The Grave Read online

  Phil rolled to his knees, pushing himself upright. He skittered across the room, nippy like a rat, quicksilver in his fear.

  Samuel was after him, striding over the boards, his fists clenched, shoulders bunched, his bulky body full of the fight.

  Phil backed off as far as he could and spread his hands behind him across the kitchen worktop; his fingers seeking and clawing for a weapon. He glanced round, there it was. The knife was lying atop the chopping board, it wasn’t large but it was sharp. The scrawny hand closed over the handle and now, crouched in a position all too familiar to him, Phil turned to the older, bigger man and snarled.

  “Come on then big man, you want some of me, come and get it.”

  They were deaf to the screams of Sylvie sobbing and begging from the doorway. Locked in a duel as old as time they had both acknowledged this could only end with one of them down, the other victorious. There would be no handshake, no surrender and no chance of peace now until this thing had reached an end.

  Phil jabbed forward with the knife extended; feinting and dodging, his feet spread wide, knees bent. In response Samuel simply stood before him tensed and watchful.

  In the event it was over quickly. He judged his timing and then, without hesitation and seemingly with no pause for reflection, Samuel began to move and then simply ploughed on. Like a juggernaut he barrelled into the smaller man. Phil was used to street fighting, circling and hissing, sizing up his opponent, as much about effect as result and he hadn’t time to re-adjust his thinking. Samuel dragged the knife from his hand, brute force, unstoppable in fury. He spun Phil around and dragged him back with his free hand imprisoning the squirming body pinned against his heaving chest. He sliced once, then back the same way all his strength behind the hand holding the weapon.

  Blood pumped from Phil’s neck soaking his clothes and washing downwards to his shoes. Pulsing with his diminishing life force the crimson fall soaked the front of his body. He raised a sticky hand now before his shocked face and then, in just moments, he crumpled gargling from his useless throat. He convulsed, his eyes wild but even now unseeing as he bled out onto the floor. For a breathless while all that could be heard was Sylvie keening from the place near the door where she had become a quivering heap.

  Chapter 10

  Samuel stepped from the shower and rubbed at himself with the thin towel. It was time now to move. There was nothing to be gained from going over it again, what had happened was fact and it was done.

  He had pulled the quivering shape of Sylvie from the floor where she was crouched, hiding behind hands wet with tears.

  “Who the hell is he, you told me there was no-one?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry Samuel, it’s Phil, he’s, well, oh I don’t know, he’s my boyfriend I suppose, but I kept trying to get away from him. He won’t let me go, he gets so jealous. Oh God, is he dead?”

  As she spoke she backed against the wall, attempting to put as much space as possible between herself and the body and the spreading pool of blood.

  “He is isn’t he? God, Samuel he’s dead. What are you going to do?”

  “Deal with it.”

  The answer was so sharp, so lacking in emotion that for a moment she simply stared at him, silent.

  “How, how can you deal with it? We’ll go to jail. They’ll lock us up.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, blood smeared on his forehead. She couldn’t bear to see it and so buried her hands again and began sobbing. He reached out to her and drew her forward. Wrapped in his arms she gulped and hiccupped and then after a while the crying stopped. Now she was calmer he bent close and spoke to her, his voice was low and serious but he sounded calm and certain. It helped.

  “Get your things, take the car, you can drive right?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay do you think you can find your way back to town?”

  Again she gave a small nod.

  “Go back to your place, behave as though everything is normal. If anyone asks tell them you haven’t seen him. Do you understand?”

  A nod.

  “What are you going to do though Samuel?”

  “You don’t need to know, I’ll deal with it I’ve told you.

  Now go. Later, tonight, I’ll come into town. I need to get away, I’ll have to go now. You can come if you want. If you don’t want to you may have to answer questions, about where he is.”

  He jerked a thumb back towards the ruined body lying in the spreading pool on the floor.

  “Can you do it, ride it out?”

  She glanced across the room, shook her head.

  “Can I come with you? Will you take me?”

  There was no gentleness in his face he simply nodded at her.

  “I’ll pick you up later, at the car park. Don’t bring too much stuff and don’t tell anyone, no-one, do you understand?”

  Yet another silent nod was all she could manage. She still shivered convulsively now and again but the tears had stopped, dried by the reality of this situation and what it meant to her and to him.

  “Now go, don’t leave anything here and drive slowly. Go back through the woods, down beside the river, turn right at the fork and that’ll see you back to the main road.

  “I’ll be in the car park at seven tonight. I’ll wait for ten minutes. If you don’t come then I’m gone.”

  He leaned over towards her and gripped her tight around the top of her arms.

  “I like you Sylvie, I’ll take you with me if you want to come but you come on my terms, we go where I decide. Okay?”

