Epitaph (29 page)

Paul saw the blade as it turned in the air, jerked free of Gina’s jacket.

He took a step back, his smile fading rapidly.

‘Tell me the truth,’ Gina said breathlessly, her gaze fixed upon him.

‘I’ve told you,’ Paul protested.

‘About Laura,’ she went on.

‘How many times do I have to repeat it?’ Paul told her exasperatedly. ‘I never killed your daughter, Gina. He told you that because he wanted me dead.’ Paul jabbed a finger at Frank. ‘He found out about us and he wanted revenge. It was never anything to do with your daughter.’

‘So what about the others?’ Gina said, turning her head to look at her husband. ‘Why did they have to die? Did you know they were innocent as well?’

‘They could have been the killer,’ Frank explained.

‘Others?’ Paul blurted. ‘You’ve done this to other people?’

‘We would have done it to a hundred men if it meant punishing the one who murdered Laura,’ Frank told him.

‘But you picked on me because of my relationship with Gina,’ Paul said.

‘Relationship?’ Frank grunted. ‘How can you call it that? How can you dignify it by calling it a relationship? You met up for sex when you felt like it. When you could sneak away together. Don’t try and call that a relationship.’

‘Whatever you want to call it, that’s why you put me in a fucking coffin and tortured me?’ Paul protested.

‘Do you blame me?’ Frank bellowed, raising the shovel before him.

Paul readied himself for the attack he felt sure would come.

‘So what you said about taking something from Laura, that was a lie, too?’ Gina offered.

‘It’s all been lies, how many times?’ Paul told her. ‘I knew you’d never let me out of that coffin unless I confessed. I couldn’t confess because I hadn’t done anything so I had to invent something. Telling you I’d taken something from your little girl was my last chance. I knew if you didn’t go for that then I was dead.’

Gina looked at Frank, tears now openly rolling down her cheeks.

‘We’re never going to find him, are we?’ she said. ‘The man who killed Laura will get away with it.’

‘What more can we do?’ Frank asked her.

‘I’m so sorry about your daughter,’ Paul offered.

‘And are you sorry about what you did to our marriage?’ Frank wanted to know.

‘I never meant anyone to be hurt,’ Paul confessed.

He looked at Gina and smiled thinly.

‘Did you love me?’ she asked, sniffing. ‘Would you ever have loved me?’

‘We both knew what we were involved in, Gina,’ Paul told her almost apologetically. ‘I would never have hurt you.’

‘But you never loved me,’ she cried.

Paul swallowed hard.

‘Did you?’ she sobbed.

He took a step closer, wanting to comfort her, struggling to find the words she wanted so badly to hear.

‘I would never have hurt you,’ he murmured, one hand outstretched towards her. I swear it.’

‘What would you swear on?’ Gina asked tearfully. ‘You made me swear on Laura’s soul.’

‘I had to. It was the only way I could get through to you,’ Paul protested.

Frank dropped the shovel in resignation. It landed with a wet thud at his feet.

‘It’s over,’ Paul whispered. ‘Everything finishes here and now. I’ll walk away. Neither of you will see me again. I won’t call the police. I won’t press charges. Let’s all get on with our lives. Let’s all grab our second chance with both hands.’ He even managed a smile.

Gina looked directly at him, her eyes overflowing with tears, a look of despair on her features.

‘For eighteen months you wouldn’t speak to me,’ she sobbed.

‘It wasn’t that I wouldn’t speak to you,’ Paul countered. ‘I didn’t know what I could have said that would have helped. I thought it would be best for both of us if we didn’t see each other.’

‘I couldn’t contact you,’ she roared at him. ‘I couldn’t even speak to you on the phone. You wouldn’t return my calls when I rang you at work and at the time I needed you most.’

Frank shot her an angry glance.

‘When Laura was killed I wanted to speak to you,’ Gina continued, the volume of her voice receding even if the fury didn’t. ‘I needed you but you didn’t care.’

‘I thought it was best to stay away,’ Paul said apologetic -ally. ‘I didn’t want to intrude. I knew what you must be going through.’

‘You had no idea what we were going through,’ Gina snarled. ‘None at all. How could you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Paul offered perfunctorily.

‘Sorry?’ she gasped. ‘So did someone else take my place for a few months? Did you find someone else to fuck while you couldn’t fuck me?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he cooed. ‘Try and understand why I couldn’t see you then. If I could have I would. I’m sorry if you thought I’d hurt you.’

Paul took a step towards her, his hands outstretched.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated and a faint smile flickered on his lips. ‘Forgive me?’

Gina moved nearer to him, tears still coursing down her cheeks.

