Information about the book
IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE MURDER...
Pensioner Felix Pink is about to find out that it's never too late...
for life to go horribly wrong.
When Felix lets himself in to Number 3 Black Lane, he's there to perform an act of charity:
to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath . . .
But just fifteen minutes later Felix is on the run from the police -
after making the biggest mistake of his life.
Now his world is turned upside down as he must find out if he's really to blame,
or if something much more sinister is at play. All while staying one shaky step ahead of the law.
EXTRACT:
The Job
The key was under the mat.
As usual.
Felix Pink found the predictability comforting
– even if the predictable
outcome was death.
‘Here we go then,’ said Chris, putting the key in the lock.
Chris talked too much but Felix never said anything about it.
He imagined it was nerves. He himself had stopped being nervous
a long time ago. Now he cleared his throat and adjusted his cuffs,
and followed his accomplice inside.
The house smelled of the dust that coated the inside of pill bottles.
They often did.
They stood in the hallway and Chris called, ‘Hello?’
There was no sound apart from a clock ticking somewhere. Not
a real clock, Felix could tell, but some battery thing that ticked a
small, fake tick to make people think they were getting olde worlde
value for money.
He noticed a piece of paper on the third stair, folded into a little
tent, like a place card at a wedding.
UPSTAIRS
He picked it up and showed it to Chris, who started up the stairs.
Felix took a moment to fold the paper several times and put it in
his briefcase, then he gripped the banister. He was naturally cautious
but, when there was a job to be done, it became a conscious
effort.
Chris was waiting for him on the landing.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello.’ The answer was small and weak.
In the big front bedroom there was a man in bed. He was
propped upright by pillows and facing the bay window, which
revealed a view of a similar window across the road.
‘Rufus Collins?’ said Felix.
The man in the bed nodded weakly.
‘I’m John and this is Chris.’
Mr Collins nodded again, as if he knew why they were there – and then closed his eyes.
Felix had chosen the name John because he thought it sounded
competent. Margaret had had a doctor called John Tolworth who
had seemed competent for quite a long time. It wasn’t his fault that
he’d been beaten by death.
In the end, it beat them all.
He didn’t know Chris’s real name. It was for the best.
There was a chair beside the bed and Felix sat in it and put his
briefcase on the floor beside him. There was no room on the nightstand,
what with all the pills and tissues.
The cylinder was already there. Dull grey metal, like a little
aqualung, attached by a length of clear tubing to a plastic face
mask that lay under the man’s chin. A tired- looking piece of elastic looped from the mask
around the back of his neck and over his ears, making them fold down a little.
One bony hand covered the mask protectively, as if someone might steal it.
‘I’ll get another chair,’ said Chris and left the room.
Felix looked down at Mr Collins. He was old, but probably no older than he was, which was seventy-five.
But this man was sick, and that made all the difference, and he looked a hundred.
His yellowy skin so stretched across his cheeks and brow that it looked
ready to split. His breath rattled in his throat as if he needed to
cough but just didn’t have the strength.
Chris puffed in with a small wooden armchair and put it down
at the other side of the bed with a loud clump.
Mr Collins’s eyes opened and his hand clutched at the mask.
‘Sorry,’ said Chris.
The sick man closed his eyes again.
And then they waited.
The house was so quiet that Felix could hear the clock fake-ticking downstairs.
Now and then cars shushed by outside, and Mr Collins breathed.
Every breath was different from the one before, as if he was discovering breathing each time anew
and trying to work out which way was best. Some breaths were short and gaspy,
some long and wheezy. The little rattle was the only constant.
Felix folded his hands in his lap like a priest, and waited.
‘How long have we got?’ said Chris, and looked at the door.
Felix had a watch but he didn’t look at it. ‘There’s no rush,’ he said.
It was true. It was often like this. It rarely happened fast.
Occasionally it didn’t happen at all . . .It would or it wouldn’t.
They could or they couldn’t.
The ultimate outcome was, of course, inevitable, but in the
short term an Exiteer had to learn to be patient.
Felix had always been a patient man. He had actually toyed with
calling himself Job instead of John, but Job would have invited
interest in a way that John never did. And interest was to be avoided at all costs.
But, like Job, he waited. They both waited.
An hour.
Two.
Felix had to guard against sleep. He found it hard to sleep at
night but often dropped off during the day. But never on the job.
He studied the bookshelf and recalled the plots of those books he
had read. Dickens. Tolkien. He remembered his wedding and tried to recall every guest.
Chris did a Sudoku, with a pair of bifocals gripping the tip of his nose for dear life.
Felix had never got on with bifocals. The optician, Mrs . . . Something, had told him his eyesight was good for his age,
which was some comfort. He’d lost a button on his cuff. Annoying. But he always kept spare buttons,
so probably had one that would suit.
He swallowed a yawn out of deference to the sick man, but
missed the feeling of his respiratory system being flushed out. He’d
read that when the iron lung was first introduced, patients would
die even though they were breathing, because no allowance had
been made for the occasional sigh. Just breathing was not enough.
He hoped it was a true fact. You had to be so careful nowadays.
Children passed outside. Home time. Strangely Felix recalled it
better now than he’d ever done. The long trudge. The heavy bag.
The mock fights that sometimes turned to real ones.
Looking down at his scuffed shoes and scabbed knees, with his belly gurgling for tea...
Quietly, Felix put his briefcase on his knees.
Mr Collins opened his eyes and looked at him.
‘Do you mind if I eat?’ Felix asked him politely.
Mr Collins looked vaguely amused. ‘You go on,’ he whispered.
‘Can I get you anything to eat or drink?’
Mr Collins shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Felix took out a red tartan thermos flask and tinfoil block which,
when unwrapped, revealed his sandwich. It was strawberry
jam on white bread – a childish preference he’d never managed to
shake off, despite his age and gravitas.
He’d lived through rationing.
The man in the bed watched him eat his sandwich and sip his tea.
The children faded to silence.
The clock pretended to tick.
Chris’s chin drooped on to his chest and his mouth fell open.
Felix finished his sandwich and his tea, then shook a clean tissue
from his pocket, wiped the little cup dry and screwed it back
on to the top of the thermos. He folded the tinfoil into a neat
square for future use. He put both back into the briefcase with the
soiled tissue, and quietly closed the lid.
Before he could click it shut, Mr Collins lifted the mask to his face.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, and died.
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by Belinda Bauer
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