NEW CRIME STORY - STOOPID DOOP

IT’S HARD, GETTING THAT STOOPID DOOP TO FALL INTO THE NIGHT

“With your own hands you create a hole in the night-time, and all they have to do is fall in – but the stoopid
doop, they aint wanna!”

(To a confidante in his cell – hushed – awaiting trial for murder)

I mean yeah, of course, the thought she remembers clearly from the time is ‘why the
fuck’s now all of a sudden he wants to give a fuck about what fucking curtains we have in
the bedroom’. But shit, it’s a nice dandy to be asked out shopping and why not let’s have
some patterned velvet to look at while our legs are up round our heads, grinding. “The
blinds are old’” he said. ‘The dust makes me sneezing like a sand-storm. Let’s get some
curtains.” So we get some curtains, dark and heavy that when you close them it’s like
being shut up in a box of night-time. Never any mention after this of anything else we
might like to go out together and buy, so what I was thinking was - maybe I should
change my statement?

A neighbour of the victim identified a man sounding pretty much like the one I got me
here: medium height, medium build, dark hair (okay, so not much doing there) - but the
observant bitch has nailed him with what she called his ‘brooding, scuttling walk’. It was
then I knew it must have been him. I mean, no-one else can walk like that, the exact
mirror of the incessant mental processing of the person walking.

An ‘affected limp’ also, so sayeth the literary bitch (one of our good neighbours - the kind
who’s rich enough she don’t have to do anything but make sure to keep her teeth
bleached). And that would be fucking typical of him. To pretend a fucking slow-drawl
limp when all he fucking needs to do is get out of there as quickly as fucking possible.
Might as well have escaped in a fucking wheelchair!

But then again, it couldn’t have been him, because he was lying next to me in bed.
Even some of the details of the crime seem typical of the type of behaviour he would
exhibit. It’s like the victim was being punished for doing something that she didn’t know
she’d done.

He broke into the house just at the point when it’s still night but won’t be the dead of
night for long. Very early Sunday morning. And about fifteen minutes after her husband
had left to the airport for a business trip he used to make infrequently from time-to-time
(so whoever it is, they got to know about that trip in advance, right?). And that person,
they’ve got to be waiting somewhere where they can see the house - and see him leave -
and then wait for fifteen minutes just in case he forgets something and has to return.
Good patience, that. Just like my baby.

There had been a struggle. Nobody knows for sure what happened, but it looks like the
victim was asked at knife-point to slap herself, over and over to slap herself. The thighs.
Around the chest. The face. Trying to get her to punish her for something she didn’t
know.

The marks on the face were the most pronounced, as if the others were warm-up blows.
A warm-up for both of them. Her, so that by the time she got to the face the blows would
be most severe. And him so that the principle would be established gently.

But then it looks like something went wrong.

He probably began to enjoy it is what I think - and got lost in that enjoyment - because
after a while, hitting herself was not enough. ‘Here, take the knife. Let’s see what else
you can do with that face - but don’t you fuck me around, not in the fucking slightest…’
And indeed there were a couple of small nicks around her cheeks. But the problem with
giving someone the thing you are using to threaten them is that after a while they’re
going to say fuck it and do a bit of threatening themselves.

So there was a short struggle and she was killed. A crude, fumbled stab. And then he
made off, pretending to limp into the night.

As far as I know, he never knew the victim. But I did. She was a colleague from work. I
think that be how they got the link to find him – from her, to me, to him. ‘Is there
anybody you can think who might have wanted to do anything to hurt her?’ ‘No, of
course not’ they all said. ‘Is there anyone with whom she had a difficult relationship?’
‘No, she got on well with all her family and friends.’ ‘How was her work life?’ ‘It was
good.’ ‘Was there anyone at work she had a difficult relationship with?’ ‘Well of course!
Those two did nothing but shake hell at each other – but absolutely, it was only work
stuff that I saw.’

And yeah, I must admit it. I could never like that bitch.

But he can’t have heard me mention her name more than a couple of times - it isn’t me
to go on about that kind of thing.

