A/N: Some viewers may find the following scene disturbing. I should know, I've just betaed it. (Kristine).
Part Ninety Six
It was a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon when Fenner checked his watch and, regretfully, decided to tare himself away from the convivial scene at his local pub.
"I'm sorry lads, but the match is due to kick off on the telly in half an hour's time. I could do with an early night as I've got an early shift at work. I'll be here same time next week and we'll sink a few more pints together."
There were cries of disappointment from the crowd as Fenner was a popular man in his local. The older crowd of regulars did help create a nice atmosphere. The landlord found that he and his crowd spent their money freely and were also well behaved not like some of the young rowdies who got tanked up and aggressive. It wasn't just the lads these days as some of the women were as bad as anyone. His pub was luckier not to have the flashing lights and loud music and being a bit off the beaten track, didn't attract the worst sort of trouble makers.
In a haze of contentment, Fenner sank back into the driving seat of his car. It was a sunny day outside and he had a nice contented weekend. Fluffy white clouds ambled their way across the sky and a nice cool breeze blew gently. Work wasn't so bad these days though. He had decided today when he was drinking with the lads to take life as it came and not to get so jumpy. He'd had a bad patch when he was thinking that someone was out to get him and he had some bad nights but when it came down to it, he ought to trust his survival instincts more. He had had bad enough times when Stewart was after him but he'd seen her off out of Larkhall. Betts was the same sort of dangerous woman and he didn't like the feel of those toffee nosed barristers coming round Larkhall one bit. All he needed to do was to keep his eyes open at work and take it easy when he had the chance to off duty. That way, he wouldn't get all wound up and end up hitting the hard stuff. He'd been around long enough and with his jailcraft, he'd outlast them all and collect his lump sum pension in the end. He even resolved not to shag any more women who had the remotest connection with Larkhall as all his women problems had stemmed from mixing work and pleasure with all the temptations right under his nose.
With that comforting thought, he turned the key in the ignition and headed off back home. That would give him just enough time to fetch a few cans of lager from the fridge, put his feet up in his chair and get settled for the match. The papers told him that it would be a hard fought match which was just what he liked. His car turned smoothly into the line of traffic. Just at this moment, a woman steered her black Rover into the same line of traffic and was heading for her own destination like any other motorist.
Fenner shoved on a cassette for some music to get him into the mood for the match and Status Quo's "Rocking all over the world" seemed to fit the bill just nicely. It gave him that feeling of mastery and control of his world and of getting him in the feeling for the big match. He'd go out later for a takeaway meal as the cobs and packets of crisps he'd eaten at the pub were quite enough for now. As he drove, his car took him along the nice secure, familiar environment of a typical Sunday afternoon, the same as any Sunday in his life. It gave him that feeling of contentment and security, running down the familiar track.
He pulled his car up outside his house and locked his car up safely. You couldn't take things for granted these days, as there had been the car that was stolen from one of his neighbours and was later found torched. He felt in his pockets for his house key but the bloody thing was stuck right at the bottom underneath his wallet.
"Come on, out you bloody well come," He grumbled to himself.
"Just what I was going to say, Fenner. We're going for a little ride." An ice-cold female voice spoke into his ear and a lump of metal was jammed into his back.
Instantly, Fenner's blood ran cold. Where the hell had this bitch sprung from?
"Atkins!" Fenner exclaimed.
"Good guess, Fenner," She sneered. "You turn around and start walking down the road to your right."
"You're making a mistake, love. I've got a football match to watch on telly. The kickoff is due to start in a bit," Fenner replied, his voice betraying less of the fear than he really felt. Whatever tight corners he had been in, this was the tightest.
"You're going to have to miss the match and read all about it in the papers. There are six bullets in this gun. If I have to use them on you, I'll use them all on you with pleasure. Now move it." The hard, cold tone of the reply broke Fenner's willingness to argue.
'So he's still with us, old lover boy Atkins,' the ghosts of memories came back to him of a hard cynical Principal Officer talking so lightly of life and death right after a routine PO's meeting.
"They've removed the bullet, the one he stopped from blowing my brains out," Karen had replied contemptuously, speaking of the day when Snowball had stuck a gun in her back.
She pointed the car keys at the black car and the car locks opened, enabling her to prod Fenner into the passenger seat. With the pistol aimed menacingly at Fenner, she got into the car and the internal door locks clicked shut on him. Fenner's heart sank to hear the ominous click which was much softer than the clang of a prison cell door but just as effective. A ghastly flashback jumped into his mind of when he was locked in a cell with Shell Dockley, another vengeful psycho-bitch who wanted to finish him off. The only difference was that there was no one to raise the alarm when everything looked so normal with a woman driving him around on a normal sunny afternoon. The great British Public will be glued to their television watching the excitement of the premier league football match, far too busy for any idea of acting as a good neighbour.
"Don't even think of trying any heroics. I've got you covered and I'm not taking my eye off you for a single second while I'm driving. Remember, an Atkins never misses."
