Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (7 page)

“The Bleak and Bright bandits,” Sellers cut in with a knowing nod.

Cawley sighed as he stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. He hated that name. The police had identified the bandits, picked up by CCTV in their car following a robbery. They gave their names and pictures to the press. They were the perfect targets for national news and their names and faces wrote the headlines: Dexter Bleak, bleak by name and nature; Pandora Marsh, beautiful, radiant, the beauty to his beast.

The public thought of them as a modern day Bonny and Clyde. Heroes. A few of those opinions would change now they’d taken their first life, but most would remain the same. People had a way of glossing over details they didn’t like. In Cawley’s eyes they’d never been the heroes. He appreciated their brazen style, could admire their confidence and their non-violent and somewhat Hollywood approach -- more about the style and intimidation than brute force -- but criminals that carried guns and lived on the run often crossed the line. It was only a matter of time before they killed someone, and now, whilst the public sang their praises, he was counting down the minutes until they killed someone else.

“Yes,” he grumbled. “Them.”

“They were in here yesterday afternoon, messed up the place,” he gestured towards the door. From the outside Max had just seen the large wooden board that someone had nailed over the front, from this side he could see a line of broken glass jutting around the border of one of the panels. A large slice of it still remained at the bottom, pointed upwards like a jagged tooth.

Cawley removed a pen and a notepad, for appearance sake if nothing else. He doubted that the bartender would have anything noteworthy to say but he wanted to at least make it look like he was interested in hearing it. “What time did they arrive?” he asked.

The stocky man shrugged, glanced around in a moment of recall. “Early afternoon, maybe one or two.”

Cawley lifted his eyes from the pad where he was doodling; he raised an eyebrow at the bartender. The robbery at the bank had been around twelve. The cameras clocked the culprits leaving just after twelve-thirty. A thirty minute drive North West, along the winding country lanes that peppered this part of the country like snakes in wild grass, would put them at approximately this location.

“And what time did they leave?” he enquired.

He shrugged again, looked distant, mischievous. There was something he wasn’t saying. “They weren’t ‘ere long. Ordered a couple o’drinks, used the toilet and then left,” he seemed to be finished, and then added: “after trashing the place.”

Cawley raised his eyebrows further, asking for clarification, when it didn’t come he asked: “They just smashed the door and left?”

A pause, a look in a false memory and then the bartender answered, “The report about the robbery came on the television,” he shrugged. “They panicked I guess. One of the lads tried to stop them, calmly ya know, then the guy went ballistic. He hit him, shoved ‘im against the door,” he nodded towards the panelled door. “Then ‘e pulled out a gun, ordered us all into the toilets whilst ‘e escaped.”

Cawley flipped to the previous page in the notebook, he’d spoken to the officer who had taken Sellers’s call and made a few notes. “This happened yesterday afternoon?”

“That’s right,” he said with a half-smile of cooperation.

“And yet you never phoned the police?”

The smile disappeared from his face, was replaced by a look of anxiety.

“We wouldn’t have found out if not for an anonymous call yesterday,” Cawley informed him. “Why?”

“I was a little shaken, I guess. He pulled a fucking gun on me ya know.”

“So you said. And the others, like the one they hit, none of them thought to call us?”

He shrugged, tried to avert his gaze.

“Do you have any idea who might have phoned us?”

Something glared behind Seller’s eyes, his features twitched with an instinctive, uncontrollable disgust. He shook his head and denied knowledge; Cawley knew he was lying but that didn’t prove anything. The call had probably come from a drunken patron after watching the story on the news, something that Sellers wasn’t
willing to admit.

“Okay,” Cawley said long and slow. The bartender was clearly hiding something. If the bandits had been in his pub he had nothing to hide. He wasn’t harbouring them, the officers had already checked out the building and the bandits weren’t dumb enough to hide in a shit hole run by someone who would sell them out in a heartbeat.

“What’re you not telling me?” Cawley persisted.

“What do you mean?” Sellers wondered without conviction.

Cawley sighed. “You’re hiding something. You’re lying to me.”

“Why would I make up a story like this?”

“You tell me.”

Sellers groaned and grumbled, looked around the room with the air of a troubled soul. “Okay,” he said, softly and resolutely. “The truth is, things got a little heated. We had a full house, usually do…” he paused, checked for the dozenth time that no one else was in the pub.

“Go on…”

“The boys got a little rough. They saw the television report. They just wanted to bring ‘em in, do the right thing.”

“I bet the reward helped.”

He nodded. “It happened as I said, only they didn’t throw the first punch, we -- the others that is -- did. We tried to restrain ‘em but they got the better of us. They escaped, we followed ‘em to their car but ‘e pulled a gun on us. That’s it, God’s truth.”

He had a pleading look in his eyes when he finished, a look that begged to be understood and accepted.

Cawley nodded, he could see the desperation in the bartender’s eyes. He had dealt with enough liars, cheats and criminals to know when someone was lying or when someone was trying to feed him a false series of events. He felt a little better at the explanation, things fit into place.

There was a good chance that the pair had passed through. He was on the right track.

