Life In Print

The library was cool and smelled like the soothing mix of old books, new magazines, and half-decent coffee – a stark contrast to the mixture of sweat, cheap aftershave and fried food that filled the streets with the carnival in town. Reynold Powell, a short, stocky gentleman with a slight widow’s peak, sat down heavily in one of the lime-green, partly plasticised chairs, backed by a thin-topped desk. He leaned back, took in a deep breath of filtered air, and relaxed for a moment. 

Powell hated crowds, loud noises, and anything remotely “fun” - it was almost a phobia, but not enough of one for people to be careful around him. Friends and family encouraged him to go out to noisy, exciting places all the time, not understanding that it genuinely made him feel uncomfortable and awkward. So here he was, taking a break from the music – those damned drums - and the throngs of singers, dancers and street performers in outrageous costumes. Libraries were safe places; the worst he could expect in here was a couple of teenagers attempting to download something evil, or a drunken outburst from a person of no fixed abode. 

His gaze moved around the room lazily from shelf to shelf, like a lost bluebottle trying to find an open window. The book would have seemed innocuous to everyone else in the world, but the artwork on the front had an illustrated picture of a woman on it – not an attractive woman; not a face that could launch a thousand ships – maybe a couple of tankers and a tugboat, he thought dourly – but it was definitely a picture of his wife. She had died years ago, but was clearly staring out at him with that sanctimonious look on her face. 

With time to kill before his younger brother and sister would be searching for him and inevitably ringing his phone repeatedly, curiosity won over surprise and he scooted over to the rotating plastic display. A quick scan of the cover indicated that it was published a few months after her untimely demise (30 years too early for an average woman; 10 years too late for his own preference), and her name, Marion, was an exact match.  

Reynold wasn’t a speed-reader, but he searched through the first few pages for any indications of links to Marion. The physicality was spot-on, but that could have been a result of the police reports in the news at the time. A picture of her from better times had gone around all of the dailies, and many news bulletins. She had disappeared shortly after Valentine’s Day, and to his lessening surprise, so had her fictional counterpart in the novel. The husband, a short man with a pair of beady little eyes and a nervous disposition, seemed to be an unflattering caricature of Powell himself. Damn the author for even choosing to make him work in a garden centre – they might as well have put in his National Insurance number and home address. Had the news mentioned his job? He thought not. 

He read on, flipping through pages without more than glancing at individual words, wondering whether it would be possible to take this person to court over writing about his wife’s life. Then a few pages from the end of the flimsy paperback made that thought disappear from his mind completely. 

The meal was prepared with more than his usual care – normally dry, dull chicken had been spiced with paprika, ginger and a hint of cinnamon for extra sweetness. Power wasn’t known for his culinary exuberance normally, and she attempted to compliment him on the scent wafting from the kitchen. 

‘Thank you for noticing. I guess variety is the spice of life, after all,’ he responded drily. The old bat would never be able to taste it with all of those other flavours, he thought with a wicked smile. 

Gelsemine wasn’t an easy plant to grow in England, even in the controlled environment of the garden centre. He had had to cultivate it carefully, set aside plenty of space around it, and ensure that whenever someone tried to put a price-tag on the few shrubs that began to flower. He had pruned away a few petals, ground them into something fine enough to be ingested, and rubbed them all over the chicken marked with an X prior to cooking. There was probably three times the required amount painted onto the fatty chicken fillet, but he didn’t want to take any chances. 

Reynold was horrified. If this book had become a best-seller, he wondered how many people would associate this ghastly act with him personally. The police agreed that it looked like natural causes, and the hospital never assumed foul play. He started to wonder whether a solicitor should be called, and how worried he should be about the publicity of a court case at this time. 

He bought the book, stuffed it into an inside pocket of his grey-green woollen jacket, and shuffled out of there in a hurry. Suddenly, the library seemed like less of a comforting place. 

*** 

Browsing through the phone book, Reynold had found a reasonably-priced firm of solicitors in the local area who dealt with defamation. A conversation that seemed to take forever, and made his right ear throb slightly, resulted in them promising to contact the publishers, get a defamation order on the author, and if possible, cease printing any future copies. The timeline was disconcerting – he kept asking ‘How long do you think this will take?’ and was assured that it would be no longer than a year. Massaging his temples in frustration, he knew this was never going to be done quickly enough for his own comfort. 

Work had been forgone for a day or two – no overtime, no arriving early or leaving late, and he had been less than diligent about the upkeep of the hundreds of different florae under his purview. Normally, everything in the centre looked immaculate because Reynold Powell oversaw every inch of it – barely a leaf out of place; hardly a drooping petal – but he had other things on his mind. 

