THE MISFORTUNE TELLER by Gavin Bell

The Misfortune Teller


It’s funny, the way black and white makes everything look like art.
Miller flipped through the prints for the hundredth time. It was always the same, the more you looked, the less they meant. At first they were shocking, but it never took that long to get used to them. After a while, it would even get boring. He reached the end of another cycle. The glass coffee table was already coated with numerous other pieces of meaningless paper. He dropped the sheaf of photographs on it, holding on to the last one, the one of the brunette.
This one really did have an aesthetic quality beyond the curious artistic effect imparted by black and white photography. The brunette had her head tilted to her right, showing the camera her profile. Her skin was flawless, an almost incandescent white. Her lips were partially open, as though breathing a sigh, or whispering gentle instruction to a lover. Her visible eye was half-closed; giving the impression that she was drowsy, or concentrating intently on a single sensation. She was wearing some kind of translucent fabric, a nightdress, most likely. Across the rise of her left breast, visible through the fabric, was a small black tattoo of an Egyptian symbol. She was quite beautiful.
Had it not been a snapshot of a corpse, it would have been quite at home in the fashion section of a glossy magazine.
Miller dropped this last one on the table with the rest. These black and whites weren’t the originals, of course. Photography at crime scenes was done in colour these days, particularly for the murders. Prosecutors liked it that way; wanted the jury to be able to see how red the blood was. Colour had certain measurable advantages, conveying as it did a more literal impression of the scene, but there were drawbacks. A lot of the time, all the garish wallpaper patterns and the reds and the flesh tones deafen the senses, to the point where it’s easy to miss the important details. That was why Miller always had the shots converted to monochrome.
Miller rubbed his eyes and contemplated the way things never really change. He wasn’t even on the force any more. As with many professions these days, if you can do your job reasonably well, it pays better and generates less hassle to go private. He was looking over these particular snapshots as one more favour in his long-term repayment plan to Bendis. Miller had always been good with the photos; his gift functioned so much more smoothly with a visual aid to get the ball rolling. He always began like this: getting the shots in black and white, then staring at them until the sparks danced and the images were projected onto the backs of his eyelids when he closed them.
Lately it was proving harder than usual. It seemed like everything had been so much easier back in the days when he’d been able to rely on his more commonplace investigative abilities as well as the gift. Back then he really had been the best. But then Eleanor had left him and the booze had taken everything else that was worth a damn, and now he was just a has-been with a party trick. And now it looked like the party trick was on its way out too. All he was getting tonight was the image of a man riffing through a deck of cards more and more urgently. The face was in shadow. No names were coming. The only hint of a place was a glimpse of a high wall shrouded in dead ivy. Miller leaned back on the couch and rubbed his temples with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, listening to the light rain as it fell outside on Argyle Street. Maybe he needed a break. Perhaps he needed a…
“Drink?”
Miller looked up and across his unkempt living room to the breakfast bar that demarcated the boundary of the small kitchen.
She was standing behind the bar, wearing a deep red blouse the colour of a fire engine. Strawberry blonde hair swept past her hazel eyes and framed her precise cheekbones before coming to a halt an inch and a half below her jaw. She was removing a bottle of Laphroag from a yellow Oddbins bag, two whisky glasses already on the bar. Miller shook his head amiably. “I’m on the wagon.”
She poured an Irish measure into each glass. “Wagon my arse,” she said, the oath at odds with her clipped west-end consonants. She took a sip of the nearest whisky and carried the other one over to him, putting it down on the coffee table, right on top of the brunette. Miller let it sit there and looked expectantly at her. She didn’t say anything. Finally, he relented. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here because I like it here. And because you like me being here.”
Miller laughed. “And what gives you that idea, Bethany?”
“You haven’t changed your locks yet, have you?”
True enough. Miller lifted the whisky off the dead brunette, put it down on one of the few clear spaces on the table, and sat back on the couch, folding his arms. “You know, your case was closed. We aren’t supposed to meet.”
“Yes,” Bethany said, leaning over the coffee table and craning her neck to see the photos. “I see you’ve moved on to new things. Pretty.”
“Pretty and dead.”
“Can’t have everything. What’s the story?”
“Robbery with murder on the side. Somebody probably met her and her boyfriend on a night out, came back for a drink, stabbed them both. Probably didn’t get anything more worthwhile than a low-spec DVD player, either.”
Bethany clucked her tongue. “No way to treat one’s host, is it?” She picked up one of the other photos: a shot of another glass coffee table, the victim’s. Rorschach patterns of shiny black blood sprayed over crumpled cigarette packs and strewn CD cases. “Left a hell of a mess, too.”
“Yes he did.” Miller glanced at that shot again, and this time something caught his eye. He took the photo out of Bethany’s hand.
“See something you like?” She looked at him over the rim of her glass with eyes that were the colour of varnished rosewood. He held them for a second and looked away. Still a sucker. It was time to break up the party.
“Not likely. As it happens, I was just about to chase up a lead.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah,” he said, getting up. “So if you’ll excuse me, I have to be going.”
“You’re excused.” Bethany sat down on the couch and picked up Miller’s drink. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Miller knew she would.

