Brothers in Blood (8 page)

Russell and Alex nodded greedily.

It went like clockwork – to begin with. When Laurence drove up the narrow cobbled street, there were just two girls on show. He pulled up by the kerb and wound the window down.

This was the signal for the girls to saunter over.

They were both past their prime but, given their profession, Laurence was unsure when that would have been. They certainly looked over forty but may well have been much younger.

‘You after business?’ said one, a peroxide blonde in a shiny plastic mac.

Laurence adopted a Brummy accent to respond. ‘How much?’ he said a brusque, charmless way. He knew these women would be used to this kind of treatment. There was no room for niceties in such a transaction.

‘Forty quid.’

‘What about you?’ Laurence said, glancing at the other woman. She seemed a little older and less confident. Behind that awfully heavily made up visage was a tired, timid woman.

‘I’ll do it for thirty-five,’ she said, softly, moving forward.

Laurence nodded. ‘Get in,’ he snapped, pushing open the passenger door. He grinned to himself. Little did the poor cow know, in cutting her price she was effectively cutting her own throat. He couldn’t help but give a little chuckle.

They laid her out on the river bank. She was concussed but breathing heavily. Alex was the first to strike a blow. He stabbed the knife deep into her abdomen. The woman gasped and gurgled. For a few fleeting seconds her eyes opened wide in shock and then clamped shut. Russell stabbed her in the chest, but she was already dying now and the body gave no reaction. Finally, with a flourish, Laurence slit her throat, taking great delight in seeing the blood spurt like a series of mini-fountains and trickle down towards her flaccid cleavage.

The three of them stood by the corpse for some moments, their eyes gleaming, tight smiles on their lips. Instinctively they held hands, affirming their brotherhood. Their quiet moment of reflection was disturbed by stirrings in the darkness at the far side of the pathway by the river. There was a sharp rustle and the sound of inarticulate grunting.

And then, suddenly, out of the shadows, a dark form emerged. ‘Here, what you doing?’ came a voice, harsh and accusative. In shock, the three of them turned to face the stranger, a tall broad-shouldered man with grizzled features and a mop of tousled hair who was fast approaching them. His gait was a little ungainly and he carried a half empty whisky bottle in one hand. ‘You’ve killed her. I saw you, you bastards… you’ve killed her,’ he cried, as he lunged at Laurence, with surprising speed and agility, wrapping his arm around his neck. So swift had been his movements that Laurence had no time to defend himself and in an instant he was yanked off his feet and flung to the ground as though he were the discarded toy of an angry child. The stranger then brought the bottle down on his head. The blow was not entirely accurate and only caught Laurence’s left temple. Nevertheless, the skin split and blood began to seep from the wound. Laurence groaned loudly and sank back onto the grass beside the path

Laurence’s cry of pain seemed to waken Russell and Alex from their frozen state of shock at the sudden violent intrusion of this stranger. Alex leapt forward and stabbed his knife into the back of stranger’s neck. The man gave a gruff cry and turned in fury on his attacker, punching him to the ground. Now his eyes lit upon Russell who stood before him, knife in hand. With a roar, he lunged forward, but Russell sidestepped him and his assailant staggered close to the water’s edge, but with a nimbleness that belied his size and sobriety, he spun round and grabbed Russell by the neck, his brutish fingers sinking hard into the soft flesh. He brought his face close to Russell’s so that even in the fading evening light, he could see the flashing rheumy eyes and the snarling rotten teeth. Terrier-like the man shook his victim violently as he began to throttle him. Russell started to choke and he knew he was in danger of losing consciousness. As his vision began to fade, he summoned up all his energy to thrust his knife hard into his assailant’s stomach.

This action had an instant effect. The man gave a roar, a strange mixture of pain and fury, and releasing his hold of Russell’s throat, he staggered backwards. As he did so, Russell snatched up the discarded whisky bottle and brought it down with great force on the back of the man’s head. He crumpled to the ground and lay still.