He read through the novella in his spare time, picking up bits and pieces of what he thought were omitted details from the newspapers and TV at the time. The aspects of their personal life seemed particularly shocking. Marion was constantly fascinated by the celebrity lifestyle, possibly because of the dull and dreary nature of her existence with Raymond. She always imagined that those A-Listers had much more interesting sex too. 

Reynold was unflattered by this remark, and idly wondered whether it could be added to the libel case that was still trudging along at the pace of continental drift. There were plenty of inaccuracies too, of course. In the fictional version of Marion’s death, the police had found the body very quickly, had ordered an autopsy, and had discovered traces of the G. Elegans plant’s toxins in her bloodstream. In reality, Reynold had reported her missing the day after she disappeared, and it had taken them a fortnight to find her body. She had been positioned in such a way that the most obvious cause of death was a heart attack, and given her medical history, the autopsy was more of a formality than anything else. As her husband, he had given permission, but wanted no part of it. 

Powell was angry. He had had a complicated marriage, but to think that someone out there was making up this kind of story about him... it brought up strange emotions that bubbled and popped in the base of his stomach. 

I have to know – who is this rotten author? Who would try to ruin my life like this? 

The author’s name was Bracknell Wyke – clearly a pseudonym, because those were Powell’s home town when he was a child, and the town in which he first met Marion. Not an auspicious first date, he had to admit, but still engrained on his own memory and probably not the hardest information to find out for anyone with an internet connection. 

The internet might be a good place to start looking for information on this character, Wyke. The publisher’s website had little biographical detail on him, but had a few links to social media and an official Facebook account which was updated fairly regularly. 

The most recent upload was from a few minutes ago, that of a sepia-print picture of a farmhouse with a caption in white saying: “Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.” Reynold set himself up to receive notifications on when Wyke was active online, and sent him a message, stating that he had just read A Poisonous Relationship and was engrossed. There was no response, unsurprisingly, but at least it felt like progress. After a lengthy period of searching the internet for more information on this reclusive author, the gardener washed his chapped, discoloured hands and went to bed as the sun turned the sky a deep indigo. 

Waking up refreshed but still troubled, Powell refilled his professional-looking coffee maker and waited patiently for it to boil. He had no work today, and fully intended to search through the entire internet for any more information on Wyke, if needed. He woke up his laptop, impatiently waiting for it to get to a point where he could actually use the internet, idly considered the option of replacing it with something newer, and eventually spotted the red and white “1” on his Facebook page. Bracknell Wyke had responded at 3 o’clock in the morning. 

Living alone for several years had made Reynold the antithesis of self-conscious, so he sat in his patchy dressing gown, slurped his coffee, and read the author’s message aloud. 

‘I am surprised to hear from you after all this time. I thought the book would have caught your attention before now – surely someone pointed it out to you? No, I guess that you don’t have a big enough social circle for that to be likely. Are you really trying to sue me for defamation? Methinks the lady doth protest too much!’ 

That was all the man had to say. No apologies, not even a threat. Just a wry amusement at the threat of legal action. It was time to get pro-active. The pudgy horticulturalist started searching on the best way to track an IP address, then as an afterthought, searched what one was, and whether it could specify a location. 

After several dead-ends, a couple of hours' worth of failed attempts, and some foul language, he realised that tracking this guy down through the internet was something well outside his own knowledge base. Every time he tried tracking the smug Wyke’s IP, it seemed to bounce straight back to his own address. Reynold assumed that the author had taken preventative measures, and knew a lot more about the “interweb” than he did. This would be unsurprising at best. Most people knew more about technology than one R. D. Powell, but he was comfortable with that. 

I want to talk about this. You can’t just tell the world that I’m a murderer. The proof is non-existent, and it’s making me look bad, he replied, typing slowly and with deliberation with one finger. There was, of course, no reply. He trawled the internet for any more information on this mystery man, but there seemed only to be a few column inches on the publishers’ website about him enjoying “outdoor pursuits, nature, and a simple, single life.” Worse still, the man had only ever written one novella – the bane of Reynold’s existence. 

*** 

Breathing heavily, as though he had been tossing and turning in his sleep, Reynold woke at 5 o’clock to the sound of a bird at his window trilling before dawn. He tapped the pane gently, to make sure it left him alone, and asked idly: ‘You don’t know who he is, do you? Bracknell Wyke?’ The bird shrieked a little, then spun around with its wings spread, disappearing into the smoky grey of the night. 

