The Reluctant Widow part one

London, Winter, 1964

The counting down of heartbeats has begun. From a high barred window the gentle light of blue-grey dawn barely penetrates the thick atmosphere of the condemned cell. A still figure embossed upon the shadows stares at an untouched meal, his last, in the same indifferent way he has passed time since the first day...distanced from the commotion and grief he had caused.
The trial had been short; people throughout the country shocked at the cruelty of his crime. Lawyers had shuffled to and fro, made serious faces and produced evidence of every shade and reliability. The prosecuting official had curled his lip on recounting the dreadful nature of the defendant’s capital offence, having no single crumb of doubt that he should feel the noose. The lawyer in charge of the defence spent many days in court scratching his head and frowning wearily. Not surprising when his client refused to utter a single word to save himself in, what the papers so rightly proclaimed, was an open and shut case of cold blooded murder in the sleepy village of Morton-Underwood.
A sombre statue in the dock, clothes as grey as his face, he had stared unflinching as seemingly the whole village gave evidence to his treachery and every finger pointed his way. The defence lawyer did
his duty well, trying all ways to get him to talk.
Silence.
There was no defence. He was resigned to his fate and viewed the whole proceeding as a distraction. A plea of insanity then? Nonsense! He wasn’t insane, he was simply guilty and didn’t expect or desire mercy from God or anyone else. The judges wig draped in black, the death sentence spoken, he did not flinch. He was the epitome of an unrepentant killer.
The jailers given the solemn task of seeing him through his last days were as perplexed as anyone. Some weep, others wail, still others shout their innocence or pray to God. He just sat, hardly blinking, eating little; an inanimate young man of twenty three with longish ash coloured hair, a slightly bulbous nose and thickened lips, whose pale blue eyes were drained of expression, as if life had already withdrawn from him leaving only the carcass to be disposed of. No words, no regrets, no priest or pardon. As lawyers had wrangled and the press garbled, his spirit had bled into the shadows, making no sound as, on this cold February morning, the guard informed him that he, Billy Drayton, was about to die.

All around him, fuss and quiet commotion. The executioner knows his job, quickly securing Billy’s arms behind his back with handcuffs. A short march to the gallows where grey suited men are waiting to see justice done. A priest, rather intrusively, gives a last blessing. A hood cloaks his eyes, his ankles are bound, the noose snugly fitted around his neck.
Billy is ready.

Heart pounding its last seconds, lungs suddenly desperate for one final gasp of the fetid air. The noose tightening around his throat, the lever poised, the clock one stroke from the hour. Then in that last breath there erupts a vicious groan, chilling even the hardest nerves of those present. It bursts out like the malevolent spewing of a dormant volcano, flooding the chamber as the hangman makes his move.

‘Jenny!’
‘You’re mine Jenny Summers...forever!’

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April 1974

The light was already fading as Simon Ashton drove along the motorway to London. He’d left far too late. Frankly, he’d been reluctant to leave at all. The week he had spent with David and Emma had been extremely pleasant. This last afternoon had flown by, and he was genuinely regretful (rare for him) to go. David had shaken his hand in that crushing enthusiastic way of his (David was always going headlong into something or other) and Emma had given him a more than friendly hug and good-bye kiss. Her emerald cats eyes always danced something slow and steamy whenever she looked at him. She’d been like that the whole week - simmering in the pan. Simon couldn’t figure out if she was really interested in the contents of his underwear, or just an unrepentant prick-teaser. Both maybe? It surely wasn’t coincidence that she had put him in the bedroom next to theirs. All that nocturnal passion could hardly be ignored, nor Emma’s abandonment. And always her sweet “butter wouldn’t melt” inquiries at breakfast if he had slept well. Was she laughing at him, or advertising?
I somehow think one more week with them would have been very interesting. On the other hand, cuckolding the nearest thing I’ve got to a best friend is hardly sporting? But if Emma had pinned me down...
Simon lowered the car window. Perhaps it was his steamy thoughts, but he felt increasingly warm, and what had started out as mild indigestion was becoming a nuisance.
‘Shouldn’t have had that extra helping of quiche,’ he grumbled to the passing scenery. ‘Christ I'm not even half way home yet. I’ll be all right once I get back to the flat.’
His stomach suddenly lurched downwards, as if determined to exit through his rectum, accompanied by a murderous animation in his intestines. He was hot, sweating, trying to hold his body and his concentration together. All light had vanished from the horizon, or was that just his eyes.
‘I’ll be all right...if...I can just get...’ Even as he said it, Simon knew there was no way he’d reach London in this state. He stopped the car on the hard shoulder and tried to think. Two options - stay here or...maybe there’s a town close by. I can rest in a hotel for the night.
He fumbled in the dim overhead light for a map, screwing his eyes at the blurred images. Wiping the sweat from his cheek, he traced an unsteady finger along a wiry road that led to...Morton Underwood. He’d never heard of it, but hadn’t much choice. It was close by and there must surely be somewhere...a spasm in his stomach decided the affair. He moved on, the traffic before him mostly a blur. Using every ounce of his energy to avoid an accident, he peered into the starry darkness, at last finding the exit for Morton. His abdomen suddenly distended alarmingly, crashing and gurgling.
‘Bloody hell,’ he groaned. ‘It feels like a tank battle down there!’
The road down to Morton-Underwood was narrow and twisty. Coming from the motorway it was like being dumped upon a piece of abandoned spaghetti. Simon struggled hard to keep the Ford in trim, but his strength was ebbing, whilst something was shrouding his consciousness. Gripping the steering wheel with blanched knuckles, he tried to hold on, blinking sweat from his eyes, dimly hoping through the liquid mist that the road might straighten after this last turn. If he could just...at that moment an agonising pain scythed him in two. He slumped forward, all energy spent, certain of two things:
He was going to crash.
He was going to die.