A little while later, Miller ascended the stairs from the subway at West Street. The earlier light rain had gained weight, and the few pedestrians bold or guilty enough to be out for an evening stroll this side of the river hugged the buildings, taking meagre shelter where they could. The warehouse at the bottom end of the street had been torn down recently, revealing an unobstructed view across the Clyde to the new casino, casting its flickering neon shadows into the black water.
A century ago, the Clyde had been the main artery of the city. Ships from all over the globe traversed it, carrying tea from India and spices from the Orient, boosting Glasgow’s status to second city of the British Empire. Here, today, the river was more of a dividing line, separating two eras. The bustling commerce of the early 21st century represented by casinos and plush IT offices on the north bank contrasted with the dilapidated warehouses and piers on the south, decaying memorials to the city’s shipbuilding and manufacturing past.
Sometimes, Miller had an idea that if he could just find the right spot at the right time, he could read the Clyde like a lifeline and divine the city’s fate. But this was neither the right spot nor the right time, and in any case, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
It was a two minute walk to Singer’s, but Miller was soaked by the time he arrived. Running a hand through his hair to shake out the excess water, he descended the cracked stone steps and opened the door, onto which was taped a sign saying ‘No Football Colours’ in no-nonsense black marker.
Singer’s was a shithole. The kind of dive no one in his right mind would enter. A guy had to have developed an almost religious devotion to alcoholism to put up with the bargain basement spirits, the smell of vomit, and the selection of eighties cheese on the jukebox. The place was almost deserted. Business as usual for a Monday night, or any night for that matter. It was a mystery to Miller how the place managed to stay open, although he suspected it probably wouldn’t remain a mystery long if he was to investigate the owner’s sidelines. The barman looked up from the back page of the Record as Miller walked in.
“All right, Jack! Long time no see… where you been?”
“I lost my faith, Freddy.”
“Huh?”
“I need to ask you about something.”
“Anything for a former customer,” Freddy broke into a grin. “Pint of heavy?”
Miller shook his head “No thanks. You remember the fella with the red leather jacket used to drink in here? The one with those porno playing cards?”
“Flip? Aye, he still comes in a couple times a week… why? You looking to complete a four for bridge or something?” Freddy chuckled.
Miller rolled his eyes inwardly and forced a smile on the outside “Got it in one. Where can I find him?”
Freddy shrugged noncommittally and turned to the only other customer sitting at the bar, a small, hollow-eyed man wearing a navy blue t shirt that exposed forearms like skin and bone pincushions. The man looked like he’d ducked in here for one last drink on his journey from the drug shelter to the grave.
“You see this guy?” Freddy said to the man, putting a hand on Miller’s shoulder and drawing him closer, like they were posing for a photo. “He’s got a talent. He can tell you about people if you give him a picture or something that belongs to them.”
“Yeah?” said the man, before launching into a fit of coughing at the exertion of having to speak. When he recovered, he grinned at Miller, revealing a mouth like a graveyard in disrepair. “Can you tell me next Saturday’s lottery numbers?”
“Never heard that one before,” said Miller, as he picked Freddy’s hand off his shoulder. “But I’m afraid I cannot. I can only see bad things.” Miller looked the junkie in the eye until he shivered and turned back to his drink.
Freddie cleared his throat. “That’s right. What was it they called you again?”
“Lots of things. Most of them unrepeatable.” Miller hated that nickname, the one Freddy was referring to.
Freddy smiled thinly and reached under the bar. He brought out a woman’s purse; black leather with a gold clasp. He gave the surface of the bar a wipe before placing it carefully in front of Miller. Miller sighed and picked the purse up, weighing it in his hand. It was much easier dealing with people who didn’t know him or didn’t believe in him, but at least this would be cheaper than a cash incentive. Miller closed his eyes and blocked out the sensory distractions of the bar. A full minute later, he opened them again. Freddy was staring at him intently, the corner of his bottom lip clenched between his teeth.
“Carole,” Miller said, waiting for the name to prompt the always-verbose barman. It didn’t. “Who is she to you?”
Freddy looked down at the bar. “Just someone…”
Miller popped the clasp and had a look at the contents: a couple of credit cards and a driving licence, all bearing the name Carole Waters; some loose change; a photo of two smiling children, a boy and a girl. He closed his eyes again. When he opened them, he saw the junkie had moved to a table at the far end of the bar, but Freddy was still there.
“Did you see anything?” Freddy asked.
Miller shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Does that mean…”
“It means I don’t know where she is, but I know nothing’s happened to her.”
Freddy released a sigh that sounded like it had been confined in his chest for a month. He took the purse back and placed it back under the bar. When his hands reappeared, they were holding a notepad and pen. He scribbled down an address. “Flip’s place. Of course, you didn’t get this from me.”

