Of course, this was, in fact, poor Beryl’s video doorbell. I did feel bad, and I would own up to it when I got back from walking Tony and offer to pay for a new one, but it would be foolish of me not to expect some police investigation when Mr O’Neill’s carer reported him missing. So, if the camera had caught me fishing something out of his bin while walking Tony, that wouldn’t help my case. As it stood, the worst I could be accused of was clumsiness. I wasn’t entirely sure if the camera had recorded me entering the house in the moments before I killed O’Neill, but if it had, that would only align with my alibi of being a helpful member of the community: helping him with his shopping and taking the bins out for him.
Get rid of the rubbish
Done. One part was halfway to sea, and the other halfway to a godforsaken landfill. Admittedly, I will leave the gory details of chopping him up to the imagination. All I’ll say is the knife I’d used had served two purposes, and thank God he had installed a wide, spacious wet room in his old age. It had made everything so much easier – and cleaner.
Pack the shopping away
That wasn’t really in code at all. I realised after I’d killed O’Neill that it would be unlikely he would decide to kill himself just after he’d bought a bunch of groceries. I’d debated whether to leave the shopping to go mouldy or not, but then I realised it was a chance to advance my own alibi. I took off the gloves and put my fingertips all over his shopping as I packed it away in his house – mostly just vegetables, sanitary products, and a carton of milk, half of which had spilt across his carpet. The knife I cleaned thoroughly and popped back onto the rack at home. I know, I know, that’s incredibly gross, but someone spotting a missing knife from our board during a murder-by-blade investigation would not exactly be great timing for me. It wasn’t like I was going to use it when I cooked dinner anyway; it would just have to be purely for display. Shame really, as it was a good quality Nesmuk knife, too.
I was just about to scroll down further on my phone when suddenly I felt my arm jolt backwards like something was attempting to yank it out of its socket. I squealed as this shrill demonic roar began to emanate from the world’s angriest Shih Tzu behind me. I quickly got my bearings and jerked Tony back to my ankle. Behind me, a middle-aged man: balding, fat. He held his poodle with the weakest, limpest grip I had ever seen. God damn – his poor wife.
‘You got a feisty one there, haven’t you?’ he said, his face revoltingly plastered with a droopy grin.
Why was everyone in this town so talkative?
‘Yeah, he’s not mine. I’m just walking him around the block for my neighbour,’ I said, taking a quick, uninterested glimpse at him and tugging Tony back to my side.
‘Oh, is that right?’ I could feel his eyes darting to the bin bag. ‘You dumping up here or what?’
I instinctively clasped my hand tight around the strap of the bin bag which still held the final piece of O’Neill. I had my face turned away from him, but I could feel my jaw ever so slightly start to quiver.
‘No, not dumping,’ I quickly responded while my mind started racing to concoct a convincing lie. This man was a stranger; he’d think nothing of it if I gave him no reason to. Tony leapt for the poodle again as I lunged forward to yank him back, my hand still firmly gripped on the neck of the bin bag.
‘Oh all right, so what are you doing with that bin bag, then?’ he asked.
‘Nothing special,’ I snapped, turning my head to give a genteel smile as compensation for my aloofness. I twisted my body back around to face the river. If I told him anything, he’d want to look. I knew these kinds of middle-aged pre-retirees; their mid-life crises manifested themselves in an incessant need to knoweverything. I’m sure I could tell him I was drowning a bagful of kittens, and he’d ask me what breed they were before trying to intervene.
‘Ah, all right then,’ he said, confused, as he watched Tony’s tiny wet nose eagerly pushing against my wrist, trying to get inside the bag. ‘He looks interested in it, whatever it is.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ were all the words I managed to say as I attempted to gently push Tony back with my lead-holding hand.It didn’t deter him much as he began to nibble at my fingers, piercing the skin with his sharp little teeth.
‘You got some dog food or something in there, maybe?’
I knew if I spoke, my voice would quiver from the sheer adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, but I had no idea what to say. Tony, however, had now realised he could work smarter and not harder as he began to tear the outside of the bag with his teeth. The rapid, thunderous beat of my heart had begun to drown out the man’s voice as I could see pink, bloody flesh through the rupture of the bag.
If a bad plan was better than no plan, then maybe a bad excuse was better than no excuse?
‘It’s my mother’s ashes, all right? I’m sprinkling them here; this was her favourite spot, so can you leave me alone now, please?’ I blurted out. ‘This is a… a special moment, and you’re ruining it for me.’
The man physically recoiled, and nodded, like that was a satisfactory answer and no further information was needed.
‘Oh, very sorry for your loss, sorry to hear that. I’ll leave you to… er…’
He was going to say something stupid.
‘… sprinkle in peace.’
I knew it.
I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye as he began to walk backwards, retreating to a safe distance from the weird woman by the river. ‘But just letting you know, best not to be around these parts for a woman alone, a bit murky if you ask me,’ he yelled.
