Perfect Murder

by Rebecca Bradley

  My fingers moved over the keyboard.

  The moon in the sky was the only light the villain needed. His pulse; even and smooth. This wasn’t his first time and he was going to enjoy this.

  My brain was always a step or two in front of my fingers as they skipped across the lettered tiles.

  The man never even knew there was anyone behind him. His own footsteps loud in his ears in the quiet street. He thought about the meal waiting for him at home. The warm bed and his wife. He didn’t sense the body behind him, now mere centimetres from him.

  The blade glinted in the moonlight, the villain’s arm wrapped around the front of the man and a silent smile was etched across the victim’s throat. Not a whisper escaped but a red curtain fell soundlessly in a sheet and the villain stepped back and watched as the man crumpled to the ground, all thoughts of his wife slipping away as easily as the blood that pumped out of his neck onto the cold pavement.

  The villain stepped back into the night and was gone as though he had never been there.

  I was disturbed from the scene by my phone ringing. I looked at the caller display which had ‘withheld number’ across the screen. I picked it up.

  The person informed me that they were calling from Lowestoft police station.

  ‘You were involved in a road traffic collision yesterday evening, so we need you to attend the station to make a statement. Would you be available this afternoon?’

  ‘I… yes… I would… can, will…’ I stopped and took in a deep breath and tried again. ‘Sorry, yes, I am available this afternoon.’

  Why was I so nervous?

  ‘That’s great. When you attend, please ask for PC Vicky Page. She’ll be expecting you.’

  I thanked the caller and hung up after arranging a specific time. I hadn’t expected this. They never mentioned anything at the accident yesterday, but then again I hadn’t spoken with a police officer, aside from providing my basic information. They were too busy loading me into an ambulance. I wondered how detailed the questions would be? How much blame would be apportioned?

  7.

  After the phone call I made myself some breakfast, ate it, and then cleared the kitchen and tidied up the rest of the house before jumping in the shower to get ready for the day. I had to take it steady because it was all my neck would allow. I couldn’t move without it twinging and reminding me of yesterday’s events. A permanent reminder.

  After tentatively drying my hair and then replying to a couple of emails, I saw it was 9.15 am. I was due to pick up a courtesy car at 10.

  I pushed my laptop into my bag and headed out of the door. I would make it on time, but I doubted that they would refuse to give me the car if I didn’t. I presumed it was an ‘any time from 10 am’ kind of arrangement. As I locked the door behind me my mobile phone rang again. I didn’t recognise the caller ID but I answered anyway.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Alice?’ They sounded like they knew me.

  ‘Yes.’

  A great sigh of relief.

  ‘It’s Hashim.’ A pause, unsure. ‘From last night.’

  ‘Hashim?’

  ‘Yes, you gave me your number, at the hospital.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  Why was he calling?

  ‘I wanted to see how you were this morning. How you are doing?’

  He wanted to know how I was?

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m okay. In some pain, but you know, it’s to be expected. They said I would be and it would settle. I have to wait for it to lessen. I have to be patient, though I’m not quite sure how good I am at patience,’ I told him. ‘I’m walking out the door to pick up the courtesy car as it happens.’

  ‘Did you sleep okay?’

  He wanted to know how I slept?

  ‘On and off.’

  ‘Shall I take you to pick up your car?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I have somewhere to be straight after.’

  ‘Okay. Let me know if I can do anything for you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Do you want to meet up for a coffee at some point, Alice? It’d be nice to see how you’re doing after the accident.’

  It was nice of him to ask and, taken off-guard by his question, I found myself agreeing to meet him in a couple of days.

  ‘See you soon then, Alice.’

  ‘Hashim?’ I stopped him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I was grateful for his kindness and his generosity. I hadn’t come across such kindness in a long time and I wasn’t quite sure how to react to it. It was an unknown quantity. Hashim was unknown. It didn’t stop me being thankful for him.

  Having collected the car, I drove into town, parked up and took a slow walk to the regular coffee shop I worked in. I ordered tea and found my usual spot in the corner where I had my back to the wall but could watch everyone come and go and see what was happening. I liked to people-watch, so long as they didn’t disturb me. I could pick up all sorts of nuggets for my books from people’s habits when they didn’t realise they were being watched. How they interacted with each other, or how they behaved if alone. Catching dialogue was one of the best reasons for sitting in a place like this. For the people sitting alone, it was their mannerisms. How they drank their coffee and fancy drinks. If they spooned their cream off the top first or tried to drink through it. If they wiped their lip or licked their lip. How polite they were to the waiting staff. It was all fodder for a writer like me.

  It was funny, I liked to write in silence at home, but I could easily write in noisy places like coffee shops and trains and even preferred it to the silence when I’d spent too much time at home alone. The background sound kind of zoned out when I finished observing people and I got on with my work.

  ‘Morning, Alice.’

  One of the girls walked past with some dirty plates. She knew my name but I didn’t know any of the names of the staff here. It was a one-way relationship. I smiled and said hello. She picked up the empty coffee mug on the table beside me and walked back to the counter, giving me another smile on the way past.

