Relative to murder.

RELATIVE TO MURDER.
By
Brian Kelly

GENRE--- Fiction--Murder. A family tragedy.

Plot
Estranged father (Michael), takes out is two sons on his legal twice monthly contact. He discovers what he considers ill treatment of his son, by ex wife’s live in lover.(Peter) Argument ensues, which results in the murder of Mike. Peter is held on remand, but having had the murder charge lowered to manslaughter is released after only a short sentence. Sheila, the mother of the boys is severely emotionally affected, and takes on a lot of the guilt for the death of Mike, the father of her children, a man for whom she still held a lot of affection. Whilst under the influence of prescribed drugs she stabs her lover to death, then tragically, but calculatingly, commits suicide.

Narrative. This story is written using strong language, to emphasise the reality of the bitterness which is created by domestic dispute. (Approximately 2000 words.)

Relative To Murder
By Brian Kelly

Prologue
Peter Maloney finally snapped after all the other wildly thrown taunts, and then. "Come out you Aussie Bastard, if you've got any guts.
The Aussie bastard had enough guts, because he had a loaded double barrelled shotgun. He swung the door open and rushed out.----------

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Chapter 1
The day had started normally enough. It was the second Sunday in the month, one of the twice monthly times when Mike Palmer was allowed to visit his two sons, at the home of his ex wife, Sheila.
The ginger haired, freckled faced Mike stopped the car outside the gateway, and blew four long blasts on the horn. Sheila came walking down the short gravelled drive with the two boys. Darren, soon to be fourteen, was hoping to get a promise from Mike, of a new pair of Adidas 'Flyers', for his birthday.
'How's that for timing,' shouted mike, pleasantly. 'The pips for the ten O'clock news are just sounding.'
Sheila bent down at Mike's open window as the boys climbed into the back seats of the car. 'Hello Mike, how are you? how's the antiques business?'
Mike smiled at Sheila, and replied, in a soft inviting voice. 'I'm fine love, and the business is flourishing, but it would be better if you were still in it with me. I'd marry you again tomorrow, if you'd let me.'
'Let's not go into all that again, I hear it every time that when you come to take the boys out. You know that I'm fond of you, but I'd have to think hard about living with you and that temper again. My life's been a lot more tranquil since the divorce.' Then, more matter of factly. 'Be sure to have the boys back by six O'clock. I'll have a big dinner waiting for them.' She said goodbye to the boys then stepped back and waved as the car drove away.
Û
She did not immediately return to the house, but just stood and quietly contemplated her present situation for a full five minutes until a loud Australian accented man’s voice shouted demandingly. ‘Hey, Sheel, are you coming to make my breakfast or am I going to have to do it myself? If you want a man to be able to keep it up, then yu gorra feed ‘im.’
Sheila turned and slowly walked back to the house, wondering if she had made the right decision. Had she agreed to marry because of love, or was it really just sexual passion that was sweeping her along. Ever since saying yes to her much younger lover, doubts about his real intentions had been growing in her mind. It was one thing to be carried along by the thrills of sexual pleasure, and talk of foreign travel, which she had been denied since her separation and subsequent divorce from Mike, and something quite different to consider the reality of life as she neared forty years old.

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Chapter 2
During the drive from Sheila's house, Mike had noticed how subdued Darren seemed to be, even when they had parked the car, and Mike had shown the boys the Turkish scimitar and the other old bric-a-brac which he had purchased that morning from the widow of a recently deceased old Army officer, Darren had shown very little interest, and now, walking by the lakeside, Darren seemed lost in himself.
'What's the matter with you Darren? No jokes for us today then? You seem as miserable as sin. Have you lost a pound, and found a penny.' asked Mike.
'No Dad, I'm just fed up, that's all. Can I come and live with you? I don't like that Pete who's living with us now. Did you know that Mum's going to marry him? They're getting married in October, and they're going to see his people in Australia for their honeymoon. He keeps bossing me about. I have to cut the lawns, and do allsorts of jobs'
Mike stopped walking as he felt that Darren needed to talk, they sat down on the grassy banks of the boating lake. Craig was busily occupied in skimming stones into the water and completely oblivious to the serious tones of the conversation between Darren and their father.
Mike tried to placate Darren. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard about them getting married, she must be going soft in her old age,’ he said lightly. ‘I'll try to talk some sense into your Mother, and stop her marrying him. Anyway, Darren lad, you can't legally live with me until you're sixteen, so you've got another couple of years to go yet. You might get to like him by then, and soon you'll start courting no doubt, then you won't want any of us adults around you.' Said Mike indulgently.
'I won't, Dad,’ said Darren, his voice rising, ‘I won't ever like him. He's a big bully. He hit me on my head for being cheeky to him last Tuesday, when he told me to clean the mud off the back path. He made it muddy anyway, so I couldn't see why I should clean up after him.' This rushed out of Darren’s mouth as tears slowly welled up in his eyes.
'You what?' Mike almost screamed. 'He hit you, what did your Mother have to say?'
'I didn't tell her,' said Darren, flatly. ‘She's not interested anyway. She thinks the Sun shines out of him.'
'Craig, come here a minute,' shouted Mike, who was seething mad. 'Did you see that Pete hit our Darren?'
'Yes Dad, Darren was being cheeky to him. He often is. Pete says things would be better if Darren would stop being surly, and co-operate a bit.'
'Never mind what bloody Pete says.' Said Mike aggressively. 'Get in the car, I've got things to say to Mister, bloody, Peter Maloney.'

