Playing Marcos

By D.A. Crossman

After committing an impromptu murder, Paul Barker finds himself trapped in a London apartment house.

Paul meets residents, Mayar and Kim, both of whom have dangerous secrets of their own.

While Paul contrives to conceal the crime and make good his escape, the family of crows haunting the house are ready to offer safe passage through the ghostly shadows of the underworld.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.A. Crossman
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223515050

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Paul joined the queue for the checkout. The girl flashed her eyes at him, but there was no  smile. Paul had been considering asking her out on a date. The way the girl had fluttered her eyelashes at him the day before had encouraged his optimism. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Paul removed the loaf of bread from the shopping basket and placed it onto the checkout’s conveyor belt. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How are you this morning?’

‘I’m fine thank you.’ The girl grabbed the loaf and pulled it through the scanner.

‘I see you have another barrette in your hair today,’ he crooned. ‘It looks lovely.’ Paul knew he wasn’t film-star good looking, but he had the tall-dark bit covered, and he could turn on the charm when he was in the mood.

‘Will that be all today, sir?’ she asked him.

Paul was puzzled. This wasn’t the girl who had lately flirted with him so affably. She looked nervous, as if she were putting on an act and unsure of the worth of her performance.

‘That’ll be one-forty-nine, please.’ The girl tilted her head and raised her eyes. Paul looked over towards the exit.

There were two men standing by the exit doors: one at either side. The man on the right was young, slight, in his shirtsleeves; junior management, Paul surmised. Knocking him over wouldn’t take much more than a breath of air. The man on the left was a different  proposition. He was much older: middle-aged, portly, and wearing a loose fitting suit with a lanyard around his neck. Cop or private security? Paul decided on the latter.

Paul paid cash for the loaf and made for the exit.

The suit’s heavy hand came down on Paul’s shoulder as the automatic doors slid open. Paul was right. The lanyard’s ID read: Sean Donovan Security.

‘Do you intend to pay for the other items on your person, sir?’ Donovan asked him.

‘What items?’ Paul said evenly.

‘The items in your pockets.’

Paul looked over at young junior management. The poor boy was visibly shaking. Paul turned back to Donovan and looked him directly in the eye. ‘Take your hand off me,’ he said, calmly.

Donovan slid his hand off Paul’s shoulder and clutched Paul’s upper arm. ‘Why don’t we discuss this in the manager’s office,’ he said, bristling with menace.

‘I said, take your hand off me.’ Paul grabbed Donovan’s wrist and forcibly removed the offending hand from his arm. Paul could see the security man’s mind turning over. He was clearly loath to give up his quarry, but an untidy scuffle inside the shop was outside the rules of engagement. Management would not be happy. Paul clenched both fists. Donovan would surely have to give it up, but if he was going to be stupid, Paul was ready.

The security man stepped aside. ‘You’ll be on your way then, sir.’ 

Paul marched out the exit door and down the street, the suit’s voice trailing after him: ‘I wouldn’t be coming back if I were you, sir. We’ll have the police waiting next time.’

Reaching the corner of the high street, Paul looked over his shoulder and hurried down the steps to the underground station. A train was just coming in: he could hear the lumbering echoes of its imminent arrival. Paul quickened his pace, hit the platform at a canter and boarded the carriage. Paul kept his eyes fixed on the platform, but there was nothing to worry about: no one was following him.

‘Shit,’ he said, under his breath as the train got under way. He liked going into up-market Raynes Park. The second hand bookshop was a treasure trove and the pub on the corner served a good pint. A pity then that such innocent delights would have to be forsaken. Not that anyone could touch him – legally – but some busy-body or other would be sure to recognise him from this morning’s incident, even if he steered well clear of the supermarket. I’ll just have to take my custom elsewhere, he decided.

It was a shame about the girl, though. Her giving him the heads up like that? Proved she was a good sort. Never mind. He still had his loaf of bread, and the packs of bacon, cheese, and sausages in his trouser pockets. Once he got back to the house in Morden, he’d cook himself up a nice breakfast.

*

Paul let himself into the house and headed directly for the kitchen. It was a luxury to have the place to himself. Lisa was at work, and the Goodwins – Stephen and Penny – were away for a week: in Devon to visit their aged father. Paul emptied the contents of his trouser pockets onto the kitchen bench, put a frying pan on the stovetop, and reached for the carton of eggs the Goodwins had stashed at the top of the pantry cupboard. After a week of living on baked beans and instant noodles, this was going to be a welcome feast. Once his money came through he would replace the eggs. As long as he lived in the house, he was subject to the will of the Goodwins, so there was no point in provoking them unnecessarily. 