His poky living room was in something of a mess. This was normal, but this particular day’s mess was that of a destructive presence rifling through his possessions. Panic seemed to focus his mind into checking over what might have been missing, checking for signs of a break-in, and seeing whether there was any indicator of physical evidence. Reynold was distressed, and had started to type in 999 on his phone when he noticed that the laptop was switched on, and open to his Facebook page. He pocketed the phone and sat down, breathing heavily. 

‘Don’t worry, nothing’s gone,’ he read aloud, panting and sweating. ‘Just thought I would see what you had been up to. The file attachment is a copy of your internet search history. You were checking up on me for a while, but there appears to be some fairly disgusting reading material on here in the weeks preceding. Let’s just stop messing with each other from now on, and no-one has to get embarrassed,’ the message finished, along with a customary smiley-face. 

The mixture of coffee and massive amounts of anxiety were turning his stomach. Reynold’s abdomen made a growling noise, and he tapped the keyboard quickly and with purpose. 

‘I want... to meet. Outside the... back of my house... 6am!’ The last keystroke was hammered in with such force that coffee dripped down the side of the chipped mug. He traced his thumb through the tepid liquid, and wondered what his next move should be. If he called the police, would they be as ineffectual as his solicitors had been? What was the man actually doing at this stage? Breaking and entering could be inferred from the last message the man sent, but would that be enough to keep him locked away? For one thing, the author was using a pseudonym. Wyke could be anyone. Quite literally anyone. 

He prepared a set of extension cords and lights for the back garden. He wanted to be in control of the situation when the man arrived. They were all rigged up to be switched on as one – even the Christmas lights from the attic were set up to give this creep no hiding place. Hopefully, he would be temporarily blinded, too. Reynold had felt on edge since this Wyke character had been inside his home. Nothing felt safe anymore. 

Weapons were considered briefly, but that wasn’t exactly Reynold’s style. Aside from his lack of physicality, and the fact that he started to wheeze after any kind of effort, he didn’t consider himself violent. In the end, he mashed up some chilli peppers, paprika and regular cayenne to make something he could throw at the author in an emergency. If he missed, it would stink for a few days, but Powell could hardly go out there wielding knives or guns, could he? 

For a long time, the only sounds inside were the clocks ticking, the inevitable creaking of his Edwardian house cooling down, and his own frantic pacing. When the sun began to set, Reynold decided to get some sleep, and set an alarm for 5 o’clock, giving him plenty of time to get ready for the enemy. 

A cheerful musical tone dragged him from a dream involving several people picking his pockets and having no way of stopping them. Shaking his head as if to clear the peculiar symbolism from his mind, Reynold got dressed in the dark. He had prepared everything carefully, and wanted to have the advantage. 

Padding out to the plain back garden, lit delicately by a crescent moon, he made sure that everything was in place. Nothing could be left to chance – this man had turned his life upside-down, and caused more stress and discomfort than he had ever experienced. At least, since he became a widower. He sat on a disconcertingly creaky canvas garden chair, his bag of pepper in one hand, the switch to the lights in the other, and waited patiently. Only a very keen observer could have spotted that he was shaking and that the corner of his eye had a slight tic to it. 

At precisely 6am, a voice came from the back corner of the garden. It was familiar, but Reynold could not place it. Slightly nasal, a touch boring, but filled with confidence. ‘I’m here – what do you want from me?’  

The gardener stood silently for a second, trying to place the stranger’s voice. ‘I want to know who you are... and how in Hell you knew what I did!’ With a moment’s hesitation, he flicked the switch to the lights, and the garden was illuminated from all angles. The man cursed slightly in the shock of the sudden bright flash, not helped by one of the neighbours turning on their lights to accompany it. He waited. 

‘I knew you killed her because you knew. I saw it in your eyes when you were asking for information. A fool could have seen you were guilty.’

‘So you wrote a book about it? You knew I killed Marion, but that was your solution? You should have told the police. But no, I guess you thought it’d be better to sell a few copies of half a book? Very moral.’ 

‘I just wanted you to admit it. And you have. Was I right about the poison?’ 

‘Okay, I cooked her a sweet, spicy meal and added the gelsemine elegans in big doses. She never suspected.’ He had to raise his voice for the last part, because sirens were ringing in the background. 

The officers were delicate with him as he was escorted to the panda car. They were paying attention to his neighbour far more than Reynold himself. 

‘I don’t know how good the recording was, but I heard him talking to himself. Admitted to killing his wife, poisoned her. I always thought there was something a little funny about him, tell the truth...’