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Chapter 3
Ten minutes frantic driving brought them to a screeching halt at the gateway of Sheila's house. Mike told the boys to stay in the car, then he ran up to the house. He knocked loudly and impatiently, with the heavy brass doorknocker. A surprised Sheila opened the door, with the tall Peter Maloney standing beside and slightly behind her. Mike yelled out 'Did you know that this Aussie bastard has hit our Darren? I'll kill him.'
Sheila, speechless, turned to Maloney who stepped in front of her, grinning superciliously. 'F*** off, you little Pommy bastard, before I put my foot on you, and squeeze all the shit out.' Said the much larger Maloney belligerently.
Mike made a lunge towards Maloney, but Sheila was too quick, and jumped between them, she pushed Mike away, then slammed the door hard in Mikes face.
'Don't think you can hit my kids and get away with it.' screamed Mike. 'You big empty gutless shit. 'Kipper, Kipper, Kipper.' Shouted Mike, as he raced around the house, peering in the windows.
Mike dashed back to his car, and opening the boot, took the scimitar out of its scabbard. Darren shouted from in the car. 'What's the matter Dad, it sounds like you're having an argument up there.' Mike leaned into the open car window, and said, reassuringly, to the boys. 'Don't worry lads, I'm only having a bit of fun. I'm just scaring him a bit, so that he will think twice before he hits one of you two again. Stay in the car, it'll all be over in a few more minutes, then we can get off out again.' He ran back up to the house, again knocking on the glass and showing the sword through the windows, and all the time shouting for the Australian to come out. 'You've got no balls! You can't make kids of your own, so you have to have somebody else's ready made. You've got a second hand woman, who you don’t deserve, who’s old enough to be your mother. Do you need mothering, you immature bastard? I bet your own mother was a Flinders whore. You're just a big empty hulk of Aussie shit. Kipper Kipper Kipper!' He goaded the Australian with every insult that would come to mind.
Inside the lounge, Maloney, stung deeply by Mike’s outpourings broke free from Sheila's restraining grip. He pushed her roughly down onto the settee, and held aloft the shotgun that he had taken from over the heavy wooden sideboard where it always hung.
Sheila sobbed. 'Please Pete, don't take the shotgun out, not even to frighten him. Mike has a vicious temper, and if he should get hold of the gun he's likely to shoot you.'
'He's thrown enough insults at me to last a lifetime and he knows what he's doing when he's shouting 'Kipper'. That's the worst insult you can throw at an Aussie.' Said Maloney, menacingly, as he went to the left hand drawer of the sideboard and took out a box of shotgun cartridges.. 'I'll just frighten the shit out of him, then maybe he'll go away.' He said as he loaded the gun, snapped the barrels sharply back onto the stock, then walked slowly past the terrified and trembling Sheila, to the door.
Mike was by then standing some five yards from the door, waving the sword around his head, and shouting. 'Kipper. Kipper. Kipper. What is a kipper? It's a lump of stinking rotting flesh with no back bone, it's two faced and gutless. Come out you Aussie bastard, if you've any guts.’
Mike stood, silent for a moment, facing the door, with the sword held with two hands, above his head. He was both out of breath, and out of words, having spent his wrath.
Maloney threw open the door, and with the gun levelled at chest height, ran towards Mike, stopping with the end of the barrel only an arms length short of Mikes chest and pointing the gun at Mike's heart, said with a slight quiver, has he tried to control his voice. 'Now you F****** Pom, drop the sword, and get in your car without another word, or I'll blow you to Hell.'
Mike stood as if mesmerised, for a good twenty seconds, still with the sword raised above his head; suddenly he let out a savage howl and sprang towards Maloney, letting the sword drop behind himself, and reaching for Maloney's throat with his bare hands.
'BOOM!' The shotgun blasted it's lethal pellets straight into Mike's chest. The force of the blast, from only inches away, twisted Mike's body around in a pirouette. He crumpled to the ground face down, with blood pumping from his shattered chest and heart.
Maloney stood perfectly still, and slowly dropped the gun to the ground, heart pounding, not believing his own actions.
Sheila, screaming, ran to the helpless bloodied body that until seconds ago was Mike, and with uncontrolled sobbing, threw herself onto him, she hugged the rapidly dying body to her, with a fierce passion, as though she could stop the pumping, vivid red blood, from leaving his body.
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Darren and Craig, hearing the commotion, and not being able to hold their curiosity got out of the car and having timidly advanced so far up the drive as to be able to see what their father was shouting about, stood shocked as they witnessed the shooting. Both of the boys clung on hard to each other in brotherly support, not daring to go to their mother, and terrified of being seen by Peter Maloney, they turned and slowly walked back to their Dad’s car, where they sat in stunned silence for the next fifteen minutes until the police appeared and an ambulance took away the body. Maloney was taken into custody. Sheila was given sedatives by her GP. who had been called to the scene and she and the boys were taken to Sheila’s parents nearby home. The police would take more coherent statements the next day.

