‘What exactly do you mean?’ asked Alex.
‘I mean… I mean that we should shed our own blood as evidence of our dedication and allegiance to the Brotherhood. This friendship should neither die nor fade away. This should survive throughout our lives wherever that strumpet Mistress Fate takes us. Let’s celebrate this unique union in deed as well as thought.’
He took a gulp of champagne, slipped off his jacket and then rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt. With calm deliberation he cut the pale flesh on his forearm with the knife. He dragged the blade across the skin leaving a fine red line which blossomed and spread, the blood oozing forth down his arm and then it started to trickle on to the table. He pressed the forefinger of his right hand into the blood and smeared his cheek with it. He dipped his finger again and anointed my cheek. ‘You have been blooded, my brother,’ he intoned in all seriousness.
He repeated the process and then anointed Alex in the same manner.
For a moment I was tempted to laugh because this ‘ceremony’ seemed to me to possess all the risible characteristics of a scene from a Hammer horror film but Laurence’s solemn features in the candlelight stifled this urge at birth. He was deadly serious. His mood and attitude affected me and I found myself caught up in the spirit of the occasion.
Laurence handed me the knife. ‘Now it is your turn,’ he said.
It was only for a second that I hesitated. I knew in my heart that this was not only the right thing to do, but necessary. It was Laurence’s wish and I would obey. It was the great unifier. I spilt my own blood, anointed myself before smearing the faces of my two brothers. I cannot explain to this day the overwhelming feeling of spiritual satisfaction and rightness I felt on that occasion. The memory has stayed with me all my life. Not just the images but the whole sense of the occasion from the smell of the candles to the feel and taint of the warm red blood on my cheek.
I handed the knife to Alex who was eager to follow suit. Within moments he had shed his own blood and shared it with us.
Laurence lifted his glass and indicated that we should do likewise while he made a toast. ‘We are now brothers in life and brothers in blood. Nothing but death shall separate us.’ He looked directly at me and smiled.
Instinctively, Alex and I responded in identical fashion: ‘Brothers in blood.’
Laurence beamed. ‘Good men. And the next time we organise a caper, we shall spill someone else’s blood.’
And that’s what happened. When Laurence and I came home for the Christmas holidays, the Brotherhood set out for Wakefield with one purpose in mind: to kill. And we did. We murdered an old tramp: our Alpha Beta as Laurence called him. We followed him from a scruffy old pub and did for him on the street. We took our first life. It was the real beginning.
And I suppose that’s where my youth and my uncertain innocence ends. What follows will never equal that time. In the beginning is the joy, the excitement, the freshness. One can repeat, of course, but with each repetition comes a wearing away of the pleasure. This journal is my insubstantial aide-memoire of that time. I am so glad I have caught it, however inadequately. I need write no more…
TEN
1984
Detective Inspector Paul Snow stared at the final page for some time, his vision blurring as all kinds of disparate thoughts and images tumbled through his mind. My God, how many people had this unholy trio murdered in the intervening years! It was like some nasty horror film. And his disquiet increased as he realised that he was now a member of the cast – he too had become part of the drama.
With a groan, he closed the book and placed his hand firmly on the cover and shivered involuntarily.
PART TWO
ELEVEN
1983
The old excitement returned. It never failed to do so. As the date of their annual excursion neared, Russell felt an actual ache in his stomach, the anticipation developing like some growth within him. He knew that it was a measure of how, by contrast, the rest of his life was dull, mundane, a great disappointment. Indeed, he was a great disappointment to himself. Despite his early aspirations and ambitions, he had achieved nothing special in his life. Gradually, he had morphed into one of those dull sods he had sneered at in his youth. Without Laurence’s influence, inspiring him to dare, to reach, to grasp the challenging and the unknown, he had made the obvious choices. Out of laziness and a lack of passion for anything else, he had simply taken the easy options. He had not even moved away from his university base. He was still in Durham and for all he knew would remain there until the end. He was trapped in his own web of incompetence. He had allowed himself to fall onto the predictable middle class conveyor belt that chugged its way through all the conventionalities he despised so much.
On leaving university, he had settled for teacher training because it required no thinking or effort. He’d got his Cert Ed and sank with ease into the swamp of the teaching profession. Here he was in his early thirties with a wife and mortgage neatly chained around his neck. All other avenues had effectively been sealed off. Or so it seemed to him. He had made his rather unadventurous bed and now he would have to lie on it. The only bright spot in his life was the Brotherhood.
The annual excursion of delight.
And here they were together again. Older, wiser and keener. This year it was Bristol. Another first. Long ago they had let Laurence arrange the details. He had the flair, the knack and the ingenuity. He always provided the novelty. And this year was to be particularly special.
They were breaking new ground.
They’d never killed a woman before.
‘A prostitute, of course,’ Laurence had assured them. ‘A raddled, drug-taking tattooed slag who is of no use to man nor beast.’
