Murder in Middle England

Stephen Baker sipped his freshly poured pint of real ale, having just murdered his wife.

The Saturday hubbub of the local pub washed over him. Uncontrolled and noisy children screamed and ran around tables as if they were navigating a garden maze, local men sat at the bar talking to one another, occasionally roaring with laughter and a few couples sat forlornly on large leather sofas reading newspapers.

Outside, the frost on car windows glistened, stubbornly refused to melt. The trees were spindly shadows of their green and lush selves and the winter wind pierced the air aggressively, sending a painful shiver down the spines of any intrepid country ramblers. It was November and the village was deserted, no one would be outside in weather like this.

Cars moved slowly through the one road that cut through the village, occasionally an overly ambitious driver would skid and brake suddenly. It hadn't snowed for over a week but the cotton like remains of the blizzard clung to every surface.

The village was small, no more than thirty or so homes stood next to the main road with the pub somewhere in the middle. There was no longer a village shop to speak of, the residents no longer needed one with a supermarket only a short drive away and the village hall had been converted into stylish homes a long time ago.

Gone were the days of a village where everyone knew each others names, this was twenty first century Britain; people were too self conscious and uneasy to actually speak to one another.

Instead, the village was populated exclusively with commuters, couples and families who relied on the nearby station to take them into central London first thing in the morning, and bring them back again in the early evening.

A few of the residents had struck up conversations with each other over fences and car roofs to discuss good weather, bad weather, wet weather and odd weather, but there were few real friendships.

The pub had a crackling fire which sent smoke billowing up through the chimney, acting as a beacon for anyone foolish enough to be outside. Stephen sat alone on a small table set up for two, he stared into his pint, enjoying the oaky finish that comes from a locally brewed ale.

The recollection of what he'd just done was running through his mind, ploughing through his senses like a steam train. He recalled what had just occurred from start to finish.

He and his wife had been married for 23 years, he was 50 and his wife, Clare, was 49.

Excluding the last year, they had been quite happy together. They had silently and quite contently reached that point life where marriage was not so much a loving union of a couple passionately enamoured with each other, but a convenience. A shirt ironing, supper cooking, shelf repairing, bill paying, dinner party attending, convenience.

However, the last twelve months had become a definite inconvenience.

It had been this way ever since Stephen had kissed a women half his age at party at the rugby club, when Clare had been on a weekend with her 'girls'. He had been drinking with his friends, all a similar age, and was spurred on when a young blonde girl came over to him and dragged him to the dance floor.

She was a very attractive young thing, looking like the sort of girl who would win one of those ghastly reality talent shows that he disliked so much. He must have had at least five pints of lager and half a bottle of wine to himself and his mood was one of childish recklessness.

As the girl pull on his arm and led him to he dance floor, he felt like he was back at university, enjoying night after night of unbridled freedom. As the girl grabbed both of his arms and put them on her waist, his senses sharpened slightly and he felt her small, slender waist.

She leaned in to shout something into his ear over the booming music, misreading this, Stephen had kissed the girl on the lips. She didn't resist at first, but as he went for another go he felt her arms stiffen and push him back.

“You're old enough to be my dad mate, I was only going to dance with you for a laugh” she said, with a smile full of pity.

“Right, no of course, sorry, I don't know what came over me” Stephen said, the childish recklessness having completely left him now. The girl walked away, back to her group of friends who all erupted with giggling laughter as she returned.

He felt his face get hot and became acutely aware that there was no one else on the dance floor. He looked over and saw his friends watching him, all of them with a look of both shock and glee on their faces. What an idiot, they thought, and he silently agreed.

For a reason he can no longer fathom, told his wife about as soon as she returned. The result was four nights of sleeping on the sofa and many pointed silences, icy glares and furious arguments.

Even when Stephen was permitted to return to the marital bed, the atmosphere in the house was still poisonous. The last twelve months had been littered with slamming doors, one word responses and snipping remarks at local gatherings and parties.

Clare had, perhaps understandably thought Stephen, been mortified by the whole incident. Many of her friends had husbands at the rugby club that night, many of them were part of Stephen's group and had seen the whole thing at close range. They had, of course, told their own wives as soon as they next saw them, spreading the story faster than any 24 hour news channel.

As he took another sip from the pint and savoured it's reassuring warmth, his mind wandered onto one of the worst of the moments in the past twelve months. Two weeks after the 'indiscretion' (the word that Clare used), he had bought a new suit from Savile Row.

