The Writer

by RB Banfield

  Paul looked like he expected Max to laugh at his joke and when he saw that he was angry he turned and quickly walked away, fishing out his cell phone and acting like there was an important message for him.

  Craigfield did not see his two trackers follow him all the way to the train station. Kerry wore a faded blue Animal Matters cap, which was his birthday present and named for his favourite TV show. Jerry had a green and white knitted hat with long earflaps. They both had hooded pullovers with the hood down, and white shoes. There was nothing to notice about them and even other children had no reason to single them out. They knew how to hide in the open, with the general public, like the best of spies could do.

  A mixture of hiding and blending with other passengers meant that they succeeded in following Craigfield all the way up to the ticket counter, enough to overhear what his destination was. Jerry thought that they should go back home while they were still unseen, but Kerry had a different idea.

  “We can get tickets too,” he said.

  “Do you really think we should?”

  “All in the job. We can’t let our customer down. Or did you want to apologise to our customer and tell her we couldn’t complete the case because you didn’t think we should get tickets for the train? You know that would mean she would be our first dissatisfied customer?”

  “She’s the only customer we’ve ever had, Kerry. It’s just Sophie. This isn’t real. Craigfield may be taking that train all the way to the city. We’d be in big trouble if we go there and get stuck. You know we can’t get lost in the city. What will we do if that happens?”

  “If he’s going all the way to the city then we go all the way to the city too. Are you a spy or not? Am I the only spy in the family?”

  “You know we can’t go into the city. You know we can’t do that. Let’s go home.”

  “And you know we can’t let Sophie down. If we go home now, we’ll be empty handed. She’s the only one who understands us. We can’t let her down.”

  “She doesn’t understand us. You don’t think she understands us? No one understands us and that’s just the way we want it.”

  “She understands us better than anyone else, is what I mean. We need to do this for her. Come on, Jerry. Because she’s family we have to go out of our way for her. And anyway, the target might not be going into the city. The train doesn’t just go there, you know. There’s other stops before that. He may only be going to the next station.”

  “He might be going to his secret hideout,” Kerry said with renewed enthusiasm.

  “And we’ll catch him there.”

  Jerry went to the ticket counter to order for two minors for the next train into the city. Kerry was still uncertain and would have protested the idea further but he didn’t want to draw attention. There were already too many people around and any one of them might know who their mother was. When Jerry returned to his brother he held up the tickets in triumph, with a big grin. Kerry returned the grin but couldn’t help but think what their mother would do if she ever found out. He removed his cap and touched the Animal Matters logo, to give him confidence.

  The apartment felt empty and cold no matter how high he set the thermostat. Despite the fact that Jill usually went out for hours at a time and Max was left alone to work on his writing, this felt different. He could not help thinking that he could do nothing to bring her back. He was powerless to be able to see her that day and probably tomorrow. Each time he tried to think about something else, his thoughts would always return to her.

  And his thoughts changed from sorrow to revenge.

  After spending a few hours in thought, when he hardly moved from his easy chair, Max decided on a revenge plan. He would make a legal change to his will. In would go the requirement that, under the pretence that it was his favourite song, Hey Jude was to be played at his funeral. The long version. He never liked it or understood why anyone else did, and hoped that there really was an even longer version. It amused him to think of all the people at his funeral whom he didn’t really like that much, being subjected to the song during such solemn circumstances. Those few people he did consider to be his true friends would be in on the joke, if he remembered to warn them first. Then his mind ran away and he considered other music he hated, like the “Pina Collada” song Escape, or the uncertain ramblings of I’ve Never Been To Me, or even, in a twisted tribute to his wife, the horribly dated Afternoon Delight. Yes, they were his favourite songs. It said so in his will. His only regret was that Elvis had never recorded them. Making him laugh out loud was a few attempts at singing them with his best Elvis voice.

  Uh-huh.

  Then he considered insisting that his funeral be a Science Fiction theme. Everyone should be required to wear a sparkly futuristic outfit and then made to listen to Zegar and Evans’ weird piece of musical vandalism, In the Year 2525. The people would then be told that Elvis was not dead, but merely returned to his home planet, somewhere south of Orion’s nebulae. That was based on an Elvis fan he met one time during one of his shows, who actually believed that was what had happened to his hero. Max became a little uncertain about his audience after that encounter.

  Such thoughts amused him long enough to forget his sorrow. But after a few more hours his thoughts became darker. Jill hated Elvis. Craigfield probably did too. He went into the kitchen and looked through the utensils for the sharpest knife he could find.

  After a sleepless night Susan took one look at the red sky of morning and went outside. With short but quick steps she walked three houses down the street, past Old Man Hudson’s place, past the Mongomery’s, to the home of Andy Handisides. She hammered at the front door and was answered by his wife Pat. She took one look at Susan and knew why she was there. The two women understood the agony of losing a child, and together they confronted Andy. At the small kitchen table, concentrating in eating his porridge and trying to wake up, he almost choked when he saw Susan.

