The Principle of Crimson: Story and Commentary

I really need to change my ringtone. Every time that phone rings, I want to smash the bastard thing against the wall. Someone is having a laugh, I’ve been asleep for four hours; who calls you at half five in the morning. Okay, okay, I’m up; why does it have to get louder when you don’t answer straight away. “What?”
“I’m sorry to wake you sir, but you are needed at the station. They found four bodies at the Miller’s Plant; well almost four”
“Almost?”
“Yes sir, it is somewhat brutal!”
“You’ll have to give me an hour”
“Certainly sir”
Where the hell did I put that vodka? Ah, in the corner with the several other bottles I drank last night; all of them are empty. Well better get on with it. Time to see what kind of a day this is going to be, it’s still dark and it appears to be snowing. This is what I like about the English weather; it’s unpredictable and loves to piss you off when you’re not having a good day anyway. Right, looks like it’s the black jeans, the lovely creased to hell black shirt, no time for a tie and I’ll need some boots. No point making the bed, I’ll be getting in it later. Coffee would be great if I had any, tea would be better, but the only leaves I keep in the kitchen are mint and basil; not sure it would make a great morning drink? It’s time to see if the car will run as every time it snows, it takes an hour for the car to warm up. Where the hell is my car? Aw hell I can see the tires, but I didn’t think it was snowing that hard. It’s going to take me hours to clear the car off and then the driveway is another issue; this is going to be one of those long fucking annoying days where nothing goes right and everything that goes wrong, will be ten times worse. Need to call the station back, I’m going nowhere.
“Is Macy there?”
“Who should I say is calling?”
“Your Chief!”
Christ, do we have new staff that do not recognise my voice?
“Oh I’m sorry sir; I didn’t recognise your voice!”
“Macy here?”
“Hey I’m fucking snowed in and I’m not gonna get out in a hurry. Get someone down to the plant with a camera, then fax me all the pictures and all the information you have as I’m gonna have to work from here... Actually, you get a camera; I don’t want no amateur shit!”
“Certainly sir, I’m leaving now”

The wheels are no longer visible. As a kid I loved snow, but when you get older, it can be the most annoying thing in the world. When it hits the ground and sticks, you see kids run outside and start having snowball fights and then as it begins to become thicker, the gritter is out on the road. Now if you’re driving and you happen to get stuck behind that bastard, you want to scream your head off, as your car is rattled with tiny stones. But snow is only the start of it, later on it all turns to ice. Now you always get one silly blonde, thinking that pouring hot water over your windscreen will get rid of the ice quicker than spraying it with de-icer; she is right, but the whole windscreen will be gone too. The other thing with ice is that no matter how hard you brake, you still travel that extra six feet straight in the back of another car. I mean I hate snow and there goes the fax machine. They cannot have taken the pictures that quick surely? No, just all the documents. How many do we have? Sixty page; great I’m gonna need more paper. I do wonder why I don’t have a computer; things would be so much easier. But the internet never works up here. Terry, who lives about five miles from me has the internet and gets a signal every other month. Same with the telly, he only gets BBC1 and Channel Five; both have shit programmes, unless you’re a Dr Who or Neighbours fan. I just didn’t see the point in buying a TV or a computer; waste of money from my point-of-view. I have my books to read and they are my fruit of all knowledge. Right more paper loaded and we have thirty pages to go. Think I should put the fire on and warm this house up. You would think using wood would be better than using coal. Of course you go outside and chop all you trees down and have a really cool log pile, but let’s just run all the fossil fuels out first. Okay there may be a problem with polluting the air, however we are preserving nature helping photosynthesis. I cannot believe that it is only six in the morning and I’m getting all technical. Well I guess that happens when you’re on own, you have no one to talk to and you start talking crap to yourself. Ah, the machine has stopped. Oh my god, it’s like a novel. Why are there so many pages? When did they find the bodies? At one this morning; are they taking the piss? Where the hell did I put that phone?
“Morning..”
“Sod off I know its morning, put Macy on and don’t tell me yes sir, just get her!”
Bloody pathetic; one in the morning and nobody told me.
“Yes Chief?”
“Don’t chief me, why did no one call me this morning?”
“The phones were down sir and...”
“And nothing, you could have sent someone to pick me up and I wouldn’t be stuck here, snowed in!”
“Well...”
“Well nothing! What are you doing at the station, I need those pictures?”
“I’m at the plant sir, Ruth patched you through to my mobile”
“Make sure the pictures are good, I don’t want no crap images and take plenty. Seeing as I’m not there, I’ll need enough to recreate the scene”
“I will sir and the bodies haven’t been moved yet, till your say so”
“Oh Okay, after the pictures have been taken tell the coroner they can move the bodies and Macy, I know there’s not many of you at the station and this looks to be a big case, but anything new comes up, you let me know straight away. Also make sure you get the coroner’s report after he’s examined the bodies”
“Sir!”

