All stories

Harry’s mind was tumbling around like a drunk on a slip-n-slide. Then with a cold splash of conscious thought, he awoke. “What have I done” he thought. He listened to the sound of nothing washing over him. A dull dead silence. His back and neck ached from last night, a constant reminder of his actions. He grabbed his t-shirt from where he’d thrown it on the floor and pulled on his mud soaked jeans. As he did he noticed the cuts down his leg and arms that had started to scab over. His body physically shuddered as he tried to stop his mind thinking about what he'd done. He stood and headed downstairs to the kitchen searching for some food and finding only the kids last box of cocoa pops. How long had he been keeping that. With food so scarce recently, he had hidden it away for a special occasion. He stared at the box, unthinking, trancelike. If he moved an inch his mind would kick in and that would be it.

There was a sudden slam of a shutter come loose. The wind was picking up again. This he could fix and throwing his boots on he ran outside with the hammer and nails, fighting against the wind. When he returned the shutter was secure and moments later it started to rain. He wondered how long the wooden shutter would even last. Then he heard a scratching at the door faint but persistent. What the hell was that he thought, there was nothing alive out there. He opened it slowly, Gremlin, slunk in his black fur on end frantic in his haste to get out of the burning rain. He must have followed him out. Behind the rain sizzled as it hit the deck and the acrid stench wafted in. Harry shut the door quickly. The cat purred against his legs and for a moment he thinks that perhaps he could feel affection again. But then he thinks about how much Joe loved that cat and the last look in his eyes as he watched his father. A look that simple said, why? The cat slinked of without a word. Free of judgement.

Harry put the cocoa pops back and had a glass of water from the tank. He turned the generator on and clicked the television into life. A desperate distraction. But the news tells him the same sorry story as yesterday and every day before. Slowly day by day. There was nothing anyone could do. He was still here. He had done what he had to do. There was no shame in that. Anyone would have done the same. Except that wasn’t true. He had had a choice. And that choice would stay with him for ever.

Something makes him wander over to the piano. He's never been very good. Sarah was the star and used to play for hours, from memory while Joe sat and watched. Why was he doing this to himself, he thinks. He feels like a dam about to burst. His hand shakes as he reached down to the dusty lid. He lifts it slowly. There is a scrap of paper he recognises instantly as Sarah’s notebook. He unfolds it and reads the perfect cursive note. Each word breaks his heart apart piece by piece, until finally the dam bursts.

The sound of a key turning in a lock. Alex froze - no no no, this was all wrong. No-one was supposed to be home till Tuesday. They were supposed to be in the Maldives, Alex had been extremely thorough researching this family, she knew their routine, their habits, their plans - this should not be happening.

But it was.

Alex thought fast. She had only done the downstairs rooms so far and nothing was out of place - they wouldn’t notice anything missing for a good while. Maybe not even a few hours; Alex was always careful never to leave things in a mess - there was no need and it always bought her more time before they called the police.

She assessed her position. She was in the room closest to the front door. Good. An upholstered sofa stretched lazily under the window and a sleek black piano stood adjacent, its teeth bared at her intrusion. She tucked herself back and to the side of it furthest from the door, holding herself perfectly still. With a little luck she might be able to slip out behind them, once they’d moved further inside.

A shadow in the doorway, a figure fumbling in the hallway just beyond it. She thought she couldn’t be seen from the doorway if they looked in, but she couldn’t be absolutely sure. Sweat trickled down her throat, pooling in the hollow at the base of it and her neck and back ached appallingly. It wasn’t the family, at least she hadn’t got that wrong. Maybe a friend coming to water the plants or feed the cat?

The cat.

As if on cue a black cat sauntered into the room where Alex crouched. It stared at her with outrage in its cold green eyes. Alex couldn’t look away. Whoever it was was still in the hall, but soon the shadow moved and the footsteps travelled down the hall into the kitchen at the end of the passage.

Could she risk it? If they turned at just the wrong moment they would see her. If only they’d gone upstairs, she thought, pinioned by indecision.

“Samson?” called a high voice “Samson? It’s dinner time, where are you?”

And the footsteps were off again as whoever it was began to search for the cat.

Alex heard the door to the next room swing open. This was her chance! She raised herself silently, ready to sprint from the hall and out the front door before they came out of the room next door. They’d hear her, of course, but that couldn’t be helped now; Alex just had to get out and away before they looked in here for fucking Samson.

Now or never. She straightened, tensed and picked out the path of least resistance to the door.

Afterwards Alex swore that the cat had looked at her with a kind of knowing. She swore a glint of malevolence, a glimmer of amusement had flashed across its blank eyes as it leaped up onto the side of the piano and wavered there, a single black paw poised above the keys, a Roman Emperor toying with her before deciding her fate.

Before Alex could move, Samson strode nonchalantly across the piano keys, the sound ringing out in the nearly silent house.

There was nowhere to hide.

