GONE 
THE APPLEBURY MURDERS

  And there it was.  My first body.  Face down in the Avon surrounded by ducks.  Quacking ducks.  Happy ducks, I think, although it’s difficult to tell with ducks.  They always seem happy.  

 

  A bald male in a loose jacket and jeans.  He was gently bobbing up and down next to Peg 38.  I pulled my phone out and took a picture.  Well, three pictures.  I’m not sure why, but it seemed like the thing to do.  Then I felt guilty.  Again, not sure why.  Probably because I was looking at a dead body and not screaming or exhibiting sadness or horror - I was just trying to get the focus right on my Samsung before clicking away heartlessly.  It’s what a 21st century person does - click now and ask questions later.  I don’t have an active Insta, Tikky, Twit or X thing either, so I can’t justify my clicking for perfectly valid social media.  I have twenty followers, because I don’t have a cat, dog or baby that does crazy things.  Maybe a dead body would spice things up a bit, but I’m not sure I want a ton of followers who like floaters in the River Avon.  All of these things went through my mind as I looked at the bobbing body.            

 

  I hit 999 after a moment’s quiet reflection.  I then sat down on a nearby bench and took my Tupperware salad out of my daypack.

 

  I would wait for the police to arrive, not as a mark of respect but because I could then point them in the right direction, although the ducks would probably alert the forces of law and order pretty quickly.  Suddenly, not so heartless.  

 

  There was also the strong possibility that I had already been spotted by some eagle-eyed pensioner, who was currently watching from some vantage point and taking notes should the police start asking awkward questions and looking for enthusiastic witnesses with nothing else to do.  

  Walking away now would definitely put me in the frame as a prime suspect.  No, I was tied to the body, whether I liked it or not. 

 

  As if to highlight my paranoia, a mobility scooter with a man who looked like Gandalf in a yellow, high-viz jacket, hummed down the path on the other side of the river heading towards The Black Bear.  Wizards spot everything, as everyone knows. 

 

  I was now most definitely the guardian of the body – from a distance.  No sense in wading in and getting wet - the man had clearly departed this world.  Even the ducks knew that.  

 

  And anyway, I didn’t fancy touching a corpse, a stranger’s body, because it’s decaying matter.  Just that.  Not human anymore.  And no one wants to touch decaying matter.   Anyway, no telling where this body has been or what it’s been up to.  All I know is that whatever it was doing, it didn’t work out particularly well.  It could have been COVID, the plague, the Black Death, SARS, MERS… or some other transmissable… no, come on, this is Applebury.  Get real.  The poor bloke probably slipped, fell in and couldn’t get out.  Then the cold water slowed him down and that was that.  All over in a matter of minutes.

 

  Then the ducks moved in like freshwater, feathered piranhas.  I’m exaggerating, I know.  You don’t get carnivorous mallards on the Avon, not even in Applebury.  They were probably just foraging for bikkies in his pockets.

 

More to come in 2024.