OxCrimes Page 8

  Perfect. ‘No problem,’ I lied, surprised at how easy it was. But then, I’d had the best possible teacher.

  That left me five days to make my plans. I arranged to withdraw the money from the bank because I wanted to reassure Cerys that she was still in the driving seat. I’d show it to her before we drove off to Perthshire, the magnet that would keep her on board.

  Working out the details of murder was a lot harder. Once I’d made the decision, once I’d realised that I’d never be free of her demands or my desire while she was still alive, it wasn’t hard to accept that murder was the only possible answer. Cerys had already transformed me from law-abiding citizen to successful criminal, after all.

  Body disposal, the usual tripwire for killers in films, was the least of my worries. The Scottish highlands contain vast tracts of emptiness where small predatory animals feed on all sorts of carrion. Forestry tracks lead deep into isolated woodland where nobody sets foot from one year’s end to the next. And of course, Cerys had walked away from her life before – in Hungary and in Edinburgh that I knew of, which probably meant she’d also done it in other places, other times. Nobody would be too surprised if she did it again. I didn’t imagine anyone would seriously go looking for her, especially since she would have checked out of her hotel under her own steam.

  How to kill her was a lot harder to figure out. Poison or drugs would have been my weapons of choice. But in her shoes, I wouldn’t eat a crumb or drink a drop I hadn’t brought with me. I didn’t think she would be suspicious of me – I thought she was confident in the power she had over me – but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  If movies have taught me anything, it’s that blunt instruments, blades and guns are too chancy. They’re all capable of missing their targets, they all tend to leave forensic traces you can never erase and they’re all concrete pieces of evidence you have to dispose of. So they were all out of the question.

  I thought of smothering her while she slept but I wasn’t convinced I could carry that through, not flesh to flesh and heart to heart. Strangling had the same problems, plus my fear that I wasn’t strong enough to carry it through.

  Murder, it turned out, was a lot easier in the movies.

  I woke up on the Wednesday morning without an idea in my head. When I went through to the kitchen and turned on the light, a bulb popped, tripping the fuse in the main box. And a light went on inside my head.

  Back when I bought my house in Devon, I didn’t have much money. I’d only been able to afford the house because it was practically derelict and I learned enough of all the building trades to do the restoration and renovation myself. I can lay bricks, plaster walls, install plumbing and do basic carpentry.

  I also know how electricity works.

  Cerys may be able to last overnight without eating and drinking. She won’t be able to make it without going to the toilet. My cabin on the loch has been fitted out in retro style, with an old-fashioned high-level toilet cistern with a long chain that you have to yank hard to generate a flush. It turned out to be a simple task to replace the ceramic handle with a metal one and to wire the whole lot into the mains supply. As her fist closes round the handle, 240 volts will course through her body, her hand will clench tighter and her heart will freeze.

  Part of my heart will also freeze. But I can live with that. And because nothing is ever wasted, I will find a way to make a script out of it. Such a pity Cerys won’t be around to see that movie too.

  ANTHONY HOROWITZ has written more than forty books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider and the Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk, and is responsible for some of the UK’s most beloved TV series, including Foyle’s War. He also writes on subjects ranging from politics to education. He has been a patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices and the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape, since 2008, recently joined the board of the Old Vic, and in 2014 was awarded an OBE. He was born in London in 1955.

  Caught Short

  Anthony Horowitz

  As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods,

  They kill us for their sport.

  It had been a good evening for Johnny Maslin – Jazz to his friends. No. It had been a truly great evening … three awards including Campaign of the Year and Agency of the Year, the two biggies and by any account his work, his babies. No wonder he felt jaunty, walking tall as he made his way to the underground car park at the Clarence Hotel where the awards ceremony had taken place. He had loosened his black tie so that it hung rakishly around his neck and the top three buttons of his shirt were open in a sort of devil-may-care, chest-hairy sort of way. He knew he’d had much too much to drink. The third bottle of Krug had definitely been a mistake. But then again – three awards, three bottles. All good things come in threes.

  He had taken the lift to basement level one and tumbled out, none too steady on his feet. He paused to light a cigarette and at that moment caught sight of his own reflection in a puddle of water skimmed with oil. He followed the flame of the match as it arced upwards and watched himself suck in and then blow out smoke. Johnny was not a very good-looking man. Examining himself with the same ruthlessness that had taken him to the top of his profession, he was the first to admit it. Thin and wiry, he sported a shock of curly hair that was almost clownish and black spectacles that were equally out of proportion to his face. It didn’t matter how long he spent in the sun (Los Angeles recently, and then his flat in Antibes). His skin was always pale, slightly lifeless. He had the smile of a dead man and used it to his advantage. He would smile when he threw out your work. He would smile when he fired you. And the pleasure of the moment would dance in his little blue eyes.

