I've had a long time to think, stuck in the closet.

  I know what ketamine is. What I don't know is how much to give peg-leg. I never really thought about it before getting in his closet. I never really thought about much. I was being a bit of a knob, as Mandy would have said. But then she's not much of a drinker, she's got three kids and looks perfectly, beautifully tired all the time. I love her, just as much as my other half-best-friend Nicola, but they don't get me. Not all the way.

  I'm tired of being dumped on.

  There's a plop, at last, as the kettle clicks off. I pour the entire contents of the bag into the kettle, my legs are burning like they're full of hot pins, I'm thinking about just giving it all up and pissing on his bed and to hell with it.

  But that thing that Mandy and Nicola don't get won't let me do that.

  I close the kettle lid with a snick, the equivalent of a bag of sugar filling it, but it's not sugar. I thud to the floor and roll under the bed.

  VI.

  Shit on a stick.

  When the man comes out of the bathroom, the smell wafting and him kind of humming, too, it seems he didn't bother with trousers. His foot, with a sock on, is there, as is the hairy leg that fills it. But only one. The other leg consists of a wooden foot attached to the end of a false wooden leg. He sits on the bed, inches from my head (and I hope he left his underwear on, at least...the thought of the bastard's balls anywhere near my face again...ug...), then proceeds to remove the foot part from his peg-leg. He leaves the foot on the floor, so he really is now a peg-leg. But he's not a pirate.

  Pirates don't hide guns in their wooden feet.

  I'd put my hand over my mouth, but I can't move.

  I try to convince myself to be gullible just once more. That's some kind of metal attachment for the peg bit to go into the foot bit...

  Right?

  No. No it isn't. Doesn't matter what I tell myself, the gun is there, dull steel, right in front of me. The man carries it, hidden, in his wooden foot.

  Now, I'm worried not about pissing myself, but shitting, too.

  He's going to know there's something wrong...I put a bloody great bag of drugs in the kettle...it'll be heavier, it'll look wrong...the water won't even pour...it...

  I hear a splash as he pours from the kettle over a sachet of instant coffee. He carries right on humming.

  He drinks his coffee black, because he starts to slurp...just one more reason to hate him.

  He smacks his lips.

  'Shit...that's good for hotel coffee...that's ain't Nescafe, is it?'

  I hear him rustle as he checks the empty packet.

  Then he falls straight forward and plants his nose with a horrible crack straight into the cheap carpet.

  VII.

  He doesn't move.

  I've killed him, I think.

  Part of me is horrified. Part is hopeful.

  The gun's there in front of my face. The way he's fallen, too, legs slightly splayed, I can see almost half-way up his arse.

  I feel sick. But he doesn't move.

  Revenge is one thing...being an idiot...that's something else. Something...idiotic.

  I'm not thinking entirely straight, but there's no doubt about it. He's out for the count.

  I crawl, slowly, from under the bed.

  I need a few things. The toilet is the most pressing. He's not moving. I could...I could...piss on him.

  A small, involuntary giggle escapes me, but I know that's a step too far. He's a killer, probably, not just a drug dealer. And as it stands, I'm just about safe. I can walk away, be safe.

  I sit and let myself go in the toilet, with the door open, staring at him. Blood's coming from his mashed nose. Looks as though he broke it in the fall.

  I feel good, closing the door behind me and leaving him in the room. I feel like an adult, and a lucky one. I didn't piss on him. I probably should have.

  I settle for taking off his peg leg and stuffing it right up his arse instead.

  On the way to the elevator, I put his gun in a waste bin and smile, happy and afraid and alive.

  In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have left the note.

  VIII.

  Dear Peg-Leg druggy,

  I was going to put my foot in your arse...but it worked out better that you did it yourself.

  Up yours,

  Old Bird.

  For the first time in longer than I can remember, I fell asleep in my own bed with a smile on my face.

  IX.

  On the fourth day of Christmas, I was cursing myself and wishing I'd saved peg-leg's peg for my husband instead.

  But then, as it turns out, he probably would have enjoyed that more than I'd like.

  The 4th Day of Christmas

  The Husband and the Mistress

  I.

  On the fourth day, it turns out I've made a serious enemy of some kind of peg-legged gangster. Also, my husband's a lying pervert of a cock-sandwich.

  So, make that three enemies...because it seems I'm my worst-own.

  II.

  I wake up, roll over, and see the light on my mobile phone. It's still dark out, and I sleep with all the lights off. It's bright, there in the dark. I wonder why my phone's lit up, why I'm awake before the sun (I won't get light until around eight, because it's winter and winter is gracious to those who love to sleep).

  The phone woke me. It's not ringing, so it's a text. It's on vibrate, so it shimmies across the night table if it rings. A text just makes it shimmy a little. I reach out, the screen saver flicks on.