She felt an enormous leap of exhaltation pulsing through her entire body, through her nerves and feelings that filled her with joy. Hardly any trace of her feelings was noticeable to any observer, even Fenner, beyond a slightly heightened intake of breath when she breathed . It was as if she were a big game hunter that had stalked a dangerous wild animal in its native environment and she had spent hours concealed up a tree, hidden in the undergrowth, anxious at all costs that she would not blow her cover. She had studied the habits and the favourite paths with infinite care, getting everything mapped out in her mind for so long. This morning, she had staked out her prey as he had strolled into the pub and had run over in her mind the possible way that her prey could break cover and bolt. It was the massive exercise of infinite patience, absolute attention to detail and razor sharp concentration that had prepared herself for this moment. She had driven carefully, threading her way through the traffic, tailing the car as she knew best and had parked her car just that sufficient distance away from him so that she would not be noticed but enough to keep an eye on him. She had walked up behind him with the lightness of step of a panther and had made her move when Fenner's head was bent down, looking for his front door key when he had paid least attention to what was going on around him. Yet, she knew that her prey was watchful, dangerous, waiting for the slightest slip on her part to turn the tables. She knew that this had happened before and this time around, she must not make that slip.
With her gun held in her left hand and pointing at Fenner, she drove them down the same road where Fenner, only five short minutes beforehand, had driven without a care in the world with nothing on his mind but what he was going to do on a Sunday afternoon. The Clapham street that he lived on that represented home slipped away from him and was gone.
Fenner was sweating visibly as the streets flashed by. No one knew where the hell he was, not on a Sunday afternoon, for a man who was rootless, who came and went as he pleased according to a lifestyle that was centred on himself, not Marilyn, not the kids who might as well be a million miles away for all the contact he kept with them. Today, the most frightening day of his life had no prospect of any end in sight that he could control, not with about the worst enemy that he had ever made in his life. The feeling that he was totally in the power and control of another human being froze him with horror.
"Why are you doing this, Atkins?" He mumbled in a more subdued tone than he was used to talking in.
She laughed out loud at the absurdity of such a question which gave her the chance to play the sort of deadly mind games that he had used on his victims.
"You have a good think about all you've done wrong in your life, Fenner. Go on, you try to work it out," came the vengeful, reply, dripping with total scorn. Make him guess and make him sweat her manic yet controlled thinking reacted. This was going to be a war of psychology, she reckoned, and she thought that she was up to this one.
Fenner's normally sharp mind blanked out and his memory refused to work. He had had extensive dealings with the Atkins family over the past years and an injury to any one of them was an injury to all of them, father, mother, daughter and son. He knew that what distinguished this family from any other family that was involved, or associated with crime was that unquenchable thirst for vengeance and the breathtaking scope with criminal contacts to ensure that the victim ended up as part of the ready mix concrete foundations for the latest tower block. Flashing through his mind was the account he had heard from Di Barker of the pizza delivery for Charlie outside the Old Bailey and that, in broad daylight he was gunned down and what is more no one was charged.
"I….I….I was only doing my job in stopping that escape out of the pub window or the rope ladder over the prison walls. Any other prison officer would have done the same. Betts helped me second time around."
Her cold laughter told Fenner that he was a mile off the mark while he racked his brains to try and figure this puzzle out. If he could only work out the answer, he might stand a chance.
All the time, she manoeuvred the car expertly along the built up streets of London and never once while she changed gear was that sinister black shape of a gun not pointed directly at Fenner. He knew that she had enough peripheral vision to be able to spot in one second any move by him to wrest the gun from out of her grasp. There wasn't much traffic on the road so that there was never an instance that the car slowed down to give him a chance to escape. Fenner's heart sank at the way he was kept as securely captive as any prisoner was kept banged up in segregation. This evil bitch knew far too much for his good exactly what she was doing.
The first rush of excitement was dying down in her as time went on. She felt more secure as her plan was unfolding, exactly as planned. She was driving the car into the heart of London and the roadsigns indicated that she was bang on course. The huge twin edifices of Tower Bridge loomed ahead and she disappeared into the first archway to reveal out of the corner of her eye, the ancient River Thames, far below her, glittering in the sun, swirling waters forever on the move. This was a signpost to the North side of the city and what she must do.
"Well, have you guessed, Fenner?" came the mocking question. "I'll help you out. What is the worst deed you have ever done in your life?"
Fenner's mind was a confused blur as his past flashed past him in a kaleidoscope of faces, some smiling, some scared, some angry, some indifferent. A confused cacophony of voices of different accents At the centre was that only solid certainty that he knew, Larkhall prison.
"Don't tell me that there is so much shit in your life that you can't work it out?"
"You don't help me by pointing that gun at me. Where are you taking me, Atkins?" Fenner counter questioned.
"You'll find out soon enough. We're not that far away and when we get there, you won't have to worry about anything in your life anymore. I'll make sure of that." Her slowly articulated voice, stretching out the syllables conveyed an air of chilling menace to say that there were no limits to what she was prepared to do to carry out justice, Atkins style. The superficial air of reassurance was only there to taunt him.
'He's the biggest shit going and deserves nothing but a dose of the Atkins justice' were words that were written in words of red blood in her mind. Why the hell can't the evil bastard work it out, she thought contemptuously. He doesn't seem so big and tough out of his uniform and outside Larkhall.
