Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘Excuse me, Reverend,’ I said in as calm a voice as I could manage.

‘Yes?’

He gave me a puzzled and somewhat disdainful look. Much like a senior prefect might have given to a lowly fag in the public school he had no doubt attended.

‘I know you are a man of God. But if you fucking nudge me again I will make sure you meet him a lot sooner than you intended.’

‘And who the bloody hell are you?’ he asked, red-faced with indignation.

‘I’m a man who is trying to have a quiet pint and not get jostled by an arsehole out of his dog collar.’

His pal, a large man of the same age with curly dark hair, stepped around the reverend and came up to me.

‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up, you Irish-’ he said and pushed my shoulder with his arm. I am not sure what the noun would have been had he finished what he was saying, but I surmised it wouldn’t be flattering. So I stood up and punched him. A straight snap to the bridge of his nose, not enough to break it, but enough to knock him down on his red-corduroyed arse.

The other members of the party made a move towards me but a familiar voice called out from the corner of the room.

‘All right, lads. A bit of horseplay is all right on a stag night. But let’s not let it get out of hand, eh? You’re getting married, Len,’ he said to the man I had punched who was standing up and looking far from happy. ‘You don’t want to be walking up the aisle with a couple of black eyes, do you?’

‘You think I can’t handle him?’

‘I think that I am an officer of the law and I have just given you some good advice.’

Sergeant Coker walked up to them with his hands held wide in a placating gesture, but the expression on his face made his meaning clear enough. The groom was glaring at me, but the reverend took his hand and led him away.

‘Come on, down these and let’s get off to The Crown,’ he said, polishing off his shot. ‘There is a very unpleasant reek of the black Irish bog in this bar this evening.’

The unhappy bridegroom hesitated at the door and then pointed a finger at me.

‘You’ll keep,’ he said and left with the rest of the party.

The sergeant joined me at the bar. ‘You can’t go around just punching people, Jack’ he said.

‘Sure, it was just a tap.’

‘Get me a pint of Fosters and a pint of the black stuff for the fighting Irishman, please,’ he said to the blonde-bobbed barmaid behind the counter.

‘You going to behave yourself, Jack?’ she said to me.

‘I’ll do my best, darling. But I’ll just stick with this pint — I’m driving home in a wee while.’

She smiled and went off to the other bar where the Guinness and lager taps were.

The sergeant gave me a thoughtful look. ‘You boxed a bit?’

I nodded. ‘For the Met.’

‘Like I say, you can’t keep going around punching people, Jack. It’s frowned upon in some quarters.’

‘I noticed.’

‘And he’s a nasty piece of work, that Len Wright. I’d watch your back if I were you.’

‘Isn’t that what you’re here for?’

‘Next time I might not be.’

I nodded and sipped my beer. ‘I’ll try and be careful.’

Harry Coker laughed. ‘I guess you can take care of yourself.’

‘Sometimes.’

The sergeant pulled an A4 envelope out of his bag and laid it on the bar.

‘What’s this?’

‘Something you didn’t get from me.’

‘And what is it that you haven’t given me?’

‘The autopsy report from Norwich on our John Doe.’

‘Anything of interest?’

‘Not sure. Still don’t know how long he was in the ground. I figured you could run your eye over it. More your area.’

I nodded and pulled the envelope towards me. ‘Cheers, Harry.’

‘Figured you’d get hold of a copy through Kate sooner or later.’

I nodded again. It was exactly what I had planned on doing.

‘So I also figured sooner would be better than later,’ said the sergeant.

It was a cold night. Neither of them noticed. The blood in their veins was pumping with alcohol and excitement.

They were in a back alley which ran off a small passage that itself led from the high street past an amusement arcade and through to residential streets. It was relatively dark in the alley: the lights from the amusement arcade had been switched off, and the couple’s warm breath in the cold air was barely visible.

The woman had been positioned against a stone wall. The man behind her lifted her dress. She had a warm coat on but no knickers — as she had been instructed.

The man behind her unzipped his fly, his excitement all too obvious to her. She giggled.

‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘I hope you have a licence for that.’

The man slid his hand between her parted legs and whispered in her ear.

‘Somebody seems to be ready for it,’ he said.

‘Are you going to fuck me or talk me to death?’ she replied and then grunted as the man acted upon her question. ‘Jesus!’ she gasped when his stomach slammed against the top of her buttocks as he entered her.

‘No blasphemy,’ the man chuckled as the woman juddered against him, the heat from her bottom arousing him even more as he gripped her hips and pulled her towards him.

‘This is the last time,’ the woman gasped, breathing raggedly.

‘We’ll see about that,’ he replied. Her long hair fell over her face as she leaned further over the wall and he slapped hard into her in a regular rhythm.

It didn’t take him long and, spent, he sagged against her, both of them breathing deeply, gulping in deep draughts of the cold night air.

The man removed the L-plate sign that was pinned on the back of her coat and tossed it to the ground. ‘I guess you won’t be needing that now,’ he said.

‘Jesus!’ gasped the woman again.

Neither of them noticed the man in the dark shadows further down the alley, who was watching them with eyes as cold as the night air.

William

The moon was in full sail in the clear night sky. A few clouds scudding across it, but certainly not enough to obscure the vision of the man who approached the wall of the grounds of All Saints Church in Beeston Regis.

It was a low wall, built many, many years ago. The man put a hand on top of its weathered stone and flint and clambered over it into the cemetery beyond.

He was carrying a torch in his pocket but in the bright moonlight he had no need of it. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

He moved quietly, stealthily. But in truth there was no need for him to do so. The nearby caravan was empty at this time of year, and the nearest houses were several hundred yards away back on the Beeston Bump. The church had no rectory and was unoccupied at night, and the people in the graveyard were unable to voice outrage at what the man had come to do.

He walked around the side of the church until he came to the grave that he was seeking. It was a decorative grave with a black granite headstone and stone borders. The top of the plot had been filled with white quartz.

The man read the engraving carved deep into the stone and he murmured, almost growled under his breath. Then he reached into the pockets of his thick warm overcoat for the other items that he had brought.

‘One down,’ he said, and smiled. His teeth, yellow in the moonlight, were as ragged as most of the headstones in the cemetery. There was a light in his eyes that came not just from the moon, a light as cold as that which fell from the dead rock in the sky above him and that illuminated his work.

The Reverend Nigel Holdsworth had what his mates at the golf club called a shit-eating grin spread broadly across his shiny face. He adjusted the zipper on his trousers once again, more from reflex than necessity, and buttoned up his overcoat — wool and cashmere mix and worth every penny of the hundreds of pounds it had cost him. He tightened his university scarf around his smooth-shaven and scented neck and walked back down the alley towards the lights. Maybe time for a few more in The Crown with the lads, before heading home for a glass of 18-year-old single malt and a very well earned night’s sleep.