DEATHLOOP (14 page)

Everyone heard about Zack kicking Sam’s door down, but the strange show of emotion that followed remained a secret between them, as did Zack’s subsequent confession. This is what Zack said:

Zack’s mother, Astrid, the only daughter of a wealthy property developer, and very beautiful, had dreadful taste in men. Zack’s father, Dan, was an alcoholic and barely able to look after himself, let alone a wife and child. Pretty soon he became an unwelcome fixture in the small town of Melton Mowbray, lurching down the main street, begging people for coppers for his next bottle of booze. In the end, Astrid blotted him out of their lives, and Zack, whenever asked, would say his father was a captain in the Navy and always away at sea. But unfortunately for Zack, the sorry legion of men Astrid found to take Dan’s place were just as needy and much more abusive. Every night, either from downstairs or through his bedroom walls, Zack was forced to listen to the mystifying and rather alarming sounds of his mother engaging in hours and hours of rough sex - it was the backdrop to his childhood.

Zack hated these men, every last one. They were all kind to him at first, then, as they became complacent, confident that Astrid knew her place, they would start their bullying and their baiting until Zack longed for the next one to arrive just to go through the short honeymoon period again. Zack began to hate his mother just as much. He loved her, because she loved him, or said she did, but he hated her too. He saw her as weak, vain, coquettish, unable to be alone with Zack, unable to enjoy being with him unless some bastard was in the background providing her with the romantic horseplay and sordid sex that made her feel alive. This made Zack wretched. How worthless he must be he decided for his mother to prefer the attentions of these cretins to him.

One day, Richard, Astrid’s latest, had insisted on taking Zack fishing. And Zack knew why as well. Richard had started sneaking into Zack’s bedroom at nights when Astrid was working at the call centre, telling Zack as he put his big grubby hand over his mouth that if anyone found out about them and what they were doing Richard would kill him. Consequently, Zack pleaded with Astrid not to send him on this so-called fishing trip, but Zack’s objections got him nowhere and off they went.

Zack could still recall the journey in some detail: the creaking of the leather seats when either of them moved, the hum of the engine, and the lingering smell of Richard’s cheroots that puffed out their exotic musty smoke. The Jag was years old, some relic Richard had been restoring, but it made short work of the motorway, and then ploughed on into the repetitiveness of the countryside: tall hedgerows, featureless fields, dirty green verges.

Once they were parked up in a winding scrubby road that led through a forest, Richard continued with the pretence by pulling out fishing rods and a wicker hamper from the boot. As they set off through the hostile trees, their feet crunching over layers of brittle leaves, Zack fought with a desolate foreboding, a sense that here in this alien landscape he was utterly alone, utterly without help.

A stroke at an early age had left Richard with some paralysis down his left side, so he walked with a stick, a stick Zack had often longed to kick away, maybe causing another stroke if he was lucky or better still, maybe causing his death. They had barely arrived at the end of the little wooden jetty that overhung the deep water of the lake by some 100 yards, when Richard had grabbed him. His large face pressed up to his, a gash of a smile exposing a gloomy graveyard of crooked, tombstone teeth, and a lizard of a white crowned tongue. At home, Richard’s assaults on Zack had at least been in private, but here, open to the elements, exposed, like sitting ducks, Zack was horrified that this was the proposed venue for Richard’s hateful actions. What if someone saw? Zack would be so ashamed. So for the first time he fought back, snatching Richard’s stick he lashed out with it, catching him hard across his forehead with a hollow clunk.

Richard looked stunned when the stick made contact, the force of it causing him to stagger backwards and fall into the water with a huge, untidy, comic splash. Moments later he bobbed up again and laboriously began wading towards the muddy bank and dry land. But Zack, anticipating, ran back along the jetty and as Richard struggled from the water, he hit him across his head with the stick again, then kicked him under his chin. Richard fell back, disoriented, splashing about in the water until the lake, like a huge black greedy kitten lapped him up and devoured him.

