The Perfect Murder

by Peter James

  It was after one o’clock by the time they had finished. Joan was almost asleep on her feet. ‘Isn’t your wife going to be wondering where you are?’ she asked.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Mandy’ll be asleep. I told her I was working late. I have to do an early morning pick-up from Heathrow airport, so I warned her I might work through the night.’ He gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Joan swept all the loose soil onto the mound of the grave, while Don walked up and down, to flatten it. Finally, it was level with the garage floor.

  They had another coffee. Don cut open the first bag of ready-mixed cement. Joan went to fetch a bucket of water from the kitchen. Then, steadily, Don began to cover the entire floor with cement. Bit by bit by bit.

  By four o’clock in the morning, the job was done. All his tools and the empty sacks of cement were in the hall. He would bring the van round later to collect them. ‘What do you think?’ he said, putting his arm around her.

  She peered in through the door at the glistening, wet cement. It was impossible to see where the grave had been dug. The floor was perfect, flat and even.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Mustn’t walk on it until tomorrow.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t think Victor’s going anywhere!’ he said.

  They stared at each other and then Don gave her a hug. ‘It’ll all be fine,’ he said. ‘Just stay calm and no one will be any the wiser. Tomorrow afternoon, after you finish work, we’ll have a drink. Yeah? In bed, yeah?’

  Joan bit her lip. With Victor under the garage floor, she did not know how she felt. She nodded, and gave him a thin smile.

  He opened the front door and slipped out into the night. Joan closed the door and pressed down the latch lock. Then, feeling a strange sense that she was being watched, she turned round.

  Victor was standing halfway up the stairs, looking at her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She screamed, but only silent air came out of her throat. She screamed again, but still her voice would not work. Her whole body was shaking. She closed her eyes and backed up against the door. She fumbled with her hands behind her back to open it. Then she opened her eyes.

  Victor had gone.

  Upstairs? Had he gone upstairs?

  Her heart was crashing around inside her chest. She was gulping down air. She looked up at the dark landing and listened.

  Listened.

  Silence.

  There was a loud clatter in the kitchen, which nearly made her jump out of her skin. Then she realized it was just the cat flap. Gregory slunk into the hall. He glared at her, as if he wanted to know what she was doing up so late, and in his space.

  ‘Victor!’ she called out. Her voice was suddenly working again, but it was very shrill. ‘Victor?’

  Silence.

  Of course there was silence. She’d just buried him. It was just her imagination working overtime. Wasn’t it?

  Joan went through into the kitchen, deciding she was far too wide awake to sleep. Anyway, she did not dare to go up the stairs at the moment. She needed a drink, badly.

  She took a bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured herself a glass. She drank it straight down and poured another. She was about to start drinking the second glass when the cat pawed at her leg.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, talking in a whisper, although there was no need. ‘Hungry?’

  The cat just looked at her. She had never liked the way Gregory looked at her, and she liked it even less now. It was as if he knew what she had just done. She opened a tin of food, scooped some of it into a bowl and placed it on the floor.

  Straight away, Gregory turned and began staring at her again. Joan drained her glass, then poured a third. Within a few minutes, as the alcohol began to kick in, she started to feel a tiny bit better.

  She had imagined Victor. That was all it was. Her mind was playing tricks because she was tired. She had been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.

  Suddenly, she smelled cigar smoke. The familiar smell of Victor’s cigars. It was getting stronger by the second. Then there was a strange, ghastly hissing sound. It sent a bolt of fear through her, like electricity.

  It was coming from Gregory. He was standing with his back arched and his fur raised on end. He was baring his teeth and hissing at the open door to her left.

  A large, blue ring of cigar smoke was drifting in from the hall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Joan ran out of the house, down her front garden and into the street. As she did so, the front door slammed behind her.

  She stood, panting, in the faint yellow glow of the street light. Her heart was hammering and she was gulping air. Then she heard a vehicle. For a moment she was tempted to run into the middle of the road. She could shout for help and flag it down.

