Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Mullins, Louise

  It wasn’t just Jane Doe’s head that was missing, but her hands too. To prevent identification. Placing her cause of death firmly in the murdered category.

  I called Dr Ward to let her know I’d read the email she sent me the morning after Jane Doe had been discovered. Because there were two things that she couldn’t assess without consulting a Home Office pathologist her report was merely preliminary. Dr Holland had just left her office.

  ‘Any idea how she died?’

  ‘She has a couple of fractured ribs, and a healed wrist joint. But there’s also peri-mortem trauma to her right ankle and shin suggesting she was struck at least twice with a blunt object. Due to the placement of her injuries it’s likely she was kicked. But that certainly wouldn’t have killed her. My guess is her head was not only removed to decrease our chance of identifying her but to make it difficult to uncover her cause of death.’

  ‘It’s possible she suffered a fatal head injury?’

  ‘We won’t know unless we find her skull. And if or when we do, we’ll know it’s hers because she was dismembered with a sharp implement that has a distinct cut.’

  I felt my jaw tense and my stomach churn.

  ‘Dr Holland and I agree that the blade was convex with an evenly pointed angle, larger than a knife, and had a nick in the metal approximately half an inch in diameter near the point.’

  I gritted my teeth as bile crept up my throat. ‘A sword?’

  What kind of monster murdered someone, chopped them up, squeezed their body parts into a suitcase and then dumped them like a bag of rubbish?

  MELANIE

  Then

  I stomped from the ice cream van into the playground and headed to the swings. At the sight of my fury, the girl sat on the one I had my eyes on jumped off. I grabbed it before it swung back and hit her in the face, catching a familiar shape bounding towards the entrance from the line of trees she cut through from her house.

  I watched Maddison slam the gate behind her and pound towards me. She jumped onto the swing beside me and reached her hand out to mine. I took it and we swung like two links in a chain.

  ‘If you close your eyes and lean your head back it feels like you’re flying,’ she said.

  I swung on it for ages with my eyes shut, feeling the roaring wind comb my hair back and forth as I pushed out with my feet and soared upward, kicked at the clouds then retracted them in a whoosh of air.

  Time didn’t exist when we were together.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ said Maddison, a while later.

  I opened my eyes as she retracted her hand from mine and shot across the playground.

  I didn’t feel the pain when I jumped off the swing and landed on my knees. I just picked out the grit that was embedded into the soft fat protecting my kneecaps and rubbed the bloodied dirt off them. Then I trod over to the roundabout and pushed it hard until all the kids hopped off it holding their stomachs, leaving me alone with the boy I’d noticed had been standing beneath the slide watching the other kids squealing as they sped down it but making no move to traipse up the steps to glide down it himself.

  He smiled and looked down at the soft furry toy in his hand. I followed his gaze. ‘He’s a Care Bear.’

  ‘Does he look after you or do you take care of him?’

  He seemed to be contemplating my question for a long time before he replied. ‘He makes me feel calm when I’m angry.’ He held it out to me. ‘Do you want to hold him?’

  I took it from him. ‘Do you get angry often?’

  He looked back at a denim-clad man who had both hands raised, face red, words unintelligible from the distance between us. The woman, who I guessed was the boy’s mother, was backed into the chain-link fence while the man seemed to be closing in on her. When I blinked, I saw my own parents arguing.

  ‘Depends if I’m spending the weekend with my dad or not,’ he said.

  I hugged the bear, felt nothing but its soft fur tickling my chin, then held it at arm’s length and pushed it back into the boy’s hand. He looked disappointed so I reached out and took his other hand and led him towards the slide. I felt his hand tighten as we grew closer, his arm tense. ‘It’s not as high as it looks.’

  He dropped his gaze.

  I gave his palm a squeeze. ‘Why don’t we go down together?’

