A Thousand Small Explosions

by John Marrs

  *

  It had been a little over a fortnight since Amanda had learned the devastating news of her Match Your DNA Match’s death.

  She’d become frustrated at still not having heard a peep from him so she chose to make the first move and sent him an email introducing herself. She was careful not to mention she had looked him up on social media or that she kept a folder on her computer crammed with photographs she’d taken from his online profile. But she included a picture of herself, a flattering one taken three years earlier when she was lighter in weight and before divorce had aged her, and supplied her email address and mobile phone number.

  But much to her disappointment, she heard nothing in return. Her first thought was that Richard hadn’t found her photo attractive, before reminding herself that if you’ve been Matched, supposedly, looks were unimportant. So she considered if he’d been bitten by the wanderlust bug again and had gone travelling but there was no evidence of that online. Maybe he was locked up behind bars, just cripplingly shy, he’d broken both hands so he couldn’t type or perhaps he was dyslexic … Amanda was clutching at straws and she knew it.

  It was only by chance when she clicked on his Facebook page for the umpteenth time that she saw a message left by his sister a day earlier, informing Richard’s friends of the date and address of his memorial.

  Amanda sat bolt upright in her seat and then glared at the screen, and re-read the message. ‘Memorial?’ she spoke aloud. ‘What the hell?’ It didn’t make sense, Richard couldn’t be dead. They’d only just found each other – how on earth could the one person in the world who was supposed to have been made for her no longer be living? And how had she not read about this sooner?

  On further examination, Amanda discovered that while Richard’s profile pictures were public, not all his posts were. She requested to be friends with him, in the hope that his sister agreed so she could learn more. And after checking for confirmation almost every waking hour for two days, her friendship had been approved. There, she found thread after thread of tribute messages had been posted from Richard’s friends across the world, each paying their respects to someone who’d touched them emotionally.

  Amanda fought back her grief as it threatened to tear her apart like a bird hitting a propeller. She poured herself a third glass of Prosecco and scanned online local newspapers carefully, piecing together information about Richard’s accident like a jigsaw. She discovered that while he was out celebrating a victory with a group of hockey teammates late one evening, Richard had become separated from them, stumbled into a road and was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He’d been found a few hours later in a roadside verge with serious head injuries.

  Finally Amanda succumbed to her emotions and began to cry, then texted her boss to tell him she was poorly with ‘women’s problems’ and wouldn’t be in the next day, knowing he’d be too squeamish to ask any questions. And for the rest of the night and into the early hours of the morning, she pored over photographs of Richard, aching for all he was unable to bring to her life.

  They would not meet for that all important first date, they would not make love for the first time, she would not hear him tell her that he loved her, they would not build a life together or start a family and she would not know how it felt to be the singular most important thing in somebody else’s life. Instead, Amanda’s greatest fear was being recognised - that she would remain where she had been since her divorce, alone, stagnating and all washed up at thirty-five.

  She paced around her lounge contemplating what to do next. She wasn’t ready to accept what had happened. She needed to know more about the man who’d been stolen from her, so having missed his burial, she vowed to attend his memorial instead.

  *

  As the tributes to Richard came to their natural conclusion, his friends made their way down the church aisle and towards an open door where Amanda could see tables with bottles of soft drinks, plastic cups, paper plates and napkins. She hesitated, aware that she didn’t belong amongst the mourners despite her link to Richard but nevertheless something compelled her to follow them.

  A Coldplay album played softly through wall-mounted speakers as a mixture of faces old and young helped themselves to food and chatted amongst themselves. Amanda was unsure of where to stand and found herself gravitating towards a lively group of men and a young woman recalling a time Richard raised money for an abandoned dogs’ charity by skydiving, despite being terrified of heights. Another remembered how he’d persuaded some of his personal training clients to join him at London’s annual naked bike ride, again for charity. Everyone had a memory of Richard apart from Amanda, and she couldn’t control her jealousy.

  ‘Did he ever tell you about the time he got stung by jellyfish?’ Even Amanda was shocked to hear the words falling from her mouth.

  ‘No,’ a man with a fringe that hung down to his nose replied, as all eyes fell on Amanda. ‘What happened?’

  Her mind raced back through the photographs she’d seen of Richard on his travels, and one in particular where he was standing beside a large, white catamaran, preparing to jump on board for a sightseeing tour.

  ‘We were swimming in the water in Cairns,’ she continued, ‘when this school or whatever you call them of jellyfish started floating in. He saw me struggling in the water trying to get back to the beach so he paddled out with his board and helped me to shore even though he had to make his way through a cluster of them first and got his legs stung.’ She could picture everything she spoke about with crystal clear clarity.

  ‘Typical Rich,’ said a woman as the others nodded and smiled. Amanda smiled too, and felt goosebumps running up and down her spine when she realised she’d got away with a story no-one could disprove about a dead man.

  ‘It didn’t stop him from going back in the water though the next day,’ she continued. ‘And I’ll always remember sitting in a restaurant opposite Sydney Harbour Bridge with him drinking until the early hours of the morning swapping stories about travelling. I’ll really miss him.’ At least her final few words were truthful.

