Welcome to Book Two of my dark comedy thriller series, Read Em And Weep.
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If you’re new to the Read Em And Weep series, start with Book One: Serial Killer.
CHEWING HIS LIQUORICE PIPE, Dave sat down to watch The Awful Truth on TV. He was dressed appropriately in his inside-out gorilla suit, ostensibly because it kept him warm, but really because he wanted the comfort of fur next to his skin. He watched in awe as Irene Dunne sashayed across the screen, a divine apparition enveloped in a white fox fur, surrounded by a female entourage also wearing furs. What a treat. What a coat. He was in fur Heaven.
Then a bullet thudded into the wall of his turret home at the top of Fleetpit House. The shock caused Dave to bite through his pipe. He turned to see Mr Cooper standing there, in a raincoat, gun in hand, like a character out of one of the noir movies Dave was so fond of. Cooper pointed the Webley at his head. It had taken several whiskies, but Cooper was deadly serious. He wasn’t afraid to use it. He had used it once before, when he’d had to get rid of his wife. Buried her on his allotment.
No one was going to get away with treating him like that. Least of all Dave Maudling, the kid he used to enjoy punching in the face every Saturday when he came in for his Fourpenny One.
Maudling, who he’d met all these years later when he was a storeman at Fleetpit Publications and discovered he was secretly living in the building. He had got himself a nice little earner there to keep schtum. Then came that night in the Hoop and Grapes when Maudling had finally stood up to him. He’d refused to pay anymore, beaten him up and humiliated him in front of his lady friend.
‘What do you want?’ asked the pink gorilla.
‘What you owe me. Plus interest.’
‘I don’t have it.’
‘Get it or I’ll give it to you.’
‘I’m not taking this,’ the ape said defiantly.
‘You’ll take it and like it,’ warned Cooper, waving the gun. His vocabulary was limited, so he would sometimes supplement it with lines from gangster movies.
‘All right.’ Maudling went to a cupboard and rummaged inside.
‘Thought you could get the better of me, huh?’ Cooper gloated. ‘What you don’t realise is, I improve with age.’
In response, the gorilla turned round and punched him savagely in the face. As he staggered back, the beast grabbed for the gun and ripped it out of his hand. Then pointed it at the ex-newsagent’s head. His twisted face contorted with fear.
‘No. Don’t, Davey. Please. No.’
Dave regarded him long and hard as The Awful Truth continued with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, holding a white fur muff, arguing over who got custody of Mr Smith, their dog. But such an exquisite fur was lost on Dave as he considered shooting Cooper. His new-found courage had been hard-earned and there was no way he would ever ‘take it’ again. He enjoyed Cooper’s fear, but it was enough. Nothing was to be gained from putting a bullet in his brain and there was everything to lose, including an excellent scene in the movie where Irene’s aunt appears draped in the most fabulous fur.
He was about to lower the gun when Jean Maudling appeared beside Cooper. At first he thought she had emerged from the TV screen and he glanced over at the movie’s progress. But there was only a stout, elderly matriarch with a fur boa, disapproving of Irene. Whereas his mother was young and beautiful, as she was in the 1940s when she was a hostess: her Lauren Bacall-style costume finished off with a gorgeous fur stole.
He realised he must be hallucinating, so he took off his mask to see if that made a difference. It didn’t. She was still there: a femme fatale to compete with any screen siren and she urged him now to pull the trigger. Dave felt that familiar surge of violence as she possessed him again.
Whatever she was, a soul from the other side returned from the dead, dedicated to turning her cowardly son into a hero, or an elaborate construct of his subconscious, she was in deadly earnest and he had to obey her.
He felt a surge of hatred and pressed the revolver into the trembling storeman’s forehead. ‘Get ready to die, Cooper.’
Wherever Dave’s homicidal desire came from, it was understandable. Cooper’s punch in the face every Saturday was the primary reason he was so screwed up. Doubly understandable if the ex-newsagent had murdered his mother, which was possible, as she visited his shop just before she disappeared.
‘Kill him, son,’ she ordered. There was blood lust in her lustrous dark eyes now and a cruel smile on her lips as she drew heavily on a cigarette.
