by Daniel Hurst
I want to respond, but I’m out of breath and still in pain from my ankle injury as well as Michael’s increasingly tight grip on my arm.
‘Give me that phone!’ he demands as he snatches at my mobile, but I keep a hold on it and manage to keep it out of his reach, for a few seconds at least. But then he does something I was not expecting.
He hits me in the stomach, knocking all the wind out of me and causing me to drop my phone onto the concrete pavement as I gasp in pain at the surprise attack.
Michael shows no concern for me as he bends down to retrieve my phone, but I can see that he is inebriated because it takes him longer than it would a sober person to complete the task.
As Michael gets his hands on my phone, the air returns to my lungs after his sucker punch, and I have the energy to start fighting back again.
As I push him away, he drops my phone before he can stand back up, and stumbles backwards, almost losing his balance but just managing to stay on his feet. I grab the phone quicker than he could, thanks mainly to the lack of drink and drugs in my system compared to his, and kick my heels off before starting running again.
‘Get back here, you stupid bitch!’ Michael calls after me, but I keep going down the street, praying that the next corner I run around will lead me back onto the main road, where there will be plenty of witnesses around to stop any more physical attacks.
I know my plan is already ruined because he has seen me, so leaking the photos would not be very beneficial to me – while it might see him lose his job, he would give up the evidence he has on me and drag me down with him. But that doesn’t mean I can just give up my phone easily. The photos I have of him on here can be used for my own leverage against him, just like he has leverage on me, making things between us much more balanced than they have ever been. But for that to happen, I need to get away from him and store these photos elsewhere so he can’t delete them, and all of this will have been a complete waste of time.
I feel like I’m running fast and believe it should be enough to get away from him now that I’m no longer held back by my choice of footwear, but I guess I have severely underestimated how fast a desperate man on cocaine can run because I feel Michael’s hand on my arm again, and this time I just know he will never let go.
‘No!’ I cry as he catches me and drags me back against the wall.
My shoulders slam into the brickwork of a derelict building, and I know nobody is there to come out and help me.
But I’m not going to let that prevent me from screaming for help when Michael suddenly puts his hand over my mouth and warns me against it.
‘Just be quiet, give me your phone, and this will all be over in a couple of seconds.’
Oh, how I wish that were true. But it’s never over. It just seems to keep going and going and going. He keeps winning, and I keep losing. He gets his way, and I never get mine.
He has it all, and I have nothing.
That’s why I don’t do what he tells me to and give in.
Instead, I push him firmly in the chest as hard as I can.
I can see the shock on his face at my spontaneous show of aggression, and he staggers backwards, his arms flailing out at his sides. But his balance is off thanks to all the drugs he has ingested this evening, and when his foot stumbles off the edge of the kerb, it’s game over.
He falls backwards and hits the ground, but it’s the sound of his skull hitting the concrete that really makes me feel sick. It’s an awful noise, and I know it’s bad.
I take several deep breaths as I look at his body lying on the ground in front of me, my phone still in my hand and the evidence I have on him still safely in my possession. But somehow, I don’t think I’m going to need it anymore.
I think Michael might no longer be a problem, at least not in the workplace anyway.
‘Michael?’ I say tentatively as I take a couple of steps towards where he lies motionless.
But there’s no response, and if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting one. That sound of his head hitting the concrete is still ringing in my ears, and if it sounded bad to hear, I can only imagine the damage it has done to him internally.
‘Michael?’ I try one more time as I slowly lean down and check for a pulse.
There is none.
The only thing I do get is a good look at the pool of blood that is starting to seep out from the back of his injured skull.
‘Oh, my god.’
I step away from the body and put my hands over my mouth to stop a scream or sickness, I’m not sure which.
He’s dead. I killed him.
Now what am I supposed to do?
I know the answer to that, of course. I’m supposed to call the emergency services and request help. An ambulance to try to save him. The police to try to explain what happened. Just anybody so that I am not the only person who knows this has happened.
But I don’t make the call because how will I be able to explain all of this? What we were doing here. Why he was chasing me. Why I’m in disguise. Why I have photos of him taking cocaine with an underage girl on my phone. And why I pushed him so hard that it caused him to fall over and bang his head, never to get up again.
I look up and down the alleyway to check that I am still alone, and I see that I am. That means that I could just run away. Nobody has to know I was here. It could be a while before Michael’s body is discovered, and I will be long gone by then. I won’t be a suspect. Who would know I was here? The worst that could happen would be somebody from the club might mention they saw Michael chasing a blonde woman in a red dress, but I’m not a blonde woman in a red dress. I am a brunette businesswoman. All I have to do is go home, get changed, and nobody will be able to recognise me as the woman from that club.
I can get away with this. I can finally be free from him.
I have finally won.
