Beck le Street

by Tony McHale

  Lucas’s phone vibrated in Charlie’s pocket. He took it out and looked at it. There was a number of picture texts from Carl. Charlie for a moment thought about ignoring them, but then decided he should look.

  Charlie opened the photographs on the phone watched by Cassie. There were about twenty in all, all of people playing darts.

  “Photos.”

  Cassie had no idea why he was looking at photos, not at this time.

  Charlie studied each one, but most were not of the dartboard, but of the players. Then he stopped.

  Two youths were playing darts. One was Amos the other Lucas. They were eighteen or nineteen, both cocky and full of themselves. But what the photo also captured was their relationship. Amos the leader, Lucas the led. This was reflected in the scores.

  Amos – 116 Lucas – 351

  Amos would always beat Lucas, that’s why he kept him around. It made him feel like a winner, instead of the loser he actually was.

  To the left of the photo there was a glimpse of a figure, a shadow and this was the person who’d been chalking up the scores. The person who had written the names of the players, Lucas with the unusual ‘L’ that had the feel of being ornately italic, like the ‘L’ Jed wrote in the air.

  “What are the photographs of?” said Cassie tentatively.

  “Of way back before I screwed up and any of this began.”

  Charlie passed her the phone. Cassie studied the photograph.

  “A darts match … at The Black Dog?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is really old. Look at Lucas and Amos.”

  “I bet they didn’t even know I was photographing them.”

  “Well I didn’t … I’ve never seen this before.”

  “You were there that night? You remember?” asked Charlie having no recollection of the night.

  “Yeah – I was the scorer. That’s me at the side.”

  She slid the phone back to him and Charlie looked at it. There was Cassie’s shoulder just in shot. There also was the ornate ‘L.’ Charlie looked round the kitchen and at the stickers Cassie had stuck around all those years ago when Georgie was learning to read. Stickers that read: ‘Drawer … knives … spoons … forks …’ and the one that caught his eye the most … ‘Left …’ with the letter ‘L’ just as his father had described. He looked back at the photograph on the phone and then up at Cassie. She stared back at him. She knew something was wrong. Something had happened. In that moment something had changed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Charlie’s hand moved for the gun, but Cassie grabbed it first and adeptly levelled it at Charlie.

  “What’s wrong … what did I say?” she demanded pointing the gun at him.

  “It was your writing?”

  “What?”

  “Your letter ‘L’ that was written on the dart board. The words Peace at Last … it was you who wrote it.”

  “Look Charlie … you have to understand …”

  “Understand what? What is there to understand Cassie … you killed my mother. That’s the beginning and the end.”

  “You think it was as simple as that … as easy as that? You think that?”

  “She’s fucking dead, isn’t she? What else is there to think?”

  “You what else … you know! You know she was going to the police.”

  “So you killed her.”

  “I couldn’t let it happen.”

  “That’s okay then …” Charlie said a weird lack of sarcasm for a sarcastic comment.

  “I begged her not to say anything … I begged her. But she wouldn’t listen. She was going to have to tell someone and then all I’d fought for … all I’d worked for would have gone.”

  “But she wouldn’t have done … that’s why she wrote the letter. If she’d been going to tell anyone … why write the letter?”

  “I didn’t know about the letter. If I’d known … then … This is his home Charlie … Tyler was his dad … and that was all going to be destroyed. He would have gone down for murder. So would Lucas, Amos and Jed … But they were only doing what needed to be done.”

  “Like my mother needed to be killed.”

  “Don’t say that Charlie … you know that’s not true. I loved your mum. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  “And Devika … you didn’t want to hurt her either.”

  “Naylor had always had a thing about me. I was female and I breathed. He found out about the letter and worked out you would more than likely try and get you’re your hands on it. Can you imagine what would have blown open if that had come to light. End of a promising career.”

  Charlie just looked at her.

  “The ball had started rolling Charlie. I had to stop it. Naylor was corrupt … he was sick …”

  “And his wife?”

  “She was there – like we’re here now. Something has to be done.”

  “Like what?”

  “You could tell me that this will always just be between you and me Charlie … you could tell me that and I’ll believe you. I’ll put this gun down and we could get through this together. We can do this.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Why not?” she asked almost pathetically.

  “Because it’s gone too far. You’re going to have to kill me. Can you do that Cass? Can you kill me?”

  “I have to … I have to for Georgie.”

  Using the shotgun as a means of persuasion, Cassie steered Charlie out of the cottage. Charlie kept looking at her. He was scared but somehow he didn’t believe she could kill him, like he could never kill her. The shotgun pointing at his back, they headed towards the blood-stained pick-up.

  “You’re driving,” she ordered indicating the passenger door.

  Charlie climbed into the pick-up via the passenger seat and slid across to the steering wheel. Cassie climbed in behind him.

  “Okay let’s go. I’ll tell you where.”

  The keys were in the ignition. Charlie started the engine and the vehicle pulled away.

