Blood Brothers (21 page)

It had been a while since Tom had climbed this far away from the house, and he took a moment to catch his breath.

‘I’m feeling my age,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘I reckon I’m ready for the knacker’s yard!’

Stretching to ease his back, he looked eagerly about; what he saw galvanised him with fear. A short distance away, partly hidden by the sparse shrubbery, Frank stood a short distance from his brother, his shotgun trained at Joe’s heart.

‘
Oh, dear God!
’ Tom took off, sliding and stumbling as he went, but at that moment he felt as though he had the strength of ten men. ‘FRANK! PUT THE GUN DOWN, SON. THINK WHAT YOU’RE DOING. THIS ISN’T THE WAY!’

‘Go back! Don’t you come any nearer!’ Taken unawares, Frank eyed Tom warily, but kept the shotgun trained at his brother’s heart.

Joe had also been startled by his father’s appearance. ‘Go back, Dad. Leave it to me and Frank.’ He was ready for that split second when Frank might lose concentration, which would allow him to make a move on him. But it would not be easy. Frank had backed him into a dangerous situation. With the deep gully below him, and the shotgun aimed at his heart, there was no safe place to go.

Closing in, Tom kept calling out, desperate to calm Frank. ‘It’s all right, Frank!’ he shouted, ‘Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out between us. Listen to me, Frank…put down the shotgun!’

Unable to keep his balance on the craggy ground, Tom tripped and fell in his haste, while constantly pleading with Frank as he came nearer. ‘Have sense, man! Whatever it is, it can’t be so bad you’d want to shoot your brother, and what about your poor wife, eh? What in God’s name were you thinking to do that to her?’

Turning to Joe in disgust, Frank snarled, ‘Did you hear that? My poor wife.’ Keeping the shotgun levelled at Joe, he laughed, a soft, evil sound that only served to confirm Joe’s suspicions, that his brother had finally lost his mind.

‘D’you want to tell him, Joe? D’you want to tell him why I had to punish her…why I can’t bear to look at her?’ His smile deepening, he found a measure of comfort in telling Joe what he’d done. ‘I promise, you wouldn’t want her now, Joe. No man will ever want her again!’

Frank thought of how he’d left Alice bruised and battered, bathed in her own blood, and half-scalped. He didn’t care. He had no compassion, no regrets, and it really hurt him to think she had somehow got the better of him.

‘So! The bitch got away did she? I should have finished her
off when I had the chance. I should have made sure she got everything she deserved!’

A darker mood settled over him. ‘I can see I’ll have to do it proper next time!’

Joe was shocked to the core. ‘You crazy bastard! What have you done to her?’ Out the corner of his eye he could see Tom hurrying his way towards them. ‘Stay back, Dad!’

His immediate instinct was to leap at Frank and tear his head off, but he knew he would have to be careful, or both he and his father would pay the price. He had to bide his time, and hope Frank might drop his guard for that one, split second, and he would have him!

For now though, Alice was uppermost in his mind. ‘What did you do to her, Frank!’ His fists clenched by his sides, he demanded, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? What did you do to Alice?’

Frank was silent for a moment, then he gave a kind of smirk. ‘She’s craftier than I thought,’ he muttered, as though talking to himself. ‘Witch! I was sure she’d be dead by the time I got back.’

At the sound of Tom’s voice pleading with him to put down the gun; he swung round. ‘You’d best not try anything…either of you.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘I won’t hesitate to kill the pair of you if I have to!’ He instructed Tom to come closer where he could keep an eye on him.

Tom had no choice but to do as he was told, so he moved closer to Joe, stopping only when Frank was satisfied that they were near enough for him to keep a wary eye on them, yet far enough apart so they couldn’t rush him together.

Joe was desperate. ‘Where’s Alice, Dad? What did he do to her?’

Tom continued to reason with Frank. ‘Listen to me, son,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve done a bad thing, but thankfully you haven’t killed anybody. If you put the gun down and come
back to the farmhouse, I promise we’ll do what we can to help you.’

When it seemed as though Frank was listening, Tom made the mistake of moving forward. But he quickly halted when Frank yelled at him. ‘Stay where you are, or Joe will go first…then you! And don’t think I’m bluffing!’

‘I don’t think that, son. I know you’re angry, but I don’t understand what all this is about. Talk to me, Frank. Why are you doing this? You’re only making matters worse. Look!’ Stretching out his arm, he asked calmly, ‘Give me the shotgun, son. Come home with me.’