  It was a police patrol car.

  She stepped back, hastily, into the shadow of a bush. She was aware that she was filthy from head to toe, and that questions would be asked. She knew the police might want to know what she was doing up at this hour. Why had she run out of her house?

  Christ, she thought. She stared up at the house. She looked at the windows. It was as if she was expecting to see Victor peering out at her.

  Victor didn’t believe in ghosts. She liked to watch shows about mediums, but he always pooh-poohed them. He used to say, ‘Tricks of the mind, that’s all ghosts are. They’re tricks of the mind.’

  Had it been a trick of the mind when she saw Victor standing on the stairs? What about the ring of cigar smoke? What about his hairs in the basin yesterday?

  The tail lights of the police car vanished around the corner. She shivered. An icy wind was blowing. A spot of rain struck her cheek. She was locked out, she realized. Locked out of her house by a ghost!

  Bugger. Damn. Blast.

  Her phone was inside. Everything was inside. She did not want to go back in, but where else could she go, especially at this hour? She could go round to Ted and Madge, but they lived about three miles away.

  Then she remembered the spare key! Victor kept one under a brick by the back door. At least he used to. She just hoped it was still there.

  She squeezed past the dustbins, opened the side gate and reached the step to the kitchen door. In the darkness, she found the brick, lifted it and felt the ground. To her relief the key was there. She scooped it safely into her palm. Then she went back around to the front of the house, unlocked the door and went in. She locked the door behind her, saying loudly, ‘Tricks of the mind. That’s all. Tricks of the mind!’

  She was too afraid to go upstairs, so she rushed into the kitchen and shut herself in. The cat had run off somewhere, back into the night. The night was where he belonged, she thought.

  Then she switched on the television for company and sat down at the table. Over the next twenty minutes she finished the entire bottle of wine.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kamila had only gone to bed at 4 a.m. At 8.30 a.m. she was woken in her bedsit by the ringtone of her mobile phone.

  She opened one eye and stared through her fringe of hair at the phone. She hoped it was Victor. Or was it Kaspar? Please don’t let it be Kaspar, she thought. It’s too early. I can’t put up with his anger so early.

  No numbers showed on the display. It simply said: Call.

  She answered nervously. Was it Victor calling from a new phone? Was it Kaspar hiding his number?

  A male voice she did not recognize said, ‘Hello, this is Constable Black from Brighton and Hove Police.’

  Kamila felt a stab of panic. Was she in trouble for working at the Kitten Parlour? ‘Yes?’ she said anxiously.

  ‘We are looking for Mr Victor Smiley, who has been missing since Monday evening. Calls to his mobile phone are being monitored, and it was reported to us that a call was made to his phone from your number at 6.55 p.m. yesterday. Are you the person who made the call?’

  ‘Victor is missing?’ she said. />
  ‘Yes. We are concerned for his safety. Are you a friend of his?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in her broken English. ‘I very good friend.’

  Victor was missing? She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling gutted. What did this mean? Had something happened to him?

  ‘We’d like to talk to you,’ the constable said. ‘Can we come over to see you? If you’d prefer, you could drop into Brighton Police Station.’

  Kamila walked past the police station every day on her way to work. She always walked, to save the bus fare. She had to be at work by midday for the lunchtime trade. ‘I can come about half past ten. Is okay?’

  ‘That will be fine. May I have your name?’

  She told him.

  ‘At the front desk, ask for me, Constable Black.’

  ‘Please, can you tell me, is Victor – is he okay?’

  ‘We don’t know. We are anxious to find him. We are concerned for his safety.’

  Kamila thanked him, ended the call, and stood up. She was far too wide awake to sleep any more.

  Concerned for his safety.

  Victor was the only man who had ever been kind to her. The only person who offered her an escape from the horrible life she was stuck in. Now the police were concerned for his safety.