Richard surfaced briefly just once more, looking weakened, shocked, deathly pale, unable to find his footing on the shifting stones beneath him. He stretched out his hand to Zack, but Zack made no attempt to take it. Instead, he remained motionless, watching with childish curiosity as the swell of the water hauled Richard deeper, folding over him finally and dragging him down.

It occurred to Zack at that moment, that if he dived into the lake he could possibly pull Richard out and save his life. But Zack did not want to save Richard’s life, and as he was King of the Castle, Richard, dirty rascal that he was, did not have a hope.

Zack waited until the surface of the lake was tranquil again and without any hint of the drama that had just taken place. Then, he made his way back along the jetty, squatted there on the rough wooden boards, his legs swinging over the side and opened up the hamper. Zack knew that he would always remember the contents of that hamper: cheese and tomato sandwiches, Scotch eggs, apples, a couple of cartons of juice and Kit-Kats. He chomped his way through the food, guarding his quarry that he imagined wafting in and out of the weeds beneath him like a human submarine, just a few minutes dead. Ducks swam up and bobbed down, and Zack found himself wondering whether they were pecking at Richard already.
Goodness, what a feast!
He rather liked the idea of providing the mallards with their monster food supply, and wondered if, in their own little way they were thanking him for it as they squawked and circled.

Later, as a vapid sun started its descent beneath the sprawling squadron of inky black trees, Zack made his way back through the creepy forest, up towards the main road and flagged down a car. They weren’t sure at first, Geraldine and Kenneth McDonald as their classic Triumph Herald jolted to an uncertain stop. But as a tearful Zack raced up they knew they had done the right thing.

In the police station Zack made a pretty good fist of appearing upset, because he’d been upset often enough to know how to do it. Everyone was fooled. And anyway, who would believe this exquisite child could be capable of serious mischief or murder? He was questioned by a WPC who spoke very softly, careful, or so it seemed to Zack, not to say the wrong thing. Whenever she mentioned something a little awkward, like the marks on Richard’s head for instance and how he came by them, Zack started to cry, until Astrid pleaded with the woman to stop.

Zack knew enough about police investigations to know that never in a million years would they be able to pin Richard’s death on him. Left to his own devices while his mother was bouncing off the walls of her bedroom with her bunk-ups, he had watched hours and hours of television cop shows and knew all about evidence and the proof that was required to make charges stick.

Consequently, Zack knew that if he maintained his ‘traumatised child persona’ which he had been working on all afternoon, he was in the clear.

What was best of all about Richard’s death was that it seemed to bring Astrid to her senses for a while. She made a fuss of Zack, and when he pleaded with her not to bring any more boyfriends to the house, she’d agreed, saying that it was just the two of them from now on, forever. This arrangement lasted for all of three months, but it was the best three months Zack could remember. Then, another no-hoper moved in and it all began again.

There were lots of other things Zack could have told Sam but he reckoned this piece of information would probably stem his curiosity, and of course it did. Sam felt rather ashamed that he’d bullied Zack into revealing such momentous events, despite also feeling extremely honoured that he had done so. At the time, Sam could not have cared less about Richard and was hugely impressed at Zack’s enterprise at the age of nine in doing away with him. Now it was their own special secret and it served to fulfil many needs. Sam now knew why Zack was so reluctant to discuss his childhood, and so no longer felt their friendship compromised, and Zack felt that he had shared something with Sam he would never share with anyone else, safe in the knowledge that this bound them together even more, presenting as it did obligations on both sides.

As far as Sam was concerned, Zack may as well have handed him the crown jewels, he told Zack he would guard the information with his life.

Zack’s door had been replaced by another one which looked exactly the same, but of course there was a different lock, which meant that the keys Susan had taken off with her would be useless if it ever came into her head to try the same thing again.

