She finished attaching the black fascinator to her hair, the mesh net draping over her eyes like a thin curtain.
Her mother called up the stairs, informing her that the car was outside.
She stared lifelessly into the mirror, her face a ghostly pale. Her eyes were bloodshot, tears finding their way to the edge of her eyelids before diving off to splash onto her cheeks.
She glanced at the photo of Alex one more time, smiled through the, pain and then slowly lifted herself towards the door, to say goodbye to him for the last time.
Curtis waited patiently on the cobbled courtyard of the crematorium, his eyes fixated on the brightness of the colours bursting from the flowers lining the immaculate grounds surrounding the old building. Standing under an arch, he sheltered himself from the rain while pulling on a cigarette, sighing as he exhaled.
Ashley's coffin had looked so small, you would have been excused for mistaking it for a child's.
The service had been brief, Curtis refusing to allow any speeches to be made about his sister and insisting on a small audience. Tommy had been the first to get up after the pointless sermon given by the local priest, his hulking frame wrapped in a smart, black suit. He strode purposefully to the small, pine box and touched it with kissed fingers. He then dropped a rose on top of it and marched out, shocking Curtis with a rare show of emotion.
As his brother stormed out of the side entrance into the courtyard, Curtis had waited for the small gathering of other mourners, all dressed in their black best, to say their final condolences. He gazed at the box, refusing to say a final goodbye to the little sister he’d always loved dearly.
Refusing to take responsibility for her death.
After a few moments, he rose from his pew, taking measured steps to the front where her body lay entombed in pine. The crematorium smelt of fresh flowers, even with the odour of death surrounding him.
He said a silent goodbye, making a solemn promise that he would send her killer to the afterlife as soon as possible.
The priest attempted to console Curtis with his words, but Curtis followed his brother; as words of forgiveness and salvation fell on deaf ears.
Now he stood under the archway, his cigarette disintegrating to ash which caught the wind and fluttered across the cobbled stones. The rain pelted the concrete, his mind wandering to Ashley's body, swinging from the London skyline with the same rain crashing against her.
He clenched his fist, crushing the burning embers of the cigarette's remains to his skin and then sharply unclasping as the pain tore through him.
The butt fell to the ground.
People around him were sobbing, their compassion and weakness in front of others drawing his immediate disdain.
Tommy stood silently, allowing the weather to engulf him in a calming wetness.
Lucas was a resourceful man, he would give him that. No doubt he would have found out somehow that he had put a bullet through his best friend's skull. That he, Curtis Drayton, despite Lucas's avalanche of vengeance, had been able to hurt the man even more for what he had done.
Soon, Lucas would come for him.
And Curtis would keep his promise to his sister.
As the clock struck midday, Tommy pulled the Bentley into the garage behind 'Odds On', the front of the shop dark and locked, the shutters pulled down. Sunday was usually one of their busiest days, feeble addicts racing in to bet on the 'Super Sunday' football in a hope of actually achieving something. Winning a bet to them was like being 'chosen'.
Curtis scoffed at the idea, all too happy to line his pockets with their desperate cash.
They trudged in through the back door, their fine, Italian loafers squelching with rainwater. Curtis needed a drink and was almost through the door to his office staircase when Tommy's voice broke the silence that had been held since they’d collected the remains of their sister in an urn.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Curtis stepped back into the shop, as Tommy stomped to the back door where a young man, his face worn and ragged, had stepped in. Rainwater dripped off his coat as he stood nervously, begging Tommy to wait as the hulking Drayton grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and slammed him against the door frame.
His blonde hair dripped water down a fear-stricken face.
Curtis gave him a minute to explain who he was and what he wanted.
A minute later, Curtis began formulating a plan.
“You call me if you need anything, okay?”
Dianne's auntie squeezed her tightly on the door step, her hands rubbing Dianne's aching back. A few days earlier, Alex's body had been dumped where they were standing. It felt like treading on his grave and she stepped back into the safety of her home.
She leant against a wall, letting out a huge sigh. The final guest had left and she rested her hand against her bump, wishing she could cradle her child.
“Here you go, dear.”
Her mother walked in from kitchen to the quaint front room, clasping a mug of piping hot tea. Dianne smiled and waddled to the leather sofa, dropping down with a thud as her mother collected the last of the paper plates used for the finger buffet and dropped them in a black bag.
Dianne had a sip of tea, cradling the cup with both hands and enjoying the rich flavour.
“Leave it, Mum,” she smiled appreciatively. “It can wait until later.”
She knew her Mum was just trying to keep busy, the weight of losing her son-in-law had caused her a great deal of pain she refused to reveal to her daughter.
It was something Dianne would forever be thankful for.
“I just don't want you overdoing it.”
“I'm fine. Trust me.”
“It was a beautiful service,” her mother said, plumping up some of the sofa cushions.
“It really was.”
“Alex would have been proud. You were so brave.”
