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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Horror
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 10/21/2018
The Meeting
Born 1948, M, from Eastbourne, United KingdomTHE MEETING
Sam Jefferies wasn’t really relishing the idea of having dinner with Kendrick Stone. The thought of having to spend the next two or three hours of his life with the brash American and to be forced to suffer his irritating drawl filled him with the utmost dismay. Sam wasn’t keen on people from the United States at the best of times and he quite simply couldn’t stand salesmen. Their boorish arrogance coupled with their apparent inability to detect the slightest fault in their all-consuming presence irritated him to the extreme. Once, he’d even refused to consider buying a house, one that was perfect in every detail for his needs, purely because he discovered that the vendor was a sales manager of some local firm of motor dealers.
Big mouths, big cars and little dicks; that was how he had once described them to Anne, his ever-patient wife. She had dispassionately responded to his attempt at humour as usual with a nonchalant shrug of her slight shoulders. Sam felt that she never really appreciated his dry wit, something that he considered to be a great shame.
Sam watched Anne unemotionally as she buttoned the front of her crisp, white blouse. He had always felt that her breasts were too large and he particularly didn’t like the way that the shapes of her rather prominent nipples were clearly discernible through the thin material of her top despite the added presence of a heavy, white bra. Sam chose to ignore the presence of the thrusting, demanding flesh and allowed his gaze to fall to her stomach. Her waist was narrow, an attribute that he had once admired greatly. Now it merely served to accentuate the broad sweep of her hips.
Anne reached down and raised the hem of her skirt. She fiddled with the clasp of her suspender belt where it gripped one of the sheer, black stockings that of late she had decided to wear.
He liked that.
His adolescent years had occurred at that terrible time in the early sixties when stockings had been replaced by tights, surely the worst mistake ever made by the fashion industry. Clearly they were in deference to the sudden female desire to reveal as much leg as was decently, or in some cases indecently, possible. Unfortunately it transpired that the women who chose to show the most flesh were invariably the last ones who should do so!
No, Sam genuinely appreciated the sight of his wife wearing such intrinsically sexual garments. It had crossed his mind to wonder why now, why she had suddenly chosen to wear stockings when, in the past she had always complained that they were too ‘fiddly’ and uncomfortable. Nevertheless he had dismissed the matter from his mind.
Anne noticed him looking at her leg and quickly tugged the hem of her skirt down. ‘Come on, Sam,’ she said sharply, ‘we’ll be late. You know that Kendrick doesn’t like that.’
‘Oh, doesn’t he?’ Sam replied, over-stressing the sarcasm with his tone. "That would never do. We mustn’t upset bloody Kendrick Stone, now must we?’
Anne snatched up her handbag from the bedside table. ‘I know that you don’t like him very much…’
‘Can’t stand the man,’ he interrupted with a scowl.
Anne took a deep breath. ‘That’s as it may be,’ she said, slowly. ‘The fact is, if you want to break into the American markets then you are simply going to have to deal with people like Kendrick Stone. Now, get your jacket and let’s get going. Christ, its eight fifteen already!’
She was gone from the bedroom before he had the time to think up a witty enough reply. She was right, of course. Anne always was. About everything. He needed to urgently expand his company’s business if it was to survive.
Sam glanced grudgingly at his portly reflection in the long mirror at the far side of the room. The buttons on his shirt appeared to be straining to contain his bulk and his belly rested heavily on his thighs as he leaned forward to tie his shoes. He completed the task quickly and then stood up and attempted to brush away the creases from his ill-fitting trousers. His wife’s voice called from downstairs, filling the house with its ear piercing sound. ‘Sam! Will you come on!’ He grabbed his jacket obediently and moved hurriedly from the room.
The roads were relatively clear, which was unusual for the time of day, and it seemed to Sam that even the traffic was conspiring against him, determined to make him suffer as much time as possible with the revolting Kendrick Stone. He thought angrily about the man and he gripped the steering wheel tightly until his knuckles turned white. What sort of name was that? Kendrick! He was either Kenneth or Richard. What was wrong with the man?
And another thing, he thought. Why did the man talk so loud? You could be sitting right next to him and yet he seemed to bellow the words at you as though he wanted everyone in the room to hear what he had to say. Maybe that was it. Full of his own self-importance.
But he needed that deal; desperately. As far as Information Technology was concerned the home market was all but dead, swallowed up by Far Eastern conglomerates with all the care and finesse of a whale devouring millions of tiny sea creatures.
Sam's nightly sleep had constantly been disturbed by worries and his days had been absorbed in fruitless electronic conversations with faceless people over the internet. He knew that it was all making him ill, of course. No man in his mid-fifties, particularly one as overweight as he was, could continue to work at such a pace without something giving way.
