Broken (26 page)

"But you killed him!" Cindy
said.

"I didn't
mean to kill him." I said. "It was an accident. He wouldn't let go
of the briefcase so I was forced to hit him with the rubber
truncheon that I was carrying. But I don't believe that I hit him
hard enough to kill him."

"But why did you rob him?" Cindy
asked. "Surely you couldn't have been that desperate? You've got
this house, you've got a large investment account and you got a
good enough education to get a steady job. What more do you
want?"

"I needed the
money." I said. "I was becoming desperate. I couldn't find a job,
my access to my money had been blocked and my allowance wasn't
enough for the things that I wanted to do. I was also convinced
that if I only had a little more time and money I would finally win
big on the horses and all my problems would be over."

"You killed a man so that you
could continue with your gambling?" Cindy asked.

"I told you it was an accident!"
I said angrily. "I didn't mean to kill him! All I wanted to do was
make him let go of the briefcase."

"So now the police are looking
for you in connection with armed robbery and murder." Cindy said
quietly.

"They don't know who committed
the robbery." I said. "It happened over three months ago and
they're still in the dark. They say that they're following up on
some important leads but that's bullshit. They're only saying that
in the hope that it'll frighten me into surrendering or doing
something stupid that will expose me. They're clueless."

"It doesn't worry you that you
killed someone?" Cindy asked.

"Of course it does!" I said.
"But there's nothing that I can do about it. It just happened."

"When you
realised what had happened, why didn't you hand yourself over to
the police?" Cindy asked. "Wouldn't that have been the right thing
to do? Now you're a fugitive from the law and if the police do
eventually trace you, you'll be in terrible trouble. Far more than
you would have been if you'd given yourself up straight after the
robbery."

"They won't trace me." I said.
"I've thought about it very carefully. I didn't leave any clues or
leads that could lead them to me."

"Really?" Cindy asked. "What
about this deposit book? What if the domestic worker had found it
and not me? What if she'd recognised the name in it and taken it to
the police?"

"She didn't find it." I
said.

"What did you do with the
briefcase?" Cindy asked. "It probably had your fingerprints all
over it."

"I've still
got the briefcase." I said. "It's locked in the cupboard in my old
bedroom."

"And the rubber truncheon?"

"It's also locked in the
cupboard." I said.

"Garth." Cindy said. "You've got
to hand yourself over to the police. You're in big trouble and the
longer you stay in hiding the worse the consequences will be.
Surely you can see that?"

"Never." I said. "They'll never
find out that I was responsible for the robbery. Or are you going
to tell them?"

Cindy stared at me.

"Garth." she said finally. "If I
keep quiet about this I'll be just as guilty as you are. I'll be
guilty, not only of not reporting a crime that I'm aware of, but
also of harbouring a criminal fugitive. I could also go to jail for
a long time. So, you tell me what should I do? I knew nothing about
this before today but now, because of your stupidity, I'll go to
jail if you're caught."

"I told you.
I won't get caught." I said. "The police are clueless. They don't
have any leads."

We sat in silence, Cindy still
holding the little deposit book. A group of school children walked
past on the pavement outside, laughing and shouting to each
other.

"Look,
Cindy." I said. "What's happened is in the past. It happened and I
can't change that. But the police will never catch me. Can't we
just leave things as they were? We'll burn the deposit book and the
briefcase and the truncheon. I'm certain that those three things
are the only things that can connect me to the robbery. Without
them I'm quite safe. Going to the police now would be silly. And
they very likely won't believe that you only found out now about
the robbery. They'll accuse you of being part of the robbery. Can't
you see that? Policemen are very suspicious people. They believe
what they want to believe, not what other people tell them. It's
too late to go to them now."

I watched Cindy closely. I could
see that she was confused; not at all sure about what she could
do.

"And even if
I do get caught." I said. "I'll tell the police that you didn't
know anything about what I was doing. If it wasn't for the deposit
book you still wouldn't know anything about it. And, if we destroy
the book the police will never know that it even existed. How could
they know about it?"

