The Eyes of the Accused: A dark disturbing mystery thriller (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 2)

by Mark Tilbury

  ‘You went up there last time. It ain’t changed. It still gets damp in the winter and stinks of piss.’

  ‘I miss being at home,’ Frank said. A fact partially aligned to the truth.

  ‘Don’t be daft. You’ve got your own home.’

  ‘It ain’t the same. That tin shack will be the death of me.’

  ‘Stop whining, boy. You sound like Peter Hastings’ dog when he ties it up in the backyard.’

  ‘It hasn’t even got any proper heating.’

  ‘What? Peter Hasting’s backyard,’ Agnes joked.

  Frank didn’t see the funny side. ‘It’s colder in that bloody tin shack than it is outside.’

  ‘Is that my fault?’

  Frank thought it was, considering the heartless cow had kicked him out in the first place. ‘No, Mother.’

  ‘No. But you always want to blame everyone else, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘I remember the time you nearly set fire to this place—’

  ‘I got drunk and fell asleep with a cigarette. It was an accident.’

  ‘If Ronnie hadn’t fitted a smoke alarm, we’d have both been ashes by now.’

  Frank wondered when Golden Boy Ronnie would get brought into the conversation. ‘You’re exaggerating a bit there. If I remember rightly—’

  ‘How can you stand there and claim to remember anything? You were three sheets to the wind, boy.’

  Frank elected not to argue. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry don’t cut no ice when you hit an iceberg, boy. I suppose flashing to that child was an accident as well?’

  Frank looked away. ‘I was drunk.’

  ‘Drunk? Really? You do surprise me.’

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘You’re consistent, I’ll give you that much. Consistently useless. You should be grateful me and Ronnie clubbed together to buy you that mobile home. Me being on a pension an’ all.’

  ‘You actually paid money for it?’

  ‘Don’t be smart, boy. It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘You ought to spend a winter in there. See how you—’

  ‘Never mind your cheek. I don’t want you going upstairs. I want you down here where I can keep an eye on you.’

  Frank almost stamped his foot. ‘Now you’re being daft.’

  ‘Ronnie says you can’t be trusted. He reckons you had something to do with the break-in.’

  Frank’s heart jumped on a pogo stick. ‘He... said... what?’

  Agnes plucked a strand of hair on her chin. ‘He said it was mighty suspicious that his photo was the only one that got smashed. Said it looked like somebody stamped on it.’

  Frank swallowed hard and looked away.

  ‘And the solid silver candle sticks he bought me for my birthday got nicked. Said it looked too personal to him.’

  Frank’s right eye began to twitch. ‘He’s just being paranoid.’

  ‘He reckons you’re hiding something up in that room of yours. Reckons you staged the burglary to scare me.’

  ‘Why the hell would I want to scare you?’

  ‘To get more security.’

  ‘That’s crap.’

  ‘Mind your mouth boy.’

  Frank looked away, lest the truth was written in his eyes. ‘Sorry. But it is.’

  ‘Answer me this: why have you got an industrious-sized padlock on the bedroom door?’

  Frank grappled for an answer. ‘It’s industrial. Not “industrious”.’

  ‘Don’t play word games with me. It’s still a bloody padlock.’

  Frank remembered the time his mother had read out the details of Brother Ronnie’s new home. She’d called the kitchen suspicious instead of spacious. It was the one and only time he’d ever laughed with Ronnie. ‘You can tell Ronnie from me that he’s wrong. I ain’t got nothing to hide.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Francis Crowley. Your eye’s twitching.’

  Frank blinked hard, trying to dislodge the twitch.

  ‘You’ve got too much of your father’s blood in you. Bad blood. That no-good bugger used to twitch and jerk when he was lying’ to me.’

  ‘I ain’t lying.’

  ‘No? And I ain’t a pensioner.’ Luckily for Frank, his mother changed the subject. ‘I reckon we’ve got rats up in the attic again. I heard the buggers scurrying about up there the last few nights.’

