The problem with telling tales is that you might get caught out by the
twist: an original literary thriller, from the author of the sensational Eight
Detectives. A group of friends gather in a country house for a birthday
party. At their host’s request, they each write a short mystery. They
draw names from a hat: in each story, one of the group is the killer, and
another the victim. Of course, when given such a task, it’s only natural
to use what you know. Secrets. Grudges. Illicit love. It’s just that once
you put it in a story, the secret is out. Oh, and just one more thing: this
is a story that ends with a murder …
The Scenic Route
‘I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person ...’
The weekend had begun with hope but would end in horror, like every weekend. Anatol was looking sideways at Janika, waiting for her to respond. The steering wheel started to drift in her direction. They heard the crunch and tearing of nettles under the tyres, felt the front left wheel scrape the edge of the verge. Then Anatol brought his eyes back to the road. He had never been a very competent driver. He shrugged off the mistake, gave the steering wheel a reflexive wiggle, and carried on speaking. ‘It’s just that I haven’t been feeling like myself lately. You see what I mean? I’m all over the place.’
Janika nodded diplomatically, but didn’t answer. She was watching the passing countryside through the window beside her. A view of yellow fields and faded hills, under an unmarked white sky. Her hands clenched around the sleeves of her cardigan. She hadn’t said a single word since they’d got into the car. She thought it was more in character to keep quiet.
‘Everything feels like a dream,’ said Anatol. He parted the fingers of his right hand and stared at the road through the gaps between the knuckles. A thick line of dirt capped each fingernail. ‘When somebody close to you dies, nothing seems real. It’s too much change to take in all at once. It makes everything feel like a dream. Do you understand?
It was unusually cold for the last day of May. The day after Anatol’s thirtieth birthday. A heavy, late-morning mist lay on the landscape. Every blade of grass looked haunted.
‘But if nothing’s real, then nothing matters. You lose your judgement about right and wrong. You do things you wouldn’t normally do. Say things you wouldn’t normally say. If I’ve been acting strange this weekend, then that’s why.’
It was Monday morning. The bank holiday. Janika had spent the long weekend at Anatol’s house with the rest of their friends. Now he was taking her to the station, so she could catch the train home. The car was a vintage forest-green convertible. Its bruised vinyl top had a tear down one side. The hole had been patched with layers of duct tape, but the cold air still managed to find its way inside.
‘I’m probably not explaining myself very well ...’
Anatol continued talking as he slowed down and signalled to turn off the main road on to a narrow byway where there were no white lines on the tarmac. He took his hands from the wheel and waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic.
‘But grief is a shapeshifter. It manifests differently from one day to the next. Some days it’s guilt, some days it’s regret. Some days it’s just sadness. And some days it’s more like shock.’ Anatol’s father had died unexpectedly, five weeks earlier. ‘I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m sorry if I seemed rude or short-tempered yesterday. But you can’t help but lose your perspective on things when your mood keeps shifting like that. You’ll understand this one day, when you’ve lost someone close to you, Janika.’
Cars streamed past them in stark primary colours. Janika looked beyond Anatol to their right. The road they were turning into seemed to lead nowhere. No signpost announced its destination. And there was nothing to be seen at the end of it. Just the feathery hedges that bordered the pitted road surface, pinched together by perspective.
‘Anatol,’ said Janika, speaking at last. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Grief,’ said Anatol with a surge of enthusiasm. ‘Grief is an awkward portmanteau of guilt, regret and disbelief. Because those are its three main ingredients.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Janika again.
There was a sudden short gap in the traffic. Anatol accelerated into it, turning the wheel too late. The rattling convertible crossed over the opposite lane but missed the turning and ploughed into a patch of cow parsley. Anatol swore and put the vehicle in reverse. They jolted backwards, into the path of an oncoming car. Then forwards again, slowing to a crawl as they straightened out. The car passed by with a shriek of its horn.
‘Exhibit A,’ said Anatol. ‘You lose your judgement.’
‘This isn’t the way to the station,’ said Janika.
Anatol switched on the radio, changing the subject. But all he could find was local news, laced with static. He switched it off. ‘The radio has a frog in its throat.’
Janika spoke again, with mounting urgency. ‘Anatol. Where are we going?’
‘Don’t worry, this is the scenic route.’ Anatol pointed into the empty distance. The road ahead of them was a blank page. ‘We turn left up ahead here. We’ve been this way before, I’m sure.’
Janika checked the window beside her. The view was obscured by a tall hedge but where there were gaps she could see only green fields, shaded grey by the mist.
‘It’s not scenic.’
‘But it would be, on a brighter day.’
Janika twisted in her seat and looked through the back window, hoping that someone would have followed them into the turning. But the road behind looked the same as the road in front. ‘The station’s back that way, Anatol.’
‘This might not be the most direct route, but it gets us there. And it’s a nicer drive this way.’
Janika checked her watch. ‘My train leaves in ten minutes.’
