Mister Smith

Jenny came to. Darkness surrounded her. A throat like razor wire and a pounding headache demanded her attention. She swallowed and damn near cried out with pain. Would have done if she could have opened her mouth.
A scritching, scratching noise stopped her dead. She held her breath. It came again, closer and overhead at first then all around her as it turned to scrabbling and scurrying. The feeling that rats were swarming all over her swamped her in a flash. She rose up to throw them off, hit something hard, fell back and the rats scarpered off.
Lifting a hand, she lifted two: her hands were taped together. So too were her feet.
She rolled to one side and hit wood. She raised her hands up and her fingertips traced the grain of the wood.
She was in a coffin.

Martin relaxed his grip on the wheel as he pulled up at the lights.
He felt good. No, better than good, he felt great, top of the world. He smirked as he thought of his colleagues casting envious eyes over his new car. There had been the odd comment here and there, some reference to how much he was earning, and, from that kid in accounts, the judgement that the car was a babe magnet.

Holes drilled in the lid let air into the coffin but Jenny didn’t dwell on why she was being kept alive. All she could think of was him coming into the office just as she was finishing with a client. He’d waited until she was free – she saw that now – and then he’d come over, sat down at her desk and said he was interested in the flat on Alexander Drive.
Said his name was Mister Smith.

A horn sounded.
Martin looked up. The lights were at green. He floored the accelerator and roared away, briefly looking in the mirror to give the guy behind the finger.

He had taken a seat and while Jenny brought up the details on her computer, she’d hustled him.
Did he have a property to sell? Was he looking for a mortgage? Would he be interested in talking to their mortgage advisor?
But Mister Smith had shaken his head as he read the detail sheet and then left, having arranged for him and his wife to view the flat the next day at five o’clock.

The indicators flashed three times as the car locked and Martin pocketed the remote.
Yeah, he thought, just watch me pull the chicks in this.
Yeah, chicks! He loved the word. So sixties, so cool, so ring-a-ding-ding. He laughed. Yeah, ring-a-ding-ding.

Mister Smith had hurried through the late afternoon gloom to join Jenny on the step, apologising for being late. His wife, he’d said, had called to say she was delayed at work and wouldn’t be able to join them for another hour or so. He had apologised again and proposed rescheduling the viewing for the Saturday or Sunday.
Jenny cursed herself now but she hadn’t wanted to lose the sale or give up her weekend, so she’d broken the rules and suggested they go inside where his wife could join them when she arrived.

Martin closed the door.
“It’s me,” he called out. “Mam?”
The door at the end of the hall opened and an elderly white haired woman peered out at him.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Martin smiled, took off his anorak and went to his mother.
“Something smells good,” he said, kissing her.
“It’s your favourite. Lamb chops and mash.”
“You spoil me, Mam. I’ll just go and wash my hands.”

The flat was empty apart from a chair in the sitting room and a wardrobe in the master bedroom.
Mister Smith, wandering from room to room, had paid little attention to anything she’d said but kept glancing out of the window. He’d remarked about it getting dark and Jenny had assumed he was worried about his wife.

The light flicked on and Martin entered his bedroom.
A washbasin and mirror occupied one wall next to his bed. Facing them was the epicentre of his universe: a thirty-two inch all singing, all dancing tv, and a computer. This was his room, his pad.

They’d been in and out of every room several times and, Jenny recalled, they’d reached the point whether it was ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ but what it definitely wasn’t was ‘let’s look in this room just in case we missed something’. She also remembered thinking that his wife should have arrived by now.

