Slights (39 page)

GG seventeen chain:

The gold chain belonged to a teenaged boy, George Gazel, who beat to death an old woman.

PC sixty-three heel:

Percy Court had been meaning to get his shoe heel fixed, but it was hard to get out of the office. He didn't ask his secretary to do it because he was scared of her. She had stopped asking him questions about his wife, though she was clearly dissatisfied with his answers. He would sort her out, though.

MR twenty-six wallet:

Max Rankine's empty wallet was bought at a local craft-market at a secondhand stall and held photos of loved ones who didn't love one in return. Who didn't deserve to live.

CT twenty-three coin holder:

A present from his mother, Colin Thake's coin holder symbolised to him constriction, lawfulness, boredom. He broke the law smash bang, but not the way Alex thought.

HS forty-three elastic band:

Hugh Smith used an elastic band to tie back his hair. He flipped it around his wrist when he let his hair fly. When he lost one he found another. He was seen dragging his girlfriend by the scruff of her neck. Alex didn't always need to know too much about his people. A little was enough, sometimes.

SP thirty-five tie bar:

Silver, stylish, Sam Polato's tie bar caused comment. It got him women. He bit women, liked the feeling of his teeth in their warm flesh.

MW forty-two shoe:

Martin Webster, a religious man who marked his skin, his clothes, his shoes, with red crosses to protect himself from evil thoughts. Evil actions were not yet under control.

PM seven lunchbox:

Only Alex knew that Pauly Murray once lay, strangled and buried, in the dirt in the Searle's backyard, his lunch uneaten.

FF eighteen squeaky toy:

Frank Firenze carried a squeaky toy in his pocket. What was he doing with a child's toy? Little more than a child himself, stumbling, destructive and bitter.

CL thirty-seven TV dial:

Claude Loftus had a nervous habit. He carried a TV dial in his pocket like a security blanket, a lucky rabbit's foot. A skinny man, betting type, losing streak, kill for money, kill for it, die for it.

BK thirty-six squash ball:

Squeeze squeeze, finding affinity with the small black ball so you could smash your opponent, never lose. Bernie Kerr was good for his age. He was good at smashing faces, noses, scarring faces. He was good at causing offence.

TS forty-three belt:

Its long dead owner, Tom Sykes, was once a man of very good quality. He was a doctor, one of those men people talked to, confessed things to. He was trusted and loved and he threw his wife off a cliff after beating her to death. Only Alex knew this; only Alex knew the truth. The community mourned with the man, the doctor, and could pity him at last. The pieces of his wife were gathered and buried, and only Alex saw Sykes smirk as she was lowered away from harm. Tom Sykes went through the courts and was washed clean of guilt.

  Alex went to Tom Sykes, the doctor, soon after, for a check-up, and he told Sykes secrets he knew would be of interest.

  "It's my knuckles, doctor," he said. He

made a fist, slammed it into his palm, made the air punch. "I keep slamming them into things, and they're starting to hurt."

Sykes' fingers twitched. Alex had been keeping him under surveillance, and he had not hurt a woman for a while.

  "Oh, yes?" he said. He prescribed a musclerelaxant so Alex would have less trouble with jerking limbs. He walked Alex from the surgery, saying, "Please, call me at home if you find the prescription isn't effective."

  He scribbled his first name and his number on a five-dollar note.

  "I'll do that," Alex said. Sometimes he could smooth-talk with barely a word.

  He waited three weeks, because he needed to settle himself, then he called Sykes. Alex was invited to dine; don't bring a thing, Sykes said.

  Sykes wore soft, baggy pants, a sky blue jumper, finely knitted. His hair was deliberately mussed. Alex thought he had drawn dark make-up under his eyes.

  Alex wore thin, tight clothes, which clung to him but did not constrict movement. They nodded when they met.

  "So, how's the medical business?" Alex said.

  "Oh, fine, fine. And how's the…what business are you in?"

  "I'm a cop. And it's fine."

  Alex wanted Sykes to experience terror, because the death Alex had planned would be short and merciful.

  Tom Sykes fingered the loose tongue of his leather belt.

  "That must be interesting work. Do you get involved with a lot of cases? I mean, are you interested in what the other cops are doing?"

  Alex smiled at him. The man didn't see, he was staring at his glass. "Naah," Alex said. "I'm far too self-obsessed." He didn't want the man wary. "If it's not my case, I'm home with my family."

  He pulled out a photo to show the doctor. It was one Steve never saw. In it, Heather sat up stiffly, a pained expression on her face. Her eyes seemed dark-rimmed. Peter stood in front of her left knee. Her arms were raised; her hands clutched Peter's forearms from either side. Her fingers visibly sank into his flesh. Peter had his eyes squeezed shut; his mouth was slightly open.

  At their feet Steve played with a toy train. She didn't look at the camera.