Anne certainly didn’t give him the impression that she understood what he was going through. It seemed that the thought of cutting down on her endless shopping trips to London or the three or four foreign holidays she enjoyed each year, usually with her friends or alone, never entered her head. Only once recently had he accompanied her and he had spent virtually the entire week on the web or the phone. At moments like this he dreamed of retirement, the chance to spend hours on a golf course or lie with untroubled thoughts on some sunny beach, but right now that was not a possibility. There was no way that he would be able to sell his failing business.
And yet Anne wasn’t an unintelligent woman. Sam had admired her for her intellect almost as much as her good looks when he’d first met her. She was clearly aware that the company was in trouble, which was probably why she had arranged for him to meet with Kendrick Stone in the first place. The fact that Sam had taken an instant dislike to the American was by the by.
He wasn’t at all clear as to how Anne had met Stone. She’s suddenly started to talk about him like he was an old friend, mentioning past meetings or events involving the two of them with an attitude that suggested to Sam that he should know all about it.
But he didn’t. One day Stone wasn’t there and one day he was, uninvited and, at least as far as Sam was concerned, decidedly unwelcome.
There was no Mrs Stone, which didn’t surprise Sam. No woman in her right mind could have put up with such a creep. Once, he had even considered that the wonderful Kendrick Stone might be gay. At first the idea had amused him until he suddenly conjured up a mental picture of himself lying in bed with the American and found it impossible to dismiss the image from his mind and the revolting thought made him feel quite nauseous.
Anne on the contrary seemed to have little trouble in getting on with Stone. She always appeared to be hanging onto his every word whenever he launched himself into one of his tedious tirades, especially when he wittered on about how many ‘k’ he had made in the last week, month or year. It had even occurred to Sam that Anne might be having an affair with the man. That certainly wouldn’t have come as a surprise. He was well aware that a faithful woman was about as rare these days as the proverbial hen’s teeth.
Not that he’s ever been able to prove anything about Anne. She’d been far too clever for that, unlike Jenny, Sarah or Rose. They were the three young ladies who had worked as his persona assistants during different periods over the years. He’d bedded all three of them of course, knowing full well that Anne was probably enjoying similar diversions with the window-cleaner or the postman or whoever back in their modest suburban home. The young tarts had all let him down, unsurprisingly, but Sam had discovered their infidelities and turned them out of his life and their livelihoods without a moment’s indecision.
Lately however, work had taken over all his waking thoughts and energy. Something had to be done, and soon. The hours that he found he had to work were long but he believed strongly that, with perseverance and hard graft, his efforts would pay off in the end. He knew that he couldn’t allow J-Tech to fail, at least not without a fight. And if that fight involved creeping up to the likes of Kendrick Stone then so be it.
Anne didn’t seem to mind the fact that he was rarely at home, apart from to sleep. She carried on as usual in her amiable, capable way, attending meetings of worthy charitable groups and joining in with numerous activities within the local community. He had made the occasional effort to discuss the problems of J-Tech with her but, apart from arranging the meeting with Stone, she had shown little interest or apparent concern. She clearly trusted him to sort the mess out and to continue to provide her with her accustomed, comfortable lifestyle.
In the past he had deemed such unwavering trust in his abilities as a businessman to be flattering. He was proud of his achievements, and rightly so. J-Tech had risen from being a small company employing just three young programmers to a position in the forefront of modern technology, with a staff of over four hundred highly paid technicians. Then the shit hist the fan in a sudden and unexpected way. The home market collapsed without warning, leaving many firms floundering in a sea of lost orders and surplus stock. J-Tech was probably one of the worst affected, being so reliant on a relatively small customer base.
If he was going to drag the company out of this mess, Sam Jefferies had to accept that the ghastly, overbearing slime-ball Stone was the key.
Sam didn’t remember anything more about the journey to the restaurant. He didn’t even recall parking the car, so engrossed was he in his thoughts. That sort of thing was happening quite a lot to him of late. Anne had remarked upon it on numerous occasions, clearly annoyed by the way that he seemed able to drift off into his own dream world at any time. She had been convinced at first that he was doing it on purpose, perhaps to avoid having to talk to her, but had finally accepted that there might be some other causes for his momentary lapses of concentration and had ordered him to see the family’s doctor.
Doctor Hammond had told him that it was a symptom of the stress that was building up inside him and he had advised him to take a long holiday. Holiday indeed! Sam could barely remember the last time he had taken a single day’s break from work, and it certainly wasn’t going to happen now, not with J-Tech perched on the precipice of disaster. No, he thought. Sort some kind of arrangement with Stone and his American backers and there might be time for a holiday later. Drugs were prescribed for him as well; uppers, downers, whatever. He hadn’t bothered to cash the prescription.
