Designer Devil

By Stuart Peel

Michael Dwight is a failure. He has no woman, a job he hates and is the wrong side of 40. Then one day a smelly, shabby little man walks into his life. That man happens to work for the Devil and is about to change Michael’s life forever. Join Michael as he’s plunged into a world of Demons, Devils and Lust. Designer Devil is a comedy, a horror story and above all a cautionary tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stuart Peel
• Release date: Mar 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781311916969

Book preview

DESIGNER DEVIL

© Stuart Peel 2012

FOR MY PARENTS

NOTE

Whilst I have loosely based this story on certain tenets of the Christian faith, I do so merely because it is the religion with which I am most familiar. I in no way intend to endorse Christianity over any other faith or belief system.

I also wish to stress that all of the events and characters portrayed in the book are completely fictional and any resemblance they may bear to reality is coincidental.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

1 Peter 5:8

PROLOGUE

A low moan of wind swept aimlessly around the clearing. The constantly low light, like a perpetual dawn, made seeing past the perimeter nearly impossible. The dense fog that obscured most of the landscape beyond didn’t advance this far, always keeping its distance, as if it knew what lived here. The temperature never changed either. Cold and damp but never quite freezing, just enough to be constantly uncomfortable and keep the spirits low and hopeless.

It was rare to hear any noise at all from the two lines of cells that faced each other on each side of this space, and today was no different. The guard seldom looked up, and when he did it was usually in fear of what prowled out there in the fog, rather than of his inmates. The latter never gave any trouble, they weren’t in a position to. What happened to them when what passed for night came was enough to make sure they would be a threat to no-one else.

And so he kept on reading the cheap yellowed paperback that he’d brought with him. The only thing at all that he had to worry about, was to make sure he was locked away safely when night time came, because if he wasn’t then he would be no safer than the others. Thus his watch was backed up by a good clock that hung on the wall in the hut behind him. He also had a further failsafe watch in his pocket. He was happy to go to these lengths because it was worth the trouble.

He flicked over another page of the pot-boiler and heard a sound somewhere in front of him. His immediate instinct was to look beyond the clearing and peer hard at the wall of fog beyond. He felt his heart beat faster for a moment as he scanned for any movement, but there was none. He carried on watching for a few minutes and then reluctantly returned to the book. His predecessor had told him that one needed ‘balls of steel’ for this job, but he didn’t want to appear like a coward unless he absolutely had to.

What he didn’t notice as he looked back down at his lap, was that the cell door three along on the right was standing slightly ajar. In his defence he shouldn’t have expected such a thing to be possible. No one had ever escaped from here and there was no reason to suppose that anyone ever would. So his last few moments were spent in blissful ignorance of even the possibility of danger, let alone the terrible fate that was slowly circling behind him in the gloom. At the last second, some primal instinct made him sit up and look ahead again, despite the fact that he’d heard nothing. Unfortunately for him the threat was standing right behind him and he only had a vague awareness of this as his head suddenly pitched forward, fell into his lap and then dropped onto the floor with a dull thud.

His attacker looked down at the body with detached interest, unsure of quite how he’d managed to decapitate this person. But no matter, he didn’t have time to linger here, because he realised as he out looked into the fog that the hard part was still to come. But at least he was free.

Magor had escaped.

CHAPTER ONE

Predictably, the rain had failed to stop. Michael looked grimly at the dirty windowpane to his left and stared blankly as the raindrops thudded relentlessly against it. After a few moments reverie he looked back to his desk, and then yet again at the clock at the bottom right corner of his computer monitor.

3:11 p.m.

He was already so bored that it was physically painful, so the thought of nearly two more hours sat here doing nothing filled him with hopelessness. Worse still he’d already used up all his normal tricks to fill the time. For instance he’d had more cups of coffee than was medically safe, going through an increasingly elaborate routine for each cup, that even a Geisha would’ve found excessive. He’d been to the toilet twelve times, gone downstairs and flirted with the girls four times, and stood outside chatting to the office smoker three times. And he’d been out into the town on the pretext of having to ‘pop to the bank’ no less than twice. The second time had been pushing it even by his standards. He’d claimed to have received a call from the bank stating that the transaction he’d performed the first time round had developed a problem, and it was quicker for him to go down in person. He’d just about got away with that, after selling it with highly polished fake dismay at the bank’s incompetence. Desperate.

