Midnight's Door

by Robert F Barker

  The next thing I knew, I was on the ground with Dave Charnley and four other doormen on top of me. By then someone had already called the ambulance for Kevin. The police arrived just as the ambulance did. I spent that night in a police cell, worrying about him. I'd managed to get a look at him as they put him in the ambulance. He didn't look good. It wasn't. He was in intensive care for three days. They nearly lost him twice, but got him back with those electric-paddle things.

  I was charged with GBH - Grievous Bodily Harm - with intent - which is about as close to attempted murder as you can get. The CPS case was based upon the fact that what I did to Kevin went way beyond any reasonable notion of self defence. Several witnesses testified that I carried on beating Kevin long after he gave up resisting and went limp. Luckily for me, the lottery that is Legal Aid drew me Maurice Etherington as my defence barrister at the Crown Court. Maurice also handled prosecutions now and again and at that time was one of the most respected briefs on the Chester and North Wales circuit. He knew straight off that the self-defence case the CPS was gearing up to counter would never play, so he dug deeper. He called Mary Oakley, the psychologist from years before to give evidence on my behalf. She was retired by then but she remembered me and still had all her records. She was able to show that my attack on Kevin was not planned or deliberate, but a symptom of the condition for which she'd treated me years before. Further, under questioning from Maurice, Mary stated that because I'd 'blanked out', I couldn't form the intent necessary for the charge to stick. The Judge, Sir Robin David, agreed and instructed the jury to return a not guilty verdict. Even so, waiting for them to come back as instructed was the most nerve-racking hour of my entire life. There were no celebrations however and there never will be. One simple reason. The injuries Kevin suffered to his face and body healed in a few weeks. An Odontologist from Rodney Street, - Liverpool's equivalent of Harley Street - gave him a new set of teeth. But there was little the doctors could do about the injuries to his brain. They never healed, not completely at any rate. I'm told they never will. It's hard to celebrate when you know you've turned someone into half the person they used to be. Kevin's not entirely ruined. He still manages to work, as a street cleaner for the council. He lives with his Mum in her ex-council house in Longford. He can look after himself, more or less, but the chances of him ever meeting someone and entering into any sort of relationship are, I guess, pretty remote. Kevin's mum, Sally, is an amazing woman. After the trial she came up to me, shook my hand and told me she knew it wasn't my fault and that she bore me no grudge. She’d seen her son grow up and knew what he was like. I see her and Kevin regularly. About once a month, which is about the same as I see my Dad. I call in for a brew and a chat and to see how Kevin is. He doesn't bear me a grudge either, which is pretty strange when you think about it. It’s usually around tea time when I call, by when Kevin is finished work and at home, watching TV re-runs of Only Fools and Horses or Star Trek. I stay for an hour or so, which is about as long as I can manage. I always come away thinking, 'I did that.'

  Now, as I looked across the glass and splinter-strewn carpet to where Vincent, lay stretched out on the floor, my thoughts turned to Kevin.

  'Oh please God. Please not again.'

  CHAPTER 28

  From somewhere I could hear my name being called, but at that moment all I could focus on was Vincent. A vision came to me of him sitting in front of a television, watching Only Fools and Horses.

  A hand crossed in front of me, grabbed my right cheek and pulled me round. Another clamped itself to my other cheek and I found myself staring into Vicki's anxious face.

  'DANNY,' she yelled. 'Snap out of it.' She squeezed my cheeks together, trying to get me to pay attention.

  I blinked once, twice, then nodded.

  'Are you okay?' she said. I nodded again.

  I squeezed my eyes tight shut, trying to purge the thoughts that had brought on my paralysis. Suddenly my brain kicked in and I realised everything was backwards. I'd come here to find her and, hopefully, help her. To make everything right. Only the reverse had happened, and now it was her having to help me. Pulling back, out of her grasp, I looked up at the ceiling, and drew air into my lungs. It was a long, cleansing breath. When I looked at her again, her face was full of worry, and fear. I knew what I had to do.

  'Where's the phone?' I said.

  She made a, Thank God expression, then pointed across the room. 'On the bookshelf.'

  Raising myself up, I crossed to it. As I went, glass crunched into the carpet beneath my feet and my gaze kept straying to Vincent. From a standing position I had a better view of his face - Jesus Christ - but at least I could see and hear he was breathing.

  I picked up the phone, punched 999, pressed the green call button and lifted it to my ear.

  'WAIT.'

  I turned to her. She was still sitting amidst the debris, but waving her hand, furiously, at me to stop.

  'What?'

  'Hang up.'

  'Why? I thought-'

  'Just do it.'

  I hit the red button.

  'Give it to me.'

  'What for? What's wrong?'

  As I lowered the phone, she leaned forward and grabbed it out of my hand. She re-dialled and lifted it to her ear. She looked up at me.

