Murder in Mayville - Chapter One (Past Tense)

So my previous post of MURDER IN MAYVILLE CHAPTER ONE was mostly in present tense and sometimes switched to past and so I have changed it to past now. Is it better like this?

CHAPTER ONE ­
ANNIE
 
“Do you remember where you were on the night of August 30^th 2015?”
There was a slight pause, barely noticeable really, but definitely noticeable if you are a police officer. I scratched my cheek with my false nails and looked down at the table, cradling my mug of now tea which was inevitably cold by now. I felt him waiting for a response, time ticking, suspicion arising. I needed to answer and I needed to answer right now.
“Yes…I was at home, with my husband, watching telly.”
Detective Inspector Brown looked at me, his eyes looked tired but intelligent, like they’d take no lies or secrets. He took a sip of his tea, swallowing slowly and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Are you sure about that? Because I’ve been informed by someone else that you were outside in your garden for a large proportion of the evening.”
S**t. I froze in my chair. What the f**k was I meant to do now? I was screwed, I was had, I was done, I was royally and utterly fucked, I was going to prison, that was it!
No, I had to think of something. Twenty-four is far too young to be locked up, especially for something so minor.
Do you really think killing a man is minor? Are you insane?
Shut up, shut up. He asked for it, he deserved it, it was the right thing to do. You had to do it. You were protecting everyone from finding out what he really was.
You keep telling yourself that Annie.
“Yes, I am sure, and you can ask my husband when he gets in, he was here with me, he’ll remember! I’m not lying to you, honestly”
“Okay, I will do just that. I’ll catch you later. Thanks for your time Mrs Winters.”
“Call me Annie.” I tried to smile, to flick my hair and push my breasts together, to distract him. To distract him from the trail. He is a man after all and men have a habit of getting distracted by me. Only if I want them to, of course.
He spoke slowly, like I was a kid with special needs. “No, Mrs Winters will do just fine. Goodbye. I’ll show myself out”
Detective Inspector Brown stood up and tucked his chair in, walking to the front door with a slight swagger in his step, like he owned the place. He exited my house rather swiftly, waving a snotty goodbye as he walked up the gravel footpath. As soon as he was out of sight I slammed the door shut and flew up the stairs. Poking my head round their door I saw that the twins were asleep, snoring gently, and my heart fluttered at the sight of their little faces all calm as they dreamt about yet more sleeping they would do tomorrow. Their existence was so far from the life I had to leave behind, from the life I was going to find myself in if I didn’t sort this mess out. I crept quietly into the shower and washed myself quickly, not even bothering to condition my hair. I needed to get to bed before Alex came home. It would look suspicious if I was up so late considering the time I had to get up in the morning.
Groaning and cursing to myself I climbed into bed, my hair still wet from the shower and my skin not much dryer and set my alarm for four-fifty am. I hated early shifts, they were the worst, but it meant that I finished in time to collect the twins from their childminder’s house and spend the evening with them, feeding and bathing them, before I did the same to myself.
Sometimes I just wished they would hurry up and grow up and then I would have time to myself, without having to juggle changing nappies and heating baby food, but all my friends with children had told me that these early years were the ‘best and the most precious’, but I was quick to disagree with them. Maybe when the twins were older I would look back on these sick-and-baby-s**t filled memories and smile fondly but I was more inclined to think I would be sighing with relief, that they had grown up and could look after themselves.
I found it difficult to sleep. My doctor had tried me on countless sleeping pills, but I went through each one, label by label, never settling the buzzing in my mind. I took them, I got into bed and I waited for the welcome warmth of sleep to envelope me, but it never did. I usually resorted to reading; it made my eyelids heavy and most nights I fell asleep with my head in a book and Alex had to rescue the poor creased novel when he got in, but lately, just lately, I’d been cracking open a bottle of whisky, which had seemed to do the job.
 