I wish he hadn’t pushed me so far. I wish there had been another way for this to end. But what’s done is done, and I need to move on quickly unless I want to spend the rest of the night at a police station facing some uncomfortable questions.
That’s why I check for any CCTV cameras around here before hurrying back down the street to collect my discarded heels and then rush away around the street corner, determined to get as far away from this scene as possible before somebody else comes along here.
I just need to go home and act like everything is okay.
I can do that.
I can pretend like I didn’t just kill my worst enemy.
Yeah, right.
30
Evan is surprised to see me when I walk through the door at half-past eight. I had told him that I was out for work drinks this evening, and usually when that happens, I’m home much later. But of course, that was just my alibi so I could be out stalking Michael and come home in a dress without raising suspicion. The wig has already been removed and is stuffed into my handbag alongside my mobile phone, on which the photos of Michael’s last few moments are stored. I should delete them soon, considering that they are a vital piece of evidence that links me to him around the time that he died, which I will do, but I had been more focused on getting away from the scene and getting home before I had a complete breakdown of conscience and confessed to a stranger on the street.
‘You’re back early. Good night?’ Evan asks as I enter the lounge to find him sprawled out on the sofa with the football on the TV. Bless him, he was probably looking forward to having a peaceful night to himself with me out of the way, and here I am back early to disrupt his leisure time.
‘Yeah, it was okay,’ I say, hating that I have to lie to my partner but well aware that my lies are only going to have to get worse considering what has happened tonight.
‘I thought you’d be later,’ he says as he takes a swig from his bottle of beer and sits up on the sofa so that there is room for me to join him.
‘No, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, so I didn’t want to be late. I’m going to grab a shower. Enjoy the football.’
/> I force a smile onto my face as if to say that everything is okay before hurrying out of the room and climbing the stairs, wanting to get as far away from my husband as possible before I burst into tears and let him know that something is wrong.
Closing my bedroom door behind myself, I shut my eyes and suck in a couple of mouthfuls of air before carrying on with what I need to do. I need to get out of this dress, I need to shower, and I need to get some sleep. Then I need to get up at the usual time tomorrow morning, go to the office as if it’s just a normal day, and walk through those doors as if I have no idea that my boss is already dead.
The thought of seeing his empty desk when I get to work tomorrow is a daunting one, but it’s not as bad as the thought of seeing his lifeless body lying on the concrete when the lights are turned off tonight and I’m staring at the dark ceiling.
The hot water in the shower provides some comfort to me, and I stay under it for a good ten minutes, scrubbing myself as if I am covered in Michael’s DNA because maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.
I suppose I’d better get used to that.
I’m reluctant to leave the shower because it feels like the only thing capable of washing away my sins, but I have to do it eventually, and when I do, I find Evan in the bedroom, waiting for me.
‘I thought you were watching the game,’ I say, almost jumping out of my skin at the sight of him on the bed before me.
‘Nah, it’s not that good. I’d much rather do something else.’
He gives me a suggestive smile and pats the empty part of the bed beside him, and I know exactly what he is thinking. I don’t believe it. Of all the nights when he could want to be intimate with me, he chooses the night when I have just been involved in a man’s death. The last thing I want is physical intimacy now. All I want to do is to crawl under my duvet and pretend that the news of Michael’s death isn’t going to be spreading like wildfire around the office tomorrow.
I let out a nervous laugh and make my way over to my dressing table, trying to cover up how reluctant I am to go along with what he is suggesting.
‘I’ve just showered. And it’s been a long day.’
‘But this won’t take long,’ Evan says jokingly.
‘As tempting as that is, I have got a bit of a headache coming on as well. You don’t mind, do you?’
I look back from the dresser table, worried that I might have hurt my husband’s feelings by turning him down, but thankfully, he seems okay.
‘No problem. Do you want me to get you anything?’
‘Maybe just a glass of water.’
‘Sure.’
Evan gets up off the bed and comes over to the dresser table to give me a kiss before heading downstairs to get me my drink.
I lean on the dresser table and stare at myself in the mirror as I take another deep breath and try to stay calm. I just have to get through these next few days. They’re going to be difficult because of what I know, but I have to keep telling myself that it was not my fault, Michael was a bad person, and most importantly of all, I am not going to go to prison.
Nobody knows I was with him. No one knows it was me who pushed him. And nobody ever has to know the extent of my relationship with my boss and the secrets the two of us harboured.
My crimes have died with him, just like his crimes died too.
I have to look at this not as a bad thing but as a fresh start. Now Michael is gone, he can no longer torment, bully, and harass me. I won’t wake up every morning filled with dread about the day ahead. I will have more time in the evenings to spend with Evan. And I will finally be given the promotion that I deserve, becoming the boss and fulfilling the vision my father had for me when he first brought me on at the bank twenty years ago, as well as be able to continue to make the payments at his nursing home.
