These past two days had taken a lot out of me.
As I’d walked through the door Lilac greeted me like a long lost friend.
Running a bath, I reflected on the day as I sat on the edge and watched the water pour in. On how good it had felt when Hashim had called in the morning, what was that? I didn’t understand. I didn’t know Hashim. Why would I feel happy that he had phoned me?
The bath filled and I stripped off, abandoning my clothes on the floor. I stepped in and sank beneath the bubbles and stared at the plain white ceiling above me. The heat was a welcome relief for my tired body.
I watched as the window started to steam. The small top one was latched open, but the bath was so hot it was still gathering steam on the bigger window. I closed my eyes.
It had been a weird couple of days. My neck ached and I stretched it left and right and rubbed at it. It should ease off. The doctor said it should. I slipped lower in the water with a hope the warmth would provide some relief.
In the darkness I thought back to the accident. I had been partly responsible for the death of another human being, admittedly in a distant way. Could I be responsible for the death of another on purpose as Beth was asking me to be?
9.
The next morning I woke and had a feeling I’d slept in. My body felt heavier, more sluggish. I checked my phone at the side of the bed and saw it was 9.30 am. I had definitely slept late. This was not like me, but obviously the events of the past couple of days had taken their toll and my body had needed to rest. Lilac was curled up on her usual pillow, her eyes in a half-closed position. It was a surprise she had allowed me to sleep like this. Usually she wanted her breakfast but this morning she was still, and purred at me in response to my querying look.
I pushed my arms out of the covers and stretched, the pain sliced through my neck into my head and I pulled them back down.
I had to take it easy.
I had the urge to jump out of bed, just knowing how late it was, but at the same time, I also had the urge to curl up and go back to sleep. I decided on going with the middle ground, padded to the kitchen, dished out Lilac’s breakfast which she tucked into the minute it hit the floor, made a mug of tea and some toast and took them back to bed with me. I’d have a slow start today. I needed it and I could catch up with work as soon as I was up and about.
As I supped the tea and browsed the news websites on my phone for inspiration, I read about some disagreement the government were having about refugees, then about a teenager who had run away from home and who, it was now thought, had skipped off to France with her teacher. If that story had been nearer to me I might have attempted to get closer to it and try to find a unique angle, but it was on the North West coast.
Finally, I read about another stabbing in North London and that was when it seeped into my brain, the thoughts from last night, about taking Beth’s life.
I needed to see her.
I let myself into Beth’s and shouted my arrival, clicked the kettle on and made two mugs of tea. Placed some biscuits on a plate and carried it all through to the living room where Beth was ensconced in a chair, slouched because her body would no longer hold her upright, her eyelids heavy from sleep.
‘Did I wake you?’ I hated to disturb her.
‘Don’t worry. I sleep at the slightest hint of peace in this house. It’s lovely to see you as always.’
She gave me the smile I loved. I leaned over and kissed her.
‘How are you doing?’
I stood back up and surveyed her, as my neck twinged. I tried to not let it show, to put a smile on my own face. She looked more drained today. She didn’t need to hear about the accident. That was not why I was here.
‘Is it Sunday already?’ she asked.
‘Nice deflection.’ I sat in the chair beside her. ‘No it’s not, but I wanted to see you. And, I did ask how you were.’
‘Why?’ She twisted around to look at me closer. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Nothing, I just wanted to come around. Your turn, Mrs.’
She let out a gentle breath and stared into my eyes. I didn’t know if I could hold her off. If I could lie to this woman. But, it was in her best interest, so I hoped that she would accept what I had told her and move on.
‘I don’t believe you. I know you too well. But you need time so I’m not going to push you, I promised you that.’
I hated to deceive her, but I was doing it because I loved her so much.
‘Back to you,’ I pushed her. ‘How are you doing?’
She leaned back onto her pillows. ‘I’m tired, Alice. Really tired.’ She looked at me. ‘I’m not pushing, I’m letting you know how it is. This is us being honest.’
My heart broke a little bit. ‘I know that, Beth. I can see. Are the meds not helping at all?’ I wanted an excuse, a reason to not do as she was asking.
Her face crinkled and she blinked rapidly. To hold back tears?
‘It’s progressive, you know that. There’s only so much the meds can do and I’m on so many I’ve forgotten what half of them are for.’
‘I feel so helpless.’ I grabbed hold of her hand and held on tight.
‘But you’re not helpless,’ she said. ‘You’re far from it. You’re the person by my side. The person I need the most. I could never have asked anyone else what I’ve asked of you.’ Her fingers squeezed mine as well as they could. It was gentle.
I bowed my head. ‘Wouldn’t a change of meds work, for a little longer?’
‘I know this is hard for you. I’m not saying we have to do this in the next day or so, but I am saying it’s on the cards. I love you and if I had any other choice I wouldn’t dream of this for you. I can only imagine the pain I’ve put you in and I’m sorry for that.’