  'I've just remembered. They record nine-nine-nine calls.'

  I opened my mouth to ask why that mattered, then realised.

  Considering what she'd been through I was amazed how together she was. As she began talking to the emergency operator, sense began returning to my brain. Crossing to Vincent I crouched beside him. Although he was breathing, it was rattly, laboured. Reaching under, I turned him so he was in the recovery position, airway clear, leg bent, arm raised to level with his head to open his chest, just like they teach us on the Door Supervisor's Course. As I tended to him, I listened to the phone conversation. She kept it short and simple. There'd been some trouble at home. There'd been a fight. Her husband was badly injured - facial injuries - and needed an ambulance. 'Yes, he's breathing but unconscious.... Yes, I've already put him in the recovery position.' When asked she gave the address, then rang off. She'd said nothing about anyone else being involved.

  'How is he?' she said, more calm than I imagined she'd be.

  I looked him over again before turning to her. 'He needs treatment, but he's breathing okay.'

  'Thank God.'

  I stood up, went across to her and helped her into one of the chairs. She sat there for a while, on the edge of the seat, looking across at Vincent as she got her breath back. Every now and then she lifted a hand to her forehead, the way someone does who is trying to get their head round a difficult situation. Eventually I couldn't wait.

  'Vicki,' I said. She turned her face up to me. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-' Unable to finish what I wanted to say I gestured towards Vincent.

  'What?' she said. 'Didn't mean to what?'

  'This,' I said. I spluttered a bit more then got it out. 'Hurt him. I didn't mean to hurt him like this.'

  She gave me a disbelieving look, then said, 'No. It seems you never do.'

  I wasn't sure what she meant, but the way she said it, flat, matter-of-factly, it frightened me. I looked at her then back at Vincent. I couldn't think of anything to say so I settled for, 'The ambulance shouldn't be long. I think he'll be okay.'

  She stretched her head back, looking up at the ceiling, then nodded.

  'Are you okay?' I said. 'Did he hurt you?'

  She lifted her hand to her cheek, running her fingers over the bruise. 'Not as much as you did him.'

  I winced at that. 'We thought you'd been-' Again I stopped myself. Now was probably not the right time to explain how we'd all feared she'd been abducted, possibly murdered. Besides, it would probably sound like an excuse.

  I crouched down at the side of the chair, looking from her to Vincent and back again, plucking up courage. 'There's something about me you need to know. Something I need to tell you.'

&nb
sp; She shook her head. 'Not now Danny.'

  'But it's important. You see, I'm not normally-'

  She waited. 'What? You're not normally what? Violent?' She snorted. 'Is that what you were going to say? That you don't actually like beating people to a pulp, like I just saw you do?'

  I looked at her, mouth open. Surely she didn't believe I'd enjoyed doing what I'd done to Vincent? I shook my head. 'You've got to believe me. It's not how it looks.'

  She snorted again, almost a laugh. 'Sooo.. what? You just decided that Vincent needed his face rearranging, even though he'd given up resisting and was begging for you to stop?'

  Holy Christ. I hung my head. 'It wasn't me.'

  'WHAT?'

  'I mean, it was me. Of course it was me. But not like you think.' I shook my head, realising it sounded like nonsense.

  She sat up. 'You've got a problem, Danny. You need help.' I was about to break in, to tell her that I've had help, that for years I'd been fine, but her hand came up so I stopped and she carried on talking. ' But right now you've got to go. Before the ambulance gets here.’

  'Go? Why? I need to explain-'

  She got to her feet. 'Explain what? That you beat a man unconscious then continued to hit him when he was just lying there? Don't be stupid. You need to get out of here, fast.'

  I could hardly believe what she was saying. 'You're telling me to run away?'

  'I'm telling you if you stay here the ambulance people will call the police and they'll arrest you. You've seen it at the club a hundred times.'

  I stared at her, then back at Vincent, trying to work out what was best. 'It'll happen anyway. Vincent will tell them it was me.'

  'You don't know that. Besides, I don't think Vincent will be saying anything for a while.'

  Now I was really confused. 'But you've just said. I beat up, could have killed, your husband. Don't you want the police to arrest me?'

  She stood up. I could see tears forming. 'Right now I don't know what I want. There were times last night, if I'd got hold of a knife, I'd have killed him myself.' She looked down at him. 'You shouldn't have done what you did Danny. It was wrong. But, God help me, I'm glad the bastard got something that will make him think twice before he ever lays a hand on me again.' She turned back to me. We stood there, looking at each other.

  'What will you tell them?' I said.

  'I don't know yet. I'll think of something.'

  'The police are looking for you. We reported you missing. We all thought-'

  'Ahh.' Realisation showed in her face. 'You thought I'd been taken, like the other girls.'

  'Yes.'

  'Well you were half-right.'

