The Lipstick Killers

we may have to come back. You know how it is.’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Sergeant Doyle, thank you.’
    ‘I won’t say it was a pleasure.’
    ‘I’m sure.’ And with that he got up, put his cap back on and allowed Margaret to see him and the WPC out. She had not spoken in the ten minutes she’d been in the house, but Margaret still felt sorry for her. It won’t ever get any better, she thought.

9
     
     
     
    In a tiny flat with broken air conditioning on the Costa del Sol, Roxie Doyle sat in the side of her bed dressed in just a pair of knickers, worrying about her lack of customers and money. Suddenly she heard noises from her beauty salon below the flat. ‘Christ, what now?’ she said aloud as she pulled on a dress and went downstairs.
    The salon was situated in a tacky shopping mall, deserted at that early hour, and the front door stood wide open. The shop was empty, aside from the unwelcome sight of her ex-boyfriend Tony Darrow, elegant, but wasted – his grubby cream suit and pink shirt contrasting deeply with the open shiny blade of the flick knife he was holding.
    ‘Tony,’ she said. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
    ‘Come for my money love,’ he said, in the cockney accent she’d once found so attractive, but now got on her nerves. ‘You’ve been ducking my calls.’
    When they were together Tony had loaned Roxie a lot of cash, supposedly for the business, but in fact most had gone on the high life for them both.
    ‘I don’t have your money,’ said Roxie. ‘You spent most of it yourself if you remember.’
    ‘Not my fault you couldn’t resist me. But it was a loan, and now I’ve come to collect.’
    ‘Like I said Tony. I don’t have it. Look around. The place is falling apart at the seams. I’m on my own here – most of the time, if you get my drift. Business has fallen off. There’s more fashionable places to go. The whole mall is going down the pan. Ex-pats having their houses knocked down, getting old and dying. I’ve even had to sell my jeep just to pay the rent.’
    ‘Save me the sob story,’ said Tony. ‘Business is just as bad for me. That’s why I need my money back.’
    ‘And if I don’t give it to you?’
    He held up the knife. ‘Then I’m going to fuck you in every hole and then slice that pretty face of yours until your best friend won’t recognise you.’
    ‘Run out of best friends Tony. And as for the fucking bit, I hope you’re better at it than you used to be. ‘Specially in the condition you’re in. Couldn’t get it up most of the time.’
    ‘What did you say, you cunt?’ said Tony, almost dancing in his two-tone shoes with anger and excitement .
    ‘You been at the marching powder again, Tony?’ said Roxie.
    ‘I mean it you bitch. Get me my fucking money or I’ll cut you up good.’ he said.
    ‘Actually I believe you. Listen,’ she said, going behind the counter where the shop’s till hummed. ‘There’s some cash in here. It’s all I’ve got.’ She pressed a key and the till opened. At the back was a thin bundle of high denomination Euro notes Roxie had been saving for a rainy day. It looked like that day had come. She pulled out the cash and underneath was a nickel plated, pearl handled, single shot .22 Derringer nestling in the plastic tray, fully loaded. A lady’s gun – actually a gift from Tony when they were still together. The stuff they were into, Roxie needed it for protection. Luckily Tony obviously didn’t remember that she still had it. A purse pistol, but still deadly in the right hands and that morning Roxie’s were the right hands.
    Seeing the few notes, Tony yelled in anger and frustration . ‘Peanuts.’
    Roxie picked up the pistol, cocked the hammer and shot him in the right eye, the sound of the shot from the tiny gun no louder than a cough. His knife hit the floor before him, but not by much.
    Roxie went round his dead body without touching it, and closed the front door.
    She stood for a moment looking down at him, a red hole where one eye had been, the other blown out on its stalk by the concussion from the bullet, when the phone on the counter rang. It was Frankie with the bad news about Monty.
    It must be Fate, she thought, as she put the phone down. I definitely need to leave the country – and quickly. She put the phone down, went upstairs, dressed, packed, took the money she’d saved, stepped over Tony’s body, went out to the mall, locked up the shop behind her and went looking for a cab. On the