But he still had hours stretching out in front of him, like an endless carpet of greyness. Could he do some work ? Well yes, he had work that he could do, but absolutely nothing he had to do. And that was the equivalent of no work to all intents and purposes. There was always tomorrow, or maybe the day after. Who cared, if it wasn’t today it didn’t really exist. His boss was usually too busy with his own intrigues to focus much on what Michael was up to, and in any event Michael made sure his desk gave the appearance of strenuous activity. Files were left open, and arranged in an orderly formation. A notebook sat in the middle, with some comments scribbled on it, and the pen was left to one side with the lid off, as if he were halfway through something. And his dictation machine always had a tape in it that was halfway through. He’d learnt a long time ago that an empty desk was a dead giveaway, but that a controlled mess always equated to industriousness.

So no, he wasn’t going to do any more work, and he had time to kill. There was only one real option, the internet, the ultimate saviour of the bored-stiff office worker. And even though he’d already looked at some of his bookmarks upwards of twenty times today, he’d not looked at anything for at least ten minutes. There was bound to be something new somewhere, and if so then there was every chance that he’d be dragged into another thirty minutes of aimless surfing and the near certainty of an unplanned and unwanted purchase of some kind. He smiled thinly and pulled his mouse towards him.

The phone rang and stopped him in his tracks. Looking at the caller display he saw it was his boss and a familiar tension gently clasped his stomach. This was bound to be bad news. The only question was whether it would be a telling off, a painfully trivial piece of information that barely warranted the tiny cost of an internal phone call or a crapulous job. Three minutes later as he replaced the receiver, a pained expression appeared on his face, it was the last of the three. Pushing the mouse away and biting his lip fiercely in frustration he now wished that he were still bored.

Michael Cyril Dwight was forty-three years old and knew deep down in his heart of hearts that he was never going to be made a partner. He didn’t really admit that to himself, he couldn’t afford to. How else could he possibly summon the energy to get out of bed in the morning? If he accepted that he would spend the rest of his life working for someone else, following their orders and making them (but never himself) nice money, he would probably have a breakdown of some sort. And so he lived a lie, and convinced himself that he was just round the corner from success.

He bought and partially read self-help books, badly taught himself Neuro-linguistic programming, and started a multitude of exercise programs. He’d even started eating homemade muesli topped with yoghurt and fresh berries for breakfast, because he’d read that it would make him more alert and less prone to tiredness during the day. But very soon he’d returned to frighteningly strong coffee and peanut butter on toast, or nothing at all. The exercise programs always ceased after a few days or the first pulled muscle whichever came first. The confidence books were left half read, with a corner of one page folded over somewhere at the seventy mark, as he returned to the less demanding pleasures of the telly. This was a pattern that had repeated itself a huge number of times over the years, but it was all he had, that little spark of hope that he could turn his life around and be successful. He’d probably seen too many movies, but tried to see the future as a rousing montage of increasing triumphs culminating in him accepting a large non-specific golden award of some type.

When he very often fantasised about the life he would like, he found himself in a toothpaste commercial. Affable, handsome, tanned and living in a large house surrounded by an attractive and respectful family. He would get out of bed in the morning and admire his abs in the mirror, before going on a ten mile run during which he would inevitably encounter close neighbours and beam a perfect white smile at them as he jogged by. He would then return to his big house, wash in a fancy stainless steel shower, eat a breakfast positively bursting with health, and then slip into a tailored suit. Throughout all this he would be smiling wryly, his eyebrows frequently being raised quizzically and his ripped body never entirely out of view. The reality however was somewhat different.