  Three awards. One, two, three …

  Johnny found his car keys and pressed the electronic fob. Across the car park, his Audi R8 Spyder clunked and flickered into life as the doors sprang open. ‘Here I am, my lord and master. Take me home.’ For Johnny, it was a delicious image. The £110,000 charcoal grey car on its own in the empty car park, surrounded by concrete pillars and neon strips … a bit of a cliché perhaps, over-used in American TV shows, but still undeniably atmospheric. He had once filmed an ad in a car park just like this. What was the product? Ah yes. Australian butter with cows parked next to each other instead of cars. That had been more than twenty years ago. Blake Shailer Mathieson. All three of them were long gone but Johnny had survived. Leibowitz and Leibowitz. Then Leibowitz, Leibowitz and Maslin. Then Maslin Associates and finally Teapot – the single appellation so far ahead of its time.

  He slid inside the car, relishing the soft, full-grain leather as it rubbed against his thighs. The Spyder was less than a year old and still had that wonderful smell of polish and engineering. He thumbed the starter and the 4.2 litre engine rumbled into life, the dashboard and sat nav system lighting up. Johnny didn’t drive away quite yet. He sat in his personal cocoon, examining his surroundings, feeling comfortable, affluent and safe. How remote the car park seemed, a different world when viewed from this side of the (tinted) glass with the air triple-filtered and the heat of the evening kept at bay. For a moment, he hesitated. It was probably mad to drive home tonight. The trouble with a car like this was that it was a magnet for every under-paid plod in the city and after all he’d drunk he had to be way over the limit. He could easily have booked a room at the Clarence. On the other hand, it was two o’clock in the morning. Monday morning already. He only lived a few miles away, on the other side of Hyde Park, and he preferred to wake up in his own bed. He would go very carefully, making no mistakes. He was confident that he had the self-discipline to fight off the alcohol in his bloodstream.

  He drove out of the parking slot and knew at once that he had made the right decision. The deep, sexual power of the engine transmitted itself through his arms into his chest, re-animating him. He had an early start tomorrow, a crisis conference on a new strategy that one of his clients had just rejected. A copywriter and three art directors would be there, waiting for him, wondering
if their jobs were on the line. He wouldn’t want to be late for that – no, thank you. He cruised towards the exit in the far corner. Don’t take it too fast when you get onto the road, Johnny. A couple of miles per hour under the speed limit. You’ll be fine.

  But it all went wrong before he had even left the car park. First there was a barrier, then a ramp that rose steeply towards an alleyway running all the way along the side of the hotel. Impossibly, a single person had been crossing the exit at exactly the moment he had driven – perhaps a little too quickly – over the hump. It wasn’t his fault. They were in his blind spot. They obviously hadn’t been looking where they were going. And he’d needed to accelerate to get up the slope. The impact was sickening. Johnny had no idea that the sound of human flesh hitting metal and carbon fibre could be so loud – despite having once art directed a road safety campaign. The woman – he was fairly sure it had been a woman – was flung into the air and landed some distance away. He actually felt the weight of her. Without knowing it, he had slammed his foot on the brake and the engine had cut out as it was designed, doing its little bit to save the planet. The Spyder had come to a halt with just half of it poking out of the car park, the back wheels still on the ramp.

  Johnny sat where he was, absorbing the on-rush of different emotions. First there was anger. How could he have been such a prat? Why had he taken the ramp so fast? Why had he got into the car in the first place? There was a room waiting for him upstairs. He wouldn’t even have had to pay for it. He must have been mad to want to drive. Then, after the anger, came its close cousin, contrition. How much damage had he done to the car? At the very least there would be a dent in the bonnet and quite possibly a shattered headlamp too and with a car in a class like this even getting a dint removed would cost an arm and a leg. No pointing asking insurance to cover it. The bastards would only screw him when it came time to renew. His thoughts turned to the victim of the accident who was still lying in the alleyway, an unrecognizable heap. She didn’t seem to be moving. Could he have killed her? A terrible chill rose up, rushing through his legs and loosening his bladder. He had to get out and examine her. If he had killed this woman … He was drunk. He would go to prison. His career would be over.

  It had taken less than one second for all these thoughts to make their way through his consciousness. But it was the horrible awareness of his own predicament that now subsumed him. In a single moment of foolishness he had wiped out a life’s work and achievement. If this got into the newspapers – and it probably would – half his clients would dump him … the bastards. He could certainly kiss goodbye to the Polish vodka account. Any moment now, someone would come running. Surely someone would have heard the collision. The hotel would have CCTV cameras. The accident would have been recorded. There might be another driver behind him, perhaps, like him, leaving the awards ceremony. He glanced in the mirror. No. The ramp was empty.

  And there were no cameras, not as far as he could see. In fact the other side of the alleyway was a solid wall, another building that didn’t seem to have any windows. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing any cameras in the car park either and right now there was nobody in sight. The woman wasn’t moving.

