So Sweet

SO SWEET

George knew straight away.... because he had the kind of mind which
functioned clearly and analytically no matter how horrible the
crisis.... he knew straight away exactly what had happened. There, in
the immediate foreground, was the tumbled pushchair. One corner of the
frame was bent up at ninety degrees. Exposed metal glinted next to the
old paintwork. There, receding in the background, was the car... a dark
blue Escort of about ten years vintage. George even caught the first
few characters of the registration. He had seen the driver, a thin
youth, as it sped past. And there, in the middle ground, flung forward
about four metres, was Felicity. Quite dead. He knew she was quite
dead.

He approached the little body. Little Felicity was dead. There was no
superficial abrasion, but the queer angle of the neck said it all.
George knew she was dead. The horror was tempered by knowledge. It was
one of those moments when a person becomes nothing but pure
consciousness. It was as if a transparent sphere had suddenly enveloped
him and excluded the workings of his senses, of memory, of imagination.
He was nothing except his concentrated self. The appalled cries of
on-lookers barely penetrated. He hardly registered the young man
urgently speaking into a mobile phone, or the passers-by looking at him
aghast with pity and dread.
He stooped low to cradle and lift her. Little Felicity's body, which he
had bathed and hugged and caressed. His racing mind knew that this was
the defining moment of his life. The moment which would forever divide
the past from the future, divide a life of hope and potential from one
of rage and regret. George knew exactly what had happened, and he knew
exactly what he, at some point, would do. He kissed the little forehead
as he had a thousand times before, and said 'Felicity'.

Time slowed down as if in treacle. Some sympathetic passers-by advanced
through a ballet to support him. The sphere dispelled. He was back in
the world. 'She's dead,' he said simply.

A police car came, and an ambulance. The little body was taken. Wrapped
in a blanket. His little girl, so sweet, not yet three. Taken
away.

George knew that he would have to go home to Marie.... Marie whom he
had said a casual goodbye to less than half an hour ago..., he would
have to tell Marie that Felicity was dead. George knew that he... he
would grieve long and hard in a quiet, contained way, and he knew that
Marie would howl and wail and demand answers from the Lord. A
policewoman came with him to the house. George told her firmly that,
although he was glad she was there to provide comfort, he would do the
talking.

The youth was found by evening and there was enough identification of
him and his car for charges to be laid straight away. George saw him
briefly at the station. Terry Green, a nasty looking pimply youth of
twenty-two. George didn't want to hear him speak. George made a simple
statement and went home. The policewoman was still there. A doctor had
been with sedatives. George suggested to the policewoman that it was
alright for her to leave. He did what he could to comfort his wife, but
it was little. He sat through the night in the chair as Marie screeched
and sobbed in the bed.

George carried the little white coffin to the grave. It was a beautiful
day, as sunny as when she had died. Marie would have writhed in torment
on the ground had her two brothers not flown over from Ireland to
support her. Although George had rather disapproved of the Christening
(such were the problems of a mixed marriage), and although he did not
believe that Felicity was now being comforted by the angels in Heaven,
he was nonetheless grateful that Marie's faith was giving her some kind
of comfort.

The little coffin went in the ground and was buried. The brothers
stayed overnight in the local hotel. They came again in the morning,
with constant assurances that they would provide any help called for,
and then left for the three o'clock flight.

At the trial Terry Green pleaded his innocence and made his excuses. In
court was the grimy assembly of his pregnant girlfriend, his parents
and other hangers-on. The defence called the usual battery of probation
officers and social workers to diminish the extent of the crime, but
the bottom line was: Green had been as high as a kite, he had killed a
child on a zebra crossing, and he had fled like a frightened rabbit. He
was sentenced to four years. His family howled in horror. 'Yeah,
right,' was Green's response. He was led away.

George had sat through it all alone and in silence. There was the
temptation to stand and shout and berate the judge. Four years! Four
miserable bloody years! But he stayed silent. The less he had to be
remembered for the better. He knew what he was going to do.

