Peter James - A Twist of the Knife

‘Shit,’ Pete said. A BMW salesman, he always looked the part, on duty or off. Spiky haircut, sharp suit, always confident. But not quite so confident now.

‘It’s nothing,’ Robbo said. ‘Just a couple of inches.’

‘Did we really dig it this deep?’ said Luke, a freshly qualified solicitor, recently married, not quite ready to shrug off his youth, but starting to accept life’s responsibilities.

‘It’s a grave, isn’t it?’ said Robbo. ‘We decided on a grave.’

Josh squinted up at the worsening rain. ‘What if the water rises?’

‘Shit, man,’ Robbo said. ‘We dug it yesterday and it’s taken twenty-four hours for just a couple of inches to accumulate. Nothing to worry about.’

Josh nodded thoughtfully. ‘But what if we can’t get him back out?’

‘Course we can get him out,’ Robbo said. ‘We just unscrew the lid.’

‘Let’s get on with it,’ Mark said. ‘He’s going to be fine. OK?’

‘He bloody deserves it,’ Pete reassured his mates. ‘Remember what he did on your stag night, Luke?’

Luke would never forget waking from an alcoholic stupor to find himself on a bunk on the overnight sleeper to Edinburgh. As a result he arrived forty minutes late at the altar the next morning.

Pete would never forget, either. The weekend before his wedding, he’d found himself in frilly lace underwear, a dildo strapped to his waist, manacled to the Clifton suspension bridge, before being rescued by the fire brigade. Both pranks had been Michael’s idea.

They hefted the coffin off the ground, staggered forward with it to the edge of the grave, and dumped it down, hard, over the tapes. Then giggled at the muffled ‘Ouch!’ from within.

There was a loud thump.

Michael banged his fist against the lid. ‘Hey! Enough!’

Pete, who had the walkie-talkie in his coat pocket, pulled it out and switched it on. ‘Testing!’ he said. ‘Testing!’

Inside the coffin, Pete’s voice boomed out. ‘Testing! Testing!’

‘Joke over!’

‘Relax, Michael!’ Pete said. ‘Enjoy!’

‘You bastards! Let me out! I need a piss!’

Pete switched the walkie-talkie off and jammed it into the pocket of his Barbour jacket. ‘So how does this work, exactly?’

‘We lift the tapes,’ Mark said. ‘One each end.’

Pete dug the walkie-talkie out and switched it on. ‘We’re getting this taped, Michael!’ Then he switched it off again.

The five of them laughed. Then each picked up an end of tape and took up the slack.

‘One... two... three!’ Robbo counted.

‘Fuck, this is heavy!’ Luke said, taking the strain and lowering.

Slowly, jerkily, listing like a stricken ship, the coffin sank down into the deep hole. When it reached the bottom they could barely see it in the darkness.

Pete held the flashlight. In the beam they could see the lid, and they all grinned at the thought of Michael beneath it.

Robbo grabbed the walkie-talkie. ‘Hey, Michael, are you enjoying the magazine? If you get a hard on you might be able to raise the lid with your dick!’

‘OK, joke over. Now let me out!’

‘We’re off to a pole-dancing club. Too bad you can’t join us!’ Robbo switched off the radio before Michael could reply. Then, pocketing it, he picked up a spade and began shovelling earth over the edge of the grave, and roared with laughter as it rattled down on the roof of the coffin.

With a loud whoop Pete grabbed another shovel and joined in. For some moments both of them worked hard until only a few bald patches of coffin showed through the earth. Then these were covered. Both of them continued, the drink fuelling their work into a frenzy until there was a good couple of feet of earth piled on top of the coffin.

‘Hey!’ Luke said. ‘Hey, stop that! The more you shovel on the more we’re going to have to dig back out again in two hours’ time.’

‘It’s a grave!’ Robbo said. ‘That’s what you do with a grave, you cover the coffin!’

Luke grabbed the spade from him. ‘Enough!’ he said firmly. ‘I want to spend the evening drinking, not bloody digging, OK?’

Robbo nodded, never wanting to upset anyone in the group. Pete, sweating heavily, threw his spade down. ‘Don’t think I’ll take this up as a career,’ he said.

They pulled the corrugated iron sheet over the top, then stood back in silence for some moments. Rain pinged on the metal.

‘OK,’ Pete said. ‘We’re outta here.’

Luke dug his hands into his coat pocket dubiously. ‘Are we really sure about this?’

‘We agreed we were going to teach him a lesson,’ Robbo said.

‘What if he chokes on his vomit or something?’

‘He’ll be fine, he’s not that drunk,’ Josh said. ‘Let’s go.’

Josh climbed into the rear of the van and Luke shut the doors. Then Pete, Luke and Robbo squeezed into the front, and Robbo started the engine. They drove back down the track for half a mile, then made a right turn onto the main road.

After a few miles, Mark switched on the walkie-talkie. ‘How you doing, Michael?’

‘Guys, listen, I’m really not enjoying this joke.’

‘Really?’ Robbo said. ‘We are!’

Luke took the radio. ‘This is what’s known as pure vanilla revenge, Michael!’

All five of them in the van roared with laughter. Now it was Josh’s turn. ‘Hey, Michael, we’re going to this fantastic club, they have the most beautiful women, butt naked, sliding their bodies up and down poles. You’re going to be really pissed you’re missing out on this!’

Michael’s voice slurred back, just a tad plaintiff. ‘Can we stop this now, please? I’m really not enjoying this.’

Through the windscreen Robbo could see roadworks ahead and a green light. He accelerated.

Luke shouted over Josh’s shoulder, ‘Hey, Michael, just relax, we’ll be back in a couple of hours!’

‘What do you mean, “a couple of hours”?’

The light turned red. Not enough time to stop. Robbo accelerated even harder and shot through. ‘Gimme the thing,’ he said, grabbing the radio and steering one-handed around a long curve. He peered down in the ambient glow of the dash and hit the talk button.

‘Hey, Michael—’

‘ROBBO!’ Luke’s voice, screaming.

Headlights above them, coming straight at them.

Blinding them.

Then the blare of a horn, deep, heavy-duty, ferocious.

‘ROBBBBBBBBOOOOOOO!’ screamed Luke.

Robbo stamped in panic on the brake pedal and dropped the walkie-talkie. The wheel yawed in his hands as he looked, desperately, for somewhere to go. Trees to his right, a JCB to his left, headlights burning through the windscreen, searing his eyes, coming at him out of the teeming rain like a train.

Michael heard a long scream. Then a huge, echoing, metallic clang, as though two cosmic-size dustbins had swung into each other. Then a clattering sound. Then silence.

In panic, he shouted, ‘Hallo? Hey, guys! Guys! You OK?’

Silence.

‘GUYS!’

Silence. In the beam of the flashlight he stared at the lining that was inches above his eyes, fighting panic, starting to breathe faster and faster. He needed to pee, badly, going on desperately. And he was seriously claustrophobic.

Where the hell was he? What the hell had happened to the guys? Mark, Josh, Luke, Pete, Robbo? Were those effects for his benefit? Were they standing around, giggling? Had the bastards really gone off to a club and left him?

Then his panic subsided as the alcohol kicked back in again. His thoughts became leaden, muddled. His eyes closed and he was almost suckered into sleep.

Opening his eyes, the lid of the coffin blurred into soft focus as a roller wave of nausea suddenly swelled up inside him, threw him up in the air then dropped him down. Up again. Down again. He swallowed, closed his eyes again, giddily feeling the coffin drifting, swaying from side to side, floating. The need to pee was receding. Suddenly the nausea wasn’t so bad any more. It was snug in here. Floating. Like being in a big bed!