Saxon (5 page)

Tucker handled these rejections with the thought that there was room for another Jack Dee in the world, there had to be. When fate whittled down the other – lesser – comedians a little, there would be space for him. Until then, he was going to show commitment to his chosen career. His plan was to keep up the practice and try to reach perfection. He believed in his talent, it just wasn’t his time yet. He knew it would come one day.

In the meantime, Tucker was making do with regular employment. When he finally conned an employer that he was worth taking on, it was as a mortuary attendant. Most of the inmates didn’t care and would never complain about his behaviour – after all, they could neither see nor smell him.

His tasks were menial; there was nothing in his daily routine to cause his brain to struggle too much. Just gurney pushing and large-drawer opening, and closing. Once a post-mortem was finished, he would hose down the bodies and the stainless steel tables, and wash the floors. These chores, though far from complicated, would on occasion become too much. Stress would frequently build up to such a crescendo in Tucker’s life that he would have to relieve himself with a quick wank.

Wanking was the only way he could he could handle stress; the few moments of pleasure would wipe everything from his mind, rather like an electrical overload in a computer. Other people in a similarly stressful situation might go to the gym and work out for a few hours. Or take a walk in the fresh air, or maybe read a book. Not Tucker though, he would wank, preferably during his lunch break, whilst the other staff were outside in the sun enjoying a sandwich or a couple of pints in the pub.

As he stroked himself, he would be leering at one of the fresh bodies. When he reached his climax, which was usually in less than fifteen seconds, semen would fly in all directions and, because he never planned ahead more than ten seconds, a tissue was never at hand to contain the explosion. It often went down his leg. So far, he had been lucky – no one had spotted him at it. People weren’t sure what the stains were. They only had their suspicions.

So it was that Tucker rather enjoyed the silent company of corpses, particularly the younger fresher ones. The sex of his companions was of no importance.

To his credit, he did have manners. He didn’t stint on the pre-or post-coital conversation. He would talk to them for hours,
knowing they would never answer back or turn away from him. This morning’s little chat had been fairly typical.

‘God, didn’t I nearly break me fuckin’ neck on the way in this mornin?’ he had started. ‘Fuckin’ tripped on the fuckin’ steps and woss more I’m gonna get condensation for me injuries.’ He stabbed his fingers into the chest of the nearest body. ‘You’ll see, fuckin’ government, got more money than sense anyway…Tossers.’

To his co-workers he occasionally appeared to be in a trance, as if the clientele were talking back to him. Maybe they were. Only he knew the answer to that one.

Tucker existed in a small dark basement flat in Brighton, not that the other flats in the building were dark or particularly small. Just his. It was clear that he’d never had the benefit of an interior designer looking around and giving him pointers on colour and texture.

He owned a television, a sofa, a beaten-up old chair, a few piles of rather old and by now quite sticky porn mags, and some bags of rubbish that had almost bonded with the floor.

On this particular Friday night his routine varied little. He came home, switched on the TV and was soon stuffing his face with the fish and chips that he’d brought with him from a takeaway down the road. He had a very international approach to his diet, with curry one night, Chinese the next. He didn’t cook. Not even toast.

Fame was the only thing Tucker craved, apart from sex with someone who breathed – or had recently. Hence, his feeble attempts to break into the stand-up comic business. The thought that really sent shivers of excitement through him was not the telling of the jokes, or the joy of skilled delivery, timed to perfection. No, it was much more basic than that. To have several hundred people hanging on to his every word. To possess that level of control. Even thinking about it made him tremble with anticipation.

Just to have one person’s attention for more than a few seconds was uncharted water for Tucker.

He had role models. He collected pictures and videos of his favourite stars, and had pasted and taped pictures all over the wall of his television room. He didn’t call it a sitting room, because he wasn’t sure what the difference was between a lounge and a sitting room. It was less embarrassing if he referred to it as the television room.

Loneliness and desperation usually caught up with Tucker on Friday and Saturday evenings, when he would wander the promenade and, if he was feeling bold, indulge his urge to watch couples on the beach, writhing around in the darkness.

He occasionally stood in the shadows under the crumbling West Pier. He chose this spot in preference to the Palace Pier because the seriously randy couples came here, knowing that there was less chance of being seen.

Once, a few years back, Tucker was caught dick-handed and was forced to run for his life. The bloke who’d spotted him was massive and could throw the cricket-ball sized pebbles from the beach with the force of an Olympic shot-putter. Three quite large boulders hit Tucker squarely in the back, knocking the wind out of him. He found it impossible to run fast with his trousers around his knees and a stiffy thrashing about in front. Completely ruined what little streamlining he had. Luckily for him the guy didn’t give chase – he had bigger fish to fry.

