Twelve Days of Winter (11 page)

There’s a zipping sound, and when Peter opens his eyes again
The Pear Tree
is gone.

The Man takes the holdall off the table and puts the strap across his shoulders. ‘Get your lawyer to draw up the transfer of ownership. I want it sorted by the end of the week.’

End of the week: tomorrow – Friday the 23rd. ‘That might not be possible. . .’ his voice sounds flat and dead. He’s lost everything. The painting’s just the tip of the iceberg: after this it’ll be money, jewellery, the car.
Everything
will be sold off. Stripped away until there’s nothing left. And then The Man will either kill him, or hand him over to the police.

‘Well, you’d better hope—’ He’s interrupted by Peter’s mobile phone ringing – Wagner’s
Tristan and Isolde
. Peter pulls the mobile out and answers it. Force of habit.

‘Hello?’

‘
Pete? Pete, it
’
s me: Tony.
’

Peter groans. As if today wasn’t bad enough.

‘
Pete, we
’
ve got big trouble!
’

‘It’s too late.’

‘
Too late? Shit! They
’
re not there are they? Pete, are the police there? Oh FUCK!
’

Peter sighs. Tony has always been excitable – an unfortunate consequence of dealing in illegal images and video files.

‘No, the police aren’t here. I’m. . .’ He looks at The Man who shakes his head. The meaning is clear: this is just between the two of them. ‘Margaret’s not doing too well.’ Which was true enough. If he was lucky, the throat cancer would take her before the money ran out and The Man turned on him. She’d never have to know.

‘
What the fuck do I care about your bloody wife? They
’
ve arrested someone: that fucking idiot school teacher. He
’
ll talk!
’

Peter actually laughs. Throws his head back and laughs.

‘
Pete? What the fuck
’
s wrong with you? Did you not hear what I said? He
’
ll turn us in!
’

The Man puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. ‘What’s so damn funny?’

‘I want my painting back.’ He grins like a maniac. ‘They’ve arrested someone in the same . . . “club”. And as soon as he talks it’s all out in the open. You’ve just lost your leverage.’

‘Like hell I have.’

‘Everyone will know. I’ll be ruined anyway. So tell whoever you like: it’s not going to make any difference.’ He pulls back his shoulders. ‘Now give me back my bloody painting!’

There’s a pause, then The Man narrows his eyes. ‘Who is it? Who’ve they arrested?’

‘James Kirkhill – he teaches English at Kingsmeath Secondary.’

‘And they’ve not picked up anyone else in your “club”?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ The Man pats him on the back. ‘Then I have another “investment opportunity” for you and your friends. . .’

The Armagnac was nearly finished, just one or two mouthfuls left and it would be time. One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Lord Peter Forsyth-Leven. It wasn’t just his face that was numb now – his hands were like frozen claws, he couldn’t feel his feet – but that didn’t matter. Soon he wouldn’t be feeling anything ever again.

All of the great things he’d done in his life, the charity work, the glittering political career, and this was going to be what he was remembered for.

Paedophile. Suicide. Murderer.

The first two he could have lived with, no pun intended, but not the last. That was too much to bear on top of everything else.

He drained the bottle, squinted at the empty glass, then threw it out into the void. For a moment it sparkled through the falling snow, turning end over end, fading from sight. He held his breath, straining to hear it smashing against the rocks below . . . but there was nothing. Just the wind and the snow and the night.

Peter clambered all the way up to the top of the battlement wall.

It was time.

The plan is simple: everyone in the ‘club’ chips in five thousand pounds, and that buys them a life. One human life for thirty-five thousand pounds. Not that much really, when you think about it. Five thousand pounds to carry on like nothing had ever happened. Safe to continue with their private little . . . ‘indiscretions’.

Five thousand pounds to have someone killed.

The Man wouldn’t go until Peter gave him everyone’s name, to make sure no one ‘forgot’ to pay, taking
The Pear Tree
with him. Leaving a shadow behind on the faded wallpaper. So Peter fills in the time pacing back and forth in the lounge. Drinking cups of tea. Marching up and down the stairs to check on Margaret. Sitting at the dining room table, staring at the hole Monet’s painting has left behind.

