Friday, April 30, 2010

Week 19 - Doorstep Sleeper

Chapter Nine – Doorstep Sleeper

Sitting in a packed end of Villa supporters at Highfield Road it was significant that the only empty seat was the one to my right. I don’t know if I had wanted Pete to turn up or not, but I had decided that as I had don’t nothing wrong I wasn’t going to miss this game. The game went well for the Villa with us winning by two goals to one, but my head was just not really there. I was very cross and for the first time since I was eleven I really wanted to hit someone. That just wasn’t me and I was angry that my ‘former’ friend Pete had made me feel like this.

Despite the Villa winning I didn’t watch ‘Match of the Day’ that Saturday night and just sat on my bed trying to make sense of the Pete-Becky news. I thought we had an unwritten rule that we never went after the same girls. Mind you I didn’t usually get the type of girls Pete fell for. I especially didn’t get the Tracey Taylor thing even if they did share a passion for Gary Numan. For Pete there were always two types of women. Firstly, the one you just bonked and then didn’t see again, or secondly the ones you worshipped and ended up making a complete fool over. This was the Tracey Taylor case. So how did I really feel about Pete now? Had Pete been the ‘best man’ for both me and Becky? No, I didn’t want to think about any of this. The thought of them together is something my brain could not cope with.

To the left of my bed was my birthday present off Pete. It was the brilliant matchstick model of the old Villa Trinity Road stand. All Pete’s own handy work. He probably built it to help him to deal with his own guilt over screwing his best mate’s fiancée. I was feeling so full of rage and hatred. The easy thing to do was to smash the model into hundreds of pieces. Inside my wardrobe was my prized cricket bat signed by Ian Botham and Bob Willis at that famous Headingly 1981 test match. So I picked the bat up with both hands and raised it above the wooden model. All it would take was one blow and I could destroy weeks of Pete’s hard work. No, I couldn’t do it. This just wasn’t me and how could I even think of causing damage to the sacred Trinity Road stand even if it was only a model. I decided to go for a midnight stroll.

As I was walking I began to think about a fact that I had overlooked all day. I had been focusing too much on not thinking about Becky and Pete together that I had forgotten that Becky was still missing. Where could she be? Maybe Pete has seen her since the wedding fiasco. I certainly wasn’t ready to confront Pete though. So I just walked and walked knowing that there would be nobody worrying about me.

It was nearly half past three in morning when I actually arrived back at home. I was shocked to see a pretty young lady sleeping on my door-step. She was covered by her coat to keep her warm and for a few seconds I thought it was Becky but then realised it was the delightful Heather. I decided not to wake her and unlocked the door before lifting the sleeping beauty up in my arms and carrying her inside. Still she didn’t wake so I took her to the bedroom and placed her on the bed. I was tempted to undress her and stroke her back again but it didn’t seem appropriate. As I was thinking about covering her up Heather half-woke up and just quietly told me she had been worried about me. This was sweet and then she surprised me even more by saying that Pete had rung her and told her the two of us had had a big falling out. Now this really shocked me. Firstly that Pete had been so concerned about me that he had rung Heather, or was he just trying to get inside her knickers as well. No, that was unfair. Secondly, that he had described it as ‘a big fallout’. I mean he had just told me something and then left the pub. Heather then closed her eyes and within seconds was snoring and grunting like a little pig.

I spent the next four hours just sitting on the bed with Heather’s sleeping head on my lap. Things actually felt right and the position seemed comfortable and natural. The world didn’t seem quite as scary with Heather smiling in her sleep. I did kiss her forehead several times and stroked her lips with my middle fingers.

At quarter to eight Heather woke with a jolt and announced she had to catch the train to London at ten o’clock as she was heading back to Paris to meet Jean Pierre. This surprised and disappointed me but I decided not to question it. So I just offered to drive Heather to the station in my new Golf convertible car. Well, I second-hand but new to me and even had a six track CD multi-changer in it.

At the station I was thinking about Heather’s lack of luggage. She had reassured me that she was only going for two days at most and just had to give Jean Pierre something. Maybe I was supposed to ask what, but I wasn’t in the mood for any games. Heather did tell me that I was taking her out to the new Italian restaurant on Thursday evening at eight o’clock so at least another meeting was planned. I leant over to kiss Heather’s left cheek, but she grabbed my face in her hands and pulled our mouths together. It turned into quite a passionate snog and I just started thinking how ace she smelt. Even without a shower and in the same clothes she arrived in last night Heather smelt as sweet as a garden centre. The kiss was stopped short though by a loud clicking sound. I looked around to see a person with a rather large camera walking away. This was strange but I just returned to the kiss before waving Heather goodbye. For a few moments I had completely forgotten both my missing bride and my two-faced Best Man.

Leaving the station I decided that as I had been distracted last night and not even checked the Villa’s league position that I should buy a Sunday newspaper. My normal choice was ‘The People’, but it was the headline on the front of the ‘News of the World’ that caught my eyes. ‘JILTED JOHN DENIES BRIDE KILLING’. Oh, no this day was not going to improve. I had to buy a paper.

“He’s a local bloke as well, you know. I bet he done her in”, said the paper seller.

I returned home with not only the ‘New of the World’ but also ‘Sunday Mirror’ and ‘The People’. All contained at least two pages on the missing bride from Lichfield. The number of inaccuracies in the stories and the total disregard for the truth were shocking. One called me ‘’A loner” and another claimed “John, aged 34, had a history of violent behaviour”. Well, I am just thirty and the last person I hit was when I was eleven. ‘The People’ had lots of lovely sweet pictures of Becky that made her look like the gil nextdoor. Actually I really liked the one and cut it out. But the ones of me were horrible. One was from my Council Identity Card and I looked like I had just been released from Broadmoor. The fact that it was taken the week that I had been suffering with conjunctivitis did not help. All the newspaper stories seemed to now be suggesting that soon Becky’s body would be discovered and that there was only one suspect. Where was this going to end? I would probably end up as the lead story on ‘Crime Watch’. Oh, Becky where are you? I didn’t care about being public enemy number one I just wanted to know Becky was safe.


Just as I was really starting to think about the possibility of Pete being involved in Becky’s disappearance the phone rang. I picked up the phone but didn’t say anything in case it was a journalist. Maybe I needed a lawyer.

“Is that Mr Jon Stadler? The mad-axeman of Lichfield”, said the croaky voice. I replied by just saying “yes Nan”.

Nan was very excited and not only because she had managed to get an outside line on the phone in the main staff office without anybody knowing. She was delighted that her grandson was national news. She was apparently enjoying her new title in the home as “Jilted Jon’s Nan”. Mr Patel was currently in the process of making her a badge. Nan was being her totally mad self. At least some things don’t change. I told Nan that I was in fact not a murder.

“Oh, I know that, I mean if you killed Becky who was that girl who came to visit me last Tuesday”, Nan then broke into an uncontrollable fit of giggles followed by “Oh blast, I have wet my pants. They were clean on last Thursday as well”. The phone went dead.

Next Week : A shocking trip to Nan's home

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