by Alex Pitt
Whatever had happened on the beach, in the sea, that day, it wasn’t her fault. It was very far from her fault, and I think she did know that deep inside. She may have felt guilty, but she did nothing wrong. There was nothing she could have done.
“Jack?” Daisy asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For literally everything in the world.”
I smiled, and it was such a heartfelt smile.
“You’re perfect,” Daisy continued, a blush to her cheeks that made my heart melt. “You have made me so happy since the day I met you. I really don’t know where I’d be without you. Probably still dating dickheads and wallowing in self-pity.” She laughed, but it was a humourless laugh.
“Daisy, it’s fine,” I whispered, my cheeks burning red.
Behind me, I could feel the bubbles in the lamp watching me, silently judging. They were burning a hole in my neck, and I rubbed the sweat away.
“I haven’t finished, Jack,” she retorted softly, and then continued. “You’re the one I want. I am so fucking lucky, and there are other things we need to talk about, but not now. I want to feel present in this moment with you, Jack. You’re the one.”
And then we were kissing again, more passionately now. She moved her lips to my neck, and back again. They were cold and soft, and slightly wet, but I loved it. I loved everything she said, and I felt it too.
Something was about to happen between us. Something big. But I had to say something first.
“Daisy,” and she stopped kissing me for a second, making eye contact.
“Yes, Jack.”
“I love you.”
She smiled for a second. Then, “I love you too.”
She got up from the bed and closed the door.
On the desk, her tea remained untouched.
You can work out the details for yourself; you don’t need to know what happened behind the door.
Let’s just say, it was pretty steamy.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Richard
“Shake that booty, baby,” I grinned, tossing a ten-dollar bill at the girl.
She obliged, turning around and bending over. I reached forward, extending a hand, but she brushed it away and tapped me on the nose.
“Naughty boy,” she giggled, and then everyone around the pole started reaching forward to have a feel.
I tutted to myself, then turned around and moved away. I hadn’t intended to visit the strip club that night, it just happened. In actual fact, I’d been to see April and she just so happened to work at the Venus Club. I hadn’t been there to see naked girls, and that’s a promise.
“Where’s April?” I asked the barmaid, for the third that evening.
“Like I said,” she smiled sarcastically at me. “She’s at home with her feet up.”
“God bless to her,” I smiled, then tapped the bar. “Guess it’ll be another vodka then, love.”
“Right,” she said, reaching up and grabbing a glass before unscrewing the vodka bottle and filling it up. “Drink up,” and she placed it in front of me.
“Why don’t you have a drink with me?” I asked the girl, but she shook her head.
“Not allowed to drink on shift.”
“April did. April always does that,” I slurred, not realising what I was saying.
“Then April is a very bad girl,” the barmaid giggled. “But I think we all know that already.”
“Be careful what you say about her,” I warned. “I’m her boyfriend.”
The barmaid looked shocked at me, and a little bit dubious.
“April never mentioned a boyfriend. Plus, you must be, like, twice her age. She always did like older blokes though.”
The truth was, April wasn’t my girlfriend and I was definitely not her boyfriend. In fact, we’d only ever spoken a handful of times since we’d hooked up, and only kissed once or twice after that night. She was stunning and I really liked her, but she wasn’t girlfriend material.
I did like coming to see her though, but, when this brown-haired barmaid had told me April wasn’t due in the club for hours, I’d decided to start the drinking. That was at five o’clock, and it was almost nine now. Four hours of drinking, and my face felt ready to hit the floor.
“You OK, love?” the barmaid asked, flashing a row of white teeth.
“Why don’t you get on the pole?” I smirked, getting a wad of money out.
“Put that away, sir,” the girl said, clearly annoyed. She made the wise decision to move on down the bar, serving other people.
I did as she asked, placing the money back in my pocket. It was every dime I’d earned from the case with Rachel. The case that had gone so south. I still didn’t know how it had gone wrong, how we hadn’t managed to find a single lead. The killer was still out there but I didn’t know how to find him, and that was tearing me apart. Any day now, I was expecting Becky Cooper to phone me up and say they’d found another body. And I didn’t know if I could take that.
“She’s here now,” the barmaid said, reappearing next to me and pointing over my shoulder.
Sure enough, April had just entered the club and was making a bee-line for the bar.
“Hey, April,” I said, smiling at her.
“Hey,” she stuttered, not sure what to say.
“How’s things?”
“Fine. You?”
“Pretty spectacular. Why do you think I’m drinking my life away?” I asked, raising the shot glass and signalling for another drink.
“Well, good luck,” April smiled, moving behind the bar and taking her jacket off. She looked so good.
The evening passed quite quickly after that. I downed shot after shot, drink after drink, until I was, quite literally, drooling. April kept shaking her head disapprovingly at me, but that didn’t stop her from serving me.
“Richard, what’s been going on with you?” she came up to me later, a concerned look on her face.
“Nothing. Why?” I was confused by the question.
“You don’t look happy.”