 
****

JACK

I didn’t trust her. I wasn’t sure why, but there was something about her that made me feel uneasy. On the surface she appeared quite normal, but I just had an inkling that there was something about herself that she was hiding, something secret that she didn’t want anyone to know. I needed to find out what it was.
As I trudged down her gravel path, she stared at me. I felt her watching me and it burned into my back. I glanced round and gave her a quick wave, trying to smile. She just looked straight through me, like I was invisible, which maybe I was.
The drive to my flat was quick, easy and no different to any other day but today it felt even more gruelling, even more depressing and even more pointless.
I locked my car and started to climb up the stairs, a fox was screaming in the distance. I hated the sound they made, like a baby crying, and even though I knew it wasn’t, I always wondered that, just this time, it may be.
Stop thinking. Just stop.
The stuffy stench of my flat greeted me and I opened the windows, the cold evening air whooshed into the flat, eradicating the smell and making me shiver.
I jumped in the shower and took my time washing, using the flannel and some soap to scrub my body " my legs, my arms, my armpits and my genitals. I scrubbed them until they were red and sore, still not feeling clean enough.
The Lynx body wash went on next, white bubbles dripped down my skin and the manly scent clung to my body. I shampooed and rinsed, then I did it again and finally I conditioned.
My mates were always taking the piss out of me for being so clean, but I didn’t see it as a bad thing. Personal hygiene was important and had always been something I’d taken pride in. Whilst my brothers were stinky, sweaty young men, I had always been perfectly clean and my hair had been washed at least once a day. My mother used to call me her ‘soapy son’, which I’d pretended to hate but actually really liked. It had reminded me that I was clean, I was pure, and if I was clean then I was a good person. Or at least that’s what I used to tell myself.
When I was sixteen my dad begun referring to me as the ‘soppy kid.’ A clever play on Mum’s fond nickname. I had hated him for it, as much as he had hated me for being such a f*****g f****t. I had left home at seventeen. I hadn’t been able to stand being round him any longer.
I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. I should never have let myself think about him. I knew I’d never sleep again if I really remembered it all. I popped a couple of my prescription sleeping pills and begun counting sheep. It knocked me out for the count, ironically.
The next day my alarm screamed at me. I jolted awake and glanced at the clock. It was six am. Time to get up. I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and wiped the sleep from my eyes. I was sticky with sweat, which made me feel uncomfortable and dirty. I didn’t have time for a shower though, I’d got to be at work for seven-thirty. I’d have to shower later.
I sprayed myself with at least half a bottle of Lynx Jungle spray and a few squirts of my favourite aftershave. My stubble had barely grown, and despite hating the rugged, unshaved look, I told myself I’d shave later, when I got in, when I had time.
My stomach was rumbling like an impending earthquake so I carefully placed two slices of brown bread in the toaster and stumbled bleary-eyed around the kitchen while they toasted.
It was only once I’d poured myself a strong, black coffee and sat down at the breakfast bar that I realised I hadn’t buttered my toast. I glanced at the clock I noticed it was almost seven already, no time for Lurpak, I told myself and wolfed down the dry toast.
Unfortunately I tended to take a long time packing my briefcase and rucksack for the day and this usually drained me of time, which meant I was never early at the office, not as early as I liked to be anyway.
Daena was in and her smile gave me a mini heart attack and a swelling feeling in my crotch. I prayed to God that my boner didn’t show as I mumbled “good morning” and collected the essential files from my manager’s desk.
 
 
***
 
 

 
“Hey you!”
It was an hour into my day and already it was going balls-up. I’d forgotten my red notepad, the one in which I jotted down the notes from home visits and my computer was trying to install some blasted update which meant I couldn’t do anything while I waited for it to finish.
Daena popped her head round the office cubicle and was waiting for my reply.
“Morning” I muttered, and flashed my teeth at her at an attempt at a smile.
What was that? You f*****g idiot! You look like a f*****g psycho now!
“How’s your day going?” she asked, cutting off the internal critique and causing me to blush slightly. I was such a f*****g pansy!
“Alright, yours?”
She nodded “It’s going well, but I’ll tell you what would make it better…”
“What?” I questioned, feeling my hands clam up with sweat.
“If you’d accompany me for a drink at lunchtime tomorrow” she said flirtatiously, her blonde hair falling in ringlets around her shoulders. Her tits looked huge, gaping out of her perfectly ironed white shirt. I felt the familiar swell in my crotch and had to restrain myself from putting my hand down there to try and cover it up.
It’s fine, your desk is in the way. She won’t see.
“That would be lovely” I replied, flashing another, slightly less creepy smile.
“Great” she whispered seductively, flicking her hair behind her back and sauntering into my office. She leaned into me and patted my shoulder, like my mates did when I’d said something they agree with. I tried to hide my confusion at her odd advance and exclaimed “Nice perfume!”
WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT?!
“Thanks” she said, grinning and seemingly ignoring the awkward tension that was radiating off of me. “I better get back to work” she told me, and I forced myself to turn back to my computer, swearing under my breath as the screen informed me: 20% configured.
 