“Only me,” called out a woman’s voice.
Martin looked up from his plate as his mother opened the door into the hall.
“You don’t mind me letting myself in, do you?” the woman continued, “but there’s such a chill out there. I thought I’d catch my death waiting for you to open the door.”
Auntie Marjorie.
Mam stepped back to let her improbably black-haired sister-in-law into the kitchen.
“Hello, pet,” said Auntie Marjorie to Martin.
“Cup of tea, Marjorie?” Mam asked, closing the door.
“Thank you.”
“How are you, Auntie?” Martin enquired politely.
“Oh, mustn’t grumble. My back’s as bad as ever but what can you do?”
“There’s no improvement then?” asked Mam.
Auntie Marjorie shook her head wearily and sighed.
“Well,” said Martin, wanting to get out before the latest medical bulletin, “I’d best be off.”
“But you’ve not finished your tea.”
“I’ve got to go, Mam. I promised I’d - ”
“There’s ground rice pudding for afters.”
“I’ll have it cold later. Just as nice.”
“But - ”
“Really, Mam, I’ve got to go,” he said, standing up.
“I’ll be late so don’t stay up for me.”
“Some girl, is it?” asked Auntie Marjorie.
“How could you say that, Auntie? You know you’re the only girl for me,” said Martin, nipping smartly out of the kitchen.
From behind the closed door, he eavesdropped on his mother and his aunt going through the motions of how well he was doing before Marjorie departed from the usual script.
“Still no girlfriend though?”
The coldness of his aunt’s tone struck him immediately.
“He’s very busy, what with work and everything,” said Mam, rallying to his defence. “He’ll find someone soon.”
“You don’t think he might be...”
The words trailed off into silence.
“What?” asked Mam.
There was a sigh. An Auntie Marjorie sigh.
“Maybe he doesn’t like girls?”

The thought of Smith’s wife impending arrival was the rope that pulled Jenny through what happened next.
She pictured him looking out of the window. He’d turned and smiled at her, like he was going to say something, then left the room. She’d followed dutifully and found him in the smaller of the two bedrooms, his hand in his coat pocket.

Martin crashed into his pad.
The silly, stupid bitch! How could she say such a thing? How could she think such thoughts?
He threw open the wardrobe door and dog-eared copies of ‘Playboy’ and ‘Hustler’ tumbled to the floor. Scantily clad cover girls smiled enticingly at him wherever he looked but all he saw were the red blotches on his hands. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to know that his face and neck were similarly mottled. They always were when he got like this. His mother said it was nerves but he knew it was rage.

Jenny shuddered at the memory of his shroud-white skin, the jet-black hair and the hard, mirthless eyes. Worse still were the lips: two slashes of purple which turned black when stretched into a smile.
He had distracted her, said something about cracks in the ceiling and gestured towards the corner of the room. She’d turned to look at where he pointed and he’d grabbed her from behind, pulling her back and pressing a handkerchief to her face. A pungent odour and a burning sweet taste were the last things she remembered before passing out.

“I never liked her.” Auntie Marjorie shook her head to emphasise the point. “She never thought once to ask us round, you know. Not once. It was always our David who invited us. Never her.”
Mam looked up at the sound of Martin coming downstairs.
“We went for our lunch and she didn’t appear until well
past one o’clock. On a Sunday, mark you, a Sunday,” emphasised Auntie Marjorie. “Said she’d been out late with some of her amateur operatic pals. Of course we know now that was nonsense. She was - ”
“See you later,” Martin called out.
The front door opened and closed before Mam had a chance to speak.
“Where’s he going on a night like this?” asked Auntie Marjorie.
Mam shrugged. “More tea?”

Jenny listened to the rain, distant but heavy, drumming on a metal roof. Scampering noises closer at hand meant the rats had returned but she could only think of how he’d got her here.

Martin closed the lock-up’s doors and ran back through the downpour to the white Ford van.
He’d bought it second hand for his courier business then, when that hadn’t worked out, had carried his DJ gear in it until ‘Hot ‘n’ Cool Sounds’ had proved to be another of his nine day wonders. The tapes and discs had long since gone at car boot sales but the van he’d kept. Handy, he liked to think, for other uses.

There was a crash of thunder and a crackle of lightning and in that moment she remembered turning as she opened the door and seeing him look at a van. A white van parked at...the...
She jerked awake.
Kerbside, kerbside. The van had been parked at the kerbside. It must have been his. He must have used...

Curtains of rain swept in off the sea as the van eased its way down empty streets.
The pubs were deserted: the promise of a pint and Monday night football not enough to tempt the punters out of their homes. No one was out on a night like tonight. Not even a cat.
The van passed the rows of red brick terrace houses and long abandoned youth centres proudly named after heroes of the empire, their boarded windows tagged by kids who now had kids of their own. It drove by rundown factories and skirted past blocks of grimy grey council flats, only ending its cruise through decades of decline and neglect on a disused industrial estate outside an old workshop.
The rain beat against the windscreen as the van’s headlights were doused and the engine wheezed its last with the cut of the ignition.

