Nick Oldham - One Dead Witness

She lurched for the button as she veered into the darkened bedroom, but her hand did not reach it. Another, stronger one clamped down on hers and she was thrown across the bed with such force that she rolled off the other side and crashed to the floor. Next thing, she was being dragged by her hair back onto the bed.

A bedside light was switched on.

The figure towered over her, a terrifying look on his face.

He bent down and picked something up that was leaning against the wardrobe. At first Danny thought it was a broom-handle. When it was pointed at her face she saw it was a single-barrelled shotgun that Jack Sands was holding.

He perched on the end of the bed. Danny sat near the headboard with her legs drawn up. He had made her throw the towels away so she was naked and starting to shiver. The shotgun rested across his lap, his left hand holding the barrel, his right the stock, his forefinger curled around the trigger.

They had been talking for well over two hours, going round and round in circles.

To Danny he sounded demented and very dangerous.

‘ I just can’t give you up,’ he informed her for the hundredth time. ‘You’re part of my life, part of me.’ He shook his head sadly. His eyes had a faraway look. ‘I won’t give you up to anyone, let alone that bastard Christie.’

‘ Henry Christie is my boss. He is not my lover, and never will be.’

‘ Bollocks! I’ve seen you two together. I’ve seen him drop you off at your house, groping you before you get out of the car. I’ve seen it happen, Danny. He’s shagging you, isn’t he?’

‘ No — no one’s shagging me, as you so pleasantly put it, Jack. I don’t have a lover and I don’t want one. Not you, not anybody. And your imagination is running riot. Henry has never groped me, either.’

‘ I don’t believe you.’

Danny shrugged. ‘Can I put my dressing-gown on? It’s cold here.’

‘ No.’

‘ Fine.’

‘ He deserved that crack on the head. I wish he’d got brain damage from it.’

‘ You did it?’

‘ I arranged it. Put a couple of toe-rags onto him who owed me past favours.’

Danny took in the information. ‘So what’s it going to be, Jack? We’ve been talking here for ages now, getting nowhere.’

He cleared his throat. A tear rolled out of one eye. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anyone else touching you. And if it can’t be me, no one else will ever touch you because I’m going to kill you now. Then I’ll kill myself. Ha! I know this is only a single barrel, but you’ll have to trust me. This is a suicide pact. You’ll die and then I promise I’ll reload and put the gun to my head. I’ll only be seconds behind you. I’ve even written a suicide note.’ He produced it from a pocket and flapped the envelope at her and dropped it on the bed between them.

Then he took a shotgun cartridge from his pocket and placed it upright on the dressing-table. ‘That’s for me. Yours is already in the gun.’ He lifted the weapon and pointed it at her.

‘ You’re mad, Jack. A fucking raving loony.’

‘ No. Don’t think that of me. I’m obsessed, yeah. I’m in love, but I’m not mad, Danny.’

‘ Well, let me tell you this,’ Danny said falteringly, fear rising through her. ‘If there is an afterlife, I’ll be going to it with that thought in my mind. Jack Sands is fucking mental. A pathetic, spineless bastard who-’

‘ Shut it!’ he screamed. The gun shook in his hands. He hoisted it to his shoulder and looked down the barrel at Danny. She stared straight back, transfixed like a rabbit in a poacher’s torchbeam.

‘ Go on,’ she snarled, ‘pull the fucking trigger and have done. You’ve made my life a misery anyway. Go on, pull it, then kill yourself, Jack. The world will be a far better place without you in it.’

‘ I will! I will!’ he threatened, right on the edge. His finger wrapped around the trigger. Danny could see him forcing himself to pull it.

Her face wore a mask of contempt. She shifted slightly on the bed, an inch nearer to the panic button. ‘It’s over, Jack. You and me. It would never have worked in a million years. You can’t have your cake and eat it. You’re married on one hand, having a longstanding affair on the other. Something had to break sooner or later and that something was me. You were never going to leave her, so I had to end it, don’t you see?’ Then she added desperately, ‘What about your kids? Jack, they need you, they need a father. Stop this now… please. For everyone’s sake.’

‘ I’ve got enough love for everyone.’

‘ Oh, Jack, don’t be a fool. No one has that much love. Killing me and killing yourself is not the way to see this through. Come on,’ she said softly, ‘please see sense.’

There was a long silence. The gun was still pointed right at Danny’s nose.

‘ You’re right,’ he said. He stood up and without a further word he walked out of the bedroom, head held high, shotgun in his right hand.

Danny leapt to her feet and slammed the door behind him, locking it.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs.

Everything drained out of her. She slumped onto the bed, holding her head.

Then she heard the bang of the shotgun being discharged somewhere downstairs.

In deep shock she rolled onto the bed, curled up like a baby in the womb, jammed a thumb into her mouth and rocked and cried.