  “If I’d have known you were pregnant I would never have left.”

  “And I want you to know that your mother’s death was out of desperation … not out of revenge.”

  Charlie said nothing.

  “You have to believe me Charlie … I was desperate.”

  “I believe you,” said Charlie with a hardly audible acceptance.

  They drove for a while in silence, Charlie not taking his eyes off the road, Cassie not taking her eyes off him.

  “Was she scared?” asked Charlie still looking at the road.

  “No … she didn’t think I’d do it. She didn’t think I’d have the guts. And …” Cassie let out a little sad laugh, “ … I didn’t think I’d do it. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted her to understand. I even told her that Georgie was her grandson … but she still said it had gone too far. It had got out of hand. It had to stop.” Cassie paused, a sadness permeating from every pore. “I never wanted to kill anybody. I never thought I could …”

  “Kyle …? Was he just collateral damage?”

  “I didn’t know he was living in the cellar.” Cassie needed to talk, to tell someone, to explain … “He’d seen me walk out with Caroline … he’d followed us onto the moors. He saw everything. But he didn’t know what to do … He kept it to himself for two days, but then he came to see me. All he was scared about was Jed discovering he lived in the cellar. Now Caroline was gone he thought Jed would throw him out. Jed didn’t even know he was there. He was going to have to go tell his mum … tell her where he’d been. I just knew he’d also tell her what he’d seen on the moors. We argued, I grabbed a knife I was using for cooking and Kyle ended up being stabbed. I panicked because he ran off with one of my kitchen knives in
his back. If the police had found him … they’d have traced it back to me. But after Tyler saw him I knew he was just hiding out some place – too scared to show himself. I looked all over for him. I eventually found him in a field. He’d just collapsed and died. I managed to get my knife back … It was that night I saw you.”

  “Cassie … don’t you see this is never going to end … If you kill me there’ll be someone else …”

  “No there won’t.”

  “You have a dead body in your house.”

  “That you’re responsible for … not me. Charlie believe me … if there were any other way …”

  They drove for about another half a mile, the road having dense woodland both sides, then Cassie instructed him to pull over in a lay-by. As soon as she uttered the command Charlie knew for certain where they were headed.

  She ordered him out of the pick-up and indicating again with the shotgun headed into the woods.

  As they walked along the path flanked by oak, ash and birch fir trees Charlie almost felt a strange sense of relief. He now knew what had happened and if he was killed, even executed, then somehow justice would have been done. After all he started all this, started it with his and Cassie’s relationship when they were teenagers. He left her pregnant and she decided the best place for her disabled son to be raised was Beck le Street. It was an unselfish act, an act motivated purely for the good of her son. And for the most part it had worked. Georgie had a quality of life that may not have been achieved elsewhere. But that cosseted stability was threatened by Charlie’s mother and that’s why she died. If Charlie hadn’t left at sixteen, if he hadn’t have been so selfish, if he’d have gone back to Cassie, asked her to go with him, none of this would have happened. This wasn’t the Beck le Street form of justice; this was a justice that was born out of a mixture of human nature and fate. A justice you have no control over. A justice even Charlie accepted.

  The noise of Dark Waters could be heard way before they got there and as if to confirm water was near the woodland became peppered with alder trees. Charlie had no plan to escape and there was part of him that didn’t want to escape. Maybe this was his time to die; he didn’t see what he had to live for.

  When they arrived at the edge of the swirling abyss, Charlie felt the slippery moss covered rocks between his feet and carefully turned and looked at Cassie.

  “What about Georgie?” he asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Are you going to let him just rot away in Beck le Street?”

  Cassie was very mindful of the conversation she’d had with Georgie earlier that day, but she didn’t want to admit to herself that she’d maybe got it all wrong.

  “Georgie will be fine. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “You’ll just keep killing people so he can remain safe in his hermetically sealed world.”

  “I did what I had to, you know that.”

  Charlie turned to look at the waters that beckoned him, then he looked back at Cassie.

  “Virtually all the village saw me walk up to your cottage … If I pop up downstream three days from now, questions are going to be asked, especially as Tyler is lying dead in your bedroom.”

  “Please Charlie … don’t make this any harder for me,” Cassie said as she slowly approached.

  She was close to him now and Charlie knew exactly what she was going to do, she was hoping to back him slowly into the whirlpool. The gun was only a matter of inches from him. Charlie took a step back; his foot slipped on the moss and he nearly went in.

  There was real horror on Cassie’s face as Charlie only just managed to secure his footing.

  Cassie lowered the gun. This was over.

  “I can’t do it,” she said quietly. “I can’t do it.”

  Charlie stood there, not sure what to do.

  “So what happens now?” she asked.

  “We go to the police.”

  “Really?”

  “What else can we do?”

  “Pretend none of this happened?”

  “I don’t think that will work somehow.”

  “I … I was scared,” Cassie said regretfully. “I thought I was going to lose everything. I feared change. I feared it for Georgie … and all the time he’s the one that wanted it. He told me today he wanted to leave this place.”