  He had been out driving until well after midnight, going all over town in search of the missing twins. With each passing hour he felt the need to take a drink to calm his nerves. He ended up passing out in his car sometime around one o’clock. Not even Pat knew about that. He managed to wake and get back home before four with the wife being none the wiser. After no more than two hours of sleep, his head felt heavy and his eyes hurt every time he moved them. He was in no mood to be confronted.

  “You should know every inch of this town, Andy,” Susan started on him with a loud voice. Pat stood behind her with her arms folded, giving her all the support she needed. “How can anyone go missing here? In Gendry? It’s hardly big enough to lose a thought! Two exuberant boys running amuck? Who are you kidding? The whole world could see them coming. But you? Under your watch they’re nowhere to be seen. That’s under your watch, Andy. I’m holding you responsible. Anything happens to them, I’ll have your badge! Yes, I will. I’ll make a better sheriff than your fat old hide.”

  She leaned closer. “Have you been drinking?”

  Andy rubbed his eyes as he slowly looked up to her. “No offence intended, Susan,” he said with a croaky voice, “but I should point out, they are your boys and their safety and guardianship is your responsibility primarily.”

  “Trying to put this on me now?” she asked with a louder voice. “So I’m the Gendry sheriff, am I? Since when did that happen? Big surprise to me, thanks for sharing! When do I get my pay slip? Can’t be much, since I don’t actually do anything! Except drink!”

  “Susan,” Andy said with his hands raised, “the fact is, since you are their mother, it is up to you to look after their wellbeing. I’m here to keep the peace and lock up law breakers. I’m not here to round up every unruly child.”

  He stood up from the table and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, still keeping his hands raised to show that he had not finished. “Now, I won’t have you talking to me like the way you were just then. You do know we are doing all we can to find the boys, and when we do I will let you know first thing. Just
let us do our job, and find them. The best you can do is wait at home for them to come back. Wouldn’t be surprised, they just turn up. You know what they’re like, being boys.”

  He added his trademark big smile and she grimaced at the sight of those large teeth of his.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” she countered, “there’s a murderer running around loose this town. And you think I’m just going to sit back and wait—“

  “Yes, I do expect that,” he said more sternly. “I expect you to wait for them to turn up, or until we have word on where they are. Your girl Sophie tells me they’ve been playing out in the forest lately, working on another one of their secret projects or something. They may have just got lost. But I know them, better than you might think. I know they’re smart boys. I’m sure they’re able to find their way back into town.”

  “I’ll go right now and search the whole forest myself. Since you can’t.”

  “We have people doing that, and they’re good people too. I don’t want you going in there and getting yourself lost, and then we’ll have three missing townfolk to find. Just help me out by letting us do our job. That’s all I ask. Can you do that please, Susan?”

  She took a big gasp of air, ready to let him have it, her opinion of exactly how well he was doing his job, when she realised it would be wasted on him. She said nothing else, turned and marched out of his house. Pat remained staring at Andy, her arms folded, just daring him to protest. He rubbed his face some more and went back to his porridge. Gendry life had become too busy lately, and it coincided with Andy beginning to feel his age and wish he could spend his days out fishing, far away from women like Susan. And Pat too, for that matter. And their crazy ideas of some murderer running around.

  “It was a hit-and-run,” he said to his wife. “There’s no murderer running around. City driver did it; that’s what the city police man said. Could have happened before, could happen again. Got to watch out, us small town people. Don’t know who’s going to run us down these days.”

  “You’re drinking on the job again?” Pat asked.

  He didn’t answer, which was usual when she asked that question.

  There was a small gap between Craigfield’s house and his neighbour’s and Max found that he could stand in it and not be seen from the glare of the streetlight or passing cars. His crutch was left in his car and a sharp kitchen knife replaced it. Since he had been punched his foot had felt a lot better. His face didn’t feel any better, however, and neither did his memory.

  The house was empty and it was getting late but Max never lost his anger nor let the knife loosen in his hand. He did not remember the last time he had slept for more than an hour. Every night seemed to be one of those toss-and-turn endurances that made him feel worse than not sleeping at all. But he remained alert and the sound of each approaching car made his heart race. After seeing it was not Craigfield he felt a rush of fear, before his anger returned.

  He had never considered himself to be a violent man. All through his school days he was small and defenceless and suffered bullying. That was when he learned to mimic people, and such humour made him popular with the kids who used to hit him. From there he moved on to mimicking Elvis. Whenever he belted out songs like Blue Suede Shoes he always remembered his miserable school days. No matter how many times he tried to move on, his Elvis act always gave him a little bit of sadness. That was a story he had never told any other living soul.

  People thought he was a happy man; people who didn’t know him. And most people didn’t know that he was one of those deep-down tender-hearted people who didn’t even like the thought of killing a common household spider—the type that you can hardly see, or a small fly that never wants to go away and just flirts with your ears and eyes. He would open a window and hope the fly finds its freedom, or chase it around the house until it does. He would ignore the spider and hope it doesn’t turn up again, and if it does then repeat the same until it either goes away or grows too big for its own good. Jill was the one who could mercilessly destroy bugs like a born assassin. He didn’t even want to know when she got one, since the thought of it would upset him.

