To Catch A Killer

To Catch A Killer (1) Ex Wives And First Crimes (Watty Award 2012)

This is the first time I’ve ever posted an Original story so please go easy on me! This is based on a piece that I wrote for my As-level English course work and I really wanted to continue it and give it a back story so I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it! As some can tell it has been rewriten and Edited with the help of Demoiselle_dragonfly. Also a big thank you to La_Dolcia for pointing out my character flaws! You two are amazing!!! 

When the protectors are the hunters and the shadowed are their pray who is to stop them from becoming both hunter and shadowed? Because who better to hunt the Shadowed than the shadowed themselves? But who stops the shadow when all the protectors become shadowed hunters?

-          Anon

I found this written in a library book when I was nine years old but it wasn’t until now that I truly understood what it meant.

An Affair is not the same as having a lover. A lover is someone to go to, to relieve built up sexual tensions. A lover can be dropped without much thought or emotional turmoil, if any in fact.  A lover does not detract from your marital duties.

An affair, however, is very different. An extramarital partner is a dangerous thing to have. They corrupt the foundations of even the most stable of marriages and rot them from the core.  When a person’s liaison with their lover becomes an emotional attachment between both parties it becomes an affair. The affair becomes the primary or ‘true’ relationship and the marriage becomes the secondary.

I have been in the police force for most of my working life but I never noticed the signs that my wife was having an affair. It wasn’t until I came home early one night after an extremely quiet day of filling long backed up paper work that I found out that my marriage had eroded away without my knowledge.

Mary was not an exceptional woman by any standards. Her features were plain, a slightly rounded face, a small nose, brown eyes and a slim body; she was no extraordinary beauty. She did however have one feature which could be seen a beautiful. That was her long chestnut coloured hair which over time had become peppered with grey but had been still as fair as it was when we had first married. But I never loved her for her looks. I loved her because of her intellect and her quick, dry wit. I found it very difficult not to laugh when Mary made a joke or told a story. To the outside world she was just a funny woman with a meek temperament, but behind closed doors she had been a very openly opinionated woman. As a teacher she had learned to battle verbally and take no prisoners in doing so, with such passion that no one could stand in her way. I suppose it was this passion that caused her to do what she did.

I myself was a much calmer and straight talking person. I lacked the same passion that she did and this translated itself in my almost inability to show an excesses of emotion and affection towards her, especially in our physical relationship. In the early days of our marriage it caused a rift between us. As she fell into a pit of depression after our first child was born it had almost killed me, until she found a solution. She found a lover and this lover turned into a string of lovers who were carefully chosen and dropped after a few months. To say this wasn’t a blow to my pride would be a lie and the idea that my own wife had to look elsewhere to fulfil her needs was almost heart breaking.

But when I saw her come back from her depression and start to act like the loving wife and mother that she truly was I resolved to do anything to keep her that way. Even if it meant that I had to turn a blind eye to her activities. Mary had a talent for keeping her lovers hidden from the prying eyes of the world and for the most part I too was in the dark about them.  I never considered that she would make an emotional attachment to one of her lovers. It didn’t cross my mind even for a moment. That was until she made the fatal mistake of giving her Partner our home telephone number.