An Alibi A Day

by A. R. Winters

  Allie frowned. “Three? Bill and…”

  “…us,” finished Jackie.

  Dan raised his eyebrows as he nodded at them, a smile on his lips. It was perhaps the first genuine smile they’d seen of him.

  “Bye, girls,” said Dan. He tossed the key into the air with his left hand, snatched it before it fell to the floor with his right hand, and stuffed it into the pocket of his dark grey work trousers.

  “Allie, what’s that smell?”

  She turned around, and across the other side of the room she could see the first tentative tendrils of smoke coming under the door.

  “That’s smoke, Jackie. He’s locked us in and now he’s burning down the house.”

  “But…”

  “We’ve got to do something!”

  “I know that! But what?”

  Allie looked around. The window above the sink was barred, and the gaps between bars were far too small for either of them to escape through. As was the cat-flap. And as was the window in the back door.

  “Yeah, here’s an idea,” grumbled Jackie. “We should have brought our phones with us then we could call the police or the fire brigade!”

  Allie shook her head. “But then they would have been able to place us here!”

  “That’d be pretty useful right now.”

  “Search the drawers. We’ll find something—I’m sure of it.”

  The smoke tendrils were already beginning to pour in faster than before, snaking their way under the kitchen door and sliding up its face to the ceiling above.

  “Shall we smash the windows? It’ll let some fresh air in, and we can shout out of them.” Jackie was already holding a cast iron pan and giving it some practice swings.

  “Do it!” The smoke was pouring in faster than she had thought possible.

  Jackie didn’t need asking twice and began by smashing the window above the sink. The glass flew out with a crash and a tinkle and Jackie gave her sister a grin.

  “Well done!”

  Despite the praise, it didn’t seem to help much. Some of the smoke seemed to get drawn down towards the window, but it was pouring in under the door now much faster than before. The whole building was going up in flames.

  Allie went through all the drawers in the kitchen. Ideally, she was looking for a spare key. But of course, there wasn’t one. Nor was there a sledgehammer or a handy stick of dynamite. They weren’t going to use brute force to make their way out.

  Jackie smashed her pan through the window in the door releasing another blast of fresh air into the room. But it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Hold on, maybe this’ll work…”

  Allie paused her searching to watch Jackie, who proceeded to swing the pan as hard as she could into the door, around the lock area. It hit with a loud thunk, but nothing further happened. Jackie swung again and again, and each time the pan bounced off the door harmlessly.

  After half a dozen swings, Jackie stepped back and rested the heavy pan on the worktop between the sink and the door. And that’s when she coughed for the first time.

  “Allie! We’ve got to do something fast!”

  Allie knew that, of course, and Jackie’s shouting wasn’t helping. She had two plans, but she wasn’t sure if either of them could help them in time.

  Allie pulled open the top drawer next to the sink again, which was full of cutlery. She removed a standard metal dining knife.

  “I hope this works…”

  Chapter 29

  Dan walked into the Bear and Badger pub with a cheery smile, but then rapidly wiped it off when he remembered that his mother was supposed to be dead. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion, even if no one else knew about that particular little lie yet.

  Luckily, Mr Patel wasn’t friends with anyone who would be in the pub in the mid-afternoon on a weekday.

  He hadn’t wanted to go with a lie that big, but it was the only way he could get the tight old business owner to give him some time off at such short notice.

  Now, it was time to develop himself a nice little alibi.

  “All right, Dan,” said Roger, the chubby publican who’d run the pub as long as Dan had lived in Hawthorne.

  “All right,” said Dan, quietly.

  “The usual?”

  “Yeah.” He sat on a stool at the bar.

  When the pint was in front of him, he took a big sip.

  “You all right, Dan? You’re quiet today.”

  Dan nodded slowly. “Not really, Roger, no. I had some sad news, but I don’t want to talk about it just yet, if that’s okay with you.”

  The publican nodded and slowly started working a rag over the different beer taps, polishing one after the other.

  “On a different topic, have you got an electrician you could recommend?”

  Roger didn’t answer at once, instead leaning to the end of the bar and picking up a business card. “Here you go,” he said, placing it on the bar in front of Dan. “That’s Ricky’s card. He did all the electrics in here. Having problems?”

  Dan nodded. “I’ll say. The electrics in my living room have been playing up big time. I think the whole thing might be shot.”

  Roger grimaced. “That’ll be expensive.”

  “Don’t I know it. I knew it would have to be done when I bought the place though.”

  The barman shook his head in sympathy. “Still, annoying though.”

  Dan sipped on his beer and nodded again. He wondered how many beers he would drink before something happened.

  It turned out the answer was two.

  He was just reaching the end of his second pint, when he decided it was time to turn on the sympathy taps. He began to tell Roger a tall tale about how his mother had died falling off a cliff on the Gower in Wales.

  “I am sorry, Dan. I really am,” said Roger with the practised sympathy he had developed from years spent listening to customers telling him their woes.

  Dan found he was enjoying the sympathy so much he decided to really lay it on. “It was her eightieth birthday, too, me poor old ma. You’d never meet a nicer woman,” he said, shaking his head. He figured he might even get a free pint out of it.

