Iona McGeachie

‘Long sleeves, Ellie? On a lovely sunny day like today?’

My new landlady. She’s opened the bathroom window, is beaming down at me, vivid yellow rubber gloves on her hands. My heart sinks. Knowing she was upstairs, I’d slipped out the back door, hoping to avoid her.

‘Sensitive skin, I’m afraid.’ I step back several paces across the grass away from the house and look up at the chimney. And there they are. Two seagulls. Adults, sitting on their nest. And two, no, three chicks.

‘Hope they didn’t keep you awake last night,’ my landlady says.

Hah! The wretched birds started at three or four in the morning, calling to each other or to their chicks, the sound echoing down the chimney to my room. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to them,’ I say.

‘You are very pale, I must say, my dear. You stay out of the sun as much as you can, I suppose.’

‘I’ve, uh, been in hospital.’ I know at once it’s the wrong thing to say.

‘Oh?’ Her watery old-woman’s eyes are bright with curiosity.

‘The big C, you know.’ My tone is let’s-end-this-conversation dismissive. ‘I prefer not to talk about it.’

‘Of course, dear.’ A pause, then: ‘One of the local hospitals, was it? Here on the south coast?’

‘Er, no, actually. It was up north. A small private clinic. You won’t have heard of it.’

‘Up north, you say.’ She barks a laugh. ‘I knew I could detect a bit of an accent.’

I bring a bright smile to my face. ‘Well, if I’m going to go into town, get a few bits of shopping done, I’d better make a move, hadn’t I?’

My thoughts are troubled as I pick up my backpack and set off towards the centre of town. The fingers of my right hand push under the sleeve of my tee-shirt, rubbing at the scabs on my left wrist. The room I’m renting, with its single bed, microwave oven and mini fridge, is cheap, the only place I can afford, in fact. Even so, I can’t help wondering if I’ve just made a monumental mistake.

There’s a children’s playground on the way into the town centre. I stop a moment in the entrance, the sun warm on my face, and watch the kiddies playing. Eight of them, racing from the swings to the slide, from the climbing frame to the roundabout, all under five. The older children must still be in school. They can’t have broken up for the summer yet.

The mums are standing chatting in twos and threes, all except one who’s sitting by herself on a bench. I go and sit on the bench too, take out my phone and see if I have any messages. I don’t, of course. No surprise there.

A little girl comes running up to the mum beside me. ‘I went down the slide on my tummy, mummy,’ she says.

The mum laughs fondly. ‘I know. I saw you.’

‘What beautiful eyes your daughter’s got,’ I say. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Oh, er, thank you.’ The mum gives me a shy smile. ‘Her name’s Megan. Say hello, Megan.’

‘Hello.’

I smile back. ‘How old is she?’

‘Oh, um –’

‘Three and a half. Almost four. My birthday’s on the tenth of November,’ the child says, clearly proud of her knowledge.

‘Wow! What a coincidence. Mine’s on exactly the same day.’ I’m lying of course. ‘Though I’ll be much older than four next birthday.’ I turn with a rueful laugh to the mum. ‘More like thirty-four, worse luck. I’m Ellie by the way.’

‘Sarah.’

The next day I’m drawn again to the playground. Megan and her mum are there.

‘Do you come here every morning?’ I ask Sarah, sitting down on the bench next to her. Her daughter is making her slow way up the climbing frame, her expression one of total concentration. Seagulls glide overhead. Two crows peck at something they’ve found in the grass.

‘Oh, um –’ Then she nods. ‘Not if it’s raining, though. Megan never tires of it. What about you – um –?’

‘I –’ My voice catches. ‘I don’t have any children.’

I go up to the cemetery that afternoon. It’s on the Downs, high above the town, and I’m breathless when I reach it. As I close the wrought iron gate behind me, I look around. I’m all alone. Good.

It takes a while to find the grave. Someone’s put a teddy bear and a small football on it. Little friends of his, I suppose, but I’m annoyed. He was too old for teddy bears and didn’t like football. I replace the dead flowers with some I take from a grave several rows further away. Finally, I sit cross-legged on the grass and read the words on the gravestone:

THOMAS BROADMAIN

12 March 2018 – 5 August 2022

Cruelly taken from us

Tommy. That’s what I called him. Not Thomas. My eyes fill with tears and, without thinking, I pick at the scabs on my wrist.

The squawk of metal on metal from the entrance gate rouses me. An elderly couple is coming into the cemetery. I stand up, brushing grass cuttings from my jeans.

Below me are the roofs of houses and the green of gardens and parks. Further away, the deep blue sea sparkles in the sunlight. Between the two I follow the curve of the coastline, with Brighton and the Seven Sisters hazy in the distance. But, even if I stand on tiptoe, I can’t see Lewes where the prison is. I’ve emailed to tell them I’m back on the south coast. As soon as they send me the visitor order, I’ll book a visit.

‘That accent of yours –’ It’s a couple of days later and my landlady’s sounding pleased with herself. She’s waylaid me as I’m coming down the stairs. ‘That crime series on telly’s started up again. Shetland. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?’