The flat was located in a minor street off Govan Road, around twenty minutes walk from the pub. The rain showed no signs of abating. Miller stopped at the door to the close and ran his finger down the nametags next to the buzzers. Phillip Rodden: 3C was the tag he was looking for. He let his index finger hover over the buzzer for a moment before changing his mind. He walked around to the alley at the side of the tenement block. A rusted steel fire escape snaked up the sandstone wall like dirty brown ivy.
Miller scaled the dripping, creaking stairway until he reached the third floor. The C flats were all at this side of the building; their windows accessed the fire escape. The window for 3C was open a couple of inches for air. Despite the deluge, the city was unseasonably warm tonight.
Miller pulled the window up the rest of the way and stepped into the living room. It was even more deserted than Singer’s had been, but the TV was on. A graveyard-slot sitcom spewed its canned laughter out at an unoccupied threadbare couch. On the couch lay several items: a woman’s handbag, a leather wallet, a decent-looking watch, a comb in need of dental treatment. Miller was betting that only one of these items rightfully belonged to the flat’s occupant. He scanned the rest of the room, eyes alighting on a novelty telephone moulded to look like a bowling ball. He put in a call to Bendis, giving him the address and telling him to be here in ten minutes.
Miller heard a toilet flush behind a door and moved silently to the blind side. The door opened and a skinny, balding man wearing a tattered black t shirt and boxer shorts stepped out.
“Flip, how’s your girlfriend?”
Flip spun around, his mouth open to say something. Miller broke his nose and put him on the ground. Miller pulled out his ID and dangled it over him. Flip eyeballed it, then shifted his gaze to take in the purse, wallet and watch on the couch. His next furtive glance was in the direction of a charity shop chest of drawers in the corner. He looked from there to Miller’s bulky frame. His shoulders tensed, then relaxed in submission. Miller smiled and replaced the licence in the pocket of his coat. “You want to know what it was?”
Flip looked around, resignation breaking out on his face like a skin condition. He shrugged.
“That deck of cards you used to flash around in Singer’s. You know, the one you had custom made with your ex-girlfriend on them. Snapshots of her in all kinds of athletic poses. Know where those are by any chance?”
Flip leaned back against the wall. Drained and ready for the cuffs. “Naw, man.”
“Well, I can’t account for the other fifty one. But the queen of hearts is currently lying on a coffee table on the other side of town, covered with blood. Combine that with the fact you’re in possession of stolen goods from the crime scene…” Miller pointedly looked at the chest of drawers in the corner “…and I’m assuming you are in fact thick enough to be keeping the murder weapon here…” Miller shook his head sadly “Doesn’t look good, does it Flip?”
Flip looked up from the floor and shook his head. Miller walked over to the couch, picked up the comb and tossed it in his direction. “They’ll be here in a minute. Better pretty-up for the mug shot.”

