Title:                     Poolside (7/?)

Author:                Edzel2  (with heartfelt thanks to my Beta, Jinxed)

Genre:                  ‘Mad Dogs’

Rating:                  Adult

Summary:           Events are unravelling faster than the boys can cope with. Having buried Alvo and returned to the boat to clean up, the boys return to the villa to find a dog gnawing on one of Alvo’s feet. They dig him back up and concoct a plan to put the corpse on the boat to make it look like a drug deal gone wrong, but then the local police turn up again and the men are told they must be interviewed. Baxter is chosen first... 

Previously:         Baxter flinches, mutters and sighs before dropping back into sleep and Woody takes this as his cue to leave. Poor Bax – near-sighted, weak-stomached and always anxious... never quite at ease in his own skin, Woody remembers. He hasn’t changed much.

Woody turns and walks quietly away, pulling the bathroom door to the same almost-closed point and shutting the outer door as quietly as he can. He goes to his room, showers and then rejoins Rick and Quinn downstairs to finish off the cleanup operation.

Part Seven:

 

Baxter’s chest tightens as the woman holds out her hand – he’s to be first, it seems. Feeling one step removed from himself, he watches his hand reach forward and the Detective takes it, seemingly unsurprised that he would allow himself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter... no, no, he mustn’t think like that, he tells himself as he’s led through the ridiculously narrow doorway –all this space and they make the kitchen entrance cramped, why in hell would they do that? -  He’s innocent; he’s done nothing wrong, nothing at all. So why does he feel like crapping himself, then?  He takes a deep breath as he eases himself down onto the chair, wonders if he should ask to use the loo before they start. But then the woman is putting a pad and pen down on the table and asking him to write his name and address – stupidly he wonders what Alvo’s postal address might be before realising that she means his home address – and the moment is lost.

‘He says you seem a little tense,’ she says conversationally. ‘Are you tense?’

He shakes his head, not understanding. Of course he’s bloody tense – he’s unwittingly been an accessory to the theft of a boat, seen a man murdered in cold blood at close range, covered up evidence of said murder, been involved (again unwittingly) in a three million Euro drug deal and now he’s being interviewed by a Spanish detective not three feet from a freezer containing Alvo’s corpse. He’s so bloody tense he feels that he might just snap if any more shit hits the fan. Why wouldn’t he be tense?

But as far as the detective is concerned, he has to appear relaxed; puzzled by the appearance of the police perhaps, maybe a little concerned that it might –or might not- be somehow connected to his friend who has invited them out for a holiday and then supposedly and inexplicably buggered off to the mainland citing urgent business.  He tries to imagine how he should feel in such circumstances and project an air of puzzlement, but knows that he’s failing miserably.  He imagines his daughters and his ex-wife getting a visit from the local police telling them that their father is implicated in boat theft, a drug deal and a murder in Spain and feels shame and embarrassment even though he’s done nothing wrong, not really; and certainly not from choice.

“Maybe I should massage your shoulders,” she says, and there’s the lightest of touches on his aching skin (still sore from too long in the sun) before she thinks better of it and moves around the table to seat herself across from him.

**

The men watch as the Police car reverses and speeds away in a cloud of dust and gravel; at least they don’t use the lights and siren this time.  Woody heads down the drive to shut the gate and Baxter turns back into the house, intending to find the nearest bathroom. As he heads up the stairs he hears Rick muttering and Quinn’s exasperated tones in reply;

‘How the bloody hell do I know?’

‘What’s that, Rick?’ Woody’s voice floats through the open door.

‘I said, why did they use the lights and the sirens when they came? If they weren’t gonna arrest us, like? I mean, they didn’t use ‘em when they left, did they?’

‘Dunno, mate. But they’ve gone, and we’ve got to work on our plan for tomorrow. Where’s Bax?’

‘Be with you in a sec,’ Baxter calls from the top of the stairs.

‘Bloody hell...’  Baxter shuts the door on Rick’s whining and turns the key, sags back against the door and takes a deep breath. His chest feels tight, his legs are shaking and if he had anything in his stomach it wouldn’t be there for much longer, he knows.  How the hell did they get into this mess?  He snatches off his glasses to massage his temple where a headache threatens to turn into a full blown migraine, and stops, sniffs his fingers. He coughs and realises that he’s going to need his inhaler before he goes back to the others. Great – he hasn’t had an attack in ages but the combination of exertion and stress must have triggered it.

‘Bloody hell...’ he shoves his glasses back on and stumbles forward to the basin, shoves the plug in and turns the tap on. He reaches for the soap, drops it in the water and snatches it up again, starts to lather frantically. His hands stink of corpse – had the cops noticed? They’d all been around the stench for a couple of hours now and had all but stopped noticing it, but it could have been obvious to the police, must have been!

