Catalyst

by Mark Eklid

  The inside of the shop was cold, almost as cold as the early morning outside. Warm environments were not great for cut flowers. It was forty minutes until they would normally be open for business and it was going to be a busy day, but Pam was not stopping. She had finally given in to her husband’s suggestion of the long weekend away they had been promising each other for too long, but had decided to pop in to the shop before they left, just so that she could open up and prepare as much as she could for when Aleesha, her young assistant, arrived to take over.

  Pam stood for a moment while she made up her mind what needed to be done first. There was so much. She was looking forward to spending a couple of days in the Lake District, but the timing was not ideal. It always seemed to be that there would be a flurry of orders just before either of them took time off. Sod’s law. There was nothing she could do about that and she knew Aleesha was perfectly capable of taking care of everything, but Pam still felt guilty for abandoning her.

  A gust of wind through the open door stirred the bell into action again, reminding Pam that she should begin by closing it. Then she saw the envelope on the floor.

  She closed the door and picked up the envelope. There was no name or address on the outside. It must have been pushed through the letterbox by someone who was passing by.

  The knife they used to open the mail was in the drawer behind the counter. Pam took it and slit the top of the envelope open.

  Inside was a folded A4 sheet of paper and, as she unwrapped it, she saw that it contained six £10 notes. She put them on the counter and read the note, which was typed on a computer rather than written by hand.

  ‘Please could you deliver a suitable display to 52 Silverwood Close as soon as possible. I do not wish there to be a card attached. The recipient will understand what it is for.’

  Pam smiled to herself. Someone’s got some making-up to do.

  She looked on the back of the note. There was nothing else. Strange, she thought, but whatever. An order’s an order.

  The bell tinkled again and in walked Aleesha.

  ‘Morning Pam. What are you doing here? I thought you were leaving this morning.’

  The younger woman pulled the strap of her handbag over her head of short blonde hair and began to unbutton her dark coat, revealing her green tabard. She walked to hang up them in the back room.

  ‘I am. I just thought I should…’

  Aleesha stepped back into the shop. ‘There’s no need, you know. I can manage.’

  Pam sighed. ‘I know you can, love, but we’ve got all those orders to prepare for the two funerals and that’s on top of all the other stuff and I just feel bad for leaving you with it all like this. We could set off this afternoon if you need me to…’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ she interrupted. ‘You deserve this break. You’ve not had any time off for ages. I’ll be fine. Just go!’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Pam smiled. She should trust Aleesha more. She will be fine. It was just that she was so used to taking on the responsibility herself. She walked to her assistant and they hugged.

  ‘You know it’s the Atkinson funeral tomorrow morning and I told the funeral directors we would have everything to them by three, so Theo will be here by half-two to make the delivery. He’ll be picking up everything we need from the wholesalers about now, I’d guess, and there’s the arrangements in the back ready for him to take out this morning. We haven’t got any more deliveries to go out this afternoon at the moment, so that should be fine and then…’ Pam’s eye flicked around the shop, completing her mental checklist.

  Aleesha smiled at her, tolerantly. ‘Have you finished dithering?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going, I’m going!’ Pam replied, realising she was simply repeating details for her own benefit. She turned to leave but noticed the six £10 notes on the counter.

  ‘Oh, and there was this that had been pushed through the letterbox this morning,’ she said, snatching up the money and the sheet it had been wrapped in.

  ‘You can do this with the Atkinson order so that Theo can take it with him this afternoon. There’s an address on the sheet.’

  ‘No probs,’ said Aleesha, taking the small bundle. ‘I hope you have a lovely time.’

  ‘We will.’ They hugged again and Pam hurried away before she gave herself the excuse to delay her exit any further.

  10

  It had been a long night. They had spent almost eighteen hours in hospital while the doctors cleaned and patched up Darrell’s foot, removing all the traces of metal splinters, dirt particles and flip-flop fragments they could find and assessing the damage the bullet had left in its wake as it tore through the mass of bone and soft tissue. It was a long process.

  They told him he had been fortunate. His fourth metatarsal was fractured, but it would heal and would not give him a long-term problem, he had been assured. It otherwise looked as if the bullet has passed through cleanly. They told him he must have had his foot slightly off the ground at the moment of impact, which was a good thing.

  Darrell did not feel fortunate. He felt exceptionally tired from having not slept a wink, hungry from having only had a pre-packaged cheese sandwich and a cup of tea since his evening meal the previous day and cold from having shivered in the back of the taxi completely inappropriately prepared to face the chilly March day, in his thin t-shirt and black cotton shorts.

  Most of all, he felt scared.

  The sight of the scene of the incident, as he struggled to get used to manoeuvring himself on hospital-issue crutches from the taxi to his front door, brought it all back.

  The police had clearly finished doing whatever they needed to do on the drive, but they had not attempted to wash away the large dark blotch of dried blood on the black asphalt. Though Darrell needed to put all his attention into his awkward progress on the crutches, he could not help but notice the bloody stain and the dent, about the size of a 10p piece, at the heart of it where the bullet had ripped through his foot and burrowed into the surface of the drive. He shuddered and, this time, a gust of cold wind was not the cause.

