Reckless Endangerment(4)

Over the course of the seven years since, his once chiselled good looks had become fleshy, he had run to fat and developed a paunch that he was ill disposed to do anything about. Even more irritating, he had attempted to disguise the onset of his baldness by effecting a ridiculous fold-over hairstyle. And at ten o’clock each night when Sharon was at home, he would announce that he was ‘going to turn in’. And that was it: never any compliments on her appearance, never any affection, and definitely never any sex. The marriage was empty and loveless. It drove her mad and she felt trapped.

‘When are you on duty again?’ asked Cliff, pausing on his way out of the kitchen.

‘Next Wednesday afternoon, LHR to MIA, as usual.’ Sharon knew it was a formal question and one that he asked every time she was at home. But she sensed that he wasn’t really interested in whether she was there or not.

‘Where?’ Clifford raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Cliff!’ Sharon snapped at her husband impatiently. ‘Heathrow to Miami International,’ she said, slowly and distinctly. ‘I must have told you a hundred times what those codes mean. And to think you’re interested in aeroplanes.’

‘Oh yes, I believe you have, love.’ Clifford seemed not to notice her censorious tone and smiled infuriatingly.

‘I’ll make your cocoa.’ It appeared to Sharon that nothing would rile or excite her placid lump of a husband. Not even flaunting herself naked, as she frequently did.

Waiting until she heard him mounting the stairs, she put a single mug of cocoa in the microwave and switched it on. Once the cocoa was ready, she paused briefly to shed her kaftan and sling it over a kitchen stool.

Clifford was already in bed when Sharon entered the master bedroom. She handed him the mug of cocoa and sat down in a chair, waiting for him to drink it.

‘Aren’t you having any, love?’ he asked, completely oblivious to her nakedness.

Oh, if only he’d show some interest in my body and ask me if I was coming to bed, she thought. Or better still throw me on the bed and force himself on me. Oh God, how deliciously exciting that would be. But she knew it was a vain hope.

‘In a minute.’ Sharon had plenty of time; she had been preparing for this day for over a year now. ‘I’ll have mine in the kitchen. I’ve one or two things to do downstairs. I’ve got to close all the windows for a start.’

‘Oh Lord! Did I forget? Sorry, love, I should’ve done that.’ Clifford slowly consumed his cocoa. When he had finished, he put the mug on the bedside table, settled down and turned over so that his back was towards his wife.

Sharon returned to the ground floor and walked around the house, closing the windows. As she was in the act of drawing the curtains in the sitting room, a youth spotted her, paused wide-eyed, and then whistled loudly. She quickly closed the curtains.

Finally she went into the sitting room and sat down on the settee. Glancing at her wristwatch – the only thing she was wearing – she settled down to wait the hour before the next part of her plan could be brought to fruition.

She firmly believed that she had thought of everything, but in that she could not have been more wrong. Whatever else she may have learned in her short life, modern crime detection methods did not feature highly.





TWO


I have no idea why it should be that murders always seem to be carried out at a time that is most inconvenient to the police officers who are assigned to investigate them. Perhaps I’m just unfortunate enough to catch the homicides that occur in the small hours. Doubtless a team of erudite criminologists at some obscure university has spent thousands of pounds – or dollars – conducting a survey on the subject and will eventually publish its inconsequential conclusions. Nevertheless, such findings would undoubtedly be seized upon by the directing staff at the College of Policing and enthusiastically moulded into a grandiloquently boring lecture. And repeatedly delivered by a member of the team of resident sociologists to every successive course at what is laughingly referred to as ‘the policeman’s university’.

On the occasion of my latest murder it was getting on for one o’clock on a Sunday morning in late July. For once I was in my own bed rather than that of my girlfriend. The day had witnessed the onset of a heatwave, and at close to midnight it was still very hot and I had gone to bed with just a sheet over me and the windows wide open. For an hour, I twisted and turned, but was unable to sleep, not helped by the noise of the main-line trains passing through the nearby Surbiton railway station almost beneath my window.

Eventually giving up the struggle, I got up, intent on making myself a cup of tea and watching a repeat on television when my mobile rang.