DM for Murder

by Matt Bendoris

  ‘Sorry, DCI Crosbie, we’ve missed her. The porter didn’t know which direction she was going in. We have her car registration from the hotel records, so we’ll keep a look-out. But as you can imagine, we’re pretty busy up here today. This is the worst weather I’ve seen in years.’

  DCI Crosbie hung up, gripped the steering wheel tightly and put his foot down as he ploughed northwards in a hail of snow and expletives.

  ***

  April’s Daewoo was also crawling through the snowy conditions, towards Coylumbridge and the mountains. The snow ploughs had been working hard, but it was still a losing battle, with fresh white powder quickly replacing the stuff they’d just pushed off to the side of the road.

  The radio was issuing regular police warnings only to undertake essential travel. Well, this was essential as far as April was concerned. She managed to fall in behind a snow plough on the road leading to the ski centre. Following the plough was both a curse and a blessing as it cleared the snow but also showered April’s already chipped windscreen with red salt. She needed her wipers on the fastest setting to have any hope of seeing anything, but with the snow falling even more heavily, she was basically driving blind.

  April was about to give up when her sat-nav announced that she was approaching her destination. She neither liked nor trusted the device, even though she had no sense of direction whatsoever. She still felt guilty over the fact she once sent a blind man with his guide dog traipsing towards the wrong side of town. April only discovered this when she had proudly announced to Connor back at the office how she’d done her good deed for the day.

  ‘A blind chap couldn’t find Princess Square so I sent him to the top of Buchanan Street, telling him it was just past the Underground,’ she’d beamed.

  ‘That was nice of you,’ Connor said, still typing without taking his eyes off his computer screen, ‘but Princess Square is at the bottom of Buchanan Street, opposite Fraser’s.’

  April froze in horror. ‘Where did I send him, then?’

  ‘Buchanan Street Galleries. You’re going straight to hell, I hope you know.’

  The sat-nav sprang into life again, announcing April was to take a left turn in a hundred yards. She slowed down, letting the plough disappear into the distance when she spotted the name The Cairns written on a slice of tree trunk. She had barely turned onto the untreated forest road when her car came to a shuddering halt. The vehicle was lying at a crazy angle. April figured she must have veered off the narrow road into a snow-filled ditch. She got out and looked at her old Daewoo, knowing any attempt to move it would be futile.

  ‘Oh well, old girl, you got me here at least. Now this old girl will need to walk.’

  92 #TheFinalPost

  Patricia Tolan tried to start every morning in a positive state of mind. But her drink-and-drug-addled brain was unable to put aside the hurt and anger caused by her ex, Bryce Horrigan. She had believed and hoped that his death would bring her some relief, but it hadn’t. Now she kept reliving the moment of his assassination over and over again.

  Patricia replayed the media file on her laptop once more. The GoPro camera attached to the end of a gun barrel lit up Bryce Horrigan’s frightened face before there was a flash then a bang. When the screen cleared, Patricia’s former lover, the man who had once vowed never to leave her, was left clutching at the awful wound in his neck. There were seven other flashes as Horrigan’s body was pumped full of bullets, but the look of terror soon left, leaving only vacant, unfocused eyes.

  It was the final file she would post from Bryce’s own Twitter account to his millions of followers in a few hours’ time, but until then it was for Patricia’s eyes only. She would then check if Geoffrey Schroeder had responded to her other persona,

  @BabyAngel. She had been trying to contact the pro-lifer for days now, but he had gone to ground.

  But Patricia’s mind soon refocused on the cause of all her anger. She played the media file, frame by frame this time. Bryce had died all too quickly for her liking. She had needed more pain. More realisation of the hurt he had caused so many people. His suffering had been brief. Merciful, almost. But Patricia’s anguish lived on in her own world of despair.

  She tried to force out a laugh, which just sounded false and unnatural. It soon made way to loud wailing as she put her face down on her desk and cried, collapsing to the floor in a foetal position, where she lay caressing her tummy and empty womb, thinking of the baby that would never be.

  Patricia ‘Pasty’ Tolan was not a well woman.

