Duplicity (4 page)

Henry ran over to a rusted metal drum full of broken chunks of concrete and ducked behind it. Henry felt like an over excited kid doing something really naughty.

He looked over the top of the drum and grinned, he saw them now, not clearly but enough to tell that it was a naked man and a woman. His excitement faded a little when it became obvious that the man wasn’t his friend, William. Not unless he’d put on more weight lost his hair and some height. He couldn’t really see much of the woman; the man’s back blocked her from view. But he heard her moans and gasps.

This was all wrong, he felt his face redden, he really should leaver them to it. The image of somebody else walking down here and catching Henry spying on the couple made his face blush an even deeper red.

He’d never live that down, he stood up, intending to leave them to their violent or passionate lovemaking, Henry couldn’t be sure of which as he’d yet to experience either. The woman screamed, this time he did sound as though he’d hurt her. He leaned forward, feeling so guilty but he just couldn’t help it.

They’d shifted position, the woman still wasn’t visible but he did have a better view of the man. He noticed something on the back of the other man’s neck; it looked like a large mole. Henry’s blood went cold; he had a mole just like that too.

Oh, god, this couldn’t be right. He leaned forward for a closer look. The height was about right, so was the body shape, even the lack of hair. It was him, another Henry! As he took another step forward, his brown shoe crunched on the neck of a broken milk bottle.

The thunderous noise echoed around the buildings. Henry stood frozen to the spot as he watched the woman throw the man off him and sit up. Henry gasped out loud. Dark red blood covered the woman’s entire face but underneath that scarlet mask, there was no doubt that the woman was his wife.

The mill whistle then blasted out. Henry yelped and spun around; he shot out of the garden and pelted through the short cut.

Chapter Five

Joanie Winters would have to make a decision to either go or stay. Buggering off and striking this plan down as a failure looked to be the likeliest choice, besides, that irritating car alarm really was getting on her tits.

She jumped off the bonnet of the vintage, canary yellow Aston Martin and walked off without giving the car a second glace. She was going to be pissed off for the rest of the day now.

God, she so needed to hit something, how dare the car owner not show their ugly mug. She’d put so much work into setting that up.

When Joanie had first seen that big, posh car, painted up in that shitty gay colour, she knew that here was an opportunity just impossible to turn down. The car must be worth a bloody fortune, somebody’s pride and joy. He probable loved that car more than his wife although judging by the colour, he was probably queer so he’ll have loved it more than his mum.

She reckoned that if anyone had even looked at the car funny then the owner would pull a major bitch-fest. Joanie had pulled an evil grin and then sat down hard on the bonnet.

At first, the shrieking alarm had been like music to her ears, she’d even tried to scratch the paintwork with her fingernails whilst waiting for the red-faced owner to make an appearance.

There was nothing better than a good old confrontation to get the blood singing.

As she walked around the corner, Joanie still couldn’t believe that nobody had turned up. She could have set the bloody thing on fire and still walked away.

Joanie was not having a good day. Why the hell was nobody fighting back? Even that bald dude on the bus, this morning, had acted like one big soft teddy bear. That did surprise her, considering what Joanie had seen him do to that tramp the day before. That reminded her, Joanie had intended to check that alley out today.

“I wonder why he didn’t fight back?”

It was almost as if the guy on the bus this morning was a completely different person to that screaming psycho who’d knocked seven shades of shite out of that homeless guy.

“It’s a bit of a weird one, Joanie.”

The car alarm abruptly stopped its screaming. She guessed that her man had finally decided to make his entrance. Maybe, he was there all the time she has sat on his car, hiding behind a corner or peeking through a pair of curtains, just waiting for her to disappear.

She liked the sound of that. The idea that a grown man could be shit-scared of little old Joanie excited the hell out of her. Her black mood lifted, until Joanie remembered where she was going and the black mood crashed back down.

“This is so much bollocks,” she muttered.

Joanie fucking hated doing errands for her gran, it was a chore and a complete ball-ache. To make it worse, the potential embarrassment factor, if her mates found out the real reason she’d skipped out of college was just too soul destroying to even contemplate.