  I lifted the lid of my laptop and woke it up. It was, again, open on the scene I had last been working on, with my victim collapsed and alone on the cold concrete ground. Lying in a pool of his own blood. Dark like a halo around his head. I wrapped a hand around my cup. The heat emanated out from the porcelain and into my hand until I could bear it no more and snapped my hand away. I really did know a lot about murder, I thought, as I re-read what I had written.

  How many people had I killed? There were three books in my virtual drawer never to see the light of day because of how awful they were (practice novels I called them, everyone had them, very few people published their first books), and then I had the six published books and this one I was writing. All of them crime novels. Oh, and I had a half-written science fiction story that I’d abandoned, but there had even been a death in that. It seemed I couldn’t get away from murder and death.

  Even in real life.

  I looked up and watched as a couple of men walked in, both in smart suits, ties loosened around their necks. Each carrying a briefcase and shoes polished to a high shine. One of the men was slender and fitted his suit well, the other an older guy, was pushing out of his suit at the waistline. They ordered coffees and pastries at the counter from the girl who had not ten minutes ago said good morning to me. Their voices were loud and carried over to where I was sitting. Some people thought they needed to be heard. They needed their importance to be projected out to whomever was close enough to pick up on whatever rubbish it was they were spouting.

  I tuned them out and focused back in on my laptop, on my own thoughts. The people I had murdered. At least twenty-four by my reckoning.

  There was a sick feeling in my stomach this morning, which was why I had not ordered my own pastry. Why I only had a tea on the table in front of m
e. Hollow was a good word to describe it. Hollow and at sea.

  The two men looked around the tables and chairs, looked at me working, looked around some more then came and sat at the next table but one along. There was plenty of other seating in here today. It was as though they had seen I was working and decided I needed to hear the intricacies of their business deal.

  ‘It’s such a big job,’ the slender man said as they dropped into the chairs at the table.

  ‘Yeah, but think of the bonus we’ll get because of it,’ the second guy boomed.

  I looked at him and decided he should maybe buy himself a suit that fitted should he get such a good bonus because of this job.

  ‘You think we can—’

  The guy about to split out of his suit didn’t let the slim guy finish. ‘Hey, we’ve done the hard part, we’re the best, you need to believe that, buddy.’

  This raised a smile and I tuned them out again. I really didn’t care. Whatever business was going through, I wished they were long gone.

  I was still brooding over last night. It was unsettling. That was definitely a word for it. But it didn’t feel as foreign to me as it once might have done. Yes, yes, the logical side said I was in no way responsible, but the emotional part of me, that told me in no uncertain terms that I was. If I hadn’t been there then Vivian Conway would not be dead and her fiancé would still be planning his marriage.

  I had an appointment to see the police about the matter shortly. It was routine, they had said. We need your account of what happened, for the file. But I knew that, whatever happened, I had killed this woman.

  8.

  I picked up the courtesy car, a small blue Clio, and drove to Lowestoft police station to see PC Vicky Page. I gave my name at reception to a stern-faced man with the whitest teeth I have ever seen. They glowed in his face and I couldn’t take my eyes from them, but I eventually retreated to a metal chair to wait for my ordeal to begin.

  ‘Alice Friend?’

  A tiny uniformed woman stood in the doorway to the main part of the station. She had blonde hair piled messily on top of her head. Strands of it sticking out at angles. No make-up on her face, but a smattering of freckles across her nose. She smiled as I looked at her and half-rose from the rigid seat.

  ‘Alice Friend?’ She directed the question at me.

  I nodded.

  ‘Come on through.’ Another smile and a wave of her hand indicating I should move through into the hallway beyond.

  My stomach spun and I swallowed hard and made my legs move as she directed.

  ‘How are you doing today?’ she asked, with a touch of sympathy in her tone as I walked past her into the corridor.

  I looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘The accident,’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘Yes, yes, I’m okay,’ I replied. ‘It’s sore, you know. But I’ll…’ I trailed off. Standing, waiting for her to walk to where we needed to be.

  She set off and I followed her. Hooked my arms around my body.

  ‘Of course.’ She bustled into a small room with a table and four chairs and waved me into one near the window. ‘I won’t keep you long, I need to get an account and then we’re done.’ She sat at the table and looked at me as she started to pull paperwork out of a leather-look zip up folder that was on the table. ‘Are you up to that?’

  Again, I was thrown by the question. There was no recording equipment in this room. It was bare, sparse. A table and chairs and a window through which the afternoon sun shone, making the dust motes dance across the barren room. Definitely not an interview room that you see on the TV.

  ‘Are you okay, Alice?’

  I stood in the middle of the room as it tilted to the left. PC Vicky Page fuzzed in my ear as she continued to talk and my vision greyed out at the edges.

  PC Page stood and moved over to me, putting her hand on my arm. ‘Alice?’

