by Linda Coles
Hot To Kill
Linda Coles
Blue Banana
Chapter One
Week 1
One Friday in Summer
Madeline was hot, sweaty and very pissed off.
“Oh, just get the hell out of my way, would you?” A moment passed and Madeline yelled through the windscreen again at the driver in front of her. “Shift, for heaven’s sake!”
She was annoyed, in a rush and gesticulating frantically with her hand for him to move the hell over, and he wasn’t budging. Drivers were getting more lazy and goddamn annoying. Did they not teach folks to drive properly anymore, have some manners, be courteous to other road users? If the driver in front had actually used their rear-view mirror, they’d have thought she was trying to get in to examine the inside of their boot she was driving so close.
When Madeline had first started taking lessons – what, thirty-odd years ago? – she’d been told not only to be courteous to others, but to get up to the speed of the traffic you were entering as quickly as possible so as not to ask others to stomp on their brakes as you merged into traffic at a snail’s pace. And if you were going slower, then pull over to let others pass. It was common sense, something she assumed drivers of today left tucked away under their sodding beds of a morning. She hated outside lane hogs and, over the last few months or so, she’d noticed it even more. She’d also noticed her short temper getting shorter into the bargain, not to mention the tears at a moment’s notice, and hot temper tantrums at all hours. What the hell was happening to her?
Eventually, the pea-brain in front finally remembered he had a rear-view mirror, and actually looked at it. He indicated to the left but then took another age actually getting over. Madeline hit the accelerator hard and flipped him the bird out to her left without actually looking his way, speeding down the bypass like an Intercity Express train heading full tilt into Croydon. Who needed eye contact when a middle finger would deliver the message just as nicely? She felt his stare as she sped by but still didn’t look his way. She instinctively knew it was a ‘him’ – the stupid checked cloth cap on his head was a dead giveaway –and inwardly she was happy because she’d won: he’d shifted over and Madeline had got past. She broke into a smile, reached for her iPhone and asked Siri to play her ABBA playlist. ‘Dancing Queen’ blasted from all four speakers as she tapped the steering wheel in time to the beat. It was the small victories that pleased Madeline Simpson.
She was on her way to Sainsbury’s, grocery shopping, something she’d used to enjoy, and still could do on rare days when she didn’t feel so hot, sticky and angry. The summer heat wave was adding to her grumpy, distressed state. She never used to be this way all the time, but hitting the somewhat depressing age of forty-eight had changed all that, and a word she’d never heard of before became part of her vocabulary – peri-menopausal. That’s what the doctor had told her the last time she’d gone to talk to her because she was feeling hot and sticky, sad and bloody grumpy all at the same time. The doctor had taken some blood to see where she was with actual menopause but had informed Madeline that everything was just normal – no sign of the full change as yet. So peri- or pre-menopause was what her symptoms all pointed to, though she’d never even heard of the first term. She didn’t remember learning about it at school and certainly didn’t remember her mum telling her about it. Nope, it had slapped her across her hot, sweaty face in a rush one day and it had been that way ever since. Some days she was good, and some days… Well, let’s just say she was best left to her own devices and not spending time with anyone she cared about.
Today wasn’t one of her good days. Just ask the guy in the stupid cloth cap, who likely had nothing but a blanket and collapsible chairs in his car boot, and possibly a flask for later while sitting in the park with his paper and silly small dog.
She flicked her indicator to turn right as she neared Sainsbury’s and headed for the parking spaces that were furthest away from the front door. She always did that but wondered what it was with folks who needed to get as close to the entrance as humanly possible. It ended up being quicker to park a little way off and walk than sit waiting for a space by the disabled spots and the front door.
She grabbed her tatty old shoulder bag, checked for her shopping list, climbed out into the stifling heat, and headed for the trolley bay. As soon as she entered the foyer door, there was a traffic jam. Madeline rolled her eyes skyward and tried not to take the delay personally. What could possibly be holding everyone up getting through the automatic sliding door? She waited, reasonably patiently, trying her utmost to quell the internal rage that was building, but it was a struggle. Then she spotted the hold-up. Up ahead was ‘Grandma’ – not her grandma, but surely someone else’s grandma – standing motionless with a trolley in front of her while she decided, painstakingly, whether she was going to turn left or turn right. Fruit or wine?