7

They awoke in silence, a silence interrupted sporadically by the careful clatter of cutlery from a distant part of the house. Pandora rose first, smiling and stretching after what had been a long and pleasant sleep, the best she’d had in a long time.

She climbed out of bed, dressed in her underwear, and peeled back the curtains to greet a warm and glorious sun. She boiled the kettle in the room and sat on the window seat, her legs pressed up against her chest, her face turned to the heated day. When Dexter woke, more noisily and cumbersome -- he wasn’t a morning person -- the sounds from downstairs had dissipated and were replaced by the smells of freshly cooked breakfast.

“Do you think that’s for us?” he wondered, sniffing the air loudly and feeling a groan of hunger in his stomach. It had been a while since they’d eaten properly, they’d snacked on sweets, crisps and pre-packed sandwiches that tasted more like plastic than the crinkly triangles that encased them, but they hadn’t had a cooked meal for weeks. They’d been too eager, excited and nervous to take advantage of the breakfast offerings on the morning of the robbery, had been too preoccupied since then.

Pandora gave a little shrug and beamed a wide smile that stretched even further across her sun-drenched features when Dexter traipsed his way over to her. He wrapped his arms around her, planted a kiss on her hair -- the scent of sweet shampoo long since faded, replaced by a thin veil of must and smoke. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, planted a kiss on her head, her cheek and then her lips. He traced a hand up her leg, from her tight and outstretched calf, over her bended knee and down to her thigh. The tip of his finger heated as it worked its way south.

She stopped his hand before he could go any further. He grumbled, tried to push it further but met with resistance. She pulled away from him, having to tilt her head backwards to maintain a distance from his lustful mouth.

“I need to shower,” she warned. “I stink.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do,” she affirmed.

He sighed, met her adamant stare and grumbled again, turning away with a resigned shrug.

He had left his clothes hanging over the back of the only chair in the room, a hardback antique that sat before a dated and dusty dresser. He picked them up, began to shuffle his way into them as Pandora stared out the window. The room was at the back of the house and looked out onto the garden, alert and awakened to the bright day. A large wooden deck peeked onto a lush green lawn interspersed with flower beds and vegetable patches and interwoven with a
labyrinthine cobbled path that disappeared into a cluster of lush hedges and ferns.

An elderly man appeared on the decking. She watched, staring down at his back and the top of his head, as he stood and stared out onto the field of green. He turned slowly, back towards the house and then stopped after taking a single step. He craned his neck, peered upwards, towards Pandora.

She felt a startled cry trigger her nerves, felt a little creeped out and uncomfortable. She didn’t attempt to hide or to cover herself but expected him to turn away, to avert his eyes in embarrassment or shame. He didn’t. Once his eyes locked onto her he didn’t seem to want to move them.

He was old, possibly seventy, maybe more. He had a wrinkled and almost ageless face that would suit a haggard, wheelchair-bound centenarian. His skin was rough, hardened, yet hung loosely from his bones. In the sunlight his eyes seemed almost grey, like little balls of dwindling ash.

After a few moments she gave him a little wave, pretending that she’d been gazing out at the garden in a daze and had only just noticed him. When he didn’t return the gesture she wrapped her hand back around her shins and shifted into the foetal position, suddenly very cold despite the warmth of the morning.

“I’ll go and see if that food’s for us,” Dexter said, zipping up his pants and shaking out the creases. “Come down when you’re ready.”

Pandora turned sharply, almost forgetting he was there. She nodded distantly, he didn’t notice the unease on her face as he gave her another kiss, left a warm hand on her shoulder and then departed.

She turned back to the window, expecting to see the old man still staring, but he was gone. The garden was back to its trancelike state, peaceful and empty. Pandora didn’t feel it anymore though; she climbed off the windowsill and headed for the bathroom. She needed a shower.

Dexter followed the scent of food downstairs, like a wide-nosed cartoon dog tracking the trail of delectable delights. He passed portraits and landscapes, a littering of pictures gilded and hung to keep guests entertained as they climbed and descended the twisting staircase that led from the second floor down onto the entrance hallway.

He followed the smell to a dining room where three tables lay in wait, only one of them set with the implements of breakfast: toast rack, cutlery, plates, a selection of jams and butters. He caught Dorothy rearranging the plates so they sat in perfect alignment with one another.

“Good morning,” he said with a nod.

She turned quickly, instantly broke into a beaming smile when she saw him. He stopped in his tracks, prepared himself for a joyous greeting.

“Good morning love!” she called merrily. She opened her arms, indicating the empty spread in front of her. “You’ll be having breakfast I hope?”

He paused as if to give this some thought. “Sure,” he said with a nod, directing his attention to a buffet table at the other end of the room, where a toaster, a kettle and a series of cereals awaited for the continental offering.

“Excellent!” she made a scene of looking behind him. “Your beautiful other-half not awake yet?”

“She’ll be down soon.” He looked towards the kitchen, the scent of cooked food still making his mouth water as he picked at a few slices of melon. “That smells gorgeous,” he noted, hinting.

She winked at him. “Full English breakfast, all part of the deal my love. Give me a shout when she surfaces and I’ll come and take your order.”