This close encounter of the unwanted kind probably turned Tucker into one of the most cautious perverts in the south of England. It also kept him flat-bound for a few nights, afraid to venture out just in case the police were looking for him. Not that they would have to scour the streets for him anyway…They knew his address.

Some nights, Tucker would go to the pub and try to chat up a girl, but he never managed to get past the first all-important glance.

‘One day,’ Tucker screamed to the mirror in his bedroom. ‘One day, they’ll all wish they’d known me…Fuckin’ bastards.’

When he was drunk, which was often, he would stagger around his room conversing with his reflection in the mirror. He considered the Steve Tucker in the mirror to be handsome and clever. But they never saw this one. They never came to his flat so how could they meet the handsome one? Mirror Steve was suave and sophisticated and, no matter what Tucker did or said in the real world, Mirror Steve was always smiling and approving.

Tucker’s decorating skills were in evidence here too. He’d covered the edge of the mirror with snippets of wallpaper and wrapping paper to make it special. This was, after all, the door to Mirror Steve’s world. It had to be special. When he was very drunk, out-of-his-skull drunk, he would creep up on the mirror and try to catch Mirror Steve unawares. Mirror Steve always caught him out though, and got there first. Tucker would tell him a joke. Which he always screwed up. But if Tucker laughed, which he always did, then Mirror Steve would laugh too. So never mind – it was the closest he would ever get to an audience.

Steve was not a well man.

Chapter 6

Tuesday, May 14, Sewel Mill, 2.30PM

Barbara Jenner parked her car in the public car park behind the main parade of shops in Sewel Mill. Babs made a beeline for the tack shop, which had been in the Tufnell family for at least three generations now. Babs was about as horsey as anyone can be without actually crossing the species barrier, so Tufnell’s was her second home.

She was tall and very confident. Although not a pretty woman, she had a mature elegance and, at forty-one years of age, she still had the kind of figure that occasionally made men head-butt lampposts. Babs was far from shy about her appearance and dressed to show what she had. She was used to turning heads.

As she entered Tufnell’s, her senses were immediately attacked by the glorious smell of fresh, unsoiled wax jackets. Babs wandered around for a while, content to browse. Looking to see what was new this week, if anything. Gloria, the owner, was serving another customer but it didn’t look to be a lengthy transaction. When it was her turn to be served, she greeted Gloria with an air kiss past the side of her head and, after the usual pleasantries, asked if she could try on a few pairs of chaps and some jodhpurs.

‘Of course you can, you just help yourself,’ Gloria answered cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you know where to look by now.’ Gloria disappeared past a curtain at the back of the shop.

‘Tea?’ she called out to the sound of cups rattling.

‘Oh, yes please, I’d love one, Gloria darling, but no sugar otherwise I’ll never find anything in here to fit me and you’ll go out of business! Couldn’t have that now, could we?’ Babs had a clear voice and it carried well.

Gloria came close to saying that today’s modern fabrics can take unbelievable stresses and that it shouldn’t be a problem.
However, she thought better of it and remained silent. In common with many people who deal with the general public for a living, Gloria had developed very good self-control over the boundary between thoughts and tongue; it was well-guarded at all times. Besides, Gloria liked Babs and she was a good customer.

Babs knew the layout of the shop well; she only ever shopped there for this kind of thing. It would have been unthinkable to go anywhere else. It must have been at least thirty years since she first set foot in the place as a youngster, when Gloria’s parents were still running it. Occasionally she would buy from a farm wholesaler for feed and bits of ironmongery, but this was the shop for clothes, and she felt that people should support the local traders.

She found some chaps wide enough to fit around her generous thighs and two pairs of jodhpurs, paid for them, finished her tea, said her goodbyes and left the shop. Next stop, the butcher. As she walked down the High Street, she didn’t notice the man watching her. Nobody else noticed him either. He took care that they shouldn’t. He was too well-practised and too normal-looking. He was just an ordinary man in the High Street, going about his business. He attracted no attention.

Babs made her purchase at the butcher’s shop – two large pork chops and some mince – and then casually wandered up one side of the street and then down the other. Still she was being watched. The man shifted his shopping bag from one hand to the other as he crossed the road. He did so in order to by-pass the extremely small branch of a building society. There was a CCTV camera pointing out at the street and the watcher was aware of this. No point in slipping up over something so trivial.

