Manners Cost Everything (Manners Trilogy Book 1)

by Paul David Chambers

  Manners Cost Everything

  Book one of three

  A story: murder, obsession, revenge & good manners

  Copyright©Paul David Chambers, 2015

  “Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.”

  Benjamin Franklin

  “In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.”

  Russell Brand

  “Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted.”

  Algernon Sidney

  Chapter 1

  Lights dim. Tape whirs. Eyes burn.

  There’s a fine art to gutting a man. Or a woman for that matter. You need the right tools and an artist’s flair. Pride, too, in the job in hand I mean, of course.

  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea mind, you need to be of a certain mentality. Your genetic make-up has to have formed in the right way. Or wrong way, should you hold a different view.

  Then there’s decapitation.

  When done well, it can prove to be extremely therapeutic. At least so for me. Not so, I’m sure for the unlucky recipient. If performed incorrectly, a beheading can be a messy business. Too stressful and far too time consuming.

  Did you know that tear ducts continue to work for a few seconds after the head is a few feet from the body? Their salty taste is, I assure you, exquisite.

  However you look at it though, the upside is that the vermin end their shitty existence in this world with a cleansed soul.

  And I have done my work well.

  Me? I suppose you could say I’m a part time, self-employed cleanser. I cleanse humanity of the vermin. A pest controller, if you will. Cliché, I know, but apparently everyone needs their pigeonhole. I don’t like to be evaluated, but if it helps with your cerebral filing, then so be it.

  So why do I do it?

  No voices telling me what to do. No, just my own thoughts. Sorry.

  No bad childhood experiences leaving mental scars. Can’t help you there either. In my rare, but dark sweaty nights of self-analysis, I can highlight no tangible historic reason, or defining moment that formed my blood stained future. Not before the turning.

  I simply consider some people as vermin. Despicable vermin that need eradicating, erasing. Culling. Whatever you call it, the world is best rid.

  Anyway whatever it is that drives me remains a mystery to me, but I must stress that the outcome is not a random process. I don’t erase them indiscriminately. They have to be chosen for the right reason. In fact, they choose themselves, proffer themselves up without even realising it.

  So, the chosen ones…….

  I suppose you could describe them as leeches. Leeches on and in society. Yes, another cliché you might say, but there you go. My abhorrence for a certain type is mirrored only by my pleasure in snuffing out their pointless lives. You know the type of which I speak. You may even find you’re sneering at them yourself.

  They are ubiquitous. At work, in bars, restaurants, train stations, in the street. Especially in the street. You know the type, the ones who bump into you, let a door slam in your face, think they’re better than anyone else. Rude fuckers. The people who use their cars as leverage into traffic jams. The parents who use their kids to stop traffic, the animal owners who treat their defenceless creatures like shit. The people that gauge your worth on what you’re wearing and where. The ones who serve you meals; serve you drinks with a look that belittles you, and you think YOU’RE serving ME, cunt….

  You’ll be in a bar or club. Yeah, looking good, feeling good. You are moving through the crowd. You gently touch the back of an attractive girl as you try to manoeuvre past, so as not to shock but alert them to your presence. Manners and all. You’re trying to squeeze past, excuse me, please, can I just……..squeeze……..PAST?

  They turn round and cut you down with a look. Make you look like the rude one. What the fuck gives them the right to look at you as though you just raped them? Physically and metaphysically.

  Well……..MADAM……..now maybe I will………..

  Do you catch yourself with the thought, I wish they were dead, before you can stop the words skittering across the surface of your inner consciousness.

  There. You think it too.

  Anyway, I digress. I need to keep my mind clear. We can look at the victims later. In great detail. Glorious Technicolor in fact.

  The killing always comes in good time….

  In older, less digital days, you would have concocted an image of me. It would have consisted of a Ripperesque cape, with maybe an added hood for good measure. I’d no doubt eke out my existence in a squalid basement flat, with a token filthy rat or two as my only company. The preconceived notion of my face would probably be craggy, a few warts, possibly a long, dark beard.

  If I ever exposed my face to daylight, of course.

  When getting around I would no doubt favour the damp, dark and narrow alleyways to reach my destinations. I would think the word skulk would describe my demeanour.

  Yes, the night hours would of course be my ally.

  Not so….

  You would have been forgiven for thinking this way. Our imaginations are restricted by celluloid and digital images thrust upon us by dour executives wishing to perpetuate a commercially viable myth.

  The media only inflict us with biased views and recycled embodiments of our daily fears.

  Film, television and the internet only crushes our will to form our own opinions when faced with the ambiguous, and we allow evolution to erode the creative parts of our brain. It’s easier this way. Convenience food. Convenience stores. And now convenience thoughts.

  TOO BUSY TO FORM AN OPINION? FEAR NOT! WE’VE BLENDED THE FINEST OF INGREDIENTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD AND NOW BRING YOU THIS QUALITY RANGE OF OPINIONS. READY IN SECONDS!

