19
Michael
Michael chose a table in the corner, away from prying eyes. This hadn’t been the plan. They were supposed to meet at Alison’s place. As her husband was away, they were going to have a nice evening in. And then she’d called as Michael was on his way, saying she wanted to go out. He tried to get her to change her mind, but there was only so much pushing you could do without sounding like you wanted to murder someone. So he had to agree to meet her at the bar.
He’d panicked when he hung up. Was he going to have to call it off? He couldn’t. He had things in place. And he was ready. Itching to do it.
Maybe he could stand her up. Watch her from across the street. Then when he saw her leaving, he could turn up at her place. All apologies. And then go ahead with the night as planned.
But Alison wasn’t a woman to miss an opportunity. Michael had no doubt that if he stood her up she’d quickly find someone to replace him. And she’d probably hold a grudge. It was likely he’d never see her again.
He had to take the risk. Alison was too perfect to lose.
Alison had been a dancer in a former life and once Michael had discovered this, he’d looked her up, watching old videos of her online. He couldn’t believe her talent, nor that she would throw it away. He was aware that most dancers retired young, their bodies betraying them. But many went on to teach, to choreograph. Those as talented as Alison did. But Alison did not. She wasn’t even that old, probably had years left in her. But Alison had seen an opportunity. She’d sued the company she danced for, taking the money to set up her business. She had chosen to squander her talent by running a club, and yes there was dancing, but not the kind you won awards for. It was a while before Michael realized what kind of club Alison was running. He had never been there himself. He wasn’t the kind to receive an invite, not that it was his cup of tea anyway.
He’d met Alison at the opera. He’d been in the cheap seats, but at the interval he moved into a vacant seat in a box that he’d been eyeing throughout the performance. He wondered if the well-dressed woman sitting alone in there would tell him to leave, but instead she’d smiled at him and they talked. Her husband was supposed to accompany her but, as was often the case, he’d chosen work above pleasure. She, on the other hand, always chose pleasure.
She had briefly mentioned her past career that first night, dismissing it as though it was irrelevant. But it caught Michael’s attention and he knew he had found what he was looking for. Alison invited him to spend the night with her and Michael was tempted. It would be a good opportunity to check out his future canvas. But Alison had also mentioned that it was possible her husband would come home.
‘But isn’t that part of the fun?’ she asked.
Michael declined. He could hardly risk being caught before he’d even begun. But they exchanged numbers and agreed to meet again soon.
In the meantime, Michael looked her up, watching the talent that had been wasted. He followed Alison to her club and later, one of her employees. He soon found out what kind of club it was, though that was irrelevant to him. He was only interested in the waste of talent and how dismissive she was about it. Michael loved his work. He knew it was what he was born to do whereas Alison refused to acknowledge the gift she had been given.
But that night she would learn where she had gone wrong.
He watched as Alison made her way through the crowded bar. She had a presence; charisma; a look about her that made people stare. But not here. The people in this bar were only interested in themselves. No one blinked an eye at the beautiful redhead making her way through the room. It was unlikely anyone would remember them being there that night. The realization relaxed Michael a little.
And then he saw her.
Michael’s heart raced and he ducked down, turning to face the wall. Had she seen him? Why was she even here? Was she following him?
He risked a peek over his shoulder but he could no longer see her, a mountain of a man blocking the way, meaty sweaty hands full of beer glasses.
He didn’t see Alison approaching until she was right in front of him. She slunk down, sitting on his lap, kissing him passionately. Was this incognito? He supposed she had warned him that first night that risk was part of the fun.
When she let him up for air, he glanced over her shoulder. He couldn’t see Karen. Maybe it hadn’t been her. Maybe she was just on his mind.
‘We should go,’ he said, and Alison smiled.
‘All right,’ she said and stood up.
Michael kept his head down as they left, pulling up his hood as they walked out onto the street. Fortunately it was raining.
He glanced up and down the block but saw no sign of Karen or anyone else. There was no need to worry.
Alison’s place was only two blocks away, so they walked there, drenched by the time they arrived.
Alison laughed as they went inside, undressing as she did, throwing her clothes down onto the tiled floor with a satisfying splat.
‘Why don’t we take a bath?’ Michael suggested, and Alison grabbed his collar, dragging him towards the stairs.
As they passed through the hallway, Michael noticed a package abandoned on the floor, addressed to Alison’s husband. Good, Michael thought. It’s arrived. He’d paid extra to make sure the package would be delivered that day, knowing the husband would be gone.
He let Alison run the bath while he undressed. It would be better not to have to leave with soaked clothes, at least no more soaked than they’d been by the rain.
He let her pull him close to her, whispering filthy things into his ear.
And then he whispered something back and watched as her face changed.
She tried to pull away but she no longer had that dancer’s strength and he managed to hold her under quite easily.
When she stopped struggling, he let her go, turning her limp body over again, taking in the expression on her face. She looked remarkably serene, considering. Almost like Millais’s Ophelia. Michael had considered that but it seemed so obvious, so clichéd. And certainly didn’t suit Alison.