The call comes at half past nine – it’s Tony, sounding like Christmas has arrived three days early. ‘
Did you see the news? They released the bastard on bail this afternoon. Found his body at eight – hanged in his bedroom. Suicide note, the whole works! He topped himself, we don
’
t have to give your man a bloody penny. It
’
s perfect!
’

Perfect.

Peter sits at the table and looks up at the shadow on the wall. ‘What makes you think The Man didn’t kill him and make it
look
like suicide?’

‘
Don
’
t be. . .
’ A lengthy pause. ‘
Can he
do
that?
’

Peter almost laughs. ‘Of course he can, but it doesn’t matter, does it? He has our names. What do you think he’ll do if we don’t pay up?’

Another pause, and then a lot of swearing. ‘
You bastard! You put him onto us! You stupid, fucking, ignorant bas—
’

Peter hangs up, buries his head in his hands, and cries.

He’s betrayed everyone: his family, his friends, his constituents, his city, even his fellow paedophiles. . .

There’s only one more thing he has to do, and then it can all go away. There’s no other choice.

Eighty feet, straight down.

He was too drunk to remember enough secondary school physics to work out how long it would take to hit the ground, or how fast he’d be going when he did.

Paedophile, suicide, murderer. . .

Could he let Margaret find out about the horrible things he’d done? That he’d arranged to have a man
killed
. No matter what that idiot Tony said, it was obvious The Man had staged James Kirkhill’s suicide. The schoolteacher had died, just so Peter’s secret would be safe. It was all his fault.

So he’d gone upstairs to Margaret’s bedroom, kissed her gently on the forehead, lied to her about how beautiful she looked, then held a pillow over her face until she stopped struggling. She would never know what a monster she’d married.

Peter took off his glasses, closed his eyes and stepped quietly off of the battlements.

Dirty. Fucking.
Bastard
. Craig sat in the car, scowling out of the windscreen, grinding his teeth. Drinking steadily from a bottle of Highland Park. The whisky burned deep inside, stoking the fires.

The song on the radio dribbled to a halt. ‘‘Ha, ha! You’re listening to Sensational Steve’s Festive Funathon; hope you’ve all been good for Santa!’’

Prick.

Then wailing and screeching erupted from the car’s speakers – the Oldcastle Military Pipe Band murdering ‘Silent Night’.

Craig turned his scowl from the windscreen to the car radio. Then smashed his fist into it. His knuckles creaked and stung: the skin tore across them, oozing blood. He screamed and swore, yanked his seat back as far as it would go and stomped his heel down on the plastic casing. Again and again and again. The music stopped.

One more swig of Highland Park then Craig rammed the cork back in, stuffed the bottle in a pocket of his long Barbour coat, and dragged himself out of the car. He’d made an absolute cock-up of parking the thing, leaving it diagonally across two spaces, but it didn’t matter.

He popped the boot and pulled out the shotgun.

Nothing mattered after today.

He didn’t even pay and display.

‘Ho, Ho, Ho. . .’ Santa beamed, leaning down so he was eye-to-eye with the little girl. Cute wee thing: red hair and freckles, sucking her thumb, and peering round her mummy’s leg. Bet she’d heard stories about Father Christmas all her life, but this was probably the first time she’d ever seen him in the flesh.

‘What’s your name, little girl?’ Making the words all big and cuddly − not too loud, or the little buggers had a habit of peeing themselves.

She took her thumb out of her mouth. ‘Thara.’ Then plugged up again.

Santa, AKA Stephen Wilson, beamed at her.

It wasn’t that bad a job: once you got past the crappy grotto made of chipboard; the bum-numbing throne; the padded suit that made sweat trickle down the crack of your arse; the beard that itched like a bastard; the never-ending loop of drive-you-psycho Christmas carols; and the snotty-nosed little sods demanding presents.
Other
than that, six weeks as a department store Santa wasn’t too demanding.

You say ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’; you smile and wink; you don’t sit them on your knee – in case someone thinks you’re a paedo; and you don’t ask for their mum’s phone number, even if she’s a total MILF. Because she’s not going to give it to a fat guy with a beard anyway.

‘And have you been a good little girl, Sarah?’ Bit of chat: say your prayers, brush your teeth, work hard in school, and please accept this crappy plastic toy wrapped up in snowman Christmas paper.