  Have you any idea why anyone would want to do this?

  That was one of the questions the police had asked in hospital when they arrived to take his initial statement.

  Has anyone previously made a threat against you? Do you have any reason to suspect anyone of carrying out this assault? Have you, at any time, become involved, directly or indirectly, with people who are engaged in criminal activity and might have cause to resort to violence?

  No, no, of course not, he had told them, an edge of exasperation in his replies. I’m a schoolteacher, for Christ’s sake. I’ve never been involved in gangs or any of that stuff. I’ve not got myself messed up with loan sharks or druggies or anything like that. Maybe they were going to try to rob me, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know why anybody would want to do this.

  He knew they were only asking the questions they needed to ask – eliminate all the possibilities for their enquiries, right? – but he truly had no idea why a gunman had appeared at his door late at night and had shot him through the foot.

  That was the most frightening part.

  Darrell had mentioned to the police that his initial thought was some fifteen-year-olds were pulling a prank to get video material to show their mates how they had managed to scare the shit out of Mr Morrison, but he had added that he no longer considered this likely. Would a fifteen-year-old carry a loaded gun just to prank a teacher? Even Daniel Renshaw wasn’t that stupid.

  So, who was it? He was scared and felt completely vulnerable. What if they came back?

  Helena Morrison filled the kettle and flicked the switch. After helping her husband to the sofa in the front room and fussing around him until he was comfortable, with his foot up, she had decided her next job should be to make them both the hot drink they badly needed.

  She leaned, her palms flat against the work surface, and bowed her head so that her long, auburn hair fell forward to mask her pale, pained f
ace. She suddenly felt emotionally, as well as physically, exhausted. A single tear plopped against the surface. She quickly wiped it away and attempted to rally herself to prevent further tears from forming in the corners of her green eyes, but she could not. Apart from when she had to briefly leave his bedside to go to the toilet at twenty past four in the morning, this was the first moment Helena had had to herself since it happened and the first time she had been able to lower the veneer of calm support she had needed to keep up for the last 18 hours. After all that effort, she had no more energy left for holding her shattered emotions in check. She needed a good cry.

  The kettle began to boil and Helena rallied herself to turn it off. She tore off a piece of kitchen roll to dab at her eyes and then blew her nose, trying to do it as quietly as she could so it would not be obviously heard in the front room, before diverting herself with the task of making tea.

  Her hand was shaking. She noticed it as she stirred the tea bag in the mug, clinking against its sides, and though she tried to keep it still when she pulled the spoon out of the hot liquid, the hand would not obey her. Helena tried to convince herself it was because her blood sugars must be low but she knew she was still in the grip of the terror that had overtaken her the previous night, when she heard the loud crack of the gunfire followed by the piercing screams of her husband and when she ran down the stairs to see him there – in all that pain, with all that blood.

  It had taken her what felt like an age to realise what had happened. That sort of thing just never occurs on a nice estate like theirs. She stood in the doorway and could do nothing. It was too much. It was beyond anything her mind could process.

  Darrell was on the ground, on his side, his large frame wrapped up almost into a small ball. He was hardly moving, just rocking slightly, rhythmically, with both hands wrapped around his right foot, his fingers glistening in the faint light coming from inside the house because of the dark liquid which was spilling, all the time, on to the hard surface of the drive.

  She stood, wide-eyed and helpless, just staring at him like he was an image from a grisly TV drama brought to life, and it was only when he threw his head back to release another loud, anguished, primal cry into the night that her trance was broken and she was jolted into action.

  ‘Darrell! Darrell! What happened?’

  It felt like a stupid thing to ask now but she could think of nothing else. This makes no sense.

  ‘I’ve been shot! Oh, god! Oh, god!’

  Helena had never seen anyone in so much distress.

  What do I do? What do I do?

  Towels. Try to stop the bleeding. Call an ambulance.

  She rushed back inside, into the downstairs loo, to grab the two hand towels from the rail and picked up the handset from the landline, trying to control her panic enough to press the ‘nine’ button three times. As it rang, she dropped beside her husband and thrust the towels at his hands.

  ‘Darrell! Take these. Wrap them around your foot and press hard. Come on! Do it!’

  He did as he was told as the operator, calmly, tried to get a response from the frenzied voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘Ambulance – please. My husband has a gunshot wound to the foot. Somebody shot him. We’re at number fifty-two, Silverwood Close at Bent’s Green. Come quickly, please. He’s losing a lot of blood.’

  By then, the first neighbours had begun to tentatively peer from the end of the driveway, alarmed by the noises that had disturbed their peaceful evenings, curious to find out what had caused it. One or two ventured further, to offer what support and comfort they could, and it was not long before the paramedics arrived to take over.

  The memories flashed back before Helena again as she helped Darrell from the taxi to the familiar comfort of their home and she could see the same was going through his mind too. It was no less shocking to them for having had eighteen hours to try to come to terms with what had happened.