  ‘I don’t see how. I blocked up the hole last year.’

  ‘Happen the little sods gnawed another one.’

  Frank groaned. He was hardly in any condition to go crawling about in attics. Especially when his back was playing up. And then a thought. A good one. The loft hatch was in his bedroom. Now he had a valid reason to go up there. ‘I’ll take a look after dinner. Put some bait down.’

  As they tucked into their meals, Frank decided to tell his mother about his newfound love. ‘I’ve met a girl.’

  His mother stared at him, open-mouthed, a forkful of cabbage hovering just below her chin. ‘What girl?’

  Frank’s chest swelled. ‘Her name’s Madeline.’

  ‘Why would any girl want to go out with a lunk like you?’

  Frank ignored the insult. ‘I think it’s the real deal. We’ve been out for a meal and everything.’

  ‘A meal? With you?’

  Frank elected not to tell her that the meal constituted a bag of dry-roasted peanuts in the local pub. ‘Why wouldn’t she? I scrub up well.’

  ‘Has she got something wrong with her?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘A couple of inches missing on the ruler?’

  ‘Madeline’s beautiful.’

  ‘I hope you haven’t been going near schoolkids again. For everyone’s sake.’

  ‘She’s not a schoolkid.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-something.’

  ‘Good heavens, boy, she’s young enough to be your daughter.’

  Frank resorted to the only cliché he knew to fit the subject. ‘Age is just a number.’

  ‘Is that what the police said when they arrested you for flashing to that child?’

  ‘That was different,’ Frank squawked. ‘Madeline isn’t a bloody schoolkid.’

  ‘You watch your mouth. I won’t have swearing at my table.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy for me. That’s all.’

  ‘When am I going to meet her?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘In Feelham.’ The truth. ‘Near Carnegie’s Hall.’ A lie, designed to impress.

  ‘From the good end of town, then?’

  Frank pushed his plate away and patted his stomach. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you want pudding?’

  ‘Later. I’ll nip upstairs first and take a look in the attic.’

  ‘Not like you to go rushing around straight after your dinner.’

  Crowley grinned. ‘I want to get up there while I can still fit through the hatch.’

  Agnes didn’t laugh. ‘Do you want me to come with you. Pass the extension lead up to you?’

  ‘No.’ A little too quick. Like his heart. ‘I’ll manage. You clear away the dishes and get that pudding ready.’

  He left the table before she could object. He climbed the stairs, fished a small brass key from his pocket, and unlocked the padlock securing his bedroom door.

  You’re huffing and puffing enough to blow that door down, Frankie-boy. Dumb Quack might say you’re a heart attack waiting to happen.

  Frank ignored the warning and opened the door. The room smelled as if someone had dumped a sack of rotting refuse in there. A dozen different coloured moulds bloomed on the bare cream walls. Frank had considered leaving the window open to let the room breathe, but the last thing he wanted to do was invite an opportunist thief to climb in and make off with his life’s work.

  He walked in and closed the door behind him. He sat on the bed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. The mattress springs cre
aked beneath his weight. ‘This time next year, I’m gonna be somewhere warm. Me and Maid Madeline on a tropical island. A golden beach a million miles away from this grot-hole.’

  Something moved in the attic above him. Frank ignored it. He wasn’t going up there. Not in a month of Sundays. The rats were welcome to the bloody place. He’d hit his head on a rafter last time he’d been foolish enough to drag himself up there. And almost put his foot through the bedroom ceiling. Not to mention getting a bellyful of splinters as he’d crawled across the joists to reach the eaves. He’d just tell Mother he’d set some traps and leave it at that. She was hardly going to haul her bony backside up there to check, was she?

  He turned his mind to fantasies in an effort to block out unsavoury thoughts of rats. He imagined making love to Maid Madeline on a hotel balcony, the hot sun on his back, the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore below them. He imagined an orgasm ripping through his body as vast and powerful as the ocean itself.

  Are you sure you know how to fuck a girl, Frankie-boy?

