Thunder in paradise (part 5)

Carol carried the wood over to the beat-up boat, but where’s Pablo? She calls his name and see’s him emerge from the other side of the boathouse.

‘Where were you?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I did pee in water!’ he confessed, the ends of his shorts wet.

Carol didn’t think any more of it, she just shrugged her shoulders and dropped the wood.

‘Do you think you can fix it?’ Carol asked curiously.

‘I try!’ he acknowledged.

‘Do you need anything else?’ she asks as Robbie emerges out of the water, where Pablo had once come holding even more wood.

‘I need,’ Pablo clicks his fingers trying to find the right word in English.

‘What do you need?’ Sean says as he walks towards the group.

Pablo continues to click his fingers.

‘Mime it out for me!’ Robbie suggests.

Pablo begins to hit the wood with another piece of wood.

‘A hammer?’ Sean asked.

‘Jes!’ Pablo becomes excited, clicking his fingers in Seans direction, ‘Jes I need hammer!’

‘Well,’ Sean looks around, ‘we don’t seem to have one and going by what is already not in the boathouse, I’d be surprised if you find one in there! So I’m afraid you’re going to have to make do little buddy!’ Sean puts his hand on Pablo’s shoulder.

‘I not gay!’ Pablo looks at Sean, the look of disgust.

Sean quickly takes his hand away and tries to reinforce that he never for one second thought he was.

‘Are you homophobic man?’ Robbie asked.

Pablo looked at him in the same way his little nephew would look at him to find out who drew with the crayon on the wall…. blankly!

‘What?’ Pablo asked.

‘Do you hate me because I am gay?’ Sean took the plunge.

Pablo looked away, his silence saying it all.

Sean hung his head in shame.

Robbie piped up, ‘not cool man. Sean is a respected man in this practice and you not accepting him for who he is is just not cool!’

Pablo shrugs his shoulders, ‘in my billage, you burn!’ he said in a sadistic tone looking Sean dead in the eye.

Sean had never experienced anyone hating him for who he was except his wife. From his little talk with Robbie on the way there, he realised, from Robbie’s support, that it was not the social convention to be homophobic, and the fact that he was experiencing it now, of all times, and here of all places, made him angry.

Sean was not an aggressive man but he swung for Pablo, hitting him in the eye. Blood began to gush out of the contusion he had received on his eyebrow from Sean’s wedding ring.

‘What the fuck man?’ Pablo asked, putting his hand to the gash.

Sean, who was much taller than Pablo stood even taller and said, ‘no one is going to disrespect me like that again!’

Robbie patted Sean on the shoulder, proud of his friend for standing up to himself, as did Carol.

Pablo took off his vest and placed it on the gash. He revealed his six pack in doing so, something none of the others had:

• Sean was tubby.
• Robbie was slim but that was only due to his metabolism
• Carole had stretch marks on her stomach from when she was pregnant with Suzie.

They were all in awe of how fit the cleaner / dogsbody was. They knew it wasn’t because of a gym membership as he lived in a hostel, but then again maybe he did. No one quite knew Pablo other than he was only at the firm for six months and that he had very little English.

‘I go look for bandage!’ he said, his eyes squinting and not letting Sean out of his sight.

When he was in the boathouse the other two smiled at Sean, congratulating him with pats on the back and kind words.

‘If I ever get off of this goddamned island, the first thing I’m going to do is file for divorce!’ Sean announced. ‘Screw the family….im still a young man and I want to live!’

Carol and Robbie cheered at the same time as Pablo screamed. The three looked at each other, their smiles suddenly gone, and began to go to see what Pablo was screaming about.

Robbie stopped them in their tracks, ‘where’s Nicola?’ he said. The three of them ran to find Pablo on the ground beside Nicola’s body.

Carol ran to vomit over the edge of the boathouse’s entrance. When she joined the group, who stood there open mouthed, Carol asked him, ‘Did you do this?’

‘No!’ Pablo cried, ‘I never!’

‘You do know how suspicious this looks man!’ Sean said as a follow up question.

‘Jes…. but I never!’ Pablo cried.

Robbie was distraught. He shooed Pablo away from the body of the only woman he ever loved and felt for a pulse, knowing there wouldn’t be one there. He was going through the motions regardless.

As he looked into the dead eyes of his one true love he reflected on happier times. He had a flashback into what kind of life he had made with her and how she crushed his dreams the day she said no to his proposal of marriage.

Robbie had pulled out all the stops, he had booked out her favourite Italian restaurant so they had the whole place to themselves and they shared a pizza under candle light. When he went down on one knee, it was like a sucker punch to his gut as she stopped him, mid-sentence, and told him that she would never marry a man whore and stormed out of the establishment, leaving Robbie holding a ring that was his grandmothers.