  “Terrible shame, Dan, terrible shame.”

  Dan stared down into his empty pint. Come on, give me a free one!

  “Want another? On the house?”

  “Oh…” he faked, “that’s very kind of you. Just one more, I think I’ll be having an early night. Then off to Wales on the morrow.”

  While the pint was being poured, the door to the pub burst open hard, banging back against the wood-panelled wall. Dan spun around on his barstool, momentarily worrying that the two stupid women had escaped and come after him.

  It wasn’t that. But it was something almost as bad.

  “Dan! Oh, hon, I’m so sorry!” said Ruth, as she rushed over to him. She took hold of his arm and gave it a supportive squeeze as soon as she arrived. “I went by the shop and Mr Patel told me about your mam!”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m really shook up,” said Dan with a grimace. He hadn’t planned on Ruth hearing about this little lie. He should have gone with something smaller, in retrospect. But if he had, old Patel wouldn’t have let him leave. Why did life have to be so complicated?

  Ruth sat on the stool next to him, squeezing his hand, while she ordered herself a vodka and coke. Despite the poor timing, he was pleased to see her. He always was.

  Dan was just getting used to playing the poor orphaned middle-aged man when the door to the pub swung open just as hard as before with another smash.

  “It’s all go today,” said Roger with an annoyed toss of his head.

  Dan spun around again, and once again was relieved to find it wasn’t the two women. They’d probably been shut up for good, he figured. The smoke would have got them by now, even if the fire hadn’t yet. He could probably start to relax. Maybe he’d start hitting up some of the other customers for free sympathy pints.

  “Dan? Is anyone here called Dan?” shouted a scruffy-look
ing brown-haired man in dirty jeans.

  “He’s right here!” shouted Ruth, before Dan could even begin to consider whether he wanted to let this stranger know who he was.

  The man hurried over. “Charlie,” he said, extending a hand. Dan just stared at it until it dropped back by his side. “I’m sorry to tell you this, mate, but your house… it’s the one around the corner from Skip’s, right?”

  “That’s it!” said Ruth. Dan wanted to tape her mouth shut.

  “It’s on fire! The fire brigade is on their way, and the police are already there. But it looks like it’s a bad one.”

  Dan blinked, trying to do his best to look astonished. “Bloody electricals,” he said drooping his head.

  “Oh, Dan,” said Ruth.

  Without prompting Roger poured two shots of whisky and put them in front of Dan and Ruth. “What a day.”

  And it wasn’t over yet.

  Chapter 30

  Jackie was giving Allie a look that she interpreted somewhere between bewildered and furious. “What are you going to do with that?”

  Allie pointed the kitchen knife up at the hinges for the back door. They were, of course, inside the house. At the top were two hinges, each held in place with four screws, and at the bottom of the door a single hinge, with four more.

  “I couldn’t find a screwdriver,” she said, followed by a cough.

  “Brilliant!” shouted Jackie. She quickly grabbed a knife of her own. “You do the bottom, I’ll do the top!”

  And with sisterly teamwork, they began to remove the hinges to the door as fast as they could. The ends of the knives were rounded, rather than the sharp points of the larger kitchen knives, and they made passable flathead screwdrivers.

  The room now reeked of smoke, and the colour of the trails coming under the door was getting darker and darker, now almost black. The ceiling was already stained and the air was becoming hotter and hazier by the minute.

  Allie leaned her head out the broken window to suck in some fresh air, before crouching down to undo the screws at the bottom.

  Above her, Jackie was rapidly spinning her knife around to remove the first of the screws.

  Allie struggled at first. The screws had been painted over and this had fixed them more firmly in place. It took a very solid twist to get the first screw to begin to turn, and when it did, flecks of paint dropped to the floor below.

  Something dropped against Allie’s head, landing in her hair.

  “Sorry,” said Jackie, following up her apology with a spluttering cough.

  Allie brushed her hand through her hair and a screw fell onto the floor. “No problem.” She coughed. “You can drop the other seven on me too, if you do it quickly.”

  Jackie chuckle-coughed, stuck her head out the window for some air and got back to work.

  Allie had removed two screws, and Jackie three, before she began to get really dizzy. When she stood up for more air, she was startled to see that she could barely see across the room now. They didn’t have much time left. Not much at all.

  “I don’t know if… we’re going to… make it,” said Jackie, spluttering as she spoke.

  “Don’t… talk.” Allie was squinting her eyes now. The smoke was thick enough that her eyes were stinging and watering of their own accord.

  The last few twists on the final screw took all she had.

  “…done…” she said, before toppling over in a spluttering fit of coughing. The cool stone of the floor pressed against her cheek as another screw dropped onto her face.

  Strangely, it seemed like a good idea to close her eyes, and just have a brief little rest.

  “Get… up…” said Jackie a million miles above her.

  But Allie didn’t feel like getting up… not yet… just a few moments rest…

  Chapter 31

  Detective Inspector Eddie Biswas had been enjoying his day off by catching up on some daytime television when he received a rather strange text message.