Cindy sighed.

"Okay,
Garth
." she said. "You've convinced me. I
won't do or say anything about this to anyone. But, I want you to
promise me that you'll never ever do anything like this
again."

"I promise." I said.

"Okay." Cindy said. "Let's get
rid of this book and also get rid of the suitcase."

We went into the backyard of the
house. With the high walls that surrounded the yard none of the
neighbours could see us. We tore the pages out of the deposit book
and burnt them one by one in the metal rubbish bin outside the back
door, careful to create as little smoke as possible. I cut the
thick cover into small pieces and we burnt them as well. The
briefcase was a problem though. It was made of genuine leather and
I knew that it would be impossible to burn it without using an
inflammable liquid like petrol or benzene. This would create far
too much smoke and quite possibly make the neighbours
suspicious.

"The only thing that I can think
of is to cut it up into small pieces with a sharp knife, put them
into a plastic shopping bag, and put it out with the rest of the
rubbish" I said. "I can't imagine that anyone inspects the rubbish
before it goes to the rubbish dump, and when it gets there nobody
will take any notice of it."

I went into
the kitchen and found a large sharp knife. I hacked the briefcase
into small pieces and
, after carefully
wiping each one to remove any fingerprints, put them into a heavy
duty plastic shopping bag. I tied the handles together to seal it
and dropped it into the bin. We went back into the
house.

"What about
the r
ubber truncheon?" Cindy
asked.

"I want to keep that." I said.
"We've got nothing in the house to defend ourselves if anyone
breaks in. A weapon like that could save our lives."

"What about the bookmaker's
D.N.A.?" Cindy asked. "If you hit him with it there must be traces
of hair and skin on it."

"I'll wash them off." I said.
"In fact, I'll scrub the thing with detergent and also with some
thinners. If I do that it'll destroy any D.N.A. on the
truncheon."

At first Cindy looked doubtful
but then she capitulated.

"Okay." she said. "You're right.
We don't have anything in the house to defend ourselves with."

While Cindy watched, I scrubbed
the truncheon with detergent and then with some thinners that I
found amongst the cleaning materials in the cupboard below the
sink.

"Now I've just committed another
crime." Cindy said, her shoulders dropping in despair.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've just helped you destroy
the evidence of a crime." she said.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I keep telling you, Cindy." I
said. "The police don't suspect me and they never will. Just relax.
Everything's going to be okay."

***

I was relieved that Cindy hadn't
made a fuss about what happened to Mister Eksteen and insisted that
I hand myself over to the police but I'd known that she wasn't in a
position to tell me what to do. I was the one in a position of
strength. Cindy needed me far more than I needed her. She needed me
emotionally and she also needed to keep her off the street. She had
nowhere to go if she left me. She couldn't afford her own
accommodation, especially now that her income had been reduced, and
she certainly couldn't go back to her parents.

I was quite fond of Cindy
though. She was pleasant to be with and she was quite willing to do
the cooking and other small chores. She wasn't overly emotional and
our sex was satisfying. The extra income that I received from her
was also useful. And I felt that could trust her, something that
was alien to me.

I was angry
at myself though, for being so foolish and leaving the bank deposit
book lying behind the couch. I'd thrown it there in anger and I
knew that my anger towards the world and myself needed to be
curbed. It was when I was angry that I made mistakes and this
incident with the deposit book was a typical example. But anger had
been my dominant emotion ever since I could remember and had become
a deep-seated habit. Changing would be almost
impossible.

The mistakes
that I'd made with regard to robbing and killing Mister Eksteen had
taught me that I could never be too careful. I had promised Cindy
that I would never commit a robbery again but the ease with which I
had executed the robbing of Mister Eksteen made me realise that, if
properly planned and executed, robbery would be a very lucrative
enterprise. The planning had been exciting and challenging and I
was quite proud of how I'd gone about it.
Of course, there had been mistakes; the main one being that
my timing had been wrong. If I'd taken the results of the horse
races into account I would have waited for a race meeting where
there had been more outsiders being led into the winner's circle as
this would have resulted in Mister Eksteen having a lot more cash
to deposit. My reward would then have been far more
satisfying.