She was still crying when she rammed the knife into his throat.

The blade slammed into his larynx, sheared through it and penetrated as far as his spine.

Paul tried to make a sound but his windpipe had been severed and the only noise he could utter was a liquid gurgle as blood jetted from the wound. He pulled feebly at the hilt of the knife, trying to wrench it free, but the handle was slippery with his blood and he couldn’t get a good enough grip on it.

His lips moved soundlessly as he tried to mouth words. Inside his head, however, the words formed and stood out briefly with searing radiance.

You’re dying. Look at the blood.

There was curiously little pain apart from the edges of the wound. Paul was aware of a startling coldness around the blade, even the part of it lodged in his throat. The blood was pouring down his chest, soaking into his robe and spattering the wet mud at his feet.

Gina and Frank Hacket watched him silently, seeing him drop to his knees before them.

Gina had stopped crying and was now standing motionless, her hands at her sides as she watched Paul dying before her.

Not now. Not like this. I got out of that coffin and now I’m going to die like this. It isn’t fair.

Paul felt dizzy and his entire body began to shake.

He saw Frank Hacket pick up the dropped shovel, heft it before him and take a step closer to him.

‘What we do we do together,’ Frank murmured and Paul wasn’t even sure whom the words were directed at.

All he was aware of was Frank swinging the shovel at him as if it was a golf club.

The metal caught Paul full in the face and splintered his nose with ease. The sound of shattering bones was clearly audible and Paul was knocked backwards by the impact, his head filled with a dull ringing sound. He lay where he fell, eyes looking up at the rain-filled sky and at the two figures standing above him.

Consciousness was draining from him as surely as water from a cracked container. He gripped a handful of wet mud and felt it ooze through his clutching fingers. He felt so terribly cold apart from the warmth of his own blood that now covered his entire upper body and his face.

Frank Hacket raised the shovel over his head with both hands, glaring down at Paul, but there was a look of complete indifference in his eyes. He looked no more concerned than a man about to swat a troublesome fly.

Paul tried to lift one shaking hand to fend off the imminent blow but it was a feeble and pointless gesture.

Frank Hacket brought the shovel down with thunderous power and caught Paul across the forehead with a blow that almost split his skull in two.

There was a second of incredible pain and then nothing.

Gina and Frank stood looking down at his body for a moment.

‘Is he dead?’ Gina ventured.

‘Yes,’ Frank assured her. ‘Or he will be pretty soon.

’ Frank dropped to his knees and bundled Paul’s motionless form back into the shallow grave. He pushed the lid back into place but didn’t bother sealing it.

‘Go back to the car and wait for me,’ Frank said and Gina nodded but hesitated, watching as Frank began shovelling earth on to the box once again. ‘Go. I’ll take care of this.’

This time she turned and walked slowly away from the grave, her feet sinking into the increasingly liquid mud. The rain continued to pelt down and Gina shivered as she walked.

Behind her, Frank worked as quickly as he could, hurling shovels full of mud on to the coffin in a desperate effort to cover it. Dawn would be dragging itself over the horizon in less than thirty minutes and he had to be finished and away from this place. The rain, he noticed, was washing the blood from the soil and also from his clothes, cleans -ing the area round about. Another hour of such a downpour and there would be no reminder here about what had gone before. Even the hole itself would be virtually invisible to anyone coming this way.

Frank continued with his task, sweating despite the chill in the air. More than once he had to stop to wipe his face,
sponging away sweat and rain with the sleeve of his shirt. There was blood on his trousers but that wasn’t a problem. If the rain didn’t wash it out sufficiently he’d burn them later. The shovel he would keep in the back of the car. No one was going to come looking for it anyway. Even their footprints would be washed away, he told himself.

By the time he and the weather had finished, there should be no evidence that anyone had been in this place. Where there was no evidence there were no questions and where there were no questions there were no enquiries.

Frank managed a smile as he shovelled the last of the wet soil into place, then he stood motionless for a moment, gazing down at the last resting place of Paul Crane.

Only then did his face crease into a frown. He hawked and spat on the wet earth. It was a final and dismissive epitaph on an unmarked grave.

Frank waited a moment longer then turned and headed off in the same direction his wife had taken. What was to come for them he had no idea. There would be time to consider that later. For now, all he wanted to do was get home and shower. He thought how wonderful it would be if the events of the last year or so could be washed away as easily as the dirt that had clogged his fingernails and his hands, but that would never be the case.

Some stains lasted for ever. Some pain was never eased.

The rain continued to fall.

‘Better the world should perish than that I, or any other human being, should believe a lie.’

Bertrand Russell