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Chapter 4
The Coroner, having heard all the evidence, concluded that his decision was. 'Death by gunshot wounds, and that the public prosecutors office should be informed.'
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Six months later, after being held in custody since the day of the shooting, Peter Maloney stood in the dock, accused of the murder of Michael Palmer. The trial lasted for three full days.
The defence had made a plea of not guilty to murder, and had pleaded, 'Self Defence.' At the start of his final submissions the defence barrister walked away from his table and purposefully to the jury benches. He, confident of his case, had determined that a short but very concise summing up would be all the better in this case.
'Your honour, members of the jury.' The defence barrister began, in measured dispassionate words. 'This case can only be judged, on the undoubted fact, which we have heard from three witnesses, that the deceased launched into a stinging verbal attack, deliberately goading the defendant, whilst threatening the defendant with a sword.'
Here the wily barrister left a long pregnant pause, to make sure that his words were registering with the jury.
'The defendant readily admits that he was himself armed, with a shotgun, but only for the purpose of hoping to frighten the deceased into leaving the premises. The defendant reacted, without the knowledge that the deceased intended to drop the sword. Therefore, although, as the prosecution so rightly states, that the deceased was unarmed at the time of the actual shooting. The accused acted in defence of what appeared to be an assault, with a sword, on his person.'
A verdict of, 'Manslaughter, in the act of self defence and under extreme provocation' was recorded. Peter Maloney was fined fifty pounds, on a lesser charge of possessing a firearm without a licence. Having spent six months in prison already, the judge considered this was enough.
Peter Maloney walked out of the court a free man.

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Chapter 5
Three weeks after the end of the trial, the tabloid newspaper, 'The Daily Clarion', ran a front page, in bold print, headlined. 'Bizarre twist to shotgun murder.' Followed by a report of how the ex wife of the gunned down, over protective father, had become grief stricken over the death of her ex-husband, at the hands of her live-in boy friend. Her state of mind had deteriorated to such an extent, by thoughts of self-guilt, that she had stabbed Peter Maloney, whilst he was in a drunken sleep in her bed. A frenzy of knife wounds, to the heart, chest and abdomen had been the cause of death. Mrs Palmer had then telephoned the police and told them what had happened, and had said that she could not stop blaming herself for her ex husband's (Michael Palmer) death. She also told the police that they would find the door to the house unlocked, but she would not be available for further questioning. Poignantly, she also asked the police to bring a social worker along, to look after her two boys, who were still sleeping in the house. Her final words had been. 'I'm going to join Mike, the boys will understand. They are very good boys, you know.'
On arrival the police found the body of Mrs. Palmer, slumped in the exact same place where Michael Palmer had died, on the driveway of her house.
Her death was caused by self inflicted knife wounds to her wrists.

The End

'Relative To Murder' Copyright Brian Kelly 24th. May 1997.