by A K Reynolds
‘Whenever he took it, I’m sure he didn’t know he was taking it. It was slipped into his food or drink by someone who knew what they were doing and wanted him dead. My Charlie was murdered.’
Hearing Clara tell me her son had been murdered left me struggling to come up with a reply. Anything of a sympathetic nature was likely to be inadequate, and as for saying something positive, there was nothing positive to say – other than to express the hope the police would catch Charlie’s killer. That would’ve sounded lame. In the end I settled on, ‘I’m so sorry to hear it, Clara. I can’t imagine how you must feel.’
Her puffy cheeks seemed to droop. ‘I still haven’t come to terms with his death,’ she said. ‘Knowing he was murdered is almost more than I can bear.’
It was another conversation I wished I wasn’t involved in and wanted to end quickly but couldn’t. Good manners and humanity demanded that I listened to Clara for as long as she wanted to talk to me. I could only hope it wouldn’t be for long.
‘I can imagine.’ Was there a more trite cliché than that to offer someone who had recently been bereaved? Probably not, but it was the best I could think of other than ‘sorry for your loss’ – a formulaic response I was desperate to avoid.
‘There’s something else,’ she said.
My heart sank. She wanted to talk some more and I wanted to be alone to watch the television, drink coffee, and generally while away the time until wine o’clock. I decided to get the ‘something else’ issue out of the way as quickly as possible, in the hope I’d then be able to usher my unwanted guest out of the door.
‘What is it, Clara?’
‘Something arrived through the post for him a few days after he died. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I keep wondering if it’s important.’
‘Perhaps you should let the police decide,’ I said, with a horrible suspicion I knew what sort of thing she was referring to. ‘What was it, anyway?’ I added, trying my best to sound like I was making a casual enquiry.
‘It was a baseball bat. I gave it to the police and they said they’d look into it, but I got the impression they weren’t much interested.’
‘A baseball bat?’ I asked, forcing my eyebrows into twin arches of surprise, though in truth the emotion I felt was closer to horror than surprise.
‘Yes. Charlie has never shown the slightest interest in baseball. There’s no reason he should have got one. It seems so odd.’
My spine tingled. ‘It is odd, but it’s nothing I can help you with unfortunately,’ I said.
‘I suppose I knew it’d be a waste of time coming here. No, that’s ungrateful of me. It hasn’t been a waste of time at all. It’s been good to unburden myself, and you’ve been really generous with your time, Jasmine. Thank you so much, I really do appreciate it.’
I lowered my eyes as her praise made me feel uncomfortable, particularly since I hadn’t earned it. Far from helping her, I’d concealed what I knew.
‘You’re welcome, Clara,’ I said, like the liar and hypocrite I’d become.
She glanced at her watch. ‘I ought to leave you in peace,’ she said, and relief flooded my body but I didn’t show it.
Instead, I assumed an air of concerned gravitas. ‘Anything I can do to help,’ I said.
We both stood up and I led her to the door. ‘Well, goodbye, Clara, sorry we’ve had to meet in such awful circumstances,’ I said.
‘Goodbye. Thank you again, Jasmine. You’ve been a great comfort to me at a very difficult time.’ She walked slowly away, turning once to glance over her shoulder and give me a forced smile, before disappearing down the street. I closed the door, thanking God I was on my own once again. Then my mind began working overtime on the issue of Charlie’s death.
‘Charlie keeled over after being drugged,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Then he got a baseball bat delivered to his home. I got a baseball bat delivered to my home. What happened to me before that? Did someone drug me, or try to kill me?
‘I don’t remember being drugged, but I got myself into a state and ran a young man down. Or did I? Maybe I just assumed I did, because I get myself into a state so often.
‘But what if I hadn’t gotten myself trolleyed when I’d run him down. What if I was in a state because I’d been drugged at some time before I ran him down? That’d explain a lot. For instance, how it all felt so unreal and nightmarish, and how I only remembered having one drink at O’Shaughnessy’s.’
It’d also lead to a troubling possibility – namely, that someone was trying to kill me.
4
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Patience and stealth – these are the qualities required for the job I’ve set myself. Namely, keeping watch over Jasmine and following her around, getting to know her routines.
Last night I waited in my car for three hours before she emerged from her house. It would’ve taxed the resources of a lesser person, but I stuck to the job without faltering. That’s because I’m highly motivated. There’s a lot hanging on this.
She drove to the Crystal Palace Police Station with me following at a discreet distance. She didn’t notice she was being tailed – she never does. Jasmine isn’t very observant, probably because she’s a lush, and drink is all she thinks about. It’s one of the things I’ve learnt about her recently. During the week I’ve been monitoring her movements, she’s bought enough wine to hold a party every day, but as she doesn’t see anyone, she must be drinking it all herself. Strange habit, if you ask me. Still, I’m not interested in judging her habits. There’s only one agenda I want to pursue: her death.