I need my glasses. Right, coroner’s report – DNA was tested to confirm which body part belonged to each victim. A sample was taken from each body part at the scene. The total number of body parts: sixteen. Jesus Christ. These pictures are going to be interesting. It reminds me of that scene in From Dusk til Dawn were the vampires start feasting on humans and body parts are flying everywhere. What else does it say – After all the samples had been tested, the number of victims were four. Victim one: two arms and one leg. Victim two: two arms, male torso and one ear. Victim three: two legs, male torso and one foot. Victim four: one arm, one leg, male torso, two feet. Bloody hell, what happened to the god damn heads? I have never heard something so brutal. Bodies being mutilated like this, it almost sounds fictional. I need a drink. Shit, I don’t have any vodka; water or milk? Looks like I’m on the water. Pity I don’t have the powers Jesus had, I could have turned water to wine instantly. You know he must have been a right alcoholic. They try to stop kids drinking alcohol before the age of eighteen and yet they can get it for free in church. Well I guess that’s one way to get the kids interested in going to church. Time to focus – No heads were found at the scene. However as three male torso’s were found, victim one being without torso had to have the DNA tested. It was confirmed female. Sounds like some jealous bastard stumbled in and didn’t get his turn in the gangbang. Three men and one woman; does sound a bit dodgy. There doesn’t seem to be any report on any tire marks or tracks leading in or out of the plant. There are two mentions of shoe prints, oh and they took the treads. Right I need to sort myself out, I’ve got paper everywhere. Okay, what I will do is take this picture down and bloody hell, the sun doesn’t half draw the paint off the walls. Where did I put those pins? Okay, if I put them all in order going down and then I can match the evidence going across the wall. That looks almost good enough. Right, who had a foot? Victim three had one foot and four had... ...both of his. The first tread was a size twelve and the second was a size five; well that sounds like a woman’s shoe size, but she didn’t have any feet so we can’t match that up. And the guys with feet were an eight and a nine, so could be our suspect. But, size bloody twelve, you don’t get many of them. I struggle to find shoes that will fit me and I have to order them online. I wonder what else we have in these reports. Great there’s some reports on jewellery; always a thing to look at. We have one diamond ring, so I’m going to say that’s for the female and a chain – Happy twenty-first Tobias – so we got a name and an age. So at least one of these guys is over twenty-one; if not all of them. It’s a little strange to find jewellery as usually murdering bastards like these take a prize or a possession. But he took there friggin heads, so I’m guessing that’s his thing. It reminds me of a book I read a couple of months ago, were back in the 1700’s the English would disembody a criminal and stick their remains on spikes and place them on London Bridge as a warning. I wonder if this is what our suspect was doing, seeing as not all the body parts are at the plant. Maybe there’s more to the story, maybe some dodgy deal went wrong and maybe I should stop guessing and just carry on. It’s amazing I keep saying “guy”, it’s because I just don’t think a woman would be capable of this brutality. Ah, finally the machine is on again.

Well that’s odd, for the first time they actually listen to me. Two hundred pictures coming my way and thank god for colour fax machines. Oh... Now that is not something you see every day. I am assuming that the numbers in the top corner relate to the victim and even with the numbers, this is still going to be one hell of a jigsaw puzzle. So we have two arms and one... oh my god! I knew the pictures would give me more of an insight, but I had thought’s that whatever weapon did this, it would most likely resemble a chainsaw. However, it’s a clean cut; the blood splatter is in a straight line. There is no indication that the leg was sawn off. It is as clean as when you start getting fancy with a knife the kitchen and chop a watermelon in half with your big knife, in one go. The blood appears to run downwards away from the top half; this woman was alive when her leg was cut from her body. Now that’s just fucking nasty. Where’s my phone?
“Hello?”
“Sir, hope you have all the photos”
“They are printing as we speak, they are bit more gruesome than I expected!”
“It’s a shame you can’t smell the atmosphere at the plant; I need a shower!”
“If anything else comes make sure you send it me straight away Macy”
“Well we did find some bottles of wine, beer and spirits, just off one of the side roads, but it could be the college kids. We’ve took them for analysis anyway and we’re sending some guys down the road to check for anything else!”
“Good work, just keep me posted!”
Alcohol? That was definitely a party gone wrong. How long would it take to cut up that many people? You would have to be skilled with a knife – a butcher, a soldier or even a maniac. This could even be a surgeon, but the nearest hospital is forty miles away. All we have is a small medical centre. Looking through these pictures it reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting, the way the blood splatter is forced into a certain direction. It’s almost like he was creating a masterpiece. The pools of blood remind of the first time I watched Blade, seeing all those vampires raising up their hands to taste the blood flowing down on them. Death is a horrible thing. I remember when I was younger and I was prodding my dead rabbit with a stick. The stick eventually broke and all that was left was this poor lifeless body. It was an empty shell, a solid shell, a shell that could not be cracked. Some shells can be cracked and I am sure going to find a way to crack this case. Though at the moment it is a case of mysteries and the largest jigsaw puzzle I have ever attempted to piece together; especially on my own. What if the pieces of the puzzle are in the wrong order? The body parts were placed together, so we would automatically think they belonged with each other, when this could be false. There could be after all only three victims. Two of the victims together almost make up a full set; victim two and victim three; although there is a question of where the other torso belongs. Okay that is the last of the pictures and that last one is a good shot; Macy gave me a birds-eye-view. Hang on, I have another fax. Ah, it’s from the coroner – the third torso was not male, after removing the excess blood from the bodies the tests were taken again to reveal it to be female. The female had hardly any breast tissue as it was removed with a fish knife. The cuts on the bodies have been analysed and the results we found are that mostly knives were used, along with a butcher’s knife and a cleaver. It is also in question that an axe would have been used or possibly a sword. Dr Matthias MD. So we do have three bodies and not four; this will make things much easier and we have a collection of knives to work with. The doctor is right to question if an axe was used, but there would be marks on the floor and there appears to be no grooves in the floor.

