The dark side of my soul (10 page)

She laughed and ran up the stairs singing “Oh, we’re going to Barbados.”

Ten

Over the next week everything quietened down and life began to return to normal, at least as normal as it can be after you have committed murder. There were no more calls from the police, either uniformed or plain clothed and little new press coverage of the events in the forest. With each passing day my hopes grew that no one was going to be able to associate me with the double shooting.

Although we didn’t attend the funeral of Terry’s sons, Sandra suggested that we send flowers, which we did and a few days later I was surprised to get a call from Terry thanking us for the thought.

The weather started to improve, the daffodils started blooming, the days grew longer and spring was definitely in the air. Sandra spent a lot of the time, when she wasn’t working, going shopping for new clothes for our dream holiday in Barbados and I managed to return to my financial work, as well as play some golf with the new set of clubs that I had purchased.

Archie Haines did not appear at the golf club and I guessed he was too busy with a heavy workload, which was just as well as I didn’t really want to bump into him for a while.

David called me a couple of times and sounded quite morose. Apparently Julie hadn’t been herself recently and he was worried about her. From what he said it was obvious that she hadn’t told him about her brother’s deaths and I guessed that he had no idea that she was related to the two men that I had killed. If he didn’t know of her relatives it could only mean that she didn’t want him to know what kind of family she came from, so she was bottling up her grief, keeping it to herself and probably appearing melancholy to David for no reason. I couldn’t enlighten him so I told him not to worry and that in time she would be her old self again.

One week rolled into two and then three but the shooting of the two men stayed with me, the memory as vivid as the day it had occurred but it was not through guilt that I recalled those garish moments, on the contrary it was the sadistic pleasure of having the men at my mercy, of being able to dictate the situation and of holding the power of life and death in my hands.

I realised that I should feel remorse, sorrow and repentance for what I had done but none of those things troubled me in the slightest. My excuse was that I had acted in self-defence but as time went on I began to realise that I was only fooling myself, I had enjoyed the adrenalin rush that the shooting had given me, I had relished the power that the pistol had endowed on me and it was impossible to hide from the fact that my inner self was revelling in a memory that should have shamed me. I was unable to escape the conclusion that while leading an outwardly normal mundane existence, deep down I was a secret psychopath.

But don’t we all have a hidden dark side? Surely there is not one among us who has not encountered a malicious thought. Even members of the holy religious brethren must have at some point harboured unwanted and evil notions, the difference, of course, is that they do not act upon them, their uncalled for ideas are no doubt swiftly swept away like specks of dust under the carpet whereas the demon that hid deep in my soul had been released and once it had tasted freedom it did not want to return to its dungeon.

It was with these thoughts in mind that on the fourth Wednesday after the shooting I heard Sandra enter the house and run up the stairs to the office where I was supposedly working.

She pranced in the room holding something in her hand. “Look at this. What do you think? Won’t this be just fine for Barbados?” She was holding the tiniest bikini top in one hand and an even smaller bikini bottom in the other.

“That won’t fit, it’s too small.” I said with a laugh.

“You bet it does. I’ve tried it on, it’s just great. Wait a minute. I’ll show you.” She ran out of the office calling, “just you wait and see.” over her shoulder.

A few minutes later I had just finished dealing with a client’s finances when she called again, this time from our bedroom. “Come in here babe. Take a look at this.”

Sandra had changed so much over the past month that I could hardly believe it. She seemed infused with a new love of life and had gained a confidence that had never surfaced before. Her whole personality was now bubbly and precocious as she demonstrated as I entered the bedroom. She was lying across our double bed in the tiny bikini and with a sexy come hither pose that indicated that showing me her new purchase was not all she had in mind.

“Wow” was all I could say as she slipped off the bed and moved seductively towards me.

“What do ya think?” she said easing into my arms.

“You never used to like sex in the daytime. Too much light you used to say.” I ventured as she began to kiss me.

Sandra stopped kissing and gave me a playful grin. “That was then, this is now, the new me.” She pulled me closer and we fell onto the bed entwined together.

Not so long ago Sandra would have been worried about marking her new bikini, the excess light in the room or someone hearing her cries of pleasure through the open windows but not now, she was carefree and wanton and began stripping off my clothes with an urgent passion.

With my clothes on the floor and me on top of her she squeezed her arms together making her breasts look larger in the tiny top. “Well, it fits doesn’t it, just about? Do ya like it?”

“Yes” I managed to say, somewhat breathlessly, before we started to make love.

An hour later, with the bikini on top of my clothes on the floor and the bed a total wreck, we stretched out side by side, hot and sweaty from our exertions. We lay in the quiet of the early afternoon listening to the birdsong through the open window. It was a kind of charmed existence that we were leading now, always tinged with apprehension that at any time we may get caught for our crimes. Perhaps that was the difference to our previous life, the fact that any day could be our final one at liberty and as a consequence we were living every moment as though it was our last.

Our bedroom was at the front of the house and the peace was occasionally interrupted by the sound of a car going along the lane. The disturbances were mostly insignificant but when a noisier vehicle gradually approached, the quiet of the afternoon was shattered. Coming from the direction of the village it slowly drew nearer until it stopped in the lane directly outside our window.

The stationary vehicle’s engine sounded like an old diesel but after a few seconds it was switched off returning the day to its previous slumber. A short while later there were the unmistakable clicks of car doors opening followed by the metallic thuds of them being slammed shut. Next I heard footsteps coming up the driveway and fully expected the doorbell to ring but no sound emanated from that direction. We both concentrated, listening, waiting for the bell to ring or someone to knock but only the pleasant resonances of a spring country afternoon floated through the window.

