Suspended Retribution

by Rob Ashman

  She disappears inside and I watch her take a seat at the window. After a while she is called forward and I lose her from view. I wonder how long it will take this time. Her record is five minutes. The hand sweeps the dial of my watch and at the nine-minute mark she re-emerges still clutching the can. They must dread it when she shows up, no wonder the meetings are short. She is an old hand at this and I can imagine how the conversation goes with her Work Coach.

  ‘Have you been actively looking for work for your agreed number of hours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have evidence of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you attended any interviews?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you still registered with the same recruitment agencies?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is your CV up to date?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Blah, blah, blah, and so it must go on, they reel through their stock questions and receive one-word answers in return. So, with all the boxes ticked on her Claimant Commitment agreement she leaves happy in the knowledge that her allowances will drop into her bank account and that’s it for another two weeks. A job well done.

  I watch her hang a left down Brigg Street, I don’t need to follow her because I know exactly where she is heading. I finish my drink and saunter after her, making my way to the Cat and Mouse pub.

  I reach there in fifteen minutes, just in time to see her first pint disappear down her throat. This place has the dubious honour of being known as the worst pub in Blackpool, though by what yardstick they measure that is beyond me. I take a seat in the corner at the far end of the bar. Then I remember, the last time I was here a woman emptied her bladder while perched on a bar stool near to where I’m sitting. I swear I can still smell piss and disinfectant. The woman apologised, which apparently made it okay.

  My target belches loudly.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ she calls out. ‘Another one in there, Chief.’

  The pub is empty apart from a few stragglers, her posse has yet to arrive. I watch her flip a tenner from a bulging wad of notes. She tosses it onto the bar.

  This is going to be a long day.

  19

  It was the day I tried a different pub and finally felt alive.

  I tended to drink in the downbeat pubs around town, you know the sort, where they pull a decent pint but can’t find a decent cleaner. They were the pubs that suited me. Just me, my beer, a bar to lean on and zero conversation – no matter how many people were standing next to me.

  By this time, I had worked out that the beer helped right up until the point that it didn’t. Then it had the effect of magnifying every horror I was trying to forget. The trouble was I had no idea where to draw the line, and when in full flow I could be three pints the wrong side of the line before I realised. My life was unravelling fast.

  A new bar had opened near to the tower, it was a chrome and mirrored gin palace with a decorative vaulted ceiling. The owners must have spent a ton of money doing it up in time for a Christmas opening and the place was doing a roaring trade. And for some inexplicable reason, which I still can’t fathom, I thought it would be good to give it a try.

  I was propping up the end of the long oak bar drinking my past away, oblivious to the raucous celebrations kicking off around me. It was half five in the afternoon, I was already six pints down and the atmosphere was thick with Christmas cheer. The office party brigades were making their presence felt, staging a full-scale assault on the two hundred and twenty different varieties of gin on offer.

  The whole pub felt like Christmas, not that I felt anything much in those days, just a dull nothingness, like I’d been hollowed out in the middle.

  I cocked my head towards the door as a group of people tumbled past the doorman. I spotted Julie. She was corralled in amongst the knot of revellers wearing a pink party hat and a necklace of tinsel. Leading the charge was Kail, a bull of a man who headed up their department. Julie disliked him with a passion and had always described him as a walking gob on a stick. He shoved his way to the bar and she appeared at his side. It seemed Julie had changed her mind.

  He barked out a long drinks order in a deep baritone voice that suited his Pavarotti physique. A hassled barmaid ignored him and continued serving the guy next in line. Julie began to dance on the spot waving her arms above her head and throwing her head from side to side. Her hat fell off revealing her long blonde locks as they tumbled around her shoulders. A few of the others joined in, Kail wobbled and bobbed his broad shoulders to the thumping beat beside her. Julie always had the ability to start a disco in the vegetables aisle in Tesco.

  Kail turned his attentions back to the poor barmaid, who was trying to look at anyone but him.

  ‘Over here, sweet cheeks, over here,’ he yelled out.

  She finally gave in and Kail bawled his order at her. Pints of beer, glasses of wine and gin cocktails were shuttled back to the waiting party-goers. He handed Julie a fish bowl full of gin and something-or-other. I can remember thinking, she doesn’t even like the stuff.

  I watched from the other side of the room, keeping myself obscured by the punters at the bar. The place pulsated to festive songs, everyone singing along.

  How am I going to get out of here without being seen?

  The thought rattled around in my head as I stared into the full pint in front of me. The bubbles rose through the glass saying, ‘Drink me.’

  But I need to go now before she spots me. An awkward meeting with Julie was not what I wanted right now.

  Hmmm … maybe I could keep myself hidden in the crowd for another few minutes. Just enough time to make this pint disappear. A big mistake.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t help but glance across at Julie and her workmates. She was hands down the most beautiful woman in the room but she looked different to how I remembered. Her hair was the same and I had seen that dress before, but somehow she looked different. Then it hit me – she looked happy.