Babs had finished everything on her mental list and headed back to the car park. She’d paid and displayed for two hours and there was still over thirty minutes left. She gave her ticket to the person waiting to pull into her space. The car loaded up with the
morning’s shopping, Babs started the engine and pulled out of her space. At that moment, another car quite close by followed suit.

Like synchronised driving, the two cars travelled at a sensible speed out of the village, with an even more sensible gap between them.

Babs didn’t even notice the other car. It wasn’t a car to attract attention. The drive was not long, only about a mile, but Hazel Lane was narrow and it often took longer than you would expect. If you met another car coming in the opposite direction, one of you had to back up to a farm gate or a driveway to let the other person pass.

Babs was ruthless when it came to giving way in the lane. She had developed a very effective technique for use on those occasions when she met someone coming from the opposite direction. She would slow down and make a half-hearted attempt to pull over to one side, as if to let the other person attempt to pass. But she would in fact be stopped in the middle of the road, making it impossible for the other driver, who would then almost certainly give way and reverse back to the nearest passing place. Babs would smile in a helpless girlie way and drive on, feeling the slight thrill of triumph.

Even the vicar was subject to the same technique. Babs did attend the village church but only for hat comparisons and a bit of general socialising. Today there was no confrontation, clerical or otherwise.

Babs indicated that she was turning right about one hundred yards before her drive. The car behind her didn’t need to slow down or even glance at the house. All that was needed in the way of information on the house and surrounding area had been acquired weeks ago, when no one was home.

Tuesday, May 14, 29 St Nicholas Lane, Sewel Mill, 3.30PM

Clive Marks went straight round to the back of the house. Edie was out anyway, so he didn’t expect to run into her. No, it was Cecil Hayward he was looking for and Cecil was in his shed, as usual.

The envelope was ready for him, as usual, and Cecil smiled cheerfully as Marks handed over a small package in exchange. Marks nodded in return.

Few words were spoken but the two men had a regular meeting like this most weeks. The pleasantries had all been used up years ago. Now it was purely business. The arrangement worked beautifully.

Tuesday, May 14, Anvil Wood House, 3.45PM

Babs unloaded the car and walked to her front door. Anvil Wood House was a large rambling Victorian red brick building with hanging tiles from the first floor up, and moss-covered Kent peg tiles on the roof.

At the back of the property, there was a substantial yard with stabling for twenty horses and a ménage. She had inherited it from her mother, on her death almost twenty years ago. Two of the horses belonged to Babs and the others were paying guests, mostly owned by the daughters of local well-to-do folk.

She walked through the hallway then down a small flight of steps to the kitchen, put the meat in the fridge and then went out to the stables to check the horses. The groom and the two local girls who helped muck out and generally run the stables had gone for the day. Everything was neat and tidy and life was good.

Tuesday, May 14, Sewel Mill Station, 5.30PM

Poppy had left work early that afternoon and the train pulled in to Sewel Mill station on time. In her line of work, she wasn’t tied to a desk from nine till five, and today wasn’t a press day, so
there had been no reason to hang around.

Poppy was an equestrian journalist with a mainstream horse magazine. While she enjoyed her work and the contact it gave her with horses and horsey people, what she had really wanted to be was an investigative journalist. The problem was, she never seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and no one ever tipped her off about anything. She was addicted to crime programmes and investigative documentaries on the television. She saw herself as the trusted reporter who works hand in hand with the police to bring criminals to justice, or as the cunning investigator who brings the breaking news to CNN.

Babs and Poppy had been together for twelve years, and the official story for the village was that they were cousins who were widowed young, cohabiting for company and to share expenses. Truth was they were lovers. They met one night in a gay pub in Brighton. Babs was on the prowl and Poppy was waiting for true love to come and tap her on the shoulder. Their ships came in at the same time, to the same mooring. The fact that they both had an interest in horses came as an added bonus.

Poppy kept the relationship secret from her colleagues, as she would find it too embarrassing if they found out. When the subject of men would raise its throbbing head, as it frequently did in an office full of women and a few gay men, Poppy found it hard-going. It was painful and distasteful to even think of men. She loathed them, not because of some distant trauma from her childhood or bad treatment from a relationship. She quite simply hated men and had long since given up trying to work out how or why she felt that way. She just did.

Now she was headed home. She knew Babs was taking care of dinner, as she usually did during the week.

Tuesday, May 14, Anvil Wood House, 5.50PM

In the kitchen of Anvil Wood House, Babs was preparing the pork chops. She put a small knob of butter on each one, followed by a
little sage. She would add a few onion rings later. The potatoes were nearly done and the French beans lay in wait for a swift steaming. The ladies ate well.

