Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (15 page)

Mervin stopped and tore the cellophane rapper off the packet of cigarettes and pulled a cigarette out. As he reached into his pocket for his lighter, a loud bang startled him. He turned around expecting to see the motorbike heading away, but the motorcyclist was walking across the forecourt toward the motorbike.

The motorcyclist mounted the motorbike, started the engine and sped away. Mervin looked towards the petrol station shop, but the lighting from the forecourt reflected in the window preventing him from seeing inside. A bad feeling led him to return to the shop, and when he entered he was surprised to find that Jack was nowhere to be seen.

He walked towards the counter and heard a tapping sound. He leaned over and saw Jack lying on the ground, his right leg shaking as though he was having a fit, and then he saw blood pumping from a dark hole between his eyes, which stared straight up, wide and vacant.

He pulled his mobile phone from his jacket pocket and phoned for an ambulance. By the time the call ended, Jack lay still, a pool of blood spreading out around his head.

* * *

“What time did you hear the gun?” a young police detective named Kevin Smith asked Mervin.

Mervin puffed nervously on his third cigarette, ignoring the warning sign attached to the side of the petrol station forbidding smoking on the forecourt.

“First light,” Mervin said, and wished that he had not used those words.

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. I left home at about quarter to eight, so sometime between quarter to and half past.”

“Could you describe the person that you saw?”

“I didn’t see the face. The rider was dressed completely in black and wearing a black helmet with the visor down.”

“What type of motorbike was it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to the bike.”

“Vehicle reg?”

“Won’t all this be on the CCTV?”

“If the CCTV had been working it would have been.”

“There must be other cameras in the area, even traffic cameras.”

“We’ll be checking, but in the meantime you shouldn’t be leaving town, so if you have any plans for Christmas you’ll need to cancel.”

“No plans. Just me, a turkey sandwich and a pack of smokes.” Mervin felt depressed sharing his plans for Christmas out loud.

* * *

Mervin closed the door and went to the lounge where he turned the radio on and collapsed into an armchair. He lit another cigarette and wondered how many times he would have to listen to Slade wishing everybody a merry Christmas or Wizzard wishing it could be Christmas every day before the end of the day.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and started choking when he heard the newsreader on the radio mention the name Justin Bonner. By the time he had finished coughing, the news had concluded and Bruce Springsteen was singing “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town.”

He sat in the chair for an hour waiting for the news to return, and when it did, the lead story was the shooting at the petrol station. The police were appealing for witnesses. The second story was about a man named Justin Bonner who had suffered horrific burns in an industrial accident at a café in the High Street and had been pronounced dead at the scene. Investigations were to be carried out, but an electrical fault was thought to be the most likely cause.

Mervin wondered whether a nondescript person in black leathers and a black crash helmet had visited the café shortly before or after visiting a petrol station. He found himself trying to remember what the man had looked like that had been sitting next to him at the bar, and found that he could not. He had tried to ignore him in the hope that he would go away, and had been unable to focus clearly when he had tried looking at him. He wondered how long it would take for the police to discover that Jack Thomas and Justin Bonner had known one another.

Mervin stood and fetched a bottle of “Glenmorangie Ealanta” single malt a client had given to him last Christmas. He had been saving it for a special occasion, but suddenly he felt that time might be shorter than he had planned, and the day required not just alcohol, but fine alcohol.

He collapsed back into the armchair and stood the bottle on the floor by his feet. He raised the cigarette to his lips and took several long, slow drags on the filter and watched the smoke drifting away across the room.

He closed his eyes and listened to “Driving Home For Christmas” drifting from the radio, and as he drifted to sleep his mind took him back to the Thomas Mudd Inn. The man was talking to him, and he concentrated on the glass of ale held firmly in his hand.

“Popular choice,” the man said. “Justin Bonner screamed out what was left of his lungs and then his blood boiled.”

