by John Bayliss
Bear with me, please. There is a proper rational explanation for everything that happened over that weekend, and it really does make sense when you hold it up to the light and study it closely. Honestly, it does. All right, so it didn't seem like it was making sense at the time; and I have to admit that there's been numerous occasions since when I've woken in the middle of the night, bathed in a cold sweat, with this idea buzzing around inside my skull like an angry bee, telling me that I must have missed something, or forgotten something, or even that something supernatural happened that changed the fabric of the universe for a crucial hour or so - but when you step back and take a cold, dispassionate look at the situation, then there is only one single version of events that actually explains everything. For however you cut up the evidence, however you rearrange it into neat, jigsaw puzzle like patterns, and however eagerly you draw desperate inferences between otherwise disparate facts, the only possible solution that can be deduced is that nice, jovial, obliging Mr. Ernie Valentine is in fact a sociopathic serial killer.
It's just a pity that no one can bring themselves to believe it.
To get the important thing out of the way first: there was definitely a body on the garden steps. It belonged to a well built man in his forties or fifties, and it had been stabbed with a large cook's knife, several times over. By no stretch of the imagination were these neat, surgical incisions, for the jacket of the man's business suit was effectively reduced to rags by the violence of the attack. There was blood on the ground and I even managed to get some of it on my shoes. There was that smell; the smell of corpse, and believe me, once you get that smell in your nostrils it's not something you forget in a hurry. The knife was lying on the ground beside the body, exactly where it had fallen. I'm no expert in these matters, but I would guess from the fact that some of the blood remained liquid, it wasn't too long ago since this man was living and breathing. Perhaps the murderer was still lurking in the shrubbery, watching and laughing as I cover my mouth with a handkerchief in a forlorn attempt to prevent myself from throwing up.
I now have to remind myself that I am a professional and that all the necessary cold facts must be presented at this juncture. It was approximately five o'clock on the Saturday evening when I found the body - a late autumnal evening, at a time of the year when the balance between leaves on trees and leaves on the ground had definitely tipped in favour of the ground - so the sun had set already and my exhaled breath was beginning to condense on the chill air. The honeymooners (as I still thought of them) had taken the direct route to the summer house; both wrapped tightly in winter coats and scarves and probably too wrapped in themselves to take much notice of me - but as a precaution against being accused of following them deliberately, I strolled nonchalantly along a parallel route, leaving the entire expanse of the lawn and two flower beds between us. In that way I could both pretend that they were of absolutely no interest to me and at the same time pay close attention to their every move. My path took me to the steps at the nearer end of the ornamental pergola with the neglected roses. If the honeymooners had taken this path and I had taken the other then it is they who would have found the body and not me, though whether or not you think that is significant is entirely up to you.
I was a good boy and didn't touch a thing. I immediately ran off to report it - which, in retrospect, turned out to be just the start of my problems; because by the time I returned to the steps, every last trace of the body was gone and now I have an totally unfounded reputation for being a waster of police time.
As it happens, the honeymooners were nowhere to be seen, either.
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© 2002 John Bayliss. All rights reserved.