 
CLARICE

It still hadn’t sunk in. I didn’t think it ever would to be honest.
I couldn’t stop shaking, even though I was wrapped up in my fleecy dressing gown and wearing thick flannel socks. Mum had just come round and made me dinner, but I wasn’t hungry.
Macaroni cheese. Your favourite.
That’s what she said, I didn’t have the heart to tell her it hadn’t been my favourite since I was about fifteen. She didn’t like acknowledging the fact that I was an adult, with my own life.
“Clarice!”
Mum hollered my name, like I was a dog that was going to come bounding through the hallway and into the dining room, scoffing my chops with her freshly made pasta dish.
“Yes?”
“Dinner is ready darling.”
I tried not to shudder at the thought of her macaroni cheese. She put boiled eggs in it.
Who does that?
“Coming Mum” I shouted, feeling about twelve years old.
I walked into the dining room and tears filled my eyes. Mum had laid out the table with my finest cutlery and crockery, the set reserved for guests and special occasions and she’d poured me a glass of my favourite Zinfandel wine.
“Mum, you didn’t have to do all this.”
She smiled weakly, “Yes I did darling. You need your mother around, especially at a time like this…” She trailed off, not wanting to put into words the horror that was today.
I sat down at the table and tucked my chair right in like she always told me to do. I popped a spoonful of the cheesy pasta in my mouth. I wasn’t actually that bad and I felt guilty for slating her cooking. Then I tasted egg and immediately felt sick.
“Mum, why do you put eggs in your macaroni cheese?” I asked. I’d never actually asked her the question before. I thought it would be one of those unanswered questions I would take to my grave.
That’s what Pete always told me anyway.
“You can’t ask her why she puts eggs in her dish Clarice, it’s one of those deeply personal things, like asking a woman why she doesn’t breast-feed or a man why he shaves his stomach. You’re gonna have to face the truth, you’re going to die not knowing why.”
He had smirked at me and kissed me on the top of my head, like he knew I loved.
I felt a gut-wrenching sadness wash over my entire body and vomit flew up my throat and into my mouth. I couldn’t be sick now, not while eating Mum’s food. It’d kill her.
Not her, just him.
Nooo! Shut up. I hated my stupid mind for thinking stupid things and upsetting me further, why wasn’t I being soft on myself, after a day like today?
I swallowed the vomit down, trying not to pull a face while I did so and shoved a huge spoonful of the now lukewarm food into my mouth.
Mum nodded in approval and tucked into her own dinner.
Chicken salad.
I wished I could’ve asked for what she was having, but it would’ve offended her, and shattered the delusion that I loved her macaroni cheese.
I was still waiting for her to answer my damn question.
She looked up at me, a salad leaf dangling on her fork and said “Marco Pierre puts them in his darling. That’s why!”
I didn’t bother asking who Marco bloody Pierre is.
“Oh okay.”
She pulled a face as if I had offended her, which I probably had. God she was so easily offended, it annoyed me.
We ate the rest of our meals in silence and when I was done I wiped my mouth with the silk napkin laid out for me, then I collected the plates and carried them into the kitchen.
I was just loading up the dish-washer when Mum sidled up behind me and put her arms round me.
I nearly jumped out of my skin! “Mum! You scared me half to death!”
Stop using that word.
“Sorry dear. Now let me do that. You need to get some sleep!” She stroked my head with her hand and my eyes filled up again. “Go on, upstairs, now!”
I obeyed her orders and tiptoed up the stairs, my bare feet cold on the hard wood of the stairs. We were the only people I knew with wooden stairs.
You mean you, not we.
Once I was in our bedroom, or my bedroom, I took my clothes off. The scruffy grey jogging bottoms needed a wash, still stained with mud from the other day when I had been running in them. My white vest top had a now dry gloop of cheese on it and I smelled the dairy smell as I took it off, feeling nauseas again. I chucked both the bottoms and top in the washing basket next to my mirror and pulled open my chest of drawers, taking out my favourite nightie.
It was my Bambi one. Pete always took the micky out of me when I was wearing it.
“It’s a child’s nightie!” he had scolded. I knew he was only messing about though.
It was in fact a child’s nightie, aged 14-16 from Tesco, but it fitted me fine and it was comfy. It was my comfort nightie, I wore it when I was feeling sad or lonely or when my period pains were squeezing my uterus or when I was ill.
Pete always knew I was feeling s**t when I was wearing this nightie, it was like a code, a metaphor, a silent word spoken.
He always scooped me up in his big manly arms and kissed my hair until I fell asleep.
I got into bed and the tears came thick and fast. Rushing down my cheeks like they were escaping from me. The utter and inevitable grief was so raw I felt like I might die.
I rocked myself into oblivion. The wails of pain floated from my lips into the air.
I fell asleep with snot dribbling down my mouth and salty tears drying on my cheeks.
 
