Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller)

Fairwood by Eli Yance

First published by Compulsion Books 2013

www.compulsionbooks.com

Copyright © 2013 by Eli Yance

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher and/or author.

Cover design by lillithc
[email protected]

1

A bored beat drummed on a wooden surface with idle fingers. A monotone whistle, an emulation of an unknown pop song heard earlier in the day. A conversation, a distant rumble of baritone interspersed with the occasional laugh. The squeak of a chair on resisting laminate; staccato throat-clearing outbursts.

Dexter Bleak reacted to every noise inside the bar, his eyes flitting, his stomach churning. At the back of the room, through the haze of cigar smoke that pressed against the yellowed ceiling like layered cream, he caught the wandering gaze of a curious cowboy. His eyes, set in deep circles under pencil-thin eyebrows, stared at him from underneath the brim of a leather Stetson. He flicked his head slightly, a nod of recognition. Dexter returned the gesture and looked away.

A cowboy in northern England. He was either a long way from home or a short distance from the funny farm.

An abrupt thud and a barrage of expletives drew his wandering eyes. A youngster, no more than sixteen, was giving an antiquated one-armed bandit a piece of his delinquent mind and a feel of his tattered trainers. The youngster had been in the pub as long as Dexter, he’d watched him knock back a couple of pints and grow rapidly drunk under the peripheral disapproving stares of the others -- most of whom were old enough to be his grandfather.

The bartender, cleaning a dusty glass with an even dustier rag, shouted to the youngster; something abrupt, brash, calling him by a nickname suited more to a dog. The boy sneered at him, grimaced, turned away and returned to his seat where he mumbled into his third pint.

Dexter caught the stare of the bartender, looked away before he felt any need to exchange pleasantries. He looked at his hands, spread out on the table in front of him like he was preparing to look into a crystal ball. A line of callouses pricked the flesh at the base of his fingers. Roughened, dry skin fleshed its way across his palms. A small cut, brown with a streak of dried blood, sketched a line across the back of his right hand.

He looked questionably at his beer. Moved his tired hands around the cold glass.

Another noise. A banging, some footsteps.

He turned sharply, pulling his hand from the moist glass as if it seared his flesh.

A door at the back of the room opened. A woman stepped through, into the smoke. All eyes fell upon her. The old men stared with inconspicuous admiration, the youngster glared with blatant lust. She was beautiful, radiant didn’t even cut it. She stood out against the smoky atmosphere like a watery mirage. Bright green eyes. A diamond stud on her upper lip that caught a glisten from the dim fluorescents; a pair of equally reflective earrings which hung to her jaw; a dimpled smile that suggested she knew she was being watched.

Her hips rocked when she walked towards Dexter, her golden hair swaying pendulously.  She was clad from toe to top in leather. Leather boots, buckled and belted just below the knee; tight leather pants that described the tones in her thighs and the tightness in her backside; a leather jacket, emblazoned with studs, stitches and chains, buttoned with a single clasp, enough to allow her breasts to poke through her tee shirt underneath. Above the assortment of metal studs, just above her right breast, she wore a small bronze
brooch in the shape of a butterfly. It was out of place on her chest, but few would ever notice it amongst the mass of metal and no man would choose to stare at the brooch instead of her breast.

She caught the lustful gaze of the youngster and winked at him, an image he would utilise on countless lonely nights. She sat down opposite Dexter, grinned drolly -- her face was constantly alight with something cheeky, something sly, something that suggested she could manipulate you in a second if she wanted to.

“You took your time,” Dexter said blandly.

She shrugged passively, extended a hand and began to toy with the edges of a moistened beer mat, bending and contorting the wrinkled corners.

Dexter sighed deeply and looked around. He caught a few gazes, eyes that saw him with the beautiful blonde and wondered what she saw in him. Some of them had given them the same looks when they’d entered, most hadn’t paid attention until the leather-clad bombshell strolled through their midst.

Dexter was average looking at best. A hair over six-foot; his frame on the stocky side of athletic, constructed through manual labour, lazy workouts and a poor diet. His rounded face and squared chin gave him the appeal of an action-movie star, but his short neck, his pallid skin and his beady eyes dropped him some way short of handsome.

“This place is giving me the creeps.” He met the eyes of the youngster who, with the blonde in his sights and intimidation on his mind, tried to stare him down. Dexter turned away, backed down, now wasn’t the time to be facing off against a drunken kid.

She didn’t reply, her mind was elsewhere.

“
Pandora
.”

She looked up, her blank expression shifting back to a good-humoured smile. She mumbled an inquisitive reply, “Yeah?”

“What’s on your mind?”

She lowered her eyebrows into an arch, “What do you think’s on my mind?”

