Chapter 38 Charlie
CHARLIE
Charlie made the unusual decision to walk to the restaurant this morning, taking the long way around and going out of his way to talk to as many people as he possibly could.
It was all about having eyes on him. Getting himself in front of folk, making them see him, so that when they’re asked about it later, they’ll recall the conversations they had, and be able to give him the perfect alibi.
“You’re up and at it early,” calls out Chris, the pub landlord, as he lowers beer kegs through the wooden doors in the cobbled walkway into the cellar below.
Normally, Charlie would just give him an acknowledging wave and keep moving, but today he makes his way over, eager for Chris to be able to recall the exchange with clarity.
“Do you want some help with that?” he asks.
“You’d think I’d be used to it after all these years,” says Chris, tipping a barrel up the curb. “But the back is beginning to protest.”
Charlie throws the keg onto his shoulder as if it were a beanbag. “That’s what happens when you get old,” he says, stepping onto the ladder and lowering himself into the void.
“You cheeky beggar,” laughs Chris.
Once all the kegs are unloaded, Charlie promises to come back for his “usual” in between service, knowing he won’t, because he imagines he’ll be called home well before then.
Though who by, he hasn’t yet worked out.
Might it be a neighbor, who hears a disturbance but isn’t brave enough to go look for themselves?
Might it be a villager walking their dog, who sees a dark figure in the window?
Might it even be Freya herself? He hopes not, because then it would mean it had all gone terribly wrong.
“Morning, Pat,” says Charlie in a singsong voice as he picks up a paper from the rack outside the village shop. “How are you?”
Her face lights up. “All the better for seeing you,” she says, rubbing fingerless gloved hands together over a three-bar heater that looks like something Charlie’s great-nan used to have.
“I hear it’s going to struggle to get out of single figures today,” says Charlie. “You’re going to need a bit more than that to keep you warm.”
“Ooh, are you offering?” she giggles as she peers over her glasses.
Charlie smiles. “Can I get this sent by special delivery?” he asks as he holds a brown envelope casually aloft. “It needs to be there first thing tomorrow morning.”
Pat ponders, as if considering whether it might be too much trouble to lift the blind on the post-office counter no more than six feet away.
“Well, seeing as it’s you,” she says. Though Charlie doesn’t doubt that there are many she’d say no to.
The villagers live in fear of getting on the wrong side of her.
The power she wields over their pensions and electricity top-up cards all too prevailing.
“And can I get a receipt as well?” he asks, knowing it will have a time-and-date stamp on it.
He may be going over the top, the belts-and-braces approach being a little too premeditated. But he figures he’s not got anything to lose—it can only strengthen his case and prove his whereabouts, if it comes to pass that he needs to.
A bitter taste sours his tongue at the thought.
How had it come to this? How had the perfect life he’d had this time last year turned into a living hell?
He thinks back to last summer, when it seemed he had his whole life mapped out.
He and Freya were happy, or at least that’s what they had dared to believe, but looking back, Charlie wonders if it was all a facade.
Were the cracks already evident, and they’d just been too busy papering over them to notice?
“Here you go,” says Pat, idly handing him the proof of postage, oblivious to its relevance.
Charlie wonders if she’ll be quite so ambivalent on the witness stand, when she’s asked to verify exactly what time he came into the shop.
“So was it before eleven AM or after?” the prosecutor will challenge.
“Well, I’m not exactly sure,” he imagines her replying. “I know I had This Morning on in the back room, but I can’t remember what segment it was.”
“It’s very important that you try to remember,” the prosecutor will press. “Because it’s the difference between Mr. Adams being able to carry out this crime, or not.”
A toe-curling heat sears Charlie’s veins as he checks the evidence in his hand, fearing it’s not enough to prove his innocence. He needs more. He needs a backup, to exonerate him, unequivocally, from having any involvement in what’s about to happen.
The only CCTV in the village is courtesy of Maureen Radcliffe’s Ring doorbell. It’s out of his way, but it’s a trip worth making if it’s going to prove beyond all doubt that he couldn’t possibly be in two places at once.
He makes his way up to the church, briefly stopping outside to consider whether he should go in.
He wants to pray for forgiveness—for what’s about to happen—but he runs the risk of being too visible.
He needs to have a smattering of reliable witnesses, each able to relay that they saw him at a certain time.
But to have too many might raise suspicions, as if to imply that he had set out with the sole intention of others being able to vouch for him.
He keeps going, having decided that his mug shot on Mrs. Radcliffe’s camera is more than sufficient.
Once he’s there, he stops to tighten his shoelaces, positioning himself within where he imagines the camera frame to be, hoping that it catches him in all his composed glory.
Any onlooker couldn’t possibly imagine that his casual facade could hide such monstrous intentions, and no jury could put him at the scene of a crime that he’s quite clearly nowhere near.
He checks his watch one more time, the camera thankfully unable to see the uptick in his heart rate when he sees it’s two minutes to eleven. In 120 seconds it will start, and, God willing, it will be over mercifully quickly.