Some days, when Michael woke up he genuinely felt as if he might have died during the night without realising it. When it was actually painful to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed, when the feel of his feet hitting the cold floor sent a shiver through him and when a concerning number of cracking noises accompanied his hobble to the bathroom, that toothpaste man seemed a long, long way away.

In his fantasy it was always sunny when he woke up and beams of light were shining through a cool modern set of blinds. In reality it was always dark, and his tatty curtains were arranged untidily against the gloom. Also in his fantasy his breath never smelt as if a small mammal was decomposing inside his mouth. His stomach didn’t sag with a pale roll of fat and his hair didn’t look as if it had been smeared in chip fat and then subjected to electric current. And he didn’t have a feeling of dull hopelessness in his soul. But then that wouldn’t have made for much of a fantasy. And he found himself daydreaming more and more, as the real world gave him less and less of what he wanted.

He knew deep down that he simply couldn’t afford to admit the truth of his life. And thus he’d come to an informal agreement with himself to simply never face up to reality. Sometimes this arrangement worked and on a good day he could glide through life, without ever really touching the sides. On those days he existed in a little bubble of hope, never looking in the mirror, and nearly convincing himself that he was handsome, respected and important. But then, on other days, life tore through his little bubble, grabbed him around the neck, and reminded him that he was plain, short, unloved and somebody else’s bitch. Today was going to be an example of the latter. He’d inherited a shitty case, and his stomach was already churning with worry.

Michael was an assistant criminal defence solicitor. This meant that he had absolutely no control over the cases he was given and consequently he often ended up with the utter rubbish that no-one else wanted to do. The difficult clients, the un-winnable trials, the near certain complaints just waiting to happen. He’d lost count of the sleepless nights that had been caused by the anticipation of the certain disaster waiting for him the next morning. And he dreaded to think of the cumulative damage it had done to his shredded nerves.

Criminal clients were hardly ever grateful. If you got them acquitted then that was only fair as they hadn’t done it anyway. If you got them convicted then it was your fault for being a bad lawyer and not that they’d actually committed the crime. Michael knew this, and had lived with it for fifteen years. Every criminal lawyer faced it, but what Michael hated was that the real nightmare cases were always given to him. He was always set up to be shot at, and what was worse was that his lazy bastard of a boss, who had dodged the bullet in the first place, would then proceed to tell him how easy the case was, and how he really should have won it. So as the phone rang on his desk on this murky Tuesday afternoon, a familiar cycle of horribleness started up once more.

The conversation had been very short, and very clear. Despite Michael’s protestations as to the amount of work he had to do (a lie), the amount of overtime he’d done lately (another lie) and the fact that he vaguely recognised the name and didn’t think he got on with the client (an outrageous lie) he soon found himself putting a notepad in his briefcase, and pulling on his coat. He had to do the case. There was no-one else available (a lie on the other side, he suspected). But there was no other option. And the case was a bugger.

The client’s name was a Mr. Stana. A gentleman of unknown origin, who was currently in the cells at the local magistrates court for an offence of Grievous Bodily Harm. Worse than that he’d attacked three of the officers who’d arrested him, biting one of them very badly on the nose. When in custody he’d screamed his head off and smeared his faeces over the wall, spelling the words ‘Die Pigs’. He’d already sacked four firms of solicitors, and spat in the face of the custody sergeant upon charge. If ever there was a nightmare client then this was it. At best, Michael would be verbally abused, sacked and could then leave. The worst case scenario was that the client would actually want to be represented by him and would then make the next six months of his life a living hell. Michael said goodbye to his secretary and stepped out into the afternoon gloom, a light drizzle spattering his face. He marched off towards the court and felt the familiar companion of anxiety take up residence in his stomach.

