Killing Pretties

by Rob Ashman

  ‘Bollocks!’ Malice viewed the cut to the side of his right eye and explored it with his fingers; not too deep, wouldn’t require a stitch. He pulled a cloth from the glovebox, rolled it into a ball and pressed it to the wound. He had a visit to make and turning up with blood running down the side of his face would not be good. He glanced at the box sitting in the footwell wrapped in pink paper and glanced at the clock.

  Oh shit!

  Forty minutes later Malice pressed the doorbell on the semi-detached property. The curtains were drawn in the bay window but the house lights were on and her car was in the drive. He checked his watch and cursed under his breath. The curtain to his right twitched.

  He saw the fluted image through the glass of a person approaching the door. The safety chain was disengaged and the front door opened. The woman standing before him was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with nothing on her feet. She was a year younger than Malice. And for the second time today, he was greeted by an angry woman.

  ‘You gotta be joking?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, I got held up.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Khenan. It’s a bloody school night. She’s in bed.’

  ‘I bought her a present,’ he said, offering up the pink box like he was showing a piece of evidence.

  ‘A present that should have been here ages ago. I thought you were coming round for tea?’

  A tiny recollection went off in his head, one where he said he’d be there at five o’clock for birthday tea and cake.

  Fuck it!

  ‘Sorry. Something cropped up.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, turning on her heels and heading back through the hallway, leaving the front door wide open. Malice got the message and followed her inside.

  It was strange to think about it now but there was a time when he and Hayley had been happily married. Five years they had stayed together but then the cracks in their relationship became chasms and the disagreements became stand-up rows. The biggest point of contention was Hayley wanted kids and Malice didn’t — and there’s not a great deal of compromise available to resolve that one.

  Then one day Hayley announced she was pregnant. She swore it wasn’t a trap, pleaded with him that it was an accident. But it signalled the decline. Their marriage probably would not have run the course but by the time Amy arrived, it was dead in the water.

  Malice shuffled into the lounge. Hayley was sat on the sofa with her arms crossed, legs crossed, kicking her foot out like a metronome. It was a position he knew only too well. Birthday cards lined the mantelpiece and the window sill.

  ‘Look at the state of you,’ Hayley said, waving her hand in his direction. ‘You turn up four hours late looking like you’ve been in a brawl.’

  You were never normally that perceptive…

  ‘I’m sorry, we had an incident at work.’

  ‘There’s always a fucking incident at work,’ Hayley snapped back before resuming her pissed off position.

  He fingered his eye and could feel a new trickle of blood. ‘Do you have a plaster?’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

  Hayley jumped from the settee and stormed into the kitchen. Malice wandered after her. She rummaged around in a cupboard and brought out a green first aid kit. Malice sat at the kitchen table and unpacked the box, eventually finding what he was looking for.

  ‘How have you been?’ he said cutting a plaster into thin strips.

  ‘Amy was upset you didn’t show.’

  ‘Sorry. What did you tell her?’

  ‘I told her you’d been held up catching bad guys at work. What else do you tell a six-year-old?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll make it up to her.’

  ‘You really are a piece of shit.’

  Hayley swept past him into the other room. Malice peered at his reflection in a small mirror and applied the strips of plaster to the cut. He smoothed them into place and returned to the lounge. Hayley had resumed her foot kicking protest.

  ‘Can I go up and see her?’ he asked.

  ‘No you—’

  ‘Daddy!’ Amy thudded down the stars, then raced into his arms. Malice scooped her up.

  ‘I heard a little princess had a birthday today. You don’t happen to know who it is, do you?’

  Hayley sprang from the sofa and huffed her way into the kitchen. He could hear the kettle being filled from the tap.

  ‘It’s me, daddy, it’s me!’ Amy squealed as he swung her around.

  ‘That’s good because I’ve got a pressie for you.’

  She squealed some more. Malice put her down and handed over the pink box. It had taken him ages to wrap the damned thing and it took Amy seconds to demolish it. Inside was a talking doll that wet herself, along with a hair dressing kit and a tea set. It was just what she wanted.

  Malice spent the next twenty minutes playing with his daughter on the floor, making tea and brushing hair.

  ‘Come on it’s time for bed,’ Hayley interrupted.

  ‘Aww, mummy, can’t I stay up and play some more?’

  ‘No you have school in the morning. You can play with it tomorrow.’

  ‘But daddy won’t be here tomorrow.’

  ‘Come on, time for bed.’

  Malice lifted her up and carried her upstairs, hugging the doll tight to her chest. He kissed her goodnight and left the door slightly ajar.

  He popped his head into the sitting room. ‘I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. You show up four hours’ late, give her a present, play with her for thirty minutes and then I’m the bad mummy for making her go to bed.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call,’ he said as his fingers touched a fresh trickle of blood running from his eye.

  ‘Whatever. You really are a piece of shit.’

