Willing Flesh by Adam Creed

tonight. But this will make up for that.
     
    Indeed, these will prove to be momentous days. He once heard that everybody gets a single chance in life. Graham realises that the same world which can turn a shoulder to him – which can look past him on the High Street or at the checkout or on his ocasional sorties to the Cross Daggers – has today finally beckoned.
    This is a time to do. He makes a small clap and rubs his hands together. As he gives the tea a final stir and applies the milk and the sugar, he realises he is trembling. He says, aloud, ‘Why not,’ going across to the bow-fronted cabinet. He takes a quarter-bottle of brandy, pours himself a half-schooner of the Three Barrels and shifts his chair to look down the garden. He is overlooked at the back, and now they will read about him. He will have to explain why he was in the Forest in the first place, but he has a plan for that. And if they don’t play it his way, he simply won’t tell them where the woman’s body is.
    He sips the brandy and shudders, takes a full swallow of the tea and looks up at his mother’s porcelain Our Lady. Standing, he feels invigorated as he goes to the glazed kitchen door. His knees are rock solid now. His heart is even. He looks out at his neighbours’ windows. ‘Let’s do it,’ he says.
    Waiting for the phone to be answered, he regards his watermark reflection – first, one three-quarter profile; then, the other. He settles on the latter.
    The phone is answered by a woman; not what he had expected. ‘I’d like to …’
    ‘Ambulance, Fire –’
    ‘Police! Yes, please. I must speak to the police. I have discovered a murder and my name is … My name is …’ Blears looks at the phone and his head thickens. The woman on the telephone sounds ever so distant. She echoes. He will abort, his nerve suddenly seeping all the way out of him.
    ‘Mr Blears?’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
    ‘It’s here on my read-out. You know, it’s a criminal offence to make bogus calls to emergency services.’
    ‘It’s a murder, damn you,’ says Blears, reaching for the chair, dragging it across the linoleum and sitting heavily upon it.
    ‘I hope so,’ says the woman. ‘For your sake.’
    The oddness of the remark escapes Blears who foggily prepares how he is going to present himself to the world.
     
    Twelve

    Staffe pounds his way along the sea’s edge to the southernmost jut of the beach, the sun low above the North Sea horizon. He considers what he has learned of Elena Danya: that she was certainly more than a passing fancy of Taki Markary’s; that she developed her own affection for this place, separate from Markary’s, who seems to have an affiliation with the man called Howerd.
    By the time he gets to Warblingsea Harbour, his shins begin to splint and the sweat drips, saltily, into his eyes. Breathless, he stops, hands on knees, gulping for air and enjoying the burn to his lungs. He stands up, stretches, and lets the wind chill the sweat. When he gets back, he will soak in a hot bath, then stand for a minute under the coldest shower, then have porridge with honey; kippers with a poached egg. He licks his lips, tastes the salt, sees someone in the dunes.
    He blinks, sweat in his eyes. It is a man, watching him. It is the lean, ruddy-faced man from dinner last night. He is sure. He rubs his eyes and looks again, but nobody is there.
    When Staffe returns to the hotel, he settles his bill with cash, is told that Pulford has already paid for his room, and for half the cost of dinner. ‘Has the ruddy-faced man left yet?’ asks Staffe.
    ‘I don’t know who you mean,’ says the receptionist.
    Staffe thinks she might have enquired as to whether he had a name for the ruddy-faced man, or a further clue to describe his appearance more fully. ‘He is a slender man. He had dinner last night.’
    The receptionist smiles wearily at Staffe, as if it is more than her job could be worth to divulge such a thing.
    *
    Josie takes the ACL