The dark side of my soul (8 page)

When I pulled up the driveway Sandra was waiting for me. She must have been watching out of the window for my return and as I got out of the car she opened the front door and stood, pensive, waiting for the news of what had transpired.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, approaching her with the holdall in my hand. We went into the hallway and she closed the door.

“What happened?” she asked in a whisper.

I led her into the lounge and without a word opened the bag and tipped out the money onto the floor. “We still have it, I didn’t give them a penny,” throwing the empty holdall on the settee I went straight to the cocktail cabinet. It was early but I needed a drink. I poured a good measure of brandy into a tumbler.

Sandra was astounded. “How did you do it? Were they kids like you said they might be?”

I swallowed half of the brandy in one go and turned to face her. “No, they weren’t kids, they were adults. I shot them.”

For a second my statement didn’t register, it was as though her mind was having trouble processing the information then she laughed. “Come on, what really happened?”

I finished the rest of the brandy and the burning sensation of the spirit warmed and relaxed me. “I killed them, they are both dead.” It sounded matter of fact, one of those things you do in a normal day.

After a moment of stunned silence Sandra spoke. “Stop it, tell me the truth. Stop trying to wind me up.”

I put down my glass, went over to her, took her hand and led her to the settee where we sat together facing each other. “I am not kidding, things got out of hand. I shot them both.”

Sandra stared at me. I could see the disbelief written on her face. “No, not you, you couldn’t have, you wouldn’t have the nerve. You are too mild mannered, too quiet, too nice a person, I can’t imagine you doing anything like that, even if provoked.”

I related the whole story from the beginning, every detail. I explained how Archie Haines, the police Inspector, had told me that the old lady who Sandra had hit was a traveller and that it was probably her son and grandson who were the blackmailers. I told her that Archie had said they were violent and that was why I had really taken the gun, primarily for protection. I described how they had threatened to come back for more money and about being stopped by the police on my way home. When I finished her face was a picture. I could see amazement, fear, anger and something else that I couldn’t quite identify, was it satisfaction?

“I can’t believe it, you of all people, I never thought you had it in you to do something like that. It’s awful, terrible.” Sandra was saying what a dreadful act I had committed and without doubt she meant it but underneath I detected a grain of relief, of pleasure in knowing that we still had our money and that the blackmailers were out of the picture.

“Although I had the pistol, in the end it was really self-defence. They were coming at me and I’m sure they meant me serious harm. It was all I could do to protect myself.” I was trying to justify my actions to her but there was no need, under her soft skin my wife was really a tougher person than I ever was.

Even without her usual makeup and with the lines of worry etched on her face making her look older than her years, she was still an attractive woman, still desirable and suddenly, maybe partly due to the brandy, I felt as randy as hell.

“You’re not making it all up are you; just to appear macho in some way? This is not some stupid joke?”

“No, of course not,” I said, trying to quell my untimely sexual urge.

“My God,” she was finding it hard to understand but seemed to be accepting that I really had killed two people, then after thinking for a moment my wife took on a solemn air. “In that case are you certain that you didn’t leave any clues, nothing that can connect you with the shootings?”

“I’ve still got the gun. I don’t have a criminal record and I wiped my prints off everything I touched just in case. What else can there be?”

“Tyre tracks in the mud?”

“No, it was a gravelled surface. I’m sure the car would have left no tracks.”

“But the police stopped you. They will know you were near the forest at the time of the shooting. If they don’t have any other leads they will pursue every avenue, ask more questions of anyone around the area at the time. It won’t be straightaway, they’ll search the area first to try to find the murder weapon or any other clues but when they come up empty handed they’ll start looking for something else. That’s when they’ll come to people who were nearby at the time.”

“They weren’t taking names and addresses.”

“But you said the young officer recognised you. He’ll remember where you live.”

“I don’t think it will come to that. I am an upstanding citizen with no criminal record. Why should they suspect me?”

