of the email: ‘Recent deaths’.
Dear Annabel,
I hope you don’t mind me contacting you directly. I had a meeting with DI Andrew Frost recently and he told me that you might be able to provide me with some additional data with regards to the recent increase in – still not sure what to call them – undiscovered bodies? Decomposed deceased? You know what I mean, though, don’t you? I realise I am supposed to be putting enquiries through the Force’s Media Services department but so far I’ve met with a big blank every time I’ve called or emailed. Please get in touch and maybe we can meet to discuss.
With kind regards,
Sam Everett
Senior Reporter, Newsdesk
Briarstone Chronicle
Below that was a landline number and a mobile phone number. I closed the email and went back to the others, working my way through them methodically, before putting even that aside and starting work on the next sex offender profile.
Colin
In the kitchen at work someone has left a copy of today’s Briarstone Chronicle on the table. It’s covered in crumbs, has a smear of butter on the front page, and in normal circumstances I would lift it between finger and thumb and deposit it in the waste paper bin before wiping the surface down with disinfectant and washing my hands.
But today the side bar on the front page catches my eye. I stand over the table, reading. It’s about their pathetic ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ campaign which they launched on Friday – and it seems to be an exhortation for everyone to knock on their next-door neighbour’s door and check they are still breathing.
If I weren’t within earshot of the two people sitting at desks just outside the kitchen door, I would probably have laughed out loud. What good do they think it’s going to do? At the very best, all it will achieve is to find the ones who have still not been found. I don’t know how many that is. I don’t always see the paper, and many of them wouldn’t even make the news.
And suddenly I have a bright idea. A wonderful, glistening, delicious and dangerous idea. I could ring them up, the people at the newspaper, and tell them where to look. Save them the trouble of their campaign. After all, the good people of Briarstone have better things to do with their days than to bother with checking up on their neighbours. Surely it would be a kind thing for me to do, to let them know (without troubling the police, who, let’s face it, are already under tremendous pressure to solve burglaries and assaults and all manner of other horrible crimes) where the others could be found?
I find myself shuddering with excitement and, to my surprise, sporting a sudden and huge erection.
I sit down at the kitchen table, something I never usually do since you don’t know which of the scutters has sat there before you, in order to disguise the disarrangement of my trousers. Could I do it? Should I do it? Why not, after all? I could do it in such a way that would not identify my involvement. And it would make everything suddenly much more interesting, much more exciting. I’ve enjoyed the last year very much indeed, but the last ones haven’t been nearly so entertaining. It still feels like the right thing to do and I get a thrill of excitement each time I walk away from them, leaving them behind, but the stimulation I get now is not nearly the same as it was the first few times. I need to – how do the tabloids put it? – up my game.
So what, if the press then know it is being done deliberately? They will have no idea how, or why. They will quite likely not believe that such a thing is possible. The individuals concerned all died of natural causes, after all. There is no question of foul play.
The thought of ringing someone up – or, no, perhaps it would be better done by email, or by post – and the result of it! The story they would print for the next edition! It would be immense. It might even attract national attention.
The erection is growing, not diminishing. I’m past the point of decision. It’s no longer about the ‘if’ – it’s now all about the ‘when’ and the ‘how’. It has given me a completely new way of approaching the matter. A new inspiration.
I pick up the newspaper, no longer concerned about the