  However, these preconceived notions could not be further from the truth…

  These days, things are different.

  I am a normal human being, or at least I could be deemed as such until I turned. As I said, there was no early build up. I didn’t start by killing household pets and impaling their heads on spikes in the garden. I just turned.

  I equate it to a Rottweiler. Years of compliance within the nuclear family, resulting in trust and lowered barriers. Then one day, tired of domesticity, the buried instincts that had in the past been so natural rise to the surface…… and in a split second the family baby becomes dog food. Simple as that.

  My metamorphosis? When I climbed from my human chrysalis and flew into a blood red sky in my current guise?

  My turning was swift, and unsubtle. It began in a way that many people experience. I just dealt with it differently….

  …………and then I just turned………

  Chapter 2

  London. A day of knock backs, and ambiguous commitments.

  Hot. So stressfully hot….

  ….no air…..

  This was in a time when your average travelling salesman’s car didn’t cosset its occupants with cool tangy air conditioning. Had I been a few years along my career path, I know I would have warranted that luxury, but this was back in 1996.

  Long way to go. So much to come.

  It was no surprise that I was always destined for a career dealing with people, so it was inevitable, to an extent, that I ventured into sales. A couple of faltering starts in inconsequential industries, then a redundancy led me to this current company.

  Low level, non-prescription pharmaceuticals to chemists. That’s me. Rock n roll.

  Anyway. London. One hell of a hot August day for once in this country,
and a bad day for business. All of them making the right noises, giving the right buying signals; but refusing to be closed. Not good, not good for my targets at all.

  It was proving a bad month for music as well. ‘Girl Power’ had just hit, and ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls, was being played for what seemed like the hundredth time on Radio 1, as I pulled into the forecourt of the garage. Perfect.

  Petrol? I look at the gauge, half full, can I be arsed?… besides, it’s diesel anyway, I begrudgingly remind myself. Petrol cars would be a few rungs up the corporate ladder yet. I decide I may as well fill up to save me doing it the next day. Then a drink. Cool down. Then my last appointment. Then a beer. Great.

  I fill the car up, stand in the heat looking at the baking and virtually empty forecourt, all shimmers and the cloying smell of spilled petrol and diesel. Sweating so much.

  I walk into the garage, the air conditioning is on full blast. A cocoon of chilled relief. It turns the perspiration patches on the base of my back and in my armpits to ice. Radio 1 is also playing in here, Fugees now echoing round the room from a tinny little radio by the cashier. From my viewpoint near the refrigerated display area and entrance to the toilets she looks rather tasty.

  There is an aura of cleaning products emanating from the doorway that leads to the toilets. That, and the low temperature makes everything seem a little bit clinical.

  ‘It’s nice and cool in here’. I say. An attempt at small talk with the pretty cashier girl. No reply, probably didn’t hear me, but she looks nice, though. I slide open the fridge, grab a can of Coke and a pasty, (yeah, yeah, I know, traveling rep food), and saunter to the till.

  I look for the increasingly ever present monitor showing the cold alter-reality as fed by the CCTV. The monitor is there, the picture is not. Ah well, I’m sure I just look shit. Hair product is NOT good in summer. I know I must look the epitome of dishevelled. Who doesn’t in England, in the summer? Especially in a suit.

  Girls. That’s who. I smile inwardly.

  I perk up. The girl is very nice actually, now that I am closer.

  She has a name badge:

  Polly

  Underneath her name: ‘How may I help you?’ Well, I can think of a few ways, Polly.

  ‘Hi’. Nothing. ‘Pump number 5 please, Polly’. Silence. I select a copy of The Sun from the counter, ‘this as well please’. Still nothing.

  She looks about 17 or 18 but could be older, fresh faced, slightly elfin looking. Still a bit of innocence, and without the ‘few years of drinking fat’ that adds on inevitably later. She is looking down at her issue of Sky magazine and I notice her shirt is slightly open, a small pendant hanging down. I can see the swell of her breasts, nice, small, pert, and her black bra. She’s so perky, she probably doesn’t need the bra. Filthy thoughts fill my mind like clouds of blood in water.

  (I’m fucking you as I look at you, Polly, I’m behind you, fucking you hard…)

  She looks up. Brown eyes, large and doe-like, with long lashes. Elegant nose, prominent cheekbones, full lips, slightly pointed ears, hardly any make up, dark hair held back in a simple ponytail, as if to fully display her young, pre-Raphaelite features. God, I’m growing hard just looking at her. My type. I’m staying in a hotel near here. Maybe if I get talking to her, I could ask her, I really want to see her naked…

  ‘Sixteen pounds forty two’. She interrupts my thoughts.

  She’s scanned in the items, that’s obviously her friendly request for the money.

  ‘….Please!...’. I admonish, gently, as cheekily as I can.