So we now have a description of what kind of weapon was used and seeing as there is no report of a weapon found at the scene, the suspect must have took his tools with him. The thing that really puzzles me is how the hell the bastard got there, did the deed and then took off with three heads and other body parts without transportation. I need to call Macy back and see if they have found anything else, “Macy?”
“Sorry the reception is not so good here, we’ve just uncovered some more body parts along with some strange wheel coverings! The road leads straight onto an old country road, leading towards the farms. We’ll send a car up the road to follow the trail, but it’s starting to snow heavy here”
“Good work Macy, the pictures you took are perfect. I just got word from Matthias that there are only three victims, and one is female!”
“Well that changes things, I’ll...”
Oh shit! No signal? Well that’s fucking great, I wasn’t finished. What is it with mobile phones; they were supposed to be the best thing ever, especially when your landline doesn’t work. Everyone has a mobile phone now; it’s like the law that you must have one. I remember the days when you would have to run into the fields to tell your father that dinner is ready, now you just send a text telling him to get his arse home. Oh, well look at that the snow has stopped. It’s amazing how pure and crisp it looks; and yet somewhere out there’s a river of red running through this town. Even though we have an idea of the murder weapon, we still don’t have one. In every one of these pictures the cuts are clean and Matthias said that an axe was possible. There would have been an axe next to the fire hose at the plant. Damn it, still no signal. What time is it? My god, nine o’clock already, time certainly flies when your head is stuck in a world that makes no sense. I’m not sure we can figure this out. This is no amateur killer. He appears to know what he is doing and how to avoid and clear up his tracks from the law. What if he is on the side of the law, he would definitely know how to cover up everything. I never thought to ask Macy if we had any missing person reports. Surely she would have mentioned it. I could really do with a drink; I’m getting an awful headache. This is going to be the hangover from hell, I can’t remember the last time I hadn’t had a drink. I seem to function better when I have a drink and I blame my father; like father like son. He was an alcoholic; he’d slap my mother around a few times before taking his temper out on me. I said I’d never become anything like him and here I am dying for a drink. There’s a car coming down my drive or at least it looks like a car; I can see headlights.

God it’s freezing out here, but at least it’s stopped bloody snowing. Who is that walking down my driveway?
“Chief Wallace?”
“Is that you Eddy?”
“Sir, we followed the trail coming this way. Macy asked us to check all the barns and stables in the area for any clues; would you mind if we check out back”
“No one’s been out here Eddy; it was like a blizzard a couple of hours ago!”
“She insisted that we check everyone sir, even yourself...”
“Okay, I’ll come with you; I don’t want you spooking the horses”
I know I wanted Macy to be thorough, but this is ridiculous. It’s so cold out here. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Chief Wallace are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I’ve just not had anything to eat, that’s all”
“Okay, well I’m just gonna check out the other side and make sure it’s safe”
Watching Eddy walk off, I could not hold it anymore. Well I don’t remember eating that. I’m having weird flashes from last night. I remember drinking in the bar with Macy and few of the officials from the city. I don’t feel too well. I have to say them pictures are messing with my head I feel like I have blood on my hands.
“Chief?”
What the hell does he want, “What?”
“You need to come see this!”
For fuck sake, it’s bloody freezing out here. The horses are quiet today, normally they want to get out into the field; but then again you can’t actually see the field for all the snow.
“Eddy what is it?”
“I found a weapon and there’s blood running from inside the stable...”
“Leave it!”
Seeing the sickle on the floor made me twitch and I remembered something from the previous night. The council officials from the city were going to shut down the station as it was inadequate and was costing too much money to run. They wanted to put me into a very early retirement, but instead I put them into their early graves.
“Sir? Are you okay?”
I couldn’t let Eddy tell anyone. I crouched as if I was viewing the situation and grabbed hold of the sickle. Seriously Eddy you are in the wrong place right now. Fore! Eddy’s head can sure fly and his blood is thick. Damn it Eddy, this place was lovely and white before you decide to be a nosy bastard. Looks like one those pictures you made as a child, were you would flick paint across the paper. No one ever opens their mind to think of the things you can use to cut people up. Okay Eddy your body can go in here with these lovely officials and if you stay put I’ll go get your head. What the hell? I was going to get your head.
“Seriously Wallace, did you have to kill Eddy?”
“Macy?”
“There is blood everywhere outside, just hope that it snows again so that it covers over!”
“What are you doing here?”
“We had a deal! What did you do bang your head or get shit faced again?”
“What are you on about?”
“They were going to shut the station down; remember? You should not have been drinking so much last night, I had to destroy those bottles. Don’t you remember anything?”
Who does this bitch think she is talking to, “Of course I remember, I used the sickle to cut them up!”
“What the fuck are you talking about; you were too blitzed to cut a piece of paper with a pair of scissors. And the sickle was easy to take off their heads, but an axe was easier to chop them to pieces. No one will ever identify them, so you had better burn them and I’m sorry about your horse!”
What the hell is she on about, sorry about my horse; the blood that Eddy saw was coming from the next stall. “You bitch!”
“We needed something to burn along with their remains, so you can just say that your horse died and you had to burn it!”
I really don’t know how to respond to that. She killed my horse and she was the one who butchered the council officials. So I did nothing?