Outside the court he kept silent. There was a gaggle of reporters
asking inane questions, desperate to get a quote. George feigned
anguish to brush them aside, but really it wasn't anguish, it was
anger, and he was controlled. He knew what he would do.

The marriage disintegrated. Some say that the last thing a stressed
couple should do is have a baby, but in George and Marie's case
Felicity had been their salvation. She had been a long time coming.
George and Marie had been married eight years before they started
trying, and then there were seven more years of increasingly desperate
disappointment. When it became obvious that nature wasn't running to
form they went from clinic to clinic, from specialist to specialist,
from procedure to procedure. They were prodded, probed, tested. Their
dignity was stripped away. Marie lay on her back, her feet in stirrups,
open to intrusion by doctors and students. George produced semen, at
short notice, in a lavatory, labelled and bottled it like home-made
beer. Seven years of disappointment, anger, depression. They saw less
of their friends, all busy with the trivia of family life. They were
jealous. 'Unexplained sub-fertility'. It was as good as saying 'nothing
obviously wrong... but obviously nothing right.' Their sex ife was
ruined. In thrall to the calendar, timing ovulation, home testing,
hospital testing, and trying to steer a straight course through all the
crap folklore: when to do it, what position to use, what aids to use.
And costly. They had passed the age for treatment on the National
Health, and anyway, how could they bear to queue for another two years?
Better to pay, to try, to pay again. They quietly started to grieve for
the baby they hadn't had.

And then..... Christ on the Cross, a bloody miracle! George would
remember it for the rest of his life. A Saturday morning. Marie quietly
disappeared up the stairs. Ten minutes passed. George knew what she was
doing. He half listened to the radio. He remained contemplative and
philosophical. We will just try again, and again, and again, if need
be. Marie at the landing. 'I'm pregnant.' He met her half way. They
hugged, and cried.

And so they nursed the pregnancy, and went to parenting classes, all
the time wishing for the bump in the belly to be strong and clever and
resilient. Come on little bump. And Felicity was born, with little
fuss, and a full complement of fingers and toes. She was lovely. Within
a month she smiled. Marie kept saying how lucky they were. The pain had
fallen from her. She praised God.

Little Felicity, who smiled and chattered. George found that, unlike at
any other time in his life, he now lived almost totally in the present.
Every moment was precious and unfathomable. Beyond belief. This was
happiness. Hugging a little body. 'More kiss,' she would say as he
tried to retreat from her room, 'more kiss Daddy'. And he would kiss
her again and say 'Sleep now Felicity,' and she would say 'sleep now
Flity'.

Felicity, with a sense of humour. She laughed and squealed and
mimicked. But the most beautiful moments, the ones where he felt he had
achieved a real goodness, were when he came on her looking at one of
her pictures books. She would be perched on the sofa, completely
self-absorbed, happily chatting to herself about what she saw. Such
concentration. She's got a mind like mine, thought George.

But after the birth, perhaps because love-making had become indelibly
linked to their previous anxiety, George and Marie's sex life tailed
off and so did their love. Perhaps they were fulfilled anyway, being
parents, with Felicity the centre of their lives. Their joint love of
her was enough.

Felicity, so sweet. So transparent with her emotions. 'Go away Daddy!'
she screamed when irritated. And at other times, after he had
admonished her, she stood there screaming, her face flushed, a flood of
tears, and stretched out her little arms and implored him 'Cuddle!',
and he lifted her up and she clung to him and became calm, and he felt
ashamed that he had been sharp with her. Felicity. Precious beyond
measure.

Felicity was dead. Now they grieved for the baby they had had. George
quietly. Marie demonstrably. She got on his nerves. He suggested they
part. She would go to Ireland. Stay with one of the brothers, attend
church. 'Yes, that's a good thing to do', said Marie. Not an amicable
parting... an exhausted one. They made a financial arrangement which
was fair and lasting.