Paul Barker had met Stephen and Penny Goodwin at an amateur dramatics night at a pub in Mitcham. The duo were performing the lead roles in An Ideal Husband and after the show they got talking. Paul had just returned – penniless – from his hitch-hiking tour of Europe and found himself dwelling in a tiny bed-sitter above the launderette in Morden High Street.

He told Stephen and Penny about his enthusiasm for the drama club at his old high school and the various roles he’d played in the school’s theatrical productions. He said he was considering taking up acting classes and maybe even applying for a place at one of the London acting colleges. The Goodwins asked him if he would like to join the Wimbledon Amateur Dramatics Society. They were always looking for kindred spirits they said, and they considered Paul, with his height and his dark looks, a valuable addition to the company.

A week after his meeting with Stephen and Penny, Paul moved into the attic bedroom in the Goodwins’ semi-detached house in Morden.

The three of them were getting along famously. The Goodwins liked to have a good time, particularly at the weekends. They liked to party and Paul was happy to join them. But Paul was never really treated as an equal and his lack of wherewithal and general insignificance, soon relegated him to the role of an appendage: customarily charged with fetching the siblings their drinks, ordering them taxis, or driving them home in Stephen’s old Escort. 

Penny Goodwin was the classic platinum blonde. She was leggy, blue-eyed, and always impeccably dressed. It seemed to Paul that Penny’s object in life was to be the centre of attention: she wanted not just to be admired, but to be adored. Men turned their heads when she walked into a room. Penny suffered no shortage of suitors. But herein – at least according to Paul’s hypothesis – was her conundrum. She obviously liked men, enjoyed their company, enjoyed flirting with them, but who among them was worthy? Paul had seen her dally with a number of eligible young hopefuls, but none of them it seemed, had met with her expectations or tempted her to admit them into her bed. 

By contrast, Stephen Goodwin preferred the security of the background. He liked to exercise his influence on proceedings, but he preferred to operate from a distance: to pull the strings from the safety of the shadows. Stephen had adopted the streetwise rogue look. He was always unshaven with just the right amount of stubble shading his jawline and was rarely seen in anything other than designer label jeans and a Nike hoodie. 

While Penny’s sexual preferences were unambiguous, her brother could swing either way; but men were his predilection. Stephen had a succession of lovers in the short time Paul had known him, many of whom it transpired, preferred not to remain friends once the affair was over.

Paul was grateful that Stephen had picked him accurately from the first, telling him dismissively: ‘You’re one of those incurably monogamous heterosexuals  aren’t you, Paul? The architecture of your mind is like the blueprint from Noah’s Ark. Am I right?’ 

Paul was obliged to engage Penny in a staged attempt at seduction, but predictably nothing came of it and Paul was allowed to take a step back as soon as another aspirant was on the scene. Paul had been attracted to her initially, but he quickly realised it was going nowhere. Penny really wasn’t his type and he certainly not hers. And besides, in those early days the three of them were inseparable, and Stephen Goodwin was not the type of guy to enjoy playing gooseberry. 

Sadly for Paul, the bonhomie between himself and the Goodwins was short-lived. During rehearsals for the Dramatics Society’s new performance of Private Lives, the director asked Paul to read for the part of Elyot Chase. It had been taken for granted that Stephen would play the lead male role opposite his sister, just as he had in the last four of the society’s productions. When the director confirmed Paul as his choice to play Elyot, Paul was thrilled, but his delight was quickly tempered by an undisguised outrage on the part of the siblings.

Paul was soon to learn that the Goodwins’ parents were founding members of the Society and that funds from their trust account continued to facilitate a sponsorship of the company. (Mrs Goodwin had died of cancer the year before and her ailing widower had been recently installed by his children into a care facility. Paul knew what Penny and Stephen were about: planning to cash in on their parent’s substantial property in Devon).

The Goodwins soon persuaded the play’s director to reconsider his position and the status quo was restored. But Paul was now firmly cast in the role of usurper, and the Goodwins’ malice towards him became implacable.

It was at times like this, when he was hungry and maybe just a little depressed, that Paul blamed himself. If only he’d turned down the role of Elyot or made more of an effort to get into Penny Goodwin’s bed. 