All things considered, Zack conceded that it was surprising this kind of thing had not happened before. Barring a few crazy stunts like Amber and the graffiti on the science block, plus a couple of black eyes, a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder and two chipped incisors, he had come out of all his wild relationships unscathed. And now that he had put some distance on the humiliation of being dragged to the local cop shop and accused of rape, an activity he found abhorrent on every level, he was beginning to put the whole thing into perspective. There could be no concrete evidence that sex took place, because it didn’t, he felt sure it didn’t, so it was Susan’s word against his. On the basis that he had wanted out of the relationship and had told her so, why would he then change his mind and demand sex? It didn’t make sense. (Something else that didn’t make sense but Zack told himself not to dwell on that.) The pills were another matter. He decided to ring Sid to get the low down.

“How should I know what they are?” said Sid, sounding more than a little affronted by the question.

“Come on Sid, you must have some idea”.

“They been kicking around a long while I tell you. Why? You want some more?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I could probably get some more…”

“I just want to know what they are, that’s all.”

“I and I make myself busy on your account, Mr Fortune,” said Sid, picking up the tension in Zack’s voice, “Sid Johnson put himself about a bit and see what he can do.”

Zack took Sam’s advice and for the next few days laid low, but he felt cooped up in his flat and in the city for that matter, and although he didn’t subscribe to the theory that his life had gone out of kilter because of stress, he decided that a trip out of town might just confirm it one way or the other. He could deal with a rape charge, stemming as it did from the real world, even a drugs charge if needs be, but the suicide and the old boy were very different.

“Veronica, it’s Zack.”

“Well thanks for getting back to me,” said Veronica, miffed.

“I lost my phone,” he said, which was almost true.

“Really?”

“I’ve got a new one now, but never mind all that. Come away with me.”

“Where to?” said Veronica, surprised.

“Derbyshire,” he said, plucking a county from his head.

“What happens in Derbyshire?”

“Well… they breed sheep, and they make cheese.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said in a monotone.

“It will be with me, Derbyshire and Zack Fortune is a combination that is second to none.”

Yes I can believe that, thought Veronica but she didn’t say it. “Some of us have work to do you know,” she said instead, not prepared to make it easy for him just yet.

“Framing pictures, yes of course, I forgot about that.”

“I own a gallery and I paint, and it’s not a hobby. If the gallery is closed, my paintings don’t sell and nor do anyone else’s.”

“Get someone to take over for a few days.”

“And if I just can’t find anyone?”

“Then I go alone, and we forget all about it.”

Zack knew Veronica would agree in the end and he knew how to wangle it too. “Listen, forget it, I don’t want to come between a girl and her paintings, God forbid.”

“Well I
might
be able to make it work,” said Veronica, after the required silence.

“No sweat,” said Zack, and then with a sense of finality, “another time”.

Veronica told Zack that she would make a couple of calls. It didn’t take long for her to report back that her sister would help out, and so she was free to tag along. Zack pretended to be pleasantly surprised, but he’d known the outcome from the moment he’d called her, he was an expert on all this after all.

His father, drunk as usual, had once told him that if a woman ever said she was thinking of leaving, be sure to open up the door. Of course at the age of 6 Zack didn’t know what the hell he was on about, but it stayed with him and what good advice it turned out to be. The more he opened doors, the more all these women refused point blank to walk through them. It worked every time.

The plan was to pick Veronica up from her flat in Islington and for them to set off from there. Veronica told Zack that her sister Miriam would be around and that he could meet her. Zack was not remotely interested in meeting Veronica’s sister. He always avoided family get-togethers as a matter of course, usually just refusing to turn up, knowing full well that he was there simply to be given the once over no matter how much people pretended otherwise. Zack could not have cared less whether a wily old dad or a dumpy old aunt gave him the seal of approval, added to which, if he so desired, he could pass any test set him with flying colours so it was all pretty meaningless. He knew how to win people’s approval, it was second nature to Zack Fortune after all, but why the hell should he be put through it?

Zack realised he would have to pretend he knew something about Derbyshire, because he didn’t, he didn’t even know really where it was. But that was a good thing he decided, he had become bogged down in the city and its preoccupations and he needed a change of scene. He had no intention of becoming a sheep farmer or anything like that, but for a few days he was looking forward to the stimulation of pastures new.