Introducing Monty Finch Introducing Monty Monty the first Montgomery Charles Edward Finch plunged his hands into his overcoat pockets and hunched his shoulders. He pressed his chin against his chest and quickened his pace, hurrying across the dark street and onto the pavement, hopping over the icy puddles and side-stepping the crisp piles of grey slush that gathered by the shop fronts. He glanced over his shoulder and thought he saw a shadow in a doorway at the other side of the road. The darkness made him a nervous wreck. It was late, very late and the streets were dead quiet. Monty cursed under his breath that he worked at this time of night and walked on. Cold wasn’t the word. Icicles hung on the underside of window frames. Frost had enveloped the cars parked by the side of the road. Black ice formed on the tarmac. As Monty Finch walked briskly past the police station, around the gigantic, bare trees that burst out of the pavement, his warm breath turned white on the air. The late January freeze was in full effect. The snowfall of just under a week prior was lingering in many places, and the streets were practically empty. It was simply too cold to be outside. Monty scampered along the deserted pavement and took a left into Edward Street. It was usually a fifteen-minute walk from Monty’s office to his rented flat in Richmond, but he reckoned that at his current pace he would make it in less than ten minutes. Monty ducked into an alleyway and skipped around the frozen puddles that had formed at the base of several rubbish bins. The alleyway was his occasional short-cut, and led to a narrow path that ran along the edge of the canal. The gravel path crunched underneath his feet as he reached the end of the road, and Monty turned a sharp bend that took him to the water’s edge. The canalside was dark and quiet, and the moon reflected on the inky black water. The surface was completely still, and the water was edged with a jagged film of ice. Monty heard the eerie sound of his footsteps echo across from the opposite bank, a gravel surround-sound at the dead of night. He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears and thrust his hands back into his pockets. The fur lining of the jacket’s collar against his ears muffled the sound of the gravel crunching beneath his feet. Monty began to think of the warmth of his flat, and of cooking a late supper. He tried to remember what was left in his fridge - something microwaveable, no doubt. He was mentally reviewing the contents of the freezer compartment when the crunching sound of the gravel became suddenly louder and Monty spun around, his heart racing. Before he could look up, he felt a terrific impact in his chest, and he was falling backwards. He felt the cold shock the breath from his lungs as he hit the water. He scrambled to get a hold on the bank and felt his head go under, and he swallowed a mouthful of the bitter, icy water. Clawing at the mud with numb fingers, he managed to scramble up the riverbank and get to his feet. He looked round as he heard the sound of splashing above his own frenetic wheezing. Horrified, he turned just in time to see a man’s head and hand thrashing in the water before disappearing underneath, the moon’s reflection rushing in to envelop him. Dazed and shocked, Monty took a deep breath and staggered down the bank towards where the man had gone under. Monty lost his footing almost instantly and slipped backwards. He hit the water and again went under. He struggled to stand in the slippery mud by the bank, and pushed himself forward. The canal bottom fell away from underneath him as the water deepened. He kept himself afloat by treading water and felt his leg hit something. He reached down, but his hand met only icy water. He waved his hands wildly and even ducked his head under in an effort to see the man, but there was only blackness. Monty’s whole body now felt numb and he was overcome with a tremendous fatigue. Monty knew that he had to get out or he would go under as well. Monty scrambled up the bank, and watched a set of bicycle handlebars disappear under the water. He sank to his knees and stared at the surface, which was now almost still once more. Underneath a man was freshly dead. Monty turned and staggered the short distance along the path to the lane that led to his flat. Unable to stop himself from shivering, Monty immediately got out of his sodden clothes and stepped into a hot shower. He dried himself and put on a dressing gown, but felt so sick that he got into bed, hunching the duvet under his chin. He was still shivering uncontrollably. He wondered what he was supposed to do. A man had just died out there, he was sure of that. He would have to call the police and inform them what had happened. He reached out for the telephone and picked up the receiver, but before he could start to dial he fell asleep. ----------------------- Monty awoke the next morning in a pool of sweat. He hovered next to the telephone but was unable to decide how to tell what had happened. Instead he got dressed and walked back down to the canal. He reached the spot where he thought he must have fallen and looked at the bank. He could see the marks in the mud where he had slipped, but otherwise all was calm and relatively untouched. The ice had reappeared at the side of the canal, and the surface was still and offered no evidence of what lay below. Nothing to mark the presence of a frozen corpse. Monty turned and began to walk along the path away from the spot, and took the alley that led towards the town centre and the police station. He walked into the police station and slowly approached the front desk. There was an officer standing behind the desk with his back to the door, leafing through a filing cabinet. Monty stood at the desk and waited. Eventually the officer turned around and looked him up and down. Monty shuffled and began to speak. Later, he would remember only saying the words “dead man”, “canal” and “bicycle”. It would be a long while before Monty felt fully conscious again. As Monty began to tell what had happened, the officer stopped him and asked if he could take him into a room inside the station. The officer lifted a latch and raised the desk so Monty could walk through. They entered a room with one shuttered window, and the officer beckoned for Monty to sit down. Monty questioned the officer when he flicked on a tape recorder. The officer stated that it was merely routine, before asking Monty to explain exactly what had happened. After speaking for close to half an hour, with a little prompting and questioning, Monty then went with the officer and several other policemen to the place at the canal where he believed the cyclist