Part 1-Death by the park

She heard the clink of glass and muted slap of training shoe on tarmac as he jogged from door to milk float and back. The street beyond the bedroom window was silent and echoed with the still calm of dawn. It seemed to surround and magnify the sounds of his progress as he moved in and out of drives and doorways and criss-crossed the sleeping street with deftness.

 

Her mind drifted in a state of warm morning pleasure. She was still half-asleep. Not really asleep but not nearly awake. She loved the feeling; particularly on such spring mornings when the sun slowly pushed its way into her room through half shut curtains, spilled over her bed and settled its gentle warmth, magnified by the heavy pained Victorian windows, upon her face. She never thought she would ever get used to sleeping alone again after Martin left her for his young blonde secretary. It had taken days of disbelief, weeks of wailing, many months of tears followed by rage until she finally settled into resolution.

 

She was aware of every sound. The street with its large detached homes and wide leafy tree lined road seemed to her at this hour like a Mediterranean swimming pool before the first bathers of the day disturb its calm surface. She heard the sound of the pigeons cooing in the next-door neighbours eaves. It reminded her of the pool at the hotel she had stayed at in Cyprus the year before; the early morning stillness of the cool water caressed by the gentle throb of the filter plant generator. Her mind drifted and she floated back into the warm womb of sleep. The milkman was still some way down the street; running. She surfaced again and found pleasure in the wrapped warmth of her bedclothes. Her shock of curly, long red hair splashed across the silk pillowcase. She liked to indulge herself these days. Martin would never have appreciated silk sheets. He would have seen them as an expensive waste. But she loved silk against her skin. She had always seen herself as sensual; never the most beautiful woman, but striking, and most definitely sensual. When she looked in the mirror, even now at fifty-five, she still felt a sense of pride. She was no fool. She recognised the lines that time had etched into the once peach like skin of her face; the droop of once firm, ample breasts and the excess weight she now carried. She had the sort of body proportions that allow a woman to carry weight and still look very feminine. She snuggled further into the bed feeling the sensation of a willing mattress.

 

She was over the hurt and humiliation now of being spurned for the younger woman. At first she had thought of it as Martin’s mid life crisis, until it dawned upon her, three months into his elope, that he was never coming back. He didn’t haggle over the house, or anything else for that matter. Confrontation was not his style. She never thought he really ever had style, well not to speak of. She’d always seen him as the archetypal scientist, very precise, measured and quite predictable. He was never a sensation in bed and who would have thought he would have anything to offer a twenty eight year old blonde with legs up to her throat. She drifted again this time without destination. She had a feeling of being at peace. This was one of her favourite times, the time between sleeping and wakefulness, the slow stretch and yawn into another day. She could still hear the approach of the milkman.

 

She was well provided for and didn’t need to work, so there was no rush to get out of bed, go through bathroom drill, snatch some black coffee and a slice of unbuttered toast and marmalade as she used to years ago. Life was altogether more serene. It was two and a half years since Martin has gone off on heat with his young b***h. She surfaced again and thought of Frank. He was such a comfort to her and had seen her through the blackest days of the separation and the ignominy of the divorce. He was a good pal. Not a lover, although it had once crossed her mind and they had shared some close and very intimate moments. He was too much of a friend. She heard the milkman again. This time he was sliding the crates across the floor of his milk float, rearranging his stock, clinking bottles. She was fleetingly annoyed that his sounds had disturbed her train of thought. She put the intrusion out of her head and returned to her gentle free association. She recalled Frank last night after the show. She had been in high spirits; a most enjoyable evening.