Oh, make a bloody decision, would you?
She was yelling inside, wanting to free the words from her chest in one big boisterous outburst, wanting to push forward and ram everyone in front of her in the heels with a turbo-charged shopping trolley from the 22nd century, complete with fully loaded automatic Tommy gun to blow them all out of the way forever, so she could shop in peace. She tried her hardest to plaster a fake smile on her face, forcing herself to leave it there, trying to pretend her wasted time wasn’t a big deal. The old woman turned and their eyes met. There was little choice but to smile at her feebly, as if everything was just dandy
“Ohhh, ssorry,” Grandma said in a frail and wobbly voice.
Madeline instantly felt bad for being such a cow with her thoughts, but it wasn’t like the old woman could have read them anyway. She ultimately decided on turning right, so Madeleine instantly knew she herself was going to go left, even though she really need to go right. Towards the wine.
The old woman moved at the speed of a dying slug and Madeline prayed she’d not driven her car there, that her son was busy buying cigarettes at the kiosk and would be driving her back to her flat later. The old woman’s reflexes would be nonexistent, and Madeline wouldn’t want to be following her in her car.
Pushing her trolley to the left, headed for the fresh veg section first, she narrowly avoided another slow driver, this time a young mum with a little one in tow, pushing its own mini-trolley. At least that driver wouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car anytime soon, and she smiled sweetly at it, destination carrots and spuds. She could be pleasant sometimes.
Thirty minutes later, with a full trolley and no more incidents to note, Madeline was back to feeling pleased with herself again. For a change, the whole experience hadn’t been too bad, considering her previous foul mood and the heat – there’d been no major altercations in the aisles, no more flipping the bird to old men, and she was feeling calmer and more serene inside. She rolled up to the checkout and started to unload her groceries onto the conveyor belt. The woman in front of her was almost fully processed – which made her sound like a fish finger, she mused. The woman stood with her back to Madeline. She was wearing a cashmere sweater, a lovely pale pink colour, all soft and fluffy looking, that Madeline thought she had seen in M&S only last week. It came with a matching cardigan too, if you could afford both, but even for M&S she’d thought they were a bit pricey when she’d scanned the label. Why the woman was wearing such an item when it was probably in the low 90s outside she’d no idea. Madeline figured she lived in an arctic air-conditioned environment at home. Lucky cow.
Looking her up and down discreetly, Madeline wondered what she did for a living, if anything. A well-off husband, maybe? Pink Fluffy Woman was probably a bored but well-groomed housewife-cum-socialite if her long painted nails and perfectly streaked blond hair were anything to go by. Madeline touch
ed her own brown and slightly greying lank head of hair and felt conscious that it wasn’t looking its best. It hadn’t been washed for a couple of days.
Pink Fluffy Woman was almost done. The cashier rang up the sub-total, Pink Fluffy Woman reached for her wallet – and then, with a little gasp and a self-conscious giggle, she committed the number one cardinal sin of shopping. She’d forgotten something, something she now needed to run back into the store and retrieve. She mumbled something about chocolates and her friend tomorrow, and then, with a click-click of her fine little heels, she was gone.
Madeline stood quietly for a moment then annoyance kicked right back in and hit her hard across the back like a slap. The cashier stood talking to her colleague on the next checkout, both with their backs to Madeline. Pink Fluffy Woman had been gone about thirty seconds, way too long for Madeline’s liking, when suddenly Madeline spotted an opportunity to annoy her and get her own back for making her wait. A packet of iced buns was still on the conveyor belt, ready to be packed last on top, so Madeline slowly reached her hand out to them. A quick double-check around that nobody was watching, and then she pushed her index finger in through the wrapper and into the softness of the sweet iced doughy bread. It felt wonderful. If there’d been time, she’d have wriggled the finger around and made a larger hole but alas, not today.