  I let go of his hand when we reached the queue of kids waiting to climb the five-foot-high incline. He watched the others ascend and when it was his turn, I pushed him to go on ahead, met him at the top and sat on the cold hard steel so he had no option but to park himself between my thighs. He moved to put his arms out to the bars, and I caught them at my sides and shuffled forward until the only way off the apparatus was down. We slid slowly to the bottom together, and when the boy turned to me his face was beaming. ‘You can do anything if you work for it,’ I said, echoing my grandmother’s words.

  He nodded and we walked back to the end of the queue to repeat our movements. Only this time he went down alone.

  When I got to the bottom the girl who’d jumped off the swing to let me have a go on it earlier re-appeared. She barged past me as I made my way back to the queue that had diminished to just the three of us.

  He was nearing the top when I felt the first drop of rain. I looked up at the gathering clouds and as my eyes returned to the boy, I saw the girl nudge him. He grabbed for the handrail to prevent his fall.

  When I saw her again, the girl was lying on the ground screaming and crying with blood pouring from her nose, a split lip, and was missing a bottom tooth. The boy was stood over her. As he glanced up at me the rain began to spit. He shook his head and I mouthed ‘payback.’

  A woman appeared at the girl’s side the instant she heard wailing. She picked her up and carried her to a bench. A woman with a pram retrieved baby wipes from the tray beneath it and handed the pack to the girl’s mother to clean up the blood that had soaked through the girl’s dress and stained her blonde hair crimson in parts.

  The boy’s mother climbed the fence and ran towards him. Kids and adults gathered around the bench muttering comforting words. A boy held the girl’s tooth out for her, but her mother said, ‘I don’t have any milk to put it in.’

  The woman with the pram said, ‘My daughter drinks cow’s milk.’ She peered into the changing bag hung from the handlebar, pulled out a bottle, unscrewed the teat, and said, ‘Drop it into there.’

  She took it but her hand was shaking so much she spilled half the contents onto the concrete before screwing the teat back on and re-applying the lid.

  I skidded down the wet slide and searched for the boy who’d been stood beside me at the top of the slide but caught sight of my mother instead as she exited the white car. She walked round to the other side and leaned through the driver’s window to where I saw the man with the moustache. He reached out and brought her face toward his with a hand gripping her jaw and kissed her. I turned away to avoid eye contact and saw the boy on the other side of the gate with his back to me. I was willing him to turn around so I could wave goodbye when a girl behind me said, ‘There she is.’

  My mother waved her fingers at the man. He smiled back then sped off, leaving a trail of dust behind him. She spun in the direction of the park and aimed for the gate I was heading for when a boy stepped in front of it to block my exit and pointed at me, his finger inches from my face. ‘That’s her.’

  I looked back at the bench where the girl’s mother cradled her whimpering daughter against her chest. The woman’s face was scrunched up with disgust and her eyes were filled with accusation. Another boy stepped in front of me and I pushed past them both, pulled back the heavy gate with a squeak, and skipped towards my mother.

  ‘What happened?’ she said, noting the group of people who were staring after me.

  I fluttered my eyelashes. ‘A girl fell off the slide.’

  ‘I hope you were being careful.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  She nodded and patted my back. ‘We’d bett
er get home.’ She spun her watch strap round and read the time on the Quartz’s face. ‘It’s almost five o’clock. Your father will be wondering where we are.’

  *

  My father was watching the TV when we returned, his eyes on the ball the Cardiff City players were kicking around the pitch. When it hit the net, he jumped off the chair and shouted, ‘Goal!’ He kicked the coffee table over in his excitement and the pint of beer that was on it flew across the room and hit the TV stand.

  He punched the air, his eyes flitting from my mother to me and then he ruffled my hair. ‘Did you have a good day, princess?’

  I nodded and copied my mother’s smile.

  ‘Good.’ He turned his attention back to the TV. ‘What did you do?’

  My mother widened her eyes at me in silent warning.

  ‘We went to the park and Mummy bought me an ice cream.’