Watching the sickle burst through Macy’s chest reminded me of those alien films. Blood poured out of her mouth and chest as I dragged her arse back into the stable. I needed my car, but it was buried under a tonne of snow. The only thing I could use was the tractor, so drove it into the stables. I stuffed a cloth into the petrol tank and lit it. I ran back over to the house, as I knew the explosion would be big, due to the size of the tank. Where’s my phone,
“Ruth is that you?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I don’t know what’s happening, Macy’s gone crazy. She attacked me and killed Eddy. I think she’s our suspect, I must have been getting too close to the answers”
“Sir what’s the all noise!”
“Oh my god the stables are on fire, call the fire station, get an engine up here quick!”
“Oh hell, bear with me sir; I’ll get onto it straight away”
That’s right bitch you fucking burn, burn in fucking hell. Nobody abuses me and gets away with it; is that not right my dear father. Twenty years on and no one suspected me then, so why would they suspect me now.

COMMENTARY: THE PRINCIPLE OF CRIMSON

The initial idea for The Principle of Crimson came from studying detective fiction at university in 2009. I was intrigued by Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe. I then had a secondary idea inspired by Virginia Woolf as I really wanted to write a dissertation surrounding her work. I was unable to do that and focused on writing an inspired story much like The Mark on the Wall; I enjoyed reading this story as it rants about what the mark is and wanders off in different directions about the flowers outside and then back to the mark. So basically I wanted to create a detective story that would follow on the same lines as The Mark on the Wall. I had also recently watched Shutter Island and was intrigued by the twists in the storyline and by the main character Teddy Daniels. Compared to Franklin’s Violin I did not plan this story out, but with all these elements I did not have to think about it too much. I used Philip Marlowe and Teddy Daniels as a base for my main character and put a bit of my arrogant self in there; almost like an evil alter ego. I wanted to create an edgy feel to the character and placed the narration in first person, but a first person view that was an ongoing thought. It took me awhile to think of a title for the story; at first I had ‘the principle of darkness’, but I felt it sounded like a vampire story. I then came up with ‘red snow’, though I felt like it was not describing anything about the actually story and as the story is quite controversial; I wanted something a little abstract. I finally came up with The Principle of Crimson after looking up what type of colour Crimson was. It is a strong, bright deep red colour mixed with blue, resulting in a tiny degree of purple. I felt that this explained my main characters persona as I was looking at it in an abstract way. He is a strong character. Bright can also mean clever and the deep red colour to symbolise the murder scene. Blue can also mean depressed; he has a depressive lifestyle from constantly drinking and the tiny degree of purple is the bruises from his past when his father would beat him.

The idea of making him an alcoholic is that when under the influence of alcohol, you can never really remember what you did the night before; so this is a perfect set up for the events that follow near to the end. Bringing snow into the story and having the character snowed in with nowhere to go was to confine him in isolation and having no alcohol, he would have to deal with his own emotions; this would make his ranting perfect and also show his aggressive streak. Throughout the story I have added in parts of my own influential past and knowledge of the world around me. I like to write blogs about everything I observe and I tell it like it is with a direct approach. If I catch some guy staring at a woman’s breasts, I will write it down in a quirky kind of way or I will be vulgar; for effect. When the main character is talking about having no television or internet, I am playing on the jokes in my life. The internet only works when it wants to and the good channels are BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 in my opinion; but there are exception for Dr Who and Neighbours. As I said I can be vulgar, I found one sentence I put in to be rather crude, “Sounds like some jealous bastard stumbled in and didn’t get his turn in the gangbang”, but still left it in for the effect of the main characters vulgarity. I had many artists in my head on how to explain the blood splatter, but I thought that Jackson Pollock was a perfect choice as his work is an act of random, insanity and a masterpiece all rolled into one.

When I started to write The Principle of Crimson, I was not really sure what direction I was going to take with the murders. However, after deciding to have different body parts scattered across a plant, I solving the mystery myself as I was writing the story. This made it easier for me keep the flow of ranting going, as I felt like I was in the characters mind, thinking about which direction I was going in.

When the ending became clear I wanted the reader to believe that it was the chief who had killed the victims as it would show that it was a man after all. With Macy coming to the stable, it instantly turns around and I liked that twist as it reminded me of the twist in Shutter Island when you find out that the main character (supposed to be a detective), is actually a patient at the asylum. The ending may seem to end suddenly and appear that there is more of the story to be told; and there is. I felt as if I ended it with him telling us that he killed his father, there would always be more to the story.

