Alibi

They took the tape off Johnson’s eyes just before they zipped him up.
“Not the best advert for Sellotape, is it?” remarked Clearmont.
Fersome just grunted; he was not a man of words at the best of times and seeing the dead body of his mate being zipped up into a thick plastic bag didn’t make for good conversation. Fersome turned his back on the scene and glanced around the disused, practically derelict, back room of what had once been his childhood home. Behind him, Clearmont sighed heavily, hissing air through his teeth as if someone had punctured his outer skin and the air in his body was leaking into the atmosphere. Fersome half-expected to see a flaccid pile of clothes and skin when he turned around, but Clearmont was simply staring at him.

“Where were you between the hours of 6pm and 10pm last night, if I may be so bold as to ask?” Clearmont was just doing his job, but Fersome was incensed at the accusation. He was smarting, not just because of the timing of the question, but also because he was with Clearmont last night, eating at a Chinese restaurant in the squalid back streets of China Town. He grunted again, his eyes telling Clearmont that he had better be asking him that out of a sense of duty and not because he believed that Fersome had slipped out between the fried baby Octopus and the green bean salad just to stick a knife in the heart of their best friend.

They had a clear set of prints off the Sellotape – like the killer either wanted them to discover who had killed Johnson or was simply a complete fuckwit; Fersome was thinking that it was probably the latter, unless someone was about to attempt to frame him for murder. He shook his head and coughed as he cleared his throat. Several policemen turned to stare at Fersome, his steely gaze told them to get back to their work and fuck anyone who might want to argue with that. Especially Clearmont.

--

A spot of blood dripped on the shirt collar of a big man in black suit; it was an ill fitting set of clothes and they bulged unnaturally as his bulk tried to escape the linen prison, to rip out from the constraint of the cloth. The blood diffused through the material and, as it slowly coagulated in the sun that streamed through the large windows set high in the wall, clumped in a way that made it look like ketchup, like stage blood. When the crash of the body echoed through the air, golden with motes of dust caught in sunlight, no one was there to hear it. No one would discover the body until rats and maggots had devoured it, when the weather had got so warm that the smell brought humans, hoping to find what was spoiling their family barbecue. Someone would state that they knew it wasn’t the marinade they had made from a selection of food found at the back of the fridge late on a Friday night. Others would say later that the body smelled better than the marinade.

The host would find legs of chicken buried in the garden for years to come and wonder how they had got there, failing to remember how she had tossed her own piece of food in the bin, wracking her brains for the reason no one had complained that it tasted like shit. The thoughts had been interrupted by the sounds of people discussing the smell from “that tired piece of shit architecture that should’ve been pulled down a long time back, don’t you agree Trevor?” All of them were middle-class wankers who bustled in front of the news channel camera, almost fighting to get into the shot, each looking for the moment when they could grasp their fifteen minutes of fame. All they got was the chance to sit in a police station for hours going over the details of where they were at the time of death, etc. Before long, the police would have worn most of them out and allowed them to leave, the words ‘we may need to see you again’ ringing in their ears.

--

The newspapers didn’t begin to use the phrase SERIAL KILLER for months, something that had surprised Fersome. He had languished in a cell for six weeks now, picking bugs off his pubic hair each morning, keeping his eye on the other prisoners. Who knew he was a policeman? He kept himself to himself, looked at no one and repeated the mantra in his head: I will be free, I am innocent; I will be free…

In the end they beat a confession out of another inmate. The patsy (he had a name, but no one could remember what it was and so they referred to him only by his prison number: 103BT6) was executed one bitterly cold morning in September. Fersome wasn’t there: he was at an award ceremony, receiving a medal for bravery. Four months inside a maximum security prison was worth it, apparently.

The killings stopped from that point on, which was all the police really wanted. Clearmont was off the case. In fact, no one had seen Clearmont for weeks. Only Fersome suspected. Only Fersome put two and two together and found that things didn’t really add up.

--

Nightmares plagued him. The sound of Sellotape being pulled across eyelids, the sound of it being ripped off dead skin and the bluish tinge to that same skin, around the mouth which had also been taped up. This was the only evidence that each body shared; they had little else in common. Apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that is – they had this fact in common with every other murder victim in history. It didn’t help Clearmont sleep any better.

He was shaken awake in the early hours of the first Monday morning of January. Through blurry eyes he saw gloves and a bag from the stationers. As he began to scream, another pair of gloved hands reached around and placed a piece of tape over his mouth.

After that, we can only guess. Fersome wrote in his report that he thought death was painful and that a struggle had taken place. Others higher up in the hierarchy of the force thought he showed insight – not from being at the killing, but from being best friends with two murder victims. He had a cast iron alibi for each slaying. It would never stand up in court.

--

Fersome believed that he would be next. It was only a matter of time.