“Because you were in the vicinity, maybe you’re right, maybe I’m being too pessimistic but I’m a realist and I think we should take every precaution. First we have to get rid of, or hide the weapon. Have you got it?”

Only then did I realise that I still had my coat on. I pulled the gun out of my pocket. “Shit, I forgot to put the safety catch back on. I could have blown my legs off.”

“Or something worse,” she added and we both sniggered as I flicked the catch on and our laughter lightened the atmosphere.

“I know where we can hide it, at least for now. Come with me.” She rose from the settee and I was amazed at how quickly she had accepted the situation. We left the money strewn on the floor in an untidy heap and I followed her into the hall where she bent down at the base of the grandfather clock. Right at the bottom she tugged at what seemed to be a piece of the ornamental woodwork but it turned out to be a drawer that I didn’t know existed.

“This is the perfect place to hide it, for now, at least, until we can think of somewhere better.”

“I didn’t even know that compartment was there,” I said.

“Exactly, anyone looking at the clock would think it was solid. Give me the gun.”

I handed it to her and it fitted perfectly into the drawer. It made me wonder if her father had ever kept it there.

“Get me the boxes of ammunition .They will fit in here too.”

I fetched them and they fitted neatly in the corner and when Sandra pushed the drawer shut it blended into the rest of the old clock.

“Now your coat, take it off, we must destroy it.”

“What, why, I like this old coat,” I couldn’t understand what she was getting at.

“The gun has been in the pocket. If you did ever come under suspicion the police would examine the clothes you were wearing and I bet the forensic people would be able to tell that you carried a firearm. I watched a program on TV the other day about this kind of thing and it is amazing what they can do these days, the science has come on a long way. If they concluded that you carried a gun that would be pretty damning evidence wouldn’t you say?”

“Christ, I never thought of that. What are we going to do with it?”

“Burn it. You light the wood burner in the lounge and I’ll cut it into small pieces. We’ll burn it a bit at a time.”

“Can’t we just take it to a charity shop?”

“Too risky, the police could trace it.” Sandra thought for a minute. “The holdall that the money was in, you told them that your golf shoes were in it, yes?”

“That’s right,”

“Then take it into the garage and put the shoes in it and give it a shake so that some of the mud drops off into the bag. That way if they ever examined it they would find tiny pieces of mud in the bag and it would look more authentic. From now on that’s your golf shoe bag.”

I took off my coat and gave it to her. “You’re pretty good at this. Do you have some secret previous life that I don’t know about? I’m supposed to be mister fix it.”

I could hear her laughing as I went to light the fire. She had accepted my news so remarkably well that I could scarcely believe it.

We had trouble cutting up the coat. All our scissors were fairly blunt and didn’t want to go through the thick material but an hour later it was in small enough pieces to feed into the fire. Sandra sat in front of the glow putting in the bits one at a time, making sure each one had been reduced to ashes before dropping in the next.

“I’ll go and pay the money back into the bank tomorrow.” I said as I sat watching her.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” She answered as she fed another piece into the flames. “If you hadn’t done what you did and you had given the money to the blackmailers instead, we would have had almost nothing left.”

Sandra turned and looked at the bundles of notes that we had pushed to one side of the floor. “We would have been minus seventy five thousand pounds. Now we’re better off by that amount. It’s like; well it’s like winnings, like we’ve won the lottery or something, like a bonus. Why don’t we spend it?”

“It’s our life savings,” I argued.

She looked at me with a new firmer expression. “But we may not have had it had you not been so brave, so determined. In the bank it’s just numbers on an account, you don’t even think of it as money but when you see it like that, in twenty pound notes it suddenly becomes real. Christ we’re rich and we could have been poor. We’ve changed. Two weeks ago we were an ordinary couple living ordinary lives, now look at us, between us we have killed three people. We’re like a modern version of Bonnie and Clyde. Let’s go a little wild, let’s spend at least some of the money.”