Back in his flat above Argyle Street, Miller was towelling off his wet hair.
“Playing cards, huh?” Bethany said.
“Playing cards.”
“Good to see you still have the gift, Jack.” She smiled.
Miller sat down on the couch beside her. “Actually, I ought to thank you for that. I didn’t need the party trick this time. I just needed someone to make me see what was right in front of my nose.” He turned his head to face her, gazing into the hazel eyes, and returned the smile. A real one this time. Bethany leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. The kiss felt good. As good as it felt to be a real detective again for a night. As good as it felt to use his more prosaic gifts again.
“I have to go now,” she said.
He sighed “I know.”
Miller lay back and closed his eyes. When he opened them, she was gone. He got up and collected the crime scene photographs into a bundle, tapping it square on the glass coffee table. He walked over to his desk and pulled a folder out of the file drawer. He put the most recent black and whites in at the top, and then flicked back through the folder, pulling out the section dated 1997.
He ran a delicate finger over the first photograph. This one was monochrome too, of course, but he knew the girl in the picture was wearing a deep red blouse the colour of a fire engine.
Bethany looked good in black and white. Better than most.

Bio:
Gavin was born in Glasgow in 1979. He has worked as a petrol station attendant, taxman, salesman, research manager and pizza boy. His story ‘A Living’ was shortlisted for the 2007 Get Britain Reading prize, and published in the Sun Book of Short Stories, and his other stories have been published in Scribble magazine and First Edition.He currently lives in Hamilton with a wife, a daughter and a growing pack of bunnies, and is at work on his first novel, a thriller entitled Halfway to Hell.

