Chain of Vengeance: Chapter One - Part Three

5

  

Jack rolled onto his back and shocked himself when it occurred to him that he was glad it was over. Lucy sighed, naked beside him. The sex had always been good before. They’d been going out for what… three months almost? Just over? His distraction left him mildly troubled. He checked the time. “We’d best get a move on. Your brother’s going to be here any minute.”

“I’m trying to enjoy my afterglow if you don’t mind,” said Lucy. She didn’t make any move to get up.

Jack frowned and reached for his underpants. He got dressed, looking out the window at the sloping park and the bridge beyond as he did up his shirt. It was important to make a good impression. Relationships between a man and a woman could be broken on the bad opinions of the opposing family. He put on his shoes and socks and ran his hands through his hair to straighten out the tangles then sat on the edge of the bed.

Lucy got up and carried her clothes into the bathroom. “I’ll just be a minute. If Sam comes, make him a cup of tea.”

“I think the single teabag the hotel provided lost the last of its flavour yesterday,” replied Jack.

Lucy said something obviously meant to be witty but it got lost in the click of the door.

Jack reached for his wallet. He popped the press stud and tilted it back with one hand until it flipped open. There was a frayed plastic window built in below the credit card slots. Slightly out of synch with the frame was a photo. He took it out, slipped the wallet into his front jeans pocket and held it, resting his hand on his thigh.

The picture was of Lucy on the beach: just her head and shoulders, straight blond hair gently lifted by the wind, smiling. He remembered the day, shortly after they got together; the wrestling match they had in the sand just before the picture was taken; the day when he realised how perfect she was for him.

He was still looking at it when Lucy emerged, fully dressed, her hair back in place. When he saw her he realised immediately what had made him distracted while they’d made love. He remembered the unease he’d been feeling and he remembered the secret Lucy had told him about her brother.

“You okay Jack?”

He snapped out of the trance. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Worn out by our Olympic performance?”

“Something like that.”

She hooked up her shoes and put them on. “You look like you’re enjoying a good daydream.”

Jack tried to make eye contact but she wasn’t turned his way. She was sitting on the bed, bending over to fiddle with her shoes. “I guess I was worried about your brother arriving half way through.”

Lucy stood up, walked across the room, realised her shoe wasn’t on straight and hobbled to the fireplace to lean against it while she readjusted herself.

Jack circled toward the door. “I might pop down to the car and get the painting I’m working on.”

“That self portrait?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. The quicker you paint a masterpiece, the sooner you can keep me in luxury.”

Jack chuckled. “I wish it were so simple.”

“It’ll happen if it’s meant to. Maybe you aren’t destined to be an artist.”

Jack shrugged. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He stopped short of opening the door then turned. “Was it true?” he asked. “What you told me about your brother?”

Lucy tilted forward, hair hanging down around her face. “Would I lie to you?”

“You tell me.”

She stopped playing with her shoe, leaving it undone, and straightened up. There was a mirror above the fireplace. She looked at herself then her eyes flicked across in the reflection to him.

“What is it?” asked Jack.

He thought for a minute she was going to cry but instead, a grin stretched her lips. “There’s something I haven’t told you about,” she said. “A couple of things actually.”

A quiver of the same nausea he had felt on the bank of the river came back. “What things?”

“It’s not that big a deal. Just stuff I haven’t told you.”

“From before we met?”

“No. After.”

Jack folded his arms then unfolded them again. “What is it?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” Tension was building in his lower back.

“You promise not to be angry?”

“Yes. I promise. Just tell me.”

Lucy continued to look at him in the mirror, locked eyes briefly with herself, then turned to face him. She drew in a breath, smiled; almost laughed, clearly nervous, then she opened her mouth and told him what it was she had done.

Jack listened to it from the beginning of the story to the end. It took several minutes for the details to clarify. She told him first about one thing and then about another. Jack’s face remained passive. It showed surprise and nothing more. But as she spoke, disbelief slowly became anger; anger became fury; fury became rage.

She finished her story. Jack looked at her standing there and tried to reconcile the significance of what she had said. He registered the curling sneer of her lips, the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, the arrogance of her pose.

She laughed, seeing his expression, covering her mouth with the backs of her fingers. “I’m sorry Jack,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t; but you look so ridiculous, standing there staring at me like that; like a little girl who’s lost her dolly.” She winked at him. “I told you. We can still carry on going out.”

Jack stared at her. It seemed somehow, that these last words were the most horrifying of all.

We can still carry on going out.