I laughed at that. I’m glad she had finally noticed the misery on my face.
“Give me one reason why I should be happy April,” I said, a heavy slur to my words.
“Well you have a house and you have…” a slight pause. Then, “And you have that police woman. We had a dance together last week, remember? And, while we were dancing, you described so elegantly to me the things you’d done to her.”
“Me and Cooper? Oh, we were never together. That was just a one-night thing.”
“A bit like us, then,” April grinned, and the other barmaid swooped in, her ears pricked up.
“I thought you said you two were together,” she said, directing this at me.
“What?” April questioned, shocked.
“Wait, I never said that,” I lied.
“Yes, you did,” the barmaid said, quite clearly loving this.
I placed my head on the bar, feeling the whole world spinning around me, and sighed. My hands flung over the edge and I dropped the glass, causing it to shatter.
“Fuck,” April cursed, moving off to grab a broom and sweep it up. The other barmaid joined in to help her.
Even more time passed and the place emptied slowly. I guess people wanted their beds, but all I wanted was more alcohol. I’d always liked to drink, but failing the Rachel case had really brought it on strong. I was still feeling so many emotions from that, and I had to replace them all with something. Why couldn’t it be alcohol?
It was almost midnight before I decided I should probably be heading back. I couldn’t believe I’d been there for almost seven hours. Seven hours of doing basically nothing. Just sitting there, drinking, chatting to April, watching the strippers. Seven blissful hours, where I didn’t have to think about anything else but me.
“You off?” April asked when she saw me get up from the bar. I think she was glad to see the back
of me, after so many hours.
“Yep,” I laughed, unsure why the chuckle had happened. “Just gotta take a piss.”
“Toilets are-”
“Yes, yes, I know where the fudging toilets are,” I giggled, heading towards them.
I had to grip the bar and have the assistance from several people to get there in one piece but, amazingly, I made it. Crashing into a cubicle, I pulled my trousers down and sat on it. Taking a long whizz, I studied some of the graffiti scribbled on the sides. Being a strip club, there were so many derogatory comments about the strippers, as well as who was hooking up with who.
Giggling childishly at this, I stood back up and pulled my trousers around my waist. I’d always been a very hygienic person and, even in this state, I made sure to wash my hands. Heading out of the toilet, I went to say a final goodbye to April.
She wasn’t at the bar. I couldn’t see her.
“Where is she?” I asked the barmaid.
She looked away sheepishly, as if she didn’t want to answer. What was she hiding?
“There’s a fella here to see her,” she said at last, and my whole body tensed.
I didn’t mind her being with other guys. In fact, I expected a girl of her age to be sleeping around a bit, especially since she was so open about flashing her body to me the morning after we’d first done the deed. It was the way the barmaid had said it that concerned me. She sounded scared, as if April shouldn’t be seeing him.
“Who is it?” I asked, but she just shrugged her shoulders.
“I think they first met in here a couple of weeks ago. He liked her, and he’s been back to see her a few times since. That’s all I know.”
“Fine,” I grunted, accepting in my drunk state that there was nothing fishy about this. Nothing fishy at all.
I was wrong.
In fact, it would only be a matter of seconds before I discovered just how wrong I was. If I’d been sober, perhaps I could have saved her.
Saying a rough goodbye to the barmaid, I headed to the door. It was nice to feel the breeze on my skin, a refreshing sensation.
Taking a packet of cigarettes out of my pocket, I stuck one in my mouth and lit the tip. Breathing in smoke, I felt it whip around the roof of my mouth, and then exhaled.
I needed to sit down, but the pavement was soaked with piss from people whipping out their things and doing it right there, instead of making it to the toilet. Of course, I wasn’t one of those people. I’m not a drunkard. Am I?
My wife had always said I drank way too much. It’s a good thing she wasn’t here to see me now. When did my life become one big joke? It’s such a shamble now. I’m almost ashamed of it.
There was something coming from down the side of the club where I was standing. It sounded like moaning, and then a scuffle. I didn’t want to interrupt whatever they were up to. It sounded private. Way too private to be doing behind a strip club. That made me remember the reputation Rachel carried for herself, and a thought crossed my mind. What if it was April down there, hooking up with some guy behind the strip club?
I sighed and shook my head at that thought. I might not have been April, but, even if it was, there was no way I was getting involved. The other man could have her. That was the plan at least, but then something terrible filled my ears. It was so horrific that I almost forgot how drunk I was. I stumbled forward, heading towards the scream, not sure what I’d find.
Two silhouettes were present, but I could barely make them out in the dim light. All I had to go on was the pale white ember from the moon. One figure was leaning over the other, I think. There was someone on the floor, and she looked drunk, or knocked out, or something like that.
“That’s what you get for disobeying me,” a figure snarled with a thick accent, and then looked behind.
He had heard me stumbling towards him, not sure what was happening, and now he had to leave. Quickly, before I caught up to him, although he probably didn’t think a drunkard would cause too many problems.
“Stay there,” I ordered the man, but he wasn’t listening.