  My mother’s shoulders dropped and her face relaxed.

  ‘That’s great,’ he said, fetching the empty glass from the sodden floor and refilling it with another can of beer before slouching back in his seat.

  He turned towards my mother without averting his gaze from the screen and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Clear that up, will you, love?’ he said, motioning to where the beer had soaked into the carpet.

  ‘Sure.’ She sighed and left the room.

  I lingered in the doorway and watched her enter the kitchen. She returned to the living room with a cloth and some Jif, knelt on the floor and began to scrub the carpet. When she stood, her forehead was dripping with sweat and her smile had faded.

  I sat on the sofa and twirled my hair between my fingers until I’d created a spiral, watching my father watching TV and my mother tidy the room around him. ‘Can I play in the garden?’

  She frowned. ‘You’ve been in the sun all day.’

  I shrugged.

  She stared down at me kicking the heels of my bare feet against the sofa and sighed. ‘Fine. Go on.’

  I headed straight for the mulberry bush at the bottom of the garden where a gap in the hedge gave me access to our neighbour’s patio. It was behind their shed and to the left that the apple tree stood, out of their line of sight.

  I stepped over creeping thistle, buttercups and dandelions, their heads rust-coloured from the heat. Nettles stung my shins and the tiny white petals of ground elder tickled my ankles. I tugged on the lowest branch of the tree. The apple I retrieved had maggot-holes in it. The red skin on the next was wrinkled. I reached up and shook the branch that was second up from the ground. Two large unripe apples landed on the brambles with a thud. I walked round the tree and did the same again, collecting four this time. I knelt and gathered them all to my stomach then raised the hem of my cotton dress to act as a makeshift basket to carry them inside the house.

  My mother was dusting the floral ornaments she collected on top of the fireplace when I re-entered the house. I left the apples on the kitchen counter beside my mother and at the sight of my flushed cheeks and grubby feet she recoiled. ‘Look at the state of you.’

  I glanced at my scratched legs.

  ‘How did you get dried leaves in your hair?’

  I shrugged though I thought it was obvious.

  ‘You need a good scrub.’

  I was in the bath when the doorbell chimed its shrill cry. Barbie had been drowning Ken and when the door opened, she removed her feet from his neck, and he bobbed up to the surface of the water.

  ‘She’s been stealing again,’ our neighbour said from the doorway.

  ‘You’re mistaken.’

  ‘She’s trodden all over my primroses. The footprints lead into your garden through the hedge.’

  ‘They’re only weeds.’

  ‘I suppose that makes it alright, does it?’

  ‘What’s all the commotion?’ my father roared from the living room.

  ‘The nosy hag from next door is accusing our Mel of nicking her rotten apples.’

  ‘Tell her to go and get f—’

  ‘What my husband is trying to say is that he thinks you need a good hard f—’

  My father pelted to the door and slammed it in her astonished face before my mother could finish.

  My mother was baking apple pie when I entered the kitchen sometime later. She sensed me immediately and didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Don’t think you’re getting any pudding, young lady. I didn’t bring you up to nick old Mrs what’s-her-face’s sour fruit.’

  ‘Where did you think she got that from?’ said my father, blowing smoke from his cigarette out of the partway open window while waving to dispel it quicker.

  My mother stared at me for a long time then said, ‘She doesn’t get her thieving from me.’

  ‘Just your manipulative streak then.’

  I was sent to my room hungry, forced to endure the smell of sweet pastry wafting upstairs, imagining the taste of cinnamon-sugar-coated apple pie lagged in custard. My stomach grumbled.

  ‘Would you like to go to the park again tomorrow?’ Mum said, later that night while tucking me into bed.

  ‘Will you buy me another ice cream?’

  She folded the sheet down and smoothed it under my arms. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  She nodded, straightening, then backed out of the room and closed the door.

