An Impossible Corpse

 

The snow silently drifted down from the sky in whispers of cold flurries. Softly kissing the wind with an icy touch, the flakes flew around the field before they settled on the ground. A nearby forest watched on as the blood of a girl lying at the centre of the whitened landscape slowly seeped away from her and tainted the snow with the colour of rust. Birds cawed and cried at the sight of her bruised lips and at the paling colour of her skin while a single ace of spades, which lay pinned to her thin blouse, fluttered in the breeze.

Regina Royton stepped out of the car and slammed the door closed before she pulled up her jacket’s collar against the wind. The chill had crept down her back and sent spiders of ice scrambling up and down her spine; nevertheless the adrenalin that came with a new case warmed her up as she crunched through the snow towards the fence.

‘Well, this is an unusual one,’ mumbled assistant officer Fellows through a woollen scarf as he took out a notepad and pen and began furiously scribbling away. His black cap hid the untidy shock of hair of a person who still needed a morning shot of coffee.

‘You could say that again,’ she replied as she pulled at her brown leather gloves, ‘the weirdest thing about it is that there are no footprints leading to the corpse.’

 ‘What?’ The officer looked up from his pad and stared across the field in front of him. He noticed that Royton was right as he saw that the innocent picture ahead of him was marred only by the shocking presence of the corpse. ‘Well how did she bloody well get there then?’ he said as he stared at the lifeless figure with a creased forehead.

‘We’ll just have to find out.’ With a determination Fellows was shocked to see from a new female boss, she vaulted over the fence and landed in the frosted meadow.

The snow chilled the feet bones of the inspector and officer as they trudged across the land towards the corpse. Arriving at the girl, they noticed that barely any ice had settled on her and that the snow beneath her was the same depth as the snow surrounding her lifeless body.

‘Well there’s no way the culprit’s tracks could be covered by the storm,’ observed Inspector Royton, ‘and what do we have here?’ Leaning down she plucked the card from the girl and turned it over before handing it to her junior. A single sentence was written in a slanted script above the spade picture;

Your time is up. Was this your card?

Frowning at the wording with shock, Fellows looked up to see the disinterested eyes of Royton looking at him.

‘Y-y-yes…’ he stammered as he bluntly looked at the card in front of his eyes.

‘What are you talking about?’ she angrily muttered as she began to get out her forensic equipment and set about fingerprinting the card and corpse.

‘This… this is my card.’

Five months ago, Jonathon Fellows was walking through the streets of New York, trailing behind his group of friends when suddenly he heard the screams of a girl. Startled by the sound, he stepped through the steam billowing from the vent in the road and came face to face with a man in coattails. Jonathon noticed that he was firmly gripping the hand of a struggling girl while he held a pair of leather gloves in his free hand. Looking into the face of the man beneath a silken top hat he saw blue eyes staring back at him above the thin line of a hard mouth.

‘What do you want boy?’ the man spat at him.

‘Let go of her!’ Jonathon demanded before grabbing his cell phone and punching in the number of the police, ‘I’ve got a man here on 34^th Avenue who’s abusing a woman. I need back up stat.’

‘You’ll regret this one day mate,’ the man said as he realised he was officially now on government records. Twisting the arm of the woman he held captive, he said, ‘but it’s lucky I am what I am. Pick a card, any card.’ As he did this, the girl’s screams turned into a flurry of cards which appeared to come out of her mouth. One of them, the ace of spades, flew at Jonathon’s chest and stuck there mysteriously before the man cackled and cried; ‘it seems like you’ve picked your card,’ before he vanished before Fellows eyes.

 Looking down, foul smells curled up from the underworld of the city as an open man-hole lay in

front of him. After checking the alley one last time for the girl, he walked back out into the open streets and ended the call before flicking the playing card into the nearest bin.

Now, he stood with his eyes widened at the copse below his feet. Her grey eyes were an exact match for the girl who struggled to get away from the man months ago. Kneeling down, he touched her cold skin and saw the scaring on her left hand.

‘You’re pathetic,’ the woman above him sneered down to his level. Suddenly a leather glove slapped him in the head and caused him to look up into her face. As he did so, Regina’s face moved as the mask was peeled free from its place and instead a hardened glare stared down at him from above, with the same blue eyes as the man in the alley. ‘Remember me boy? You should never trust a soul as soon as you cause an illusionist trouble.’ As he said these words, the man pulled a gun from his belt and aimed it towards Fellow’s forehead.

The world hung suspended in time as a slight pulse began to beat against Fellow’s fingertips that still rested on the girl. Just before the bullet was sent rocketing into his brain, he noticed the man’s assistant on the ground weakly turn her face towards his. The last thing he heard was the small whimper of ‘Sorry’ and the silent pitter-patter of snow.