The local Magistrates Court was a grim place at the best of times. Seemingly designed to suck in any surrounding light and hope, it sat slumped on the side of the main road, a malevolent and sinister building. Constructed in the 1960s in the fashion of the time, it was now a rather faded and dated concrete reminder of why those styles were no longer in favour. Inside, the acres of dark wood and the oppressively small conference rooms always added to the feeling that one was being gently pushed down by a giant invisible hand. The courtrooms themselves were intimidating in that the magistrates sat up very high and looked down at the rest of the court as if from the top of Mount Olympus. Solicitors row was cramped and uncomfortable, and it was difficult to stand up straight without the backs of your legs chafing against the folding seats. And the microphones never worked properly.

As for the cell area, that Michael now descended to in a stately fashion, they were buried deep beneath the main building in a dungeon-like crypt, and had that smell of cheap disinfectant and body odour that all cell areas have. Georgie the friendly jailer opened the large foreboding door, and straightaway Michael could see this was going to be hard work. Georgie would normally beam at him, crack a joke, and complain about the football. Something. He was usually the only light that shone down here, and so it was highly disconcerting that as he let Michael in, his face had a pinched and anxious look.

‘Here to see Stana ?’ he said quietly.

‘Afraid so’ Michael replied with a weak smile.

‘Come over here a minute’ Georgie motioned towards a little alcove by the kitchen they had and spoke in a low voice, ‘I know you’re very experienced Michael, and I’m not trying to tell you your job’ he held his hands up defensively, ‘but that one in there is a fucking pig !’

‘I heard’ said Michael quickly, his heart sinking a little further.

‘I’m going to let you in the cell with him because I’m not going to risk trying to get him to the interview room. But I’m not going to lock the door. I’m going to stand right outside, and if you have any trouble with him, you shout and I’ll be in there like a flash. Understand ?’ Georgie looked hard at Michael as he spoke.

‘Yeah sure’ Michael said, ‘but maybe he’ll be okay with me.’

‘I hope so, but apparently he told one of the other solicitors he’d burn down his house and kill his family.’

‘Oh Christ’ Michael breathed.

‘Just do yourself a favour, get yourself sacked, and come out. Alright ?’

‘I’ll do my best’ Michael pasted on a brave smile, ‘let’s just hope he doesn’t like me!’

‘Well, he doesn’t like anyone else, I can tell you that.’

With that, Georgie led Michael down the dark hallway to the end cell. He opened the small metal grill in the cell door and barked the words ‘Legal visit’ through it. Georgie then took out the keys, unlocked the door with a clunk, looked Michael in the eye once more and swung the door open in front of him. Michael walked in.

At first he couldn’t see anyone in the cell. All there was, next to the customary aluminium toilet without a seat, was the bench on the far wall and a bundle of clothes on it. Having looked around him he realised that the bundle of clothes must be the client. He stepped forward a little more and felt the door close behind him with a sharp clang. He now noticed the acrid smell of body odour and other smells in the air, and saw the faecal graffiti on the wall, spelt wrongly. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was something in the toilet but he didn’t dare look. And also that the clothes on the prone body in front of him were splattered with dried blood.

‘Mr. Stana ?’ he spoke unsteadily into the gloom.

No movement. So he tried again.

‘Mr. Stana, my name is Michael Dwight. I’m your solicitor.’

At this there was movement, and a grimy rat like face emerged from the rags and slowly turned to look in his direction. Two beady little brown eyes fixed and then bored into him. They stayed locked on him for a few seconds and then beneath them, a brown smudge that was presumably a mouth broke into a nasty grin.

‘You my brief ?’ said the mouth with a low, sixty-a-day rasp.

‘Yes’ said Michael standing his ground and looking the client right back in the eye.

Years ago Michael had found that the key to dealing with intimidating and dangerous people was to never show fear, even if you felt it.

‘Sacked the last one’ said the client with an even nastier grin.

‘So I heard’ said Michael again quite firmly, ‘what was the problem there ?’

‘He was a cunt !’ the smile dropped off the weasel-like face and was replaced with a scowl.

‘Right’ Michael wasn’t fazed, criminal lawyers with any level of experience were used to this sort of thing. Instead he held up the papers in the dim yellowy light and rustled them slightly, ‘do you want to talk about the case with me ?’

