17. Arrested

Tania is sauntering home when someone spots her...

17. Arrested

On her way home, Tania paused outside a large shop that sold a wide range of ladies summer clothing as well as men’s sportswear, and gazed at the display in its window. With summer coming on it was concentrating its appeal on casual summer clothing. Shorts delighted her eye. She particularly liked wearing shorts if she was likely to be out in the wind, because even summer breezes can blow a pretty summer frock around and put her unmentionables on display. And one pair of shorts in the window particularly attracted her. Maybe, she thought, she’d try them on and buy maybe two pairs of them if they looked as good on her as she thought she would.

So preoccupied was she by the plastic manikin wearing those shorts that she didn’t notice that someone had moved behind her, breathing over her shoulder, his eyes following her eyes, taking in what she was looking at.

“Pretty pretty,” he whispered into her ear.

She spun round, almost rubbing his nose on her long hair as she went. It was the bloke from next door to where she lived, what was his name? David?

“You think so?” she asked, nervously. After all, it just might have been this man who had dumped the body of the lady he lived with in her wheelie bin, and she didn’t like the idea of him being this close to her. Something was very wrong with him, she was sure of that

“But it’s only a doll in shorts,” added David Rozelle, a lovely plastic doll in pretty shorts...”.

“Do you like them?” Why was she having this conversation with a relative stranger? One she didn’t trust or even start to like?

“They might look interesting on a vicar’s wench, maybe even on the vicar,” he chortled.

“I think I’ll leave them,” Tania told him, “and get about my own business,” she added meaningfully.

“With me,” he grunted, so close to her ear that it almost hurt, “can you feel this tickling you?” he hissed, “in your tiny ribs, darling girl? Something nice and sharp and pointy?”

“If you think I’m a darling anything you’ve got the wrong girl!” she snapped at him, and whatever it was she was supposed to feel became sharp, painful, as if whatever it was was penetrating her summer outfit and touching her flesh with cold steel.

“Now walk,” he breathed into her ear, his breath like hot steam, “I’ll tell you where, but don’t make a sound because if you do..” and she felt the sharp point move threateningly against her, maybe even penetrating her skin.

So this is what it’s like, she thought, to be kidnapped against your will, to be taken goodness knows where and then… who knows what…?

And she guessed what. If that was a knife that he was holding against her then he had it for a deadly purpose. As soon as they were away from public gaze he would use it. He was going to kill her. Murder her. Silence her…

Because she had seen him dig a grave! Because she knew the terrible truth about what he did, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it. No way. She was better than that! She was nobody’s doll to be carved up at will and for no good reason.

As they walked along, he became almost part of her such was his proximity, and with his hot breath like a constant reminder of his proximity even if the sharp point in her side wasn't, she was aware of other people on a busy town street, and a voice inside her head suggested she was sfae whilst they were around. But when the streets became lonely, when all the other people had gone to their homes, then she would be at his mercy. And at the mercy of his knife

There were two elderly ladies walking towards her, and look at them, in winter coats despite the late May sunshine. Then, just behind them, a mother much more sensibly dressed holding her son by one hand, and he was in summer shorts, the two made the two elderly ladies look really out of season, turkeys dressed for Christmas on a summer’s day…

And going past them on the road was a motorcycle and sidecar combination. Moving very slowly in heavy traffic that was slowed down by a zebra crossing ahead. She might never get a better moment than this before she was sent to the hereafter by a crazy teacher. She didn’t have time to wonder how he treated the kids in his control, but if she had she might have got close to the truth.

Instead she dropped to the ground, so suddenly that she scraped both knees, praying that the hand holding the knife would be taken by surprise, and simultaneously she shrieked out as loud as she could, “HELP ME PLEASE, FOR GOD’S SAKE SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

The two elderly ladies looked at her with distaste, assuming she was drunk or under the influence of something even nastier than gin, the mother with her sun pulled him close to her and scurried off in a gap between other pedestrians, but the man in the motorcycle sidecar somehow managed to reach out and push David Rozelle with a gloved fist so that he stumbled and as he did so a shiny metal object slithered from his hand and rattled against the pavement.

“You b***h!” he screamed, and then, nobody could see why, he burst into tears. Not just small trickles that made their way slowly down his face but floods of wetness that had their roots in total misery.

Sometimes fate has a trick or two up its sleeve, and at that moment it did because amongst the jostling masses on that pavement was DI Glumpy, on his way to the garage where his car was being serviced or, on any other day at this time, he would be driving home.

He saw who was still kneeling on the pavement and ignored the man who had been threatening her. Instead he drew a conclusion that satisfied him, and he put one hand onto the struggling Tania’s left shoulder.

“Well then, young lady,” he grated, his voice almost overcome by enormous glee, “I’m arresting you for the murder of Shaun Taylor, so come along with me! You, young lady, are nicked!”

© Peter Rogerson 05.06.24