Russell and Alex stared down at the derelict, their bodies heaving and their minds awhirl. They were joined by Laurence who was dabbing his forehead with his handkerchief. Suddenly he began laughing, a rich, natural fulsome laugh. The other two stared at him in surprise.

‘Well,’ said Laurence, containing his merriment, ‘that was an interesting
divertissement
, was it not? Two for the price of one.’

Neither Russell nor Alex seemed to share Laurence’s amusement. They saw the incident for what it was: a very dangerous close call.

‘Now let’s get the hell out of here,’ said Alex, looking around nervously, wondering if there were any other strangers lurking in the shadows ready to pounce.

Laurence nodded. ‘Good idea, but first we must commit our friends to their watery grave.’

Without speaking, they tipped the bodies of their victims into the dark silent waters of the river and watched them sink slowly below the murky surface and then flung their knives after them.

‘And now a drink, I think, gentlemen. We have earned it,’ announced Laurence with a grin, still using his Brummy accent.

TWELVE

1984

Russell took a sip of the ice cold gin and tonic and then relaxed back into the inadequate folds of the garden lounger, closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the warm summer sun. His mind wandered back to the incident on the river bank a year ago. At this distance the panic and sense of danger had subsided completely and he viewed it merely as an exciting adventure. He remembered it now with affection and amusement, an unexpected bonus to their night’s activities. The thought that one of them could have been injured or worse no longer crossed his mind. Instead he focused on the killing of the girl, the tart, the sack of flesh in a dress. He ran the images in slow motion in his mind. In particular, he focused on the blood spurting from her throat. It was an erotic image and as it rippled in his brain, he felt stirrings at his crotch. The sensation pleased him, but he banished the image before it roused him further.

Oh, but it had been good. It was the last time he had really smiled.

He tried to turn his mind to other things. It was Friday again, the end of another fraught and tedious week, and the freedom of two whole days away from the hell hole where he worked beckoned. For him it was just a brief, occasional respite from the reality of his dull, tense existence. He’d been warned by many, not least Laurence, that he would regret going into teaching. Forget the long holidays and the supposedly short hours, he had been told. Think about the pressure, the constant battle with young savages, the preparation and marking and the increasing burden of paperwork, he had been told. But he had ignored the warnings.

With a sudden movement he drained his glass. The surge of cold alcohol pleased him. Its anaesthetic properties were beginning to work. With this prospect in mind, he padded back into the kitchen and poured himself another double and returned to the lounger determined to fill his mind with pleasant thoughts. It would not be an easy task, he accepted, as he sipped his gin greedily. Much of life bored him or filled him with disdain. It always had, of course. He really believed that he had a limited capacity to be happy. To a large extent this was due to his inability to form close relationships. He could get so close but then some inner force, prompted by insecurity, laziness or, more usually, a complete lack of curiosity about other people held him back. He only felt anything approaching happiness when he was with Laurence and Alex, particularly Laurence. Then the protective shell fell away. He could be himself – or as much as he was ever able to be. It was a truth he accepted: Laurence had spoiled him for others.

Of course he cared for Sandra – in his own reserved fashion. She was a sweet, intelligent woman and, perhaps more importantly, made very few demands on him. She didn’t try to mould him to her tastes and outlook as he’d seen so many wives of his acquaintance do. Sandra accepted him – loved him – for what he was. Well, he assumed that she loved him. She behaved as though she did and he didn’t question the matter further. It was, he supposed, a marriage of convenience. They rarely argued. If she didn’t agree with him, she just left him alone. He knew that in this respect he was lucky; he also knew that if something happened to her – if she disappeared from his life – he would survive. Quite easily. He would continue in his own stoical way.

With this observation floating around his brain, he drifted into sleep. The gin and the sun, combined with the natural fatigue following a week teaching bore him away into a dreamless slumber.

He was awakened some twenty minutes later by a cool hand on his brow and a warm kiss on his lips. He opened his eyes to find Sandra smiling down at him. ‘Getting pissed before the evening meal is a bit desperate, darling, even for you,’ she said brightly.

