Back Trouble
by
M.W. Kinnaird
M.W. Kinnaird was born and educated in the United Kingdom. He has a BA in Latin and Ancient Greek from the University of Leeds, and he lives and works in Kent.
Follow him on Twitter @MattKinnaird1
Copyright 2016 © by M.W. Kinnaird
All rights reserved.
Contents
Contents
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
Also By This Author:
Chapter one
It began like this.
I was off work. I’d been unloading a delivery and picked up a crate in a hurry, and something had popped in the small of my back. Just like that. There was no warning, and it hurt like hell. I made it to the office upstairs before I decided I couldn’t walk anymore. Julia had to come and collect me, and I had to use a chair like a Zimmer frame and walk backwards down the stairs to get to the car. She installed me on the sofa-bed in the living room and surrounded me with as much as she could think of to make me comfortable. I didn’t drink much liquid because it was so much of an effort to get to the bathroom, and the pills the doctor gave me bunged up my digestion, which was both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because I didn’t have to suffer the agony of shitting for days at a time; a curse because when I did it was like forcing out a clay marrow, and my back hurt bad enough as it was.
The painkillers also killed my concentration, so I found it difficult to read, and I took to spending hours watching television and eating pita bread dipped in humus. I considered taking up smoking. The result of all this was that I saw an awful lot of news, much of it over and over again. This bomb here, that bomb there. A cartoon character running for president. Somebody royal had their photo taken with their sprog. But after the national came the local news and I came to know, in the finest detail that dismal medium could provide, about the murder of Janice Hunter.
I remember it being the lead story one morning before it went national. The newsreader, a young man with a lofty haircut, delivered the story:
‘In Whitbury last night, a mother of two was brutally murdered in St Peter’s Park while walking home with her shopping. A passer-by found the body of Janice Hunter in the bushes this morning and alerted the authorities. She appears to have been repeatedly beaten about the head with a blunt instrument in an apparently random attack, and robbed off her personal effects. Her family are said to be devastated by the news. Police are appealing for anyone who might have witnessed the attack, or been in the area at around nine o’clock yesterday evening, to come forward. This morning, her husband, Anthony Hunter, issued the following statement …’
And so on. I remember wondering what the difference was between ‘brutally murdered’ and just ‘murdered’. And I also remember thinking, ‘They’ll never catch the guy. How could they?’
But I found out soon enough. It’s because he was bloody stupid.
First up, they found the murder weapon and her handbag, and his prints were all over them.
Second up, somebody fitting his description was spotted fleeing the scene.
Third up, and this is the really stupid part, it wasn’t a random attack at all. It turned out Janice knew this guy from way back and dated him at university, years before she got married. He’d since got hooked on heroin and dabbled in petty crime (so the police were able to identify his prints with no trouble) and spent six months in a mental institution. In recent weeks he’d begun turning up at pubs and restaurants when she was there, and she’d mentioned to her husband that he was making her nervous. His only concession to this damning evidence was to steal her handbag and empty it into the river to make it seem like a random mugging. Hardly the work of a scalpel-sharp intellect.
‘So,’ I thought, how do you actually avoid getting caught if you kill somebody?
How do you dupe the police?
It can’t be that difficult, all the coppers I ever met were morons.
So to keep myself busy one day I made a list:
Don’t have a criminal record.
Pretty obvious, this one. Never mind fingerprints, they’ve got DNA on you now. But not if they’ve never had a cause to put yours on record. Of course, it also means that you can never commit another crime for the rest of your life in case they pin it on you later. But, even besides all that, if you’ve a clean history there’s far less chance of suspicion falling on you. So this one’s a must.
Don’t have a motive.
‘Well, what’s the point then?’ you might think. But if you’ve got a motive then there’s a link, no matter how tenuous it might be, to you, and if you can trace it then so can someone else. So motives are out.
Don’t be seen.
Easier said than done, I suppose, but there are precautions you can take. For a start, if you’re operating without a motive then your murder can be opportunistic; you could instigate or abandon it at any time. But it would also help if you weren’t seen to be you, so you could get some clothes for the job, the sort of thing you wouldn’t normally wear. A Spider-Man onesie – why not? And if you’re being really careful, buy that stuff somewhere you wouldn’t normally go, and pay with cash. I’d even suggest making sure they were a couple of sizes too big, which makes it harder to link them to you.
Don’t let anyone connect you with the murder weapon.
Be very careful what you use, and what you do with it afterwards. Don’t use the meat cleaver from the knife-block in the kitchen, because your wife might wonder where it’s gone. If you have to buy the thing, follow the principles outlined above for the clothes. And don’t just buy a knife on its own, or a hammer. Make like you’re updating your cutlery supply or taking up DIY.
Under no circumstances kill someone you know, or who knows you.
