How do you clear up after you’ve murdered someone?
That’s what ran through the killer’s mind as he turned his head away from the body. He trembled with shock, fear and an acidic horror about what had happened.
Thirty minutes had come and gone since he’d passed through the curtain of fire that divides those who have taken a life from those who have not. He’d already learned in that brief time that it didn’t matter whether the death was accidental, what your original intent was, or how sorry you were afterwards. It didn’t matter how many times you thought things through again and again, desperately wishing and pleading with yourself, ‘If only, if only…’
It was too late for soul-searching regret. There was no way back through the curtain.
The body was slumped in the driver’s seat of a German model 29 Nash saloon. One of a number of classic cars that sit side by side in this purpose-built garage complex. Ex-wives and girlfriends claimed the victim cared more about his shiny boys’ toys than he did about people. He’d certainly spared no expense housing them.
The gears in the killer’s mind turned, finally piecing together how to answer his horrific question. How ironic that it was the victim’s obsessions that led the killer to the point of understanding how to cover up this unspeakable act.
The victim had installed sealed tanks of specially formulated fuel to pump into his much-loved vehicles. And that meant when the place was set on fire, at some stage it was going to erupt like a volcano and destroy everything in its path. But how would you know when that moment would come? That you’d left enough time to run and run from the scene without the fire catching you too?
The killer turned back to the car. Peered inside. The dead man looked serene and unmarked as if he was having a quiet nap. At rest, his head tilted to one side. The fatal wound to his temple oozed something nasty through the congealed blood. If the blow had been anywhere else on his body this man would still be alive, probably raging and lashing out. But the temple is the thinnest and most vulnerable part of the skull. A thumping blow is all it takes to crack it.
The killer splashed petrol over the body until the clothes were soaked through. Did the same to the interior and bodywork of the car. Lashings more poured over the floor and on the fixtures and fittings in the building. Petrol everywhere, the place stank to high heaven. He doused one of the many ‘no smoking’ signs in the greasy liquid from his jerry can. Of course smoking was strictly forbidden in this building, so how to account for the inferno that was to come? He put down his can and ran back to the house.
There was so much to remember, so much to easily forget.
In a bureau in the office he found what he was looking for, a box of Havana cigars. Took one out. Put the flame of the lighter to it but it didn’t catch because of his fumbling fingers. He tried again. And again. He shook so badly he was seconds away from falling apart. Finally, finally the tip of the cigar sizzled as it glowed orange-red-hot. He placed the cigar to his lips and inhaled. A hacking spluttering cough erupted from his chest. But then your life is never the same after you’ve smashed someone’s skull in.
The killer choked his way down the cigar until it was half its length. Outside, he chucked the Havana not too far from one of the garage’s opened windows. The investigators would find it. The killer already had an explanation for that. The dead man was smoking a cigar in the garage and threw it out of the window. What an idiot. Case closed.
Or perhaps the case wouldn’t be closed. Maybe he should have placed a tissue around the end of the cigar before he put his mouth over it? He’d seen the TV docs and the grisly true crime shows where forensic science seems to have X-ray eyes.
There was so much to remember, so much to easily forget.
Standing by the door, he found a classic car exhibition brochure and rolled it up. Dipped it in petrol. Took the lighter out of his pocket. Glanced around the building for one final check, set the brochure on fire and then threw it onto the fuel-soaked floor. The flames skipped and danced towards the saloon like a child running on a beach. The car was soon consumed in fire, the dead man’s face blistering and creasing in the flames. It was time to go before the whole place went up.
He ran out of the door, across the grounds, greedily gulping in the fresh country air, running through what he was going to say to the police.
‘When I smelt smoke I rushed around to the front of the house and saw the garage in flames. I tried to get in and rescue him but the heat was so intense I was driven back. That’s how I got the cuts and bruises on my face. I told him a thousand times not to smoke in there but he wouldn’t listen, he just wouldn’t listen.’
He stopped abruptly. Frantically patted his pockets. Where was his lighter? Behind him, the garage windows were already in motion with leaping orange and yellow flames. In his head, he heard the police saying, ‘Our team recovered the charred remains of a brass lighter from the scene. We’ve established that it had your name engraved on it, along with the words ‘Las Vegas’. We understand you were holidaying there last year. Have you any idea how that item came to be in the garage?’
He ran back. Pulled open the door and was thrown onto his back by the rush of heat and fuel-scented flames. But he struggled to his feet, pulled his jacket over his head and plunged into the inferno and headed towards where he’d started the fire. It didn’t take him long to find the lighter. The sweat soaking through his shirt exposed a brass lump in its top pocket. He hadn’t dropped it at all. It was there all along.
He never heard the explosion. He only saw blue, white, a flash of lightning tear across the garage from one side to another. He somersaulted through the air like a leaf twisting in the wind, crashed hard into a burning wall before sliding down onto the floor below. Molten drops of fuel rained down upon him, burning holes in his clothes and flesh. But he felt no pain, only numbing disbelief as his body began to smoke and smoulder. He was inches from the door that the blast had slammed shut, and was able to lift his arm and rest his hand on the door handle. But there was no life left in his fingers to pull it open and crawl out. His arm slowly slid and dropped away.
In a moment of searing clarity as death closed in on him, there was an unearthly relief at what was happening. This was the right turn of events. Because he knew in the long run, he’d never be able to cope with life on this side of the curtain between those who’ve killed someone and those who have not.
And in death there’s nothing to remember and nothing to forget.