I had to agree with her that we could have easily been minus the seventy five thousand. “I suppose you could have a couple of thousand and get some really nice outfits.”

Sandra joined in enthusiastically. “You could have that new set of Ping golf clubs you’ve been hankering after and we could go on a really exotic holiday to the States or Mexico or Barbados.”

“I think you’ve just won me over,” I said and we giggled like a couple of naughty children.

Sandra fed another piece of cloth to the flames. “When this is done I’m going to start looking for hotels. We don’t have to search for the cheapest, or the most economical, or the most sensible like we usually do, we can have the most expensive. We can have the best. We could be sitting here now with next to nothing. Let’s enjoy the fruits of your labour.”

Eight

While Sandra was burning the rest of the pieces of material I took the car to the nearest carwash. It was her suggestion. Although I thought it was unnecessary it did make sense to have the Ford thoroughly cleaned to remove any bits of mud or grit that could have come from the forest. I chose the super de-lux wash, the most expensive, as I was certain that would remove any traces of evidence.

When I got home Sandra had finished burning the coat and had put the money in my wardrobe under a pile of sweaters. We didn’t have a safe and she thought that the wardrobe was a good place to hide it.

“It’s the first place a burglar would look,” I commented when she told me where she had put it.

“Then you had better go into Folkestone and buy a safe, a good strong one.” It was clear from her tone that she did not want the money paid back into the bank. Somehow she seemed more energised, hyper, and I wondered if it was it the sight of the cash or the fact that I had killed two people that was spurring her on to this new level of action. The quiet, indecisive, sometimes panicky Sandra was changing into a more assertive self-assured woman.

After taking some money from our pile I went into town and bought a safe. It was a solid, heavy item and when I got home I had to get Sandra’s help to lift it out of the car and carry it indoors. I then spent a chunk of the day reading the fixing instructions that came with it and bolting it securely to a solid wall in a cupboard under the stairs, another place in our home that was filled with clutter.

When we were both satisfied that it was securely fixed to the wall we put most of the money inside, selected a memorable number for the combination lock and closed it. Hiding the thing was the easy part. There were enough boxes and items already under the stairs to cover it and make it invisible.

I breathed a sigh of relief. With the evidence of the murders burned and the money locked away I felt more relaxed and secure. At least now, if I came under suspicion there was no obvious evidence to convict me but I was still firmly under the belief that it would never come to that.

On impulse I suggested, “Let’s go out tonight, anywhere you want, have a really good meal and a bottle of wine. Let’s start spending some of that money we’ve had locked up in those damn bank accounts.”

Sandra didn’t need any encouragement. I suppose my profession had made me naturally careful with money over the years but now I had broken the rules, killed two people, I was looking at life from a new prospective. Instead of guilt and self-loathing I felt as though I had been set free from the bonds of normal society. We had always been a steady, stoic couple, bound by the chains of convention and habitual routine, now all that had changed. We were different people with new and unknown objectives.

“We could go up to London, go somewhere really swanky then stay at a hotel overnight, let our hair down.” Sandra looked at me with a sexy meaningful grin. “Or we could just go into Folkestone, go to that expensive place that overlooks the harbour then come back here and go to town in a different way. I’ll spoil you, make your toes curl.”

“That sounds great and it sounds better,” I laughed.

“And then I’ll start trawling the internet for our holiday of a lifetime. We are going to start living.” Sandra booked the restaurant for seven thirty.

At six o’clock, while Sandra was upstairs in the bedroom getting ready to go out I perched on the edge of a settee and switched on the television for the evening news. It was habit, a pattern I couldn’t break. The national news was the usual mix of wars, politicians arguing and new claims of paedophilia. I wasn’t really interested in any of it. It was the local news I wanted to see and when that started there was no doubt as to the main story.

The introductory music was accompanied by outside broadcast shots of the track in the forest where I had been that morning. Blue and white police tape was strung across the entrance keeping the camera crews to the roadside but with the mist almost gone you could see the police activity at the far end. White covers had been erected over the track where the bodies had fallen and police forensic officers in their white coveralls were moving around. The pick-up truck was no longer in sight, probably removed to be searched and dusted for prints.