 

Although she didn’t need to work, and had a small but close circle of friends, she was keen to keep the life style she had got used to during years of marriage to her dull, and rather boring ex husband. First time round she had made the concession on the spur of the moment. She was used to it now. It was no inconvenience, the place was big enough and it helped her retain the finer things she had always enjoyed. She was in her younger days regarded by those who knew her as of a rather fiery temperament.  It went with the red hair. She later settled into what she regarded as a more mature approach to life, but which those who still knew her regarded as sometimes unpredictable, rather unorthodox, in a bohemian sort of fashion, and often spontaneous. Some would have gone so far as to describe her as volatile. A psychiatrist friend had once accused her of tending towards being cyclothymic. When she quizzed him as to the meaning he said she had mood swings; not that she was simply moody but that the peeks of elation and troughs of despair were extreme.  She dozed again with the gentle lilt of the milkman still in the background. She heard a car engine cough into life somewhere nearby and she could now detect the steady ebb and flow of traffic pulsing along the main artery road into the city. Yes she was sometimes unpredictable, but what the hell, at her time in life she had nothing to lose, and besides, she had no one else to worry about. She was her own woman and damned proud of it too.  Sensual yes; she felt the randy flush start to radiate through her. It was the warmth, her relaxed and contented state. She felt the stiffening begin, the heat of desire. She closed her eyes and thought of him. He was much younger but if he was willing she might just let it happen. She closed her eyes and could almost feel the cocked penis in her hand. She cupped her right hand over the n****e of her left breast and felt it erect. She turned onto her back, spread her legs and let her other hand stray down her stomach over her symphis pubis, until her elegant fingers with their brightly painted nails found their swollen target; the sensation almost immediately made her stretch her legs and curl her toes with pleasure. The floorboard above her head creaked and the spell was broken. The feelings fell away like a discarded neck scarf. The moment was lost. The milkman was now quite distant. She decided to rise and get on with the day.

***

He had never felt so black. He’d woken early from a fitful sleep, washed quickly and dressed. It had still been dark and he’d moved as silently as he could so that he didn’t wake her. He hated the morning. It simply meant another long fruitless day; a day full of emptiness. Life all thirty years of it, had never felt good, except for brief fleeting moments. Since his split with Mary things had got even blacker. He didn’t understand why it was he who always had to fail when his brother and sister were so successful. He felt the surge of anger, self-hatred, the same self-hatred that he had felt so often, recently almost every day. He sat on the edge of his bed, in the half-light, he held his heavy head in his hands and wept. He would have gone down and made a coffee but his watch told him it was only six-thirty and too early to waken her. Instead he indulged himself in the thick choking embrace of self-pity.  He recalled his teenage years. He recalled the time he had teamed up with Tom and Simon and Billy during one long hot summer holiday. He hated school. He wasn’t a scholarly type, slightly better than average would be more accurate, but because of his middle class accent he was always teased by the others, who mostly came from the local council estates. It was a quirk of fate that he had ended up at the school; all to do with his father moving the family when he changed jobs. He never really understood why it was that he was left among such common people, and why his parents let him suffer so. At home it was unbearable, always compared against the successes of his older siblings, Sally and James who both seemed to achieve top grades; top grades and accolades.  Even now things had not changed; Sally a successful barrister and James a high flying marketing executive, both happily married and settled in upper middle-class lifestyles.

 

He recalled the shame when the lads had persuaded the girls to go with them up to the coppice, the feeling of being a retard when, as the day progressed, one by one they had all fallen. Tom with Alice, Simon with the big Jenkins bird-who would give her one?-still Tom was a bit of a lummox, and Billy with Sarah. Yes he had tried. And yes he felt he wanted it. But when it came to it he simply couldn’t. The girl, Samantha, was decent enough, and willing-boy she was willing! He recalled her slow build up. She took charge and they snogged for sometime until she seemed to get tired of waiting and began to raise the stakes. He remembered the shock that she had been so direct. Looking him in the eyes as she took his hand and guided it between the soft cotton folds of her blouse. The feel of her stiff little breasts bra-less, had shocked him and he had wanted to pull his hand away. He didn’t know what to do next. Then she had kissed him harder and pushed his hand up her skirt, getting even more fretful that even this didn’t act as his cue. She’d then lain down on the fern bed and pulled him on top of her. She’d wriggled and delved between their legs to pull her pants down and shove his hand further up her crotch. He felt the soft folds and the wetness as she pushed her hips towards him. It was the wetness that put him off. He couldn’t. She was angry. She let him know it and he was humiliated. He climbed to his feet, mumbled weak excuses and hoped it would all go away. But he knew by the sniggers, the sneering glances from the girls and the lack of eye contact from the lads when they had joined them under the big old oak tree that it would not. Going back to school after the holidays was worse than he had fretted about for the remainder of the summer break, and he knew he would have it haunt him for the rest of his time at St Augustine’s Roman Catholic School for boys.