He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as they waited for the maître-de to escort them to their table. He was tired, very tired. Nevertheless, he knew that he was going to have to keep his wits about him throughout what was likely to be a very long evening. If Kendrick Stone sensed any element of weakness Sam knew that he would pounce like a rabid animal and have him sign his livelihood away to some nefarious deal before he knew what had happened. The man was an out and out rogue; everyone knew it. The trouble was he was a very very rich rogue.
The waiter arrived and led the party to a small secluded table at the far end of the restaurant. The place was uncommonly busy for a Tuesday evening and the noises of stilted conversations hummed in Sam’s ears like the irritating drone of an aircraft on a long, overnight flight. A chair was pulled back for him and he sat down heavily. Kendrick seemed to purposely take the opportunity to humiliate him by helping Anne to her seat gallantly before taking his own place seated between them. This annoyed Sam intensely. Surely he could be permitted to sit next to his own wife? He tutted loudly. Anne glared at him and their host appeared to smirk slightly. Sam chose to ignore his supercilious expression and stared glumly across the room.
To his surprise he saw a couple of elderly men playing chess. He blinked and realised his error, now seeing that they were merely a couple of diners enjoying a heated conversation. He pinched his nose again and looked around. There were a few people sitting in armchairs, which seemed an odd thing to do in a restaurant, but they appeared to be quite content and unhurried. He considered that they may already have eaten and were merely resting after a heavy meal. He found it unusual, nevertheless.
Anne and Stone were talking quietly to each other, their conversation frequently punctuated by light laughter, which vexed Sam in no small way. He tried to pick out what they were saying but he could barely hear a word. They were clearly doing it on purpose. He snatched up the wine list angrily and stared at it. The words on the card were a total blur. Setting it down, he took off his glasses in order to clean them. He reached into his trouser pockets, one after the other and discovered that he had neglected to bring a handkerchief. He reached for his tie, intending to use it in place of the handkerchief and was shocked to discover that he wasn’t wearing one. He couldn’t believe it. How could Anne have permitted him to come to such an up-market establishment without him wearing a tie? He was lucky that they had allowed him in!
A subtly as possible he used the tablecloth to do the job of polishing his glasses and then he replaced them on his face. The words on the wine list were no more comprehensible despite all his previous efforts. He threw the leather-edged card noisily down on the table but neither Anne nor Stone took any notice.
He looked around again at some of the other diners. He noticed that quite a few of the men had apparently decided not to wear ties and was also surprised to see that not one of them was wearing a formal jacket. It looked wrong to him in a place such as this. Mind you, it had been some time since he had treated Anne to an expensive meal out. Perhaps it was the current fashion in such venues.
He made to remove his own jacket and then realised that he, too, wasn’t wearing one. The discovery made his heart skip a beat. Surely he came out wearing a jacket? He remembered grabbing it off the bed when he left the house. If it was lost, where were his car keys and his wallet?
‘Anne,’ he ventured. His wife appeared not to hear him. ‘Anne,’ he repeated, ‘have you got my wallet and keys?’ Neither his wife nor Kendrick Stone took the slightest notice of him. Stone was wearing a jacket, of course. He would. In fact, Sam couldn’t remember him wearing anything other that neatly tailored, expensive suits. He glanced at Anne. She was evidently hanging onto every word that fell from the bombastic salesman’s lips. Sam began to wonder again if he had ever seen Stone in anything other than a suit; like stark naked for instance. The thought made his armpits tingle uncomfortably. He started to sweat. In fact, Sam was beginning to feel decidedly unwell.
He stood up with some difficulty. The room appeared to be moving around him, as if he was standing on a carousel that had gone completely out of control. He grasped the edge of the table and, for a moment was convinced that he was about to collapse in an undignified heap onto the floor. He looked across at Anne through ill-focused eyes but she still chose to ignore him. He tried to speak but his words were lost in a haze of confusion. Clutching at the backs of chairs, he struggled towards the door that he hoped led to the toilets, convinced that he was about to throw up at any moment.
Sam reached the relative sanctuary of the restroom and leaned heavily against one of the stark, white sinks. His fingers gripped the edge of the porcelain and the stony surface seemed to lend a cold reality to his situation. He knew that he had to pull himself together. Whatever he might think of Stone, the man was here to help him, even if he was making it quite plain that he also intended to help himself to Anne. Just for now, Sam wasn’t bothered in the slightest about that. Stone could be f***ing his wife across the table in front of the rest of the diners right now for all that he cared. He had to get those contracts! He had to save the company!