Take that, Pink Fluffy Woman! See how you like having a hole in your iced bun while I’ve been standing here waiting for you to get bloody chocolates for the last 45 seconds.
“Retribution should be swift and hard and far outweigh the original crime,” was her philosophy. She removed her finger slowly and slid the packet away gently so as not to arouse suspicion, like it was the most natural thing in the world to stick your finger into a soft bun, where it’s not needed. She couldn’t help the satisfied grin that was painted on her face, or the urge to lick her sweet finger, but when Pink Fluffy Woman came back, she made sure she was looking someplace less interesting.
“Sorry,” Pink Fluffy Woman said brightly, showing her dazzlingly white teeth, drawing Madeline’s attention back to her, the conveyor belt, and a box of Dairy Milk in her hands. Perhaps not that well-to-do after all, then, if she was only buying Dairy Milk. Could have at least gone for something a little higher-end –Thornton’s, perhaps.
“No problem,” Madeline gushed, which was obviously a lie. The chocolates were scanned and bagged and the buns placed on the top of the bag, the telltale hole just visible to the one who had created it. She watched Pink Fluffy Woman as she teetered on high pins and pushed her trolley delicately towards the exit and car park while her own groceries were scanned and packed. Perhaps she had been a tad mean, but that woman had made Madeline wait, after all. And that had annoyed her. Pink Fluffy Woman deserved it.
Madeline was soon back outside in the heat again, headed for her car, and was just in time to see the familiar pink sweater sliding into a fire-engine-red BMW. Its top was down, showing off cream leather lining that matched her hair perfectly.
Madeline clocked her private registration plate – ‘POOPSY,’ which read like a dog’s name – and carried on loading her own car, thinking she could do with getting her tights off and slipping into something a bit cooler. And perhaps a gin. Without much tonic.
The thought spurred her on and she opened her driver’s door and got inside, the heat punching her in the face as she started the engine. The air-conditioning rapidly kicked in and she allowed herself the luxury of resting her head back on the headrest and closing her eyes for a moment, relishing the cooling air blowing over her face, but more so the solitude and quietness the car gave, the outside world far away on the other side of the metal casing. She focused on breathing slowly and deeply, trying to calm harried nerve endings before pulling out of the space and starting the journey back home. The thought of cooking Gordon’s evening meal was as about as scintillating as a long-ago-opened can of Coke. In her mind’s eye, as she drove slowly out of the car park, she could see her prize for getting through the shopping ordeal in one piece, the whole day really – the distinctive blue Bombay Sapphire gin bottle that sat behind the kitchen cupboard door waiting for her to return. With cold tonic in a nearby shopping bag, it was going to be a long one.
Chapter Two
Wednesday morning
She’d been waiting for him for weeks. The landscaper had broken endless promises for longer than she cared to remember, but for some reason she’d kept on waiting, hoping that one day he would actually turn up when he’d said he would. But today, Madeline thought as she looked out the lounge window at a truck unloading a digger into the road out front, could be her lucky day. She stood transfixed, watching a short, overweight, grubby-looking bloke back the orange monstrosity onto the tarmac. With his arms covered in tattoos, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his bulging biceps, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, wearing a high-viz waistcoat and undoubtedly stinking of yesterday’s body odour, he didn’t look to be someone you’d want to meet in a dark alley. His face was as red as a radish and probably as hot. Wondering what he was intending to do with the great orange thing, she thought she’d better go and ask him where he was going to put it. It certainly couldn’t stay out front; the neighbours would have a hissy fit. Not that any of them were in during the day; they were all commuters into London, gone from dawn ’til dusk weekdays, which suited her just fine, but as the only part-time daytime resident of the quiet little cul-de-sac, it was down to Madeline to keep a relaxed eye on things when she was at home, and she sometimes did. She opened the front porch door and stuck her head out.
