Bull Running For Girlsl (32 page)

It seemed to Vince that he had only been asleep for a fraction of a second, but the dream was real enough. He dreamt of a dark, dismal wood. He was struggling up a hill. Before him lay three terrible beasts
—
a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. The wolf was coming down the path towards him, saliva dripping from its mouth in that hungry kind of way that dogs do. But this was no dog, just the biggest fucking thing Vince had ever seen, twice as tall as himself and twice…no, make that a
thousand
times uglier. As it drew closer Vince backed up: not too much, mind, because he didn’t want the wolf, the leopard
or
the blasted lion to think he was afraid. No, not Vince Taylor. He wasn’t fucking afraid of anything (except dead Mary and Nurse Gladeye.)

The wolf crept closer. Vince backed up some more. The wolf came even closer. Again, Vince backed up, and then he could see amid the dark shadows that the wolf had something in its mouth. Vince froze; the wolf dropped something at his feet
—
a hand
—
and what’s more, it was Mary’s left hand. Vince recognised it from the gold and silver wedding ring, third finger. The wolf merely sat there on its haunches and smiled. Next thing Vince knew, there was Milo with this huge wolf-thing, stroking it and the leopard and lion were strolling round and jumping up at him like two fairground puppies (the leopard and lion were much smaller than the colossal wolf, so
that
was all right then).

Milo picked up the grisly remains of his wife’s hand and walked off with all animals in tow up the hill, into the dark woods.
Now, what was that all about?
Vince turned on his heel and scooted down the pathway away from those dark woods. He stumbled in his nightmare and woke himself up.

He struggled to open his eyes. The book had fallen to the floor. Vince sat up and as he did so his hand slipped under the pillow. He felt something cold and pulled it out. The object was not in his hand long enough to leave a smear of blood or anything. He was horrified and began bouncing the thing from hand to hand
—
then he finally threw it against the wall. It wasn’t in his hand long enough, no
—
but
just
long enough to leave scratches on his skin
—fi
ve
deep
scratch marks.

The door creaked and Milo stepped over Mary’s hand, gold and silver wedding ring and all, but turned his nose up in disgust, and deposited a tray of porridge on Vince’s lap.

“You put that there, Milo. You
—
wormtail shit, didn’t you?” The tray was shaking on Vince’s lap.

“I don’t think so, not my style you see. More Gladeye’s thing, if you ask me.”

“Well. I’m not asking I’m telling. It was you Milo, you shit.”

“Would the person who is considerate enough to bring you breakfast in bed be putting
that
under your pillow?”

Vince threw the tray aside, jumped up and pinned Milo against the wall. “If you didn’t put it there how did you know it was under my pillow? Crud. How?”

Milo spluttered, indicating he needed to speak. Vince relented, a little.

“Things are always found under the pillow; roses, love letters, teeth. For glory’s sake the tooth fairy puts stuff there!”

Vince slammed him again. “Admit it, you’re a liar
—
a damned liar!” Then he let go.

Milo choked and spluttered again. “D-Damned?... I think the only one who is
damned
is you, Vince Taylor. After all, I’m not the man who sewed his own wife’s mouth up, not to mention what happened to her hands
—
and feet. If anyone is going to Hell
—
” Milo pointed at the book, “it’s you
—
you’re suffering, in fact if you don’t repent you’ll
stay
here. No little side trips for you, no roundabout course of retribution, straight in and no
—
will he go to purgatory first? Straight in
—
no toll charge, no forgiveness, no nothing! Except burning in the eternal fires of Hell. No Elysian field, no rejoicing with your loved ones (because of what you did to her), just the eternal damnation in the eternal fires of
—
”

“You said that already.” Vince kicked him hard in the mouth
—
it seemed the only good way to shut up his ranting.

Vince heard a noise behind him: just before the lights went out for the second time in the last twelve hours.

On wakening, he felt drowsy and was loathe to open his eyes. Perhaps nurse Gladeye had given himself something from her magic bag? He had a crashing headache. He saw Milo sitting on the end of his bed, nursing a buggered lip, with his eyes full of reproach and yes, pity.

“You can still make it out one day—if you would only embrace the possibility that what you did was very, very wrong.”

“I know I did wrong,” replied Vince.

“Do you really mean that, Vincent?”

Vince couldn’t work this guy out. One minute, for God’s sake, he seemed to admire what Vince had done to his wife, the next, Milo condemned him.

“No one ever calls me Vincent, except Mary and my mother. D’you hear that, Milo?”

“Yes, Vincent. I mean
Vince
. Did you read any of the books?” Milo asked.

“Yes, that
Divine Comedy
, but it didn’t make me laugh. I just fell asleep and had the worst goddamn nightmare.”

“Really, Vince, what sort of nightmare?”

“One about a blasted wolf, twice the size of me or more.”

“And was there a lion and a leopard there too, Vince?”

“What?”

“
The Divine Comedy
is an allegorical tale, it isn’t meant to be funny.”

“You’re right about that, it ain’t funny at all. What’s with you? Yesterday you said it took a lot of courage to do what I did.”

“What’s with me Vince? With me? I don’t recall me doing any such thing. Let’s get back that allegory. Do you know what allegory is, Vince?” he said without taking much of a breath, “a story or description in which the characters and events symbolise some deeper underlying meaning.”

