It wasn’t easy but Mr Lawrence managed to compose himself. He said, “Have faith, dear boy.”
“I’m losing it quickly, Mr Lawrence, the faith. I’m going down bank fast, and dressed like this isn’t helping.”
“You look fine, Paul, just fine. Now stop worrying and try to concentrate.”
“I’ll try.”
Laura turned to Mr Lawrence. “Right then, it’s your turn now.” She glanced at her watch. “And we’re running out of time.”
Laura was enjoying herself. In a sense, with them playing the parts, she’d become the director. Power was a powerful emotion. An aphrodisiac, some old cowboy had said, and he wasn’t talking about pork scratchings.
In the window, blinking red then green, it was hot beneath the padded suit of Father Christmas, and sweat trickled across his chest like some fast little insect. The cotton wool beard was giving him trouble too and loose strands made his nose twitch. He needed to scratch at every nerve and yet he dared not move. Paul was rigid. Mr Lawrence could see him from the corner of his eye. He looked better in green. The ballerinas were dark shapes and yet they seemed more life-like than Paul. From her hiding place behind the counter came the sounds of Laura’s heavy breathing.
“I can’t ever remember being so close to Father Christmas,” Paul said. “He never came to our house.”
“Hush now.”
They stood for fifteen minutes but it seemed like an hour. Adrenalin was rushing through them. Their bodies began to ache. Mr Lawrence’s knees began to give. He was thinking that perhaps Paul had been right, after all, and this wasn’t such a good idea. But it was too late. A grotesque shadow was at the window. Even though Mr Lawrence had only seen him in the dark, he seemed bigger than before, six feet and more with an egg-shaped head on a bull-neck. His shoulders were huge and his thick arms were long, apelike. Here was the missing link, without a doubt.
The trusty brass bell didn’t ring for it had been taped up. Instead, it clanked a single reluctant clank as the door opened. And another as the door closed. He was in. The feeling of danger was incredible. Mr Lawrence’s head was bursting with the rush and pressure knots bulged across his brow. The shadow moved across the shop. Thudding footfalls left the air vibrating.
From her hiding place behind the counter, Laura, in her deepest voice, called, “Pesst! Pesst!”
“Paul, is that you?”
“Pesst! Pesst!”
“Stop fucking around. You’re frightening me. You know I never liked the fucking dark.”
His back was to them. A huge burning red back.
From the window Paul silently turned. And without a whisper Mr Lawrence turned also, and from his bag of Christmas gifts he produced a long heavy wrench. It was Chrome-plated and glinted green and then red and reflected their faces glistening like cooking meat.
Mr Lawrence made the first blow, on top of the huge head. Shaped like a puffin’s beak the point of the wrench cracked a hole. Grunting like a pig the man half-turned and saw Paul’s attack. He saw a woman in black suspenders leaping forward. Gangling arms and legs and a high heel that had turned over half-way toward him.
“Fuck me!” he said, too stunned to take evasive action.
He watched a serrated bread knife disappear into his side, just below the ribs. He grabbed out and held Paul by the throat. A terrifying growl filled the room. Mr Lawrence hit him again with the wrench and only then did he go over but he took Paul with him. The back of the man’s head caved in under another blow and then, after a shudder that seemed to shake the room, he lay still.
Paul struggled from beneath him, shaken and bruised and covered in blood. Laura appeared from behind the counter.
“Golly,” she said. “Golleeey!”
With no time to lose, Mr Lawrence directed, “Help me get him into the studio. Quickly.”
“Is he dead?” she asked.
“Of course he’s dead,” Paul said nervously. “Half his brain is on the floor.”
“I thought you were going to frighten him.”
Mr Lawrence answered, “I think we did that.”
“But you’ve killed him. It’s murder.”
“It’s self-preservation. There’s a difference. The law allows us to use reasonable force nowadays, unless you’re a farmer, that is, and there are two thugs trying to rob you.”
It took the three of them to wrap the body in Clingfilm and drag it into the studio and even so, they still left a long red skid mark. Mr Lawrence said, “Help me to drag him down the cellar steps.” Laura said, “I didn’t know you had a cellar.”
“Not many people do.”
“I did, Mr Lawrence,” Paul said. “The kozzers spent an awful lot of time down there.”
A curtain concealed the cellar door.
“It stinks,” Paul uttered as the door opened to the dark dangerous steps where cobwebs hung in streamers. “The coppers mentioned the smell. They were right.”
“It’s the dead cats. When they’re alive they get in through the pavement grating and find themselves trapped.”
“They might have been the cats we heard crying…like babies.” “Yes, you might be right.”
Laura stepped back in disgust. “It smells like dead bodies. I’m not going down there.”
“We can manage. It’s downhill. Grab his shoulders, Paul.” They negotiated the steep narrow flight of concrete steps that in parts were worn away and crumbling, down between the thick walls of brick that had never seen the light of day, through a decaying archway at the bottom to the black earth beyond.
“It does stink down here,” Paul repeated.
“The damp has rotted everything. One day the foundations will give up and the whole of the Gallery will fall into this place. Hopefully I won’t be here then. That’s in the future and who knows about that? Come on, let’s get the door closed and sealed before it pervades the shop.”
“That’s a neat word, Mr Lawrence, pervades. What does it mean?” “Permeate.”
“Oh, right, permeate. Hairstyles. Right?”
In the studio he told them, “While I finish in here clean up the shop and for God’s sake hurry. Get rid of the blood, wash the knife and, Paul, get out of those ridiculous clothes. Quickly now, put the models back in the window before they’re missed. Dawn will be breaking soon and the milkmen will be out.”
They were just completing their tasks when Mr Lawrence carried the Santa outfit into the shop. Laura carried a bowl of pink water through to the sink and Paul was dressing the model in the window. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He needed reminding about the wig. Together, they dressed Father Christmas and finished in time to hear the faint rattle of the first milk floats.
“Come on, we need a few hours sleep. The shop might be a little late opening. I’ll make an exception.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep,” Paul muttered. “I’m still shaking.”
“Keep the light on. The demons don’t like the light.”
Laura seemed unconcerned. She handled it well. Or hid it. Women were like that. Devious. And being a creature of the night, working the night shift, she wasn’t tired. While their eyes stung hers remained bright and alert.
She lay in his bed naked and cool. Later, with dawn creeping slowly, Paul crept in and climbed into bed on Luscious Laura’s side. “You’ll never guess, Mr Lawrence,” he murmured.
“I bet I can.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went down the cellar to check he was dead and…”
“What is it, Paul?”
“He’s gone, Mr Lawrence. He’s gone!”
“Don’t worry yourself. Cuddle up. Under this sheet you’re quite safe.”
He cuddled up against Laura’s behind. She must have liked it between the two of them for her breathing grew louder.
Sex and violence; sex and violence; they went together like a… Paul lay still and frowned.
