A Season For Everything, Matthew Fairman [the best books to read TXT] 📗

filled with the tired nativity props, old wheelchairs, broken headstones and workman’s tools. ‘It’s shameful, simply shameful. All those poor benefactors who paid good money to be buried down here, now it looks like a disused store room. There’s just isn’t enough money to keep this place going, I must organise some more fund raising events in the new year. Oh, but whats the use, bake sales and home made jam isn’t going to sort this mess out.’ The priest picked up a bag and looked inside, it was filled with old shoes. They were all a size seven. ‘Why are these even here? I could write to the Archdeacon again about extra funding but I doubt it would do any good. This is not why I joined the church.’ He went back upstairs to get make a cup of tea, in his office he saw an old brown woollen cardigan belonging to Mr Simmon’s hanging on the coat stand. It was something he often wore when he was working in the grounds. Father David felt a pang of resentment and fought to push it out of his mind. He had forgotten to get milk again. ‘I hate black tea.’ He made himself a black coffee instead. He was busying himself about the kettle when he heard a noise from outside in the nave. ‘Oh no, he’s early’. He thought to himself. His heart sank. When he stepped out into the Nave he saw a stranger hurrying away. He had scared him off. ‘Oh, come back, you don’t need to run. I thought you were somebody else. Please, if theres anything I can do to help?’

 

 

‘Is that you Mr Simmons, I’’ making a coffee. I wasn’t expecting you. You’re rather early.’ It was the voice of a man, it came from an adjoining room. Beaton hurried out the way he came, the voice called after him, asking him not to run. Beaton stopped near the statue and turned. There was a small old man. He had a pleasant face, he was balding, his greying wisps of hair combed over his scalp. ‘I’m afraid our service doesn’t start till ten, but if you need to talk to somebody?’ Beaton didn’t reply at first he just stared down at the floor. ‘Did you need someone to talk to? I’ve just put the kettle on.’ He had come here to talk to somebody but the words wouldn’t come that stuck at the back of his throat. ‘Confess, confess, confess.’ The words spun around in his head. It was no use he couldn’t make the words come out and the sight of the kind old man only made him feel more and more ridiculous. Beaton grabbed the statue and pulled it to the floor. It was dashed into pieces, great chunks of bright white plaster. ‘Why, you vandal, you vandal, you should be ashamed of yourself?’ The vicars face contorted with rage as he ran at Beaton with his arms in the air as if he were scaring away a flock of birds on the beach. Beaton ran out the door, the Vicars curses, trapped behind the slam of the heavy oak door. The vicars words replayed themselves in his mind. ‘If there is anything I could do to help?’ ‘Help, It’s too late for help.’ Beaton thought to himself. ‘No one will help me now, no one will forgive me. Not even God will me. Not even a bastard God, who sacrificed his own son, would forgive me now.’ He retraced his steps down to the river and back up onto the rec. He was raving aloud, spitting the words out in hot breaths. ‘I should not have come here, I should have gone straight to the mines. To think that you would try and confess to a priest, confess to a man who is crazier than you. What would his forgiveness mean to me. Him, alone in his church, day after day, lighting his candles and saying his prayers. Who is he but a crazy man.’ He threw the statue over the fence and followed after it. He was laughing now. ‘Stupid old fool, scared to be alive. Sitting in his little church afraid of a phantom, a ghost, a ghoul in the sky.’ He though about how the vicar had become so angry over a statue, a dumb old statue, he felt as if he had achieved a small victory. As if he had exposed the man for the mans real nature, his real feeling. ‘All that old fool care about is preserving himself in that fucking tomb.’ Beaton retraced his steps back up to the meadow and continued on the path that led into the quarry.

 

It took Beaton all morning to divide the rest of the body into portions that he could easily carry. He would have to make two separate trips to completely dispose of the body parts. He had had a great deal of trouble in detaching both of the legs. After he had cut around all the flesh of the buttocks and hips he had twisted and popped the ball joints from the hip sockets. The act of dismemberment was easier to overcome than he had first feared. It became simply a reality, a fact that had to be face up to. He was more concerned by his next biggest problem, what to do wit the old lady in the garage near his home. An even bigger problem that was not going to go away. He decided that it would be best to wait at least until monday to dispose of the body parts. He covered them back up beneath the rocks. The quarry was surely to be busier at the weekends and he wanted to avoid being seen as much as was possible. Once the deed was over he ate some of the food from the duffle bag and took some heavy slugs form the bottle of port. The sweet syrupy liquid warmed him some, it was a small relief. He opened up the travelling suitcase and dumped the things out. He picked through the clothes to see what he had taken. There was a green woollen cardigan with faux glass buttons. He stripped off his duffel coat and put it on underneath. There was also several pair of tights. He removed his trousers. The tights felt itchy, they snagged against the hairs on his legs. Still, anything to stay warm. He used the rest of the clothes as a kind of mattress. He flattened them out and layered them. He had to think about how to dispose of Mrs Gream. He couldn’t leave her in the garage, he certainly couldn’t dismember her there either. He knew it was possible to do it in the quarry but how on earth was he going to transport the body. He didn’t have a car and she would be too heavy to drag. He sat sipping at the port in the waining glow of the torchlight. Then it struck him. The answer was staring him right in the face.