  She wasn’t trying to cover up the latest bruise by constantly applying make-up or walking on eggshells frightened of saying the wrong thing. She was being herself – happy and getting drunk on a Christmas night out. She was being Julie, the woman I had fallen for before I went away.

  I felt a physical pain strike up in my stomach, quickly rising towards my chest. My heart raced. I spun a beer mat on the bar to distract myself. The mat spun faster and faster. The music sank into the background, drowned out by the sound of water rushing through my head. The mat flipped onto the floor. I stared at it by my feet.

  There was a commotion at the far end, Kail was yelling at the barmaid. At first, I thought he was ordering another round then I saw him thrust his pint into her hand.

  ‘And I’m telling you it’s off!’ he bellowed.

  The young woman busied herself pouring another and handed it to him.

  ‘So is this!’ he roared. The woman didn’t know what to do.

  ‘Fuck me, a pub that can’t pour a pint,’ he crowed at the top of his voice.

  The manager appeared and tried to calm the situation. Kail was animated, stabbing his fat finger across the bar at the woman. The manager held his hands in a sign of surrender. It all calmed down. Next, I saw the manager hand over a tray loaded with shot glasses to Kail, while mouthing the words ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Kail forced himself away from the bar with a full pint in one hand and the tray in the other. He weaved his way to where Julie and the others were jigging around to the cacophony of noise blasting from the speakers.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Kail announced. ‘What did I tell you? Who’s the daddy!’

  I chugged down half my pint trying to drown the pain in my chest. The bastard had set that stunt up to get free drinks. What a wanker.

  ‘I told you. Now who’s the daddy, who’s the daddy?’ Kail was rotating on the spot doling out the shots.

  ‘You’re the daddy, you’re the daddy,’ they chanted back, pointing at him.

  He was accep
ting the adulation while strutting around doing some kind of gangster-rap walk. Julie was pointing and singing along with the others, downing the liquor.

  She doesn’t like shots either.

  The knuckles on my left hand turned white as I gripped the rail running around the bar. I wanted to finish my drink but my other hand couldn’t lift the glass. I was frozen. The pop-pop-pop of small arms fire went off in my head. My heart felt like it would rip itself from my chest at any moment.

  The heat from the exploding IED roasted the back of my legs. I could taste sand in my mouth. I tore the glass from the bar and the rim clunked against my front teeth as I poured the remaining beer down my throat. I banged the pint pot back down making the woman next to me jump.

  Bang-bang-bang, the exploding rounds were getting closer. I could hear them whistling through the air. Jono was screaming, but I couldn’t find him. I scanned the faces of the people around me but none of them were Jono. Then there was a dull thud and the Snatch went airborne, the whole pub spun on its axis.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  The side window shattered, spraying me with glass. Sand clogged my mouth, choking the back of my throat. I had to get out.

  I looked around for my weapon. It wasn’t there. Where the fuck is it?

  I had to get out.

  Crouching down I bumped my way through the crowd and shot one last look across at Julie. I saw Kail break away from the group.

  ‘You’re the daddy, you’re the daddy.’ They continued to chant.

  He strutted away in triumph with his hands above his head. I tracked around the periphery of the room, watching him disappear through the door marked toilets.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  Twenty seconds later I burst through the same door and followed him down the tiled corridor, past the Ladies, into the Gents. He was standing at the urinal with his hands on his hips, a couple of blokes were also in there finishing off. I made a beeline for one of the stalls and locked the door behind me.

  Gunfire was all around. The wall behind me was peppered with bullets, showering me with shards of plaster. I peeped under the door to see two pairs of legs leave and the door banged shut behind them.

  I unlocked the door and launched myself at Kail who had his head tilted back, still pissing like a race horse.

  I slammed the heel of my hand into the back of his head and a loud crack echoed around the room as his forehead smashed into the wall. I grabbed a handful of hair and drove his face into the tiles. A plume of blood erupted across the white surface as his nose splatted flat against his cheek. I sunk my fist into his lower back, he gargled a cry of pain and slumped forwards.

  I kicked his legs from under him and he went down hard, still pissing digested lager into the air. I slammed my boot into his neck and then his face. The flow of piss stopped. He went still.

  ‘Incoming! Incoming!’ cried Jono.

  Where the fuck is he, I can hear him but I can’t see him?

  I ducked down and scurried to the door, crabbing my way back up the corridor. Mortar fire thundered all around me. I couldn’t breathe. I burst into the main room, hurried through the knots of people and fell out onto the pavement.

  One of the bouncers came over. ‘You all right, mate?’

  I held up my hand, bent over at the waist trying to suck air into my burning lungs. ‘Asthma,’ I croaked.

  ‘Do you need an ambulance?’

  Cold air hit the bottom of my lungs and I straightened up.

  ‘No. No I’m fine thanks.’

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and marched away. The freezing wind slapped me in the face and it felt good. For the first time in ages the dead space inside me had gone. It had been replaced by a feeling that I had not known in months.

  The feeling of excitement.

  The feeling of being alive.