With a heavy heart, I watched him put a knife back in his pocket. A sharp knife in which the moon reflected off the blade and I realised the terrible truth: this knife was the same one that had killed Rachel. How could it be, though? The knives was German. Even if he’d been abroad and bought them, surely he wouldn’t have got past security. And two knives the same? Why not just stick with the one knife, unless this was the plan all along?
Slowly, the puzzle pieces were fitting together. It had been a while since we’d had any leads, but here he was. I’d caught the killer.
“That stupid bitch screamed too loud,” he snarled, kicking her in the face. “I need to clean her up.”
He seemed to be talking to me, but I couldn’t think. My mind was overwhelmed, and I’d had so much to drink. I launched forward at the man, intent on taking him down. Instead, I got a kick to the face, just like the girl. It was powerful and managed to draw blood from my nose, but I wasn’t bothered. I’d suffered worse.
As I collapsed to the ground, I found myself face-to-face with the girl. The dead girl. April.
Blinking back tears, I tried to stand. The man put a boot on my face, and smashed downwards. What was he even doing behind the strip club in the first place? That was one of my first thoughts. Then, I realised what he’d meant when he said he had to clean her up. He was going to remove the evidence. I just hoped that someone else had heard the scream, but I wasn’t holding my breath. The street was deserted, and the music in the club was too loud for anyone in there to have heard.
As I passed out from a second kick, the last thing I saw was April’s beautiful face, her warped smile, her vacant eyes. Realising that I had failed yet again, I closed my eyes and saw nothing more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Becky
It was Spider who found him first.
Of all people, I really didn’t think it’d be him. Spider, the man we’d taken into custody a few weeks ago, the man who didn’t seem to care for anyone but himself. He’d found Richard passed out down the side of the strip club when he’d nipped out for a fag, and dragged him inside. At first, Spider thought he was drunk. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all. In fact, I thought he was drunk, but that’s not what had knocked him out. His face was a mess. A boot had done that to him.
“What happened?” Richard asked, fluttering his eyes open.
It was half one in the morning. He’d spent an unusually long time passed out, and I hoped he wasn’t suffering inside the skull.
“Detective, it’s Becky. Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are, Officer,” he grinned, and I could tell I was right. He was drunk. Very drunk, even after being passed out for an hour.
“Good. Can you tell me what happened?”
I put a comforting hand on his shoulder for a second and he stared at it, not sure what was happening. I removed it quickly, giving him a stern look.
“I was knocked out. Someone knocked me out. I don’t…” He trailed off, trying to think. Then, a memory clicked and he looked sadly down at his shoes. “Fuck, Cooper, he killed her.”
“Who?” I frowned, a shadow crossing my face.
“April. He killed April.”
Richard let that hang for a second, holding back tears. He would probably deny it, but I could see how close he was to blubbing. Despite not being more than a one-night stand between Richard and April, I knew how fond he was of her. He always mentioned her during our limited time together since they’d met, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been to visit her in the club.
“Where did you see this happen?” I questioned, not sure if he was telling the truth.
I knew he wouldn’t lie on purpose, but perhaps he had things confused. He had been drunk after all, Spider hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone else when he’d called me at the station. Unless…
A thought crossed my mind. A brief thought, but it was growing by the sec
ond. It was almost too hard to ignore.
“The alley down the side of the club,” Richard told me, but I wasn’t listening.
“Did you do it?” I asked, my head turning to Spider.
He was standing a few feet away, and looked absolutely outraged at the suggestion.
“Of course I didn’t do it. You’re not still blaming me for that whole Rachel thing, are you?”
I paused, not sure whether I should go down this path or not. Making an accusation was a serious issue, but I was almost certain that it made sense. After all, he’d been the one to discover the detective.
“What if you killed April, knocked Richard out, and then called the station? It would make sense, considering you were the one to find him. Anyone could have stumbled upon him, but it happened to be you.”
“Listen,” he barked at me, furious. “I didn’t kill the bitch. I didn’t knock your stupid friend out. All I did was try and help.”
He spat at the floor with the last statement, and headed off in a huff. Good riddance. I didn’t know if he was our killer or not, but I did know that his attitude repulsed me.
“I remember something,” Richard whispered and I looked at him, begging for some new intel; anything that might help us. He had been there when the murder took place, after all.
“Don’t keep me in suspense. Spit it out,” I ordered, and he obliged.
“Well I don’t remember it all,” he said, and my heart fell in my chest. “But I do remember bits. I went for a fag, there were two people down the alley. I think they were having sex, or something like that. It’s all a blur, but I remember noises. And then a scream.”
“Do you know if it was the same man who killed Rachel?” I queried, pressing him for information. It was the only chance we had.
“I don’t… yes. Yes, I think it was. I don’t know why I think that, but I do.”
That didn’t sound very likely, but I went with it anyway. I was pretty sure that it would be the same person because both murders happened to someone who worked at the strip club, in such a short space of time. It could be a complete coincidence, of course, but I didn’t believe in coincidences.