  93 #NanookOfTheNorth

  April had never done so much exercise in her life. Even going through fourteen hours of labour to deliver Jayne hadn’t felt as exhausting as this. She didn’t know why she was pushing herself so hard. A reporter half her age and weight would have turned back by now. Maybe she was trying to prove a point that she wasn’t past her prime.

  ‘I may be over the hill, but I can’t let the bastards know that,’ April shouted slightly manically into the wilds, where the trees were being blown sideways by the fierce winds and painted white by the snow. She couldn’t even hear herself in these violent conditions, especially with her hood up and pulled tight by two toggles to perfectly circle her moon face.

  The blizzard was relentless. April wasn’t even sure she was going in the right direction after leaving the sat-nav and the safety of the car behind. But almost as soon as the snow had come, it stopped, swirling away towards the top of the mountains. Bright sunshine and a patch of blue sky broke through, bathing April and the surrounding land in a blinding light. Her eyes took time to adjust, and she wished now she had bought the Oakley sunglasses the sales assistant had attempted to flog her in the outdoors shop.

  ‘£120 for a pair of shades – you must be joking,’ she had told him. But who’s laughing now? she thought to herself as she tried to see where she was going through the slits in her eyes.

  April continued her slow trudge along the forest road, before eventually rounding a corner to see her goal – The Cairns lodge. It was like a picture postcard, a Hansel and Gretel-style cottage with a layer of icing cake snow on the roof. Surrounding the lodge was a wooden deck, which April could imagine would be glorious in the summer – if you could brave the dreaded Scottish midge, the little cousin of the mosquito, whose swarms have been known to drive mad both man and beast.

  April clumped her way onto the decking to the front door where the snow abruptly ended under the roof overspill. She stamped her feet to clear them of the slush that had stuck to the soles.

  ‘Ah, you made it. Plucky little you,’ said Pasty’s mother, Edwina Tolan, as she opened the front door.

  ‘I know, look at the state of me. I’m like Nanook of the North,’ April said in her bright and breezy way.

  ‘Well, our little Nanook, why don’t you come in to our wee cranny?’ Edwina said.

  However pleasant Edwina tried to sound, April could never warm to this woman. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she smiled as she stepped over the threshold, with Edwina locking the door behind her.

  ***

  April was shown into the farmhouse kitchen, which she would have loved to nosey around, poking into drawers and cupboards at will. For she truly loved interior design. But the atmosphere was not conducive to a chat about wall colours and decor.

  ‘Tea, coffee, sticky bun? I’m sure a woman of your carriage can never turn her nose up at any sort of cake,’ Edwina Tolan sneered, looking down at April.

  Ouch, April thought to herself, I’m barely through the door and she’s already ridiculed my weight. The cruelty with which Edwina had delivered her putdown made April almost crave Connor’s caustic comments.

  ‘Coffee, please. And as I always say, it takes a lot of effort to stay this size,’ she replied, trying desperately to keep the mood light.

  ‘Quite,’ Edwina replied sharply. ‘Patricia, dear,’ she shouted in the direction of
another part of the cottage, ‘would you come and prepare coffee for our guest?’

  Edwina had caught April unawares. She had no idea her daughter would be here too. A moment later, Bryce Horrigan’s former lover entered the room and made her way straight to the oversized, brass-bottomed kettle, filled it with what must have been about a gallon of water, and returned it to the top of the Aga stove to heat. Patricia left a smear of blood on the kettle’s handle and returned in the direction she’d come from, not once making eye contact with April.

  ‘Hello, Patricia, have you cut yourself, dear?’ April said, to no avail – there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition from Patricia that the journalist had spoken.

  ‘Manners, Patricia,’ barked Edwina, making her daughter jump with fear.

  ‘Sorry, Mama. I was in a daze. Nice to meet you again, Miss Lavender. I’m quite all right, thank you,’ Patricia said robotically. ‘What do you take in your coffee?’

