Blue Murder Stories

Bad Innocents

When it came down to her and Luke's plan they'd never called it brilliant. They called it perfect. That was the difference. There is no such thing as a brilliant murder—that was where people tripped themselves up. But there is a such thing as a perfect murder. That was for people who get away with it.

The funny thing about it all was Alice had her whole plan set down, perfected, ready to execute, before Dominic's accident. Just two days before it was supposed to happen, too. She almost didn't believe the story when she heard it—if it hadn't been heard from a police inspector and an officer at her front door at four o'clock in the morning.

'We've been trawling the lake the last couple of hours, after the car hit the railing and went in around ten, eleven o'clock last night,' the inspector said. He lowered his head. 'Just found it not too long ago, brought it out, traced the license number...'

'And?'

Alice was shaking her head, her brows hardened, eyes wide in disbelief. Not knowing what the hell to think, how the hell to act.

'We'd like to bring you over there now to verify that it is your husband's car. That's probably the least we can do right now.'

'But, he's not dead, is he? You didn't tell me he was dead.'

The inspector cleared his throat. 'Well, he wasn't found inside the car, which means that he could still be submerged. Or knocked clear with the accident and he died struggling to the shore. And with the rain, the body could've been swept out into one of the tributaries.'

'Okay.' It was all noise ringing in her ears, like the sound of the night's rain. 'I'm sorry, I guess I'll put something on...'

The rain had thinned since last night, but looking at the hazed dampness of the dawnlight, at the streetlights fogged against the dark sky, Alice was starting to believe herself that a single car on the motorway could well have been belted with enough rain to lose focus, lose control, veer hard at the edge of the motorway, punch through the rail, and crash into the water.

There were still the silent blue glares of police cruisers at the ring of the reservoir. An ambulance, too, its rear doors open but unoccupied. Dominic's car was clawed above the still ripples of the water with a crane on the bank.

When the inspector's car came to a halt, Alice blinked and felt lightheaded with waves of blank emotion rolling over her. She got out and walked over wet, uneven ground toward the thick banks of the reservoir. An ambulance was parked higher up the bank, opened but unoccupied. 'That's it,' she said simply. She felt as her shoes sank in the muddy grass.

'That's definitely your husband's car? License plate and all?'

'Yes.'

The inspector said an apology to her. 'Like I said, it could still be a while before we recover his body. We'll contact you immediately when we do.'

She took a breath. 'Yes. Okay.'

And that seemed to be it. When the inspector climbed into the car, he glanced back at her as if about to speak, but finally said nothing and began to drive in silence. She was taken back home as the sun came up in a thin, colourless dawn. Once she was alone again she looked at her driveway, empty of Dominic's car, and felt suddenly a twisting in her stomach when she began to believe that it all might just have been that simple.

She waited a few long, eventless days before she found a way to talk to Luke by leaving the house and going to the train station to make a call on the nearest pay phone she could think of. She felt tense, having had only a half-night's sleep, and was wondered whether it was worth it risk contacting Luke at all. The tightness in her stomach had gone but her nerves were more strung than she expected—she steeled herself and made the call anyway, supposing that the guilted secrecy was a lingering holdover from when Dominic was still alive.