This Book Is Full of Bodies

by Rick Wood

  And there the car is, turning, and coming down the road.

  I could kill the police officer.

  I mean, I don’t want to. It’s a noble job and I respect them.

  But, I mean, there’s no one around.

  Except, if he is following me, chances are he will already have radioed in my licence plate. If he disappears, then I will be the first person they go to.

  And if I am dispatching of Flora, the last thing I want is unwanted attention from police officers about a missing officer.

  “You’re screwed, aren’t you?” Flora says.

  I frown.

  I am not screwed.

  What a preposterous accusation.

  I just need to wait until the police car goes their separate way.

  Except, they turned where I turned.

  Why would they do that unless they were following me?

  I reach under my seat and take out a large, curved hunter’s knife. I show it to Flora.

  “I’m screwed?” I taunt her.

  She doesn’t flinch.

  Has she resigned herself to death so easily?

  Or is she clinging to false hope by her fingernails?

  I slow down and turn into a pub car park, where I wait.

  The police car pulls in too.

  So I pull away and resume my journey onto the road and would you just know it – there in my rear-view mirror the car appears again.

  Now I know they are following me.

  But why?

  Why are they just trailing me, and with such little subtlety?

  Why not just pull me over – why follow me?

  Unless they have me as a suspect for a murder and the officer is on their own and they are trailing me as they await backup, biding his time until it is the opportune moment.

  Firearm police officers could be readying themselves at this very moment.

  Other officers could be being called to the location. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, it could take them some time.

  This could be it.

  This wonderful, lavish lifestyle I have created could be brought to an end just as it has begun.

  I shake my head defiantly.

  No, it will not.

  I place the knife beneath the seat, with the handle at the prime position for my right hand to reach down and grab it.

  And, just as I do so, the police car signals with a brief wail of siren that they wish for me to pull over.

  I do as I am told.

  35

  There are different types of officers.

  Not that I have had much opportunity or need to interact with many, I will admit that, and maybe my experience is limited to that of biased television shows, news reports, and acquaintances of acquaintances – but since this is my memoir and it is my opinion that matters, I will regail you with my theories as I see fit.

  The majority are people going to work. Doing a nine to five, albeit that may not be the shift they are on – but a nine to five in terms of getting up, going to work, then going home, just like everyone else.

  Of course, their work involves higher risk and every day involves receiving abuse of some kind, and working under the strain of budget cuts, or so they keep yapping on about, and I imagine this creates a working environment you would have to tolerate rather than welcome.

  But the majority are honest, they go about their business, and they try to do their best job.

  Then we get the TV officers.

  By this I mean the minority who people base the majority on, and this minority are normally those that appear on television shows that set out to portray them in either an honest or arrogant light.

  And these officers are arrogant. They are part of a gang, and the most powerful gang in the country, and they act as a gang – initiating themselves into the gang with their ‘first nicking’ and so forth, and then protecting those in the gang with a fierce loyalty.

  These are the racists that tarnish the headlines that would otherwise be made by the honest officers.

  And these are the ones that turn the public opinion against them.

  And I am yet to figure out which officer this one is until he walks out of the car and my judgemental mind decides instantly he is the kind that deserves to die.

  He is a young male, possibly early twenties – which is sickening in itself. I refuse to be told what to do by a man a decade younger than me. This boy does not know anything of life, of who he is, of the world he inhabits. How on earth can he give me instructions or dictate consequences to my actions when he is yet to experience a deeper level of understanding of the world?

  Albeit, it is a corrupt world where society convinces itself of a great many things – many that I have already covered, such as the belief that right and wrong exists, and that if someone does not go according to what the current society deems appropriate, then they are a monster. Go back 150 years and those monsters would be the norm. You just happen to be conditioned by a world that suddenly changes its mind.

  I digress.

  This young man swaggers up to my car with a hand on his belt. There is no taser on his belt, but I do see pepper spray and a baton. This is noted.

  He chews gum, and he does it with a slight opening of his mouth. The only thing more repulsive than his cocky, youthful demeanour. I despise gum, and I despise having to see its white, thick substance slopped around the inside of someone’s mouthful of saliva.

  Urgh, I want to kill him.

  I wasn’t planning to. After all, kill a police officer and every police officer turns on you.

  His shirt chunks out due to what he convinces himself is muscle, but we all know is a stab proof vest. A vest that covers his chest and not his arms or his neck or his face or his legs or his balls.

  In conclusion, it’s a pretty fucking redundant vest then, isn’t it?

  He halts by my open window and he says nothing.

  The handle to my knife rests against the back of my ankle.

  He just looks at me, not saying anything, filling the silence with the slopping of his gum.

  Fuck I hate this guy.

  He looks over at Flora, and I just wait for her to say something, I just wait.

  But she doesn’t.