Fairly obvious again, but as far as the police are concerned, it gives them a big fat cul-de-sac to trudge along. They expect you to know the victim, especially if there’s no other motive.
Don’t be poor, depressed, recently bereaved, out of work or going through a divorce. Or black or Muslim, because the police are racist pigs.
In other words, be a stable, white, middle-class happily-married man with no history of mental illness.
Don’t be stupid. And whatever you do, don’t feel bad about it afterwards.
Conscience may make cowards of us all, but as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t register. Conscience is nine-tenths the fear of getting caught, and if you do it right, that shouldn’t be an issue.
I don’t know when it was that I made the leap from the planning stage to thinking I could really get away with murder. But one thing became clear very quickly: the planning was exciting. It gave me a thrill that seven years of marriage and the best part of a decade in the same dull management job had made me forget that I could feel. And I didn’t want to let it go.
Of course, in an ideal world I’d have a bloody gun. I haven’t researched this, but I’m fairly certain that it’s pretty difficult to take someone’s life unless you’ve got tools designed for the job. I’ve seen Heavenly Creatures and it looks messy; a brick in a sock can’t be a good way to go. So what could the murder weapon be?
I make another list, complete with pros a
nd cons.
Hammer
Uncomplicated. You pretty much know what you have to do (smack round the head), and even if you don’t get it just right you’ve a good chance of knocking them out. If you do that, you can finish the job at your leisure.
Widely available.
Not too messy. I think?
Knife
Sharp, obviously. Plenty of people die from being stabbed.
Messy though, and now I come to think of it, plenty of people survive being stabbed too.
Might require some research into anatomy: probably quite easy to miss all the vital bits.
I’m perfectly capable of falling over with a knife in my pocket and slicing off my own knackers. It would be just my luck.
Garotte / plastic bag
Quiet, according to the movies.
No blood. But I’d probably have to be stronger than them, and up for a struggle.
Which I’m not.
Bat
Like a hammer, but with greater range.
Longer swing means more power.
Broader contact patch means less power. Maybe?
Tough to conceal, and not that easy to explain away (assuming we’re shooting for a night-time murder): Yes officer, I was just off to play some cricket in the dark, on my own.
Could carry ball / pads etc?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Stick
No ownership problems, just find one lying around.
Maybe not strong enough? Otherwise why isn’t it still attached to the tree?
Axe
Sharp.
Probably quite satisfying.
I’d be an axe murderer. Not one of my lifetime ambitions.
A bit splatter-heavy?
???
I’d look this stuff up on the internet if I could. Even if I wasn’t too dumb and old to have any idea how to access ‘The Dark Web’, which sounds to me like something out of Peter Jackson’s version of Tolkein, there are enough sites on the regular net that are devoted to killing yourself, or making pipe bombs (even if most of are apparently populated by angsty fuckwit teens); there must be a murderer’s manual somewhere. But then knowing my luck if I did I’d get flagged up on some FBI program, and a SWAT team would crash through my door twenty-four hours later. And I don’t even dare look up porn in case Julia wonders about the history. No, I’ll have to rely on my own means to decide. So far, the hammer has it. But it needs to be a good one, so I’ll have to invest. And, just in case, I think I should run some tests.
Today’s my last day off work. After a fortnight of glorious inactivity, I’m now able to move around in relative comfort. The good news is I won’t be able to lift anything for at least a month, which I might make two depending on how I’m feeling, so work is going to be a breeze.
I’m reclining on the longer of our two sofas, with my notebook, a copy of Crime and Punishment, a Whitbury A-to-Z, three different-coloured biros and a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. The garden is dark through the French windows and my reflection is aping my movements, drinking with me, scribbling notes.
The notebook, I have decided, is a necessary evil. If there’s one thing that something like this requires, it’s planning, and I have trouble remembering things if I don’t write them down, so I make lists. I think they take the Mickey out of me at work for it, judging from the Christmas card my staff got me last year:
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year.
Remember to get drunk.
From Kate, Paul and Dan.
Face up shelves.
Banking.
Points five and six are a reference to their idea that whenever I left them a list of things to do (on my days off, for instance) I – apparently – always said they should face up the shelves and do the banking. I’m sure I didn’t, but it wouldn’t be bad if I did. Those are things we need to do every day. Why not leave a little reminder? But I need my lists, so I need the notebook. I’ll burn it when I’m done.
A glance at my watch tells me it’s getting late. I should put this lot away before Julia gets here and asks what an earth I’m doing. I take another look at my notes. The routes are good, the locations perfect. If I can’t do it in one of those places, it can’t be done. I visualise myself in the park, hammer in hand, striking a complete stranger, or stabbing someone with a knife. It doesn’t look so hard. All the same, it makes me wonder whether I’m going to go through with this. Perhaps it’s just an intellectual exercise. But if it is, if I can fool the police and get away with murder, there’s only one way to prove it.
