Friday, 22 February 2019
Reading time 03 minutes 34 seconds
No innocent person ever has an Alibi – Agatha Christie.
Those that know me think I’m relaxed, laid back, almost cool. The people that really know me are aware that I’m driven by fear and worry and will not be surprised to hear of the day I decided that I would not go down for murder. I couldn’t. I’d been to prison once during a game of Monopoly and didn’t enjoy it. I never understood why you didn’t get the £200 even though you passed Go! This time the jail would be real though and I would do anything to avoid it.
The timing was tight but by using all my cunning and guile I could just about pull this off and stay out of the scrubs. Being locked up would not work for me although I did desire a London address. For a start they have too many carbs for breakfast and I’ve been told by more than three people that I have a really cute bum.
The dead person was the youth I’d been asked to train that day. We’d met that morning and back then, they were very much alive. I liked it that way, it suited them.
Kitchen duties were not difficult to teach, myself and my student clicked immediately. They were kind and selfless, that’s why they volunteered, and as I later learnt, it looks great on a university application. Not that this person would need that anymore.
I should have noticed how well my day was going and gone home and climbed back into bed. Leaving that place is always my first mistake yet I repeat it on a daily basis.
As our shift finished I enquired as to where they were off to and then made my second mistake by offering them a lift, this was just as dumb as my initial error but without a 5 tog duvet to convince me otherwise.
Why did they say yes? Damm young people and their “Positive Say Yes To Life” attitude. We drove off and laughed for what would be the last time.
As I pulled up to their destination I noticed how scary and dubious it seemed. It was an industrial estate, the sort of place where very large, very dodgy drug deals are busted by a 16 month joint task force operation. Why were they meeting their mum here? My trainees, not the drug dealers.
I enquired as to their safety in this nefarious place. They laughed again and insisted I leave. The sun was shining. What could possibly go wrong?
So I left. That’s the last time I saw them alive. The smiles from their face would be forever etched in my mind.
10 minutes later the radio interrupted my car pool karaoke session with a news story about a missing person. I normally don’t listen to the news but this caught my attention. My brain then put 2 & 2 together and got two little ducks. Quack Quack!
I’m prone to flights of fantasy, some dark, some light but mostly they were very boring flights. EasyJet Southend to Liverpool on a Wednesday afternoon for instance. This time though the flight was scary, like Southend to Liverpool on a Friday afternoon. What if my colleague from earlier went missing? I’d be the last person to have seen them alive excluding the bad person who executed the terrible deed and my trainee.
I’d become what I clearly am not, a person of interest. No one knew of the bad person so I was looking at a life sentence for murder. My imagination was in overdrive.
I’d departed the obvious to me crime scene 10 minutes ago. They’d already be in the back of a van so the best I could do would be to selfishly save myself. It was fight or flight time.
I’d require a cast iron alibi. Why they are made of Iron I don’t know. My football team has that moniker and we’re rubbish.
Fear was doing it’s normal job on me and endless possibilities which all ended up with me in peril went through my mind. I drove passed a petrol station and an obvious solution presented itself.
I put some diesel in the tank and my face on the CCTV. Inside the store I caused a minor scene by purposefully knocking some goods from the shelf. A member of staff came over and I insisted I helped them put stuff back. I paid using my credit card after cleverly adding a Cadburys cream egg to my basket. I didn’t want the Egg, even though they were on a special deal. It wasn’t even Easter, the best of all the religious holidays. My brain protecting me. Who would commit a heinous crime then eat a Cadbury’s cream egg? No one. Voila. A Graphene Alibi sorted!
I forced the egg down in front of the forecourt camera and went about my day.
I didn’t sleep well that night. My paranoid dreams made me Andy “Shawshank” Dufresne.
The next morning still racked with worry I phoned work. My trainee answered immediately. They hadn’t been killed!
I inhaled purposefully for the first time in a day, tasting the sweet smell of freedom.
That was a close one. OK , no more Mr. nice guy, no more lifts, no more training. I never saw them again as they left shortly after for University and I never did find out why their mum picked them up in an industrial estate. Some people are just weird I guess.
Picture: Me in my pirate attire at yesterday’s sold out family show which was great fun.