Mervin turned and saw a face lined with age, eyes dark and sunken, lips swollen and red as though ready to burst. The man opened his mouth through a thick black beard to reveal teeth sharpened like daggers.

“Go away,” Mervin said too afraid to risk using stronger language.

The mouth formed an ugly smile and the man said: “One year. For you Mervin the clock is ticking.”

Mervin opened his eyes and found himself sitting in darkness. The radio was playing “A Fairytale Of New York.” Squeezed between his fingers the cigarette had burnt down to the filter and died. On his lap was the unopened pack of turkey sandwiches.

He dropped the filter into an ashtray by the side of the armchair and tore the pack of sandwiches open. He felt famished and ate the sandwich in only a few bites.

He looked about and saw the unopened bottle of whisky standing by his feet. He broke the seal and took a swig. The liquid felt warm as it found its way into his stomach, and the anxiety he had felt on waking slowly faded.

The hourly news came on the radio and the newsreader talked about the shooting. When the newsreader referred to the shooting as having happened yesterday morning Mervin felt as though all of the air had been sucked from his lungs. The next story was about Justin Bonner. Police were now treating the fire as arson and were appealing for witnesses. The fire was yesterday.

Mervin raised his wrist and looked at his watch. It was just past seven and the date was the twenty-sixth. He put the top back on the bottle and got to his feet before confusion dug its claws in too deeply and wobbled as a wave of vertigo passed through him.

He sniffed his shirt and cringed. He had not changed since Christmas Eve, but he felt too anxious for a shower and change. He put the bottle next to the radio and headed for the front door.

* * *

“I didn’t see anyone,” Ben Mudd said as he looked at Mervin with concern.

Mervin had walked the mile to the Thomas Mudd Inn to set his mind at rest, but the response he had got from Ben had done nothing to alleviate the anxiety.

“The man was sitting right next to me,” Mervin told him. “I was drinking and he was just rambling on.”

“Why was he talking to you if you don’t know him?” Ben asked.

“You
saw
him then?”

“No.” Ben looked at his watch as though to say he was too busy to stand around talking. “What I saw was you sitting at the bar drinking, and then you lying on the floor. You were alone and I didn’t see anyone talking to you. You had a skinfull. My fault for having kept serving you.”

“I didn’t imagine it.”

“I’m really busy this evening,” Ben said.

Mervin turned and started towards the door. Above the door was a CCTV camera. He looked back and saw that the camera would have covered the area where he was sitting.

“What about the cameras?” Mervin called to Ben.

“What
about
the cameras?” Ben asked.

“The man will be on the camera.”

“A word of advice Mel… Cut down on the ale. Make it a New Year’s resolution.”

* * *

As the days passed, Mervin made a point of not going to the Thomas Mudd Inn. He was not sure whether he would ever go there again. He was not even sure whether he would drink alcohol ever again. That would be a resolution he would take one day at a time.

Life felt as though it had become stagnant, and he found that although he had not touched a drop of alcohol since Christmas, he was smoking far more than he ever had before. With no income, his savings account was fast drying up, and he refused to claim benefits. Having to wait in a queue at the job centre each week would have felt like an admission of defeat from which there would be no turning back.

By the start of February he was down to his last few pounds, and whatever he did, there would not be enough to cover the rent for the month. Lack of funds had even forced him to stop smoking. He felt that life had finally hit rock bottom when he received a phone call from an old friend named Simon Short. They had been at college together and had both started at the same bank at the start of their careers, but Simon had soon headed across the Atlantic to the riches of New York.

Simon had started his own asset management company, and he was looking for someone he could trust to head up an office in London, and Mervin had been the first person he had thought of. A meeting in London was arranged, and within weeks, his life shifted from neutral to first, and by May he was earning more money in a month than he had earned in an entire year before his fall.

By June he felt confident enough to ask his personal assistant Jenny Brown out on a date, and by August they were engaged to be married.

