Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (22 page)

The bartender paused, seemed to be weighing something up in his head. For a moment Cawley thought he was going to spill the beans, open up to him, but then he lowered his head defensively and said, “I’ve told you everything I know.”

Cawley sighed tiredly. “Fine.”

He took out a few cards, handed them to each of the patrons. “If you remember anything that might help,
anything
, give me a shout.”

***

Cawley felt like screaming. He kicked his foot angrily into the floor, balled his fists and ground his teeth. He took out a cigarette, lit it with a hand that trembled with rage and took a deep drag that burned half of the stick.

“I see what you mean,” Simpson said. “They’re hiding something.”

Cawley inhaled deeply, gave an open-palmed shrug.

“We could get a warrant. Search the place.”

Cawley shook his head. He didn’t want to get into the details with Simpson, didn’t want to inform him that there was no way he was going back to work and no way that he could ask any favour from Clarissa, even if it was integral to him doing his job.

Simpson had seen the look in Cawley’s eyes. He had seen the way he’d been acting and hadn’t been oblivious to the fact that when Cawley was supposed to be working, he was getting naked and attacking his former in-laws. “Or we could just break in,” he offered.

Cawley blew out a long line of smoke, raised his eyebrows at his friend, a twisted smile tweaking the corners of his lips.

Simpson nodded slowly, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Seriously?”

“Sure. What do you say?” he said. “Tonight. Look at this place, it wouldn’t take a group of elite criminals. Hardly Fort Knox is it?”

Cawley regarded the dilapidated building. It was only one storey, accessed through front and back doors. There were no shutters, no heavy locks, no security systems. The pub didn’t take much money and probably didn’t store any of it on the premises, and besides a few bottles off cheap booze and a handful of barrels too cumbersome to shift, it had nothing worth stealing.

“You’re serious?” he asked.

Simpson merely nodded.

“Okay then,” he said, cheering up.

***

Dexter’s hand shook as he held the glass over his wound. The tip of the shattered glass pricked his skin, exposed a pinpoint point of bright red blood that was almost lost against the angry red flesh beneath.

He’d heard stories of desperate people hacking off their own limbs in a bid to escape certain death. He was sure he was in such a situation; he doubted that the sadistic couple upstairs would keep him alive very long, and if they did prolong his life it would only be to torture him further. Then there was Pandora, he didn’t know what they had done to her, what they were
doing
to her, but something told him that she would be suffering even more than he was and he doubted that she had long left.

The glass was thick, strong. It wouldn't cut through bone but he didn’t need it to. Bone could be broken, he could easily shatter it against the stanchion to which he was tied, but the glass would easily sever his flesh and muscle. He was weak and wasn’t sure he would be able to maintain consciousness throughout the ordeal, and then what, what did he do if he succeeded and managed to escape? He would have to escape the basement, find Pandora and escape the house and town, all whilst he slowly bled to death.

He closed his eyes tightly, tried to force away the doubts. As complicated and morbid as it was, it was his only chance of escape. He clenched the glass so tightly in his fist that it cut into his palm and into the base of his fingers, the abrasive surface grazed against the open wounds which bled torrents of blood around his knuckles and the back of his hand.

He pressed it against the welt, harder this time, hard enough to break the top few layers of skin, hard enough for the injured flesh to scream a stabbing pain through his leg. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, lifted the blade up and prepared to hack his own leg off.

He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He tried again but he couldn’t force his hand into action.

“
Come on
,” he hissed to himself, a trickle of sweat running down his face. “You can do this.”

His hand was bleeding heavily; it refused and eventually he relented. He dropped the glass to the floor, keeping it in reach -- it would make a useful weapon -- and threw himself backwards. His spine struck the cold hard floor and he straightened out, threw his bloodied hand to his head.

He cried exasperated tears of anger. He shifted onto his front, twisting and turning through his own mental torment, and then hissed when he felt a sharp pain strike his thigh.

At first he thought he had rested on a shard of broken glass, but when he looked there was nothing on the floor. The pain continued, felt like a persistent insect was clutching at his leg. He reached inside his pocket with a confused grimace and pulled out the offending item.

It was Pandora’s brooch. A bronze emblem of a butterfly, the pin  had unlatched itself from the back and had forced its way into Dexter’s leg.

The grimace faded, he smiled at the brooch, images of Pandora swimming into his mind. She said it gave her an air of innocence, which her usual attire didn’t allow for. He grinned, closed his eyes and held the brooch -- possibly the last piece of Pandora he would touch -- tightly in his bloodied hand.

He opened his mouth to issue her memory his well-wishes, to tell the empty silence that he loved her and that he was sorry for letting any harm come to her, but he stopped, snapped open his eyes and glared at the pointed metal pin with renewed hope.

He wasn’t an expert lock picker but he had toyed with a few locks in his youth. He had mixed with the wrong crowd, spent a lot of time with one particular tearaway who was an expert at petty delinquencies. Dexter had watched him pick a few locks. With most locks there was a skill to it, it required the right tools and the right knowledge; Dexter was halfway there on both accounts and this lock was old, basic.

