‘He is such a prick, just ignore him.’
Ellie put a reassuring hand on Dani’s shoulder. It wasn’t going to stop her sobbing but Ellie felt like she was doing something – the bare minimum, but something.
‘How can I ignore him, this is my job we’re talking about, if he goes to Sue and tells her he wants to sack me that’s it I’m out.’
‘Sue isn’t going to listen to that jumped up little knob. No one here likes him. She’s more likely to back you than go along with what he wants. Shit, Sue hates him more than the rest of us.’
Dani blew hard into a tissue.
‘Really?’
‘Damn straight,’ Ellie confirm before calling out across the office. ‘Hey Lisa, what’s Sue think of Graham?’
‘What’s that?’ Lisa had been pretending not to listen.
‘Sue, what’s she think of Graham?’
‘Can’t stand the poison little dwarf,’ Lisa called back.
‘See.’
Dani smiled through tears. A snot bubble formed and popped on her face. Ellie removed the comforting hand, she didn’t mind comforting a colleague but she drew the line at snot.
‘He’s had it in for me ever since I started here.’
‘He’s just a little man, with a tiny bit of power. Outside of this office he’s fuck all – a pathetic waste of skin.’
‘Yeah Dani, no one around here would be too sorry if we came in to find he’d been run down by a bus, there’d probably be a party,’ Lisa had wondered over to join in. ‘And, I don’t suppose there’s anyone outside of here that would shed a tear either. He’s a spineless weasel.’
The door marked ‘Graham Morris – Administration Manager’ opened. Lisa shrank off back to her desk, her face reddening with embarrassment at the thought that Graham might have heard her.
‘Dani, can I see you in here, now,’ Graham’s voice was spiked with pompous authority. He left the doorway and went back to his desk in a gesture that underlined his sulky demand.
Dani passed Ellie’s desk on route to Graham’s door. The snot was gone – Ellie grabbed her trembling colleagues arm.
‘Remember, don’t take any of his shit, we’re behind you,’ Ellie said, she underlined her words with a firm look and nod.
Dani looked across the office for Lisa who added her backing to Ellie’s with a raised clenched fist that said, I’m with you sister.
‘Close the door and sit down,’ Graham’s voice could be heard from within his office as Dani reached it.
Dani did as instructed.
* * *
‘How long has she been in there?’ Lisa called across to Ellie in a whispered tone.
‘Don’t really know, it’s got to be at least 45 minutes, right?’
‘Yeah, at least – can you hear anything?’
‘Nope not heard anything since the door shut.’
‘That’s a good sign then I guess, no shouting or sobs.’
Ellie shrugged an agreement and returned most of her attention to her screen – she still had half an ear on Graham Morris’ office.
When the office door finally opened Dani stood tall in its place. Ellie and Lisa’s attention was instantly pulled to their colleague. It took them a moment to take in what they were seeing.
‘You’ve got to help me,’ Dani said, she was smeared in blood.
Both women rushed in Dani’s direction. Lisa went to Dani, Ellie ran past her yelling out to Graham.
‘What the fuck did you do to our friend you…’
Ellie’s words stopped and turned to screams. Graham Morris lay dead on his office floor, Ellie wasn’t a medical expert, but the substantial bloody dent in her boss’s skull was all the diagnosis she needed.
‘Oh my fucking God!’ Lisa exclaimed as she looked past Dani into the office. And then the questions flowed. ‘What happened Dani, what did he do to you? Where are you hurt? How did you get the better of him?’
Dani turned and faced the room, she pointed at a blood stained business award that Graham usually kept on his desk. It now lay on the floor next to the body.
‘Where are you hurt?’ Lisa repeated one of her questions.
‘I’m not.’ Dani replied coldly.
‘But he tried to attack you, right? That’s why he’s lying there with a hole in his head, right?’
‘No.’
Ellie turned and looked at Dani, confusion etched her face. Lisa matched her expression.
‘Then what the fuck happened?’ Ellie asked.