A LIVING by Gavin Bell

A Living

I sit on the edge of the bath, smoking and gazing at the straight razor resting on the sink, wondering what an antiquity like a straight razor is doing in an early twenty first century hotel room.
My dad, he used a straight razor. Every day of his life, always impeccably shaven come hell or high water. I remember the only time I saw him dishevelled – he lost his insurance job and had been out of the house for three days, drinking whiskey and wearing the same clothes. But still, from the neck up you’d swear the guy had just walked out of a Gillette ad. Right after that he got a better job and everything was fine again. My dad was a good guy. I favour the stubbly look, personally.
I take a last drag on the cigarette and toss the butt into the toilet, hearing a satisfying fizzle as it hits the water.
I was fourteen when I had my first cigarette. A Marlboro Light, given to me by a girl I was trying to impress at a party. I was expecting to cough like everyone says you’re meant to when you first try smoking, but it didn’t happen. I just got a weird feeling in my chest and a taste that was somehow like bad coffee. A few more tries and I got to like the bad coffee taste.
Things didn’t work out with the girl, but although I didn’t get laid, I did find a partner for life that night.
It’s funny how every little thing makes you think about your life at a time like this.
The first time I got laid.
That didn’t go by the cliché any more than the smoking did; received wisdom tells you it’s meant to be terrible… an experience you put behind you quickly and try to build on, but it wasn’t. I was sixteen, her name was Abigail. We had a bizarre date at a fairground in which everything that could go wrong did, starting with me losing my wallet, through to her accidentally spilling her Coke all over me. I walked her to the bus stop, but then we both realized that, bad as things had been going, neither of us wanted the night to end.
She led me by the hand up the grassy slope behind the fair and we kissed for a while. I still remember how intense everything felt; even the scent of burning hamburgers in the air and the distant, insistent beat of bad dance music seemed to enhance the experience, merely by being so detached from us. We both took our clothes off and made love on grass that was still slightly warm from the daytime.
I never saw her again. Your first time’s meant to be the worst, but not for me. I’ve been chasing that feeling all my life.
I check my watch: 11:47. Not long now.
I glance around the bathroom. Aside from the straight razor anomaly, it is exactly the same bathroom that you find in four-star hotel rooms the world over – white tiled floor; white ceramic bath, sink and toilet; chrome towel rack with towels which are nice but not too nice; some mediocre art on the wall. In this case it’s a watercolour of a naked woman sitting with her back to us at the edge of a pier, looking out at a deep blue lake under a light blue sky. I’ve seen worse, actually.
I used to be pretty good at painting. Painted pretty much every day, back when I was a teenager. I was more into expressionism though; stuff that showed what mood I was in and where my head was at, not naked women and lakes. My high school art teacher wanted me to do something with it but I guess I just let it fall by the wayside as girls and cars and work sneakily killed off my childhood the way, I guess, they do to everyone.
There I go again; even bad art makes me think about my life.
I realize it’s almost time now and stand up, smoothing out the knees of my suit as I rise. I walk over to the mirror and run a finger through my hair, then stroke the stubble I’ve accumulated. I could use a shave, but I don’t want to use the straight razor, and besides, I don’t have the time.
I hear the sound of a key-card slotting into the hotel room door and quickly turn the bathroom light out, nudging the door slightly ajar with the back of my hand, so I can see out. The room door opens, spilling a rectangle of light across the typical four-star room, and a man in a suit walks in. He’s looking tired. His suit is nice, not as nice as mine, but pretty good.
I take the gun out of my shoulder holster and quietly screw on the silencer. I open the bathroom door. The guy looks startled. I shoot him three times in the chest, and put another bullet in his head as he’s falling to the floor, still with the surprised look on his face.
As I unscrew the silencer I stare blankly at his body, dark arterial blood already seeping into the nice-but-not-too-nice carpet. This seems to be the only thing tonight that doesn’t make me think about my life.
I don’t know why he has to be dead. I don’t even know who he is. I don’t know if he has a wife, a kid. I don’t know what his dad did.
I don’t know whether he ever thought about the girl he made love to and never saw again.
I just know the money will be in a brown envelope pushed under my door tomorrow morning.
I hate this.
But it’s a living.

FAITH'S RECONSTRUCTION By Gavin Bell

TKnC bids welcome to Gavin Bell with this short crime story...

Faith’s Reconstruction

Faith finished applying her lipstick, ran her fingers through her horizontal blonde locks and then lingered in front of the full-length mirror for a moment, staring into the chestnut-brown eyes of a dead woman.
“Constable Badder, are you ready yet?” DCI Sinclair’s voice, coupled with his businesslike knock on the door, snapped her out of the trance.
“Two minutes.” Her voice betrayed just a trace of annoyance.
Sinclair paused for a second. “Okay. Ready when you are.”
Faith waited for the sound of Sinclair’s footsteps falling away from the door before turning back to examine the stranger in the looking glass. Clothes may not make the woman, but they sure as hell change her, she thought.
Faith forced her eyes to move slowly up the length of her slight frame, from the cheap knee-high boots, past the impossibly short blue skirt, over the revealing scarlet vest top and to the beat-up leather jacket.
She looked so different. So wrong.
The boots weren’t her, the clothes weren’t her, the arterial-hued lipstick definitely wasn’t her. The only thing recognisable as belonging to Faith was that strawberry blonde hair. Even the hair seemed slightly alien when left unfettered and trailing, rather than bound in a tight ponytail. A strange kind of resurrection, indeed. Unbidden, the voice of Dr Collingsworth, Faith’s criminology professor at the Academy returned to her.
A murderer always returns to the scene of a crime, but why? Because he wants to establish meaning, to get to the truth of his actions. And that is why we must also return to the scene of the crime.
The lecture was cut short by another knock at the door, Sinclair’s voice more insistent this time.
Faith sighed and said, “I’m coming.”