  It's the 28th, but more importantly only seven o'clock. That's an ungodly hour, but it might be my husband...

  I think about ignoring it anyway, sigh, and slide the screen across to see a pair of balls, squashed into a carpet, with a high-heeled foot grinding them down.

  'I know you've been naughty. Time for your punishment, little baby boy.'

  At first, I think it's a mistake, a joke, a scam...something.

  Until, after a second glance (that's the kind of thing you look at, even if you don't really want to...because you don't see that every day, do you?) I think I actually recognise those balls.

  'Damn,' I say. My voice startles me, and I feel like my parents just caught me home early from school with my boyfriend's hands on my tits.

  Damn, because I do...I know those balls.r />
  The most recent pair I've seen up close belong to peg-leg. But these aren't his. These are the missing balls. The ones that belong to my husband. It's been a while, but balls are like faces, I find. Some people have a good memory for faces. Some, for balls. Twenty years, I've known those balls.

  I'm thinking an awful lot about balls. I'm also wondering if I've got a pair of high-heels sharp enough to squish them good and proper, squish them so badly they become non-balls.

  'You bastard of a cock knob,' I say. This time I don't jump at the sound of my voice, but I've got to move. Yesterday's small triumph and experiment in pegging are gone from my mind. I'm angry as hell...again. But it's good. It's been a long time coming.

  Like he will be if I get my hands on a good pair of heels.

  III.

  Anger's a funny thing. It can keep you going when you're out of options. But sometimes it just drains you. It can make you so tired that instead of hunting for a pair of sharp heels, you sit and cry into your hands, snot pooling in your palms because you don't want that on the kitchen counter. Anger can make you sob so hard it feels like your tears are coming from your nose and your snot from your eyes. Your ears roar and your head hurts and your chest heaves in a way that makes you wonder if you're not having a heart attack.

  It got me like that, this time. Of course it did.

  Because he's a twat, but also because I am. How can anyone be so stupid?

  But then, I guess people ask themselves that question plenty of times over the course of a lifetime. Then, like me, wish it wasn't them. Wish they were comforting someone else, saying things like, 'you weren't to know...don't blame yourself...'

  Saying things that can't help, well-intended or not.

  IV.

  And the thing is, I still want someone to say those things to me. The words don't help...but hearing them, hearing a human voice...that helps. So does tea.

  I could hit the wine, or the whiskey...but for a change I decide to stick to tea that morning. I'm not sobering up, drying out...none of that. I'm just drinking tea.

  I call Mandy, rather than Nicola. I love them both, but for things like this, I call Mandy first, Nicola second. It's just the way it is. Like I'd call a mechanic for the car, a plumber to fix the sink.

  Apparently I'm still crying a little when Mandy picks up.

  'Honey? What's wrong? What is it?'

  'He's...he's...he's seeing someone...or...he likes having his balls squashed...'

  'Honey...you're not making any sense.'

  'Mandy...he likes HAVING HIS BALLS SQUASHED!'

  'I'll come over, shall I?'

  I nod, but that's fine. She knows I'm nodding.

  'Give me thirty minutes. I'm on my way. Love you, okay?'

  I nod again, then hang up.

  V.

  Five minutes pass, and I turn with a cup of tea, planning to sit at the breakfast counter and wait with my drink, think, or not think...either way.

  But dad's there at the counter. Fuck if he doesn't make me jump.

  He never talks. I don't know if he can and doesn't want to, or if ghosts can't talk, or if they can and I just can't hear them. But he smiles, a sort of sympathetic thing that makes me smile even though I feel like shit, and a stupid one at that. He isn't judging. He's just there, letting me know he's there. Nothing more. Even if he could talk, I realise, it wouldn't make a difference. Him being there, right now, is more than enough.

  'I miss you, dad,' I say.

  He nods back. He isn't ethereal, like people think ghosts always are. He looks solid...maybe a hint of white light floating around him, almost an outline, or like a light shines on him from behind.

  I can see the wrinkles around his eyes, and just beneath the sides of his nose. He looks like he did older, but not like he did when he died. Cancer got him, and he lost weight and I had to put his teeth in when mum couldn't. He knows all that. He's not embarrassed about it, I think.

  'I'm a tit, aren't I?'

  He kind of wobbles his head from side-to-side, raises his shoulders.

  Yes, he's saying. But also, 'What are you going to do?'

  I am what I am...he knows that. He'll love me whatever. That's a good thing to hold onto. The kind of love that sees a girl through, even when her husband's a filthy lying knob-head.

  'Thanks dad,' I say. The doorbell rings, a loud peal that fills the lower floor of the house, bouncing from all the cold, expensive stone floors.