I give her a pale smile. The seagulls nesting on the chimney woke me in the early hours. I won’t be staying here much longer, I think, but I don’t tell her that.

I get a part-time job in the local supermarket. Afternoons and evenings. That way, I can spend the mornings in the park with Megan and her mum.

We’re great friends now. I bring healthy no-added-sugar snacks to the playground, ostensibly for the two of them but really for Megan. I give her a fun Alice band, orange plastic with flashing bug-eyes on top. I’ve bought other presents for her – my favourite’s a soft, cuddly pink hippo – but I keep them in the cupboard in my room. I won’t give them to her yet. Not just yet.

‘Are you married?’ Megan asks me one day. It rained overnight, and the air is fresh and tangy with the salt from the sea.

I shake my head and make my lower lip wobble sadly in a way that always makes her laugh. ‘I’ve never met the right man.’ Not true of course. ‘What about your daddy? Is he nice?’

She shrugs, and I look at Sarah.

‘He cleared off as soon as he knew I was pregnant.’

‘Oh. That must have been so hard for you.’ My voice is full of sympathy. Inside, though, I’m dancing: I’ve definitely made the right choice. ‘If you ever want any babysitting – I’m free most evenings.’ The supermarket won’t care if I take time off. ‘During the day. Whenever,’ I add.

The Wednesday I’ve booked for my prison visit arrives. I catch the train, then walk from the station. It’s raining, a persistent, blustery drizzle that darkens the prison’s high flint walls.

Inside, I hand over paperwork and get a pat-down search. I know I’ve got nothing to fear. Even so, I puff out a long breath when the dog checking for drugs walks straight past me and the metal detector doesn’t ping. Along with the others – there are about a dozen of us – I’m led along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to the visits hall.

And there he is. He’s sitting at a table but gets to his feet when he sees me come in. And I quicken my pace, my heart is singing, I’m almost running. He wraps me in his arms and his mouth comes down on mine in a hard, demanding kiss. I feel the hunger grow in me. I want to curl myself around him.

‘All right, Johnson,’ one of the prison officers says. ‘Save some for tea.’

We sit down, just look at each other for a moment. My breathing is fast and shallow, the skin of my face is warm. Flushed with desire, I think. It’s been two years. And I still love him.

No. That’s not right. It’s not love. I’m in thrall to him. I know he’s not good for me, but I can’t help myself. My hand goes to the scabs on my wrist. Is it worth the risk? The answer’s simple: yes. I’d risk anything for him.

‘I’ll be out soon,’ he says. ‘We’ll be free to do all the things we used to.’

I’m rubbing at one of the scabs with the side of my thumb. My mind goes back to those newspaper headlines from 2023:

Tommy – we won’t give up, say police

Link to other kiddie murders?

Killer has woman accomplice, say police

I’ve pulled a scab off, I realise. A long, thin one. My blood wells, liquid warmth. It hurts, and I savour the moment. It proves I do still feel pain.

But I close my hand round my wrist, stemming the flow of blood. I don’t want another spell in the psychiatric unit.

The police never caught him for the murder of Tommy Broadmain. Or for any of the others. He’s in prison here for drunk driving.

‘Made any nice little friends?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Her name’s Megan.’

The first time I killed somebody, it was an accident; I’m not planning on being so careless the second time. It happened when I was younger, less experienced in life and seeking the answers to all my problems at the bottom of a bottle of American bourbon. I think I’ve matured, since those days, like the single malt I now prefer in moderation, drunk from a proper whisky glass. Though the anger in me still bubbles under the surface, making me plan the ultimate solution to an unspeakable injustice.

You’ll want to know about the first death though, I’m sure. It happened twenty years ago in a pub I used to frequent in Drymen. The pub is still there today, it’s one of the oldest pubs in Scotland, so it won’t be closing down anytime soon. I was there with some friends having our usual Friday night session, when a man appeared, intent in ruining everyone’s evening. Not content with just being loud and obnoxious, he began to get verbally abusive and offensive. When his behaviour became physical and directed at a group of young ladies, I had to step in.

Fortunately for what was to come, he threw the first punch. I’ve always been able to handle myself, so was able to deflect the attack with little trouble. My single punch landed too well, causing him to immediately fall to the floor, his head hitting off a stone wall next to the fireplace. It was the fall, rather than the punch, that killed him. Although I was taken in for questioning, the sheer volume of witnesses who described the events meant that the police were satisfied that I had acted in self-defence and no charges were brought against me.

You may wonder why, two decades on, I want to kill again. I guess there is still a little bit of my younger self boiling within me, that won’t stand for the despicable actions of certain men. I now live in Stirling, have a good job and live a comfortable lifestyle. I am, however, willing to risk this all for the sake of one woman, who we will call Jane to protect her innocence.

