Phil Kurthausen - Sudden Death

She knew what this meant. It was their code.

Her fingers glided over the keyboard. Once she had typed and sent her message she jumped off the bed and went to the wardrobe. Hidden at the bottom under her old and forgotten soft toy collection – he had mentioned some time ago that he thought such things childish in a woman and she had agreed, removing them from her bed that night and consigning them to the wardrobe gulag – was a small tin, the type that some of her more foolish school friends kept their dope hidden in, which she carefully picked up and took with her back to her bed.

Excitedly, she opened the tin and pulled out its contents.

His message was on the screen waiting for her.

For us, to bring us together and take away the pain.

This was theirs and nobody else’s. She understood that he couldn’t be with her, it was impossible; she had seen the pictures of his daughters, the daughters his wife would kill if he left her. Ethan was in an impossible position; their love was all they both wanted, all that mattered. In this universe what else was important? She typed quickly.

I am yours Ethan. For ever. I’m opening myself now.

She nearly added some kisses automatically but they had agreed that this was another childish affectation and she remembered this just in time, her finger aborting the landing before it touched down on ‘x’.

She took off her jumper and slowly unbuttoned her blouse before pulling it down, exposing her left shoulder. The skin was pale and soft and she let her fingers trail lustfully over the flesh there. It was new and unbroken, unlike her right shoulder, which would carry the marks of her love for ever.

She picked up the craft knife and brought the blade down onto her skin. It was sharp and the pain, such as it was, was more sweet and lovely than all the summer mornings of childhood. She inserted the knife deeper now, feeling the flesh resist and then yield as she drew the blade forward, cutting into her skin, marking herself for love, for pain, for him. Blood, their sacrament, warmed her skin and she let it rest there for a second before placing the knife on the tin lid and picking up the cotton wool from the opened tin and dabbing at the sticky warm redness. The white wool darkened quickly and she needed two more buds to remove the blood that collected on her skin.

Her heart rate was up and she could feel it pounding in her chest and through her veins. She placed the cotton buds carefully on the tin and turned back to the computer. A message was waiting for her.

This is for us and us alone. Did you do it my sweet? Did it take away your pain?

It was true, it was always the same, the exhilarating, ecstatic pleasure. But already she could feel the darkness at the horizon inching closer inside her, soon it would be all she could feel and then she would be alone, curled up and waiting, praying for it to pass. Only he could save her from this.

Yes, but I will miss you.

There was a longer than usual pause. She fretted again, this time causing the darkness to accelerate rapidly, the weight of it starting to crush her, blocking her out.

The response was all she could have wished for.

There is a way we can be together for ever.

She began to cry softly.

CHAPTER 4

It had been Pete’s idea. The bad ones usually were.

Erasmus couldn’t say he hated football, it was just he thought the attention paid to it, the billions spent on it, the emotions heightened or ruined by it didn’t seem to be in proportion to the actual physical activity of twenty-two men rushing around a field chasing an inflated ball.

This clearly put him in a minority of one among the other 38,000 people in the stadium who were roaring, cheering, booing and above all, it seemed to Erasmus, swearing all around him. None more so than his friend and colleague Pete Hoare – surname pronounced ‘Horay’ according to Pete’s wife, Deb, and no one else – who had spent the last twenty minutes introducing the people in the executive seats in which they were sat to some of the rarer examples of Anglo-Saxon English.

A player in blue kicked the ball lamely to the opposite team’s goalkeeper.

Pete, dressed in an old style Mod parka over his Gieves & Hawkes suit, leapt to his Italian-leather clad feet.

‘Did you see that? What a massive c – ’ Pete’s eyes flicked towards a glamorous young woman, all blonde hair, winter tan and nails who had appeared next to their seats ‘ – creep, massive creep.’ His voice tailed off, drowned by that most English of cocktails: lust and embarrassment.

The woman looked directly at Pete.

‘Creep? If he’d scored that he’d ’av had a goal bonus, five grand yer know, he’s my husband and he’s a massive cunt never mind creep, love!’

Her thick Scouse accent gave way to a cackle and she tottered away down the steps towards the seats reserved for the player’s guests.

‘Nice,’ said Erasmus.

‘You’re a snob. You know you would,’ said Pete.

Before Erasmus could say whether he would or wouldn’t, another very different figure emerged from the entrance to the lounge area at the top of the steps. Erasmus would have placed this man in his late fifties or early sixties. It was difficult to tell because the man’s silky, long white hair, white teeth and tan seemed somewhat at odds with the wrinkles and body flexibility that Erasmus could also see. He was dressed in a navy blue suit and had what looked like a divers watch on his right wrist.

‘Here’s our man,’ said Pete and bounded up the steps towards him.

The man greeted Pete with a sparkling smile. He was Ted Wright, theatre impresario and owner and chairman of Everton Football Club, and the man, who twenty-four hours ago had rung Pete telling him he needed the assistance of Erasmus Jones as a matter of urgency.

Pete and Ted exchange a few words and then turned and walked down the stairs towards Erasmus.

Ted showed his teeth again and extended his right hand, the left hand he placed on Erasmus’s shoulder, pulling him towards him.

‘Erasmus Jones, great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

He had been around enough alpha male activity in the army to know when someone was trying to assert dominance. At Sandhurst they had watched a video of the then Israeli president Ehud Barak and Yassar Arafat trying to put an arm on each other’s shoulder and shepherd the other through an open door, and it had been almost comical the way that both had danced and twisted at the door, trying to avoid the other taking the alpha position of the shepherd. Erasmus hated those displays. In his experience they usually led to someone getting hurt so he just shrugged self-deprecatingly and smiled.

‘Nice to meet you too, Mr Wright.’

‘Call me Ted, everybody does, well that or something much worse!’ He laughed theatrically. ‘Come on down here, I want you to watch the rest of the game with me.’

Ted placed his hand in the small of Erasmus’s back and gently pushed him towards the plush row of seats five rows further in front.

Ted turned to Pete.

‘Sorry, but only room for one down there.’

Pete looked disappointed.

‘No problem. Let’s hope the boys can turn this around, eh,’ said Pete to the retreating back of Ted.

Ted ignored him and led Erasmus to the front row of the seating block. These were deep, blue leather seats, a stark contrast to the wooden ones that filled the rest of the ground.

In the middle of the row there were two empty seats. With Ted still pushing gently they made their way along the row, Erasmus muttering ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ every few steps as he bumped into the feet along the narrow gap. Erasmus recognised the new mayor and a minor pop celebrity sitting in this, the rich man’s aisle.