The rage swept over his mind. The pressure of his blood rose, bubbling, then rose again. All he could see was the sneer on her lips. The hotel room was gone. Nothing existed except this paralysing anger. It overcame all rational thought.

Jack drew his hand back. The movement was almost slow. The rage crested, ready to release all its energy.

Lucy let out the first breath of a whimper and the sneer dropped from her mouth as she realised what was about to happen. Her eyes started to widen as surprise shifted horizontally into shock and then dropped into fear.

Then from down by his belt, Jack’s hand came up and forward. Lucy lifted her foot from the ground, trying to step back. She came down on the unfastened heel. It went out from under her. Her tight skirt restrained her legs awkwardly. Her foot didn’t reach the floor. Jack’s hand struck her cheek, slapping her, making a sharp crack of flesh against flesh. Lucy’s head snapped to the side. Her whole body twisted from the force of his blow.

Her other foot left the carpet. For a moment she floated, not a single part of her touching the surfaces around. The fireplace was behind her. Its bulky grey stone, all edges and corners, expanded.

As quickly as it had overcome him, Jack’s rage vanished. It turned into panicked realisation. He saw the danger and reached after her but it was already too late.

Out of control, Lucy’s head shot toward the fireplace, hair flailing. Her arms reached out desperately, fingers unable to clench anything but air. Then her forehead smashed against the stone. A hard unyielding corner of mantle-shelf cut into her flesh and into the bone.

Jack heard nothing: no sharp splintering crack; no mushy squelch; no sound as her body finished its arc and fell in against the grate. It folded upon itself then shuddered, her torso lifting off the floor as her limbs spasmed and fell still.

Jack staggered, regaining his balance; staring. He moved back away from her, the walls of the hotel room drawing in suddenly at their base. A second jolt ran through her body. It shook her limbs and threw her head round until her eyes were visible. They were empty. Jack lifted his foot to step closer. Another final awful shudder came and he froze, then she was still again: finally irrevocably still.

Jack felt a connection suddenly. He felt the earth beneath his feet, even through the carpet and the floorboards. He felt it through the foundations of the hotel. He felt the ground spreading away from him as though he were literally attached to the whole planet. He was part of it: this vast black mass that tumbled through space.

Lucy was dead. And it didn’t matter what she had said to him now; what she had done. It made no difference to anything or anybody.

She was dead. And he had killed her.

 

6

 

 

“Could you tell me which room Lucy Decker and her boyfriend are staying in please?” asked Sam.

The woman sitting behind the DIY worktop hotel counter was fat and ugly: bags under her eyes, greasy red hair cut short behind the ears. She looked up, then immediately broke eye contact. Everything about her suggested repulsive eating and living standards. Sam smiled. “I’m really sorry to bother you. You looked so pretty sitting there in the afternoon sun.”

Her face cracked with pleasure at The Lie.

Sam broadened his smile. “Miss Lucy Decker,” he repeated. “My sister. I’m in town for business. She asked me to stop by. Which room is she staying in?”

The woman reached across to a register book next to her till exposing liver-spotted hands. She had one wedding band on her ring finger and two more on the third and forth fingers of her right hand. “I’ll just find out for you.”

Sam’s eyes left her, flicking in a one hundred and eighty degree arc from one item in his field of view to the next, a ritual so dogged that he barely noticed doing it. He took stock of every trinket and keepsake on the shelves: the pictures on the walls behind the landlady’s head, the official items used in the business. It was a process that didn’t always turn out to be useful but more often than not did. And it kept his mind focused.

The ugly woman tilted the register up, squinting at the page. Without glancing down she reached for the pair of round pink spectacles hanging from a cord at her neck and held them in front of the book like a magnifying glass. Any second she would make eye contact again. Sam prepared his smile: broad enough for benign support with room for expansion when she gave him what he needed.

“You know I shouldn’t give out this information really,” said the landlady. “My husband…” She glanced into the dark posterior of the building then leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered her voice. “He makes out like it’s a crime.” She smiled. “Silly bugger.” The smile became what was meant to be a laugh but was only an ageing wheeze. “You look like a nice young man though,” she said. “And it is your sister.”

“That’s right.”

She gestured toward a staircase, limited on her reach by the strap of the glasses she was holding, and pointed with them. “Upstairs. Second floor. Room six. They just got back in twenty minutes ago, her and the boyfriend. Don’t know where they went. Out walking I think. Shall I call ahead and tell her you’re coming?”

Sam walked toward the foot of the stairs, dropping the facade of The Lie from his face now he had his back to her. “No thanks,” he said, “I’d rather surprise them.”