As the music finished the focus turned to the pair of regular newsreaders sitting behind their desk in the studio. Jeff Long and Angela Burton, the news anchors both had long serious faces and it was Jeff who started the report.

“Good evening. Our main story tonight is a shooting that took place this morning in Lyminge forest. Two men were gunned down on a lonely track in the forest at some time around seven thirty. A single gunman was seen leaving the forest in a blue saloon car, the make of which is uncertain.”

A smile crept onto my lips. My car had not been identified.

Angela Burton took over the report. “A witness who had been walking his dog nearby saw the car as it sped away. The two victims were both shot twice and were found to be dead at the scene. The police are describing the murders as an execution type killing and are appealing for anyone who was in the vicinity this morning to come forward and speak to them. We are going over now to our reporter John Bishop, who is at the scene.”

The camera shot returned once more to the end of the track and a frosty looking John Bishop standing in front of it.

“This normally quiet part of rural Kent was shattered this morning by the sound of four gunshots.” He was holding the microphone close to his mouth and his usually stylish grey hair was blowing in the wind as he continued. “The police are not at this time able to give an interview but they have informed me that they think the murders may be drug related. The two victims, who were brothers………..”

I didn’t hear the rest of John Bishop’s report. Did he say bothers? Archie Haines had said that the Romanian travellers who were looking for the killer of their mother, were her son and grandson, making them father and son, so who were the two men I had shot? I remembered that at the time their age difference didn’t seem that great but I had not thought any more about it.

I resumed my concentration just as the reporter was speculating on what the brothers were doing in the forest at that time of the morning. Next he introduced the witness and the camera panned round onto the man I had seen coming out of the forest. When I was driving away he had been too far off for me to see him clearly in the mirror but I knew it must be the dog walker.

“Mr Shawcross, would you tell us exactly what you saw?” asked the reporter.

The man was probably in his sixties, tall and thin and was wearing a Barbour coat that looked as if it had seen better days. His dog was on a lead and standing next to him with its tail wagging furiously as though it was pleased to be receiving so much attention. Mr Shawcross spoke with a country accent that grated on the ear.

“I was walking the dog as I do every mornin’ when I ‘ears this almighty bang. I knows it’s a gun and so does ol’ Shep ‘ere. He goes a runnin’ orf in the direction of the shot when I ‘ears another one. I goes after ‘im but I ain’t that quick any more. There’s two more shots and by the time I gets to the clearin’ all I see is two bodies on the ground and a car speedin’ away down the track. It’s foggy and I can’t see the number or the make but it was a blue car that’s for sure.”

“Were the victims dead when you arrived?”

“Oh sure they were. Their ‘eads were nearly blowd orf. All I could do is phone the cops. They got ‘ere quick mind, they got ‘ere real quick.”

“And you didn’t see the driver of the vehicle that pulled away?”

“No, ‘e was already in the car and drivin’ orf when I got ‘ere.”

“Thank you Mister Shawcross.” The camera returned to the reporter. “That was the gentleman who heard the gunshots and was near enough to see the killer drive away. The police are appealing for anyone who may have any information about this horrendous crime to contact them as soon as possible. Now I also have with me the father of the two men who were shot today.”

John Bishop swivelled around towards his new interviewee, speaking as he did so. “Thank you for being with us sir at such a terrible time.”

The camera panned onto the new face and my jaw dropped open. Standing in the cold was someone I recognised. The small wizened figure was shorter than the reporter and stood, shoulders hunched against the wind, with his hands in the pockets of an overcoat that looked two sizes too big. The camera zoomed in on the hawkish face and I immediately saw the likeness between the man on the screen and the long haired lout that I had shot that morning. The dark eyes, the long nose and thin face were so similar that I wondered why I had not seen it before.

It was Terry Bovey.