Franklin’s Violin: Story and Commentary

Presenting ones self to an audience of thousands after playing the solo of a lifetime, did not compare with the excitement I felt when I received the ultimate gift from my father. However my excitement soon turned against me; my father was dead. His parting gift to me was an old violin that his Grandfather had made from cedar. In the hands of a professional the violin made an exceptional sound. My father would send me many gifts after each concert I performed at, but my mother would always remind me that the gifts came from dirty money; whatever my mother thought of him he was still my father. When I turned twenty-one my mother had a massive heart attack and was dead before she reached the hospital. With my father being my only living relative I decided to get back in touch with him; but I saw him briefly. I wish I had spent more time with him and maybe I could have got to know him better. I picked up the violin, took a deep breath and slowly ran the bow across the strings. I felt my lip tremble and I could no longer hold back the tears. I then slumped into the chair and watched as my mascara ran down my cheek. This day was meant to be the happiest day of my life and yet I sat there feeling no excitement at all. I collected my things together and decided to head home. What point was there in sitting in my dressing room, feeling sorry for myself? With both of my parents now dead, with no living relatives and too much money in my bank, I felt as if I should get away from it all. Away from everything and start something new.

As I reached the front door of my apartment, a voice called out from behind me, “Matilda?”
I turned around to find my father’s associate, Jack Edwards, standing at the bottom of the steps with his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Jack...” I was not sure what to say to him; I was not sure if he even knew that my father was dead. Jack had been working with my father for the past twenty years or so. I saw him a couple times when I visited my father at his home in Manchester. I knew little about him and would rather not know him. My father never spoke kind words of him.
“Is there something you want?”
“Have you spoken to your father recently?”
“I have not...” I found it hard to hold back the tears once again, “...now you must excuse me, I have things to do!”
“If you do speak to him, tell him I called”
“Of course”
Before he turned to walk away his eyes lowered, “You bought a new violin?”
“A gift, from an admirer”
A large grin appeared on his face; he turned and began walking swiftly down the street. As I entered my apartment, I shut the door quickly and fell back against it. I slowly dropped to the floor, pulled in my knees and cried.

After being on the floor for almost half an hour, I stood up and looked in the hallway mirror. I was a mess. I placed my violin in the cupboard and took my father’s violin into the bedroom. I had no clue of what I should be doing. I had not eaten in five hours and did not feel like it. I decided to have shower, see if I could wash away the pain. Feeling the water pass over me, made me feel relaxed. In a short moment of relief, it felt like everything from the day did not happen; however, reality soon brought me crashing back to earth as someone was in my apartment. I climbed out of the shower, placed a towel around my body and slowly walked into my bedroom. I could have sworn I heard a voice; but nothing. I sighed, feeling stupid for panicking. It’s just me being pathetic, because I’m all alone. As I walked through the door I heard a voice call out.
“He said she had the violin!”
I’m not pathetic. Oh, fuck! Where’s my bloody mobile?
“Check the bedroom?”
No, don’t check the bedroom; shit!
“It’s here!”
“Like hell it is”
I grabbed the crystal vase off my chest of drawers and smashed it into the guys head. He fell backwards and a pistol slid forwards across the wooden floor. I grabbed the gun and held it straight out in front of me. Arms slightly relaxed, not to feel the force jolt me if I had to shoot someone. Another guy entered the room and I moved the gun in his direction; he raised his hands and tilted his head. The guy on the floor stood up, I moved the gun back onto him and this is when I felt my towel drop. Shit! Despite the fact I was now naked, I did not move an inch.
“You appear to have lost something”
“Yes, my virginity, six years ago”
The first guy was looking up and down, and smirking.
“If I catch you smirking one more time I’ll put a bullet in your brain”
At this point I lowered the gun,
“Fuck you!”
The guy with his hands still in the air laughed, “We just want the violin!”
“What?”
“The violin on the bed, it belongs to the boss”
“I think not, that belongs to me, it was a gift”
“We just want the fucking violin”
“Would you like a fucking bullet instead?”
“You have a filthy mouth for such posh lady”
“Do I care? No, now get out of my house”
“You haven’t a clue what you’re dealing with; did your father teach you how to hold a gun?”
I had a mini flash back of when father took me to Yorkshire; to a gun club. I was surprised that he would want me to learn how to handle a weapon, after years of telling me that his career choice wrecked his marriage. He wanted me to be able to protect myself if anything ever happened to him. I remember him telling me that the way you hold a violin, is much like the way you hold a rifle; that surprised me. He placed a rifle into my hands,
“Imagine you are holding a violin”
“Seriously?”
He nodded and raised his eyebrows,
“Seriously! But place the end of the rifle into your right shoulder. Run your left hand down the shaft of the gun, till it feels comfortable. Do not stretch out your arm, or you will feel too stiff”
“I feel stupid”
“You look stupid!”
I laughed and he smiled.
“Now, your right hand controls the sound the violin makes, same principle; place your hand onto the trigger. Good!”
“It’s strange; it feels comfortable, just like my violin!”
He smiled and pointed at the target straight ahead, “Okay, do you think you can hit that?”
“Are you serious?”
He nodded and stayed silent. I lifted up the rifle, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, held it, opened my eyes, released the breath and squeezed the trigger.
“I’m impressed!”
The tone of his voice sounded somewhat pleasing. I had hit the target on the second circle from the middle. It felt almost, good. One of the guys snapped his fingers, “So did daddy teach what happens when you fire a gun?”
“Yes, a tiny piece of metal flies out the end, penetrates your body, giving you seconds to live”
“Not really. You sarcastic bitch!”
I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head, which sent me crashing to the floor. My vision was blurred and I could only hear muffled sounds.

