Ivory by Steve Merrifield Page B

forecourt. He had refused to go to
hospital to get it looked at so Jenny had tended to his wounds and
bandaged them. As the evening had closed in and he had lain quietly
in bed, desperate for sleep, the worry had crowded in on him. He
had seen so many detective and forensic shows on TV that he knew
there would be leads that could implicate all three of them being
at the scene. Martin’s blood was one he had forgotten. There must
have been blood on the carpet from his wounds. Although Martin
didn’t have connections with the area, Candy and Ivory did and they
would be leads to him.
    Then there was Richard Hadleigh. He was sure this boy was
meant to be the weapon for his destruction. As he had made his
erratic escape through the back streets, he broke out onto York Way
with its mix of shabby Victorian and 20 th century industrial
buildings, and narrowly missed a cat and had been forced to swerve
to one side. His headlights lit up the pavement and the long brick
wall that ran the length of the railway track to King’s Cross
station, plucking several loitering pedestrians out from the shadow
of the night. They were spaced out down the street. All male. The
only face he saw was the one immediately framed by his lights.
Richard’s. It had been so shocking to see someone that he had
recognised that Martin’s reaction had been to yank the steering
wheel to one side and slam his foot on the accelerator and tear
away from the moment.
    A witness. He knew the guilt was making him jump to
conclusions, but if any of the faculty had said about Martin’s
accident then when the story of King’s death broke Richard
might, might , put
two and two together. Maybe he wouldn’t. The York Way road Richard
was on was as infamous as Arven Road, but for a clientele whose
interests swung the ‘other way’. Richard – a prostitute? ‘Mummy and Daddy’ Hadleigh were well off. City
man, professional housewife, country clubs and weekend golfing,
active Conservatives. Maybe that would be a secret that Richard
would want to keep. It could dissuade him from disclosing any
suspicions. So, Richard Hadleigh was a queer renter. There was
little victory in this knowledge, only sympathy for the boy’s
situation and worry that Richard was one other lead that could
connect Martin to a murder.
    King’s final words in his nightmare had been a corruption of
his father’s parting words to him, when Martin had confronted him
with knowledge of his father’s affair with his old Sunday school
teacher. He had criticised his father for his hypocrisy of being a
‘godly’ man preaching to Martin and his mother an adherence to
Catholic beliefs and morals, when all the while he had been fucking
Mrs Harcourt behind their backs. His father, with tears in his
eyes, apparently tears of genuine grief and self-loathing, had
stated with a defeated air; “You can judge
me, but you will be a man one day, with the same blood flowing in
your veins, and you will know that we are the same, you and
I.”
    These thoughts
and memories were followed by a vivid image of King’s twisted
mutilated body. Martin’s stomach lurched. He made the bathroom in
seconds and gagged up more bile. It frothed and burned at his
throat and he fell against the cool tiles, his face pressed hard
against the icy wall. Utterly alone in his torment.

    The next day the Independent and Metro newspapers that he had picked up on the bus
didn’t shout ‘PIMP MURDERED IN ARVEN’ from their front pages as he
had fantasised that they would. With a new day separating him from
yesterdays events he was able to rationalise that King’s body might
not get discovered for a couple of days. It certainly wouldn’t have
made it into today’s copy.
    He had
considered hiding at home, but had gone to work in the hope that
the routine would distract him. It did for the most part but there
were moments where a student’s sketch of a prone body, the sight of
vermillion paint squeezed from a tube or the mention of