Mystery Tour

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Now who’s the nosy one?’

  We stare at each other, neither of us saying a thing, and I brace myself, all the muscles in my body tensing as I prepare to run but, instead of lunging towards me, Beachball throws back his head and roars with laughter.

  ‘Touché!’

  His laughter turns to a wheeze, and he reaches into his bag and pulls out his inhaler. He puffs on it twice then looks up at me. ‘Two more questions for you, clever girl. One: what are we going to do with the body? And two: how the fuck do we get off this island?’

  Sweat rolls off my eyebrows and drips into my eyes, and I pass a hand over my face for what must be the third time in as many minutes. Beachball is doubled over in front of me, puffing on his inhaler as if his life depends on it. We’re standing in near darkness in the middle of the jungle, a canopy of leaves blocking out the sun, an army of cicadas chirping frantically. Grey-hair is lying dead at our feet. We striped the sand with his blood as we hauled him from the beach to the jungle, pausing every couple of seconds to catch our breath and wipe the sweat from our eyes. It must have taken us hours, and we’re both scratched and bleeding. The vegetation was thicker than I thought.

  ‘Now what?’ Beachball looks up at me, still bent over, his hands on his knees. ‘We can’t bury him – we don’t have a spade.’

  ‘I know.’

  He frowns. ‘So we just leave him here?’

  I nod.

  ‘But they’ll find him. Sooner or later someone will find him here.’

  ‘I know that. His body will serve as a warning.’

  ‘For what?’ Beachball straightens up, but it’s an effort, and he presses one hand to his chest as he shakes his inhaler with the other.

  ‘A warning to paedophiles.’

  ‘What?’ His cheeks pale and he stares at me open-mouthed.

  I crouch down, pick up my bag and slide my hand inside, keeping my eyes on Beachball the whole time.

  ‘He was a paedophile?’ he says, his eyes darting to his left, his right, to the trail we created that’s directly behind me. ‘Fuck. That’s awful. How do you know?’

  ‘Same way I know you’re a paedophile – from the forum where you discuss your shared interests.’ I spit out the last word.

  ‘You’ve made a mistake, girly.’ Beachball shakes his head. ‘You’ve got me confused with someone else. We’re into trains, me and him, not kids; that’s sick.’

  ‘And that’s why you came to Thailand, is it?’ I smile. ‘In search of trains?’ I’m breathing quickly now, in and out through my nose, but not because I’m scared. My fingers graze the rough lining of the bag and then touch the object I’ve been searching for. I close my hand around it.

  You’d think it would be hard to crack an online paedophile ring, wouldn’t you? Not if your stepfather suddenly died and left you everything, including his computer. Not if he was logged into the forum when he breathed his last breath. Not if the last thing he’d typed was: ‘Yeah. I’m up for a trip to Thailand. We could have a lot of fun.’

  ‘That’s right, girly. We came to Thailand for the trains.’ Beachball’s gaze drops to the ground. His own bag is lying on the forest floor, an equal distance between him and me. I saw what was in Grey-hair’s bag when he tipped the contents onto the sand in search of his note, but Beachball didn’t do that. There could be anything in his rucksack, anything at all.

  ‘Any particular kind of train you were hoping to see in Thailand?’ I ask as I slowly, slowly slip my hand from the bag. ‘A steam train perhaps, or a TGV. Maybe a—’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Beachball looks from Grey-hair, who’s still face down on his stomach, to the thick streak of blood that stretches from his feet to the path we created from the beach. ‘I hit him on the back of the head. That blood can’t have come from…’

  I jump back as he throws himself at Grey-hair’s body and, grunting with the effort, flips him over onto his back.

  Beachball takes a step back, one arm outstretched, pointing at the gaping wound in Grey-hair’s stomach. He stands there, staring, pointing, saying nothing for what seems like an age, then, ever so slowly, ever so deliberately, he turns and points at me.

  ‘You.’

  I smile. It’s a genuine smile. A proud one. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You did that.’