Michael climbed out of the bath and mopped up the water that had spilled in the struggle. He wrapped a towel around his waist before walking down the stairs and retrieving his backdrop. He’d decided the bedroom would be the best place to set things up. Besides, he had no desire to carry the body any further than necessary. It would be hard enough work to dress Alison in the costume he’d picked out the last time he’d visited.
Found Drowned by George Frederic Watts was a simple enough piece, but effective. All Michael needed to do was hang the backdrop and lay Alison’s body out in front of it, stretching out her arms. He opened the curtain a little, hoping that the light would illuminate her face just so, depending, of course, on when she was found.
He stood back and admired his work. It was beautiful, as was Alison. He would almost miss her. She was good company.
He took his photographs and went to the bathroom to retrieve his clothes, tossing the wet towel onto the floor. Forensic traces meant little to him. There was no record of him on any police database. All the DNA he left behind served as a signature for when he was finally ready to claim authorship.
Michael shrugged on his coat and took one last look. It wasn’t bad for a night’s work. So why wasn’t he feeling the usual high?
As he left Alison’s house, his mind drifted once more to Karen. Had it been her in that bar? And if so, had she seen him? Had she seen him with Alison? When his latest project was all over the news, would Karen be able to point a finger at him?
He made his way home, the thought sitting uncomfortably low in his stomach.
But so what? What did Karen know about him? Nothing. Not his name, not his address. She had a phone number but he could toss that. Maybe it was nothing to worry about.
Maybe.
But if she knew, she was no longer a viable project. She’d have ruined things before he even began.
Perhaps the Karen Project wasn
’t an appropriate piece for his oeuvre after all. Perhaps he needed to dispose of her sooner than he planned.
20
Nick
Nick looked at Alison Goodwin’s body, laid out before a backdrop, making it seem as though she’d washed up beneath a bridge. Found Drowned was the title of this one, apparently, and according to Dan who had looked up the Wiki page, it depicted a fallen woman.
Nick felt his stomach churn as he stared at the woman he’d sat and talked to many times, a woman who’d been so full of life. She looked almost peaceful now and Nick wondered if she’d suffered. There was some bruising according to the ME, suggesting she had been held under the water. Nick doubted that had been peaceful.
In the background he could hear Alison’s husband, Graham, talking loudly, one moment dismissing the idea his wife could’ve been with another man, then demanding justice. He’d returned from a business trip that afternoon and found his wife dead in their bedroom. According to the ME she had been dead for no more than a day. Graham groaned when he heard this, castigating himself for not returning sooner, and then for not seeking her out as soon as he returned. He’d sat downstairs for over an hour before going up to change and stumbled over her body.
Nick tried to tune him out. He felt sorry for Graham Goodwin, but more so for Alison. But the truth was he had more pressing worries. Firstly, he wondered if the killer was aware of his connection to her. Was that why she’d been chosen? Could it be his fault that Alison was dead? It was possible, but he tried not to focus on that. He was more concerned with covering his tracks.
He’d always paid in cash. He wasn’t an idiot. But he had no idea what kind of records Alison kept. And then there was the CCTV. A place like that always had cameras. Despite being by invitation only, there was always chance of trouble, and, though Alison was unlikely to go to the police and incriminate herself, it was a good way of keeping the visitors to the establishment in line. Most of the clientele were married, in positions of power. Most of them frequented the place in order to stay out of the trouble that would find them had they picked up a woman on the street. But Alison was clever enough to cover herself, making sure if anyone stepped out of line, she had the power to finish them.
Nick hadn’t been invited. He wasn’t high enough up the ladder for that. But he’d dropped by one night after hearing about the place, using his badge as his own personal invitation. He made it clear to Alison he didn’t want to cause her any problems, he just wanted a piece of the pie. And she was happy with that. At least he was willing to pay for services rendered. These women worked hard for a living. The least he could do was pay them what they deserved.
But that chivalry was about to blow up in his face. His good behavior had earned him an open invitation, and now he was well known amongst the women. He wasn’t sure if that would work for or against him. If one of his colleagues started sniffing around, asking questions, would the girls protect Nick? Keep him out of it? Surely no one could suspect him of having anything to do with Alison’s murder. But then, he had shown a lot of interest in her – someone had to have noticed.
He felt a little burst of indignation. Alison had always said she wasn’t on the menu, yet here she was. She’d obviously been with someone who wasn’t her husband. So why him and not Nick? He tried to recall the faces of other men he’d seen at the club. He didn’t remember much. People tended to keep their heads down and their eyes fixed on the beautiful women.
Was it possible their guy had been there? Had he passed him leaving the bathroom? Had he nodded to him at the bar? It was entirely possible that they’d find this guy through the club. An image, a credit card receipt. It could be the break they so desperately needed. But when they looked for him, it was likely they’d find Nick too. And he couldn’t allow that to happen.
21
Karen
Karen stuffed the laundry into the basket, half listening to the news playing in the background. There’d been another murder and though she was interested, like the rest of the city, she didn’t want to see Nick’s smug face, so instead of sitting watching it, she just listened.
