A prologue
Come with me, walk carefully and quietly. Stay back! We
follow a woman as she steps carefully in high heels through the mud and
undergrowth. She is in the wrong shoes
for this job, but it’s her lunch break and the only time unaccounted for.
The water smells brackish, shallow and mineral-rich. Will it be deep enough beneath that surface that
is slick with oily stains? Watch your step;
there is so much rubbish, detritus of trysts and parties: cans, glass and
condoms. Follow her. Watch her. You may need to remember this moment. Her hair is sable-brown and neatly rolled in
a French pleat.
A man is dead, and
there is a box to remove from the world, a grey metal lock-box she holds out in
front carefully, like a tray of canapés being proffered. Stories trail behind
her, little lost and secret stories. They cling to her pencil skirt and whine
for attention. No time for them. Not now. Her heart beat is a bass-heavy thump
but in her head is a crazed jazz treble: logistics, logins, passwords, email
accounts. Another box, this time in a bank. Two PO boxes in two towns, and at the
huge hospital on Broad street one body.
One beloved, known, mapped by her fingers body. A man is dead and the box must disappear.
Watch her. Follow her. You may need to remember this moment…
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