*

Kirkhill Public Park first opened its ornate wrought-iron gates in the late Victorian era. At the time, its meandering brooks, open grass areas and tennis courts attracted people from throughout the social strata. Over the ensuing century, the park’s target demographic had narrowed somewhat; its overgrown flora and derelict buildings now best met the needs of amorous teenagers and junkies.
The park was busier than one would normally expect for a bitterly cold Tuesday morning in January. Three different television news teams, a dozen or so police officers, and more than a handful of gawkers were gathered around the bandstand. Kirkhill was an average-sized town for the West of Scotland, but it was still small enough for a vicious homicide to be something of an event.
Faith sat alone on a graffiti-daubed wooden bench and rubbed her hands together while Sinclair talked to a reporter. He was explaining that given the viciousness of the attack the killer would have been covered in blood, and as the murder occurred in daylight, somebody would most likely have seen something.
Sinclair had handed Faith her final accessory in the car: a faux-emerald pendant shaped like a loveheart. It didn’t even go with the vest. She toyed with the dead girl’s pendant as she took in the scene, rubbing her thumb across its smooth surface absently. As a veteran of dozens of crime scenes, Faith was used to the media crews attracting all the attention from bystanders. That wasn’t the case this time; she could sense that any stray glances from the assembled throng were directed exclusively at her. Most were subtle about it, but a group of three teenage boys standing just outside the police tape were staring at her quite openly, with no coyness in their gaze.
And why should there be? For this morning, she was public property. Idly, Faith wondered if they were staring at her because of the revealing clothes, or because of a morbid fascination with what she represented. She decided that it was probably both in equal measure. An older man, thirtyish, wearing a red lumberjack shirt and a concerned expression, nodded at her. Faith managed to assemble what she hoped was a brave smile.
The TV reporter was winding up her interview with Sinclair. Faith stood up and moved into position at the top of the short flight of steps at the side of the band-stand as the reporter, a stick-thin redhead in her early twenties, closed with a flirtatious smile at Sinclair and turned back to the camera for her summation. Then all cameras pointed towards Faith.
From out of nowhere, Sinclair was beside her. “Holding up?”
“I’ll survive. The end result is what’s important, Mike. What you or I have to do to get there isn’t the issue, those are just details. If this… pantomime will help, I’ll gladly do it.”
Sinclair patted her on the back as he said: “Time to walk.”
Faith walked.
The route she would take from the bandstand to Lover’s Walk was clear as a DVD playback in her mind. She’d made a couple of dry-runs the previous day so that she could devote her full concentration to the show. Faith had done some acting in high school - a few supporting roles, even Snow White, once - and as performances went, this one wasn’t too demanding. There were no lines to learn, no complex dance steps to memorise, no Prince Charming to kiss. All she had to do was walk. Walk from the bandstand, across the football fields, past the duck pond, across the bridge, and down Lover’s Walk, exactly as her character had done last Tuesday morning sometime between seven thirty and eight o’clock.
Her character. Who was she?
Faith knew her name, of course. Elizabeth McBride. Lizzie. Physically, they weren’t so different. This was no coincidence of course, as the role had been cast to type. Both women were in their early thirties (Faith, at thirty-three, was actually two years older than her character, although the lined and care-worn face of McBride’s corpse had suggested a woman on the wrong side of forty). Both were five-seven, eight stone, both had strawberry blonde hair.
Earlier, Sinclair had told Faith she didn’t have to do this. He’d been wrong. No one else at the station would have been able to fit into the cheap Jimmy Choo knockoffs.
The reconstruction might actually help, too. In the absence of any concrete leads, recreating the victim’s last movements to jog the memories of potential witnesses is a proven method of shaking loose vital new information. Like Sinclair said, somebody had to have seen something. Perhaps, in Collingsworth’s words, they could reach the truth through this return to the scene.
Onlookers lined the path as Faith reached the duck pond. She couldn’t help but resent their fascinated stares, reminding herself with grim repetition that the high turnout was a good thing. She turned her attention away from them to look at the pond. Faith remembered there being ducks when she used to play here as a kid.
Had a young Lizzie McBride played here, in the park? It was likely, she was a Kirkhill girl. Faith had been present when they interviewed her mother. A nice lady. A lot like Faith’s own mum, in fact. Faith wondered what could have happened in her character’s life to set her down such a different career path.