  With a sharp flick of my head the room refocused. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Residual effects from yesterday, I believe.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Shall I make us a couple of drinks?’ she said, and without waiting for a response she bundled herself out from the room, leaving me to sit and mull over my situation.

  The last twenty-four hours had been overwhelming. First with Beth and then with the crash. I wanted to be home alone with Lilac. I didn’t want to be here, in the police station. No matter how kind PC Page appeared. My head ached and I was desperate to leave. My muscles twitched in desperation to get up and move out of the room.

  Then PC Page came back carrying two steaming mugs. I was sitting hunched on another hard chair, hands pushed between my knees in an attempt to keep myself together. She put the drinks on the table and picked up her paperwork.

  ‘This won’t take long. It’s a quick account to go with the file for the coroner, that’s all.’

  With a few questions from her, I told Vicky Page what happened. I told her about the small boy, about how the woman in the other car had swerved and how the boy’s mother had grabbed him just in time and the other car had hit me, front end on. That I had a small whiplash that wasn’t expected to cause me any serious problems and that at least I had come out of it alive.

  ‘Do you know how or why she died, the other woman, Vivian?’ I asked.

  PC Page shook her head, strands of hair wafting around her face.

  ‘There will be a post-mortem, but until then, we won’t know.’

  Her gaze was soft.

  ‘I’m sorry. This must be very difficult for you.’

  She looked right at me. It was as though she were staring into my soul. Were cops taught to do this or was this just her?

  ‘Are you getting support from anyone?’

  I thought of Beth. Of her at home being cared for by strangers. Of how hurt she’d be not being able to rush out to be with me, of the request she made.

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  Page leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m sorry. What about friends?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Friends you can call?’ she pushed some more.

  I thought of Hashim and that he had taken my number. How he had called this morning to check up on me. What was he? I wasn’t sure I could call him a friend. Though I did now have his number from the caller ID.

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, well, we’ll be in touch if we need anything else. If you have any questions or think of anything I might need to know you can contact me here.’

  She handed me a small card with her name and contact details on.

  ‘Is that it?’ This was all they wanted?

  ‘Was there anything you forgot to tell me?’ she asked.

  I closed my eyes and acknowledged the pain I was in, the deep throb in my body, and really felt it. PC Page waited.

  ‘No,’ I said, eventually.

  ‘Then yes, that’s all I need. It was rather tragic. I hope you take care of yourself.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I felt guilty for what happened and yet PC Page didn’t see it as anything other than a tragic accident. I hoped the boy’s mother never told him what had happened. He didn’t need to grow up knowing he had caused a woman’s death that way. I found it hard enough knowing if I hadn’t have been there, the crash wouldn’t have happened and the underlying condition wouldn’t have been triggered, but a child, a child does not need to grow up knowing they ran into a road and caused that knock-on effect. It would affect everything he ever did. I hoped his mother protected him.

  We left the room and walked to the entrance. I thanked her for her kindness. She laughed as she input digits into the keypad at the door to let me out.

  ‘What were you expecting, an interrogation?’ The pad was silent and she punched in the numbers again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I confessed.

  She turned away from me, a puzzled look on her face as she tried a third time to get the door to click open.

  ‘Electronic doors are all well and good for security,’ she
laughed again. ‘As long as they work.’

  The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach swelled again. Suddenly choking me at the back of my throat. It started to close and constrict and my stomach held its pit of despair. I clenched my fists. I had to hold this together.

  PC Page punched again. The door did not flinch.

  ‘Larry?’ She shouted into the room at the side of the door. The room that looked to hold the reception staff.

  ‘Larry?’ she shouted again. Then turned to me, quieter. ‘I won’t be a minute. There seems to be a slight glitch. I’m sure Larry will know what’s happening.’

  I hoped Larry did because I needed to get out of here. It was suffocating me. I had done what I had needed to do and my escape was in sight, yet here I was stalled at the last minute. Was this someone restricting my leaving? It was an electronic door, therefore it could be controlled electronically. Maybe someone had decided I needed further questioning and this was the easiest way to stop me until they could get here.

  ‘LARRY,’ Page bellowed past me. Then gave me an apologetic look.

  Larry with the white teeth popped his head around the door frame. ‘You screamed?’

  ‘The door?’ she said.

  ‘Is it stuck again?’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been playing up. Press clear a few times and it should be okay.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Well try it and see,’ he replied, then tucked his head back into his office.

  Page gave me another smile.

  ‘You’ll be out of here in no time.’ She jammed her finger on the cancel button several times and looked at me again. ‘Think that’ll work?’

  I shrugged. I had no words. My throat had seized up in panic. I wanted to get out.

  Page input the code again and with a small ping there was a green light and a click from the door as the locking mechanism unlatched. She grabbed the door and yanked on it.

  ‘Thanks for coming in. Take care of yourself,’ she said as I practically ran out of the building.

  I was exhausted when I returned home from the police station. Something about being there, a place filled with officers of the law, people built and created to identify criminals, the bad guys, it had set every nerve I had on edge and in turn made me want to curl into a ball and cry.