Gordon Reece - Mice

He knew the date, he knew the time, he knew where the car had been parked. He wasn’t lying. He really had been there that night.

‘I waited in the car for ages but I was so drunk I couldn’t stay awake. I was woken up by the sound of some girl screaming and Paul shouting — it sounded close, like they was outside in the garden. I got out the car to see what the hell was going on and went through the hedge the way I’d seen Paul go. I could see right into the kitchen — I only stood there for a few seconds but that was long enough for me. I saw Paul chasing her over there — ’ he nodded his head in my direction — ‘round and round this table.’ He prodded the table three times with his stubby index finger as if to prove the veracity of what he was saying.

( Stabbing and slashing at the burglar’s back. ‘We’re playing musical chairs now! We’re playing musical chairs now!’ The flailing knife snagging his neck and loosing a geyser of bright arterial blood. )

‘She was screaming her head off and I could see she was covered in blood,’ the fat man went on. ‘I figured she’d disturbed Paul while he was robbing the house and he’d gone psycho and started cutting her up with his hunting knife. I thought the kid’s parents would come running downstairs to help her any second and Paul’d kill them too. I remember thinking to myself: He’s got the bloodlust on him. He’s gonna kill everyone in that house. He’s gonna cut them all up. There’s gonna be a right royal massacre. ’

The fat man raked up a little more phlegm with a few short, violent pig grunts and slid his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

‘Well, basically, I panicked. I mean, a bit of robbing’s one thing, but I didn’t want to get caught up in no murder. I decided to get out of there sharpish-like.

‘But when I got back to the car I remembered that Paul had taken my car keys with him. I’ve never learned how to hotwire a car; nicking cars ain’t my thing. But the screams coming from the house were bloody shocking, so I just legged it back the way we’d come. It was as black as a witch’s hat out here that night, I can tell you, and I got myself well and truly lost in all them lanes, but I just kept going. All I knew was I had to get as far away from this house as I could.

‘Anyways, I found my way out onto the main road finally and ended up walking all the way back to town. It must’ve taken me close on three hours. As soon as I got in I called the mobile number I had for Paul. It rang and rang but there weren’t no answer.’

( Soft, muffled, a series of musical notes like a bird or maybe even an insect. It stopped and then a few seconds later it started again. )

‘I was expecting Paul to turn up at my flat at any minute all covered in blood, saying he’d done something terrible, and asking me to hide him or help him to get out of the country. But he didn’t show up. I called his mobile again, but now it was switched off. I left loads of messages, but he didn’t call me back. I kept the local radio on all day expecting to hear that there’d been a bloodbath in a house out in the country, but there was nothing about no killings. All I could think was that they just hadn’t found the bodies yet. As it got later, I started to think he must have done a runner in my car. Too scared to come back here in case the police were waiting for him. I figured he was probably miles away by now, lying low up north.’

It was a strange sensation to hear my own murder being described; it made my arms come up in goose bumps. And I couldn’t help thinking that it could so easily have turned out that way. If we’d said the wrong thing while Paul Hannigan was holding us at knife point or if we’d tried to make a run for it, everything the fat man thought had happened so easily could have — and on the Tuesday morning Roger would have found Mum and me butchered like cattle on a slaughterhouse kill floor.

‘I was a bloody fool to get involved with a kid like Paul Hannigan. I knew he weren’t right in the head. Now I was worried sick that if the police caught him I’d get dragged into it and end up facing murder charges. As well as all that, my car had all my work tools in it — I’m a plumber, see — so I couldn’t work neither till I got it back. And I couldn’t exactly call the police and report it stolen, could I?’

He laughed and looked up at Mum as if expecting her to laugh along with him, but she remained stonyfaced.

‘Anyways, the next day there was still nothing on the radio about no murders and there was nothing the next day neither. I figured that if Paul had killed someone out here, the police would’ve found out about it by now. Why weren’t it all over the papers and the TV?

‘And that’s when I started to think that maybe I’d got the wrong end of the stick and there hadn’t been no killing. I called Paul’s mobile again and again but it was always switched off. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided it was best to do nothing — just sit tight and wait and see what happened.

‘And then on the Friday morning I got a call from the police. My first thought was, they’ve caught Paul and he’s gone and grassed me up. Now I’m gonna get done as an accomplice to murder. But it was nothing like that. They said they’d got a complaint from the Farmer’s Harvest restaurant about a car that had been left in their car park. They said they’d run the number plate through their computer and it had me down as the owner and would I move it sharpish-like. And that was that! Nothing about Paul. Nothing about no murders.

‘When I got down to my car I found it unlocked with the keys still in the ignition. Everything had gone from inside it! Everything except for the bag of dope Paul had with him that night. My work tools and my anorak had gone, my road atlas, Paul’s trench coat that had been on the back seat — ’

I saw Mum tense. Her left foot, which had been unconsciously tapping to a manic rhythm while she listened to the blackmailer’s tale, had suddenly stopped moving. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking exactly the same thing: Did he know about the gun? But it was clear from the way he blithely carried on talking that he didn’t.

‘ — everything had gone! I couldn’t figure it out. Why would Paul leave my car there? Why would he leave it unlocked and with the keys still in the ignition? He’d left a hundred quid’s worth of dope in the glove box! He’d taken my work tools, even though they weren’t worth nothing to him! Why hadn’t he called to tell me what had happened? What was he playing at?

‘I asked around, but no one had seen him or heard from him. It was as if he’d just disappeared into thin air. The whole thing was doing my head in, I tell you. So the next day, the Saturday, I drove back out here — to Honeysuckle Cottage .’ He said the twee name with infinite contempt. ‘Thought I’d take a look around. I reckoned that was the only way I was gonna get to the bottom of all this.

‘I parked up round the side there, close under the trees so’s I couldn’t be seen. I hadn’t been there five minutes when I saw the two of you come out of the house. I recognized the girl from that night, and I could see she was as right as rain. I watched you get in your car and drive away — I was worried for a second that you were gonna turn up where I was and see me, but as luck would have it you went the other way. I followed you all the way into town and when you stopped at the supermarket I parked up behind you and went in too — discreet like — I didn’t want you to catch on. I watched you do your shop, trying to overhear what you were talking about, trying to see if I could pick up a clue to what happened out here.’