  “Put your hands where I can see them,” he tells me.

  I await a please.

  After all, there’s no reason to remove politeness from the equation.

  “Put your hands where I can see them, don’t make me ask again.”

  I do not like being told what to do.

  If he politely requested, I would acquiesce.

  If he tells me again, I will gut him.

  “I said, put your hands–”

  “I heard you,” I say, and I go to correct his manners, then think against it.

  I put my hands on the wheel.

  His handcuffs are on the back of his belt.

  But he doesn’t reach for them.

  I await the reason for my detainment, wondering how I could kill him should the situation require it. I have killed, but never have I been in a fight. A scrap with an officer may not be a fight I could win. I can’t just down right refuse, I have to be smart about this.

  “Your insurance,” the officer says, still not looking at me. “When did you last renew it?”

  I go to object and I instantly remember.

  Dammit!

  When I bought the car, I acquired a week’s insurance with the sales team that would get me started, and with the commotion of the last week I completely forgot to acquire further car insurance.

  What a bloody faff.

  I can’t help but laugh though.

  I lift my head back and cackle, guffaw even, and he looks at me peculiarly.

  “Is everything all right?”

  And this wakes up Flora.

  I imagine she was awaiting my arrest for suspicion of murder, but now it’s just a few days of expired insurance and she knows they are not taking me away, not for that, not something so easily fixable and w
ith the penalty of a fine.

  And now she leans forward, and she starts wailing.

  And I am soon going to be forced to act.

  “Please help me, he’s going to kill me, he’s–”

  I reach across a hand and press it against her mouth to muffle her, but the damn bitch bites me, she bites my finger like she’s biting a carrot and it fucking hurts, and I automatically retract my hand, the middle finger reddening, and she continues to beseech this prick for help.

  “Don’t leave me with him please he’s going to kill me he killed my mum he killed Mark the boy who’s missing he’s taking me now please–”

  “Okay, okay,” the officer says, reaching a hand up to calm her down.

  She’s crying again.

  She’s always fucking crying.

  “Would you like to step out of the car,” he tells me.

  I sigh.

  He takes a step back, a hand on the reverse of his belt. That’s where his baton is, I presume. And he is getting ready for whatever I may do.

  I could just hit the accelerator and drive.

  But that would be a short-term solution.

  He would radio it in, and everyone would know it was this car and my description would be out and they would look at the car registration and would know my name and it would all be blown.

  This wonderful life I have just built for myself would be over.

  I cannot let that happen, at any cost.

  “Not really,” I say.

  “Step out, now.”

  With his spare hand he goes for his radio.

  I can’t let him do that either. I can’t let him tell others about this. So far, they know he’s just looking at me for insurance, but once he says I’m holding someone hostage that all changes.

  “All right,” I say, and I step out the car, and as I do, I bring out the hunter’s knife.

  He begins to talk into his radio, “Backup ne–”

  Before he completes the third syllable, I launch myself at him, swiping and screaming, and he just backs up again and again.

  He brings out his baton and that means he raises his arm, exposing the side beneath his stab proof vest, and I prove just how useless it is as I dig the blade in.

  I lower him onto his back as he whimpers.

  I rip the radio from his shoulder and throw it far away.

  I take the belt from his waist and do the same.

  And it is just then that I realise – Flora is not in the car.

  She is running away.

  I stand, and I see it on his belt.

  I do believe I was mistaken.

  There is a taser.

  36

  I’ve never fired anything, so I never knew if I was a good shot.

  As luck would have it, I am a hell of a shot.

  The taser lands on the back of her calf and she falls to the ground, throbbing under the convulsions of electrical shocks.

  I do not know how long it will last, so I must deal with the officer quickly – and, despite having met no other cars along this stretch of road, I cannot take the unlikely risk of prying eyes.

  The little dick is pulling himself across the ground by one arm, covering his bleeding side with the other.

  He’s going for his belt.

  I walk over and kick it further away.

  I acquire his radio and bring it to him.

  I mount him.

  Not in the way I would mount Flora.

  Actually, it is quite similar – but with different intentions.

  I place a knee against either hip and I do not put the knife to his throat.

  Oh no, most men do not care about losing their lives.

  I reach it behind me and place its tip against something far more precious, with just enough pressure he can feel a slight twinge.

  His eyes widen.

  Now that is something he does care about losing.

  “Do exactly as I say or I’ll stick it in and twist. It may survive it, it may not – I wouldn’t take the risk.”

  I put the radio to his mouth.

  “Tell them that you have issued a fine and a notice for insurance to be acquired, and that you are turning back.”

  He stares wide-eyed at me.

  “Why don’t we practise? Say it now.”

  “Okay, I, er, I am okay, he’s fine, he’s just–”

  I apply more pressure and he screams.

  “You sound too dishevelled.” I look at his name badge. “Ian. You sound too stressed. Tell them calmly.”