"If you can't work it out, Fenner, tell you what, I'll tell you. Later on."
Fenner was getting confused as to where they were. The car had cut through all the ancient commercial parts of London and the places where all the tourists went. The sign of Hackney flashed up and still this crazy woman drove like someone possessed. Fenner had never come across anything like this before. That was what made everything so frightening.
"Just think, Fenner," Came the voice with that evil laugh. "If Stewart had sacked you and you were signing on the dole right now, you wouldn't be in this mess. You've only yourself to blame for the trouble you are in. You never learn, do you."
This woman was a demon. She knew everything about him. That was one thing that he found so scary. He did not let the world know what Jim Fenner felt, what he schemed for, what he covered up and the left hand know what the right hand was doing, not even his own.
She turned sharp right onto the A104 and the car headed like an arrow, across the junctions and roundabouts and was well into the more spread out suburbs, away from the close confinement and the sense of tall buildings leaning over looking at them. Fenner was dazed and confused and his mind had given up trying to understand what was happening to him. He was trapped in a nightmare world that had sprung out of nowhere and enveloped him.
The steady hum of the car eventually brought them near their destination as there came into sight on the right, a huge bank of trees that cast its shadow over the car. She slowed down slightly as she studied the roads ahead for the turnoff to the right that she was looking for. Eventually, there it was, the brown sign indicating the way in to Epping Forest. All her driving around this stretch of London, painstakingly committing to memory every twist and turn of the route was paying off.
"Tell you what, Fenner, I'll let you into a little secret. I've been following you for weeks now. I know what time you come home from work, when you work early shifts, when you work late shifts, the pub you go to, I know everything …………..."
"How the hell can an evil bitch like you stalk me like that?" Fenner's anger suddenly boiled over. For one moment, he forgot about the gun that was pointed at his bollocks, the shape of the nozzle that was looking him straight in the goolies. His rage was the rage of a man who was up against the enemy that had stalked him all his life, as long as he could remember, the enemy that he had to get before she got him. The desperation of his present situation taught him how right he had always been and why he was right to act as he had done.
"I'm a professional, Fenner. You should know what the Atkins family is like, what it is capable of."
The car bumped along the narrow track which took them away from the noise of the city streets and the crowds of people that Fenner was so used to. This was a step into an unknown world for him. On the other hand, her whole being was filled with tension and excitement and her mind was working on overdrive that the climax of all that she had focussed on for so long was approaching.
When the car had got to the point that she wanted, she pulled the car up to a halt and shut off the engine. All was horrifyingly quiet and still.
"Get out of the car, Fenner," Her cold voice cracked like a pistol shot. She had flicked open the catch to the boot which opened at once.
Fenner did not even think of resisting as a pointed gun was aimed at him straight between his eyes.
"Move a little bit away," Came the next order and the woman grabbed the spade from the boot with her left hand, covering Fenner with the pistol and pushed it down shut. She smiled more easily to herself, feeling that all her long term planning to an obsessive level was paying off.
In one slow cystematic slide of perspective, the rapidly moving, sunlit car journey in fast moving traffic from the busy London streets, shot in close up now and smoothly panned out into a wide screen, long shot on another world altogether. Fenner and the woman with the gun now stood a little way off the rough dirt track well away from the humming sound of constant traffic. In utter silence and stillness on both sides of the path, huge old gnarled oak trees cast their tracery pattern of thin twigs growing from their sturdy branches high up into the sky. The pattern shaped leaves on the trees, though turning brown, still clustered on the branches and still blotted out a lot of the sunlight though some had fallen and the first acorns had dropped onto the ground. While the blue sky could still be seen directly overhead, the ancient woodland, a mere fragment of what had covered the counties, invited the two to enter a more primeval world which held fast its own ancient secrets and where human beings were but one of the species that ventured timidly into the heartlands of the forest. Dark shadows were cast from the umbrella of tall trees looming overhead. Paths could be seen which disappeared to somewhere deep in the forest, god knows where and only the ancient art of the explorer would serve to trace a path through to the other side. The place itself struck a trace of fear into the heart of the urban city dweller, unused to the ways of the forest. A faint chill breeze could be felt on Fenner's sweating skin and, caught deep as he was in the trap that was laid for him, the sinister atmosphere all helped to hint to him that the fear and the horror of that afternoon was only just really starting to begin.
"Now keep walking, in a straight line till I tell you when to stop," She said, her spade, slung comfortably under her arm, her hand holding the sturdy tool by the metal haft. Everything was going perfectly to plan as she had pulled up outside the 'no litter' post that advised happy holidaymakers to respect the rules of the countryside. Her memory was faultless in steering her along the footpath, past the two very large oak trees. She only had a short distance to go now.
Fenner stumbled along, his legs feeling leaden and not part of his body. He had hoped against hope that, out of the car, he might have a better chance to make a break for it, but not walking six feet or so, with a gun breathing down his back, totally powerless. His mind had frozen over and all his survival craft had deserted him.