As usual they had met up for drinks and dinner in a restaurant chosen by Laurence, each staying in a different hotel in the city. Over the meal they chatted in a desultory fashion, mainly about the past, rarely commenting on their other lives, their real lives. Russell was grateful for that.
They were all in their thirties now and Russell noted that the youthful bloom had faded from their faces, his included. But in discussing the night’s business their eyes blazed with the enthusiastic exuberance of old.
Laurence had planned the event in his usual meticulous fashion. Sitting back in his chair, a little cheeroot dangling from his mouth and a glass of brandy in his hand he explained the arrangements for the evening’s entertainment.
‘The red light district is heaving with tarts on Friday night, but there’s a narrow street on the edge of this area which attracts the rougher types – the older, less tasty doxies, if you get my meaning. I’ll do the initial picking up. The car I’ve hired is pretty big. You two hide in the back until the slag’s inside and I’ve driven off. She’ll no doubt give me a location where we can park up and do the business – but I’ll suggest we go back to my hotel.’ He grinned. ‘We won’t of course. You crack her on the head, Russ. Try to do it without spilling any blood, eh? Don’t want any stains on the upholstery. And then we’ll take her to a nice quiet spot by the river that I’ve picked out and we can complete the deed there. OK?’
Russell and Alex nodded greedily.
It went like clockwork – to begin with. When Laurence drove up the narrow cobbled street, there were just two girls on show. He pulled up by the kerb and wound the window down.
This was the signal for the girls to saunter over.
They were both past their prime but, given their profession, Laurence was unsure when that would have been. They certainly looked over forty but may well have been much younger.
‘You after business?’ said one, a peroxide blonde in a shiny plastic mac.
Laurence adopted a Brummy accent to respond. ‘How much?’ he said a brusque, charmless way. He knew these women would be used to this kind of treatment. There was no room for niceties in such a transaction.
‘Forty quid.’
‘What about you?’ Laurence said, glancing at the other woman. She
seemed a little older and less confident. Behind that awfully heavily made up visage was a tired, timid woman.
‘I’ll do it for thirty-five,’ she said, softly, moving forward.
Laurence nodded. ‘Get in,’ he snapped, pushing open the passenger door. He grinned to himself. Little did the poor cow know, in cutting her price she was effectively cutting her own throat. He couldn’t help but give a little chuckle.
They laid her out on the river bank. She was concussed but breathing heavily. Alex was the first to strike a blow. He stabbed the knife deep into her abdomen. The woman gasped and gurgled. For a few fleeting seconds her eyes opened wide in shock and then clamped shut. Russell stabbed her in the chest, but she was already dying now and the body gave no reaction. Finally, with a flourish, Laurence slit her throat, taking great delight in seeing the blood spurt like a series of mini-fountains and trickle down towards her flaccid cleavage.
The three of them stood by the corpse for some moments, their eyes gleaming, tight smiles on their lips. Instinctively they held hands, affirming their brotherhood. Their quiet moment of reflection was disturbed by stirrings in the darkness at the far side of the pathway by the river. There was a sharp rustle and the sound of inarticulate grunting.
And then, suddenly, out of the shadows, a dark form emerged. ‘Here, what you doing?’ came a voice, harsh and accusative. In shock, the three of them turned to face the stranger, a tall broad-shouldered man with grizzled features and a mop of tousled hair who was fast approaching them. His gait was a little ungainly and he carried a half empty whisky bottle in one hand. ‘You’ve killed her. I saw you, you bastards… you’ve killed her,’ he cried, as he lunged at Laurence, with surprising speed and agility, wrapping his arm around his neck. So swift had been his movements that Laurence had no time to defend himself and in an instant he was yanked off his feet and flung to the ground as though he were the discarded toy of an angry child. The stranger then brought the bottle down on his head. The blow was not entirely accurate and only caught Laurence’s left temple. Nevertheless, the skin split and blood began to seep from the wound. Laurence groaned loudly and sank back onto the grass beside the path
Laurence’s cry of pain seemed to waken Russell and Alex from their frozen state of shock at the sudden violent intrusion of this stranger. Alex leapt forward and stabbed his knife into the back of stranger’s neck. The man gave a gruff cry and turned in fury on his attacker, punching him to the ground. Now his eyes lit upon Russell who stood before him, knife in hand. With a roar, he lunged forward, but Russell sidestepped him and his assailant staggered close to the water’s edge, but with a nimbleness that belied his size and sobriety, he spun round and grabbed Russell by the neck, his brutish fingers sinking hard into the soft flesh. He brought his face close to Russell’s so that even in the fading evening light, he could see the flashing rheumy eyes and the snarling rotten teeth. Terrier-like the man shook his victim violently as he began to throttle him. Russell started to choke and he knew he was in danger of losing consciousness. As his vision began to fade, he summoned up all his energy to thrust his knife hard into his assailant’s stomach.
