Smoko At East Seaham Read online

CHAPTER 4

  NIGHTMARE AT ‘COSY CORNER’ ONLINE

  LEN’S ‘COSY CORNER’

  JUNIPER: Thanks for the laughs, LEN. You’ve been in good form online today. It’s absolutely brilliant weather here in Miami. You should come over to the USA some time. Cheers.

  LEN: Glad to hear it, JUNIPER. And I wish I could. But it’s not so bad where I am either. All we need, you know, is a roof over our heads, good food and drink; someone to love and be loved by – and glorious weather like we’ve got today and anybody would, or should, be happy. With not a care in the world, what more could anyone want, eh? Happy days. It looks like there’s no longer anybody around now, well, not who’s ready to chat. So I think maybe that’s about it for today. I’m out of puff anyway and I’m ready to close down. Catch you all later. Hey! Be careful out there.

  DV: LEN? Are you still there? Don’t go…

  LEN: Me? Yes – just! I’m here alright. Alive and kicking. No worries!

  DV: Not for much longer you aren’t! You don’t know what’s coming to you.

  LEN: What? What was that? What are you getting at – DV? I don’t think I know you, do I? What the heck does DV stand for anyway?

  DV: DEATH VARDER. That’s who I am. That’s a name you won’t forget, not for the rest of your life – and that may not be so long… I won’t stand for what you’ve been up to! I won’t. What’s more, I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to put a stop to all the shenanigans. I’m going to put a stop to you too, mate! A full stop. Yeah!

  LEN: Hey, what on earth are you talking about?

  DV: You. It’s you I’m talking about. You dirty rotten… home breaker! I’m going to get you, I am!

  LEN: What? Is that a serious threat? What is this? What are you – some kind of a nut case?

  DV: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? Eh? Eh? You wouldn’t feel so bad about it then. About what you’ve done. Eh? As for me, I’ll tell you what I am. I’m just an ordinary bloke; but I happen to take offence, serious offence, at you and your ever-growing, oh-so-cosy, relationship with my wife. That relationship you have with her, is completely out of order.

  Oh… oh, you are going to pay for your transgressions. Yes! Oh, yes! In my view, it’s perfectly reasonable that you should. Yes, perfectly reasonable. I’m going to get my own back. Do you hear me? I’m going to put a complete end to you and your disgusting way of life. Oh, yes I am! You are most certainly going to get thrown off here for a start! You are not going to like that, are you? Oh, no! I may even kill you! Yes, I’m beginning to warm to that idea.

  LEN: You can’t be serious? This is nonsense – an absolute nonsense. I haven’t done anything to you, to your wife, or to anybody! It might have slipped your mind, or maybe you didn’t know it, but I happen to live overseas. Far, far away from where you are. You can’t possibly reach me, so forget it!

  DV: Is that what you think? It doesn’t matter how far away you live. If you lived on Mars it wouldn’t make any difference. The simple truth is you’ve won my wife over, turned her away from me. Let me tell you, I’m serious alright. I’m going to make you regret what you’ve done. You can’t go around breaking up marriages, long-standing, good, marriages - and get away with it! No way! Don’t think, just because you live overseas you are somehow, out of harm’s way either, because you aren’t! I can get you where you are, no problem. I can get you anywhere. I know how, you see. I’ve got it all worked out.

  LEN: No…

  DV: Oh, yes. Yes I can. You’d better believe it! The trouble is people like you think you can do what you like, don’t you? Well, we’ll see. We’ll see. I say you’re not as safe as you think, nowhere near. Don’t you kid yourself, pal. I can reach you. No doubt in my mind about that. I’d start worrying if I were you…

  LEN: This is outrageous. This is ridiculous. This is stupid and unreasonable… and… a joke! Yes. That’s it! This is some kind of a joke, right?

  DV: Joke? Well, you might think it’s a joke. Yeah, to idiots like you it probably is a joke. But I’m not joking. Oh, no. I’ve never been more serious in my life! You can’t say I haven’t warned you. Not that you deserve a warning. I’d shoot you on sight if I had half a chance.

  LEN: Stop it. Stop all this foolish nonsense right now! Who, er… who is your wife, by the way? Who are we talking about here? I’ve got absolutely no idea. No idea at all.

  DV: Oh! Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know. You can’t worm your way out of this by pretending you don’t know.

  LEN: I don’t know – damn it! Honest, I don’t. I don’t!

  DV: Ok. Ok, I’ll go along with it. Just for the record, I assume all this stuff is being recorded somehow, right? The lady in question signs in here, all too frequently, under the name, wait for it… SWEET THING. Right? Right? Now you know, don’t you? Yes, you know alright! You’re not fooling me! I’m not the stupid one here.

  LEN: Oh, oh SWEET THING! Ah, yes ... well, she does pop in, now and again. Yes, she’s, she’s a nice person. A very nice person, amongst a whole lot of other very nice people, on here. But nothing, nothing special to me, mind. Nothing special to me at all. Just another friendly member… right? They are all friendly here. All of ‘em.