It was a beautiful suit, like no other suit he had ever owned. He wasn't a man of ostentatious taste or one who often cared about sartorial standards, but he knew this was a good suit. Dark blue, with an ivory lining and a cut that made him look well built and important.

He'd bought the suit as a gift to himself, a 'well done' to the fact his boss had given him a remarkably complimentary appraisal and said he was the run away favourite for the promotion he had wanted for almost a year. He deserved this suit, he had earned this suit and he would buy this suit.

He had bought the suit home and hanged it on the door of the wardrobe, allowing it to 'settle', as the well spoken man in the shop had suggested. He then went to the pub to have a pint with Roger, a friend he commuted with who lived three doors down. Theirs was perhaps the only friendship in the entire village, forged through the daily commute.

Upon returning home he went upstairs to admire his new purchase once again. As he opened the bedroom door his eyes moved from the door handle to the wardrobe, in doing so he saw strips of blue fabric lying on the floor.

Only the shoulders of the suit remained on the hanger, the rest lied in shreds across the floor and bed. He knew exactly what had happened, and could take a good guess at why.

He stormed down the stairs as if he'd been thrown feet first down them, bolting into the kitchen.

"What the hell have you done?!" he screamed, as Clare stirred soup in a pan on the AGA.

"I beg your pardon?" replied Clare, keeping her eyes on the pale red liquid that swirled calmly.

"Do you have any idea how much that fucking suit cost? Do you?!" shouted Stephen, finding himself trembling a little.

"I imagine you paid an arm and a leg" replied Clare, without looking up.

"A thousand pounds, a grand, you mad bitch. Why the hell did you cut it up?!!" he bellowed with a face now as red as the soup bubbling on the stove.

"Because, dearest” she said, slowly “that suit resembled something, it symbolised something." She was still stirring.

"What in God's name are you talking about?" he said, the volume in his voice lowering down to one of sheer confusion.

"It symbolised a mating call, you bought it to make yourself look younger, fitter, more attractive to the next slut who decides to pity you." she replied, this time glancing at him momentarily before focusing her attention back on the soup.

Stephen sputtered with indignation, grabbing his hair with both hands and shaking his head. "You're insane Clare, insane. I hope you realise you're paying for that suit, every last penny. A grand Clare, a fucking grand."

He muttered something under his breath before leaving the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

Weeks of almost uninterrupted icy silence then passed, the only times they actually spoke to one another was to in order to accomplish some trivial task, "Pass the remote, please", "May I have the pepper?", "I will drive tonight", that sort of thing.

They didn't have a large house; it was a three bedroom cottage, the sort of house that attractive young couples dream of moving into, and post-middle age couples slowly begin to resent. Their two children, Jonathan and Ellie were both at university, something for which their parents were now very grateful - they didn't have to endure this.

Despite the modest size of their home, the absence of children and the passive aggressive state of their marriage made it feel huge. Clare and Stephen had quickly adopted a 'one in, one out' rule when it came to rooms in the house. When Stephen entered the lounge, Clare would make an excuse to leave. When she decided to go to the kitchen, he'd soon vacate it.

Stephen had reasoned that perhaps this is what happened to all marriages, at some point, perhaps they were like any other couple their age. He started to look at every other couple of similar years when he was out and about, wondering to himself whether they had stopped talking to one another too, whether they also couldn't bare to be in the same room as each other. Then, inevitably, whichever couple he was staring at would then kiss each other, laugh heartily or hold hands, shattering any illusion that they were enduring marital strife.

He had considered talking to Roger about everything; they were the same age, both married with children who had since fled the family home and the pair of them got on well. Roger was better looking than Stephen; he looked after himself, went to the gym, ate healthily and had a tan that said he was serious about his holidays.

Originally this had quietly annoyed Stephen, but he had soon stopped bothering to care about it, he was a nice enough guy who made the hour or so to London much more bareable. The pair of them took the same early morning train into central London everyday and had quickly bonded over the shared hell that is modern day commuting.

After a few weeks of awkward and polite conversation they soon struck up a routine, even forgoing the train waiting at the platform if the other was was running late. Stephen wasn't sure what exactly it was that Roger did, commuting wasn't a time for talking about work, all he knew is that Roger undoubtedly earned more.

It was Roger who suggested the tailor on Savile Row, from where he bought all his suits and proclaimed he "wouldn't dream of going anywhere else". In recent weeks Stephen had occasionally had to travel alone, as Roger had opted to 'work from home'. Stephen was always rather jealous of the idea of 'working from home'; how much work did anyone actually do when they were on their own sofa?