  ‘Sorry, we haven’t been introduced,’ interrupted a woman in the group and gently placed her arm on Amanda’s, leading her away from the others.

  ‘I’m Amanda,’ she replied and held out her hand.

  ‘Emma,’ the woman replied. ‘And how did you know Rich?’

  Amanda tried to disguise the panic swiftly rising inside her and knew she needed to think on her feet. ‘We met in Australia when he was travelling then stayed in touch when we both got back.’

  ‘How long were you out there for?’

  ‘Erm… a few months.’

  ‘And where exactly did you meet him?’

  ‘Um, let me think, he was with some friends in Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef and then we hung out together for a bit in Sydney.’

  ‘Really? That’s interesting. Because I joined Rich for the Australian leg of his travels and we were never out of each other’s sight in Sydney.’

  Amanda knew she had taken her fabrication too far. She felt her stomach perform back flips as she glared at the incensed expression on the woman’s face.

  ‘Now you’re going to tell me who you really are and why you’re lying to people at my brother’s memorial.’

  CHAPTER 17

  CHRISTOPHER

  Christopher prided himself on many things – his appearance, his determination, his skills in manipulation and the fact that he allowed very little to wrong-foot him.

  He liked to think he had a firm grip on his emotions. If confronted by something that diverted him from a plan he’d set out to achieve, his instinct helped him to adapt where necessary so he could maintain his objective.

  However the admission over dinner from his Match Your DNA date Amy that she was a police officer was a curveball. He’d been so wrapped up in keeping tabs on his other activities that he hadn’t thought for a moment to check on her background. He’d taken it for granted that all women were like the ones he targe
ted – gullible, lacking his intelligence, and too trusting. A police officer would be none of those things.

  Finding one’s Match had meant little to Christopher and he hadn’t planned to meet her again after that night. Their date had started as nothing more than a result of his mild curiosity, but now suddenly it had become interesting. Very interesting indeed.

  ‘A police officer?’ he repeated with a fixed smile. ‘That must be an engaging job.’

  ‘It can be,’ Amy replied proudly. ‘I’m a detective sergeant and it’s hard work especially when you’re based within the Metropolitan Police, you can end up working all the hours God sends. But it’s a career for life if I want it to be.’

  ‘I don’t know much about the inner workings of the police,’ Christopher lied. ‘What is it that a detective sergeant does? Or is “investigate” a better terminology?’

  ‘Either works,’ she continued, and sipped her vodka and orange juice through a straw. ‘I’ve been seconded to the fraud squad for the last six months.’

  ‘What does that involve?’

  Christopher failed to listen to Amy’s response because he didn’t care for the intricacies of a role in a department without any relevance to him, so he slipped into autopilot and pretended to appear interested instead. He maintained eye contact as she chatted, nodded where he thought a nod belonged and smiled where befitting. But inside, all he could dwell upon was the hilarious irony for the woman sitting opposite him to be Matched with the man who The Sun newspaper had branded “Britain’s Most Evil Killer.”

  Christopher was anxious to ask about the case that’d dominated every television news bulletin for the past three weeks, but he didn’t want to appear over-eager. However, after half an hour of more polite conversation, his ego and inquisitiveness got the better of him.

  ‘So what’s happening with that serial killer who’s been all over the news then?’ he asked casually, cutting into his mushroom tartine starter. ‘How many women has he murdered, is it five now?’

  ‘Six, well, six that we know about, but the team investigating are following various leads,’ Amy replied cagily. It was the same officially sanctioned answer he’d heard in televised police press conferences.

  ‘You don’t want to talk about it, do you?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me to ask.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ Amy placed her fork to the side of her plate. ‘Nothing makes the press go into overdrive more than when there’s a serial killer out there somewhere and there haven’t been many of them in recent years.’

  “There are four active serial killers at any one time in Britain,” Christopher wanted to inform her, “and you’re having dinner with one of them.”

  Amy continued, ‘There have just been a lot of leaks in the press lately and we’ve been warned to keep from talking about the case to anyone.’

  ‘So I’m just anyone, am I?’ Christopher asked, and offered his best puppy-dog eyes that made her cheeks flush. He vowed to tease the truth from her; he’d yet to meet a person he couldn’t manipulate in one way or another.

  ‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant.’

  Amy smiled and Christopher was pleased to see there were no crumbs of food trapped between her teeth.

  ‘Well, let me change the subject,’ he continued. ‘What made you do the Match Your DNA test?’

  ‘A lot of public sector workers like me take it because we don’t have time to go out on the dating scene. It sounds quite mercenary but it’s the best way of cutting out the middle man, isn’t it? You know, finding that person who’s meant for you without having to go through all the nutters to get there. And you?’

  Christopher’s mind raced back to the books on relationships he’d highlighted with fluorescent marker pens, excerpts on what women wanted to hear from a prospective partner. He was quite convinced he’d already reeled Amy in by doing very little but possess the DNA that connected them. But whatever he said next needed to hit the right emotional note.