Dianne smiled into her mug, knowing that wasn't true. She’d planned on saying a few words, wanting to let the world know how much she was hurting and how deep Alex's absence would run.
But she couldn't.
Having either him or Helen there would have helped. But now they’d both moved on and she was alone.
She felt a small kick in her stomach.
Well, not completely alone.
“Right, its three o'clock,” her mum stated with purpose. “I'm going to have a shower and then how about the three of us get out of here?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere, my dear. Let's just see where we end up.”
“That sounds great.”
Dianne's mother gently squeezed her knee, before pushing her, slightly overweight frame off the sofa. As she strode to the stairs, she loosened the pin in her auburn hair, which gently fell around her shoulders. Dianne sipped her tea as footsteps disappeared upstairs, shortly followed by the locking of the bathroom door.
She closed her eyes, allowing her thoughts to race towards Alex, his defined arms reaching out to wrap around her. He would hold her so tight, and any worry would slowly fade.
Her safety had gone.
She was startled out of her thoughts by the doorbell. She opened her eyes, looking around the room to locate what had dared stir her from Alex's embrace. The only noise she heard was the water crashing against the shower wall, echoing softly somewhere above her.
She tried to return to Alex.
The doorbell chimed again
She looked up, noticing a figure looming behind the window of the front door. She immediately cowered in her seat, praying that her mother would race down to open it. Or, miraculously, Alex would stride out from the kitchen and send whoever it was away.
The doorbell rang one more time.
She sighed.
Placing the tea down on the neat, vintage coffee table, she managed to pull herself up with help from the arm of the sofa. She took a few steps towards the door, shaking at the memory of seeing Alex's dead body fall over the threshold.
She opened the doo
r and saw the next worst thing she could have imagined.
“Lucas?!”
Her shock was obvious. Her voice shook as she said his name, her eyes wide with disbelief, eyes which cloaked a raw hatred. Lucas stood a few feet from her, his feet planted in the spot where she’d seen her family die. A death he was responsible for. He wore a white shirt with a black tie underneath the leather jacket she’d witnessed her dead friend buy for him.
He shuffled uncomfortably, unsure of what possible words he could say that could offer any comfort to a woman grieving for a loved one. The rain rattled gently around him, the drops not registering with him. Before he could say a word, she raised her hand and cracked a firm slap across his face.
“How dare you?”
He looked back up at her, his bristle-covered cheek throbbing and glowing red.
“How dare you come here?”
“Dianne, please….”
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
Tears of fury leaked from her eyes, reinforcing her decision against the mascara. The remaining shards of Lucas's heart broke when he saw her pain.
“I am so sorry…” His words were quiet as he struggled to believe them himself.
“No, Lucas. You don't get to apologise!” For the first time since she’d cradled Alex's lifeless body, Dianne felt strong. “You don't get to turn up here and say you’re sorry. This is Alex's home and he can't come back here because of you.”
“Bad people did this to your husband.”
“And why’s that? Because he was a bad person? Because he deserved it? Of all the people in this world, my Alex was the best of them!”
Lucas looked down at the ground, understanding the verbal barrage he was receiving was deserved.
“Or was it because of you, Lucas?!” Her finger jabbed his chest. “All because you couldn't handle the cruelty of this world and now it’s taken another person.”
“Alex was my best friend.”
“He was my husband. Don't you dare fucking tell me that you’re hurting, Lucas. I know Helen was taken from you and it hit us all. You more than most, and I understand that. But Alex, he had nothing to do with it.”
“I know...” his words trailed off feebly.
“All he was, was your best friend. He was there for you from the beginning. When everyone questioned Helen's decision, that it was too big of a risk, Alex saw through it and treated you like family.”
Dianne took a pause, inhaled deeply and willed herself calm. The last thing she wanted was her neighbours seeing her losing her composure.
“Fact is Lucas, I know what you’re going through. You want the person responsible for destroying your life to face up to the things they’ve done. But that is the job of the police.”
Lucas shook his head, looking up at the clouds that returned his gaze with more rain drops.
“It is, Lucas. But you decided that wasn't good enough. The things they say you have done. I mean, are you even you anymore?”
He turned a heart-broken gaze at her.
“Are you even the man Helen loved anymore?”
“I just couldn't stand the idea that Helen could be struck from this world and no one batted an eyelid.”
“But they did, Lucas. We all did. We all grieved and we all cried. We celebrated her memory and not a day goes by that I don't shed a tear for her.”
She stared at him, her hatred trembling at a man she had once held so closely in her life.
“But she’s gone. And because you couldn't handle that, Alex is gone too. His child will grow up never knowing him.”
She rubbed a hand over her stomach, the bump pushing against her black dress.
“Because of you.”
Lucas's head dropped, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He thought of all the conversations he'd had with Alex when they trained, remembering the excitement in his friend's voice as he spoke of his impending fatherhood. The little things, like teaching his child to tie their shoe laces, seemed so exciting with Alex's enthusiasm behind them.
It would never happen now.
Dianne broke the silence.