Her life would be ruined; those bitches would take the piss behind Joanie’s back for literally months after.

Visiting her gran hadn’t always been such a downer, back in the past, when she was just a young girl; Joanie loved visiting the old bird. She used to be that frantic woman who constantly took the piss out of Joanie’s mum and gave her money and presents. She still had the flick knife that gran had given her on Joanie’s tenth birthday. That was the dog’s bollocks, that best present she’d received that year.

Everything changed when Joanie’s mum put her in sheltered housing. Gran went all weird, she started to act all funny and smell a bit like a wet stray dog.

Joanie wished that there was some way of getting out of doing this weekly chore but unless gran popped her clogs, she was stuck with it. Mum might be a bitch but she sure wasn’t stupid. One sniff of defiance from Joanie and she may as well kissed goodbye to the house WIFI password. To make matter even worse, Joanie’s contract phone was in her mother’s name.

The queen bitch had Joanie by the scrotum sack, not that she had one.

She stopped by the Church Street intersection and watched the traffic slowly flow past. Due to a recent spate of accidents on this part of the road, the council had installed traffic calming measures in the shape of speed bumps.

Joanie remembered her father ranting on about them a couple of weeks’ back, about how frustrating it was to get through the centre of town now. She reckoned that if it pissed her dad off who was like the calmest person on the planet, this bit of road must send normal people into a blood fuelled rage.

She kept her eyes peeled for the one certain driver, that special somebody who would help Joanie climb out of this pit of misery and clear this black cloud that was threatening to ruin her entire fucking day.

Her perfect match was sitting behind a national express coach in a beat up old Ford Escort. Even from where she stood, |Joanie could see his arms waving about in sharp violent actions; his gesticulating mouth suggested that this man was very, very upset.

She guessed that his age was close to fifty, a perfect age for what she intended to do. Now all she needed was that fucking coach to shift its arse.

The lights had started to change; the coach driver saw an opportunity and jumped the light, leaving the driver behind even more distressed.

Joanie rushed out into the middle of the road before the driver had time to slow down. She kept her head down whilst keeping one discreet eye on the approaching car. He slammed his brakes on, screeching to a halt. The man was out of the car before the wheels had stopped.

“What the bloody hell are you playing at, you stupid cow? You nearly went under my car.”

“Bingo.” She whispered.

Joanie lifted her head and looked over to the pavement, apart from an old woman exiting a sandwich shop and a young mother pushing a pram, the area was deserted. Still, even a limited audience was better than nothing.

She ran up to the angry man and grabbed his arms, “No, I won’t get into your car!” she screamed. Joanie dropped to her knees and pretended to sob. The man’s face was a picture; he honestly must have thought that he was dealing with an escaped lunatic.

Her audience had grown, A distraught girl’s voice always brought out the local rubber neckers. Another woman had emerged from the sandwich shop, judging from the white apron she must work there. Two men in business suits had got out of a car on the other side of the road and looked on in concern, or maybe it was amusement, Joanie couldn’t be sure.

She scuttled back on her hands and knees. “I’m going to get the law onto you!” shouted Joanie. “I’m not a child; I know what those words mean.”

The traffic behind the man’s car seemed endless; she must be pissing a lot of people off with her dazzling performance. Joanie was about to reel off another outburst when the man took fright, retreated to his car and sped off.

Joanie stayed where she was, laughing softly to herself as the traffic swerved around her. She watched the woman in the apron rush over, with concern etched upon her face. She stopped dead when it became obvious that the girl wasn’t in a state of extreme distress.

“Are you okay?” she managed to say.

Joanie got to her feet, brushed down her denim jeans and prepared to walk away; she turned and glared at the woman then grinned when the woman’s expression changed from concern to irritation, she must have recognised Joanie. “Why don’t you just fuck off? Go on; get back to your shop, you dried up old bag.”