Two months passed. George dialled.
'Vince, it's George.'
'Bloody hell, mate, how's the haemorrhoid?' Vince was an East-End boy
made good. They had met a long time back when Vince was struggling as a
writer and George was subbing at The Times. Now Vince was Creative
Director at one of the main agencies, while George's career had, at
best, moved sideways. They had had an easy going friendship cemented by
casual crude banter. It had been at least four years since they last
spoke. George was relying on Vince not knowing about Felicity. They
exchanged pleasantries.
'And how's the lovely Marie?' asked Vince.
'Well, that's all gone a bit pear-shaped,' said George, 'she's back
with the Little People.'
'Oh, sorry mate. That's a bit sad,' there was a pause, 'Plenty of
others, mind.' Vince's studied irreverence was what had appealed to the
serious-minded George all those years ago.
'And how's your sex life?' asked George.
'Jesus mate, you should she the tarts in this office.' Vince had a very
pragmatic view of women and the rights and wrongs of life.
'OK, how old is she?'
'Twenty-three, love.'
'You're a bad person.'
'I know mate. I like it.' Vince described in detail his latest passion,
concluding that 'she goes off like an alarm clock, mate.' George
paused.
'Vince, you said something a long while back.'
'Yeah....?'
'It was when you had a lot of trouble getting money out of someone. You
said that when the need arose, you knew some nasty people who could
help...'
'Yeah...?'
'I'd like to meet some nasty people.' A pause
'You surprise me.'
'Well.... things happen. I don't want to say anything, but if you can
give me a name, or a number... it could be useful.'
'Just hang in there mate.' George thought he heard a drawer being
opened, papers shuffled. 'You sure you want to know this?' asked
Vince.
'It could be useful,' repeated George.
'OK. Write down this number..... it's a bloke called Little Lee. He
will call you.'
'That's very good of you,' said George, 'we should meet for a
drink'.
'Yeah mate. That'd be good.'

No time like the present. He dialled the number. A woman
answered.
'Hullo, I'm trying to contact Lee... Little Lee?'
'Who wants him?'
'He won't know me. My name is George Macrae.... I was recommended by a
friend to....'
'What's your number?' He gave it.
'OK,' said the woman.
'Do you know when Mr Lee.... when Lee will be able to call me?'
'No. He'll get your message.'

Four days later, at ten in the morning, the call came.
'You wanted to talk to me. Little Lee.' He sounded pleasant enough.
George repeated that he had been recommended....
'Yeah I know. What do you want?'
'I wondered whether I could buy something from you?'
'Buy something?'
'I'd rather not say on the phone....'
'Buy something. Something special?'
'Yes.... special.' There was a lengthy pause. 'Look,' said Lee, 'come
and meet one of my colleagues, okay?'
'Of course, when would be suitable.'
'Suitable? Tonight's suitable. Eight o'clock in the Crown.'
'The Crown?'
'Hither Green. Can't miss it. Big bar.'
'Fine, the Crown in Hither Green... oh, er, how will I recognise your
colleague?' 'He'll recognise you, sonny. Don't worry about that'.
'Fine, eight o'clock....' The line was dead.

George nursed his pint at a corner table from twenty to eight. At ten
past a thin man approached, not holding a drink. He offered his hand as
he sat.
'I'm George,' ventured George.
'I know. What is it you want?' asked the man. George lowered his voice
to be barely audible.
'I'd like to buy a gun.' The man paused and looked at him.
'You don't look the type.' George remained silent. The man took out a
scrap of paper. 'Write all your details.'
'Details?'
'Name, address, job, phone, everything....' George wrote and the man
took the paper. 'Got ID on you?' George fished in his briefcase for his
driving license. The man examined it. 'Two TS10's. You are a naughty
boy.'
'Went through a red light. And a bus lane.'
'Nasty,' said the man. For a moment George thought they might even have
a pleasant chat, but the man rose. 'Be in touch,' and he left.

