Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

beautiful flower, Harry had said. Beautiful colour. Not blue, but not purple either. Somewhere in between.
    “I’m sure you do your best,” Newman was saying. “It’s just that she wants more from life. More than you can offer, anyway.”
    “Did she tell you that?”
    “She didn’t have to. I’m her father.”
    “You left her when she was thirteen.”
    “I left her mother.”
    Billy shrugged. “Same thing.”
    Newman watched him from the sofa.
    “You know, when I first knew Sue,” Billy said, “she never mentioned you at all. I used to think her father must be dead. He must have died when she was very young, I thought—or maybe he died before she was even born—”
    “Are they teaching you psychology now? Is that what they’re teaching on those training courses?” Newman studied his beer. He still hadn’t taken so much as a sip.
    In that moment, a curious vibration went through Billy, a sort of flutter or crackle, as though his body were full of tiny people clapping. He had just realised that Newman was a man he could kill, and he would feel no qualms about it. He could use the onyx clock Sue’s mother had given them when they got married. He could see Newman on the carpet, one arm trapped beneath his body, the other pointing at the door. Battered to death with a present from his ex-wife. There was a nice symmetry to that.
    “I’m not sure I get the joke,” Newman said.
    This would be one of the very few times that Billy managed to turn the tables on Sue’s father, and he wanted to make it last. No qualms, he thought, and no remorse. None whatsoever.
    Standing up, he stepped over to the mantelpiece and adjusted the position of the clock, not because it needed adjusting, but because he wanted to feel the weight of it, the heft. Oh, this would do, he said to himself. This would be perfect.
    Not exactly the perfect murder, though.
    As he put the clock down and turned away, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung opposite the fireplace. For several seconds he stood quite still, struck by a thought he’d never had before. In Ipswich there was a man—a local character—who’d had his entire face tattooed in an attempt to stop himself committing crimes. Billy would see him sometimes, on Westgate Street or Norwich Road, his eyes appearing to stare out from behind a jungle of Celtic swirls and flourishes. Granted the man was mentally ill, but the measure did have a certain logic to it. If he ever broke the law, there would be no problem identifying the culprit.
It was the bloke with the tattoos. He did it.
Looking at himself in the mirror, it occurred to Billy that he might have joined the police for the same reason, to prevent himself from doing wrong. Not to protect other people, then, but to protect himself. His uniform was a sane version of the tattooed face. It hadn’t worked, though, had it? Even with his uniform on, he had done things he shouldn’t have; if anything, in fact, the uniform had helped. He thought of Venetia’s father, and the memory came to him so forcefully that the wet-hay smell of the old man’s breath seemed present in the room.
    “You know, a few years ago—” Billy checked himself. This wasn’t something he should ever talk about, and least of all with Newman listening.
    “A few years ago what?” Newman said softly.
    Billy shook his head. “Another drink?”
    Newman looked at his plastic beaker. “I’ve got plenty.”
    When Billy returned from the kitchen with a second beer, he went and stood by the window. He saw Newman’s chauffeur fold a newspaper and place it on the dashboard. He wondered how the chauffeur felt about his employer. He imagined walking outside and telling him Newman was dead.
I killed him. Just now. With a clock.
And the chauffeur nodding, smiling, maybe even patting him on the back—
    “It’s not that you’re stupid exactly,” Newman said.
    To the west, the sky was streaked with violet and gold. Summer nights—the way the