  Chapter 12

  It was the day Elsa showed me what I’d been missing…

  T he first time I set eyes on her, a bomb went off in my head. Her silver-blonde hair was cut into a stylish bob with the ends flicked forwards to accentuate her jawline. Her translucent skin seemed to have an iridescent quality under the lights. She was utterly stunning.

  I plucked up enough courage and walked over to her. Her smile knocked me back on my heels.

  She asked my name and what I wanted, which was an odd experience for me. Women like her tended to ask what the fuck I was doing talking to them and were never interested in what I’m called, let alone what I wanted. We sat and chatted for what seemed like an eternity.

  She said her name was Brie and she lived on the other side of the city. My finely-tuned senses told me she was lying — on both counts. She said she spoke four languages which was true because they were the same four I could speak fluently –—English, Dutch, German and French. But none of that mattered. I drowned in her electric-blue eyes as the conversation flowed.

  When it was time for me to leave, I asked for her number and she was elusive. I didn’t want to spoil things by pushing my luck. She said we could meet next week, if that’s what I wanted. I let her know I’d be delighted to, then kissed her softly on the cheek as I left. The scent of her perfume floated me away.

  The following Saturday we met again. She was just as beautiful and I had dressed up for the occasion. We talked and talked. She was keen to know more about me and where I had come from, but she was most interested in my aspirations for the future. No one had ever been that interested in me before, especially someone as gorgeous as Brie. She quizzed me hard about my work and my connections, her intensity forcing the air around us to crackle.

  I had taken the unusual step of booking a hotel nearby so I could see her on the Sunday as well. I tentatively asked if she would like to have dinner. She declined, putting her hand on my arm. My skin fizzed beneath her touch.

  I hardly slept that night and saw her the next day. She had a whole new set of questions to fire at me. I was spellbound.

  I saw her the following weekend and the one after that. Then one Monday morning, when I was ten minutes into
my nine a.m. lecture, I saw her sitting in the centre of the fifth row. The lecture theatre must have had one-hundred and twenty students in it, each one scribbling away, hanging onto my every word. She sat with her hands folded on the desk, staring at me. Our eyes locked and she smiled. My heart went into overdrive and beat so hard in my chest that I was sure the thud, thud, thud could be heard through the microphone on my lapel.

  This was my fifth week delivering criminology lectures at Utrecht University and seeing her completely knocked me off my stride. She had never been there before and her presence had me burbling and blundering through my material. All the while she sat there, not taking any notes, just smiling. I tried to tear my gaze away and focus on the other students, but each time I did, my gaze was drawn back to her blue eye shadow. I couldn’t break free from her spell. I couldn’t catch my breath.

  The rest of the lecture flew by in a blur and before I realised it, it was time to pack up. The lecture theatre emptied out, all except Brie who had made her way down to the front and was leaning against the front row.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I made you lose your place.’

  ‘Err, well, I have to admit, seeing you there did kind of throw me.’

  ‘I saw that.’

  ‘It usually goes a lot better.’

  ‘It was interesting. I enjoyed it.’

  I filled my bag with notes. ‘It’s… it’s a lovely surprise to see you.’

  ‘Looks like it was more of a shock,’ she said, cracking another smile before tilting her head to one side. ‘Why don’t you let me buy you a coffee to say sorry?’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘For turning up unannounced. And besides, you look as though you need one.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice. My next lecture is this afternoon. I could buy you lunch.’

  She glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little early for lunch?’ The clock read 10.05 a.m.

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry I lost track of time.’

  She pushed herself off the desk and nodded towards the door.

  ‘Come on, let’s grab a coffee.’

  I followed behind her like a lapdog on our way to the cafeteria.

  ‘You get a table and I’ll bring it over,’ she said, joining the queue and tapping the shoulder of the young man in front. ‘Hi,’ I heard her chant as he turned around and embraced her.

  Utrecht has a student population of twenty-nine thousand and it looked like they’d all decided to congregate in the cafeteria at the same time. The place was heaving with bleary-eyed people trying to get a big enough fix of caffeine to help them through the morning. I found a table against the wall and dragged over two chairs. My pulse was racing.

  What the hell is going on?

  I tried to get a grip of myself but was failing. She appeared out of the throng with two coffees in takeaway cups.

  ‘I didn’t know what you wanted, so I got a filter coffee,’ she said, settling into the seat opposite. I found myself staring at her as she played with her hair, tucking it behind her ear.

  ‘That’s fine, thank you,’ I replied.

  ‘You should drink. You’ll feel better. I promise.’

  I took her lead and swigged from the cup. She was right. It did go some way to setting my nerves.

  ‘What’s your real name?’ I asked.

  ‘Elsa.’

  ‘Do you study here or do you have a weird hobby of showing up at random lectures?’

  ‘I’m in my final year reading politics and economics.’

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘You’re on a lecture tour having completed two stints at universities in Madrid and Berlin. This is your fifth week and you have another four weeks before you return to the UK.’

  I raised my eyebrow.

  ‘Someone has been doing their homework.’

  ‘I’m nothing if not thorough.’