The phone rang two weeks later. George assumed they had been checking
him out in detail.
'Mister Macrae, it's Little Lee here.' George was told to go to an
address in Catford the next day. He climbed the stairs up the side of a
baker's shop. The glass door was painted with a sign: Noble and Barnes
Trading and Freight Forwarding. There was a woman in the first office.
The air hung with smoke. She pointed George into Lee's office.
'Mr Macrae.' Lee stood in welcome. He was short, stocky, about
forty-five, clean and neat. He wore what George assumed to be an
expensive aftershave. 'How can I help?' Lee had short sandy hair, and a
waistcoat under his jacket. He sat behind the large desk, gesturing
George to pull up a chair. George repeated his request in a soft voice.
'Anything's possible' smiled Lee. George wondered how wicked this man
might be. What else did he do? Torture? Crucifixions? 'What kind of
gun?' asked Lee.
'I've no idea. I don't know anything about them.'
'OK,' Lee looked at him matter of factly. 'Say you was in a butcher's
shop. Let's say hanging on the back wall is a side of beef. Say
you're... twelve feet away. What would you like the gun to do?
Penetrate the flesh?'
'Oh yes...,' said George.
'Smash the bone?'
'Er, maybe,' said George.
'Demolish the wall?'
'Oh no.'
'OK, so nothing too powerful,' said Lee.
'It will be accurate?' queried George.
'Oh yeah, no problem there.'
'And I would like it to have a silencer,' added George.
'Ahhhh... right. You do mean business, don't you?' George remained
silent. 'A silencer restricts the choice a little. And reduces the
power, but that doesn't matter in this case. You're going to be pretty
near this side of beef?'
'Er yes, I think so.'
'Right....' Lee thought for a few seconds, looking at George. 'A
silencer pushes the price right up. It'll be two thousand.'
'In cash?' Lee raised his eyebrow in amused enquiry and smiled a nod.
'Maybe it would be better if I took a few days,' said George.
'No problem.'
'I'll need some ammunition.'
'You gonna practice much?' asked Lee, as if they were discussing the
driving test.
'I suppose so...'
'OK. Sixty rounds, in the price. If you run out come back to me.' Lee
rose. 'Next Monday night, it'll be in the pub car park. Eight o'clock.'
George shook his hand. He went silently down the stairs, smelling the
warm bread and cakes, amazed that he had conducted such a
transaction.

The handover was silent except for George saying 'Thanks' and Lee's
henchman saying 'That's OK.'

George was now forty-seven. He took early retirement. He had a reduced
pension, but with shares he cashed in and the sale of the London house,
he reckoned he could live simply and comfortably as long as the
overheads were kept low. He found a cottage in the Shropshire hills two
miles short of the Welsh border. He traded down his BMW. In the cottage
he slowly eased himself into the rest of his life. He had the radio,
the phone and the internet. No television. The late Schubert sonatas in
the evenings.

A letter came. As he opened the envelope he was shocked by the black
edges to the paper. It was Dermot in Ireland. Marie had died. They had
found a tumour, and by the time they operated, as Dermot put it, 'the
cancer, I'm afraid, was alive in most of her major organs.' It was all
over in a few weeks. There were a few sentences on trusting in the
Almighty, and then Dermot concluded, 'to be honest, George, medically
it might have been cancer, but really we think she died of a broken
heart. She never got over little Felicity. Thank God they are together
again.' George sat silently in his chair as the clock in the hall
ticked slowly through half an hour. Together again? He didn't think so.
He wrote the best letter he could to the family. Sincere thanks for the
invitation, but no, he wouldn't go to the funeral. Fondest wishes to
Marie's parents. Poor Marie. He remembered the long tousled hair and
her sparkling eyes. Their first kiss, one of the most erotic moments of
his life, on the pavement outside the pub in Kentish Town. Poor Marie.
He had loved her.

George practised with the gun. It was like enacting the scene in 'Day
of the Jackal'. With the silencer attached the gun made a mild plopping
sound. He propped up man-sized targets against the kitchen garden wall.
He was quite private - there was no other house within three quarters
of a mile. He carefully disposed of the spent cartridges.

With his journalist's experience he made subtle enquiries. He kept tabs
on Terry Green, who regained his freedom after two years and ten
months. The girlfriend and two year-old were there to meet him. George
sat in his car two hundred metres from Bedford prison's main
gate.