He felt that his head was clearing and the nauseous sensation in the pit of his stomach seemed to be fading. He relaxed his vice-like grip of the sink and took a deep breath. The atmosphere was stale with the stench of stale urine but, as far as Sam was concerned, the air couldn’t have tasted sweeter. He opened his eyes and swallowed hard then turned to face the mirror. The image that was reflected in the glass shocked him. He looked old, haggard, worn out. There were many other unflattering adjectives that he knew could be applied to the sad, decrepit individual who was staring blankly at him. He felt as though he was staring into a stranger’s eyes, and yet there was a faint echo of his personality barely glimmering within the doleful expression.
There was certainly, no sign of the thrusting, young executive who had founded a high-tec company that was once the fastest growing organisation of its type in the region. Sam felt suddenly cold, despite the fact that his face was coated in a sheen of fresh sweat. He turned on the tap and cupped his hands, filling them with cool water. He looked at the face in the mirror again and shivered uncontrollably. Closing his eyes, he splashed water over his face and then raised his head so that the water trickled down his neck. So what if he got his shirt damp? He couldn’t have looked more like a wreck if he tried.
He dried his face as best as he could on the damp towel that spewed from a dispenser on the wall and then took another deep breath. This time the overpowering aroma of the place offended his senses and he almost gagged. He couldn’t understand why such a posh restaurant should have such disgusting toilet facilities. He remembered something his father had told him many years previously; “Before you eat in a café, check the toilet. If it stinks, so will the food.” He moved rapidly over to the door and tugged it open.
Glad to be back in the hallway he made his way slowly but with a steadier gait back into the restaurant itself, holding his head high in an effort to regain his stature, at least in his own mind. He stopped short as he rounded the corner to face his table.
His lovely wife Anne and the slime-ball Stone were staring into each other’s eyes like young lovers and they were holding hands quite openly across the table! It was quite obvious that neither of them could give a damn whether he would catch them at it or not. As he watched they leaned closer together and then they kissed. They kissed! It was a light, gentle touch of the lips but it was enough to send Sam into a blind rage. He crashed towards them, knocking at least two chairs over and forcing a waiter to perform a remarkable adept balancing feat with a tray of glasses as he swerved out of Sam’s way. Anne and her companion looked up as he approached them but he could see that their expressions were not ones of guilt or remorse. No; they weren’t concerned in the slightest that their dirty little game had been discovered. The look in their eyes was not shame or even sorrow, it was just one of uniform annoyance.
Only when he reached their table did their expressions change to ones of fear. Sam banged his fist on the table and tried to speak but the words became choked at the back of his throat. He could barely see for the tears of rage that filled his eyes and he was shaking so much that the glasses and the plates on the table rattled noisily. The guilty couple jumped up to their feet and Anne clutched Stone’s arm tightly, a look of abject terror on her face.
‘What the f**k are you doing?’ Sam managed at last to roar through the phlegm choking his throat, his voice shaking with emotion.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ began Anne, clearly close to panicking.
‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded Stone. Sam stared at him in disbelief.
‘Who am I? Who am I?’ Sam’s tone was becoming hysterical.
‘What have we done to upset you?’ said Anne. Her expression appeared to be one of genuine concern but her blatant refusal to accept that she had done anything wrong caused Sam’s temper to flare once again. He lunged forward, not at his wife but in an effort to grip Stone’s greasy neck within his clawing fingers. His attempt was immediately thwarted when two pairs of strong, muscular arms grabbed him from behind. He was dragged unceremoniously away from the table and he kicked out violently with his feet and spat obscenities into the air.
Now held firmly and forced to sit on a high-backed chair at the far end of the room, he watched his wife and her lover collect their coats and leave the restaurant. Stone didn’t even glance at him as they left, but Anne looked over quizzically and shook her head. Sam began to shake uncontrollably, his entire body trembling as he fought against the restraining grips of the two men. ‘Let me go, you bastards!’ he barked through clenched teeth as he squirmed wildly in the seat. His protest served only to make them grip him tighter, their fingers digging painfully into his flesh. He winced in pain. ‘Let go!’ he repeated.
‘Just settle down friend,’ muttered one of the men in a remarkably calm but authoritative tone of voice. Sam allowed his body to relax a little to let the two men know that he was quite aware that his struggles were pointless. Suddenly, he lunged forward and broke free of their grip, surprised at his own strength. He ran towards the entrance door, knocking over a small table in the process and spilling cups and saucers over the floor in his wake. He grabbed the handle and wrenched the door open. The night air hit him like a brick and he staggered forward until he seemed to lose all feeling in his legs and he slumped heavily onto the stone pavement. He sensed he was being lifted and carried back into the restaurant, his head swimming as he closed his eyes to the glare of the lights. There was a sudden, sharp pain in his right arm and, moments later he felt nothing more.
