by Mark Tilbury
Chloe sat on the sofa cuddled up to her father for the rest of the day. It was as if she thought he might vanish into thin air if she let him out of her sight. Mel had cooked sausage rolls and quiche for tea. Simple finger-food to sit in front of the TV with and watch Finding Dory for the second time that day.
Mel took advantage of Tony’s visit to have a long soak in the bath. Her initial relief that Chloe wasn’t experiencing any past-life experiences had been shattered by the child’s claim to be suffering from a poorly head at Kerrie-Anne’s.
It hurts where they cut my head off.
The words made Mel shiver in spite of the steaming water. She’d been almost convinced there was nothing wrong for the past few days. Perhaps she ought to talk to Charles again. See if he could suggest anything else. He’d been wonderful. Kind. A true friend.
Mel finished her bath, walked into the bedroom, and examined her body in the mirrored wardrobe door. She’d never been too bothered about her figure before. She’d given birth twice, and didn’t regard vanity as a virtue, but it was amazing how her husband’s disgraceful behaviour had highlighted every imperfection on her body. Every lump and bump and excess of fat.
They spent a pleasant evening watching TV and playing Hungry Hippos and Dotty Dinosaurs. When Tony asked if he could put Chloe to bed at eight, Mel said he could. Mel didn’t expect her to go to sleep for ages, but Tony came back downstairs fifteen minutes later, grinning.
‘That was quick.’
‘I got about halfway through Chicken-licken and she snuggled up to Ruby Rag Doll and that was that. Out like a light.’
‘You must have a magic touch.’
‘Probably my boring voice droning on and on.’
‘True.’
Tony sat down. After a few minutes awkward silence, he said, ‘So, how’s it been?’
‘You wouldn’t need to ask that if you’d kept your dick in your trousers.’
‘If I could take it back, Mel, I would.’
‘Well, you can’t, can you?’
‘I know.’
‘When I picked Chloe up from Kerrie-Anne’s she was complaining of a bad head. Then she said it was because they cut off her head.’
Tony’s mouth hung open. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. It’s all such a mess. I’m really scared I’m going to lose her.’
‘You won’t lose her.’
‘And you know that, do you?’
Tony hesitated, then said, ‘I know I love you with all my heart.’
Mel finished her wine. ‘God knows I want to believe you, Tony, but how can I?’
‘Because I mean it.’
‘How long ago did you sleep with that bitch?’
‘Please stop torturing yourself and—’
‘Six years ago, right? I shared my bed with you every single night since. Cried myself to sleep over Megan. You watched me falling to pieces, and all the time you had your sordid little secret.’
‘I—’
‘How many other things have you kept from me, Tony?’
‘None. I swear.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because it’s the truth. I swear on Chl—’
‘Don’t you dare! Don’t you bring our child into this. Ever!’
‘Okay. I’m sorry.’
‘What have I done to deserve this? First I lose Megan, then my husband, and now Chloe. It’s as if I’ve been cursed.’
‘I want to help you.’
‘I can’t let you back into my life, Tony. Why can’t you see that you’ve destroyed what we had? Killed it.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘The sad thing is, I don’t think you do. You think it will all blow over. I’ll get used to the idea that you cheated on me.’
‘I don’t—’
‘You probably think Chloe’s just having a little wobble. Watched something scary on TV. Had a nightmare. Or, maybe I let her have too many fizzy drinks. Too many baked beans. All those colourings and preservatives are bound to make a child think she’s lived before and been murdered.’
‘Jesus Christ, Mel, I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It’s just my nature to look for a rational explanation. I love science and maths. I’ve never given any consideration to ghosts and reincarnation. I’ve always believed we’re just physical matter. We live and we die. How can there be anything else? But the thought of Chloe being murdered makes my blood run cold. I’m begging you to let me help. Let me be here for you.’
‘How can I even begin to trust you?’
‘Because I give you my word.’
‘How do I know you won’t go running straight back to scepticism the minute I let you back through that door?’
‘I won’t.’
‘Or to Stephanie Wallace?’
Tony hesitated, brow furrowed, as if his thoughts were causing him pain. And then he said, ‘I know I’ve messed up, Mel. Messed up big time.’
‘You fucked her, Tony.’
‘I—’
‘Say it! I fucked Stephanie Wallace. Say it!’
Tony looked away.
‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?’
‘I wish you’d stop torturing yourself with—’
‘Are you for real? It’s you who’s done all the torturing around here. Not me.’
‘I want to support you. Help you get to the bottom of what’s happening to Chloe. If you don’t want me around after that, I’ll walk away. No questions asked. No pressure.’
‘I can’t let you back in, Tony. It wouldn’t work. Every time I look at you, I imagine you two at it like a pair of stray dogs on heat. I imagine her touching you. Doing stuff that makes me sick to my stomach.’
‘I know.’
‘Stop saying that! You don’t know. You don’t have a fucking clue.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for? That you smashed my heart to smithereens?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or that you got caught?’