This action had an instant effect. The man gave a roar, a strange mixture of pain and fury, and releasing his hold of Russell’s throat, he staggered backwards. As he did so, Russell snatched up the discarded whisky bottle and brought it down with great force on the back of the man’s head. He crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Russell and Alex stared down at the derelict, their bodies heaving and their minds awhirl. They were joined by Laurence who was dabbing his forehead with his handkerchief. Suddenly he began laughing, a rich, natural fulsome laugh. The other two stared at him in surprise.
‘Well,’ said Laurence, containing his merriment, ‘that was an interesting divertissement, was it not? Two for the price of one.’
Neither Russell nor Alex seemed to share Laurence’s amusement. They saw the incident for what it was: a very dangerous close call.
‘Now let’s get the hell out of here,’ said Alex, looking around nervously, wondering if there were any other strangers lurking in the shadows ready to pounce.
Laurence nodded. ‘Good idea, but first we must commit our friends to their watery grave.’
Without speaking, they tipped the bodies of their victims into the dark silent waters of the river and watched them sink slowly below the murky surface and then flung their knives after them.
‘And now a drink, I think, gentlemen. We have earned it,’ announced Laurence with a grin, still using his Brummy accent.
TWELVE
1984
Russell took a sip of the ice cold gin and tonic and then relaxed back into the inadequate folds of the garden lounger, closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the warm summer sun. His mind wandered back to the incident on the river bank a year ago. At this distance the panic and sense of danger had subsided completely and he viewed it merely as an exciting adventure. He remembered it now with affection and amusement, an unexpected bonus to their night’s activities. The thought that one of them could have been injured or worse no longer crossed his mind. Instead he focused on the killing of the girl, the tart, the sack of flesh in a dress. He ran the images in slow motion in his mind. In particular, he focused on the blood spurting from her throat. It was an erotic image and as it rippled in his brain, he felt stirrings at his crotch. The sensation pleased him, but he banished the image before it roused him further.
Oh, but it had been good. It was the last time he had really smiled.
He tried to turn his mind to other things. It was Friday again, the end of another fraught and tedious week, and the freedom of two whole days away from the hell hole where he worked beckoned. For him it was just a brief, occasional respite from the reality of his dull, tense existence. He’d been warned by many, not least Laurence, that he would regret going into teaching. Forget the long holidays and the supposedly short hours, he had been told. Think about the pressure, the constant battle with young savages, the preparation and marking and the increasing burden of paperwork, he had been told. But he had ignored the warnings.
With a sudden movement he drained his glass. The surge of cold alcohol pleased him. Its anaesthetic properties were beginning to work. With this prospect in mind, he padded back into the kitchen and poured himself another double and returned to the lounger determined to fill his mind with pleasant thoughts. It would not be an easy task, he accepted, as he sipped his gin greedily. Much of life bored him or filled him with disdain. It always had, of course. He really believed that he had a limited capacity to be happy. To a large extent this was due to his inability to form close relationships. He could get so close but then some inner force, prompted by insecurity, laziness or, more usually, a complete lack of curiosity about other people held him back. He only felt anything approaching happiness when he was with Laurence and Alex, particularly Laurence. Then the protective shell fell away. He could be himself – or as much as he was ever able to be. It was a truth he accepted: Laurence had spoiled him for others.
Of course he cared for Sandra – in his own reserved fashion. She was a sweet, intelligent woman and, perhaps more importantly, made very few demands on him. She didn’t try to mould him to her tastes and outlook as he’d seen so many wives of his acquaintance do. Sandra accepted him – loved him – for what he was. Well, he assumed that she loved him. She behaved as though she did and he didn’t question the matter further. It was, he supposed, a marriage of convenience. They rarely argued. If she didn’t agree with him, she just left him alone. He knew that in this respect he was lucky; he also knew that if something happened to her – if she disappeared from his life – he would survive. Quite easily. He would continue in his own stoical way.
With this observation floating around his brain, he drifted into sleep. The gin and the sun, combined with the natural fatigue following a week teaching bore him away into a dreamless slumber.
He was awakened some twenty minutes later by a cool h
and on his brow and a warm kiss on his lips. He opened his eyes to find Sandra smiling down at him. ‘Getting pissed before the evening meal is a bit desperate, darling, even for you,’ she said brightly.
‘I am not pissed,’ he responded with mock grumpiness, shaking off the rags of sleep. He pulled himself up in the lounger and reached for his glass on the lawn. It lay on its side, having fallen over when it had slipped from his grasp as he had dropped off to sleep. He studied the empty glass as though it were some prize exhibit in the empty glass museum. ‘I’m just tired. If a couple of gins make me pissed, there’s no hope.’
He grinned and Sandra kissed him again.
‘Would you like another?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’
‘I think I’ll join you.’
‘Good girl.’
She returned minutes later with a tray containing two fresh glasses and a bowl of peanuts.
‘Had a good day, darling?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘So, so,’ she said, plonking herself down in the other lounger. ‘Frantic morning but, y’know, appointments dry up on a Friday afternoon.’
‘People are too busy preparing for the weekend to be ill, eh?’
Sandra gave a tired grin. ‘Something like that.’
‘Have we treated anything really nasty today? Any bubonic plague around?’
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