‘He started going on about how my continual lateness and my sloppy work was a problem,’ Dani explained vacantly. ‘He said he was going to put in a request to Sue to have me dismissed. He was going on and on, that smug bastard look across his face and I just thought about what you girls said, no one’s going to miss him. I saw that poxy award he’s so proud of sat there on his desk and decided to cave his head in with it.’
Dani’s colleagues were struck dumb with shock.
‘It’s fine,’ Dani continued, as if waving off the end of a relationship that had never got beyond a couple of dinners and a fumble. ‘I’ve got everything worked out. I just need you two to help me.’
‘Help you! Help you how?’ Ellie asked.
Dani walked back though Graham’s office and stood in front of his PC. She shook the mouse, jolting the display out of screensaver mode. Her colleagues stood in the doorway looking on in disbelief.
‘Look,’ Dani said encouraging them come in and see what was on the screen.
Reluctantly both Ellie and Lisa entered the room. They were both acutely aware of the corpse of the man who should have been sat at the desk.
The screen displayed a note, it wasn’t subtle – but then neither was a heavy award to the head.
I can’t go on, the loneliness is too much, no one respects me. I’ve felt this way for too long and have to end it all.
The note ended with the Administration Manager’s name.
When Ellie and Lisa had finished reading the note they
looked to Dani. Dani wore a grin that in any context would have looked deranged.
‘So what, we’re supposed to explain to the police that he’d been depressed for a while and then convince them that he caved his own head in?’ Ellie was letting her anger at the stupidity of Dani’s plan affect her tone.
Lisa put a firm and calming hand on Ellie’s arm to remind her that, yes Dani was clearly nuts, but she was obviously a very scary sort of nuts. She’d killed someone for little more than a threat.
‘Don’t be silly, Ellie. He couldn’t have done that to himself,’ Dani said, as if she believed that fact needed explaining. ‘We’re going to throw him out of the window. Make it look like he jumped.’
Ellie and Lisa stood dumbfounded as Dani looked at them as if what she’d just asked them for help taking an old sofa to the dump.
‘Come on,’ Dani said, the tone seemed to imply, the water’s not that cold, rather than, help me chuck the boss out the window.
‘We’ll have to throw that fucking award out with him too. It’s covered in blood. He was so in love with the bloody thing, it would make sense that he’d have jumped hugging it, right? This carpet’s going to need a bloody good clean too. It’s going to be a bugger to bring up. We can do it though can’t we? There’s got to be some decent cleaning gear around here, right?’
Dani’s questions were rhetorical. She wasn’t really talking to her colleagues at all. She was just filling silence with words.
‘Maybe we should go and look for something to clean with before we do this?’ Lisa said.
She was attempting to find a way out of being in the room. Something that was clear to Ellie.
‘Yes, why don’t Lisa and I go find something to clean? You, wait here and straighten things up a bit.’
Dani was pulling at Graham’s legs inching him across the floor and revealing more of the blood stained carpet.
‘Once he goes out the window we won’t have long to clean things up before the police are here looking around,’ Lisa added.
Dani paused. She appeared to be thinking maybe Lisa had a point. But she shook her head and continued inching Graham along the floor. Deranged determination had taken hold of her. Lisa and Ellie stood frozen to the spot in disbelief.
‘OK nobody move!’
The room was alive with four uniformed bodies. There was more yelling and in a blink Dani was bundled to the ground and restrained by two officers. Another two approached Ellie and Lisa with less urgency but restrained authority. Ellie trembled and fell to her knees. Eyes at waist level to Lisa she saw the phone held behind her colleagues back. The screen displayed an open call to 999.
‘Which one of you ladies called this in?’ One of the officers asked.
Lisa brought the phone from behind here and presented it to the officer asking the questions.
‘We’re going to need to take all of you ladies down the station and clear…’
‘I’m so glad you’re hear,’ Dani started from under the restraint. ‘These two don’t seem to want to help me – even though they encouraged me. I just need someone to help me throw this piece of shit out of the window and make it look like he topped himself.’
The room paused everyone focused on Dani as her mania took full hold. Tears were leaking from her cheeks and she shook wildly where her body was able. She caught the eye of the officer that had been asking the questions and went still.
‘Will you help me?’
by 
Aidan Thorn
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