During September they moved into their new home; a seven bedroom Elizabethan manor on a wooded hill overlooking the picturesque town of Westerham, 23 miles to the southeast of London. The grounds had a boating lake, tennis courts, swimming pool and, even though neither of them had plans to take up the game, a croquet lawn.

The year raced by, and as Christmas approached Mervin found himself feeling anxious. At first he could not understand what was making him feel worried, and then at the start of December he started having nightmares. At night he found himself sitting back at the bar in the Thomas Mudd Inn nursing a pint of ale while the voice of a man he could not quite remember echoed around the inside of his head like a pinball. Each time he turned to look at the face of his tormentor, he woke and spent what was left of the night staring at the ceiling trying to steady his nerves.

On Christmas Eve, Mervin left his office at five and took a black cab north to Walthamstow. He walked to the Thomas Mudd Inn and just stood staring at the façade wondering why he had come back to the place that was the cause of his nightmares. It was Christmas Eve and Jenny was waiting for him to get home. The Thomas Mudd Inn was part of his old life, and a lot had changed since then. He wanted to turn and walk away, but instead he pushed the door open and walked into the bar.

There were more people inside than he had been expecting, but nothing much had changed. It looked just as he remembered it. He looked around, but did not recognize anyone. He supposed life moved on quickly in a large city.

He walked to the bar but did not recognize the man pulling pints for a group at the far end of the bar. He sat at a stool and realized that he was sitting in exactly the same place he had been sitting in exactly twelve months earlier.

He sat staring down at the bar trying to remember. A pint of ale appeared in front of him and he looked up to see the barman standing in front of him.

“I didn’t order anything,” Mervin told him.

“He…” the barman started as he looked to his left. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?” Mervin asked feeling awkward.

“I was just talking to a man and he bought you a pint of Blackhorse Ale. Said he was an old acquaintance and you always drink Blackhorse Ale.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was…” The barman stopped again, and then said, “I only spoke to him no more than a couple of minutes ago, and I’ll be damned if I can’t remember.”

“What happened to Ben Mudd?”

“Ben Mudd?”

“I used to live around here. He was the landlord. I haven’t been in her since last Christmas Eve.”

“He was killed. Terrible. My brother knew him. There were a couple of murders last Christmas. Both the victims had been in here the night before they were killed. He was on his way to see the police with the CCTV footage when he was killed. A camera covers the bar. Run down by the station. Someone saw a motorcyclist racing away, but no one was ever caught. Probably never will be.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No rest for the wicked,” the barman said and headed back down to the other end of the bar to serve another group of drinkers.

Mervin picked the glass up and stared at the brown liquid. He had not touched a drop of alcohol for twelve months, but the smell of the ale brought on a craving he thought he had beaten forever. He raised the glass to his lips, took a small sip and returned it to the bar.

“That’s all it takes.”

Mervin turned to see who had spoken to him, but there was no one there. He looked around the bar, but no one was paying him any attention. He looked at his watch and suddenly felt very guilty about not going straight home. Jenny would be wondering where he was. He had switched his mobile off, but she would probably phone his office and someone would tell her that he had left over an hour ago and she would start worrying.

He stood refusing to look at the pint of ale for a moment longer. His old life was in the past and that was the best place for it. His new life was where he wanted to be, and it was waiting for him on the other side of the city.

He looked up at the camera above the door as he left and wondered what it was that Ben Mudd had seen that had made him decide to take the footage to the police. He wondered whether the motorbike that had prevented him from reaching the police was black and being ridden by a nondescript rider clad in black leathers with a black helmet, face concealed behind a heavily tinted visor.

The temperature had dropped while he had been sitting in the Thomas Mudd Inn and an icy breeze stung his face. A black cab was approaching along the road, so he stepped up to the curb and raised his hand. It pulled up next to him and he got in.

* * *

The cab headed south on the A12 towards the Blackwall Tunnel. There was more traffic on the road than he thought there would be, but he supposed people were heading out of the city for Christmas.