The Accidental Assassin

by Jan Toms

  Caught by surprise, Charity in turn heard herself say, ‘That would be very nice.’

  TEN

  Victor searched the local paper to see what was on at the Regal. They were having a Marlon Brando week and there was a film on called Last Tango in Paris. This sounded perfect. Victor liked musicals, especially the sort he had once watched with his mother where hordes of girls in slinky dresses and feathers high-kicked in unison on elegant stairways. He had always fancied himself as a bit of a Fred Astaire, largely because Fred was a slight, slim man who clearly appealed to the ladies, particularly as he could dance. In private, Victor had practised his turns and toe-tapping until he thought that if he were ever called upon to perform he would give a pretty good account of himself.

  He had arranged to meet Charity outside the Regal at six o’clock. During the afternoon he took Fluffy for quite a long walk so that the little dog would be tired and not mind spending the evening alone. He wasn’t sure what he should wear. Walking back along the High Street, a tired poodle in tow, he took time to study the clothes displayed in the shop windows. The male models were attired in the sort of trousers that looked as if they were meant to be worn on safari, with short-sleeved shirts in interesting shades of sand. In a mad moment he tied a protesting Fluffy outside, popped into He World and browsed. He was on holiday after all; he wasn’t going away somewhere expensive and therefore he could afford to indulge himself in something new. For a moment, he remembered the £45,000 worth of cheques filed away in his desk. Supposing somebody broke in and stole them? He really should put them somewhere safe and the safest place was clearly the bank. Having decided that, he then took time to select a new pair of trousers and a shirt.

  The shop sold rather rakish caps too, with peaks designed to keep the Saharan sun out of your eyes. There wasn’t much sun about at the moment but, having tried one on, Victor thought that the style really quite suited him, and rather self-consciously he placed it on the counter with his Safari Sun chinos and Cairo Nights shirt. Having paid for them, he went home to prepare for the night out.

  Charity prepared a tofu salad for her father, popped it in the fridge and left a note on the kitchen table telling him that she had gone out for the evening.

  What to wear was a bit of a challenge. At work she had always worn a uniform, a rather smart suit with the company logo emblazoned across her left breast. She was also quite addicted to jeans but she felt that tonight called for something a little more feminine. She had a skirt in what had been advertised as electric blue, but having bought it she had always found it difficult to find a top to match it. The same thing still applied, and she spent ages standing in front of the mirror gripping the skirt with one hand and a series of blouses and T-shirts with the other. In the end she settled for a rather staid long-sleeved blouse in a blue sufficiently different to contrast rather than clash. At a quarter to six she left the house and walked to the cinema.

  Victor and Charity were both silent as they descended the steps of the Regal at the end of the performance. Outside it was dusk and people wandered aimlessly around the town. A queue was already forming for the next performance of Last Tango in Paris. Neither Charity nor Victor looked directly at them, or at each other.

  Victor had never felt so embarrassed in his life. He had been expecting some singing, an orchestra and a love story. Instead… He wondered what Charity must be thinking of him, taking her to something like that. He would never be able to spread butter on his bread again without remembering the humiliation.

  Charity was quietly smiling to herself. She could hardly imagine people meeting anonymously in their village, hiring flats and having sex orgies. In Paris it must be different, so suave and sophisticated. She fancied Marlon Brando like mad. In fact, the film had really quite stirred her up. Victor of course bore very little resemblance to the star of the film, but…

  Victor thought that he should walk Charity home. He struggled desperately for something to say, some safe observation that would bypass the film. Meanwhile, the silence was growing intolerable. The way to Charity’s house meant actually passing his own front door and, as they drew level, Charity spoke for the first time.

  ‘How about inviting me in for a cup of coffee?’

  Victor hesitated. This would mean extending the already unbearable silence but he couldn’t see what else to do. Hopefully Fluffy and the kittens would divert their attention, give them something different to focus on.

