'Oh yes, that's nice to know.'
'Maybe not.'
'Meaning what?'
'Meaning the gunman seems to have expected your wife.'
Now me and Sammy hadn't got on for some time. Infact, we'd only just split up after a couple of years of arguments. Well, that's not exactly true. It was only one argument. But it went on for two years.
It started over kids - or should I say, our lack of them.
The doctors said it was me - firing blanks - and that started off the whole manhood thing. And before long Sammy seemed to have such contempt for me that she no longer considered me a man in any sense. And believe me, no matter how strong your will, when you're bombarded day and night with doubts about your manhood, you begin to believe it.
Everything changed then - our relationship, my confidence.
Business began to suffer 'cos I couldn't think straight. And then came the snide looks, the comments.
'I don't know how he puts up with her. Affair after affair, she's having. He must know. She's just so blatant.'
I said to DI Logan: 'So is she safe?'
'Oh yes, we've placed her under protection.'
‘That's good.'
'But we need to ask you some questions.'
'Fire away.'
But maybe I shouldn't have been so open. You see they'd not been idle like I thought.
'We think we know who the killer is.'
'So you've arrested him?'
'Not exactly. He's gone into hiding.'
'But you're looking.'
DI Logan sighed. 'Look, Mr Dyson, I think we ought to carry on this conversation down the station.'
It was clear from my face that I was confused as we arrived at the station. Neither Logan nor the two armed cops had said a word during the drive. Eventually, in an interview room, I said: 'What the hell is going on?'
That's when they cautioned me. You know, arrested me for conspiracy to murder.
'You are joking,' I said, but the evidence seemed overwhelming.
How they'd managed it, I don't know. But at the suspected gunman's home they found statements, including a big payment straight out of my bank account.
'So what have you got to say for yourself?'
'It's a frame up.'
'And who do you suppose framed you.'
'Well you can start with my wife ...’
My solicitor got me out of the cell a couple of days later.
'This is madness,' I said. ‘James, you've got to get me out of this. I haven't paid a contract on my wife.'
James smiled. 'Don't worry, Mr Dyson, they've only got circumstantial evidence. And I've convinced them I can prove you didn't know about the payment.'
As he drove me back to my house that made me feel a little more secure. But as soon as I got out of the car my security seemed to die as I felt a sharp pain in my arm, followed by the crack of what seemed to be a rifle.
When DI Logan visited me in the hospital I could see the egg on his face.
I said: 'So let me get this straight. I paid a gunman to shoot me. Yea, that's bright, detective.'
We were back to armed guards. At the hospital this time. And then, a couple of days later, back to my cottage.
To save expense, there was the double indignity of having to share the cottage with my wife.
'Manpower, you see,' Logan had said. 'Cuts down on the number of guards.'
Sammy and I didn't talk for several hours. Then, when there was no choice, it all came flooding out.
'That detective's mad,' she said. 'I don't care what he says, you've taken out a contract on me.'
'You're hysterical, as usual,' I said. 'Like, don't forget, I got shot.'
Sammy offered a defiant look. 'Yes, clever that. A good move to confuse the police. Hire a hitman to wing you in the arm. Certainly seems to put you in the clear. And it was obvious the police would then guard us together.'
As she finished talking I bent down in the corner of the room, pulled back the carpet and took the pistol from under the loose floorboard. 'You're cleverer than I thought, Sammy,' I said as I let off two shots into the detective in the room. Seconds later, the other guard got it as he ran into the room, too.
Sammy's defiant look never slackened for a moment. 'So you hate me that much,' she said.
'Absolutely. And I'll tell you something else,' I said, pointing the gun at her. 'It's the perfect crime. The weapon will disappear as easily as it appeared. And as soon as you're dead, I'll rig the whole house to look like the gunman had broken in.'
'Tell me one thing before you kill me,' said Sammy. 'Why didn't you just get the hitman to kill me?'
'Couldn't do that, Sammy, dear. 'Cos regardless of what you think, I am a man. And in killing you I'm going to prove it.'
A second later, I shot my wife dead.
Of course, that should have been the end of the matter. But with all the best laid plans ...
'Well that was your problem,' said DI Logan as he leant across the table in the prison interview room, 'there is no such thing as a perfect crime.'
And at that, I had to agree. How could I argue with the evidence from the video cameras Logan had secreted in the cottage. Not to mention the blanks he had put in my gun. But even he had to admit that the blood bags on my wife and guards were more than a bit theatrical.
CASS NOVA AND A GHOST OF A CHANCE
There are some cases you just don’t want to talk about, and this is one. It began when Baz Noble was found dead – stabbed through the heart. A man of 25, he’d never been in trouble in his short life and we were totally stumped by the case – especially as we hadn’t found the murder weapon.
When the woman stopped me by the side of the police station a couple of days later, I was sceptical, to say the least. She seemed to appear from nowhere and introduced herself as a psychic. ‘I’ve had a message,’ she informed me. ‘The man you want is John Fowler.’
Well, I took her details, thanked her, and off she went. I knew Fowler, of course. He was a known villain, and I DID decide to check him out – eventually.