“Do you have any idea why anyone would do something like this to your sons?” asked John Bishop moving the microphone towards the shorter man for his reply.

Terry Bovey was looking straight into the camera lens and it felt as though he was looking straight at me when he spoke. “I don’t know who could do such a thing to my boys. They were good boys. I know that they have been in a little trouble from time to time, they’ve had their problems but they never hurt anybody, they never deserved anything like this.”

The only way Terry’s sons could have known about Sandra’s accident was if he had told them. That meant that he must surely have a good idea that I was their killer but if that was the case why hadn’t he told the police? Perhaps he didn’t know they were blackmailing me. That made more sense. I didn’t think he would be involved in their crime, in which case I was still safe. I leaned back on the sofa and let out a long slow sigh of relief but I could still not be certain. The only way to make sure I was in the clear was to go and see him and sound him out on what he knew. I made up my mind that I would call at his workshop first thing in the morning.

John Bishop thanked Terry for speaking to him so soon after his appalling loss and the news report returned to the studio. I turned off the TV just as Sandra came downstairs and entered the room. All thoughts of Terry Bovey were gone when I saw her. She was stunning.

Sandra was wearing a short sleeved, knee length little black dress that she had not worn for several years. “I have put on some weight since I last wore this. Do you think it’s too tight?” she asked as she spun around.

“Wow, definitely not,” was my appreciative reply. It was a little tighter than when she last wore it but to my mind that was a definite plus. “It shows off your figure. It’s great.”

“You would say that, I think I’ll change.” She said, uncertain.

“No, no don’t do that, you look fantastic.” It took a little more persuading but in the end she agreed to wear the dress.

The evening was a complete success. I did not mention Terry Bovey or his sons as I knew that would spoil it, instead we talked about the holiday we were planning and discussed possible exotic destinations. In the end we both agreed that Barbados was the place to go and Sandra said she would start researching the island the next day.

The food in the restaurant was great, the wine was good and the service excellent but the bill was eye watering. It didn’t matter. This was our new life, where we didn’t count the pennies or worry about the cost.

As I was to be the one who drove us home I was very careful not to drink too much, so Sandra had most of the wine and by the time we got back she was a little tipsy. When we were inside the house and had closed the front door behind us she threw off her coat and flung her arms around me.

“It’s been quite a day and a lovely evening,” she said and we shared a passionate kiss in the hallway like two teenagers on a first date. Neither of us pulled away and I knew that I wanted her desperately. Sandra looked fantastic and although we were almost an old married couple, at that moment it seemed as though we were two completely different people.

Our kissing became more passionate and I felt the soft curves of her body through the tight black dress. She leaned back against the hall wall as I gently ran my hands all over her. Our lips never parted and I could feel my desire increasing with each passing minute. I very slowly eased up the dress from knee height to above her thighs.

When my hands touched her legs I was amazed and enthralled to find that below the figure hugging garment she was wearing stockings and suspenders. Still with her lips on mine she reached behind her and with one hand pulled down the zip at the back of the dress. We parted for a moment as she slid her arms out of the top of the tight clothing and let it fall to reveal her breasts. A tiny black lacy bra only just covered her nipples. She drew me towards her and we resumed our passionate kissing. My hands roamed over the bare skin of her outer thighs above the stockings sending a tingling feeling through my whole body.

I could not remember the last time I was so sexually aroused and I could hardly believe that Sandra had become so uninhibited that she was letting me fondle her like this in the hall. Although our sex life had always been good Sandra always insisted that it was only for the bedroom and even when partly drunk she would never allow any intimacy outside that domain.

Tonight she was acting like a different woman, uninhibited and promiscuous and I was intent on making the most of it. As our kissing became even more unrestrained I moved my hand around to the inside of her thigh and felt the soft tender skin. For some reason touching her like this gave me more of a thrill than ever before and when her legs parted slightly it were as though we were new lovers, new people. It felt as though we were making love for the very first time.