  Inside, the animals came to meet them. While Charity took off her jacket and flung it across the arm of a chair, Victor went to the kitchen to prepare the coffee. He only had a jar of instant and he wondered if she was expecting one of those percolators that had recently appeared in a series of television adverts where a young couple were always popping into each other’s flats to borrow sugar or something. The idea of popping into flats brought him back to the film and he felt extremely hot.

  As he was pouring boiling water into a jug to which he had already added several spoonfuls of coffee, Charity poked her head around the door.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have anything stronger, do you?’

  For a second he thought that perhaps she had been watching him and that he hadn’t added enough coffee but then, following her eyes, he saw that she was looking at his bottle of wine on the work surface. He had fortified himself with a glass before leaving for the cinema, and it was just as well that he had.

  ‘Of c-c-course.’ At last he managed to make a sound and fetched two wine glasses.

  As they sat in the lounge with Fluffy squeezing onto the sofa and Tabby and Puss playing around their feet, Victor thought what a splendid girl Charity was. He had taken her to a terrible film, subjected her to the most embarrassing experience, and yet she was behaving as if nothing had happened. Taking courage, he looked directly at her.

  Charity was leaning forward, teasing the kittens with the handle of her bag. Together they stalked it, pouncing and then retreating, falling over each other in their excitement. Her neatly cropped brown hair looked smooth and glossy and, as she bent forward, he got the merest glimpse inside her blouse. She wore a very white cotton bra with lace around the top. Victor’s face burned with heat.

  He didn’t look away quite fast enough and Charity, sitting up, met his eye. For a moment she simply stared at him then, taking a sip from her glass and placing it on the table, she said, ‘Well?’

  ‘I—,’ Victor’s hands were shaking. He dared not pick up his own glass for fear of spilling the contents all over the place.

  ‘Shall we?’ Charity stood up and to his amazement she began to undo her blouse. ‘Come on,’ she encouraged, ‘that is unless you don’t want to?’ As an afterthought she asked, ‘You aren’t gay are you?’

  He shook his head, transfixed by the sight of her slipping off her blouse and beginning to unfasten her skirt. Like an elephant who has seen a mouse, he quickly drew his legs up onto the sofa, dislodging Fluffy, who gave a yap of protest. Taking this as an invitation to join him, Charity sank onto the sofa and began to struggle with the waistband of his Safari Sun chinos.

  ‘I say!’

  Charity seemed to be deaf. She was certainly a single-minded girl and at the moment her objective was to get Victor out of his trousers.

  ‘Come on then,’ she turned her back to him, inviting him to unfasten her bra. In the face of her calm authority, he began to fiddle with the catch, unsure as to how such contraptions worked. Meanwhile, something amazing was happening inside his trousers. Charity’s neat little fingers had invited themselves in and were doing unthinkable things to his private parts.

  Overcome by nature, Victor followed Charity’s gentle slide onto the carpet and buried the biggest, strongest erection he had ever had into the appropriate part of Charity’s anatomy. She held him so tight that he could barely breathe, shouting words of encouragement as he rose to the occasion. Victor in turn issued a series of squeaks, although he wasn’t entirely sure which came from him and which from Fluffy, who was le
aping around excitedly, entering into the fun.

  Afterwards, Victor lay on top of Charity in a trance. Nothing even approaching this had happened to him in his entire lifetime. He had imagined it often enough, politely climbing into bed with his fantasy girl Elizabeth, but this – this was out of this world. He began to wonder how well he had performed and if Charity might be disappointed. He had a sudden, rather disturbing image of her as his schoolmistress, standing over him with a cane, saying, ‘Victor, that just isn’t good enough. You are going to have to stay behind and do it again until you get it right.’ The very prospect roused his newly assaulted manhood into another life of its own.

  Charity felt better. Victor wasn’t the first lover she had had and certainly not the best. That accolade definitely went to Mr Burton who had taught her geography – and a lot more besides. Still, Victor was OK. He was biddable and obliging and for the moment that was enough. It was only as she was easing him off her and looking for her knickers that she remembered he was a suspect in her enquiries into a possible murder case.