She swore. How long had she been asleep? What was the last thing she’d been thinking about? Stay alert, she told herself. Got to stay -
A door opened.
Jenny snapped into the here and now, fear racing through her like a cancer. She heard the rats skedaddle away as the door closed.
“Honey, I’m home,” a man called out.
She heard him chuckle.
A lamp clicked on and light percolated through the holes into the coffin.
She flinched when the man, suddenly close by, murmured intimately, ‘Soon have you out of there, my darling’, and then started whistling as he unscrewed the screws. Not wanting to see him, she shut tight her eyes the second the lid shifted but then slowly reopened them.
A dark figure stepped into the light and looked down at her.
Mister Smith.

Martin smiled.
He switched on another storm lantern then crossed to the sink, turned on the tap and looked back at her.
“Got a headache?”
Jenny nodded.
“Sore throat? Feel sick?”
She nodded again.
At least she hasn’t crapped herself, he thought. That, he knew from his research, was a possible side effect of chloroform just like the headaches, sore throats and nausea. Tricky thing chloroform: too little and the girl lolled about like a drunk; too much and she died. He congratulated himself on getting it right this time.
“Best get you cleaned up,” he said, returning to the coffin and helping her out. “Here’s the deal. I’ll cut
you loose but you behave. Understand?”
Jenny nodded.
“There’s no point in shouting and screaming ‘cos
there’s nobody for miles around. Place was shut up years ago.” Martin grinned. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
He studied her for a moment then freed her with his flick knife and pulled the tape from her face. Jenny fell forward and retched.
“Here,” said Martin, brandishing a bar of soap. “I know you girls like to smell nice for their men.”
Jenny threw up, missing the sink by feet.
Martin grimaced. Ungrateful bitch. Didn’t she realise he didn’t have to do this? Didn’t she understand she was his and he could do whatever he liked with her? Didn’t she? He watched her take in the lathes mounted on benches, the machinery scattered here and there, and laughed. “That’s it, darling. It’s not much but it’s ours.”
Jenny looked into his waxy, snowman-like face. “Let me go. Please let me go.”
Martin smiled.
“I promise I won’t say anything. I’ll give you money. I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”
Martin felt a warm glow deep inside himself: a surge of power better than any hard-on he’d ever known; a smooth assurance of superiority.
“Clean yourself up,” he said, throwing the soap at her.
She turned and dipped her hands in the ice cold water. A rat, scuttling across the floor, caught her eye. She shuddered and looked away before slowly, slyly, looking back at what had fleetingly registered in her mind.
Lying on a worktop, caked in dirt and grease, was a wrench.
“Why me?” she asked, calculating how far she was from the wrench. “Why did you choose me?” Maybe eight or nine feet she reckoned. “I said why did you - ”
“I heard you!”
The rain beat down on the roof.
“There’ll be people looking for me,” she said, facing him. “My boyfriend.”
Martin stepped close enough to smell her stink.
“My choosing you wasn’t any accident,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve been watching you for months.”
His breath made Jenny want to gag.
“Everywhere you went, everything you did, I was there,” he continued. “There’s nothing I don’t know about you from the car you drive to the coffee you drink and I know that, right now, I’m the only man in your life.”
He slipped his hand round her waist, pulled her to him and kissed her full on the lips, his breath hot and foul, his skin cold and clammy.
He pulled back a little and smiled and in that moment she clawed him in the eyes, gouged red tracks through the off-piste whiteness of his face and kneed him hard in the groin. He screamed and let go of her.
She darted to her left and grabbed the wrench.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “Don’t come near me!”
Martin wiped the blood from his eyes and stared at her.
"How could you?”
“What?”
“You’re mine,” he said. “I chose you. I made you mine.”
“Ha!”
“Don’t laugh at me! You’re my girlfriend!”
“Girlfriend? You must be - ”
“I looked after you,” he whined. “You’re supposed to be nice to me. You’re supposed to - ”
The words gurgled up into a cry of rage and frustration as he threw himself at her. She dodged his lunge, lashed out with the wrench and he fell to the floor, the side of his head cracked like a walnut at Christmas.
Martin groaned and slithered some on the greasy floor, life oozing from him with every move. He touched his head and felt the blood running free.
What will Mam do, he wondered. Will she –
He stopped.
There was a bright light at the end of a tunnel and it grew bigger and brighter as he felt an undertow slowly drag him away from Jenny. He cracked a bloody grin at her.
“No more...Mister...Smith,” he croaked before a tidal surge of warmth closed in over his head.