  At what moment did the fear that had become horror turn into self-preservation? Johnny was used to making instant decisions. In the middle of a presentation, when a pitch wasn’t going the right way, when he felt instinctively that he was losing the potential client, he knew when to change direction. Every business decision he had ever made had come as a result of weighing up the options and knowing exactly what to do. This was just such a moment. It was all very clear. He was in a bucket load of trouble. He might have killed someone but, curiously, even if they were only slightly injured the end result would be the same: prison, humiliation, ruin. Leaving the scene of a crime was a crime in itself and he was still four or five miles from home, now in a car that was advertising what had just happened. But if he could get back without being seen …

  Johnny had already reached the edge of the alleyway and was turning into Park Lane. Talk about making decisions on the go! But that was the sort of man he was. He was barely breathing, his hands clamped on the steering wheel, driving with gritted teeth. This was the moment of truth. If a police car pulled him over or another motorist noticed something was wrong and scribbled down his number – well, he was screwed. The secret was to take it slowly, to be completely normal, to ignore the voices that were screaming in his head. I’ve been working late. The dinner jacket? OK it was a dinner … for charity. I had a couple of glasses of wine, but that was hours ago.

  Fortunately, the gods seemed to be on his side. There had been a sudden break in the baking hot weather and it had begun to rain. In fact it was lashing down. The rain would screen the damage to his car. It would concentrate other road users on their own driving. There was hardly any traffic and no pedestrians hanging around on the corners. Marble Arch was empty. He turned down the Bayswater Road towards Notting Hill and then on to Kensington. The further he got from the hotel, the more confident he felt. He was going to get away with it.

  He lived in a Georgian house in a quiet crescent in the Boltons, the most expensive part of Fulham. He knew he was safe the moment he turned off the Fulham Road and began to cruise through the leafy streets and crescents of the neighbourhood. The only lights behind the windows of these houses would be the ones that came on automatically to ward off burglars. Most of the residents were Arabs or Russians who barely resided here at all and even those that were in would have no interest in anything on the other side of their net curtains and high security, bullet-proof glass. Johnny’s house had a basement garage which he opened from the car. He drove into the shadows, then waited as the heavy door slid shut behind him. It hit the ground and the lights came on. Johnny didn’t move. He hadn’t realised how much the journey had taken out of him. He was drained, exhausted. And, a nice piece of irony this, if the police had stopped him on the way back he would probably have been stone cold sober.

  Very slowly, he put his thoughts in order. He had broken the law. Possibly, he had committed murder – he, a man who had been a model citizen for all of his fifty-three years … setting aside certain irregularities in his tax returns and a few hundred lines of cocaine. He had crossed a line and nothing would ever be the same again. That much was evident. But would he be caught? That was all that really mattered. No CCTV cameras. No witnesses. Suppose the victim recovered and was able to identify his car? Christ! That was a possibility. But then again, it had been dark in the alleyway and it had all happened too quickly. The car – the evidence – was off the road and out of sight. He could deal with it later. The next twenty-four hours would be crucial. If nothing had happened by the end of the next day, he might be all right.

  Johnny got out of the car. He was careful not to look at the damage. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

  A staircase led from the garage to the kitchen, a brightly lit, modern space where every possible gadget had been assigned to its own, exact space. Johnny loved cooking and used every one of them. The rest of the house was more minimalist though every object whispered both money and good taste – from the Ai Weiwei sculpture on the hall table to the Tracey Emin (‘I think of you screwing me’) that hung above. Johnny had never been married. The idea unnerved him. He knew that the house was much too big for one person but that, of course, was part of its appeal.

  He reached the bedroom, stripped, showered, cleaned his teeth and finally threw himself, naked, onto the double-king-sized bed. Part of him was tempted to turn on the television or search the internet for the latest news items but he doubted there would be anything yet. And anyway, he was suddenly weak, too exhausted to move. He pulled a sheet over himself. Thud! He could still hear the moment of impact. In a way, it was just as well that he had seen so little. Right now, flashbacks were the last thing he needed.

  He fell asleep. He did not dream.

  The next morning, he woke at six, showered,
shaved and dressed. He began to think about the meeting, due to start at eight thirty. Teapot did not work normal office hours. Nor did it even have an office. The agency was based on a converted container ship close to Chelsea Harbour. He made himself breakfast – freshly squeezed orange juice, probiotic yoghurt and coffee from one of those machines that used multi-coloured capsules – but avoided both the newspaper and the TV. The doorbell had not rung in the night. There was nobody waiting for him outside. When he got to the agency, perhaps someone might have heard something, particularly if they had been at the awards do the night before. The secret would be not to ask questions, to show no interest. Nothing to do with him!

  He finished his coffee, then went back down to the garage. This was not something he wanted to do but it had to be faced. The lights were still on. He had forgotten to turn them off in his hurry to get to bed. And there was the Spyder, no longer his servant but his accuser, standing there with a huge dent in the bonnet and the single-frame grille, a thousand pounds worth of damage at the very least and certain to raise awkward questions. He would have to have it fixed outside London. He had a second home in Wiltshire and there was a place he knew there, a garage tucked away behind Devizes where the owner smiled and seldom spoke and let you pay in cash. He looked closer and saw blood, a splash of it on the dented metalwork. For the first time he felt queasy and he remembered all the food and drink he had consumed the night before. Well, there was no way he was driving to work today. He turned off the lights, closed the door and locked it with a key which he slipped into his pocket. Mrs Hourdakis, his cleaner, would come to the house at ten o’clock as she always did but she had no reason to come to the garage. It was safe to leave.