Sam Jefferies’ first sensation as he drifted back into consciousness was that of a fierce, thumping headache. He tried to raise his head but the pain became unbearable and he relaxed again on the soft pillow beneath him. Slowly, his memory of the previous events returned to him until the full realisation of his situation hit him like a dagger stabbing him between the eyes. He sat bolt upright, now oblivious to the agony of his aching head and stared wildly around him. The room was cold and clinical, not at all what he would have expected considering the plush nature of the restaurant itself; but then there was the toilets…
He eased himself from the bed and gingerly pulled himself to his feet. He felt a little dizzy and was once more acutely aware of his pounding headache. He put his fingers to his forehead and closed his eyes for a second then opened them and caught his reflection in a full-length mirror on the far wall. He was still fully dressed and looked a mess, like one of the drunks who regularly littered the streets of the city, day and night. All that was missing from this image in his mind's eye was a can of super-strength lager and a filthy dog tethered by a length of clothesline. He tried to remember just how much wine he had consumed earlier but found that everything was a blur in his mind.
A small sink was set into the wall, close to the mirror. Sam rinsed his hands and face with cold water, the sensation bringing him rapidly into the sharp world of reality. His shirt was torn and his trousers were badly creased. God, he thought, what the hell happened last night?
Brushing back his unkempt hair with his fingers he moved slowly towards the door to the room. He tested the handle, fully expecting the door to be locked but found that it opened. He peered outside. There was a long corridor that he didn’t remember that led to another larger door with glazed panels through which he could see daylight. He realised then that he had been here all night! They had left this old drunk to sleep it off!
Sensing freedom, he grabbed an old jacket from a hook on the wall. It didn’t fit, but at least it covered his somewhat badly ripped shirt. He moved quickly down the passageway and wrenched open the second door.
He was faced with the lobby to the restaurant which, oddly, was the first part of the building that he actually recognised. He was about to move forward when he noticed someone sitting at a desk close to the main entrance. He held his breath, feeling oddly like a prisoner bent on escape. The stranger was slumped in his chair, clearly dozing. Moving forward slowly and cautiously, Sam slipped silently across the lobby. An old clock ticked noisily on the wall. He moved past the doorman and carefully opened the heavy main door. The sound of traffic outside rushed past his ears and he stepped quickly out in case the sudden noise should awaken the sleeping attendant.
The fresh air tasted sweet and the coolness of the day bathed his aching body with its electrifying ambience. Sam walked swiftly along the pavement not knowing where he was going but happy to be outside and away from the scene of the previous evening’s events. He reached a small, scruffy café and entered the shabby premises. He approached the counter.
‘Yes?’ An obese, scruffy character greeted him with the gruffly uttered word.
‘Coffee’ replied Sam, matching the man’s rudeness automatically. He took a seat close to the counter and searched his pocket for some change. There was none. Panicking, he reached habitually into the jacket for his wallet, forgetting for a moment that he had borrowed the creased garment. Of course there was no wallet. ‘I...I’m sorry,’ he spluttered as he rose from his chair, ‘I’ve come out without any money.’
The man behind the counter glared contemptuously and tipped the hot coffee from the stained mug that he was holding into the sink with a flourish. Sam shrugged with embarrassment and hurriedly left the café. Outside, he began to feel angry once more. Anne had dumped him last night, left him with nothing but the clothes that he was standing in, fully aware that he was ill. She would certainly have some explaining to do when he got home.
Another quick fumble through his pockets told him what he already supposed; his car keys were gone as well. At first he thought about getting a cab but then thought better of it. There was no guarantee that Anne would be home and, without even his house keys he wouldn’t be able to pay the driver. He didn’t relish incurring the wrath of a London taxi driver, not in his delicate condition. Besides, he decided that the two mile walk would clear his head and help him to make sense of what was happening in his wretched life. He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and tugged the jacket across his chest against the sharpness of the morning air. He took a deep breath and strode purposely off in the direction of his home.
The nearer that Sam got to his house the more his anger tore at his emotions like a cancer. He simply couldn’t believe what his wife had done to him. How could she have humiliated him in such a cruel way? His gait became forced and his steps thumped against the pavement in time with his mental chant of the words “I hate Stone” ringing in his head over and over again. He began to wonder if Anne had gone home last night or if she’d gone back with Stone to whatever seedy hotel room he was staying in. No, he thought, she would have taken her lover back to their house, to their home. She would have taken him to bed and let the animal f**k her in the house that he was still working his balls off to pay for.