  ‘Yes. Yes I did. Poor thing. He only wanted to know if I had some loo roll.’

  His gaze flicks towards his bag, now less than half a metre from him. ‘You fucking bit—’

  He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. I cut it out of him, twisting the knife in his guts until his knees buckle and he tumbles backwards. He lands on top of Grey-hair and slumps onto him, their heads nestled together like sleepy lovers entwined.

  I’m slightly out of breath when I get to Phuket airport. It took me longer to swim out to the boat than I’d anticipated, then I had to drop the knife into the sea, speed back to the shore and pick up my laptop and belongings from the hut I’d rented on the shoreline.

  I wasn’t lying when I told Beachball that I was a county swimming champion. I took up swimming after Mum died and it was just me and my stepdad left in the huge, sprawling house she’d inherited from my grandparents. I trained every Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday – a weights session followed by three miles in the pool. Training made me fast and strong. It also meant that, four times a week, I’d be miles away from home – and safe – when he would peel himself out of bed, stumble into my bedroom for a bit of ‘fun’ then log on to the computer in the dining room. I try not to think about the other three days a week.

  ‘Got anything nice planned in Kuala Lumpur?’ the check-in desk stewardess asks as I hand over my passport and ticket.

  I killed my stepdad instead of serving up Sunday lunch. One minute I was standing beside the dining-room table, a carving knife in my hand and a steaming turkey in front of me, and the next I’d driven the knife between his shoulder blades. He was sitting at the computer desk in the corner of the room at the time. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was the sound of his fingers tap-tap-tapping on the keys, the squeak of his chair’s wheels on the dirty tiles, or his groans of pleasure as he looked at image after image after image; whatever it was, something inside me snapped. I stabbed him again and again and again, feeling a delicious rush of satisfaction each time the blade crunched against bone. So much for going to the police. Now I had to run from them instead.

  I spent four hours on the forum, notebook in hand, and then half an hour inputting my stepdad’s credit-card details into a travel website. I knew exactly where I would go.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I look up at the check-in stewardess as she slides my boarding card and passport back across the counter. ‘You just asked me something?’

  She smiles widely, her overly made-up face the picture of professional interest. ‘I asked whether you had something nice planned in Kuala Lumpur?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going in search of … one second.’ I reach into my bag and pull out my notebook. I flip through the pages, pausing momentarily on a blank, lined page to chastise myself for pressing too hard with my biro. You’ll be dead by dawn is imprinted on the page. ‘Oh yes, I’m going in search of BlueBottle78 and MyTurnNow.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She inclines her head to one side and frowns. ‘What was that? I didn’t catch—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  She’s still frowning as I turn and walk towards the departure lounge.

  The Last Supper

  Carol Anne Davis

  We’re sitting on Brighton Pier, where visitors last year munched their way through thirty-two thousand ice creams and twenty-four thousand doughnuts. I fear that Valerie ate most of them. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not one of those husbands who object to the natural thickening of a middle-aged woman’s waistline, but we’re not talking about two or three stone.

  We visit several British seaside towns every June, shortly after our winter sun holiday. We recently return
ed from the Canary Islands, where each day she worked her way through pork ribs, butter-drenched corn on the cob and twice-fried chips. For myself, I was happy with a vegetable consommé followed by some grilled grouper. I find that eating lightly makes it easier to think.

  I suspect that Valerie is trying hard not to think. She’s been increasingly remote since our fifth attempt at IVF failed, and I fear that she blames me, although tests have shown that my sperm are long-distance swimmers. She was forty when we married and first went to the clinic; I was thirty, so perhaps she thought my youth would compensate for her age.

  ‘I think I’ll treat myself to the fish and chips,’ she says now.

  I glance at my watch and find it’s just after eleven, a mere two hours since she had a full English breakfast.

  ‘Just a mineral water for me.’