Well, ‘eventually’ was not that day – I had more important things to do, not getting home until well after ten o’clock that night.
I’d been sat in the flat about ten minutes, enjoying a beer, when I heard what seemed to be someone creeping about in the flat. Immediately alert, I raced towards the sound, and in the bathroom, on the mirror, I found the words ‘John Fowler is the man you want’, scrawled in red. Then there was a bang, as if the front door had been slammed shut.
Quickly looking out the window, I saw a figure running off, so decided to give chase.
He was fast, whoever he was. I never quite caught him up, but never quite lost him, either. And after what seemed an age, I found myself in a blind alley. I knew I had him now. But as I watched him, the moon seemed to reflect on something behind a bin. Crouching down, I pulled out a knife covered in blood. Shocked, I looked over to the man, but he had disappeared.
Well, it didn’t take long at all to match fingerprints on the knife to Fowler, and the blood to Noble. And within the hour, we had Fowler in the interview room. Faced with the evidence, he soon confessed. However, it was his next statement that sent us racing to his house. It was all to do with motive, see. Baz Noble had been having an affair with his wife, and he had decided to do away with both.
We found his wife in his cellar, killed within an hour of Noble. And it wasn’t until I saw a picture of her that the case really turned crazy. There was no doubt. She was the woman who had accosted me by the police station – several days after she was already dead!
Well, I’m not going to theorise on this one. OR the mysterious character I had chased. When I got home, later, for instance, there was no writing on my mirror, and I’d already come to the conclusion that he had looked just too much like Baz Noble.
‘So how did you find the knife, anyway,’ asked the Guv the next morning.
Well, no way was I going to tell the truth. ‘Oh,
an anonymous caller,’ I said.
Infact, I was surprised I had the wherewithal to come out with the excuse, considering I hadn’t slept much the previous night. You see, I was dreaming about a murdered couple, finally happy and released, forever. At least, I thought it was a dream.
Until I opened my eyes.
SUSPECTS A’PLENTY
To say her behaviour was inappropriate was an understatement, but I loved her. And to discover her body, in our house, strangled like that …
The police discovered me in quite a state. The DI in charge of the investigation did what he could to comfort me, but it was an impossible task. And anyway, I had no alibi, so I could see that he was treating me as a suspect. Indeed, it was only when they looked into my wife’s past that suspicion was removed – that, and my obvious distraught state.
I did, of course, know of three of her lovers, but the fourth was even a shock to me. But which one was the killer, the DI had no idea.
‘It’s not good enough,’ I stormed after two weeks, with no clear suspect.
‘I understand how you feel,’ the DI said, ‘but they all have a motive, and none of them have an alibi. Any one of them could have done it, and working out which is a tall order.’
Even the only witness proved of no use. She had spied a man approach the house at the right time wearing a black coat, but no such coat was found – nor the ring that had been taken off her finger; an obvious trophy of the killing.
I turned to drink after that interview, and for days on end I would drink myself into a stupor. One night, I caused trouble in a pub and the police were called. Luckily, the DI was in the station at the time, and he smoothed things out for me – gave me a warning, nothing more.
‘I know how you feel,’ he said, ‘but this isn’t the answer.’
‘Well I’m going to find the killer myself!’ I shouted as I left.
Two days later I was back. I’d broken into one of the suspects’ flat, searched the place, but was disturbed.
‘I can’t keep bailing you out like this,’ the DI said. ‘One more thing and I’m going to have to nick you.’
The drink increased, and so did my determination. And it was in the flat of the second suspect …
‘Get to his flat,’ I told the DI from my mobile, ‘now!’ And I told him where to look.
They got there quick, took the shortcut in their determination to act on my information. And sure enough, they found the coat and the ring under the floorboards.
Well, that was three months ago now, the man in prison, refused bail, waiting for the trial. And it seemed such a perfect crime, even waiting so long to plant the evidence. But the thing that made it such a perfect crime was the one thing that meant it couldn’t be.
My behaviour. You see, I’m not really a killer, and what the police took as grief was really the guilt that would disclose the real killer in the end.
And when will that be? When the neighbours notice the smell and break down the door to find my corpse swinging from the rope, this confession on the floor beside me.
CASS NOVA AND THE GUARDED ANGEL
I met her when I was clubbing one night. Yes, I know, I’m in my 30s now – I’m a detective inspector – and I should be over these things. But clubbing is still fun, and it’s good to know I can still pull.
She was gorgeous. Blonde with a body that could gyrate as well as it looked. My usual style worked and in minutes we were dancing. Within the hour, first kiss, and by midnight she proved herself no Cinderella.
We never bothered with names – no point; it was just a one night stand; we both knew that – but I was to call her my Guarded Angel.
My mother had warned me about the type, and psychologists later confirmed it. What had gone wrong in her childhood, I had no idea, but women who could use their body like that, flash that perfect look and totally enchant you had no respect for themselves. Deep down, they had feelings of inferiority, and as a defence they used their sex as a weapon. Dickens understood this. In Great Expectations Estella is bred purposely to take Miss Havisham’s revenge on men. They were good time girls, but you never got into their heads. This was closed to normal interaction, a psychological guard outside.