I began to gently wake up and instead of being sprawled out on the floor, I was propped up against the wall with a blanket over me. Looking across the floor at all the broken glass, my eyes came across two feet. I was greeted with the smile of a handsome young gentleman with dark brown hair and amazingly dark eyes.
“Morning Miss Franklin”
My eyes slowly sunk back down, followed by my head. After having my house broken into and being smashed over the head with one of my many beautiful vases, I was reluctant to utter a word.
“I said morning Miss Franklin? Did you lose your hearing in the night?”
“Night?”
“Ah, she is not deaf after all and yes night. It is seven am and did you know your door was wide open, you could have been robbed”
At this point it was a tongue-in-cheek moment and I immediately stood up.
“Do watch the glass Miss Franklin; you do not want to hurt yourself”
“Quit calling me Miss Franklin, my name is... well you most likely already know that to. Now who are? A cop, another hitman or someone I rejected in a bar?”
“Please get dressed Matilda; you’re turning me on...”
Sarcastic arsehole! I grabbed a few things from my draw and headed towards the bathroom. There was certain nobility about him, which I actually admired and it was evident that if I wanted to know more, I would have to get dressed; as I was practically naked.
“...And I’m just a friend”
“I do not need any more friends”
“I didn’t say I was yours. Now get dressed. Please”
As I began to shut the door, I felt myself staring at him and caught him smirking. It was a long time since anyone had taken my fancy. I began to wonder what the hell had been going on. I had an amazing night playing one violin and then moments later overwhelmed by another; without my father’s violin, I felt that my heart had been ripped out. It was the only thing I had left of his and was not about to let it go that easy. As I was getting dressed I kept flashing back to how it felt to hold a gun in my hands; I had a power. I could still feel the adrenalin rushing around my body, wanting me to take another gun between my hands. I looked into the mirror and pictured myself holding my father’s violin. Slowly sweeping across and then down with the bow... my father was right, a rifle is just like holding a violin. With the way I felt, I am glad my mother was dead, as she would surely not have approved of the things I was considering. I wrapped up my hair as there seemed no time to pretty myself up and opened the door.
“So are you going to tell me who you are?”
“Seeing that you are now appropriate, of course. Abott, though my first is Dillon, but it’s pointless just call me Abott. I’m working freelance with an agency and your father was helping me out”
“So it is Dillon? And you are a detective?”
His eyes rolled.
“Kind of...”
“Kind of?”
“I said I work freelance”
“Well whatever you were doing with my father, I would rather not know, as it is not my business. My business is that I want that violin back and no one is going to stop me!”
“Matilda wait, you don’t know what you’re dealing with, these men mean business and whatever your father did, that violin was payment”
“I really do not care, what have I to lose?”
“Your life!”
“What life?”
“Please see sense Matilda, this is not a game!”
His voice became louder as he grabbed my arm.
“You will let go of me¸ why should I listen to you, I have known you all of five minutes?”
He pulled some documents out of his jacket pocket and pushed them into my hands.
“We have been keeping an eye on Jack Edwards for many years, but had no real evidence to put him away. Every time we got close, something would jeopardise our operation...”
“I do not understand, Jack is a middle man, he is an errand boy...”
Dillon’s voice softened, “No, he’s the one calling all the shots!”
I felt a tear run down my cheek and then Dillon’s hand brushed it away with his finger. He had a gentle touch. I looked up into his eyes and could have kissed him straight away, but he backed off.
“You can’t go near this man, he’ll kill you!”
“Like I said I have nothing to lose”
“And how exactly are you going to get back your violin?”
“Dillon, I may look and act like a spoilt little rich girl, but when you live your life around corruption and lies, you become quite resourceful!”
I walked towards the door, picking up my coat and bag along the way and Dillon did nothing to stop me. Before I disappeared from his sight, we both gazed in each other direction; I could feel sadness is his eyes and revenge in my own.