“Hello.” Nothing, just the smoke from his cigarette and the blare of his cab radio playing something loud and nauseating, assaulting her eardrums. She tried again.
“I said, hello.” Ditto. Useless. She made her way down the concrete front path and tried again as she neared the pavement, this time with a little more success. He turned at her enquiring but loud ‘Hello’ and smiled, his cigarette almost falling from his chapped-looking lips. He did actually have quite a friendly smile about him when she got up closer, not at all the thug look his body gave him – that was probably just for show, part of the heavy goods transport culture.
“Morning. Mrs. Simpson, I presume?”
Too bloody late now, Madeline thought. He’s unloaded the damn great orange thing. What if she wasn’t Mrs. Simpson?
“Yes, I am. You’re not going to leave this great thing here, though, are you? That really wouldn’t work for the neighbours. I’m sorry. Can you get it round the back?”
“Not a problem, my queen. Just show me where to drive it and I’ll have it out of your way in no time.” That big smile again, cigarette bobbing up and down precariously.
She wasn’t quite what she had expected out of his mouth, but his calling her ‘my queen’ had thrown her a little. It was a bit familiar, actually, but she didn’t let it show.
“Just round here and down the drive,” she said, pointing a little behind and round. “Through the gate at the bottom, and if you could leave it in the far right corner, it’s ready in the right place for when he comes to dig the pond hole out.”
“Righto. Will do. Grand morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is. Thank you.” And she left him to it. Such nice manners from such a grubby-looking tat-covered man. Would wonders never cease?
Back inside the lounge, she stood watching him through the window as he carefully steered the great orange thing with caterpillar rollers down the side of the house and out back, leaving dried clumps of mud the size of cow pats in its wake – another job to add to her bulging list. She moved back through the house to the bright kitchen at the rear where she could see out over to the garden and the fields beyond. The orange machine emerged into view as the man followed orders and drove the thing to the far right side of the garden. Maybe the pond digging would finally begin soon. She’d been waiting far longer than the landscaper had originally said, but now that his machinery had been delivered, pe
rhaps things would move on quickly. She hoped.
Madeline waited until the man had walked back to his cab before going back outside to ask him what the plan was. Was someone finally going to come and dig the hole?
“Don’t know, Queen. I just deliver ’em. I expect Des will be ’round soon to get started.”
“That’s just the problem. This should have been started weeks ago, and all I get are his broken promises.”
“Ah, that’s Des for you, but he’s a master at his craft so hang in there,” the man said amiably, and then climbed up into his cab and shut the door, cigarette still dangling, ash falling off the end of it. The door sign read “Sid’s Transport,” and she guessed he could have been Sid. He slowly pulled away from the curb and set off down the quiet road, waving a tanned muscly arm out of his window, heading back to wherever he’d come from. Madeline returned inside to put the kettle on. She was sure there was still some Battenberg in the cupboard with her name on it.
Chapter Three
Thursday
For two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Madeline worked at Sally’s, a café in the village, and for another couple of days, Mondays and Fridays, she worked in Croydon at an office equipment place. Wednesday was Madeline’s day, the day to do whatever the mood dictated, her day all to herself, to do as she pleased. But today was Thursday, and that meant the café.
There was an old man that came into the café every day at lunchtime. He wasn’t really that old, probably about fifty-five, but he just acted like an old man. Dressed like an old man, talked like an old man, and was as bloody grumpy as many an old man, which was a bit of a shame. She’d known, or rather seen him, for the last twelve months, which was how long she’d been working at Sally’s, though the other girls talked about him coming in way before that. And he had always been so damn miserable. Madeline sometimes wondered why he was such a grumpy sod. Maybe he was shy, or maybe he was just wired that way because he was a distracted brain surgeon or a rocket scientist perhaps, something that demanded all of his focus so he had nothing left for the people around him, and didn’t see the need to try and be civil. Regardless, there was no excuse for poor manners. A friendly welcome greeting or ‘Hello’ might even be nice, just once in a while. He gave nothing.