  She would do everything she possibly could to help them. She stared at the phone again. Please call. Victor. Please call!

  Then a thought struck her. Victor often talked to her about his wife. He said she was a bad person. That she made him very unhappy. She wondered if she should tell the police this.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘You look like shit,’ Don said.

  ‘Well, thank you, lover boy! You certainly know how to make a girl feel great!’

  Joan sat at the kitchen table with a blinding hangover and no make-up. She’d had about one hour’s sleep. She felt like shit.

  There were three messages on her mobile phone. They were all from Madge, who had rung last night. Joan had been busy in the garage with Don and had not heard her phone ring. Madge said that she and Ted had had a visit from the police, who told them that Victor was still missing. Was she okay? Why hadn’t she called them? Would she like them to pop round?

  ‘Don, Victor was here in the house last night. It was after you left,’ she said.

  ‘Then he should change his name to Houdini!’ Don said. ‘If he’s capable of getting out from under six feet of earth and a concrete screed!’

  ‘Victor was here,’ she said.

  ‘Was the Pope here too?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m serious.’

  Don stroked her hair. ‘It’s going to be tough, love, but we have to keep calm. Yeah? Keep cool, right?’

  ‘Easy for you to say. You weren’t here.’

  ‘Ghosts don’t exist,’ he said.

  Joan stared at him, angry that he doubted her. She looked at him, sitting across the table. She realized he wasn’t the big, powerful hero that he had seemed only a few days ago. In his leather jacket, sweatshirt and jeans, with his close-cropped hair and his weathered face, he looked weak. He looked so bloody weak. Victor, despite all his faults, suddenly seemed twice the man that Don was.

  He got up and tried to kiss her, but she jerked back.

  ‘Come on, love, what’s the matter?’

  She said nothing. She turned her face away from his and stared out at the garden. She looked at the lawn Victor had tended and at Victor’s shed. She looked at the greenhouse, with Victor’s tomato plants. She looked at the flower beds, at the plants that Victor had deadheaded. ‘Just take the stuff you were coming to collect. Take it and get rid of it!’

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  She turned and stared past Don. She gazed at the open doorway where she had seen the ring of tobacco smoke drift in, just a few hours earlier. Shit, she thought. Shit, shit, shit, what have I done?

  Then her phone rang. It was Madge’s number on the display. Joan answered.

  ‘Joan! Joan, love! Is this true? Has Victor left you? I tried to get hold of you all night! How are you?’

  Joan swallowed. Then she began to sob down the phone.

  ‘Joan, I’m coming over! What you need is some company!’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m coming over! We’re both coming over, Ted and me, right now! Ted’s taken the morning off work. We’ll be with you in half an hour. That’s what friends are for!’

  ‘Madge, that’s kind of you, but I’m fine—’ Joan stopped. She realized Madge had hung up.

  ‘Shit!’ she said.

  Then she sniffed. She suddenly noticed a strange smell. But it was not that strange. It was a smell she knew only too well.

  It was cigar smoke, again.

  It was the smell of Victor’s cigars. It was getting stronger by the second. ‘Can you smell it?’ she said to Don.

  ‘Smell what?’

  Joan closed her eyes. ‘You must be able to smell it!’

  ‘I can’t smell anything.’

  ‘Jesus, Don, what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ He stared at her in shock. ‘You need to calm down.’

  ‘I AM CALM!’ she yelled at him. ‘Just take all the stuff from last night and GO! GET OUT OF HERE. TED AND MADGE ARE COMING. GO!’

  Don took all the empty bags and tools and loaded them into his van, which was once again backed up against the garage door. ‘I’ll call you later, my love,’ he said.

  But Joan did not hear him. She was in the shower, scrubbing her body and washing her hair.

  Stepping out, she dried herself, then towel-dried her hair. She sat down at her dressing table in front of the bed and began to apply some make-up. As she was putting on her lipstick, something moved in the mirror.