I lifted my head and looked her in her eyes. I wouldn’t allow her to feel bad for this. It was her life that had no future, I would not let her burden herself with my feelings as well. ‘Listen to me, I’m here for you for whatever you need. I love you too, Beth. We can get through this. Don’t worry about anything and don’t worry about me.’
She lifted her hand and placed it against my cheek, I could feel the slight tremor on my skin. I held my breath so as to not release the emotion that rose in my chest. I did love her so much, it was true, and what she was asking was tearing me apart.
‘Alice, this will not only set me free. It will set you free, too.’ Her voice was quiet.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of the situation. ‘I don’t need setting free from anything.’
‘My sweet girl. You run around after me. You are always here for me. I put so much pressure on your life. I know what I am. But, believe me, this is for me. It is what I want.’
I placed my own hand over Beth’s and offered her a smile. One that told her I was beside her every step of the way. My muscles felt strained, stiff. My headache started to throb again. My heart was breaking.
10.
I met up with Hashim after I had seen Beth. I was somewhat flat after spending time with her, unsure of all the emotions wheeling around my body and was in a world of my own when Hashim walked into the coffee shop. His curled over aged shoulders gave him away before he even looked up. I waved over to him as he looked around. He smiled in response and wandered over to me.
‘Alice, you look wonderful, how are you, love?’
I wasn’t quite sure I believed I looked wonderful, but I stood and ushered him into a seat. ‘Let me get you a drink. Something to eat?’
He shuffled his way into the seat opposite mine and laughed at me. ‘A tea please. Then you can tell me how you’re doing. I’ve been worried about you.’ He shrugged out of the cardigan he was wearing and wrapped it around the back of the chair.
I patted his shoulder and then walked to the counter for his tea, ordering myself another coffee as well. I was surprised to find I was pleased to see him. That I felt lighter now he had arrived. What was that about? Something to do with his kindness that ev
ening on the road? Because I owed him. But it didn’t feel like a debt.
I placed the steaming drinks on the table.
‘Thank you. You’re very kind,’ he said.
It wasn’t a word that was used to describe me very often. Though it had been a while since I had worked with people and therefore engaged with someone other than Beth and baristas. I had been working from home for a few years now.
I squeezed into my chair and looked at this elderly man who was interested in how I was. His face shining in the spot lights overhead.
‘So, how are you, young lady?’ he asked again.
I did a mental check of myself. How was I? How did I answer his question? There was still pain radiating from my neck, causing only a mild headache. It was bearable. But other than that? It was a lot more complicated than acknowledging the pain that the crash had caused.
‘My neck is recovering, but slowly,’ I said and wrapped my hand around the fresh mug of coffee. It was too hot to drink.
Hashim nodded.
‘It’ll take some time. The neck, it’s a delicate area. Look after it. Don’t do anything too strenuous, but at the same time, make sure you’re still moving it or it’ll seize up and you’ll make it worse.’
I laughed at him.
‘You swallowed a medical journal this morning before coming to meet me?’
He grinned in response.
‘I’ve lived a fair few years, young lady. Your accident wasn’t my first rodeo.’
His dark skin puckered around his eyes as a memory flashed through his mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
He reached out and patted my hand. ‘Don’t be worrying about it. It’s a while ago.’
His mood had become subdued. He had gone somewhere else. I’d wondered why he was paying so much attention to how I was after the accident and I think my answer was wrapped up here somewhere, deep within him, deep in the past.
‘Everything okay for you today?’
A chirpy voice piped through the quietness that had enveloped our table and at the side one of the baristas stood with a cloth in her hand. Her blonde hair had been parted into short bouncy pigtails at the side of her head. She was young, couldn’t have been out of school that long.
‘Everything is perfect, thank you.’ Hashim beamed at her, giving her his full kindness.
She seemed to stand a whole inch taller after he said it.
‘Have a good day.’ She was looking at Hashim.
‘You too, love.’ His smile was rather infectious. How he could drag himself out of the memory he had been sinking into so easily, I didn’t know, but he was giving the girl his full attention.
She turned and cleaned up the table next to us, her tiny pigtails swishing as she wiped.
‘So,’ Hashim turned back to me, ‘You’re only going to tell me about your neck?’
Consciously I put a hand up to the back of my neck and gently rubbed. I don’t know what I had expected when Hashim called to meet for a drink. I should have expected this to be honest. He was a warm-hearted man who was observant and kind and had been there that day. There was no pulling any wool over his twinkling eyes. ‘It’s the part of me that I injured,’ I went with.
He picked his tea up and studied me. His silence saying an awful lot more than any of his words could have done at that moment in time.
The skin prickled up my arms, goosebumps springing to life. My mouth dried and I had to lick my lips to add moisture back to them.
‘There’s nothing to say, Hashim,’ I tried.
He gave a single nod then sipped on his tea.
I got a waft of bacon under my nose as someone walked past with a plate. Instead of hunger there was an empty hollowness to my stomach.
‘I was there, Alice, you don’t need to hide anything from me. I thought you might need someone to talk to. I noticed you didn’t call anyone from the hospital, I don’t know if you have a person you can have this conversation with.’