Al and me, best pals since…well, not forever, because, my God, we were two tigers in a bag when we first met. Chalk and cheese we were, as in, I was pale white and noble, the harbinger of knowledge chalked across a blackboard, and he smelled funny. But get past all that, him being from Upper Neck Ache and me from Lower (and don’t you think he never missed a chance to rub that in!), him being the perennial whizz with the girls and me being Johnny tongue tied, but look through all that and we became the bestest of friends.

It pains me to see him like this, once noble stag now slack jawed and glassy eyed, tucked up near the fire with a tartan blanket across his knees in a convalescent home. The nurses say it will do him good to see a friendly face so I take across his tray of mush and set it down across his knees. He continues to stare into the flames. What is it they show him as they dance their languorous steps up and down and over the charring logs? Perhaps it’s the fire in Lucy’s soul that snared the both of us from the very instant we laid eyes upon her.

The matronly figure of one of the nurses rumbles into my eyeline. She mimes an encouraging spoon motion so I smile through my distaste and settle myself on the chair next to Al. Dispiriting mush is too generous a term, pureed apple perhaps, with a whiff of something tropical as I break the surface crust with the spoon. I give the rim of the bowl a good few taps and there is a flicker of life from Al’s eyes that fades a moment later.

There is only one thing that will lift Al from this malaise: a smile from his beloved. Of course he forgives her for what she did. I know this man, besotted with her he is, driven crazy, driven mad with love, driven into this place filled with broken minds and shattered hearts.

One word from me to make it happen.

We sit in silence, Al with pureed goo dribbling down his chin and me with nothing to say. There’s a piano in the corner. On top of this a small black cat stretches lazily and then curls back to sleep. It’s not so bad here, is it? Open flame, comfy chair, and Al has ever been a cat lover. And think of the pain she would bring him if he did let Lucy back into his life once more. A heartbreaker, that one.

No flicker from Al when I rise from chair and squeeze his shoulder goodbye. Outside of that room there is life, a great whoosh of sound as if I’ve suddenly burst through the surface of the ocean. Lucy’s eyes are bright diamonds as she rises from her chair. No need for her to ask the question and her eyes fill up as I shake my head and open my arms for the hug. Her tears on my shoulder burn like ice. Her hair smells of honey and peach blossom.

Inspector Partisani, left his house in Pennabilli, a small town on top of a mountain in Northern Italy, the village square was empty. The town quarantined because of Covid 19. The portly policeman was in a hurry. He passed the three shops, the butchers, the barbers and the Gazzeteria. They were open but empty apart from two old boys who went to the barbers for company. To the barber’s frustration neither had any hair to speak of. The bars were all closed.

Inspector Partisani believed in the rule of law, he was supposed to be self- isolating but it had gnawed at him throughout the night and now he realised what was happening he felt he had to act. Anyway, he had no symptoms, just neckache from tossing and turning in bed, so he felt justified in breaking his isolation and heading for the large church house occupied by his old friend and sparring partner Father D’Annunzio.

Father D’Annunzio and argued over everything, the policeman sometimes felt he was losing his rationality, the priest worried that he had lost his faith. Coffee, wine and grappa were consumed and it helped that the priest’s orchard was the best in the whole of Novafeltria Region and also that Maria, the best cook in town worked for him.

But this was not the reason for his visit.

The priest had been excited the last time they had spoken, for he had finally had word that his grand piano was arriving that day. Everyone knew about the priest and his blessed piano that never arrived. It was always “not ready yet”, “ready soon”. every time delivery was imminent something would happen that meant it didn’t arrive. But today was apparently the day, at last.

And it was that that had worried the Inspector.

He’d thought nothing of it until he read on the internet that Gildo “Lucky” Lavastano had been released from gaol having had his sentence reduced. F. D’Annunzio had played a central role in getting the leader of the “Replacer” gang imprisoned in the first place. The gang was so named for leaving apposite mementos at the scene of each crime they committed.

Why now? Why was the piano suddenly ready in the midst of a national emergency. He knew his friend well and the priest would have forgotten all else in his excitement over the arrival of his beloved instrument. Even that man in the dark clothes who had been watching his window day and night.

As Inspector Partisani arrived at his old friend’s, a black cat crossed his path, bad luck meant bad Lucky, he thought. He had pieced it together hours before but had wrestled with his conscience on breaking his own isolation. Finally he was now doing what was right but hoped it wasn’t too late.

The door to the Priest’s house was open. He rushed into the large dining room with huge windows that looked across the valley. There on the floor was his old friend with fresh blood oozing from his body and a switchblade Stiletto knife in his chest. Too late by ten minutes. Lying beside him, where F. D’Annunzio had often said he would position the piano was a small turquoise child’s melodica. Turquoise, the chosen colour of the Replacer gang.

Partisani swore revenge on Lavastano but at that moment began to feel feverish, he fell to his knees and called the coroner, he then called the emergency hospital operating in Novafeltria, then he fainted.