Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (14 page)

Pandora mouthed ‘
what the fuck was that
’ to Dexter who gave her an innocent shrug.

She knew she was just being paranoid, but when she walked to the bar she felt like everyone was watching her. She tried to take Dexter’s lead, he didn’t look deterred in the slightest and flashed the bartender -- a pale, sickly looking man in his thirties -- a wide smile.

“What’re you drinking?” he asked her.

She shrugged, inspected the drinks on offer; the shelves of spirits, wine and tonics. “Jack,” she said, nodding to the bottle of Jack Daniels.

She looked around the pub, caught a few stares, people who diverted their gazes when she caught them looking. She searched for familiar faces and saw the old man by the river sitting in the corner, thirstily drinking a pint of beer. A woman, probably his wife, sat opposite, talking at him -- she didn’t seem to be looking at him, wasn’t concerned if he was even paying attention to her. After taking a long drink of his beer he looked up, saw Pandora looking at him. She felt her heart jump, felt the need to turn away, but her anxieties eased when he gave her a beaming smile, nodding to his nattering wife with raised eyebrows and a gesture that said, ‘this is the reason I need to get away’. Pandora smiled back and felt a little more at ease.

Dexter ordered the drinks, leant an elbow on the bar as he waited for the bartender to serve him.

“That’s better,” he said, noticing Pandora’s smile. He turned to the bartender “So, when does this quiz start?”

The bartender held his stare sternly, then he softened his features with a smile, glanced at a clock on the wall behind him and answered: “A couple of hours.”

Dexter nodded, looked around the packed pub. He saw Dorothy sitting in the corner with a few others. He thought he recognised one of them as the strange old man they’d encountered on their arrival in town. The creepy individual who had greeted them with ambiguous silence was now chatting heartily with Dorothy.

“Is this place always this full?” Dexter asked.

The bartender regarded him seriously for a moment, switching to a smile before replying. “It is tonight.”

Dexter nodded, waited for an explanation and then shrugged it off when one didn’t come. The bartender clearly wasn’t comfortable talking to customers; he was probably new or didn’t like outsiders, either way, Dexter offered him a pleasant smile as he paid for his drinks and scouted for a table.

They spotted a small empty table at the far end of the pub, nestled at the back of the smoky room between two elderly couples -- duplicate pairs that sat in silence, tables apart; decades of domestic indifference behind them, a night of drinking to forget their misery ahead.

He gestured to Pandora and they shuffled over, through the smoky throng; the air thick with heat and body odour; the clammy touch of wayward hands and imposing shoulders. He stopped when he heard his name, looked over to see the brimming face of Dorothy glaring at him, gesturing him over.

He paused, frowned. His heart kicked at his ribcage.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, looking horrified.

Pandora stopped abruptly, the smile quickly fading from her face. “What, what is it?”

He nodded to Dorothy just as she shouted on him again. “She knows my name.”

“And?”

“I didn’t tell her,” he said, looking at Pandora with the expression of someone who was preparing to drop the glasses in their hands and bolt for the door.

She grinned, gave Dorothy a little wave. “I told her,” she said softly. “Come on, let’s go sit with her.”

Dexter felt his muscles relax, his heart steady. “You told her our real names?” he asked as they made their way over, watching as Dorothy spoke to her friends -- introducing the newcomers and making room for them.

“I don’t see why not.”

“I already told her fake names.”

Pandora shrugged indifferently, brushing past a smiling man cradling three pints of beer, the frothy liquid precarious on the rim of the glasses as he slalomed his way through. “It was a mistake, but she didn’t seem to care.”

“What if they put two and two together?”

“You mean what if they don’t recognise our faces from, well,
everywhere
, but recognise our first names?”

Dexter frowned.

Pandora grinned, “Come on you paranoid git. Relax, let’s have fun.”

Pandora recognised the man sitting next to Dorothy, the same man she had seen in the garden, the one who had been watching her. She regarded him warily but was pleased to see that his vacant expression had been switched with a pleasant smile. He nodded softly to her as her eyes crossed his, a friendly greeting.

“This is my husband,” Dorothy said as Dexter and Pandora shifted in amongst the group. She opened her palm out, gestured to the others. “This is Matthew and Barbara,” she pointed to a middle-aged couple who regarded the newcomers shyly, the man using his pint to wave a greeting; the woman grinning a toothy smile. “This is Adam, Steve and Susan,” he said, pointing to three older people who each offered more enthusiastic greetings.

“So,” Dexter said after the introductions and small talk, rubbing his hands together. “Are you guys ready for the quiz?”

They all looked at each other, then turned towards Dexter and nodded almost simultaneously.

“This should be a good one,” Dorothy added with cryptic delight. “It’s a big one; a
special
one.”

“Really?”

She nodded, offering little else. She drained the wine in her glass, stared mournfully at the residue that clung to the moist glass and then stood. “Who wants another drink?”