He scrubs and scrubs and even when his hands are red and sore he’s sure the smell still clings to them. He wants to shower, wash every last trace away but remembers that the others are waiting for him.  Quickly he uses the toilet, throws water over his face and neck and haphazardly pats himself dry; his chest is really tight now and he quickly finds his inhaler,  uses it several times before pocketing it and returning to the fray.

**

‘That’s settled then,’ Quinn says as he pushes back his plate and takes a mouthful of cold beer. ‘We remove Alvo’s hands to make it look like a mafia hit, dump him on the boat then come back here and wait for Monday evening. Then we call the cops, stick to the story that Alvo called and said he’d be back in time to see us off after all, but that he hasn’t showed and now because of the boat and Jesus being murdered, we’re a bit concerned. We don’t think he’s got anything to do with it, but it seems a bit co-incidental.’

‘Yeah, yeah – they can’t prove anything, can they? They don’t know we were on the boat, they don’t know that Alvo’s dead and they don’t know about the money.’

‘They know about the hire car,’ Woody says quietly. ‘They’ve got the number.’

‘What?’ Baxter looks up, startled. He pushes his plate away – he’s barely been able to touch the food. All he can smell in his nostrils is the stench of Alvo’s rotting corpse; every mouthful had made him want to retch.

‘The cop – she saw the key fob, wrote down the number. She offered to find it for us – I said youse lot would know where it was. Said we hired a car but we were drunk, left it in town.’

‘You idiot!’ Baxter thumps the table top. ‘That means we’d have had to hire a taxi to get back here – they can check that, and of course we didn’t! Jesus Christ...’ he leaps to his feet, stumbles and falls back onto the chair, his head spinning. He feels cold and sick.

‘Hey mate, you okay?’  Woody leans forward, concern furrowing his brow. ‘You look as if you ...’

Woody’s words are lost amidst the sudden roaring in his ears as Baxter looks up at him; he tries to focus but the room is whirling around him now and he can’t fix on anything, much less frame a reply.  As if from a long way away he hears the scrape of a chair as someone leaps up; voices exclaim in alarm and then the table top comes up to smack him in the face. 

‘Bloody Nora!’ Rick yelps. ‘What’s up with him all of a sudden?’  He scowls and takes another swig from his beer.

‘He’s passed out, you idiot,’ Quinn says. He’s still rooted to his chair, torn between elbowing Woody aside and maintaining his detachment.

‘Yeah... he’s right out of it, poor sod,’ Woody says thoughtfully as he shakes Baxter’s shoulder; he doesn’t respond. ‘He hardly touched his food, look – come to think of it, when was the last time any of us saw him eat anything?’

‘Err..... Last night?’  Rick says uncertainly. ‘He was loading up his plate at the same time I was ... mind you he didn’t take much, come to think of it.’

‘No... He fell asleep in the lounge there, left most of it. And none of us’ve had anything much since then until now...’ 

‘How’d you know that?’ Rick wants to know, staring at Woody through narrowed eyes.  

Woody glances sideways at Quinn, suddenly struck by the other man’s silence; Quinn meets his gaze then glances away, purses his lips.

‘I was clearing up; found him crashed out in there. He looked dead beat.’

‘Yeah, well – he’s never been the strongest, has he?’ Rick opinions, taking another swig.  ‘He was flagging after the interviews, wasn’t he?’

‘He’s all right, Rick – don’t start picking on him just ‘cos he can’t defend himself,’ Woody says sternly. ‘C’mon – help me get him up to his room. We can’t leave him here.’

Rick pushes back his chair with a clatter. ‘Come on then...’

‘No, not you mate. You’re pissed. We don’t want another bloody corpse on our hands because you dropped him down the stairs,’ Quinn mutters, and steps around to the opposite side of Baxter’s chair.  ‘How’d you want to do this, Woody?’

Woody nods his thanks. ‘Sling his arm over your shoulder, Quinn – the stairs are wide enough, I think we’ll manage him that way.’

They each take an arm and lift the unconscious Baxter between them. ‘Better not forget his specs,’ Woody says, and retrieves them from the table top where they’d fallen when Baxter’s head had hit the table.

‘No... You know what he’s like...’ Quinn says guardedly.

They make it up the stairs without incident, both surprised at how little Baxter weighs but neither wanting to mention it.

They lay him out on the bed and Woody hesitates, then removes Baxter’s sandals and drops them under the bed. ‘You know what he’s like,’ he says wryly. ‘He wouldn’t want to get dirt on the duvet...

‘Yeah...’  Quinn nods, straightens up with a grunt.  ‘Well I think I’m going to hit the sack myself...’ he stops as Woody holds up one hand, cocks his head to one side.