I hear a key slot into the front door and turn, and the door slide across the mat. Julia’s early. I take a quick look around. It’s untidy, and I really should have washed up my lunch plates hours ago, but it’s too late now. I’ll say I had another twinge. I stuff the A-to-Z and notebook under the sofa and pick up my book, pretending to read. Just in time. The living-room door swings open and she breezes in, cheeks ruddy from the cold.
‘Hi honey,’ she says and puts down her bag, before leaning down for a kiss.
‘Hiya.’ Her lips are cool and smooth on mine.
‘Better today?’
‘A little. I did get a little twinge a couple of hours ago, but I think it’s ok.’
‘Poor thing,’ she says and, as I knew she would, starts tidying up. She spots the bottle. ‘Little early, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe, but it’s a new line. I thought I’d try it out. Want a glass?’
‘I’ll have a shower first. What’s it like?’
‘Tastes like old tyre rubber.’
‘And that’s …’
‘On the whole, bad, but in this case it’s strangely moreish. It’d probably work with food.’
‘Steak?’ she says, as she gathers my plates.
‘Nothing so sophisticated. I’d drink this with a hamburger and chips.’
‘You’re so … what’s this?’ She’s spotted my notebook under the sofa, and she fishes it out along with the A-to-Z. ‘Working from home?’
‘Kind of … I was …’ Planning deliveries? Making tasting notes?
‘And this? What exactly is that doing there?’ She reaches right under the sofa.
I try to see what’s in her hand. It’s something shiny, crumpled up. ‘What is it?’
She unfurls it in front of her, like a Christmas-cracker joke. Her eyes widen. ‘This, my darling husband, is a tube of KY jelly …’
Oops.
‘Ah. Yeah, you were right about those pills.’ She cocks her head to one side. ‘I lied. You don’t swallow them.’
‘Oh it’s not that funny!’
She drops the tube on a plate and giggles her way out of the room, muttering something which I hear as ‘Hope you washed your hands.’ I secretly imagine what a hammer-blow to the head would do for her, then catch myself; according to the rules, there’s no way, no way in the world, I’d get away with killing my wife.
‘I think I need a hobby,’ I say over dinner.
She doesn’t look up from her food. ‘What, you mean apart from sudoku and those war games you play on your laptop?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with sudoku.’ She does the bloody cryptic crossword, and thinks she’s above number puzzles. ‘But yes, apart from those things. I think I’d like to do something practical.’
She almost spits her food out. ‘Practical? My darling husband, let’s face it: you are not the most practical of men.’
‘Well, exactly. Exactly. That’s just it. I think I need to learn. You know, I’ll be a father one day–’
‘Humph.’
‘I will, and I don’t want to be the kind of dad who can’t, you know, do anything. I want to be the kind of dad who goes out into the garden to chop some wood, and takes his son–’
‘Or daughter.’
‘Or daughter, on walks where he knows the name of all the wild flowers and can spot a buzzard from two-hundred yards.’
‘But honey, and don’t take this the wrong way, you’re n
ot like that. Even a little bit.’
‘I know, but I think I could make a start.’
‘Well, what did you have in mind?’
I could say gardening. Imagine the damage you could do with a spade.
‘Carpentry.’
She delivers a quizzical look in my direction. ‘What? Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
She starts to chuckle. ‘Like Jesus?’
‘Oh, fuck off then. It’s not that funny.’ She’s laughing now. Her eyes start to water. At least she’ll look stupid if that mouthful of food comes out of her nose. I turn my attention to my food, cut off a lump of pork chop, stab it into my mashed potato and swill it in gravy. By the time it reaches my mouth, my wife has recovered. She reaches out a hand and lays her palm flat on the table. A shard of light blinks from her engagement ring.
‘I’m sorry. Really. Tell me about it.’
‘You won’t take the piss?’
‘I promise.’
I put down my knife and fork, and illustrate my sincerity with hand gestures. ‘The thing is, all my life I’ve been, essentially, a consumer. I’ve never been able to do, or make, or create, anything. When the oil runs out, I’m fucked. I’m a victim of the capitalist society, and it’s rendered me totally dependent on its infrastructure. What I need to do is to feel that, somehow, I can achieve. That I can make something with my own two hands, reassert my masculinity.’ She’s making a real effort not to laugh again, but the sides of her mouth are twitching. ‘If I’m going to be a father, I want to feel like a father.’
She takes my hand. ‘You know, for you that’s actually quite sweet. But you do know that the chances are you’ll be terrible at carpentry, don’t you?’
‘I’m careful, I’m thorough–’
‘But darling, you are also clumsy. You might lose a thumb.’
Back Trouble Page 1