She sighed, feeling that warm glow of happiness spread across her chest, Joanie strolled across the road, grinning like a Cheshire cat. She had done it, Joanie couldn’t believe how well that went, what a superb performance. Even her gran’s evil dragon breath wouldn’t be able to knock Joanie off this plateau of happiness.

She checked her watch and found that it had just left half past ten. Joanie needed to get a move on. The last thing she needed was gran to ring up her mum and accuse Joanie of abandoning her. Her mum’s bitchy voice would be the only thing with the capability to destroy Joanie’s good mood.

Her journey was almost over. Gran’s gaff lay just three streets away from Joanie’s location. She hurried past the huge old mill just as some twat blew the whistle. Jesus, that was loud. if she hadn’t been pushed for time; she’d have tried to discover who’d blew that bloody thing and shoved it right up their arse.

She stopped to cross the road and noticed another joker, this one raced across; something white fell out of his pocket. He stopped, turned and was almost wiped out by a speeding cement mixer, God, what a tosser. She waited for it to pass and pelted across herself.

Joanie hurried over to a wrought iron gate and stepped into the park grounds, she turned to watch the man disappear into the building. “Now why does he look familiar?” then it clicked. “Well, well, if it isn’t my mild mannered psycho? So that’s where you work.”

That strange man would become her next project, it was so tempting to walk into that mill right now and start investigating.

“Patience, my sweet.” she whispered.

He’d have to wait until Joanie had dealt with her gran. Her new home overlooked the rugby playing field on the other side of the park. She hoped to god that the old bag hadn’t already rang up her mum. Joanie felt for the phone in her jacket pocket, half tempted to give her mum a buzz to tell the bitch that she was on her way.

She sighed and left the phone where it was. Ringing up mum would be a waste of time; the bitch would only accuse her of lying anyway.

If that cement mixer had flattened that bloke, she’d have the perfect excuse not to go to gran’s. How cool would that be? Not only would Joanie wouldn’t have to do the old bag’s shopping, she would have got to play in front of a huge audience. Joanie would have told them that the man was her dad and she was nearly hit as well.

Joanie smiled then vaulted over the wire fence and ran across the bowling green, ignoring the outraged faces of the wrinkly old bastards who were in the middle of a game. She picked up one of the bowls, surprised at how heavy it was and then threw it towards the closest angry old man; she then jumped over the fence on the other side and into the playing field.

She swerved through the dog shit piles spotted across the edge of the field and crossed into the ground of the retirement home. Joanie had often wondered which joker came up with the name ‘Eden Crescent Retirement home’ the huge imposing Georgian complex looked about as friendly as a Doberman with rabies.

No wonder gran hated the place; the old woman complained that it felt like she’d moved into the castle of Doctor Frankenstein. It even had its own loony tunes caretaker. Joanie wasn’t easily fazed but even he gave her a bad dose of the creepazoids.

When her gran’s bright yellow front door came into view, she finally slowed down and dug out her phone, Joanie had made good time. She was only a couple of minutes late.

Why the old bag couldn’t just do her shopping online and have it delivered was beyond her. It would save her a job, that’s for goddamm sure.

She banged on the door a couple of times. When there was no immediate answer, Joanie tried the handle; it was locked as per usual. Perhaps she ought to suggest the online order idea to her gran; it was worth a try, no matter how unrealistic it was. She banged on the door again. Where the bloody hell was she?

She lifted the letterbox and peered through, a blast of cold air buffered through the narrow hole; did she have all the windows open again?

“Hello Gran, are you in there?”

Joanie stood up and let the letterbox flap crash down, she sighed, now what was she going to do? This was just like her, the daft old sod had probably buggered off down to the communal area in the next building; well she was stuffed if Joanie was going to search for her.

Just as Joanie made up her mind to leave it and spend the rest of the day in the shopping arcade, a silhouette appeared behind the frosted glass window.

“At fucking last,” she muttered.

It did occur to Joanie that the shadow behind the glass seemed very large for a little old lady, it looked like she was standing of a box and wearing five coats. A pungent smell of food gone off drifted from behind the door. Joanie wrinkled her nose, Jesus, that was disgusting, it smelled a bit like stagnant water.