She turned into the police station car park and I tucked my car discreetly among the other cars on the street, facing the direction I knew she’d take to go home when she was done. She was in there an hour, no doubt doing her best to prise a criminal from the tight embrace of the law. I eventually saw her pull out of the car park in her blue Audi.
On her way home she took a detour into the car park outside O’Shaughnessy’s pub, and I realised I might have been presented with the perfect opportunity to erase her from the planet. It’d be somewhat opportunistic, but sometimes life is like that. You plan things when you can, but that shouldn’t rule out taking your chances when they come.
I drove past O’Shaughnessy’s and parked on the street nearby, just in case they kept a CCTV record of their parking area. I got out, taking my stash of GHB with me. The way I saw it was that if I was able to administer it, there’d be a better than evens chance she’d die of the stuff, or leave O’Shaughnessy’s and plough fatally into the nearest brick wall, or similar obstruction, on her way home.
I’d taken the precaution of disguising my appearance, as I always do when I’m stalking someone. Moreover my car can’t be traced back to me. It was a second-hand Ford Fiesta – just about the most common car on the road – and the registered keeper didn’t exist.
I was wearing a black baseball hat pulled down low over my eyes, a black bomber-jacket, and grey cargo pants with black trainers. My wraparound sunglasses were a somewhat incongruous touch, given that it was 10.55pm, but who cared? What mattered was they hid my features rather well, and the lenses weren’t too dark to see through at night.
I entered O’Shaughnessy’s looking like a chav from the local housing estate and walked with an uncharacteristic lolloping gait to the bar, where I ordered a half of weak lager weakened still further with a good deal of lemonade. When it arrived I picked it up, and found a seat at a table. I’d clocked Jasmine sitting on her own in a booth, and positioned myself so I could keep an eye on her from under the brim of my baseball hat. I was pretty sure that if anyone had to help the police with a photofit of me at a later date, the result wouldn’t look anything like me. No-one who knew me would be likely to recognise me if they gave me a casual glance – and casual glances are, for the most part, what people give strangers in bars, so as not to cause offence. But even a penetrating stare might not have uncovered my disguise, it was so good.
I left the premises and returned to my car to await developments.
Ten minutes later Jaz’s car pulled out of the car park. I followed at a discreet distance behind her. She lost control of her car on Fosby Street and ploughed into a lamp post. She ran over a young man in the process, causing unplanned collateral damage.
I pulled into a space at the side of the road. Ahead of me, where Jasmine had crashed, the road took a lazy curve to the right, so I was able to see her vehicle, even though I was parked on the left-hand side of the road. I should’ve turned my lights off, but I was so excited by what I’d seen, I forgot. I sat in my car with the lights on and watched, wondering whether her car would burst into flame, or whether the man would get to his feet.
I was about to drive off when she climbed from her car. This was unexpected. Not only was she not dead, she didn’t even appear to be badly hurt. The way she wobbled about suggested she was groggy, but that was all. I’d obviously miscalculated the dose. I made a mental note to double it in future.
She tottered to the side of her car and crouched low, disappearing from view behind its bulk. I guessed she was looking closely at the boy. She stood up, got back in her car, reversed it, climbed out, and looked at the boy a second time. Then she stood up and stared in my direction. I crouched low to avoid her gaze.
This was potentially a problem. If she had seen me, and thought I was calling the police, she’d turn herself in, because she’d have nothing to lose. She could end up in prison. Killing her in prison could prove difficult.
So the best scenario for me would be if she left the scene of the crime without telling anyone.
I didn’t know if she was the sort of person who’d do that, but I knew she definitely wouldn’t do it if she thought I was a witness who was contacting the cops.
Was there some way to reassure her I wasn’t?
I decided to take a calculated risk.
I pulled out of my parking space and drove towards her, then took a right turn up a back street and drove off. It began to drizzle so I turned on my wipers. I made three more right turns, which took me back to Fosby Street. By the time I got there, Jasmine was gone, having left her victim lying on the pavement.
Now I was faced with another problem. There was a chance the crime could be traced back to her. If the boy she’d run down was alive he might be able to identify her car. Even if he was dead he might be a liability because there could be forensic evidence linking his body to Jasmine’s Audi.
I pulled up at the side of the road so that my car masked his body from the houses across the way. Directly opposite there was only a derelict warehouse to worry about. The street was deserted. The only sound to be heard was the swish-swish my wipers made on my windscreen, and the hum of my engine as it idled. I pulled on a pair of the surgical gloves I kept in my car for situations which required discretion, made sure the coast was clear, and climbed out.
By this time the pavement was glistening with rain and a pool of blood by the boy’s head was fading as the rainwater washed it away. I crouched over him and quickly established he was dead. Then, after ensuring the coast was clear, I got my hands beneath his armpits and dragged him onto the back seat. He was short with a slim build, but was strangely heavy, as if the dead might weigh more than the living.