  She heaves herself up from the cafeteria chair and walks, legs awkwardly apart, to the self-service counter. A group of teenage boys look up from their mobiles to stare at her then glance in my direction. I hope that they’ll think that I’m her employee or her neighbour – anything but her spouse.

  My mobile vibrates against my thigh, and I realise that it’s the first thrill I’ve had in months. I could take a lover, of course, but Valerie holds the purse strings and would cut me off without a euro. And, now that I’m thirty-eight, there’s not much modelling work out there. Oh, I make the occasional appearance in Country Man catalogue, decked out in an oilskin coat with my arm around a springer spaniel. And last year mine was the stock photo used in a newspaper article about – ironically – the male pill. But work offers are few and far between now that I’m too old for the youth market and too young for the retirement catalogues.

  ‘They didn’t have any balsamic vinegar,’ Valerie says on her return, before cutting into what looks like whale in batter. The chips are piled so high that several have fallen off the plate, while the mushy peas are a laboratory-enhanced shade of green. She washes them down with a bucket of cola as I make my second attempt at solving yesterday’s cryptic crossword. I notice that my mineral water is conspicuous by its absence but I don’t complain.

  In the honeymoon phase I had no complaints. We worked hard and played hard and made love on a daily basis. I didn’t have a particular desire for children but was sympathetic when Valerie wanted them. But the initial fertility treatment made her cramp and bloat, and become exceptionally irritable, and the later, more intensive, medication gave her headaches and made her feel faint. She began to overdose on chocolate every day in the hope of regaining her vigour, and, when that failed, added red wine and dark beer. A couple needs similar energy levels if they are to go walking and dancing together, so our social life became increasingly small. Oh, we still travelled frequently but increasingly saw the world from a cruise liner or a hired limousine.

  The month after our trip to the British seaside we go to Malta and take up residence in the hotel’s finest suite. However, driving rain greets us when we open the curtains each morning. I want to go and see the barracks and the catacombs, both described to me during childhood by my grandfather. I’d also like to wander around the museums and art galleries, but Valerie, who hates the cold, refuses to hire a car for us, so we sit in the restaurant, and I watch her devour goat’s cheese and ricotta pastries, followed by sugared almonds and candied fruits with cream.

  The cream smears at the side of her mouth, drawing my unwilling attention to her hamster-like cheeks as she wolfs down the cakes the way a pelican swallows a duckling. I feel slightly unwell at the prospect of ever having to kiss her again.

  It’s hard to believe that she was once a successful model; then again, her father owned several mail order clothing businesses, so she grew up in front of the camera. At first, she featured in the baby-clothing catalogues, then in those aimed at the youth market. By the time I met her she was in her late thirties and modelling for the fifty-plus set. She still looked great, but manufacturers always choose younger models for their clothing lines; hell, even the pensioner market has models that haven’t yet experienced their first perimenopausal sweat.

  At forty-five, Valerie could start having hot flushes soon and become even more tired and jaded. It doesn’t bear thinking about. I can’t envisage spending the next few decades following her around like a lapdog, but I also loathe the thought of getting a divorce and living in a bedsit. It seems hopeless, unless…

  I’m sure that every out-of-love spouse has considered murder at some point, even if only briefly during a shrieking, fist-clenching argument. They invariably make up and the thought is forgotten, or at least pushed into the background until the next angry dispute. But what if they don’t make up? What if his sense of feeling trapped and controlled grows by the second? What if it seems the only sensible way out?

  I continue to visualise my happy single life as she munches her way through Morocco and Tunisia (she favours the baklava and glass after glass of heavily sweetened tea) before returning to Britain for a tour of a chocolate factory where we learn that a certain wafer is sold in the UK every two seconds. I wonder if Valerie is bulk-buying most of them and force back a mirthless little laugh. We are encouraged to taste the confectionery as we make our way through the building, and afterwards she takes home a giant bag of truffles and an Easter egg that would make even the world’s biggest laying bird sweat and scream.

  That night, I barely sleep, partly due to the fact that overdosing on confectionery has made Valerie flatulent, and partly because she has recently begun to wake up every few minutes with a grunt due to sleep apnoea.