  ‘Plenty of milk and five sugars, but don’t stir it as I don’t like it sweet,’ April replied with a lame joke, trying desperately to keep the conversation upbeat, lest it went to the dark place she feared it was heading. Neither of the Tolan women said anything in the long minutes before the giant brass kettle began to bubble and boil. The silence chilled April. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

  Patricia eventually handed over a mug of coffee, and her mother suggested April take a seat in the next-door lounge. ‘We have another guest,’ Edwina smiled again, ‘someone you’ve met before.’

  April was shown into the adjoining room, where a young woman with her back to the door sat slumped in a chair, her head tilted to one side, watching a silent television. There was an overwhelming sickly stench that April couldn’t put her finger on at first. It smelled like iron.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Lacey? After all, you two had plenty to say to each other before,’ Edwina sneered once more.

  ‘Eeelp meeee. Eeelp meeee,’ the figure on the chair croaked as April took a step towards her. Lacey turned her head and looked up at April, who now knew what the source of the sickly iron smell was: blood had trickled from the DJ’s mouth and run down the entire front of her body and pooled around her bare feet.

  ‘Eeelp meeee,’ she croaked louder, as a fresh gush of red spluttered from her lips.

  April dropped her coffee mug, which smashed loudly on the floor.

  ‘Your little friend here won’t be doing much talking in future, not since we cut out her tongue.’ Edwina smiled manically. ‘I warned her what I’d do if she went blabbing. But she wouldn’t listen. So after my darling Patricia intercepted Lacey’s message on your voicemail, we decided we needed to speak to her first. It was dark by the time she left the studio. Didn’t take much for us to bundle her into the car. Simple, really. You see, Lacey was part of our little plot. She had agreed to send Bryce those naked pictures of herself. To say she wanted to be part of a foursome in Baltimore. She bought our story that we just planned to humiliate Bryce, nothing more. Lacey even let Patricia use her Twitter account to set up the sordid little session. All the time Bryce thought he was flirting with Lacey, he was actually sending DMs to my daughter.’

  Edwina paused for a moment and glanced at Patricia.

  ‘They shared a common bond, you see. Bryce had sent them both to that butcher’s clinic in Switzerland to have their bastard babies terminated. Patricia then worked her magic on Bryce’s other bit on the side, Chrissie Hardie. She was an angry young woman, especially when Bryce was still on TV every night being his usual smug self after what he’d done to her. She also developed a deep bond with my daughter after Patricia showed her the injuries Bryce had given her, too. Chrissie could see for herself that Bryce had mauled others and got away with it. Patricia then logged on to Bryce’s Twitter account and showed Chrissie all the sleazy DMs he had been sending other women while poor Chrissie was living with him. She hadn’t needed much encouragement after that to take part. She also let Bryce know she was up for his sordid little foursome. Amazingly, he believed it. Of course, there’s nothing more sobering than a murder, and Chrissie got cold feet after Bryce turned up dead. Started to panic. We needed to put her out of her misery too.’

  ‘You are quite mad. Both of you,’ April gasped.

  ‘It’s true, poor Patricia is quite mad. And I have my moments too, don’t I, dear?’ the mother said, turning to her equally psychotic daughter.

  ‘Yes, Mama. Do you remember that cyclist when you were taking me to school?’ Patricia recalled while staring into the middle distance.

  ‘Of course, dear. You never forget your first. Lycra-clad freak. He kicked MY car just because I cut in front of him. Well, let me tell you, when it comes to car versus bike, car wins every time.’

  ‘And then there was our neighbour, wasn’t there, Mama?’ Patricia continued.

  ‘Ah, yes. Old Mr Goodier and his constantly barking dogs that’d just drive you insane,’ Edwina said as she and her daughter walked towards April from either side of the room, like a pincer movement.

  ‘I think you were barking before the dogs,’ April said, edging her frame back out of the living room door into the kitchen.

  ‘That’s not fair, Miss Lavender. An insane person wouldn’t have been able to cover up their crime. An insane person wouldn’t have pushed Mr Goodier down his stairs to break his neck, then close the door. His dogs didn’t bark much after that. Why would they when they had plenty to eat? There wasn’t much left of poor Mr Goodier by the time I phoned the police as a concerned neighbour.’