The audience looked on as Faith began to cross the bridge. A little boy in a red shirt pointed a chubby finger at her. His mother quickly pushed his arm down and scolded him in hushed tones. The bridge was coated in flaking green paint and spanned a drop of around twenty feet to the burn below. Part of the railing was missing on one side; the park had gone to seed in the quarter century since Faith had played hide and seek here. In some ways the whole town had. Sure, murder was still rare enough to draw a crowd, but there was a multitude of lesser social evils, from graffiti all the way up to heroin dealing, that no longer raised an eyebrow.
Faith was nearing the end of the walk. In another couple of minutes, she’d reach the primary crime scene, pause for effect, then duck under the yellow police tape and accept a warm coat and, with any luck, a hot cup of coffee from one of the other officers. Her thoughts gravitated inexorably back towards Lizzie McBride, and she felt a pang of something that a psychologist might have described as survivor’s guilt. Lizzie didn’t get to go home with a hot drink.
Was it normal for an actor to identify so closely with a character? Faith supposed it was the inescapable similarities that did it. Two girls, roughly the same age, brought up in the same town. So similar in beginnings, so different in endings. Details. Sometimes the details do make a difference. Faith was a successful police officer, with an eye on promotion and a boyfriend who might soon become a husband. Lizzie had been a prostitute and a junkie, and had died in a pool of her own blood on an overgrown stretch of Lover’s Walk, butchered by an ice-veined psychopath with a serrated seven-inch hunting knife.
Of course, there were those who would say that Lizzie’s lifestyle made her demise her own fault, and going by some of the tight-lipped expressions among the crowd, a few of them were in attendance today. But Faith was not one of them. She knew murders like this weren’t about judgement, they were about sex and blood and insanity and blonde hair. Lizzie’s killer had to be found, and not just to serve justice. Justice was becoming an increasingly abstract notion to Faith as her career in law enforcement progressed. No, he had to be caught for the coldly practical reason that if he remained free, he would do it again. He would do the same terrible things to some other poor girl like Lizzie, and in exactly the same bloody way. These maniacs always kept a consistent M.O., to the point of banality. That was one reason they were always caught. Over 95% of murders in Scotland were solved last year. Faith allowed herself a smile, finding some satisfaction in this statistical comfort-blanket.
Almost there now. The narrow point in the path was straight ahead; flanked by the overgrown bushes where the bastard had concealed himself (they knew this from the whittled twigs he’d toyed with while he waited). Faith could see dark, caked blood registering as black on the bright evergreen leaves. The crowd had thickened, but the chatter had dropped in inverse proportion, dying away to a reverent hush, as the victim reached her goal.
Almost done, Faith thought, then I can get out of these clothes, take a shower, and get to work on nailing this guy.
A glint of light from some trees up on the hill a quarter of a mile away sparkled on the edge of her peripheral vision. Another onlooker? she wondered. Someone with binoculars, maybe? Why so shy?
That was Faith’s last thought before the .270 calibre bullet shattered the fake emerald loveheart on its way into her chest. She collapsed between the overgrown bushes on Lover’s Walk, dying among leaves slick with her own blood and still tacky with the blood of Lizzie McBride.

*

A quarter of a mile away, the killer carefully retrieved the spent shell casing and placed it in the breast pocket of his red lumberjack shirt, then slipped the Browning Hunter rifle back into the green canvas bag and hefted it over his shoulder. He walked away briskly, but not rushing. As he walked, he smiled with the satisfaction of a job well done, and thought about the kill, how it had been neater, but somehow less satisfying than the last one, where he had used the knife.
Variety is the spice of life, he mused, as he wondered how he would take care of the next one. After all, it wasn’t the method that was important, it was the end result. Whatever you did to get there was just details.

***

Bio:
Gavin was born in Glasgow in 1979. He has worked as a petrol station attendant, taxman, salesman, research manager and pizza boy. His story ‘A Living’ was shortlisted for the 2007 Get Britain Reading prize, and published in the Sun Book of Short Stories, and his other stories have been published in Scribble magazine and First Edition.
He currently lives in Hamilton with a wife, a daughter and a growing pack of bunnies, and is at work on his first novel, a thriller entitled Halfway to Hell.