Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (25 page)

The torchlight bobbed with greater rapidity, dancing and weaving in the night. They couldn’t see who was holding it, couldn’t even make out a silhouette in the darkness beyond the sphere of light, but they were sure he could see them. The beam had passed their way a number of times and now lingered on them.

He felt Pandora stop behind him, felt the resistance as he tried to tug her onwards. She made a small yelping sound as the light stayed on her, looked down at the beam on her legs like someone glimpsing the laser dot from the sniper rifle that would, very soon, cause their demise.

“Come on,” Dexter hissed.

The light traced up her legs, to her stomach and then to her neck, lighting up her worried expression which pleaded with Dexter. He tugged harder, yanking the chain on a disobedient dog.

“Let’s go!”

The light moved from her face and seemed to concentrate on the floor in the distance. She watched it illuminate a pair of feet, walking at first but quickening to a jog.

“Quick!” Dexter said, tugging her again.

This time she allowed herself to be led away.

31

“Please,” Sellers stepped aside, motioned for the men to allow Cawley through. “Come and join the party.”

He stepped through into the warm orange glow, emitted from a single light above the bar. The rest of the bar was in darkness. The tables and chairs were still out, empty glasses and filled ashtrays littered their dusty tops.

They showed him through and then slammed the door shut behind him; the gust of wind propelled him forward. He turned a curious eye towards the door, noticing that Simpson hadn’t followed.

“Where’s ya friend?” Sellers, like Cawley, wanted to know.

The detective shrugged. “He couldn’t make it.”

Sellers held Cawley’s stare and slowly nodded, then he turned away, gestured to the others who had returned to the bar, clustering under the light. All except for the man with the gun, a bulbous, ugly, bald man, who stayed near Cawley -- his finger edgy as it toyed with the trigger.

“These are my friends,” Sellers said. “Two of them I think you’ve met already. The other…” he said, playing with the word on his tongue as he surveyed the big man with the shotgun. “May be new to you.”

“What’re you up to?” Cawley demanded to know.

“Us?” Sellers thrust his hand to his chest, taking in the faces of each of his comrades. They all looked on with equally fake expressions of bemusement. “We’re just sitting ‘ere enjoying a quiet drink.”

“True dat,” the youngster said, holding up his pint.

Cawley caught a sneer on Sellers’s face as he regarded the youngster.

“I heard you,” Cawley said. “What happened here that night? What are you hiding?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bollocks,” Cawley spat, flashing a brief and instinctive glance at the gunman to make sure his cursing wasn’t going to get him killed. “You’re up to something.”

“I’m not telling you nothing.”

Cawley turned to the man with the bandages on his face. He looked nervous, unsure. He wore a large-brimmed Stetson hat that shaded his black eyes, but Cawley could still make out the unease in them. Cawley knew he was the man that would provide him with the answers.

“You’re Martin, right?” he said, throwing a random name into the mix.

He received a curious arched eyebrow in return, followed by a brief shake of the head.

“No.”

The others looked on, too interested in the strange line of questioning to halt the questioner.

“Mark?”

Another gentle shake of the head. “No, what--”

“Are you in on this?” Cawley asked quickly. “Are you hiding the suspects?”

The man with the bandaged face gave another instinctive shake of his head, only a slight horizontal shift before he interrupted it with another refusal. It was enough to give Cawley the answer he needed.

“What the fuck are you playing at?” Sellers snapped.

“I just--”

“We have the fucking gun, dickhead. We’ll ask the questions here.”

“Be my guest.”

Sellers opened his mouth, closed it again, looked unsurely from face to face.

“What happened to Prince Charming over there,” Cawley asked, gesturing towards the beaten kid.

“I walked into a door,” the teenager said simply. What’s it to you?”

“You walked into a door?” Cawley said with a smile and a nod. “You must be as stupid as you look.”

He stood up, slammed his pint down on the bar. “Fuck you, copper!”

Cawley laughed, amused at the outburst, reminiscent of a toddler tantrum.

“What the fuck’re you laughing at?” He screamed at the top of his lungs. He bounded over to Cawley with the cocky and lopsided gait of a kid trying, and failing, to manipulate an intimidating swagger. He stuck his face up against Cawley’s, close enough for the detective to smell the his breath -- a hermitic concoction of beer, fags and the plaque from a dozen dirty meals.

“Not laughing now, are ya pig?” he said, twitching his nose as he spoke.

“Coz your breath is making me sick.”

The youngster took a step back, threw a punch that Cawley had seen coming before he even thought about throwing it. He didn’t move, didn’t try to block it. It landed below his ribs, absorbed by his stomach which he tensed before the impact. It had no force, no power. Cawley doubled over regardless, leaving the grinning idiot to treat himself to a smile and a look of pride.