By the time that he rounded the corner of his street his heart was thumping in his chest and he was sweating profusely. He glanced at his watch. At least he had managed to keep that. Seven-forty. Still early enough to catch them together.
The driveway leading to his house seemed longer than he had remembered and the bushes were fuller, but the state of the garden wasn’t the reason that the redness of sheer rage clouded his vision. An upmarket car was parked directly in front of his garage doors in full view of the neighbours. It wasn’t his car or his wife’s for that matter. He’d never seen it before. He knew though. He knew that it was Stone’s. To Sam that was the final insult. Bad enough that the creep should show him up in front of a load of strangers in the restaurant; bad enough that he should f**k Sam’s wife in Sam’s bed, but to advertise the fact; that was too much. That car told all the neighbours, “I am in Sam Jefferies house and I am shagging his wife!” He would pay dearly for his arrogance, and so would Anne.
Sam moved stealthily around to the back of the house. The door to the old wooden shed was padlocked but a spade and a garden fork had been left outside, leaning against a wall. He picked up the fork and balanced the tool across the palms of his hands. It felt heavy and sturdy. It would serve as an ideal implement for punishment. He gripped the harsh, wooden staff tightly. His hand were shaking uncontrollably. Whether this was from fear, anger or excitement was difficult for him to tell. All that he knew for certain was that he was going to deal with Stone once and for all. The American markets could go to hell.
Sam carefully tried the handle of the back door and found it, not surprisingly, locked. He glanced up at the windows but knew that they, too, would be firmly sealed. The area had suffered a number of burglaries of late and most of the householders, himself included, had fitted air-conditioning systems to their homes to avoid having to leave the windows open overnight during hot weather. The triple glazed windows were strong enough as well. They should have been though, he thought. He had paid enough for them.
But there was one weakness to the urban fortifications that he had felt the need to cocoon himself and his wife within. He’d done it out of foresight, in case he or Anne found themselves locked out accidentally. Tonight his precaution would serve another purpose.
It was a simple enough idea. A spare key had been placed in a small cavity in the outer wall of the house, the steel door to which could only be opened by a combination lock. He’s never found the need to use it before and, as far as he could remember his wife had never had cause to try it out. He chuckled to himself. Anne would never have been able to recall the sequence of numbers even if she had needed to.
He eased open the outer door of the cavity to expose the inner shell with some difficulty. It was clear that this was the first time it had been used in years. The mechanical combination lock had rusted a little but he managed to punch in the numbers in the correct order. It was simple enough to remember; his date of birth in reverse.
The inner door should have sprung open following the punching in of the final digit but it remained firmly shut. Cursing under his breath, Sam grasped the cold edger of the door with his fingernails and tugged hard. The little door groaned as it finally gave way to his demands and he reached inside for the key.
Clutching the garden fork in one hand and holding the spare key tightly, as if terrified that it might leap from his grasp, Sam padded swiftly round to the front of the house. Reaching the main entrance he inserted the key into the lock and turned it slowly. The click seemed deafening to his ears, echoed as it was within the large hallway beyond. He pushed against the door, hoping that his wife had neglected to bolt the door, which was something that she rarely remembered to do. The door opened and Sam slipped inside.
He moved silently across the carpeted hall towards the ornate staircase then put his foot on the lowest step and stopped still. He listened hard but heard nothing. He surmised in his jealous anger that Stone and his wife would be enjoying the slumber of the exhausted following an energetic night of lovemaking. He gripped the shaft of the fork tightly again and began to walk determinedly up the stairs, his vision rapidly becoming clouded by tears of rage.
He paused at the closed door to the bedroom…his bedroom... and listened. The only sound that he could hear was that of his heart thumping loudly in his chest. He took a deep breath and gripped the door handle with his free hand. At first he was reluctant to turn it and instead squeezed it tightly until his fingers really hurt. He was trembling so much that his breathing was coming out in short, sharp gasps. He knew what he would see in that room and one side of him couldn’t bear the thought whilst the other insisted that he face the inevitable.
He took a long, measured breath of air, as if he was about to immerse himself in deep water, and slowly turned the handle. At first he pushed the door open gently but then he forced it fully ajar, allowing it to bank noisily against a chair that was against the wall inside the room. He rushed in, anxious to take advantage of the element of surprise, but the door bounced back and struck him hard on the elbow. Furious, he slammed the door behind him the gripped the handle of the fork with both hands and held it menacingly across his upper body. The room was suddenly filled with light as someone turned on a lamp. Sam stood rigidly motionless, staring at the scene before him, still scarcely able to believe that what was in front of his eyes was real.
