“So let me get this right, the building’s on fire and I have to choose between rescuing a cat and rescuing the cure for cancer?”
“Yes,” Connie said.
“And I definitely can’t save both?”
“No.”
“Is it the cure for all cancers? Or just some?”
“All.”
“Is the cat old?”
“What difference does that make? Is its life worth less because it’s old? Will it suffer less when it’s burnt alive?”
Franklin wondered if Connie’s hypothetical cat was a distant relative of Schrödinger’s Cat. “And you’re definitely not in the building? It’s just a straight choice — cat or cancer? Cancer or cat?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you? Just out of interest?”
“I’m standing on the pavement watching, Franklin.”
Mr Kingshott retired to the gloom of the library while the women of the household embarked on a furiously paced game of Monopoly in the course of which even Mrs Kingshott became a cut-throat (Park Lane! Mine!).
Franklin excused himself and dozed on the sofa. He did feel extraordinarily tired and woozy and the Kingshott’s sofa was as comfy as a fairy-tale feather bed.
When he woke, the drawing room was empty, no sign of any Kingshotts and the Monopoly board had been tidied away. It felt late and Franklin wondered how long he had slept. The clock on the mantelpiece said eight o’clock but surely someone would have woken him to partake in the endless round of eating and drinking that seemed to go on in the house.
There was no sign of life anywhere and Franklin wandered from room to room, occasionally shouting “Hello?” to the air until only the library remained unexplored. Franklin paused before the closed door. The idea of disturbing the bear in his lair was unnerving. He put his ear to the door. There was no sound from within. Perhaps Mr Kingshott had jumped ship with his women. Franklin knocked sharply twice and when there was no answer he turned the handle and opened the door cautiously, half expecting to find Bluebeard’s wives hanging from butchers’ hooks.
There was nothing, a faint tang in the air, iron and salt and something faintly raw.
And a foot. A smallish foot, poking out from behind the desk. A foot encased in a beige wool sock and a tan handmade brogue that looked very like one that Mr Kingshott was wearing the last time Franklin saw him.
Franklin approached the desk and discovered that the foot was (thankfully) still attached to the rest of Mr Kingshott. Unfortunately, there was a knife sticking out of his chest, exactly where his heart was. It seemed an ironic death for a man who spent his life sticking knives into other people’s hearts.
Mr Kingshott’s eyes were open, as fixed and dull as a dead salmon. It was just like Cluedo, Franklin thought — Mr Kingshott in the library with a dagger. Not a dagger exactly but a small sharp knife, very like the one Franklin had used earlier to slice a lemon for Mrs Kingshott, although, when he thought about it now, the lemon had never made an appearance at lunch.
Franklin’s feet were sticking to the carpet and he realized he had walked in Mr Kingshott’s blood. He felt sick. He knew he should phone the police but his brain was still fogged up. Had he been drugged? Faith must be pretty handy with narcotics.
He retreated to the hallway and was fumbling in his pocket for his mobile when the front door burst open and several policemen rushed in, followed by all the Kingshott women.
“That’s him,” Patience said, pointing dramatically at Franklin.
“Yes,” Connie said, “that’s definitely him. He’s been stalking me for weeks, everywhere I go he follows.” She was a stagy actress, Franklin noted.
“We have photographs,” Patience said in her own histrionic style. It was like being in the middle of a poor amateur dramatic production. An Inspector Calls. From nowhere Patience produced a folder of black-and-white photographs. Franklin managed to catch a glimpse of them over the shoulder of one of the policemen. They all seemed to show Franklin loitering in Connie’s wake in a variety of venues he recognized — Hollywood Park, George Street, coming out of the Lyceum. “I was trying to catch up with her, not follow her,” he protested.
“Daddy tried to warn him off,” Connie said.
“And so he killed him,” Faith said. “Obviously.”
The cat appeared suddenly, arching its back and spitting at Franklin.
“He’s an awfully good judge of character,” Connie said.
“Mrs Kingshott?” one of the policemen said, turning to her, as if she had some kind of casting vote on Franklin’s fate.
Mrs Kingshott gazed into Franklin’s face and gave a tremendous sigh. “I’m afraid so,” she said. “He’s been giving us all so much bother.”
Franklin had an unnerving flashback to last night and the condom that Faith had produced and magicked away when she had finished ravishing him. He remembered the rabid biting and scratching — how many samples of DNA had she managed to steal off him? He had stood in Mr Kingshott’s blood, his own bloody footprints tracking his journey all the way from the body. And what about the knife? He remembered the delicate way Mrs Kingshott had handed it to him, so that no prints were on that knife except his.
“I thought you loved me,” Franklin said to Connie. Even to his own ears he sounded pathetic.
“He’s so deluded,” Patience said to the policemen.
“I believe the medical term is erotomania,” Faith said. “It often leads to violence, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t listen to them!” Franklin said.
All four women stood on the doorstep and watched as Franklin was bundled into a police car. By now the place was swarming with more police, with forensics, with photographers, although it was a relatively subdued crime scene compared with anything in Green Acres. Franklin made a mental note for future use. If he had a future.
As the car drove away, Franklin caught sight of Mrs Kingshott. She gave him a regretful smile and waved goodbye to him.
Franklin waved back. Even now, he found himself not wanting to hurt Mummy’s feelings.
The Ballad of Manky Milne
Stuart MacBride
And that was why, on a cold night in February, Duncan Milne was up to his neck in shite. Literally. There was a small stunned pause, and then the swearing started. “FUCK, Jesus, fuck! Aaaaaaargh!” then some spitting, then more swearing.
A silhouette blocked out the handful of stars visible through the septic tank’s inspection hatch. “You OK?”
“No I’m not fucking OK!” More spitting. “Argh! Jesus — that tastes horrible!”
“Aye, well... it is shite.”
Duncan “Manky” Milne wiped his eyes and flicked the scummy liquid away. The smell was appalling. “Don’t tell me it’s shite, OK? I know it’s fucking shite! I’m bloody swimming in it!” He screwed his face up and spat some more. Breaking into Neil McRitchie’s septic tank had seemed like such a good idea at the time — smacked out of their tits and jacked up on shoplifted vodka — but treading “water” in a subterranean vat of raw sewage, Milne had to admit it was losing its appeal.
“Can you see it?”
He scowled up at the dark shape. “Help me out!”
A pause, then, “But—”
“Josie, I swear: if you don’t help me out of here I’m gonnae stab you in the fucking eye!”
“But you’re down there anyway...” Wheedling, putting on her “little girl” voice, because she thinks it makes men squirm.
“It’s pitch black down here. I can’t—”
“So feel about for it! It’ll be easy enough to find. I’ll bet it floats.”
Milne spat again, trying to get rid of the aftertaste. “Why the hell would it float?”