  ( M a n n e r s, P o l l y )

  Her eyes roll. She begins to chew more frantically on her gum. Her hand is held out, palm up, eyes now on me. Impatient expression on her face. Chewing. I notice the pendant is a ‘P’. Of course it is.

  I put on my lopsided, charming grin, and say, as if to a child, but with humour; ‘That’s sixteen pounds forty two pence, please’. I await her smile. She sighs. Doesn’t break a smile. Moves her upheld hand an infinitesimal amount to gesture her growing impatience. I broaden my smile. It always works.

  (Thaw, you bitch, you want me. You know you do.)

  ‘Sixteen. Pounds. Forty. Two.’ Polly replies. More of an edge to her voice now. New furrows in her brow.

  I have twenty pounds ready in my hand, but I know I can win this young one over, I always can. Mostly can. I gently place the money in her hand, then look to her eyes, (go for the wink, say thank you, get the smile, get talking, ask her for a drink). Her eyes are already back on the pages of the magazine, she continues to ignore me as the till calculates the change and she places it on the counter in front of me. Just about a centimetre from my proffered hand. No eye contact. None. BITCH!

  One more go. ‘Oh, I forgot, can I have 20 Embassy Number 1 as well, please Polly?’ Emphasis given on the word ‘please’.

  I was brought up believing in good manners. I want them reciprocated.

  It’s only right.

  She says nothing, climbing off her stool and pushing it back with a scrape (mmmn, she’s wearing a short black skirt, very nice legs) to reach the cigarettes behind her. Her skirt clings to her perfectly formed, peach-like derriere, suggesting she is either without underwear or she is wearing a G-string.

  (……I could bend you over that counter…..)

  ‘Three pounds forty’ she says as she climbs back onto her stool, the new angle allowing the white panties flash as her legs part. She doesn’t realise. My heart skips a beat. I feel a twitch in my boxer shorts. I can still see them. Anger and lust mix like quicksilver.

  ….. lacy, I can see the dark of her pubic hair through the tiny perforations…

  I feel like a schoolboy who’s seen a girl’s underwear for the first time, my heart in my mouth, I try with the old Robbie charm. I will win her over.

  ‘Thank you very much, Polly’. I chime. I pick up the fags, put them in my shirt pocket.

  I widen the eyes, flash the teeth in a broad smile. Give her the dimples. I hand her the money, change from before, making sure to touch her had slightly longer than necessary. She has to lean forward to reach it, her legs parting slightly further as one foot goes on the floor, my heart skips another beat as I see more white lace. I grow harder. I really want to have her in my hotel tonight.

  ‘C’mon. manners never cost anything, sweetheart’. I say. Terrible, I know, but it normally works. She responds with another roll of the eyes.

  ‘Smile’, I say, ‘it may never happen’. Yes, I know, extremely cheesy. But I normally got away with it.

  Normally. Although not this time, it seems.

  ‘Oh, piss off!’ she hisses, disproportionately angry.

  ‘Sorry?’ I respond, incredulous. A heat of anger flashes over me, in spite of the cooled air.

  ‘‘I said piss off! It may never happen’ she mimics sarcastically, ‘Well, it has happened. Again. You flash bastards are all the same!’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘You heard me,’ she continues, a flush rising on her cheeks, ‘you flash bastards are all the same. You come in here, with your fancy cars…

  (..hardly fancy, darling…)

  giving me all your bullshit. Go on, pretty boy, gimme a smile, couple of minutes of banter, then back to your hotel for a shag, yeah?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ The only words I can muster.

  ‘I bet you’re staying in a hotel near here, aren’t you?’ She spits.

  ‘Well…yes’...

  ‘And I bet you were about to ask me for a drink later, weren’t you?’

  She’s really pissed off now. She punctuates words with a point of her finger. She’s stood up, and I am no longer thinking of her knickers.

  (the door opens behind me. Another customer. Oh God.)

  ‘No. No I wasn’t’. I lied. ‘I was just being friendly. Jesus…’

  I am seething, but my emotion is joined by another. Embarrassment. I have gone completely, uncontrollably red.

  ‘D’you know how many of y
our type I see every day in here?’

  My type? Who the fuck does she think she is?

  ‘No, how many?’

  I think it was a rhetorical question by the way she reacts.

  ‘Hundreds!’ she explodes.

  (Exaggerating slut. Be realistic for fuck’s sake!)

  ‘Day in day out’, Polly isn’t finished, ‘arrogant arseholes in suits, showing off their money’. I can sense the guy who walked in is pretending not to notice the altercation. He, too, is in a suit, browsing, too intensely, the magazines at the far end of the shop. ‘You look down on the poor little cashier…’

  ‘…Sssh. There’s no need to … ‘ I interject, holding my rage as best I can.

  ‘…….thinking you’re so much better than me…’ she points her finger

  ‘…shout you’re…’

  ‘…. Chat me up. Because I’m here, I must be thick, fall for the bollocks you spout…’ Finger point