Scarlet Stiletto - the First Cut Read online

  “Over there! Over there!” I shout, pointing to Mick’s car, which by now is heading in the opposite direction. The police cars race away in a cloud of dust.

  Johnno jumps out of his car. “You okay?” he asks.

  I catch my breath and, to my surprise, smile. I feel good. Really good. I smile again. “That was a rush.”

  Johnno gives me a hug.

  I ask him, “Did you know about Mick?”

  He nods. “Yeah, we did. I was busy installing listening devices in his house when I got your voice message.”

  I grimaced. “Speed things up, did I?”

  Johnno laughs and puts his arm around me, leading me to his car.

  “You’ve saved me a lot of boring hours of surveillance.”

  Don’t I know it.

  It’s eleven o’clock in the morning and I am Empress of all survey. A squad room full of noisy detectives and a desk loaded with files. Someone else will have to pull Percy and Gil’s next beer.

  Jacqui Horwood

  First Prize Trophy, 2003

  <>

  ~ * ~

  Froth and Trouble

  or

  Sun Hill Blues

  There was tension at the station

  For the word had got around

  That soon their harsh grey world would turn to soap.

  Could be Rinso, Lux or Omo;

  It was difficult to say,

  But industrial strength with perfume was the hope.

  “I’ve been busy nabbing villains

  For twenty years or more,”

  Said June to colleague Debbie with a frown.

  “If they think I’m going to prance around in flimsy negligees

  They should realise that I will turn them down.

  It’s not that I’ve got stretch marks,

  Though there might be one or two,

  Or even that my boobs are not still pert;

  But I‘ve been trained to tackle toe-rags, toms and pimps and narks

  Not to simper, smile and sob and flounce and flirt.”

  “It’s not all bad,” said Reggie,

  Slicking back his hair

  With Brylcream that was past its use-by date.

  “If romance is on the menu their leading man is here.

  I’ll willingly surrender to my fate.”

  “It’s not you they’d choose,” said Chandler,

  “I’m sure that’s not the deal.

  I’ve got charm. I’ve got charisma. I’ll advance.

  Although some might think me ruthless

  I’ve got loads of sex appeal;

  I’ll be first to get inside the ladies’ pants.”

  But the rest were not so cocky.

  Des and Jim and Dave

  All muttered to each other over beer.

  While Cass and June and Polly

  Did more than rant and rave:

  They made plans when no one else was there to hear.

  Polly was most strident,

  ‘Though usually slow to rile,

  She said she couldn’t take it any more.

  “I’ve worked night shift, I’ve worked day shift, even double shifts on Sundies

  And now the bleedin’ scumbags want to show me in me undies.

  I’ll fight these new scriptwriters, tooth and claw.”

  Then Cassie nodded sagely

  When June said with a smile,

  “They think they’re smart but we’re much smarter still.

  If we three stick together we’ll sail through stormy weather;

  We’re wily, we three women of Sun Hill.

  The writers think we’re dopey,

  That we’ll let them turn us soapy,

  But we’ll soon prove that all of them are duds.

  We’ll not let some faceless hacks

  Rewrite our world behind our backs,

  There’s no way they’re going to drown our souls in suds.

  We fight crime for them all day!

  They’ve got no right to watch us play,

  So we’ll nip their grotesque plot lines in the bud.”

  “If they want to send me clubbing

  Then those writers need a drubbing,”

  Said Cass, “I don’t want things to change.

  ‘Though some might think it boring, I spend most evenings snoring

  Or wash my hair. Most viewers do the same.

  My professional life’s so crushing, always dashing always rushing,

  Do they think I treat it only as a game?”

  “I heard they’ve got some lurk of me finding love at work,”

  Said June. “It really is a joke.

  There’s something badly missing if they think they’ll get me kissing

  Jim, Reg or Matt or any other bloke

  Who works here at the station. We must use imagination

  And make damn sure their poxxy scheme goes broke.”

  So, while the men were getting pissed

  The women made a list

  Of crimes and crims and scams and cons they’d known.

  Of successful schemes and failures, axe murderers and blackmailers,

  Of people they could contact on the phone.

  Although some were doing gravy or had even joined the navy

  They worked all night until their list had grown.

  “While the blokes are at the pub

  We’ll appropriate some bugs

  From CID,” said Poll, as dawn drew near.

  “While those writer hacks are eating

  At tomorrow’s lunch time meeting,

  Everything they talk about, we’ll hear.”

  So, while the writers munched on sangers

  Drafting outlines for cliff-hangers

  The coppers listened closely to each word.

