The Lady in Red

A lady in red lay opposite me. I didn't know who she was, or what she was doing there. The ground I was stood on felt like a black hole; to disappear into. The carpet crushed beneath my cold bare feet. It felt warm around my open toes, but my blood ran cold. I looked upon her blank face. An expression of horror imprinted onto her front, with her brunette curls covering her right eye. The slightly darker shade of green one. I clutched the side of my dress tightly, and pulled it back awkwardly, biting my lip. I realised I was standing in the darkened corridor alone, and perchance it may seem somewhat, strange. I turned my back on the lady in red and ran down the carpeted corridor towards the light. I can't say I was particularly slow, however it felt as if I was running through a never-ending corridor. 

The end finally came into to sight through the dark oak door to the right of my shivering body. I re-entered the door back to the lively party and again caught the glaze of the cold girl, whom I had cautiously looked at before. She looked at me over her open back dress, as if she had seen me discover what had happened, yet her cold smile stared straight through me. She was standing in mid-conversion with a group of lads. As if to say, envy me. I didn't say anything to her, as frankly, she frightened me a little. I simply walked away from her eyes and brushed my hair back out of my face with confidence. I could feel my legs shaking beneath me as I walked through the crowd of aristocrats in my new gown of Parma violet. It swept back and forth over my legs and open toes therefore I did have to be careful they wouldn't get trodden on by very important people. 

I strode straight over to Tommy and whispered into his ear to follow me. He smiled like he thought, well of something else. I shook my head, shaking my ringlets back into my face of stern seriousness while leading him to the lady in red. 

I saw the cold girl watching us go back out to the corridor; her blue icy eyes staring down Tommy's body. His tight white shirt, tucked-in and loosened bow-tie dangling from his perfect neck. I saw him stop and catch her eye, to which I replied by grasping his hand and pulling him to the oak door. He saw the lady on the floor, surrounded by blood soaked carpet. He stopped dead in his track, his cheeky smile faded. 

"Elise, what have you done..." he spoke only to himself as I knew not of the lady's name at that moment. He paced backwards and forwards with his head in his hands. 

"H-how did you find her like this? Why were you even down this corridor?" his voice was raising, like a volcano about to erupt. This lady was obviously his sweetheart, for the evening. He was increasingly getting more and more furious with me. So I spoke 

"Tommy, listen I just found her like this. It was nothing to do with me!" I found myself arguing back in this conversation. He crouched down against the pale green wall and sighed heavily. He looked despaired, like I had just crushed his best loved teddy bear in hatred of him. I was his friend, I wanted to help him.  

"What should we do?" I pleaded to him. 

"What should WE do?! You dragged me into this, now you expect me to dig you out of it? What are you thinking?” He shouted in fury at me. I could hear the party noise dying down, realising they could hear us. I could hear heels coming towards the door. The cold girl slowly opened the door and poked her head round it.  

"Is there a problem out here-" her sly voice cut short immediately as she saw the lady in red. She glanced back at me and Tommy, then back to the body. 

"Call the police, and the ambulance, what are you waiting for!?" She ran back into the party, presumably to find a phone.  

"There's no point,” I brushed my hand over her face, “she's stone cold!" I tried to call back, but she had gone. I did wonder after that, what we were waiting for. But I didn't have much time to wonder, as after the cold girl had hurried out, plenty more guests started to enter and gasp and run back out again. I got many of looks of blame.

Well obviously, their main suspect was me. But I couldn't just leave her lying on the ground with Tommy caressing her neck, could I? Nor could I bear to stand here whilst I receive all the blame from people who don't even know me, or what happened. I snapped at Tommy, to get up but he just shook his head, and I could hear him sniffling. Maybe she meant more to him that I first thought; oh well we'll never know now.

I could hear the policemen running down the stairs, even though they were carpeted. The harsh footsteps frightened me although I wasn't sure why. Perhaps just the sound of them was meant to scare everyone, to scare people into admitting things they wouldn't otherwise. That would be a good tactic for them to have; it would solve crimes like this far quicker. By now I could see that this had attracted a large crowd, which spilled back into the occasion hall full of people gaping to get a glimpse of what had happened.

The policemen entered the corridor, slightly out of breath from the many flights of stairs they had to fly down for evidence. I then saw that some blood, presumably from Elise's body had stained the cuffs of Tommy's perfectly fitted, now-stained shirt. The blood rushed to my head, as many dark and daring thoughts entered my brain. Some too dark to even repeat out loud (as it would seem to make them more real perhaps). Was it there before, had I not noticed? Is that why that awful cold girl was staring at him? I don't think Tommy could have possibly done this, it's not like him. 

"Excuse me, miss," a rather stumpy policeman awoke me from my thoughts, and slightly startled me back into reality, “We’d just like to ask you a few questions." I rather regret to say that I was more focused on the large worm of hairs dancing upon his upper lip, with every word he said than what he was actually saying. I did however realise that he had stopped talking and was looking straight at me.

"Is that correct miss? You found the body?" he asked suspiciously. His right eyebrow, of similar style to his fantastic moustache, slightly rose.

"Oh yes, sorry sir. I seem to be a bit shocked at it all. I'm sure I will remember more about what happened before that in due course." I replied, without realising what I had just said.

"So you 'cannot remember' what happened before you saw the body...?" I didn't like the way he was talking to me. Twas as if I had done something wrong. I didn't understand. Why were all the fingers pointed at me? 

"Sorry, I didn't catch your name before Miss." he got out his notepad and started scribbling something illegible, even by my eyes, down furiously.

"Esther Archer, sir and that's E-S-T-H-" I began. I was used to doing that a lot. For some reasons everybody assumed it was spelt how it sounded: ester. This is a very foolish thing to do, as if they know the English language at all, nothing is spelt how it’s sounds. It just likes to trick you into thinking that.

"Yes I know how to spell Miss, I'm not stupid." he interrupted, sighing. I was shocked at his use of language, and the fact he knew how to spell it. It’s not a very common name nowadays anyway.

"I'd like you to come down to the station for some more questioning, if you would?" he asked me. I wondered why they hadn't said anything to Tommy, who was probably sitting next to her on the floor still. I looked over the policeman's chunky shoulder, and saw that he had gone. I had no idea where he could have got to. Again, I realised the policeman had asked me a question, and that questions are meant to be answered.

"Oh sorry, yes I will. Is there any chance you saw my friend Tommy sitting by the side of that girl a minute ago?" I took my chances of asking. Just in case they had seen him, but decided to let him go, to make a quick phone call or something like that.

"No Miss Archer, only you at this scene when we arrived." he said sub-consciously, not realising the effect his words just had on me. It felt like someone had just stuck a knife right through my chest. I didn't know whether to be frightened of the fact he could have run away, or even abducted, or whether I was losing it. I definitely saw him. I pulled him here, I talked to him! Where is he?

Author's Note

all criticism welcome!