  In the morning, I go out to clear my nose and to buy a newspaper. Returning I curl up for a read in the lounge. The main feature is about a private investigator who doubled as a hit man; the article mentioned several other PIs who have also committed murders for cash. Apparently, many were disgraced former coppers who were struggling to make a living as investigators and chose to go over to the very dark side.

  I am too astute to research the subject online so go through the local telephone directory and copy down a few names. I phone each of them from a new, pay-as-you-go mobile, make introductory appointments and pretend that I am thinking of buying a substantial local property and need to know if the neighbours are nice, quiet types. Naturally, I give each investigator the name of a different house, as the last thing I want is for them to bump into each other as they go through the owner’s trash.

  I use most of my savings to pay all four men’s fees, but rationalise that you often need to spend money to make money, and that, if everything goes to plan, I’ll be inheriting all of Valerie’s wealth…

  The next few weeks are very interesting indeed, as each of the investigators bring me details of the people I’ve asked about, everything from their qualifications to their debts and their sexual lifestyles. (Apparently spanking and threesomes are big in the suburbs.) I thank them, only to arrange another meeting shortly afterwards and explain that I’ve heard that I was about to be outbid. ‘It’s a guy I used to work with and he’s really shafted me. I could kill the bastard,’ I say.

  Three of the men make sympathetic noises, but the fourth – Barry, whom I’m guessing was born and bred in Birmingham – says, ‘Sounds like he’s made a few enemies. Maybe he’ll meet with a little accident.’ He says it in a pseudo-jokey voice, but his gaze is unblinking and it is obvious that he is sizing me up.

  ‘What if there was someone else who deserved a short, sharp shock?’ I ask, then take a hasty sip from the blended whisky that Barry has poured for me. The tumbler is the type you buy at a car boot sale, as are the soft furnishings. He is operating out of a room in his flat, and anyone can see that his main meal of the day is a liquid lunch.

  ‘I was a karate instructor for a few years,’ he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

  ‘Yeah? I wasn’t thinking of anything too athletic. Actually, all you should need is a handful of cake…’

  We spend the next couple of weeks sorting everything out, and eventually th
e plan seems foolproof. Valerie and I are to spend a few days in Polperro, indulging in her newly acquired love of Cornish pasties. One afternoon I’ll order room service. Earlier, I’ll have put sedatives in her cola to slow her responses down. While we’re eating, Barry will knock on the door and say that he’s forgotten to give us our complimentary wine and chocolates – the rich are particularly partial to anything that is free. He’ll set down the tray and grab hold of Valerie, putting her in a headlock while I block her windpipe by stuffing it with a large piece of scone. It will be fitting in a way – her last supper: she will die doing what she loves. If the scone doesn’t quite work its magic, we will suffocate her with the pillow and stuff more cake down her throat immediately afterwards. Men and women die every day from choking on meals at home and in restaurants. In fact, it’s the fourth leading cause of accidental death.

  As the death day draws closer, I try to be especially kind to Valerie. It’s customary to tell the larger lady that she has beautiful eyes, but it’s hard to see hers due to the pouches of fat, so I settle for complimenting her on her new perfume. I even hold her in my arms (well, most of her) when she finds out that her latest fertility treatment has failed. We sing along to the car radio as I drive us to Cornwall, and I force myself to eat a chicken nugget from her family-sized box – it must have been aimed at the Manson family – when we stop at a service station for a snack.

  And at first it goes so well that my confidence trumps my nervousness. We settle into our hotel suite and I go for a long, hot bubble bath, while she drinks her lightly medicated sparkling brew. On my return, I phone down to the kitchen and ask for a cream tea for two to be delivered. She is dozing on the bed when the waitress arrives with it. Five minutes later, Barry raps on our door, dressed in a black ensemble that vaguely resembles that of the serving staff, though they don’t share his aroma of mingled whisky and fags.