"You can stop right there Fenner, and turn around and face me," Came the hard commanding voice.
"You're going to dig a nice big hole right behind you when I've thrown you this spade." Fenner's hair was standing on end and his panic level jumped to new heights as he had a presentiment of what was in store for him. "Don't think of using it as a weapon or I'll shoot you down where you stand." At that point, she threw the spade at his feet, took a few steps back and assumed a combat position, her gun levelled at him. "Turn around now and start digging. A nice big hole about six feet long and two feet wide."
"You're raving mad, Atkins." A last effort of will flared up inside him to fight off the walls of death that were closing in on him. "Do you really think you can get away with killing me, a Principal Officer in the Prison service? It will hit the front pages of all the press. There'll be a drag net thrown over you and your family so quickly that you'll end up in the nick so fast your feet won't touch the ground, you evil bitch. You don't really mean it, you're too smart to do this. Now stay calm, stay calm."
Fenner shifted his stance from anger, threats, an appeal to reason and finally, his desperate attempt to hypnotise with that fixed stare of his blue, very much unsettled eyes.
"Oh, I am staying calm. It's quite easy, Fenner. You're digging your own grave like the way you've dug the graves of Rachel Hicks and Maxi Pervis for a start and all the women you've tried to ruin."
"You know nothing about them, you mad bitch." A very demented Fenner stood trembling, deathly afraid to be confronted with the ghosts of all his invisible accusers whose very spirits seemed to rise out of the deepening gloom of the forest.
"This is getting away from the point, Fenner," her loud commanding voice grabbed control of the moment together with the click as the gun was cocked, ready to fire. "Get digging or I shoot your bollocks off."
It was as if her force of will had taken Fenner over completely in a way that a fleeting memory of the arrogant principal officer who owned the keys to the prison and had power over the inmates of Larkhall surprised her.
He started to dig the soil and was surprised to find how soft it was, how easy it was to scoop shovelfuls out of the patch of ground in front of him and to pile it either side of the hole. He started to make rapid progress aware of the relentless woman and the gun pointed at his back. Presently, his spade dug into a patch of ground a little way to one side and it immediately hit hard impacted soil which only gouged a groove a few inches deep into the ground. He aimed his spade next at a patch of soil closer to the area that he had been digging and it sank deeply into the soil. He must be getting his knack back of something that he used to do occasionally of a Sunday afternoon when the kids were little and he was still with Marilyn. Funny, he used to grow peas at that time but he went off that like he went off most of the little day to day jobs round the house. Taking the line of least resistance had been a habit which had crept up on him
"Hey, Atkins, why is it easier to dig in some parts of this ground and not in others?"
"Haven't you guessed, Fenner?" Came the contemptuous reply.
"You couldn't have……."
"……dug the hole, just ready for you and covered it up. I was here last Sunday, Fenner, when everything was nice and quiet. That is, after I'd sat quietly in the local that you use, hearing you laugh and joke to your mates. Only the joke's on you this time, isn't it."
Fenner's hair felt as if it was standing on end and everything inside him, all his defences, were shriveled up inside by this impossible nightmare before his eyes that could not be real. Just behind him was the wide, deep hole that was ready to receive him and swallow him up.
"Why are you doing this to me, Atkins?" his voice croaked out at last.
The sun suddenly dipped below the level of the trees plunging his world into impenetrable shadow. A darker shape was the woman before him, a symbol of vengeance as sinister and threatening as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, ready to claim his soul for their own.
"Because of what you did to Karen, you bastard. Can you remember the night you raped her? You thought that you had wriggled your way out of trouble and you lied to her and lied to yourself afterwards." The voice started to build up in a peculiar mixture of hatred and excitement which convince Fenner that he was already on the threshold of a darker more dangerous alternate reality. "and you even threatened her at the trial to blacken her name publicly if she didn't cover up for you. When I think about it, if it weren't for you, Ritchie might still be alive right now. Get into the pit, Fenner," Her voice demanded and finally took over what remained of his free will.
Fenner took a step back, stumbled over the pile of earth behind him and fell backwards into the hole and lay at the bottom of the pit. She raised her arm to extend outwards forty five degrees, slowly squeezed the trigger at last and the pistol cracked. Fenner felt a jolt, then an intense feeling of weakness and pain spread from his stomach where, once, Shell's bottle had nearly killed him. He lay there physically paralysed and helpless.
He screamed out in horror when the first spadeful of earth fell in a pattern across his face and he tasted the bitter taste, half blinding him. His arms and legs feebly struggled but now with feverish energy, shower upon shower of earth landed on him, starting to cover him with a layer of earth. The layer started to build in thickness and became a real weight, pressing on his body and starting to choke his lungs. Many years ago, when he was the school bully, he used to duck smaller and weaker boys' heads under water and found it funny to see others suffer. Now everything that he had done that was evil came back to haunt him as he gradually lost consciousness as his will to struggle ebbed away. He had been spiritually dead a long time. It was just that he had never known it. Two final thoughts popped into his mind before his end overtook him, a tearing regret that he had lost Karen and that it was not the Atkins he knew, but Atkins's daughter who had done this to him. At that point, eternity overtook him.