He thrust the pin inside the keyhole and jiggled it around until he found the pins. He slid a smaller shard of glass into the bottom of the lock, waiting until he heard the pins fall into place before he turned it.

He paused when he heard shuffling sound above him, heavy footfalls -- the husband -- shifting across the room. He darted his eyes instinctively towards the staircase and then concentrated back on the lock, moving his hands more hastily.

He turned the pins, nearly opened the lock, but lost his nerve; his bloodied hand slipped on the bronze brooch. The footsteps pounded heavily above him, he heard the door at the top of the staircase open. He tried to ignore it but the sound caused his hand to shake even more. He lost control, nearly dropped the brooch.

He muttered to himself, urged himself on as he heard the heavy footfalls begin to descend the stairs. They’d probably remembered the broken glass and had come to claim the pieces, making sure he didn’t try to hide them and use them as weapons. They would search him, remove the large shard he intended to use as a weapon and take the brooch.

He nearly lost his nerve as the brooch slipped again. The man was on the middle stair, his descent slow and methodical.

“
Come on, come on,
” he whispered desperately, wiping away a line of sweat that traced from his forehead to the bridge of his nose.

The man was on the final steps, Dexter heard him, could sense him, but didn’t want to look up and see him. The pins clicked in place. He twisted the lock open, revelled in the feeling of relief as he heard it click and felt the pressure on his ankle ease, the reddened skin exposed to the air.

He quickly covered up his activities, slipping his leg, and the undone shackle, underneath his body and plastering an expression of innocence on his face. He hid the brooch and the glass behind his back, slowly worked them up his jumper as he saw the tip of the man’s feet pop into view beyond the wall.

A shout from upstairs stopped the man from going any further. He groaned the groan of a married man being shouted at by his wife. Dexter found it strange to hear such a common, human exchange between two people who were far from human.

He saw the man’s head appear around the corner of the wall; he leant forward and grinned at Dexter. “Just checking up on you,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fuck you,” Dexter spat.

He chuckled. “I’ll be down soon.” He disappeared behind the wall and turned to climb the stairs. “Don’t go anywhere,” he mocked.

27

Cawley wasn’t averse to breaking the law in an effort to uphold it. It wasn’t that he thought he was above the law -- as he knew some members of the force believed -- he just didn’t appreciate the red tape that stopped him from achieving what he felt needed to be achieved. He didn’t want to contemplate the legal route, didn’t want to jump through any hoops and certainly didn’t want to grovel to his boss; breaking into Stubbies was the perfect solution.

It wouldn’t be the first time they had broken in somewhere. A few years previous they were on the case of a suspected drug dealer; a middleman to some nasty kingpins who pumped large parts of the district with heroin, cocaine and cannabis. He was a career criminal, had spent the majority of his thirty-three years behind bars, and the rest in rotten poverty of addiction and petty crime.

They saw him driving around in fast cars, splashing his cash on fancy jewellery, clothes and even a quad-bike that he used to tear up the local school field. He was stupid enough to blow his ill-gotten gains on obvious purchases but not stupid enough for Cawley and Simpson to catch him. They suspected he was involved in large drug deals but, despite following him around for weeks, they never saw anything.

At their wits end, sick of his lavish exploits which they perceived as bragging, they waited until he was on holiday and broke into his house. They discovered he was shipping kilos of product into the country from contacts on the continent. He ran everything online, rarely got his fingers dirty, and if not for their illegal intervention they wouldn’t have known and might have never found out. They couldn’t use the evidence they found, but had enough to set him up. They made a few phone-calls, gave some suggestions to customs as to which shipments should be checked, and he was locked away for fifteen years. They didn’t take the credit, but they enjoyed the result nonetheless.

Now it was different, but Cawley was hoping for similar results. He didn’t know what he would find, didn’t even know where he would begin to look, but something told him that Sellers, and the others at Stubbies, were up to something.

They planned to head back to the pub later on. It closed its doors at eleven, at which point Sellers would retire to his flat above the bar and they could discover what he’d been hiding.

“And if he’s not hiding anything?” Simpson enquired, as the two drank whiskey to calm their nerves in preparation.

“He’s hiding something. It might not have anything to do with our suspects, but he’s up to
something
.”

Simpson nodded in agreement. He wasn’t as experienced as Cawley, hadn’t seen the faces of as many shifty criminals and liars as his former partner, but he had witnessed Seller’s discomfort, had seen the awkwardness in the others at the bar -- all except the cocky youngster who hid his guilt behind an arrogant grimace.

“What do you think he’s not telling us?” Simpson asked, feeling his sense of intrigue and excitement grow; he hadn’t had enough of either over the last few years.

“
My
guess? Probably tried it on with the woman, may have been fighting over her, with the bandaged one taking the brunt of her refusal.”

“Not technically illegal,” Simpson noted. “You think he would hide that?”

Cawley nodded confidently. “Creeps like him like the world to think they’re not creeps. So if he tried it on with her, tried to do something he shouldn’t have been doing, he wouldn’t admit it.”