  ELEVEN

  Dodge sat at the head of the table in the Blues Brothers’ office. It was located in a department store they ran in Shanklin High Street called Something for Everyone. Local people referred to it just as Something. I’m just popping down to Something to get a new kettle – you name it, Something sold it. Apart from anything else, the store was a very convenient front for all their other enterprises.

  Although the office was only small, Dodge felt dwarfed and out of his depth. His planned meeting with Vincenzo Verdi at Shanklin Chine had failed and he was now at a loss as to what to do next. He couldn’t remember actually having asked Vincenzo to take out Mauler Maguire but he must have done so, for Vincenzo had acted very promptly – although how he knew that Mauler would be at the Chine was another mystery. Anyway, he had dutifully sent him a cheque for a job well done. Now he wondered what might happen next.

  It struck him that this whole turf war thing was ridiculous. Both gangs had operations all over the Island so surely there was plenty to go round for everyone? Why couldn’t they just settle it without all this killing? It was then that he had another idea. It was so novel that he had to go over it several times in his head to make sure that he wasn’t going completely mad. The sensible thing to do was to arrange a meeting with both Vincenzo Verdi and Barry Hickman and see if they could sort something out between them! He thought about it for ages and imagined going into the prison and telling Reggie that there was no longer anything to worry about because he, Dodge, had sorted it all out.

  Inspired by the prospect, he rang down to the front desk and got a telephone number for Leon ‘Frenchie’ leFevre, who knew most of what was going on locally.

  ‘Leon, Dodge here. I don’t suppose you have a contact number for Barry Hickman, do you? There’s a bit of business I need to sort out.’

  ‘I ‘ave an address.’ Frenchie’s strong accent sounded like something out of a radio play. ‘Ze Pretty Boys, they ‘ave a bureau, vairy smart.’ He spent a few moments rustling among some papers and came back with it.

  ‘Thanks, Frenchie,’ said Dodge. ‘Everything alright with you?’

  ‘Tres bien, Rogeur. Tonight I go to Paris to see my mother.’

  ‘Good. Well, have a good trip.’

  When the call was over, Dodge took two brown envelopes from the desk and two sheets of paper. He needed to set this meeting up quickly, but where and when? Monday night looked like a good time, but where? He suddenly thought of Rylstone Garden. It was a place he had often been with his mother because she liked the flowerbeds. It was reasonably isolated but, at the same time, meeting there shouldn’t attract attention. On each sheet of paper, he wrote Rylstone Gardens, Monday night, 7 o’clock, put the papers into envelopes, addressed one to Barry, one to Vincenzo, and took them to the post.

  Victor surfaced the next morning from a vivid, not to say embarrassing, dream. It was only as he lay gathering his senses that he became aware of an array of aches and strains around his person and slowly the details of the evening before came back to him. The memory left him breathless.

  Once Charity was dressed he had walked her home, his legs feeling as if they belonged to someone else. She had held his hand as they walked and chatted gaily about her life. It was at this point that he had discovered that her father was none other than the nice policeman, Alan Grimes. The realisation threw him into free-fall, for what on earth would Mr Grimes think if he knew what Victor had done to his daughter – although to be honest it was more a question of what she had done to him.

  On the doorstep Charity had grasped his face with both hands and twisted her mouth over his as if she was trying to extricate a cork from a bottle. Carefully he tested his lips, but they seemed to have survived the onslaught.

  Resolutely he kept his eyes closed, trying to untangle the assortment of implications. Gradually the overriding thought was that, as from last night, he was a different person, no longer a shamefaced virgin but a man of the world. With that happy thought, he threw back the covers and went in search of tea.

  Having freed himself from the attentions of Fluffy and the kittens by filling their food bowls, he settled to thinking about the wider world. Today was already Thursday. He had only three more days before he would be back to work. There were certain things that needed to be sorted out, the most pressing being the question of what to do with the two cheques.