After my first attempt to get him in the car, his legs were left sticking out the door. I grabbed his feet and stuffed them in the back, then drove off to dispose of the body. I got rid of the car while I was at it – leaving it a burnt-out wreck, far away from the woodland in which I’d left his corpse.
5
Way Back When
After I told Tony I couldn’t explain what was wrong, he stared at me and my face got hot. I looked up to avoid his eyes, and caught a glimpse of the crescent moon against a dark sky. Then I told myself the heavens don’t have any answers, and forced myself to look at Tony.
‘Does this mean you’ll finish with me?’ I asked.
He put his arms around me.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it time, like you said.’
My tears flowed freely – I couldn’t have stopped them if I’d tried – while he held me tight, little knowing that part of me wanted more than ever to push him away. Lurking in the recesses of my mind were unnatural impulses urging me to keep away from Tony. Drunk though I was, I hadn’t been able to push them aside and let myself go when he’d tried to kiss me.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Everything’s all right.’
Against all the evidence of my experience I believed him, at least for the few minutes I was in his arms, and stopped crying.
‘You don’t think I’m a freak for not letting you kiss me?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said, letting me go. ‘You’re no freak.’
I wiped my eyes and, as he so often did, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, put one between my lips and one between his own, then struck a match and lit them both. I took a draw on mine, and wondered how long he’d give it before deciding he didn’t want to date a puzzle like me.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
He reached over, smoothing my hair away from my forehead. ‘Your eyebrows arched as if you were worried. You must have had something on your mind.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s just a habit, it doesn’t mean anything,’ I lied, wondering whether everyone could read my thoughts as easily as Tony seemed able to.
When we’d smoked our cigarettes, we headed for a taxi rank.
‘We could share a cab,’ Tony said. ‘My place is on the way to yours. You could drop me off. I’d pay for the cab.’
We got in a taxi and gave the driver Tony’s address and mine, telling him to head for Tony’s first. When we pulled up in front of his house he pressed some cash into my hand and kissed me on the cheek before getting out of the taxi. When it set off again, I asked the driver to head over to Seth’s house then I dialled Kylie’s number.
‘Hi,’ I said when she answered. ‘I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five.’
Her voice came back at me through the ether, slow and drawling. ‘Whad? Whad’re you talking about?’
‘I’m in a taxi like we arranged. I’ll be there to pick you up in five.’
Silence. Then, ‘Oh yeah. Five. Did you say five?’
I realised she was seriously drunk and I was wasting my time.
‘Let me talk to Seth.’
Moments later I heard Seth’s voice. ‘Kylie’s a bit tipsy, but no worries – she’ll be waiting for you when you get here.’
As the taxi pulled up, the door to Seth’s house opened and he emerged with one arm around Kylie, supporting her, and propelled her to the rear door. I opened it and he eased her in next to me.
‘Bye, babe,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek.
She blew him a kiss as I fastened the seatbelt around her. Seth shut the door and the taxi moved off.
‘Did you have a good time?’ I asked.
‘Dunno, think so,’ she slurred, her head lolling around on an oddly limp neck.
Kylie’s mum was waiting for us when we got to her place. ‘What sort of state have you got yourself in?’ she demanded as soon as she saw her daughter. I thought she was going to bollock Kylie for once, but instead she said: ‘You’re just like me when I was your age. You’ll learn.’
I more-or-less pulled Kylie upstairs, put her to bed, got my jammies on and climbed into the spare bed
next to her, and switched the lights out. I should’ve given some thought as to how Kylie had got herself wrecked, but I didn’t. I was too preoccupied with my own concerns to worry about her. Maybe if I had done, I would’ve been able to prevent the disaster that overtook me later and blighted my life forever.
6
Here and Now
The thought that someone might want me dead was too much to bear. I went to the cupboard where I keep my wine but was disappointed to find I was fresh out. After a minute or two of trying to do without, I left the house, and headed, inevitably, in the direction of the nearest eight-till-late.
Three questions exercised my mind as I walked:
1. What measures could I take to ensure my survival?
2. What kind of wine was I going to get?
3. How many bottles did I need?
By the time I’d reached the eight-till-late, I’d revised my priorities. I’d relegated the life-threatening circumstances I faced to number three in order of priority. As I scanned the liquor shelves, it fell from my priority list entirely, because I was too busy thinking about merlot and shiraz to give it any consideration. I bought two bottles of each, which was approximately twice as much as I needed for a day’s drinking, and headed home with a plastic carrier bag in my hand, the bottles clinking noisily together as I walked.
I told myself for at least the fiftieth time that I ought not to keep getting plastic bags from the eight-till-late, and I should, in future, use one of the half-dozen bags for life I’d bought from the supermarket for situations like this.
Minutes after getting back home I gripped the top of one of my purchases intending to open it, when I noticed the time – it was only 11am – and began to feel guilty about having a drink so early. I resolved – like I’d already done a thousand times before – to give up. Then I told myself: that’s not possible, Jaz, get real. So instead of trying to give up, I decided to try something which might be doable: getting through one lousy day without having a drink.