Part Ninety Six
It was a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon when Fenner checked his watch and, regretfully, decided to tare himself away from the convivial scene at his local pub.
"I'm sorry lads, but the match is due to kick off on the telly in half an hour's time. I could do with an early night as I've got an early shift at work. I'll be here same time next week and we'll sink a few more pints together."
There were cries of disappointment from the crowd as Fenner was a popular man in his local. The older crowd of regulars did help create a nice atmosphere. The landlord found that he and his crowd spent their money freely and were also well behaved not like some of the young rowdies who got tanked up and aggressive. It wasn't just the lads these days as some of the women were as bad as anyone. His pub was luckier not to have the flashing lights and loud music and being a bit off the beaten track, didn't attract the worst sort of trouble makers.
In a haze of contentment, Fenner sank back into the driving seat of his car. It was a sunny day outside and he had a nice contented weekend. Fluffy white clouds ambled their way across the sky and a nice cool breeze blew gently. Work wasn't so bad these days though. He had decided today when he was drinking with the lads to take life as it came and not to get so jumpy. He'd had a bad patch when he was thinking that someone was out to get him and he had some bad nights but when it came down to it, he ought to trust his survival instincts more. He had had bad enough times when Stewart was after him but he'd seen her off out of Larkhall. Betts was the same sort of dangerous woman and he didn't like the feel of those toffee nosed barristers coming round Larkhall one bit. All he needed to do was to keep his eyes open at work and take it easy when he had the chance to off duty. That way, he wouldn't get all wound up and end up hitting the hard stuff. He'd been around long enough and with his jailcraft, he'd outlast them all and collect his lump sum pension in the end. He even resolved not to shag any more women who had the remotest connection with Larkhall as all his women problems had stemmed from mixing work and pleasure with all the temptations right under his nose.
With that comforting thought, he turned the key in the ignition and headed off back home. That would give him just enough time to fetch a few cans of lager from the fridge, put his feet up in his chair and get settled for the match. The papers told him that it would be a hard fought match which was just what he liked. His car turned smoothly into the line of traffic. Just at this moment, a woman steered her black Rover into the same line of traffic and was heading for her own destination like any other motorist.
Fenner shoved on a cassette for some music to get him into the mood for the match and Status Quo's "Rocking all over the world" seemed to fit the bill just nicely. It gave him that feeling of mastery and control of his world and of getting him in the feeling for the big match. He'd go out later for a takeaway meal as the cobs and packets of crisps he'd eaten at the pub were quite enough for now. As he drove, his car took him along the nice secure, familiar environment of a typical Sunday afternoon, the same as any Sunday in his life. It gave him that feeling of contentment and security, running down the familiar track.
He pulled his car up outside his house and locked his car up safely. You couldn't take things for granted these days, as there had been the car that was stolen from one of his neighbours and was later found torched. He felt in his pockets for his house key but the bloody thing was stuck right at the bottom underneath his wallet.
"Come on, out you bloody well come," He grumbled to himself.
"Just what I was going to say, Fenner. We're going for a little ride." An ice-cold female voice spoke into his ear and a lump of metal was jammed into his back.
Instantly, Fenner's blood ran cold. Where the hell had this bitch sprung from?
"Atkins!" Fenner exclaimed.
"Good guess, Fenner," She sneered. "You turn around and start walking down the road to your right."
"You're making a mistake, love. I've got a football match to watch on telly. The kickoff is due to start in a bit," Fenner replied, his voice betraying less of the fear than he really felt. Whatever tight corners he had been in, this was the tightest.
"You're going to have to miss the match and read all about it in the papers. There are six bullets in this gun. If I have to use them on you, I'll use them all on you with pleasure. Now move it." The hard, cold tone of the reply broke Fenner's willingness to argue.
'So he's still with us, old lover boy Atkins,' the ghosts of memories came back to him of a hard cynical Principal Officer talking so lightly of life and death right after a routine PO's meeting.
"They've removed the bullet, the one he stopped from blowing my brains out," Karen had replied contemptuously, speaking of the day when Snowball had stuck a gun in her back.
She pointed the car keys at the black car and the car locks opened, enabling her to prod Fenner into the passenger seat. With the pistol aimed menacingly at Fenner, she got into the car and the internal door locks clicked shut on him. Fenner's heart sank to hear the ominous click which was much softer than the clang of a prison cell door but just as effective. A ghastly flashback jumped into his mind of when he was locked in a cell with Shell Dockley, another vengeful psycho-bitch who wanted to finish him off. The only difference was that there was no one to raise the alarm when everything looked so normal with a woman driving him around on a normal sunny afternoon. The great British Public will be glued to their television watching the excitement of the premier league football match, far too busy for any idea of acting as a good neighbour.
"Don't even think of trying any heroics. I've got you covered and I'm not taking my eye off you for a single second while I'm driving. Remember, an Atkins never misses."