  At first he considered simply taking them to his bank and asking to deposit them in his current account, or perhaps to open a new savings account so that while he was waiting to contact the true owners, they would be gaining interest. He would, of course, hand the interest over once everything was sorted out. Gradually, however, he began to see the flaws in his plan. What would Miss Hutchinson, the bank clerk, think if he tried to pay in this unbelievable amount? Called upon to explain himself, it could be very humiliating, until he hit on the idea of pretending that this was an inheritance being paid in instalments. Satisfied with his plan, straight after breakfast he and Fluffy set off for the High Street.

  There was quite a queue at the bank and he felt rather self-conscious, suspecting that the person standing behind him would be able to see over his shoulder. Outside, Fluffy was giving a good imitation of a banshee. Victor smiled sheepishly at a lady who clearly thought that he was some sort of heartless monster, leaving the poor little thing to pine, but there was nothing to be done.

  As he waited, Victor considered his options. He didn’t want a rumour to start circulating that he had come into money. Perhaps he should ask to see the manager and be ushered through into a private office, but Mr Barber was a remote figure and Victor didn’t quite have the nerve to ask for his attention. As it happened, another bank clerk had opened her window, and by the time Victor reached the counter he was the last customer. His face a ripe shade of tomato, he handed over the cheques along with his paying-in slip to Miss Hutchinson. ‘B-Bit of an inheritance,’ he managed to stutter.

  Miss Hutchinson looked at the cheques and then at him, surprise at the very least registering on her rather homely face. ‘My goodness Mr Green, what a lot.’ After a moment she excused herself and returned a few moments later with the said Mr Barber.

  ‘Mr Green, perhaps you would like to come through to my office?’

  By now Victor’s heart was steaming away. so he could hardly hear over the pounding in his ears. It took him a moment to register that Mr Barber was being unusually engaging, a positive Uriah Heap in fact.

  ‘Please, please take a seat. Can I get you coffee or anything?’

  This was the first time he had been offered anything other than a distant although polite good morning, so he nodded his head. Mr Barber pressed a buzzer on his desk and barked out an order. With remarkable speed. a young lady wearing the bank’s uniform trotted in with a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  ‘Right, now.’ Mr Barber settled himself behind his desk. ‘This is quite a sum of money, Mr Green.’ As Victor was
about to defend himself with mention of a previously unknown aunt in Cheltenham coupled with a surprise win on a Channel Islands lottery, Mr Barber continued, ‘Perhaps you would like to think of investing it? A bond perhaps that will yield good interest?’

  ‘I –, I don’t want to tie it up for too long,’ Victor said, finding courage from somewhere.

  ‘Ah-ha, planning to indulge ourselves are we? A fast car? A little trip abroad maybe?’

  This sounded like a good idea so Victor agreed, only half listening to Mr Barber’s plans for housing the embarrassing cheques. Within twenty minutes it was all settled and he walked out with a new bank account and a temporary chequebook.

  ‘So nice to do business with you Mr Green. If there is anything else you would like help with,’ so saying the unctuous Mr Barber saw him to the door.

  Relieved of the responsibility of the money, Victor could now plan the rest of his day.

  Fluffy greeted him as if he had been sent away to Siberia and had only just managed to get back. Embarrassed, Victor picked him up and carried him to the end of the street while his face was immersed in canine spittle.

  When he arrived home it was to see the post van driving away, so on the way up the drive he opened the box. There was another of those white envelopes. They were beginning to annoy him now. In response to the last one he had gone along to the Chine but no one had met him there. Instead, that awful man had tried to drown the kittens and then fallen into the water. Thinking of Tabby and Puss, he had to admit that he was glad that he had been there, otherwise… he shuddered.

  Forgoing the use of his paperknife, he ripped the envelope open with his finger. As he entered his front door, a sheet of folded paper tumbled out. There was no cheque, just another typed line. Rylstone Gardens. Monday night. 7 o’clock.