  But now things had changed for Max. He was no longer that frightened child or timid pacifist, or emotional bug-freer. He had been driven too far, pushed to his limit, and he wanted this wife-stealer to suffer. There was no plan, and if there were then he would think about it too much and start to fret. If he didn’t get him today then he would come back tomorrow. Simple as that. After he got him, he would just leave. He didn’t care if he got blood on his clothes, or walked in it and got it on his shoes and in his car, or if Craigfield didn’t go down easily and Max was wounded in return. He didn’t care if he also had to suffer in order to make this man suffer. He didn’t care if he was caught and tried for murder, and convicted and sentenced to life in prison in a small cell with a lonely cell jockey named Bubba or Wendy. He just wanted revenge and the knowledge that this man was no longer able to seduce the Jills of this world.

  During his time as a journalist he had written about crimes of passion and he had tried to imagine what drove people to such acts. His imagination could not conceive of what it took and he had assumed it was the result of madness. Now he realised how wrong he was. One in such a position never takes time to sit back and muse about how to get away with it, to organise the perfect crime, analyse the pros and cons and put it into play with perfection. This was nothing like stealing a painting with no one seeing, or planning extortion so he could get away with the money. The payoff was the act itself, not in whatever happens after that. All that needed to be planned was in how to get the man alone and with what to kill him with.

  When the front door opened it startled Max. Someone came out and walked the short distance to the gate. He tried to get out of his mind the realisation that the house had been occupied the entire time he was there. The fact that he had not been spotted made him feel confident enough to carry on.

  He carefully peered around the side of the house and his heart raced when he saw that it was Craigfield. All he was wearing was briefs, despite the coolness in the air. He was leaning against the front gate, still as a statue. Max thought he might be looking for an intruder and he fought back his fear. Then he noticed that Craigfield was more interested in the night sky than anything out on the street, or in dark gaps near his house. He wondered if he was doing nothing more unusual than getting some fresh air. Max looked at his knife and the sharpness of the edge and it made him feel powerful.

  Craigfield moved back a step from the gate again and made a loud noise like a cough, or a snort. He then turned to face Max, who froze with sudden fear before he realised that Craigfield had not seem him. Then Craigfield turned back to the gate and his hands tried to open the latch but fumbled. It took about a minute for him to open the latch, but all he did then was open and shut the gate again and then turn back to the house. He walked to his front steps but then stopped, looking down at the ground.

  Max readied his knife, even though it had been ready for a while. He now realised that his target was sleepwalking and he knew that he would have no trouble in getting to him and quickly finishing him. Craigfield had even made it easy for him in not wearing a shirt. Max had a choice of a large, muscular torso to stab and he had no excuse for not doing it. He moved closer and raised the knife. The deep sleeping Craigfield was trying to negotiate the front steps; a foot went up and tapped the step before going down and then the other had a try. He might as well have a target painted on his back. There was no one around; not even a car in sight.

  Max knew that he would never again be presented with a better opportunity. But he backed off and just watched the sight of his nemesis acting so vulnerable and weak, and allowed him to go. Craigfield eventually walked up the steps and returned inside his house, even locking the door behind him. Max stared at the door and tried to comprehend what just happened. He knew that he didn’t have it. Whatever it was that made men kill, he didn’t have it. What he did hav
e were tears and they filled his eyes. His foot began to hurt and he had difficulty getting back to his car without his crutch, and he almost accidentally cut himself with the knife.

  Kerry and Jerry had no idea that it would be just before nightfall when the train arrived in the city. They began to panic at the thought of being lost there. It did not help that everyone around them looked unfriendly. The other commuters sat in silence and minded their own business, all making an effort to not make eye contact with anyone else. With each stop more people joined them, and aside from short glares, the twins were ignored. They did not belong and everyone knew it. To make it worse, they only had the window to look at and their view was dull. They had nothing to read or listen to, unlike everyone else. With either a paper or a computer device to read, the other passengers were away in their own world. Every second person wore small headsets or earpieces and the twins could not help but stare when someone flipped at their flashy controls. When they arrived at the final stop the carriage was full of such people.

  Between the two of them they could not conclude that their best option would be to wait for the next train to take them back home. To do that they would not have to leave the station and they would probably be ignored. Clouding such thoughts was their youthful keenness to keep following Craigfield, to keep to their plan, to not let Sophie down. Nothing would be worse than letting Sophie down. No matter where Craigfield was going, he was the only person they knew in the city, and with him was their sense of safety. They knew they must not let him out of their sight, but when the train stopped and everyone stood up to leave, they realised they had a problem.

  “Where did he go?” Jerry asked his brother as they made their way off the train, to the platform filled with a mass of people doing the same. Their height made it impossible to see where he was.