Now he looks and see’s her lifeless eyes and closes them wishing to have been able to see the beautiful princess cut ring on her finger…. but it lay bare. He regrets not fighting for the relationship more, not trying to prove that he was different, that he was ready to settle down and have kids. All he ever wanted, for as far back as he could remember, was a bunch of kids running around him. He grew up in a broken home, his father working every hour god sent to keep a roof over their heads.

After that kid died, the one who shot himself in the face with Robbie’s gun. Robbie turned to the drink. Two year later, after his father had the stroke and Robbie knew that he had to pull up his socks and get over it, he knew he wanted better for his kids.

When his father died a couple of years after he joined the practice as a private investigator, he knew that he wanted his kids to feel the same way for him as he did his father…. loved!

As he knew looked at Nicola, knowing she was the one for him, he cried, his knees in her blood, wishing he had more of an opportunity to communicate that to her.

Robbie got to his feet quickly and ran over to Pablo, wrapping his hands around his neck.

‘You son of a bitch!’ he said as they struggled in the small boat house, ‘you killed the only woman I ever loved!’

The fight quickly got out of hand and the pair were punching and kicking each other until they burst out of the boathouse’s door and over the edge of the walkway into the water below. Robbie water boarded Pablo, something he last did when he was undercover as a cop. He pushed Pablo’s head into the water, taking it out long enough to let him breathe before plunging it into the water again. He didn’t want to kill the guy, he just wanted to frighten him.

Sean jumped into the shallow water and stripped Pablo from Robbie’s grip, letting him catch his breath and Robbie wipe his eyes.

When everyone was breathing properly again, Carol piped up; ‘you’re the killer!’ she said to Pablo, ‘you’re the one who killed all of our friends and mentors and you are the one who is going to kill us all!’

She knew it was a wild accusation but it made sense.

‘You killed Patricia because you are homophobic, Sinead because…well I don’t know why, mike because he was about to sack you, and Nicola because you wanted to bed her and she refused!’

‘No, no I…I….’

‘Makes perfect sense to me!’ Robbie chimed in.

‘Me too!’ added Sean.

‘No, I…. I no kill…...’

‘Let’s tie him up and leave him here,’ suggested Sean. ‘That way if there is another murder, we will know that it’s not him!’

‘You mean as a process of elimination?’ asked Carol.

‘Exactly!’ answered Sean.

‘Great idea!’ Robbie chimed in.

Pablo began to run in the waist high water to shore where he knew he had a chance to run away. Robbie followed him, as did Sean, but Robbie was faster. He rugby tackled Pablo to the ground and wrestled with him as Carol and Sean caught up. Robbie pushed his face into the sand and put a knee on his back so as he could not move. Sean took over as Robbie searched the beat-up boat for some rope. When he found it, he tied Pablo’s hands and feet together in a manner that if he straightened his legs, he would stretch his arms and vice versa.

Sean grabbed his legs, Robbie his shoulders as they moved him into the boathouse and lay him down beside Nicola.

‘Let’s see you kill us know you homophobic prick!’ Sean said before spitting at him.

 

As Carol, Sean and Robbie walked back to camp, the adrenaline was pumping through their veins. They had caught their man and were all looking forward to a rest that night. They were exhausted and hungry.

‘I could eat a horse!’ Sean put out there.

‘Me too! Confessed Robbie

‘Me three,’ said Carol.

‘Well….no, it doesn’t matter,’ Sean said

‘Go on pal,’ Robbie encouraged, ‘what were you going to say?’

‘There is a dead antelope not meters from us that’s dead anyway and I’m sure if we butchered it properly, we could have a good meal!’

‘That sounds so wrong,’ Carol started, ‘but so, so good!’

‘Right,’ Robbie said, ‘I’ll go into the woods and find that antelope and butcher it a bit whilst you two make a fire!’

As Robbie got up to go to the antelope, Sean asked, ‘can you do that?’

‘Yea, I was trained as a butcher before I joined the police force,’ he answered.

‘Good luck!’ Carol contributed.

 

Robbie went into the forest, the knife that killed Sinead in his hand and found the decomposing body of the antelope. He took off one of the meatier parts of the animal and returned to the camp victorious. The fire was going and they put the piece of meat on a spit they had made from wood Sean had gathered when Robbie was away.

They ate like kings, the antelope delicious and all fell asleep with full bellies around the comfort of the fire.

 

He woke as he felt something covering his mouth. He tried to scream but the towel over his face blocked out the sound. Sean opened his eyes wide and couldn’t believe who was holding the towel over his face with one hand, his eyes darting towards the knife that was in the other. He saw the sharp, serrated blade and immediately thought of diamonds. He felt it glide over his neck. Its force cutting his carotid artery. He could feel the blood pour out of his body and began to feel cold. His body weakening, he kept his eyes on the eyes of his murder, taking comfort in the fact that at least it would be quick.

 

And then there were three!