Sunday 10 April 2011

A Familiar Face

He sat up from his bed. It was 2AM and his phone was ringing. He rubbed his eyes, got dressed quickly and threw on his trench coat with a groan. He arrived at the alley with police cars blocking the scene.

“Inspector, there was another one” Said the Lieutenant rushing towards him. The inspector took out a cigar and lit it, puffing casually.

“mhm”

“Should I fill you in? At around one there was a call from Janace Walters- She’s right over there, sir- announcing that she heard a shooting-”

“Yaddy ya ya, Markus. Just take me to the scene” the inspector puffed. They splashed their way through the rain puddles towards a figure lying on the ground, blood covering her white blouse and her hands clasped together, almost as if she was sleeping.

“Emily Adams, 29, worked at the diner just up the road. She was on her way home from her last shift.” Markus read off his notepad. “The thing is, inspector, is that this is the fifth shooting in the past two weeks. They were all with the same bullet. We can’t go on like this. The press wants answers. The captain doesn’t know what to do.”

“and we’ll give ’em answers, when we’ve got ’em” The inspector snapped.

He looked at her face. It was a beautiful, calm face. He wrinkled his eyebrows. He knew that face.

“What didja say her name was?” He growled.

“Emily Adams”

He didn’t know the name. But where had he seen the face before? It was a familiar face. He knew that face. He knew her, but from where? Where had he seen her?

After they had spent hours inspecting everything at the scene, they covered her and carried her away.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Get some rest, inspector” They said.

But the inspector couldn’t go to bed the next night. He knew that face but he didn’t know where. At 2 in the morning the next night, there was a knock on the door.

Grudgingly, he lifted himself out of his bed and opened it.

In front of him stood three police men.

“Sir, you’re going to have to come with us”

“What?”

“Sir, we have another problem. And take your gun.”

Confused, the inspector took his gun and they drove him to the department. They took his gun but returned moments later.

“What’s all this about?” He asked.

“Sir, after we found your DNA on Emily Adam we found that your unregistered gun traces to the bullets used to kill the five people we have been investigating. You have to come with us.”

The inspector stared at them. Kill five people? Impossible. He couldn’t have. He didn’t. He would never. His hands shaking, he allowed them to guide the way

3 comments:

  1. hi lookingforneverland,

    You use vernacular very well. The speech is realistic and gives the character's depth. The twist at the end is interesting. I especially like the way the two incidents both begin with the inspector waking at 2.

    The piece could benefit from being a bit more concise. You could edit many if not all of the Inspector's wondering where he saw the face before. Perhaps one casual mention. It is a bit repetitive when you use this thought to link the two scenes. In fact, I think it would be better if you didn't try to link them at all. Just jump straight to the second 2 Am knock on the door.

    The prose is mostly fresh, though the dead person as someone asleep has been used a bit too often.

    Good start. Lot's of room for expanding, exploring.

    m

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  2. I didn't expect that ending at all, good work! I like to be surprised, and keeping us in the dark, such as the character is about the situation keeps up the mystery. I like that you don't explain it either, by making excuses such as him being crazy, or sleep walking, you leave it unresolved as a cliffhanger.

    I agree with Michael, the informal speech is good, and it fits well the scenes set, although I also think that some of the prose could be honed down.
    The last paragraph (by the change in font, did you just tack it on at the end? It feels a bit like you might have?) for example seems a bit excessive. "Kill five people? Impossible." is a bit superfluous.
    Also, if his gun was unregistered, how would they know that it was his?

    I think that you've got the bones of this story down, and with a bit more editing you'll have something that packs a punch.

    I look forward to reading your next post!

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  3. hello,
    thanks for your feedback!
    Actually, I didn't change the font on purpose. I was writing it on a word document and then copied and pasted it onto the post and for some reason the font changed, so that was not supposed to indicate anything.
    I just noticed what you meant with the gun part. I didn't realize that when I was writing it!

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