  "Lovely family," Tom Sykes said. "I only had my wife, I'm afraid, and no photo, no photo at all."

  "Some women just don't like having their photo taken," Alex said. He thought, and some have no choice, because the doctor's wife had been photographed many times after her death.

  "Sometimes women don't know what's best, and they need helping along." Alex stared into his glass as if remembering.

  Tom's eyes glittered, yet he didn't seem to drink much. Alex guessed he enjoyed use of his own medicine cabinet.

  "So, here we are," Tom said. They had been on a short tour of the house, had reached the sauna.

  "Am I supposed to say, 'You have a lovely home?'" Alex said.

  Tom gave one tone of a laugh. "No, no, that's for the ladies. Ladies like trivialities."

  They smiled at each other. "I feel like I'm on an outing," Alex said.

  "No, no, just two men with similar interests, out to become acquainted."

  "And perhaps not just with each other," Alex said, and winked. Tom smiled, relaxed; he was not mistaken in Alex's intent. They ate a meal Tom had brought home with him from town, spent hours talking about war, politics, women and money. Alex refused to take his gloves off.

  "Are you cold? I can turn up the heating."

  "No, I'm fine," Alex said. Afterwards, he washed up the glasses and plates and put them away.

  "Now, you're a pleasant guest to have," Tom said.

  It was all very seamless, as it is when two people have the same motives, the same goal, and they are not anxious about achieving this. They talked, they ate, they took Alex's car. Tom settled himself, breathed deeply.

  "New car, ay? Nothing like it," he said.

  "My kids hate the smell. They insist on having their heads stuck out the windows," Alex said. They drove to the streets and they picked up a prostitute.

  Alex drove while Tom was in the back with her. There were giggles and low mutters and squeals of pain.

  "Not so rough," she said.

  "People say I've got soft, gentle hands," Tom said. "That's what I'm told."

  "Yeah, well, where are we going, anyway? I'm not interested in a back-seat job."

  "Won't be long," Alex said. He drove to a quiet beach. They pulled the girl out of the car, and they beat her, carefully. Alex could see how much Tom enjoyed it.

  "Here's a little something to ease your pain," said the doctor, and he injected her with the contents of a syringe Alex suggested he bring. No one would believe a girl with her blood mix.

  They left her stretched on the dry sand, safe from the tide, and she wouldn't be found until she stumbled on to the road.

  This major event in her life changed her,

because she wasn't an automaton. She gained self-respect, oddly, because she had not wanted to be beaten, neither did she deserve it. She KNEW that. She could honestly say it.

  She accepted a job in a safe house, where the men came for sexual release in a safe environment. They didn't want danger. They wanted their regular, a shallow relationship, they paid well. She became involved with management and found she had a skill for it.

  She always bore the scars of her beating. They drew sympathy and kindness. She was reminded of the Somerset Maugham story, The Verger. Imagine if you hadn't been beaten, she said to herself. You would still be on the streets. Tom Sykes laughed, hopped in his seat,

pulled at his seat belt. He made little popping noises with his mouth, noises which sounded so much like words Alex said, "Pardon?" twice. Sykes ignored him.

  "My place for a drink?" Alex said.

  Sykes said, "What about your family? Midnight visitors okay there?"

  Alex said, "They're at her mother's."

  Alex rolled the car into the garage. He said, "We'll go in the back door." The doctor climbed out of the car, pop pop and waited, rocking on his heels, staring at the moon.

 "Key's under the mat, believe it or not," Alex said. He shone the torch to the back door.

  "I don't believe it," said Sykes. He aped Alex's whispered tone.

  "Take a look."

  Sykes bent over, and Alex bent behind him and chopped him, pulling his body backwards in a jabjab movement. The body fell onto the dirt, where it twitched then rested. Alex cut the throat.

  There was no hint of a visitor by the time the family returned.

  He never killed a woman. There was one woman in his children's future who may have been deserving; he drove past her house every morning and night on his work travels. He noticed the neat garden and despised it for its prissiness, but he would never have guessed his children would be hurt by the woman inside.

  Alex would always say that it was the unplanned murders, the crimes of passion, which people get away with. It was the planned crimes, so meticulous, which would fail, because there was too much thought involved. Those killers thought of each possible contingent and had an answer ready for everything, the perfect emotion ready to go. They had answers down pat, always suspicious. The unplanned crime caused panic, and the human mind thinks better under stress.

  It was an opinion far from that held by almost everybody else at his police station (and of the world, but his scope of research wasn't broad).

  No one ever imagined he held this view because he had killed in passionate rage.

  He rarely joined his workmates for drinks and was teased as a Family Man. He always smiled at the nickname, genuinely unhurt by it – he couldn't see how it could possibly be an insult.

  He was always there for celebrations, though: the big bust, the retirement, the promotion. He was painstaking about these things. Some nights he would appear out of the blue, and shout the bar, scream at jokes, act with an hysteria the others found frightening.