There’s a little independent café in Stirling where I go most mornings for coffee to take away or, if the notion takes me and I have the time, a sit-in breakfast. Jane works there and has been serving me for the last three or four years. She doesn’t know anything about me, I’ve been careful not to share my personal information, but I have learned a lot about her. Not in the way that should alarm you, she is twenty years my senior and I prefer relationships with people of my own sex. It was the poorly disguised injuries that made me want to find out more about her.

Jane lives on the outskirts of Stirling centre, in one of the rougher areas of the city. Her life is a car crash of unfortunate circumstance, financial worries, health concerns and an abusive, alcoholic husband. It is the latter that is impacting everything else that is wrong in her world and it is this that I must deal with. I could, of course, just mind my own business, let nature take its course, but I’m not one for sitting back and watching someone suffer. I may not know her well, but I have learned enough about Jane to know that she needs my help, even if she does not realise this herself.

I’d make a good detective, not like one that you see on TV or read in crime novels. I would be more covert, more George Smiley than John Rebus. It’s my personality that is now my greatest strength, when once it was my biggest weakness. People trust me, are willing to share their darkest secrets with me. I guess I must have a trusting face.

I’ve chosen the perfect time to kill, but then again, I would; I’m a meticulous planner in life. Jane is in the middle of a long shift at the café and won’t be home for at least another four hours. It’s the day of the Old Firm football match, Celtic against Rangers, and he would never miss it. I know that he will be sitting watching it on an oversized television screen, four or five pints in by the time the lunchtime match kicks off. This is also part of my preparation.

The house is even more bleak in the daylight, the last time I was here was in the dead of night. I needed the cover of darkness to break the lock to the back door. I knew the drunken slob would do nothing about it. With the exception of his TV, there is nothing worth stealing in the house anyway. I have dressed for my surroundings, an old-style tracksuit that I picked up in a charity shop, and a baseball hat of some team I have never heard of. There are few people to pass on the street, many of the residents will be equally interested in the big match, so I manage to enter the rear garden undetected. As expected, the door lock is still broken and silently I creep into the kitchen of the house.

I imagine that Jane was once house proud, the kitchen shows signs of a former glory, but the wallpaper is now stained and torn in places and the less said about the flooring, the better. It’s just another reason to justify the action I am about to take. I take the guitar string out of my pocket, it’s the lower e string from a bass guitar, wrap each end tightly in my leather gloved hands, and slowly move out of the kitchen towards the sitting room.

He’s shouting obscenities at the TV screen and I can tell from his slurs that he is well gone. I count five empty cans of strong lager, crushed up and lying on the stained carpet. The TV is located in the opposite corner of the room, his aging leather seat facing it directly, allowing me to approach him from behind undetected. I take a deep breath and move my hands forward.

It takes much longer to strangle a man in real life. Crime dramas will show the victim’s struggle subsiding in a matter of seconds. It took multiple minutes before he stopped resisting. His hands clawed at fresh air, trying and failing to gain purchase on my arms. You see, once I had placed the string in position, I pulled my hands back and down over the back of his seat, crouching myself away from his flailing arms. Once the attack was over, I moved the bloodied guitar string into a plastic bag and returned it to the pocket of my tracksuit. I only had to glance briefly to know he was dead. A life wasted perhaps, but justice has now been served in the traditional sense.

A roar comes from some of the surrounding properties and a glance at the TV screen confirms a goal has been scored. I allow myself a smile, not because I support either of the teams, but because it had been scored against my victim’s team. My retreat from the property is as uneventful and successful as my entrance. I walk slowly, hands in pockets, head down, towards the city centre ensuring that I avoid as many CCTV cameras as I can.

When I reach the city centre limits, I retrieve a rucksack that I had left concealed so that I can change out of my current outfit. The rucksack and outfit will be destroyed by fire in due course, but will be kept in my gym locker for now. The adrenaline that I am feeling means that an hour’s workout is in order.

I have one final job to do; it is going to be a risk but I have to return to the scene of the crime. I need to know that what I have done was worth it, and I will only know that by facing Jane directly. It is a calculated risk, of course, and one that I am willing to take. My investigations have found a paid-up life insurance policy that will provide her with enough money to start a new life.

By the time I return to Jane’s house, night has fallen. The darkness is illuminated by flashing blue lights coming from a police car parked outside. Police cordon tape surrounds the property, but I know how to get passed it; I have to speak with Jane. I have a quick conversation with the uniformed officer, who nods his head and lifts the tape to allow me through. I could have walked in through the front door, but I find myself pausing at the threshold. I don’t trust the doorbell, with the rest of house in such a state of disrepair, so I leave it untouched and knock hard on the wooden door, flakes of peeling paint dislodging in my effort.

When Jane answers the door, she is as surprised to see me as I am to witness her transformation. She has scraped her grey hair up into a high bun, and her face has regained a touch of natural colouring. If I am to describe the woman in front of me, I would say she is elegant looking and at complete odds to her surroundings. She looks me up and down, recognising me but not who I am.

‘My name is Alex Anderson,’ I say, finally introducing myself to her. ‘I’m the crime scene manager responsible for processing your husband’s murder scene.’