Felicity would have been, what? Almost six. Riding her bike? Splashing
in the pool? Good at school, or too boisterous? The things you cannot
know. Little Felicity. Marie had kept nearly all her toys and clothes.
George, just her favourite Teddy. Sometimes he couldn't look at
it.

George decided to wait another year. He was in no hurry. He slowly
built up a pile of cash without making any unusual withdrawals. He knew
where the Greens lived and made occasional forays into east London. Sat
in his car with his thermos and watched. He researched the other places
he would need.

In the summer he decided it was time. He sauntered down the motorway in
the baking heat. He stayed at a succession of cheap east London hotels,
paying cash. For two and a half weeks he observed Green from a
distance. There was no discernible pattern to his daytime activities,
just sporadic comings and goings to the council maisonette in St Paul's
Way. Groups of men visited. Sometimes Green emerged looking pleased
with himself. The girlfriend took the child to the park, to the
nursery, to the shops. There was a pattern to the evenings: more often
than not Green drank with mates in The Wheatsheaf on Bow Common Lane,
less than half a mile away. He would arrive home between eleven thirty
and midnight. The girlfriend would wait up for him.

On Friday the tenth of August George woke up and knew it was the day.
He checked out of the hotel. He drove to Epping Forest and found a pub
for lunch, then bided his time with a walk through the woods. He sat in
the car, listening to the radio. It was still a normal world. He headed
back to town. At nine in the evening he saw Green enter the pub. George
was nervous - he felt like a drink himself. No matter. He constantly
consoled himself with the thought that it did not matter, it really did
not matter, if he got caught. He drove down to the river and watched
the water for an hour. Then back into Bow. He parked a hundred metres
from the maisonette. He was dressed in dark trousers, a dark polo neck
and a light cotton jacket. He lined the driver's seat and covered the
pedals with a loose sheet of thin polythene. In the car boot was a
holdall with a change of clothes and shoes exactly the same. There was
another cloth bag with a pull string, already containing two house
bricks. He opened its neck wide. Another two bricks were loose in the
boot. He put on a pair of thin light inner ski gloves, and screwed the
silencer into the end of the gun. It was twenty-five past eleven. As
usual lights were on. He rang the bell and shouted ''ts'me!' The woman
opened the door and he pushed the gun half way up her nose.
'Be quiet and don't worry,' he said as he shoved though the door and
closed it behind him. The woman was rigid with fear.
'Jesus what has he done?' she asked.
'Just behave,' said George. He lowered the gun a little. 'There's
nothing to worry about.'
'Sure there isn't,' she said.
'OK. Shut the fuck up,' hissed George. She had the criminal sense not
to do anything sudden or stupid. George turned off the TV. When a sort
of calm had returned he said, 'You're gonna have to get the kid
down.'
'Oh shit,' she said, 'leave her out of this.'
'I've told you there's nothing to worry about. I don't want her to wake
up screaming. Go and get the kid. It'll be better.' He pointed with the
gun. The woman nervously turned. George followed her up the little
stairs. It was years since he had clutched a woman's arse. Never mind.
He stayed at the door to the tiny bedroom. There were murmurings and
shufflings as the little girl was levered out of bed. She emerged
blinking. Her mother reassured her.
'Go down,' said George and followed them closely.

They settled on the sofa facing the door. The woman, the little girl,
then George perched on the arm rest. He held the gun just inside the
opposite flap of his jacket. The woman spoke quietly to her
daughter.
'We're just waiting for Daddy to come home.' George asked
'What's her name?'
'Samantha.'
'Nice.' Quiet descended. Through the walls there was the sound of TV,
and the repeated bass notes of West Indian music.

