‘Not for you, boy,’ I said as I threw the extra-strength bin bag into the back of my car, which was conveniently placed in the gap between O’Neill’s house and ours. I placed Tony in the passenger seat with a small plastic bag fitted under his rear end – just in case.
I heard the rubbish truck clunking and some incoherent male shouting a few streets over. I had timed everything perfectly.
Now, you don’t need to tell me that what I was doing was pretty gruesome and disgusting, and if there was ever a documentary made about me, this would probably be the point where people lost some sympathy. But let me just state on record, I wasn’t a serial killer. Serial killers had to have three murders, and I was currently riding just a little beneath that bracket.
Admittedly, ever since we had moved in, I had been obsessed with killing Mr O’Neill, and that’s a prettyserial killerthing to think, I know. I had been a terrible wife, and Gareth had noticed. I blamed it all on the move, of course. But truth be told, as soon as I saw O’Neill outside, it was like I had been a sleeper agent, and someone had just told me my trigger phrase. I couldn’t help it, every single moment, whether awake or asleep, I was thinkingabout killing him. It was less thehowI would do it and more just thewantingto do it. My thoughts would drift to his homicide while I was unpacking boxes in the house, working at my computer, or even having sex with my husband. I know it sounds rather serial killer-esque, but I did give O’Neill something of a choice before I killed him.
For the past month, it had been impossible to concentrate on anything else; sleep was elusive and eating felt like a chore. However, today was different. I felt remarkably well rested, and even indulged in the leftover risotto for breakfast, which is scandalous, I know.
This part of the park wasn’t the nicest, mostly known for drug addicts and the occasional stabbing. Gareth had always told me to avoid it if I could, but today, I almost hoped someone would try.
‘Give us what’s in the bag, lady,’ some hoodlum would strut over to me and say with gusto.
‘Oh yes, of course, here you go, all yours,’ I would reply, handing over the bag.
They’d look inside, be petrified, and run away as fast as they could. I’d film it on my phone, put it online, and it would go viral. Such a laugh for us all.
I glanced quickly around me. The nearest dog-walker was a few hundred metres away, and a few kids on their bikes were riding through the field, but they would whiz right past me without even noticing I was there.
I twisted my head back around to the river. The current was flowing at a rapid pace, which was exactly what I needed as I gently pulled out the first of O’Neill’s appendages and gripped it tight in my gloved hand. Tony, next to me, squealed and quivered with excitement, little bubbles of saliva forming at the corners of his mouth. They always said that disposal of a corpse via consumption by pig was a good way to go, but I wasn’t quitesure that a Shih Tzu would have the appetite for a whole body. I felt like Tony would stop at three fingers before passing out into a food coma with a bloated belly.
I did one last check around me and then, without glancing at its planned trajectory, tossed the hand into the river, holding extra tight onto Tony’s lead just in case he didn’t think it through and made a suicidal jump after it. When I looked back, it had all but vanished. I could only see the top half of the fingers dancing across the spurting streams of water, as if O’Neill was doing a polite little wave goodbye to me. This part of the river was only half a mile away from the estuary, which was at least a few metres deep. No one would ever find his remains, and even if they did, the amount of time the body parts would have spent immersed in water would wash away any identifiable prints from him. What body parts constituted the other half of Mr O’Neill were currently being crushed in a rubbish truck in several layers of extra-strength bin bags mixed in with all the other non-recyclables and waste, exactly where he belonged. I did make a mental reminder to find out what brand of bin bags O’Neill used, as frankly, they were excellent.
I continued to dispose of nearly everything that was in the bag. I savoured the moment of throwing in his right hand, which had always been adorned with that tacky old ring they all wore. It was just his right foot left, now.
I had waited about thirty seconds between throwing each appendage into the current, aiming to space each of them out. My brain told me this would help disperse the evidence more effectively. Although, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t sure it would really matter; it was probably more likely superstition on my part.
As I waited, I booted up the notes app on my phone. All the entries were in my little code, of course. Gareth knew my phone’s passcode, and I had no other secrets to hide from him.But it would certainly raise red flags if he stumbled upon: ‘To-do list: clean up murder’.
Clean the wine stain
Wine was, of course, code for blood. That was done. Warm water and trusty baking soda from O’Neill’s pantry had done the trick on the wine/milk concoction that had brutally stained his carpet upstairs. A few minutes of scrubbing and dabbing had made his carpet actually look cleaner than before, if anything.
Write the shopping list
This task had been unexpectedly challenging. I had contemplated staging the scene as a suicide, but I’d known there’d be some detail I’d overlook. My husband’s work stories and countless TV shows had taught me that murderers rarely manage to leave absolutely no trace of their crime; there was always something that gave them away.
So, I’d settled on making Mr O’Neill’s ‘suicide’ a mere vague, mysterious disappearance, leaving behind a note about how much he’d loathed his life and had chosen to end it. However, this presented its own set of difficulties. I knew how the man spoke but not how he wrote. I hadn’t a clue what his handwriting even looked like, and that could be a dead giveaway if he was still in touch with his daughter. So, wearing gloves, I’d searched his home for any handwriting samples to mimic. My efforts were fruitless, save for a handwritten note that simply read:
I’ll kill you
Hardly what I was searching for, but it had left me wondering if perhaps I wasn’t Mr O’Neill’s only enemy.
So, I had to be creative. He was a pretentious prick; I remembered that much about him, so I yanked out a few of his poetry anthologies and swiped to the contents. I didn’t know who Penelope Thornfield was, but I wished I could go back in time and kiss her for writing a piece of poetry that fit the bill perfectly for my current predicament. I tore out the piece of paper carefully, as I’m sure he would have, and then really getting into character, I teetered over to the desk in his study and placed it as square centre as I could, trying to mimic his quivering hands. I’d have tried to get his fingerprints all over it, but they were smothered in blood, so opted not to take that risk.
Reset the camera