Roger's wife, Beverley, travelled for her job and she was only home at weekends. Stephen had met her a few times, when the two men had gone to the pub on a Friday evening and Beverley had decided to join. She was nice enough, Stephen had thought; blonde, tall and clearly 'enhanced' to make her look younger that she was. Stephen didn't know what it was she did for a living, Roger rarely talked about her, but she intimidated Stephen whenever they met, like she could wrestle him right away and win easily.

Clare had occasionally joined the three of the them in the pub, she got on well with both Roger and Beverley, but the conversation never set the world alight; it was always more comfortable when it was just the two men, Stephen thought. The two men had soon developed a habit whereby, after alighting from the train home, one would turn to the other and ask “Pub?”, the other would almost always reply with a simple “Pub”.

Despite their decent friendship, Stephen had never told Roger about the issues with Clare. He had agonised over whether to confide in his traveling companion and tell him all about the fact that he was now married to a woman he never spoke to.

However, Stephen mused, this could well put a dampener on the morning commute and he didn't want to admit that as well as being less chiseled, tanned and wealthy as Roger, his marriage had broken down as well.

As he took another sip of the locally brewed ale, his thoughts shifted from past to present. It must have taken a year, he thought to himself, for the marriage to completely break down, and today's events where the dramatic conclusion.

He looked around the pub which had got busier since he first sat down. His eyes fell upon the table that he had sat at with Roger, Beverley and Clare before all of this had begun, when times were happier. He sighed slightly as he envied how happy he must have been then. He didn't remember feeling happy, content, yes, but not happy. But he must have been though, he thought, he had a wife that spoke to him, enjoyed his company and showed at least a degree of affection.

Behind him a barmaid dropped a glass and the sound jolted him out of his nostalgia. He looked down at the half empty drink in front of him and reflected on the last hour. An hour that had changed his life forever.

The day had begun like any other, which is surely how the most disastrous days begin.

It was a Friday and Stephen had allowed himself an extra twenty minutes in bed before getting up. He showered quickly, threw a suit on, combed his hair lazily and adjusted his tie in the bathroom mirror.
As he moved to leave the bedroom, he glanced back over at Clare's motionless body, still curled up under the covers. He had no idea what time she had gone to bed last night, he'd gone up first whilst she was watching some terrible reality television programme and she must have joined at some point after.

They tended not to go to bed at the same time anymore as the process of getting undressed and brushing hair and teeth invited conversation, small talk at the least. They didn't do small talk anymore.

Stephen left the bedroom, walked downstairs, through the house and outside to his car, still thinking about Clare and the constant silence. On auto-pilot, he got into the car, a Volvo, and short distance to the station.

He parked in the same spot he'd used for years and got out of the car and walked towards the platform for trains bound for the capital. As he stood on the icy tarmac, the freezing wind billowed towards him, ripping at his face and chest.

He looked around, there were the traditional faces, people he must have seen thousands of times. They all looked miserable, as if mirroring the greyness of the cloudy sky above.

Stephen felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, he reached for it and, turning his back towards the cold wind he glanced down at the glowing screen, it was a text message from Roger.

'Sorry old chap, working from home today, not going to Ldn in this weather!'.

“Lucky bastard”, Stephen muttered, knowing that Roger was probably still under a duvet with a laptop in front of him and a cup of tea in hand, apparantly 'working from home'.

Stephen sighed, his breath swirling out in front of him, hanging in the cold air. He glanced up at the noticeboard, the train wasn't due for another five minutes. He looked around towards the small station kiosk, he needed something hot.

He walked towards the kiosk and smiled at the woman who had served him countless times, he didn't know her name and in this weather, didn't really care. Seeing him walk towards her, the woman instinctively moved towards the coffee machine and started on his cappuccino. With one had she blasted a jug of milk with hot air until it frothed playfully, with the other she grabbed a copy of the Daily Telegraph and placed it on the small counter.

Stephen nodded gratefully and reached inside his coat for his wallet. He felt his heart perform a somersault, the pocket was empty. He patted the other pockets and reached inside every one, it wasn't there. He felt his trouser pockets, feeling his phone in the right and nothing in the left. “Bollocks” he said loudly, causing a couple of the frozen commuters to turn around.

“Sorry, I must have left my wallet in the car, I'll be two minutes” he said, the woman nodded kindly.

He walked quickly down the platform stairs, through the underpass and back up the other side, towards the car park, all the while searching pockets that he knew were empty. He left the station with his eyes set on his car, still walking briskly he almost slipped on the icy ground a couple of times, cursing loudly.