  April had backed into the thick wooden farmhouse table. She edged her way around it, refusing to take her eyes off the Tolan women as they continued their slow advance.

  ‘You see, I found I had a knack for killing,’ Edwina continued, ‘I was good at it.’

  ‘A classic mistake, I’m afraid, pet,’ April replied. ‘You got lucky with the cyclist. You were cowardly with an elderly neighbour. And you’ve screwed up with Bryce Horrigan – or I wouldn’t be here, would I? My colleague Connor and I figured it out. The game’s up.’

  ‘Elvis and fatso have brought down the killer queen, have they?’ Edwina laughed. ‘Poor Elvis, any moment now he’ll be shot dead by a crazed pro-life nut job, who unfortunately will turn the gun on himself before he can be questioned about killing Bryce Horrigan. And it will all be played out for millions online,’ Edwina said, her eyes darting to the ultra-thin, expensive-looking laptop on the table. ‘Amazing thing, technology. What you can do with it. Expands the horizons, I feel.’

  ‘Overrated, if you ask me. Some things never really change. A killer is still a killer, in my book. I guess I’m old-fashioned that way,’ April said defiantly.

  ‘You certainly are, dear. No one buys papers or books these days. They download them. Click. Same with a washing machine, a sofa, your groceries. Click, click, click. And I’ve discovered it’s just the same with murder. Click, you’re dead.’

  Edwina and her daughter instantly froze at the sound of someone stamping the snow off their feet on the wooden porch outside, followed by a rap at the door.

  ‘Excuse me, we appear to have an uninvited guest. Don’t let her move, Patricia,’ Edwina said sternly, as her daughter took a blade from the block of knives. April noticed there was already one missing. ‘Won’t be a tick,’ Edwina said jauntily as she headed for the front door. April quickly weighed up her options. She was at least twice Patricia’s size, so figured she had a decent weight advantage. Instead, she decided the best option would be to scream for help from the visitor. But she didn’t get the chance. Edwina Tolan opened the door, to be met by a red-faced man, carrying a large, heavy photographer’s bag.

  ‘Hello, I’m K…’

  Before Kenny Black even said his name, Edwina viciously thrust a kitchen knife into the snapper’s throat, with such force it came out of the back of his neck. He stumbled backwards, toppling
over the snow-covered bannister into the white garden below. Before he’d even hit the ground, Edwina had closed the door, safe in the knowledge he was quite dead.

  ‘Now, where were we?’ she said, returning to the kitchen. ‘Ah yes. It’s time to carve up a fat little piggy.’

  April felt her backside press up against the warmth from the cast iron cooker. She had come to the end of the road and could go no further. Each of the Tolans was brandishing a knife, the mother having retrieved another after leaving her last one in the neck of the poor unfortunate photographer who had valiantly battled through the snowdrifts to meet up with April. They now stalked their prey, with Edwina coming round the left of the farmhouse table and Patricia on the right flank. They stared at April intently, watching her eyes dart between them. April would have given anything to have called Connor. Not to save herself, but to warn him. If only she could buy more time.

  Edwina was now within six feet of her, and took a fresh-air swipe at her with the blade, then laughed when April flinched. Like a cat toying with a mouse, Edwina was enjoying herself. April’s hands fumbled behind her, hidden by her rotund frame. She braced herself for the imminent attack, knowing it would be swift. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too swift. Her eyes darted towards Patricia, who had stopped in her tracks, clearly waiting for her mad mother to initiate the move when they would both finally attack, plunging their blades into her body.

  Then it came.

  Edwina lunged surprisingly quickly for a woman of her age, with those regular gym work-outs clearly paying off. She sent a flash of ten inches of steel thrusting towards the trapped reporter. At the same time, April retaliated by swinging the heavy copper-bottomed kettle towards her attacker, having already removed the lid behind her back. More than a gallon of scalding hot water hit Edwina Tolan directly in the face and body, drenching her and forcing her to drop her blade as she fell to the floor screaming.