Ward despised them all. Even when he’d been successful he’d despised them. The whole fucking business stank. It stank of cowardice. Of duplicity. Of betrayal.
He heard the kettle boiling. Fuck it. He needed something stronger than coffee.
GASPING FOR AIR
Ward poured himself a large measure of Glenfiddich and swallowed it. He felt the amber liquid burn its way to his stomach, waited a moment then poured himself another.
It was cool in the sitting room despite the heat outside. The sun was shining and he could hear the sound of a lawnmower in the distance. One of his neighbours cutting the grass. Or perhaps one of their gardeners.
He smiled to himself.
He’d have one more drink then he’d go back out to the office. See if the break had released some trickle of creative juice.
It took two more drinks before he could bring himself to move.
Ward stood at the back door and peered towards his office. On one side of the building was a huge oak tree whose branches brushed against the windows and stonework like skeletal fingers. The sun glinted on the roof windows and he shielded his eyes. It really was a beautiful day.
He thought about the fly trapped and paralysed in the spider’s web.
A beautiful day.
Ward ran a hand through his hair and set off across the garden towards the office.
As he reached the door he heard the fax machine ringing, and hurried inside and up the stairs in time to see paper oozing from it.
Anything important?
No. It never was. Not any more.
He looked at the blank screen of the computer for a moment then sat down almost reluctantly in his chair.
‘Come on, come on,’ he murmured to himself. He could smell the whisky on his breath when he spoke.
Again he rested his fingers on the keys. Again he pressed one key a little too hard.
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
It wasn’t funny this time.
He got to his feet and crossed to the bookshelf on the far side of the room.
Look at a book. There might be inspiration in there somewhere.
He stared at the titles.
Who Killed Hanratty?
Helter Skelter
Beyond Belief
Cannibalism: The Last Taboo
The Shrine Of Jeffrey Dahmer
The Encyclopaedia Of Serial Killers
Something clicked. Ward frowned. He read a few pages of Hunting Humans then put it down and returned to his desk.
There was a small plastic carriage clock on his desk. It showed 1.36.
He was still staring at it two hours later.
ROUTINE
One of the things that Christopher Ward had discovered during twenty-three years of professional writing was that routine was vital. Treat the whole thing as a job. Nothing more.
Despite what the pretentious bastards on The South Bank Show said, it was a job. End of story.
Every day he set himself a target of three thousand words. Ten pages.
At the beginning, he’d written fifteen, sometimes twenty in a day. That time of fresh enthusiasm and burning ambition, when the desire for success was paramount.
Once that success had been attained, the urgency faltered. He went from writing five novels in a year to just one. Earning that kind of money didn’t require him to burn the candle at both ends.
He had had it all. Big house. Big bank account. Big reputation. He was at the top of the tree.
But from the top there’s only one way to go. And it was the most uncomfortable ride Christopher Ward had ever experienced.
Now he was lucky if he completed five pages a day. But the routine still had to be adhered to. He could not
leave the office without having written something. At least one page before he would allow himself to move from his desk and return to the house. Or to wherever else he went to forget about what he’d just been through in the office.
It was important to keep the job and normal life separate, and never to think about the job when you weren’t behind the desk. Never.
He stared at the blank screen. Then at his notes. Then at his synopsis.
Christopher Ward began to type.
Fresh Skins
by Christopher Ward
PREFACE
JANUARY 23rd, 1991:
The grave was no more than three feet deep but it had taken over an hour to dig using the small shovel they’d given him.
They’d watched him toiling in the frost-hardened earth, and when he’d paused every now and then to catch his breath, they’d urged him on, forcing him to finish the task quickly.They were anxious to be out of the freezing night and back in the warmth. Away from this place.
Despite the cold he was sweating. Not all of it was due to his exertions.
A wreath of condensation clouded around him like a shroud.
Perhaps he would have been able to dig more quickly had one of the bones of his right forearm and several of his fingers not been broken. The cuts and bruises on his face and the cigarette burns on his arms weren’t helping either.
He hurled another shovelful of earth on to the pile before pausing for a second.
He could see them moving about agitatedly in the gloom. One of them visible only by the glowing tip of
his cigarette. The other was pacing back and forth in an attempt to keep warm, stopping every so often to stamp his feet, trying to revive his circulation.
Christ, it was cold.
The sky was cloudless. There’d been snow showers during the last twenty-four hours and a thin powdery layer was still covering the ground, hardened by the frost that dug icy barbs into everything.
The man standing in the grave had not seen the snow fall. The blindfold that had been over his eyes had ensured he saw nothing. It had only been removed an hour or so earlier. Then they had pushed the shovel at him and told him to dig.
One of the men wandered to the edge of the hole and peered down into the
depths. His companion glanced in too. They murmured something about it being deep enough. Three or four feet would do.
One snatched the spade from him. The other told him to stand still.
The man in the grave looked up but couldn’t make out their features in the blackness.
Not that it mattered any more.
He heard the slide on the automatic being worked. A metallic click in the freezing silence. He knew a round had been chambered.
The shot came seconds later. It caught him in the back of the head.
So did the second. And the third. The fourth was hardly necessary. Or the fifth.
The muzzle flashes erupted vividly in the blackness. The boom of the discharges were deafening in the stillness.
They waited until the sound had died on the wind then one reached for the shovel and the other began kicking clods into the freshly dug grave.
It would take a lot less time to fill it in, and for that they were thankful.
It was so cold.
One of them hawked and spat on the body then they continued covering it with earth.The other flicked a spent cigarette butt into the crude resting place.
Three or four feet was enough to hide the smell from carrion creatures. Foxes wouldn’t dig down that deep. And even if one did, who cared?
At least the job of filling in the grave warmed them up a little.
One of them looked at his watch.
Soon be done.
It was a start.
He glanced at the plastic carriage clock, then at his watch. He switched off the power and sat gazing at his own reflection in the blank monitor for a second.
Three pages. Better than nothing.
He got to his feet and headed for the stairs.
ESCAPE
Christopher Ward had found that one of the prerequisites for being a writer was a liking for solitude. He’d never been a very sociable person anyway, preferring his own company to that of others from an early age. Even so, when he wanted he could be as gregarious as the next person and actually appear to be enjoying it. But, deep down, Ward needed time on his own.