The Bone Bodies — David Martin

It was still light so I decided to venture out into the garden. I had never walked out of an argument before, and certainly not one at such an early stage. I think we were both quite pig headed, and my pride had taken an instant punch to the kidney. I didnt expect Rachel to follow me outside, and I certainly didnt want her to. I had slighted her suggestion, and she had taken it badly. I knew I should have stayed, talked it through and made her see my side of things. I should have told her that I would do this film, and if the future didnt work out as I hoped then I would consider her proposal. Hell, as an accountant she would set the business up for me and keep all the books. All I would have to do was do up s****y old houses. Most of it was all cosmetic anyway, a lick of paint here, a new carpet there, a few light fittings and stuff. All done on the cheap, supermarket goods made to look expensive. People would pay more for the houses giving me more profit. Once they moved in they could take all my crappy fittings out if they wanted to, it wouldnt bother me in the slightest. I had the skill for it, and that was one of the most important factors in her proposal. The one thing I didnt have just now was the will to do it, and that made one bitch of a difference.

I walked down the path at the front of the house. I marvelled at my own work as I passed by, the grass was neatly cut, and was growing in neat strips, making it look like a professionally cut soccer pitch or tennis court. The gravel driveway was well laid and even. There were a couple of stone sculptures at either end of the drive. In fact they werent stone at all, but a kind of outdoor material made to look like stone. They were weighted down with sand and looked pretty authentic. I figured that if my movie was a success and I got other roles soon I would invest in some real stone ones.

I wandered right down to the end of the drive, where our land meets the main road. When I say main road, I dont mean a major carriageway, it was actually a B-road which led towards the M1. There wasnt a lot of traffic around at the best of times, although tonight was unusually silent. I couldnt even hear the usual dull and distant roar of the traffic from the motorway as a thousand souls passed in the near vicinity of my life. Tonight there seemed to be nobody about, not even in the distance. It was just the night for a perfect murder.

Why that thought entered my head I was unsure, it just suddenly popped in there and refused to budge. It was disturbing that I should have such an idea so easy, but there it was. I could kill Rachel, and then there would be no reason why I couldnt do whatever I wanted. I could act forever, I could paint houses forever, whatever the f**k I wanted to do. With her out of the way there would be nothing to stop me except my own ambition.

I couldnt quite believe I was having these thoughts. I know that everyone is prone to the occasional lapse in normal behaviour, but it usually passes in a moment or two. It also leads to intense remorse that the thought ever occurred. Not in this case though. The thought of digging a grave right here and now, and luring Rachel here, throwing her into the newly dug hole and covering it with earth. She would scream for a while, but there would be nobody to hear her. I would keep filling the hole with earth, and then the screaming would stop. She would be gone forever. I would report her missing, and she would never be found. I would be looked at with sympathy, and my career would skyrocket because of it. I would be the hero who came back from the brink to relaunch a successful acting career. I would marry a supermodel, but not before a string of torrid but highly sexually charged relationships had taken place.

I had a peculiar sensation of dj vu, as if this wasnt exactly a new thought, or indeed a new experience for me. I did