A couple of months ago my father mentioned that he would be moving into the city, as the company had bought a new building on the far side of the park. At seven in the morning this park was tramp central. Every one of them sifting through the bins looking for breakfast; I wanted to be sick. The park opened up into a clearing and most of the buildings were viewable, especially the new one my father mentioned. It must have been the right one as it had a large billboard across the front, ‘Open For Business In The Summer’. Yeah, just what were they selling? There was a brakes brothers van outside the front of the building, which intrigued me more. I knew that brakes brothers sold food, so I wondered what kind of buffet would they be serving up. The entrance appeared to be open, so I let myself in. I was soon greeted by the receptionist.
“Good morning, can I help you?”
Oh crap, well why would I think it would be easy to walk straight in. “Possibly, I am looking for Mr Edwards?”
“And you are?”
“An old friend”
“Everyone is always an old friend, how about a name”
Bitch! The tone in her voice told me she was not just some stupid receptionist.
“Okay, Matilda Franklin!”
She lifted her head, smirked and held out her hand, “Please follow me Miss Franklin”
The fact that she smirked at the mention of my name, made me think this might have been a bad idea. She led me towards an elevator, “Press fifteen, it will take you to the top floor and...”
Just before the doors shut she grinned, “...good luck!”
That was something I really did not want to hear. Good luck? Why the hell would she wish me good luck? I watched as each number lit up as the elevator passed the floor. I began to panic thinking I should have listened to Dillon after all. I even tried pressing other floors, but nothing happen and then the doors opened at fifteen. I walked out in the large room and then froze as I heard my name, “Matilda?” I turned in the direction of the voice and Jack was sat down behind a large desk, “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you!”
“How did you know I was here?”
Crap! “My father mentioned the company had bought a building here and I needed to see you”
“Okay and what do you want?”
What am I doing? “To apologise for last night, I was rude!”
“It’s fine”
He did not seem to believe me.
“I must go, I’m sorry”
As I turned around one of the guys that was in my apartment walked out of the elevator. Oh shit! I walked straight passed him towards the elevator but the doors shut and the elevator went down.
“Matilda, you sure you’re okay? It’s just rather strange for you to ever apologise to me and you’re always rude!”
I started breathing heavy as I felt the adrenaline rush around my body. “You’re right, I am not okay and I want my violin back!”
“What violin?”
“The one you stole from me, my father’s violin!”
“Anything your father has belongs to the company, he knows that. Kick her out”
The guy grabbed hold of my arm and when the doors opened, threw me inside. The doors shut and as he leaned forward to press the button, I noticed a gun in the back of his pants. I was not going to leave here till I had my violin. He kept turning his head and looking me up and down; and smirking. He was really pissing me off.
“Did you not get enough last night?”
He never said anything and just kept smiling. The doors opened and he walked forward. It was now or never. I grabbed the gun from the back of his jeans and kicked him out of the elevator. I thought the doors would shut automatically, but they stayed open. He looked up towards me, “What the fuck? It would have been better for you to do nothing sweetheart and the safety is on”
I lowered the gun and shot him in the leg, “No, it’s not” I pressed a random number and the doors shut. I was feeling all kind of weird and it felt good. I placed the gun in the back of my pants and thought quickly. I looked up and thought it would better if I was not in the elevator when it opened.

While I was on my hands and knees, tunnelling through ventilation shafts, something hit me and hit me hard. It was something Jack said. He talked about my father in the present rather than the past; I was now a little confused. If my father was alive, why would he want me to believe he was dead? Nothing was making sense. I found an opening and climbed down in to what looked like an unfinished room. They were still painting the walls and there was equipment everywhere; equipment I could quite possibly use. As I began to rummage through everything that I could use, I removed a cover sheet and found a large supply of paraffin; this intrigued me. The elevator door opened behind me and I peered over my shoulder; no one. Thinking quickly, I grabbed to tins of the paraffin and took them over to the elevator. After that I began to move around more stuff, putting them into a pile of things I could use and I came across nail gun. This was like an adventure playground for the insane. The elevator doors shut and began to go down; this was it. However, I did feel rather stupid for coming here, I should have just left and gone to the police; but on the other hand, they most likely owned the police. There was no point dwelling on the ‘what if’ situation, I just had to deal with the not dying situation. Where’s my bag? Ah... Time for a cigarette to calm the nerves! The elevator opened again and this time I heard numerous voices. I took another puff of the cigarette, stared at the end while it slowly burnt down and then flicked it across the room. Showtime! As the cigarette hit the floor, it ignited and a trail of fire headed straight towards the elevator. I heard some of them screaming. I peaked around the corner to see one of the men stood away from the flames. I leaned around the corner with the gun in my left hand and used the wall to steady my arm. I fired two shots into his chest. Shots were returned in my direction as I moved back behind the wall.
“Find that fucking bitch!”
That was Jack’s voice. The fire soon had a mind of its own and began spreading to the cover sheets and the plaster board.
“Jack we need to put this fire out before it destroys half the building”
“Don’t you think I know that, but the sprinklers aren’t working yet”
I looked around the corner again and counted how many of them there were; six. I needed to get rid of more to even have a chance at getting anywhere. The paraffin that was left, I covered over with a sheet and I had three shots left in the gun. Smoke was now running along the ceiling and the visibility was dense. So I carefully leaned around the corner, fired the remaining shots at the paraffin tins and on the last shot there was a loud explosion. The force took out most of the walls, shattered all the windows and pulled down most of the ceiling. I must have hit some sort of canister.