  They learned the writers’ names—

  Geoffrey, Claire and James—

  And shuddered as the plots got more absurd.

  “Let’s go,” said June. “We’ll tail them

  And after that we’ll nail them.

  We’ll stitch them up then make them come undone.

  If they’ve secrets we’ll detect it, and when they least expect it

  We’ll make these scabby scribblers turn and run.”

  Now, Geoffrey’s case was easy

  For his private life was sleazy

  And, the next time he was whipped by Madam Lash,

  He didn’t know that June was waiting,

  Taking photos through a grating

  Until he got a call from Poll and Cass.

  “You’ve been a naughty fella;

  We know you’ve got a wife. We’ll tell her

  What you’ve done unless you meet all our demands.

  We’ll circulate the photos of your escapades in Soho

  Unless you put the plot back in our hands.”

  Poor Geoff responded quickly.

  He was feeling rather sickly;

  He didn’t want his peccadillos known.

  And a photo of his botty perched upon a potty

  Was not the kind of picture to be shown,

  Not even to his mother. “But, what about the others?”

  He asked. “The scripts aren’t mine alone.”

  “We’ll be dealing with them later,”

  Said Cass handing him a gaiter

  That he’d left behind at brothel number two.

  “You’d better heed our warning

  Or we’ll come around some morning

  With a full transcript of everything you do.”

  Claire Higgins lived in Surry and was busy cooking curry

  With her lover Raj when June and Cass dropped in.

  She spilt the coriander when in from the verandah

  Barged Polly with a face that looked like sin.

  “How can you have the gumption to write about corruption

  And try to make my mates behave like jerks?

  We’re sick of all your japes, your fantasies and rapes;

  We’re
honest cops, who don’t get many perks.

  We’ve come here to inform you,

  To caution you and warn you,

  That all intrusions to our private lives must cease.

  You must treat us like professionals,

  Not sinners in confessionals,

  Or we swear we’ll never give you any peace.”

  Even Raj looked frightened.

  His tanned complexion whitened

  While Claire shook as if she’d surely seen a ghost.

  You can’t help feeling tension when three of your inventions

  Invade your house and give your scripts a roast.

  The last of the trifecta was James the script director

  Whom they visited at home near Putney Grange.

  “Unless you want retirement you’ll adhere to our requirements

  Or you could end up slowly rotting in a drain.

  Remember Frankie Miller, the suspected serial killer?

  He’s still at large and sharpening up his skills.

  He’s agreed to chop and slice you, so if this thought does not entice you

  We suggest you hacks stop treating us like dills.”

  But James got quite indignant

  And asked, “How can any figments

  Of my imagination think they’re real?”

  At which our coppers laughed!

  They said, “Look out on the path:

  Here comes Frankie, so you’d better cut a deal.”

  In a mood of high elation they drove back to the station,

  Jubilant because they’d made each writer swear

  That they’d be rostered nine to five now;

  They could enjoy their private lives now,

  And the nation would not see their underwear.

  So, remember when you’re writing, that there’s little point in fighting

  Any characters who leap up, large as life.

  Don’t treat them with derision,

  ‘Though your plots might need revision,

  Heed what they say, and you’ll avoid much strife.

  Margaret Pollock

  Best Crime in Verse, 2003

  <>

  ~ * ~

  Still Life

  Sam and I sit by the sea. She is painting while I write. The seascape threads its way into her mind through her olive eyes where it is dissected and arranged into neat little squares. It washes through her arm and, with a twist of her wrist, it finds life on the canvas. I tell her it looks nothing like the ocean and she advises me knowingly that it never did.

  I turn my head to one side, hoping to see what she has seen. She asks me what I’m doing and I tell her I’m thinking about the enormous amount of money the gallery paid for her work, The Stalker.

  She casts an eye over my page and tells me that if I am determined to get him off my chest by constantly writing about him, I should at least use a pen with ink in it, and not introduce the story with a feeble line like, ‘Sam and I sit by the sea’. She tells me I should move on and that if I had used my artistic talents on him like she did then I would be over the whole thing by now.

  I sweep my hand across the page like a wave across the sand and ask her how she would tell the story. She scratches her cockleshell ear with the butt of her paintbrush and whispers: “The scariest part was when the meat cleaver hit his head and bounced off his skull like it was made of petrified wood.”

  I gag and tell her she is brutal.

  We sit in silence for half an hour while I think.