  Frank ignored Killjoy Voice. Just because he was still a virgin didn’t mean he had no experience of women. No, sir. He had enough videos of Tina stashed away in his mobile home to educate him in the ways of female fulfilment. He’d spent many happy hours watching Tina help herself, so-to-speak, with a rather large dildo. He’d also been treated to several episodes of love’s young dream, as Tina and her new boyfriend went at it like spring bunnies in a meadow.

  All in all, this had been a bloody good year. The only thing spoiling it was the fact that Brother Ronnie was still alive. How dare the swine suggest to Mother that he’d set up the burglary?’

  You did!

  Frank wasn’t interested in what his conscience had to say. ‘I’d like to cut his brake pipes and watch him career out of control down Constitution Hill.’

  One day, in the not too distant future, he’d have enough money to hire a hitman to blow Golden Boy off the face of the earth. Maybe torture him a bit first. Wipe that smug look off his chops, one cut at a time. Take out his eyes with an apple corer. When he was done torturing him, douse him in petrol and set him alight. Right in front of his Barbie-doll wife. Show her the true meaning of an eternal flame.

  Frank stumbled back to reality. It was time to check the Golden Egg. There was a poster above his bed portraying Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway vent in the film The Seven-Year Itch. Frank loved that picture. Marilyn looked so sexy and so provocative and so full of Western promise.

  Behind the poster, Frank’s Golden Egg lay incubating in a small locked cupboard.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Frank walked up the steps to his mobile home and let himself inside. For the first time ever, that rusty old lump of tin called Frank’s Ship was coming in. Maid Madeline had called whilst he’d been in The Three Horseshoes and asked to meet up again. Tomorrow night. Spend a quiet night in. Get to know each other a bit better. Frank had been barely able to contain his excitement. He’d celebrated the good news with three whiskey chasers, and a game of darts with Mick Myers.

  What you gonna do if she wants to fuck, Frankie-boy? Flash up a film of Tina in dildo heaven to help you get it up?

  ‘I’ll give her the time of her life,’ Frank promised. ‘Take her to places she’s never been.’

  If you say so. But ask yourself this: Why would someone like her even look at a middle-aged slob like you?

  ‘Why wouldn’t she? I’m not bad looking.’

  In a darkened smoky room, perhaps.

  ‘Love ain’t all about looks.’

  Attraction is. Which makes me wonder if she isn’t being employed by the Target.

  Frank threw his jacket on the floor and fetched a can of Special Brew from the fridge. He sometimes wished he could shut up the voices in his head. Stick a gun inside his ear and blow them away. Especially Killjoy Voice.

  You’d better get this shit-hole licked into shape before you bring Madeline back here.

  Frank wasn’t in a tidying mood. ‘I’m knackered. I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  Ah, tomorrow. The favourite day of the slob.

  Frank chugged half the can in one go. He knew as well as the next man he needed to smarten the place up. Eradicate all traces of single life. But right now, all he wanted to do was relax and savour the moment. And then phone the Target. Was that too much for a man to ask?

  He finished the can and lit the paraffin heater. The place stank of damp. And fags. And piss. And paraffin. The heater barely combated the cold. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. He got more warmth and comfort from the cigarette than he did from that stinking heater.

  He grabbed another can from the fridge, and then squeezed into a seat behind the small kitchen table. There would be no more squeezing anywhere when he was Lord and Master of his own destiny. Once he’d sold Fourwinds Cottage and bought his guesthouse in Margate—

  I thought it was Brighton?

  Francis Arthur Crowley would sit at the poshest tables in the poshest restaurants and eat the poshest food. People would look at him and say, ‘there goes a man of means’. No more Special Brew, either; the damned stuff tasted like a cross between lager and stale farts. Frank would be a Pimm’s and lemonade man when the Golden Egg finally hatched. He’d always believed that he was a rich man born in a poor man’s shoes.