 

At seven o’clock he’d looked at his watch and decided to chance going down. She was rarely up before eight, more often eight thirty or even nine o’clock. She didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Her ‘friend’ had visited again last night. They must be having it. And him a married man whose wife was a good friend to her; he had to be giving her one. Why else would they be spending so much time together; and he’d seen them kissing, more than just a peck. At her birthday party they had their tongues in each other’s mouths, and with his wife in the next room. He never stayed, always playing the dutiful husband, returning home at a reasonable time. He’d left before midnight last night, but they sounded like they were having a good time. He felt the anger rise.

 

Suddenly he recalled his mother’s scolding, scathing, critical voice clawing at him; barbs of words; hurting, like salt in his own self inflicted wounds. He remembered his father, so weak, never taking his side, always letting her get on with it. Pushing the blame upon him by telling him it was his own fault and that his mother wouldn’t be so critical if he’d only pull his socks up. Little wonder he’d had his breakdown.

The University doctor had seen him and sent him to the hospital. He had felt so low and alone. Even though he was performing in the “middle-of-the-road” as far as his course was concerned. He just felt lousy. The overdose he was told by the supercilious consultant psychiatrist, who peered at the case notes during the ward round without making eye contact, was a cry for help. He should not expect too much from himself and should avoid too much pressure. That was his signal to leave the godforsaken north and head back home to the Midlands. He had struggled with the thorny problem of whether to face the hell of being at university, or the guilt of not being there. His mother would be disappointed.

 

Since then he’d had his ups and his downs. He had made another couple of attempts at ending it all, and been into the local loony bin on a couple of occasions. Each time he left he felt like he had unfinished business. He couldn’t quite settle even though he had secured a job as a lab technician in a local hospital and got on well with his supervisor and colleagues. He should never have decided to go back to college and take up the business course. The first six months seemed to go rather well but he began to feel like he was slipping, loosing it. He had periods of restlessness when he just had to get away. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue or not so he took time-outs just to get some respite from the dilemma. Eventually he dropped out again and took a job as a postman.

 

When he met Mary he felt that he had turned the corner. For eighteen months things went well. They rented a house together and he even believed that he was getting some enjoyment out of life. Things slipped gradually until eventually one day, almost seven years into the relationship, he awoke and just felt awful. He couldn’t explain it but he felt like he was suffocating. He wanted to end it all but Mary talked him out of it. Then the rows began. He found his tolerance of Mary had evaporated. He moved out after the incident when he had lost it completely and, in the eye of a heated argument, had grabbed the kitchen knife. He had wanted to use it but at the last moment drove it so hard into the kitchen worktop that the blade snapped. He had to get out. Next time he didn’t know if he could control himself or not. He had bummed around on the floors of various work mates before he’d found the room, or rather, it had found him.

He gingerly moved down the wide staircase so as not to disturb her. In the kitchen he carefully closed the door, filled the kettle and plugged it in then sat at the scrubbed pine table while he waited. The sun was streaming in through the window overlooking the well kept, mature garden. He felt his anger rise, if only he had been taken out of that school. If only he had shagged the f*****g pants off of Samantha, if only he had finished his degree. He was aware of the kettle building up to a steamy crescendo before its automatic cut off stopped it suddenly with a loud click.