‘You any good ?’ those rat eyes bored into him again.

‘I’ll let you be the judge of that, may I ?’ he motioned towards a small empty part of the bench. The client shrugged.

Now sitting, Michael took a few pages from the front of the bundle and offered them to the client.

‘Can’t read’ said Stana with a waft of breath that Michael was now unfortunate enough to smell.

‘Okay then, well basically you are charged with a number of offences, the most serious being…..’

‘Am I getting bail ?’ the voice was level, but with a hint of malevolence.

Michael felt a strong wiry hand grasp his left forearm alarmingly tightly.

‘Well’ he started to fluster, ‘that’s what we’re going to discuss isn’t it ?’

‘Don’t give me that bollocks mate, you know if I’m going to get bail or not’ the look in Stana’s eyes invited no discussion on the issue and the grip tightened.

‘Okay then’ Michael moved his arm away on the context of re-arranging his papers, and it was reluctantly released, ‘the main problem here is going to be…’

‘I’m not am I.’

‘Sorry ?’ Michael heard with irritation a slight crack in his own voice.

‘Bail, I’m talking about bail, you deaf or something ?’ Stana now moved his head closer to Michael’s, and Michael couldn’t help wonder if he was about to be spat at.

‘Well, as I was saying…’

‘Just tell me dickhead !’ now there was genuine anger in the voice. Michael stopped, paused for a second, made a decision and then turned very deliberately towards his client, looked him hard in the eye and said.

‘No, you’re not.’

The following moment was tense. For a split second Michael expected to see the client launch at him in a fury of swinging arms, whirling tattoos and flying spittle. But then the moment passed, and they were both just sat there looking at each other, trapped in a cell thirty feet below the High Street and out of sight of all forms of normality. Anything could happen here. Then the client smiled and sat back a little,

‘Fair enough, you can be my brief, all the others tell me a lot of crap, at least you’re honest. Got a fag ?’

‘Don’t smoke, but I’ll get you one.’ Michael smiled disarmingly at him and then did just that. The client smiled back. And in that tiny moment a bond was formed between the two men, something imperceptible and totally invisible to anyone else. At the back of his mind Michael was disappointed not to have been sacked, but at least he hadn’t been hit, that was something.

Fortunately he was good with difficult clients, unfortunately that meant he always got lumbered with them. But as he started to go through the case papers with this particular example, he noted with some satisfaction that he was actually being listened to. He’d established trust, now he could get on with the work, and he might just be home by seven.

As he explained the various bits of evidence, occasionally looking up to make sure his client was still listening, he noted nothing out of the usual. And now provided with a strictly against regulations cigarette, Stana was compliant and obedient.

However, behind the eyes of the foul breathed moron that was eagerly lapping up Michael’s words, lay another personality entirely. And it was observing Michael coolly and calmly. Analysing every facial tick, every gesture, every nervous dart of the eyes and the tiny beads of sweat that were appearing at his receding hairline. Scrutinising and calculating, checking and re-checking, and coming to a very important decision. That decision would change the life of Michael Cyril Dwight forever.

CHAPTER TWO

The heat was ferocious. As he lay stretched to his full length along the hot sand the sun beat down on him relentlessly. He didn’t mind. His eyes were firmly closed, but he could hear the incessant buzz of crickets and the distant crash of the waves. Even though he’d lain here for more than an hour, much more actually, he had no intention of moving, not for a long while yet. Instead he just let the sun burn into his body, and through to the bone. His bones had been chilled for so long that they happily received the flood of warmth and ate it up greedily. Soon it would be time to turn onto his back and do the other side, but not yet. For now he revelled in the sunshine. The first he had seen in many, many years.

Hours later when fully sated by the heat, he sat under the shade of a palm tree, back against the trunk, thoroughly spent. He was completely broken. Almost unable to move, even the effort of lifting his arm to brush the dirty blond hair out of his bright blue eyes caused everything to ache. So he just sat there and watched the sea sweep in and out, hour after hour until the sun dipped down low over the water, flooding the sea with