  And now in the kitchen she gazed at her shaking hand, holding the spoon, and wondered what she should do.

  Poor Darrell had been unable to comprehend what he had just been through. The police asked him all sorts of questions to see if there was any reason he could give them – anything – to suggest why a gunman had appeared at his door, but there was nothing he could tell them. Of course he couldn’t. Why would anybody want to attack Darrell? There wasn’t an ounce of spite in him and he didn’t have an enemy in the world.

  Helena kept quiet while the police asked their questions. She was beginning to realise Darrell might not have been the gunman’s intended target.

  The doorbell rang. Such an everyday noise but its familiarity now tainted by the trauma of the last time they heard that sound. It made Helena jump, fear catching in the back of her throat as she wondered who it might be.

  She stood stock still for a moment, as if any movement might give an unwanted confirmation to whoever was outside that they were at home. Should she just ignore it? She considered the option but her rational mind kicked in.

  Don’t be silly. It’s probably just a neighbour who had seen the taxi bringing them home and was coming around to see if everything is OK and ask if there was anything they could do to help.

  Helena stirred herself and edged, reluctantly, towards the door, easing down on the handle and pulling the door slowly back until she could see who was outside.

  It was a young man and he had his head bowed, checking whatever was written on the piece of paper in his hand. When he saw the door open, he glanced up and shot the nervous face peering around it a friendly, comforting smile. He wore a dark green rainproof jacket that was slightly too big for his slender frame and was holding something by his side.

  ‘Hi. I have a delivery for you from Pam’s Petals,’ he said and raised his arm to present, with both hands, a circular arrangement of flowers.

  Helena stared at it. She was dumbfounded. It was gorgeous, with purple irises, white roses, white chrysanthemums and crisp green leaves, but her heart was far from raised by it. It’s a funeral wreath. It’s definitely a funeral wreath.

  ‘What the…’ Helena stammered.

  The young man continued to offer it to her, but she would not take it.

  ‘Why… I mean, who sent this? Have you got the wrong address? You must have the wrong address.’

  He released his hold on the wreath with one hand to check his piece of paper.

  ‘Fifty-two Silverwood Close. This is number fifty-two Silverwood Close, isn’t it?’ His smile had given way to a slightly concerned expression. Was he at the wrong address?

  ‘It is, but… Who sent this? It must have come from somebody.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you,’ said the young man.

  Helena was even more alarmed. What the hell is going on here?

  ‘I mean, there was no name given,’ he added. ‘It was just an envelope with money in it and a note saying that we should deliver the arrangement to number fifty-two Silverwood Close. I didn’t see it myself, but apparently whoever it was asked that it should be sent anonymously. They said you would know what it meant.’

  He offered the wreath again and, this time, Helena took it, almost involuntarily, automatically. She stared at it in her hands.

  They said you would know what it meant.

  The young man began to back away, noticing for the first time the dark, dried puddle on the drive but without seeming to understand what it was. He took three steps towards his delivery van as Helena stood, unmoving. Transfixed.

  ‘Oh,’ he turned back to her as a thought occurred. She tipped her head to look at him.

  ‘Please accept the condolences of us all at Pam’s Petals,’ he added solemnly.

  11

  Helena Morrison slammed the door shut and stood with her back against it, as if to form a barricade against an outside world that was becoming increasingly strange and threatening.

  She was breathing hard, her mind swimming. The haunting fear that had invaded her thoughts through the long
night in the hospital accident and emergency department might not be such an irrational one after all. Perhaps trauma and sleep deprivation were not entirely to blame for the dark theories which had begun to take seed. Maybe there really was someone out there who wanted to get inside her head. They wanted to show her that they knew. They wanted to warn her that there would be consequences for what she was doing.

  Oh, god! What made me think I could get away with it?

  She became suddenly aware again of the circle of fresh flowers in her hands and was alarmed, throwing the wreath to the floor as if to hold on to it any longer would allow it to release living, growing tentacles which would crawl into her veins and poison her body with guilt. It lay on the wooden floor, a scattering of white petals having now fallen loose from the impact of being cast down.

  ‘Who was it, babe?’

  The voice from the front room made her flinch. How would she tell Darrell? She couldn’t tell Darrell.

  ‘It was the florist. A delivery,’ she replied, trying to sound calm.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Who are they from?’

  Who are they from? That’s the question.

  ‘Dunno. There’s no card with it.’

  There was quiet for a moment.

  ‘That’s a bit strange. Bring them in, babe. I’d like to see them.’

  He’d like to see them. She wanted to grab them and throw them back up the driveway and hope they would just disappear but if she did that, it might appear odd. Darrell might wonder what was going on.

  So she bent to pick up the wreath, hesitating before convincing herself that they were only flowers and that they could not hurt her.

  She took them into the front room. Darrell was as she had left him, laying on the sofa with his heavily bandaged foot resting on three cushions. He was responding to messages on his phone as she walked in but then looked up and his thumbs fell still.

  ‘Jesus, is that them?’

  She nodded.

  ‘But it’s a…’

  She nodded again.