He nodded slowly, held her stare for a moment and then turned away. The bartender was channel hopping, grunting disconsolately as a barrage of music, news and chat popped onto the elevated television set.

At the back of the room the door leading to the toilets opened and closed, buffeting a thick wave of hanging smoke which an elderly man waded through.

Pandora brightened, clucked a dismissive sound and followed Dexter’s gaze. “Problems?” she wondered.

He shook his head, watched the wading man slump into his seat with a groan. “Nothing more than usual.”

“And what’s the usual?”

He turned to her, grinned. He watched an expanding wry smile grip the corners of her lips, tweaking a small wrinkle that cut across her cheek. “The usual is they’re all looking at us thinking: ‘what the fuck is
she
doing with
him
?”

“Ah,” she nodded with exaggerated knowing. “And do you think they’ve figured out why?”

“Even
I
haven’t figured out why.”

“Maybe it’s because you have a big cock.”

“Do I?”

She shook her head, smiled even wider. “But they don’t know that.”

“Ah, right. Gotcha,” he grinned and gave a gentle, self-deprecating shake of his head. Lowered his eyes to his hands.

“Cheer up,” Pandora insisted. “No one here knows anything.”

Dexter agreed with a silent nod. He didn’t look away, didn’t see the channel hopping bartender find an agreeable station; didn’t see his wizened face burst into life when he saw the images of Pandora and Dexter, his two suspicious and out of place patrons, appear on the grainy screen; didn’t see him attract the attention of a couple of the regulars; didn’t note the awe-filled expressions or the curious way the man in the Stetson looked at them and licked his lips.

When Dexter finally lifted his eyes, met with the waiting gaze of his beautiful girlfriend and then turned, still smiling, to the smoky room, he discovered that everyone was looking at him. The smile sunk from his face, the breath caught in his throat.

“
Shit
,” he hissed.

The bartender shared his stare between them and the television. He turned up the volume until the tinny tones of the newscaster overlapped the sound of thickening tension.

The youngster climbed to his feet, pulled up his pants, adjusted his belt and thrust his tongue against the side of his cheek. On the next table, near the exit, a burly man with a bulging belly and a balding head rocked to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process.

Dexter and Pandora watched as their onscreen portraits faded and were replaced by a video of the exterior of a bank, its bulky facade looking wet and annoyed in the shade of the winter afternoon.

“
...today, just as the employees were breaking for lunch.
” They heard the reporter say in a serious tone, her words thumping out of the small and anachronistic television like the beat from a plastic drum. “
This sinister pair were interrupted by Mr Rodgers, a thirty-five year old father of two, who had worked at the bank for over ten years. Early reports suggest that the guard tried to subdue them before launching himself at the female, trying to pry the weapon from her hands. At which point her partner fired twice, hitting Mr Rodgers in the chest and face, killing him instantly.
”

Dexter’s face sunk as he stared at the images of Mr Rodgers: a family portrait. He was smiling, hugging his children as his wife watched on.

They showed the inside of the bank, photographic stills taken years or months ago. It was different, cleaner. The walls were painted a different colour, a lighter shade, less intense -- fewer splatters of blood. The floor was carpeted, fitted with thick plastic borders that traced a spiralled path to the tellers; the one he’d known was fully tiled, adorned with the petrified faces of a dozen customers and the horrified face of a dead family man.

“
...is the seventh robbery in their cross-country crime spree,
” the reporter continued as the camera returned to her. She paused and lowered her eyebrows for effect, “
…but their
first
murder. This modern day Bonny and Clyde, this reckless pair of bandits, now have blood on their hands.
”

Dexter turned to Pandora, she removed her eyes from the screen, gave him a gentle nod. They stood, tried to avoid the gaze of everyone in the room. This wasn’t the first time they had been in such a predicament. After their third robbery, a holdup at a Post Office, their faces had spread across the country and they had been recognised in the backstreets by a group of loitering youths. They’d surrounded them, and just when Dexter was preparing himself for a disadvantaged fight, they shook his hand and congratulated him. One of them even asked for an autograph.

They had changed their appearances, tried to look less conspicuous, but the latest robbery was hours ago and they hadn’t had time to change, hadn’t even had the time to ponder their appearances.

Dexter doubted the hard-faced patrons in the pub would treat him the same way as the kids at the Post Office and, as the woman continued her monotonously toned report, those doubts were affirmed:

“
Police have substantially increased the award for their capture. Anyone with any information..
.”

He put his hands on Pandora’s back, gave her a firm shove, gesturing for her to quicken her retreating steps. She stumbled forwards, heeded his plea and bolted for the door. He turned, gave one last fleeting look around the bar and then followed her, stopping when the burly man with the bald head strafed in front of the exit.