It cut from the reporter’s voice to a man’s, but it wasn’t Nick. She stopped what she was doing and listened more intently. The man’s voice was thick with emotion as he described his beautiful wife and what a force of nature she had been.
Poor woman, she thought. Poor man. She imagined coming home to find the dead body of someone she loved. Then she thought about Nick. There was a time it would’ve killed her. She’d worried so much when he was working late, always terrified something would happen to him, that he’d walk into a situation and end up getting shot or stabbed. Turned out the only real danger he was in was getting an STD.
She wondered how she’d react if he died now. If she came home to his mutilated body. Of course it would affect her, of course she would be traumatized. She wasn’t a monster. She didn’t actually hate him enough to want him dead. She didn’t think. Did she?
Of course she didn’t. She wanted him out of the apartment, out of her life, that was all.
She went to the front door with the laundry basket, stopping to put her coat on, ready to go down to the freezing laundry room in the basement, but realized there was room for more. She looked back at Nick’s room. She had made a point of not doing any of his laundry since the incident, but now it seemed so childish, so pointless. There was a man on the news mourning the vicious murder of his wife and she was being petty about laundry.
She went into Nick’s room and picked up an armful of shirts and trousers, throwing them into the basket. As she did, something fell out, skittering across the floor.
Karen bent down and picked up Nick’s lighter. She turned it over in her hand as she left the room, looking at the inscription from his parents. He loved that lighter, always carried it with him. She put it in her pocket for safekeeping, glancing at the TV, surprised to see Detective Azrah Khan doing the talking instead of Nick. Karen wondered how he’d feel about that. He disliked Azrah almost as much as Peter Aronsen.
Karen went to turn it up when the door opened and Nick came in with a face like thunder. He looked at the TV before even noticing Karen. He said nothing, walked over and switched the TV off.
‘I was watching that,’ Karen said, her decision not to be petty vanishing into thin air.
Nick ignored her and went to his room, closing the door behind him.
Karen stood there, wondering if she should go and dump his dirty laundry back on his bedroom floor, but she didn’t want to be that person. She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the weight of Nick’s lighter. Maybe she should knock on his door and give him the lighter, see if he was all right. It was unusual for him to be home this early, especially when there’d been another murder. She thought about his lack of TV appearances the last few days and wondered if something was wrong. Had he been fired?
No, it couldn’t be that. If he’d been fired, he’d be angrier, and if he was angrier he’d be itching for a fight. Instead, he was quiet; sullen. He had that look of fatigue, of sadness, that he’d get when a case was getting to him. When he’d seen too much.
For a moment, Karen felt a wave of sympathy for her husband. Maybe she should stop taunting him with Azrah and Aronsen. With her thoughts of revenge.
Her phone went and she put the laundry down and picked up the phone, seeing Mark’s name on the display. She paused before answering.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ Mark said. ‘I was calling to check we’re still on for tonight.’
Karen wavered. On the one hand, she wanted to get out of the apartment, wanted to see Mark if she was being honest, but then… She gazed at Nick’s bedroom door. She told herself it was nothing to do with feeling sorry for Nick. It was about self-preservation. She couldn’t do anything to jeopardize her chance of getting the apartment. Besides, what did she really know about this Mark? There was a murderer out there, wasn’t there? Shouldn’t she be exercising some caution?
<
br /> ‘You still there?’ Mark asked.
‘Yeah. I’m here. It’s… I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’
Mark paused. She could hear him breathing. ‘Have I done something to…? Is something wrong?’
‘No. It’s… I don’t know. It’s not a great time.’
Mark was quiet again and Karen felt a pang. He seemed like a nice guy. She didn’t want to mess him about. ‘I’m sorry. Listen, I have to go. I’m sorry.’
She hung up and squeezed her eyes shut. He hadn’t sounded happy and why would he be? She’d stood him up at the last minute. They’d made a date. She looked at Nick’s closed door again. Was this an excuse? All this stuff about the apartment and the divorce? Did it really matter if she started seeing someone else now? Maybe it was fear and nothing else. It’s not a great time, she’d told him. But when would be? When would she move on and start living her life?
22
Michael
Michael hadn’t slept well. He’d spent the night ruminating about the conversation with Karen. Something was wrong, why else would she cancel their date? It was possible she’d just changed her mind. She had seemed uncertain in the store, and had already bailed on him once. Or could it be that she’d seen him with Alison?
Alison had been found less than twenty-four hours after he’d completed his work, her face splashed all over the news within hours of the discovery. If Karen had seen him with her, it was possible she’d put it together. And to be fair, realizing your date is a murderer is a good reason to cancel, even at the last minute.
But if she knew, why hadn’t she gone to the police? She may have suspected Mark wasn’t his real name, but she could’ve walked him right into a trap. The police could’ve advised her to keep her date and the moment Michael showed up, they could’ve swooped in and arrested him. But that hadn’t happened. Karen had simply canceled. So maybe it was nothing to do with Alison at all. He wished he could be sure.
The Art of Murder Page 9