“Jesus, Milo, I can’t even think straight let alone think about God. How much hell does a man have to go through until he gets some peace?”

“An infinite amount, Vince. An infinite amount.”

“Will you damn-well stop repeating yourself man.”

“Repeating myself, Vince, repeating myself? Well I suppose I do sometimes when I’m agitated
—
yes.” Milo smoothed down the front of his white, buttoned jacket. The kind that dentist’s wear but never gets splashed with patient’s blood.

“Milo, do you have to hang around me? Couldn’t you just leave me alone to my own thoughts? I’d kinda like to make my way through this mess without any distractions.”

“Just as you wish. Would you like me to remove the hand?”

Vince took a deep breath and his eyes, before his mouth, answered everything.

“Of course I’d like you to remove the hand.”

Milo picked it up, held it as if making an introduction, and with a sheepish smile on his face turned to leave.

“Wait!” Vince snapped, sharper than a starving croc at an eat-
as-much-as-you-want diner.

“I want her wedding ring.”

Milo put the hand on Vince’s tray and without too much disruption of the skin, managed to prise the ring off the finger.

Vince snatched the ring and put it on his wedding finger, in place of the ring he had removed after Mary’s funeral.

“I don’t know if I should let you keep that. I could put it in the safe
—
”

“This ring is staying on my finger until I prove I didn’t kill my wife
—
got that?”

“But you did dismember her?”

“Dismembering ain’t killing
—
got that too?”

“Yes, I have that too, Vince, but you really don’t have to shout. Now
—
are you going to eat your porridge?”

Vince looked at Mary’s grey hand (that was beginning to ooze something that didn’t look like blood this time.)

“No thank you, Milo. I don’t think I’m hungry enough.”

Frances St. Germaine took it upon herself to visit Vince and was granted permission quickly, as was always the case when a funeral director came to call.

After they briefly discussed the last of the details concerning his wife’s grave, Vince whispered to Frances all about Mary’s visit. Frances didn’t look surprised.

“I know. It wasn’t Mary that I buried in the casket. I just weighted it down with sand.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I wanted to keep her around and get her to tell someone else what was going on.”

“Did she?”

“No. She played dead for my brother. Wouldn’t talk. He thought I was crazy for not burying her and wanted to tell the coroner.”

“Did you stop him?”

“Yes
—
for now.”

“I’m telling you, Mary is here, right in this piss-poor place, and what’s more, Milo has seen her too. Well, part of her. Gladeye
—
Penelope Maple
—
is part of it.” Vince swept the hair out of his eyes. “Hey
—
wait a minute who
did
kill Mary?”

“Geoff Newbury.”

“The coroner?”

“Yes
—
the coroner.”

“You mean that so-called, respectable coroner?”

“Yes, Vince
—
the coroner. We have to stop Newbury from killing again,” Frances said.

“And just how do you stop a county coroner from doing that? Who would believe us? You never spoke out when I was arrested.”

“Would you have?”

Vince shook his head.

“Times up.” said an attendant.

“I’ll think of something, Vince.”

When Vince woke up he found himself in some sort of cellar. The hospital had many of them but not one decked out like the laboratory that belonged to Doctor Frankenstein.

The light was bright enough for him to see a morgue table, and on that table was obviously a body covered in a sheet. Geoff Newbury was hovering over the table. He didn’t look as composed as he usually did and he was wearing a smeared, rubber apron.

“You bastard
—
you didn’t kill her too, did you?” Vince groaned.

The door opened and Gladeye entered pulling Frances (who looked like she had been given something from the magic bag) in with her.

“Thank God,” said Vince.

“Ah, Miss Germaine. I need to explain. I hope you are not going to be too distressed by what I had to do?”

Frances looked him straight in the eye. “You’ll get caught. I know all about it. Others know too!” she threatened. “My brother, my brother will tell.”

“You mean this brother, Frances?”

The coroner pulled the sheet off the body, or what was left of the limbless body. Frances could still recognise her brother’s face and the blonde hair. She started to weep.

“Why do this
—
why
?”

“You are asking that
—
in a mental institution? It’s all about you, Frances, always will be, from now on. Mary is back where she should be now. I’ll see that she doesn’t get out again.”

The door slowly opened and Milo stepped into the room. He pointed a gun at Newbury and Galadeye
—
mild mannered Milo smiled at Vince.

Frances walked unsteadily over to her brother. She touched him gently on the cheek and Vince pulled her away.

“There’s nothing to be done for him now, Frances.”

In shock, though still partly sedated, Frances held on tightly to Vince. He moved slowly towards the door.

“We’ll get some help Milo and we’ll come back for you.”

“I can’t leave here, Vincent. I can never leave here.”

Vince looked down at the ring on his finger, took it off and gave it to Milo. “I think that I need to move on now.”

Milo smiled at him. “I rather think that you do, Vincent. I rather think you do.”

Vince was about to catch Milo about the name again but he thought better of it. “See you around, Milo.”

“Oh, you will, Vincent
—
you will.”

As he helped Frances down the corridor Vince could hear Milo’s soft voice.

“What shall we do whilst we wait? I know, let’s talk about Dante’s
Divine Comedy
. Now
—
in which circle of Hell do you think you both belong? Any suggestions?”