  ‘I joined to find the other half who would make me whole,’ he began and held her gaze to gauge her reaction. ‘I wanted to meet the one who accepts me for who I am, who loves me for all my faults and my quirks and who will be there by my side for whatever challenges come our way.’

  Christopher tilted his head slightly to one side and shrugged, almost apologetically, as if to emphasise his sincerity. A peculiar feeling enveloped him for a second time and made his head feel woozy and his skin sensitive.

  Suddenly the corners of Amy’s mouth began to waver and she laughed. ‘Are you serious?’ she giggled. ‘You sound like you’ve just read that from a self-help book.’

  Christopher’s mask slipped and he felt something akin to embarrassment – one of many emotions he was aware existed but had never experienced. ‘Have I said something wrong?’ he asked, genuinely flummoxed.

  ‘No, no, oh God, oh God,’ Amy continued. ‘You were being serious, weren’t you? Oh I’m sorry, it just sounded a bit … cringe, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Christopher still muddled, and questioning whether Amazon had been recommending him the right books.

  Amy hunched forward and spoke quietly but confidently. ‘Look Christopher, this is how I see it. You and I have been Matched, which means we don’t have to do all the things we did when we were dating other people. You don’t have to stand outside the restaurant window and be deliberately late to put me on edge; you don’t have to try to impress me by name dropping the posh part of London where you live; you don’t need to subtly inform me that the magazines you design for aren’t for people like me or even choose the priciest wine on the menu. We can move straight to the getting to know each other and seeing what happens without the games part. And right now – and I think it might have something to do with hormones, chemistry or the three vodkas and one glass of wine I’ve just drunk on an empty stomach – but I might explode if I don’t have sex with you very, very soon. Like, now, soon.’

  Christopher was taken aback. He hadn’t met a straight-talking woman like Amy before; she was beginning to excite him and he wanted to know what made her tick. The fact she was a policewoman should have scared him off but it was having the opposite effect and he could feel himself becoming aroused by their cross-purposed interaction.

  ‘Um, of course,’ he answered and beckoned the waitress for the bill. He paid in cash, like he always did, and within ten minutes they were driving back to her house.

  CHAPTER 18

  BETHANY

  Bethany removed the phone from her ear and glared at it lying flat in the palm of her hand.

  She had travelled for almost two days from England to surprise her Match Kevin at the Australian farm where he lived and worked. But as she stood at the top of his driveway gearing herself up to meet him, he’d informed her by phone that she shouldn’t have come.

  She must have misheard Kevin, she told herself, so she called him back. When it went straight to voicemail, she called again. And once more, he failed to answer.

  ‘WHAT IS GOING ON?’ she texted in angry capital letters, then held the phone in front of her, waiting for a response. None came.

  Bethany felt the oppressive heat of the midday sun burning her exposed shoulders and neck so she climbed back into her car and turned the air conditioning on full. She had come so far and Kevin was so close, and she couldn’t understand why he was rejecting her.

  She contemplated the farm ahead, then turned over the car’s ignition, performed a U-turn and began to drive slowly along the highway back in the direction from which she had come, feeling hurt and humiliated.

  Bethany pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger to stop herself from crying and speculated on what she had done that was so wrong to make Kevin cruelly turn her away. She began coming up with excuses for him, such as that he was too nervous to face her and that she’d backed him into a corner. Then she considered what her reaction might’ve been had Kevin suddenly turned up unannounced on her door
step. She told herself off for her spontaneous stupidity and became angry towards work pals Shawna and Lucy for having encouraged her to buy into the “Meet-your-Match-and-live-happily-ever-after” ideal. All it had done so far was put Kevin in a very awkward position and he needed time to process. She would give him that and then try again later. So she drove in the direction of a small town she’d passed some twenty miles back and once there, she would check into a hotel. Later, maybe even tomorrow, she would text Kevin again in the hope of talking him around.

  ‘Are you stupid?’ Bethany suddenly said out of the blue, even surprising herself. She blinked hard and furrowed her brow. ‘Why are you blaming yourself for this? Kevin’s the one in the wrong here, not you.’

  Her mind raced as she began questioning if his refusal to meet her was not as simple as it seemed. She had watched enough episodes of MTV’s Catfish to know that people are duped all the time online by those pretending to be someone they’re not. Maybe Kevin was actually a woman putting on a deep voice when they spoke by phone or maybe he was old enough to be her father and hadn’t wanted to say? Or maybe he didn’t live with his parents on the farm and lived there with his wife instead.

  The latter seemed like the most likely explanation – Kevin was married and it was why he hadn’t wanted to Skype or FaceTime Bethany, in case his wife caught him. And he was probably talking to Bethany on a secret, second mobile phone his wife had no idea he owned. Maybe he had a child too, or even several children with several wives like the TV shows she’d watched about polygamists.

  The more thought Bethany gave it, the more credibility her outlandish theories held and the more furious she became. What a nice cosy set up Kevin had with his loved ones here in Australia and a girlfriend he could hide away and string along in another country. As long as he was cautious, how could he ever get caught out? It wasn’t like his Match would travel to the other side of the world and turn up at his house out of the blue, was it?