7
Blood ran down Lucy’s smooth forehead
into the pit of her left eye then trickled onto her cheek.
Her blond hair was sodden around a
crumpled dent where the jutting mantelpiece had cut through the bone and made
pulp of the grey matter beneath. Her head looked misshapen: wrong in a more complete way than just the gaping eyes
and blood and the awful stillness. The red stain seeped down her neck and
started to spread across her low-cut pullover, infecting the white. Lucy’s body
was twisted, bare legs bent at the knee. Except it wasn’t her body anymore –
this thing that looked more like some horrific twisted mannequin than a girl –
it was her corpse.
Jack leant against the opposite wall,
hands splayed down at his sides. The rage was gone. The emptiness left behind created
a physical sore, but other emotions clamoured to fill it. He started to shake
his head then stopped. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked forward,
toward Lucy’s body, rapid and then slow. He reached out to touch her. His eyes
were wide and gaping, like hers. He dropped to his knees.
It was only minutes since they had
talked about his destiny as an artist and now that was irrevocably finished. He
was a murderer. His life could not continue as it had done. There were only
three options open to him now.
Cover it up: like some wretched
half-human killer in a late night murder-mystery. Sneak her corpse out of the
hotel after nightfall, find some soft earth in the depth of a pine forest and
bury her, filling her blank eyes and open mouth with soil, covering her pretty
clothes and beautiful hair in dirt. Then go on and live the life of cover-ups
and alibis and lies, lying to her friends and her family… perhaps killing more
of them if they came close to finding him out.
Or confess: call the police: tell
them what he had done; do his best to convince them what had made him do it; hope
they understood though he knew they would not... Because surely there was
nothing a woman could say that would justify her death, however calculated to
cause pain. And that meant prison. It meant his life would be over.
And what else was there? Going on the
run? Leaving all security and comfort behind? Perpetually on edge; in danger of
exposure? Travelling from one small town to the next, performing menial work
for menial pay, always afraid of exposure and capture?
His life as he had known it was over,
and it mattered not one bit how insidious she had been. No one would care. No
one would understand.
He didn’t understand himself.
8
Sam Decker’s face was completely
blank as he walked up the stairs toward number six, disliking the creaks the
tired staircase made beneath his feet.
Eight rooms in all, scattered
throughout the three-storey building: holiday rooms with limited views of
Clifton Suspension Bridge. The stairwell walls were drab, plain, unadorned; nothing
more than somewhere to sleep; no charm. He glanced back and to his right: external
window. The bridge was just visible; overly showy; nothing but a tourist trap.
Sam considered Lucy, conscious for a
second of his appearance. He ran a brief check: hair in place, slicked down and
back; suit free of ablutions; dark grey overcoat hanging free and unimpeding,
surprisingly light. He slipped his hand inside his suit jacket: gun loaded and
easily accessible.
Quick in and out then away fast to
catch his plane.
He turned off the stairs and headed
down the long corridor to his sister’s room, not really wanting to meet her new
boyfriend; not caring enough about him to go to the trouble of making The Lie.
But he wanted to see her for this last time before he left; to... tidy up the
loose ends of his personal connections. He couldn’t leave the country without
saying goodbye and after his boss started putting things together he might not
be able to come back for some time.
If ever.
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