  She spun round.

  Victor was standing in the doorway. He was smiling at her.

  Not the fat, balding Victor with a comb-over. It was the young, handsome Victor that she had married. Young, slim Victor, with his smooth brown hair and his gorgeous smile.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I – I don’t know what happened. To us. Right?’

  The doorbell rang.

  Victor vanished.

  She ran down the stairs and opened the front door. Her hair was a mess, her make-up only half on. Madge and Ted stood there. Each of them gave her a big hug.

  ‘You poor thing!’ Madge said.

  ‘So where’s the old bugger gone, then?’ said Ted. ‘Chopped him up, have you, and buried him under the kitchen floor?’

  ‘That’s not funny, Ted!’ Madge chided.

  ‘I’ve thought about doing that to Madge a few times, I don’t mind telling you!’ Ted said.

  ‘Oooh, you’re so wicked!’ Madge replied. ‘Don’t listen to him! Come on, love, let’s get the kettle on. Tell us all about it.’

  Joan put the kettle on and told them all about it. She just left out the bit about her and Don being lovers, and the bit about killing Victor, and the bit about burying him under the garage floor. Apart from that, she told them pretty much everything.

  Which was nothing.

  Ted summed it up. ‘So, he got made redundant and was depressed?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joan said.

  ‘Why didn’t the stupid bugger tell us?’ Ted asked.

  Joan shrugged. ‘Pride, I suppose.’

  ‘Pride comes before the fall,’ Madge said, unhelpfully.

  ‘I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I see him,’ Ted said. ‘Making a drama out of this! Losing your job is nothing these days. I could lose mine at any time.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ Madge warned him sharply.

  ‘Just teasing!’ Ted laughed, and kissed her.

  ‘He’s such a tease, Ted is!’ Madge said.

  Joan could not wait for them to leave. She really did not want them to be here, in her kitchen, in her home, gobbling down her biscuits and her coffee. She did not want them doing all their lovey-dovey stuff.

  But they st
ayed, and they stayed, and they stayed. By midday, she was almost out of coffee and biscuits. She was almost out of anything to say.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Madge said.

  ‘He will, you’ll see,’ Ted said.

  ‘He’s not the suicidal type,’ Madge added.

  ‘No, not the suicidal type at all,’ Ted agreed.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Joan opened it without checking through the window. Standing on the doorstep were two men in suits.

  One introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Mick Brett. The other was Detective Constable Paul Badger. They asked if they could come in.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joan introduced Ted and Madge to the two detectives. ‘They are just leaving,’ she added.

  Madge said she would call this evening, to see how she was.

  Ted gave her a kiss and told her not to worry. ‘Victor will be back,’ he said.

  ‘He will, he’ll be back,’ Madge added.

  ‘I’d offer you coffee, but I’ve run out of milk,’ Joan said to the detectives. ‘I can give you black, if you’d like?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs Smiley,’ DS Brett said. He was a big man, with a shaven head that was shaped like a rugby ball.

  ‘I’m fine too,’ DC Badger said. He looked quite jolly, she thought. He was all smiles, with a boyish face and a modern haircut.

  She sat them down on the lounge sofa. She cleared away the tray of coffee cups and plates covered in biscuit crumbs. ‘Can’t even offer you a biscuit,’ she apologized loudly from the kitchen. ‘If you’d come this evening, I’d have had a new packet.’

  Then she walked back in and sat down opposite the two men.

  ‘Uniform Division has asked CID to take over the investigation into your missing husband, Mrs Smiley,’ Detective Sergeant Brett said.

  ‘Oh, I see. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘it’s good in the sense that Uniform are concerned about Mr Smiley’s safety.’

  Joan made a show of pressing a finger against each eye in turn, then sniffing. ‘I’m so worried,’ she said. ‘I’m so worried about my poor darling Victor. I’m at my wits’ end.’