“Someone’s outside,” whispered Sandra.

I nodded agreement, straining to listen and imagine what they could be doing. I could hear feet shuffling around on the drive. After another few moments I rolled off the bed and completely naked went to the window. Peering through the half drawn blinds I could see that it was still a sunny bright day with only small fluffy clouds scampering across the sky in the light breeze, yet below on the driveway were two men that appeared to be dressed for winter.

They both had heavy working boots on their feet and wore thick blue boiler suits. Maybe the air outside was cooler than I had imagined. One of the men was standing almost directly below the window, watching his companion who was lying on the floor with his head and shoulders under the front of my car. From my position I could only see the top of the standing man’s bald head but from his posture I assumed him to be quite old.

Indignation arose within me and I banged hard on the glass of the window. The old man looked up and I saw his scrawny scarecrow features stare back at me with undisguised indifference.

I moved to the open window and shouted down to him, “What the hell are you doing?” but even as I spoke I remembered the Roma travellers.

The man under the car squirmed his way out and regarded me with an equally unfriendly glare. He stood up revealing a massive muscular physique and after holding my eyes for a long daunting few seconds he started for the front door of the house. A second later the door-bell rang.

“Who is it?” asked Sandra.

“Don’t know,” I replied, hurriedly fishing for my shirt and trousers. “But I think it might be the gypsies.”

“Oh shit,” she said as I slipped on the clothes.

I was still doing up my fly as I hurried down the stairs. In the hallway I paused by the grandfather clock. If these people were who I thought they were, they may well be violent. The gun would give me some security, but I couldn’t use it, not here in my own house. That would be ridiculous. If one of them was to be shot and the police called, the shell casings would match the ones in the forest and the conclusions would be inescapable.

I could see the shapes of the callers through the door. The bell sounded again, its call longer and more urgent. It was enough to force me to make a decision. Having the pistol on my person was a good idea even if I couldn’t fire it. The threat alone of its use may be enough. I bent down and my fingers nervously scrabbled at the secret compartment at the bottom of the clock. Opening it I placed my hand on the butt of the gun and immediately felt more secure. I could not remember if I had reloaded it after its last outing but it didn’t matter as this time it was only to be used in the most extreme circumstances and then only for show. But then I realised that is exactly what I thought last time and I ended up killing two people. I dare not use it here, at home, so changing my mind I closed the little draw and left the pistol hidden in the clock.

The doorbell sounded again, more persistent and I opened the door and stood on the threshold. Neither caller smiled, their faces seemingly chiselled in stone. The older man’s bald head was marred by unsightly scars and bruises as though he had been in a fight or an accident. His neck, at least what could be seen of it over the top of his blue boiler suit, was decorated with tattoos, the face was thin, the cheeks pinched and the jaw carried a day old stubble. He was probably no more than sixty but he looked older.

The younger one was taller, broader, and muscular, and he had a noticeable air of self-assurance and arrogance that comes with physical prowess. He leaned with his left hand high against the side of the porch, his other arm hung nonchalantly by his side. His whole manner conveyed disdain and conceit.

The face was remarkable in that the cheekbones were very high and pronounced making his eyes look as though they were set too deeply in his head. The eyes themselves were dark blue pools, dark lakes situated in the depths of the valleys of the bony face. The lips were thin and drawn back revealing two gold teeth in the upper jaw. Straight black greasy hair covered the tops of the ears and from the left earlobe hung a plain gold earring. His demeanour was threatening and just his physical presence was intimidating.

I have nothing against travellers, nothing at all, I am sure that a great number of them are exceedingly kind people but these two didn’t strike me as being the adorable type.

Inhaling noisily through the nose, the big man’s nostrils flared and the blue eyes unhurriedly looked me up and down, assessing me. I felt a hint of anxiety but then I realised that these men had no reason to suspect me of any wrong doing and I tried to relax.

After what seemed an eternity man mountain spoke. The voice was surprisingly quiet but had an odd clipped accent. “When did you have work done?”

For a moment I didn’t quite understand. “Work, what work?”

“On car, when did you have repaired?”

“It hasn’t been repaired,” I replied instantly without thinking.

The Roma gypsy, if that is what he was, did not speak or move. He simply stood still, glaring at me, then eventually he said, “Car has had new front. Fixings are new.”

Of course that is what he was doing under the car. Somehow he could tell that it had been renewed. All the while the older man just stood watching me.

I held the larger man’s eyes determined not to back down. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here but my affairs are nothing to do with you.”

These must be the people that Archie Haines had told me about and his words reverberated around in my head ‘Bloody psychopaths, both the son and grandson; word is that they’re looking for the driver. If they catch him, or her, before we do they’ll cut ‘em to pieces, there’ll be nothing left for me to arrest.’ I began to wish that I had taken the pistol from the clock but I could not have used it anyway and empty threats alone would not be enough to drive these two away. I was growing more nervous by the second.

The younger traveller did not move a muscle. The cold penetrating eyes never blinked, never deviated from mine. He stood leaning with one massive calloused hand against the wall like some mythological figure that could defeat monsters and dragons. “Grandmother was killed by hit and run driver just along lane. Car that did it would have damage to front. Hit her hard. Your car has new front.”

That statement confirmed beyond doubt that these were the Roma travellers but I stuck to my story. “You must be mistaken. My car has not been damaged and it has not been repaired.” I tried to remain calm but the tension in my body was increasingly obvious.