“Told you, pig,” he said, looming over Cawley with the pose of a confident boxer -- his arms down by his side, his fists clenched. “Don’t fuck with me.”

The others at the bar were shocked, including the man with the shotgun who lowered the weapon to get a better look at Cawley and his attacker, trying to figure out how a man he considered as feeble as a drunken fly managed to floor someone who had clearly seen his fair share of fights.

The shock was all that Cawley needed, when the youngster was
still flaunting his success, receiving attention for doing so, Cawley snapped upright and rushed at the man with the gun.

He grasped the shotgun, one hand on the barrel, the other on the butt, and pushed against it, forcing his strength into the weapon and then into the holder. The big man sprung backwards, released his grip on the gun and nearly toppled over his heels.

Cawley thrust the weapon at him, took a few steps back, into space, and waved it around, gathering everyone into his sights. The youngster’s confident stance crumbled into a hunchbacked defensive pose and he hobbled to the safety of the bar. Sellers didn’t seem to be bothered.

“Now,” Cawley said, slightly out of breath from the rush of the ordeal. “How about you tell me what the fuck is going on before I shoot you all?”

32

They made it to the river; Dexter nearly fell in, dragging Pandora with him. The moonlight sparkled a reflection off the still water, enough for him to see his own horrified face as he stopped himself from toppling in.

The person who had been following them was behind them, beyond the line of trees and down the hill. They probably had over a hundred metres on him, but he knew where he was going and had a light to aid in his search; they were lost, guided in their blind stumbling by nothing but the moonlight, which barely allowed them to see a few feet in front of them.

They walked along the edge of the river. They were both breathless and sickened, felt like keeling over and opening their lungs and stomachs to the world, but they had to keep silent, had to keep going.

Dexter stopped abruptly and held out a hand to keep Pandora still. He thrust a finger to his lips, nodded to the other side of the river where a long field stretched into nothingness. He waited in the silence, watching keenly, before tugging at her and setting off again.

It felt like they were walking for hours. Their energy had already been sapped, sucked out of them throughout their tortuous ordeal. They had made it to where they were now on adrenaline alone but that adrenaline was drying up, their agonised, weakened bodies were ready to give up.

Pandora winced at every twig she heard crush underneath her foot, every leaf that crunched and rustled. She looked back a number of times, at first she saw only darkness but her eyes were adjusting, growing more accustomed to it. She began to pick out the shape of the trees, the line of the riverbank. She began to feel better, more confident now that she was regaining her senses, but then the tired orbs picked out something else: the man with the torch was back. And she knew it as a man now, because she could see his face as he emerged from the trees, could see the glaring anger, the sadistic smile as the torchlight -- flickering and wavering, catching everything as its operator rushed and pushed his way through the trees -- lit up his face.

She gasped and hopped forward, straight onto Dexter’s heels. He lost his shoe, lost his balance. She felt him fall, felt herself tumbling over the top of him, and then she felt a cold shock as she broke the silent river and sunk under its peaceful waters.

***

Cawley kept an interested eye over his shoulder, wondering what had happened to his partner. The others noticed his fleeting glances and apparent paranoia but didn’t register that he was looking for his friend.

“You scared o’the dark, old man?” Sellers sneered mockingly.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Sellers laughed one short and mocking laugh. He looked at his friends, seeking and getting their approval like the chief delinquent of a group of yobs.

“Tell me,” Cawley said. “What happened here?”

“Why would we tell you anything?” the youngster wanted to know, stepping forward and displaying intimidation despite the gun in Cawley’s hands.

Sellers gave his dim-witted accomplice a derogatory look, grabbed him by the shoulder and tugged him backwards. “
Nothing
happened ‘ere,” he clarified.

“Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s nowhere near as bad as what’ll happen if you don’t end this now,” Cawley told them. He waved the shotgun at the man with the bandages, “You,” he said, pointing with the barrel, “how did you get those wounds?”

The man gave Sellers a look, begging for confirmation. The youngster answered with the confirmation that none of them wanted.

“Don’t tell ‘im anything ‘arry.”

Sellers snapped his hand around the kid’s face, knocking his head into his pint glass which toppled over on the bar. “Idiot!” he snapped.

The youngster held a hand to his head, an ugly grimace on his ugly face. He sneered at the bartender, a look of threatening intimidation, but his true feelings exposed themselves when he took an instinctive step backwards.

Sellers was still glaring at him, oblivious of the show of simultaneous intimidation and submission. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

“I’m holding the gun now,” Cawley reminded him. “I’ll ask the fucking questions.” He played his finger over the trigger, aiming the gun directly at the bartender. His threat didn’t have the desired effect. Sellers shifted out from behind the bar, moved towards the detective with a confident swagger.

“You’re also a copper,” Sellers told him. “And ya not going to shoot me. Have you ever even fired a gun before?”

“Aim, pull and watch your miserable life end. How hard can it be?”