Peter James - The Perfect Murder

‘I’m not finished. We’re going to put him down a good six feet. Don’t want the smell to start getting out when he decomposes.’

Victor was the man she used to love and sleep with. Joan’s stomach suddenly churned at the thought of him rotting. ‘You’re not – you’re not serious? You’re going to bury Victor here ?’

‘Too right.’

‘In my garage?’

‘It’s perfect! I used to be a bricklayer, remember? I can do a perfect concrete screed. No one will ever know.’

‘What about me ?’ she said. ‘I will know.’

Then the front doorbell rang.

Both of them froze, looking at each other. ‘Who’s that?’ Don said.

‘I dunno.’ Joan raised a finger to her lips for him to keep quiet. She went out into the hall, closing the internal garage door behind her. She coughed again from the dust. As she went near the front door, the bell rang again.

She hurried up the stairs and into the room that Victor used as his den. She peered down through the window.

Two police officers were standing outside her front door.

Chapter Thirteen

They were both male, wearing their black uniform waistcoats and police caps with chequered bands. She studied them for a moment and could see they were looking impatient. Then she hurried downstairs to tell Don to wait quietly in the garage. As she opened the front door, her nerves were jangling. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, I – I was on the loo.’

‘Mrs Smiley?’ said the older of the two men, holding up his warrant card. ‘Sergeant Rose and PC Black from Brighton Police.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘hello.’ Then, quick as a flash, she added, ‘Have you got any news about Victor? Have you found my husband?’

‘No, I’m afraid not, madam. We presume you have not heard from him either?’

‘No.’

‘May we come in?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, thank you for coming.’

She moved so that they could come into the hall. Both men took their caps off. Sergeant Rose was in his forties. His hair was short and black, with some grey. He had a pleasant face and a brisk but friendly manner. His colleague was in his mid-twenties. He was tall and rather gangly, with short blond hair gelled into spikes.

As she led them through into the lounge, she noticed Victor’s phone sitting on the hall table. For a moment she felt panic, then she realized they would not know it was his.

She pointed at the settee and the two policemen sat down on it, holding their caps on their laps. She sat opposite them in an armchair and did her best to look sad.

Sergeant Rose took out a notebook and the constable did the same. ‘Is that your van in the driveway, Mrs Smiley?’ the sergeant asked.

‘The – the white one?’ Joan said, as if there was a whole line of vans parked in the driveway, in a range of different colours.

The two police officers exchanged a brief glance, which made Joan even more uneasy.

‘The white one, yes,’ Sergeant Rose said.

‘No – er – that’s not mine – ours – er – that’s the plumber’s van.’

‘Got a problem with your drains, have you?’ the constable asked.

Joan felt herself breaking out in sweat. She remembered a TV show that Victor had watched, about the serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Nilsen murdered young men and chopped them up in his kitchen. Then he flushed parts of them down the sink and parts down the loo. He was caught when the drains became blocked and the plumbing firm found human remains in them.

Rising panic tightened her throat so much that her voice came out as a squeak. ‘No. No, nothing like that! Just – er – new bathroom taps and a new shower. Victor and I are having a bathroom makeover.’

The sergeant nodded. There was silence for a few moments. Then the constable said, ‘For a workman, your plumber’s very quiet.’

‘He is,’ Joan said. ‘Good as gold! You wouldn’t know he was here.’

‘Apart from the van outside,’ Sergeant Rose said.

Joan nodded. ‘Yes, well, of course, apart from that!’

There was another silence, longer and more awkward than the last one. Then Sergeant Rose said, ‘We’ve come round, Mrs Smiley, because we have some concerns about your husband.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m very grateful.’ She took a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her eyes. ‘I feel so terrible,’ she said. ‘So terrible.’

He glanced down at some writing in his notebook. ‘On the Missing Persons Report you stated that your husband is diabetic. Do you know if he had his medication with him?’

‘I – I would think so,’ she said. ‘He always had it with him.’

‘Have you checked whether he took it with him yesterday? Sunday evening was the last time you saw him, correct?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Sunday evening, that was the last time.’

‘Can you repeat the events of Sunday for me?’

She felt the heat burning her face. Her body felt slippery with sweat. She needed to make sure she said the same thing to these officers as she had said to the officer at the police station.

‘I wasn’t feeling well. Victor was home. I went to bed early and left him downstairs watching television. In the morning, he was gone. At first, I thought he’d left for work early, but it was strange because he always brought me a cup of tea before he went.’

‘What was his state of mind after losing his job, Mrs Smiley?’ the constable asked.

‘Terrible. He was in shock. He’d given the best years of his life to those sods at that company. It destroyed him, being let go like that. He was a broken man. He just sat here weeping in this room, night after night.’

Joan paused, feeling a little more confident. She was calming down and getting into her stride. ‘He told me several times in the past few weeks that he didn’t want to go on living. He couldn’t face not being wanted any more. He was broken, totally broken.’

The sergeant frowned. ‘We went round to the premises of Stanley Smith & Son on the Hollingbury industrial estate this afternoon. That’s where your husband is, or was, employed, isn’t it?’

She nodded, not liking the sound of this.

‘We talked to several of his colleagues, trying to find out the state of his mind. Everyone we spoke to said he seemed very happy.’ He looked down at his notes again. ‘One said that yesterday, the first day of his last week with the company, he was humming and smiling a lot. He was telling them he felt free for the first time in his life. He said that he was going to enjoy himself. He said that life was too short to spend all of it in an office.’

‘That’s my Victor,’ she said, pressing her eyelids tightly together. She was trying to make herself cry or at least squeeze out a couple of tears. ‘He was such a proud man.’

‘ Was ?’ said the constable, sharply.

‘What am I saying! See what a state I’m in! Is. Is. My darling Victor is such a proud man. He wouldn’t let those sods think they had won!’ She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Oh yes, he gave them all a good show, trying to let them think he didn’t care. But inside, he was broken. He just came home and wept and wept and wept. Please find him for me. Please find him. I’m terrified he might have gone and done something rash. My poor darling. My Victor. I couldn’t live without him.’

‘We’ll try our best,’ they promised as they left.

At that moment, Victor’s phone began to warble. Joan closed the door, went to the table and picked it up. It was ringing and vibrating in her hand. Private Number showed on the display. She daren’t answer it, she realized. So she let it continue for several more rings until it stopped.