Death Don’t Come Easy

I want to kill her Dan thought. It would be no good just divorcing her and thinking that would be that. She would not leave him alone. He’d left her before and she’d turn up when he was having a meal or a drink in the pub. The last time she’d thrown beer over his latest girl. It was so embarrassing he didn’t see her again. So he’d gone back to Carol. This time though he’d met a real stunner and didn’t want to lose her, so Carol had to go.

He was lucky that his boss was an old school friend and when he wanted to meet his latest he would cover for him.

“I need to be working late tonight,” Dan said. “I’ve got a room booked in Carlton Street.”

“OK mate,” Tony said. “Will it be a late night don’t wait up for me – working late type of night?”

They both smiled at each other and Dan winked and nodded in agreement. Behind his smile though he was wondering how he was going to kill Carol. Even though he had a mountain of paperwork to get through his mind kept straying.

“Dan – Dan.” Tony was standing at his office door.

“Er…yes,”

“We need that fruit moved from the warehouse today – so forget Carlton Street for a while and sort it out will you?”

“Yeah, sorry Tony. I’ll get it done now.”

It took Dan a couple of hours to sort out which shop was going to get which consignment of California grapes. It would’ve taken a lot less time if he hadn’t been busily stabbing Carol or poisoning her coffee. He even thought about hitting her with one of her bloody Chinese ornaments. In between invoices he was able to munch at some grapes provided free by Tony for the staff. Biting through a delicious red grape he contemplated strangling his nuisance of a wife. He could see his fingers gripping her throat, listen to her smothered cries. Watch as her face became red and puffy. Smile as her eyes disappeared into the top of their sockets and her last breath wheezed from her lips.

**

Carol checked her watch it was ten thirty. She threw her keys to the young man who’d appeared to park her car. She breezed into the foyer of the Hilton as if it was something she did all the time. The bar was off to the left and she headed straight there, that’s where the private detective said he’d meet her.

“Drink?” He asked as she joined him.

“Yes,” she said. “Gin with plenty of ice.”

He signalled the barman. She noticed a brown envelope beside his beer.

“Is that it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s all there, dates, times and photographs. She’s much younger than the last one, longer hair too.”

The enraged look in her eyes stopped him from saying anymore as she pulled the contents out. Instead he threw a crumpled note on the bar.

“I’ll send you a bill.”

She ignored him and took no notice as he shuffled away throwing a creased raincoat over his shoulder. She was too busy looking at a dark-haired twenty something with very long and slim tanned legs. Each picture pumped up her blood pressure another notch, until the one with the car, their car. Dan was gripping the wheel and the twenty something was leaning over him. She stared for a few seconds and then began ripping at the pictures. When they were all in bits she shoved them back into the brown envelope. The ice had begun to melt in her gin as she tossed the clear liquid into her mouth. She motioned to the barman holding her glass in the air.

**

Dan was daydreaming again at the thought of Carlton Street getting closer and closer. He closed his eyes and leant back in his chair at the same time groping for another succulent grape. He didn’t see the Red Widow spider as he put the red fruit in his mouth; he only felt the sting of the bite.

**

Carol had drunk one more gin and ice before getting a key from reception and going to a room on the tenth floor. She had stripped to her underwear and was admiring herself in a full-length mirror when the doorbell rang. She called through the door.

“Who is it?”

A friendly voice replied,

“It’s me.”

She opened the door to see Tony standing there he was offering a single red rose.

“He should’ve eaten it by now,” He said.