The ginger kid’s mum was
definitely
a MILF. ‘What do we say to Santa, Sarah?’

‘Thank you, Thanta.’

‘Good girl.’ She took her daughter’s hand, and led her out of the grotto.

Thanta stared at Mummy’s arse − it was like God had squeezed two perfect grapefruit into a sock. Sigh. . .

And: NEXT!

It was a lot more difficult to hide a shotgun under a long coat than it looked in the movies. The damn thing was nearly impossible to hold like that, especially with his hand all swollen and bleeding – he’d dropped it half a dozen times between the car and the lifts before figuring out a way to make it work. Craig took his left arm out of the sleeve and held the gun upside-down beneath the coat. Should have sawn the barrel off with a hacksaw. And all that whisky wasn’t helping either; the world wouldn’t stay in focus. How he’d got here without crashing the car into something was anyone’s guess.

Craig screwed one eye shut and pressed the button for the lifts. Staggered a couple of steps backwards and one to the side as a woman wheeled a massive pushchair over from the ‘M
OTHER AND
B
ABY
’ parking spaces.

She stared at him – standing there swaying slightly, one arm hidden under his long wax coat. Probably thought he was some sort of drunken pervert.
Is that a shotgun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

She glanced from the stairs, to the lifts, to Craig, and back to the stairs again. Then the lift went ping and the doors slid open. She shrugged and followed him into the brightly lit metal box.

‘I’m. . .’ Craig cleared his throat as the doors closed. The trick was to get all the words in the right order. Can’t sound pished if all the words are in the right order. ‘I’m not a perv . . . pervert.’

She didn’t make eye contact, just stood there watching the floor numbers count down to ground level and escape.

‘I’m hap . . . happily married.’ He frowned. ‘No, no, no: not happily. I was happily, but now I’m not. . . You know?’ Silence. ‘You . . . you see I
was
happy, but, but. . . She’s sleeping with some . . . someone else!’

He paused to see if the woman would jump in with an expression of sympathy, but she kept her eyes on the numbers.

‘You’re right.’ He leaned his head against the cool metal wall. ‘I should shut up and leave . . . leave you alone.’ He closed his eyes and waited for the elevator to shudder to a halt.

Ping.
A sudden swelling of noise as the doors opened on the main shopping level. The squeak of buggy wheels. And then he was alone.

Craig took a deep breath and lurched out into the crowds, gripping the shotgun tight beneath his coat. It was time to go see Father Fucking Christmas.

Stephen wriggled in the throne. Had to be a position on this bloody thing that didn’t make his arse eat itself. Be lucky if he didn’t have piles by Boxing Day.

He gave his head elf the signal to send in the next one. A wee boy with a runny nose. Then it was a wee girl called Ashley whose mother looked like a man in drag. And then another little boy called Simon, who wanted a dinosaur and a aeroplane and a puppy and a Action Man kung fu killer and a hat and a dinosaur and a chocolate house and, and, and. . .

Finally it was half eleven: time for the statutory fifteen-minute pee and tea break. The head elf – a part-time goth called Greg, dressed up in a green tunic, green pointy hat, green curly-toed slippers and red-and-white striped tights – plonked the ‘Santa Will Be Back Soon!’ sign in front of the grotto’s entrance. Then they both buggered off out the back.

The store had been kind enough to build the grotto over one of the service entrances, so Santa could go take a piss without the kiddies seeing him. And then, when the call of nature had been answered, Stephen doffed his fur-trimmed red hat, white wig and beard, and joined Greg the Christmas Goth in the stairwell for a sly joint, out of view of the security cameras.

Greg leaned back against the wall. ‘So . . . doing anything exciting tonight?’

Stephen took another hit, holding the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible. Then wheezed it out. ‘I wish. Taking my kid to go see that new animated thing:
Skeleton Bob and the Witch
’
s Christmas
. She’s mad on the books.’

‘Any good?’

‘Fucking doubt it.’

‘Grievous.’ Greg took another long drag.

‘You got any gear for me?’

‘Gear?’ Greg gave a wee smoky laugh. ‘Jesus, are you out of touch. Yes, granddad, I got some ‘gear’. It’s “groovy man”.’ He even made little sarcastic quote bunnies with his fingers.