The kitchen was big and airy with all of the original Victorian features. They both loved it. Over one corner hung a cast-iron and wood-slat clothes dryer, raised and lowered by a rope. Underneath this was a shallow butler’s sink with a wooden plate rack next to it. The floor was small black and white tile, chessboard style, and in the middle was the main work surface, ten feet long by four feet wide. Halfway along one wall was the cooking range and the opposite facing wall supplied the meagre light with many quite small stone-edged gothic-style windows.

As the chops sizzled under the grill, Babs heard a sound outside the back door. It sounded like a dog, not that they owned one, but sometimes the local farm dogs went walkabout and came sniffing around, knocking the lids off the dustbins. She left her cooking to lean out of the top section of the stable-type back door so she could shoo them away. There were no dogs, it was Poppy, and she had a few harnesses and blanket samples from work to test out and write an appraisal for, and had gone straight to the stables to drop them off, rather than come in the front door.

She and Babs kissed on the lips, exchanged daily news while the food cooked and when it was time to eat, sat down to enjoy their meal. This was the best moment in their day, relaxing together and exchanging news and views. After dinner, they adjourned to the sitting room for some television and complained about the standard of the programmes. They shared a passion for Felicity Kendal and a disdain for blonde bimbo presenters, particularly the ones who made a media career out of stealing other people’s husbands.

They talked horses for a while and then retired to bed at about midnight.

Wednesday, May 15, Brentwood Mansions, 12.30AM

Kate leaned against the wall as Emma fumbled with the key. Emma had taken over the task of opening the front door once Kate had demonstrated beyond most reasonable doubt that her own efforts to make it somehow fit into the lock were not likely to be successful.

Fortunately, Emma had more luck and the two of them staggered into the flat, saved from the effort and expense of going down to Claridge’s for the night in the hope that the morning would see them able to operate the damn lock.

‘You weren’t serious about going to Claridge’s, were you?’ asked Emma. ‘You can’t have been.’

‘Of course I was. You wanted to spend the night on the stairs?’ answered Kate. ‘I’ve done it before, but only once, I have to admit.’

‘What, slept on the stairs?’

‘No, you idiot. Mislaid my keys and gone down to stay at Claridge’s. It was bloody expensive, I can tell you.’ She smiled at Emma, who put her arms around Kate, as much to stop her falling over as to show affection.

‘Thank goodness I was here tonight to save you from such a dreadful fate.’

‘Indeed. Don’t know what I’ll do without you when you go back home. Speaking of which, God, it’s so good to be home,’ Kate breathed. ‘My shoes really do need to come off right now this minute.’

‘You need at least a pint of water to help dilute all that wonderful wine.’ Emma headed off towards the kitchen.

‘I think I could probably give up caffeine for Chateau d’Yquem,’ Kate announced. She plonked herself down on her bed, kicking off her shoes.

They had been to a new restaurant that evening, one that Kate had been involved in through a lengthy renovation process. Sadly, the food hadn’t been quite as good as the décor, which had
been brilliant, as the two of them had frequently remarked during the course of the evening.

Yes, it was a triumph for the interior design business but not so for the catering. However, that could improve, they allowed, trying to be generous.

‘So, will you call him?’ Kate asked. They had discussed Paul Saxon at length while getting ready to go out earlier in the evening. They had considered the possibility of calling him after dinner – or rather of Emma calling him, while Kate disappeared discreetly to her bedroom.

Emma was happy to be with Kate but she hadn’t altogether given up on her marriage. Hence, the discussions about ‘will I or won’t I phone him?’ The marriage was certainly under a lot of strain and she knew that drastic action was required if she and Paul were to continue their lives together.

Paul was an intelligent man and she still loved him. At least she thought she did. But he didn’t seem to grasp how much at risk they were. He seemed to just accept the difficulties they were facing as being normal, given his line of work. He wasn’t aware that not all marriages were like theirs.

Emma shook her head. ‘Too tired,’ she yawned.

Both were asleep as their heads hit their respective pillows. There would be no pacing around the flat tonight.

Wednesday, May 15, Anvil Wood House, 2.00AM

The bedroom that Poppy shared with Babs was on the second floor; it was one of many. Victorians did like big families and this house was a true reflection of the architectural splendour of that era. There were eight bedrooms in total and various day rooms along with a toilet on each of the three floors. Babs and Poppy had not altered the house, preferring to leave it in its original state. Some of the rooms were empty because they didn’t have enough furniture to fill them.