‘Shh!’

Quinn sighs and turns away in frustration. ‘Oh great – don’t tell me the cops are back again!’

‘No, no, it’s not that – listen!’

Quinn does as he bid; hears nothing. ‘What?’

Woody leans over Baxter, presses one ear to his chest. ‘It’s him, it’s Bax. It’s his chest.’

‘What about his chest?’  Quinn snaps.

‘That noise – that’s not good.’ He looks up at Quinn. ‘Any idea where his inhaler might be?’

Quinn shakes his head. ‘Nope. Didn’t even know he still used it.  Are you sure?’  He seems curiously reluctant to approach the bed, Woody notes. Is he phobic?

‘Well take a listen for yourself.’

Quinn glowers but does as he’s bid.  ‘Mmm. doesn’t sound right, does it? Okay, where’s his bag...?’

‘Better check the cabinet drawer first,’ Woody opinions, and Quinn pulls the drawer open, rummages around then holds up a brown inhaler.

‘Here it is.’  He closes the draw but Woody shakes his head. ‘No, that’s a preventer. He should have another one, blue or grey – the reliever.’

‘How’d you know so much?’

‘Amy uses them sometimes. Found it?’ 

Quinn shakes his head. ‘Well clearly he needs the bloody thing – so where would he keep it?’  He looks around the room, draws a blank and turns back to the bed to see Woody pulling another inhaler from one of the pockets in Baxter’s cargo shorts. It’s blue.

‘Well that makes sense I suppose,’ he mutters. ‘How’re we going to deliver it – shouldn’t he be awake?’

‘Yeah. We need to try and wake him up.’  Woody puts the inhaler on the bed and puts his right on the unconscious man’s shoulder; and gives it a light shake.

‘Bax – wake up mate. Come on.’ 

For a second or two nothing happens and Quinn’s stomach clenches. Now that Woody has drawn his attention to it, he can clearly hear Bax’s laboured breathing, the whistle in and out as his lungs try to pull in sufficient air through the narrowed airway.  Listening to it makes his chest ache in sympathy. 

Then Baxter’s eyes fly open and he takes a gasping breath, eyes widening in fright as he registers the problem.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay -  relax,’ Woody pushes him back with the hand on his shoulder and grips hard with the other in an attempt to reassure. ‘We’ve got your inhaler. There you go.’  Baxter’s eyes widen and he flails wildly, fighting Woody who lets go, moving back to let Baxter sit up.  He snatches wildly at Woody and grabs the inhaler from him, exhaling with difficulty.  He closes his mouth around it, presses down on the pump and inhales. He holds his breath for a moment and then repeats the process several times, finally slumping back onto the bed as he pulls the inhaler out but keeps tight hold of it.

‘W- What happened?’  He asks eventually, looking from Quinn to Woody and back again. ‘I was – was...’

‘You passed out, mate,’ Woody tells him. ‘You’re gonna have a lovely bruise there,’ he adds as Baxter feels gingerly around his face where it had hit the tabletop.

‘Sorry...’ Baxter mumbles, clearly embarrassed by the whole thing.

‘What for, you daft git?’ Quinn says, clearly relieved but not willing to go overboard about it. ‘Well I’m off to bed if you’re okay...’  

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m okay... thanks.’

‘I didn’t do much – Woody here sussed it all out.’  Quinn hesitates at the door before pulling it open. ‘Right, I’m off.’

Baxter watches him go and then heaves a deep breath.

‘D’you need another puff?’ Woody asks, still concerned.

Baxter jerks his head in a brief nod as he puts the inhaler back to his mouth. After several doses, he arranges the pillows behind himself so that he’s propped up.

 “Been a while since I had an attack that bad....’ he says hoarsely. ‘Sorry you had to lug me all the way upstairs...’ he rubs a hand over his face and pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes. He looks drained.

‘You weren’t exactly heavy, Bax,’ Woody says quietly and rises from his position perched on the edge of the bed to fetch a glass.  An unopened bottle of water sits on the nightstand and he breaks the seal, fills the glass and hands it to Baxter, nudging him gently with his elbow to rouse him from a light doze.

‘Thanks.’ Baxter looks slightly embarrassed at being waited on.  ‘No, probably not.’  He empties the glass, closes his eyes and drops his head back onto the pillow, still clutching the tumbler.

Woody is about to say something else but thinks better of it, as he realises that Baxter is asleep now, rather than unconscious.  He carefully takes the tumbler from Baxter’s hands, puts it back on the nightstand and looks around the room, pondering his next move. Shower and sleep, he thinks, in that order. He’s exhausted, as are they all. He wonders if it’s safe to leave Baxter – he might have another attack.  He decides to check on him again after his shower, review the situation.

TBC


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