But the murderous look on her face brought him to his senses and made him aware of the consequences if he pulled the trigger. He would be the one doing twenty years for murder, not her. ‘I can’t. I just can’t,’ he whispered and backed away. Cooper breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Trust me,’ said Jean. ‘You’ll get away with it, just like you always do.’
This was true. He was aware how often his inner demons seemed to protect him. He called them his Gadarene swine, and they were Legion. But could he really get away with shooting Cooper in cold blood?
‘How would I dispose of the body?’ he asked out loud.
‘Good point,’ said Cooper, aware Dave was still training the gun on him. ‘It’s not easy getting rid of a stiff. Believe me, I know.’
‘What about that sewer pipe in the basement?’ Jean whispered to her son. ‘It leads straight out to the Thames.’
‘Problem solved,’ smiled Dave.
‘Do it!’ she exhorted him.
A trembling Cooper saw the new resolve in Dave’s face and his heart sank again. ‘No! You can’t kill me, Davey,’ he pleaded desperately.
‘Why not?’
‘Cos I’m your dad.’
‘Yeah, right,’ jeered Dave.
‘It’s true.’
‘You? You? You think I’m crazy enough to believe a low-life like you could possibly be my father?’
‘I’m not lying,’ said Cooper, ‘I am your father.’ There was real conviction in his face and in his voice.
‘How?’ Dave asked contemptuously.
‘How d’you think?’ replied Cooper truculently.
‘I meant, why would my mother go with you?’
‘She was miserable, looking for someone to make her happy, and I was there.’
‘No. It’s impossible.’ Dave shook his head.
He looked towards his mother for the reassurance of an outraged denial at such a ludicrous lie.
But she blushed and looked away from him, and he feared it might, just might, be true. The possible revelation hit him with the savagery of a sledgehammer blow to his stomach.
‘Not that any man could ever make your mum happy,’ Cooper continued. ‘I’d say to her, “Jean, you’ll never be happy as long as you’ve got a hole in your arse.” ’
‘But … I don’t look like you,’ Dave protested.
‘Not now. But think back to when I was younger and you came into the shop.’ Dave remembered.
It was possible Cooper was right. Okay, there was a certain resemblance. And he had never looked anything like Peter Maudling, his legal father, or anyone on his side of the family, which had always puzzled him, whenever he gave it any thought, which was not often.
But so what? There were plenty of other possible explanations. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t prove anything. It didn’t prove a thing!
He looked over at his mother once again for answers. For her to tell him that this was all a terrible mistake, a horrible lie, dreamed up by Cooper to save his skin.
Their eyes met and locked.
She looked defiantly at him at first, angry that her son was in a position of power over her, and was daring to question his own mother about her lovers. But he held her gaze.
Finally, she nodded her head sullenly.
‘Yes, it’s true,’ she whispered and swiftly looked away again.
Stunned, he lowered the gun.
But deep down, in some remote corner of his subconscious mind, where family secrets were meant to remain hidden forever, he already knew it was true. He had always known Cooper was his father. It was a truth that was best locked away.
Now it was out in the open, consciously, it started to make a horrible sense.
Maybe that was why Cooper had gone out of his way to humiliate him. Why he’d played sick games at his expense. Tormenting him was a way of keeping his son at a distance, making sure they would never bond. So he would never have to acknowledge him as his own.
Dave felt sick to his stomach. He was lost for words. Maybe that was why he was drawn into going back to the shop every Saturday, because, on some deep subconscious level, he sensed the newsagent was his real dad.
‘Cheer up, Dave,’ Cooper grinned. ‘It was only a bit of “How’s your Father?” if you’ll pardon the pun. And everyone was rutting like stoats in them days. That’s why there were all you baby boomers.’
Cooper smiled triumphantly at him, aware he had the upper hand once again. ‘I told her to flush you while she had the chance.’ He grinned at his son. ‘I’d flush you now if you weren’t so big.’ And with that, he left the turret.
Dave put the gun down and sat with his head in his hands. He knew that his mother had affairs. But Cooper? Cooper? He looked across at her for an explanation as she nervously lit another cigarette.
‘Why, mum? Why?’
She looked sheepish and avoided his eyes. ‘I was confused. I didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘But Cooper?’
‘I … I’ve got to go,’ she said hastily and faded away into the darkness, leaving Dave alone with The Awful Truth.
Goodnight, John-boy is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.