Frank ignored his plea. ‘Where’s the bitch now?’

‘She’s in a shocking state, Frank.’

‘I said…where is she?’

‘Safe in hospital, I hope.’

The colour drained from Joe’s face. ‘Hospital?’ He turned to Frank. ‘You’d best shoot me now, Frank, because the first chance I get, I’ll make you pay for this. I’ll kill you, Frank, I swear, I’ll kill you for this!’

Tom looked from one son to the other. ‘This is not the way, Joe,’ he warned quietly. ‘Alice will be all right. She took a beating, but God willing, she’ll be fine.’

The last thing he wanted was for Joe to learn the truth of how deeply Alice had suffered, and how when Jimmy brought her home in his arms, they had feared the worst.

With clenched fists, Joe glared at Frank, and spoke in a quiet, trembling voice. ‘It’s me you want to hurt, not Alice! It was me who did the wrong, but oh, I forget! Even as a kid, you preferred to hurt those who couldn’t fight back. That’s right isn’t it, Frank. You were a bully then, and you’re a bully now!’

‘Shut it!’ Frank aimed the gun at Joe’s head.

‘Leave it, Joe!’ Tom saw the pure evil in Frank’s eyes and for one terrible moment he really thought he would pull the trigger.

Joe took a chance. ‘I’ve always known about the bad things you did, Frank. I know how cruel you can be, and how you always pick on them that can’t fight back. I know how much you enjoy inflicting pain on others. Like that little boy you tied up and nearly choked to death; or the animals you maimed and killed over the years. You were even jealous of Mum and Dad’s little dog. I always knew you’d killed it, Frank. Deep down I think they knew it too. You were a sadistic bully when we were kids, and nothing changes, does it, eh?’

‘Don’t goad him, Joe.’ Tom looked up at Joe, and the younger man was devastated to see how his father had suddenly grown old. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he told him.

Tom smiled, but it was a sad smile. ‘I knew,’ he said sadly, ‘I always knew.’

Seeing his father defeated like that, Joe’s rage welled up inside him. ‘Come on then! What are you waiting for? If you want an apology for what me and Alice did, you’ll wait forever! So, you beat her up, did you…put her in hospital, you cowardly bastard? Well, come on, big boy, man to man, you and me! I’ll take you on right now! Let’s see if you can beat
me
up like you beat her up. Let’s see who’s the better man, eh? Or are you too much of a coward to give me the punishment I deserve, eh?’

Frank merely smiled, in that sly, knowing way Joe knew so well. ‘Oh, you’ll get your punishment all right. First though I need you to tell Dad what you and Alice did to me. I need him to know that the trollop deserved everything she got, and that it won’t be over until I’ve pulled this trigger!’

Joe changed tack. ‘Alice is no trollop, Frank. She made a mistake in promising to marry you, but it was more your fault than hers. You saw the land and the opportunities that came with the package and you bamboozled her. The truth is, Alice was too young to know her own mind. She was unsure and didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I took advantage of that, so
in the end, we’re
both
cowards! You and me, Frank, we’re blood brothers, made out of the same mould. Alice made a mistake and I took advantage of it, so in a way that makes me almost as bad as you. But there is a difference. I was weak; I did a selfish thing, whereas you deliberately target the weak. You hurt them just for the pleasure of it. You’re sick, Frank. You need help.’

Incensed by the truth in Joe’s words, Frank screeched, ‘TELL HIM WHAT YOU DID!’

Tom was both shocked and saddened. He knew Joe had feelings for his brother’s wife, but he had hoped his suspicions were unfounded. Now though, he knew different. But he had to calm Frank. He had to make him lose concentration; he had to save the situation if he could and to his mind there was only one way.

In a quiet, shaking voice, he spoke to Frank, ‘
You
tell me, Frank! I need to hear it from
you.
What could be so terrible that you should want to hurt Alice like that? What makes you so intent on murdering your brother,
and me;
because make no mistake, if you pull that trigger on Joe, you’ll have to kill me too.’

He took a moment to look at Frank, deep down into that dark, wickedness that he and Nancy had somehow bred, and he made a vow there and then. ‘I mean every word I say, Frank. Kill Joe, and I swear before God, I’ll send you back to hell!’

Because of the manner in which he spoke, with anger and shame, no one doubted his word.