‘Twelve minutes,’ said Anatol. ‘We have plenty of time.’
“The convertible climbed the short verge, leapt into the air
and collided with the tree a foot above the ground.”
‘I don’t want to risk it. I want to get a good seat. I can’t sit in the smoking carriage for two hours. I’ll start arguments.’ Janika sounded distraught. ‘Take me back. Please.’
Anatol flinched at such a direct command. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, shaking his head. ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Janika. It’s not about the scenery. I’m desperate for a piss. I’m going to have to stop somewhere further along here. It’s only a slight detour.’
He pointed into the distance again. His fingers were thick and muscular, his hands huge. They must have made up at least an eighth of his six foot six inches. He was almost too tall for the car. His head pressed into its soft top, pushing the vinyl up like a tent pole.
‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘It won’t take me long.’
Janika looked through the back window again. But there was no sign now of the turning they’d taken. ‘There’s a toilet at the station,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you use that?’
‘It won’t take me more than a minute, in fact. There’s a small wood just ahead of us. It’s got a dirt track running through it. It’s private property, but no one ever uses it.’ Anatol turned and gave Janika a misplaced grin. ‘You could say it’s nature’s cubicle ...’
The car drifted towards Janika again. Stony blackberries bounced off the windscreen.
‘Anatol.’ Janika tried raising her voice. ‘You can hold in a piss. But I can’t hold in a train, can I?’
‘You won’t have to, Janika. Look at the weather. The train will be late.’
‘You don’t know that.’ She was almost shouting now, clinging to the handle of the door beside her. ‘I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want to go to the woods.’
‘I’m sorry, Janika. But I could injure myself if I don’t stop. I’ve always been this way, ever since I was a child. It’s my curse. Six foot six and a bladder like a Jif lemon. But it won’t take me very long. Ninety seconds at the most. I used to time myself when I was a boy. Little boys like to do things like that. Not that I was ever little.’
‘Anatol. If you don’t turn around now, I’ll open the door and jump out.’
Even though she thought she might be in danger, Janika was too obstinate not to escalate things further. She was known as the shy one of the friendship group, but she was also the most stubborn. When she did speak it was usually either to start an argument or admonish someone.
Anatol smiled. ‘And how will that help you get to the station? And what about your luggage? Should I throw that out after you?’
‘I know what you’ve done.’ Everything that Anatol had said to Janika since they’d got into the car had been a lie. The route they were taking wasn’t one that they’d taken before. She would have remembered. And there was no way it could be taking them anywhere near the train station. It was sloping downhill, while the road they’d turned off had been climbing upwards. And she’d heard Anatol use the toilet just before they’d set out, less than ten minutes earlier, while she’d been waiting with her shoes on by the front door. The sound of water drilling into water had been unmistakable. ‘I know everything.’
Even his grief was greatly exaggerated.
Anatol laughed, his voice breathy with disbelief. ‘What is it that you think you know?’
While Anatol had been speaking, Janika had reached down and pressed the button on his seatbelt. Now she sat calculating in quiet outrage, hiding its buckle in the palm of her hand. She was waiting for the perfect moment to let go.
‘You’re a murderer, Anatol.’
When they came to a straight section of road, she released the belt. It sprang up and juddered across Anatol’s belly. ‘What the ...’
He caught the odd flat contraption in his palm and looked down at it. He’d always thought it resembled a dog. A metal muzzle with plastic ears. Then he looked up and saw that Janika had taken hold of the steering wheel. She was leaning across his seat. Before he could guess at her intentions, she’d swerved the car sharply to their right, towards a large chestnut tree at the side of the road.
‘... fuck?’
The convertible climbed the short verge, leapt into the air and collided with the tree a foot above the ground. Anatol’s body was thrown forwards. The half-worn seatbelt locked around his right shoulder, spinning him on to his side, so that his temple and jaw hit the steering wheel at the same time and his neck took the bulk of the impact His knee smashed into the underside of the dash. His left arm shot out and punched the windscreen.
The car swung in a quarter-circle, with the base of the tree as its pivot. Janika was thrown sideways. Her arm and shoulder hit the door beside her and her head whipped against the window. It felt like the muscles in her neck were tearing.
The car came to rest perpendicular to the road. Janika forced herself to turn towards Anatol, adrenaline pushing her through the pain in her neck. His head was resting on the steering wheel, facing away from her, his left arm lying inert on the dashboard. His hand was bent too far to one side. Blood was dripping down from his chin to his knees. Janika couldn’t tell whether he was alive or dead. She studied the broad slope of his back and placed her palm between his shoulders, but she couldn’t feel him breathing. She pressed on his neck but couldn’t find a pulse. ‘Shit,’ she whispered.
Now it was her turn to stare at the world through the gaps in her hand and ask herself: was any of this real?
Had she really killed him?
Ink Ribbon Red by Alex Pavesi is out now.
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