She felt an enormous leap of exhaltation pulsing through her entire body, through her nerves and feelings that filled her with joy. Hardly any trace of her feelings was noticeable to any observer, even Fenner, beyond a slightly heightened intake of breath when she breathed . It was as if she were a big game hunter that had stalked a dangerous wild animal in its native environment and she had spent hours concealed up a tree, hidden in the undergrowth, anxious at all costs that she would not blow her cover. She had studied the habits and the favourite paths with infinite care, getting everything mapped out in her mind for so long. This morning, she had staked out her prey as he had strolled into the pub and had run over in her mind the possible way that her prey could break cover and bolt. It was the massive exercise of infinite patience, absolute attention to detail and razor sharp concentration that had prepared herself for this moment. She had driven carefully, threading her way through the traffic, tailing the car as she knew best and had parked her car just that sufficient distance away from him so that she would not be noticed but enough to keep an eye on him. She had walked up behind him with the lightness of step of a panther and had made her move when Fenner's head was bent down, looking for his front door key when he had paid least attention to what was going on around him. Yet, she knew that her prey was watchful, dangerous, waiting for the slightest slip on her part to turn the tables. She knew that this had happened before and this time around, she must not make that slip.
With her gun held in her left hand and pointing at Fenner, she drove them down the same road where Fenner, only five short minutes beforehand, had driven without a care in the world with nothing on his mind but what he was going to do on a Sunday afternoon. The Clapham street that he lived on that represented home slipped away from him and was gone.
Fenner was sweating visibly as the streets flashed by. No one knew where the hell he was, not on a Sunday afternoon, for a man who was rootless, who came and went as he pleased according to a lifestyle that was centred on himself, not Marilyn, not the kids who might as well be a million miles away for all the contact he kept with them. Today, the most frightening day of his life had no prospect of any end in sight that he could control, not with about the worst enemy that he had ever made in his life. The feeling that he was totally in the power and control of another human being froze him with horror.
"Why are you doing this, Atkins?" He mumbled in a more subdued tone than he was used to talking in.
She laughed out loud at the absurdity of such a question which gave her the chance to play the sort of deadly mind games that he had used on his victims.
"You have a good think about all you've done wrong in your life, Fenner. Go on, you try to work it out," came the vengeful, reply, dripping with total scorn. Make him guess and make him sweat her manic yet controlled thinking reacted. This was going to be a war of psychology, she reckoned, and she thought that she was up to this one.
Fenner's normally sharp mind blanked out and his memory refused to work. He had had extensive dealings with the Atkins family over the past years and an injury to any one of them was an injury to all of them, father, mother, daughter and son. He knew that what distinguished this family from any other family that was involved, or associated with crime was that unquenchable thirst for vengeance and the breathtaking scope with criminal contacts to ensure that the victim ended up as part of the ready mix concrete foundations for the latest tower block. Flashing through his mind was the account he had heard from Di Barker of the pizza delivery for Charlie outside the Old Bailey and that, in broad daylight he was gunned down and what is more no one was charged.
"I….I….I was only doing my job in stopping that escape out of the pub window or the rope ladder over the prison walls. Any other prison officer would have done the same. Betts helped me second time around."
Her cold laughter told Fenner that he was a mile off the mark while he racked his brains to try and figure this puzzle out. If he could only work out the answer, he might stand a chance.
All the time, she manoeuvred the car expertly along the built up streets of London and never once while she changed gear was that sinister black shape of a gun not pointed directly at Fenner. He knew that she had enough peripheral vision to be able to spot in one second any move by him to wrest the gun from out of her grasp. There wasn't much traffic on the road so that there was never an instance that the car slowed down to give him a chance to escape. Fenner's heart sank at the way he was kept as securely captive as any prisoner was kept banged up in segregation. This evil bitch knew far too much for his good exactly what she was doing.
The first rush of excitement was dying down in her as time went on. She felt more secure as her plan was unfolding, exactly as planned. She was driving the car into the heart of London and the roadsigns indicated that she was bang on course. The huge twin edifices of Tower Bridge loomed ahead and she disappeared into the first archway to reveal out of the corner of her eye, the ancient River Thames, far below her, glittering in the sun, swirling waters forever on the move. This was a signpost to the North side of the city and what she must do.
"Well, have you guessed, Fenner?" came the mocking question. "I'll help you out. What is the worst deed you have ever done in your life?"
Fenner's mind was a confused blur as his past flashed past him in a kaleidoscope of faces, some smiling, some scared, some angry, some indifferent. A confused cacophony of voices of different accents At the centre was that only solid certainty that he knew, Larkhall prison.
"Don't tell me that there is so much shit in your life that you can't work it out?"
"You don't help me by pointing that gun at me. Where are you taking me, Atkins?" Fenner counter questioned.
"You'll find out soon enough. We're not that far away and when we get there, you won't have to worry about anything in your life anymore. I'll make sure of that." Her slowly articulated voice, stretching out the syllables conveyed an air of chilling menace to say that there were no limits to what she was prepared to do to carry out justice, Atkins style. The superficial air of reassurance was only there to taunt him.
'He's the biggest shit going and deserves nothing but a dose of the Atkins justice' were words that were written in words of red blood in her mind. Why the hell can't the evil bastard work it out, she thought contemptuously. He doesn't seem so big and tough out of his uniform and outside Larkhall.