Once he reached the car he unlocked the driver door and pushed himself inside. He scrabbled about desperately, the train was only minutes away and his coffee was getting colder by the second. He pushed aside empty bottles of various soft drinks, foil wrappers and old newspapers. He couldn't find the wallet on the seat or the floor and after spending at least five minutes searching parts of the car he secretly knew would never be hiding his wallet, he sat on the seat and sighed, defeated. He then swore again loudly, knowing that he must of left the wallet at tome. He angrily hit the steering wheel.

Stephen sighed and put the keys in the ignition, closed the car door angrily and reversed out of the parking space. He drove quickly back towards the house, occasionally skidding on the frozen road and attracting glares from pedestrians as cold as the weather outside.

As he approached the house, still fuming, he saw a car parked outside that he didn't immediately recognise, and that certainly wasn't there when he left. His anger soon turned to intrigue as he slowly parked the car on the road.

He got out of the car and walked up the drive, as he past the car he realised who owned it. He had seen the grey Audi outside Roger's house before and has always admired the red leather interior.

Stephen didn't understand why Roger had parked his car in his drive. He walked towards the front door and let himself in. As he closed the oak door behind him he heard noises coming from upstairs, the kind of noises that told him immediately what was going on.

As he walked upstairs the groaning got louder, occasionally a scream of ecstasy would pepper the sound of heavy breathing.

The bedroom door was ajar, he looked at it intently, knowing that when he entered this room, his life would change forever. He touched the handle and slowly pushed the door open.

What he saw was a knotted mess of limbs, hands and feet sprawled out with the duvet thrown onto the floor. It took a few seconds for Clare to look over at Stephen and when she did she screamed loudly, grabbing a pillow to cover her naked chest.

The sudden movement caused Roger to move back quickly, following Clare's gaze he shouted “Jesus Christ!” and reached for the duvet, covering himself.

“Jesus, Stephen, how long have you been standing there?!” Clare shouted, breathless.

“That's what you're worried about?” He replied, cooly, “how long have I been watching?”

“Oh don't act like this isn't a surprise, for God's sake” Clare spluttered, indignantly, “You played around first, this was just inevitable”.

She moved a hand towards her hair, trying to regain some composure. Roger was still kneeling on the bed, covered in the duvet and staring in shock at Stephen.

Stephen didn't take his eyes of Clare, he stood, breathing slowly, calmly.

“Well?!” said Clare, after a few seconds of silence, interrupted only by Roger's heavy breathing. “Aren't you going to say something?!”

Stephen took a deep, slow breath. “No darling” he replied.

Clare stared at him confused, darting a look at Roger and then back at Stephen.

It happened in a matter of seconds. Stephen grabbed the heavy bedside lamp as quickly as he could, pulled it away from the table and out of the plug socket and threw it at Clare's head. His aim was remarkable. The heavy china base hit her forehead, sending a burgundy spray up against the wall. Her lifeless body fell back slightly and her eyes shifted upwards towards the ceiling. Blood still sprayed pathetically from her brow and started to trickle down her sweaty face, running towards her naked breasts.

Roger froze, he looked with disbelief at the corpse that now lay in front of him. He then shot his gaze back towards Stephen, mouth open. Before Roger could get of the bed and stand up, Stephen grabbed an ash tray which had laid next to the lamp. He threw it with all the strength he could muster at Roger's head. The emerald green glass smacked Roger on the side of the face and the impact caused him to fall off the bed and crash into the wardrobe. His naked body slid lifelessly against the wooden doors before it crumpled on the floor.

Stephen breathed heavily now, looking at the two naked dead bodies which lay before him. Clare had undoubtedly been the messiest, he thought calmly. Her dark red blood had streamed up against the wall and was creating a puddle on the Egyptian cotton bed spread.

Her muscles twitched as her last remainder of life left her body.

Stephen looked at Roger, the man who, until very recently, was perhaps the only person he considered a friend. He moved a few steps towards Roger's body and inspected his face, a face that, at one time, he had admired a great deal. A single stream of blood meandered it's way down Roger's head and towards his chest.

Stephen took another deep breath and turned back towards the bedroom door, collecting his wallet from where he left it, on the bedside table.

He closed the bedroom door slowly and made his way back downstairs and outside, the freezing air briefly taking him by surprise and waking him a little from his current state of robotic thought.