  His screen flashed ‘New Message’ and, much to his surprise, it said Allie Day underneath. Curious, he picked up the phone and opened up the message:

  Hello, Eddie. This message has been sent on a timer. If you receive it, it means my clever plans have gone awry. Jackie and I are about to break into Dan Simpson’s house to look for evidence that he murdered Larry and Bill. This message has been sent because I did not return to my car to cancel it. We probably need help. We’re at Dan Simpson’s house. Thanks in advance, Allie.

  Whether she needed help or not, she’d just admitted to breaking into Dan’s house. They were supposed to have stopped investigating the murders, but instead, they’d gone full-steam ahead and gotten themselves in trouble.

  It was a bit worrisome—they really shouldn’t be ignoring police orders—but Eddie smiled involuntarily as he thought of Jackie’s beautiful, twinkling eyes. What do women like when they’re in trouble? That’s right, he thought, a dashing man to come and rescue them.

  He rushed to his feet and considered calling the station, but time was of the essence. And the rest might steal his thunder if they beat him to it. Besides, he was sure the trouble they were in couldn’t be anything too serious.

  He hurried out the door to his car, started it up and broke the speed limit on three different roads before screeching to a halt outside Dan Simpson’s house.

  “Damnit!” he shouted when he saw it. The whole thing was on fire, with flames licking out of the front windows and smoke pouring out of the thatched roof.

  He hurried to the front, but there was no way he could enter there. He quickly made his way around the side of the building. If they were actually inside, he may even be too late.

  There was a backdoor, and he went to it praying it was unlocked. When he reached it, the glass had already been smashed out.

  “Hello?” he called.

  “Help!” came a voice from inside.

  He peered in. It was Jackie and she was holding a dining knife in one hand.

  “Where’s Allie?”

  “On the floor. Quick, kick the door down!”

  Eddie blinked. Kick the door down? While he liked to think of himself as being in reasonably good shape—he was a police officer, after all—he wasn’t an action hero who could kick a door to smithereens.

  “Kick it down? I don’t know if I…”

  “Do it!”

  So startled was he by the ferocity of Jackie’s command, he did as he was told. He lifted his right leg up, close his eyes, and with a twist and push-off with his other foot, he kicked as hard as he could into the door.

  To his utter astonishment, the door flew inwards. He’d kicked the whole thing off of its hinges!

  Jackie appeared in the now empty frame. “Help me!”

  He hurried in, using the sleeve of one hand to cover his mouth. The room was full of smoke and reeked of burning plastic. His eyes began to sting as soon as he entered. Jackie was now bending over double, one hand on a work surface for support, the other pointing to something on the floor. Allie!

  Eddie grabbed her arm and began to drag her backwards. Jackie, bent over double exited just before him, coughing and wheezing while he dragged out her sister just behind.

  When they were outside, Eddie collapsed onto the ground, coughing, right next to where Jackie was already sitting.

  They both crawled next to Allie and peered down at her face. The fresh air seemed to have revived her, and she was blinking. She woke up with a coughing fit that caused her to curl into a ball, as her diaphragm contracted again and again to expel all the smoke from her lungs.

  “Thank… goodness… you came when you… did,” Jackie said between pants.

  Allie continued to cough, the spasms slightly reduced, but she held out a hand in a thumbs-up gesture.

  Eddie was faring better than the two women, having only inhaled a little smoke himself. He stood up again and put his hands on his hips. “I guess it’s lucky I got here when I did. I don’t know how I did it—I guess it was the adren
aline—but I just kicked and that whole door just flew off its hinges. Didn’t know I had it in me, to be honest.”

  Jackie sat up, shaking her head, but didn’t say anything, yet. Slowly, Allie stopped coughing, and with two helping hands, sat up.

  “Eddie… you got my… message…”

  Jackie poked a finger at Allie. “What message?”

  “It was… my… backup… plan…”

  “You two need to get to the hospital,” said Eddie firmly.

  They both shook their heads. “Take us… to the pub.”

  Eddie began to shake his head.

  “NOW!” shouted Jackie.

  There was something in her eyes that made him agree to it.

  Chapter 32

  When they arrived at the pub, they had both recovered somewhat. Allie wasn’t exactly feeling her best, but the worst of the coughing spasms had passed.

  Jackie, however, was in fighting form. “Come on!” she said to hurry Allie and Eddie along.

  When they got to the door, Jackie pushed it open hard, sending the door flying back and banging into the wood-panelled door. The first thing Allie saw was the barman shaking his head in annoyance.

  Then her eyes flicked around the room.

  “Allie!” said Charlie, who was standing by the bar next to Dan.

  “Allie?” said Richard, who was sitting with a pint of beer and a newspaper at a corner table.

  “You!” said Dan, his eyes wide.

  Allie and Eddie hurried behind Jackie, who was already marching across the room to where Dan was sitting. On seeing their approach, he slipped off his barstool.

  “What’s going on?” asked Ruth with a frown.

  “Wait here a minute,” said Dan to Ruth. He then proceeded to pick up his barstool and throw it in their direction.

  Jackie tried to get out of the way, but one of the legs of the stool caught her in the shoulder.