 

The door swung open and she strode across the kitchen. She threw a weary good morning his way. She was never good in the mornings. She always seemed to take an age to come to. Often she would make several attempts. Go to the loo and back to bed. A coffee and back to bed. And on occasions, when she’d been out particularly late, she’d bathe, gather the papers from the telephone table where he’d put them and go back to bed. She took a mug from the cupboard, spooned in a generous helping of coffee granules and topped it up from the still steaming kettle. She picked a spoon out of the cutlery drawer, gave the mixture a quick swirl and threw the spoon into the sink. Without even a glance his way she turned and was gone; back to bed.

 

He stood up and walked to the sink where he took a mug from the draining board. He always had the white one with the bright yellow smiley face printed on the side. It had a chip on the rim and a two centimetre crack down one side but he liked to stick with it. On the window ledge, where she had left it after she had been out tending the beds, was a packet of Weedol. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he took the packet, tore it open and poured about a quarter of the contents into the mug, then added roughly a couple of egg cups full of water. The knife was in his hand. As he walked past the kitchen table, without thinking, he lifted the pestle out of its cold, smooth resting-place in the mortar. He climbed the stairs. On the landing he turned and went into one of the front bedrooms, the one with the full size free-standing mirror. He felt an affinity with the coldness of the room. He liked to stand at the window when she was out, staring across the park towards the city and the normal life that had eluded him.  The room was rarely used and housed her old sewing machine which her husband had given her. Randy sod had jacked his young filly of a secretary and buggered off for good leaving her the house, and the sewing machine. She never used it as far as he could make out. He put the cup down on the Adam style mantle shelf and stood in front of the mirror.  He thought of Mary. If only…… He held the knife to his throat. He watched the white of his skin, greyed from the shadow of overnight stubble. He felt the edge of the sharp blade as he pressed it into himself. He pulled the blade slowly across his neck, he felt the sharpness and a prick of pain which made him take a deep breath and awoke his senses as if he’d taken smelling salts. He watched fascinated as the redness welled up in slow motion, a ribbon line along the incision, which suddenly burst. The blood streamed like raspberry sauce on an ice cream cone. He and Mary had often enjoyed a ninety-nine with a flake and lashings of sweet sticky sauce when they walked through the same park he now overlooked. He felt the anger well up as he filled his lungs in a deep sigh, he cut into himself twice more in quick succession.

 

He felt his whole body suddenly sag. His mind was heavy, leaden. His anger had gone. He looked into the mirror. His neck was a red cravat but the wounds were little more than scratches. He felt an overwhelming sense of failure. He left the room and headed back down the stairs. He though of her sitting in bed with her coffee and slumped in resignation on a step halfway down the stairs.

***

The middle aged man skipped briskly along humming to himself. He felt quite gay. The May morning was glorious and he felt invigorated. The park to his left was bathed in early morning sun. He always liked to be out of the house between eight and half-past. Most mornings he was at the office by nine. He would get in and greet his staff of six cheerily. Business was good. In fact it had never been better. People always seemed to want holidays. Even during the recession he had managed to keep his head above water. He put it down to the fact that he had taken on such good and loyal staff. He was particularly pleased with his decision to add Brian to his team. Brian was a whiz in commercial and business travel. He really knew his stuff. He felt lucky to have such a dedicated team and he was careful to treat them right. He paid them well and ensured that they all had free holidays. He treated them all with respect. Tina, his efficient Personal Assistant, Bryony the office manager-a young widow who had lost her husband to the ravage of testicular cancer but who had borne the loss with dignity, was precise, organised and acted in the role of mother hen around the office. Sally who had years of experience with Thompson before being enticed by him to join the firm after being introduced at a party by a mutual acquaintance, Georgina, who had also defected from Thompson with Sally, her long time friend from school. Peter who had been an airline steward before losing a leg when his car was crushed by an articulated flower lorry as its tired Belgian driver lost control and jack-knifed on the southbound carriageway of the M1. And of course Brian, who because of his expertise and ability had been made managing director. He felt very lucky indeed.