But if I were
to attempt another robbery I would have to be far more meticulous
about the planning, the execution and especially covering up my
tracks afterwards.
And as far as my
promise to Cindy was concerned; promises were made to be broken. If
an opportunity to take something of value from someone arose, I
would take it.

***

I was sitting on the couch in
the lounge with a beer and watching television when Cindy arrived
home after her first day working at the dry cleaners. I expected
her to be smiling and happy about her day but the expression on her
face as she came into the room told me otherwise. She kissed me and
sat down on the couch next to me. I could see that she was close to
crying.

"Obviously your first day at
work didn't turn out the way you had expected it to." I said.

"No." Cindy said, her bottom lip
trembling as she fought to prevent herself bursting into tears. "It
was horrible!"

"
Horrible?" I asked. "How
so?"

"I couldn't
believe that two people could change so drastically and as
completely as Mister and Mister Whiteside did." she said, shaking
her head slowly. "When I went for the interview they were both so
friendly; especially Misses Whiteside. But, no sooner had I signed
the employment agreement and sat down at my desk, than she started
talking to me as if I was a naughty little girl. And from then on
she criticised everything that did and even shouted at me a few
times. And never once did she explain to me what and how she wanted
the work done. It was if she expected me to know everything! And
when I asked her to explain anything she rolled her eyes and shook
her head. And Mister Whiteside was no better. He threw some papers
onto my desk and told me to type two letters for him and when I
asked where the letterheads were kept he shouted at me as if I was
a complete idiot. When I finally found them he stood over me as I
typed and shouted at me when I typed too slowly. The two of them
carried on like this the whole day. It was really
horrible!"

"Obviously they were being nice
to you last Thursday at your interview so that you would take the
job." I said. "And now that you've signed they've become their real
selves. Why don't you just leave and look for another job?"

"I can't."
Cindy said. "The employment agreement states that I must give a
month's notice and, if I don't, they can sue me for breach of
agreement. So, even if I give notice tomorrow, I'll still have to
work there until the end of the month."

"Well, give notice tomorrow." I
said. "Then you'll just have to stick it out until the end of the
month. In the mean time you can look for another job. That
shouldn't be too hard to find. Especially as there seem to be so
many suitable jobs on the market right now."

Cindy nodded glumly.

"And tell
them that if they so much as touch you or try to get you to do
anything that's not specified in your contract, I'll come round
there and beat the living daylights out of both of them." I
said.

"Thanks
Garth
." Cindy said squeezing my arm "I'll
tell them that."

That evening Cindy wrote out her
letter of resignation with a copy and the following morning she
went off to the dry cleaners, a look of trepidation on her
face.

When Cindy got home from work
that evening she looked a little calmer.

"So what happened when you
handed in your resignation" I asked as she sat down at the kitchen
table where I was sitting having a beer.

"I handed
Misses Whiteside the letter and asked her to sign the copy." Cindy
said. "She immediately started shouting at me and threatened to go
to the Labour Council. I simply stared back at her. She accused me
of reneging on our agreement but I pointed out to her that I was
entitled to give a calendar month's notice as long as it was before
the seventh of the month. And as today was the fourth of the month,
I told her, I was not reneging on the agreement. She glared at me,
grabbed the copy of the letter, and left the office. A few minutes
later she returned and threw the copy onto my desk. I looked at it
and saw that it had been signed. The next minute Mister Whiteside
came into the office. He shouted that I would regret what I'd just
done and moved threateningly towards me. I told him that if he so
much as touched me or tried to make me do anything that wasn't
stipulated in my contract, you would come round there and beat him
and his wife to a pulp. That stopped him in his tracks." Cindy said
grinning. "He then asked me if I was threatening him. I told him
that I wasn't threatening him; I was promising him. He glared at
me, turned around, and left the office."