‘We both need to stay strong for Chloe.’
‘Like you stayed strong for Megan?’
Tony looked at his hands as if they might help him to understand why they had touched another woman. Mel was on the verge of telling him to leave. Go back to his mother and her dreadful cooking and nit-picking ways, when he bowed his head and started sobbing.
With a mixture of sadness and satisfaction, she watched him rock back and forth as his grief poured out of him. Why hadn’t he done this when Megan had died? Showed her he was hurting, too? Instead of walking around in ‘practical mode’, rationalising, putting his job and that bitch before their marriage.
Part of her wanted to reach out and comfort him. Another part wanted to delight in his sorrow, punch the air, shout from the rooftops this was what happened to men who couldn’t control their dicks.
When Tony’s sobs subsided to a series of snorts and sniffs, he looked at Mel, eyes red and swollen. ‘I hate myself for what I did. I just hope you can find it in your heart to let me help you. Help Chloe.’
It took Mel two more glasses of wine and twenty minutes of contemplation dressed up as idle talk, to decide. She couldn’t face the coming weeks on her own. She needed someone to share the burden.
‘I can’t undo the past,’ Tony said, ‘but I can help to write the future.’
‘That’s quite poetic for a maths teacher,’ she conceded.
‘I have my moments.’
‘All I’ve ever wanted is for you to back me one hundred percent. That’s it. But on the two occasions I’ve needed you the most, you’ve gone missing.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you promise to support me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not try to convince me that Chloe’s just going through a phase?’
‘I just want to do what’s best for her.’
‘Okay. You can stay. But I want you to listen to what I’m going to tell you, okay?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The first sign you’re not on my side, you can g
o back to your mother’s for good. Is that clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can sleep on the sofa for now. I’m not ready to share a bed with you yet.’
‘I understand.’
‘I hope you do, Tony. I really hope you do.’
34
Dressed in black jeans, a black jumper, and a black hooded jacket, Charles Honeywell parked his Ford Fiesta outside Feelham Park and switched off the engine. His hands were shaking badly enough for King to notice.
King, who was wearing matching clothes, said, ‘For God’s sake, what on earth’s wrong with you?’
‘You know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Then have a word with the rational part of your brain and convince it you’re only doing what is necessary.’
‘How can you call it that? It’s a child.’
‘It’s no different to killing anyone. I seem to recall you got excited when you killed Turquoise-two after she landed on the Death Square.’
‘That was different.’
‘How so?’
‘Because that was part of One False Move. And she was older.’
King rounded on him. ‘So what? Age is just a number. If this child persists in babbling on about her past life as Purple-five, it will be the end of everything. You, me, the theatre. You’ll see out the rest of your days as some big bugger’s bitch in Wormwood Scrubs.’
Honeywell didn’t respond. He seemed more interested in his leather gloves.
‘All we have to do is walk across the park, pour petrol through the letter box, set fire to it, and walk away.’
‘I won’t ever be able to walk away from this, Peter. It will haunt my days and nights for years to come.’
You won’t be around for years to come. ‘Nonsense!’
‘That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who will have to go into school and pretend to be in shock. People will be asking questions. Everyone will be commiserating, gossiping, weeping. I’ll have to face the press. TV cameras. It will be like hell on earth.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic. She’s not the last teacher on earth. It will all die down in no time. People have short memories.’
Honeywell didn’t seem to hear him. ‘I’ll have to conduct ceremonies. Go to the church and stand amongst her grieving relatives.’
‘Then your propensity toward emotional outbursts should stand you in good stead.’
‘I won’t be able to cope.’
Trust me, Charles, you won’t have to. ‘Human beings have an amazing capacity to manage. To change. To adapt. It will pass. I promise.’
‘I wish I shared your optimism.’
‘“True hope is swift and flies with swallow’s wings.”’
‘I’m begging you to reconsider, Peter.’
‘“And fearless minds climb soonest to crowns.”’
‘Soonest to graves, more like.’
King gave up trying to inspire him. There was a nasty whining tone to Honeywell’s voice that evoked an urge to kill. But it wouldn’t do to kill the horse before he’d hooked it up to the cart. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
At three o’clock in the morning the park was deserted. Only the ghosts of children rode on the swings, watched over by tall oak trees dressed in shadowy robes. An owl hooted, as if heralding their arrival. Honeywell panted like a faithful ageing dog, the petrol can swinging by his side, breath forming into foggy clouds in the moonlit air.
‘I enjoy this time of night,’ King said, as they walked past a roundabout creaking in the wind. ‘It’s so full of mystery.’
‘It gives me the creeps.’
‘You seem to revel in negativity, don’t you?’
‘With reason.’
‘Petulance is not endearing.’
‘Neither’s killing a child.’
King opted to keep his thoughts to himself. He was sorely tempted to erect a stake from fallen branches, tie Charles to it, douse him with the petrol and set fire to him.