‘I am not pissed,’ he responded with mock grumpiness, shaking off the rags of sleep. He pulled himself up in the lounger and reached for his glass on the lawn. It lay on its side, having fallen over when it had slipped from his grasp as he had dropped off to sleep. He studied the empty glass as though it were some prize exhibit in the empty glass museum. ‘I’m just tired. If a couple of gins make me pissed, there’s no hope.’

He grinned and Sandra kissed him again.

‘Would you like another?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’

‘I think I’ll join you.’

‘Good girl.’

She returned minutes later with a tray containing two fresh glasses and a bowl of peanuts.

‘Had a good day, darling?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘So, so,’ she said, plonking herself down in the other lounger. ‘Frantic morning but, y’know, appointments dry up on a Friday afternoon.’

‘People are too busy preparing for the weekend to be ill, eh?’

Sandra gave a tired grin. ‘Something like that.’

‘Have we treated anything really nasty today? Any bubonic plague around?’

‘You know, people around here are not that adventurous. The odd case of impotence and slipped disc was the best on offer. Apart from that it’s summer sniffles, hay fever and piles.’

‘Piles of what.’

She grinned. ‘Exactly. And what about you? Did
you
have a good day?’

‘Yes. It was a Tuesday in 1973. I remember it well.’

‘Hey, that was before you met me.’

‘Oops.’

Exhausting the empty banter, they lapsed into a comfortable silence. Sandra was content. That’s all she wanted out of marriage: a relaxed and undemanding partnership. That’s all she wanted out of life: smooth sailing – drifting casually on the mill pond – and not being tossed and blown on the unpredictable ocean. Despite choosing medicine as a career and being one of the best students in her year at medical school, she had no desire to specialise or face the cut and thrust of hospital life. She just wanted to be a common or garden GP. Like her father. Steady and unremarkable. Like Russell. They were well matched.

Sometimes he felt that she had chosen him because he was apparently unambitious and posed no challenge. She knew that he wasn’t going to drag her from her own comfort zone. It also struck him that this is why he had chosen her.

They made love that night. It was Friday and they usually made love on Friday. After five years of marriage, it had become a somewhat mechanical routine but in its own way fulfilling. Usually after the climax, they each turned over on their side and slipped into contented sleep. However, on this occasion they lay close on their backs, staring at the ceiling, still pleasantly vague from the alcohol and savouring the moments of intimacy.

‘I suppose we should be smoking a cigarette now?’ he said at length.

‘Smoking is bad for you. I am a doctor and I know.’

‘Everything pleasurable is bad for you.’

‘Except sex.’

‘Ah, the one thing God forgot about.’

She reached for his hand beneath the covers and pulled herself closer to him until she could feel his body heat.

‘Russ, I have news.’

‘News?’ He was puzzled but not concerned.

She leaned over and whispered in his ear. ‘You’re going to be a daddy.’

‘What…?’

‘I’m having a baby.
We’re
having a baby.’

Russell lay very still for a moment, assimilating this information, digesting it as quickly as he could and working out how he felt about the matter.

‘You are certain?’ he asked quietly.

She smiled in spite of her apprehension. ‘As I’ve already said, I am a doctor, darling. I think I should know.’

Deep within him, Russell was disappointed. A baby changed so much. The dynamics of their life would never be the same. Inconvenience and responsibility came with all that baby baggage. He was angry, too. They hadn’t discussed this in detail; it had always been a case of someday, yes, but perhaps not now. It seemed that Sandra had made up her own mind on the matter. He had been removed from the decision making process.

However, as he looked across at his wife, her face almost luminous in the dimness of the bedroom, touched by the moonlight falling through the window, he could see the pleasure in her eyes and the tenseness of her expression. She wanted the baby. Possibly she needed the baby. And she needed him to be happy about it.

He hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead as he did so. ‘That’s absolutely wonderful, darling,’ he said, his voice warm and reassuring, while his face remained an expressionless mask.

He felt her relax into his embrace and her arms tightened around him. ‘Are you sure you’re happy, Russ? I hoped you would be.’

‘Of course. Of course I’m happy. I’m just a little surprised that’s all.’