 

He glanced at his watch as he crossed the road and turned up the path that led to the large detached house with its views over the park. Ten past eight. He would say a quick hello-if she had risen yet: he knew she wasn’t one for mornings. He would collect the light raincoat, which he had left behind the previous evening and would still be at his office before nine. He prided himself that at fifty-seven that he was as fit-if not fitter-than when he was thirty. He loved to walk. He walked to work more often than not, even in the winter. The forecast was fine with a risk of a light shower but he didn’t want to get caught out. He always liked to be prepared.

 

He put his key in the lock and went straight in. The sudden contrast between bright sun and the shady hallway stunned him; his pupils struggled to adjust. The house was chapel like in its silence. He guessed that Jane was still in bed. He stepped down the hall. He blinked until his pupils were dilated, adjusted to the dimness inside the house. He could see that his raincoat was not on the peg in the hall and concluded that he must have left it in the kitchen. All was quiet.  He headed for the kitchen but as he passed the foot of the stairs he was suddenly aware of a feeling of unease. He glanced up the staircase, cloaked in half light because the heavy curtain over the large stained glass window was still drawn. Half way up a figure sat hunched. He couldn’t see the face but he recognised Brunton. He’d warned Jane against letting her room out to strangers but she had simply laughed, thanked him for being so sweet and told him she would be careful. She had had a succession of lodgers in the two and a half years since Martin had done the dirty on her. They were usually students from the university. Molly the first year law student who invariably dressed in black and wore black make up. She’d worried him at first but rather than being a drug-taking dropout she proved to be an intelligent, articulate and sensitive girl. After nine months, she was forced to return to Chesterfield to look after her retarded half brother after her parents died in a blaze at their farmhouse. Her brother had survived the horrific blaze because he was receiving respite care at a social services centre when the fire occurred. Then there was Jennifer. Jennifer was taking business studies because her daddy wanted his only child to join the family carpet firm in Northampton. Jennifer wanted to enjoy life and so she did. Unfortunately daddy wasn’t so impressed when he discovered she’d got herself pregnant by an Asian student on the same course. She was summoned back to Northampton where daddy paid for her to have a termination at a private clinic and arranged for her to continue her studies at the less prestigious University College of Northampton. Simon was next. He’d been very firm with her when he found out that she was interviewing a male as a prospective lodger. He’d told her it was madness and that she should stick to females. She smiled gently, slowly shook her head and explained that Simon was a mature student studying art. She loved anything to do with art, and he knew it was a lost cause to pursue it further. Simon as it turned out was not only a mature and rather a nice guy, but he was also very decidedly gay. Simon was in his final year and had been thrown out of his previous lodgings when the landlord returned early from Hong Kong where he was on a three-year contract as a psychologist with the Hong Kong police. After Simon he’d decided that he should reserve his advice, and that Jane was perfectly capable of choosing her lodgers.

 

When Brunton was introduced through a mutual social acquaintance he had not felt very easy about his decision, but he’d said nothing. Brunton was different from the rest. He was working as a postman and was sleeping on the floors of friends, having recently split from his girlfriend of seven years. Jane felt sorry for him and seemed to relate to his pain about his separation. He’d been there several months having moved in during early February. Jane seemed to have a soft spot for him although it was a source of concern to her that he never really allowed her to get to know him. He was not willing to talk much about himself and seemed to be prone to sullen moods.

 

Robert Brunton was five foot ten or eleven, of average build. He sat hunched in the stairway and didn’t speak. His head was bowed, forehead resting on his right fist, as if deep in thought. He threw an almost civil good morning at Brunton but received no reply. Brunton was his usual withdrawn, quiet and uninterested self. He listened to see if he could detect any movement from Jane’s room but hearing nothing he scooped his raincoat from the back of the kitchen chair where it had rested since the night before and left the house. As he stepped back out into the street the welcome warmth of the sun washed across him, dispelling the cold of the interior of Jane’s large airy Victorian home. He would be at the office on time and he might pop in to see Jane on his way home.