  I heard my father’s footsteps on the staircase five minutes later. I lifted the sheet and buried my head under it and tried to keep my breath even while I listened to him pee then pull the flush. I heard the splash of water hit the sink.

  The loose floorboard creaked as he trod across the landing. His feet shadowed the gap of light beneath the door. The handle turned and my father entered my bedroom. He crept up to the bed and I felt my heart hammering against my chest as his weight landed on the edge of the mattress beside me. He leaned over me and kissed my forehead and my entire body began to shake.

  ‘Daddy’s special princess,’ he whispered into my ear. His hot breath stank of ale.

  BETHAN

  Now

  I listen to the tweeting birds through the broken seal of the double-glazed bedroom window, open one eye and see the light streaking between the blackout curtains. My tongue sounds like Velcro as I tear it off the roof of my mouth and when I swallow, I taste ashtray and vomit.

  I roll over, stomach churning, to reach for the glass of water I usually leave on my bedside. I swipe the unit, feel the solid ivory lamp, then brush against something plastic I can’t distinguish that crashes onto the floor, forcing me upright with a yelp.

  My head is pounding and whirring like a cement mixer, my heart is thudding and I feel queasy. I struggle to adjust my hungover eyes to the sharp room while I pat the bed to find the empty space where Humphrey should be lying beside me, cold.

  What a shame he isn’t.

  The bedroom door wheezes open. ‘Good morning, darling.’

  I glare at Humphrey and pitch a pillow at his head, but it misses and almost knocks the tray – containing a freshly baked waffle covered in thick yoghurt and mixed berries, and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice – out of Humphrey’s hands and onto the floor.

  He moves carefully towards me, lays the tray on the bedside unit and collects my La Prairie crème from the Persian rug. The lid is cracked, and a hundred pounds worth of anti-wrinkle cream has spilled down the side of the pot. I snatch it from him and feel something caked into my fringe as I shake my head and growl. When I toss the duvet off my jittery legs, hoist myself off the bed and wobble to the mirror to investigate, I pull my hand away and leg it into the ensuite before I throw up for what could be the second or even third time according to my puke-matted hair.

  ‘You didn’t drink that much last night,’ says Humphrey, from the doorway.

  He enters the bathroom and stands over the toilet bowl I have my head over and places both hands on my shoulders before giving them both a squeeze. ‘You must have eaten something that didn’t agree with you.’

  It could be the rehas
hed coleslaw.

  Or the tranquilisers.

  I’m sick until my ribs ache and my throat is sore.

  Though he turns away as I spit bile into the toilet then flush, Humphrey hands me a rose-scented makeup wipe from my cosmetics bag and retrieves a towel from the airing cupboard and hangs it over the heated rail to keep warm. ‘You might feel like eating once you’ve had a wash.’

  I nod, incapable of much else.

  I lock the door on him then step behind the curtain and stand beneath the shower, feeling the heat rise from my shivering feet to my dizzy head and inhale the steam, allowing my pores to open and my skin to clear, as the water rains down on me in a cleansing torrent.

  Once I’m satisfied that I no longer smell like an alcoholic hobo I pat myself down, blow-dry my hair, brush my teeth and slap on enough makeup to alter my identity: primer, foundation, contour pen, highlighting pearls, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lip plumper, lip stain, lip gloss and finally setting spray. Then I open the door to a blast of cold air, reacclimatising my limbs to the natural heat of the sturdy old building. Or rather it’s lack thereof.

  I dress, choose a pair of Louboutin’s that match the zebra print Dolce & Gabbana bodycon that clings to my curves, nibble on the browned edges of the waffle and take a swig of the bitter orange juice before spitting it back into the glass. Then I take the tray downstairs, dump it onto the kitchen counter, and retrieve the keys to the E-Class from the safe.

  As I grab my Burberry from the coat hook Humphrey spins me round to face him and pecks me on the cheek. ‘Where are you going? Do you need money?’