  DV: Oh, yes, she’s friendly alright; too friendly. Yes, you both are! That’s the problem, isn’t it? You shouldn’t be so friendly, right? It isn’t decent to be so friendly. If you weren’t so friendly, I’d still be happily married, right! It was you, you what put an end to that marriage. You and your smarmy way of talking to the ladies.

  LEN: No. No. Nothing to do with me! Nothing. Nothing to do with me – I assure you. Look, mate, I’m a happily married man. An old but happily married man. I’ve hardly got the strength for one woman and it’s taken me fifty years to even begin to understand her. Why on earth would I want to start all over again? I… I don’t need all this. Where did you get this stupid idea, anyway?

  DV: Oh? Stupid! Stupid, is it? How many other people do you say ‘I love the way you do this, SWEET THING’ and ‘I love the way you do that, SWEET THING’ to? She’s at the point where she spends half the day on your damn ‘COSY CORNER’. She doesn’t know I’ve been reading it, but I have, for weeks. Now she has no time for me, no time at all. In fact, our marriage is over. After twenty-five years! I put it down to you. All down to you! I hate you for it! YOU ARE GOING TO PAY! Oh, yes, are you going to pay!

  LEN: No, no, no. If you think there’s some kind of, of special, relationship here, well, well, you’ve got it all wrong, mate. Relationships of the kind you’re talking about can only exist in private and believe you me, there’s absolutely nothing private about what goes on here. No, no, nothing private here at all. Never is. There just can’t be anything like that sort of thing, on here! It’s simply not possible.

  DV: Don’t you try and talk your way out of it! She’s told me. She’s told me ALL about it. I know! She confessed. She confessed everything. Len this, Len that, she made me feel useless and worthless.

  LEN: Look, I don’t know what she’s told you but there’s nothing to confess to. Nothing. It’s simply not private enough here. You’ve got to believe me! Now, look, look at the top of the page. See those names? They are all the people watching and reading this stuff right now! Laughing their heads off, I expect.

  Hey, JIM JAM! Come in and say something now, please, mate? Come on. Please, come in now! Post something?

  JIM JAM: Me? I, I don’t want to speak to, to the nutter.

  LEN: See. See DV? His name was up there, right? Watching and reading this stuff, right? They’re all doing it. There are dozens of ‘em now. Hey! Anybody else? Come on. Say something, someone? Post something, anything. Please?

  CATGIRL: Oh, LEN. LEN! Why don’t you tell him you’ll give her up? You’ll get SWEET THING to go home to him. Then he’ll leave you alone, won’t
you DV?

  LEN: Hey. Now that isn’t funny! That just isn’t funny at all.

  BADGER: Not funny? It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen or heard on here, ever. It’s what they call Real Life Online, isn’t it? What a great idea, Len. When did you think this one up? I love it! It’s great. Keep it up! It’s great entertainment.

  LEN: Shut up! Shut up, you fool! I haven’t thought anything up. You’re a fat lot of help you are, BADGER. Get off damn it and don’t come back!

  BADGER. Alright then, if you’re going to be like that. Mind if I come back later, just to see how it’s going? I reckon there could be a knockout in round ten.

  LEN: Did you see his name go then, DV? But look, a couple more have come on too, more lookers. Ah! There’s ROBBING ROY, see? Great! He’s one of the admin people, you know. That means, he’ll KNOW WHAT TO DO! Oh, yes. He’ll call the Boss, right? Yeah! He’ll track you down. He’ll call the Cops too. He will. I know he will. Oh, yes. He’ll tell them about you making threats – DEATH THREATS too. They’ll take that seriously. They are bound to. They’ll call in the Armed Response Squad. They’ll come a-knocking on your door, maybe kicking it down. Any minute, mate. Oh, yes! Yes! Any minute now.

  So, er, why don’t you pack it in, be a good bloke and go and see to your lovely wife and make up with her. You take her home, eh?

  DV: Lovely wife? So, you do know she’s lovely, right? You’ve admitted it! Yes, you have. Online, before all the lookers.

  LEN: I, I, I haven’t admitted anything… anything at all. All my lady supporters are lovely, all of them. Every single one. They help me keep it all, sort of, rolling along. With chat, lots of chat and pictures. Nothing else. Nothing. Nothing, sort of funny, you know. Nothing off beat.

  DV: Pictures? Have you got pictures of my wife?

  LEN: No. No. No, I don’t have any pictures of your wife. I get, I’ve got, mostly pictures of cats, dogs and flowers; that sort of thing. Now go. Go and see your wife now. Right now, mate. Please? Go, go on.

  DV. Sorry. Can’t do. Too late for that.

  LEN: What? Too late? What do you mean ‘too late?’ You haven’t? You haven’t done anything, anything you sort of shouldn’t have, have you?

  DV: You do care about her, then, do you?