"If you can't work it out, Fenner, tell you what, I'll tell you. Later on."
Fenner was getting confused as to where they were. The car had cut through all the ancient commercial parts of London and the places where all the tourists went. The sign of Hackney flashed up and still this crazy woman drove like someone possessed. Fenner had never come across anything like this before. That was what made everything so frightening.
"Just think, Fenner," Came the voice with that evil laugh. "If Stewart had sacked you and you were signing on the dole right now, you wouldn't be in this mess. You've only yourself to blame for the trouble you are in. You never learn, do you."
This woman was a demon. She knew everything about him. That was one thing that he found so scary. He did not let the world know what Jim Fenner felt, what he schemed for, what he covered up and the left hand know what the right hand was doing, not even his own.
She turned sharp right onto the A104 and the car headed like an arrow, across the junctions and roundabouts and was well into the more spread out suburbs, away from the close confinement and the sense of tall buildings leaning over looking at them. Fenner was dazed and confused and his mind had given up trying to understand what was happening to him. He was trapped in a nightmare world that had sprung out of nowhere and enveloped him.
The steady hum of the car eventually brought them near their destination as there came into sight on the right, a huge bank of trees that cast its shadow over the car. She slowed down slightly as she studied the roads ahead for the turnoff to the right that she was looking for. Eventually, there it was, the brown sign indicating the way in to Epping Forest. All her driving around this stretch of London, painstakingly committing to memory every twist and turn of the route was paying off.
"Tell you what, Fenner, I'll let you into a little secret. I've been following you for weeks now. I know what time you come home from work, when you work early shifts, when you work late shifts, the pub you go to, I know everything …………..."
"How the hell can an evil bitch like you stalk me like that?" Fenner's anger suddenly boiled over. For one moment, he forgot about the gun that was pointed at his bollocks, the shape of the nozzle that was looking him straight in the goolies. His rage was the rage of a man who was up against the enemy that had stalked him all his life, as long as he could remember, the enemy that he had to get before she got him. The desperation of his present situation taught him how right he had always been and why he was right to act as he had done.
"I'm a professional, Fenner. You should know what the Atkins family is like, what it is capable of."
The car bumped along the narrow track which took them away from the noise of the city streets and the crowds of people that Fenner was so used to. This was a step into an unknown world for him. On the other hand, her whole being was filled with tension and excitement and her mind was working on overdrive that the climax of all that she had focussed on for so long was approaching.
When the car had got to the point that she wanted, she pulled the car up to a halt and shut off the engine. All was horrifyingly quiet and still.
"Get out of the car, Fenner," Her cold voice cracked like a pistol shot. She had flicked open the catch to the boot which opened at once.
Fenner did not even think of resisting as a pointed gun was aimed at him straight between his eyes.
"Move a little bit away," Came the next order and the woman grabbed the spade from the boot with her left hand, covering Fenner with the pistol and pushed it down shut. She smiled more easily to herself, feeling that all her long term planning to an obsessive level was paying off.
In one slow cystematic slide of perspective, the rapidly moving, sunlit car journey in fast moving traffic from the busy London streets, shot in close up now and smoothly panned out into a wide screen, long shot on another world altogether. Fenner and the woman with the gun now stood a little way off the rough dirt track well away from the humming sound of constant traffic. In utter silence and stillness on both sides of the path, huge old gnarled oak trees cast their tracery pattern of thin twigs growing from their sturdy branches high up into the sky. The pattern shaped leaves on the trees, though turning brown, still clustered on the branches and still blotted out a lot of the sunlight though some had fallen and the first acorns had dropped onto the ground. While the blue sky could still be seen directly overhead, the ancient woodland, a mere fragment of what had covered the counties, invited the two to enter a more primeval world which held fast its own ancient secrets and where human beings were but one of the species that ventured timidly into the heartlands of the forest. Dark shadows were cast from the umbrella of tall trees looming overhead. Paths could be seen which disappeared to somewhere deep in the forest, god knows where and only the ancient art of the explorer would serve to trace a path through to the other side. The place itself struck a trace of fear into the heart of the urban city dweller, unused to the ways of the forest. A faint chill breeze could be felt on Fenner's sweating skin and, caught deep as he was in the trap that was laid for him, the sinister atmosphere all helped to hint to him that the fear and the horror of that afternoon was only just really starting to begin.
"Now keep walking, in a straight line till I tell you when to stop," She said, her spade, slung comfortably under her arm, her hand holding the sturdy tool by the metal haft. Everything was going perfectly to plan as she had pulled up outside the 'no litter' post that advised happy holidaymakers to respect the rules of the countryside. Her memory was faultless in steering her along the footpath, past the two very large oak trees. She only had a short distance to go now.
Fenner stumbled along, his legs feeling leaden and not part of his body. He had hoped against hope that, out of the car, he might have a better chance to make a break for it, but not walking six feet or so, with a gun breathing down his back, totally powerless. His mind had frozen over and all his survival craft had deserted him.
"You can stop right there Fenner, and turn around and face me," Came the hard commanding voice.