Stone and Anne were sitting on the bed bold upright with startled expressions on their faces. Despite the fact that his wife was holding the sheets against her chest, Sam knew that she was naked. The sight of her bare shoulders was proof enough of that.
‘What the f**k do you want?’ growled Stone with amazing bravado as he slipped from the bed and attempted to pull on a pair of shorts that had been casually discarded onto a nearby chair. Sam glared at him, unable to speak. The salesman struggled to his feet and yanked at his underwear, apparently more concerned with covering himself up than immediately confronting the intruder. Sam watched him impassively. Stone’s belly was flabby and his chest sagged. Worst of all, his entire upper body was covered in thick, matted hair. Sam swallowed in disgust.
Then he saw it. The man’s penis. Tiny, hanging like a piece of gristle from Stone’s hirsute groin. Sam gritted his teeth as the anger began to surge through him. How could Anne be satisfied with such a pathetic specimen? Did she despise him so much that she found the need to take such a revolting character to her bed? He raised the fork and moved forward. Stone held his hands up defensively.
‘Look,’ he spluttered, his voice trembling, ‘we don’t know you. I don’t know what we did to upset you. Please, leave us be.’
Sam could scarcely believe his ears. ‘Don’t know me?’ he screamed, aiming the vicious prongs of the fork at Stone’s quaking form. ‘Don’t know me? You’ve f***ed my wife, you’ve f***ed up my life and you say that you don’t know me? You’re gonna know me Stone! You’re gonna know me as the last guy that you ever saw!’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ insisted Stone. He moved quickly to a small cabinet and pulled open a drawer. He pulled out a bundle of bank notes. ‘See, I’ll give you money,’ he stuttered. He moved forwards towards Sam, offering the money to him. Sam could see with much satisfaction that his normal smug, arrogant expression had vanished completely to be replaced by one of sheer terror. He sneered at the shivering man and glared contemptuously at the proffered cash. Stone let the money fall from his fingers and it fluttered noiselessly to the floor.
‘Please, what do you want?’ It was Anne who now spoke, his lovely wife’s voice sounding so gentle and pleading coming from the bed of her adultery. He shot her a glance, the sight of her sitting up in the bed with the sheets clutched tightly to her breasts causing his ire to suddenly burst from him in a torrent of foul language. Anne screamed and Sam swung the fork around him wildly, not caring whether he hit anything or anyone, the words spilling from his lips without order or sense. Stone moved back to the bed and slipped his arm protectively about Anne’s shoulders.
Sam stopped suddenly and stared at them. ‘Get your filthy hands off my wife!’ he said in a slow, threatening tone of voice.
‘What d’you mean?’ screamed Anne, ‘I am not your wife!’
‘Get your hands off her,’ Sam repeated, choosing to ignore Anne’s words. Stone moved from her and sat on the edge of the bed, not taking his eyes off Sam’s for an instant.
‘Don’t you understand, I’m not your wife,’ continued Anne, trying to speak calmly and rationally. She leant forward, the movement causing the sheets to fall down and expose her breasts. ‘There’s been some sort of mistake. You’re not well…’
Sam glared at her face sharply and then looked at the offending flesh. Anne covered herself quickly. ‘You bet there’s been a mistake,’ he growled, ‘and you’ve made it!’ he shook his head sadly. ‘How could you do it? In our bed? How could you?’ A tear slipped from his eye and he bit his lip, wishing it was all a bad dream.
Stone stood up and once more tried to approach him but the sight of his rival wearing nothing but a flimsy pair of shorts caused the seething anger to bubble over once again and he hissed and spat at the near naked figure and lunged the fork towards him. Stone jumped to one side, deftly avoiding being impaled on the prongs. ‘You f***ing lunatic!’ he barked.
‘Darling!’ Anne shouted to him. She had clearly intended the word as a warning but the sound of her using such a familiarity was, for Sam, the last straw. With a roar he raised the fork high above his head and flew across the room towards the quaking figure. Stone jumped back but was not so agile this time and slipped against the dressing table. One of the prongs caught the side of his head and tore into his ear, shredding it like paper. He screamed and clutched his bleeding head with one hand whilst holding his other arm in front of him in a vain attempt to ward off the attack. Sam lunged forward again, this time making contact with Stone’s groin.
Sam was amazed to see the amount of blood that surged from the three small puncture wounds to Stone’s flabby belly. It splattered over his face, blinding him for a moment and filling his mouth with a bitter, acrid taste. He heard Anne scream again, a loud, penetrating yell that he felt must have been heard by everyone on the street. He wiped the blood from his face and focused his eyes on her prone form. He moved rapidly towards her, laughing manically. She screamed again and tried to get out of the bed but he was too quick for her. The ease that the prongs of the fork sank into the soft flesh of her upper body pleased him. He could hear the cracking of her ribs as they splintered and the sound was like music to his ears, the poetry of vengeance.