“I want you to leave.”
“Dianne.
“Leave!”
Lucas looked at his friend's widow, a woman he’d shared so many happy memories with. Her eyes radiated a disgust that would never be repaired. Her large, dark eyes leaked tears without fluttering, the water trailing down her pale cheeks.
“I will make them pay for what they’ve done. I promise you.”
Dianne scoffed a pitiful chuckle.
“Don't you get it Lucas? I don't want you to. Helen wouldn't have wanted this either.”
The words hit Lucas, a truth he’d kept locked away from confronting. Helen had spent years talking to Lucas about his past, about all of the anger and fury he’d felt from the years of neglect and mistreatment. The way he’d handled the boys at that foster home, how he’d seen violence as his only means of respite.
She’d helped him to control those thoughts, to see that confronting life's challenges with violence meant that no matter the outcome, you had already lost. She’d encouraged his training with Alex, another person who’d only ever had his best intentions at heart.
Now both of them had been taken from him.
He tried to look for another avenue but there was only one path.
One that Helen would turn away from in a second.
Dianne took a step back into the hallway, allowing the heat from the house to welcome her with its warm embrace.
“Goodbye Lucas.”
The door began closing.
“I hope I never see you again.”
The door slammed shut in his face. Lucas stood still, captive in another cage of loneliness. A few weeks ago, he was sitting around a table with the three people he cared for more than himself. They’d toasted to him, having whispered discussions about the family he didn't yet know he was about to begin.
All of it, gone.
The door had slammed shut, not just on his condolence, but on his last link to a life that could pass as normal. The wind whipped up around him, his black tie flickering below like a black flame. He took one last, loving look towards the house and then slowly walked back down the stone path, the little slabs poking through the grass in random fashion.
He needed to keep calm. Alex's death was an attempt to unnerve him, a retribution for the way he’d rattled the Drayton cage.
He was so close to finishing what he’d set out to do.
To keep his promise.
Discipline and control. That's what he told himself. As he walked down the street, reciting the lessons that Alex had spent years beating into him, Dianne stared from her window.
Hard, painful tears flooded from her eyes as she watched the broken shell of the man she’d known slowly shrink away into the distance. She knew she’d never see him again. It pained her to see him in such a way, despite all of the hard work Helen and Alex had done.
He knew only violence, and only violence awaited him.
She looked at the photos on the table underneath her elegant bay window. Her hand began to shake as she slowly picked up the one from her wedding day.
Alex looked so handsome, so happy.
Dressed in a matching smart grey suit was Lucas. They had their arms around each other's shoulders, cigars hanging from genuine smiles. She dropped the photo to the floor, the glass shattering on impact.
The photo slid from the frame and across the floor.
Alex would have forgiven Lucas, it was the type of man he was and one of the reasons she would love him until the day she saw him again.
She couldn't forgive Lucas. But she could try to save him.
She reached for her mobile phone and moments later, asked to be put through to the police.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“I'm sorry.”
Lucas's words hung in the air momentarily before the wind grabbed them and whipped them away. The rain had dropped in velocity, but a light dri
zzle still swept through the grounds of the cemetery. It should all have been so familiar and Lucas hated the fact he didn't remember a single detail of the place.
The church itself sat a hundred feet to the left, a magnificent structure of white brick and stained-glass windows, its crucifix cutting into the darkening sky with a mighty pride.
The grounds themselves were well maintained, the freshly cut grass providing a thin icing over squishy mud. Trees overhung the pathways, cutting through the grass, the first signs of blossom threatening to emerge to brighten the dullness of the overcast sky. Somewhere in the distance someone was muddling around a gravestone, clearing away debris which had desecrated the permanent resting place of a loved one.
Lucas stood still, allowing the silence of the afternoon to take control. All that could be heard was the wind, his tie, jacket and hair all fluttering backwards as it pushed against him. He winced as his shattered ribs reminded him of their condition.
“I promise I’ll make this right.”
Again, words that nobody would ever hear.
Before him, a makeshift wooden cross spiked up from the ground, slowly rocking back and forth with each gust. Speckles of rain scattered from the wood to the grass below it. A fresh rectangle of upturned mud lay in front of the wooden emblem, recently piled in on top of his friend who’d been committed to the earth only hours before.
A friend he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to.
Flowers adorned the burial plot, with a wreath that spelled out Alex's name resting against the cross. A few petals, ripped by the elements, fluttered away.
Lucas admired them all, the beautiful colours and gorgeous arrangements, chosen by those who’d loved Alex as a final goodbye. He’d also visited Helen's grave on the way to the spot, sitting for half an hour in the cold and the wet, staring at a stone emblazoned with her name.
The ground was still relatively fresh, the mud clear apart from the small bouquet of roses he’d purchased on his way in.
The red flowers had rocked mournfully in the wind as Lucas gently kissed his fingers and ran them over the letters carved into her memorial stone.
One by One: A brutal, gritty revenge thriller that you won't be able to put down. Page 34