  I held up my cardboard cup in a silent cheers. She did the same.

  ‘How long have you been…’ I left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘A sex worker? A few years now. The money is good. It more than covers my rent.’

  ‘Have you always worked in Amsterdam?’

  ‘No, I’ve worked all over. But while I’m in Utrecht it’s an hour away and I can more or less pick my hours.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Not surprised by what?’

  ‘You’re absolutely gorgeous. They would have you for one hour a week if you said. You’re so… so…’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

  I sipped my coffee.

  ‘I feel a little embarrassed.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s natural. Buying and selling sex is a part of life.’

  ‘You do it for the money?’

  ‘In part, the money is important but I do it for other reasons.’

  ‘Oh, like what?’

  She leaned in close and whispered, ‘I love sex.’

  ‘But you could have any guy you wanted.’

  ‘Maybe. But if I screwed every boy in my year group I would have the reputation of being the university bike, so I chose to take my pleasures elsewhere.’

  ‘You like sex that much?’ The sentence dried in my mouth.

  ‘I do. So, for five days of the week I’m on a strict diet and then on the weekend I gorge myself stupid.’

  ‘Do you not fancy anyone here?’

  ‘Yeah, they are kind of alright. But they are not the right person.’

  ‘You mean man?’

  ‘No, I mean person. I like boys and girls.’

  I spluttered my coffee. She leaned back in her seat and brought her hand up to her mouth, then giggled.

  ‘S-sorry.’ I croaked, wiping the liquid from my chin.

  ‘You are funny,’ she giggled again.

  ‘You’re not in a relationship?’

  ‘Relationships are for people who don’t know what they want.’

  ‘So you don’t have a boyf– I mean… partner?’

  ‘I consider sex and relationships the same way they viewed marriage in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, when he was at the Palace of Versailles. Sex you can have anytime, anywhere, with whoever you want. Sex is all about enjoyment – you marry for power. I look at it in much the same way. I want a relationship with a person who will give me power, influence and money, loads of money. Sex I can get whenever I want.’

  ‘That’s quite an approach to life. It doesn’t work that way for everyone, you know?’ I said pointing a finger at my chest. As if she couldn’t work it out for herself.

  ‘It works for me. Do you feel better now?’ she motioned to the coffee.

  ‘I do, but I still feel awkward that… well… you know, I knocked at your window.’

  ‘I don’t feel uncomfortable and neither should you. But I have a question.’ She leaned in and I could smell the same scent that I had done all those weeks ago when she first opened the door and beckoned me in.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘In my line of work, it is usual for the men to want sex — straight sex, oral, hand-jobs, foot jobs — you name it, they want it.’

  ‘And is that okay?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s perfectly normal. What isn’t normal is for the guy to pay me over the odds to simply talk.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to chat. You’re so lovely and I—’

  ‘It’s fine. I’m trying to explain why I joined your lecture this morning. I wanted to find you because you’re different.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re way out of my league.’

  ‘Ha,’ she laughed again. ‘Give me your hand.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me your hand.’ She held hers across the table and I took it softly. My head was spinning. ‘Come on.’ She got up from the table.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You said your next lecture wasn’t until this afternoon. My halls of residence are nearby.’

  ‘I would like to see wher
e you live.’

  She giggled again as she led me away.

  ‘You’re funny.’

  ‘Funny? What have I said now?’

  She stopped and stared into my eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to show you my accommodation, silly boy. I want to show you what you could have spent your money on.’

  ‘What?’

  I lurched back and gawped at her.

  ‘In future, there’ll be no need for you to go Amsterdam. You need to keep your money in your pocket.’

  ‘But how will I see you again?’

  Elsa pulled me in close, pushing her breasts against my chest.

  ‘Don’t worry about that… you’re mine now.’

  Chapter 13

  C ourt No.1 is in full session. Tracey Bairstow is sitting in the dock with her hands clasped in her lap. She looks pale and vacant. I almost feel sorry for her… almost.

  Her husband produced a dazzling glaze of sunburnt orange and red. I think it was his eyes that created the most dramatic effect. When they were in their rightful place they lit up the room and enchanted everyone he met. Now they adorn the surface of my vase, equally enthralling for anyone who views it.

  When I dug them out of his head, his body went into spasm, shaking against the bonds holding him in place. His eyes were too delicate to blast in the kiln so I rendered them down under the grill. Elsa wasn’t too happy because it stank the kitchen out and she made me promise not to do it again. If only she knew that was the third time I’d used that technique. On the other occasions, she’d been out.

  The defence team have called a woman by the name of Abigale Greening. She’s being presented as a character witness and a close friend to both Tracey and Brendan Bairstow. I must admit, their decision to put her on the stand is a little confusing, but I’m delighted they have.

  We’ve made a full disclosure, so they know what’s coming down the track. Maybe they think her polished performance will win the day, maybe they think the jury will believe her account of the events, or maybe someone has missed it. I don’t know which one. But if it were me, I would not have her anywhere near the dock. I’m going to enjoy this.