For an old guy he was pretty perceptive.
I shrugged.
‘It’s a start.’ He smiled at me.
‘I can’t talk to you because I don’t know how I feel or how I should feel,’ I admitted.
‘There’s no should, love. We all process events in our lives in very different ways. Take my next door neighbour for example, he’s only a young man and he’s recently divorced. His way of grieving for his marriage is to turn into a complete idiot. He’s going out, getting drunk and bringing people back to the house, playing music loud till all hours. Or maybe he’s just enjoying being single now. I don’t know, I haven’t spoken with him for a while. Certainly not since his wife left. We’re all different and react to events in our lives in different ways.’ He studied me. ‘And that includes you.’
I picked up my own coffee mug and raised it to my mouth, took a sip and left it raised in front of my face. ‘Thank you for being there for me, Hashim.’ I was glad he had made the effort to talk to me. The death of Vivian was all tangled up with Beth. So much responsibility and nowhere to talk it through. Hashim was trying but Lilac would have to do. I couldn’t place this on Hashim. He was a kind man and didn’t deserve to know the full extent of what was happening.
‘You know you can talk to me any time, don’t you?’
I had a thought. ‘Can I have your address?’
‘Of course you can, but what on earth for?’
I put my mug back on the table. ‘Let’s just say I might want to thank you for your kindness.’ And I smiled at him.
Home felt quiet after being out and seeing both Beth and Hashim. Lilac was out and that was unusual. She was usually there to greet me but she was doing her own thing today. Not that I blamed her. It could be a little claustrophobic with the two of us in here day in and day out.
I needed to do some more work anyway. The deadline was ticking away.
The killer stalking the pages could be identified as scary but for me the true fear was the page, wondering whether I could fill it with words that readers would be interested in. After all, it was readers I wanted. I wanted them to be waiting for my next book. To be anticipating the next Alice Friend novel with bated breath. For that to happen I had to write well and do it consistently.
I poured myself a glass of wine and opened my laptop at the table. There was so much death around me recently, I wondered, as my screen loaded, if it would affect my writing. If it would have a positive or negative effect on what would go down on the page today.
I read to where I was up to now. My victim lay in his own fluid on the concrete. He had lain there for some time. No one had helped him. All was lost for him. It wasn’t until the next morning when the bin men came around, the thunderous noise of the bin lorry, as it roared down the road and rumbled as it ate the contents of the smaller bins, that my victim was found. The stench from the lorry overpowering any smell of death that might have been around.
Within half an hour my detective inspector was at the scene. DI Chloe King was standing over the body in her Tyvek suit, her trusty sidekick, DS Max Black at her side. Chloe crouched down and looked at the slice across the victim’s throat, recognising that they had seen this mark before. They were on the tail of someone they knew. Max shook his head. This was going to be a difficult case. This guy was good. No better than them, but he was definitely good.
And as I wrote this dialogue, I wondered, as I knew so much about how the police investigated a crime, how easy it would be to get away with a murder? It wasn’t so much to do with the knowing how to kill, it was to do with the policing. You weren’t up against your victim, you were up against the police from the moment you considered the act of murder. I had the police murder investigation manual. Yes it was redacted in parts, but it was a huge document and not a lot of it was hidden, considering. When I looked at it I couldn’t tell what was protected by those sections, but blacked out they were. The manual was more than helpful in writing a crime novel and it would be incredibly helpful if someone wanted to p
lan a murder. To know what the police would do and in what order when they started to investigate the crime from start to finish.
I had also done my research by speaking to a couple of cops. They hadn’t told me anything I couldn’t have found out online if I’d chosen to, but it’s easier to assimilate it if you talk to someone face to face. You can place it into your work-in-progress – the novel you’re writing, if you have a conversation with someone.
Could I commit the perfect murder and get away with it? I was genuinely curious. After all, the incident I’d been involved in could have been a cleverly disguised murder made to look like an accident, and that’s how the police were investigating it. All I needed to do was to make an incident look like an accident and I’d walk away from it a free woman. I was an intelligent woman. Killing a woman, Beth, was in my future anyway, I might as well get a practice run over and done with.
My stomach twisted at the thought of losing Beth, of taking this step with her. That she had asked me sickened me to my core and made my head ache whenever I thought about it. There was no way I could do this for her right now but if I carried this out then I might be stronger, better placed to help her.
Could I commit the perfect murder?
11
My head was heavy, foggy, filled with the emotion of the night before. The light that streamed through the window did little to lift the drudge that lay in there. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hide.
This wasn’t a good start to my day. I had plans. I had to shift myself out of bed. Lilac’s nose nudged my cheek. Dry and insistent. She nudged twice, her small firm head a battering ram against my wall of self-pity. I rubbed between her eyes and agreed to get up and feed her. I needed to grab a couple of pain pills anyway. Whether to clear my head or to take away the pain that continued to niggle through my neck, I wasn’t quite sure.
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