  She nodded at him and then ran to get dressed and pick up her things.

  The car drew away, the headlights flicking through the trees painted a line of green light and then it was gone. Samuel went to the shed and brought back a tarpaulin and so he dragged himself through the woods, down beside the river, where he disposed of the body.

  Now, after his sleep and the shower he ate some bread torn from a loaf in the cupboard and spread with jam to stave off the hunger and keep his energy levels up. There was just one small moment for something, an emotion, not regret, but an acknowledgement that things had soured again.

  Once more his life was being driven by outside forces, he shook his head. That sort of thinking would get him nowhere, it was time to go. He walked around his shack, collecting the few bits he decided he couldn’t do without. It wasn’t much, this wasn’t the first time and so in the end one bag and a box of food was all he had to load into the back of the Land Rover.

  He went back inside, with a heavy crowbar he smashed at the kitchen units, they had been fairly new, he had installed them, now they needed to look older. He tore at the mattress and smashed the bath, ripping the shower head from the wall. It would have been best to burn the place but he couldn’t risk attracting attention and so this would have to suffice.

  He didn’t bother to lock the door because he knew he would never come back. Probably someone would come along and commandeer it, as he had those few short years ago. Squatters, gypsies, whatever, it didn’t matter. If it stayed empty then, in a surprisingly short time, the woods would obliterate it. The weeds and climbers would swallow it and reduce it so, in a couple of years, only a rusty old sink and the broken stove would be left.

  The last thing he did was to open the trap door which had been hidden under the couch, he dragged out a nylon bag, still bulky, still heavy and he tossed it into the back of the car with the rest of the stuff.

  He slammed the car door, gunned the engine and left without a backward glance.

  Chapter 11

  Samuel swung the car into the car park, he didn’t look for a space as he didn’t intend staying long. The girl wasn’t there. He didn’t know how that made him feel.

  On the drive from the woods he had acknowledged he didn’t need a tag along, it would be a huge complication. On the other hand he couldn’t be sure what she would do under pressure. What had happened with Phil didn’t cause him unease, the scum had been a woman beater,
probably a pimp and all that went with it. He was just another low life and no loss.

  Maybe at the end of his living, if he had the time to review the things he had done then this killing would be there, something else to be included in his accounting. If so it would need to take a ticket and wait in line.

  The girl though, she had been badly scared. She didn’t know him, didn’t know anything about him, but she could know enough if anyone asked the right questions. He glanced at his watch. He would go, if she had been intending to come with him she would have been waiting. He leaned to turn the ignition key and caught a shadow moving in his peripheral vision.

  She came out from between parked cars, she was wearing jeans and a thick jacket trimmed with fake fur. A pack hung on her back and she carried a hold all. It needed both hands to hold it, her arms were rigid with the strain and it pulled her body sideways, the bulk of it banging against her legs as she staggered across the wet concrete.

  He didn’t jump out but leaned and threw open the passenger door. She pushed the bag onto the passenger seat and he hefted it into the rear space. She clambered up and shrugged off the back pack, throwing it into the foot well. One look at her swollen, reddened eyes told him all he needed to know.

  He leaned forward, his hands on the top of the steering wheel his forearms resting against the struts. He didn’t look at her but just spoke quietly.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong Sylvie, you do know that don’t you? He was hurting you and I was the one who killed him. You don’t have anything to feel guilty about and you don’t have to leave this place, if you don’t want to.

  “Has anyone asked about him?”

  “No, but I didn’t go out, I stayed in the flat, couldn’t bear to meet anyone.”

  She turned now, tears were flowing across her cheeks and dripping from her chin. He felt immensely sorry for her and it took him by surprise. It had been many years since he had been visited by the gentler emotions.

  “You could just stay here, sit it out. Chances are they won’t suspect you had anything to do with it and anyway it could be a long time before they find his body. They don’t know yet that anything happened to him. People go away all the time, someone like him, I think there’ll be more relief than regret if he’s gone.”

  “No, no it won’t work, Benny knows, he told him I’d gone with you.”

  “Ah. Still though you could spin some tale, tell them you only rode with me to the bus station.

  “What did you do with the car?”

  “I left it on his street, where he usually parks it. Was that alright? only you never said I stuffed the key under the carpet, he does that sometimes, did, I mean.”

  “It’s fine, good, it’ll look normal for a day or two. But you do know don’t you, you don’t need to leave this place? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I want to come with you Samuel, I want to get away. I understand if you don’t want to take me, but I want to come with you.”

  He turned now to look at her, her eyes glistened in the dim light. She looked like a little girl.

