The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

Mother. Their ways. But he had never been with one, physically, at least not for a long time. And even then, not much more than teenage fumblings. He had got as far as the girl’s breasts, but they had reminded him of cow udders dripping with milk from when he had worked with farm animals years ago. He had recoiled and gone no further with her, pulling her blouse to cover her breasts and apologising for being so forward. She had laughed, sourly, at him.

He did, at times over the years, think that he would have liked to have been a father. Would have been a good one for sure. He would have raised them well, a boy and a girl, the boy older, the girl younger, perhaps two years between them. He could see them clearly in his head. He would have been a firm but caring father, a proper one. Strong but loving. But for that he would have need a wife and he did not think he could be with a woman with her wants and needs.

The idea – of being a father, with children, perhaps even a young grandfather these days – troubled him. He did not like to think about being a father and having children, Robert and Susan he would have called them, because it made him feel sad. There were occasions when he would cry about it, knowing somehow that something in his life was missing.

He did not like men, not like that anyway. Not in any way, really. He had never made friends easily. There was a boy at school whom he had liked, and they had played together for a while in the playground. But the boy, Andrew, had said that, when they were wrestling, he had been too rough and had hurt him and so he did not play with him again. It did not matter, not really. He had never felt the need for friends. Could not see the point of them.

He looked across as he passed the old familiar rows of Christmas trees. Almost home now.

Two, three more minutes and he swung the car to the left again and pulled over onto a long driveway of gravel and churned-over mud.

He looked towards the trees and saw a man standing there with an axe. Waiting. The man with the axe walked quickly towards him.

* * *

The man with the latex gloves climbed out of the van and moved to the doors at the back. He trod heavily through the gravelly mud.

He looked across at the man with the axe and nodded at him.

The man with the axe gazed back with a child-like expression of hope on his face. A child on Christmas Eve. “Did you get one? Did you get one,” he asked excitedly.

“Yes.”

“Like Father?”

“Yes.”

“A bad man?”

“Yes, very bad.”

The man with the axe rested it on the ground next to him, thought slowly for a moment and then carried on with his questions.

“Did he hurt children?”

“Yes.”

“Did he touch them in their private places?”

“Yes.”

“Did he hit them?”

The man with the axe touched the side of his head as he stared vacantly at the man with the gloves.

Brothers.

“One smart, one simple,” as Father used to say.

Before he started his beatings. And more.

“Help me unlock the doors, get the bad man out of the van.” The man with the gloves gestured the man with the axe forward.

“Can I see his face?”

“Not yet, help me to get him to the cesspit and you can have a look before we tip him in.”

“Promise?”

Between them, they opened the van’s doors and the man with the gloves reached in towards the bagged-up body. He dragged it out by its feet, the head and shoulders bumping along the van’s floor, over the edge and hitting the ground before the man with the axe could catch hold.

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter, leave the axe there and pick up that end, share the load.”

“Yes I will.”

Together they lifted the body, struggling with its awkward bulk and then, once they had got to grips with it, to get into an easier stride. The man with the axe was clumsy and they had to stop once, twice, three times.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Not now,” the man with the gloves puffed. “Later, when we’ve tipped him in.”

“Was he hurting a little boy or a little girl?”

“Both, he was hurting both,” the man with the gloves replied. “He was like Father. He hit them and hurt them, and he made them do things they did not want to do.”

The man with the axe stopped and looked across with tears in his eyes. “I hate him,” he said. “I hate him. I hate him.”

They carried on, walking slowly. Dark now, all they could see was a light from the farmhouse ahead of them. Follow that, and they would stay in a straight line. And come out near the outbuilding with the cesspit.

The man with the axe looked again at his brother. “Tell me what happened. Tell me.”

“Stop then, stop here, rest for a minute.”

They stopped and laid the bagged body down between them.

“I forgot my axe. I left it at the van.”

“Leave it for now. One of us can go back and get it later and shut the doors and lock the van, too.”

The man with the axe crouched down by the body. He reached into his pocket for a small tin and a box of matches. With shaking hands, he opened the tin and took out a roll-up cigarette, thin with tobacco at one end, fatter at the other. After lighting two matches that burned down to his fingers, he lit the cigarette with the third and smiled happily to himself as he inhaled the smoke.

“Go on. Tell me. Please.”

The man with the gloves sighed as he crouched down, too, reaching across for the tin and rummaging through for the best-made cigarette, which he lit, dragging on the strong tobacco. He looked across at his brother, so similar to him except for the sagging eyelid and