It’s a shame that things had to happen this way, but they have happened, and I can’t change them now. The truth is that if Michael hadn’t been so aggressive with me, then I would never have pushed him, and he would never have fallen and smacked his head on the road.
I put my hand over my mouth as the sound of his head clashing with the concrete rings in my ears again, and I’m just about to go into the bathroom to see if I need to be sick when Evan returns with my glass of water.
‘Here you go,’ he says as he hands it to me before getting a glimpse of my pale face. ‘Are you okay? You don’t look well at all.’
‘I think I just need to have a minute in here,’ I say as I put the glass down on the dresser table and head for the bathroom.
‘Call me if you need anything!’ Evan shouts after me as I close the bathroom door and lock it quickly before crouching down over the toilet and feeling several beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
I’m definitely going to be sick. After what I witnessed tonight, perhaps it is a miracle that I haven’t puked already. Humans aren’t supposed to see other humans die. Or at least humans like me aren’t. I’m just a middle-aged woman who works in a bank, not a nurse in a hospital or a soldier on the front line. I shouldn’t be around blood, and I definitely shouldn’t be witness to the life leaving another person’s body.
I cling to the toilet seat as I give my body permission to violently erupt with sickness. But to my surprise, it doesn’t happen. What does happen is something else.
The tears are flowing.
I’m full-on weeping now.
I guess the shock has finally started to wear off, and now there is nothing left but bare, brutal emotion.
31
I’m not sure why my brain decided to play a trick on me when I first entered the office the morning after Michael had died. But that’s the only explanation for what I saw when I did enter my workplace, because there he was right in front of me, sitting behind his desk and typing away on his keyboard. Of course, it was just an hallucination, and no sooner had I seen him than he was gone again, back to the spirit world where he resides now after I pushed him over and knocked all the life out of him.
‘Morning, Imogen. Do you know what time Michael will be in?’
It’s Katherine, and she is blocking the path to my desk with her smiley face and her steaming cup of coffee in hand.
‘No, why would I?’ I reply before realising that was perhaps a little rude, as well as far too defensive. I’m not supposed to have anything to hide, so I need to start acting like it.
‘Oh, okay,’ Katherine says, looking a little taken aback by my blunt response.
‘I’m sorry. I haven’t had my morning coffee yet,’ I tell her, trying to downplay my reaction. ‘What I meant to say was good morning, Katherine, and no, sorry, I’m not sure what time Michael will be in.’
‘No problem. Can you tell him to come and see me when he gets here? It’s about the interviews for the new finance manager.’
‘Of course.’
I watch Katherine walk back to her office, knowing full well that Michael will never be in here again and wondering how long it will be until everybody else knows it too.
Slumping down into my seat, I try to summon up the energy to begin work while also doing my best not to keep looking in the direction of my boss’s empty office. But it’s not easy, and I find myself staring at his chair for far longer than I should. It’s only the commotion around the office that snaps me out of my daydream and brings me back into the present.
That’s when I see the two police officers walking in.
I grip the desk as my stomach churns and all the air is sucked out of my lungs. They must be here for me. They must know what I have done.
They must be coming to arrest me.
If anybody were watching me, then they would surely see the guilt written all over my face, but nobody is. They’re all too busy watching the police officers as they stop by my colleague Samantha’s desk and ask her something. She points them in the direction of the HR office, and everybody’s eyes follow the officers as they make their way across the open-plan floor.
You could hear a pin dro
p in here as we all watch them knock on Katherine’s door and wait for her to answer. When she does, the shock on her face matches the shock on everybody else’s, but she is professional enough to step aside and allow the officers in. Then she closes the door, leaving everybody on this side of it to wonder what the hell is going on. Everybody but me, of course.
That’s when the gossiping starts.
‘Oh my god, what do you think has happened?’
‘Is Katherine being arrested?’
‘What if somebody has been stealing from the bank?’
‘Do you think we’re all under investigation?’
I hear all the speculation around me but don’t engage with any of it, instead keeping my gaze locked onto the HR office door, waiting to see what will happen when it opens again.
I presume the officers are giving Katherine the news that her boss will not be coming back to work again. Ever. They might also be telling her that his death is being treated as suspicious and that an investigation is underway as to how Michael came to be lying dead in a back street with nobody else around. And worst-case scenario, they might be telling her that they think one of Michael’s employees might be to blame.
‘Do you know what this is about?’
I almost jump out of my skin because I had not noticed Samantha standing right next to my desk.
‘God, I didn’t see you there!’ I say, putting my hand over my racing heart and taking a deep breath.
‘Sorry, love. Didn’t mean to make you jump. I was just wondering if you knew why the police are here.’
‘No. I’ve got no idea.’
‘Do you think it’s got something to do with Michael?’
‘Why would it have something to do with him?’
‘Because he’s not here.’
Samantha gestures in the direction of the vacant office that I once used to dream about owning, although now it just seems to torment me.