***

She’d heard Robert moving about. He was always careful not to cause any disturbance or nuisance. He had been with her now for a little over three months. He was quiet and polite but didn’t seem to want to engage in any social transaction with her. He spent most of his time in his room despite her reminding him on several occasions not to feel shy about making use of the whole house. She had even invited him to watch the Sunday evening rugby and the Antiques Road Show, as she had done with Simon-she was a big Leicester “Tigers” fan and loved antiques. He had mumbled some excuse and stayed in his room. She felt sorry for him and thought she could understand his pain. He seemed such a sensitive man and his separation from his long-standing girlfriend, Mary, was affecting him deeply. She would give him a few more weeks and would then make another attempt to get him to come out of his shell. She considered herself a good judge of people and she had a feeling that he wanted to break free of his grief.

 

She didn’t feel quite ready for the day so she headed for the kitchen to make the coffee that would help her wake enough to start the morning. Robert was sitting by the table, he looked in a bit of a mood so she offered a passing good morning, made her coffee and went back to her room. She fluffed up her pillows and got back into bed to slowly imbibe the hot caffeine infused liquid. She drained her cup and dozed off thinking about the day ahead. She would take it as it came. She hadn’t heard the front door open and she knew nothing of Frank’s visit to collect his raincoat. Nor of his encounter with Robert on the stairs.

***

Brunton sat on the stairs for a long time. He’d heard the key scrape in the lock and had seen Frank enter and stand blinking briefly. He kept his head down, as he had no wish to let Frank see the mess of his neck or know of the failed attempt to work himself up into a self-destructive frenzy. He hoped Frank would not notice him crouched in the half-light but the unfaithful b*****d had seen him and acknowledged him. He didn’t respond. He watched him go to the kitchen and re-emerge with the raincoat. He was thankful when Frank left without saying anything further. As the front door closed he wondered what Frank’s wife was like. He thought of school. He remembered his misery at university and the charged emotions at home when he had failed to excel like Sally and James. Sometimes he even wished that they didn’t exist. He thought of his mother’s vitriolic attacks upon him when all he wanted from her was to be loved. He remembered how his ineffectual father had left him to be pilloried by his mother and how he had felt such abandonment. Yes that stuffed up old Freud was right; his attempts to kill himself were a cry for help and now he felt he was screaming. He thought of Mary. Seven years she had tolerated him. Marriage wasn’t an option because he supposed that she never knew where she stood with his mood swings. Sometimes things were going along swimmingly and all of a sudden, with no obvious cause, he would plunge into the abyss. That was where he was when he had taken the knife in a black rage and buried it in the kitchen top. It was meant for her. He hated the fact that she controlled him like his mother used to when he was younger. Something had prevented the final act but he knew that that was the last straw, so he left before she could throw him out or leave herself.

 

He thought of the warmth of Mary in the mornings when he awoke. She would lay there asleep breathing gently. He would listen to her breathing and watch the gentle rhythm of her soft full breasts rise and fall. He thought of Jane. He liked her but he resented feeling grateful that she had rescued him, and anyway she was just another woman trying to control him. She was quite an attractive woman for her age. She dressed a little bit tartily at times he thought, but she had something about her. He thought of the sensation of entering Mary. He missed the sex, although he knew that Mary wasn’t always satisfied with him in bed. In fact sometimes he worried so much about it that he had to offer some kind of excuse rather than make love to her. He thought of the smoothness of her back when she lay on top of him and the sweet channel that ran down her spine where it entered her firm buttocks. He felt his erect penis pushing against the stiffness of his pants. He thought of Jane in the silk night-dress and he thought of the swell of her ample bosom, the roundness of her hips. He stood up and went down. He walked to her bedroom door.