At the far end of the park, there was a small walkway which cut straight through to St Kilda’s Close. The trail was lined with tall trees that rustled and bowed as if struck with reverence for this lone couple braving the frosty night.
King reached into his pocket and curled a gloved hand around a rag left over from when the handyman had painted the freezers. Once they’d poured the petrol through the letter box, they just had to douse the rag with petrol, light it and stuff it inside.
Honeywell dropped the petrol can on the ground. He rested his hands on his knees and threw up on a grassy bank.
King waited patiently for him to cease what sounded like a crude attempt to converse with frogs. ‘Finished?’
‘I think so.’
‘For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together.’
‘Can’t you do the rest on your own?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Because I want to ensure you are complicit in my crimes. Stop you getting any nasty ideas about telling tales to the police. ‘Because we always do everything together. That’s our arrangement.’
‘But I—’
‘Once it’s done, it’s done.’
‘I’m not feeling well.’
‘I’m not interested in your hypochondria. Put your balaclava on.’
They both donned balaclavas and pulled the hoods of their jackets up.
‘I can’t breathe,’ Honeywell moaned, as they arrived outside Mel’s house.
Good. Hopefully, all the excitement will lead to a fatal heart attack and save me the bother of killing you. He put the rag on the ground. ‘Douse it with petrol.’
Honeywell fitted the hose to the can and splashed petrol onto the strip of cotton sheet. His trembling hands ensured a liberal dose of the liquid splashed onto the path and the welcome mat. King snatched it from him before he wasted it all. He poured half the contents through the letter box, put the can down, held the rag up and ordered Honeywell to light the fuse.
Honeywell’s hands were shaking so badly, it took him three attempts to ignite the rag. Finally, it bloomed orange in the darkness.
‘Push the letter box open.’
For once Honeywell obeyed a simple order without the usual fuss or fanfare. King stuffed the rag inside and watched it ignite the petrol inside the porch. Flames licked the coats, savouring their fur linings. King watched a pair of slippers devoured in seconds. A scarf turned into a daisy chain of orange petals.
He closed the flap. ‘Let’s go.’
They hurried back to the park and along the tree-lined trail. Honeywell snorted and stumbled like an asthmatic drunk on his way home after a night of heavy drinking. King now saw his ex-lover as a dangerous, self-centred, narcissistic, pretentious, fanciful, weak liability who could no longer be tolerated.
Back in the car, King removed his balaclava. ‘I think that went rather well.’
Honeywell opted for silence, save the grunting noises leaking from the back of his throat. He ripped off his balaclava and snorkelled air through a blocked nose.
‘Will you stop making that horrendous noise? You sound like a pig bound for the abattoir.’
‘We’ll go to hell for this.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, apart from home for a stiff brandy and a long sleep. If you insist on being racked with guilt, you can sleep in the spare room.’
‘What if the fire doesn’t kill them?’
‘It will.’
‘What if a smoke alarm alerts them? What if they get out?’
‘They won’t.’
‘What if someone saw us?’
‘The most any stray insomniac might have seen is a pair of dark blurry shadows. Will you stop fretting?’
‘We’re going to get caught.’
‘We will if you continue to behave like an excitable schoolgirl.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’
King’s tenuous grip on patience snapped. ‘Understand what, you fool?’
‘How this has affected me
.’
‘Stop being so melodramatic.’
‘You never stop to think of my feelings, Peter. It’s all about you, you, you. What Peter wants. You’re not the one who will have to go into that school and face everyone knowing what you’ve done. Speak to the police. Teachers. The school board. The governor. Politicians.’
‘Don’t forget Uncle Tom Cobley,’ King said, in the best mocking voice he could muster at this ungodly hour.
‘Sometimes, I wish…’
Suppressing an overwhelming urge to kill his partner, King waited for him to finish his sentence. When nothing was forthcoming, he said, ‘What do you wish, darling?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Go on. Say it. Let it all out. I’m listening.’
‘I wish I’d never got involved with you.’
‘“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie. Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky gives us free scope, only doth backward pull our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.”’
‘I don’t care a fig about Shakespeare. He’s not the one facing a lifetime in jail.’
King opted for ambiguity in his answer. ‘Neither are you, my fair-weather friend. Neither are you.’
35
Chloe Hollis, neither awake nor asleep, stood at the top of the stairs as the lighted rag ignited the accelerant King had poured through the letter box. She clutched Ruby Rag Doll to her chest and watched the flames devour the coats in the porch. The fur-rimmed hood of her bright purple coat turned into a ring of fire.
‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,’ she shouted.
Toxic smoke, black and acrid, crept through the living room and up the stairs. If the small porch had been separated by a door, it would have taken longer for the fire to take hold in the main body of the house, but it was nothing more than a tiny space to hang coats and kick off muddy shoes. The builders had won awards for saving space. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for saving lives.
Chloe walked down the stairs, repeating over and over at the top of her voice, ‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.’
She could see her father asleep on the small two-seater sofa, legs curled up, head at an awkward angle on the arm of his makeshift bed.
‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children are gone.’