  'See you, dad,' I say. He blows me a kiss and I go to answer the door. When I bring Mandy out of the cold and into the kitchen for tea and condolences, he's gone.

  VI.

  'Tell me everything,' says Mandy.

  So I do, and then I show her the text.

  'No mistake?'

  'They're my husband's balls, and the only way I'd be happy with that picture was if they weren't still attached to the useless bastard.'

  'Fair enough,' she says. She doesn't say the usual crap, for which I'm grateful. But something else, instead.

  'That's it, then. Divorce, and a pre-divorce party. Our house, New Year's Eve. Best revenge all round? A good drunk-fuck.'

  'You offering?'

  She laughs, I laugh.

  Damn, we're all so fucking cheerful, aren't we?

  VII.

  I don't need a man, I tell myself. I can sort this out.

  Mandy's right, though. Not about the drunk-fuck, I think. Possibly about that, too, though.

  But divorce is the only answer. The only man I need, maybe, is one with letters after their name who charges by the hour for their services, and I don't mean a rent-boy called 'Jr.' Divorce, then...there's a line. This is it.

  I'm gullible...I'm not a complete idiot.

  VIII.

  Next day, I am entirely sure that last statement isn't true. I'm gullible, stupid. Gloating, leaving a note at the peg-leg crime scene was the stupidest...no...being in his room was more stupid...actually, I think possibly everything I've done since I was twenty-five, beginning with my marriage, has been seeped in vin de imbecile.

  The 5th Day of Christmas

  The Sullied Ring

  I.

  On the fifth day, Mandy and Nicola and I are eating scones, jam, clotted cream and drinking tea in a bistro kind of restaurant in Windsor. There's a picture of the Queen Mother in the centre of a Welsh Dresser with Wedgewood blue-and-white plates and jugs and cups and saucers. I think I'm supposed to like it. Mandy drove, Nicola and I sat in the back. She drives an X6 like she thinks it's a mini. I shit myself around six times on the M4.

  I don't like the cafe, bistro, whatever it is. The scones are dry and the tea's weak and the Queen Mother's just as dead at the waitress who serves us. She's hollow and sallow both, looks yellow all the way through from cigarette smoke. Her fingers are yellow when she puts the plates before us, her thumb on top of the plate.

  I'm nothing like a holy terror when it comes to cleanliness...but that doesn't seem even a little bit hygienic.

  We talk about a few little things. Mandy's brood, their husbands, Nicola's new yoga kick. She's limping, because it's new and frankly Nicola's not cut out for yoga. I'd never tell her that, but she's got hips like a rugby ball sitting sideways and tits like a scrum. Whenever she moves, I wonder if the hooker's just thrown a ball in there, and they're jostling to get the bugger.

  I love both, unreservedly, and yes, these are mean thoughts. But it should've been the other way. Mandy's rake-thin, big pouting lips and pert tits that cost around ten grand. She's so well put together, most people don't even notice she's a finger short from that most insidious of rich-people perils...a horse bit her finger clean off about ten years ago. She's got three kids and looks like she must have bought them.

  Nicola has none, although if ever there was a woman who looked like a good breeder...Nicola would be her, top-to-bottom.

  I'm sitting there, quietly thinking snide thoughts, but in an absent way that's mostly harmless...I'm thinking about how my friends are doing alright, to
o. They're happy in their lives, with their husbands. I think I'm hot shit and my husband doesn't come home for weeks at a time and likes having his balls stood on.

  Who's the mug?

  Me. That's who.

  I've got this big pair of sunglasses on my head, a leopard print scarf keeping my neck warm. An old woman is in the window seat, her back turned, with a headscarf on. I see her hands, as she lifts her tea. Arthritis.

  If I get arthritis, will my expensive sunglasses perched on my head keep my hands warm? I'm not wearing gloves, the sky's such a dark grey it might even snow. The old lady's got gloves, I've got sunglasses.

  'How you going to get back at him?'

  I'm soul-searching, but Nicola wants to talk about my twat-husband.

  I sigh. Of course...everyone wants to talk about the twat.

  'Take him to the cleaners, honey.'

  Mandy's got a point. I could. But I don't know if the cleaners can get out that kind of shit-stain. That's a good line, I think. I think about saying it, looking at the old woman's hands. But I don't get a chance, because the girls aren't really listening. They're talking out their righteous anger, like it's their husband fucking some weird, black-shoe wearing dominatrix.

  'Every penny he's got. You can get the house. It's your home. You earned it, right?'

  I don't need to speak, not really. I half-listen, though.

  'Got to leave him. Talk to a lawyer, though. Don't walk out...'

  I look at the old woman's hands while they talk about my life. I look for a long time. She looks like a woman who's alone, but not upset or lonely. She's not hunting around for someone's ear to chew.