Tom fervently believed that whatever the provocation, nothing in this world should make a man do the terrible things that Frank had done to Alice. ‘You say you’re here to punish Joe…
kill
him even. So, what is so mountainous and unforgiveable that you should do these terrible things. I want to hear it from
you
, Frank, so why won’t you tell me?’

Frank snapped back, ‘Because
he’s
the one, him and that bitch! All right, you want to know the details, well I’ll tell you…’

In a rage, he confirmed what Tom had already feared.

‘That bastard took my woman before I did!’

Out of control, Frank waved the shotgun haphazardly before eventually training it back on Joe. His voice quivered as he went on, ‘They stood at the altar like two innocents! They stood alongside me, as though nothing had happened.
Can you believe that?
They stood there: he gave the ring and she gave her vows. Like it didn’t matter what they’d done before. Like
I
didn’t matter!’

Consumed with rage, he warned Tom in a cold voice, ‘They deserve to die! If you try and stop me, you’ll pay the price. Don’t forget, I’ve got nothing to lose.’

In a last ditch effort to calm him, Tom asked, ‘How do you know they did these things? Who told you that? Think what you’re saying, Frank. This is a bad thing; how can you be so sure of it?’

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Frank snarled. ‘The trollop told me herself!’

He turned on Joe. ‘You thought you’d been clever, didn’t you, eh? You thought I wouldn’t find out about you and her…fornicating behind my back…laughing at me! Making a fool out of me!’

‘It wasn’t like that, Frank!’

Joe needed to convince his brother that he had not meant it to happen. ‘I’d already planned to leave,’ he revealed. ‘I know what we did was wrong, and so does Alice, but it’s
you
she married. It’s
you
she wants. She told me that herself, Frank. You have to believe me…’

‘Liars, the pair of you! I knew there was something…but she wouldn’t admit it at first. But I knew, and in the end I got it out of her. She didn’t want to tell me, but I
made
her!’

Keeping a wary eye on Tom, he took a step closer to Joe, his manner much calmer. ‘I’m not sorry for what I did to her,’ he growled. ‘The bitch got what she deserved…’ his finger curled round the trigger. ‘It’s your turn now, Joe.’ When he looked Joe in the eye, there was madness in his smile, his voice a mere whisper. ‘I hope you rot in hell!

‘No!’ As Tom lunged forward the ear-splitting crack of gunfire echoed across the valley; Tom saw Joe’s chest burst open and he felt the blood splash on his face. Joe was falling before his eyes, ever downwards, arms out and a look of shock on his face as he seemed to float in slow motion to the gully floor, where he settled against the boulders, his face up towards the skies; his body broken.

‘Dear God above!’ Deeply shocked, Tom threw himself at Frank, punching and screaming. ‘You’ve killed him, you mad bastard!’ As the reality consumed him, he could hardly breathe. ‘
I should have smothered you at birth!
’

Throwing him aside, Frank held him in his gunsights. ‘I could pull this trigger and it would all be over for you,’ he said, ‘but I’ve decided that would be too easy. Leaving you
alive
would be the best punishment of all. That way, you can spend the rest of your life remembering what your son and that bitch did to me. You’ll blame yourself for not being able to save your precious Joe, and every minute for the rest of your life, you’ll see him, lying down there, looking up at you. And the guilt will drive you crazy.’

Too dazed to think straight, Tom sobbed helplessly. ‘What in God’s name have you done?’ Torn apart by what he had witnessed, he pleaded, ‘Don’t leave him, Frank…help me get him up…there might still be a chance…’

Tom never saw it coming. Without warning and with all his might, Frank swung the butt-end of the shotgun. When the older man slumped like a felled ox at his feet, Frank simply turned, spat on the ground, and walked away.

Nancy was frantic.

She was rushing about, collecting what she thought Alice might need: nightclothes, toiletries, a scarf for her head.
Though she was mindful of the state Alice was in, and how it might be some time before she was strong again.

She couldn’t shake the terrible image of Alice’s damaged face from her mind, and though somewhere deep inside she knew it was Frank who had done it, she prayed like never before, that she might be wrong. How could she ever again want to look on her eldest son’s face, if it turned out to be his doing after all?

She was sick with worry about Tom, and ran to the top of the landing. ‘Jimmy!’ She peered over the bannisters, ‘Look again, will you?’ she called down. ‘Is there any sign of him yet?’

Jimmy gave the same answer, ‘Not yet, no.’ He rushed outside to scour the horizon again.