***

Jane woke with a start. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep again. The empty coffee mug was on the bedside table. She gently threw back the bedding and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Would she wear the floral summer dress with the square cut neck that she had picked up in Covent Garden two weeks earlier or was it tee-shirt and shorts. She opted for the dress.

 

The door burst open. Robert walked boldly in. His neck was covered in dry blood and in his right hand he had the pestle from the kitchen. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She instinctively stood up as he suddenly rushed at her. She saw him raise his right hand. Why? She thought. What have I done? She pleaded with him not to kill her. She felt the heavy blow from the hard, cold instrument. The one she had ground the spices with for the curry she cooked Frank three days ago. She felt her legs give way as she tumbled into Robert. She didn’t see the knife. They both fell and she felt a blow as if he had punched her hard just under her left breast. They fell in a tumble on the bedroom carpet. She felt something wet. He seemed stunned and she pushed herself hard away from him towards the bedroom door. She swayed going through the doorway and had to grasp the door jamb to stop from falling over. She saw the bloody hand-print and felt the adrenaline rush as she realised that she would most certainly die if she couldn’t get away from him. He was after her. She could hear his panting. He struck her from behind with his shoulder and she sprawled through the open kitchen door on her knees. He was on top of her fast and she could smell his sweat. She turned turtle and drew her legs up to her chest, kicking out as hard as she could. He flew off and rolled under the kitchen table. She felt weak but managed to get to her feet again. She saw him rise on the far side of the table, pulling himself up on the kitchen sink. She tried to run but she found herself pirouette round the doorframe and stumble into the dining room. She crawled and snaked across the carpet heading for the French doors. She heard him kick the vegetable trolley and heard it scatter across the kitchen floor. In the corner of her eye she saw him rush by the dinning room toward the front door. She felt she was going to make it. She had her hand on the polished brass handle of the casement door when she felt another blow to her head. He said nothing. She didn’t go all the way to the floor. She knew, if she did, she was finished. She half turned and caught the knife by the blade with both hands as he stabbed at her chest. She saw the gleaming blade sticking out of her chest. She felt the sharp slicing pain in her hands as he pulled the blade out again. She hit out as hard as she could and tried to move away from him, but he had the distance and plunged the blade deep into her left breast. As he wrenched it out tearing and searing at her ribs he lost balance and she broke for the door. Her mouth was dry and she could feel a fog closing upon her. Her legs felt like jelly and she was gasping for breath. She stumbled to the front door but he pulled her back by her hair before she could get there and she slipped to the floor on her back. She felt the knife plunge deep into her surrendered body. No pain, only cold; a feeling of detachment.  She felt the corner of the door mat against her head and the coldness of the floor tiles against her skin where her night-dress had been almost completely ripped away. She felt the warm wet of her life blood as it soaked into her clothes. It was strangely quiet, she felt nothing else. He seemed to have stopped. She didn’t have the strength to keep her eyelids apart but she couldn’t close them either. She could no longer hear him breathing or smell his stale breath and body odour near her. She didn’t care any longer. She lay still and felt strangely peaceful. She could hear the sound of the distant traffic. She heard the voices of a man and woman laughing as they headed on past her front door as she drifted into the sanctuary of death.

***

He lifted the telephone from its mount on the hall table and dialled 999. He felt calm and cold. ‘Emergency which service do you require?’ a woman’s voice asked.

‘Police please.’ Brunton said in a monotone voice. He heard the operator speak to the police control room and give Jane’s telephone number before the control room telephonist asked him the nature of the emergency.

‘I have just killed my landlady.’ he said in a matter of fact way. He replaced the hand set, stepped over the motionless body and opened the front door just enough to squeeze through. He walked down the garden path, out the front gate and turned right before sitting on the low, red brick front garden wall to wait for the police to arrive.

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[John Alexander McFadyen]

This chapter is based upon police forensic reports.