  'But the police will want to know who did this to him.'

  She nodded. 'They won't get it from me.'

  I shook my head. 'They're not daft. Even if Vincent says nothing, they'll put it together.'

  'Maybe, but they've still got to prove it. Show me your hands.'

  'What?'

  She reached out and grabbed them, turned them in hers, examining them. 'Go home. Get cleaned up. Get rid of your clothes. Burn them if necessary. Before the police speak to you do some building work or something. Anything that could cause cuts and grazes to your hands.' I looked at her, shocked. 'Go to the bathroom, now, and wash your hands, thoroughly. You don't want his blood on your steering wheel.'

  'Jesus Christ, Vicki. I-'

  'DO IT.' I jumped. 'The ambulance will be here any minute.'

  I gave her one last look, then ran to the kitchen.

  When I returned a few minutes later there were smears of Vincent's blood on her face, hands, clothes. Her blouse was torn and hanging off her. Her tights were ripped. There was also blood on the piece of four-by-four Vincent had brought in.

  'My God,' I said.

  She gave me an even look, then rubbed her jaw and cheek. 'At least I don't need to ask you to hit me.'

  I shook my head in disbelief. 'How do you know about this stuff?'

  'I watch CSI. Now, GO.'

  I thought about going over to her, taking her in my arms, holding her close, kissing her. But I didn't. Instead I turned and went out through the hole where the window used to be.

  As I ran back to my truck I remember thinking, how the hell will she explain that?

  CHAPTER 29

  It was sometime in the early afternoon when Jamie Carver rang to tell me Vicki had been found. I was sitting on the sofa at home, staring into an empty glass. I'd come straight back there from Vincent's. When I arrived I put everything I'd been wearing in a plastic bag which I'd stuffed up in the loft-space until I could get rid of it properly, then took a long shower. Afterwards, I'd gone straight for the bottle but stopped after the one glass, the one that was still in my hand.

  Since then I'd been sitting there, replaying the morning's events over and over in my mind. Each time I ran it, I veered between elation, and terror. Elation, that Vicki was okay. That she wasn't lying on some canal towpath somewhere and had come to no serious harm. Terror over the discovery that my condition was still there, and active. That for all that I'd run my business the past few years with no sign of a problem, the potential was still there in me for another Kevin Campbell. Hell, for all I knew, Vincent could already be another Kevin Campbell. Each time I thought about it I squirmed, mentally and physically. At the same time I kept wondering what was going to happen. I kept expecting to see blue lights outside, the police walking up the front path. The knock on my door. Some cop saying, 'Danny Norton, I am arresting you for...', what? When I'd last seen him, Vincent appeared to be holding his own. But I'd seen and heard enough to know about bleeding on the brain, haemorrhages, heart attacks, the switches that can, without warning, turn life to death. During that period, waiting to see what would happen, I think I was as close as I ever came to losing it.

  Now, as I listened to Carver telling me about how Vicki was fine, that it was her husband who had dragged her off to his house where she'd been all night, and that she was now at the station making a statement, the only words I could get out were, 'Right,' interspersed with the odd, 'Thank God.'

  As Carver finished telling me about Vicki I said, 'What about Vincent? Where's he?'

  'He's in hospital.'

  'Hospital? How come?'

  There was a long pause, which made me wonder what Carver was making of the conversation. Eventually he said, 'He's got severe facial injuries.'

  'Facial injuires?' I said, conscious that I needed to stop repeating his words. 'How come?'

  'That's the strange thing. Vicki says she did it, when he tried to have a go at her.'

  I swallowed and tried not to ask the question that was uppermost in my mind, but couldn’t stop myself. 'Do you believe her?'

  Another pause. 'I'm not sure yet. Any other time I'd have said she wasn't capable of it. But then again, I'm beginning to see now what you see in her.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I mean I wouldn't want to be the one who gets on the wrong side of her.'

  I started and looked at the phone. Was he talking about the same Vicki?

  'Are you coming down to the nick?'

  'What for? Why do you want to see me?'

  'We don't want to see you, but I thought you might want to come and see her, now that we've found her safe and sound and all.' I grimaced at my own guilty stupidity. He continued. 'I thought you may want to run her home. On the other hand, if you don't-'

  'No, I do. Of course I do. I'll come straight down. Right now.' I grimaced again.

  'Okay. See you soon.'

  As I ended the call I fell back into the sofa with a long groan and sat there for a full minute, massaging my throbbing temples. Then I got up, grabbed my jacket from the hook by the door, my car keys and opened the front door.

  My sister, Laura, was on the doorstep, about to insert her key in the lock. At the bottom of the path, a taxi was pulling away. For a moment we stood there staring at each other. A younger man I'd never seen before was loitering behind her. He
was clean shaven. City-boy type.

  'Laura?' I said through my surprise. 'What are you doing here?'