  He closed his eyes. Maid Madeline would want for nothing. No, sir. He imagined her decked out in a black sequined dress and red high heeled shoes. Clutching a matching handbag. His girl. The belle of the ball. Every man would look at him and wish they were standing in his shoes. Including that self-satisfied smug git, Ronnie. Once Frank had invested some money into Maid Madeline’s wardrobe, she would make Ronnie’s wife look like something the dog had just yacked up.

  Frank opened his eyes. It took a while to adjust from the ballroom of his imagination to the squalor of his caravan. He squinted at the chaos around him and vowed to set about the place in the morning with a mop and bucket and as many cleaning products as he could find on the shelves at Tesco.

  You can’t make shit shine.

  Talking of shit, he would have to pay special attention to the bog. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned it properly. He sometimes shot half a bottle of bleach down it if it got really bad, but other than that, he didn’t see the point in wasting time on the damn thing.

  Frank finished his can and fetched another one from the fridge. This one was for sipping. He needed a semi-clear head if he was going to talk to the Target.

  Careful what you say, Frankie-boy. You’re pissed.

  Frank didn’t think he was. ‘I’ve only had a few pints.’

  Seven. And three whiskey chasers.

  Exactly. Sober as a judge. He dialled the number from his mobile phone menu.

  The Target didn’t seem very pleased to hear from him. ‘What do you want?’

  Two could play at grumpy. ‘You know what I want.’

  ‘I’m tiring of your stupid games, Crowley.’

  This ain’t no game.’

  ‘Whatever it is, I’m not talking to you. Not tonight.’

  Frank opted for a more sinister approach. ‘I went to see your house the other night.’

  ‘It’s a bungalow.’

  ‘Really? So why do you call it Fourwinds Cottage, then?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Whatever. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to show my girlfriend where we’ll be living as soon as everything’s sorted.’

  A slight pause. And then: ‘Did you say “girlfriend?”’

  Frank forgot he was on the phone and nodded.

  ‘Is she mentally impaired?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And does this imaginary girlfriend know that you’re blackmailing me?’

  Frank considered saying that Madeline knew everything, but he didn’t want to open a can of worms and invite the Target to start fishing. ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘I’d be very careful if I were you.�
��

  ‘Whassat supposed to mean?’

  ‘People vanish.’

  Frank tried to laugh, but hacked something nasty into his mouth. ‘I don’t respond to threats.’

  ‘I want the evidence before I even consider giving you another penny.’

  ‘Do you really think I’m that dumb?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  ‘You seem to forget I know what you’ve done. I want the deeds to the house. Then you can have the evidence.’

  ‘I’ll give you ten grand. Not a penny more.’

  Frank laughed. ‘Ten poxy grand?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?’

  ‘I’d get a one-way ticket out of here, if I were you.’

  ‘You’re forgetting what’s at stake.’

  The Target laughed. It sounded like a bark.

  Frank didn’t care for that laugh. It was the same laugh Mother used to cough up as a precursor to a thick ear. ‘I ain’t kidding. I want—’

  ‘Do you think you scare me with your half-baked threats?’

  Frank rummaged in his brain for a suitable comeback. ‘I—’

  ‘Do you think a dirty little pervert like you is going to hold me over a barrel? Ten grand’s all you’re getting. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Then it looks like I’m going to the cops.’

  ‘If you go to the cops, you’re dead.’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Frank looked at the mouldy ceiling. ‘You wouldn’t kill me.’

  ‘Ever heard the expression, “nothing to lose”?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Yes. We will.’

  Frank chugged more beer. ‘I want ten grand now. We’ll talk about the rest later.’

  ‘Are you going to hand over the evidence?’

  ‘The ten grand’s just a down payment. Like I said, I want the house.’

  ‘Then it looks like we’re at stalemate.’

  ‘You’ve got until the first of January.’

  ‘Not going to happen, Crowley. If you continue to make ridiculous demands, I’ll cut you off altogether.’

  ‘No you won’t. I’ll never go away. Not until I get what’s mine.’

  ‘For the last time, I’ll give you another ten thousand. That’ll be seventeen grand you’ve had altogether. My whole life savings.’