  20

  Kray made her way up the steps dressed in a white coverall, sporting overshoes and gloves. The hallway was a patchwork quilt of silver checker plates stretching down the hallway and into the lounge. She was met at the top by a tall man with spectacles dressed in much the same way.

  ‘Morning,’ he said with clipped tones. ‘Jerry Atkins, crime scene supervisor.’

  ‘Morning, Jerry, I’m DI Roz Kray. Who called it in?’

  ‘The letting agent turned up with a young couple to view the property. They got more of a view than they bargained for.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Well, let’s say I don’t think he’ll be letting it to them.’

  ‘The call said there was a body in the bath. Is it suicide?’

  ‘Best you see for yourself. I’ve asked the forensics team to hold off until you arrived. Thought it would be good for you to take a look before we moved the body.’ Two paper boiler suited figures were chatting in the hallway, ready with their boxes of tricks and high-resolution cameras.

  They stepped to one side allowing Kray to pass.

  ‘Phew, is that what I think it is?’ she said wrinkling her nose. ‘Smells like chicken tikka masala and bleach.’

  ‘In here, Roz.’ Atkins motioned with his arm at the room leading off to the left.

  Kray edged open the door. Against the far wall was the bathtub with a shower cubical and toilet fitted to the adjacent wall. A large mirror hung above the sink.

  The bath was brim full with crimson water. Puddles of it lay on the floor, visible between the silver plates. Kray moved closer. The body of a man was lying face down, half submerged, with his arms secured behind his back and his lower legs standing proud of the water against the taps. Bleach fumes rasped at the back of Kray’s throat.

  She flicked on her torch and directed the beam at the surface of the water. The light penetrated the liquid to show the pale outline of two objects floating inches below the surface. She leaned over and peered at the illuminated shape.

  It was the victim’s severed hands.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what we thought,’ said Atkins. ‘We’ll know more when we remove the body.’

  ‘I guess that rules out suicide. What else have you got?’

  ‘The killer didn’t do his homework when selecting what bleach to use.’

  ‘Oh, how come?’

  ‘There are two types of bleach, one containing chlorine and the other containing oxygen. Oxygen bleach destroys bloodstains and DNA making them undetectable, chlorine-based products remove the stain to the human eye but the presence of haemoglobin can still be detected with an application of Luminol. Then it shows up under black light.’

  ‘And what did our guy use?’

  ‘He used a chlorine-based product. So, if he wanted to destroy any DNA evidence, he chose the wrong one. A simple Internet search would have told him that. Also, we found bleach-stained footprints in the carpet in the hallway, and it didn’t come from the victim’s shoes. We should be able to get a decent shoe print. He goes to all this trouble to cover his tracks then gets careless.’

  ‘Thanks for that. I’ll get out of your way.’ Kray retreated back out into the hall and the two men in boiler suits swooped in. She checked the front door. The lock was intact with no sign of forced entry. Kray made her way to the lounge when she heard a familiar booming voice.

  ‘How is Acting DCI Kray this morning?’ It was Mitch Holbrook, Kray’s favourite Coroner’s Office doctor, coming up the stairs. He was approaching fifty with a bald head and straining waistline. He was old school and well respected. Very business like and abrupt to the point of being rude, just the way Kray liked it. He always wore the facial expression of somebody who had just stepped in dog shit, this morning was no exception.

  ‘Hey, Mitch, how’s tricks?’

  ‘Pretty good, I hear this one is a bit different,’ he said adjusting his overshoes.

  ‘Yup you could say that.’

  ‘When are they going to appoint a new DCI?’

  ‘They already have.’

  ‘Wow! Congrat—’

  ‘It’s n
ot me, Mitch, they gave it to a guy from GMP.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Mitch paused realising he’d brought up a topic Kray would rather avoid.

  The silence between them was broken by the swoosh of water as the body was exhumed from its watery grave.

  ‘I think that’s my cue to start work,’ he said easing his way past her in the hall.

  Kray wandered into the bedroom, opening and closing drawers and wardrobes. They were empty. It was the same with the smaller bedroom. She entered the lounge, the place was scrupulously clean with not a thing out of place. Apart from the Sky box laying in the middle of the rug. The morning sunshine streaked through the windows, ensuring the room was light and airy.

  A small discolouration of the carpet at the base of the doorframe caught her eye. She crouched down and examined it. Despite the overall stink there was a strong scent of bleach coming from the floor. Kray went into the bathroom to find Mitch hunched over the body which was laying on a heavy plastic sheet on the floor.

  ‘Do you have a black light?’ she asked.

  One of the men dressed in white handed Kray a torch from his bag. She went back to the lounge and shone the beam onto the base of the doorframe. Splashes of liquid fluoresced on the wooden frame and the carpet.

  Why did you bleach the bottom of the doorframe? She thought. What else did you bleach?

  She closed the curtains and continued to scan the room with the lamp. It yielded nothing until she directed the beam onto the armchair. The cushions glowed under the lamp, the other items of furniture were clear.

  Did you sit here?

  She ran the light across the fabric picking out the florescent particles on the arms of the chair.