So I used her as she used me. There was nothing romantic. It was the satisfaction of desire. But when I saw her a couple of nights later, it was obvious that the enchantment was beginning to work on me.
I was in a bar and in she came, on the arm of Ben Stiles. She’d obviously used the enchantment well, as she’d hooked one of the biggest gangsters in town. Yet those eyes kept flashing towards me, and there seemed such vulnerability in them. Indeed, next to Stiles she seemed like a vulnerable child.
At one point she moved away from Stiles and his henchmen. I approached her. Asked what the hell she was doing with them. Warned her to get away from them. They were dangerous.
The next day I received a message from Stiles – a beaten up low life with a cryptic message in his pocket to stay away from his property.
Was that when chivalry entered my head? I don’t know, but I decided to get Stiles; take him out – and throughout it all it seemed as if I was doing it for my Guarded Angel.
My investigations soon showed me the way. An informer had let me know that Stiles was taking a drugs delivery soon. I worked out where, and when, and I was there at the bust. But somehow Stiles got away.
That night, I found him – or should I say, he found me. He was alone and angry, and as he stood there in the road, silhouetted by a nearby streetlamp, I saw the glint of the blade.
I prepared to defend myself, but as he came forward, two shots crackled through the night.
Stiles’ eyes went dead, and his body soon followed, and as he fell, there was my Guarded Angel behind him, gun in hand.
I acted quickly – checked no one had seen anything; grabbed her by the hand and took her away; disposed of the gun – it would be just one more unsolved gangland killing. And it seemed I’d saved her from quite a life of abuse, for Stiles knew the type, too, and used it.
My Guarded Angel didn’t stay with me long. I’d been so enchanted I actually thought we could have had a relationship, but it was only on the surface. I never got inside. And as I said to her as she left me – went off to find another battle to fight: ‘You may think that guard protects you, but believe me, it’s your jailer.’
FUTURE PROSPECTS GOOD
She sat at the table and felt good. The room was perfect - just the two of them. Expensive – just as she was used to. And as she poured the champagne, she knew her life was going to be good from now on.
How different it had been only a couple of weeks ago. Married into money, she seemed to have the perfect lifestyle, but the slight problem of her not loving her husband made her indifferent. Hence, the affairs – lots of them. Which is where HE had come in.
‘So I pay up, or you expose me,’ she had said when he showed her the photos. Of course, she wouldn’t have minded, if not for the money. But she just couldn’t give that up.
He felt guilty after that first approach. At first he could see no reason for it. After all, he was a professional blackmailer – had a whole file on this type of woman, the easy pickings. But this one was different.
Maybe it was her looks. Yet he had blackmailed beautiful women before. So it soon dawned on him that he was maybe falling in love with her.
And she sensed it, too. Even though he was a blackmailer, she handed over that first payment with a kiss. And it felt so right …
She sipped from her champagne, smiled seductively, and he held her gaze. ‘So we’re agreed?’ she said.
He replied in the affirmative. Future prospects were good, he knew. And it seemed strange, as he laid down his file between them, that this was both a business meeting and a declaration of their future life together, in love.
She felt a buzz at the prospect of her becoming a blackmailer. The money would continue now, she knew that. And as he continued to drink from his glass, she watched as his eye
s glazed and he fell from the chair, dead.
She picked up the file, smiled once more, and departed. Now she had a husband to divorce.
THE COTTAGE ON THE MOOR
You must have heard the rumour? No? So you have no idea what happened here, in this cottage? Well, have I got a feast of a tale for you.
As you can see, the cottage lies many miles from anywhere, and the moors can be bleak at times. But walkers just loved the scenery. Even the fact that so many disappeared did not put them off. And just as they got to the point where they couldn’t shake off the tiredness, they came upon the cottage.
‘Come in, come in,’ the kindly old man would say as he excitedly ran out. ‘You must be starving.’
He lived on his own in the cottage – had done for thirty years, ever since he retired from his hill farm. But every time a stranger came upon the place, the delight between them both was spontaneous. And as the walker entered the cottage, the smell of cooking was delightful.
Seated in the cosy chair by the fire, a huge mug of steaming tea in hand, it seemed like paradise amid the hardship of the moor. And once the huge bowl of stew arrived, the walker would eat greedily until full. And always the question: ‘Are you not eating?’ they’d ask as they watched the kindly old man simply watching them.
‘Oh, I’ll eat later,’ he would always reply.
Usually, this was followed by the walker taking a long sleep. And somehow, as another mug of tea was ready as he awoke, he simply couldn’t raise the energy to leave …
And well, as we now know, they usually never did. Why not, you ask? Well, the immediate reason was the sleeping pills in the tea. But by the time they had been there a month most were far too fat to do so, anyway.
What’s that, you say? Oh, you’ve guessed it. Yes, our kindly old man turned out to be a killer. And sometimes he’d keep his guests there for months before … well, you know. And we know this because once he was dead, the bones were found underneath the cottage. And, judging from their state, the motive was pretty clear, too.