Anne looked at him through wide, startled eyes and she opened her mouth to speak. Instead of words, however a mixture of blood, bile and vomit gurgled from her lips and soaked her neck and the lacerated flesh of her chest. Sam pushed the fork harder into her, sensing with much satisfaction that it was digging into the very mattress beneath her squirming body, the same mattress upon which no doubt she had wriggled and writhed in a far more pleasurable way just hours before. She shuddered and coughed up another load of foul smelling fluid then fell back, a last gasp of life drifting from her mouth until it faded slowly to nothing.
Sam heard a low moan coming from behind him. He swung round. Stone was crawling slowly across the bloodstained carpet, apparently trying to make for the door. Sam tugged at the fork in an attempt to drag it from Anne’s body but found that he could barely budge it. He clambered onto the bed and stood astride her prone form then yanked hard at the stout wooden handle. Anne’s body became arched and he raised it completely from the soaking sheets. He pushed his foot onto her soft breast and shook the fork violently until there was a sickening, slurping noise as the prongs gradually slipped from the lifeless form until his dead wife fell back onto the blood-soaked sheets. Sam jumped from the bed and raised the fork high, ready to slam it once more into the body of his hated enemy. Stone rolled over onto his back and raised his arms up in terror.
‘Please…no…’ he began, but Sam wasn’t listening. With all the force that he could muster he brought the fork down hard, deliberately aiming it so that the prongs ripped into Stone’s crotch. There was more blood, much more, spurting from the writhing man like a fountain. Sam watched him die with mounting satisfaction, enjoying every moment of the man’s painful exit from the world.
He didn’t hear the shouts from outside, the sounds of sirens, or the heavy footsteps on the landing outside the bedroom. He sat smiling on the bed next to his wife and didn’t resist as the fork was eased from his grip, nor did he speak as he was led down the stairs and taken outside. The only thing that he noticed was that it had begun to rain.
Detective Inspector Phillips tossed the file marked “Samuel Arthur Jefferies” down onto the desk and shrugged. ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said, ‘Jack and Rachel Flood, the victims. They were just ordinary people. Why did he do it?’
Doctor Hammond smiled patronisingly. ‘It’s an unusual case, but not unheard of. When Jefferies business failed his entire world fell apart. It meant everything to him. He’s worked so very hard, and all for nothing. Quite simply, his mind couldn’t take it. He suffered from what is known as a reactive depression, a condition that is becoming increasingly common these days. What finally tipped him over the edge, so to speak, was finding his wife in bed with a lover.
‘But the woman in the room; that was Rachel Flood, not the killer’s wife,’ began Phillips.
‘Exactly. Rachel Flood and her husband were virtual strangers to Jefferies, but he didn’t know that. As far as he was concerned the woman in the bed was his wife and the man was her lover, just as he had witnessed five years before. He had sold the Floods the house when he faced bankruptcy and this compounded his delusion. He was convinced that he still owned the property and that he had once again found his wife in bed with her lover, the sort of man that he hated with a passion.’
‘Why did he hate this type of man so much?’
Over five years ago his wife, Anne, ran off with her salesman lover when Jefferies was at his lowest point in his depression. The man was an American by the name of Stone. It’s all in the notes. Jack Flood wasn’t from the states but he was a sales executive. Jefferies would have learned that much from him when the house purchase wet through and somehow it became all mixed up in his tortured mind.’
‘And the incident in the dining room, in the clinic? How did the victims happen to be there?’
Doctor Hammond sat back in his chair and bit the end of his pen gently. ‘That is possibly one of the worst ironies of the whole case. Rachel Flood was a doctor, a newly qualified psychologist. She was about to take charge of the day centre at the clinic and would, no doubt, have treated Jefferies as part of her duties in the future. She and her husband were visiting the patients that day, hoping to meet with as many of the voluntary inmates as possible before taking up her duties the following week.
‘Jefferies got the whole thing completely twisted in his mind. From what I have been able to discern from his somewhat rambling statement, it appears that he thought he was in a restaurant, attending an important meeting to do with saving his business. As far as he was concerned, Rachel Flood was his wife Anne and Jack Flood was his nemesis, someone called Kendrick Stone.’
‘The man is a complete lunatic,’ muttered Phillips.
Doctor Hammond fixed him with a stare. ‘No, inspector,’ he said icily, ‘just very very ill.’
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