2.6 "Where were You on the Night...?"

“Tom… are you awake?” A voice called out, which was followed by a heavy bit of banging.

I groggily moaned some incoherent mumble towards the door.

The banging stopped.

The radio clock groaned. “It’s nine o’clock, and now the news with Tom Devon. The headlines: man arrested for drink driving was in the nude…”

It was too much for me to listen to such trivial things. I slowly got out of my wet bed, turned off the radio and then made my way towards the door.

“Eh, hello,” it was the pixy headed investigator; it looked like he picked up a few new pimples overnight. His face was covered in thick yellow puss.

He didn’t ask to come in, he just flew through the door, gave a disproving glance at the state of the room and then sat down on the old torn up couch that was covered in a pink flowery sheet.

“So,” he said folding his legs. “I have a few questions I have to ask you? Where were you on the night your father was murderer?”

Ummm... an interrogation, I thought

I kept on standing, put my hand on my hip and said, “When was my father murdered exactly?” It sounded comically even asking such a question; I knew precisely where I was that night, I was in bed, I drifted off to sleep counting sheep.

“A day ago…?” He questioned looking out of his rimmed glasses. Strange, even he was unsure.

“I was in bed. It took me four hours to get here by plane so you can assume I don’t live across the street.”

He grunted one of those Vietnamese Pot Bellied pig noises a deep low bellow that I had heard once in some rundown farm when I was a kid.

“But you could have flown to see your father than flown back.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It is quite possible; you know air travel makes anything possible these days.” I shrugged my shoulders, shuffled my feet towards the whining fridge and pulled out a beer. I didn’t even think of offering the detective one.

“You know you have been named in your father’s will as the sole beneficiary.”

“That’s news to me; you know wills are private affairs, family business.”

“It was vital to the case you have to realise that.”

“Realise what?” I sipped on the open bottle. “Realise that you are hinting that I am responsible for my father’s death so I can take his millions?”

“I never said that!”

I pointed my long index finger at him, raised my voice and said, “Realise this you piece of shit, you leave me and my family alone, I’ve come home to bury my father, I won’t have you poking around and making things worse for us. Can’t you let us mourn?”

“Calm down now, it’s only an investigation, you have to realise that we can’t leave a stone unturned.”

I felt like running up to him and strangling him on the spot, and then I could be charged with murder. There would be a reason then. A smug smile stretched my face as I envisioned the detective strangling, choking on his red leathery tongue, begging for mercy, screaming as I watched his brown glassy eyes pop out of his skull. Yes I was capable of murder, murdering him. I could see him now lying dead on the couch a little trickle of blood staining the carpet, a little scrub with Vanish carpet stain removal would solve the problem. Perhaps if I just neared him, I scuffled my feet forward.

“You listen here, detective whatever your name is…”

“Ron, detective Ron Howard…”

“I don’t care what your fucking name is; you leave me and my family alone or else…”

“Or else what?” he said bolting upright brushing the creases off his black suit that looked like he had purchased it from a second hand shop. It even smelt like mothballs.

I was staring into his little rimmed glasses, his breath smelt like aftershave, Old spice, a lovely aftershave which reminded me of my granddad still smelling of the musty stuff in his closing coffin. Why did the dead want to smell good, it wasn’t like anyone would go sniffing around his stiff, pale cold body, seeing if he smelt good?

I raised my hand high in the air, wanting to smack the little man for even suggesting I had a hand in my father’s death. A father is an important figure in a family; you don’t excuse a sibling of killing his father unless you have just cause. And it was only a wild imagination of his that would give him reason to believe I was the culprit of his death.