 

A pain, a sharp stinging pain and a struggle to take in air. She was cold, very cold. ‘I am dead, dear God, at last I am dead. Alf, I just want to see you Alfred. Where are you?’ The whole of her body was rigid, constricted. When she realised that she was still alive she wished only to die. It seemed too cruel to have survived. She tried to stand but her hands were bound behind her back. She tried not to gag on the knotted fabric filling her mouth. ‘Relax and breath, just relax and breath’. It was all she could tell herself, she had no choice. She waited and prayed for it too be over soon.

 

The temperatures had dropped so low that particles of moisture had frozen in the air. It felt unnatural for Beaton to be around so many people. He felt vulnerable walking about amongst the busy christmas shoppers. Nobody paid him much mind but it did little to stave off his paranoia. Every face that gave him more than a glance was judging him. Murderer, killer, fiend, pervert. He thrust his chin beneath the collar of his coat. He was visibly dishevelled. He knew that. A filthy looking wretch. But what he didn’t realise was that this was actually his saving grace. Nobody cared about the human train crash, the wreck. The man that people side step to avoid. He was merely an embarrassment a person that made others feel uncomfortable. The shopping mall had been the pride and joy of the town, constructed in the mid eighties, a central part of a grandiose planning and redevelopment scheme. It’s design which had been an attempt to embrace the modern and cutting edge was now tired and dated. A throwback to a time when all hope for the future was in retrospect shockingly short sighted. He weaved his way to the department store. The security guard eyed him as he pushed through the heavy glass door. After getting lost for a while he found himself in the shoe department. On the far wall at the back hung rows and racks filled with luggage. He roamed the aisle, he couldn’t see what he was looking for.

‘May I help you?’

Beaton swung around, a young girl, smarty dressed in a blouse a pencil skirt was standing in front of him.

‘Errm Yes, I need one of these but bigger, as big as you have.’

Beaton reached up and touched the travel case.

‘We don’t really have anything much bigger, theres this one.’ The girl pulled out some small steps and handed down another suitcase. It was only marginally bigger than the one that he had taken from Mrs Gream’s house.

‘No, no, that’ll never do. Too small’

‘They tend not to sell them much bigger, what with Airport security restrictions’

‘Oh, you have nothing bigger with wheels’

‘We have sports bags, they’re not the same but they are bigger and have wheels. Let me show you.’

The girl walked off around the corner to anther aisle and came back wheeling a large red sports bag.It was good, it was really good. It looked much more sturdy than the travel suitcase. The wheels were larger, more robust. Beaton smiled.

‘That looks perfect, you don’t have one in black do you?’

‘No, nothing in black. We have navy blue though, that’s all though I’m afraid.’

‘I’ll take it.’

 

It was navy blue with lime green piping and a logo in white. It was made of a shiny faux leather. It had wheels and a handle that could be extended from one end. Beaton wasn’t sure what it was intended for. He didn’t recognise the brand but he figured it was either cricket or tennis.

Beaton paid for the bag with money from the old ladies purse, he was reluctant to use his own credit card. In the hardware store, Beaton bought some more batteries, rope, gas canisters and a vicious looking carpet cutting knife. It was amazing to him how you could buy such combinations of items without even raising an eyebrow. He also had a little money left over to stop at a greasy spoon and order a full english. He munched on the food and stared out the window at the the passers by all swaddled up, running from shop to shop all of them desperate to spend their money on anything. He didn’t look so out of place in the cafe. Just another down and out, hiding from the cold trying to stay alive. He ate slowly, methodically, he was in no hurry at all. He couldn’t make his next move until it was dark. He looked at his broken watch at adjusted it to the one on the wall, winding it till he felt the tension of the spring mechanism resist. It was four twenty five pm exactly.

 

Mike Powell had finished loading the dishwasher behind the bar and was feeling restless. There was nothing that needed doing around pub, he