Page 117 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!How was he supposed to attend an eight course dinner while dismembering this bastard?
He would just have to. Joe was going to have a nice holiday, and that was all there was to it.
Percy refreshed his face and checked his watch. All up, ithad taken fifteen full minutes to make his way there and kill Elio. That time was explainable with the excuse of vomiting in the bathroom. Joe would buy that. Percy was certain of it. So long as he got back soon.
He pulled a packet of extra large garbage bags from his satchel and put one over Elio’s head to prevent any more leakage. He found bleach, or something like it, beneath the kitchen sink, and cleared up whatever blood he could find. He wrapped the body a little more and dragged the dark mass into the bedroom. There wasn’t a great deal of space, but he shoved it deep into the wardrobe, draping some clothes over it.
It would do. For a short time.
Percy quickly found the house keys, which had been knocked to the floor during the short scuffle. He locked up behind himself, and checking carefully for witnesses, ran back to the restaurant, going the long way around the block, away from the restaurant, in a circle. He climbed back through the bathroom window, short of breath and dizzy, returning to the table just as the next course appeared.
CHAPTER FIFTY
ANTIPASTI
Joe paled the second Percy slid back into his seat. He was clammy. He was a sweaty sort of clammy. His cheeks were flushed, and he had clearly just washed his face, but there was a hint of sweat in his hair. And his sleeves were rolled down, done up tight at the cuffs. Percy almost never wore his shirt like that. He must be cold. He must be coldandsweating, and that meant he had some kind of hideous fever.
Joe reached for Percy’s knee beneath the table. “I really think you need to go back to the hotel right now.”
“What?” Percy’s eyes widened a little, as though he hadn’t even considered the possibility. “No. No, I’m all better now. I won’t go into detail, but I think I really just needed to get that over with.” Yet his hand moved to his stomach again, a problem which he then waved away with, “No, I’m sure I’m on the mend. I promise. I can feel it.”
But Joe was insistent. “You really don’t look well.”
“I am. Watch me.” And Percy set to eating as though he was starving. He ate very heartily indeed, drank down a full glass of water and most of his wine, talked excessively, and hiscolour soon returned to normal, the only flush now apparently due to merriment.
But just as he placed his cutlery on his empty plate, he closed his arms tight over his stomach. He threw down his napkin and excused himself, only this time, with a look at Leo, that lasted a few milliseconds too long.
Leo remained at the table all of two minutes, waffling distractedly, before suddenly needing the bathroom himself.
And that was when Joe began to reflect a little more deeply on Percy’s incongruous appetite and change of mood.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
DOWN THE STAIRS HE GOES
Percy drove this time. He took Leo with him and parked a few cars’ lengths away from Elio’s front door. He clicked the boot unlocked in readiness, then stationed Leo in the fire escape at the foot of the stairs to call out if anyone tried to enter.
Percy’s head spun as he made his way back through the apartment and to Elio’s wardrobe. He probably shouldn’t have drunk that wine quite so fast. The sparse and expensive offering of nervetti and ridiculously small cuttlefish ink crepes with slivers of langoustine had done nothing to fill him up or soak away the champagne he drank before the red wine. A day in the sun, scaling an apartment building, running up and down stairs on top of that, killing Elio—all of it was making his muscles ache with the effort.
But he was so close. So close to having this all over and done with. Then he would relax and really have a holiday with Joe. Do something grand and romantic with the money to make up for being such an absolute shit all evening.
He grunted under the weight of Elio’s triple-wrapped body, dropping him by the door to check the hall.
Fine. All fine.
He shoved Elio through the doorway and locked the apartment. With one more heave, he picked up the corpse, and struggled down the hall, his heart hammering and pulse racing with exertion, until he made the fire escape. “All clear?”
“Clear.”
Percy hurled the body down the stairs, where it rolled freely, only needing an encouraging kick once or twice, until it landed at Leo’s feet. They checked for a clear path to the car, and it was easy work to throw the bundle into the trunk and slam the lid closed.
Percy was so thrilled the murder had gone off so well, he could barely hide it. He had tricked Elio, Luca and Joe, and the twenty-five thousand was as good as his. Maybe even the whole fifty if he could spin it somehow for Luca.
Now he only had to deal with the body. He’d slip out after the fourth course, do a quick dismemberment, and hopefully make it back in time for the fifth.
His chosen location wasn’t far off. He knew no one would be there. Just Percy and a dead Elio, alone in the most notoriously haunted, and conveniently located, house in Europe.
But now his appetite was really roused, so, before he could dispose of Elio, he slipped back through the window to call in on Joe.