He looked at the grey Audi parked on his drive and stood for a little, the icy wind doing its best to send chills down his spine. In this moment, he was acutely aware of how calm he was. He knew exactly what he had just done, murdered two people, including his wife, and he was strangely fine with that. He wondered whether he should feel like this, whether he should be plunge into an emotional feeling of regret and remorse; but he just couldn't feel it.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked past the Audi towards his own, older, cheaper car.

As he sat in the car he made an important decision: he would go to the pub. He turned the key in the ignition and drove the hundred metres or so towards the village pub. He parked carefully, got out and walked inside. He went towards the bar and was met by a slightly quizzical look from the barmaid, he glance towards the clock on the wall, it was only half past nine.

“A pint of Wandle please” he said, reaching inside his coat pocket.

“Of course love, having an easy day are we?” she said politely, smiling to him as she grabbed the handle and started to pour.

“Yes, I didn't fancy going to work today” he replied calmly.

“Don't blame you darling, not in weather like this, someone'll catch their death out there”.

Stephen smiled at the cliché and thought of the two bodies that lay motionless in his bedroom. He took at sip of the pint and, with his wallet now in hand, gave her the money.

He turned and looked at the empty pub, spotting a table for two near the fireplace. He moved towards it and sat down, sighing gratefully as he did so.

An hour or so passed in which he recounted the whole pedestrian story to himself, his mind focusing on the moments that led to today, that made it all inevitable.
Of course, he had never known that Roger and Clare were having an affair, but despite the knowledge only being so new, it didn't surprise him.

He remembered all the text messages he'd received over the past month from Roger, telling Stephen that the he was working from home, 'there really is no such thing', he mused.

Oddly, he thought, he had more regret at Roger's death than Clare's. She was a stranger now and had been for months; they hadn't shared a meaningful moment for as long as Stephen could remember and so her death barely stirred an emotion.

It was a little more sad, Stephen thought, that Roger was now dead. The guy wasn't bad and apart from having an affair with this wife, was a likeable man.

Stephen wondered how long the affair had been going on and what they talked about when they were together. His thoughts turned to Roger and he slowly started to feel more and more angry. The man had been a companion, someone who he spoke to more than any one else and although their friendship was a polite one, it was a friendship all the same.

He sat back on the chair and looked at the empty glass in front of him. The pub was busier now with people who had clearly not bothered to go to work because of the weather.

Despite the hubbub of loud conversation and laughter, Stephen's mind was quite clear.

He stood up, put his coat back on and walked in between the other tables towards the door. Shielding his face from the bitter wind with the collar of this coat he moved briskly towards the car. He had some important errands to run now, he thought.

He drove the hundred or so metres back towards the house, spotting the grey Audi still in the drive, he parked the car and walked back inside. He threw his coat onto a chair in the hall and walked back upstairs. He walked into the bathroom, the door of which was opposite the bedroom.

He grabbed some towels from the rail, they were freshly clean, Clare had always been very particular about the cleanliness of her towels. He turned towards the sink and reached for a box that lay underneath, removing the lid he pulled out cleaning products, bleach, stain remover and some cloths.

With the towels in one hand and everything else in the other, he left the bathroom and walked the short distance across the hall towards the bedroom. He put the towels on the floor so that he could turn the handle and open the door. As the door swung open and he knelt down to collect the towels he looked up into the room. He slowly stood back up, staring blankly, his mouth open slightly.

There was only one body in his bedroom.

Stephen panicked, he ran towards the bed. Clare was still lying there, or rather her body was, lying in a pool of her own crimson blood, her eyes still staring uselessly up at he ceiling.

Roger's body had disappeared. Stephen moved towards the wardrobe and searched hopelessly. He found himself looking under the bed, as if Roger's corpse had somehow crawled across the carpet. Stephen sat on the bed, his dead wife behind him. What on earth was he going to do now? Had he really killed Roger, or had he made that bit up in his own warped mind? Surely the trauma of murdering one's own wife could have made him create it in his head? No, he reasoned, he had murdered Roger only an hour ago, and now his body had gone.

Stephen sat there, his head now in his hands. For the first time that day, he felt scared. Clare's death somehow left him emotionless, he simply couldn't generate any real feelings of sorrow inside of him, despite trying. But now he was presented with something different, something that was out of his control.

Scenarios and consequences raced through his mind. What if Roger had gone to the police? What if they're on there way right now and he's not only at the scene of the crime but sitting next to the corpse, thats going to look rather incriminating, he assumed.

Then, as he remained on the bed, breathing heavily, a sound came from downstairs. He recognised it instantly: someone was scraping a chair against the varnished floor of his kitchen. He had once shouted at his children for doing it on a weekly basis, and now someone else was doing it.