"You're going to dig a nice big hole right behind you when I've thrown you this spade." Fenner's hair was standing on end and his panic level jumped to new heights as he had a presentiment of what was in store for him. "Don't think of using it as a weapon or I'll shoot you down where you stand." At that point, she threw the spade at his feet, took a few steps back and assumed a combat position, her gun levelled at him. "Turn around now and start digging. A nice big hole about six feet long and two feet wide."
"You're raving mad, Atkins." A last effort of will flared up inside him to fight off the walls of death that were closing in on him. "Do you really think you can get away with killing me, a Principal Officer in the Prison service? It will hit the front pages of all the press. There'll be a drag net thrown over you and your family so quickly that you'll end up in the nick so fast your feet won't touch the ground, you evil bitch. You don't really mean it, you're too smart to do this. Now stay calm, stay calm."
Fenner shifted his stance from anger, threats, an appeal to reason and finally, his desperate attempt to hypnotise with that fixed stare of his blue, very much unsettled eyes.
"Oh, I am staying calm. It's quite easy, Fenner. You're digging your own grave like the way you've dug the graves of Rachel Hicks and Maxi Pervis for a start and all the women you've tried to ruin."
"You know nothing about them, you mad bitch." A very demented Fenner stood trembling, deathly afraid to be confronted with the ghosts of all his invisible accusers whose very spirits seemed to rise out of the deepening gloom of the forest.
"This is getting away from the point, Fenner," her loud commanding voice grabbed control of the moment together with the click as the gun was cocked, ready to fire. "Get digging or I shoot your bollocks off."
It was as if her force of will had taken Fenner over completely in a way that a fleeting memory of the arrogant principal officer who owned the keys to the prison and had power over the inmates of Larkhall surprised her.
He started to dig the soil and was surprised to find how soft it was, how easy it was to scoop shovelfuls out of the patch of ground in front of him and to pile it either side of the hole. He started to make rapid progress aware of the relentless woman and the gun pointed at his back. Presently, his spade dug into a patch of ground a little way to one side and it immediately hit hard impacted soil which only gouged a groove a few inches deep into the ground. He aimed his spade next at a patch of soil closer to the area that he had been digging and it sank deeply into the soil. He must be getting his knack back of something that he used to do occasionally of a Sunday afternoon when the kids were little and he was still with Marilyn. Funny, he used to grow peas at that time but he went off that like he went off most of the little day to day jobs round the house. Taking the line of least resistance had been a habit which had crept up on him
"Hey, Atkins, why is it easier to dig in some parts of this ground and not in others?"
"Haven't you guessed, Fenner?" Came the contemptuous reply.
"You couldn't have……."
"……dug the hole, just ready for you and covered it up. I was here last Sunday, Fenner, when everything was nice and quiet. That is, after I'd sat quietly in the local that you use, hearing you laugh and joke to your mates. Only the joke's on you this time, isn't it."
Fenner's hair felt as if it was standing on end and everything inside him, all his defences, were shriveled up inside by this impossible nightmare before his eyes that could not be real. Just behind him was the wide, deep hole that was ready to receive him and swallow him up.
"Why are you doing this to me, Atkins?" his voice croaked out at last.
The sun suddenly dipped below the level of the trees plunging his world into impenetrable shadow. A darker shape was the woman before him, a symbol of vengeance as sinister and threatening as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, ready to claim his soul for their own.
"Because of what you did to Karen, you bastard. Can you remember the night you raped her? You thought that you had wriggled your way out of trouble and you lied to her and lied to yourself afterwards." The voice started to build up in a peculiar mixture of hatred and excitement which convince Fenner that he was already on the threshold of a darker more dangerous alternate reality. "and you even threatened her at the trial to blacken her name publicly if she didn't cover up for you. When I think about it, if it weren't for you, Ritchie might still be alive right now. Get into the pit, Fenner," Her voice demanded and finally took over what remained of his free will.
Fenner took a step back, stumbled over the pile of earth behind him and fell backwards into the hole and lay at the bottom of the pit. She raised her arm to extend outwards forty five degrees, slowly squeezed the trigger at last and the pistol cracked. Fenner felt a jolt, then an intense feeling of weakness and pain spread from his stomach where, once, Shell's bottle had nearly killed him. He lay there physically paralysed and helpless.
He screamed out in horror when the first spadeful of earth fell in a pattern across his face and he tasted the bitter taste, half blinding him. His arms and legs feebly struggled but now with feverish energy, shower upon shower of earth landed on him, starting to cover him with a layer of earth. The layer started to build in thickness and became a real weight, pressing on his body and starting to choke his lungs. Many years ago, when he was the school bully, he used to duck smaller and weaker boys' heads under water and found it funny to see others suffer. Now everything that he had done that was evil came back to haunt him as he gradually lost consciousness as his will to struggle ebbed away. He had been spiritually dead a long time. It was just that he had never known it. Two final thoughts popped into his mind before his end overtook him, a tearing regret that he had lost Karen and that it was not the Atkins he knew, but Atkins's daughter who had done this to him. At that point, eternity overtook him.