Wild Fiction

The boxes lay in their rows as she remembered them. Bodies lying on their sides, motionless, covered in dust and cobwebs. Bodies wrapped up in swathes of grey cloth like Egyptian mummies, ready for burial. There was a large box in one of the corners. She had opened that box before and was not going to do it again. It was full of heads, ready to put on bodies. It was like walking around inside the author’s subconscious, between the words on the pages of his character notes.
She inspected each box; some of them empty and never used. Then she stopped. This one had the imprint of a human body in it. Stuck neatly at the foot was a shiny white label:
Rebecca (no surname yet)
She leant forward, over the box, looking at the foetal curve of the imprint in the bottom. She caught a whiff of something she recognised. She breathed in deeply through her nose and felt the dust tickle and irritate her nasal passage. Mixed in with the damp old smell of a cellar she could detect something else. She did it again before her mind made the connection. It was that perfume, designer label, CKOne or Escape by Calvin Klein, she had smelt it in her bathroom a couple of days ago. A long blonde hair glistened in the box, almost invisible in its transparency. She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light. She held it under her nose and sniffed at it but could detect nothing.
Satisfied that she was alone in the house she proceeded up to the study and went straight to the safe. She opened it, pulled out the manila envelope, and removed the top bond. She folded it neatly in half and placed it in an envelope taken from the author’s desk. She put the envelope in her handbag and hid it under a pile of shoes in her wardrobe in their bedroom.
She felt exhausted but knew she would not be able to sleep. She ran the plan through her head again. It was very simple. Tomorrow night she would meet Corp at a place in Brixton. She had written down the directions. There she would give him the money. She had thought about asking Gunther to go along with her but, at the last minute, had decided against it.
She climbed into bed and looked at the empty pillow next to her. ‘Where’s my husband,’ she whispered. Her voice had a hollow echo and repeated itself around the room.