  LEN: Care? Of course I care! I care about everyone who ever comes on here. We are like a little community and we all sort of care about each other. In particular, everyone who is reading this topic right now! Those people whose names are at the top of the page there and I’m hoping they are caring about me, right now and, and hopefully, doing something practical to help me! SWEET THING is very popular here and and on all the other boards and other topics. Not just here. Oh, God what have you done to her?

  DV: She’s gone.

  LEN: Gone? Gone? Oh, no…

  DV: She’s gone. To a better place.

  LEN: No. No. No!

  DV: Well, she thinks it’s a better place. She’s taken a plane home to her mum, in some place called Gt. Yarmouth. She’s welcome to it.

  LEN: You mean, she’s, she’s alright?

  DV: Alright? How can anybody be alright who wants to go home to her mother, in Yarmouth! I hate the place! I hate her mother too! I hate YOU! Anyway, I’ll have to go in a minute.

  LEN: Go? You will? Oh, good. Please do.

  DV: Yes. I can see a lot of flashing lights outside my window. I suppose it could be the Cops, eh?

  LEN: Oh, I hope so. Er, I mean, a good guess, I reckon.

  DV: I’ve got a gun here.

  LEN: No. No, not a gun! Oh, please, please, please put the gun down? As far, as far as I can see you haven’t really done anything, sort of illegal or, or even wrong. Not so far. So don’t, please don’t do anything silly and spoil it.

  DV: Spoil it?

  LEN: Don’t resist the Police. Please don’t do that? You could get hurt.

  DV: No! No I can’t get hurt.

  LEN: Yes, you could.

  DV: No, I’m not there.

  LEN: Not there? What do you mean not there? Where are you?

  DV: I’m over the road in the park. I’m sitting on a bench-seat under the trees, with my laptop, and watching all the fun. I’ve got a great view from here. Do you know there are at least a dozen ordinary Cops outside my unit, plus a whole busload of Cops with armoured vests and big. Oh, now there’s a couple of Ambulances just arriving too and a couple of TV cameramen and all! Wow! This is better than watching any movie. Hey! I reckon I could, I could pick them off, one by one and they wouldn’t know what was happening.

  LEN: Don’t. Please don’t even think about it. Give yourself up. Tell them it was all a joke. I’ll even support you on that. I’ll say I knew it was all a joke. We, all of us here, know you haven’t actually, done anything. Not anything really bad.

  DV: But I have. I already have.

  LEN: You have? Oh My God, what else have you done?

  DV: Well, you know them there porno websites? You know what I mean, right? All them with really dirty pictures?

  LEN: Well, well, not personally, no. But they do exist, I know that. There are lots of them or so I’ve heard said.

  DV: Right. Well, you’ll know a bit more about all that there porno stuff soon, real soon. Yeah, real soon alright, real, real soon. Oh, yes.

  LEN: I… will? Will I?

  DV: Yes. Could be any minute now, mate. You see, I downloaded a whole stack of porno images, hundreds and hundreds of ‘em – the real hard-core stuff? Makes you sick to look at ‘em, I tell you. It didn’t take long to collect them though. I sent them all to you, as a little gift from me. They should be in your in-box about now, I reckon.

  LEN: What….? Oh, you, you couldn’t. You wouldn’t. You didn’t...

  DV: But I did. I told you I could reach you, remember?

  LEN: But I don’t even know you!

  DV: No? I don’t suppose your local Police know you either?

  LEN: The Police? Of course not! I don’t know any Police and they don’t know me.

  DV: Well, neither did I. Funny how things can change and so quickly too. I mean, you set them on me, didn’t you, or they wouldn’t be storming my place this very minute, now would they, eh?

  LEN: But that’s not my fault. It’s not, it’s not.

  DV: Oh, isn’t it? Well, they’ll be knocking on your door too, real soon. See if you can sort it out with them.

  LEN: Will they? Why? How?

  DV: Because, I emailed our Police, you see. I told them you keep sending me those pictures and I keep sending them back. I asked them if there was anything they could do to stop it. Ha! Ha! It’s a funny game, a great game, isn’t it? I gave them this website address. They said they would get their computer experts on to it and they would check with your Police where you are. They took it all very seriously. I was most impressed. They said, they assured me, it would all be done very quickly.

  It’s no good you trying to delete them there pictures, ‘cause apparently, according to them, once they get into your computer, the computer experts will find ‘em - even if they are deleted. Isn’t technology wonderful? So, I guess it would be fair to say; you’ll be a bit too busy for a while. Far too busy to even think about my wife, eh? Right?

  LEN: You can’t do that! You can’t…

  DV: Can’t I? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, eh?

  LEN: Oh! No! There’s someone pounding on my door now.

  DV: Well, best you face up to it, old chap. Put on a brave face. Then confess all! I reckon you’d better go answer that door now, eh? Real nice talking to you, LEN. Oh, and ‘Have a nice day,’ as they say. See you in Hell!