How Not To Commit Murder - comedy crime - humorous mystery by Robin Storey Page B

babe they’d all lusted after, with a body so perfect their stage fright had turned to dumbstruck admiration? When, as Juliet, she dropped to her death on the stage, every male in the audience wanted to get up there and die with her. What was her name?
    Veronica, that was it. She changed the spelling to Veronika; she thought it more exotic and she was determined to make it big in the movies. He hadn’t seen or heard of her since then so maybe she was still waiting for her big break. Film and TV work always sounded more glamorous than it was in reality. A friend at uni had got some holiday work as an extra on a film at the Gold Coast, and spent most of his time standing around in the hot sun drinking bad coffee and waiting to be called on the set. But he was paid hundreds of dollars for it, so it had to be worth it. And easier than standing on a roof for eight hours a day. Or juggling plates of pasta. Or making concrete. Or practically anything else.
    Reuben whipped out his mobile phone, dialled the number and made an appointment for Monday at ten o’clock. As he left the cafe, he smiled and waved to Nina behind the counter. She acknowledged him with a half nod before looking away. You can stuff your non-existent job.

CHAPTER 6
    The Edinburgh Arms Hotel was a misnomer – there was nothing the least bit Scottish about its red brick, mould-stained edifice. A faded coat of arms on the sign paid token homage to its name.
    Inside it was much the same as any other suburban pub on a Saturday afternoon. Cool and dim, infused with the odour of beer and stale carpet, evoking a sense of refuge, that in here you could forget your problems and temporarily suspend your other life.
    Reuben ordered a beer and perched on a stool in the Sportsman’s Lounge. After Carlene had left for her refugee support group meeting, he went for a walk and found his footsteps leading him to the Edinburgh Arms. He only intended to have a lemon squash to quench his thirst, but once inside he succumbed to its lure.
    He looked around at the three large screen TVs. Horse racing, rugby and motor racing, catering for all tastes. The clientele were mostly male, solitary figures like himself or huddled in small groups, someone occasionally letting forth a yell as his horse or team came home.
    It had taken him some time after his release from prison to become used to humanity en masse. Everywhere he went people rushed towards him, pushed past him and encroached on his personal space, barely aware of his existence. Sometimes when it became too much, he’d retreat to the bedroom after arriving home and bury himself in a Mandrake comic with the Boston Stranglers, his favourite band, on his iPod.
    Mandrake the Magician had been his comfort and his escape since he was eight, when ‘Old Albert’ next door had given him his stash of old Mandrake comics. As someone who enjoyed, as one teacher put it, ‘a rich inner life’, Mandrake’s method of outwitting his enemies by hypnotising them and making them see illusions appealed to Reuben. He’d often fantasised about doing the same to Boofhead Barker and his gang, and as he grew older, to anyone who made his life difficult. Carlene thought his obsession with Mandrake childish, but she couldn’t help sticking her head through the door periodically and asking, ‘Are you all right, honey?’ with the worried expression of a mother who suspects her teenage son of plotting suicide in his bedroom.
    But here in the Edinburgh Arms, the atmosphere was just right. He could revel in his solitude, yet still feel a part of the human race. He took a long, appreciative sip of his beer. How many times, while he was inside, had he imagined this, conjured up the bittersweet malty taste of it on his tongue so vividly that he could almost swear he was having a beer, sitting there in his cell. His ability to transport himself to another world was one of the few things that had kept him sane.
    He was just debating whether to have another