As I got off the floor, I had scrapped my entire arm and had something sticking in my side. I looked down to see what it was and it was a large shard of glass. Common sense was telling me not to pull it out, but instead I just yanked it out and blood came with it. I tore some cloth from the cover sheets and wrapped it tightly around my waist. I found the nail gun, held it out in front of me and slowly walked around the corner to find Jack standing with a gun to my father’s head, “Daddy?”
Jack smirked, “You seem a little shocked Matilda!”
“I thought you were dead?”
“That’s what you...”
Jack pushed the gun into my father’s head, “Shut it!”
I lifted the nail gun up higher, “You kill him and I’ll nail your fucking head to the wall”
“My, you surely are your father’s daughter. But as I don’t do well with people threatening me, say goodbye daddy”
“No...”
Jack fired two shots into my father’s head and bolted off down the corridor. I ran towards my father as quickly as I could, but it was too late and he was dead. Losing your father once was painful, but seeing him shot in front of you and losing him again, only made me feel the pain more. I leaned down and kissed my father on the cheek; at least I got to kiss him goodbye. The revenge was deeper than before and this time I didn’t care what would happen to me. I spied a shotgun lying on the floor, grabbed it and took off down the corridor after Jack. It was time to use this instrument much like I use my other instrument. At the end of the corridor there was only one room, so lifted the shotgun, planted it firmly into my shoulder, ran my arm down the shaft and took deep breaths. As I entered the door, Jack was sat behind a desk and Dillon was stood leaning on the front of the desk.
Dillon... “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Finishing up where I left off!”
“Finishing what?”
“Well I did try to stop you coming here and now we are just going to have to kill you, since, after all you have destroyed half the building. It’s gonna take forever to get back on track!”
“I don’t care; I stopped caring five minutes ago when he shot my father!”
Dillon moved in front of myself and Jack, “Look you’re not that person, you’re not us, and you know you’ll never fire that gun!”
Something happened were I no longer felt like listening and Dillon flew backwards across the desk. He was hiding the violin on the desk and it too fell and smashed onto the floor.
“Jesus Christ Matilda are you insane? Now there’s no violin, what you gonna do?”
“Well my father’s dead...”
I turned the gun on Jack and fired. I watched as he bled to death in front of me. After watching him die, I walked over to the violin and picked it up; maybe it could be repaired. As I lifted it something fell out. I placed the violin on the desk and crouched down. It was a small diamond violin, almost five centimetres in length. I stood there wondering what to do next. Maybe it was time to have a little vacation.

COMMENTARY: FRANKLIN’S VIOLIN

The idea for Franklin’s Violin came from my love of classical violin music. Two of my favourite violin artists are Vanessa Mae and Bond (which is a group of four female violinists). On Bond’s album Shine, there is a piece of music called Speed and after listening to this over and over, it created a Lara Croft type character in my head. As Lara Croft grew up with absent parents, I was influenced to create a character in a similar aspect. However I decided to tone down the character; almost like a pre Lara Croft. For the title I decided to keep it simple as the story is about a family violin, but on the other hand it is the legacy of how the violin turns a person into something they cannot predict. The reason in making the violin out of cedar, rather than it normally being made from several different types of wood, was to suggest that being professional with one instrument would automatically make the characters professional with the other; “In the hands of a professional the violin made an exceptional sound” In the hands of a professional a gun would just be an exceptional piece of equipment. The violin is the main focus of the story and I tried to keep Matilda fixated on this. I had to create an object in which she was passionate about in order for her to react. If I had made the object into a person, I feel that the story would have been a lot longer. With the object being a violin and both parties wanting it, it could not be damaged and as soon as it was out of Matilda’s sight it was mentioned briefly; her only main concern was to get it back.

Most often people write can’t, won’t, gonna and kinda instead of using proper English and with Matilda’s character I wanted to move away from this and write it correctly. The purpose of this was to hopefully present her as a posh or well spoken lady. It is only when she is confronted with situations that make her angry or mad that she begins to use slang and swears a lot. The story had been developed three times. The first draft appeared to make the story bigger that it actually was; it was bordering a novel rather than a short story. There were too many characters and the story moved around a lot. On the second draft the story was looking more like a short story as it was more contained within one place; however as the storyline was changed slightly it did not fully explain how Matilda learnt how that holding a violin was much like holding a gun. The story seemed too farfetched that she would magically acquire these skills without training. So in the third and final draft, I used a mini flashback to explain where she had learnt the skills to be able to hold and fire a weapon. This was also a great choice as it gave a small insight of her relationship with her father. Besides Matilda’s character there are two others: Jack Edwards and Dillon Abott. Both of these characters have changed over each draft. Jack original started as one of Matilda’s fathers’ oldest friends and then became more of a man her father despised. As for Dillon, my first thought was to place him as Matilda’s ally, but I thought that it would not make her appear as the strong character I wanted her to be; so I made him out to be two-faced character. I used Dillon as a kind of turning point for Matilda, as a way for her to decide if she should go up against Jack or stay away. I thought that it would be good to show a soft side of Matilda, as up until she had met Dillon, she was quite feisty. So I added a little love interest that would betray her later, as I have myself been a victim of being betrayed by someone who leads you on; and thought it would be a cruel device to use.

With the first draft I was explaining scenes in too much detail, so in my third draft I had left out large chunks the story, rather than explaining how the character got from A to B. This may look like the story jumps around a bit, but I feel that it makes the reader think about what is going on in Matilda’s head as she moves around. When Matilda gets into the building, steals a guard’s gun, shoots him and then ends up in another part of the building, I did want her to find an arsenal as that would have been too easy. Despite the story being about a woman who learns how to use a gun, because she plays violin professionally, I wanted her prove that she was resourceful as she told Dillon. In the scene where she finds different types of tools, I purposely left small bits of information as to set up a surprise scene for the readers when her opposition entered the room. A little shocker for myself was bringing her father back into the picture, which I had not planned to. I always watch films and never expect to see someone that is supposed to be dead come back to life and then get killed again; so I decided that I would write this in to my story and see if it worked. I feel it did, but the idea was to let the reader feel Matilda’s pain and want her to kill Jack. By the ending I wanted it to move fast, almost like the way adrenalin does around your body. When the violin breaks, she has nothing left to care about and kills Jack anyway. I was not going to destroy the violin, but I had a thought about the title and looked on the Franklin Mint website for a diamond violin. After finding one I thought it would be intriguing to what was Franklin’s Violin.