 
****
 
 
 
JACK

It was half f*****g eight in the evening and I was still at the damn office.
Daena had left too, which gave me barely any reason for even being there. Well, apart from the obvious one of doing my job. I had a ton of paperwork I needed to get done but it was too late to do it, the lights were dim and most people had gone home, apart from creepy Colin who was in his office, with hideous classical music escaping from his earphones and no doubt a pen lodged between his teeth as he pored over documents, trying to forget the fact he was almost forty and still single, childless and extremely unpopular.
I was such a twat. I could not be judging Colin because I was basically in his boat, or perhaps the boat next to him, but it’s close enough.
I was only five years younger than him and hadn’t had a shag since 2012. Well, unless you count the hooker, which I was never telling ANYONE about. That would go to my grave with me.
“I’m off now Brown!”
I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw Colin’s creepy face poked round my cubicle door. It annoyed me no end that he called me Brown, I had told him countless times to call me Jack, but he just ignored me.
Perhaps I should start calling him Berkenhaven, see how he would like that.
“Alright mate, see you later!”
He nodded at me, a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. He was completely bald and it didn’t help his conspicuous looks. I was embarrassed to realise even Colin was now leaving, which meant he definitely won the upper hand over me. I was still in the office and Colin had gone home. What had my life come to?
I guessed I should start packing up my stuff but I really couldn’t be bothered to move. The image of my lonely flat awaiting my arrival filtered into my mind and caused a surge of depression to wash over me. I needed to sort my s**t out.
My heart fluttered like a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl when I remembered that Daena had invited me out for lunch tomorrow. Maybe my s**t was coming together. It was about time!
I collected my paperwork and stashed it in my briefcase, laughing to myself as I remembered the taunt “Briefcase wanker” from The Inbetweeners. That was me, I was basically Will but seventeen years older. I recoiled as I realised Dad would love associating me with that character. Awkward, clumsy and a giant loser. I needed to prove the b*****d wrong and visit him soon with a stunning girlfriend and a swanky car. Put him to shame.
The evening was a cold one, for early September, and I wrapped my suit around me, my Police Officer’s lanyard swung as I did so. Once I had located my pathetic Ford Fiesta in the back of the Station carpark I rummaged around my rucksack for my car keys, my stupid plastic lunchbox fell out onto the ground. Just as I was leaning down to pick it up, I heard a rustling sound. It was coming from the bushes nearby. I froze in fear and then mentally slapped myself and reminded myself I was a bloody Police Officer and should not be scared of noises in the dark.
“Hello?” I called, like an idiot.
No-one replied, just like I expected so I shoved the lunchbox back in my bag and fished my iPhone from my trouser pocket, switching on the torch app and shining it in front of me.
A cat waltzed up to me and wrapped itself around my black trousers, ginger hair sticking to them. I cursed the damn thing and jiggled my leg, trying to free myself from the four-legged-feline. I’d always hated cats. I didn’t really know why but I thought it may be the way they hissed and spat and always seemed to be scheming, planning some attack on you. I’d never admit that I had a slight fear of them to anyone though. That too would die with me, along with my steamy night of prostitute-loving.
It struck me as ironic and a bit dangerous that I was a member of the Police Force and had used a prostitute. No-one could ever know or I’d be out of the force before you could shout “Hooker hire!”
The damn cat didn’t budge so I gently pushed it off of me and it hissed and strode off, in search of a bird to catch or a fox to taunt. I was about to unlock my car when I heard the rustling again. I was rather scared now, as I had thought the cat was making the noise, rummaging through the leafy undergrowth in search of a human to tease, but if it hadn’t been the cat then what the hell was it? I tiptoed towards the bushes, my heart beating in my chest and spotted a puddle on the floor. It looked too dark to be water, too light to be petrol, and it was only when I was up close that I realised it wasn’t petrol or water, it was blood.
My heart almost stopped as I bent down and dipped my fingers into the sticky congealing liquid. I cursed myself, telling myself I was a freaking police officer and should not be scared right now.
I sniffed my hand and the distinct metallic aroma hit my nostrils.
It definitely was blood.

 

Author's Note

So my previous post of MURDER IN MAYVILLE CHAPTER ONE was mostly in present tense and sometimes switched to past and so I have changed it to past now. Is it better like this?