  The scariest part was when the meat cleaver hit his head and bounced off his skull like it was made of petrified wood. He let out a half-scream, half-moan. Sam had hit him from behind and he fell to one side of me, half-turning his head in horror to see from where the strike had come.

  I look back to Sam who is sweeping her brush through a cherry-coloured palette.

  “He should be grateful that I’ve immortalised him,” she says casually.

  “Who?”

  “Him,” she says, inadvertently flicking her paintbrush in my direction. A red teardrop flicks from her brush and plops onto the centre of my page.

  “We agreed never to talk about him again. We made a pact,” I remind her while I pretend to busy myself with writing.

  “You’re the one who’s writing about him.”

  “But I’m not talking about him,” I insist, as I try to wipe the paint from my page. It leaves a red streak, like blood across the words I have etched. A salty breeze brushes my face and Sam faces the wind to spit out a stray hair from the corner of her mouth.

  Her hair is dark and has the beautiful Italian thickness of our maternal grandmother’s. Unfortunately, I inherited our father’s peculiarities like wispy, dirty blond hair, a love of Irish whisky and a stomach too tender for violence.

  The noise of the meat cleaver hitting his head rang through my ears like two cars colliding and as he fell he gripped the front of my night gown. The force of his weight pulled my body from the bed. Sam struck again, hitting at his arm until it was no longer attached to his body.

  “Where are you up to?” Sam asks.

  “You came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with the meat cleaver. He fell off the bed and grabbed my night gown,” I say, squinting to read the indents I’ve made with my inkless pen. “And you chopped off his arm.”

  “Why do you have to call it a ‘night gown’? You’re so bloody old-fashioned sometimes!” she says mercilessly.

  “Okay,” I surrender. “What would you say?”

  “You were hysterical. He came in through your window and jumped on your bed for Christ’s sake. He must have been in your room for a couple of minutes by the time I’d heard the noise and come to help. Have you remembered what happened in those minutes?”

  I look down at the page to find that my pen has scratched a hole in the paper. I hate it when she does this.

  “I must have hit his head about five or six times,” she continues. “You started screaming and ran away.”

  “But he had a hold of my night gown,” I protest.

  “He let your night gown go after the first hit.”

  “Oh.”

  She may have hit him a few more times in the head, but I couldn’t stand the sound of metal on bone so I ran to the kitchen and threw up in the sink. I could hear Sam calling out for me to come and help but something had happened to my knees; it was like they had turned to jelly and, even though I wanted to go back and help, I couldn’t get them to move.

  That’s when the phone rang.

  “That’s the fourth ship to pass in an hour,” Sam says, directing my attention to the horizon. “Where do you think all these ships are heading?” But before I can answer, she responds to her own question. “I bet they‘re cruise ships full of rich people too scared to fly nowadays.”

  I shrug my shoulders. My stomach is churning and the thought of being on a boat doesn’t help. I look back at the palette as Sam sweeps her brush through a lighter shade of blood and mixes it slowly with a deep peacock blue. I tell her the colour is wrong, the ship isn’t purple and she tells me it depends on how you look at it.

  I take another look out to sea. To me the ship looks like a beetle floating across the horizon. I tell her I think the ship looks like a beetle, so she carves it to pieces in her mind and uses her brush to scatter its body and legs evenly across the canvas. That’s her way of doing things and it annoys me.

  “Why do you have to dissect everything?” I ask, confused as to why she doesn’t paint things the way I think they should look.

  “Why don’t you just forget about scratching the story onto the page and write it with that special red ink I made you?” she parries.

  I stared at the phone; it rang four times before the answering machine killed the bell. Sam’s recorded voice sounded so cool and calm on the message compared to the Sam with the meat cleaver in my bedroom. Our mother’s voice broke through the madness. “I know it’s late, but I can’t sleep and I thought�
��well ... Sam? Are you there? ... Di? I’ll hang on for a couple of seconds in case you’ve heard the phone and are crawling out of bed ... Okay, I’ll call again in the morning.”

  The message ended with three beeps that were out of time with the sound of the meat cleaver that was now connecting with bare floorboards.

  I rested my forehead on the cutting board to take hold of my nerves and felt the cold, wet juice of the tomato Sam had been chopping for her regular midnight snack. She often prepared insomnia meals, leaving me to clean up the mess in the morning.

  Sam is a night person. I prefer morning. It’s always been that way and that’s why our mother knows she can call at midnight and find a friendly voice waiting. And I guess that’s how Sam came to my rescue. If Sam wasn’t wandering around the kitchen that night she would never have heard my window open and the footsteps of the stalker on my bedroom floorboards.