He got up, moved towards the bedroom door and practically threw himself down the stairs and through the door into the kitchen.

Roger, his faced bloodied, was sat at the kitchen table. He had put his trousers and shirt back on, but the latter was crumpled and half open, spattered with scarlet drops. He looked up as Stephen entered and then, realising who it was, attempted to stand up, obviously fearing another attack.

“Jesus”, Stephen muttered, “are you OK?”

There was a pause, and then Roger nodded slowly. “Think so”, he said, quietly.

“I...I'm sorry” Stephen said, knowing that an apology was probably a little useless, given the circumstances. “How are you, er, down here?” he asked, tentatively.

Roger sat back down, he looked exhausted, Stephen thought, as if the journey from the bedroom had been a hundred mile walk.

“You just knocked me out” Roger said, looking down, “I'm OK, I think”.

“Right, I see” replied Stephen.

There was then perhaps a minute of silence, Roger stared at the kitchen table, slouching on the chair, occasionally coughing.

Stephen just stood there, staring at his second victim, not knowing what on Earth to do now. What does one do in this circumstance? Offer him a cup of tea?

Just as Stephen was reasoning as to what the polite thing to do might be, Roger spoke.

“Wehavetomoveher” he garbled; clearly each word was an effort.

“Sorry? What did you say?” said Stephen, he bent down a little to reach Roger's eye level, as if he was talking to a small child.

Roger took a deep breath, preparing himself for the sentence. “We have to move her”, he said.

Stephen stood for a moment, trying to compute what he'd just heard. “Where?” he asked.

Roger cleared his throat, obviously trying to regain some sort of composure. “It doesn't matter Stephen, but we can't just leave her upstairs” he said, cooly.

“Er, no, right” Stephen said, not really understanding what was going on. How was it that Roger was seeing this situation with more logic than he was, and the guy had just had an ashtray to the face?

“Look” said Roger, “you don't want people to know what you did, do you?”

Stephen thought for a moment, “Well no, of course not” he replied.

“Right, and I don't want people to find out either, because they'll soon found out why you did it” Roger said, now staring at Stephen.

“I see” replied Stephen.

“If Beverley finds out about me and Clare, that's it, marriage over” said Roger, his gazed still fixed on Stephen.

Stephen was surprised that when Roger said “me and Clare”, it stirred absolutely no emotion inside of him. A few years ago he imagined that he would feel jealous at the sound of another man referring to his wife like that, but not now.

“OK” said Stephen, trying to avoid saying “I see” once again. “So you won't tell anyone what-”

“What you did?” interrupted Roger, “No, it would ruin me” he said.

Stephen tried to take this in; Roger wouldn't tell anyone about the fact he was nearly murdered, because of what it might do to his marriage. How typically English, Stephen thought.

He took a deep breath, “Right, so what should we do?” he asked.

“What was she meant to be doing today?” Roger asked.

“Erm, I have no idea, she'd never tell me things like that” Stephen said.

Roger sighed, obviously a little irritated that he was having to take charge. “Well check her diary then, see if she was meant to be anywhere today, or see anyone”.

Stephen moved towards the kitchen table and lifted up a small mound of paperwork; envelopes and bills fell to the floor as he searched “It's here, I've seen it” he said quickly.

After a few seconds of scrambling, he found the small black Smython's diary. He turned to the right Friday and read:

“She's meant to be meeting her friend Sarah for lunch, in Guildford” he said, his eyes darting back to Roger.

“What time?” said Roger.

“12:00 - thats an hour away!”, he said, panic in his voice. Guildford was about 40 minutes away in the car, Sarah lived even further away and had probably left already. “Shit” Stephen shouted, throwing the diary back on the table.

“No, that's perfect”. Roger said, calmly.

As they left the house, they both carried the large suitcase towards Stephen's Volvo. They heaved it into the boot, looking around for any passers by, there was no one.

Stephen got into the Volvo and shut his door, he sat and stared into space. Roger sat in the passenger seat and looked at Stephen, “Well” he said, “let's do this”.

The Volvo's crumpled bonnet hugged the oak tree, steam rising into the cold winter air. Glass was scattered everywhere, like glitter on the snow covered ground.

The two men stood on the other side of the road, staring. The lifeless body in the drivers seat was draped over the steering wheel, the white fabric of a no deflated airbag visible from where the two men stood.

The man dressed in a suit turned to the other, “Pub?” he asked cautiously.

“Pub” said the other.