I remember as well being woken up at about the time that was given as her approximate
time of death. And he was in bed beside me. I think he must have twitched or something
and woken me up because it was still early and I was in a deep sleep. I remember
checking the clock to see what time it was – annoyed that I had been disturbed. And
then I went back to sleep. I could hear him breathing next to me, shallower than usual
but still that slow breathing of someone asleep.

And then, whether the killing was intended or not, he left the house and was spotted by
that bitch witness. He must have known he had been seen because she was just leaving
her house across the street to go on an early morning run (she liked to run in the dark
and ‘feel the sun come up about her’ - how fucking sweet). So whatever happened inside
the house must have taken a lot longer than planned. He knew the exact time the
husband was leaving so he must have known the time she would be going on her run. I
guess he didn’t figure on how much hew would enjoy the initial attack, and then it all got
fucked up. Perhaps that’s what made for the shortened breath - excitement and fear?
But the clock said six o clock and still it was dark as night. In the room, at least –
because we do got those new-bought curtains, and outside it could be the blazing,
noonday, carnival sun for all I know.

What I told the police was that he was with me, yeah – I’m sure as shit about it. And no,
he didn’t know the woman. I did, but he didn’t. No, he didn’t show any tendency towards
violence. Yes, I would say all of that again in court. But, really, who knows what’s in
someone else’s mind? Blue-bells and the spring meadow? Maybe, but I couldn’t definitely
say.

I will admit though that when I woke up I was a feeling a bit – I don’t know - groggy. As
though I had slept for a long time but without satisfaction. And that it was earlier than I
thought. I can’t really describe what the feeling was like. We’ve never had sleeping pills
in the house because he doesn’t like them but I do remember a long time ago I took
some to help me get to sleep. And it was a bit like waking up after taking one of them.
But the clock said six-o-clock and that was when they said the killing took place – unless
of course the clock was wrong?

At the crime scene there was no evidence to link the crime to a particular person. But
they did find a threatening letter that had been sent to the victim in the week before. The
letter described what was going to happen to the woman in pretty good detail. It
mentioned the slaps but not the knife. But it was riddled with swear words and he hardly
ever swore. Liked to use high flown reasonable language.

Anyway, once they got the link from me to him it was easy to show a picture of him to
the neighbour and she picked him like they’d been sleeping together for years. Probably
even knew the way he fucking brushes off his dick (like it’s a fucking oven stain, would
you fucking believe it?)

But the only way he could have done it (I mean, with him lying next to me in bed) - the
only way he could of done it that I can think of is that he made me a little hole in the
night-time:

He winds the clock back a couple hours. Sleeping pills. Dark room. He leaves in the
middle of the night, it goes wrong. He fucks up with the time and gets seen. Comes back
and lies in bed, sweating on it and trying to get his breathing right - like he thinks I’m a
fucking idiot. And then when the clock turns six he gives me a nudge like he’s bestirred
from heroic sleep and I wake up. He lies there not moving. I check the clock, annoyed,
and then back to sleep. He waits and puts the clock back to normal.

Why the hell do it though? What on earth was the fucking point?

But that’s why I think I need to call the police and tell them I cant really be sure that he
was here with me.

I can make a pretty good guess at what he’s doing now though, on remand in his cell as
he waits trial. He’s thinking the percentages of whether it’s going to work out his way or
not. And the answer is, it could go either way. He’s given me that little hole in the night
and all I have to do is fall gently in. He’s pretty sure I’ll do it as well - but he must be
worried the fuck about that woman who saw him. And about the note. Because he ain’t
know a fucking thing about that. I mean, how can anybody write a note saying exactly
what he’s going to do when he hasn’t even told anybody about it? That’s way outside the
fucking plan (which, of course, he fucked up).

So it could go either way, and he must be thinking does he need to say something to me,
give me that little push into that hole he’s made - even though every push leaves its
dangerous mark.

But he doesn’t need to fear! Not really. Why should I change my statement for that fuck?
She means less to me than a two bit screw, less than a fucking slap in the face.

By James Blackwell
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