It remained quiet. A scrape outside and the sound of the latch. As the
door opened George rose.
'Hi Terry!'
'Who are you?' In the move he had practised George swung out his arm
and shot Green in the thigh, about three inches below the groin.
'AHHHH...' Terry collapsed on the floor. George advanced quickly,
turning the gun back towards the woman.
'I'm not going to kill him!' he hissed, 'keep the fuck quiet.' He
shoved the door closed and cupped his free hand over Green's mouth,
kneeling on his neck. 'I'm not going to kill him,' he repeated
forcibly. He aimed the gun straight at the woman's eyes. Green was
desperate to scream. George levered back his head. He put the muzzle of
the gun against the front of Green's throat and angled it so that the
ricocheting bullet would not hit any other part of him. He blew away
Green's voice box. George was back on the edge of the sofa in two
strides. He aimed the gun again at the woman. There was a bloody gash
at Green's throat which started to bubble with foam. The little girl
stared blankly at her father.
'What's Daddy....' George gently cupped her mouth.
'There's nothing to worry about,' he said sweetly into her ear. Green
started to hiss and wheeze and there was an ugly rasping sound from
deep in his lungs. He stared with wild eyes towards them and held his
bleeding leg. George stared across at the woman, still aiming the gun.
A sort of silence descended on the room like drizzle, apart from
Terry's regular croaking. The woman looked at George. It dawned.
'You're that bloke, aren't you?' George did not change a millimetre of
his expression. Since he had sat in court he had gone from jet black to
silvery grey, and his hair was longer. 'You're that bloke whose baby
was killed.' George paused for less than a second. His hand moved from
covering the girl's mouth to gathering up the locks on top of her
head.
'Killed? Like this?' He blasted the girl to pieces.

It was a moment of supreme sensual beauty. It was like one of the acid
trips from his student days. Time was stretched infinitely away... he
could examine and analyse every moving molecule. He saw the bullet
slowly twist into the wall, bunching the covering paper in a screwing
action, worming its way deeper, a little avalanche of plaster particles
dribbling out. He saw a hundred fragments of the girl's skull tumbling
after it like so many acrobats, cartwheeling through the air slowly and
beautifully. There was a fine spray of blood in tiny droplets - he
could count every one - billowing out over the room. Most struck the
woman's face - he saw them adhere to her one by one - turning her into
a crimson mask - and coalescing to form tiny streams. There were lumps
of brain and cartilage, ugly amorphous lumps like diced chicken
rebounding off the furniture. George gazed in wonder. He remembered all
the formulae for the Laws of Motion.

He looked at the beautiful radiating fibres in the woman's blue eyes.
Her pupils were narrowing. Her cavernous mouth was opening. There was a
huge wheezing harmonic as she inflated her lungs. She had taken in
pints of air. There was tension at her throat. She was summoning her
strength. She was going to scream the scream of all ages.... George
popped in the shot just above her left eyebrow. Another gush of red
soaked the wall behind her. Her body fell back simply into the corner
of the settee. Her chest deflated.

George released the strands of hair and dropped the remains of the
little girl's head onto her body. He turned to look at Green, whose
breathing was still strong. The sounds emanating from the open throat
were almost industrial. George let a minute pass. 'Well,' he said.
Another minute. He moved slowly towards Green, finding a position
behind him where blood had not saturated the carpet. He crouched down
to be near the face. Green's eyes were staring blankly along the floor.
It wasn't certain whether he was still conscious. Even so, George
leaned in towards the ear.
'I've been wondering all this time whether there's really such a thing
as evil,' he said, 'whether you're an evil cunt. And I don't really
know. But you're definitely a stupid cunt.' George dug the end of the
silencer inside the man's jeans and manoeuvred the bottom of the shirt
right up his back. The exposed vertebrae stood up like a chain of
little hills. George found the position between the seventh cervical
and the first thoracic, up between the shoulder blades, and again he
angled the gun carefully to avoid shooting through any other vital
organ. The dull plop was accompanied by a huge spasm through Green's
body. It was the last movement he would ever make. He would never walk
again, never have sex, never control his bowels. Neither would he hold
a dart, or write, or masturbate. Terry Green would live the rest of his
life as a mute head on a stick. He would do nothing except think, and
remember.

George checked himself in the mirror by the door. There was spattered
blood on his fawn jacket, and it's vivid pattern gave a good idea of
where it might have penetrated to his clothes underneath. There was
some smudged red on the gloves, with which he wiped his cheek and chin.
Overall though, he had emerged fairly clean. He put the gloves in the
jacket pocket, turned it inside out and bundled it up tightly round the
gun. The blood on his trousers and shirt hardly showed against the
black fabric.