Paul cracked the eggs into the pan and pulled out his phone to check his account. The account was still showing: zero-zero point zero-zero. The money hadn’t come through. He’d texted them a terse complaint and received the customarily flippant response: don’t stress, it’ll be there sometime today or tomorrow morning at the latest. It wasn’t the first time they’d been late paying his account and Paul was getting tired of the anxiety. What he earned from his market research interviews barely covered the price of his room, and now the Goodwins were threatening to increase the rent to compensate, they said, for their subjugation to market forces. Paul supposed Penny must have read that phrase in the pink newspaper she habitually carried around with her.

The truth was, Paul reflected bitterly, Stephen and Penny Goodwin were a pair of shallow, money-grubbing, spoiled brats. Mummy and Daddy had given them the deposit for the mortgage on the house, but it was their tenants, Paul and Lisa, who were paying off the loan to the bank.

Paul felt sorrier for Lisa than he did even for himself. Lisa was a nurse and worked the most horrific hours imaginable. She’d often get home late, heat up some leftovers and head off to bed. Poor girl was exhausted.

By comparison, the Goodwins had it easy. Penny worked 9-5 at an investment bank in the city, and Stephen was studying at law school. They had plenty of money and leisure time and took it for granted that: in the grand scheme of things, some people were just more fortunate than others.

*

Paul was washing down his breakfast with a second cup of tea when the doorbell rang. Neither Lisa or Paul received many visitors and the Goodwins’ friends must surely know that they were out of town. Could just be a salesman or a market research man like himself, or maybe a Jehovah’s witness; or maybe, the police. Paul decided not to open up just in case.

‘Hello! Anyone at home?’

The caller had gone around to the back. Marcos, thought Paul. He recognised immediately that low Oxbridge tone with the distinctive trace of a European accent. Marcos was the Goodwins’ latest acquaintance, and now that Paul was irredeemably out of favour, Antione Marcos had been seamlessly slotted in as Paul’s replacement. Paul opened the back door of the house and Marcos sauntered into the kitchen.

Marcos – much to Paul’s surprise – was sporting a smart blue blazer and a Panama hat. Paul had never seen him dressed in anything other than a three piece suit which he occasionally adorned with a black fedora. He was a couple of years older than Paul; late-twenties, around the same height – give or take a fraction of an inch – but broader across both the shoulders and the girth. Paul thought he must be a good two stone heavier than himself.

‘Ah, Paul,’ said Marcos. ‘How are you today?’

‘Hello, Marcos. I’m fine, thanks. If you’re looking for Stephen and Penny, I’m afraid you’ve missed them. They left last night; gone to see their father in Taunton.’

Marcos looked put out. ‘Damn! I thought that was next week. I should have called them.’

Paul had encountered Marcos at the house on a number of occasions during the past couple of weeks. The Goodwins’ new friend was lately in the habit of calling round to collect them for one excursion or another. Paul was never invited to go along (brother and sister making it very clear that any friend of theirs was no friend of his). But courtesy had eventually dictated an introduction and when Marcos had called in early one morning, Paul had an agreeable conversation with him while Stephen and Penny were busy upstairs getting dressed.

Marcos had explained how his mother was English and that a childhood spent in Cyprus accounted for his accent. He said he’d been educated in an English school on the Island and though he was very much a Cypriot, he always felt at home in England.

Paul was delighted to be given an opportunity to talk about his own short, but extensive tour of Europe. Paul had visited Cyprus on the final leg of his journey and he’d found the Island to be particularly agreeable. Just about everything was signposted in English and the majority of Cypriots spoke the language fluently. Paul had felt quite at home and the weather and the food were considerably better.

Marcos said he was from Nicosia and that he often travelled to the UK on business, though he didn’t say what kind of business he was in. Whatever it was, Paul thought, it must be lucrative. The expensive tailored suits and the shiny-green XJ Jag parked out on the street were testament to that. Paul was naturally curious, but he didn’t want to appear rude by prying unnecessarily.

Quite what Marcos saw in Stephen and Penny Goodwin was a mystery to Paul. Unlike the friendless and indigent Paul Barker, Marcos didn’t look the type to tag along like an acquiescent puppy dog. Paul (cynically) concluded that Marcos’ interest in the siblings was sexually motivated, but which one of them he was interested in remained unclear, unless of course, he liked them both. 

Marcos fidgeted uneasily. The unavailability of his new friends had obviously upset his plans.

‘Can I get you a coffee or something?’ Paul offered.

‘No, no, thank you, Paul. It’s kind of you, but I must be going. I have tickets for the centre court. Play starts at two.’

Paul had been wondering about the white hat and the blue blazer.

Marcos looked at his wrist watch. ‘What are you doing today?’ he asked.

Paul