Death Day

    She shook her head. 'My old man. The copper.'

    He laughed. 'What sort of day have you had?'

    'Don't ask.'

    She got up and walked around the table. He pushed his chair back from the table and she sat on his knee. He put both arms around her waist and pulled her towards him. She kissed his forehead.

    'What do you want to do tonight?' she asked. 'We could drive into Nottingham, see a film, take in a club.'

    He shook his head.

    'I just thought it would be a break.'

    'I don't think I could concentrate on a film tonight. What's showing anyway?'

    She giggled, ' "Psycho." ' She leapt to her feet and dashed into the living room.

    'That's not funny,' he called after her and set off to catch her.

    He grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto the sofa beneath him. She was laughing her throaty laugh as he pinned her arms and glared at her.

    'That was not funny,' he repeated.

    Then suddenly, they were kissing, their mouths pressed urgently together, tongues seeking the other. He pulled away and looked down at her, her blonde hair ruffled, her cheeks flushed, her mouth parted slightly and moist with the kiss. She pulled him to her again her left hand reaching further, fumbling for the zip on his trousers. He slid his hands inside her blouse, causing one button to pop off in the process. He felt the firmness of her breasts, kneading them beneath his hands feeling the nipples grow to tiny hard peaks. She squirmed beneath him, fumbling with the button of her own jeans and easing herself out of them. But, as she rolled over to pull them free, they both overbalanced and toppled off the sofa. They lay there, entwined, laughing uncontrollably.

    'This never happens in films,' said Lambert, giggling. 'They always do it right.'

    She ran a hand through his hair and licked her lips in an exaggerated action of sexuality. She couldn't sustain the facade and broke up once more into a paroxysm of giggles.

    'What about the washing up?' said Lambert in mock seriousness.

    'Screw the washing up,' she purred, tugging at his belt.

    'There are more interesting alternatives,' he said and, once more, they joined in a bout of laughter. Laughter - something Lambert thought he had forgotten.

* * *

    At roughly the same time as Lambert and Debbie were eating their meal, Gordon Reece was pouring himself his fifth scotch of the evening. He had begun drinking at four that afternoon, large wine glasses full of the stuff, and now, two hours later, the first effects of drunkenness were beginning to descend upon him. The drink brought a kind of numbness with it. But it gave him no respite from the image of his dead wife. Her eyeless, mutilated corpse lying in that field like some discarded scarecrow.

    He filled his glass again and stumbled into the living room which was lit by the light of a table lamp. The labrador was stretched out in front of the open fire and the animal turned and licked his hand as he stroked it. Reece felt a tear well up in his eye. He tried to hold back the flood but it was impossible. He dropped to his knees, the glass falling from his grasp, the brown liquid spilling and sinking into the carpet. Sobs wracked his body and he slammed his fists repeatedly against the carpet until his arms ached.

    God, he thought, please let tomorrow pass quickly. The funeral was at ten in the morning. There wouldn't be many there: he had specifically asked that it should be a small affair. He had phoned Vera earlier in the day, told her what had happened. He'd broken down over the phone. The doctor had given him some tranquilizers and he knew that he should not be mixing drink with them, but what the hell did it matter anymore.

    He looked up at the photo on top of the TV and the tears came again. Gordon Reece sank to the ground, the dog nuzzling against him as if it too could feel his grief.

    Saturday came and went. The funeral of Emma Reece went off without incident. Father Ridley did his duty as he always did. Gordon Reece wept again, finding that anger was slowly replacing his grief. He felt as if there was a hole inside where someone had hollowed out his body. No feeling any longer, just a void. A swirling black pit of lost emotions and fading memories of things that once were but would never be again.

    It had been a beautiful day: bright sunshine, birds singing in the trees, God, that seemed to make it worse.

    The guests had gone now. The hands on the clock on the mantelpiece had crawled on to twelve fifteen a.m. and Gordon Reece lay sprawled in his chair with a glass in his hand and the television screen nothing but a haze of static particles. Its persistent hiss didn't bother him because he couldn't hear it. He just sat, staring at the blank screen and cradling the nearly empty bottle of scotch in his lap. He had taken a handful of the tranquilizers. He didn't know how many precisely, a dozen, perhaps more. Washed down with a full bottle of whisky, that should do the trick nicely, he thought and even managed a smile. It hovered on his lips for a second then faded like a forgotten dream.

    The doctor had told him not to drink with the tablets. Well, fuck the doctor, he thought. Fuck everything now. He would have cried but there was no emotion left within him, no tears left. All that remained now was that black hole inside him where his life used to be.

    His bleary eyes moved slowly from card to card, all put out on the mantelpiece.

    'With Regrets.'

    'In Deepest Sympathy.'

    He looked away and poured what was left of the scotch into his glass. He flung the bottle across the room where it struck the far wall and exploded in a shower of tiny crystals.

    In the kitchen, the dog barked once, then was silent.

    Reece watched the stain on the wall, the dark patch slowly dripping rivulets of brown liquid. He finished his drink and gripped the glass tight, staring at the photo of his wife on the TV. He clenched his teeth until his jaws ached, his hand tightening around the glass, squeezing.

    He scarcely noticed when it broke, sharp needle points of crystal slicing open his palm. The blood mingling with the whisky as it dripped onto his chest. He felt no pain, just the dull throb as his blood welled out of him. He dropped the remains of the broken tumbler and closed his eyes.

    Surely it wouldn't be long now.

* * *

    He awoke at three that morning, aware of the burning pain in his torn hand. His head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton wool and there was a band of pain running from temple to temple which gripped tighter than an iron vice. He moaned in the depths of his stupor, the noise coming through vaguely as if from another world.

    The television was still on, its black face dotted still with the speckles of white static.

    The dog was growling.

    But there was something else. A noise louder than the others, the noise which had woken him. He listened for a moment.

    There it was again. A persistent rattling and banging.

    Reece tried to rise and the pain in his head intensified. He almost sank down again but the rattling continued and he hauled himself up, nearly toppling over again from the effort of standing. His clouded brain tried to locate the source of the sound and he finally realized that it was coming from the back door. He grunted and staggered out into the kitchen.

    In the darkness he almost stumbled over the dog. The animal was making no sound now, just lying with its head on its outstretched front paws, whimpering. Its eyes riveted to the back door.

    Reece stood still for a second, listening. His own blood roared in his ears and he was more than aware of his laboured breathing.

    The rattling began again, louder this time, he squinted through the darkness, trying to clear his head, trying to see what was making the noise. He stepped closer and then, in the dull light which was escaping from the living room into the kitchen, he saw it.

    The handle of the back door was being moved up and down.

    Reece swallowed hard.

    Someone was trying to get in.