  Now the heavy vehicle rumbled across the car park and out onto the road. Rain had started falling and tiny starbursts, painted orange by the street lamps, shimmered on the windscreen.

  Sylvie leaned back against the hard seat and for the first time in this dreadful, desperate day she started to feel safe.

  Chapter 12

  It was quiet, save for the burble of the diesel and the swish of wet tyres on tarmac. On the few occasions they were overtaken then the screen wipers would swish three or four times, clearing the mist of spray. He drove calmly, kept within the speed limits. He was a natural behind the wheel, at one with the car and the road and his situation. Enclosed within this dim little metal cocoon they were divorced from the night and the lives they skirted.

  At first Sylvie slumped in the seat, eyes closed and hands idle in her lap. He glanced at her now and again and thought maybe she was asleep. It was obvious the girl was exhausted, worn out with shock and fear and emotion and he let her be. He preferred the quiet anyway.

  After they’d travelled for a while she opened her eyes, like a tired child she simply stayed quite still, limp against the seat. Her head turned slightly to the side as she watched the dark shapes of houses, trees and bigger industrial buildings flicking into being and then slipping away. She had no idea where they were or even which direction they were heading. He had told her they would go where he decreed and so she watched as the world slipped past into the night and tried not to think.

  He kept away from the motorways. On the very slim chance that all had been discovered, though he doubted it, he steered clear of where the police gathered, the lights were bright and people milled. The car was greedy and after an hour he refuelled at a small filling station, paying in cash. The pay window open to the night-time customers was set low in the wall and he was able to hide most of his face simply by standing erect. There were cameras yes, but he didn’t think they needed to worry too much. For most of them the film was cycled every few days and there was no reason to believe they were on anyone’s radar yet.

  Without speaking Sylvie jumped down and walked into the shop and to the ladies room in the rear. When she came back she stopped, childlike again, and bought sweets and drinks, a carbonated thing for herself and without asking she bought water for him and filled a small cup of coffee from a machine.

  When she clambered back up into the car and handed him the bottle and tiny cardboard cup he smiled at her. She had guessed right, he needed caffeine and rehydration. The gesture and the fact she had known this much so early in their relationship moved him and he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  “Thanks.”

  She nodded and smiled up shyly. He liked this girl. When he had first met her he had taken her for a hard-bitten whore, street wise and cynical. He thought now, perhaps he’d been wrong.

  For hour after hour they moved along the quiet roads, through estates of houses, windows steamy with condensation, evening meals being prepared, the blue white glow of television screens illuminating small lives. They swept on, past the buses and cars and joggers of suburbia.

  She wondered now how he was planning the route, he had no Sat Nav, she hadn’t seen him consult a map and yet he drove on, confident and calm.

  He was going north, it was all he needed to know; his sense of direction didn’t often fail him and for now at least, simply north was enough. He watched the road signs and knew the country well. In his mind the major towns and the rivers and criss crossing motorways were an atlas clear enough to lead him in the right direction. Once they got nearer to the coast then he would need to consult the map, probably, but for now he aimed the car towards the pole and drove on.

  When the thought struck he was thrown for a moment. He’d been stupid; he was so unnerved by the oversight that he didn’t want to ask the question. There was no choice though he would have to ask, and soon, because the answer was pivotal to his plan.

  “Sylvie, did you bring your passport?”

  Her answer was a cold shroud thrown over the warmth of the little cab.

  “Passport, I don’t have a passport.”

  For a moment he didn’t speak, couldn’t. It wasn’t often that he was so thrown but now for just a little while his mind spiralled uncontrolled. How could she not have a passport, in this day and age, surely everyone had a passport. There were day trips, booze cruises, hen parties, so many things. Now the population looked beyond the shores of Britain for their entertainment, slipped in and out of the country with no thought and little planning.

  How could she not have a passport?

  He heard the gulp, knew she was barely breathing. She had realised the import of the question and the drama of her response.

  “I’m sorry. I never had one, never went anywhere.”

  “Okay, it’s okay, don’t worry.”

  He surprised himself with this need to comfort her, he should let her go. He could leave her at th
e next big town, give her some money, enough to keep her for a month and then let her find her own way. He was sure that now he had moved her away from the down at heel place where she had been born and raised, she probably wouldn’t go back. He acknowledged also though that she was vulnerable, for all her cockiness when they had first met she wasn’t as street wise as she thought. If he left her now she would come unstuck. She would probably do what they all do, head for London, Manchester, straight for disaster and a short life of misery and pain.

  “It’s okay, we can sort it. Don’t worry.”

  The only evidence of his concern, his knuckles white on the wheel, passed her by. She had thought he would dump her and the relief because he didn’t seem to be thinking about it blinded her to his stress.