was. The police cordoned off the area and divers arrived. The bicycle was recovered first, looking remarkably clean and undamaged. It took much longer for them to find the body. It had somehow drifted fifteen metres along the canal. Monty saw them lift it out of the water. He was struck by how blue it was. He was a man of roughly forty, from what Monty could make out, with black hair and a moustache. He wore blue jeans with a red woollen jumper, surprisingly little for such a cold night, and Monty thought that must have been the reason that he didn’t survive. He also wore heavy brown boots, which couldn’t have helped. They zipped the body into a black bag and took it away in an ambulance. The policeman asked Monty to accompany him back to the station. At the station the policeman asked Monty all the same questions as before and then said he was free to go. As Monty left, the policeman called that he would be in touch after the post mortem. Monty walked back towards his house, deciding not to go via the canal. He still felt a chill through his body, a shiver that made him feel slightly nauseous, so he stopped off at a coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino. He sat at the window and watched the people on the street. He saw a cyclist approach and for a moment he thought it was the man from the canal. Then he saw a man walk across the road toward him and again it looked like the same man. He was looking straight at him. Monty got back home. He sat in front of his computer, as he tried as usual to pour out all his feelings and emotions into words. He usually found it to be a rich source of material for much of his writing, plus it helped him make sense of the world. However on this occasion he found that he couldn’t concentrate and shook himself after an hour of staring blankly at the screen. He had a bath, and again found himself staring blankly into space. Should he have moved quicker to avoid the cyclist? Should he have saved him? What was a cyclist doing riding by the canal at 2am anyway? He wondered if anyone had seen anything. He hoped they would come forward, he had nothing to be afraid of. It was a genuine accident. Monty got straight into bed and, exhausted, instantly fell asleep. ----------------------------- The next day, early in the morning, the officer from the police station called and asked if he could come round to Monty’s flat. Half an hour later the officer arrived and they sat at the kitchen table. The officer asked a few of the same questions as before and asked if anyone could confirm Monty’s whereabouts the evening of the cyclist’s death. Alarmed, Monty asked the officer what he was driving at, and the officer stated that the post mortem had shown that the cyclist had considerable bruising. The officer then asked if Monty would accompany him to the station. Monty asked him if he had a choice and the officer said not really. Monty asked if it would be wise to appoint a solicitor and the officer said that it probably would. The policeman let Monty call a solicitor, who arranged to be with him at the station in half an hour. They went back to the station in the officer’s car, driven by another policeman who had been waiting outside the house. At the station Monty met up with his solicitor and was questioned by two officers for three hours. It seemed that the cyclist had worked just across the street from Monty’s office, and lived nearby also. Most of the questions seemed entirely pointless to Monty, focusing on the cyclist’s life, and family and friends. Monty stated repeatedly that he hadn’t known the man. He was then released, without charge, and allowed to go home. On the way home Monty stopped at a newsagents and read the main headline in the local paper. The report, on the cyclist’s death, stated that it had occurred in mysterious circumstances and the police were questioning a local man. ---------------------------- The next day Monty slept late. He had spent an especially restless night, re-living the events of the past few days. He had never seen a dead body before, and the image of the bloated blue body kept reappearing in his mind. As well as being sickened by the body itself, Monty had been disturbed and worried by the nature of the police’s recent questioning. Was he a suspect? How could the police possibly think it was anything other than what it was – a tragic accident on a cold, dark night? Monty climbed out of bed and showered. He listened to the radio as he stood at the sink and shaved. Incredulous, Monty froze as a news story detailed the case of the drowned cyclist, and how police were “continuing their enquiries”. He decided to go for a run in an attempt to clear his head. He put on his tracksuit and a sweater, with gloves and a woolly hat. He ran in the opposite direction to the canal, through the town centre and up the hill towards the golf course. His breath burned cold at the back of his throat, but he continued to run. Soon he was running alongside the golf course, and veered left up a muddy path into the woods. He ran here frequently. It was a good spot, and many locals walked their dogs through the woods. It was less busy at this time of the year, however Monty passed several walkers, some with dogs and some without. Monty reached a fork in the path and jogged off to the right. The trees were denser here, and the path snaked between them as it rose up a steep hill. As Monty reached the top he veered left along the path, which now ran along the crest of the hill. Concentrating on keeping his balance so as not to slip off the path and down the steep slope to his right, he slowed as he heard an approaching dog barking. He saw the dog running towards him and was about to swerve to avoid it when the dog stopped. It stood still and barked at him twice before running in the opposite direction. Monty shrugged and kept on running until he saw the dog again, now standing in his way across the middle of the path. His way blocked, Monty had no other option but to stop. The dog barked again and ran down the bank. As Monty watched, he began to shiver. The dog was running towards a dark object, coloured green and black. Monty focused his eyes on the object and felt himself become dizzy. The dog was now standing beside a man lying unconscious on the ground. Monty carefully descended the slope and moved towards the man, who was lying awkwardly, his legs bent off to the side and one arm clearly broken. His body was sprawled across a large fallen branch, and looked completely lifeless. The man’s head was turned away and his face was obscured, however Monty was pretty sure he was witnessing his second corpse of the week. TO BE CONTINUED
Copyright © 2004 James Bondjamesbond |