Short Story Competition #5 Winning Entry

Written by Philippa Bower
Littlehampton UK

The Informer

Robin sat in the harsh light of the police interview room. The naked light bulb was swinging, causing shifting shadows on the slab-like face opposite him, making the detective look alternately bored and menacing. How did they get the bulb to swing? wondered Robin. There must be some sort of mechanism. He looked up and to his surprise he saw that there was no swinging light bulb, just a round neon light screwed to the ceiling. He must get a grip.

The detective had been writing down his name and address, now he looked up. “You say your father is responsible for a murder?” he said, his voice flat and uninterested.
“Yes,” said Robin eagerly. “That prostitute who went missing. It was my father who did it. He made me help bury the body.” Robin’s mind went back to that terrible evening, shovelling soil in the dusk, his father’s figure looming over him dark, menacing, blocking out the stars. “I tried to say no, I really did, but he hit me over the back with a spade and made me dig.”

“Tell me about the body,” said the detective.

“It was a girl, she was naked,” Robin paused and gulped, distressed by the memory of what he had been forced to do next. “We carried her out of the back door but she was heavy, my father has a bad back so he made me drag her down the garden path.”
The detective shook his head. “I need more details, things I can verify. You could be making all this up.”

Robin looked at him beseechingly. “No, please, I am telling you the truth. Please, please, you must arrest my father. If he found out that I have told you what happened he will kill me.” Robin strained to convince the detective, to remember details that he would sooner have forgotten. “She had blonde hair,” he said, “wet with the rain, clinging around her shoulders, and long pale legs, which became muddy as I dragged her. And there was a tattoo a sort of bird thing at the side of her belly.”
The detective’s interest had sharpened. “Did you actually see your father murdering the girl?” he asked.

Robin’s eyes filled with tears and he nodded. “I saw his hands, huge, brown and hairy against the smooth whiteness of her throat. I saw the sinews bulge as he forced them closed and she struggled. Her tongue seemed to swell out of her mouth, her eyes protruded, her skin turned purple. I could almost hear the tiny bones in her neck snapping. It was horrible, it seemed to take forever. She was scrabbling against his arms, clawing at his wrists, trying to stop him but it was no use, he just squeezed and squeezed. Then she relaxed, it was all over. She was dead.” Robin buried his head in his hands and sobbed. “I should have intervened, I should have tried to save her, but I am so frightened of him. My father is a monster.”

The detective got up and with a quick “Excuse me a moment,” he left the room. Robin sat. The light bulb was swinging again; shadows seemed to be closing in on him. Oh no, he forgot, there was no light bulb. He gripped the side of the desk to try and stop his hands trembling. The detective returned with two colleagues who took up positions on either side of the informer. Robin got to his feet.

“I am sorry,” said the detective and he was looking at Robin, almost with sympathy in his eyes, “but your father died ten years ago.” Robin stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Let me see your wrists,” said the detective. Robin held out his arms and the men on either side of him unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Robin stared aghast – his father’s hands were on the ends of his arms and there were deep scratch marks on his wrists. What did it mean? His whirling brain scarcely heard the arresting officer reading out his rights. When Robin finally figured it out he raised his head to the harsh, round neon light and howled like a wolf.
“Noooooooooooooo.”

-end-
© Philippa Bower 2007

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