George left the door ajar and the lights on as he exited into the night
air. It was so sweet. He could not yet voice his delirious happiness,
but as he approached his car he was walking on air. He acknowledged the
clich?, but that's how he felt. Walking on air. He remembered when he
was fourteen and taking confirmation classes. Boys who chose to could
attend confession in the school chapel the night before the ceremony.
The priest assured them that they would be 'walking on air' once their
sins were washed away. And George had found it disappointing, grubby
even. The sins his confessor wanted to hear about were those committed
by adolescent boys in the darkened dormitory. George was confirmed, but
lost his faith.

He opened the boot and dropped the gun, jacket and gloves directly into
the open cloth bag with the bricks. He tied it tight. He drove into
Kings Cross. He parked near Sensations Sauna and Massage. It was the
sort of place which functions on low lights and anonymity. Taking the
holdall with replica clothes he was ushered into a small cubicle. He
asked that he shower first. He stripped, hanging the old clothes on the
pegs, and scrubbed himself clean under the steamy spray. He did it
leisurely, but thoroughly. As far as he could tell, there was not a
molecule of his body in the Green household, and now not a molecule of
the Greens left on him. He summoned Charmaine. She massaged his back in
a desultory fashion, then turned him over and recited the list of
optional services. He elected for her to sit on him, and after she had
inserted him she leaned forwards so her breasts brushed his chest, and
it really was like making love. She smelt nice. He felt firmer and more
potent than at any time since the first year with Marie. Even so, his
orgasm was quiet and contained. The girl got off.
'What's your real name?' he asked.
'Charmaine,' she said defensively.
'Go on, what's your real name?'
'Well, Jane if you like.'
'Thanks Jane.' He dressed in the fresh clothes and shoes, put the
others in the holdall, washed his hands and left. It was just after one
a.m.

He put the holdall in the boot and added the two spare bricks to its
contents. He removed the polythene from the seat and let it blow along
the pavement. George started his journey home.

There's a stretch of the M1 which parallels the route of the Grand
Union Canal. George took the exit and found the little parking area he
had visited weeks before. He took the two weighted bags and dropped
them in the canal two hundred yards apart. He rejoined the motorway
within ten minutes.

Now he fully relaxed into his exuberance. He turned the radio up loud
and sang along fervently to songs like 'Sultans of Swing' and 'Brown
Sugar'. There was a selection of Sinatra classics - the Nelson Riddle
orchestrations - 'The Lady is a Tramp', 'Fly Me to the Moon', 'I've Got
You Under my Skin'. Was there ever a song better than 'I've Got You
Under my Skin'? He didn't think so.

The motorway snaked past the Birmingham conurbation which threw a
sickly peach wash onto the night sky. He headed on into Shropshire,
where it was clear and deep black. The three a.m. news ran the story. A
gruesome killing in east London. A man critically ill in hospital.
Police suspect a drugs gang vendetta.

A calm equilibrium descended on him, which would stay for the rest of
his life. He was content in his certainty. It was a quarter to four
when he stopped on the dirt drive in front of the cottage. He didn't go
in; he climbed the steep hill at the back, and when he ran out of puff
he turned around and wedged himself onto a soft tuft of grass with his
back pointing towards Wales. He lay back. Sunrise was still two hours
away. The light he was looking at was much more ancient. 'Tinkle tinkle
littoo tar.....' It had been one of the first snatches of song she had
brought home from nursery. 'How I wond what you are....' Evidently they
used singing to develop speech skills and a sense of community. 'Up
above the world so HIGH....' It had amused him, how she liked to
emphasise the last word in the line. 'Like a diman in the KY....' And
how she couldn't yet combine her consonants. Tears filled his eyes. He
sat up, and looked down the slope to the lonely cottage.
'Felicity.' He said it loudly. Then softly. 'Felicity.' Two hundred
miles away, in her cold east London grave, little Felicity sat up in
her coffin and said,
'Thank you, Daddy.'

5695

c Graham Buchan