  “How am I meant to sound calm when you have your knife in my dick!”

  “I’m sure you can find a way. Let’s try again, shall we?”

  I listen to him bumble over the words as I check on Flora, quite a few paces away. The throbbing is lessening, and she is starting to regain the use of her body.

  “Okay, dress rehearsal over. Now for real.”

  I press down on the button, apply more pressure with the knife so he knows I’m not messing around, and he speaks the words perfectly, just as I requested.

  The radio confirms what he has said and asks him to go investigate a report of a brake-in somewhere I don’t recognise.

  “Say yes,” I whisper.

  He confirms in his police jargon, and they confirm back, and I go to discard the police radio once again – then I have another idea.

  “Tell them that a bunch of youths have just stabbed you.”

  “What?”

  “Do it!”

  He does as I say.

  “Now tell them you’ve had enough.”

  “I’ve what?”

  “Tell them!”

  He does it.

  “Now tell them that you are going to kill yourself. Tell them that you can’t take being an officer anymore.”

  Surprisingly, he doesn’t fight me, and he does what I say.

  Oh, the power it gives you to hold the life of a man’s dick in your hands.

  The person on the other end keeps saying, “Ian, Ian, talk to me,” apparently alarmed.

  This time, I do discard the radio, and I stand.

  Flora has now made it to her knees.

  She is limping away.

  “Flora!” I shout out.

  She ignores me.

  “Flora, if you run away, I will kill this officer.”

  She slows down.

  “Just go!” the officer says. “Leave me!”

  Oh, what a bloody martyr. Another officer who’s watched one too many Hollywood movies.

  This isn’t Hollywood.

  This is no movie.

  No work of fiction.

  This is my memoir, and it happens as I wish it to.

  “Flora, I am not going to wait.”

  She stops.

  She turns.

  Looks back.

  Looks at me.

  Looks at the officer.

  The officer tries to mouth just go, so I squash his face beneath my foot.

  “Come here, Flora.”

  She doesn’t come.

  But she doesn’t leave either.

  She truly has no idea whatsoever what to do.

  This is quite an ordeal for her, I imagine. A difficult choice. The folly of the weak – does she allow one to die as she lives, or does she allow them both to die, as they inevitably will do.

  “You’ll kill him anyway,” she says, reading my mind.

  I shrug.

  “You just have to take that chance,” I tell her.

  “I hate you. I do. I mean it. I really, really fucking hate you.”

  I shrug again.

  I’m past that point now.

  The betrayal has sunk in and I’ve been pissed off, and now I’m just ready for this to be over.

  But there’s still a long way to go.

  “Why did you have to do this?” she asks, and I really do not understand the question.

  Her semantics are way off.

  For starters, have to implies there was never an element of choice. I make no qua
lms about it, these actions are as a result of a need, but as all psychiatrists will tell you – we make a choice whether to act on a need.

  And this is a general term to which she needs to be far more specific.

  I have done a great many things she could be referring to, and I can’t just guess as to the event she is referencing.

  “Please,” she begs.

  I’m really fed up of begging. Why is that everyone’s instinct?

  I would respect someone a lot more if they had a little fight in them before death, but it seems to be such a rare characteristic.

  “I won’t say anything. Just let me go.”

  “You expect me to believe you?”

  “No, but you can trust me, you can–”

  “We are so far beyond that point now, Flora. Really, we are. And this is futile. Get over here now or I kill this officer.”

  Ian attempts to leap up and fight me but the pain in his side is too much and he falls back down. It is at this point I realise his arm will no longer move when he tells it to.

  Lucky, really, as I was so engrossed in this pointless conversation that I hadn’t noticed his attempt at a resurgence.

  “You’ve got everything you wanted,” she continues. “You have the house, you’re rid of the wife, you’ve got the money.”

  “Not everything, Flora. I haven’t everything I wanted.”

  Her faces scrunches and looks really ugly. She ducks her head and waves her hands despairingly.

  “Why me? Really, please, why me? Because I was young? Because I was easy? Because I was special?”

  “Special?” I have a little chuckle. “Oh, Flora, you weren’t special. It was just because you were there.”

  She looks to the officer.

  She hesitates again.

  But I am not waiting any longer.

  I don’t want to leave any more blood than I need to.

  I take the pepper spray from his belt with his own hand, wrapping his useless fist around it, avoiding leaving any of my own prints.

  I mount him again.

  And Flora watches as I force the entire bottle down Ian’s throat then cover his mouth.

  You may think, hey, it’s just pepper spray.

  But as I watch him empty his mouth of the substance and ingest it down his throat, I can tell you that it is not.

  Dependent upon the manufacturer, it also contains cleaning fluid, possibly paint, possibly grease strippers, and propellants such as dymel or nitrogen.