  “He’ll be fine. He’s a smart kid.”

  “You think so. You think he’ll get on fine with his mother in prison for murder. You think he’ll be okay.”

  Charlie didn’t know how to reply.

  “Would you look after him Charlie … for me … for us?”

  Charlie just nodded his head.

  “You know I always loved you … don’t you?”

  “And I always loved you.”

  “What a waste …” she said with a slight smile.

  “Come on.” Charlie held out his hand. Cassie’s hand reached out and touched his. He stepped away from the edge and moved to her. She took him and kissed him. They remained in the embrace for a long time. Then she tilted her head back and smiled at him. He knew in that moment what she was going to do. She broke from him and stepped backwards towards Dark Waters.

  Immediately her feet started to slip. Charlie grabbed at her, holding on to her jumper. He wasn’t going to let her go … not now ... not again.

  Charlie’s feet started to slip.

  “Look after him Charlie … please … please …”

  Charlie was slipping with her closer and closer to the edge.

  “Let go Charlie … let go … or he’ll have no one.”

  But Charlie wouldn’t let go, he kept holding on.

  Cassie’s feet slipped off the edge of the rock and she was dangling over the churning spinning gushing river.

  Charlie was still slipping, not able to stop edging nearer death.

  “Please Charlie … for Georgie …”

  Charlie’s footing slipped again and in that moment he could no longer hold onto her.

  “No!” he screamed as he grabbed a clump of grass, which saved him from following her. As she went down she looked up at him with a smile and he saw her mouth the words: “Thank-you …”

  He watched as her body hit the water swollen by the autumn rain. The current quickly pulled her under and she disappeared.

  Charlie collapsed to the ground … Cassie was gone.

  He lay there for some time by the side of Dark Waters. He didn’t know whether to cry or scream or shout, instead he did nothing but stare upwards at the sky. Then he slowly got to his feet, picked up the gun and walked back to the pick-up.

  Virtually every resident was out on the street or standing in their doorways. Police cars were scattered all over and there was silence when the pick-up came into sight. There was a collective guilt. If only someone had been able to say no then this would have never happened.

  Charlie drove down the back way to Beck le Street and pulled up outside The Black Dog. He knew Wood would be there. Wood came out of the pub along with Farrah. Charlie handed him the shotgun and asked if he could make a statement.

  EPILOGUE

  Genesis Brown had been asked to be on the front page of Vogue. A young designer had persuaded her to wear his clothes for her TV show and suddenly his designs had taken off and Genesis had become a fashion icon. She was the new look. She had been described as the Twiggy of the 21st Century.

  The shoot had been highly publicised on numerous fronts and one of them was because Genesis had said she would only do the shoot if Charlie Ashton was the photographer. The young designer was happy with that, Vogue was happy with that and Charlie was over the moon.

  This would be his first real job since that fateful day just over a year ago. Since then he’d been interrogated, charged, released on bail, questioned some more, and even
tually cleared of all wrong doing.

  The shooting of Tyler he had admitted to, but claimed correctly, it was in self-defence, something the CPS reluctantly had to go along with. His account of the death of Cassie was eventually backed up by forensic evidence when her body surfaced down river over a month later.

  The police officers Armstrong and Ridley were both convicted of corruption and causing death by reckless driving. As there was no proof of the letter, the prosecution had to go for the lesser charge. Both officers were dismissed from The Force and sentenced to ten years imprisonment each

  Amos Mann was charged with the murder of Aaron Gregory, but the case never came to court as Amos, like his father before him, died of a brain haemorrhage.

  Because of the lack of public accountability Beck le Street was only a brief headline grabber. Very soon it was relegated to page five and by the time Amos died it was down to a short paragraph on page ten.

  For Charlie it took him some time to regain his confidence, to stop looking over his shoulder and come to terms with the guilt he felt. He had counselling sessions for a while, then went to church, took up yoga, but nothing seemed to do the trick. He even tried going back to Beck le Street, believing if he could confront what he saw as the root cause of everything, then he could move on. People were pleasant to him, realising that they’d behaved in a barbaric way, but he still didn’t feel welcome. He was of course the sole owner of The Black Dog, which he now let Farrah manage, but who, after discovering that Aaron was his sister’s killer, went to pieces. She spent time in hospital and was eventually discharged. Barbara Bergin took her in, because she didn’t want to go back to the cottage. Over time she started to recover and Charlie’s offer for her to run the pub seemed to be made at the optimum time. When she looks in the mirror there are still ghosts that haunt her and memories that leave fresh scars.

  It was Genesis and Justin, who were happily living together in a flat in Maida Vale, who suggested over a bottle of Merlot one night that Charlie should see how Georgie was doing. Charlie thought he would. He hadn’t had any contact up until this point because of the circumstances surrounding Cassie and Tyler’s deaths. He didn’t want to make things more difficult for his son.