A chorus of affirmation rose from the group. Dexter and Pandora both held their hands over their glasses, shook their heads. “We’ve just started,” Dexter said.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Dorothy declared, waving her hand dismissively “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do. What’ll I get you?”

They drank fast and when they drank their drinks were topped up. It seemed everyone at the table was willing to buy them drinks. Dexter tried buying a few rounds of his own, even though he barely had enough money on him to cover the round, but, much to his delight, they refused.

After an hour, Dexter and Pandora were well on their way to tipsy. Through their alcohol-tinted spectacles, Fairwood seemed like the perfect, idealistic town it had appeared when they first entered. Friendly locals came to the table to introduce themselves, seemingly delighted to meet the couple. Dorothy was glad to do the introductions as Dexter and Pandora acquainted themselves with the inhabitants of the town.

After a long and awkward introduction to a simple looking man in his twenties -- acne covering his greasy face, a cow-like strand of hair threatening to poke his leering eyes and a swagger that suggested an exaggerated case of rickets -- Dexter asked the man what he did for a living. He received a long, confused smile in reply before the simpleton waddled away to join a group of like-minded youths by the bar.

“He’s a strange one,” Dorothy said, noting Dexter's baffled expression.

Dexter nodded, thankful that she had said it and he didn’t have to lie his way around the fact.

“He’s quiet,” she pushed. “He’s not very good around people.”

Dexter smiled sympathetically thinking that the strange youth probably had a dungeon or two full of people he could practice his social skills on. “So, what does he do?”

“
Do,
dear?”

Dexter gave her a stern stare, wondered if she was going to force his questions down the same surreal route as she had taken earlier. “For a job,” he reiterated plainly. “Does he work?”

She smiled, as did the others at the table who’d heard -- everyone excluding Dorothy’s husband who, for the last ten minutes, had sat at the end of the table looking forlornly out into the abyss of the smoky pub.

“No one works in Fairwood, dear,” she said after a while.

“No one?”

She shook her head.

“But this can’t be a cheap place to live…” he paused to study each of their faces in turn. Are you all on benefits?” he wondered, thinking his question absurd when it left his lips.

They laughed, thinking the same.

“How do you get by?”

She shrugged, suggesting they
got by
with so much ease that she didn’t give it much thought. “We exchange what we need.”

“Like a barter system?”

“I suppose so.”

“But what about you? You work at the B&B.”

“I prefer to think of it as my home, and my customers as my guests.”

He nodded slowly. It was absurd, but clearly just an old woman who wanted to sound modest and welcoming. Although he wished he was just a guest as he no longer had any money to pay her. They hadn’t settled the bill when they arrived and, now that he had lost his money, he doubted he would be able to settle when they left.

“What about the bartender, the shopkeeper--”

“They serve the community dear. They’re our friends; they’re Fairwood’s friends.”

He took a long and slow drink, caught Pandora grinning wryly at him out of the corner of his eye. He decided not to take it any further, didn’t want to question the show of camaraderie and community she was putting on for her friends in the presence of her guests. He drained his drink, put the empty glass beside the full one that someone -- whose name he hadn’t retained before they gave him the drinks, greeted him and then returned to their seat -- had bought him moments before.

“So,” Pandora chirped, directing attention towards herself as she scoured the pub, even more full than when they arrived. “What’s so special about this quiz?”

“There’s nothing really all that special about it,” Dorothy said. “It’s just a way for us all to get together. Plus,” she said with a lowered voice. “There’s a prize at the end.”

“Oh,” Pandora chimed with exaggerated excitement. “What sort of prize?”

Dorothy winked, touched her nose.

“Oh,” Pandora put on a hurt, puppy dog expression. “It’s like that is it?”

Dorothy laughed, a loud and joyous laugh. She patted Pandora on the shoulder, “I like you dear,” she said. “You’re a catch.” She looked at Dexter, a stern expression on her bubbly face. “You be good to this one, eh?” she warned.

Dexter held up his hands innocently.

“You’re lucky to have her,” she warned again.

“I am,” he said, smiling at Pandora. “I know it, don’t worry.”

16

The quiz went on for a couple of hours. Dexter and Pandora participated as much as they could, but they were plied with so much alcohol throughout that they could barely understand the questions by the end, let alone answer them.

It was competitive, much more than they’d imagined. At the end of each round the papers were passed around to be marked by the team on the next table whilst the bartender shouted the answers. There were a number of complaints and bickering over misspelled or shortened answers.

The players only went to the bar at the end of each category, when the bartender paused to serve a few rounds. Dorothy and her friends bought drinks for Dexter and Pandora throughout the night, topping them up before they’d even finished. At one point they both had two full drinks bought for them whilst they were still nursing a third. The drink helped to settle their nerves and they felt they were being accepted into the community, everyone in the pub was conversing with them. They greeted them with friendly smiles or small talk when they went to the bar or toilet and they smiled and acknowledged them whilst they were sitting with Dorothy and her friends.